Fantasy Baseball Today - Young Tigers Hitters, Detmers Near No-No & Prospect Updates! (8/17 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Jesus Luzardo is getting clobbered right now (1:17). ... The Tigers have some fun, young hitters (9:30)! ... Reid Detmers took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Rangers (16:48). ... Mike Clevinger has some tasty matchups as a two-start pitcher next week (20:00). ... Christian Walker is on a tear right now (23:05). ... Let's rank Ke'Bryan Hayes, Royce Lewis and Jake Burger (28:10). ... News (38:45): what's the latest on Wander Franco? ... Nola, Gausman and Verlander had rough outings on Wednesday (45:45). ... What prospects could we see in September (50:40)? ... We wrap up with leftovers, bullpen updates and streamers (57:45). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Does one great start erase six terrible starts? Three Detmers?

We're about to find out. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, August 17th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by our first. all the Chris's, Towers, and the Welsh. Today on the show, Jesus Lazzardo, looks like he's hitting a wall right now. The Tigers might have a fun, young, offensive nucleus. Reed Detmer's took a no-no into the eighth inning and much more before we get started. Help us out by liking this video and subscribing on YouTube if you haven't already.

And if you're listening on the audio side, download, follow, and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We really do appreciate it. Let's jump in. Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my goodness gracious. The Yankees are under 500. Let's talk about another team.

Towers, you are up. Player of the night. Yeah, and we usually like to keep things positive, but I'll put on my Yankees fan cap here and act like the sky is falling. No, Jesus Lazzardo, Miami Marlins pitcher. I am obviously a Marlins fan, and he had another kind of disastrous start today.

It's been weird because I think he had a three home run. and the first inning to the Astros ended up giving up five runs overall. Three walks, three strikeouts, and three and two-thirds innings. The thing is, we're not seeing like the typical signs of a pitcher hitting the wall. He's not, you know, he's not seeing a giant decrease in his velocity. It doesn't really look like his mechanics are way off or his, you know, movement profile has changed significantly. It's just he hasn't been as good.

And so that's a tough thing to figure out because, You know, like we've talked about with Sandy O'Contra, his teammate, when you don't have like the specific, I don't know, tangible, actionable things that you can look at and say, well, this is why he's been bad. That makes it harder to take action, right? It makes it harder to say, oh, well, now you can drop Hazel Zazardo, who's had now four starts in a row where he's allowed at least four earned runs.

It looks like 20 earned runs in, gosh, less than 20 innings over that span. His season whip is up from 1.15 to 1.29 over the past five starts. ERA from 322 to 413. And the thing is, five starts ago was arguably his best start of the season. Remember, he struck out 13 over seven innings against the Rockies. And it's the Rockies, you know, maybe that's a tell. But it's hard to pinpoint exactly where things have gone wrong for him.

he's not getting strikeups anymore. But, you know, it's not like the velocities down, like I said, or the movement profile on his breaking pitches has changed dramatically. It's, I don't have a good explanation for Luzardo's struggles. But he is at the point where he's thrown more innings than any other season in his career. And so it could just be that he can throw as hard as he did before. He can get the same movement, but he has to overcompensate in some way that makes him less effective. or maybe it's just four bad starts.

Yeah. And, you know, it's one of those things. Can I answer a question? I'm curious. Do you guys, regarding the wall, do you believe the wall is, I guess it's probably primarily based maybe on innings, but do you think there's any other factors? Do you think the wall can be the stretch of time being in the major leagues going over, you know, let's say five months, even if there's some starts that are taken out? I don't know what type of actionable like articles have been written about, you know, is August? the primary time where we see these walls start being hit or is it a percentage over what they're

used to doing? I'm just curious just thinking out loud about like, because there's a lot of guys, you know, Frank, your show sheet tonight has got a lot of pitchers that are just not performing really well and you can kind of see that across the board. This is wallish type of season. I was just curious, especially with you two, if you associate it more with innings or maybe with just this time of year, you know, changes, weather changes, how teams are doing differently hitters, all that, all those factors. I haven't done the specific research to look into it.

I'm sure someone has. And maybe it's a myth. I'm open to the idea that it's just we notice. Like line up protection? Yeah, like it might be one of those things where we just notice when a young pitcher throws more innings than they have in the past than they struggle.

But when, you know, a guy who hasn't done it before doesn't struggle, it's just like, oh, he's just good. And, you know, I'm open to that idea. I'm always open to the idea that our hoary baseball cliches are nonsense. That's one of the most fun things about, you know, the Sabermetric Revolution or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, it's a, I don't have a good answer either way on that one. Yeah, I think it's a fair question, Welsh.

We saw a couple other pitchers here on Wednesday. Aaronnola, frankly, it's just been a pretty bad season all around for Aranola. but Kevin Gosman did not pitch well. Justin Verlander did not pitch well on the other side of Lazzardo. Luis Castillo did not pitch well in Kansas City. And all those are very different situations than Hazel's Lazzardo because none of those guys are at any kind of innings maximum yet. Also, Ks are going down like Verlander has been struggling with strikeouts.

I think he had two today. I feel like we've seen way more low like four under K game. It just seems like the, and maybe it's the adjustment of pitchers trying to be maybe less aggressive and play to defense. is I there's a million reasons to go and then hey let's throw in the shift change and what that has done to this year when you're i just it got to me when you were talking about like i you know you wish you had a tangible reason behind what's going on in this instance with hazes losardo and it also kind of brings up the the myths of you know the ethos of baseball where you're like oh man there's you know

just all these factors that we don't think about and there's the walls and there's inning caps and there's so many things this is just the time of year where i feel like it all just rises and there's all these players. And I wish there was tangible answers to every single one of these on why this guy, you know, why is Sandy Al Contra turning it around now while others are struggling? And is it about the innings and going deep, going six or seven innings into games? It's, it's, you know, there's no good answer. And it's just a posed question that we can all kind of think about. I do, I did notice that strikeout rate is up in August in particular. Interesting. Up to third, sorry, did I say strikeout rate? Yes. He did. Home run rate is what I'm mad. The home run rate. I was like really, strikeout rate. I feel it could be lower. Yeah, strikeout rate's more or less in line with where it's been all season. But the home run to fly ball rate is up to 13.7% in the month of July.

In the first half of the season, it was, let me pull that up. Sorry, 12.3%. That's a pretty significant jump. And, you know, obviously that's something that we expect as the season goes along. We've seen that, you know, especially the last season, it was pretty pronounced. But that was one thing I did notice. and doing some research earlier today. Last couple points on Jesus Lazzardo.

It could just be that this is a really bad stretch for him, as you pointed out. I mean, it's kind of been a roller coaster ride this season. If you look at, you go like every five starts or whatever, it's like the production has been at some point's really good for Lazzardo. At some point it's really bad. It might just be a really bad stretch for him. Pointing out the innings, he is up to 137 and a third. Last year he threw 112, so he's already 25 innings past that.

his previous career high, 124 and a third back in 2021. So again, just to put some kind of numbers and context there on Lazzardo. Last point I have on him is, Chris, you mentioned that we don't really see it in the velocity

or the movement profile, but I just wonder if kind of hitting the wall for Lazzardo might be he's not hitting his spots. And you see that over his last four starts, he's getting crushed. Lots of hard contact, lots of home runs allowed,

and it could just be that. Like, he's off by a little bit, and boom, hitters are taking advantage and this is the result that we're getting from Jesus Lozardo. Last question on him, I don't think we're dropping him. He's 96% rostered. We know his upside is still really high. Do you start him next week?

He's at the Padres. Padres lineup overall has not been great this year, but they are fifth in Wobah against Lefty. So if there is one way they excel, it's against left-handed pitching. I'm probably, I feel like I would sit. I mean, I feel like you can get the K's in there, but if you are massaging your ratios and stuff like that,

when does that start? Is that the beginning of the week? Uh, that is, it'll probably be if he pitched today on Wednesday, yeah, it'll probably be like a Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday game. But he's not probably avoiding. But he's not, uh, two-star pitcher next week. It doesn't look like he is. Okay. That would be, yeah, that's so that, if he's a one-star pitcher, I think I definitely said him.

And a two-start week, if it's a points league, it'd be harder to get away from him. All right. Well, so let's go over to you, your player of the night. Well, Spencer Torkelson has been. doing some stuff lately. I don't know how much you guys have been talking about him, probably plenty. Six homers over his last seven games. The batting average is still not there on the season, but you know, one thing I just wanted to bring up, obviously he is a guy that is on a nice little stretch right now. One of these good, a lot of corner infielders are kind of picking it up,

somebody that you can get out in your lineups if you hadn't already been. But you want to talk about, you know, good timing to build value for next year. Torkelson has got all the beautiful signs of a player that you want to buy into next year. Outside of just looking at what is a pretty friendly baseball savant page, when you look from a slider perspective, you're looking at hard hit, all the EVs, ex-wobe, and stuff like that, this is of a guy that you're going to expect that's going to be a 35 plus home run hitter. The strikeouts, a little bit of a problem.

The expected stats also sitting in a really positive range, 259 expected batting average, which is almost 30 points higher than his current batting average. Average EV on the year, 92. which is top 8% in the league. His barrel percentage at 13.8. We're getting close to double what it was last year. And the hard hit percentage, top 6% of the league, under 25K percentage.

I think there's been some bad luck as far as where the batting average is gone. It speaks to the expected batting average. I think he's going to carry this in, push 25 plus homers to the end of the year. That's being very simplistic about it. And his pace he's going to hit 30. But Torkelson, from a dynasty perspective, I think is a awesome buy in whatever capacity you could still buy right now because I think he's trending in a great direction

where we're going to see a turnaround next year. This is a very smart baseball player. You know, he has been dealing with pitchers specifically pitching to him in different instances since ASU. And the hard hit numbers are through the roof. He's getting back to finally barreling. He's crossed over that 10% range,

which I'm looking for. He's up to 13 with, you know, elite-ish hard hit numbers. I think everything, is giving us a huge, huge warning signs that Spencer Torkelson is ready for a breakout, and we might be experiencing some of that within the last six weeks of this season. So this is a great time to buy. It's a great time to keep managing.

I don't know what his ownership percentage looks like. I bet his roster percentage has probably recently been decent, but overall on, you know, let's say the last month has probably been under 40%. But I think the batting average is turning. All the other numbers are going with it. You get guys like Riley Green hitting in front of you. Just a big time for Spencer Torkelson and a big. buy, I think, going into next year. He's going to be someone I'm very into. And he's someone that,

you know, the advanced metrics have liked a lot more than the standard metrics. And it's been one of those cases where we've been trying to figure out, is there something in his profile that just makes him prone to underperforming? There are some guys that that is true. And you look at his actual Wobah for the season. It's 314. His expected Wobah has been higher than that every month this season. 321 is his lowest. He's been over 350 in three of the five months so far, including 425 in August. He's actually underperforming quite a bit in August relative to his expected stats. His average X velocity 95 miles per hour in the month of August.

He's been absolutely red hot. And yeah, I mean, look, incredibly talented player was one of the top three prospects in baseball before last season. So the fact that the underlying metrics have been pretty good all season has made me optimistic that we were going to get a breakout at some point. And, you know, hey, another win for the nerds. We got Bobby Witt and we got Spencer Torkelson, a second half breakouts. Look at that. I'm glad you also brought up that because that was something I wanted to mention. I was looking at the rolling chart.

And almost a month ago to the day on July 17th, he was rocking a 308 expected Woba. Coming into tonight, 412, I mean, that is a rolling month chart expected Wobah. It's the highest point of the year. He's really finding a groove and he's got all those expected metrics that are pushing in his direction. And really, just pointing out, you know, having another two home run night just shows you that we are in that space. And we're moving into that space, though the batting average doesn't quite tell you that. Spencer Torkelson very much in on bye for next year and just feel comfortable with the rest of the season, even after, of course, a very awesome night.

Last question on Torkelson, Welsh. Would you rather have him or Josh Bell in redraft leagues moving forward? Ooh, that's a good one. I will go with Torkelson. I don't want to take anything away from Josh Bell. I also don't want to take anything away that that's not like a great offense

that he's hitting in front of. But my whole point of this thing with Torkelson right now is like the trend that we're setting into. I think this is going to be a six-week trend through the end of the season. You know, six homers in last seven games. couple multi-hit homers. I think he's going to carry that through the end of the year.

And I want some of those big power numbers. Josh Bell has definitely kind of revived everything. And there's some of that offense in front of him that's a little bit better. I think I'd be fine if you went either way, but I'm really kind of riding the Torkelson train through the end of the year. I mentioned at the top, the Tigers might have a young fun offensive nucleus too, because if you look at just this game in general, Riley Green, three for four with a monster home run, 11, exit velocity,

448 feet. It was a moonshot. He's batting 309. He's got those 11 home runs. 8.59 OPS. You know, the home runs and the steals, they don't stand out, but he did miss a big chunk of the season as well.

The batting average in OPS look great for Riley Green. He's 80% rostered, so not really out there in many leagues. The other name is Kerry Carpenter, who went 2-4 with his 16th home run. He's batting 286 with an 868 OPS. He's playing every day now. He's playing against righties and lefties. He stills us 51%

rostered. Towers, I'll ask you this question. Would you rather have Kerry Carpenter or Max Kepler moving forward? Max Kepler is somebody who has been pretty hot recently. He went one for four with his 20th home run here on Wednesday. He returned in late May. So his last 66 games, Kepler is batting 251 with 14 home runs and a 12% barrel rate. Sneakily has been pretty good. Who would you rather have Kerry Carpenter or Max Kepler? And we have seen Max Kepler be a pretty good fantasy option. You kind of have to go back to 2019 to get there when he had that 36 Homer season, but he's always been someone who has had, you know, pretty good underlying metrics and has underperformed them somewhat consistently. And I don't think that's a mistake. He pops up quite a bit.

He is very pull heavy, very fly ball heavy in a way, you know, when he hits the ball to the pole side that keeps his batting average down, but he doesn't necessarily have like the huge raw power. So I do think I would go, you asked Riley. green or no, yes, Kerry Carpenter or Max Hepler, right? Yep. I'll go ahead with Carrie Carpenter as much for the fact that we haven't seen him fail as anything else. But I do think Carrie Carpenter is just a good hitter as well. And just a shout out to, again, the Tigers, they've got these young players that are coming soon, too.

Colt Keith. They got Justin Henry Malloy. This lineup actually might make some noise over the next couple of years. So shout out to those Detroit Tigers. Player of the night for me, I am going to go with Reed Detmer's here who took a no hitter into the eighth inning. And so I posed a question up at top. Do six awful starts get erased by one great start? Because in his previous six starts, Reid Detmer's had a 10.3 ERA and a 193 whip. In this game, he wound up throwing seven and a third shotout innings.

Still four walks. He did have five strikeouts. Limited the hard contact. I didn't notice anything too crazy here. He threw more curve balls, which technically has been his best pitch this season. his velocity was down. Maybe that was by design. Maybe he, you know, does a better job commanding his pitches when he takes a little bit of

velocity off. I feel like we've kind of had that theory with Reed Detmer's all throughout the season. Well, overall, it's, it's been a disappointing year. 493 ERA, a 137 whip. This was a fantastic start. Towers, how much are you buying into one great start following six very bad ones? I feel like we're, this is like a theme with Redetmers. Remember last year he had the no hitter and we were like,

He stinks. And we ended up being right. He got sent back to the miners like four starts later. I don't think he will get sent back to the miners this time, but I don't see much from this start to be optimistic about moving forward that he's figured something out. The velocity was down, like you said. Movement profile on the curveball was a little bit different. It looks like he was getting less sweep, you know, less horizontal movement.

Maybe that's by design. Maybe, you know, getting more of a 126 movement profile on it can make it a more effective. pitch, but five strikeouts, four walks and seven in the third innings, not particularly impressive there. So I don't know. Like, we're pretty much past the point where you could trade someone, so I don't even want to say, hey, at least it's a trade window. If you want to add him and he was dropped, that's fine.

But I don't look at this start and say, yeah, I feel better about Reed Detmer's now. What's so odd about it, too, is it's like, you'd be like, oh, okay, well, let's play matchups. This would have been the biggest. Nope, I'm good matchup. We're not going to do that with the rangers coming in. So I think he's volatile. I think that's exactly what you said.

I was trying to look this up. I couldn't quite find it. I wanted to see per pitch what the zone percentage was on this season because three of the or two of the top three pitches he throws because change up and sweeper accounted for practically nothing. They were over 54% zone percentage. So you take a VLO tick down and you take what I'm kind of presuming. His season total zone percentage is 51%.

That's all pitches combined. These are we're 57 and 54. So my thought process is like you think about Velo coming down and hitting the zone more, you're pitching to more contact because you were loosey-goosey with your command in general, which may have been kind of putting him a step back. It doesn't lead to anything. It still makes me think this is an inconsistent guy. Maybe I'm going to be a little bit more likely in a really good scenario to try to throw him out there.

but I don't, I think he's dangerous. I think he's dangerous for your ratios right now. And six to one doesn't make me feel any better regardless of no hit innings to eight. So I'm, I'm pretty dicey on Detmer's rest of the way. The other waiver wire pitchers who emerged here on Wednesday, McKenzie Gore had one of his best starts of the year against the Red Sox. Six and a third shutout innings, only one hit allowed, only two walks with seven strikeouts. The bad news is that he left this start with a blister on his left index finger.

So frankly, we don't even know if he's going to. make his next start. That is Mackenzie Gore. Then there's three names that you could. As of now, they look like two-star pitchers for next week, so you can kind of beat the waiver wire, get ahead of it right now. Mike Clevenger, seven shot-out innings with seven strikeouts at the Cubs.

The matchups next week, the Mariners and the A's. It does not get much better than that. Javier Assad, back-to-back quality starts for him. Two starts next week at the Pirates and at the Tigers. So again, it does not get much better than that. Paul Blackburn had a great start at the Cardinals, seven. shutout innings with eight strikeouts to one walk. And even him, he's facing the Royals,

which I will point out, the Royals offense has been very hot in the second half, and at the White Sox. So pretty good matchups up and down here. Welsh, who do you like most? This group of five pitchers, McKenzie Gore, Reed Detmer's, Clevenger, Assad, and Blackburn, those last three with two starts next week. I mean, I think these are built around all inconsistent options. I mean, I think long term, I immediately go to Gore.

I've loved the stuff that has turned around for Gore this season, especially walks coming back down. I think this is leading into a really good path for the future. That doesn't help for right now. Offense stuttery. I don't like the idea of the blister. That's going to hold him back. That could be a start thing. Detmer's I've already told you about it.

I hate to say this because I feel like I have just been dismissive, but it's Clevenger. I mean, I don't even think it's a question between these five. Detmer's is not somebody that justifies must hold. Either does McKenzie Gore in 12, 10, 4. formats. Clevenger, since the second half, four starts, a 157 ERA he's put up, a sub one whip. He hasn't had an over four ERA since May, which was four and a half. Again, it's not like a ton of starts. I think that equates to seven starts, but he has been good. The strikeouts are there and the matchup. I think really, truly, the matchup speaks for it.

Because if you're talking about talent, it's somewhere between Detmer's and Gore is the top, you know, group. Clevenger is maybe the second one. I didn't want to say the word that everyone's waiting to hear if that won't because Scott's not here. And then the bottom to Assad and Blackburn, like they live in their own little basement down there. So I'll go with Clevenger really based on the matchup. Yeah, I would agree with that too. I mean, just the process doesn't really support what my Clevenger is doing right now. But again, those matchups, Mariners and the Oakland A's for next week. I'd be pretty excited about that. So long, go ahead. Sorry, did you mention that Gore left to start.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. That was, yeah. So it's Clevenger for me. I guess if you play in a points league and you're looking for a relief pitcher, Javier Assad is a spark. So keep that in mind,

but I think I'm probably going to put Clevenger at the top of that list, even with this great start from Reed Detmer's. Let's wrap up here on the, oh my goodness gracious. Give some love to Christian Walker. I mean, this dude, he must enjoy Corse Field because he is going ham right now. Three for three with the double dong. He has five homers over his last five games. Just an unsung hero this year.

Yesterday, Scott and I kind of went through some hitters that we haven't talked enough about this year. Christian Walker is one of them. 275 batting average, 28 homers. He even has eight steals in 894 OPS. The guy has been money. Any quick thoughts on Christian Walker? I feel like Spencer Torkelson could grow up to be Christian Walker.

Like that's who he wants to be when he grows up. And I think that is attainable. He's that's a double-digit barrel percentage guy. homers are there. And I just go back to, you know, this is like, Towers, a little bit of like the staty thing. But last year, you know, worst babb up and all of baseball in the first half was Christian Walker. And then he proceeds to have like, what was like a 280, 290, whatever it was insane second half. It built back. And we get to see who the real guy was. Those expected, even if it's just babbup and expected batting average was telling the story that this guy's a much better hitter. He destroys mistakes. He has light tower power. Max E. V is pushing 114 this year.

I think, you know, again, it speaks for itself, even though he doesn't put up wildly insane hard hit numbers. He knows when to find it. It's a great offense. They trust him without so many players in front to be in scoring position, which has helped Walker and friendly hitting environments that Christian Walker, maybe one of the most underrated first baseman. If you were to take, like, the top 15 first baseman, I'm not sure if you'd be able to find more than two other guys that you could really put like a underrated claim on over Walker. If you just had to make a guess on where Christian Walker ranks this season in 5x5 Roto leagues, overall, not just at the first base position. What would you guys say?

Overall, I would say I'm going to go with, in Roto, I'm going to go with 63. Towers? I'm going to say like 25. I want to change mine to 55. Entering Wednesday, Christian Walker was the 25th overall. Oh, look at this guy. Cheater. Look at me.

Look at this guy. How did you get 25? I was looking it up. I think last week before a podcast or after a podcast. I think I was giving you guys some trivia on on guys who were ranked in the top 10 or something. And I did remember Christian Walker being surprisingly high. And that was before obviously four home runs and three games at course field. Yeah.

Oh my goodness gracious. This player of play of the night, sequence of the night, I guess of the day because this was during a day game. A pinch hit inside the park home run by Luke Raleigh, who if you haven't seen this play, it was very interesting. That was fun. He hit one of the like the brick wall in right field in Oracle Park, took this crazy bounce, kind of rolled across the top of the center field wall, kicked all the way back across

center field. And it was easily an inside the park home run. It was not close. Yeah, it wasn't. I'm watching it. I'm watching it too. That's wild because it hits off there and it hits off the top right where a homer would be. It did like a double bounce and then it just flew over to left.

I mean, if there's a park, you're going to hit a inside the park home run and it's going to be in San Francisco. Yeah, it's one of those fun ones where if you look at the expected stats, it says home run 30 out of 30 parks. He just happened to hit it to the one park. I mean, technically correct, the best kind of correct. But yeah, it was that was fun. Yeah, it bounced so far that like it carems past the center fielder and he has no chance to get it. And I think the left fielder end up running past the center fielder to get it. That was a fun play.

A very, very fun play. Let's take our first break here. And when we return, talk about some waiver wire hitters, some really fun young players. We spoke about the Tigers. Zach Gelloff, the dude just continues to match. We'll talk about him right after this. Welcome back. and a quick aside here.

Our friends over at the Fantasy Football Today podcast, they have their annual draftathon coming up on Wednesday, August 30th, from 4 to 10 p.m. Eastern Time. They've been raising a bunch of money with all of it being donated to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. And if you want to help contribute,

you can head to tiny URL.com slash FFT donate and you'll find a bunch of fun listings on eBay and actually going up tonight when you're listening to this podcast or whatever, we're already past midnight Eastern time. On Thursday, August 17th, we are going to have two listings go up

regarding this podcast. A spot in our 2024 FBT listener league, as well as a guest spot on this very podcast. So again, head to tiny URL.com slash FFT donate, or if you're watching us on YouTube, scan the QR code in the top right corner of the screen to start bidding.

Again, all proceeds will go to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Let's talk waiver wire hitters. We already talked about the Tigers a little bit earlier, and we do have some also fun, young, exciting, third baseman in K. Brian Hayes, Royce Lewis, Jake Burger. All of them are doing something interesting lately. K. Brian Hayes on fire since returning 13 games, a 314 batting average with three home runs,

and a 95 mile per hour average exit velocity. Royce Lewis recently returned. This was his second game back. He went three for four with his second stolen base. He had four hard hits in this game, two of those over 107 exit velocity, and Jake Berger went three for four with a double, two runs, and two RBI. 14 games with the Marlins. He is batting 333, and it looks like he is consciously trying to make more contact.

He only has a 19% strikeout rate with the Marlins compared to a 32% strikeout rate with the White Sox. Towers, lots of names here. How would you rank them? Brian Hayes, Royce Lewis, and Jake Berger. I think I would go Lewis, Berger, and Hayes. Royce Lewis, that dude just hits. I don't know if he can stay healthy. It's been a really tough time for him throughout his career.

He's torn his ACL twice. He had the oblique thing earlier this season. But, I mean, all he's done, it's a small sample size in the majors, but we're talking about close to a 900 OPS overall in like 60 games. I really believe he's just a very, very good hitter who just needs to to stay healthy. So I'll go Royce Lewis. Hayes, I don't know if you guys have seen.

There's been some Matt Chapman discourse on Twitter talking about like how he is like fourth in the majors and barrels, but he has the lowest production on barrels or something. It's some, some stat that you would think like, oh man, this guy should be better than he is. But one thing about Matt Chapman is when he hits the ball hard, he tends to hit the ball to the power alleys, which are a misnomer because it is. hard to hit for power to the power at least he hits it to left center right center and center field where it's furthest away and so he tends to get a lot of doubles he tends to get a lot of hard hit doubles to the wall and i think you see something similar with cabrian hayes who also has

in addition to that the you know not elevating the ball problem but brian hayes i've had him as a breakout slash sleep sleeper for several years now because he hits the ball really really hard. You know, 92 mile per hour, 92.6 mile per hour average eggs of velocity, 49% hard hit rate. Those are really, really good numbers. He just hits the ball on the ground too much and he hits the ball up the middle and the opposite way too much, which should help him hit for a better batting average than

261, especially with his speed. But he's just not going to consistently hit for power. So I think he's a couple of adjustments away still. Again, Towers's ranking there was Royce Lewis, Jake Burger. and then K. Brian Hayes, let's move over to the second baseman. Zach Geloff is that dude right now. Four for five with two doubles, two RBI, and his seven stolen base. He's batting 294.

He's got eight home runs. He's got a 986 OPS, and he has seven games next week. Edward Julian is the other name. He has struggled a bit. He's kind of slowed back down. Then has a big game here on Wednesday. He was leading off once again. He went four for five with two RBI, still batting 23.

He's got 10 homers in 8702. OPS, Welsh, both of these guys are young and exciting. Who would you rather have Zach Gelloff or Edward Julian? Boy, two players, Frank, we both got to see last year. I didn't think I would feel this way because I liked that Gelloff a lot last year. I just wasn't sure where the offense was going to develop. And, you know, there's plenty of things that are going to tell us we're going to

calm back down on some of this. I mean, he's got a 40 plus differential between his batting average and expected batting average. Strikeouts are a bit high, but, you know, Royce Lewis, are as well. I am going to go with Zach Gelloff here, though. I think the offensive impact has been huge. You know, Edward Julian, I love the idea that he can hit higher in a lineup. It's a better offense, but we've seen those inconsistencies. July was great. August has been fine. It's been okay, but Gelloff's power, Gelloff's stolen bases have been relatively prolific,

huge barrel percentage, 15 and a half percent so far in the early sample hard hit numbers are looking good for Gelloff. I mean, he's doing everything that you want, it's just going to be a matter of how is the league going to adjust to him? He's actually not even seeing an insane rate on fastballs. It's run 53% right now, but he's hitting over 300, and that's a problem. So baseball is going to adjust to him here soon because he's under 220 on breaking pitches, under a buck 70 on off speed pitches, and the expected numbers are good for the off speed, but you're going to get a lot more sliders.

You're going to get a lot more of that stuff that's going to be on him. So what is that going to do and how is he going to adjust? He has a 54% whiff rate on breaking pitches right now. So when he starts getting less fastballs, who is he going to become? But this is a big counting stat guy. I think he has less of a hit tool than Edward Julian. But I think he's got louder tools right now for fantasy. And we've only got six weeks left.

So guess what? Maybe no one's going to readjust over these next six weeks because it's crunch time. And they're not crunching the numbers to find out about this hitter. And that's going to be a next year thing. And you all are going to pay too much for Gallowf next year. I'll pay for him for the rest of this year over Julian. I will do the same. And partially because of playing time too.

Edward Julian still does not play consistency consistently against left-handed pitching. I don't know that he should either. I mean, the small sample in his career so far, he has not hit well against lefties in the majors. He didn't hit well against lefties in the minors either. So I kind of worry about Julian being a long-term platoon player for the Minnesota Twins. That faint sound you hear in the background is Scott shrieking in rage. at you guys picking Edward Julian or a sack gal off ahead of Edward Julian.

I mean, he hit 200 against lefties. It's probably not going to get you in the lineup every single day, so I worry about that. Julian's fantastic. There's so many things, I think, I think what did I say on here last November, Frank? I said, Edward Julian, for whatever people knew about him, will be a vet for 10 plus years in baseball.

Like, I could see that instantly from him. When I got to see him in the AFL, and you look at the numbers, he's a major league player, and he'll be a good major league player. It's just with this stretch, I want all five of those tools. And Gelloff is really having no signs of slowing down until he sees a completely different arsenal, which I just don't know if that's going to happen at this point.

All right, let's slide over to the catcher position. And all of a sudden, we've got three catchers. If you play in a one catcher league, you might actually have trouble choosing which one to pick up because all three of them are red hot right now. M.J. Melendez, back-to-back three head games. He went three for four with a double, a run, and an RBI. so far in the second half, he's betting 304 with six homers, two steals, an 886 OPS, 95.3 average eggs of velocity for M.J. Melendez, but Cal Raleigh could still be out there. He hit another home run on Wednesday.

Cabot Ruiz could still be out there. He hit another home run on Wednesday. Towers, how are you ranking these three? MJ Melendez, Kbert Ruiz, Cal Raleigh. I would go with Raleigh at the top, then probably Melendez, and then Ruiz. I think Melendez, just the tools are a little louder. I mean, he's a guy that, like, the raw ability is really, really impressive for MJ Melendez. 93.6 miles per hour, average X velocity, 51.4% hard hit rate.

That's really, really good. He's been underperforming the expected stats for most of the season. Obviously, there's a lot of swing and miss here as well. which hurts his chances, but he's cut the strikeout rate down to about 25% since the All-Star break. It was, gosh, like above 30% before that. So that's the kind of thing

where if he can just be a plain bad, you know, a below-average or above-average strikeout rate guy, MJ Melendez has real offensive ability. That's what we liked about him coming in in addition to playing outfield. And also, you know what? You're not going to have a chance to play him at catcher next season.

in fantasy. So you might as well take advantage of the next month and a half or so. Again, that is MJ Melendez who should have a leg up on playing time versus Cal Raleigh and Cabert Ruiz for the rest of the season. Two names in deeper leagues, much deeper leagues. We're talking 15 team, five outfielder leagues here. Stone Garrett went two for four with a double dong for the nationals. He's had a solid year. He mostly plays against left-handed pitching. But I notice he has started five straight for the nationals, batting 266 with nine. home runs, three steals, and an 804 OPS. The other name is Nelson Velasquez. Well, correct me if I'm wrong. Nelson Velasquez was the AFL player of the year back in 2021, I think. Yeah. He won,

yeah, that was the Gabriel Moreno year. He won the MVP for the Arizona Fall League that year. Him and JJ Blasquez were on the same team and they were bonkers. And Velasquez had like nine homers. He was out. He was with the Cubs at the time, absolutely crushing everything. And he just beat out JJ Bladee that year, both on new teams now too. Yeah. So Nelson Velasquez went two for four with a home run here and five games with the Royals now. He has six hits. He has three homers. He's always hit the ball really hard in the miners, but also strikes out a ton. Walsh, any interest here in the deepest league, Stone Garrett with the Nationals? Nelson Velasquez is now with the Royals. You know, I don't want to be dismissive of Stone Garrett because there's a little

bit of stolen base potential in here and he's been all right. But I think Nelson Velasquez is the guy that I'm interested in because I think you could get an extended look on him. He's hitting 316 in August so far. Obviously you've got a couple homers. He hasn't walked, but the strikeouts haven't been absolutely insane. And, you know, hitting can be infectious with a lot of those guys that are going to be hitting in front of him getting on base. There might be RBI opportunities. He really is a big, hard hit guy long term anyways. I don't think we have enough like real sample size to go nuts about it. But I mean, almost a 20% barrel percentage over 110 max EV, which kind of tells you where he's sitting and 61% hard hit so far in this early run.

If I'm going deep, deep, I'm trying to get for some power numbers. Nelson Velasquez is a deep option I would take a look at. All right. Let's hit some news and notes. Jeff Passon reported that Wander Franco is being investigated by the authorities in the Dominican Republic. Franco was placed on the restricted list earlier this week. And it's just we're in wait and C mode right now.

Once we hear more, obviously we will let you know. Carlos Ordone threw a five-inning simulated game on Wednesday in Tampa. as long as he responds well to the workout with no renewed discomfort. Rodan should be able to slot back into the Yankees rotation. Next week on August 22nd, I think that's Tuesday against the Nationals. Hunter Green will be activated off the 60-day I-L to start Sunday against the Blue Jays. It'll be his first start since June 17th. And in four rehab starts, Green had a 257 ERA, just over a strikeout per inning.

And it's a very welcome site for fantasy and for the Reds, because, man, the rents are struggling. You're going to start him, though? Are you comfortable starting him coming off of this injury against the Blue Jays on a Sunday? Not me. In a daily lineup league, I guess it'll depend on like your head-to-head matchups,

I guess where you're at. The Blue Jays lineup has been pretty bad without Boba Chet, so I don't know. I think I don't know. I think the elite of the elite pitchers get the special pass for me to start them coming off elongated injuries. And I would, this is just,

I mean, maybe it's going to be an eight-strikeout four-in-game or something like that. that. I just don't know how deep he goes. And this is, yeah, like you said, daily, this is probably something I avoid, but that's me. He has been, I haven't been able to find out exactly what pitch he's been working on, but he has been working on another pitch. I don't know. It's been hard to figure out because, you know, we have some minor league pitch data, but it's not as finely tuned, let's say, as the major league data. So it looks, I think it's been classified as a slider, but it's got a different movement profile than his slider.

So that's one thing to keep an eye on with Hunter Green when he comes back because obviously he's been very fastball slider heavy throughout his career and he's been looking for whether it's more of a gyro type slider or what it ends up being. One thing to speculate on if you just obviously I think like sweeper is like the thing that would jump out to. But at the same time Nicola Dolo, they've been working together.

And Justin Dunn, if you guys remember Justin Dunn. He actually pitched tonight in the Complex League. The three of them have been, in good year for like two months together. And what do we know about Lodolo? He's got that big loopy sweeping slider. So I just, you know, creating a story out of my head here. I think it's feasible to say if you're gonna work on something

and you got a guy that can throw the big loop looping breaking balls, maybe working with Lidolo every single day as they have been training. Maybe we're gonna see more of the tighter gyrosweeper change, you know, switching between as far as those breaking pitches. So something to watch. Back to the news, Marcus Schroeman is dealing with a right rib cartilage fracture and is without a timetable to return. Jonathan India expressed dismay at how the Reds originally assessed his plantar fasciitis injury.

At the time, the Reds prescribed a week of inactivity and India suffered a setback. Upon visiting a doctor, he was told he originally should have rested for two weeks. I don't know. It just kind of feels like this relationship between the Reds and India. It's kind of weird since McLean and Dealer Cruz got called up. He's kind of stuck in the middle, right? Like he's a veteran on that team, which means he's in his third MLB season.

It's like Joey Votto's the super veteran. And like Jonathan India is the second most longest tenured player on the team or something. So it's been a tough. It feels like he's going to get traded. And honestly, if he hadn't gone on the IL, what a week before the trade deadline, I feel like he might have gotten traded this year. Could have, could have happened. Hunter Brown is slated to rejoin the Ashroars rotation Sunday against the Mariners.

And I knew he would be skipped earlier this week. He actually picked up a win in relief. I didn't think he would actually get a start during this scoring period. So that's my bad. I apologize for telling people to bench Hunter Brown. Don't take the L on the win in relief, though. No, I will not do that. That was just bad luck.

Nobody knows. Ryan Helsley underwent an MRI that showed improvement, improved healing in his strained right forearm, but remains without a clear timetable to resume his rehab assignment. Jojo Romero, it is. Kind of looks like the guy right now for the Cardinals. Sean Murphy was out of the lineup Wednesday,

and his playing time has been very sporadic recently. It's kind of weird. He started just 8 of 16 games in August, and there's no report of an injury. I haven't noticed anything in particular. Welsh, isn't this weird? Sean Murphy has been one of the best overall hitters in baseball this year,

not just among catchers. He's only started half the games in August. The only thing I want, coming back to the wall, you got to think about, you know, Sean Murphy and some of these catchers that are playing, you know, whether they're going in DHing. If you're starting to get a little bit of a wear down, this can be the type of time of year where, you know, you might even see like third catchers coming in, taking relief, giving a little bit of playing time, uh, push back until the playoffs. Again, it's speculation because it is weird. And what else do we know about No, I think there might be some specifics there, though. Remember, over the weekend, he took, he got hit by a back swing on Saturday.

And then on Sunday night, I think in the seventh inning, he got hit by a back swing and actually had a big gash in his head and ended up staying in the game. But it, you know, I do wonder if it might be related to that, if anything. It's just weird. He was sitting out games even before that happened. Yeah, that's what I'm saying the recent ones maybe, but not before. You know, it's a problem for us for fantasy and, you know, we can complain about it. But from the Braves perspective, it's a luxury for them. Travis Arnaud was a great backup catcher.

They want Sean Murphy fresh for the playoffs. It's like they have a huge lead in NLEs. They've got a 900 OPS as a team since the All-Star break. That's not an exaggeration. Literally entering today, it was a 903 OPS, which is just offensive, frankly. They've had two different months this season where they're as a team have had an OPS over 900. That's just ridiculous. So yeah, they, they've, they certainly have the luxury of being a little more cautious with it. Must be nice. Lars Neupar left Wednesday after

fouling a ball off his groin, which if you haven't seen it, I'll just leave it at that. The Rockies manager, Bud Black said Chris Bryant could potentially place him first based upon his return. Eloy Jimenez was out of the lineup due to renewed groin discomfort. Sky is blue, grass is green. Lord Es Garelle was removed Wednesday due to a left hip contusion. Let's take our final break when we return. We'll talk about some of those struggling pitchers here. Aaron Nola, Kevin Gosman, is there anything wrong?

Charlie Morton actually had his best start in quite some time. We'll talk about those right after this. Welcome back. Quick reminder to like this video and subscribe on YouTube if you haven't already. Aces who didn't exactly pitch like an ace on Wednesday. Aaron Nola, five innings, four runs, four walks. That's kind of weird for him. did have seven strikeouts at the Toronto Blue Jays in this one.

He's got a 458 ERA on the season. Just a weird year for Aeronola. Kevin Gosman, he was even worse on the other side. Five and a third, innings, seven runs. Five of those were earned. Four strikeouts, the three walks. And in Kevin Gosman, fashion, allowed a lot of hard contact in this one,

which does happen to him at times. Justin Verlander at the Marlins, we mentioned this one earlier. Five innings, five runs allowed. four of those were earned. He also allowed a ton of hard contact, 10 hard hits in this game for Verlander. Towers, anything that you noticed here with Verlander,

Gausman, and Nola that might worry you for the rest of the season? I mean, Nola, it's not just the rest of the season, right? This is who he's been all season, and it's actually gotten worse. All careers. All career. Just look at his season-by-season ERA. It's one year up, one year down. It's a mess.

He's a weird pitcher. I think part of it might just be my theory all along has been that he doesn't have like I don't want to say he doesn't have ACE stuff because he's got really really good stuff but you know the he's not throwing 97 right

you know like he doesn't have overpowering stuff so I think it might just be that his margin for error is just a little slimmer than some of the other high level pitchers but because of his you know ability to pitch it deep into games and stay healthy and all those things, he kind of comes out as an ace in the end when you take it all into account. But yeah, I guess I look forward to buying low on Aaron Nola next season.

I don't really know what else to say. Like, I still think he's good. I still, you know, would view him as like a top 25 starting pitcher the rest of the season. But obviously he hasn't pitched like that. And, you know, the curveball has been a little less effective overall. That seems like the biggest change from last season. and it's his most used pitch so that's less than ideal.

Gosman is having such an interesting season because he's kind of just like, he's becoming like Mecca Gosman. I don't know if that reference makes sense, but he's becoming like the most Kevin Gosmany version of Kevin Gosman ever where he's got the highest

strikeout rate of his career, higher even than 2020, which was the shortened season. He's also got the worst quality of contact of his career, even going back to, when he was really bad in Baltimore. And so it's like these extremes

where if he's missing a few fewer bats than normal, he's going to get hit pretty hard. But all in all, I mean, the overall numbers, I don't think there's anything to be concerned about with Gosman. It's just who he is. Towers, I have one other name for you. Charlie Morton had his best start in a while.

Six shutout innings, four hits, one walk, 10 strikeouts, which tied a season high against the Yankees. He had 15 swinging strikes on 94 pitches. And notice he did change up his pitch mix a little bit. He still led with that amazing curveball. He kind of faded his four-scene fastball through more sinkers and cutters. It's not something we typically see out of Charlie Morton.

This was his first start with less than three walks since July 14th. So it has been quite some time. Towers your thoughts here on Charlie Morton. And if we should start him next week against the New York Mets. we've talked a lot about the glob and you know take your shot if you're playing the drinking game and the random number generators and this feels like a bit of a random number generator game and also just like the vibes are really bad with the Yankees like this might just be a really bad team the rest of the way they've been you know even with Aaron Judge back the offense just hasn't been very good he's he's amazing obviously There was, man, Charlie Morton, did you see the strikeout that he had on Aaron Judge? No. I think he struck him out.

I don't know if it was a three pitch at bat, but all three strikes were on the curveball. And one of them was kind of hung up in the upper inside quadrant. And Aaron Judge just kind of like ducked out of the way. He was clearly fooled on it. It is a sign that when Charlie Morton's on, he can still be very good. But I don't expect this to be the beginning of a breakout, given how. Bad, especially the control's been lately. Would you trust him against the Mets next week?

I don't think I would. You know, I guess if we're talking about comparing him to like the Javier Assad guys and you were thinking about picking up one of those guys to stream Mike Clevenger, I'd probably go with him over them. But, you know, certainly still not someone I feel very good about. All right. Let's quickly run through some prospect updates here with the Welsh. I'm going to throw a bunch of names your way.

Yassinthe's over to me, Welsh. She said, guys that we might see in September, Jordan Lawler from your Arizona Diamondbacks. His first game at AAA on Tuesday, he went one for four with two walks and a 420 foot home run. Did get off to a slow start this year, but obviously has turned his season around in quite a big way. There was a recent report that the Cubs could promote their top prospect Pete Crow Armstrong in September as well. And then there's two other names here. Dorel, Hernais is a 22-year-old second-based prospect with the A's. and Pedro Leon, a 25 year old outfielder with the Astros.

Welles, what do you have on that group? Yeah, so like Pete Crow, I feel the most confident about it. And you know I also feel the most confident about it? Because I'm liking it just to how I was with Corby and Carroll last year, where it was like, all right, he's good. I'm getting him for the AFL. This is going to be exciting. He's just getting to AAA.

This is, and then bam, majors. They give him that work. I think the best play any team can do if they're going to, you know, manipulate that service time stuff and have a guy, start next year is get them a little bit of playing time now and then push them into next year. Not to say that they won't go to the AFL, but literally Gunner and Corbyn Carroll both played this and Rookie of the Year favorites. And I think that's Pete Crow. I think Pete Crow is the guy that is aligned for this. Any reports out there, it's fantastic news.

AA this year hit 289, 14 homers, 27 stolen bases, 24% K percentage. In 11 games in AAA, hitting 289 with a 24% K percentage, four homers, three stolen bases. He is, he is. close to a 20-30 minor league season. He is also just one of the better hitters in baseball. That's a guy I'm betting on, especially if you're looking for rookies. I think he's a guy that's going to come up. Lawler I'm speculating on because the AAA move,

the Diamondbacks are kind of in a, they're moving their roster all around. It's been disarrayed the whole time. Lawler can defensively play. The bat is going. I really think there's a possibility, and they've shown us their path last year with Corby and Carroll. Jordan Lawler will be

in contention to take that spot at shortstop at the beginning of this coming year, this next coming season. So I think showing us that they're going to do this, especially if they get out of contention. I think both of those guys can be bets as well as Colt Keith. I threw a couple other guys at you. Just to say, if you're looking for any long shots, one of those was Pedro Leon. And if you remember Pedro Leon with the Astros, over the last 30 days, he's in the Pacific Coast League, which obviously helps. eight homers over the last 30 days, 313 batting average, over 600 slug, four stolen bases. His strikeouts are always a problem, but he can play short in the outfield if the Astros are looking for something.

And they have to see what they've got out of him, because this is like it with Pedro Leon. So I do think we're going to see him in September. And the other guy I brought to you was Darnell Hernes, who used to be a Baltimore Orioles guy, and he's now with the A's. and he has had a smoking start the last 30 days, or at least over last 30, 333, two homers. He is tied for fourth in total hits in the PCL. Over the last 30 days, five stolen bases, bunch of walks can get on base.

I think that's a guy that we could see for just a little bit more depth. But if I'm, you know, ranking them, it's Peter Armstrong, Jordan Lawler, Pedro Leon, as far as a few bats to bet on, those top two guys are the main prospects I'd be looking for. if you're still playing that game in redraft for the rest of the season. You mentioned if we don't see Jordan Lawler at the end of this year,

there is a chance we could see him on opening day rosters next year. And you did send me over five pretty big names that you think they might be competing for a spot on opening day rosters next season, just guys that need to be on our radar. Junior Camerro, 20-year-old third-based prospect with the Tampa Bay Rays. He's been amazing. Jackson Trio, we've heard for the past couple of years, 19-year-old outfielder with the Brewers.

Jackson Holiday, you know, he's just moved up every level and just continues to hit. And then two names that were just drafted in this year's draft, Dylan Cruz, who's with the Nationals, the second overall pick. He's played nine games at A ball. He's batting 326 with four homers. And Paul Skeens, who was a 21-year-old starting pitcher with the Pirates. He recently got bumped up to A ball as well. Any quick thoughts here on Skeens, Cruz, Holiday, Trio, and Camerro.

So I actually think one of these guys could even be a sneaky this year, And it's Junior Caminero. I will say, I don't know if you guys talked about this news at all, very strange, very unraised-like. They sent, and you can understand some of the situation going on with the race, by the way, and why they might be doing some of this. But they sent Carson Williams, who was in high A up to AAA. He skipped AA. We don't see that that often. And that's not a raise move.

That's a very odd move. And then he proceeded to hit. Carson Williams has got some strikeout issues, which I'm a little concerned about. Batting average issues. but he's got tons and tons of talent. So you could be like, oh, well, Carson Williams is the guy and Camero is below him. I'm not necessarily so sure that that's going to be the case

because I think Camero is a guy that could surprise us. I really do. Over the last 30 days, 310 batting average, six homers. He's controlled the strikeouts. It's 20%. He's a doubles machine as well. He's polished. He's young.

I wouldn't be surprised to get some good-natured stuff going on with the raise that maybe in what, all of this chaos is going on, they bring up who might be the next big face of this organization, Caminero, up. I think he's a likely guy. The rest I just don't see is this year, guys. I will say that I personally believe that Churio and Jackson Holiday will be in the Arizona Fall League. The other two, I truly think Dylan Cruz has an opportunity to break camp. Actually, of all these guys, I think Dylan Cruz might be one of the highest of all these players to break with the team next year. questions with Caminero.

Churio could be likely. But Dylan Cruz has been a freaking monster in his day. Hard hit across the board, destroying every level. He's now played 10 games. The homers are there. The stolen bases are there. He doesn't get beat. He's not striking out in any insane clip.

I really do think that's a possibility. Skeens is further away. My only argument to Skeens would be that this is a pitcher with a lot of wear and tear. There's already some questions maybe about shape and spending too much time in the miners. I'm not sure if this team would, that the pirates really would want to do. They may want to get the bullets while you have them.

So I think all five of these guys are guys to pay attention to for next year, which also makes them players to just keep a side eye on in September if a team decided to bring up, though I do not think skeins and crews are that. I do think Caminero, even Holiday and Shurio are all surprise options we could wake up one morning and see. And again, just remember those names. If you are a madman like me and you like to do these off-season slow, drafts. We have these 50 round draft champions drafts over at the end of BC.

These are just names that you draft in the later rounds and hopefully they make an impact at some point next year. Let's wrap up with some leftovers here and I've got four pitchers. Aaron Savali turned in his first quality start. As a member of the Tampa Bay raise, James Paxton also turned in a quality start. Nice to see his velocity was back up in this one. Last start, the average fastball was 93.8 miles per hour. This start 95.6 for Paxton. So Nice to see that back up there. John Gray, back-to-back seven-innings starts. Unfortunately, the other side of Reed Detmer's for John Gray in that one. And Blake's now just keeps doing his thing, six innings, two runs, five strikeouts for him.

He leads baseball with a 2.65 ERA. He also leads baseball with 78 walks this season. It's something that is, according to the Padreya's broadcast, has never been done in baseball history, leading the league in ERA and leading the league in walks. Crazy stuff. Towers, any thoughts on Blake Snell, John Gray, Paxton, and Aaron Savali? Yeah, I mean, I made the joke about Kevin Gosman ascending to his final form. This might be Blake Snell's final form where he just becomes the two true outcomes pitcher. Everything's either a strikeout or a walk. Yeah, I mean, look, in this one, at least the walks were low.

You know, that he had been like seven walks per nine since the All-Star break or something before this one. So I'll take that. That's that's an upgrade. for where he's been. You know, he's been someone who, obviously, it's not actionable since most trades are done, but I didn't expect him to sustain his production moving forward. He needs to figure out a way to keep the walks under control better than he had been. This is a good start.

Hopefully he can keep that going moving forward. I don't have a ton of faith in Aaron Savale. I know he's been proving me wrong all season in that regard, but I still think he's more like a four-ish ERA pitcher than what he's been. And the one thing that's interesting is just I wonder with all of the injuries for the raise, are they going to give him a little longer of a leash? You know, they're a team that doesn't necessarily let guys pitch third time through the order very often, doesn't let guys go six innings very often.

Even in this one, though, only 89 pitches. So, you know, not necessarily signs of that yet. That's always a problem with the raise is you've got to be really efficient to get the quality to start with them. but yeah if I had to rank Snell's way ahead of the rest of them but I think I'd still go Paxton Gray Savale among those three

Yeah I think so too Last pitcher note here Scott and I got duped by Matthew Libertor that's right once again He allowed six runs against the Oakland A's and you know we were buying back in because the velocity was up His last start he was talking about all these

mechanical adjustments that he's made The Cardinals have kind of figured something out and then he goes out, he gets rocked again. His velocity was back down. It looks like as of now, Matthew Libertor can only pitch well when he kind of really goes for it and that velocity is up.

When the velocity is up, it looks like he pitches pretty well, but other than that, it's been a pretty big train wreck for Matthew Libertor. A few hitting leftovers. I feel like this hasn't happened before. I could be wrong,

but Josh Lowe and Brandon Lowe, both homered in the same game. Josh, his 15th home run, Brandon, his 16th home run, and a cool stat per MLB.com, Brandon Lau became the fastest primary second baseman to reach 100 career home runs ever. He did it in 477 games, so shout out to him. Matt McLean, coming back down to Earth a little bit recently, and then he went off on Wednesday, three for five,

with a sock and two shoes, 13th home run, and now up to 11 steals on the season. Bryce Harper, three for four, with a double dong. He's got nine home runs and seven steals. The power is down this year. Feels like he might be a little bit unlucky. His expected slug is about 40 points higher than his actual slugging percentage. So perhaps we see more power from Bryce Harper over the final couple months here.

Julio Rodriguez, four for six with two RBI and two steals, has really turned it on in the second half, batting 295 with six homers, eight steals, and in 871 OPS. The call to the bullpen, a few updates for the Mets. Brooks Raleigh pitched in the seventh inning with a third. three-run lead. The Mets tacked on a few more runs. Adam Adavino pitched in the ninth.

And currently, I would say it's Adam Adavino's job to lose. For the Tigers, Jason Foley got the ninth ending with a four-run lead. He gave up three runs, including two homers. And the Tigers are kind of searching in the back end right now. I think Foley might be the leader,

but it also might not matter because they're a pretty bad team. For the Diamondbacks, Welsh, you know, used to come on here every week. We didn't know who the closer was. We know who the closer is now. want to ask me is Pete Paul Seawald the answer sure of course he is he's now the answer even though all the other guys still stink Miguel Castro remember we had that

giving up runs they all stink good trade everything for Paul Seawald doesn't matter anymore but yes he is the answer Frank he is the guy 25th save back-to-back days with a save for Paul Seawald for the braes Riesel Eglacius picked up his 23rd for the Angels Carlos Estevez has struggled recently he allowed two hits and a long fly ball to right center field. I thought it was out, but just missed being a walk-off three-run homer. He escaped with his 26th save,

but it's been a rough go here for Carlos Estevez. Gregory Santos entered in the ninth inning with a two-run lead. Did not record an out. He gave up a three-run homer to Christopher Morel took his second blown save and first loss of the year. For the Mariners, with Andres Munoz unavailable,

Matt Brash got the ninth inning. He gave up a solo homer but picked up his third save. It feels like the Morrow. Mariners have had a save opportunity every single game since Paul Seawald has been traded. And frankly, I think that they've been overworking Andreas Munoz. And that's why he hasn't been at his best. So he needed a day off.

He threw like 42 pitches on Tuesday night. Hopefully he gets back on track. And for the Padre, Josh Hader picked up his 27th save of the year. To stream or not to stream, Thursday we've got a light slate of action. I think we've only got six games. And the only name I gave out yesterday was Jose Cantana at the Cardinals. And even that one I don't really love. Big old, nope.

None of it. Maybe Rich Hill, if you want to pretend the Diamondback offense is going to kind of be putrid. But I don't want to hinge the rest of my week on these. No. Slent is not a streamer at this point, right? He's two-roastered, so no. Kenton is fine. I mean, at least he's going deep into games.

You know, that's pretty much I don't think he's good, but he can be useful. Yeah, Lance Lynn up to 93% rostered and has looked pretty good with the Dodgers recently. On Friday, we have a full slate, but not many waiver wire pitchers available. I guess I would go with Andrew Heaney against the Brewers and maybe Seth Lugo against the debacks. I don't want to say Brandon fought. Like, I love the things that it's changing and everything like that, the strikeouts. The only thing is this like that team is the type of team I think that can get 8,

you know, he can get eight strikeouts on, but it's not the team for how he gives up homers. So, yeah, I would rather play the other side if I was playing that. Heaney's the only one that really jumped out to me as something I'd want to play. All right, we're going to wrap there for the Chris's Towers and the Welsh. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today.

Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.