Leading Off August 26th, 2024 (Ep. 892)

to you about all the latest and greatest. We will and can answer some of your questions. So for all of our peanuts and Crackerjacks that are out there, you can drop some questions in the chat, whether it's like a streamer or a pickup or anything like that. We will try to answer that. We got some best bets and we got a whole lot more. Mister Joe Rico, how are you, my friend? Welcome back into an almost September.

And I'm like what, So I get up, I get up on my app and I'm like, holy crap, we got a no hitter going on. We got all these strikeouts, Joe, no kidding, they're they're you know, in the bottom of the inning. Blah blah blah. Get to the next inning, first at batter Taylor Ward and he hits the homer my first batter seeing Boden Francis in the no hitter because they were going to have me come on TV and foly, that's part of it. So it's my fault. I'm just trying to tell you all. It is my fault.

But Boden France has struck out a career high twelve as he dominated these dudes. He had that going into the ninth inning, and then it was Taylor Ward just crushing that homer. He ended up walking three. He hit a batter, which was Taylor Ward career high pitches. I was monitoring those pitches as it was going one hundred and seventeen eighty four for strikes. Ridiculous unless you're Taylor Ward, who threw a bunch of shade and was just like, yeah,

I don't know. Maybe other people were getting tough stuff, but he looked pretty hittable to me, and to be fair, he did crush him. What are your thoughts, I was, I've been kind of like indifferent on Boden Francis, but he's one of those guys that he is ending immensely strong talk to me about this performance.

I hate that matchup. By the way, for Francis one hundred and seventeen pitches, he had ten whiffs off the fastball. Always very interesting too, because like I think that is speaking to the splitter. It was something I said in the off season which has been completely counter to Logan Gilbert. I think I said. I think I said it with Eno where we were talking about, you know, guys that you know have these really good splitters are implementing high usage of splitters, and it's like we got to have

like a really good fastball like that. That's something that plays up and if they work, they coincide together so well. And I at that time kind of thought Logan maybe didn't. And that is something that at least Francis is putting up. Though it's not a dominant fastball, it's sitting around ninety two. But he had ten whiffs and forty one swings on the fastball. That fastball set sixty eight percent in the zone.

That's like a wild in zone percentage, and he only had five other whiffs off of the splitter and the slider combined. It's okay. So I mean he had a twelve strike I just want to point this out, a twelve strikeout performance with one hundred and seventeen pitches and he only had a twenty three percent whiff rate, Like that's not necessarily ideal. That was like he dominated this situation.

But from an overall perspective, I still don't know if he has like absolutely ridiculously dominant you know, stuff like swing and miss stuff. So maybe I'm just gonna like keep kind of fading until the end of the season. But I absolutely hate those matchups.

but next week. I haven't really looked forward to the matchup so much, but I feel like he's somebody where you may get a few more quality starts out of him going forward. It's a bit dicey, it's a bit dicey, but I think you got to give it a chance.

But I think it's guys trying to like keep up and chase and stuff like that, so you know, it's solid and they keep working, and yeah, it's probably something to look at. By the way, this is so interesting. So Angelo says we start playoffs next week. All seven of his teams made it pretty easy. That's in there. Somebody in the chat said they don't start for oh yeah,

yeah right here. Michael says, I have two more weeks of regular season before playoffs, and then we have other people that are like I'm in the playoffs right now. I just still think that's like we got to fix that. We got to fix that. In fantasy baseball where we have I mean, it's just so large and big, like maybe you really can't. But it's like in fantasy football, it's like, oh, maybe you go to week eighteen, you're probably in week seventeen, and that's pretty standard. There's just

not a standard here. There's like a month deviation between it. But well, you know, we'll never actually get there. Let's talk about Aaron Judge two for four, walk, two homers. He is now up to fifty one homers, one hundred and twenty two RBI, he's hitting three thirty three. But here was the thing I wanted to mention. He is on pace to break his single season al home run record sixty three paced homers. And I had asked that, Did I ask you this earlier? What was going to happen?

Sixty homers by Judge or eighty stolen bases by Ellie? Did I ask you that question? Or was that Bubba or Bogman or in my head.

single greatest hitter that you ever watch. I mean every singe. Now, Judge does have that thing where when you know he's up to it bat you're like, oh, something's gonna happen. You know, Like there's not a lot of hitters that have that. Otani has that, and Judge has that where every time up you're like, oh, some wreckage is gonna happen, Like you don't expect a negative outcome, and that that's

what Bonds was. Every time he was up, it was like, oh, you know, they're either going to just try to walk him because they're terrified of him, or he's gonna to have absolute damage. So and Walkee said, Bonds is the best hitter. And I don't understand why anyone argues it aside from killing time. Well we you know why they argue it, Yeah, because of steroids. But like at the end of the day, the problem that you kind of have is like the steroids didn't like change the eye

and the type of hittory he was. It just maybe changed the impact of it. But Barry Bonds was the greatest hitter I've ever seen, and Judge exemplifies some of that stuff. It's not the same, it's not the same, but he's the most dangerous hitter in baseball right now. Oh I think yeah.

I don't think they were ever at this level. Like I think that over a prolonged period of time, pooh Holes his career, Cabrera's career at this point are still more impressed, so was specifically pooh Holes, But on like a per at bad basis. I don't think they were ever as scary as Judges right now.

It's Bonds and Maddox breaking down and at bat and it's like it goes to what Bonds thinks is gonna happen, and then Maddix says, here's what I'm gonna do, and Bonds, by the way, perfectly calls He's like, you know, he thinks I'm going I'm looking for this, but I'm now going to look for this. And it keeps going back and back and back on the at bats of what they're going to do Maddix versus him, and then it ends with Barry Bonds absolutely just murdering the ball into

right field. It's a really cool video. You could probably just look it up. It's from the MLB Network Mattic Special. Okay, cool, thank you, Fred. That definitely go check out that video. At least it's an awesome one. But judges on another historic pace on the home run side. And this is another year of me being on this show realizing had you just pick Aaron Judge every single day, you would be winning the home run contest. That's just how it is. Right now, we'll do the home run board here in

a little bit. We got this is like a version of rookie. Lookie, we got a bunch of rookie stuff going out here. This happened after the show on Friday, but it was announced that Dylan Cruz, top prospect with the Nationals. Dylan Cruz was being called up for today, so he is going to be in the lineup today. He was one of my favorites, brother of my favorite from that draft class we had a year and a

half ago, two seventy two average. So far this year, twenty one doubles, thirteen homers, twenty five stolen bases between Double A and Triple A. It's been a pretty good season. It has not been historic, unfortunately. It's been very similar to a lot of these prospects that are out there

right now. It's actually been this ongoing discussion I've been having in the prospect world of when you lose Kim and Arrow, you lose Domingez, you lose all these dudes, you know, Jackson Holiday, that like, what does the top look like anymore? And it kind of defaults to all these guys that are good but not great. These two seventy hitters, the Roman Anthony's of the world, the Walker Jenkins, who's really far away, the Dylan cruise is. There's nobody

it feels that special. I have always personally loved Dylan Cruz. His chase rate has been a little bit of a worry as far as what the strikeouts are, but he's got all fields power, put up really great all fields exit velocities, I think he's a super smart hitter. He's stealing more bases than we've seen, and we're gonna get a cup of coffee for him to start next year. So I think this is great for next year. I would in a five outfielder league, he's a must pick

up if he is out there right now. I think he's gonna get significant playing time, and I don't know what the production's going to be like, but I think this is a great sign for next year. Is there any hesitation with the lack of success from the rookies on picking up Cruise at all?

prospect like a must roster type of player everywhere. I think he's fine in like those deeper twelves like you mentioned fifteen team leagues, but yeah, prospects as a whole just have kind of sucked, and it's kind of taken the fun out of their recalls this season to some extent. So yeah, deeper leagues, I would take a chance shallow formats. Not really. We're at the point though now I think, well,

she'd much more prospects inclined than I am. Guys can just play every day at this point and not exceed the threshold, right are we.

which hand up, I was wrong. We said this. I don't even know if I like corrected it from a couple of weeks back that the Collective Bargaining Agreement added that September now does count for service time. So whatever I said some weeks back was incorrect about the camon Aro thing, which are still I still don't understand. You know, it's like we're not gonna bring him up all season. We're gonna bring them up just in time so he can lose his eligibility and us really not get anything

outside of you know, him getting some games in. But you know, he'll None of these guys will lose any

service time. They'll be eligible. And Dylan Cruz is like the first of the guys that you should put on the list for, like, oh, he's going to break camp next year and he will be a Rookie of the Year candidate, and that should be the piece that you go in, Like I think Jason Dominguez will have that next year, and presumably depending what that roster looks like, but you would think he would and Dylan Cruz would be the guy as well. Speaking of just want to

throw this out because Anthony's in here. Anthony was famous for the Camonaro questions. Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? I don't know, I don't know. Now he's finally here. Camonaro is having a really good run so far. Two homers, two stolen bases, hitting over three hundred, the hard hit rates over fifty percent. He's barreling great.

He does have a negative launch angle, and I don't know if you know this, he had a negative laun angle last year as well, classic like rookie thing from readjusting. But Camonaro has been doing really well and I think in a short sample size that's why I would be comfortable picking up Cruise. And you know, at the end of the day for next season, I actually think the lack of success from a lot of rookies is not

the worst thing in the world. It's going to depreciate a lot of the value as far as like or the equity of what you have to pay for them next year, and that's good. A guy like Dylan Cruz, I think, I'll just say it right now. I think it's a sneaky guy to invest in next year, especially if we see some of that strikeout rate come down a little bit or is manageable in this early part of the season. But now they won't cost you know, top fifty, top forty or anything like that. Except Cavin Arrow.

He's really hot. He'll be an interesting one to talk about through the back half of the year. I don't know where that'll go.

going to be massively expensive, Jackson Merrill massively expensive. Kevin Arrow in a short sample size with success, will be expensive. The rookies. Everyone will be very timid about, understandably so because we're really understanding, like how dramatic the changes in the adjustment from Triple A TOUBA unless you're a pitcher. Unless you're Paul Skens, who went in the first round above his draft, which we talked about last year our

last episode. So while a couple other rookies that are coming up here, Craig Mish reported that the Marlins are bringing up Griffin Conine from Triple A, Jeff Conine's kid, twenty seven years old. Not really a rookie, but he'll be coming up. I don't have high expectations. A little bit of power and the Royals Tyler Gentry is starting in right field and batting ninth for Game one today, which I think is coming up here in just a couple of minutes. Gentry's kind of I've seen him a

ton between AFL and the backfields. He's been with the Royals for some time. Pretty you know, solid power guy. I don't know if the contact then the hitability is going to be there, but like he seems like he could be above average, like fourth outfielder in baseball. Maybe someone to look out for. And ty Madden with the Tigers is going to be starting really rough, go over

six plus ERA in the minors. I'm not it's a really bad matchup, so he might stack up some strikeouts because he had some big minor league strike up performances. But no, thanks, no thank you, That's what I say. Let's keep going here. Jackson Merrill. Speaking of Jackson Merrill, had a walk off homer against Edwin Diaz. He keeps holding down this Rookie of the Year. He is the unanimous Rookie of the Year favorite right now, even after

Paul Skein's dominant performance. We're only tracking that because I have my debt and I'm very selfish about that. Joe, and you said it like before we even started off air. You're like, hey, do you see Jackson Merrill. I still think it's one of the wildest things. But I don't recall and this is why I think Jackson Merrill is going to be so special going into next year. I don't recall a rookie that has been this consistent throughout the year. Like He's had points where he's been not

like special, but he hasn't had the Jackson cheerio. I hit a buck ninety one month. He is just he has gotten better.

so much. Like, I don't know, there's something that doesn't feel as legit about Meryll as I feel about Wood and Churio. I don't think that he is gonna. I might just be a hater. I could very well just be a hater. I just don't view him in as positive a light as I do would and Churio I would take those guys. Maybe it is just the upside chase in the upside, but I think they're going to be more attractive assets next season.

seems about it. And then he got better and then he gets better, And I feel like I'm not saying that Jackson Merril will become Bobby Witt junior, but I think there's a similar path in that, Like every looked at him and you were like, oh, he's capped, And I'm not sure that he is, because comparing those three players you just did, Meryl's the more consistent and the better contact hitter. I don't know, and he is stealing and he's showing off power while playing in San Diego.

I don't know. I think he's going to be underrated. And this might be one of those things where it's like, if you stack those three up to me and you say, oh, well, Cheerio is going to cost a third, would cost a third, a Meryl cost a fourth Meryl all day, Give me the discount. Give me the discount on those three guys. It's like an RB type of situation in fantasy football. It's like it's a tier or an sp like we talked about starting pitchers. Just give me the lowest of

the tier of those players. Last on the big news notes, this is just that wild one. I wanted to mention that Danny Jansen is starting behind the plate today against the Blue Jays, And as noted everywhere, the craziness behind this is because this was a suspended game between the Red Sox and Blue Jays, and Danny Jansen was a Blue Jay is now a Red Sox. So now he will become the first player in MLB history to appear

for two teams in the same game. And this note on here it says, in fact, Jansen is actually set to hit for the Blue Jays when the game resumes, which means for a moment, Jansen will be both hitting and catching at the same time on the scoreboard. We I mean, I guess they'll alter that, like that's going to be changing the play by play. But he will be the first player ever to play for two teams in the same game. And I, for some reason, I kind of thought that might have happened, like in the

twenties or something. Someone got sold for a pack of cigarettes and a and a half, you know, a half eaten a chicken leg, and then the player would have been traded over, like I don't know, like in the twenties, I felt like players could be sold for seven dollars and they could have moved over. But I guess I'm wrong.

thing is in the book. It will show that he was a catcher for the Blue Jays and then he was a catcher for the Red Sox, and I guess perceivably he's gonna hit. So I don't know, that's wild.

a player or money? I feel like that happened ted for.

nothing or something like that. Speaking of Babe Ruth, by the way, in the kind of just for fun category, I don't know what and I'm forgetting what auction was. Might have been Golden auctions. But over the weekend, Babe Ruth's shot jersey, you know, pointing out calling my shot jersey, sold for a record twenty four million dollars. That singular

jersey sold for twenty four million dollars. So the question is, Joe, would you if you had that type of money, you had that elon type of money where you could just be like, I'm getting it for whatever, would you put it on after paying that?

don't know, like people are weird about memorabilia. But that is I believe the most twenty four MILLI I mean, this is record, twenty four million dollars called shot Jersey is absolutely wild. The chat. By the way, Wonky says back in twenty thirteen, Mike Cisco was traded for nothing, not rent, not catfish, not a twenty five pound turkey, absolutely nothing. Conk said that there's a manager that was traded for like a bucket of balls. Yeah, maybe I do,

like the Dallas Kaico was traded for a dollar. That's but I'm telling you there is somebody out there that was traded for like a thing. I feel it in my bones that there was a player that was traded for a thing. So if you know what that thing is, or you're really good at Google, which most likely the answer will come from, even if it's not live, put it in the chat later or put it into the

comments section, because I want to. I feel like there was someone that was traded for like, you know, six horses or something like that, like in the nineteen tens, so.

You know. It was like to cover that play. He was traded for the price of like I want, I want like you say this Dave Winfield was for dinner. I want to see the two parties. I want a plate of mashed potato given to the other party and Dave Winfield walking over. I want proof, not money that was like perceivably pushed over. But that's me all right.

Three up and three down, Gino sworez Eohineo four for four with a homer and three RBIs has absolutely been the most ridiculous player over the last like forty days least month. He has been on an absolute fricking tear. Three RBI is a homer, four for four. I didn't write the player's name, but I do know this was Kevin Gossman. Seven innings, ten strikeouts and earn run. I think he was very motivated after the Bowden Francis start. All those guys were, all those pitchers I think were

really locked in. And DJ Hurs continues to be a streamable option guys, especially for strikeouts. Five innings, eight k's this weekend. So if he's got a half decent matchup out there, you got to put him out because the strikeouts are going to be going on the down. Tanner Hawk has completely fallen apart. This is someone I was ready to just raise the roof for as far as ranks go, but that ain't gonna happen now. Six innings, six earned runs, four walks. Hopefully he can find it

into next year. Dylan Dingler oh for five with four strikeouts, not the Mark Wahlberg version. And Merril Kelly Merle has not been good. Six innings, four earned runs, three walks. He has not been good. No bueno, Let's see Michael info Joe. Joe has traded for a hand puppet and you put a Z on his name. I like that? Was there any others? I thought there was another? Oh, Walkee said Dodgers catcher Cliff Dapper was traded for Ernie Hallwell, the broadcaster. Okay, so well it's still a human. Those

are still humans. But I do think that's that's a little bit more fun. They traded for a broadcaster.

So I don't know how he returns in the first week in September, but they're still saying he is though he's still not even running. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced that precautionary X rays on the forum of Sho Heo Tani came back negative of any fractures. So that's why we didn't lead it at the tippy top because there's nothing really too crazy there. Robbie Ray was removed from Sunday starting against the Mariners in the fourth inning due

to left hamstring tightness. Michael Harris is considered day to day after X rays on his left hand came back negative, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto is going to make a rehab start from trip on Thursday. By the way, Also on the injury report, Welsh yesterday mid run leg just went out and I think it's either it's a calf or an achilles thing. So we woke up feeling better. We're currently day to day. We have not gone for X rays, but we're hoping to get back out there on the

run soon. But Welsh day to day with the achilles injury. So got a stretch good thoughts. I you know what, it was my most stretched day. I have not been doing a very good job of stretching. I stretched more than I had ever done and then my last mile boom leg and I had to walk it out. So I don't know. I think stretching did me bad. All right, friends, let's get some bets in here. Joe's been pretty good on those prop bets, so you know we got more.

It's time for Monday's best bets of the day. We go with not Joey P, Joe Arico, Joey O and the Welsh Joe. What do we got here for your best bets of the day. I know we're going to get some player props in.

Parker over two and a half earned runs. I've been liking the over earned run bets. Those have been very kind. And with Mitchell Parker he does very well generally against the poor opponents. When he's facing a good team like the Yankees, like he is today, things generally don't go too well. Philadelphia destroyed him a few weeks ago San Diego Milwaukee the match. Whenever he faces even a competent offense,

he doesn't do terribly well. So over two and a half earned runs, Judge and Sodo can get that taken care of in the first inning with the way things have been going recently. And then I'm going with a little bit of a different one than what I usually do. I'm going for a hitter strikeout prop Hal Rawley over one and a half strikeouts A plus one fifty in Seattle,

where everybody strikes out at an historic rate. Hal Rawley has a thirty per cent strikeout rate to begin with, and then you get Ryan Papio coming in, who's looked very good, very strong strikeout pitcher. I think we'll see him strike out Kyl Rawley a couple times. Say that one's the fun one at plus one fifty, the others at minus one forty minus one forty five, and of course all at BET three six five.

and Pittsburgh is one of the worst. They're actually, I believe third worst on this so I really like that one's the only nerfy that I like. Going with Seattle Mariners on the money line through the first five innings, so first five money line. It is minus one thirty five, but Bryce Miller has been on DOOD alert throughout the beginning of the this back half of the year, so gim me Bryce Miller backing him essentially through the first five. And then I kind of went with a wacky one

as well. I took two hit run in RBI totals and I'm playing under, So I'm parlaying two guys to go under their hit run RBI total number one. I'm taking Jesus Sanchez, who is propped up because Colorado. To be fair, he has I think he has hit this two and a half number like twice in his last four games, and he is up against Colorado, but I'm going to play against it. So I'm going under two and a half hit run RBI for Hazu Sanchez, and I'm pairing that with Dominic Fletcher with the White Sox

under one and a half hit run RBI. Both of those combined plus one fifty five, So I'm going to give that a shot. That should be fun playing the under on the hit run RBI totals. So I got the Nurfey in Chicago Seattle first five money line, and then that under hit run RBI, Dominic Fletcher and Jesu Sanchez. Rico's got Bailey over over strikeouts, Mitchell Parker over earned

runs and cal Raley over strikeouts. There you go, friends on the best bets of the day, brought to you by Bet three sixty five, where you can use promo code leading off bet five dollars get one hundred and fifty in bonus bets. Do it today promo code leading off in the gambling problem called one eight hundred bets off or one eight hundred gambler. We do have a betting board here. Did I post it up here?

thirty nine. He's about to cross the forty marker. South African g has a commanding lead for this game fifty one, the only one with fifty homers. B Trott's at forty eight, Larry's at forty five. There is a race at the top in South African Ge has got that covered right now. Hole, Baby, it's getting nutty, fred Dinger, did you Yep? I'm Larry birding it. I'm at thirty three, so I'm one off. If I can get a two homer day, let's go, Let's go, let's go. By the way, Lee, Yes, I

should have mentioned that Nurphy's and unders. This is the hate hate hate day. I'm being a hater today as far as what I'm doing. But Joe, what do you got for your home run call.

back again on Wednesday. Casey Bubba's here as we rock you through all of your playoff stuff and all the latest around the baseball world. For Joe Rico, I'm Chris Welsher. We'll talk to you next time right here on leading off. Peace out, friends, Bye bye. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball Podcast.