Fake Teams Podcast, Episode 24: The Lost Podcast
Lost podcast, not last podcast. I sat down with Andrew Ball and Daniel Kelley on Thursday night to discuss our recent Midseason Starting Pitcher Rankings, where we discussed Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Kris Medlen, Jose Fernandezand Mike Minor, among others. We also took the opportunity to get into some good ole Zack bashing.
But, due to technical difficulties, some of the podcast was lost, but you can listen to what was recorded in the links below. And here are some of what was lost:
- Jered Weaver│ Both Daniel and Ray think Weaver is being undervalued by the FT staff, citing that he has always outperformed his peripherals and he's finally healthy.
- Francisco Liriano│ Daniel, much like Brian Creagh, has been burned so many times by Liriano that he still can't jump on the bandwagon. Also, Liriano's increased slider usuge this year may make him at risk for an injury.
- Matt Cain and Kris Medlen │ One of the things I really support about Daniel's rankings, even if I don't do it myself, is the fact that he doesn't let a few months of data sway his opinion from the rankings we did in the preseason. Cain and Medlen are both pitchers with track records of success, granted a longer one for Cain, but he is sticking by both of them.
- Mike Minor │ All of us, myself included feel that stripping away Minor's name and simply evaluating the raw numbers makes him an easy top-20 pitcher. Kudos to Ray for the ranking at 13.
- Matt Moore│ Ray thinks Moore is the next Clayton Kershaw, while Daniel is a bit more hesitant citing that Moore is only about a year younger than Kershaw right now. I'm in the middle of the two opinions.
- Zack Smith │ Zack's rankings of David Price at 20, Hiroki Kuroda at 50, and C.C. Sabathia at 16 made all of us say, "huh?"
You can listen to the podcast in two ways:
MP3 LINK
ITUNES LINK (subscribe here)
Minor League Ball: Organization Top 20 Prospects in Review
Minor League Ball's John Sickels is in the middle of reviewing all of his preseason Top 20 Prospects and you can find all of them in the link below:
Organization Top 20 Prospects for 2013
Nathan Eovaldi: Marlins' future ace?
Marlins starter Nathan Eovaldi is owned in less than 1% of ESPN leagues, and I had thoughts about including him in my Saturday streamer article, but felt he was a risk pitching on the road in Atlanta against the hottest team in baseball. Well, Eovaldi made that decision look silly. Eovaldi pitched perhaps his best game as a big league starter last night, shutting out the hot Braves lineup on one hit, 3 walks, and a season high 8 strikeouts in 7 innings to earn his second win of the season.
Eovaldi is now 2-2 with a 2.82 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and a 41-26 K-BB rate in 60.2 innings of work this season. He has struggled with his command this season, and could stand to strike out a few more batters, as he holds his 95+ mph fastball deep into games, but has limited opposing batters to a .207 batting average in his 10 starts this season.
I took a chance on drafting Eovaldi at $1 in one of my NL only keeper leagues and he is looking like a solid buy at the moment. Right now, a case can be made that he could be the Marlins #2 starter behind Jose Fernandez, and a possible future ace in what could be a very good Marlins rotation a few years down the road with Andrew Heaney and Justin Nicolino pitching well in the minors.
Jose Bautista: Quieting this doubter
I have to admit, I was wrong on Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista. There, I said it. Back in the offseason rankings, I was down on Bautista due to his low batting average, big power ways, and the fact that he was coming off a wrist injury. On Saturday, Bautista went 3-4 with a HR, 2 runs and 2 RBI in the Blue Jays 5-4 win over the A's.
For the season, Bautista is now hitting .269-.364-.519 with 27 HR, 79 runs, 71 RBI and has chipped in with 7 stolen bases for his owners. At this rate, he is on pace for 38 HRs, 100+ runs, 100+ RBI and 10 stolen bases, which will move him up in my rankings this coming offseason.
Round'em Up
On my drive home from running errands with my 88 year old mother yesterday, I was listening to the beginning of the Dodgers-Rays game on XM Radio, and Jim Bowden was the color analyst on the game call. He was pretty insightful in his scouting analysis of Dodgers starter Zack Greinke. He said that a few weeks ago, Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt worked with Greinke on changing the grip on his cut fastball ( I think) to get more movement on it, and his recent performance show that the change in grip has worked. Greinke shut out the Rays for 6.1 innings, giving up 6 hits, walking one and striking out 7 to win his 10th game of the season. Greinke moved his record to 10-3 with a 3.21 ERA, 1.23 WHIP and a 93-33 K-BB rate in 117.2 innings this season. Yes, he is still a top 20 starter.
A's outfielder Josh Reddick appears to like hitting at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. For the second game in a row, Reddick has had multiple home run games, as he went 2-4 with 2 HRs and 3 RBI in the A's loss to the Blue Jays. Like I mentioned in yesterday's Roundup, Reddick has struggled at the plate this season, but owns solid plate discipline and has been unlucky with batted balls in play this season, so he could end the season on a high note, and be a sleeper heading into 2014 drafts.
There isn't much more one can write about Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera. After hitting a game-tying 2 run home run off of HOF closer Mariano Rivera on Friday night, where he fouled two balls off his knee and lower leg/foot, Miggy had a big game on Saturday afternoon. He went 3-4 with a HR and two runs scored, and is now hitting .363-.455-.676 with 35 HRs, 84 runs and 109 RBI. He ranks first or second in the following categories in the American League:
BA
HR
RBI
Runs
Walks
OBP
OPS
Pretty impressive. He is approaching 400 home runs in his career and he is only 30 years old.
The Padres traded for starter Tyson Ross in the offseason, and he has proved to be a pretty good starter for the team. Ross limited the Reds to just one run on 4 hits, 4 walks and 6 strikeouts on Saturday night, in the Padres 3-1 win. Ross is now 3-5 on the season with a 2.75 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and a 62-31 K-BB rate in 72 innings this season. He has given up two runs or less, and gone at least 6 innings, in each of his last four starts against the Reds, Yankees, Diamondback and Brewers, with just the starts vs the Yankees coming at home. Solid effort from the young starter who could be a sleeper in 2014 drafts.
More from Fake Teams:
- Streamer Report: Sunday's Streamers
- Minor League Review: How Are Some of This Year's Top Draftees Doing So Far? Part 2
- Around the League - AL and NL
- Low Level Prospect Review: Jesse Winker, OF, Cincinnati Reds
- Roto Roundup: Josh Reddick, Brandon Beachy, Jed Lowrie and Others
- Waiver Wire: 10 Under 10%
- Fantasy Fools: You drafted a kicker before the last round? You fool!
- Fake Teams Podcast Episode 24: The Lost Podcast