MLB: Leading Off June 28th, 2023 (Ep. 700)

Welcome everybody to Fantasy Bros. MLB. This is Leading Off Live, brought you by Prize Pick. Sign up for Bride Fix today and use that promo code leading Off. What you do, It's me Joey p That of course is the Welsh with magnificent hair today bringing it for the seven one hundredth episode. Ladies and gentlemen, let's go seven hundred episodes of the Fantasy Baseball podcast and doing Leading Off every single day, started with Dan Harris, our buddy, and then

I don't know, is that like?

Yeah?

I was about to say, is that like wood? Or what are the anniversaries for a show? What are the podcast anniversaries?

Like?

You should do them?

Yeah?

We should like it's tiara.

Crowns, crowns and trs we have I mean I have one close to me.

If you might have I have one possibly maybe Wait on here, do we do it now or do we probably?

No, let's do it now. It's seven hundred, seven hundred.

Look how good that one looks on me too? With that red Uh?

This is the shirt right here?

This is the T shirt? Yeah, please let this be the damn T shirt. For the love of god, I was just thinking to seven Thank you all.

That's that's what the show is called. Now Welsh again. Now I gotta you know, take you take your tr off, stay a while. Let's let's get to the baseball and the real king has got to be show Hayo Tani at this point because another ridiculous evening of show Hao

It's like that scene of Benchwarmers where it's just like he puts the guy that puts out the piece of paper and he's like, I'm twelve and it's just a picture of him. He doesn't belong here. By the way, Also to mention, yesterday was not yet yesterday. It was horrid for me for betting. But one thing we threw out was the ladder betting for show Hayo Tani and it was the ladder bet of ladder bet days for a time.

He threw it out for Kershaw too, and that did not go well. More on that later. What a disappointment, But I don't want to be disappointed yet. I want to talk more about shoe Heotani because we can't do it. Somebody asked this provocative question on Twitter, and I have a provocative answer for it. The question was, if Shoe Heeotani stop playing baseball tomorrow, should he be in the

I wouldn't. I know where you're going with this. I think the problem is is where you're thinking about. Uh, you're spanning him out. You're not not looking at you like two years, it's been insane. You know what, has he been here for three or whatever? It's not enough. Like he has been the best player in this time period, no doubt, but that time period is not enough.

This can't. But here's the thing here, here's the thing, is it, how do you he.

Can have his own wing, then he can have you.

Give him a statue, but not a plaque. Is that? The thing is that what we're gonna do.

We have our Mexico artists make a show hey Otani and put it in the Hall of Fame. And it's like, yeah, he wasn't quite good enough, but he did get a statue from this guy, Like that's what he gets for that, He.

Gets a whitch. And I said, I'm not usually like this, but I'm thinking about it. I'm saying, well, well, he's the best baseball player I've ever seen. Yeah, agreed, period, Like I've never seen anyone do what he's done because I've seen pictures better than him and hitters better than him that I've never seen somebody could do both of the things at the level this guy's doing it at and consistently over the last couple of years. And then the question becomes, well, how do you tell the story

Yeah, okay, But here's the thing though, It's like he is everything right now, but it's also got to be about the long term stories that he hasn't. There's no playoffs. You gotta have playoffs. They're outside of what he's doing on the field for what three years? That's it is Hall of Fame stuff. It's about stretching over time. It's about all it is is he's just dominating guys. He hasn't been around long enough to start passing, start accumulating.

I don't like his conversations anyway, right, conversations you all, I.

Kind of I'm just not interested in them. I'm not interested in that. But I think this is interesting for what you're talking about. But I truly do think what you're doing, and you're you're you are looking at the now, But I think you can't separate who O Tawani is going to grow into and what it's going to look like from where he's at.

What into? I don't know what he's gonna go. I mean he's already you know, Will and the rest of the league is Japan.

Here's here's a great question.

Then what hall?

What is the lowest amount or least amount of games played for a hal of that.

That's something that's a good question. I'd have to do some digging on that, rich and which over here has a great question here if de gram is all famer than shoe Otani is. See here's where I bucked the trend on this one, because Jacob de Grom is all world amazing short period of time dominant, But then shoe Otani is also hitting thirty home runs, driving in one hundred runs. Here you can't your mind is just so

I gotta go get out of here.

I'm out. Not only do I have to get on a plane like I'm I'm getting on a cruise ship to International Waters. That's where he is right now. That guy's playing shuffleboard avoiding me. I'll be here when you get back, shuffle boy, awful, I'll be here. Corbyn Carroll two for four with a three run homer. He said he was struggling yesterday. Well, doesn't look like the struggle lasted very long. We said he was slumpproof. I think he is.

Yeah, Well, I mean he was on like a little thing. He had had like a couple hits in his last thirty at bats or a few strikeouts in there. He was hitting over three hundred, like a week and a half ago, and he's dipped under that, So yeah, I mean it was fair to say. But what I love this is the second time we've seen Corbing Carroll go through struggles this year, and he keeps breaking out of him. That is what real slump proof is about players that

Speaking of rookies, I noticed that Christian Karnassi on strand not on the futures roster. Getting what I'm laying down here, Well, did you make that equation? I just made that equation yesterday, and I'm thinking of myself. Perhaps we get the cees call up very soon, perhaps right after the All Star break, could.

Well, I mean it would have made sense if they're not going to put him on the futures game roster because of some bring up. Then they would have already brought him up. We are at levels of like, what the hell are we doing here? We're officially I don't know if I've done this one yet. I know I did it with it.

Is that an official level? We are officially?

Well, I mean I can't say what I really want to say, what are we doing here? Three twenty nine batting average, seventeen homers, sub twenty five K percentage, a ten percent walk, three four six slash he's got. It's crazy. It is crazy that he's not up right now, especially with this team competing. I know there's positional stuff and Voto and blah blah blah. I don't care bring him up.

I agree. And the Vodo thing was the complication. I think that's the thing. It really threw a wrench. And I mean that's the only thing, the only reason you could possibly fathom your stomach. The other thing I can think of is that there's got to be machinations. Is that the right word? Machinations match it? I don't know, there's gotta be machinations. I'm gonna the more time I

I by the way, why Will Benson is on that starting lineup?

But I just don't think that was interesting. He wasn't in the futures game, Like why I don't.

I had, I didn't thought one second about that. He's one of the leaders in Homer's I don't know the future. Yeah, there's well, if you also notice there is a triple A lack of triple A talent. It's a lot of double A and low A stuff, so they do keep a lot of triple A. I think Kyle Harrison, I'd have to go re look at it. But Kyle Harrison

So, yes, I was right, twelve seasons for Sandy Kofax, that is the least amount for a Hall of Famer. But then you also have Negro league players. Willard Brown had one season. He's in the Hall of Fame. Such again that's more complicated, more complex, Satul Page, he only had six major league seasons. Monte Irvin had eight, but they played a bunch in the Negro League, so again I can't really put them in that same category. So

Serve and he has six years under his belt. Otani does, and we would say the last three have been the absurd type. Because I was gonna say, like, Okay, if you want to make does he need three more? What I was going to say, it's like, if you want to make the argument of twelve being the big one of the number.

Twelve good seasons. Kofax in ft twelve seasons. No, no, no, I'm not even inamation project when he's still pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers before they moved brook to LA.

I'm just saying twelve seasons in general. And if you want to be like, well, he's a hitter and he's a pitcher, so maybe he needs less. I think that number is like nine right now. I mean I'm looking career wise. He's got five hundred and sixty eight career strikeouts right now, seventy nine starts, thirty five total wins. Those aren't crazy. I mean it's awesome. Almost eleven and a half k per nine and a sub three ERA. Those are his career pitching stats. Those are not Hall

I see in the chat very savvy gi Alido to the Reds would make a lot of sense forever, buddy. I don't know what they would have to move to get that deal done, but I like that move.

I think they they're they're complicated because there was a there was a report came out that said, like multiple players inside the team wanted out. I personally assume Tim Anderson and Giolito. That's just me not knowing the things, just that those are two of the guys that publicly are you know, privately stated that they wanted out from the team. But then there was a report about the team unwillingness to move any of the big core pieces, that they would only trade these sing like the Joe

Mob's not available. I'm telling you, Andrew Stieber, he ain't getting traded. Cleveland's in this thing. They're in it. They're gonna take the draft pick. They're in it. Zach Gallon four runs in six innings, the guy who had a one e RA at home it's a little bit bigger now. Still, they got to win over the race Clayton Kershaw. He was great, except he struck out two guys. I don't know what the hell going on there, but I'm not happy.

We almost got it for episodes.

Sel do you not want us to have mustaches on the show? People? Like I'm trying to figure out what the hell's going on here?

You guys wouldn't have to wait too right now because like I have, my wife hasn't yelled at me, so like I have, you know, just enough scruff going that I could, like, you know, you can get away for a little bit. I could justify it to do it a little bit.

But let's do this. What did you think about Gavin Williams performance yesterday. Yeah.

I mean I've been a big proponent like Gavin Williams. I didn't care about what some of the stuff came out of the first start. If that worried anybody. I think he is an elite talent, at least from a prospect perspective. There's still a long way to go, but I think he's the best of that crew. Thirty three percent CSW. He had eight whiffs on the fastball, two whiffs on the slider. Curveball wasn't much. Velo looked good.

Very very encouraging, very exciting. Let's get to any injuries. Some exciting news here. You're getting a lot of players back for a change, which is good. Julio Urius expected to be activated against the Royals in Kansas City, so that's coming soon. Shane McClanahan likely to start on Friday against the Mariners. He had left if you recall what that back issue, So we'll see how that works out. Merril Kelly, myrle go to the IL. It's a calf

It was like a blood clot. I think here was like a blood clot that was the inflamating.

Yeah, just like hopefully everything is good for Meryl Kelly.

He seemed very odd. He had been phenomenal. I don't think he had even beaten up four earned runs in a start.

Well, we talked about him in the you know, in the offseason, we talked about him as being one of these pitchers that just gets forgotten. The shuffle that last

The more yeah more. I mean I had highlighted him as someone to trade four and that Giants start was a big blow up. Was giving up hits left and right immediate eel. I think he's gonna be sold. I think people are gonna dump him, and I think that's gonna be someone I'm gonna pick up once he returns from the I L. And this probably looks like about a two week stent. So what that means all post All Star breaks, so he's gonna get extra rest. I

You Darvish was scratched yesterday from his start due to illness. Apparently they made him watch his last three starts and he got physically ill and started to vomit. Boomh uh. Yeah. I mean the seventy r in the last three stars for you, darbish, you should take a day off or too, maybe, you know, just just figure it out. I don't. And this is a weird thing. It's not the first time

Swings, huge swings.

It's just crazy what his career has been.

Like I said this before. It actually broke this down a week or so ago when doing CBS. But it's like the guy's got like ten different pitches. He actually has eight registered different pitchs.

I love I love the different pictures.

I love it, But I also think sometimes what it does is it's a it's your words, you know, all your access to these other pitches, and sometimes you're and worst enemy. And I think what it does sometimes is like lack being able to lock in, like just lock into a couple of pitches and really go if this isn't working, you go here. If this isn't working, go here, like no, just attack, attack some of your best pitches.

If you will great, you know, I don't know if he throws a slutter, but he should.

He probably does. If anyone does, it would be if anyone.

Does, he should. Continuing on, maybe we should you know, have you have sponsors for different you know, sections of a show. Maybe the Byron Buckston injury report, which.

Is just read now, I mean it's just wait, is there the report?

Well he returned yesterday, but I mean, I'm sure you know what today it's you know, by Thursday, I'm sure he'll be back on here. Chris Bryant will begin his minor league rehab assignment, if any of you still care. And speaking of assignments, let's talk about Alec Manoah. He gave up eleven runs in two and two thirds innings on Tuesday for a start in rookie level Florida Complex League baseball. Well, now I don't know the particulars of this. I just saw the headline, so of course I throw

I assume that this is what it is. I don't have any information this is what it's all about.

Uh.

It could have been you just need to hit strikes in the middle of the zone. It could have been we just want you to throw the fastball. The hitters probably knew what was being tested out in a lot of different ways. It's usually not for a guy like him, like the big important you know, pitch mix and da dah, da da dah. He was working on something breaking news.

He's a young kid. Oh god, are we into thirty for thirty range already? If you had to get three outs in a major league game right now, you want Paul Skeans or Alec Manoa.

What you're talking about, Paul Skian, I would have said, Paul Skean's probably before one thousand percent.

Paul Skins.

I don't know Paul Skeans can get these eighteen year olds out. He's getting college bats out. Alec Mano is not getting you know, sixteen year old Dominican first time twelve at bats ever in their career. Type of players out, So now three.

Up and three down. Jady Martinez two for four with a pair of bombs, Rondal Cooney had a pair of homers, and so did Brandon Neimo for the New York Mets. Three down, Luis Robert over four with three k's. Congratulations, buddy. Tim Anderson clearly wants out over four three k's and Scosh Bell over four to three k's. Is he playing baseball anymore? No?

I like carries. I'm just saying like, I think that's creating more flexibility for Tim Anderson. I think he's the biggest name that gets traded.

There's and there's some other rumblings of some other issues so to speak, going around there. So more on that to come. But anyway, without any issues, we always want to play some prize picks, So sign up for prize picks today. Use that promo code leading off. When you do, you get one hundred percent to posit a match up to one hundred bucks. Welsh, let's pick some prizes.

Well, guess what garbage and my individual gambling I'm like I was sitting over here, I'm like, hey, guess what, everybody, I'm the best at for three total runs score blah blah blah. But two of three, two of three prize picks have cashed, so thank you very much. We cash yesterday with the Kershoff Fantasy score Seeger score and Jose Ramirez two of three prize picks. I saw somebody yesterday being like, I'm gonna tail Welsh today. I hope you

Eric says that I should take an out bad against Alec Manola right now. I think I could do it. I think I could hits very much. See, you could off guys in the nineties before in the low nineties, like that was the level of baseball that I got to. It was the level of baseball that I also got to at the same time where the guy started throwing a five mile curveballs at me and I went, yeah,

This is I think the best situation is what Vapor's just. I think you can maybe pull a walk.

You're not getting no, no, I'm swinging. You're not going up down. I'm swinging. I'm going for it. Bats.

I give you tenant bats against alec Manoa. You might make contact to foul off two of them.

I could. I could contact and foul off leaving balls up in the zell like if he's throwing just fastballs. I think I can hang sliders and other things. Is where I that's that's slutters and that's are afraid. Let's just put it that way. I'm afraid. Wander Franco eight and a half hitter fantasies score over Mookie Betts nine and a half hitter fantasy score. And now it's in Colorado, I'm gonna go under. It's a big number. Jose Ramirez eight and a half fantasy score. It's a good match

Do you think you could strike out Alec Manola?

No I was terrible, no pitcher, No I saw you pitch.

You had the fast velo you me and Donnie.

No no I pitching was nothing but Alec.

I don't think you could strike him out.

No, but I think at ten at bats I could put a ball in play. I do, and I'm not being facetious. I can, dude. I'm telling you, make it happen. Old man still got that. All right, Let's go to Let's go to the cage. Last time was in the cage was down to Shore, down to Shore, Jersey, and I was in the eighties. It was in the eighty five range or whatever, and I was hitting balls and my kids were like, hey, that's pretty good. Like my kids were not impressed by anything, like that's not bad.

I told you I the win first pitch and everyone's out here. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk to a team about getting a home run Derby. We got to get Joe out here. The expense, get the expense going all right? For some bets today, I'm going with Philly money line. I was also looking at the Houston one, So Philly money line today not too shabby. I am going back to my first three. After a disastrous disaster yesterday, I've got a weird one. I'm going

The game totals are game totals exactly.

I might have said that Cleveland, Kansas City, through the first three innings total runs two and a half under Logan Allen Austin Cox. Both teams do not score very well. That's a some monny play. And then I'm gonna just go back to the Kody Sinko strikeout six and a half going up against the Brewers. He can get a little all over the place, but strikeouts are always in play, and Brewers always make pictures strikeouts in play. Those are my three bets for today.

You know it's always in place. So Rare MLB joined today for free Fantasy Bros dot Com slash collect it's free, it's cards, it's baseball, it's fun, it's all the things you want. You can go and get some fun cards and they become your cards forever forever. There you go, and you go and you can challenge other people and you can win fabulous prizes. Including some MBTV giveaways, which is happening. And you can also join our league, Fantasypros dot Com slash Leading Off League, but it all starts

I want to know a fun thing about so rare too. I like those those common cards. They have the program

I'm sad. Like Alec Manoa thing just makes me sad.

Yeah, I'm not rooting for against him. Oh I don't think he was a bust for me this year.

He was. I mean, there's no universe where I could have said, Hey, Welsh by July first, he's gonna be pitching in the Florida.

Give up eleven ear and runs in Complex League. And it's not an injury rehab. Start right, an.

Injury rehab, You'll be like, why did he get hurt? That would have been your your first thing out of your mouth.

Hundred I'd have been like, oh, I could see him maybe getting hurt and having to pitch in complex, not that he was sent down to like work on stuff. But I mean, I'll tell you this too. The Blue Jays have an incredible task on them and for their scouting. What the hell this is gonna be because whatever he's doing that they're not publicly telling us, which, by the way, if I were them, I would be spewing out to media left and right, this is a thing that we

Well? Living a different girl now? I mean, you know, when you go back and look at like the Chuck Naob Block days or the guys who got the yips quote unquote, like Steve Sachs and those guys wouldn't throw the ball at first anymore. You know, the Rickankio, you know conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, all that. You know, we haven't a time now where everyone's so much more sports psychology savvy and you know, getting these

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about this the other day.

I can't wait to see what that's all about.

I kind of felt like this might just be the Steve Cohen. He's just like, we're not doing good enough, right, guys, like just kind of rallying the troops. I don't know, he's got a.

Bit more fandom in him. I think he's gonna I think he's gonna come and say straight like, hey, we've been disappointing. Maybe they should look at him.

That's stupid, like who cares if he has if he's trade.

Raid those guys and you go back again next year and you just try again.

Okay, but if you make a press conference, you could just do your stupid tweet. You don't need to do a tweet. If You're like, we're just do do something.

If you're a Dodger doing sures are back for Bobby Miller.

No, why not because Bobby, Bobby Miller's controllable asset.

Who could even if he's you're a win now team if you're the Dodgers. Yeah, but Bobby forever here and in the major leagues, like he's gonna be done in a couple of years, might have been done this year.

Thought he's not gonna cost Bobby Miller. He's not gonna caught. Maybe one of the lower end pictures they could do, like a a hitter.

And you give up Han for him.

I mean, I'm not I don't think the team is either. I think they can do other They got a kid, Nick Nastrini. You could trade like him and Samuel Munio so low a bat. That's the type of trade. Sure's just not getting back like a top one hundred prospects.

I don't know, man, I don't know. Well, Chelsea, I'm going with my home run call for Ali's gotta see you to night at home in Texas and gonna try to revive him again. I tried this last week. It did not work out well. She've got a fun one here. I like this, let's talk about your home run call.

Go with Gunner. I'm gonna go with the Gunner of Henderson's because if Weavers on the man, Luke Weaver's what's called Levi Weaver, but he's a writer, the athletic lu Luke Weaver's on the mound. I want to go against this also would be just other ways to bet. Probably go with the Orioles on a couple of these sides. Maybe run totals. Kyle Gibson's out there as well, But I just figure Gunner it's been pretty solid. It's a pretty good run Righty's Luke Weaver stinks, so Gunner Henderson

Him, and Welsh still at the bottom of ten, hanging on for dear live on the cliff, Razors still at the top of twenty nine homers, joint today Fantasypros dot Com, slash Chat, the Discord home run channel, Go premium Fantasypros dot Com slash Premium or subscribe to the YouTube channel Fantasy Pros MLB. Drop a comment below and you could win a one year three premium upgrade to the premium services, the best tools on the planet to help you manage