MLB: Leading Off June 24th, 2022 (Ep. 539)

Judge is headed to Cork. Let's play ball. Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Bros. This is leading off, brought to you by Bet MGM.

The King of sports books is me, Joey Pa Joe, piece of Pia with me as always is the Welsh, And of course it's you, the Peanuts, the cracker Jack, the Cracker Jacks, the cracker Randos, all of you hanging out talking baseball.

You could tell I need a vacation. This is my last shot before I go on vacation. I am taking four whole days off. Wow, that is a stunning amount of time for me. Of course, the Welsh will be here with the special Friends Bogman, Casey Bubba next week to help out hold down the fort. I will be back on Friday. But Welsh, it was pandemonium in the Bronx. Did we see last night between the Astros and the Yankees the potential al C S preview? My friend, I mean.

We've kind of talked about it for like the last month, about you know, this entire series with both of these the East Coast bias.

Yeah, it was good. I watched quite a bit of it.

Aaron Judge able to walk it off you get some early homers. There was at one moment too, very early on in the game where the Astros has gotten up. Oh yeah, that's gotten up, and you'd had Stanton with that homer to tie it.

You get the Mets doing their thing.

It's a there's a lot of good baseball going on right now, Joe. It's it's such a travesty that you are leaving to go ride the teacups as great baseball is going on.

We are not running the tea cups. We're going to Universal. We're gonna go see Harry Potter. We're gonna go see Marvel stuff. We're gonna go do all that fun stuff.

Who is marvel Land or whatever the hell it's called there in Star wars Land.

Star wars Land is in the Disney side of things, but Universal has the that whole Marvel section still, and they're also building a whole like Mario Kart, you know, superal World or some crazy thing like that.

Not Mario, but Mario, Mario, Wait.

Mario, you do Mario? Hey, what's Mario? But no, that's that's still in progress. That's still a couple of years away. Putants to get rid of me. Look at this he says, don't come back, Joe, don't come back a harsh tie. Wait, what up?

What's your what's your first ride? Not to derail us here, but what is.

Going right to bringotts? Because I didn't get to do it last time three years ago? A little too small, gringots. It's the it's the bank inside of Harry Potter. There's a whole ride inside there. I wanted to do, but of course my oldest doesn't care for rides, and three years ago the little one was too little. So it's like, okay, well we can't do this first thing. We're going right for that that first morning because we got that that early entry to the park.

That big money, big money. Hey, I'm the host of Fantasy Prose.

Move inside.

Hey buddy, let me get through the line.

Do you know who I am?

Did you hire someone people away? Do you have security? Do you have security there to make sure that you're.

Not just my unle just my youngest daughters?

All right, well she'll do Yeah, it's good farm.

But yeah, that's so that's that's the deal. And then we're gonna do one day at Epcot, so you know that's that'll be fun kind of break it up a little bit, but then you know, look, it's uh. I haven't been like on a proper vacation with them over three years. You know, we've been trying to do this trip for three years. We went there in twenty eighteen, we haven't been back since. So I'm looking forward to this. It's gonna be a good time. I need it. I'm

I know.

And we talked about putting him in the AL or no the NL All Star voting. Yep, And that was tough because it's two thirty. He's under two thirty batting average, and the dude's got twenty homers.

He's he's an enigma. I love it. I love just fun.

He's also a little on the pudgier side of baseball players, so I respect that. I like that he's a little bit bigger.

Oh well, now your co hot stuff makes sense. Okay, it makes sense. I'm your Schwarber, all right, Harper, let's.

Go, I please, Bryce. I wish I had Bryce Harper's hair. If I had Bryce Harper's hair, let me tell you. If you think I'm obnoxious now, you ain't see nothing yet. That would have been impossitive.

I could see. You'd have a lot of slow motion flow videos where you'd be like.

Yeah, so good. Joe Musgrove allowed six runs, by far his worst start in the year. In that same game against the Phillies, his era is all the way above two. Now, oh no, how will we ever survive Joe Musgrove's bad start? Ridiculous? Aaron Judge delivered the walk off, much to Mike Mayer's dismay. But Jordan Alvarez hit a home run, so I'm still on that board, a three run dinger, and just everybody knows, I picked Alvarez yesterday. I'm gonna pick Alvarez for the weekend.

Why is arbitration still happening in I saw that the other day, Like, who is it? Max Freed won his arbitration. I'm like, what we're in June? Why are we doing arbitration right now? That doesn't make sense.

Yeah, look here's the thing.

I love that.

By the way, ye yes, doctor Glenn's right, someone.

Should I don't know how we could do this. Don't know how we could do this.

I would love to have a Joey p hair photoshop contest while you're gone next week.

Submission. I don't know how to do it.

Let me think on it, but submissions that I could do all the way through Thursday and then when you return Friday, we could Maybe we can.

Do it on this corner. You could do it on Maybe I'll do it on MLB chat. I mean that's the way place to do it there and then have a contest put up for a vote.

Maybe I'll do it general or it might even be in my welsh Ama. Just be on the lookout for it. You might want to be joined up in there. I might post that I need those photos and then I will pick a winner and bog and I will go over it.

I don't know how I can share it on here because we got the overlay and stuff, but we'll figure it out.

Oh, you could share it on here. You just upload the picture and just put it in there. I mean, there's that's you could definitely do that. I mean it's going to be, you know, upsetting and awesome at the same time. I'm sure. But if I'm the Yankees in this arbitration here hearing. I'm going in there. They're offering seventeen million. I think I saw, and he wants twenty one or whatever that was of the numbers. You go in there and just say, here you go, here's twenty one.

What I would do is actually go in and start citing Shoheo Tani's numbers about why he's MVP and Aaron Judge is not MVP, and it's a fool's bet to make that, and then maybe you could get a million or two off of it.

I think that's the play.

What kind I mean, that's quite a job. I want to be like the you know, like they have these Netflix movies about these weird niche jobs and things like this. I want to be like, he's the arbiter. He's the guy that comes in who like you know, craps on like the talented players in every sport and somehow squeezes all the money until one day, one story steals his heart and yeah, all the money.

Well, the arbiter is the guy that's making the decision a bunch of scumming lawyers that are sitting there making the decision. I mean it's like, you know, any horrible I watch an insanely sick amount of like true life true crime like shows on Netflix, and then every time, you know, there's the god awful person and their lawyers and you're like, oh, how do these people sleep at

They're like this guy stinks.

Maybe he's doing steroids, we don't know, and they're just trashing and demolishing a player, Like those are the scumbags. The arbiter is there, probably with no actual relation to sports or baseball or anything like that, and just goes with the scummiest one.

Yeah, look, the Yankees. You're making a big mistake if they go to this hearing and just don't pay him. I do agree with you on that, though I don't even know why they're going to the hearing like that. That to me is already obnoxious. Like if I'm Aaron Judge, I gotta get dressed up, go into suit and go to this hearing today, Like that's ridiculous.

I mean, remember the Chris Bryant one, Like remember the relationships that happened with Chris Bryant, Like that's what you face.

Especially, I just I can't.

So cannot fathom. Are almost July and I didn't know that our tration was still going on. This should be done, you know how. Just an anecdotal thing I've talked about, like seeing the Lucas gi Alito over the White Sox camp. Lucas Giolito is a little bit of a tight tight arse, if you will, type of guy who kind of walks around and can just look intimidating and stuff like that and not want to talk to people. The day his arbitration settled, it was a different human being you've never seen.

And I even asked him. I was just like, how are you feeling with the arbitration.

He's like like a monkey off my back, like it was something that.

This organization makes your dream come true. You're playing well for this organization. You are an MVP for this organization. You are the face of this organization. They're quabbling about four million dollars with you. It's absurd. It's bad business for I mean, it's just the Yankees in bad business right now.

Probably make that up in July.

Jersey sales, Oh, Player and Judge please, I mean, how about the MVP Aaron Judge, you know, T shirts that they're gonna sell and all the other nonsense. I mean, come on, man, it's just here's the commemorative you know, Aaron Judge bubblehead for MV. I mean, come on, it's gonna be absurd.

It's ridiculous.

Anyway, Yeah, the huge bubblehead, his giant melon. All right, James McCann could be activated off the IL on Friday for the New York Mets. That's good. Also, Max Shur's are coming back Sunday. Make sure you get him in your lineups if you haven't already. Jacob de Gram apparently there's some people saying after the All Star break, but there's some people who think he might make a start before.

And I think that I would also know whatever you know. If you were to get a start, I think it would be two innings. I think it'd be capped at forty. I mean, I'd be still shocked if he did, because he's got to get innings under his belt. He hasn't had it for months, so I would think you'd have to go on a rehab stint. Let's say it's a small rehab stint or whatever. I think the most it would be is two or three innings right before the All Star break. Get a little bit of work and

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Also, by the way, Mike Mayer would be very good in that part as the arbitration lawyer who comes in and just craps on every good player no matter what he that. You know, Mike, if you ever leave Fantasy Pros, that's got to be your job.

I mean, mister judge, I'd like to ask you a question. Have you ever handed a ball to a child? Eighteen million, eighteen.

That's the best I could do is seventeen and a half. I mean, that's bast likely. Yea, all right, Josh Harrison left with triceps contusion. Also for the White Sox, they announced that Danny Mendick suffered and torn acl during that collision on Wednesday's game, so you know, hopefully a speedy recovery for him. Bryce Harper is going to have that elbow reevaluated next week. I don't like the sound of this.

I'm just saying, yeah, I've been holding out a few little hopes that you know, there's still so much season to be played. That just a heart run, hard, hard run, hot run from Bryce Harper could still get him in here.

But I'm not feeling great about it.

I had cashed out, by the way, to answer the question, I cash out, and I told everyone I cash out to Bryce Harper MVP. Right when they fired the manager. That was it for me. It was like and now I was like, nope, not doing this, reinvested it. I think that was the one I reinvested into Goldschmid and that was when Goldshmid I think was at five to one or six to one at the time. So good move. There also new poll speaking of can we talk about this new poll on MLB dot com where they pulled

I'm looking at this and I was gonna go Joe the most shocking is actually that Atani didn't make this list whatsoever. He's second in the books, but he's not in the top five.

Who did they What did they pull here? They just say leaders.

Who they know. They pulled Mike Mayer's family, They pulled people who give balls away to other people. Now here are the results. Let's see.

I'm sure are these people. It's not even saying who these people are. They put his article out.

It's like, yeah, I thought it was writers, but I mean, apparently most.

Treat this like the All Star Game. They just asked some fans.

I don't think they asked fans. I think it was probably and of course the National League. No surprise. Goldschmid twenty six first place votes, made Machado fifteen, Bryce Harper got one, uh, and then Pete Alonso got five first place vot It's Mookie Betts got two first place votes, so uh again, I never thought Mookie Bets was going to be this. Alonso is the dark horse. It's a two person race between Manny Machado and Paul Goldschmith this

You know, I would you know, someone just said, I want to point this out. Silas just said that pole must have come out last week. Came out yesterday. It came out yesterday yesterday.

It just got published this morning on MLB dot com. So yeah, so no, they might have taken the poll last week. That's fair. Like they might have assembled these these statistics before the Otani last two days of madness.

Maybe good point. They could have done the polling right before.

That's awesome.

Speaking well, real quick, real quick.

The only thing I just wanted to say is like, I feel like I would like, maybe should do this. Get a real voter, and I know a couple of people who have actual votes, because I need to know and understand the explanation.

Of Starker against votes for Hall of Fame.

I just talked to Steve like a month ago and didn't eno start getting it as well.

I feel like eno just recently, maybe maybe I'm not right closer than I. Yeah, I'll have to hit it.

I want to hit one of them up to ask, because the only thing I'm curious about is why is Judge so unanimously running away with this when last year I keep saying the same thing, when you had a triple crown threat against Atani last year in one of the most incredible season.

Answer, and Otani's not even in it.

Yes, please, Yes, he's a Yankee. He's a Yankee. It's New York, New York Yankee baseball. They also happen to have the best record in baseball, and they also happen to be on pace for one of the best records of all time in baseball. That is special. I disagree with the fact that there is a divide there between them. I'm with you. That's the answer, easy. Yankee and the Yankees are an all time pace. Now it's probably an

Oh, I mean it is without hesitation, the person that goes that's the tweet.

Yeah, that's the tweet. Seventy eight percent of people agree with you. I think that the people who like it are equally to blame, though, because they're kind of encouraging that sort of nonsense. I just want to play that out.

Yeah, I could tell that was your your motive, because I think the better play would have been to just take another sticky type of you know, meme form tweet and put it up against it. But I could tell your agenda was about the people that are liking people.

I think, well, I'm just saying if people didn't like it, people wouldn't do that. You know. It's like and they don't even do it necessarily. Like sometimes I saw one person was like, Hawvey baias, that's it, that's the tweet, Like, that's the tweet. Hovey Baia is like, that's that's so special it deserves a tweet. Some people say, you know English breakfast tea, that's it, that's the tweet. Who gives a crap? I am a secret.

I mean, I completely agree.

You need it.

You need it pretty bad.

You need it pretty bad. All right, let's get to some more action year.

Let's talk about it, Joe Fact, Can I while you're on vacation, Can I one day call you on the show and just like get one rant from you, like one thing, one bad thing? Can I call you like Wednesday and just be I'm gonna text you and see if you're ready, and if you're there, and just I'll put the phone up and well we just need a thirty second. Like I don't think it was that's killing you.

I think I think that's something I could like voice record a text to you and probably you could download that and put it into the podcast version of this show. That's probably doable.

But we're gonna do I need.

It's amazing how our technology has taken us in this bit, like you and I have been doing this a very long time. It's crazy how hard it used to be to do a podcast, how easy this to do? Nonsense right now like it is crazy. It is all right, let's get to more fun facts here. You're gonna love this one. I found two nerd stats for everybody. Ready, Nerds, here we go. Largest increase in barrel rate from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two. Here are the names.

Yeah, I mean it's correlate. I look at all of those names.

Those are I mean, Judge has taken a next step, Jack petersonan's been phenomenal.

You know.

I've actually talked about Christian Walker a bit as a Homer Diamondback fan. He has the leagues and I think I had cited this the other week Rob Silver even pointed the lowest in baseball history Babbitt, and the guy's hitting like close to twenty homers right now and he's got the lowest babb up in all of baseball. And part of that success from that really bad luck has been the best increase in barrel rates. So barrel rate

I think the.

Peanuts and Cracker Jacks might be turning on Mike Mayor right now because one of them made a comment about sharing your own posts or something like that, and then someone said about liking your own posts on Facebook, and I've seen Mike Mayor.

Do that on numerous occasions, like your own post.

Mayor does that as that might be a trope just because like he's Mayor. But I'm just saying it looks like Team Rando might be turning on their leader.

He might have to step down from office. That's just something you can't do. He's at the top.

I heard Waffe Penguin's going to be the interim arbiter here of all these.

Hey, Joe, Mike Mayer likes his own Facebook posts. That's the tweet.

I'm gonna run to Twitter after this show and tweet that that's so good. All right, let's here's another fun factor. Ready for this one. Most strikeouts on four seam fastball since twenty twenty TOJA. I got all the nerd stats, so usual suspects here. I'm gonna count him down from five to one. Zach Wheeler one hundred and seventy two. Again, this is strikeouts on four seamers. Zach Wheeler won seventy two.

I completely agree he went through like a really rough spell, but he had one of those like massive era versus x FIP differentials with huge strikeout numbers. He's a strikeout guy. I love buying in on him, you know, I'm actually surprised didn't make this list, but it was only because of this year.

Eric eric Lower.

Eric Lower had probably the most effective fastball as far as strikeout rate goes. This year, like it looked like a reliever, like in how a reliever attaches our fastball, Like it was unsustainable, but it was only this year it was this big, massive fastball change. I guess since this is over a two year span, he just couldn't make it. But that's another thing. It's a lot of I mean, there's some underperforming stuff in there, but it's a three year span. But it really shows how undervalued

He is an acquired guy right now, go get him. But because you know, the price is going to get crazy at the end of July. And you know, if we're seeing these stats, you know all the nerds in the front offices are seeing the stats. Imagine is a negative thing. Nerd is a positive I'm a nerd, So don't take this the wrong way, nerds.

But yeah, this isn't the eighties anymore, Joe. We can say nerds and not everybody get all of.

The I want to make sure.

Yeah, there's positive there's nerd bro and there's all the different type of nerds.

But if my normal aqualogy to all the nerds, you know.

I imagine like Molly in Toronto, you know, like a really good offense behind him, or like you know, there's some other good really picture you know what.

I'd love to see him, honest, Atlanta's where I'd love to see him. That's if I'm the Braves.

That's right, Atlanta.

You know they've got the prospects to do it.

They've got I'm actually I'm actually thinking about Cleveland simply, as stupid as it is, those organizations are very comfortable talking to each other because they share a complex out in good Year, they're very very close, Holly on that team. First, they don't strike out. It's a patient team. Defensively, really solid. That would be a great place for him to land

So he is a bye right now.

All right, let's move on to a little this day in baseball history. We had another day loaded with some good things. So I wanted to hold him out here in nineteen seventy nine, this day, Ricky Henderson made his major league debut for the Oakland A's. Uh. And then you have nineteen eighty nine Cardinals outfielder Vince Coleman stealing thirty nine and fortieth consecutive basis in a row. We can't get a guy to steal thirty bases, let alone

Which I agree with that. Yeah, and I agree with that. I mean, Bertie might do it before August. He just found out. This is all I'm gonna do. But yeah, we are in dude, I have it. I have to look.

I just haven't looked at the total stats. Do we have a single guy.

With twenty right now? I know what's Leo up to. Julio and Berdie were right there. I think Julio is that night I want to say, is at nineteen. I just don't have the stats up. I mean I could pull them up, but I don't want to. Like Hault the.

Show, why don't you pull them up while I give this next one here? This is the last thing too, which I thought was fascinating because baseball was never quite the same after this moment. This is kind of a demarcation moment where you could see like the change in the game. In nineteen ninety two, on this day, Commissioner fae Vincent permanently banned Steve Howe from baseball after pleading no contest to misdemeanor drug charges. He had cocaine issues.

Corporate America. For you at Corporate America, I like this.

We don't like what you're doing there, trying to act at the best interest of baseball as your job. We're gonna take it from here, buddy. But I thought that was fat all over, Steve Howe. It was an OK pitcher for the Dodgers and Yankees at times.

Yeah, like Julio hit nineteen, I was right about that. Bertie up to twenty one, Bertie actually hasn't even hit. Berti hasn't even gotten to the point of qualified as bats. He has one hundred and fifty four played appearances, twenty one stolen bases in forty one games right now, the only the only offensive player in baseball to be over twenty.

Does he have more how many runs score? Does he have?

Birdie twenty five?

I was gonna say, does he have more steals than run score?

That would be an awesome that wouldn't that be cool? Well, I'm rooting for that. I love that stuff.

Yeah, that would be a fun one. All right, let's move on to the trivia question. The nineteen ninety eight Yankees. You're ready for this. Mayor won one hundred and fourteen games? Which pitcher led that team? And wins this season? So if you know the answer, drop it in the chat over Fantasy pros MLD. It is not the Welsh, is not? Wells oh no.

No, yeah, it's not the Welsh.

I know it.

Is you know, there is Chris well People forget there is Chris Welsh who was a former rest pitcher who is now an announcer. Me and him, we're connected by the way he randomly followed me like two years ago, probably just for name likeness and people that don't do any research. In podcasting, we had this person Vote Bogman and ized podcast like hey top whatever podcast, and this girl wrote up that I was Chris Wells's.

Former pit and I was like, I'm not the former picture, but I appreciate it. So I could have said that. But okay, not Andy pett.

Who let nope, who led the ninety eight Yankees in wins? That's the question here and apparently got some breaking news here. John Hayman, who's often wrong, is apparently wrong. The Yankees offered a nineteen million dollar settlement. They did not settle. Judge turned it down. Hearing still on and no, JP, it was not Andy pettittt So.

I mean Judge is going to win that like that's one of those things.

Why again?

So they were at seventeen the arbiter number is twenty one, right that the judge teams going in with they offered nineteen that's the okay, let's meet in the middle. It's two million. Just settle it.

From a pr standpoints so stupid. I don't mean you're the Yankees. You print money, You print money. This is your best player, who is a lit Why are you raking him over the calls? He is carrying you to an all time great record. And I don't like the Yankees in particular. It's not like I'm a Yankee fan out here outing the table for this.

This is absurd.

They better hope their arbitration lawyer is not doing any of that Bryant stuff where they're trying to tear down that. They better not be bringing up Judge's girlfriend out here in Scottsdale getting drunk and getting a duy.

They've bring any Oh you don't know about that story. It's she pulled.

She got pulled over late night in Scottsdale and she pulled a Do you know who my boyfriend is?

Awesome?

I don't I pulled it.

Do you know who I am? Earlier? And I said I was gonna do it at Universal Studios at some point. Yeah, the answer here is David Cone. That's right. Brian Hayes got it first. Bob got it. David Cone twenty wins that year for that team.

There's some reason I thought he when I went to Cone immediately, and then I was like, not ninety eight, that's too late.

All right, we're running behind because all the ranting about the Yankees today. So uh stat Heroes Montoss was great eight k's eight innings, Smeltzer three k's score of six innings. Robbie Ray another good start at hey tell you over the last month, Robby Ray's got an era of three oh by him, while that era still looks like a four overall in the year. Yesterday, the Dodgers bats woke up in the lower part of the lineup that included

Into Chris Davis, turning into Chris Davis. Just want everybody to know that just horrible, horrible player.

He's Chris Davis had. I mean Davis Had.

Not Carrizzy.

I'm talking Chris who carta history worst contract in baseball history that one.

Here you go, home run board, boom. Look at this explosions. Larry see at twenty seven, twenty seven, title chaser, twenty six and Joey p still on the board. That's right. I gotten now down a peg, but I'm at twenty one. But look at Larry Ce and high cobies. Larry Hittner done very exciting stuff. Let's get to bet MGM the King of sports books. Bet ten dollars win two hundred on any bet regardless of lee outcome. When you use the promo code leading off, go to bet mgm app,

I got three for you, I got three for you.

Alec Manila five and a half over Milwaukee, who's gone up against top ten and strikeouts in the league. Hasn't been a big strikeout guy, but I like that. Sandy al Contra, five and a half is the strikeout number. He's hit that in five of his last six. It is the Mets, though they don't okay, but they'll get a ton, but they're averaging ten strikeouts a game over their last three. Paul Goldschmidt, I'm taking the total bases.

All, Right, DFS tonight, look for Justin Verlander to be Justin Verlander. They're underdogs tonight. By the way, Houston Afters are under dogs with Verlander on the mount. I'm just saying, like, you don't think this guy's gonna show up in a big game. We'll see. I'll put money in it. Justin Verlander at ten six. If not, give me on DK, Nick Pivetta at nine point eight, Alec Manoa nine to five.

I've got a really good trend of doing this lately where I pick a guy and than the next day he homers. So I'm gonna come back to Paul Goldschmidt, who I had to change because I didn't look at the MLB lineups right as we started up and Buckson was out again.

Stupid. So I went with Goldie. He didn't hit.

He hits today, good track record against Coyleham. I'll take them through the weekend. Paul Goldschmidt and Mayor has a BVP play CJ. Crohn, who's got the most homers against anybody? As far as BVP goes for the day, those are your home run calls.

Everybody. Have a great weekend, enjoy your baseball, enjoy your families, enjoy your life, enjoy your friends, and then come back and support the Welsh and the team on Monday. Me next week and yeah, hang out with Welsh running the ship. Support your boy the Welsh. That'll do it for me. Joey P and the Welsh. We'll see you next time kids. Bye.