00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid.
00:06You know, we cover other content than sports wagering.
00:09I don't know if those of you maybe just watching Newswire, you have no idea.
00:13We do fantasy sports every Saturday morning and Sunday morning, and the two sports we
00:18cover predominantly, let's be honest, are football during the football season and baseball
00:24during the baseball season.
00:25And since we're in the middle of the fantasy baseball season and closing in on football
00:30season, we thought it'd be a good time to bring in Joe Pizzeppia to talk some Major
00:34League Baseball and maybe some fantasy as well.
00:36We'll mix it up.
00:37Joe's with me here now on the show.
00:38I've hosted with Joe on and off, I mean, 20 years?
00:44Is it 20?
00:45It's definitely 10.
00:46It's 15.
00:47Is it 20?
00:48It's Ben Affleck and J-Lo and you and me.
00:50We're right there neck and neck.
00:52That's where we are.
00:5315 years.
00:54That is crazy, man.
00:56That is crazy.
00:5715 years having kids and all this other stuff has just flown by.
01:00But anyway, nobody's interested in that.
01:02They're like, who are these two schmoes talking?
01:04I want to hear some fantasy talk.
01:06All right, so let's start off with the fantasy asset and the baseball asset is a pitcher
01:12on the Los Angeles Dodgers.
01:14And I'm not even going to give a name out here.
01:16It's like if any pitcher pitches for the Dodgers, you want them in a fantasy league because
01:21what you want to do is pick them up because you know that they're going to win a lot of
01:24games.
01:25That's kind of gone well, Joe, this year for some.
01:29Not as well for others.
01:30What do you think has happened here?
01:31Well, it's gone well for Tyler Glass now, who's been terrific.
01:36And it's also gone very well for Gavin Stone, which if you asked me a month ago, in fact,
01:40on FST on Sunday mornings, we had discussed, Matt Stryker and I, with the looming returns
01:46of Bobby Miller and Clayton Kershaw, theoretically, that maybe it was time to start kicking the
01:51tires on some trades for Gavin Stone.
01:53But what's happened now is you have the issue with the shoulder for Clayton Kershaw.
01:59You have Walker Bueller going on the IL for a hip problem, which really is the problem
02:05of his ERA, which is very heavy for him to hold right now.
02:09I think that's putting some strain on the hip personally, but we can talk about that
02:12another time.
02:13And then of course, Bobby Miller's return, which has been less than thrilling Yamamoto
02:17hurt now.
02:18So Landon Knack has gotten opportunities again.
02:21You've also got a situation where now Gavin Stone has a lot of opportunities to stick
02:25in this rotation.
02:26I think he's going to have a lot of outs, as we would say, in the poker game.
02:31And I think that Gavin Stone is a guy right now, you look at his hitting totals, probably
02:35around 125 career high.
02:37He could probably push into that 140, 150 mark this year, theoretically, from a fantasy
02:41standpoint.
02:42So that becomes a really good situation because now all of a sudden you're asking Yamamoto,
02:47Miller and Walker Bueller to all be healthy and all be good down the stretch.
02:51Now, could the Dodgers go out there and make another move?
02:52Of course they could.
02:53They're the Dodgers.
02:54They're going to be in some competition with the Yankees though, if this rotation continues
02:57going the way it has, what are we up to a 12 earned runs here in the last two games
03:01for heel something like 20 of the last three, 20 earned runs in the last three games for
03:06Carlsward on.
03:07And we all know what happened to Garrett Cole against the New York Mets this week.
03:10So the Yankees and the Dodgers, these two teams at the forefront certainly have every
03:14reason to be looking at the open market for pitching potentially, as there is definitely
03:18some concern.
03:19I think with the velocity of Garrett Cole, there's definitely a concern with the innings
03:22of heel.
03:23And then on the Dodger side of things too, now you've got these two big market teams
03:26competing in that open space for the available pitchers.
03:30And if it's the Garrett crochets of the world to some other pitchers, potentially it could
03:32be out there in the market.
03:33It's gonna be fascinating to see what that cost ends up becoming because whenever you
03:37have two big dogs in this market fighting it out, all of a sudden they could be basically
03:41outbidding each other.
03:42So Gavin stone, I think is the beneficiary.
03:44He's a guy that's going to stick in this rotation.
03:46As you said, he's going to have some really good value down the stretch.
03:48So people are worried about the innings.
03:50I would be less so I'd be buying Gavin stone if he had the opportunity.
03:54Yeah.
03:55And I think two points with that.
03:56The first point is that you mentioned two names, Kershaw, Buehler, I mean, at this point,
04:00no counting on them to come back or even being effective.
04:02So I definitely buy that.
04:04The other funny part is that you mentioned one name and Garrett crochet, and it's like
04:07if I needed you to name five others, not that you couldn't, but you shouldn't because every
04:11team is still in it right now in major league baseball.
04:14There's like three teams out and everybody else is still like fighting for this right
04:17now.
04:18It's really hard to decipher who's going to be selling at the deadline, but four or five
04:22teams for sure.
04:23I probably think that's it.
04:24Okay.
04:25Let's get to one of the rookies in the American league.
04:27Wyatt Langford, who going into the season was the highly projected rookie of the year
04:31in the AL.
04:32And if you didn't take Langford, you took of course the holiday Jackson holiday.
04:37And neither of those guys, I don't think you're going to win the rookie of the year.
04:41What do you make of the season for Langford?
04:42Well, I wouldn't quite put a pin in Wyatt Langford yet.
04:46Maybe Jackson holiday.
04:48That's perfectly fine.
04:49But Langford is intriguing.
04:50I know you look at these overall numbers and they're not really exciting, but if you look
04:53at the last 55 at bats for him, he's hitting two 91 with a three 50 OBP and a four 73 slugging.
04:58Now that is more exciting.
05:00He's also got five stolen bases, two home runs over that span.
05:03If you dial back to last year around this time, uh, Gunnar Henderson was the guy who
05:08actually ended up winning the American league rookie of the year.
05:12People wanted to drop him from their fantasy leagues in may in the month of April, he had
05:16a buck 89 in the month of may.
05:18He had a two 13 batting average.
05:20His OPS never got over seven 50 in those two months.
05:24Then he turned it on the month of June had terrific July, August, September.
05:28And that's all anyone remembers.
05:30And as Louis heel has hit this innings wall, Wyatt Langford is a really intriguing piece.
05:35He's so intriguing.
05:36If you look this morning, he is down to plus 600 for this award and a lot of markets.
05:40Now that number two weeks ago, when I talked about on FST was plus 2,500, that is an enormous
05:46leap because I think the market's looking at it and saying, Hey, everyday players have
05:49a better spot at this award.
05:51Potentially.
05:52You're also talking about heel, maybe being sent down to become a three inning pitcher,
05:55maybe going to the bullpen.
05:56Either of those scenarios are bad for him for this award.
05:59And we're prisoners of the moment.
06:00We end up paying attention a lot more to how players finished than how they started the
06:06year.
06:07And as great as he'll has been, he's been the favorite for this award.
06:09And rightfully so what's happened here now with Wyatt Langford starting to get healthy,
06:13starting to get hot.
06:14If he maintains this pace and goes on a run like Henderson did last year, you could very
06:18well see this late burning rookie of the year once again in the American league.
06:22So it's still a good value plus 600 at 2,400 to 600 in two weeks.
06:27That's something to circle and realize that the market's starting to turn.
06:30All right.
06:31I'm in it left a month ago.
06:33If we had the NL rookie of the year discussion, it was Shota Imanaga and everybody else.
06:39Now it's Paul Skeens and everybody else.
06:42That's not to say that Skeens won't win it, Joe, but at the same time, we need to recognize
06:46that this is sports.
06:47These are human beings.
06:48And you mentioned Langford.
06:49Is there another player on this list for NL rookie of the year?
06:52Do you think that can beat out Skeens?
06:55Merrill's had a great month, but at the end of the year, I think the hype around Skeens
06:58will carry a certain amount unless Imanaga carries the Cubs to the playoffs.
07:03That might be a different story.
07:04Yeah.
07:05Joe Pizzeppia, great fantasy analyst, even better cook.
07:10When the recipe book comes out, folks, along with the fantasy black book, you got to buy
07:14them both.
07:15Joe, have a good weekend.
07:16Thanks for coming on.
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