MLB: Leading Off May 8th, 2022 (Ep. 506)

The Adventures of Kirby. 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 is b Joey, p Joe Pi's appia with me Today is the Welsh and it's a multiverse of madness on a Monday here. And that's just not a literation. That's the way things are going. Who knows what might happen. Who might play us later in the show. Maybe we'll ask Welsh who might play him in a different multiverse.

That would be fun.

But we're gonna break down all the weekend's action in Major League Baseball for you, and as always, we want you to subscribe to our YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros MLB, where we do this show every single day neon Eastern for you, for the people, for the Peanuts and Crackerjacks. And when you subscribe, you can be a peanut and a Crackerjack one or the other, who knows, and you can make your comments and talk and we'll make you famous on the show The Welsh.

It was good. All the mothers are good.

Actually, my mother and my wife's mother watched our kids while I took the mother of my kids out.

To Sedona, Arizona.

I have you saw my tweet also with this beautiful airbnb and it apparently had velociraptors there because we were sitting and there was this sound coming out of this waterfall that was next to where we were staying, and we just looked at each other for hours trying to find what it was, and it was the creepiest velociraptory or the you know, the remember the dinosaur that goes and then spits on whatever.

The guy's you know, the guy was like yeah, yeah, exact.

Yeah, exactly. It was wild. So that that was my mother's day. Dinosaur.

I saw your tweet.

I didn't have the sound on my phone because I was sitting and watching TV with the kids, but I was like, what is he talking about?

I was like, I can go back to this later.

So now I'm gonna definitely go back to it again. So and follow him at is it the Welsh for airbnb? Recommendations and other things as well.

Apparently here, hold on, hold on, here it is here it is.

Oh oh oh, you can see it on the show.

Oh my, this is that night.

Let's that's kind of terrifying.

And I having spent some time in Arizona, I feel like at any point in time there could be some bizarre creature or things there and you never.

Heard anything like it. Never heard anything.

Sounds like a motor going in the waterfall, That's what it sounds like.

I mean, it wasn't it was.

It was some type of reptilian prehistoric dinosaur that was that was coming out.

To get us.

Oh goodness, it was. It was a hard ohsaurus. I'm pretty sure that's.

What a Yes, the elusive heart o asaurus.

Yes, yes, can only be found in Sodona. All right, let's get to some of the headlines from baseball for the weekend. The Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward uh not too happy about Yankee Stadium, calling it a little league ballpark after Bert Torres hit his walk off home run. JA Carlos Stanton also hit to run homer as well against the Rangers. Walcarea Cole with ten and no decisions of the Yankee game was something everybody was talking about. Welsh, It's been a whiffleball field for years.

I've always called.

It that, and you know, I don't think it's gonna change anytime soon. What are your thoughts on Chris Woodwards sounding off. I kind of enjoyed this.

I mean, I don't know.

I'm kind of over all of this stuff where it's like, uh, you see the one the other day where I'm forgetting who it was, if his affilies or the Yankees or whatever that ended up hitting, Like, yeah, I think it was the Yankees that hit like a homer and they were like they were up so much. Narcolo Stan didn't

This isn't fair.

The Texas Adium used to be kind of like that. It used to be a little baby ballpark until they changed it out and it's nonsense. It's absolute cry baby nonsense.

I agree, and I gotta tell you it's like, that's that's loser mentality. It's like when you care about when the when a call goes against you. I mean, I coach the nine year old ten year old kids every weekend in football, and I was on the same thing. I don't care if you get called in a penalty or something like that, but don't complain about it. I mean, if we lose because of a penalty, they didn't play good enough to win. It's the same thing with this.

Why does he full heel. Yeah, one hundred percent agree, Like I was gonna be the heel. Remember the first week I was here, it was like, hey, I mean I still have my heel. I'm more of like the anti hero, like you're kind of in that. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like the old still stone cold where it's like sometimes he could be just a jerk and then sometimes he's good. But Mayor is like going full on Vince McMahon here, Like this is full on heel with just hating nice things to happen to anybody.

He hates children.

Too, children getting baseballs from adults. He hates all of it.

George Kirby, he had some base balls and I don't know if he's an adult, maybe just barely. George Kerby six scirls hitnings in his debut on Sunday. He was a hot waiver wire pick up in a lot of leagues when he got the call, you know, Matt Brash was sent down. So what were your thoughts on the George Kirby performance. What's kind of the projectability for him in your opinion?

Now, I'm actually a.

Little The only thing I'm a tiny bit surprised about is that he beat Mike Max Mass would say Mike Max Mayor up to the majors, But the whole Brash movement kind of wait. I think we even talked about on the show. It was like get Ready with Brash moving not only to the miners but into a bullpen roll. It leaves open the possibility of George Kirby. George Kirby's phenomenal It is interesting to see where his vlo is gone because he started the game up.

I think our Rob Silver had actually tweeted this out where.

He'd started up right around in ninety six ninety seven on average, and then he ticked down innings two through four where he'd really upticked his velocity. When COVID ended and I was able to go to the backfields out here in surprise, the very first like the first person I saw after a year and a half of not in person looks was George Kirby. And George Kirby hit one hundred back here in the backfields, and everyone was

And that's what he did. He looked fantastic.

He was moving that, he was cutting the ball, he was putting the ball in, he was getting his secondary stuff. I mean, I'm a big George Kirby guy. The only thing I'm a little bit cautious about is he really hasn't put.

On a whole bunch of innings.

The Mariners really kind of babied him ever since he got drafted off of Elon, so I'm not sure how far he can go into the season. So him coming up in May, I just don't know if he's a guy that is gonna stay in the rotation full on and just get unlimited innings for the rest of the year. I kind of feel like they might temper him down a little bit. So I would have used waiver. I would be picking him up. It was a killer start. I think he's going to be one of the better

I don't know.

I'm not sure I would have gone more than twenty percent or something like that on a guy that I worry will not be able to finish out the year based on innings and you know in just a innings management from a Mariner's team, No.

That's fair. In redraft leagues.

I mean, we all know keeper dies is very different. But yeah, in redraft leagues, I agree with you. I mean, I think right now you always by the end of June, you have to evaluate your pitching staff and say how many innings realistically do I have and do I want to flip these guys that I have now for maybe guys haven't pitched as well, but I think are going to pitch in offense, so.

Much more likely, so much more.

Likely to move these rookie pitchers very early on to try to get and maximize my assets over everything else because of everything you just said. If I can go and get them for maybe underperforming pitchers, injured guys. Castille's about to come back, Jack Flaherty hasn't return in trades like those, that's what I would try to do. I mean, here's the only thing we don't fully know. This is kind of this new world of baseball where all the rookies are coming up early and they're being relied on.

Them like something I would want more. But we just don't know. We don't know.

How enough teams have moved into managing their young pictures and or is there a new thought process with all the new collective bargaining agreements and take out manipulation a little bit more? Are teams willing to push these guys a little bit further with how the last couple of years have gone, and that could change it. But regardless of the point, I would still be the person that's trying to move some of these young pitchers in redraft.

All right, before we move on to the rest of the headlines, I got to bring up this quote here from Walkee Penguin. Over in the chat, Mike Mayer would catch a foul ball and give it to someone else's kid just to teach his own son a lesson about evil.

I agree that is that is the.

Winner of the day right there.

I feel like you would take the ball from a kid and then throw it on the field.

Like, yeah, the kid catch it, or you would catch it, walk over to the kid and then just.

And then go back on the field stare at the kid too in the face.

Yeah, just stare the right Yeah.

Cody Bellinger had three hits and Sunday Walker Bueller fan six over the Cubs, and Pete Alonzo hit two homers and a win over the Phillies, while Jake Odorezi combines in a one hitter with the Tigers. Oil Boy, that little conversation for Jake Odorezi with Justin Erlander certainly turned things around for him.

How shocking is that? Bad news?

Carlos Korea unlikely to returned Tuesday, But the good news was that the X rays were negative, so hopefully we'll be back sooner than later. I want to talk about this. We're gonna get into a little bit of a FIP versus E ra, the X FIP versus era, because I always think this is a good time of year to start looking at guys who've gotten off to some terrific stars with the era looks really good, and then the vice versa where you're like, hmm, the x FIP not

The biggest beating them but Russia and Russia yeah drive you yeah, exactly, yes.

In Russia closer. No, never, let's get to some of these guys in some of these names here, uh, some of them Michael Kopek as a one point one seven e RA right now, this is again minimum of twenty innings that we're doing here.

X FIP is at four point thirty.

Uh.

Then you have a couple other pictures here that I thought were really worth talking about.

Madison Bumgunners.

The RAS one fifty, the FIP is four a two, the x FIP is five oh one. Huge difference there for him in terms of the variants. Another big variance Tony Gonsol in a picture that again you know, he is so razor thin in terms of I think the margin for error with a picture like Gonsolin is not a dominating kind of guy. He's at one six four in the RAH. The FIP is at three three nine, the XPIP is at four o six right now, So big variants. Any of these guys pop to you? Or

I mean Gonsolin like Bumgarner, It speaks for itself. It's like a completely uh I mean he's Bumgarner, you know what I mean. It's like, what is that three and a half run difference between RA and except you know what, the one that kind of jumped out to me, I think it's interesting is Alec Manoa. And Manoa has been phenomenal this year. He's been exceptional, probably from a rank perspective, one of those guys that I think a lot would

So like he's gonna come back down to earth a little bit. So what does that mean to you?

Do you just hold on and go for the ride because you know, a three and a half VRA with him, he's gotta be great this year.

Or do you sell at the height.

And you know, try to pick up some pieces, you know, maybe maybe no maybe you could get a kershaw plus a little bullpen arm or something like that. You never know what those trades can be. So I think a lot of these are a kind of obvious names, especially when you put out like the Bumgarner and the Gonsolin, Like those are guys that it's like.

You can't even surprised me a little bit, to tell you the truth.

Kopek was when it surprised me.

Gonsolin did not. But Gonsolin's one where I look at it, and once again, a guy who pitches to contact a lot on a good team I think has more value on the trade market than people realize. And I think perception wise is greater than reality when it comes to Gonsolin. So's that's a pitcher, and specifically that I would say, you know, I'd love to move him with another guy and get somebody better that I just feel better about tomorrow.

You I know, a funny story.

So I've worked in this building that is right next to a major hotel where ballplayers stay, basketball players, a lot of baseball players would stay. And one time, you know, I'm like walking it's just like this corridor down there where there's restaurants and stuff. And I'm walking down and this is in the summer, and it is one hundred and nine, one hundred and ten something like that out here in Arizona.

It's absurd. It's absurd, And.

I'm walking down this long like outdoor hallway and it's just me and one person walk up. You can guess who that person was, and it's Brian Wilson. And as he walks up, Brian Wilson in one hundred and let's just round it up to one hundred and ten degree weather, has full on jeans, he's got a button shirt that is open to his chest, and he's wearing a beanie with the long beard. And I knew who he was as I was walking up. I'm like, I could tell this is Brian Wilson. And he never looks at me.

Theme music going on in his head. Yeah.

I think that Mike Mahyer probably would not approve of the children throwing out first pitches either.

I imagine he would be against it.

I probably ag yeah, probably wrote a letter, wrote a letter.

Here's a giants, here's a It was becoming like Chuck Norris things you like, Chuck Norris can do this, and I was like, how how Helish can Mike Mayor be That's like the equivalent now what we're doing. Here's a question for one of the Peanuts and the Cracker Jacks from Adam Schalm. Uh so high on Pablo Lopez and Bregman. For Jose Ramirez, that's a lot to give. I say too much. As great as Jose Ramirez is, Bregman and

This, I'm probably doing this. I mean this is a first like if you want to break it down to rounds, this is the first round for a six and an eighth round. Let's call it valued player. Paul Lopez has been phenomenal. He was on this cra list, he had this.

He has the second way.

Alex Bregman's on a sixth round player.

Uh yeah, Alex Brett, Well, like in a twelve man. He was going around like the seventh.

He should have been. That was stupid, but he's not.

I mean two years breaking it down from there, I mean, okay, two years ago, all right, Well, Jose Ramirez this year.

Is a first round been one of the best players.

I don't think the gap is close between Bregman and Ramirez, but there are situations where I agree with you on this. If this is like a sixteen team league or twenty team league, this is an impossible These are impossible type of trades. But you want to talk about the regression, like we talked about, Pablo Lopez is one of those guys. He's almost got a two run differential between Cray and x set at the top.

He's number two in the league right now in ERA at one. But like a x FIP is two a two, it's still sterling.

I guess it's still great. He's still good. He's been striking out guys.

Bregman has been okay, But in a ten to twelve twelve team league, I'm gonna do this for the advantage of Jose Ramirez, even though I would love to try to push back or get something back on it. Keep your league it might even be a little bit more difficult. Points league is even a little it's even tougher with getting rid of Pablo Lopez.

But I think I will all right.

Let's do all right.

Some of the weekend stat heroes from the pitching side. Luis Garcia nine ks, seven innings, Merle Kelly, our boy, Merle boy.

I never thought he would be this good.

Eight k's, one earned run, boy, I wish I had to share him. Eric Lowers, we talked about, continues to dominate. Eight k's one earned and six innings. Pablo Lopez eight innings, five k's, zero earned runs. Eduardo Rodriguez. I just wrote a thing last week about he's a guy that I would buy on for numerous reasons, the slow start last year, all this nonsense. He'll figure it out. He'll be fine

That might be some signs of life.

Remember at the beginning of the year too, this team was willing to drop him and pop him at the leadoff spot, which made his value phenomenal. He's now up though, too, twenty with one homer and one stolen base.

Low k rate, which.

Again I think whenever I see these guys that are struggling, but I see really low k rates and walk rates that are kind of skewed.

Well the water rate. To me, the high walk rate is always something because whenever you see a guy I always used to say this on the Daily Fantasy Show, when every guy starts walking who's been struggling, to me, that's always like the beginning of the breakout because he's starting to get disciplined again, he's starting to wait for good pitches to hit. That is always the first indicators when you see that walk rate to where you see a guy you know he went oh for you know

But that's no, I mean, And the walk rate's it's a little skewed, but it's starting to come back up. With a insanely low strikeout rate, he had a twenty four almost twenty five percent if we round up k rate last year, it's only had sixteen and a half percent right now with a really low babbot bround two point fifty. He was like a three thirty guy last year.

And I'd point out if you have kind of.

Swinging at everything crazy swing rates with low k rates, that's actually kind of a good thing. And I mean not that he's swinging in everything. He's got to adjust, but if those aren't coming within sane K rates, like oh, I don't know, Jared Kelnick or something like that, I think that's encouraging to the future. But Dylan Carlson is also I've never been the biggest guy on him.

People with nuts, Oh, it gonna be a thirty to thirty guy.

I just think the still base and the homer rates are over inflated. I don't think he's that exciting. I mean, Manny Margo has been exceptionally more valuable than him.

I think it's in a long line of underwhelming Saint Louis Cardinal outfield prospects between gritchik Piscatti. I mean, we could do this for days with those guys. They're just like a factory for mediocre outfielders over the years. Ronald Acunya two home runs, two stolen basis is so much for slow to steal bases again, Ronald Acunya, What a joke that is? Jared Kelnick as aforementioned one home run in a stolen base, three for eight over the weekend,

What up with that? Well, what up with that would be?

Remember those low spin rates and that big Vlo tip and he wasn't getting hit up early. Now he's getting hit up and they're taking advantage of it. Ball might be flying a little bit as the weather's uncooling off and heating up a little bit. I am not the biggest Biaber guy. I really wish I wasn't preseason, but.

This is a bad warning sign.

I don't know if you can get out from under Bieber right now, even at all, after a bad one.

Like this, because people have been waiting for this.

But you know, maybe he'll heat up off a couple and then maybe you can move him if you are worried I'm a bit worried, as I have been since the start of the year.

Aaron Ashby six earned runs, Theo Castillo zero innings, pitch didn't get one out the game of five earned runs.

Good, good job, Diego.

Keller five earned runs. Spring Training Darling turning into a pumpkin. The Renz in with five earned and here we go. The Zeros on the hitting side for the weekend. Here you go, ready for this? Chris Taylor one for eleven, eight strikeouts, Brett Phillips, oh for eight, eight strikeouts, the perfect Weekend's tough? Just wh fantastic, Brett Phillips. I mean, why would we want to put a ball in play? Why would we wan? What is that?

You know what I say? Like the golden sombrero is like what, oh for four?

I don't know what it is.

That's that's like a platinum sombrero if you get eight, because that's for each time.

It's like a space space helmet eight.

Yeah, spa, it's a platinum sombrero. Tyler Nate win one for ten with seven k's. I dropped him today in the league. Trevor's story won for twelve six k's. Again, we talked about Trevor story last week, it's not been good. Say a Suzuki told you so, two for ten, five strikeouts. Kyle Tucker had a bad weekend as well, rendone two for thirteen, and Rowdy t lez Al. Rowdy went south two for thirteen over the weekend.

Three k's but that.

Was bound to happen because he was so hot. Let's get to the home run board, shall we and see who is at the top of it. And there it is Niking in the north, still at the top with twelve.

All I do is win at eleven.

JP is still at eleven as well, and Dee Bloom is at ten. So those are our double digit people and looking forward to the rest of these.

I did pull by the way, I want to point out I did pull off a homer on Friday with my Luis Robert. He hit a bomb and that would be number five, so I'm up at five two.

Did you both have that? So I can't know.

We had Schwarver the day before mayor pick something.

Oh that's what it was, right, Okay. The Bloom actually got two runs from Unio Suarez of all people, and Flooringe Socks had two home runs from Brandon Laws move up to nine. So good job on y'all. Let's get to the prop bets here and again use that promo code leading off and download bet mgm, the King of sports Books. Ten bucks to bet wins you two hundred when you bet on any game regardless of the out.

Well, I want to tell you on yours. I like all three of yours, I think, man, I think the Stanton RBI one I think I like the most.

But I really like those k Ones.

I was gonna tell you I didn't like the Woodroff one, but then I didn't realize it was against Cincinnati.

Cincinnati I do.

And I like the Redon one as well. Those are all three really good bets.

Two that I like here, I like Julio Urias K's at five and a half over versus Pittsburgh.

But it's minus money. It's minus one twenty, but that's not too bad. He's hit this in three of his five appearances, and this is against the Pirates. And like Luis Roberts total bases one and a half over versus Cleveland, that's plus money. And Louise Robert is hitting a cool over five hundred over Zach Kleisak on his career. So Luis Robert total bases and gimme Luise Arias strikeouts. And I might even want to kind of like have some fun with it. You want to really have some fun.

You have to pull full unit or anything like that.

But if you like to usually bet twenty five bucks on a game, put five bucks on it and put all three of those together and see what happens.

Because those are some really really good K props for mine.

Indeed, all right, let's talk a little bit dfs.

Now.

The DK schedule starts in the main at six o'clock hour, FanDuel starts at seven. So Vandel is gonna lose that. Dodger gave him the main slate tonight, a couple others in there. So looking at this urius on DK's eight point two woodroff against the Reds at nine point three, I think it's a good investments, especially with Castillo making

His strikeout prop is at five and a half. I don't usually like to go unders. I saw that really like the under I didn't put it onto here, but I really am interested in that under k prop on Luis Castillo at five and a half.

The other big money arms are cars Verdona ten k, which again I can justify getting in there. Urius is better at eight point two, though just just from a return on investment standpoint against the Pirates. Beckenzie Gore at nine point seven, Copek at nine point five. Also, Paul Blackburn is the secondary arm at seven point five. Continues to pitch well, so until he, you know, goes south, just keep riding this wave, I mean, you just keep

I'm going with big bad Gean Carlos Stanton, who has got a little bit of a track record in eleven played appearances versus John Gray.

Three of those are extra base hits, and it is.

Just Gean Carlos Stanton, big power against John Gray, who.

You know, give up some homers.

There you have it.

Mike Maher's doing Mike Trout tonight. That's his call, and I was contemplating I had Trout. I changed it to Harper after looking a little deeper at the Chris Flexen numbers. So we shall see how that all shakes up. And if you want to get involved, make sure you go ahead and you subscribe to our Fantasypros dot com as a pro member. If you just got to upgrade your membership there, you can get into our discord at Fantasypros

Poke around.

Also, I want to announce a winner of our April giveaway, because we had an April giveaway from the podcast from Pristine Auction. That winner is where is it? It is Chris from Ontario. I assume not theon Great Joy, just Theon from Ontario. So he gets Vladimir.

Pretty that would be from Winterfell.

Not I don't know.

I mean he he did go way north at one point, you know.

From Ontario. What's just you know what kind of north?

Kind of north? Last time I checked? So theon from Ontario all you gotta do is email us. UH. Send an email to at mail bag. It's just Mailbag at Fantasypros dot com. Again mail Bag at Fantasypros dot com. Theon from Ontario. Congratulations that Vlad Guerrero autograph ball is yours. So thanks for joining us all today on the program. We hope to do it all again tomorrow, same time, newn Eastern at Fantasypros dot com. UH, and our MLB