MLB: Leading Off July 25th 2022 (Ep. 559)

Stupid questions. Let's play ball. Welcome in everybody to fantasy pros. This is Leading Off, brought to you by bet MGM, the King of sports Books. It's me, Joey p Joe Pye's appear with me is the Welsh and of course it's you. It's been a fun weekend of baseball to talk about the Blue Jays. At some point stop scoring runs. I think against the Red Sox. I don't know for sure. It might still be going ja.

There's rumors around the world that they're still scoring runs. As we speak at this moment, runs are still being scored on the Boston Red Sox. No one really knows.

We just are told the tale we did.

The legend of the Toronto Blue Jays offense continues to grow here and hopefully that's a team that offensively needs to get off to a good start. Lauris Guriel has been red hot too. I keep waiting for that shoe to drop. I keep saying he's a guy to trade high at this point because he just can't sustain it as far as I'm concerned. But it's good to see some life out of the Blue Jays offense. We're gonna see some life this week out of Jacob Degram hopefully

I think it just gives them a little bit more flexibility. I think one big thing is it signals the absolute end Dominic Smith. I know he's been down miners and there have been trade rumors with him. I think that was all but a signaling that he's gone. I can't tell if vogel if this is gonna be like a Vogelbach is locked in. This was their choice or this was just a really cheap addition if they can't make

He can come out of the leadoff spot.

He was in the Pirates leadoff spot, and he's gonna make a lot of contact. I don't have really really high hopes unless I was in a deep league, But I just think it provides a little bit more flexibility throw a linzo over a DH even more so, they're comfortable if they want to screw around or they want to throw him near the top of the lineup. That's where things get interesting. You know, maybe total base props,

You mentioned the fact that Dom Smith's probably the odd man out now in keeper leagues and dynasty leagues and stuff like that. Welsh, I mean to me, Don Smith was never a prototypical first base slugging kind of guy. I mean, I thought he was an odd draft pick at the time. I didn't love it, But look, you know, he's been a guy that's shown you he could hit for some high average. Do you have any hope for

I kind of think it might be the latter right there too. It reminds me of the Clint Fraser situation, remember where.

It was like, man, Clint Fraser could just get going if you could just get this spot and we could see the bat speed Da da da, And then he did and it didn't work, and we always kept wondering, like, why isn't Clint Fraser off this team?

The ink he's really holding so high?

And then it were I kind of see it as a similar situation that's gonna end up happening. If he were, you know, such a talent that everybody thinks they can fix, why would they have not made a trade.

You got to imagine the Mets are just dying to move off of him. There's no home.

And also you want to do right by the player sometime. So I think I would like it to more Clint Fraser than it is hidden talent.

Yeah, and you could tell Mike Mayer's back in the check because He's already saying, I look jaundiced in my new lighting. This is just me. I am very swarthy and dark on the YouTube channel in the summertime I step outside, I get tam. It's just my complexion.

I do have a request about it. This is a request though.

Okay, if you're gonna have that lighting when you start the show, I need.

You to go.

Heyo, you still like the sexy version, please like this on this? Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, I would like Sexy Time Joe to open up the show.

Uh. Hey go, let's get this some more headlines, everybody. Oh yeah uh. Petere Alonzo powers the Mets past the Padres efter two anemic offensive nights for them. Ruiz reaches base four times for the Nats as they top all the Diamondbacks. He had a Nolas Garcia had four hits, a home run in his stone base, and a victory over the A's. This was a player I talked about last week. Is interesting by low I know the TV show.

No? No, no, no, I don't think we can do that.

I mean, there were some players early on that played a little bit above, but.

You know you know you.

Have a hurt Winker, you have a hurt Julio. Those are not great pieces. Hanniger is going to come back to power the offense.

But I mean, it's just.

Repeating from what we've said a whole lot. Like I think this team needs to make a crazy impactful trade. I know, obviously they thrown in the soda stuff. Get a new table setter, get someone I'd like to see someone at the top of the lineup. I'd love to see like ty France hitting two with somebody that just really gets going on a leadoff spot. And then get one more impactful pitcher because that pitching is just robby. You don't know what Robbie Ray you're gonna get at

It's built for like go for the regular season, Welsh.

I gotta be honest with Magical Dream, Like, oh look at how fun is this team. It's like Moneyball, Like we write a movie about it. Like if they were to do anything, it's with this cast But I don't think they're going to do anything with this crew. So I really really believe that they should be just hyper hyper aggressive on you.

Don't know where they go though. I don't think they're going to go back to the Reds because they already made their deal with the Reds. I'd be very surprised if they went back to that well again, like even maybe for a tier Molly. But they're not gonna get Castillo. But it's it's kind of an when they get I mean, who you get, is that the Kellenick deal?

I mean, legit, the team should give a consideration. Well, you don't have to trade both of those guys they I think.

For Castillo, I think you might. I mean, Kent is far from a sure thing maybe.

But you've got some they've got other pieces that You've also got a guy like Brash, which I feel like the Reds would just.

Or Martin, noelve Marte if you really.

Wanted to go that high.

I think they would need to get like a bat back if they wanted to trade Marte and Kelnick. I mean, that's a huge, massive trade you'd have to get. It's a trade that fantasy people will be like, what but real life they'd be like, well you're getting a controllable young you get.

Drury back too. He would be a useful piece you could move all over the place.

Yeah, I mean, and Mantes is still out there as well. You have to think that could be in consideration.

Yeah, I just don't think you want to give up the trade for a guy who, uh, you know, shoulder issues.

So that's a good point.

It's a really really good I mean, Luis Castillo is like the bell of the ball.

I think at this point he's the.

Bell of the ball. Well, you were bell with the ball the home run contest this week and taking Paul Goldschmidt two yesterday. What you had four over the week, I mean something absurd, right, you were.

Just on fire, well very far away, as I said, we'll talk about it is a big ut you go for a weekend's It was a huge jump, but it was like twenty percent of my total and I was like, oh god, I'm so far away. I need a huge push. I need a couple more of these, like three or four day spans with four homers. I'm I'm not quite at the board, but we're getting there. And Goldie did me well let's sniffing four bombs.

Yeah, sniffing the board. All right, let's move on to some more news here on the injury front. Stephen Mattz diagnosed with the torn MCL and left knee. It was a weird play at first base and you could see it go and it was just like, yep, there we go, there we have it, and that's an injury. I think you know what it's up for the Cardinals right now. I mean, the Cardinals are kind of up against it as Gray's gold Schmith's been and you're not gonna have

Yeah, And I think they're they're probably going to be in the cheaper market. Like we keep going back to where like every time we're talking about teams acquiring, we're like, hey, cause to you La Montas, But they're a team that would probably be going really cheat Merril Kelly massive Bumgarner has been put out there in the Diamondbacks. I think you're gonna have to Probably they're gonna dig down that hole. It's not gonna as much as we they need somebody, it's not going to be someone I think.

That we're like, oh my gosh, breaking news.

It'll just be like, oh, the Cardinals might be able to fix this type of guy.

Frey Peralta had his uh struck out three eyes in Triple A on Sunday, So he is working his way back. If for some reason he was dropped in your league, please go pick him up. I mean it's possible sometimes rosters get squeezed, especial when you have limited il spots. With the way baseball is well also floating out there, it was.

Kind of a like this could be way longer than you think. Like this I think was the lost case scenario.

I think as a.

Brave Peralta roster or roster r it was pretty long. It's good.

It was a long time, yeah, and tout I had I have to grow them in Peralta. It's not good, but I think I'm coming off of two straight wins and I have no chance to win it. But I am making a nice little comeback here and hopefully both of those guys are gonna help me.

Yeah. And also speaking of injuries too, you're gonna have jas Chishmow for a while too, which hurts already a bad offense in Miami. I mean, Miami went thirty four innings without scoring a run, and you know losing gestchism is not going to help.

Uh.

Jesse Winker left his game with the right ankle's brain, so we'll keep an eye on that. Adam Duval season ending risk surgery for him, So the Braves lose a bat there. They're one of the deeper offenses they can afford to lose him. And Harris has played so well in the outfield too, so they have some depth there obviously. But to me, it's all about just getting Ozzie Albi's back healthy too, and the Braves offense is gonna be fine.

Yeah.

I would say anytime you're dealing with any type of injury with him, especially hand injuries, and he's zapping of power, is something you want to look for.

He's not quite on.

The injury prone tag, but it's something to monitor. I don't know if there's much to do with it. If you're really really fearful of injuries and zapping of power, he's been playing at a premium, you could always look to consolidate. I'm not sure I would recommend that at that point. That might be a little bit over reactionary. The only other thing I want to add before we jump on, because this wasn't on here, because I think

Whatever degree that could be.

You could be looking at Tatis back second to middle half of.

August, which would be huge, huge, huge.

But there's another injury person you worry about, and their value is jumping up right now because Tatis is he's healthy, he's working, you know, healthy, he's working to be healthy. He's going to be doing rehab assignment, so his value is rocketing back up. Let me ask you, Joe, would you rather have rest of season Brinando Tatis Junior or Jordan Alvarez?

Uh? Still Alvarez for me, because I also am not. I mean, look, it's a good question because when you deal with hand injuries here, you never know what's going to happen. But to me, I think what we're seeing here with Alvarez is more management. They're running away with that division. There's no reason to push Alvarez if he's having any soreness or anything like that. So I would still take Alvarez as opposed to the guy who was out for a very long period time with an injury

Yeah, I mean that's part well, that's part of the question for the rehab, for the rehab assignment, but.

The rehab in the world. You know, timing on major league pitching is not the same as you know.

It's it's tough, you're not You're not wrong about that. I almost need to not answer it. I don't know, because it's tough because he can't ask.

A question of be and then not give an answer.

We move on to other topics.

It just hars.

When Tatis comes back, he will be close to one of the number one fantasy players. It's similar to like ronald' kunye missing that time comes back, Bam, you're one of the top guys in all of baseball. He's going to also be one of those guys. And it it's tough because I think you know from a power speed five

It's an easy Tatis. It might be a tatoos. Overall.

I think I'll side on the not Welsh, like the one side of my brain's like the devil's side of my brain that's like the upside and the other one's like Welsh. Don't just do the right thing. And I'll do the right thing, which is safe. And Jordan Alvarez but a little devil, he's poking.

A linger one of my favorite Cranberry's tunes as well. Just want to throw that out there. I'm such a fool for you. I am all right? Can we talk about this a little a little uproar one of our favorite potential second half breakout guys who needs it the worst way? Nick Cassianos had a little breakdown as it were. Report. Uh yeah, the Sultan of Segue. So yeah, So the reporter asked him, yo, do you do you hear the booze? And he was basically said, that's a stupid question. And

Of watching it's it's uncomfortable. And reporter got a little pissy too, like.

He kind of got yeah, he kind of like like, I know, he was kind of like a smaller dude, like it wasn't a good move and he kind of like got his finger out and moved forward. And then the guard is like, no, we're not doing this. But he did have a good point where he told Castillo he's like, you know, he's like, if it's you should be casios. I'm sorry, I can st see on my head. He asked cas like, you should still be able to answer a stupid question, and.

You know what, how about ask a better question. I mean, the guy knows he's struggling. The guy obviously cares, and you ask him, does he hear the booze? It's Philadelphia. You can hear the booze when you cross the city line.

It's a snarky reporter question, like a.

Snarky reporter question in a town. And and this brings up a bigger point, and it's a fantasy point, it's a betting point. It's just a baseball point. At the end of the day. You have these cities like Saint Louis, where they cheer you no matter what, where they're always super positive, and you have cities like Philadelphia. By the way, the Phillies are possibly going to be the team that's the longest playoff drought, by the way, if they miss

I don't know that would be a wild thing where it's like we've gone and we're like, all right, off. You know, any pictures in Colorado down, hitters in Colorado up. If we've started like putting the negative factor, this is be the negative zone in Philadelphia where players go and if they're not really super mentally tough, are they who's ever gone.

To Saint Louis and then been bad? You know what I mean? Like think about it, it's like, you know, like it's well, they do a really good job of targeting players. But typically speaking, I'm not even mean the homegrown guys. I'm talking about the guys who get traded there or signed there. You know, most part it's Gangbusters, man, and everyone's like, boy, they're geniuses. They're geniuses. But it's also wonderful environment.

It's I think it's a happy place. You think it's it's very happy.

From a baseball line. You go, oh for four four k's or like, get them next time, kid, you go for four four k's in Philadelphia, they're throwing batteries at you and they're It's just it's true. It's interesting. It was a dumb question, by the way to the reporter was.

Super snarky, and he was like a hyper aggressive and if I were like in a mode and stuff like that, and again he was coming at me like that, I would just be like I would have been.

I mean, I probably would have been a little bit more than you know what.

I'm actually gonna have tip Cassie once for not like escalating it further because I thought the reporter was was a he got hot after he was doing he got really hot and the security guard literally like pushed him. Okay, that's and it's just like these dudes are there's a lot of did ask a dumb question?

With a Mike Mayer question? Hey, hey, Nick? To hear the booze? I mean the question is when you hear the booze as a professional, are you able to block that out or or is this is the stress of you know, situation leading over Like ask the question that way, do you hear the booze? Is a dumb question.

There's a lot of death.

Yeah, like how does it affect you when your hometown teen is turning against you?

In that respect? There's a lot of different.

Clown question bro which once again Philadelphia. If you're a call, that's Bryce Harper and you know, like Washington years right, Remember I was like, you know there's certain places.

That Washington No, No, I know he was in Washington, But was it a Washington reporter that asked him?

I can only assume it was. I can only assume it was local beat reporter that asked But if it was a Philly reporter, that'd be amazing. But like certain places where you know, you get media who really pushes things, and I like when players call it out. And I also like when players just answered tough questions people ask him. Speaking of tough questions, Victor Roblasse had his way with Madison Bumgarner and Basi Munggarner called on the clown and then Victor ro Blass wore a red nose this weekend,

By the way, did you even you weren't looking at the screen? Did you see my nose?

Oh? Oh, very nice. I wasn't looking at this.

Great I have that.

That's tremendous. You're a clown, bro.

I'm a clown bro.

Does someone actually text me the Duran stuff? Because I've been I've just been kind of critical of him that in prior minor League years and stuff like that with uh just the little baby ankles and some of the effort stuff that was out there, and I thought he's done a whole lot better this year. But then someone was like, yo, you have to look at this, and I watched that video and I was like, that's amazing.

Was coming in. But it does seem kind of like systematic across.

It's bad. It didn't move, you know, when it's out and the guy's running at least like trow like you care, like there's an effort either.

That's what I'm saying. Even if you're faking it, just be like, oh, I'm gonna get it. Oh you got it.

Dane and somebody else brought up in the chat to going back to the Philly thing. Alec Bowm earlier in the year too, we talked about that, like how the crowds on it. You know, it's.

Phillies are Red Sox.

Oh, good question, Phillies Phillies because there's more than the Red Sox. Wow, well there's less talent there. I think maybe not on the pitching side, but in the bullpen they're not good. When no Bryce Harper, I mean, look, Radfield ever is another one. He gets hurt, you know. So it's like, I don't know, man, I think the Red Sox are in for a rude awakening. This day in baseball history was not interesting, So yesterday was. Yesterday was the famous George Brett hind Tar game, which, again,

I think Manny question is he on that list?

It is not Manny Ramirors because so much of his damage did come in the Cleveland Day.

It's okay, yeah, yeah, well, and that it took me off of saying like no, I'm just going like big guys like no, mar would probably be go Card's.

Got one of them, right. It is Yastremsky is one of the names.

Yes, this makes a lot of we got and David Ortiz.

Ted Williams obviously the other one. So okay, solid picks got that one there.

Uh oh, Wade Bogs is that it is not Wade No, No, his raised days. There are a lot of raise days.

Not even the raise days. But you know you got to hit a lot of home runs for the total basis too.

Yeah, people forgets we're missing one. So let's face it out, guys.

You're missing one. Who is it? No, it is not Wade Bogs, It is not not no ma, it is not uh movon, it's none of those guys. But we'll hit some uh deep dive here in the meantime. So this was somebody did a deep dive over on fangrafts of players at the same age as Wan Soto and the the w RC plus of Wan Soto compared to other players. I just want to rattle off the names of the players ahead of one Soda at this juncture.

I don't not say number eleven.

Though, and number one. I was getting to that number eleven Fernando Tatists Junior, which I thought was fascinating. Could you imagine if the Padres did pull this off and gotten the two of those guys together.

That would be the one that actually, in my mind, that might be the wildest, most anti climactic of just like if it was one for one, there's like I was just gonna swap these guys. They could be fun that they changed jerseys, but it'd be like, oh, we don't have five or six players changing over, we didn't have the the It would be like a true like fantasy one for one. If they made that move, it'll never happen. I would say it's the least likely thing

How good Tatis is. We've been missing him for some time.

We forget. We do forget sometimes because get frustrated with the injuries. So the five players for the Red Sox, Stromsky was one Ted Williams. By the way, Stromsky has more total bases than Ted Williams, only because Ted Williams, you know, missed four years I think total between two wars he served in. Uh, but still pretty stunning of how great Ustremsky was five thousand total bases, fifty five hundred actually and change, Ted Williams at forty eight hundred

We got them, We got Ted Williams, we got Yustremsky, David Ortiz.

Stremsky Williams or white Evans.

There's one more white Evan. Okay, it's not Jim Rice.

I thought we have it is Jim Rice. It is Jim Rice. So there you go. There you go.

Comment though, mister red Sox got it right under just Bob's I love this YouTube comment from Chame Bloom says, is it Alex Ferdugo He's a fantastic.

Heims heim Bloom hem Bloom. I believe, yes. Nice to see. It's nice to see a celebrity in the chat today. Hein Bloom there in the chat clearly has nothing better to do. Here's some stat heroes over the weekend. Brady Singer six innings, twelve strikeouts from brity singer Chris Bassett at eleven strikeouts and no decision. He bitched great, did not get at w when you know it' zany al Contra other ten strikeouts to earned run. I mean, unbelievable trick.

Trade him high? Yeah, I think we all would have agreed with that.

Yeah, of course you do. Nadie Valdi nine earned runs, Ian Anderson's seven in his start. Not good for Ian Anderson. Back to the old ways, Showy al Tani did strike out eleven but he gave up six earned. He had a bad uh. He had really good first five innings and I kind of fell apart. I think was in the six or seventh. Shane Bieber, bad star for him. Can't have that. If you're the India, you almost did it. The Guardians can't have that. I almost did it. I

Yeah, that was my number one to go into hitting three twenty six against lefties, and he has had hits in every game in July but five, So you know, whatever the math is on how many games he's played, you're probably over seventy five percent of hits in games. And I love the dominance against lefties. So three twenty

Those are two that I really like. I struggle with.

The pitching props. I don't think I not a good slate, like a whole bunch. I probably have void k props, probably moved to more like first fives or lines.

I'd need to go overs on earned runs tonight. I mean, I just it's gonna be invested offense tonight because it's not a good slate of pitchers. It really isn't. Max Freed on DK at ten to five I'd invest in, and then secondary arms. I'd look at Jacob Derezi at seven eight got good win potential, or Aaron Ashby at home seven to seven. Those that's it. That's it. I'm keeping it very simple. You get your Max Freed and then one Ashby lineup, one Oderezy lineup with Freed. I

I've been an Austin Riley guy lately. I think you carried him over from last week.

Right.

I'm gonna go with Freddy Freeman, like I said, with my little basemarker, just hitting up righty so and it's a great writing to be hitting up.

So give me Freddy Freeman on the home run call tonight, all.

Right, who's got what's Mike Mayor got tonight.

With Manny Machado. I almost went Manny Machado too. That was actually my first one. I decided to move away. So you and Mayor a kind of on the same mental path for homers today. But hopefully he does not get one and I can close the ground a little bit.

There you go, all right tomorrow Welsh and Bogman, have you because I'm gonna be in New York with my kids going to the big WWE show tonight at Mass Square Garden of all the nights to be going to the garden nights of all the nights. Who knows what wild things? There's always crazy things that happened in the garden. Anyway, that is the triple H. I know, maybe we'll get Triple H coming out, possible edge return, lots of exciting things. Who knows.

Maybe came out and was like, Vince, you're fired. That was great, great, like passing the torch moment.

It would be not gonna happen, but you might get aged to come out. You never know. Fun things always happened at the garden. That is a great place to see a WW so we're excited about we're staying over. I'm not gonna make it back in time for the show, but that's okay because my boys, the from the IL in this league army are gonna take you through tomorrow, but we'll be back for the football show in the afternoon.