Hello, everybody, Welcome into the cycle. I am Ryan Warmley joined. I would say, as always, it's been a few weeks, but I'm joined today, certainly by Mike Mayor. We did not do a show last week. I was off on vacation. I was actually traveling from Delaware to New Hampshire on the day that we were going to record last week, so I was out. You had some stuff going on yourself, so you ended up not able to record the last second,
so we did not have a show. Sorry to those who were waiting and wondering and who we did not warn that we would be taking a week off, but that is what ended up happening last week, so apologies for that. I of course was gone the week prior as I was starting that vacation as well, So it's been a few weeks because the week prior to that you were not here. So coming up on basically a month since it's been the two of us.
Yeah, it's definitely not entirely but mostly my fault that we didn't have a show last week. We had, you know, like you were out, Kelly had some some stuff to deal with, and then we were actually going to have Welsh fill in and so then we ended up pushing the show back to Friday. But then I had some issues. You know, I was out two weeks ago for a medical procedure and I had some complications from that said procedure and was not physically able to do the show
last week. So was not planned. Apologies for missing it, but you know, not something we were intending to do. It just kind of just kind of all fell apart.
Yeah, we are back now. I told you that I watched very little baseball on this vacation. The one baseball I did watch was I was gifted front row seats atop the Green Monster for Red Sox game, which was bonkers. I had never been on the Monster before. I had been to Fenway once, but I was sitting in like the foul section, like in deep right field, like way under the row above us, like really really terrible seats. This was a very different experience at Fenway. This was
again front row the Monster. My friend who I was visiting up in New Hampshire, his company does some you know, work with Fenway, and he reached out, like as a sponsor, and he reached out and was like, hey, I got a buddy in town. He's not even a big baseball fan. He was like, I got a buddy in town. He loves baseball. Do we have any tickets if we want
to try to go to the game. It was a Friday night, beautiful night again Yankees, Red Sox, so you would think like really like, you know, highly sought after tickets, and they're like, yeah, we've got four for you didn't even tell them where they were. Turns out there were a front row of the monster, so wild experience, very very cool. I'm very grateful for that experience. And we saw Aera judge hit a ball probably five hundred and
seventy feet. I mean, I know technically it was like four sixty or something, but he obliterated the ball off of Garrett Crochet. So that's fun to watch. But yeah, very cool experience. I know as a Red Sox guy, you were probably jealous.
Yeah I was jealous. I've been. I've been where you took the picture from, but not for a game. I went on like a tour and got to go up there and like see the view from up there as very cool. I also found out it wasn't my first game at Fenway, but one of the when I was like an adult, I like bought tickets. I found out the hardware that they still sell obstructive view seats and they're real and you actually can't see the field from
like as you're like behind a pillar. So like if you buy that seat, you might as well just not sit in it and like walk around because you literally can't see the field from it.
It was very close to those seats that I sat in the first time. I was at Fenway, where I was going for as cheap as I can, and you know, I'm trying to go to every stadium. I'm at fifteen of them now. And my buddy and I were, you know, crossing Fenway off the list a few years ago, and so we went as cheap as we could, and it was it was borderline obstructive view. So that wasn't great. All right, enough about that, we will go ahead and dive into riding the bases here.
Now.
It's kind of funny because I said to you, hey, do you want to do our usual bit where I, you know, come back from vacation. I tend to go pretty off the grid when I when I'm off, I try not to be you know, keeping up with work or anything. And so I enjoy when you kind of catch me up on everything I missed, and you know, coming in kind of with maybe a little less you know,
knowledge and research than usual. And you said maybe, and then all of your topics in in the show sheet are Worm is going to try and guess this picture based on his stats or real or not real for these recent breakouts. And I'm like, I just told you I haven't watched baseball in two weeks, and you're forcing me to really shoot from the hip here. So we'll see how this segment goes. I hope everybody appreciates it. Nonetheless, let's dive into the first one, which is you've labeled
is this mystery picture? Legit mayor will provide stats for Worm to try to guess this picture.
Yeah, so I was gonna put the stats in the sheet, but I didn't want you cheating. I'm looking up beforehand, so I put the stats elsewhere.
What do you take me for? Okay, I don't take this seriously enough to cheat to try to win.
Well, you've already been lobbying, you know, internally we have an ice cream bracket going. You've already been like lobbying for your picks to try and win. You tried to get what is it, Moose Tracks all the way to the finals.
I tried to get more. Okay, you frame it like I'm trying to get it to the finals. I'm trying to get it past drumsticks, which are not even an ice cream. They're like a novelty treat that aren't even that good. So yes, it's not like I've been trying to like bribe the voters to get Moose Tracks all the way to the championship just because I like it. I just think it should have beaten drumsticks.
For those interested, the championship matchup is chocolate chip cookie dough versus drumsticks.
I wasn't even gonna bring this up because I think it's such a travesty that drumsticks are in there.
It's a travesty that we eliminated one of the Vanilla's. We had Vanilla, Vanilla, Bean and French Vanilla, and we decided.
That that was a travesty that in a thirty two censorship three of them were Vanilla's and we had no cookies and cream to start, which thankfully we snuck in there later and they made it to the to the final four. So deserving, deserving fit. I mean, chocolate chip cookie dough isn't my top choice, but it's good. Like if it wins, which I hope it will at this
point facing drumstick, that'll be a very deserving flavor. I think everybody let us know in the comments what ice cream flavor you woul vote for, whether it's a classic one. It could even be something simple like just plain chocolate, or maybe a more unique one like an interesting Ben and Jerry's flavor, or you know, something unique to your hometown ice cream shop. Let us know your favorite iceam flavor in the comments.
Or your favorite ice cream to watch a baseball game with, probably just playing vanilla out.
I do love summer Day. You can't see it right now, and I promise we'll get to the show in a second. You can't see it right now. I know people could just skip ahead on YouTube. It's fine if they don't care about this, but we have I have this background behind me, but normally you can see I have ice cream helmet Sundays from every ballpark. I'm missing three of them,
but there were a lot of them. Were collected by my mom when she was growing up, and then kind of passed them down to me, and I've tried to add to the collection to round it out and get all thirty I think I'm missing. It's like the Rays, the White Sox and whatever other. I can't remember the third one I'm missing. But we're we're we're whiddling away at it. That's half the reason I moved to Denver with so I could get the Rockies off the list.
Well, that's all of a reason. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring you this this picture. Do you want to like guess after like every stat or how do you want to do it?
I think it's very unlikely I get this right at any point, so I would say, give me, give me every two stats, I'll guess.
All right, And I have the clues kind of set up in a way that, like, I'll make it more and more obvious as we get closer, Like, Okay, this person's name is so is this is this mystery picture? Legit? He has a one point eight four e r A and earlier in June he threw a complete game shutout.
I think I might actually know who it is on the first round of clues. Is it Andrew Abbott?
No?
Yeah, I was a comple game shutout he did throw on It was in June, right, I thought that was a good guess that.
If you have another clip, well I lied because it is Andrew Emit. That's I just lost all a little.
Bit, all right. I can't think of it many other complete game shoutouts, at least at the top of my head. That happened in June.
So well, you're you sold yourself short. And I was gonna I was going to go through many other stats and you got to, you know, pretty early. I was going to go through his CA percentage, really low whip. Then I was going to start getting more more obvious. He's a lefty, he has a six and one record, he just turned twenty six. He pitches in the NL Central and then get all the way to he's a lefty, pitches for the Reds, and make.
More obvious his name is alliterative. The shutout, I think is a much more obvious clue than those other ones. I think that was a mistake, but like I wouldn't have gotten it based on his CA percentage or having six wins or anything that the shutout I think was it was an obvious clue, but go great job by you now. Really, I know, I clearly I've been watching
a lot of baseball. Yeah, you know, ab It's interesting because he was somebody that I was interested in it times last year, and then maybe it wasn't as good after I invested in him. But yeah, he's been on like a really good stretch. I mean, he's been really been good this whole year. And to answer your question if he's legit or not, I think he's I would
phrase it. And this is the way I sometimes think of questions like this, is he's legit enough, right, Like I don't know that he's gonna you know the ideo for hun complete game shoutouts right and left, right, But I think he's legit enough to want to like have him, And I would be interested in trading for him if he was available and the price was right to be starting him like he's legit enough to trust for now.
That's an interesting way to phrase it. I wonder, let me pull up the trade value chart, although I didn't do it yet for this week, but I wonder who you'd be willing to trade for him?
And by the way, by the way, I do recognize but he had a downstart coming off of that shutout, so it's and and also the start before the shoutout, he wasn't very good, so it's not like he's just been right and left like amazing. But again good good enough for me.
Yeah, although his most recent start it was five runs, but only one of them was earned, so it was kind of a weird a weird start. But before the shoutout there were five ron runs.
I always I always kind of roll my eyes a little bit, like if it's like one extra run compared to the earned runs, then yeah, like you know it's fair and not hold it against him, Like he's still allowed a three run home run, Like I recognized that he wouldn't have needed to get to that batter if not for the error, and that's why it doesn't count as an earned run. So yes, that's like a legitimate thing.
I'm not saying the stat should be different, but like I think in evaluating him as a pitcher moving forward, like he still threw a pitch that resulted in three runs being scored even if he in an ideal like defending you know, fielding scenario wouldn't have had to throw that pitch.
I think error, Like how unearned runs are calculated is another thing we could have talked about when we did are like what do we want to ban in baseball kind of segment because I do think errors could be more subjective, subjective for like earned runs and stuff, because.
Somebody I would be fine if I would be fine if if the earned runs were the guy who got on is an unearned run, but the other runs that scored still are earned because you would have had to face those batters. Eventually, I get that there's a lot of like logical fallacies with that argument. This is just me off the cuff, like thinking about a good fix. So I recognize that that's not a fully fleshed out thought.
But again, like he allowed that home run, Like to me, that's still worth considering and in evaluating his performance.
Well, there's also like if it's if it would have been the third out of an inning and then you give up eight more runs, those eight runs are all unearned, and that's kind of you know, again, you wouldn't have had to face those guys, but like you probably would have been next inning anyway.
So yeah, or I mean maybe if it was the last inning of your outing, like you would have been pulled the next sitting Like again, you can get into a lot of like kind of back and forth about it, but.
I guess that's all we got. Anything else on Andrew Rabbit.
Well, what was your thought? Yeah, I legit to you.
I think he's he's like, similar to what you said, like legit enough. I would say, he's like in between like legit and not legit. He's like good enough.
You know he would you be interested in training for him?
Depends. I pulled up the trade value chart to see what I would want to give up and kind of like in that range of what he would be worth. Reyese Hoskins is kind of in that range if I needed a hit her. I don't know that I would like. I feel like he's more like the kind of player like if I have him, I'm going to keep him or so high. I don't know that I'm like really interested in like going out and acquiring him just because he one A four era. His whip is really good.
His expected numbers are all over the place. Two point nine two x CRA, three point nine two FIP and then the Sierra or x FIP and then the Sierra and FIP or in between there. His that gas page is pretty solid. You know, you always say like red
as good, blue as bad. He doesn't throw like a big fastball, doesn't have a good ground ball rate, which could come back to haunt him where he pitches, but he has like a really good he's like really good at avoiding hard contact, even though like his it's kind of weird. His hard hit percentage is eighty eight percent of but his barrel percentage is like forty percent of. But he's always like getting barreled but not very hard kind of a thing, or at least like getting you know,
like hard hits barrel rates. It's you know, kind of subjective for the stats, but like, other than that, like everything looks really solid. And he throws his fastball almost fifty percent of the time despite not having like a big fastball, which is also a little weird. Like he throws a ninety two mile an hour fastball fifty percent of the time. That doesn't sound like a pitcher you would normally think is like has these great numbers, but
he just you know, he locates it. Like batters are only hitting two hundred against it with an expected batting average of one ninety. So he's doing something with his fastball. That's you know, working for him, and so like I feel like he's legit, but also like he worries me. It seems like he has to kind of profile that like if one thing changes like this could all unravel very quickly.
I think that's fair. I think I would be very open to moving off him if it gets to that point, Like like, I'm not going to be digging my heels in and say, oh, he had three bad starts in a row. I'm still blind faith like you know, starting him regardless, But right now I'd be happy to, you know, I Like I said, I think he's legit enough at least for the time being. So that's that's kind of
how I think about Andrew Abbott. We are now giving away a Cecil Fielder signed Tiger's jersey courtesy of our friends at Pristineauction dot com, and all you have to do to enter is to subscribe to the Fantasy Pros MLB YouTube channel right now, drop a comment below on any video and that is it. We will be announcing one lucky winner right here on the channel, so make sure to turn on those notifications so you can know when new videos are up and to claim your prize. Again,
that is a signed cecil Fielder Tigers jersey. May or what would say is the coolest jersey you own?
Coolest jersey I own?
We'll say baseball jersey.
I say baseball. I have some really weird football jerseys. I talked about that on other shows. I don't have a ton of baseball jerseys. I do have. I mean I have a bunch of signed things, but the cool the coolest one that I have that I would wear. I have a a roy Holiday Phillies jersey. That's pretty cool. I like that one.
It's pretty good. I'm collecting one one jersey from each team. I've got like twenty five of them. I'm almost done, actually all right, My Tigers one is Hank Greenberg. So I'm not that interested in the cecil fielder. I try to get like a hall of Famer for each team. But some teams don't have a Hall of Famer. And so when I started this project, like over which teams don't have a hall of Fame, Well, like the Rays
don't have one. I mean they have they have, yeah, yeah, or at least like if they have a Hall of Famer, it's like they're you know, you know, I try to get players that are like this is like a life for like the like Evan Longoria for the race if he was you know, good enough to be in a Hall of Famer instead of all of very good type of but I mean, I'm you know, a guy that
it's like you really associate with that franchise. So like the first one I got was like Jackie Robinson or you know, like try to get like real legends, but some of them like didn't really have an obvious name when I started this project, so I had to kind of like project out. So I got like Josh Johnson Marlin's jersey because I was at the time, I was like, he's really good, and I'm trying to you know, make a guess here, or you know, I think I did.
I did get a Longoria. I got like like a Tilowitzki Rockies, which isn't terrible, but like, I think I can do better. Some of them obviously were easy, like you know, I got like Ted Williams for my Red Sox one or Lou Garrig or you know, stuff like that. But I do love collecting jerseys, so so that's a fielder. Go ahead and comment on the video and make sure you're subscribing to YouTube to get that one. Let's go
to our second topic here, real or not real. You added some names here, which again I am not happy about because I told you I watched very little baseball the last couple of weeks. But we'll see how this goes.
Start us off, well, I'll give you the names and some contexts and some stats and stuff. Also, I was gonna say when I was hosting two weeks ago, I'm actually the keeper of these jerseys, and so I have it right here in my house. I don't have it right next to me like I did last time, but I last time I held it up showed it to people on YouTube. But it is a real jersey. It's in my house, and I'll be the one mailing it to you. So Andy Pajez Andrew Paper. He I just made that up.
Great, right, I think it's pretty good.
Actually, yeah, he like he's someone I picked up earlier in the year just to like stream an outfielder, and it's just kind of never dropped him. I forgot to. I did that with last year too. I think it was Mark Vientos last year who's like not doing as
well this year. But I was just kind of expecting like a decent batting average and maybe a little bit of pop, and like I wasn't sure how much he was going to play in that Dodgers outfielder, and he continues to look really good despite I can't I mean, the Dodgers lineup is so deep that I keep hoping he's going to like bump up to like fourth, fifth in the lineup instead of like six seven, which I
think he does kind of move up against lefties. But for the season, he's batting two ninety four with fifteen home runs and six dolen bases, which is kind of a pleasant surprise since he hasn't, like he's always been known as someone who can run a little bit, but not he hasn't like run a ton, so to have six already through seventy one games, it's kind of like a nice little bonus. And then even better, through sixteen games in June, he's betting three sixty one with another
five home runs, hasn't stolen a base in June. But he's just he's not slowing down. He's actually heating up, and it's very interesting. I don't know how often this happens, but he has a batting average of two ninety four and an expected batting average of two ninety four, the
exact same number. And so I feel like all year I've just kind of waited for him to cool off, and he just keeps producing and like getting better and outproducing a lot of other people in that Dodgers's lineup, And I don't think he's coming out of that lineup anytime soon.
What do you think, Well, it's a tricky one for real or not real, because like I think he's real, almost like Andrew Abbit, like real enough, right, Like I'm not trying to get out from the Andy. PA has business, but I don't trust the power. Like having fifteen home runs already this season, I don't think that's reflective of where he'll end up. And his average eggs of Velocity's thirty six percentile, hard hit rates twenty seven percentile, barrel
rate is forty eight percentile. He's chasing a lot. His chase rates pretty high, but his strikeout rate isn't. His striker rate's actually down pretty significantly from last year. It's twenty four point four percent last year to seventeen point eight percent this year. It's pretty low. His his walk rate's also pretty low, so he's just swinging a lot in general, but the expected batting average is still pretty high. Like it's it's it actually is. His batting average to
ninety four, which is also expected batting average. So I think the home runs will slow, but I think the worthiness of playing and like he's gonna he's a good fielder, like gonna get at bats in a good lineup, like moving forward. I think it is all real.
Yeah, I lean, so what if we had to do it? I think we did this in the past on like a scale of like the survey scale of like strongly agree, agree, neutral disagree, strongly disagree, So like Andy Pai has real or not real strongly agree to strongly disagree, where are you on the scale?
I think I'd say agree, like if the agree is the real side of it of the scale, and yeah, then I would say not strongly agree, but agree.
That's where I'm at too. I'm not like over the moon with him, but I'm like pleasantly surprised of what we're getting. And I don't see any real reason that it's going to that's gonna change anytime soon. And his he does swing a lot, his z swing percentage is seventy percent is outside the zone or not in the zone swing percentage, and then his outside is what the zone is thirty five percent, which is his career is
thirty two percent. Obviously like not a huge track record because he had a lot of time in the minors, but last year was thirty percent. Now it's up five percent this year, so he is just swinging more in general. But he does swing a lot at stuff that's in the uh in the strike zone, which you know, that's good.
You've got too many names on this list to spend this much time on each one of them. So let's go to the next door.
Uh, well do you want me to I don't. I just read him off and we can just kind of hit where we want to hit.
Okay, so real or not real?
So we started with Andy pay Has and then we have Noah Cameron, Addison Barger, David Peterson, Quinn Priester, and then Hunter Goodman.
And I do want to start with this, this second name that you have on the list, Noah Cameron, because I find him really interesting. What do you say about camera real or no real?
I I've won some money betting on him recently, so that inclines me to believe he's real because he has won me real money, but he's also one of those the strikeout He doesn't have a high strikeout rate, and it's just it's a pretty small sample size and all the expected numbers say that it's much worse than what we're actually seeing, which would tend me to believe that it's not real, even though when I like, I've watched him pitch and he like he there's no real way
to like quantify it, but like he like feels like he pitches like a pitcher, Like he like he kind of like knows what he's doing, and it's not just like like there are like pitchers who are throwers and they just go up there and they have like elite stuff and they just kind of get away with it.
He to me looks more like a pitcher who's pitching and is just kind of like getting away with like, you know, like the savviness of pitching, which is which can kind of come out in expected stats, where like you know, expected stats doesn't really respect that, you know, it's just it just respects like the kind of contact you're getting and how lucky you are and that kind
of stuff. But in May one point four ERA through nineteen innings in May June is coming back down a little bit to earth, which is closer to his expected number three point two four ERA and sixteen and two thirds innings, but again really small sample sizes, and even even with that three point two four ERA, that comes with the two thirteen average against, which is still really good, and overall through the first half a one point one point seven to two average against, which is obviously elite,
but the strikeout rate is below twenty percent. The K per nine is six point eight, which is like, it's not even like blow average is bad, and those are the kind of pictures who tend to get unlucky. Even though his whip is zero point nine and he only has I guess, I guess not that great. His his K to walk is thirty two to twelve, which is a two point six to seven rate, So it's like, it's not even like he's not walking guys, because he
is walking guys. Twelve and forty two innings is not a ton of walks, but you know, it's it's two point five per nine, which is like a you know, average to above average walk, right, I guess it's like average, it just just seems like it's the contact that he's giving up, isn't that good, and that's how we's surviving. But we've also seen that those are the guys that can get unlucky pretty quickly.
We've also seen though, that those are the guys the Royals have had some success with lately. You know, I think, like Seth Lugo, Chris Boubac, these are not like high velocity fastball types of pictures, and they've had a lot of success with those guys relative to their stuff in
the last couple of years. So I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt just to the organization with this type of a picture, I think I probably I'd probably come down on that scale we talked about as more neutral on this one, because there is stuff in the data that concerns me, and you know, it's it's still so early into his career, right, He's made what seven starts, so like there's still a long way to go, and that strikeout right being what it is is really
hard to stomach in a fantasy context. But the organization actually gives me some you know, optimism around this maybe being more sustainable than otherwise the data might look like So that's why I kind of come down on neutral.
That's fair. Again, we spend too much time with no Cameron, so we don't want to go too much longer.
Yeah, why don't we go Why don't you pick one more that you want to give a little spiel for and then we'll just go quickly real or not real on the other three.
All right, well, I can go pretty quick too, So Cameron, I would agree, I'm like neutral on Cameron Barger, I would say I'm neutral to not real to like disagree in the sense that I think you can stream him. I think he's fine. I don't think there's a high ceiling there, and I think he's kind of outperforming even though his expected average is actually higher than his his current average. Even if he's real, I'm willing to miss out on it because I don't think there's high ceiling there.
And then Hunter Goodman, I would think is my strongest real kind of stance that I think he's real and also he's really you know, he's really valuable as someone who has kept your eligibility. It is just in the line of every day. And then David Peterson is doing some interesting things with strikeouts. I don't. I don't really buy the even though he had like a pretty good year last year, not a lot of strikeouts. I just
think he's kind of like a guy. And then Quinn Priester, former Red Sox great Quinn Priester, who spent you know, a couple he had a cup of coffee with the Red Sox. I lean not real to him, at least not yet. I think he's like, he's a young pitcher who's going to get better. I don't. I don't. I lean not real, at least not yet, especially since it's kind of ironic that the Brewers had no pitching earlier in the year and now they have like more pitching
than they know what to do with. And so even for like fantasy, even if he's real, he's gonna have to be very real to stick in that rotation because they just get they're gonna have a ton of arms right now.
I largely agree with you on a lot of these, especially good men. I think I'm maybe a little more buying into David Peterson than you.
Like.
His e er is slightly better than it was last year, but his expect d is almost a full run better. Now it's not elite. It's three seventy is the expected dra So you know, I'm not saying he's an ace, but I just think I'm a little more willing to buy into him than you are, but not by much. Like I don't think he's just a guy, but I don't think he's a lot more than just a guy. I think he's just barely more than just a guy,
kind of in my opinion. So let's go to the kind of update worm segment on news notes and injuries. I threw a couple in here that I had seen, so I'll just run through those quickly, then you can run down yours. Max Meyer is going to see a hip specialist, which I never like. I don't care what part of the body it is. If you need to go see a specialist after already having missed a couple of weeks, that's really concerning. This is a player that we loved before the season, who looked awesome early on
then was really struggling. So seeing this injury kind of continue to the point where he needs see a specialist, especially for the hip as a pitcher like that really concerns me. Brady House making his debut a guy who at one point in time was considered a potential number one overall pick in the draft early on, like when he was in high school that didn't end up happening, but was still a high pick. He has made his debut for the Nation almost off to a hot start.
He's slashing three sixty four, four sixty two, eight twenty six. He's got some walks in there. He doesn't have a home run yet, but it's only been like eleven played appearances, but just an early fun start, so I would keep an eye on him. I like House a lot, and he's he had a slow start to his minor league career but has bounced back really nicely as of late. And then Cole Reagan's officially has a rotator cuff strain, which has two people who have had shoulder injuries recently.
We can appreciate how much that stinks, let alone for a pitcher, so really really discouraging. I love Reagan's like he's one of my favorite pictures to watch in baseball. I have a lot of him in fantasy. So that's a bummer. And you know, you hope that if he gets shut down for a couple of weeks that it starts to look better, but it's it's just hard to be optimistic when you get into shoulder strain for a pitcher,
Like it's just really hard to not be pessimistic. So those were kind of the news notes I threw in there, But what did you want to add?
Yeah, and then I saw there was another update where he's like, you know, as part of the rotator cuff strain, he's just getting shut down for a couple of weeks, which you also never I mean, that's that's always going to be like part of the process wund an injury, but you never you never liked that we're just gonna shut him down and then we'll check it in a few weeks, because then like we're not even at the
point where we're like getting better. It's just like it's not even They're like, he's not even worth checking out right now, Like let's take a few weeks off and just see what it looks like in a couple of weeks, and then it could just be like end of the season, you know, like it's done well. The biggest news that happened while you were gone. You may have seen one of Rafael Divers his last games as a Red.
Sox iFly in fact, did I saw his third to last game as a Red Sox.
Yeah, he was traded to the Giants because he just acted like a cryberry cry baby the whole time. And the best part about it is that, you know, despite being an atrocious third baseman for for like a decade and just never getting better, you know, the Red Sox
finally went out and upgraded the position defensively. He got mad about that and then pouted all all summer or all spring, and then when the Red Sox apparently I mean, it's so funny, like the more you learned about this, like even though this trade was a week ago, like there's still like little bits of information like like trickling out about this, and like we knew it was like, you know, the Red Sox were just like done with him.
But then it was like, you know, he cried in spring training because he was like you know they, you know, like he said, the Red Sox like you know, took third base from him, and they didn't like communicate it
well enough. But now it came out that the Red Sox actually asked him to like stay active and they continue to take grounders at third and first base so that he could play both positions when they needed him to, and he refused and just said no. And then when Tristan Cassas got hurt, they again asked him, like, hey, you want to take some grounders at first base, we can get back on the field, and he again said no, like I refuse, I'm just going to be your DH
And then like in true like cry baby fashion, he got like trade. When he gets traded, he like immediately says like, oh yeah, like I'll play first base to the Giants if they want to. It was just the Red Sox. I didn't want to play first base for so like I won't continue to rant about it, but biggest, you know, obviously, like biggest story while you were gone, one of the biggest stories of baseball so far the season, like you know, blockbuster T.
I was gonna ask, was it on purpose that because we kind of organized our round in the basis segment as first base, second base, third base, home plate? Was it was it on purpose that you made this our third base segment?
No, but that's very fitting. I think we just always kind of have news notes and injuries as third base. But very fitting that h.
Third base, Well, let me, let me ask you this quickly, because I do think it's we're spending a little more time on this one, even though we got to move fast through the others. Is dever, Like is his fantasy ranking for you drastically changing as a result of going to San Francisco or are you kind of keeping him in the same spot? And if he becomes first base eligible, how would that change his ranking for you?
So the first base eligible will be I mean, third base is the biggest one. Like third base is just a desert. So like if you have him at third base, it's unlikely you're going to mo veim to first base. It never hurts to have that versatility. It's certainly not going to go down as a result. But third base is for this year? Is the is the desert. I was actually talking with a few people on the It
was actually on the Betting Pros discord. So we have a Fantasypros discord and a Betting prost discord fantyspros dot com slash chat, Betting Pros dot Com slash chat. I was actually talking to people on the Betting Pros discord about like his value as a hitter going forward, and a lot of people assume that Fenway is this like incredible park for hitters, which it is a net positive park for hitters, but it's not a home run park.
A lot of people think because of the pesky Pole and because of the wall and left field that it's a home run park. It's actually a below average home
run park. I think it's actually the eighth worst park for home runs because while there is the pesky pole and right straightaway right field is three eighty straightaway center or like right center is four twenty, and then even though if you hit it straight away left it's pretty it's pretty shallow, but they do have the wall, but then even when you get into like left center, it's like three eighty with that wall, like that's an even deeper shot. So it's like sneaky, not a great park
for home runs. But then again, Oracle Park is even worse for home runs, and so it's like he's not it's not like he's going to the Phillies or the Reds of the Yankees, where he's going to this incredible offensive ballpark. He's going from like a good park for hitters but not necessarily for home runs, to a bad park for home runs. And so I saw something that like he would actually have more home runs this year if he played all of his games in Oracle Park.
But I think all in all, he's just going to be the same hitter. He might have, like you know, maybe a few more doubles or maybe a few more homers, but like I think as a hitter, he's I think it's largely just going to be the same.
Quickly run through the other news and notes.
All Right, Michael King is out through their All Star break. That's a bummer. He was pitching really well and we're hoping to get him back. But now it's like, you know, just like we were talking about with Reagans, like Reagan's was shut down and who knows, And now it's like Michael King's out like through the All Star break and then we'll see swore as heat check time. He's back and he looks fantastic over the last couple of weeks. He's second in VBR. Only needed to reads Google. I
could just wrap off all the stats right now. But like you know, we love Ranger Swarez on this show, but he just like he's back. He started he started the season on the il. He's back and he just continued to put up numbers, you know, quietly. One of the best pictures of baseball, Max Scherzer throwing.
By the way, just quickly if Ranger swaz Ever like wins a cy Young like, we are the show that made that happen. I know nobody loves Ranger Swarez more than this podcast.
That's right. And then Max Suers are throwing a bullpen this weekend. Any interest in Max Scherzer picking them up? No, nope, no, And then the last one, Matt Chapman, resumes basal activity. So I guess I felt there was wanted to play third bases because their third baseman is coming back. Someone actually I was just like joking, but because Raphod Evers
is like such a bad defensive third baseman. Someone joked on Twitter like what do Like, I can't even imagine what ridiculous move the Dodgers are going to make now to like combat the Giants getting wrapped out Devers, Like what should they do? And I said, they stood just trade for Matt Chapman, so the Dever so that the Giants have to play Devers at their base.
Yeah, it's pretty good, all right. Last topic here in round of the bases. This is a quick one, just because I didn't really have a good fourth and I had wanted to talk about this player. We really haven't talked much about him this year. Are we talking enough about Saya Suzuki. His slash line this year is two sixty one three seventeen five thirty six. He has eighteen
home runs. Only seven players in baseball, all of baseball, have more home runs than say A Suzuki, And I wonder if from a fantasy perspective, he's maybe getting overshadowed by the fact that he has this mega superstar MVP candidate breakout in Pete Crow Armstrong in the same outfield, kind of taking all the headlines and the hype away. But I feel like Saya Suzuki has been great, and I'm kind of curious where you would have him in the rest of season outfield rankings.
I actually recently moved him up. I would have to look at where my rankings are. But I think there's like it's not like post type like prospect fatigue, but there's almost like when he came over from Japan, there
there was a lot of hype around him. We were very excited about him and his first season was like fine, and then the next two seasons we were both really good, but he also dealt with injuries, but the both two years or both years, and so it's not quite at though, like Byron Bucks and Mike Trout level where we're like what could it be? But there is always like he's dealt with like foot injuries and like how much is
he gonna run? And you know, we we've never gotten a full season at him, like still like he came over in twenty twenty two and his games played are one hundred eleven, one thirty eight, one thirty two and now this year we had sixty nine nice and twenty twenty three and twenty twe four were both really good years.
But you know, we like he only had one hundred thirty eight and one hundred three and two games, and so it was almost kind of like, you know, if you're like, like, if you're read to draft him this offseason,
did you have to draft him at a ceiling? Because he had one hundred and thirty two games, He had twenty one home runs, he stole sixteen bases in a bad two eighty three, And we always wanted to just extrapolay that to a full season and be like, well, if you played a full season, maybe we get twenty five home runs to twenty stolen bases and even better
counting stats. But then then you're drafting meda ceiling and you're kind of like hoping for those counting stats, and so maybe we are just seeing even though the batting average is a little bit lower, it's two sixty one, it's not like terribly lower. Ironically, his average last year was twoenty three. Expect the batting average two fifty five. This year it's too sixty one, respect the batting average two seventy three. So it's kind of like the inverse.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Maybe he's just a two seventy hitter and that's just what he is. Career average actually two seventy five, That might be exactly correct. But yeah, he's not running as much, which I think is fine as long as he's sitting for this kind of power, and I'm not sure how much. Is kind of like he's being overshadowed by Petek Armstrong, but I think it's almost just kind of like maybe feeler just waiting for the other shoe to drop, Like all right,
but when's it getting injured? Like or like what what happens now? But we'll see. So far he looks really good.
It's kind of ironic that I poised, you know, you know, pose this question as getting overshadowed by Peek Armstrong because I want to ask you actually about PCA a follow up question instead of about says a key in Saya's own segment. But I think you're pretty your analysis in Saya is pretty spot on. I don't have a lot to disagree with with Pete Crow Armstrong. I want you to just very very quickly, because we got to move on, ask you where is he in Dynasty?
For you?
We don't often talk a lot of Dynasty on this show, but when I was thinking about this, I was looking at our rest of season rankings. He's He's outfield twelve in the consensus rest of season rankings, pretty high, and he's only twenty three, So should he be higher? In Dynasty? Sometimes those rankings are slower to update obviously in season on the baseball side of things. But but where do you think he should be in amongst Dynasty outfielders? Well?
First off, did customer support brought you up to this? Because I got pinged this morning about updating my Dynasty rankings because they're out of date and because so January.
I didn't know that. That's hilarious.
Yeah, someone wrote in and be like, hey, like Welshin and Mayor their Dynasty rankings need to be updated. I was like, all right, I'll update him soon, which I do need to do. But it's just like it's like such a massive undertaking to like, you know, like in season is kind of like I just update those like a little bit every day so that they're always, you know, like within a few days, they're always kind of updated.
Dynasty is like you got to change everything. So where did you say peak Armstrong is the rest of season?
I believe he's twelfth amongst outfielders. Really twelve, Okay, I think that's what I saw when I looked. I'll pull it up again while you're talking.
I have him at sixteen. So maybe I'm too low on It's hard to say with Pek Armstrong just because like he's such an exciting fun player, but like I keep waiting.
Twenty ninth over all outfield twelve, Wow.
Okay, that's higher than expected. Maybe I'm maybe I'm too low on him. I have him sixteenth, but it's just like I keep waiting for him to slow down. He just kind of never does. Because, like we talked, We've talked about Hi a few times on the show. We talked about him like a month or a month or so ago, and he was just kind of like pop flying some of these home runs and hard contact wasn't great.
And now it's just like, maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe he's just like an excited player and that's just who he is. And also he has stolen twenty three bases already, and so maybe when you have that kind of like it is nice when you have this kind of player that even if they do kind of slow down or go into a slump, having that speed as a floor to like, oh, he also has twenty three stolen bases. Looks like even if he slows down a little bit,
you're still gonna get those, you know, those numbers. That becomes really valuable. So I don't know how I have in Dynasty. I have him sixteenth. Rest of the season. I probably need to move him up. I'll oppose it to you real quick as I move him up the rest of season. Peaker Armstrong or Tiascar Hernandez, Pek Armstrong, Okay, I'll move him up. Piker Armstrong or O'Neil Cruz.
That's a fun one. I think I might lean Pca, but that's it. That's tough.
What about Jackson Merrow?
I think I go Peaker Armstrong just with the injury stuff Merril has been dealing with.
James would that would?
For sure? I am like the James would. I love James would okay?
And then above would I have Jaron Duran?
M Yeah, I'd probably keep Duran there, all right, I'll.
Bump up PC to fourteen.
All right?
Now, Dynasty, Yeah, I don't know where I haven't done. Let's let's update it real quick. Let's i'll see where I mean. Where I have him now is going to be married because I haven't updated this yet this season. So he's forty eight right now, so I would say that's out of date. So let's move him all the way up too. Let's put him right here at twenty three, and then I'll post the same question to you, Pete.
So this is Dynasty now, outfielder, I have him at twenty three, Pete, Kor Armstrong or Kyle Schwarber in.
Dynasty PCIA, Okay, let's move him up.
This is an interesting one because I think one player is ascending and the other one is. Maybe we were too excited about Jason Dominguz. Oh, Pete kar Sewan, Yeah, I think I still like Jason Domingez, but I think that star is not shining quite as brightly. How about Lawrence.
Butler, I'd say, Pete kar Armstrong, Riley Green, PCA.
Okay, this one I'm not I'm not going to ask. I'm I'm gonna move him up. Michael Harris, I'm I'm so down on Michael Harris. I'm just gonna move PCI up.
M hm.
Okay. So we did this one in Redraft, the same question O'Neil Cruz in Dynasty or PCA.
I would say, it's equally difficult for me. Yeah, I think i'd probably yeah, I think I might. I don't know, actually that that feels like a real coin flip to me.
Okay, how about so in Redraft we had Duran. What about Duran and Dynasty?
I think probably, well, I don't know, maybe maybe how old is Duran?
He is I think twenty seven, twenty eight, let's see.
I know, I think I go PCA. That's enough of an age difference that I'll give the ways to the.
He's twenty eight. He turns twenty nine in.
September, so he's I'll go PCA.
Okay, Brent Rooker.
I love Brent Rooker. That's tough. I mean, there's a there's an age gap there for sure.
This is probably the line. So I have PC eight seventeen, and the right above him, I have Owneil Cruise, and then I'll probably move up. I'll move him above Cruise just because of the exciting factor. But right above there, I don't know that I can move him above many of these because it's Brent Rooker and then Roman Anthony and then Jackson Merrill and then your boy James Wood. This is this is an interesting one for age. Let
me pull up this. How old is this player? So he's this player is he turns twenty eight next week. He's one of the best hitters in baseball. He's also one of the most oft injured players in baseball who just can't stay on the field. Although he did play one hundred and forty seven games last year, it was just he was just hurt. Like the whole year, you were done Alvarez. H, that's an interesting one in Dynasty.
That is really interesting because the if not for the injury factor, I don't think it's interesting, but it's really interesting.
With that. I think I think I can make a case that I have to me, this isn't a Dynasty show, but I think I could make a case that you should. Mean, it's probably hard to sell right now when you're in an overis, but if he comes back healthy and produces, it's probably time to sell because he's got these lingering like hand issues and then also just two knees that are shot, and like I don't know how much longer he's gonna play.
He also might not have outfield eligibility, like there will be years where he doesn't probably soon. Yeah, by the way, this year, I'm not sure that Roman Anthony should be ahead of PCA. I know he's like a top prospect, I'm like, really exciting, but like PCA is twenty three and he's already doing it at an MVP level. So I'm not saying they should be switched, but I'm saying I'm not convinced they shouldn't. It will be my stance.
You have played six games in the outfield this year. I think that's a blast mistake. I think it's a disrespectful take to Roman Anthony. Roman Anthony is twenty one.
And remember when I said we need to be quick on this, Yeah, do which. By the way, I'm only to be clear to everybody, I'm not trying to rush with the conversation. We have another show coming up very soon, so we're kind of up against the clock here. We're very busy day of recording. That's why I'm kind of rushing us through this. But I think that's enough Dynasty talk for this show. Since we don't usually do that on here. We'll go ahead and wrap that up there.
Be sure everybody to check out the other segments we have coming out throughout the weekend. We of course will have our Bilo Sell High Waivers episode segment, whatever you want to call it, and then also our pitching streamers to start pitching competition, all that good stuff coming up later this weekend. For Mayor, I'm Ryan Warman. Thank you everybody for tuning in to Round in the Basis on the cycle. We'll see again next time. Thanks for listening
to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Baseball Podcast. If you love the show. The best freeway to support us is by leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Follow us on x, Instagram, and TikTok at Fantasy Pros, and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com Slash Fantasy Pros MLB