Opening weekend is in the books, let's talk news and waiver ads.
Up next on, fantasy baseball today, Express.
(upbeat music) Welcome into FBT Express on Monday, March 30th, I am Frank Stample, joined by Chris Towers. Let's address some of the news. We'll talk waiver ads as well,
but we learn Carlos Estez, is in a walking boot on Sunday after taking a line drive off of his left ankle on Saturday. Also, particularly had a terrible outing on Saturday where he gave up six earned runs,
including a walk off grand slam to Dominic Smith. He ever just 91.2 miles per hour on his fastball. And then on Sunday, Matt Strampitch in the seventh inning Lucas Ursa got the save opportunity. He closed it out.
So Chris, we did have some closer things happen this weekend. If you're looking for saves, how would you rank Lucas Ursa with the Royals Jordan Romano with the Angels
“and Cole Sands, who picked up a save for the twins?”
I think I would go Ursa, Romano, and Cole Sands. The distinction between Ursa and Romano most had just come down to, and I guess that's a better picture. Romano, I know the peripherals weren't quite as bad as the, well, as an 8-ERA last season,
but it is hard to shake and 8-ERA when it comes to projecting a player moving forward. It's hard to project that guy to keep his job coming off a season that bad. And I think there's some competition there, right?
If Kirby Yates doesn't end up missing much time and he's back, if Drew Pomerans, if Jordan Romano falters, they could turn to Drew Pomerans. So I think there are more alternatives in the Angels bullpen.
I think the Royals are just a better team also. So the thing with that stuff is, even if his ankle was fine, even if he hadn't taken that shot off the ankle in the opener, I think he still would have lost the job. I think it was totally fine for the Royals
to look at his velocity being way down this spring and say, yeah, but the adrenaline's not going, let's give him a real chance. Let's give him a game opportunity. Now that it's happened, and his velocity was still
five miles per hour down from where it was last season, I just, I don't see how they can use him in high-leveled situations, and manager Matt Quattraro already said they are probably not going to use him in high-leveled situations as they try to get
across a step as back to normal. So I think during our look at our sex, it's going to have a little bit of a leash here. - Would you drop Carlos's a step as? - Yep.
- Yep. The Hammer bone strikes again this time with Andrew Vaughn, he's expected to miss four to six weeks, and Jake Bowers and Gary Sanchez look like they will form a platoon at first base in the meantime.
“I think Jake Bowers in deeper leagues is the name”
that you could look at there as a replacement. What about in shallow reformat's Chris? Three names that stood out had a good first week in here, Nolan Shanyuel, Jake Burger, Ryan O'Hern, how would you rank those three as first base replacements here?
- I'd rank them Burger, Shanyuel, and O'Hern, and Burger it's he was really bad last season, but he had been a 30-homer guy at the previous two seasons basically, he dealt with a wrist injury, he ended up having off-season surgery on after the season,
so hopefully that's just what it was.
The problem is even for a good home run,
hitter like Jake Burger, home runs are fairly rare, and he's going to be streaky, I think, and he really doesn't do anything if he's not hitting home runs. This is not a guy who walks much, he brings no value on the base path, so there's definitely some risk
when he gets cold, he just does not do anything for you. I wanna point out with Nolan Shanyuel, who I would still rank below Jake Burger, but his average bat speed is up three and a half miles per hour, so far in the early going this season, it's four games.
They've played 25 or 33% more of the most teams I guess, so that's nice, but it's four games. It's way too early to make any definitive conclusions, but Nolan Shanyuel has gone from having below average bat speed to right around average so far,
and that was a focus of his, this off season.
He's always had great play to discipline.
If he can be even a 18 to 20-homer guy,
“I think that really changes his outlook for fantasy,”
because I think the good play to discipline should still be there, and he's a guy who can afford to trade some contact for some power, and I think that's something to keep a very close eye on early in the season. All right, let's take a quick break where we back right after this.
Safe. These are stars. How did that get to look? Yes, because those hours will be in. Welcome back in the FBT Express,
taking a look at some waver wire ads from the first weekend of the baseball season, and Chris from your Miami Marlins,
Owen Casey, an impressive debut weekend.
He was thrown into the lineup Friday against the lefty,
because Christopher Merell got hurt. He had an RBI single in that game. He went three for four with the steel on Saturday. Then on Sunday, a walk off two run-home are here for Owen Casey.
He is 58% rastered on CBS.
“Do you think he should be rastered in all the eggs right now?”
How do you feel about Owen Casey? I think like a three-out field or point sleigh might be a stretch for Owen Casey, because play discipline probably will be an issue for him at least a little bit. But I do think anywhere else.
Yeah, and he got kind of lost in the shuffle among the rookies this preseason. I think partially it's because he debuted late last season for the cubs, and just didn't really do anything. He wasn't playing every day.
He's been a top prospect for quite some time now, and I think there's probably been some prospect fatigue. Owen Casey has over a thousand played appearances at AAA,
which basically never happens for top prospects these days.
So I think he's just been a little overlooked. But he's been a play pretty much every day for the Marlins. He's showing there's multiple facets to his skill set, stole a base on Saturday. That was cool.
He's got above average sprint speed, actually. So the Marlins are going to be an aggressive team on the basis. So I don't know.
“I think Owen Casey's ceiling is 25 to 30 homers,”
and maybe five to 10 steals too. So I'm very interested in him, obviously. Look, there's chased a lotter, right? That's a higher priority than Owen Casey among young outfielders.
And you know, JJ weatherholen kept me calling. Well, there are other prospects to prioritize, but Owen Casey is 58% roster on CBS. That's too low. I think it should be more like 85.
All right. I've up here talking about Emerson Hancock with the Seattle Mariners.
He was incredible on Sunday night baseball here
against the Guardians. Six no hit innings, one walk, one hit by pitch, nine strikeouts, had 12 whiffs on 97 pitches. And he looked like a completely different pitcher, Chris. What did you see from Emerson Hancock?
What size leagues would you be looking at him in right now? Pretty much everything. And I may be not your 10 team points, please, there's a super shallow in these not a top 60 pitcher.
“And that's probably the bar you have to clear.”
But this is a guy who was a top prospect at one point and has been pretty bad at the major league level. I think it was a 41-year-a entering this start over close to 150 innings. Last year he had, through 90 innings and wasn't very good.
But I am willing to open my heart and my mind to the idea that Emerson Hancock is a different pitcher, but because he was literally a different pitcher today. He came out and went from throwing his four seamer and his sweeper come by 30% of the time last year
to 79% this year. The sweeper got some really ugly swings. It gets a lot of movement. The four seamer, maybe the shape is a little better than it was last season.
It's a more effective pitch than the sinker, at least it has been. So I am open to the possibility that Emerson Hancock has just figured something out and can be a useful pitcher here. Do I think that's the likelyest outcome now?
I think the likelyest outcome is you're probably just dropping Emerson Hancock in a couple of weeks anyway. But what he showed here, nine strikeouts over six shutout innings, I am willing to take a flyer on Emerson Hancock just in the off chance
that what we saw last night was real. In part because there just weren't that many impressive waiver wire pitcher performances this weekend. There were certainly none that I've used. Yeah, I gotta go out and add this guy.
I think Emerson Hancock was probably the closest to that. So 12 team rodo leagues, 15 team rodo leagues, especially I would be looking at Emerson Hancock for sure. All right, for more extensive fantasy baseball covers,
listen to our full-length podcast fantasy baseball today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts or found. Thanks for listening to fantasy baseball today, Express. And we will leave that again later this week.
Bye-bye. (upbeat music) Caramount podcasts.
