Hello, everybody, Welcome into the cycle. I am Ryan warmly joined. Bye. Guess who's back back again? Mayo's back, Tello friends Mike Mayer back after his long vacation which immediately followed my long vacation, so we didn't do a show together in all of June. Now Here, first week in July, we are back the dynamic duo ourselves. How was your trip, buddy?
It was great. It was a great June to not spend it with you, so that was great all around. I went to Switzerland, which was a lot of fun. I also went to Long Island with two really young children on a plane, which was a lot less fun, of course, But happy to be back and happy to be back talking baseball.
We weren't totally not in each other's lives, because you did call me while I was sitting on the beach one day to discuss work related matters for like forty minutes, and the rest of my family was like, why are you on the phone talking about work when you're sitting at the beach. But so we had a nice little chat there, but no, Yeah, it's been basically a month a month apart, so we've got a lot to catch
up on here time baseball quickly though. Also, this is July fifth, What did you do for the fourth?
I just since we just came off that big trip, we just kind of like hung at the house and you know, barbecued and stuff. And luckily, like I was just telling Blaine and Pat, the like neighborhood, like right around the corner of from mine, like literally walking distance, they do like a huge professional fireworks setup. So I took my almost four year old over there in a wagon and watched fireworks and it was a lot of fun.
I'm not a huge fireworks guy, but you know, when you have young kids there into fireworks and so it's cool to see, like, you know, them experience that.
Yeah, I've always found fireworks to be overrated and to each their own. Like, if you really enjoy it, go out and do it. I don't have a problem with it. I do have a problem with the people in my neighborhood who were doing it like after midnight, because like I do have a dog, and the dog actually did great. So my buddy has he's got this house with a really nice rooftop right just on the outskirts of the city of Denver. So it's a perfect view for fireworks
over the city. We actually got We watched the Rocky you know course Field had some fireworks going on. All these neighborhoods were doing it. All this city sponsored professional stuff. So that was really cool because a lot of times too, you can't really do that in Denver because of like fire warnings and it's so dry out here. But we've gotten enough rain that they were able to do it. So it was really fun. And my dog did great. I brought him. He was up in the rooftop. He
was anxious at times, for sure. I mean he has a dog, and there was a lot of loud noises going on, but relative to what dogs could have been, he handled it really well. This this was my first Fourth of July with him because I got him mid July last year, so this was my first chance to see how he did. And he did well, so that was so that was nice and it's cool to just go over and we grilled some I grilled some Omaha steaks and we uh, you know, we watched the fireworks.
So it was fun. Like I said, so you're.
Saying you had a dog on a rooftop with fireworks, is that what you're saying.
We weren't doing fireworks, we were watching fireworks, but yes, yes, I had watching fire Well, the roof has like a little bit of a railing, so it's not like he was just gonna be like go run off, and he is generally a pretty calm dog, so I kind of
had faith you be fine. And like I said, there was like a little bit of anxiousness, but largely was if you think of a typical dog is like, you know, eight out of ten nervous with fireworks, he was like three or four, like he little but was generally fine. So while he was a champ. That's enough preamble. Let's
get into the show here. Quick note for everybody. If you like this content, the best freeway to show your support and encourage more content like this is to leave a positive review at fantasypros dot com slash MLB review. By the way, before you jump into the round the bases, did you listen while you were out? Because I did listen to most, but not all, of the two shows you did without me.
Well, I want to lie and say yes, but I feel like I'll get caught in a lie because I did listen to the first episode with Bogman. I have not yet listened to the episode with Welsh, but I will. I will listen. I just haven't caught up yet.
The episode of Welsh is way better, so not just skiddy, They're both great. You did hear Bogman cheat in the two start pitcher competition, which we'll we'll get to at the end of the show. All right, let's dive in. We're gonna start with Louis Hill. And I wasn't sure how much you wanted to kind of jump into stuff that's been going on since you have been out or kind of what we normally do more recent to this
specific week. But Hill has been bad ever since that Oriole start where he gave up seven earned runs in an inning and a third, he has not gotten it back the last three starts an inning and a third, four and a third, four innings. He's giving up at least four earned runs in each of those. He has not struck out more than three batters in any of those. We had talked a lot in the early part of the year. You have been on this train for a while. Of the innings, you know, count being a problem and
somebody to consider in the back of your mind. It's why he was a sell high for you for a lot of the first couple of months of the season. That window is probably not entirely closed, but it's certainly closing. And after these last few starts you think it's fully clear.
I mean sure there are some leagues whe there's somebody out there who will look at the season long stats and say like, hey, everybody's allowed to have a couple of weeks, you know, off, But it is it is very nearly closed, if not all the way closed, at the very least. What is your evaluation right now? Are you saying he's somebody that like if you had him on your team, would you be selling him at any costs?
Would you be holding would you be considering dropping if that you're in a redraft league and saying, listen, I don't think we're getting anything out of him in the second half. If it's a shallower roster, what are you doing with him right now?
So I actually did, like I think in most leagues, you're not dropping him in our company ESPN leagues, which are you know, pretty shallow rosters. I dropped him in my league, and I was talking to Kelly who also dropped him in her league, so both halfs of our leagues. Louise Hale is currently a free agent. But that's because you know, est pan's a little bit shower of a format. We're getting into the playoffs because we do a really condensed season to get ready for football.
Or the playoffs. Already it's it's daily lineus. But you have like three total bench spots. There's just there's it's very very shallow, and it's a ten team league. Yeah, because there's multiple.
Times I daily transactions in those leagues. I'm always streaming starters and streaming hitters. I make daily transactions, especially now that I'm in the playoffs. But I did I did drop him in that in that league. I know I started him against the Reds. I was like just rolling the dice. I wanted the volume. Whereas uh, I think Kelly dropped him before that start. I kind of wish I dropped him before that start. Although it wasn't as
bad as the previous two starts. I think he's no longer a cell high, and I almost think he may have completely flipped to maybe being a bilow.
Now I was gonna ask think that is he if you can get over on the cheap would you actually be buying I.
Think I would because I like I as much as I think all season he was like a cell high and I could come on here and like take a victory lap. But but I do I do think like it's kind of unprecedented, like just how good he was to like completely fall off. So like the real Louis Hale is probably somewhere in the middle, and I think there's gonna be value there. I do think he's gonna need the All Star break to kind of like take
a break. Like I think a lot of things are happening here, their innings are catching up.
I think you think do you think it's fatigue is that Do you think it's more fatigue like hey, the innings stuff that we've talked about all years catching up or do you think it's like kind of getting figured out a little bit to a degree, Like to what do you attribute this mostly because it's probably multiple factors, But to what what fact did you mostly attribute this kind of falling off?
I think it's a little bit of everything. Like I, like I talked about a few weeks ago when I was talking about selling high on him, like I had concerns about the approach and the fastball usage, and also like he is someone who historically has had a pretty high walk rate, and he was just like walking no One all of a sudden, and I kind of thought, like, you know, this is probably gonna regress at some point, at which at which point, like his you know, there's
not a lot of room for error there, and so I figured some aggression was coming. But also like you have to consider the innings because it's not just like, you know, he threw a bunch of innings last year and then you know he's getting to like his innings kind of threshold. He threw no innings last year, and
the year before he threw four innings. Yeah, and in twenty twenty one he threw twenty nine innings, and so he's already up to close to ninety innings now, Like this is an unprecedented workload for him as a professional pitcher over the last four years, and so you almost have to consider that fatigue is you know, is a factor here.
By the way, we're not talking about him in this week's episode, but Garrett Crochet is similar, like the drasticness, like the degree to which he is out you know, pitching his previous career highs just in terms of workload and volume is like really remarkable, and it's it's the reason why I don't really want the Orioles to trade for Crochet with what he's going to cost, because I
think that's a trade for twenty twenty five. Like, I don't think you can sit there and say he's going to be, you know, slot in behind Corbyn Burns and Grace Rodriguez in October. So I talked about that with Bobman have been a couple of weeks ago, but it's a similar thing and we're seeing it not play out with Crochet yet, we are seeing it play out now with Heel for whatever it's worth. And I know, you know, expected Dra isn't perfect his era on the season in
three forty one Expected Dra three forty five. So it's not really you know, there's like, you know, obvious regression in either direction coming with that. Now that number was a lot lower prior to the last three starts, but.
Right, yeah, it's kind of like this is the regression that was being predicted. Yeah, the numbers now fantastic.
And now it's caught up. Yeah. I mean for me, I'm probably not training for him, even on the cheap. I'm probably just trusting that I can find somebody else. It like, I would rather pick up somebody off waivers and see if somebody's taking a step forward or hold out for a prospect or whatever, then have somebody on
my roster. If I have him, I'm gonna be really afraid to drop him, and it's it's gonna be one of those roster cloggers unless he kind of flips the switch back, because I'm gonna be so beholden to his april and may that even if he's bad, I'm not gonna be starting him. But he's just gonna be taking up a bench spot. So I maybe it's the cowards way out, but I don't think I'll be training for him.
It would have to be really really cheap for me, given given the kind of pitching landscape. Even though we're seeing like hitting come back a little bit now that it's getting warmer.
Yeah, let's go on. Excuse me, then lose my voice from fourth July. Let's go on to the next topic here, James Wood. Do we finally have an elite, top high level hitting prospect who is actually gonna hit the ground running this year. So far, he's played four games, all of them against the Mets since he was caught up on Monday. He went one for four, zero for three, two for three, one for three. He has one RBI, He's got one run score. He does have a walk
in every game. He's only struck out twice. He's got a stolen base as well. And you've seen it right, Like obviously the numbers, the sample size is small enough that the numbers aren't really that relevant, but you've seen it with the eye test that this is as advertised. He's a big, strong dude, who's gonna hit the ball really hard, who's gonna run really fast, who's kind of
electrifying Washington to a degree. Like the fan I am from the DC area, I follow a lot of Nationals fans, they are talking about him the same way they talked about Bryce Harper and Steven Strasburg when they made their debuts over a decade ago. Now that comparison is probably a bridge too far, because those are two of the greatest prospects of all time. But that is how people in the organization and people in the city are thinking about James Wood and how excited they are for him.
Obviously he was a part of their return for want So too a couple of years ago. But we've seen so many guys struggle this year on the on the hitting side. You know, Jackson Holliday is the biggest example. Jackson Churio is now starting to turn around, But those first two months were really brutal. I mean these and these are not top one hundred prospects. These are top ten, top five prospects who have not made the transition of
major league pitching very smoothly, very immediately. This year. There's been a lot of talk about how the gap between Triple A pitching and major league pitching has never been wider than it is now. But James Would through four games, very very small sample size, looks like he could be the exception and a guy who is a very viable
fantasy asset here even in redraft. You obviously know what he is in dynasty, but even in redraft as a rookie making the sleep at the age of twenty one, what do you think about what we've seen from him so far?
Yeah, so he's someone that in that same league I picked him up. I dropped fluv seal for James Wood, So I was kind of surprised he was available, but.
I was let meanerly and say I had the same reaction where I knew in all the leagues I had that are relevant with keepers and prospects, he was not going to be there. And I almost didn't even check my leagues that were just regular redraft leagues to see if he was available, because there's no way. He's the most obvious waiver stash. And he was available in two of my leagues, and so I was, okay, I'll go Like so I just say that to say, go check
if you think somebody might not be available. I mean a lot of the names we could talk about on the show are not one hundred percent rostered. Even if they're ninety five percent roster, you might be in the five percent where they're not. So it's worth checking because I got him in two leagues that I couldn't believe he was available in. So I was totally with you.
There, Yeah, And same thing for me. It was, it wasn't something where I went in and I was like, let me search for James Wood, Like I just went to go find someone on waivers and I was like, whoa James Wood is there Okay, I'll pick him up and see what we got. Like, you know, I'm a little worried about what we've seen with all the other prospects, you know, this year, but you know, whenever, like there could be like fifteen like not bus but like prospects in a row that just like kind of fall flat.
I'm still gonna roll the dice on number sixteen because like there's just always the opportunity in the chance that this is a league winner, and so you have to kind of roll the dice on that, especially if I'm not if I'm like dropping like Ian happ for him, like no problem, I'm fine making that move and just.
And it's important to really differentiate between Again, you're not saying, like the fifty sixth ranked prospect in baseball is an auto, like no matter what, Like we're talking about a guy who was a top three prospect in baseball, and when thinking about terms of fantasy, like maybe you could argue even higher like elite, elite, elite. That's just I'm never gonna not take a chance on that.
Yeah, And like you said, he's got power speed, so check check. And this year at TRIPAA he cut down on his strikeouts like a big check there. So he's someone who's cut down on a strikeouts, he's walking a lot more and so that raises his floor. Now obviously that can just completely flip it on its head at the major league level. But you know, if you have a guy that gets on base and he runs, like, you're already checking a lot of boxes. And like you said,
like the Nationals. I think we talked about this a few weeks ago. It's it's wild to me that the Nationals are not worse than they are. I kind of don't understand how they're like just like hovering around five hundred and like kind of good.
I agree, and like James.
Wood is going to make it even better. And so it's you know, he's a really exciting prospect. I'm really intrigued by the contact and I'll you know, I'm interested to see kind of like how how he adjusts. And also one of those other prospects that you didn't mention is why at Langford is heating up. Yeah, after he got off to a really bad start, but now that he's back from injury, he's really heating up too.
I didn't mention him because he hit a cycle against the Orioles, and I'm still annoyed by it, even though the Oriols took three out of four in that series. But no, he's he's a good call as well. Would you have any just quickly interest in selling high just something hype and excitement of wood or are you kind of holding on him like no matter what, just giving the pure ceiling.
Not in Hebrew Dynasty, obviously I'm not moving him, But in Redraft, I'm always interested in selling high. So like if you want to make me a godfather offer, I'm always listening for something like that.
Well, Millie Mays was the say hey kid, you are the cell high kid. You are all in on selling high. All right, let's go to the next topic here. I labeled this one ace who But essentially what I wanted to do is ask you who are the actual fantasy aces this year? Because you've talked a bit about how we've seen some of the regression we've been expecting from
pitching just in the landscape in general. You know, there have been a lot of pitchers who have been really really good, like better than expecting, Like Chris Sale has been way better than I expected him to be. I still would feel a little uncomfortable given his age in history saying like he's one of the elite, like would
be a top five starring pitcher drafted by me going forward? Right, so you know when trying to be Garret Kroshet another good example, somebody who's been elite elite this year, but how much do you trust him the second half? So when looking ahead to the second half of the season, this isn't like a twenty five projection. This is if we were redrafting for the rest of the way, how many guys because it's less than twelve. It's not just all the sp ones, it's it's fewer than twelve of
these these arms you would feel comfortable with. And it's a bit of a nebulous term. It's you. You can kind of define fantasy ace in different ways, I suppose, depending on the person I want to hear, how you define it and how many guys you think and who they are are actually fantasy aces, no doubt about it. You the complete ultimate faith in them the second half of the season. Who are they?
Yeah? And I think that's the way you put it that makes it interesting is kind of where's the line and how are we defining Ace? Because I you know, like you can make the argument if we're talking like Ace Ace like top of the really like top of the top, Like I think there's a tier after the top four, Like I think it's like exactly where schoolble burns Glass now and maybe like a drop off.
So I was gonna say that for me, four is the easy part, and then after that, like I would hear the argument that there's only four and it's those are of course the four, But I think there's a case to be made that there's nobody else that really fits into this category. I think you could make arguments for like again, like I think our expectations for like we've talked a lot about Pablo Lopez, you know, as
a by low in the first half of the season. Again, Chris Sale has been doing it this year so far, you know, Dylan Ceese has the super high strikeout potential. Max Freed was really bad in April, but then just really figured it out. Since I mean, like, there's there are names that are interesting and you'd be happy to have leading your rotation, but I think it might just be the four as like the true elite aces.
Yeah, that was gonna be my definition. It's like you know, we're defining it as like the top of the top. I think it's four, and then you can probably make
a case for like twelve as like auto starts. I mean probably more like auto starts than that if you're in it, depending on like your definition, but like that you're like really comfortable starting just like running him out there, and it's like like Luis Castillo is pretty high my rankings, but like his eras in near four and he's kind of like done this before where he's like up and down.
Jared Jones is really interesting, even though he's on the injured list now he's another one I was like worried about like his innings, but he did at least throw a decent amount of innings last year, So I remember like being surprised earlier in the year when I'm like, okay,
like how many and is he gonna throw? Because they were like babying him right out the gate, and then I was like, Okay, he threw like one hundred and twenty innings, like he can actually, you know, maybe throw one forty this year, so there's not as much concern there. So Jarra Jones, assuming the health, is someone that kind of like I could see putting in that top tier
or close to that, like second tier. Chris Sale. We're waiting for him to you know, we're waiting for the eventual injury because you know, with how great he looks and how great of a like bounce back story, this is like we know he's just gonna, like, you know, go get something from the fridge and break his elbow or something, just because like that's what happens to Chris Sale. Dylan Ceese hit a rough patch, but he's you know, someone I've been on this year, but you know he's
he's up and down again. Zach Gallon again, like health permitting has been really good. I think he's up there, and then it's a lot of like you know, up and down. Like even like someone I might have considered in this upper tier a few weeks ago has showta Imanaga, but he's you know, kind of hit a rough patch too, so he's he's not in that upper tier. Maybe he's in like this. I think I have him at like fourteen right now, and my rest rankings.
Ranger Suarez another one who like based on how he looked in.
Best Picture in Patrol.
Yeah, yeah, you know there's there's like, there's pictures that I like that I think are maybe a little undervalued. I've talked that about Grayson Rodriguez, like I think he's undervalued as SP twenty four here in our rest of season rankings with consensus, you know to me, So here, here's how I want to phrase this, because I have
an answer to this. If you had to pick one picture not in that top four and you had to place a bet on them being in that, not just like n SB one, but like an elite like making it a top five rest of season, you had to bet on one, who would it be?
So there's an easy answer to this one, and it's kind of cheating, but the easy answer would be health permitting Gary Cole.
That is a good easy answer. Is not the one I was gonna say, but it's a you know, it's a good one. I mean, we talked a bit about Cole with Welsh last week. It's it's it's a totally reasonable health permitting answer. I was gonna say, like I might say, Paul Skeens, and I know the innings are gonna be a thing for him as well. And in the Pirates aren't Pirates aren't very good? But like, like I think he might just be the best pitcher in baseball already. Like he is so so good just nine
starts into his career. That like, how is there a question mark other than innings, like if the innings are there in the second half of the season, Like, what is the case against him being fifty third innings he's thrown at the big league level. Through nine starts, he has seventy strikeouts. This is as a rookie who was drafted a year ago. His era is two oh six, his whip is one oh three. I mean, like seventy strikeouts to ten walks. I just like, like, what is
the case against him outside of inning? To me, that's really it. So you can't guarantee innings from anybody. I mean, anybody can get hurt. This is pitching. So I'm if I'm kind of building out who I'd like to have on my roster, I don't think there's anybody that would be more fun outside of that top four to have on my roster right now. The Paul Skins.
Yeah, the probably the most impressive thing I've seen from Paul Skins in this short that's like small sample size, is like I've seen him go out there and like not have one of his best pitches, like he always has that fastball, but like I've seen him go out there and like he clearly like didn't have a feel for his like the like splinker. I guess, yeah the one day and he was like, no problem, Like I'll just lean on the fastball, maybe throw a few more sliders.
Like he just like worked around it. And I'm like, for like a young kid like that to just like not have this like new bread and butter pitch and just like like unfazed and just adjust is like kind of work while to kind of see that maturity from And I guess it helps when you throw a hundred miles and urd like, no problem, I'll just throw one hundred few more times.
Yeah, one other guy that I'll throw out there, Like I don't think he's going to elevate into that tier, but I did him so fascinate whenever I watch Cole
Reagan's pitch, Like, I just I think he's really really talented. Obviously, he ended last season so well, like basically as like a true ace from whatever point it was on in like the middle of the summer, and he's been good this year like for sure, like tons of strikeouts, and you know, his era is under three three and a half, so it's not like he's been like bad or anything. He's just another one that I think is perhaps a
little undervalue there. But yeah, so, I mean I think we agree that like essentially, like depending on your definition, there's like four of them.
One one more name I want to ask you about. How do you so like, obviously he's gonna miss some time and there's some real health concerns there. But let's say he comes back in a month and he's perfectly healthy and we have no concerns. What about Yamamoto?
It's really hard to just throw away the injury concerns, Like that's hard that it's hard off. I think he might for me fall more into the category of like a top twelve starting pitcher, but not in that elite like kind of Mount Rushmore tier of who we have rest of season? Would he be up there for you? I think I think it's a reasonable name to bring
up and ask about. But even if you guaranteed me health, I think he'd be more like in that five to twelve range rather than that one, two, three, and four are so locked in.
I think that's where I had him before the injury. I had him at five just because of like do you just leade upside and being on the Dodgers, I'm like, I mean, I mean, now I have him like in the twenties or something.
Those four names we mentioned Glass now on the Dodgers, great team, gonna get like, I just think of wins, let alone, strikeouts and everything else on the Dodgers, Zack Wheeler on the Phillies, Corpa Burns on the Orioles, and then Scooball on the Tigers. Obviously he's just really really good. But three of those four are like on very very good teams. So yeah, all right, let's move on to the next topic here. I've been going to do this for a while and I figured kind of the day
after fourth of July. We've both been on vacation for a while. It felt like a good, you know, time to come back with this is I want to make the case for rules changes that we want to see. So we've talked a bit about some rules stuff that we're not big fans of in the past, and I have one big one that I have I've talked about on podcasts for years now. But not on this one, so our audience I don't think will have heard it.
But it's it's the biggest rule change that I love, and it will never happen, but it's just a fun one for me, and I want to hear what rules changes you would like to see too. There are, you know, smaller ones that I've thought about in the past as well, but I kind of have one big one and I need to clear my throat, so I will let you go first.
So for me, I have some like some obvious ones that I can go through. For me, the one rule change I want to see is I want to bring the shift back. I want it back. Maybe I don't. I don't like this whole you're not allowed to move. I want play wherever you want. I wanted. I want to get nuts. I want to see like just little numbers down the third third base line with no one in that vicinity going for a double. That's what I want. I want, Like you know, live and die by the shift, and you really kind.
Of still see that to be fair, like, because teams will shift with the short step like just to the left to second base and the third baseman at shortstop accent you do still get those little numbers that go for doubles every now and then.
Yeah, but you don't have the guy playing like shallow right field, which I love. I mean, it was kind of annoying to watch games games like that, but I hate that we remove the ability to do that. And the kind of crazy thing this year is that even without the shift, like Babbitt is down and like averages are down, and it's kind of weird that we like remove the shift, which and like everyone was like, oh, like batting average is going to go way up, but like it hasn't at all.
I disagree with this one. I'm fine with. I don't think there should be like very regimented you have to stand in this spot, certainly. I the thing that I like is two infielders on either side of the bag. I do because I hated, like a very clean single just oh right to this the third basement playing in shallow rightfield. I hated that.
To me, that's not I love because then you get like a guy beating out an infield single to that guy in redfielder was great.
I would rather just be a clean hit, like that's a good piece of like Like to me, the shift most negatively impacted pull hitters, right, And to me, there's nothing inherently wrong with being a pull hitter, So I don't like that they are punished whereas somebody who's capable going OPO is it isn't less. So like to me, a good clean hit is a good clean hit. And like, infielders have been standing where they were for a one
hundred years. I know, like Ted Williams was shifted on, Like I'm not saying that it was never done in the past, and it's not. This is like a hill I'm super willing to die on. But personally, I like, you can stand wherever you want as long as two infielders are on either side of the bag. To me,
that's a big one. And and you know what, I wouldn't care if you want to call an outfielder in to stand in shower, if you want to pull the left fielder over to stand in shallow right and say listen, if you want to go opa, we're giving you all of left field. Like I'd be more okay with that because then the reward is like commensurate with the risk that you're giving up. But like, yeah, just moving like the third basement or shortstop over there, Like I never
was a big fan of that. It would be really frustrated. Like even like teams are still shifting to a degree, Like just yesterday, I was watching the O's game and Gunnar Henderson hit a ball one hundred miles an hour off the bat, a rocket up the middle that got past the pitcher, and the shortstop fielded it so cleanly because he was standing six inches to the left of
second base. Like that is a clean hit in every iteration of baseball that has ever existed, and it's still being taken away by the shifts because teams are smart. So like it's still happening.
You don't want to be able to do that. You want to just play shortstop play Derek g no I.
Bring that story up to say, like teams are still finding a way to shift and take away base hits, so it's not like it's completely gone. I am not a fan of When I was a scout, we called it a full ted. Williams was three in fielders on one side of the bag. I'm not a fan of a full ted. I prefer the halfted where it's sort of shifted but not quite over that second base line. To me, I think that's I think it's good to have at least that little bit of delineation.
It would be great to announce a new rule where you can't shift at all and call it the Derek Jeter rule, like you can only shift five feet in either direction. Yeah, it would be great.
I do love a good shot at Jeter. Okay, so my And there's some little ones, like we've talked before about how I really think the official scorekeeper should be allowed to choose which pitcher deserves the win in a game. Like like to me, if a guy goes seven strong and then his bullpen gives up the lead in the eighth and then they happen to hit a walk off in the ninth, like the guy who went seven innings
should get the win. I don't care who was on the mound when score change happened, Like I feel really strongly about that. But the big one that I have said for a while, and this was I first brought it up back when they were debate. There was a lot of debate about like pictures hitting versus the DH, and my stance has been I want neither. I want lineups to be eight batters long, No DH and no picture.
And I like this for a couple of reasons. One, I don't want the picture hitting because why why do I care about this guy who's coming up?
It was terrible.
He's just gonna sacrifice bunt every time the occasional Bartolo Colonne home run is not worth it. Like I'm I don't need pictures hitting. I also don't need the designated hitter, like I don't need a guy who's only up there because he can only do half the game. Baseball is fun to me because the same it's unlike football, the same guy's played both sides. You have to field and you have to hit. And I like that a lot.
And I know that it will never happen because the DH has extended careers and like the NFLPA will never allow it to change. And I also know that people like the symmetry. Oh yeah, no, I don't think they do. They keep for correcting me. I've lost my trand oh yeah, I know it don't ever have. People also like the symmetry of like a nine inning game, three outs, like it all kind of divvys up. Well, you know, nine
batters in the lineup. A perfect game is everybody hits three times exactly, you know, get through like twenty seven outs. I get all that. I think this would help a It gets your best hitters more at bats. I mean, Gunnar Henderson leading off, if he's hitting every eight batters instead of every nine, is gonna get I haven't done the math, but what like, I don't know, thirty more at bats in a season? Like that's fine. I want to see the best players of baseball hitting more often. Yeah,
probably more. I that was a very quick shody math by me. I want to see that happen. I want to see hitters get through the lineup more often, which means modern pitchers, you know, don't always love going through the lineup a third time. Okay, well, now maybe you're getting to the bullpen earlier, and because you're going to the bullpen earlier, they have to cover more outs and can't come in throwing ninety five mile an hour wipe out sliders and one hundred and three miles an hour
all the time. Maybe this actually helps get us more contact because the pictures, it's a more difficult task to get through the lineup as many times as you need in nine innings, and so maybe there's you know, maybe it actually helps the hitting, which has been a huge talking point about more balls and play and fewer strikeouts and stuff like that. So I really like this idea.
I think if we were starting baseball from scratch, nobody would say, hey, why don't we add a guy who only does half the game, And nobody would say, hey, why don't we have this specialized arm also hit. It would be obvious that we would just have eight hitters and nine fielders, because the ninth is the guy you know on the mound. So I think that it's so entrenched that clearly it will never happen. This is me very much wish casting that I think this would be
a fun rule change. But I thought of this like years ago when people were having this debate, and ever since I've yet to hear a good argument against it. I like it.
I'm on board with it. You know, it's hard for me to be really anti DH as a Red Sox fan who just watched David Ortiz just like own the world for a while, like as a DH, but I also think oprated he would have he would have been now he's not overrid. I think he would have been fine if he just had to like go out there
and play first base. Maybe not the last two or three years of his career when he could like barely walk because he literally had to like stop playing baseball because like his feet hurt too much, even just as a D eight. So I don't think he would have been fine the last few years. But like two thousand and four, he played a little bit of first base here and there, like it was fine.
He was a grown man, threw temper tantrums and once destroyed the Orioles bullpen phone because he was mad about a call.
What was he doing in the Orioles bullpen?
No, like they're they're in the dugout, like the phone. It was at like the phone front of the visit's dugout to the bullpen. He took a bat to it and shattered it.
I'm fine with that.
I'm no Yankees fan, but I was all is like, whenever there's like an MVP debate, like a Rod Ortiz, I was like, it's clearly a Rod because he's as good of a hitter and also doing all this stuff in the field that orties can't do.
That's just butteroids.
Well that's a different conversation for a different day. But in the moment, I felt pretty strongly about it. Yeah, I'm glad you're important. I think it's I think it would be a great rules change that would make the game more fun with the stars would get more opportunities. It would, I think, help hitters in general, like you know, got to take back some of the power from pictures are so darn good now and we wouldn't have this like useless debate of like pictures hitting versus h which
is largely gone now that they've made it universal. But I just think it's to me, it would be a no brainer. I would love to see that.
I think you'd get more cool stories like like the Moneyball story where Ron was it Ron Washington had to teach Scott how to break how to play first base like that, Yeah, because he couldn't throw, like as a
catcher anymore. I think you would. I think you would, you know, see some cool stories like that where like you know someone who you know, like a David Ortiz like has to play first base, or someone has to you know, like a Kyle Schwarber like can play the outfield, but like his value as a hitter or as a player is drastically different. If you have to put him in left field every night, then if you can just date him, so I think you'd see some interesting it.
Also, I think would incentivize teams to have more depth in the lineup because if you have like kind of that defensive specialist who's really bad in the lineup, well, now he's not one of nine, he's one of eight. He's a higher percentage of your at bats in the course of a long season, which is a lot of at bats.
So yeah, I just would also kind of bring back some of the because like, really the only good thing about pitchers hitting was late game like pinch hitters, and like the kind of like strategy that was involved, and like having you know when your pitcher was up in the lineup, and like double switches and like all that stuff.
You would bring some of that back in the opposite with like if you have kyleeg Schwarber and left field, if you have a lead in the seventh or eighth inning, you probably need to pull him for someone who can play a little bit better out there.
Yeah, I'm that we see ida Aye. This has been my favorite rules change forever, So I'm glad that I didn't have to make the case too strong for you. Let us know for the listeners in the comments, so you know, go ahead and reply to us on Twitter or in the reviews. Let us know if you have any rules changes of your own. We might do this again later in the season if we, you know, want to throw out someway.
I got one more quick one before we wrap up. We don't have to discuss it, but like, for the love of God, can we just get like universal baseballs, Like the baseball is always the same, it's pre tagged. It's just like we're not changing it. They're not bouncy balls, just like one baseball, and that's what we use.
That's what I want, you know what I'll say very quickly for my kind of one follow up is I love and when I play adult softball, they have like the orange bag to the side of first because so you're not staying on the same bag. And every time I fave play first base on a bag that doesn't have that, like in the back of my head, I'm like nervous about my foot getting like in the way or whatever. Like just have the X second base. There's no reason for first base to not have the extra
bag right there. I just think it would be super easy and not chee the game in Yeah, okay, let's move quickly because I do have another show to go do shortly, so we'll go very quickly here through our Bilo Sell High picks and also Waiver Central, and then wrap up the show here. So kick us off with your favorite buy it low.
It's my favorite by Low. I actually stole it from Kelly, who wrote it up for this week's article on the site, which is six Fantasy Baseball Players to Trade Now, and it's it's our weekly one of our two weekly by Low Sell High articles, this one is our featured pros one. I did not contribute to this one, but I will probably be back next week. But I stole this one
from Kelly because I really liked it. I'm a big fan of Marcus Sime and I think I've traditionally kind of had him as like a cell high in the past, just because I always think he was a little bit overvalued.
But he just had a really bad June, and I think just with this season long numbers, you can probably get him for a deal right now, just because I think, I mean, it's it might be hard depending on like the position versatility, but and like what you're you know, the other manager as to kind of like replace him. But like I just I see like his numbers should be a lot better than they are, and he just
like had a really rough patch. I think, you know, the Marcus Sime manager is gonna be frustrated right now, and I think you could. I think you can get a deal for him.
I think it's a good call. I also drew mine from the Bilo cel High article which everybody should go check out, and I highlight Dylan Cease which Rex rut Chick I believe is how to pronounce his name and one of our contributing writers, and I thought he made a great case where Cese like has had a kind of a rough stretch here in June, but his expected era is basically a full run lower than his current era.
He obviously is still giving you you know, his whiff and strike out rates are both ninety fifth percentile, as was highlighted in the article. I think that you know, regression is coming for him like towards that era, getting you know, a run ish lower. You're getting great strikeouts. And if somebody is looking at his last six starts four nine four era in that stretch, somebody says like, hey, you know, he hasn't been very good and I'm wanted
to get out from the Dylan Ce's business. He's somebody that I would be willing to pay to buy low for. But you don't need to buy like at you know, horrible like terrible prices. You can like, I would pay market price to get him when market price is buying low, if that makes sense, Like, I don't think you need to like low ball the guy for him. I would give up something of value to get him because I think he's going to be even more valuable going forward.
So I think that's a great call by Rex. Who is your favorite cell high?
So I like the Dylan Cees bilow. I almost picked him, but I've I feel like I've talked about Dylan Sees a bunch on the show, so I didn't want to go right back to that. Well, as everyone alredly knows that I'm a Dylan Ceese fan, my favorite sell high is Mason Win and I'm just so over Mason Win. I'm so ready for this guy to just stop like looking better than he is. And I think the breaking point for me was recently, for some reason, I get
a lot of Cardinals twitter on my timeline. I don't really know how that happens, but I get a lot of Cardinals tweets, and I saw an account put out like a poll and in like complete seriousness, they were saying, like, if you were the Cardinals, would you trade Mason Wayne
for Jackson Holliday like in real life? And they were like it was like the pole results were like I would do it, and I think the team would do it, or like I would do it, but I don't think the team would do it, and like it was like overwhelmingly like the Cardinals would do it, but the the Orioles would not. But there were enough votes the other way where I was like, what are we talking about right now?
Everything overvalues their own players. I mean it's just like jack Like if you look at the list of guys who have been like the consensus number one prospect in baseball, it's like all superstars and Waterfranco, Like it's all just like the best players in baseball. So I like, yeah, so like you just not like teams have no fans of teams just seemingly have no concept of what that's worth. It.
It was wild to man. I was just like what are we doing. I actually voted on it just to see what the results were, and it was just it was wild. Like the results were what they should have, but in terms of like result like the majority, but like the how much it was winning by, it was like was it needs to be one hundred percent? Like and it was just driving me nuts. And I was like this, like he's he's like a great story. He's a good baseball player, but like his value in fantasy
is really overvalued. Like he's hitting for a high average. I don't know that that's gonna, like, you know, really be sticky. I think he's like fine, and like he steals a few bases and he doesn't really have much power. And it's just like everyone just thinks this guy's great, and I think he's like fine. But if you want to tell me give me anything for Mason win, you can have it, no problem.
Yeah, that's a good call. Micel High is Stephen Kwan. We talked about this a couple weeks ago with Bogman on the show. His batting average is already trying to come down a bit because it was at like four hundred, so it's still at three sixty seven. He's not really
running this year. He only has four stolen bases. He does have a bit more pop. He's got eight home runs, which is he had five last year sixty year before, so obviously a bit more power, a bit less speed, which is something that you kind of rely on Kuan for the average, which I think will still remain high,
but again we're calling this to sell high. If you can get somebody really good for Kuan, I think that the batting average will continue to come down over the course of the season, still will be very good, but I think you can get a really good player, maybe even a really good pitcher for Kuwan, depending on the league and what other needs are going on in there. So somebody's willing to buy him as a superstar, then I'm willing to sell him as that.
Have you looked at his stat cast page recently, because it's wild.
I looked at it yesterday. I don't have it up right now.
It's just like like sweet Spot Chase with k percentage, they're all like ninety nine hundred percentile, and like expect the batting average ninety nine percentile, and like then when you look at like the actual contact, Oh yeah, I average exa BLASTI tenth barrel percentage, two hard eight percentage too. It's just like it's either like one hundred or zero. It's great.
Yeah, it's pretty wild. All right, let's quickly hit on waivers. I'll go first. I'll just give you both at the same time because I gotta get moving here. Luis Garcia is my favorite hitter. He's basically a pacing for something like a twenty twenty season with a batting average about two sixty, and he's only rostered in sixteen percent of Yahoo leagues. I just think that number is too low.
And I think with James Wood up, like the lineup in the second half of the season might not be super terrible, so there might be some more opportunities for runs in RBI. He's still really young. Whenly twenty four, he's had hot streaks this season. Two he's expecting bad average is like twenty points higher than it is right now anyway, So I like Luis Garcia. I think he's
under rostered. And then Dean Kramer for the pitcher. Part of this is he looked really good, and I was against the Mariners, so everybody looks good against the Mariners. He looks really good in his first start back from injury earlier this week. I forget. I actually don't have it up. I think it was something like five innings, eight strikeouts, you know, one hit, something like that. He
looked really good. He's obviously on a team that needs starting pitching, like the spot in the rotation is his unless he really falls off a cliff. It's not like he's you know, there's a threat of you know, all these other pitchers to take his his away from him. And as of right now, he's scheduled to be a two start pitcher this week. I think they might change that.
I think they might use the off date to bump corburn Burns up to get that last start of the first half against the Yankees, just because it is against the Yankees. So he might not be a two start pitcher, but right now he is, so he might get two starts out of him next week. He's also somebody very available twenty six percent rostered on Yahoo. So those are my two. Luis Garcia is the hitter and Dean Kramer is a pitcher. Who are your two?
Sure, I'll give you both of mine as well real quick. I like the Dean Kramer pick. And I also you didn't mention it. But one thing I like about him is he's throwing a splitter now, and so I like whenever there's like a new pitch that you can kind of point to for some of that success. And so and like, you know, splitter is like the big trendy pitch this year, you know, after like sweepers. Yeah, and so a lot of people are having a lot of
success throwing splitter. So I like that. My favorite hitter is Jose Miranda. He's been red hot lately and he's moving up in the Twins lineup. He's been batting like clean up. He moved up to second a few days ago. And with the hitting environment right now, he's only rosters in thirty six percent on Yahoo, which is kind of crazy with how good he's been recently, especially with that. You know, in a lot of leagues he's first base third base eligible, and pretty much he should be in every league.
I think.
I think he mostly plays third. I think in a lot of leagues, Like if you're on Yahoo, he'll be first base eligible as well too. But you know, two pretty shallop positions, and you know, you got to take hitting where you can get it. Right now with how weird the landscape is, even though as I mentioned earlier, it's you know, things are starting to heat up. So he's available in a lot of leagues. I would go
get him. And my favorite pitcher is Andrew Abbott. He's available in about half of Yahoo leagues, right around fifty percent, and I like him because he's been pitching fairly well, but also more importantly two starts at home against the Rockies and at home against the Marlins, and I'm going to pick my two start pitcher for a very similar reason. I'm going to pick his teammate coming up in a
few minutes. But I'm always looking at two star pitchers streaming all my leagues, and when you get two, those are two the best matchups you can get, especially if you can get the Rockies away from Coursefield. So Andrew Abbott the pitcher, and Jose Miranda on the hitting sign.
Let's go to weekend excitement. I am most excited for a couple different things. Aaron Nola versus Max Freed on Friday Night tonight is a really fun one that I'm excited to watch. Paul Skan's just anytime he's pitching on the weekend. I'm gonna pick Paul Skans in weekend excitement. He's going up against the Mets, and then Garrett Crochet against the Marlins for a couple of reasons. One is because he is all these rumors about being traded and I'm just kind of curious to see how he continues
to hold up with the inning stuff. But two, like Krochet going against the Marlins could be an all time start. So that's what I'm excited for. What are you excited for?
So I'm actually excited because I'm not getting a great pitching matchup, unfortunately, but maybe I'll see some good offense. But I'm actually going I live about thirty minutes from the Braves Ballpark and I've I've yet to go there, and so I'm going to go there for the first time on Sunday and when they see Phillies Braves. A friend of mine from Jersey is going to be in town, and so I'm going to meet him at the game.
And it looks like I'm getting Michael and Mercatto versus re Now the Lopez that was my pitching matchup that day, Yeah, right now, might get some offense on that day, but yeah, I'm excited for that. I'm not really excited to you know, it's really, really really hot down here, so I don't know how I'm gonna if I'm really gonna love like sitting in the Braves Ballpark at ninety five degree heat.
But you know, anytime I can see him a baseball game live in a while, sometime you get to go to the ballpark is a good day.
All right. Let's go to our two start pitcher competition. A quick recap from the last month, since we, you know, have not been on together. So Kelly picked for me in the first week. I was actually picked Logan Gilbert, who beat Dylan Ceese, was your pick, so that was a win for me. Then Tuma picked Pablo Lopez. You picked John Gray that second week, easy win for me as well. Those are both pretty faster pick. Yeah, we're not gonna there's gonna be no debating that one from you.
So those are two wins for me. And then the first week you were out. Bogman made a mistake. He I told him that he couldn't repeat anybody, but I forgot to remind him the list of who the has already been picked, and he didn't check the outline. It was mostly my fault. I take the blame. He picked Aaron Nola, who you had already used, so I said, okay, we'll have a one exception. We each can use one picture repeated once, so I have that so in my
back pocket. Nola did beat Ranger Suarez. We went with a couple of Phillies because two Phillies pictures had two starts each, and Nola was better. So you were finally back on the board for the first time in a while. And then last week Welsh picked for you. He picked Scooble and I picked Hunter Brown. That one is still waiting to be determined here. Currently the record through twelve completed weeks is I have seven and you have five.
So who are you picking to try and get even closer to evening this thing up?
Well, real quick, as we go seven to five as the official Italian in your favor. There were two nail bitters that we had someone else pick, like who won that week, and Tuma picked one and Kelli picked one, and they both picked you, And so I will say it's seven to five, it could easily be six six or seven five the other act because we had two real nail biers, even when I tried to, you know, tell them that they had to pick me because I think matchup a few weeks agother was George Kirby versus
Matt Waldron. They literally they had like really close lines, but uh, Kirby allowed like one more run, but I had more strikeouts, and I think Tuma gave you the win for that one, much to my chagrin.
Kelly gave me the win on Kirby, which I remember her picking because she got the strikeouts. And then Tuma gave me the win on Logan Gilbert versus Dylan Cees.
There you go, there you go. So you got that one. Good for you, Good for you. So for I already alluded to my pick, but I'm going to so for my waiver pick, I picked Andrew Abbott because he's got two great matchups and for my two star pitchering one with Nicolodolo for the two same matchups, home against the Rockies and home against the Marlins.
Go me. Actually, I think I figured I wrong. I think I think Tuma did pick me as the winner with the Kirby one. I think I misspoke there, But either way, I think you did too. By the way an unbiased third party picked me, so.
That I would have given Kelly a really hard time if she picked as a.
Winner, because I forgot that we have to wait two weeks to make the pick, not one. Yeah, so yeah, it was definitely too much. Anyways, my pick, I'm going with Ronelle Blanco, who you have used this year I have not. He also gets to start against some rounds.
I find it really difficult to pick this week, partly because the guys that were good I've already used, so in trying to keep with that, you know, not repeating anybody, it was very difficult for me to find somebody that I liked their matchups and the pitcher and I hadn't
already used. So I figured I go with Blanco. He hasn't been as good as he was at the start of the year, but he still has it in him for good starts, and obviously this Marlin start, I'm hoping we'll go a long way for me, so that'll be my pick. I do have to get out of here. Good to have you back, buddy, Glad to be talking
baseball with you again. We will be back together at least through the rest of July here and then we might have some scheduling bookkeeping too, let everybody know about as we get into August and closer to football season, when our lives become a lot busier, But at least stick with us through July and then the show will still be around beyond that, but we'll let everybody know what's coming once we get there. So for Mayor and for all the guest who filed in the last month,
I really appreciate it. I'm Ryan warmly thank you everybody for tuning in. We'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball podcast. Follow us on x, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros MLB