MLB: Leading Off April 4th, 2024 (EP. 783)

Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros MLB. This is Leading Off Live, brought to you by bet three six five. It's me Joey P the slumpbuster, that is the Welsh. Look at that fresh dew on the Welsh. Somebody got a haircut, and it's all of you, the Peanuts and the cracker Jacks, and we're here to talk baseball for the next though. I don't know thirty minutes or so. Great show coming up for you today, your dynasty folks,

Well, I'm going to disappoint and it might be obvious with really how my hair ins up being. I haven't gone to a barber in like fifteen plus years. It's all done at the house and just be boo bee boo beeps, nothing special or anything like that. If I did, maybe i'd get like, like, you know, you know what everybody's doing, like the like the lines through it or something like that, or maybe the Fantasy Pro's logo, get like just cut right into the side of my hair.

That would be cool. I have no idea.

I assume it's a million dollars. Everything is a million dollars now. I'm an old person.

Everything.

I'm like, I remember when this was like twenty dollars. It's eighty dollars now. So yeah, Michael in there said fifty dollars with tip.

I remember it was.

Like fifteen dollars a great collar. It was like fifteen bucks when I was getting haircuts.

Fifty dollars to get your hair I remember twenty five or something like that. That's kind of the last time I got the inflation's a bitch, I guess I don't know, go cards once to know you got floby at home?

Floby See, I was gonna.

Say, I Bet Walsh doesn't even know what a floby is now. A floby was a hair cutting device created in the early nineties where you could be at home and self cut your hair. It was almost like a vacuum for your hair and it would and it would cut as it certainly does suck, that's for sure. And there you go Mike Mayers saying fifty dollars with tip. So there you go. So Mike Mayer knows because he's got the fresh cut every sing. So you know what is weird?

Though, it's so fun interesting you're saying this, like I see more barbers than I see like supercuts or whatever. Like it's trendier to have like barber places than it is having those chains.

Maybe I will go do do one.

Let's do it. Let's do a social behind the scenes video. Joe, you go do one too. What could they do for you? Maybe trim up the beard or.

I don't know. Well, when Manscape used to be our I don't want to watch that one a different show. But our sponsor now is bet three six five Bet five bucks. You get one hundred and fifty and bonus bets, but do not sign up out using that promo code. Leading off support the show Support BET three six five, our sponsor for twenty twenty four. They do great work over there. And speaking of great work, oh man, I'm doing great work busting people out of slumps. Where are

Oh?

Wait, there it is. Oh there's the leaderboard. Look at me. They'll get me all the way up at five, tied for third after just two days. Well, you're like on a cliff there. You're literally hanging on there, Ethan. Did you a solid just keeping you on the graphic? In my opinion, that's what happened there. But we'll get to that later. But I changed this too because of your call. I had yelich and then I yeah, at the last minute, I was like, you know what I'm feeling, Alice is today.

Also twice that and I don't get you don't get to like claim everybody or anything like that. But twice, I promise you all my life. Harper, I was like, I was gonna pick Harper, and I went away, for I was picking Alvarez. He was the BVP players today, and I went away from it like a big stupid idiot. Not It is one thing that you are getting these home run calls and I know exactly what we're in for.

But then also that I pivoted pivot away. It's hurting. It's hurting, Joey.

Here we go. We're at nineteen thousand subscribers here, by the way, and Renegade says, when we get to twenty, well should shave his head, And I'm all for that. That's how your what? Well, your wife doesn't like your beer. She likes a clean shaven.

So why like, we're gonna fight this for quite some time because I don't think I don't think I can. I don't think I'm gonna look good in a bald head, so trust me.

All right, Well we shall see. Well your noveras looked good yesterday, that's for sure. Christian Xavier. Five shutout innings there, three strikeouts and that wins. So good day for Houston. Gooday for Choyotani two for four with a solo homer or Glass now strikeout seven. Good start there, they get a w over the Giants. Kyle Harrison gave up four runs in that start Aaron Judge to run homer, So there you go. I was gonna pick him today. Hey, you know if the Yankees were playing to bust him

And you see Tory Levello two with the Diamondbacks, he said he was kicking they were kicking themselves for not walking Aaron Judge, and that it was a weird contest if you watch it with the Diamondbacks, because it was like Yankees got up and Diamondbacks got back, and it was there's a lot of oddities were going on. And the Diamondbacks ended that game. I don't know if you saw this. They had no more hitters on the bench, and they had to put out Scott McGuff, the relief pitcher,

Yankees win.

Yankees win. The Yankees win. If you listen to us in the offseason, some of our favorite starting pitcher values had good nights. Frankie Montoss another good start, five and two thirds for him. That's two now for Frankie Montos if you keeping score at home, good stars for him. Especially against the Phillies too. That's a much tougher lineup than the first what he faced. So everyone was like, ah, let's see when he faces a tougher lineup. Well he did,

I mean he's not in the like top five. If I were to make a board, that might be a fun article or something to do. You're actual like who is the panic board list? He's not at the tippy top, But I mean I get it. But hard hit numbers are about the same as last year. He's striking out a little bit more. He's still hitting the ball hard. He's just you know, five six games, whatever it is. He's just not locked in anything. He's not hitting fastballs.

He hit two ninety one against.

Fastballs last year, So you know, might just be compensating to hit like off speed stuff or just is not in a rhythm. My panic level is like two at best. You know, one is almost a nothing burger, maybe a two big just because also the whole offseason we were like, oh, he's getting twenty pounds muscle and he's getting bigger and blah blah blah, and like nothing's happening. Let's see, let's talk in like two weeks on Jordan Walker. But he's not in the top five of my worry meter?

Is he a by low?

Maybe it depends how low. Like you see, I just don't think he's a guy. I think everybody's indifferent about him. Anyone who's selling isn't trying to get out of the Jordan Walker business. So you can't get him for eighty cents on the dollar, and no one wants to sell him for eighty you know what I'm saying, Like, you're just not gonna find a right path for trade right now. I just I think he's got to pick one side

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Yeah, I'm a little bit worried because I have every single share of George Kirby that ever existed in the world. But I do think I'm gonna like minimalize my worry with him. So first starting, and this is like a little bit of logic I'm taking with him, because George Kirby's a little bit of heead case. I'm a little bit of a head case. So I can kind of like get into that same space with him.

First start.

First at bat walk he gets two walks I think in the first inning, which by the way, I was like, oh, it's a great bet.

Or one walk.

He gets super like arnery about walks and stuff like that. So what happened in this last start because he was kind of all around the place.

He was hitting the zone too much.

His fastball was in the zone like ten percent more of the time, his sinker was like almost fifteen percent in the zone more. Because he doesn't want to walk, guys, and what happened? Bam, guys are he's getting way too much contact, even though it was actually not great contact. It was just contact that was finding the spots all over the board. So Kirby will do that. He just didn't have that big whiff stuff. He was pitching way too timid, and then because he was going longer in innings,

Well let's frame it this way. Yeah, eb or Kirby. Who would you rather buy low on the most Kirby? Who is the better target?

Kirby? Yeah?

Yeah, I mean I'm so high. I'm still so high on Kirby. I think the stuff is there. I think uniquely the two starts made him go in bad directions and he was just way two in the zone, so he wasn't walking guys where he WoT guys in the first start and then you get a contact team, just absolutely take advantage of him. Maybe we are gonna panic, and maybe I'm gonna be eating my words all season

But I'm on the buye video next week. Test me.

There you go, he making the videos, test siding the channel. Watch the video. The waiver videos coming out later today. Also, Jackson Churio first major league home run, Congrats, buddy, you did it? Why at Langford? Oh? For four pair of strikeouts? I feel like this was like you could just lock this up. This guy was so locked in, he was so red hot in spring. This is just the nature

I mean I don't know.

People treat their players sometimes like we've been going for a month and it's like, well, he was really great in the beginning and then he tailed up. It's like six games. It's a six games. He was good for like four and then not good for two. I don't know, man, I think that's pretty crazy. There's gonna be ups and downs. I'm not worry you know what I worry about. Here's real worries.

I worry about.

I worry about like v Low sustained decreases, so Gallon, like Gallon, that's kind of a worry.

But you know what I worry about, Ellie de la Cruz. When you have a forty.

Percent strikeout rate, you're not making contact, and that strikeout rate carries over from year after year. Those are things I worry about early on because how much better is that going to get?

Has he? That guy hasn't.

Shown the ability to make those type of adjustments. I worry about him. I don't worry about why at Langford not getting a couple of hits. I don't even worry that much about Evan Carter who's scoring a gajillion runs with zero hits all the time, Like these guys are going to maintain. I worry about really bad strikeout stuff or really bad loss of stuff. And Ellie is a guy worry about not Langford right now.

Oh look, I'm phrasing Tampa like Savali had a good start e Flyn yesterday, two days ago. I should say, you know, these things are gonna happen. So it's a tough ballpark, you know. All right, Let's get to some of the fun things here going on. And obviously one of the fun things we've got always his free stuff. You like free stuff, Welsh, because I like free stuff. How about this the trophy Smack Championship Trophy two steps,

But it's actually against my guy too. Matt Manning, Matt Manning, I bounce back. So this is a Joe versus Welsh matchup, but doubleheader, doubleheader.

Also, speaking of the Tigers, Jason Foley seems to be the guy now. The Walks were just killing Alex Lang. So here we go the pivot Already, It's amazing how many saves have been available on the board of the first week that were undrafted saves. And I just don't like every year this happens, and every year I shake my head and I don't get why people chase safe. But anyway, what do you think of fully? Confidence in him keeping the job the entire season.

I think it's a decent chance. It does seem like they've got guys that they're willing to go to. But his stuff that was like day one, and I have one league where I've got I've got Alex Lang, but I actually had Fully in a couple draft in holes which ended up working out. But like, fully stuff looks incredible.

Totally get it. But everything should be FAB at this point, like let's let's grow up and let's be adults and let's play with FAB. But again, I'd rather be spending FAB chasing saves which I can grab in and I can actually get a hold of and hold possibly all season, then chasing offensive productivity. It's really hard, it's really difficult.

I feel like I needed like a prospect or have like well, well there, Joey, let me tell you about.

An old timey forty nine er voice.

I can do that.

I can do that.

We're gonna talk about some of the games up and comers.

No, we're gonna talk about I've got an article out its Prospects to Stash. You can find it over on Fantasy Pros. You can follow me on the x at is it the Welsh to find them? And there's three categories. There's stashes, there's the next wave, and there's the watch list. Now the stashes relatively obvious players. But how about this. I wish we could put the graphic up, but we didn't have it. We weren't able to get it done. Is the top player comes from one of the most

Who is Norfolk?

It's a triple A affiliate to the Baltimore Orioles. Check this out because this leads into Jackson Holiday. Jackson Holiday was on base six times last night. He had four hits, scored, five runs, walk twice, four hundred batting average. Now we're gonna talk about Holiday, but the other guys just want to point out Heston Kerstadt, who Joe has talked about does love for a long time. I've seen a whole bunch. He had five hits and ten RBI last night, which is crazy crazy.

Kobe Mayo, he had five hits. It goes on and on. It was crazy. They scored twenty six runs, twenty nine twenty nine hits they had. But this was about Jackson Holiday.

He's the top stash that you've got to continuously pay attention to. First, Homer came off of a lefty. We've had tons of questions all season long.

Hey, I think it happened in the.

Show after the show Joe, where we had someone saying, there's some guys that are out there. Should I drop hot no stash Holiday, he will be the top waiver guy. This outing is one of those things that's going to jump out to us. I wouldn't be shocked if it's in the next two weeks that we're going to see Jackson Holiday, So feel comfortable about it. The other one in the stash category, Paul skeins three no hit innings, struck out five in his debut. What else do.

We really need to deal with with Paul skeens.

If the Pirates are going to keep trying to win games, they're gonna have to consider bringing him up. He was phenomenal first start. There really are none of those questions outside of maybe building up innings. He went three, so maybe the next outing we need to see him go four or five. What I would pay attention to is the super two date. So what I tell you is, Stash, these are guys. Those two guys are on the bench.

This list, right?

I was, because you know I remember him being solid in college. We all do, and then he's really just I mean, look, if he wasn't a Lighter's kid, I don't know if the rope would have been as long for him, but it is, and so far it has been and you have the greatest spring ever. So this was encouraging this first time.

Well, a lot of it hasn't been great. He has been consistently trying to revamp his stuff. Well, in his first start, he went four perfect innings, he struck out seven. His IVB, the vertical break, the invert induced in vertical break was like twenty two, which was crazy. You could check out Chris clig he had tweeted about it and he was sitting ninety six. And here's the other deal.

Welch is always the best when it comes to prospecting. I'd like to see your face on that beer of that fellow. That's what I want to see. But bro, look, we're gonna do this every single Thursday here on leading off, take a look at the prospects and how they're doing. Very useful for Redraft and for the Diynason League as well. Let's get into the three up, three down, real quick. Zach Wheeler three runs, only one earn recorded, ten strikeouts

Yeah?

You know what?

So that the rain delayed that game hours and hours. I missed the whole start. I was looking so forward to that start. Corbin Burns Cole Reagan's watching the game doing stuff. We got things going on during the day, and then the game completely got away from me and I didn't get to watch. I had to go back and watch some stuff. But Cole Reagan's absolutely as advertised.

He looks phenomenal.

And it takes me back to a question that I saw a couple days ago. I don't know if we answered this yesterday whatever, Joe, who would you rather have rest the season now after two starts, Zach Gallon or Cole Reagan's.

I still say Gallan, but yeah, it's it's it's in the conversation. It's definitely in the conversation. But it's a good point. By the way, yesterday, in case you missed it, we did over at Discord Wednesdays after the show. We're gonna do the show after the show where we talk to you guys and gals and we talk baseball. We bring you up here. It's almost like a callin radio show and it's on Discord. It was. It was great.

And it's up in the air. I don't know one hundred percent. No, just so everybody knows if you get too comfortable. The first episode is on the podcast feed wherever you guys listen podcast audio. Yeah, and make sure you're subscribing all that. But it's I think it's still a little bit in question if that's going to be there every single week. So my point is, I don't know,

If you don't want to miss that show.

Well go listen to it. So prove to everybody that it's good and you like it, and then go join us and be part of it. Look, we're the interactive show. We actually want to hear from you. We like enjoying you know some of these you know, famous people, you know they don't like, you know, dealing with.

The public did you just call us famous?

Yeah, we're mid level celebrities. Now I've been upgraded to a mid level celebrity because I've been recognized twice this year in public.

Oh is that the marker? I mean I had like six or seven times?

Yeah, that's what. So we're mid level celebrity.

Too, like like a F level F level celebrity.

Wow, Bogmin's a D plus.

You know.

Want to know what ruined it all?

I'm going to tell you what ruined all of it, which put Joe's level one up is us all randomly being in Nashville, Tennessee, and someone walking out of a bar and going, is that well, they said, Derek, and then they freaked out when they saw Joe. That's probably what ruined this whole.

Because I think it was weird to see us together because people, you know, who watch the show know that we don't live next to each other. So seeing both of us together and then seeing both of us together in Tennessee, I'm sure was a bit of a They.

Didn't, so I'm a nobody nose.

Well, you know they will, though, they will. They will three down aj Puck Boo four innings for him against the Angels, Bye bye, it's it's it's probably done. Mitch Keller five runs for earned, distrike out five guys again against the Nats. You got to handle your business against the that and of course George Kirby was just pounded into oblivion with ten hits in three and two thirds. So cy, all right, let's talk about injuries. Heiner Candelario

That I think he did? But I think he did. He hit a double yesterday, I think.

Oh that's right, No, that was Heimer. Candelario was removed with the arm injury, and that's right, that was yesterday night. The days are starting to already, it's only like the first weekend. They're starting to blend together. So Candelario is probably going to miss at least the next game. You would think we'll keep an eye on this one. Justin Verlander made his first minor league rehab start or will on Sunday, and then Brandon Laue was removed with the

All right?

Yeah, you said it. It is not the best day, like it is, slim pickens.

On what you can go with.

But my favorite play of the day. We're back at the strikeout market. And if you guys don't follow us on the social media to make sure you do, you can find Fantasy Pros on Instagram, Fantasy Pros in obviously on on the Twitter and you'll see we do these social videos and my pick of the day going on the strikeout market.

It might be gross.

This is kind of like my Renaldo Lopez one the other day, Ryan Weathers strikeouts four and a half over minus one fifteen, so bet three six y five. You can get this at minus one fifteen. I'm picking on the Cardinals and go Cards. Cardinals batting a zero point eighty six so under one hundred against lefty. Small sample size, but I have to give you the numbers. With around a twenty five percent k percentage. They are the third worst in strikeouts per game on average right now, the Cardinals,

He also has got a thirty percent wiff rate.

I think this is a good opportunity as that sweeper has been rocking a little bit up on the vel I think this is a pretty good opportunity and chance for him to get those five strikeouts.

And it's a low number.

There's not a lot of low numbers today, So Ryan Weathers that's my favorite play of the day. I'm also going with the Pittsburgh Pirates money line minus one thirty. Martin Prez is not great, but it's a lefty going up against you know, the Washington Nationals, where a lot of their good players are lefties. Hopefully the ground ball pitcher Martin Prez is going to kind.

Of sustain that.

I think some better offensive weapons on Pittsburgh side. I'm going to go with their money line and the best pitching matchup.

You kind of mentioned it. You've got the Tanner Biby, Pablo Lopez. I'm going with the.

Murphy, the no run first inning. That's around minus one thirty, so no runs, Minnesota and Cleveland in the first inning. Those are my three bets.

I apologize. I said Seattle in Cleveland. I meant to say Minnesota in Cleveland, So.

That's on me.

That's my bad again, just I was still living in the past of how yesterday was miserable.

So apologies, Well, Seattle hurts you. Yesterday, Seattle, Seattle hurt.

You, and I just keep thinking about Seattle and all that pain. So it's the let me recap again the Cleveland Minnesota game by the and Lopez again the good pictures, which why I like the under in this one. So yes, so let's recap that again. Seven and a half under in Cleveland, Minnesota today. So apologies on my end there, we are human, We are celebrities, but again we're just like everybody else. We make mistakes, and there you go.

Today? Who cares?

Well, by the way for you, so people know this is for game two. You don't get game one, you don't get both games. He gets, he gets game two.

Yeah, I know. I learned that the hard way, which is funny because that happened once with Pete Alonzo to me and Mike Maher didn't give me the home run because he's like, no, you don't get it for the first game because it's a makeup game. I said, what do you mean he's out there? Why don't I get eight shots? It's home run calls for Thursday or the day And he was like he did his matumbo fingers.

I know.

You get game two.

I mean, who cares what I have to say? This is Joe's World. Five homers in like two days, so it doesn't matter. I'm wrong about everything I got yesterday, like all my bets were.

You're not wrong. You just refuse to hold hands with me. And I don't know why what did I ever do to you?

Why?

Can't you be on the same guy with me? Why can't we just like you know, put the keys and turn them together at the same time. Why can't we do that?

I should have and I should have done that. I would be in a much better spot. I'd probably be near the leader at the lead. But I yesterday a lot of my bets got rained out. You're talking about having the bad day like the Braves.

I had both wished yeattle got rained out.

I know me too.

So I got a little cheeky yesterday and I did something stupid that did not pay off, by the way.

So I went with felt O'Neal Cruz. He was leading off, and I'm like, you know what, Trevor Williams. He gave like thirty homers last year.

I bet his homer and then I bet him, like, I bet like five bucks on it to hit two homers. It was like thirty three to one or whatever. But and those didn't hit, and he looked awful yesterday. It got me thinking, I bet him to hit homer yesterday, We're gonna get the pivot today. He's gonna hit them today. So I'm going to my guy, O'Neil Cruz for a home run today. He's gonna do me right today after losing me money yesterday.

All right, so back on the horse again. If you want to make your calls, go do it over a Fantasy pro dot Com slash chat in our discord. It's free, it's fun, it's amazing, and of course there's the leaderboard. Passy has seven already talk about red Hot boss in os or bos and O's I don't know what sklarka is.

Five.

I five and Larry, our good friend Larry, see up at five already wait to go, Larry, look at us. There you go. I don't see Mayor or Penguin on this list, by the way.

Yeah, you know, I told Mayor. I was talking with Mayor the other day and I'm like, if you want to give us your homers, we'll announce them on there. And you know, He's like, I had like one and I don't.

Know, and we're not We're just not getting the involvement from Mayor and Wonky.

Now, speaking of the audio only feed to the cycle with Worm and Mayor is going to be out today, I believe as well. So they have an audio only pod. So again, if you watch on YouTube, subscribe to the podcast version two, so you get those bonus things like the cycle, which is a you know, weekly hour long deep dive into what's going on in fantasy. We only do a half hour every day, so this is more of a macro level. I guess we kind of look at things and I use that properly, I hope. So

Then well, I think you would really have loved if I saw this correctly. I think Go Cards was going into his Go Cards mode. I think saying that if you have three homers in a day, it should only count as one and not three.

I'd love to hear your take on that one.

Bro. It's home run calls. You know, I'm calling a guy to hit home run. If they hit three, they hit three. This is how we play the game. This is how it works. You don't like the rules, do more research. I don't know what to tell you, guys. All I know is that I am the home run champion so far in the first week. I'm just saying, like I'm right there. I feel like I do this every year. I get up to a good start and then I go stone cold in like May for a long.

To break the glass, please, because I'm I'm ready.

Speaking of breaking the glass just a couple of days TOI WrestleMania. I'm so excited. It's gonna be amazing. If you're gonna be there, let me know, go hit me up on social media.

Joe as a betting video too if you want to get I don't know where the hell. You can bet wrestling, and a.

Lot more places than you realize, which is kind of funny but true. You know, you can bet wrestling in a lot of other places, you know, but seriously, you could get They've got it over there in a lot of places right now. And just like you can bet the oscars, you know, we know the outcome of that last year. A lot of people bet Cody Roads to wain and guess what Roman Rains won. If you bet Roman Rains, you want a lot more money on five to one. I think the odds were last year.

Follow the social that's right, you'll see Joe's video.

Joe.

Joe's got a video out there of some of the best bets for WrestleMania.

So yeah, our best bets are always on Betting Pros. Download Betting Pros app too, because that's way to go. And of course, if you haven't already, what do we always tell you to do on the way out of the show, Be smart, sink your league. Use my playbook MLB version, download that bad boy or go to Fantasypros dot com slash MLB myplaybook. It's awesome. It will help you continue to navigate the rough waters of the MLB season. Yesterday was rough. Today's a short slate. It's gonna be