Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros MLB. This is leading off live. It is me Joey p joe Pisipia. That of course is the Welsh, and I've been waiting a long time to say that, Oh we let's go. We've actually got real baseball to talk about today. Because the Dodgers and the Cubs were playing early this morning, I was up at six am, as I always am, so it was pretty easy for me to watch it. A little harder for the Welsh, I know he's been catching up on the highlight a little tougher there in Arizona.
But as you can see, a little new look. We got some cool new logos, incredible work from our team here wrong side there there it is. Oh yeah, and all of you hanging out joining us on Twitch now for those of you who are watching on YouTube live on demand there as we are always gonna be a live show to tape no matter what. We're not pre recorded in that kind of weird way. We go live because that's the beauty of this show. But it is
a little different this year. So if you're gonna watch us live and interact, get your questions answered, all that fun stuff, all you gotta do is go to Twitch, Twitch dot tv Slash Fantasy Pros. It's easy, it's fun, and it's a great way for us to take this show to the next level. I know it's different, but this is the pitch I'm gonna make to everybody. Welsh, You're ready for this when.
You join twitch, Let's hear it.
I love Brooklyn nine nine. Great show, right, great show started off on Fox. Right, everybody loved it. They wanted to get rid of it, they wanted to move it around, but instead NBC picked it up and then you can watch it on NBC. So if you love Brooklyn nine nine, you don't stop watching it live. You don't start making stop making it a part of your daily routine because you love the show, right, you make sure that you say, well, if it's on NBC, now I'm gonna watch on NBC.
Same thing. We're on Twitch live, so watch us on Twitch live, and if not, you can still watch us on the YouTube channel every single day. Welsh. I think, in full Jake Parolta mode, we have to support our Jake Parolta's. We are the Jake Parolta's around this joint. I think that's the best way I could put it to people of how we're moving things along in twenty twenty five.
I think that's a good sell That was a very good selling point. The only thing that changes on YouTube is the live portion of it. The video is still there, maybe it'll be out earlier than ever. The live portion is just moving here. So I know it's very very stressful. But all you do is get the other app come and watch us live twelve pm Eastern every single day and your golden if live is your goal, because we'll
be answering questions. We've got the whole set of Monday through Friday baseball action for you if you want live. If you are not a live guy, yeah, nothing to worry about. Nothing changes for you. Easy change is not too scary. We're still here for you to hold your hand the whole way.
This is the question, who's the Charles Boyle. We both want to be Jake Peralta, that's the problem, but I probably me. I'm more of the Charles Boyle. I do love to cook. I have a food snob, so that's probably the way it goes. You're definitely I would like to be the Andre Brower. I think that would probably be you know, the ultimate level, but you know, we've got a long way to go before.
I never watched the final season. It's good, yeah yeah, And the character names are kind of escaping me a little bit. But like phenomenal show. I don't watch a lot of like sitcommy, like you know, cable TV type of shows. Brooklyn ninety nine is like near the top. It had an amazing run of.
It was so funny. So if I missed when Gina Lynetti left because she had brought a certain madness to that show, really enjoyed, that would be the character who is the she's like the secretary.
For Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're done.
Yeah, exactly, wonderful, wonderful. Why I'm blocking on the the name of Gina Lennette All her name? What's the name of the actress who played her? Oh my god, Chelsea Parretti. Chelsea Parretti. By the way, a few people don't know that there we go. That wust be a funny house. But we're a funny house. Dude. Let's get to baseball. Let's talk, because we had a game go on today,
actually count it was a game. It was more of an exhibition game, but there were real stats that are going to really count in your fantasy leagues, most of them anyway, and we want to recap all of that, and I think it's a fun thing to take a look at what was there, what wasn't there. First, the pomp and circumstance, the fact that you had two Japanese pitchers, first time ever going against each other on opening day, having that happen in Japan, with showed to Imanaga and
with the Yamamodo, that was terrific. The Pokemon opening. I don't know if you saw this, but the monsters of Major League Baseball coming to Japan. I'm not a Pokemon guy. I'm too old for that, but I thought it was cool anyway, So I enjoyed this. The crowd was live. The crowd was very exciting. They were so excited when al Tani would come up. And then we'll get really quiet too because they were watching so intent and it
was a game that had a few moments. It was interesting because show to Amanaga, guy that really is good with control walk four guys. I think that's a career high for him for show to Imanaga in this one, so he was control was a little off in the second inning, he worked around those walks. He had walked a few and was able to get around it. Second inning a bit of a tough one for Yamamoto as well. Miguel Amaya had the big hit there. That was great to see. So I want to talk about the pitching
performances first, because they were limited. They felt like exhibition e sort of feel to everything. But neither guy, to me, looked super comfortable. Neither guy looked like they were in a groove. It felt like spring training to me, and I wouldn't take too much out of this. What's your take on what you saw from Yamamoto and Ima Naga this morning?
Yeah, I mean I would say, first off, both the performances, even though they're like a little squirrely if you're looking at like command, they're both great, you know. I mean, Ima and Aga ended up, you know, getting that splitter going. I think it was let's see, I think it was four shutout innings. Yeah, four shutout innings. He didn't give up a earned run. The sweeper was a little bit wonky, not penguin ish, but just wonky. He ended up throwing
thirty one percent fastball, thirty nine percent splitter. We were seeing some sweeper in there, so he's not just two pitch pitchy, which is very good, but it was only a thirty three percent zone rate. He just didn't do a whole lot. I got a couple called strikes. Everything was coming off of the splitter, fastball was all right. Imaaga was solid, and the same thing could be said about Yamamoto.
You know.
Interesting on the betting side, it was almost plus money for Emanaga at a walk a guy. Can you imagine if you had put in, if you could have got two three walks on the plus side, it was like minus one.
Well, because he's not a guy who walked. You could see the frustration on his face too. He just didn't have that feel that command that he usually does, and you would see him and the I want to say, at least the first one was a three to two count too, where he just like so defeated, you know, the catcher was throwing the ball back to him. They had a close up and he was like, oh, like, I can't believe I did that, and put the first guy on and luckily he was able to manage it.
But you're right, like it was just not your vintagey Minaga.
No, and both of these guys the line, I mean, the lines were telling us so much. By the way, you want to get some peak out of what you know, the books knew. It was fourteen and a half outs for both of these guys, So for you at home, that's under five innings. They had like a dual parlay of like ten strikeouts for both of these guys. Not only did they not hit that, both went under their individual strikeout props. Both went over their walks. Because it's
the exhibition. Just real quick on Yamamoto fastball splitter combination was pretty phenomenal. The splitter had a forty seven percent whiff rate. It had a higher zone percentage than Iman August sweeper. But the fastball looked great. It was getting it was getting called strikes while the splitter was getting whiffs. That's what you want, and this is a battle of fastballs versus splitters. So I actually take away when you say, like, hey,
don't take away. I think there were both great performances. They just exhibitioned this to hell. Sixty nine pitches for Eeman August, seventy two for Yamamoto. That's well under what you would even expect on an opening day, you'd be looking closer to like a eighty Yeah, eighty five is kind of the number that had stuck in my head. So they went under it. And that's like a twofold
thing for me. At the end of the day, Joe, it's like a incredible atmosphere, incredible everything, except they bury the game at three am on Pacific standard time, six am on the East. Nothing you could do, Yes, you can. You can make it later, and you can make everybody there go to the game later. One hundred percent you can do something about it. That's I think a first mistake with all this stuff. You just can't bury these games. And I don't care where it.
Because like what's the player's body clock like to you want to start games at nine pm when they're there? I mean that it's tricky.
I mean, I mean they're already on some weird clock situations. So that that's A. And then B is just you know, the pitching side, you having like long relievers like Ben Brown came in, got a ton of whiffs, but he gave up multiple runs. He was walking a bunch like the hitters didn't quite look like they were locked in. I mean, Pete Krimstrong was. I mean, we'll talk about
the hitters. I don't want to jump into it, but the pitchers on these counts is like the secondary thing that I think is kind of a problem with these I don't like to see the beginning of the season guys under seventy pitches to start. But Yamamoto and ima Aga both stepped up, Both look solid, and I think people can feel pretty confident as far as a fantasy goes.
And what I'm confident is that our intelligent, good looking audience, our peanuts, and our Crackerjacks are going to continue to find us on Twitch. Here's mister Buster. Well we're on Twitch now. Clearly mister Buster found us and appreciates thanks to the Welsh discord announcement right before the show boom. Now we're here. So this is it. We were over there and now we're over here. Now that's what we're doing. It's going to be very easy. Now, there were some
people that weren't over there. They went over there, but they didn't play Freddie Freeman did not play rib Discomfort.
I don't like that came. That came like I was up late. I had tell you I was up like late late. Unfortunately, for some reason, and it was a couple hours before the game started. On the West coast. There was no announcement at least that I saw about Freddy Freeman being scratched, so that one was late. The Mookie Bets one we we've known, and it's kind of a little scary.
The Moviie Bets one lost fifteen pounds too in this illness. I don't think Mookie Bets had fifteen pounds to lose. He's not exactly, He's not a big fatty walking around necessarily the clubhouse.
You know, this is not is not me, Like I lost like twenty pounds in like two weeks or whatever from being super sick, Like I can lose that.
Bartolle loses fifteen pounds. That's good. His heart will thank him. I think that's now. And I love Bartolo, I absolutely adore him. But obviously, you know, guys are gonna push it, nor should they at this stage. Like that's where we're at with this stuff. So again, very exhibition feel. It also felt to me a very I guess set up for the rest of the year. Right, So Dodger starters are going to keep you in games, right, They're going to get to your bullpen. They're going to hit the
snot out of your bullpen. Then they're going to drop that incredible bullpen on you and its lights out games over to me, it was a very Dodger victory today and I think a harbinger of things to come in the future, which great.
Yeah, that Dodger bullpen's nasty. I mean also, like, you know, they just threw band out there, but Casparius came in and he threw three of the top velo pitches overall, and he ended up being like the set I guess you call it the seventh inning guy. And he ends up, you know, just rocking fastballs left and right. They then go to try and and and Tanner Scott is a beast, and I've been pretty adamant about this, Like Tanner Scott
is one of the best values. We just did a show on our breakouts and my breakout relief pitcher is Andres Munios. I think Andres Munos is going to like take a big step up. But like Tanner Scott was going after and the only reason he is going after a lot of these guys is because there's like a little bit of questionable like will they commit to going to Tanner Scott. Could it go to you know, Kirby Yates. Are they gonna move it around first opportunity? Tanner Scott
absolutely lock that down. He just pumped fastballs into them and he end up might be in just an absolute smash steal top you know, eight, top seven closer when it's all done.
Mctunda out here too, answering the question, what's the over under for the Dodgers' win total one oh nine and a half? Is that true? Is that the number? Welsh? I gotta look at that. I gotta double check on that one. But it's good to see r P nuts and cracker Jacks filtering into the chat. Also good to see the youth. That's right, the children of our future. Let them lead the way. And Matt Shaw purchased contract. He played in this game. It was good to see
him out there again. I'm not gonna take too much out of the one outing here for Shaw, the one appearance here for him so far. He started off spring training slow because of an injury. He's picking things up, but this is good. It's good to see Miguel Almaya, who made some adjustments last year in the second half.
I mean that's an offensive potential catcher there in fantasy leagues like don't sleep on a Mayle like that could be a guy that could you know, pop at unexpectedly so and be a guy we're talking about a waiver wire in single catcher leagues in two weeks from now that you got to go running at him. So you might want to be ahead of that game too. But Matt Shaw. Great to see him playing with the Cubs. This is what the cub should be doing. There's nothing left for him to prove. We just did our all
sleeper team, our all breakout team. I'm not going to tell you who had Matt Shaw, but I will say Matt Shaw was on one of those lists. Those shows will be out on YouTube this week. But well, I mean, I don't think there's anything left for him to do with the minor leagues. You got to get to the major leagues. That's what it's all about.
What's the by the way, I don't know those my computer are yours. But it was the puppet. We almost had a puppet Joe.
I haven't missed one. Yeah, okay, I think I'm good. They're saying puppet Joe, So I don't know if I missed something there, but Dodgers actually has a one.
No, you just you stalled out and then that went back. We almost had the first Puppet Joe moment on Twitch.
I mean that would be appropriate, the first one. But the point I'm making is, look, you're in this situation. Now, you are all in. You push your chips into the middle. Here, you're the Cubs. You've got two guys at the top of this rotation you can believe in. You've got enough prospects too that if you have to make a move for another pitcher at the All Star break, you could probably pull it off. You've moved you know, Cam Smith for Kyle Tucker, and now it's all in play mat Shaw.
See what you get out of him, and I think you're going to be rewarded. So again, how did this make you feel to see Shaw as the opening day guy here for the Cubs.
Yeah, I mean the performance didn't do much. Obviously he ended up having strikeout, you know, didn't zero for four. But Callie, I don't know if you're able to go back to the lineup thing for just one second, the lineup screen, if we could look at it, and the thing that gets me.
In case for the people were asking. He didn't have two strikeouts in the game, but he did play third base. There was some questions where would he play potentially, but third base is the.
Spot right there. That's what I wanted everyone to look at. He hit fifth. He hit fifth in that lineup already prime spot. You're hitting in front, you got Tucker. I mean, I don't mind this lineup. If it's Hap, Suzuki and Tucker. There's an opportunity just to throw it out there that Matt Show could move up to four if he's already hitting five, So you can go back to Matshaw if you want. I just want everyone to see he's hitting
in front of danceby Swanson. He's hitting in front of I mean, Peter Armstrong was just all world spring training. Didn't do much in this game either. But and I don't know how many lefties they want to put up at the top. Having that speed at the bottom is great, but having Matt Shaw in, you know, optioned up. He's starting at third base on opening day in Japan and he's hitting five tells you a lot. I feel very
comfortable with an investment in him. There's kind of a betting side to me too, because n L is still a little bit open. You know, Rokie's the favorite. You've got Dylan Cruz match show is still around four to four and a half to one, and like, I just I love the I love the confidence and where they're putting him in the lineup. So this performance, it's whatever they traveled and there's a lot going on with it.
But for him to be hitting that high early on, I think it's very telling of like what situations he's going to be put into. And he had a great spring. I mean, he was kind of you know, tanking the ball, and I'm I'm definitely even I'm like a next level confident that they didn't go and bury him down at eight or something like that.
A little lot of protection with a veteran like Dansby Swanson. And of course the jerk wagon has pulled into the station officially, So Baseball's back. Here's Mike Mayor Joe celebrating over four to two. K's baseball is back. I'm celebrating the youth of this nation in baseball of America playing in the games in the big leagues. Not a double A and triple A. That's what I'm celebrating Mike Mayor. That's right, that's what I'm no home run calls today.
Oh he's me mctunda's home run call those. That's good. We're not doing home runs.
I don't even think about the home run call. The series now that's going to start opening day. By the way, you want to do it, go over. It's Premium Discord, I believe if you just have a Fantasy Pros it's something I learned. If you have a Fantasy Pros Premium account, there's also the Premium Discord, Fantasypros dot Com, slash Discord, you can join in. I did an announcement before to show everybody that we're live. We have amas, we have rooms,
we're gonna have cleaning up is out there. But what we also are going to have is the home run calls. You guys can take a part in it. We usually have prizes for the winner at the end. You make a call every single day, get on the leader board. We celebrate you. Fantasypros dot Com, slash Discord or or slash Chat as well. Either one of those. Get you there and you can join up and get in the home run calls.
Next week we're gonna get you caught up to you on everything that went on yesterday in spring training before we do. Your drafts are coming up also, so now's a great time to use the Draft Assistant. So what do you do? Well? You download MLB Draft Wizard, you sink your leagues for free, and you use the Draft Assistant. That way you can get real time customized cheat sheets, suggested picks built on your rankings, or a consensus of experts you want to choose. All all the tools are
there for you to be successful. Connects directly to your draft and provide you the real time boom. It's right in your face. Pick this person, Take this person. It'll tell you also what's going on with the teams picking around you. Don't take a closer because the two teams drafting after you already have four closers. So wait, take something else and then we'll come back to you. Take a closer. That sort of insight when you're on the
clock is how you are successful. So use Draft Assistant along with our suite of tools over on MLB Draft Wizard today. Sink your leagues for free and use the Draft Assistant to start dominating all of your leagues and especially those drafts. All right, let's get after some of the news. We talked about Mookie Betts, we talked about Freddie Freeman. Those things are concerning for us. Nonetheless, I
want to talk about something good. Justin Verlander six strikeouts, five shoutout innings now was against the White Sox, so I think that is the one caveat there. But good to see that the old man still got something left to the tank. Anything you want to take out of this. I know in one of our previous conversations we've been talking about Scherzer, Verlander, some of these older pitchers that are just buried in eightp and I want to say, you said that Verlander was the guy that you were
bore willing to take a shot on. So that must be making you feel warm and fuzzy in your tummy that you saw Justin Verlander do this yesterday. Yeah.
I'm not the way I might phrase it, but yes, I feel pretty good. Exactly the way to phrase it, where I mean a VIZI in my tummy Justin Verlander. Nope, But what I will say he said six having the strong spring training, sixteen innings pitch so far, fifteen strikeouts to four walks, low whip, the stuff looks like it's kind of back and the ballpark factor. It is such a battle of like what these guys do in spring
versus like putting any extra oomph into a guy. But Verlander has been free and the back end when you're a god when you're in post two fifty, like, we can talk ourselves into some good starting pitchers, but it's it becomes few and far between. Then you look at this guy and you're just like, all right, well, you know, it's been a really good spring for a forty plus year old. He's an a great ballpark. You know, there's
an improved offense when leadamis, isn't it. I think there's just like some check marks you can say, like, well, we're checking off multiple elements that say he's worth the risk. Because also at the end of the draft, like you can cut, you can go and take you know, I don't know, I loosely just say, like a Ben Brown, you could take those type of guys with hey, maybe they'll start blah blah blah. But Verlander's a guy that's gonna be in the rotation all year and if it works.
I think I'm relatively comfortable with it. So I feel pretty good about that, and I also say it is the White Sox. The White Sox lineup is a tiny bit more interesting than it was like from last year. Miguel Vargas has third base lockdown. There's another sleeper to look at in the back end of like deeper drafts. Brandon Drury has had an insane spring and he might have nothing in the roster at second base. Yeah, Chase me droth Is. It looks like he's gonna play short,
he doesn't strike out. It's actually kind of a uniquely interesting roster. I don't know if it's enough where I'm gonna listen to Cardi If you check out our MLB Bets podcast we talked about with Derek Cardy from Fantasy Fest. One of his favorite bets was the Chicago White Sox season total over. I don't know if I can go there, but this team is a little bit more well constructed and interesting, I think than what last year's abomination was.
Now some prospect news Christian Campbell might be the starting second baseman here. Alex Korra was talking to reporters and he's competing for that job. According to Korra, So there's still about a week left. I know it hasn't been the perfect spring here for Campbell, but a good strong finish will go a long way, and a good defensive moment would be good too. Also, some rumors about Cam Smith, who we've been talking about here. I've done videos here
about Cam Smith on our YouTube channel. I tell you that dude's a beast. I think is worth a shot. Let's see what he's got here. And here's a question from who dat friend of the show, mister prospect Welsh. Do we think Cam Smith makes it to the open day roster Welsh? Because he's playing the outfield too a little bit? I say, yeah, that flexibility is what you
want with a young player. So you could play him at third, you could play him in the outfield, and that way you can mix a match because early on you tend to give a lot of guys days off. Still, you know, he's still kind of plodding through April. I think he's going to make the roster Welsh. What do you think I do too?
I think at this point, I mean they've you're starting to see guys. Jack Cagleon is a prime example. He was just sent down out of camp. I think it was yesterday, so you're starting to and he had their joke at like three hundred WRC plus in spring, like he's in five hundred. He's a monster, awesome spring. See ya, you're going down. It's not any guarantee for any prospect. There's still a lot of these rosters are like forty, you know, and you got to get down to like
twenty five, so there are cuts to be made. So there's no guarantees. But when you get to past mid March and you're still on the roster, the opportunity goes up. There's a lot of comments that are out there about it as well. I think he would come in and be an outfielder immediately. I think he'd be a starting outfielder and then and they would probably compliment him by playing some corner and another reason behind it. I wanted
to bring this up. We didn't talk about this before, but like one of the most shocking Spring things to me has still been that Alex Vradugo has no job. Like we've seen so many guys even late like okay, this guy's signed, Jose Kintana signed with the Brewers, But.
If you look, Verdugo's not the most liked guy from Major League Baseball.
Okay, but he is su I think it's twenty nine. He sub thirty years old, great defender. Multiple teams have talked to him, and one of those teams was the Houston Astros that they were looking for a corner outfielder. Nothing necessarily materialized, and I don't know, I think that they didn't pull that trigger. It kind of tells me that this team is willing, you know, a to take a stab at that PPI and try to get the extra pick, and b that they think he is at a level that is going to be able to work.
He can defensively play. At some point he could you know, they can move pradis to second praties too. I mean, they could just move this around that. I really do think cam Smith is going to do it and hat tip it into that PPI program that I'm hoping that the Astros are looking at this and saying, like, we do want to take a stab at getting this first round pick get rewarded. And I really do think like he is one of those prospect prospects that's going to
be out there. And I moved him up in my draft ranks because I feel a lot more confident about him. And Christian Moore are the two guys that no one talks about that I really do think have good opportunities to h.
Here you go, Debbie Downers back again. There was a poor yesterday that David Hamilton could get that job over Christian Campbell. But Mike Mayer wah whah, yeah, I know we could. But that's not fun, that's not exciting. Make sure you check out the cycle here on the Fantasy Rose MLB for more Debbie Downer moments with Mike Maher.
The show is just going to be you know those reaction videos on YouTube where people like listen to a song and they're like, oh no.
It's just going to be so all I know is we almost got a puppet Welsh. We almost got a puppet Welsh A Joe.
I think it might have been you, but I don't know. The chack can tell us that I freeze or was that Joe? Let us know here, let us But you know those reaction videos where it's like they'll listen to a song and they're like man and they pose it. The cycle is just going to become Mike Mayor listening to videos of you pausing it and just refuting everything you say that it'd be great videos.
Oh good times. You know what else is great my playbook. If you want to manage all the leagues you're in, the best way to do is with my playbook. You can even set your lineups from different places. You got a league at ESPN, league at Yahoo, two leagues at CBS, three at fan tracks. Guess what. You could set your lineups all on the app right now, on my playbook. So download my playbook MLB. It's available also fancypros dot com slash MLB. My playbook. That's easy enough. Download it
sink your leagues. It's free. It's so helpful. You can find the guys to add to your team. You can search all the waiver wires in your leagues as well, just from the app and then go make the moves. It'll also find trades that you might not even thought about of how you can improve your roster. So download my playbook for MLB right now. Wherever you get your apps. It's in the App Store, it's in the Google play it's in all that spot. You get the optimal line
every single week. Two and a whole lot more. And did I mentioned it's free, so just go and get it. And of course when you're a premium and Fantasy pros you get more bells and whistles on all these apps, and they're pretty damn amazing. I'm just gonna say, more news and notes to get through. We have Zach Wheeler starting opening day. That's important, kind of before gone conclusion. But yesterday Spencer Strider, this is what I want to get to. He retired all eight red Sox that he
faced six strikeouts for Spencer Strider. He looked very sharp. Now it's the only the first outing. But if you listen closely, well you can hear the ADP already rising. Do you hear it? I hear it right now.
I heard it. It was screaming at me. After that, the seven strikeouts off of two and two, I mean, be still my heart. Like I had mentioned this in conversation with Eno on The Ultimate Pitching Guide, Part one, of saying like when you have the sorry Joey, when you have this like push for Jacob to Grom that hey, Jacob de Grim can be you know, a top five sp and a ten man league, or he's a top
ten in a twelve man league. In fifteen. He's risky, and everyone's having these conversations and it's a lot of de Gram. We gotta have the conversation about Spencer Strider because Spencer Strider. I mean, don't be shocked when Spencer Strider has more innings pitched than Jacob de Grom and he misses his little time at the beginning of the season. But that beginning of the season might be the thing, the only thing that kind of tails us off from that.
Now he's obviously, you know, coming off of the brace, and we have to see how that's going to hold up on the season. But like to see that performance, to see him pitch and be able to get this game in makes me feel confident that the time missed whatever, that's going to be a short and that he's a smashing steal. I had him pitcher thirty seven in a row going into with no update going into that start.
I gotta be honest with you, Joey, like this thirty range is killing me because I look at Shae McClanahan, Sandi al Contra, and Spencer Strider, all of these guys that were like third to forty or whatever in ranks, they're all out there they're all pitching, they all look good, and they all have top fifteen upside. It's just about a matter of, like, what are those innings going to look like. I'm not going to be shocked if Strider goes inside the top twenty five of some drafts this week.
I don't know if I'm gonna move him that high. But like take Joe Ryan, Joe Ryan, we had some v low downs or some concerns there. Could I justify taking Spencer Strider over Ryan? I might be able to Spencer Strider is an SP three. I think it's in play man. I don't want to get too over zealous. It is risky taking a picture that is like really coming off of an injury. Like Alcontra and McClanahan are further away, but Strider is at the level that he is one of the best pitchers in baseball, and I
truly think he is. In conversation of de Grom light when you justify taking him, you might be better avoiding de Grom in a draft around SP eleven or twelve and take Strider around like SP twenty eight or twenty nine, and you might get a very similar time.
Look, it's going to rise it's going to be very evident this weekend because this is the only sample size you're going to have before drafts. This weekend. He's not going to pitch again this well, he might pitch on what on Saturday potentially, right if we're on like a five day schedule we're trying to I think he.
Could go Saturday Sunday or Saturday or Sunday.
So yeah, and it's one you watch with bated breath, right because you don't want to have any setbacks, you want to have any issues. But that's a huge one because right now the ADP is, you know, above the Shane mcclanahan's and above the Sandy al contras, who are going to be there day one. Strider, no matter what's not going to be there opening day. We know this already. How long is it going to take him to ramp up it? Does he have any setbacks? Those are the
big questions. We teased it where we joked I should say on the show yesterday we were doing about well baseball's back ause Royce Lewis is hurt and he has a moderate left hamstring strain. So if Spencer Strider is moving up now after that, clearly Royce Lewis ADP is going to take a massive hit. So anybody this offse he was going, okay to go back in there, give him one more shot. Welsh, how do you do this?
How do you continue to take flyers on this guy when he just continues to show you he can't say on the field. This was a crazy stat I mentioned on the other show. I'm gonna mention on this show today too. I think it was twenty three or twenty four games combined where Correa, Buxton and Lewis were all in the field at the same time. So, I mean, Wonkee Penguin, cover your ears. I know in Minnesota they're not happy about that, But geez, man, like Royce Lewis,
where do you feel comfortable drafting Royce was? Because when he's on the field, he is a tremendous talent, but.
I can get or even ecr. Yeah, I'm curious because like I'm think I'm a bit lower, but man I'm not. I mean, like, yeah, now I'm looking, I don't think I was. I'm making some readjustments here.
He is one thirteen overall, that's where he is. He's going behind Jake Berger now, which was not the case last week that was Royce Lewis was going over Jake Berger in most drafts that I saw. For sure, he is going ahead of Matt Chapman. He is third baseman thirteen on the board. You Anyo swar is at fourteen. So there you go that.
That might be it. That might be the play because like he's just I don't draft him. I don't think I drafted him once and every fricking mock draft I did here in this league, everywhere, I never drafted him. He's not a target for me. I'm not sure that even the proverbial juice is worth the squeeze. Like batting
average really stunk last year. We know he can go in these big spurts, but you know, at this point it's a really good I would rather have Jake Berger, and frankly, I think I'd rather also have Matt Chapman. I mean, I love drafting Matt Chapman right now. Some of the underlying skills kind of dipped a little bit, and you've got a hit her friendly environment, but at least he's out there Like this was Royce Lewis just running out of the box and trying to get to
first base. And pulling up like I have no reason to believe this isn't going to keep going on.
He is.
This is the that adage of injury prone versus injury plagued.
I think he's all of it.
Yeah, it's all of it.
He is boss, he is the alpha, he is the omega, he is the sunshine, he is the darkness. He's all of it. And it's just I mean, it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating at this point in.
Scientistic Would you rather that parade for him.
Paradis because I think he's gonna play.
More, might have similar batting average. I mean, Paradis two thirty two forty. Royce Lewis dipped down last year, a great ballpark for preadus. I'm not sure that Paradis is a worse pick than Royce Lewis.
Here's Wonkey Pegman does royce Lewis stretch? That was a very funny one.
I like that.
I don't know, I don't know, but it's it's certainly because nobody knows it's a it's a problem. It's certainly a problem there, all right, Welsh Before we close things out here today, uh, Grace Rodriguez elbow is gonna play catch today. We'll see how that goes. We have a Jung Holy Mri also happening yesterday, so we'll get you updates on that. That's not great. Lu Rodriguez was out due to illness. But the good news is Jerks and Profar is making progress. The wrist injury always scary, but
it seems like it's just a deep bruise. It's gonna be okay. His ADP is taking a hit, and I he was already a value for me, So I think this is the time to buy back in on Profar. Any other news and notes from yesterday and spring training, the calt your eye that you think are really important that everyone should know about.
No, I mean Jack, As I mentioned, Jack Kaglione was sent down. So we're getting a lot of the you know, we're getting kind of a lot of the crazy sindowns are the big major hopefuls.
But I sure in charge of all of those, I think because he would be great. Hey, is this your dream to play Majorague baseball? Starry, You're gonna have to go back to Chattanooga for the next three months. There you go, Mike Man.
I will say that the White Sox rotation is fascinating. Sean Burke named the opening day starter Joey Gallo released. Joey Gallo going to continue his career as a starting pitcher. He asked for his relief release. There's just a lot of quirky guys. I'm I'm kind of enamored with that, how bad that team is. But some of the potential fantasy streaming options I'm not sure, to be honest with the outside of Robert, I'm just not sure that there's a singular player that's worth like holding on to the
entire season. But there's a lot of guys that might be worth streaming on that.
All right, let's end on this telenovella here from Jay almost so we almost we almost screens.
I don't even know, all right, what's the question?
Keep her question? Shall it? But I like information it does help us get better. Answers shall ten team five by five head head categories, three late round keepers, five year max. My options are James wood Is the sixteenth, yes for five more years, Kevinars eighteen for five more years, Yes, Brice Harper for six and four years, Ali Rushman, Santandero Jackson Holiday. My initial thoughts to keep wood Kevin Aaron Harper.
I agree with that assessment. I think those are the three year keeping Harper still is a value at the six. This is easy, Welsh. I don't think he's overthinking. I think this is just doing your due diligence. I'm not keeping a catcher.
Yeah, kiss, keep it simple.
There you go, keep it simple, and that's stupid. The stupids, and I mean the stupids. Me and Walshi'll be back here tomorrow live on Twitch and of course on our YouTube. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're trying to get to twenty five thousand before opening day and we are getting real close. And I think it's Mario and Luigi time when we hit twenty five thousand. So if the year, we.
Want to get there Mario and Luigia And tomorrow, by the way, Roki Sazaki versus Friend of the Show Justin Steele. Yeah, that's going to be a great matchup to break down. Very very excited to look at some of that and hopefully the Cubs can get more than you know.
One hits. That would be nice. Sorry, that'll do it for us. But the story of the game goes on for the Welsh. I'm Joey P. We'll see you next time. Kids.
Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball podcast. If you love the show, the best freeway to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow us on x, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros MLB