May 10, 2019 • 48 mins
Matt and Mike sit down with the "Charles Xavier of Pitching", Robby Rowland !! Listen as the boys apply Robby's theories to the entire weekend of DFS games as well as offer stacks and direct you to which sites they use to build money winning lineups. The open is pretty cool and at the very end of the show Matt tells about a new hitting tool that was part of one of last year's greatest baseball moments. Enjoy !
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for downloading the podcast, and remember, if you
want to listen live, download the I Heart Radio app,
download the tune and app and just search for Fantasy
Sports Radio Network and you could listen to this program live. Also,
if you want to watch the video of this podcast,
check us out on YouTube, on twitch, or on Periscope
(00:21):
and type in you guess did Fantasy Sports Network. You'll
find us there. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.
Ladies and gentlemen. You are down to the fantasy baseball
(00:44):
in a world where an eating year old gloves drafted
in the third realm by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the
thing is possible. This word will grow into a war right.
His face will bear hand, and his muscles shall be
strong when he will need them. Because the road ahead
will not be easy. There will be set backs you
(01:06):
don't know what, add injuries and more. But our boy
is not taught to fail. This warrior goes bards the
power of the weapon in his hand his head, He
strengthens his body in his mind, wading into a nash
(01:30):
while many of his places already in battle brown a
picture versus morally sill as the battle. They all know
his name, and they look over their shoulder, waiting the
new way to warrior, armed with a mind and an
arm to take over the game. He is coming and
(01:52):
when he arrives, the world will know. He now joins
match striker and like HTCA on the Fantasy Baseball Hour,
six ft four drafted in the third round by the
Arizona Diamondbacks, the right handed hurler. You can find him
at Robbie row Underscore twelve on Twitter. Robbie wrote twelve
(02:15):
on Instagram. He's the host of the Robbie Row Show.
I'll give you one guest, so it is the one
and only Robbie Roll and Robbie what's going on? Man? Dude?
That was one of the best introductions. Actually, I'm gonna
go ahead and point it at the best introduction I've
ever heard. Thank you so much. I all of a sudden,
I have all this energy, like what do I What
am I supposed to do it? Like, let's let's rock man, shoot,
(02:36):
let's go you go, Iron sharpens, Iron and and Roberto.
Because we like to be multicultural and diverse. Here, uh,
for those that aren't familiar, can you talk a little
bit about what the Robbie Rose Show is because it's
taking Instagram by school. Oh my goodness, I appreciate the
kind words. Uh. Basically it started with the foundation of uh,
(02:56):
the accumulating nine years professional only pops played in the
big leagues, and I just had all this information. And
this isn't to sound like conceded or anything, but it's
all this knowledge that I felt a sense of responsibility
to kind of give back. And I think you guys
will hear within this episode that I do enjoy thoroughly
um talking. So I was like, hey, why not kind
(03:18):
of bring that to a podcast, why not just take
social media by storm? Obviously with the the explosion of
social media these days, it's like it just was the perfect,
perfect gateway to do that, and uh kind of just
been evolving ever since. But uh, that's the brief synopsis
of kind of the foundation and how it started and
why it started, and why it's gonna keep on keeping on. Mike. Mike,
(03:41):
you gotta jump in here, otherwise Robbie and I are
just gonna talk for you. I was gonna say this
is gonna turn into the Robbie row Show before we continue,
I just wanna real quick, if you're out there listening
at Fantasy b b Our on Twitter. Um, make sure
you follow, make sure you subscribe to the pod has
the Fantasy Baseball Our Fantasy Radio, f and t s
(04:03):
Y Radio Fantasy Sports Network. We're really gonna depend on you, guys,
the listeners, for good feedback on what you want to hear.
We had Chris Paddock on two episodes ago and that
was one of the great experience for me and Matt.
Now we're gonna bring Robbie and we're trying to do it.
Hopefully every Friday we'll do a riding with Robbie's segment
being out. Our schedules could could align, and I think
(04:24):
the content we're gonna provide is great, So just tell
us how to give us some feedback when you subscribe,
like it, whatever you gotta do on Twitter or on iTunes, Spotify,
you can hear it everywhere, so let's make sure you
do that when you give the show a listen, all right,
what we're gonna do here is we're gonna break down
the good, the bad, the ugly, which will usually be
Mike and then the weekend ahead. So Robbie, our listeners
(04:46):
are going to rely on your insight and analysis. You're
gonna break down guys that had a good week this
past week, if you think our listeners should if they
can grab them in the league, if they can try
to pick them up, maybe stream them. Then we're gonna
break down the bad people that maybe you want to draw,
drop people, maybe you want to fade the ugly we
talked about, and then we'll look into the week ahead.
(05:06):
So Robbie, take it away. What was good about this
past week in pitching in Major League Baseball? Yeah, so
this is interesting, right, So it's a fantasy baseball podcast,
so obviously there's like points involved in everything. But the
first guy that we're gonna talk about Mike Fires, who
who probably isn't owned in a whole lot of leagues.
I do we have to throw some love towards Fires
(05:27):
because of the no No, obviously I think it's national
news and everyone knows about it. But but just to
kind of just dive in just a little bit um
into some of the cooler statistics that I found was
that he was the three hundred person, not person, but
three hundred no hitter in Major League Baseball history, since
the stat was actually deemed the nineteen thirteen and he
(05:48):
was only the thirty five pitcher, um ever to have
multiple no hitters. And it's funny, dude, because you look
at a guy like Fires and you go, okay, that's
all right, Like his stuff is decent. Stats are kind
of always just mediocre, more of like a back end guy, right,
And and he's got multiple no hitters, right. And I
can go on and on about who has no hitters
(06:08):
and who doesn't, but it's just kind of cool. And
I don't want to, like I said, don't want to
send twomuch time on him. But for those of you
who are listening that, I want to really like dive
into the analysis of how that actually happened and how
he's been able to throw two no hitters, which is,
you know, one of the biggest feats of a starting pitcher. Obviously,
go to uh go go check out my website. I
hate to plug plug my website on here, but the
(06:32):
I know, but it's such a cool breakdown. Only took
me seven hours too and a lot of caffeine. But uh,
the Robbie Roshow dot Com forward slash Fires no No
is a full breakdown, and I kind of dive into, like, um,
you know, I know again it's fantasy baseball, But there's
a lot of a lot of deception. When you're talking
about Mike Fires, I go over his deception mechanically, and
I go over to his deception of his pitch profile,
(06:53):
and I totally geek out. So i'd encourage you guys
to check that out if you are a fellow baseball
geek like myself. But um, another another guy that I
gotta highlight is Chrystale. Right, so he started the year off.
I like to look at his start of the year
kind of like his first three or four starts more
of like a spring training setting, right. I think everyone
kind of knows that, and everyone maybe picked him up
really early in fantasy and then he started not doing well,
(07:15):
so then there was this big panic. But over over
the course, I think it was his last three or
four starts to got like forty four strikeouts. So in
his start and when eight innings, one earned three hits,
uh no walks, fourteen ks, and he had an immaculum inning,
he hadded a freaking immaculating and for those guys do
not know what that is, that's nine pitches, nine strikes,
three strikeouts. Um, that's right up there with throwing a
(07:37):
no hit or in my opinion, honestly, UM. So the
biggest stats diving into that Chrystale outing for me, especially
with a guy like him, and what he struggled with
so far this year was was fastball of last. So
in his last start a fastball, Vilo average was ninety
three point one, which generated thirty three percent with percentage
on the forcing fastball, So that was obviously his best
(07:57):
stat um with that particular stat this whole year. And UH.
And it's interesting to me, like really diving in because
you look at you look at a guy like Sale
and what makes him successful and obviously the deception plays
a big part of it. But his fastball slider combination
is uh is pretty much second to none. So then
you look at his batting average against verse that fastball
(08:19):
this year, and you're seeing it at a two seventy
nine clip, which is actually after his most recent outing.
So I don't know the actual stat uh for that
one before the outing, but like I said, to seventy nine,
so hitters were hitting two seventy nine office fastball and UH,
which for me looking at his his statistics, you see
that he UH this year, he's throwing his slider for
(08:41):
the first time in his career more than he was
actually throwing his fastball. So he's swing a slider forty
two point two percent of the time and his fastball
at thirty two percent of the time. So you look
at like the why and the how behind that. Well, basically,
he had to do whatever it takes to get out
get guys out, and that was using his slider more
because that was his best pitch. But then for me
being a picture and kind of knowing the game within
(09:02):
the game stuff, you look at that and you say, well,
if he's strowing his slider more hitters will get more
familiar with it therefore probably have more success eventually down
the road. So you don't necessarily want to uh to
throw it as much as he is. But I think
now that he's got his vo back up on his fastball, um,
you're you're gonna you're gonna look to see the old
Chris Sale And then I want to throw a little
(09:23):
quick shout out to my boy Brad Peacock. Won't spend
too much time, but seven innings twelve ks, uh really good.
I got to watch like five and ends of the
outing and then the biggest thing that took out for
me from actually the first pitch was that Homeboy's got
a new delivery and uh, he's gonna Before he was
kind of just a stretch guy, kicked the leg and go.
(09:43):
Now he's at it a little bit more rhythm, he's
going over the head and get um. And for me,
again being a picture, I know how exciting those times
are when you find something within your delivery that clicks
and it just feels like natural and the rhythm is
nice and you could just see from the outing, I'll
it was against the Royals. Um. Don't really need to
much say much more there, but um, but yeah, this
(10:05):
is a little quick shade there. And then as far
as the bad, um, I don't want to stick with
the good for a second because I got a ton
to say before we get to the band and I'm
I'm like so hyped to say it after you just
went through that give you the one, and I was like,
I just want to right so, but way backtrack to
Mike fires and the note Hi there. I fell asleep
(10:26):
that night, I know Matt. Me and Matt talked about it.
He ended up staying up watching it. You broke. I'm
a real baseball fan, and I don't know, you broke
the game down, so you obviously went pitched by pitch
throughout the whole thing. The three plays, the pig fly
out to center field at an expanding average of eight sixty,
the bottle robbery obviously by the bad guy Raisor Razor
uh Raiser laser Ramon. There you go, Laser Ramon. Sorry
(10:50):
about that, Matt Laser Ramona that had the next b
a of six twenty. And the Kyle Farmer robbery by
pro far So. Those are the three plays that really
made the no hitter the no hitter. What I wanted
to discuss with you, Mike Fires, is a picture the
pri fields haven't haven't changed. He's still the same guy
who's swinging strike percentages over three under leak average. He's
(11:12):
still the same guy throwing ninety one for Steamers eighty
six mile bar cutters. This has to be some sort
of deviation from the norm, right, there's no reason to
believe he's onto something here at thirty three years old. Yeah,
so it's not not so much about like what he's onto.
It's funny. I wrote that in the blog post as well,
and then to just Um piggyback off your thing. It
was funny, dude, because, like I have it right here
(11:33):
in my notes, those three, those three plays, and it
was funny, dude because like the one besides obviously the
Botto home run was the Igleciers one that profile had
to die for his Farmer I'm sorry, no, you're right,
it was Farmer. Sorry, I Gleciers was the groundball of
the three. Yeah, yeah, so there was a farmer one,
and it was funny because that one was like, boy,
(11:55):
like you know, centimeters away from being a hit, and
then stack cast has it as like a one ten
expected that. It's so funny though, I mean, gosh, I
can geek out, but no, that's and that's and that's
something that it was funny or shoot men, it was
fun just like writing about it because, like I said earlier, dude,
Fires is a guy that relies on multiple levels of deception.
And what I mean by that is he's mechanically deceiving
(12:17):
you as a hitter, and he's deceiving you with his
pitch profile. So um, without like having the actual data
in front of me, it was he's I know, with
his curveball. Specifically, it was he's only trailing Trevor Bauer
and vertical movement for his curveball, and it's only coming
at seventy two, right, So you're thinking that the hitter
maybe has a little bit extra time to kind of
(12:37):
adjust within that period. But then when I talk about
pitch profile deception, you're looking at the ball of his fastball,
so you're seeing that his vertical I want to say,
he's like top four or five within Let me just
say that you're doing this with an actual baseball in
your hands, Like, is this a visual podcast like we
got on YouTube? Guys? Uh, So you gotta think about
(12:58):
like he actually spins it pretty high. I no spin
rates maybe like a mainstream thing nowadays, but I think
he spins it around. Like, but what what gets me
is the spin access. And I know I can sit
here and nerd out all all day about this stuff, man,
and I'll try to keep a brief but basically the
access of the ball. So you do you think like
the ball spinning twelve six or six twelve, it's going
(13:18):
at a hundred eighty degrees right and his uh, and
his fastball I want to say, it was, uh, it's
like right around maybe one degrees, so you think about
like how his fastball is actually staying true along that plane,
whereas hitters think about what a hitter is trying to do. Right,
he's gaining familiarity within all the other pictures in the
league who maybe they're fastball, doesn't do some of the
(13:40):
things that fires us. So, um, my biggest point in
that blog post that I did was like some days
like you saw in that day until in fourteen in Houston,
was like, he's just he's just throwing those hitters for
a loop. Man, it's really deceiving. Actually, uh did a
little segment on the bat first Senzel. I don't know
how to pronounce that. So it's like you could just
(14:01):
tell his first two at bats, um one of them
was a strikeout, but you could just tell how uncomfortable
he was. And that's that kind of alludes to the
deception that fires creates. So I kind of dug a
little bit more deeper into that and was like, Okay,
well let's look at his his fastball averages throughout multiple
times in the order, and first time to the order,
guys are hit one seventy two second time to eleven,
third time, and and beyond is four. So again it
(14:25):
goes back to like he's a guy that is relying.
Obviously when you look at his stuff, it's like, okay, ninety,
that's blow average. All these things are a little average.
But the exception of the pitch profile, all of these
things kind of gotta take into consideration because like we
saw any given night with the rain delay, with other
things happening, man, where the hitters maybe get kind of
out of focus. You gotta know hitter, and I would
(14:47):
love to uh dive into his pitch tunneling statistics, and
I would love to even speak to him about it
to see what his thoughts. That's a whole another wormhole.
What do you got on that? Well, here's my question
with all of this that we're talking about now, Robbie,
if if a Fantasy listener out there is thinking about
picking up Mike Fires for rest of season, if someone's
(15:07):
thinking streaming Mike Fires, is this enough for you to
say that it's worth a roster spot to go out
and grab Mike Fires. I think his next start is
maybe Monday against the Mariners. On Monday against the Indians,
against one of those teams there you go on Mother's Day,
and I think he's gonna do national uh connections to
Mother's Day and he lost his mom. But is fires
(15:28):
a guy that you pick up two questions? One pick
him up for the start against Cleveland off of the
no hitter too? Do you hold onto him and give
him two or three starts to fee if you roster him? Uh?
To answer the first one to say no, because Bowers
my pick on or it was a Saturday or Sunday,
I don't know which one, but he's my he's my
(15:48):
pick because the Bower is a guy that's uh, you know,
he's easing to get back there. We'll dive into that later,
but uh, you know, it's tough. Man. Obviously with baseball,
there's a ton of variables, right that you've got to consider.
But um, like I said before, man with the deception
that he has you, you you have to look at
the opposing lineup. And I know that's going really like
really deep into it and geeking out. But if you
(16:09):
look at the opposing lineup and you look at how
many plate appearances that guys have off of them, and
it's low. I'm not like a fantasy baseball expert or anything,
but you know, I would kind of consider depending on
who else is available at that time. Um. But but yeah,
it's it's interesting man, because everyone kind of after I
wrote that big piece that were like, so do I
pick him up like that about I don't care an angle? Well,
(16:33):
it's funny too, because like talking about fires man, he
set a record, Um, he set a record for the
highest e r A at the time of a no hitter.
What Yeah, so it was six eight one at the
time of a note hit or set the record for
the high right, Um, So I thought that was pretty funny,
but it was. Uh, it's interesting too, man, Like I said,
there's so many variables that go into it, because he's
(16:54):
a guy that you look at a spray chart as
far as like his pitches and they're everywhere. Now that
could play. That could be a strength for him. We
call it effectively wild or it can be a downfall
depending on the team, right, depending on who's seen him
and and and the familiarity there as far as the
hitting side too. So uh, like I said, I don't
want to be the guy that says yes or no,
(17:16):
but I'll provide information and statistics to back it up
and then you can make the executive decision on that
it's just crazy that he has only two complete games
and both of them can come and know hitters. So
the other guy, Chris Sale, that you mentioned, and you
spoke a little bit about his slider usage increasing, it's
a pretty significant amount of forty two percent this year
(17:37):
at thirty four percent last year. Obviously it has to
do with his fastball not being as effective, the vela
taking a little bit of time to come back, whatever
it is you said. I think you mentioned the max
velo in his last hours ninety s point four obviously
a great sign, but that's not the only pitch that's
taken a step back for Sale, and a lot of
people don't talk about this. The batting average against on
his change up there's two eighties six and he only
threw eleven of them in the start against the Orioles
(17:58):
where he had so much success. This has been a
huge key to sales repertoire over the course of his
entire career. So I'm a little concerned about the changeup
not really being as effective as it used to be.
Let alone the fast ball velo, that's one thing, but
the changeup not being effective is kind of kind of
worries me, right, it goes back to the pitch profile,
all right, So you gotta look you gotta look at
like the big picture, and especially when you're a guy
(18:20):
like Sale who is going to obviously be expected to
go deep into the ball games and save a bullpen
um because he's your ace. But you gotta look at
like when guys see you multiple multiple times. Man, there's
that familiar I can't even say that word a night
familiarity within the hitters. So for him, he obviously has
that forcing that rides with a little bit of left detail,
(18:43):
and he's got that that slider. Obviously we know all
know about that slider. But for him, like you said, man,
that change is gonna be an equalizer. But the thing
that I will say about that change up for him, dude,
is uh, change up is a fuel pitch, right, And
it goes back to my original comment about like he
he kind of took his first like four five audience
as almost like a spring training type, you know, setting
(19:04):
and uh. And for me, like going back to the
change of being a field pitches, like, the more you
throw it and the more times that you see success
with it, the better it's gonna be. So I think
for him man, just getting his feet wet and just
getting out there and hammering those reps. Dude, it's it's
gonna be fine. But uh, that's that's a good topic
because no one really talks about that. I haven't heard anybody.
(19:25):
Everyone's talking about his fastball, fastball, fastball, and his fastball
does still have a negative pitch value. I think it's
at a negative five point. Oh, but it's change up
is something that I see and I say, you've been
effective with this your whole career. What changed now? Vilos
to say everything's everything else seems the same. It's just
I don't know, Well, that's gonna that's gonna make his
stuff play even better. Right now, Hitters hitters instead of
respecting like a flyer that's being thrown of the time
(19:48):
and a fastball at thirty four or whatever it was.
It's it's, uh, it's just the respect factor of like, okay,
you're hitting second, third time through the lineup. It's like
slider basketball. I've seen those multiple already against Orels. Yeah.
It's the equalizer, man, It's the It's the equalizer. It
will be interesting to see, like moving forward to how
(20:09):
he utilizes it in his repertoire to better his um
you know, uh yeah, alright, So we have determined that
Mike Fires outing is not something that our listeners should
go run and pick up. Mike Fires. Chris Sale, we say,
has his velocity back. And for those that were thinking
of dropping Chris Sale because of his slow start, sit
(20:30):
tight because Sale is back. You mentioned the bad is
Trevor Bauer. I don't think anyone's thinking of dropping Trevor Bauer.
You mentioned that you expect a huge bounce back from Bauer.
And in our next segment, I want to get into
the pictures that you like for this upcoming weekend because
for me, I don't think anyone should go through a
weekend and not be prepared for a full d f
(20:53):
S slate. And we when we come back from this
commercial break, we will stick around with Robbie Rowe and
Mike the Rodoco and we will give you a full
weekend breakdown of the DFS slate, including for free Robbie's
picture prospectus for the guys that are gonna win you
money coming up after the break. Hey, guys, are you
(21:16):
at the bottom of your league? Ashamed of you? Small
d aspect account? Is your top picks what will make
the girls go? Na bro, Then listen to the Fantasy
Baseball Hour with Matt Striker and Mike the Roto Cops
and turn your warrants over all right, Welcome back to
the Fantasy Baseball Hour. I'm Not Striker, joined by Mike
the Rhodo Cop and the One, the Only, the Man
(21:39):
behind the Robbie row Show, all six ft four of him,
including the Beard, Robbie Rowland the Man. Robbie, thanks so
much for joining us. In our last segment, you broke
down the good pictures that pitched well last week, and
we also broke down if they're worth a pickup in Fantasy.
You broke down the bed. Now let's talk about the
up coming week. Which pictures do you like for the
(22:02):
upcoming week end slate? And why? Yeah? So, um yeah
I do. I I have some picks. I don't have
too many, but I do um. So on on Saturday,
we're gonna go ahead and go with the Gram versus
the Marlins and uh and my thing with the Grahm
Man is like it's Jacob de Gram. Obviously it's no
(22:23):
secret about his success that he's having, but you look
at the team that he's facing and I don't I
don't think I have the exact date on here when
he faced the Marlins last, but it was this season
and uh, and he went seven innings fourteen k's three
hits on this same team. Um, and he's actually coming
off a pretty decent start in San Diego where he
actually got outdueled by your boy Chris Paddock over there,
(22:45):
but with a guy like the gram Man. Like I said,
I think the stuff is there. Um Again, I don't
know speaking too much about like fantasy terms, but as
far as like his price could be worth it against
a team like Miami because you might see another outing
where he goes seven eight and innings with double digit
k's pretty easily. Like I said, I do have that
date actually April three. We all know that he started
(23:06):
the season exceptionally well right off his uh, right off
a cy young win had had a couple of rus
starts in there, but now he's he's looking to bounce
back obviously. And then my other pick for Saturday, but
apparently it's Sunday now that the Bower the Bower outing,
so it is confirmed that it's Sunday against Cleveland or
last I looked it was Sunday against Oakland. It's, uh,
probably the best pitching matchup on Sunday. Mike fire is there.
(23:28):
You go. There's a lot of things there that we
could talk about. I like I said, I have Bower
at Oakland. Um, I guess two reasons. One I had
already mentioned about the type of individual that Bower is.
He's a competitor. He's a go getter. That kind of
alludes to UM dissecting the bad of why his bad
start happened previously was because Um to really dive into it.
His left on base percentage UM previously in this season
(23:51):
was seventy seven point seven percent. In the game against
Chicago it was actually down to forty three point five.
So obviously pretty draft Uh decrease there and left on
base percentage, So that's something that you should look forward
to UM seeing how he bounced backs from that. But
like I said, he's a guy that's uh just go
goes and gets it. And Uh, next thing for me
(24:12):
with with the Bauer is he's actually pitching on the
road at a two d E d r A three
and one on the road, he's actually doing worse at home.
His homing r A is four four two, And I
know it's early in the season, so it's tough with
all these numbers and stuff, but it can spend multiple
hours on the y of Trevor Bauer and everything. But
my other pick actually maybe a dark horse. I saw
(24:32):
actually an argument on Twitter about this thing about argument.
I don't believe that never over Fantasy baseball. Who then,
but no, it was should I pick up Martin Perez
or not? Sure? And dute? He's coming off. I think
it's fifteen plus inning scoreless. His last two were scoreless
(24:54):
seven and they respected. And he's got the best cutter
in the league. New pitch. He really I don't know
how he did it, but he he revolutionary. He revitalized,
excuse me, revitalized his career here by adding that new pick. Yeah,
and uh, and correct me if I'm wrong. But I
don't know if it's drastically up. But his velo is
actually impressive looking at a yeah, looking at a guy
(25:15):
like him that I know it wasn't really it wasn't
really thought of as as a guy, but as a
guy as a as a yeah. We call in the
sports world, are you a guy or you not? There's
there's two types of people in this world. Guys. He
know it's up to ninety five point four this year,
is that it was ninety three point two last season.
So I mean in a lefty dude. And then uh,
(25:37):
and on top of that, you're facing the Tigers. I
don't want to throw any shade per per team, but
you gotta look into that as far as when you're
making your picks obviously, um, and then in as far
as like the the baseball terminology and being a baseball guy. Man,
we have this phrase where it's just you stick with
the hot hand, right, So you hear that probably around
playoff time when when Skippers will go to the maybe
(25:59):
their four for fifth starter in game one because he's
coming off a three game winning streak or whatever it is.
So you just you stick with the hot hand. And
I think in this particular case, when guys on the
especially startings, are starters, when they when when they have
something click, man. And for Perez, maybe it's the fastball veto,
maybe it's something mechanical adjustment that new cutter gives him,
(26:19):
you know, a bunch of confidence. Whatever it is, he's
going out there, man. And and that's when you kind
of gotta look at his past numbers and go, Okay,
we can't really put too much emphasis on these. We
gotta look at his past few stuff because look, he's
got like this new repertoire is obviously his pitch profile
is a little bit different. Um So for me, man
a guy like Perez, I would say, go freaking get him.
(26:40):
Um maybe he's a little bit more expensive now after
his last two starts, but uh, for me facing the Tigers, uh,
it'll be it'll be fun to watch, alright. Uh. You
mentioned Trevor Bauer and social media and I retweeted this
and I'll send it out again. Another reason to like
Bower is he kind of like did this public service
announced was impromptu in the locker room about some of
(27:02):
the comments that he gets on his social media, and
he ended up posting some of the things that people said,
and he had mentioned, you know, while he's a big
boy and he can handle it, there's a fourteen year
old kid out there, a thirteen year old kid out
there that's getting bullied in school and being told all
these things. And I think it's great that a guy
like Trevor Bauer waves the flag because a lot of
times people talk about all the nation's going soft and
(27:24):
we are too politically correct. At the same time, when
someone like Trevor Bauer comes out and is able to
empathize and try to help kids, it's all the more
reason to root for this guy. On top of the
fact that you mentioned his personality is just this kind
of like I'm coming at you here. It is hit
it if you can kind of thing. So Bouert, deGrom
and Perez are Robbie's picks for this weekend in the DFS. Mike,
(27:48):
do you want to jump in with any pictures or
hitters that you like for either today, Friday, Tomorrow, Saturday,
or the next day Sunday. Yeah, definitely. And let me
just say something quick about Bauer because out that we
have the chance of Robbie here before the season, if
you tell me that Bauer has changed up, would be
this effective. I would have projected him to have a
sub two year a like all the way through. I
(28:09):
want to know from your perspective, because I never pitched
in the minors, I never pitched in high school, why
is he struggling so much with his fastball against left
handed hitters, Because when you look at the zone profile,
if it's not left over the plate. It's either up
away or lowing in. And I don't know, you're a picture,
so what are your thoughts on all that. I don't
know if the location is what's struggling here, or what's
(28:29):
the problem here, or something else left. He's a hitting
three forty three against his forcing festival. Yeah. Well, he's
even publicly stated in the past, like his forcing fastibals
his worst pitch. And I think everybody on the Indians,
the whole Indian staff, that all their fastballs are the
worst pitch. Can we just credit Carlos Carrasco with a
complete game shutout? I love that. I love baseball. I
(28:50):
I just send it threet out. But no, I mean
with with the Bower right, it's uh, it's always kind
of been about obviously pitched location, man, and where the
stuff's going obviously like for any pitch, right, but with him,
especially this year, I think I have him in front
of me. Man, it's like he's given up way more
hard hit forty two point seven percent hard hit compared
to two was thirty five. And then you look at
(29:13):
the barrel, man, and the barrel percentage last year in
his really good cy Young Canada year was four point
four percent. Now it's all the way up to eleven
point three percent. For me looking at that from a
like a pitching guy, because I've dealt with this in
the past. Two is where you get so gung ho
about particular new pitches. For him, he's always been a
guy that's thrown you know, four or five six pitches
(29:35):
in his career. When I when I met him, we
were both in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization and you had
like eight at the time. That's right, Yeah, No, I
mean that's that's all air. But uh, it was funny
because I've always been a guy too that had like
five six pitches and I remember like sitting next to
him at a banquet or something when we were just
talking about like what you have that? But but no,
(29:56):
I mean for him, I think to kind of dive
deeper into that, dude, and maybe I'll answer the question
that you had or not. But uh, for him, it's
obviously the the evolution of that changeup maybe potentially is
taken away from the success that he had with the
slider last year. So you look at the slider last year,
hitters were hitting h literally a CEO they're hitting a
hundred off of his slider. Until I was an eighteen,
(30:18):
it's all the way up to two thirty five now
in two thousand nineteen. There's multiple layers to that, but um,
but sometimes man as a as a pitcher, you just, uh,
you just gotta learn how to sequence the stuff that
you have at that point in time. So for him, obviously,
with the evolution of his change up, and he made
it a point and spring training to throw it as
much as he could. Now it's just about, Okay, I
(30:38):
have all these weapons, how can I best sequence those
for the for to maximize my results? And again, it's
it's one of those things. Kind of same with Chris
sale right, is like he's gonna be a guy that
is going to constantly evolve, I think throughout the season
just because of his his preparation and now that he's
got all of these tools in the toolbox, it's like, Okay,
how can I best sequence those? It kind of speaks
to his curveball too. I know his curveball has always
(31:00):
been his best pitch. Um, but as far as like
the percentages, I know he's throwing it way less this
year than he did last year and hitters are I
think hitters even this year are hitting like, um, let
me see, I got it. I got it somewhere. But
hitters this year are hitting a buck six year off
his curveball. But he's only throwing at fifteen point one
percent of the time, whereas last year he was throwing
(31:21):
at two point seven percent of the time. Obviously, now
he's got the inclusion of the change up and the slider,
so again it goes back to the original thought of
you just gotta find the best best sequences for himself.
Obviously you mentioned lefties. Now that he's got that slider, like,
he's mentioned that he wanted to pitch fading away at
a slower speed to manipulate the two seam and that access.
It's just about, you know, maximizing those results based on
(31:44):
how can I best sequence those for the best results.
So what about you as as a being a picture
yourself and still trying to make the show and everything.
As far as the location of your four team against
right against lefties, are you trying to elevate? Is that
your primary goal? For me? No? Actually, because I'm a
low spinning guy, which I didn't find out later in
my career. Obviously with the evolution of data analytics and
(32:04):
stack cast and all that stuff. Um I was I
was always kind of a hard thrower too. So I'm
sitting there ahead and account and I'm trying to throw
four seamers up and people are getting barrels to it,
and I'm like, what the hecks going on here? Man,
Like that's the nineties seven hour heater that you shouldn't
get a barrel on that. But then I learned later
in my career, like I have the one and in
two thousand and eighteen, I think I had like one
of the lowest spinning fourcing fastballs like eighteen d RPMs,
(32:27):
which is crazy for a four seam evolve like minor
league baseball. And uh so then it's kind of just like, okay, understanding.
And this is why I peek out about data analytics, man,
because it gives the the the athlete, like a complete picture,
right It paints the whole picture of how to actually,
um you know, portray your stuff right now. There's no
guessing it involved. And I know Bowers, and I think
(32:49):
that's gonna be And it is a reason why he's
just continuing to climb up because he completely understands that,
and he understands like, Okay, these are the types of
things that I do well, and this is what the
data show, so therefore I should do this and I
should sequence it like this. But but yeah, for me, dude,
it was just about, you know, earlier in my career,
it was kind of like, obviously I was drafted eighteen,
(33:10):
so it was here, you go, I don't know what
I'm doing, like kind of blah blah blah. And then
as I, as I evolved, and then the evolution of
the data analytics, it was kind of like, Okay, maybe
instead of throwing four teams I switched to a two
seam and get more moving on my ball, kind of
go more down in the zone and obviously in and
out and then play off a cutter with that, get
that like X factor you talk about with uh, you know,
(33:32):
thinker slider guys. But uh, but yeah, obviously there's there's
a ton of different layers to that, and we can
probably tell all night about it. But it's it's gonna
be interesting to see how power progress is because like
I said, I'm I'm I'm curious to see if the
hard hit percentage will kind of stay the same or
is it going to go down? Because he is a
guy that relies heavily on strikeouts and missing bats in general.
(33:53):
So then he kind of gets put into a whole
different category as far as had a grade certain guys
because you know, again, you kind of well, when looking
at guys like that, you go, Okay, does he miss
bats or does he miss barrels? What's the weak contact
look like? As eating groundballs? I know, and bowers last
out in his groundball fly ball is like two to seven,
and you kind of want that a little bit, uh,
you know more. Even so, there's a guy in our industry,
(34:17):
in the fantasy baseball industry depending on Trevor Bauer to uh.
It's a great part. Mike and I are are two
of them. We are talking with the bearded scientist, the
host of the Robbie road Show on Instagram, Robbie Rowland
breaking down so much great content here for pictures. Mike,
I got a question for you with all this information
(34:38):
that Robbie is giving us on our listeners, things like, well,
you know Bauer likes to throw his curveball or so
and so, Perez, you know, how's this cutter? Which sites
do you use? To see how teams hit a particular
pitch that you now know a picture likes to use.
Is there any type of resource out there for people
to find out how do the AI's fair again the curveball?
(35:01):
Or how did the Twins fair against the cutter? I'm
making it up. What do you got? Let me let
me tell you something about Matt probably before you, before
he was a famous w W resl, he was a
teacher in Queens, New York, soul site teacher, right, Matt, Yeah,
where are you going with this? Mike? I'm just letting
Robbie into the into the note here that you love
(35:22):
to teach, and this is one of your teaching moments
right here that you want me to tell the tell
the listeners out there and sites to go on. Baseball
Savant Brooks Baseball fan graphs are really my top three,
and you could just it's like an unlimited amount of
knowledge you can get from those websites. I don't know
you've got anything else, Robbie or dude. It's bad. It's bad.
(35:42):
I like my whole bookmarks right now is just filled
with like all that stuff. Because you go to one
site and you're like, Okay, maybe this doesn't have it,
but then I'll go to check another one and then
maybe that hasn't. And then you get into the graphs
and then you get X, y Z and all this stuff,
and next thing you know, it's eight hours later and
you've got a full product offee and that's all I got.
(36:03):
I piggyback off those same sites on it. Yeah, the
stack cast in Baseball Savant is is really unmatched at
this point. And then all the information is there for
you a day or two later on fan Graphs and
brook Space. Weall sometimes there's discrepancies between fan Graphs and
brooks Space. There is like a lot more than I
thought there would be, too, because like looking at pictures
is like they'll put different categories like forour they I
(36:23):
know Baseball Savant they put his slider sometimes in the
cutter category, just a harder slider, maybe a different access
but like I can't get great. Uh yeah, so um,
I don't know. I can't complain too much because I
think those things are so freaking cool. Yeah, I agree,
but between those three sites, I can't think of any better.
I don't know about you, Matt h No, I mean
(36:44):
I'm in on all those and the thing for me
and the thing for this show is we want people
to be able to apply math to winning money, and
that's what the daily Fantasy thing is all about. For me.
For instance, today Friday, there's a few guys that I'm targeting.
I like Mustakis against Kantana. He's has six extra base
hits in his career against him, and I just I
(37:06):
like that series in and of itself for the entire weekend.
Moving on, I'm gonna be stacking Cardinals because guys like
carp and day Young, they they hit Williams well. And
as far as a picture for for today, I like
Verlander against Texas. I just think that anytime Verlander goes
out there, you're gonna spend for him, but you definitely
(37:27):
can help yourself to win a little DFS money today
at least, I like a Cardinal stack. I like Moose,
I like Verlander. Looking at tomorrow, I like Encarnacion against
Porcello and he's hitting three or two that eight extra
base hits against him. And then I'm keeping with this
Brewers and Cubs series. Chris Bryant is hot, he's on
a torrid pace. He's facing Zach Davis. He's hitting three
(37:47):
sixty eight against him. On the flip. I like Ryan
Brawn against Cole Hamil's no shade to Cole Hamil's, but
he's not the same Cole Hamiles that he that he
once was. And in a pitching matchup, I like Marcus
Stroman against the White Sox. That's for for tomorrow Saturday. Mike,
we have not heard from you. What are you doing
on Saturday in DFS. Yeah, I'll get to it. On
one second. I don't know if you saw the Yankee
(38:09):
Mariner game. Edwindon Connacil is playing second base for the
first time in his career, died for a liner and
heard his left wrist, So if he's in the lineup,
he's obviously gonna be a good play. But that's something
keep an eye on Saturday. You mentioned Chris Bryant, who
I had down here. Uh, he's on fire. Four Homer's
nine RBIs in his last five games. And I know
Zach Davis is doing well, but it seems like to
(38:31):
to juicy of a matchup to turn down. Zach Davis
is just throwing an eight mile prior sinker sixty four
percent at a time. Brian sitting four twelve against sinkers
this year, three forty two for his career. Now where
did you get that information that? Because someone out there
is listening, going, how does he know? This? Fan graphs
game of all that information, you get Zach Davies, you
find that his pitch usage. You go to Chris Bryant,
(38:53):
click splits, click sinker, find out how he's doing against
the sinker. It all gets very simple and you get
used to it. But I guess for somebody who hasn't,
who isn't used to it gets a little harder. You
go on Baseball Savant and you can see in the
top right corner there's a a sliding bar that shows
you their x wOBA X slugging percentage. Chris Bryant is
in the ninety one percent town x well bit this season,
(39:15):
eight seven percent down on X slug so his perip
fields are there. Honorable honorable mention to Paul gold schmid
ten for twenty three extra base hits against Jordan Lyles.
That's for Saturday. For Sunday, I went with Nelson Cruise
against Daniel Norris. He's five for ten with two extra
base hits and three walks against Norris, and it's weird
because it seems like Nelson Cruise doesn't age. He's in
the ninety three percent down hard hit percentage percent down
(39:38):
exit vl oh. He has seven homers in the season,
and historically he's been better against leftist and rieties. Norris
has been okay. He has a three point eight year
eight this year in twenty innings he's primarily four seamen
slider and fifty percent of the time throwing a four
scene with an average revel of ninety one. I think
Nelson Cruise will be able to make some hard contact
and possibly homer in that game. Honorable mentioned to Alex
(40:00):
Pregnant against Adrian Sampson of Texas Roommates. Really Sampson and
I were roommates back. Yeah, so give him a call
and tell him that Mike is gonna bet against him,
even the initiative to just blow out Mike's entire DFS lineup. Please.
Let's say he might be your boy, Robbie, but maybe
(40:22):
he should have talked to you a little bit about pitching.
No shade, but you got all these data analytics for him. Oh,
shade taken. And then moving on to Sunday Mother's Day,
and of course we all know that will all be
spending time with our you know, God willing our mothers
if they're still here, are girlfriends where of course none
(40:42):
of us will be sneaking away to watch baseball wink wink.
But if we are, and we put in a little
dfst act again, I like this Cubs and Brewers series.
I think it's just it's chock full of offense. I
like Anthony Rizzo again, Julius Chastine. Rizzo hits him well,
I think he's hitting about three eighteen or three twenty.
I'm sticking with Ryan Brawn. He sitting four hundred against
(41:03):
John Lester. And the picture that I'm going with on
Sunday is Steven Strasbourg. Any thoughts from Robbie on Strasbourg?
Who's he facing? I saw that matchup he's facing actually, um,
do you know, do you have it in front of you?
I will in a second, yeah, because I looked at that.
But then I was like, I was hesitant to pick
(41:23):
that one because he was actually facing someone that I
I like. And I like all pictures, um, but this one,
especially Dodgers on Sunday. Was it Ryo? Yeah? Yeah, Well
Ryoy has got a sub like to one. This year.
I don't again like going back to not me knowing
like how fantasy points and all that work. But I
(41:43):
don't know how like much of win is you love
fantasy baseball? You really would, I know. I mean that's
why I probably don't do it, because it might be dangerous,
as if you need something else to take up any
more of the last few brain cells that you had
left for anything outside of me? What are brain cells
at this point? Theetically enhanced by data? Mike, what do
(42:06):
you like? Did you give Sunday? Already? My brain cells
are fried from other things. Yes, I did give Sunday.
I gave Nelson Cruise. Do you have any more place
for the weekend? Matter? Now? Now that's it. I ran
down my place for the DFS weekend. Robbie gave us
some great insight into pictures that had a good week
that might be valuable, pictures that didn't pitch so well
(42:26):
but you shouldn't be so concerned about, as well as
breaking down his weekend pictures of de grom Bauer and
Martin Perez. Guys, I think that we stuffed ten pounds
of candy into a five pound bag tonight, But I
think it's a lot of really good stuff. Mike, what
do you got? I just wanna while we have Robbie
here on the air, you interviewed Tyler Glass now before
(42:49):
the season started. That's your guy. Did you ever in
a million years think he would have a one point
for a seven year right right now? I thought he
would have a sub one? So if again I have
to plug it, man, I I gotta plug it. But
hopefully we can include the link in the in the description.
But how do you guys know each other? Did a
full breakdown on Glass? We play together in the Pittsburgh
Pirates organizations. Um uh in twousand four team we're on
(43:13):
the same team high a and uh. You look at dude.
It's funny, man, because like obviously a lot of I
think and no no shape, but like a lot of
fantasy people like will look at just major league statistics,
right and uh, And then you look at a guy
like Glass now and you're like, Okay, hasn't really performed whatever.
Move on. You look at that dude's minor league numbers
and it's freaking video game like I know, and and
(43:35):
the guy, the guy is just unreally you look at
his like pitch profiles and all that again, like go
to that breakdown that I did on him, but uh,
it's uh, it's really impressive perceived velocity around miles an
hour because of extension for the extension, uh in the
game of baseball with a vertical movement of his fastball.
Top top three or top four, I think. But he's
(43:57):
he's impressive. And now that you look at his walker
and it's like four or five, he's in the top
of the league with with his walk percentage, which has
always been kind of that underlying issue with a guy
like Tyler Glass. Now but now that he's got the
point where he's comfortable and uh, he's with an organization again,
change the scenery, going back to like being a player
and understanding that aspect. Change of scenery always helps. Um
(44:18):
going to an organization that maybe has some different tactics,
different tools, uh, to to allow him to really just
maximize what he's capable of doing. And Uh, yeah, a
good question. I like that that that was a really
good interview. When I remember listening to it before I
even contacted you to do this whole thing. I remember
listening to that because it was somebody put in a
fantasy group chat like who's Robbie rolland and how did
(44:40):
he get like Tyler Glass now on this show? Did
you watch the YouTube? Yeah? Yeah, YouTube one. Yeah, that
was good. That was good. He's funny too, man, He's
a clown and it's funny too. I just saw a
quote that he had, like pitching pitching Ninja on on Twitter,
like kind of made it into his little jpeg type thing,
and it was like Glass now talking about how he's
identified he has to go out there and pitch like
(45:01):
he's piste off and it's angry, you know, and pitch
fired up where a lot of guys do. And just
knowing the kid and knowing like how goofy the dude
is and just how much of a Clowney is. It's
just it's funny, you know. But yeah, no doubt so, Robbie. Uh,
if the kids out there are loving this content, where
can they find more of you? Oh? Man? Where the
(45:22):
question is, where can't you find me? And that's I'm
on the side of subway training on Uh. The U
Instagram is my biggest platform. Robbie row one to r
l B b y r ow one to um on
the Instagram, you'll see the link of my bio and
that really will take you to all the kind of
links and the content that I'm creating. Got a YouTube,
(45:43):
Robbie rolland my website, The Robbie row Show dot com
where I'm breaking down. I'm diving all into all these
like baseball geeky data analytics stuff that some people think
is intriguing and they want to dive into it. Um,
which is great. On that website, I'll have like my podcast.
You can also find my podcast, The rob the ro
Show on iTunes, um, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, all those
(46:05):
types of things. Just type in the Robbie row Show UM.
And then I just got a TikTok, which is cool.
I don't know if millennials use it, so I thought
I need to do jump on board, but no, I'm
just don't say the word millennials around. Matt. You can
find me at Mike the Rhodo Cop on Twitter. Uh
do the DFS once a week for picture list dot com,
(46:26):
obviously the show at Fantasy Baseball Hour on Fantasy Sports
Radio fn t s Y Radio, and a little bit
of writing at Mets mariz online dot com. Please guys,
go out subscribe to the podcast. UH like it? Do whatever?
Comment do what it rate. It's five star, fourth star,
I don't even care. Just read it. Do whatever you
have to do so we can, uh, we can get
(46:48):
some feedback from you guys. All right now, Robbie, listen, man,
the next time we have you on, you just you
can't be so shy. You gotta come out of your talk.
Gotten that my whole life. Man might each time would
kick me out of class and they'd be like, hey,
you're too shy, you don't talk enough, get out of
my class. And yeah, right, we've had a great jo
(47:11):
with Robbie row not because rhymes. My name is Matt strike.
You can find me at Matt Underscore Striker Underscore on Instagram,
Real Match Striker. You can hear me on Roodowire Talking Hockey,
you can read me on raz Ball, and you can
listen to Mike and I each and every time right
here on the Fantasy Baseball Hour. A big thanks to
(47:31):
our friends over at the Fantasy Sports Network. Alright, folks,
good luck, be safe, have fun. We'll see you out there.
Hey friends, Matt Striker here, I want to talk to
you about my buddies over at Birdman Bats. Remember when
yasiope wee hit five home runs in a twenty four
(47:52):
hour span. Well he did it with a Birdman back.
My good buddy Gary Mallick and former major league or
Lars Anderson, along with a crew of great guys, have
created an alternative product that major leaguers, minor leaguers, and
ballplayers all around the globe are raving about. They love
the way this bat feels in their hands. They love
the mentality and the mindset that the bat puts them
(48:14):
in as they head up to the plate. So go
check them out there all over social media. Check them
out at Birdman bats dot com. They've got some great
gear as well, and make sure to let them know
match strikers, saying
Hey, thanks for downloading the podcast, and remember, if you
want to listen live, download the I Heart Radio app,
download the tune and app and just search for Fantasy
Sports Radio Network and you could listen to this program live. Also,
if you want to watch the video of this podcast,
check us out on YouTube, on twitch, or on Periscope
(00:21):
and type in you guess did Fantasy Sports Network. You'll
find us there. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.
Ladies and gentlemen. You are down to the fantasy baseball
(00:44):
in a world where an eating year old gloves drafted
in the third realm by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the
thing is possible. This word will grow into a war right.
His face will bear hand, and his muscles shall be
strong when he will need them. Because the road ahead
will not be easy. There will be set backs you
(01:06):
don't know what, add injuries and more. But our boy
is not taught to fail. This warrior goes bards the
power of the weapon in his hand his head, He
strengthens his body in his mind, wading into a nash
(01:30):
while many of his places already in battle brown a
picture versus morally sill as the battle. They all know
his name, and they look over their shoulder, waiting the
new way to warrior, armed with a mind and an
arm to take over the game. He is coming and
(01:52):
when he arrives, the world will know. He now joins
match striker and like HTCA on the Fantasy Baseball Hour,
six ft four drafted in the third round by the
Arizona Diamondbacks, the right handed hurler. You can find him
at Robbie row Underscore twelve on Twitter. Robbie wrote twelve
(02:15):
on Instagram. He's the host of the Robbie Row Show.
I'll give you one guest, so it is the one
and only Robbie Roll and Robbie what's going on? Man? Dude?
That was one of the best introductions. Actually, I'm gonna
go ahead and point it at the best introduction I've
ever heard. Thank you so much. I all of a sudden,
I have all this energy, like what do I What
am I supposed to do it? Like, let's let's rock man, shoot,
(02:36):
let's go you go, Iron sharpens, Iron and and Roberto.
Because we like to be multicultural and diverse. Here, uh,
for those that aren't familiar, can you talk a little
bit about what the Robbie Rose Show is because it's
taking Instagram by school. Oh my goodness, I appreciate the
kind words. Uh. Basically it started with the foundation of uh,
(02:56):
the accumulating nine years professional only pops played in the
big leagues, and I just had all this information. And
this isn't to sound like conceded or anything, but it's
all this knowledge that I felt a sense of responsibility
to kind of give back. And I think you guys
will hear within this episode that I do enjoy thoroughly
um talking. So I was like, hey, why not kind
(03:18):
of bring that to a podcast, why not just take
social media by storm? Obviously with the the explosion of
social media these days, it's like it just was the perfect,
perfect gateway to do that, and uh kind of just
been evolving ever since. But uh, that's the brief synopsis
of kind of the foundation and how it started and
why it started, and why it's gonna keep on keeping on. Mike. Mike,
(03:41):
you gotta jump in here, otherwise Robbie and I are
just gonna talk for you. I was gonna say this
is gonna turn into the Robbie row Show before we continue,
I just wanna real quick, if you're out there listening
at Fantasy b b Our on Twitter. Um, make sure
you follow, make sure you subscribe to the pod has
the Fantasy Baseball Our Fantasy Radio, f and t s
(04:03):
Y Radio Fantasy Sports Network. We're really gonna depend on you, guys,
the listeners, for good feedback on what you want to hear.
We had Chris Paddock on two episodes ago and that
was one of the great experience for me and Matt.
Now we're gonna bring Robbie and we're trying to do it.
Hopefully every Friday we'll do a riding with Robbie's segment
being out. Our schedules could could align, and I think
(04:24):
the content we're gonna provide is great, So just tell
us how to give us some feedback when you subscribe,
like it, whatever you gotta do on Twitter or on iTunes, Spotify,
you can hear it everywhere, so let's make sure you
do that when you give the show a listen, all right,
what we're gonna do here is we're gonna break down
the good, the bad, the ugly, which will usually be
Mike and then the weekend ahead. So Robbie, our listeners
(04:46):
are going to rely on your insight and analysis. You're
gonna break down guys that had a good week this
past week, if you think our listeners should if they
can grab them in the league, if they can try
to pick them up, maybe stream them. Then we're gonna
break down the bad people that maybe you want to draw,
drop people, maybe you want to fade the ugly we
talked about, and then we'll look into the week ahead.
(05:06):
So Robbie, take it away. What was good about this
past week in pitching in Major League Baseball? Yeah, so
this is interesting, right, So it's a fantasy baseball podcast,
so obviously there's like points involved in everything. But the
first guy that we're gonna talk about Mike Fires, who
who probably isn't owned in a whole lot of leagues.
I do we have to throw some love towards Fires
(05:27):
because of the no No, obviously I think it's national
news and everyone knows about it. But but just to
kind of just dive in just a little bit um
into some of the cooler statistics that I found was
that he was the three hundred person, not person, but
three hundred no hitter in Major League Baseball history, since
the stat was actually deemed the nineteen thirteen and he
(05:48):
was only the thirty five pitcher, um ever to have
multiple no hitters. And it's funny, dude, because you look
at a guy like Fires and you go, okay, that's
all right, Like his stuff is decent. Stats are kind
of always just mediocre, more of like a back end guy, right,
And and he's got multiple no hitters, right. And I
can go on and on about who has no hitters
(06:08):
and who doesn't, but it's just kind of cool. And
I don't want to, like I said, don't want to
send twomuch time on him. But for those of you
who are listening that, I want to really like dive
into the analysis of how that actually happened and how
he's been able to throw two no hitters, which is,
you know, one of the biggest feats of a starting pitcher. Obviously,
go to uh go go check out my website. I
hate to plug plug my website on here, but the
(06:32):
I know, but it's such a cool breakdown. Only took
me seven hours too and a lot of caffeine. But uh,
the Robbie Roshow dot Com forward slash Fires no No
is a full breakdown, and I kind of dive into, like, um,
you know, I know again it's fantasy baseball, But there's
a lot of a lot of deception. When you're talking
about Mike Fires, I go over his deception mechanically, and
I go over to his deception of his pitch profile,
(06:53):
and I totally geek out. So i'd encourage you guys
to check that out if you are a fellow baseball
geek like myself. But um, another another guy that I
gotta highlight is Chrystale. Right, so he started the year off.
I like to look at his start of the year
kind of like his first three or four starts more
of like a spring training setting, right. I think everyone
kind of knows that, and everyone maybe picked him up
really early in fantasy and then he started not doing well,
(07:15):
so then there was this big panic. But over over
the course, I think it was his last three or
four starts to got like forty four strikeouts. So in
his start and when eight innings, one earned three hits,
uh no walks, fourteen ks, and he had an immaculum inning,
he hadded a freaking immaculating and for those guys do
not know what that is, that's nine pitches, nine strikes,
three strikeouts. Um, that's right up there with throwing a
(07:37):
no hit or in my opinion, honestly, UM. So the
biggest stats diving into that Chrystale outing for me, especially
with a guy like him, and what he struggled with
so far this year was was fastball of last. So
in his last start a fastball, Vilo average was ninety
three point one, which generated thirty three percent with percentage
on the forcing fastball, So that was obviously his best
(07:57):
stat um with that particular stat this whole year. And UH.
And it's interesting to me, like really diving in because
you look at you look at a guy like Sale
and what makes him successful and obviously the deception plays
a big part of it. But his fastball slider combination
is uh is pretty much second to none. So then
you look at his batting average against verse that fastball
(08:19):
this year, and you're seeing it at a two seventy
nine clip, which is actually after his most recent outing.
So I don't know the actual stat uh for that
one before the outing, but like I said, to seventy nine,
so hitters were hitting two seventy nine office fastball and UH,
which for me looking at his his statistics, you see
that he UH this year, he's throwing his slider for
(08:41):
the first time in his career more than he was
actually throwing his fastball. So he's swing a slider forty
two point two percent of the time and his fastball
at thirty two percent of the time. So you look
at like the why and the how behind that. Well, basically,
he had to do whatever it takes to get out
get guys out, and that was using his slider more
because that was his best pitch. But then for me
being a picture and kind of knowing the game within
(09:02):
the game stuff, you look at that and you say, well,
if he's strowing his slider more hitters will get more
familiar with it therefore probably have more success eventually down
the road. So you don't necessarily want to uh to
throw it as much as he is. But I think
now that he's got his vo back up on his fastball, um,
you're you're gonna you're gonna look to see the old
Chris Sale And then I want to throw a little
(09:23):
quick shout out to my boy Brad Peacock. Won't spend
too much time, but seven innings twelve ks, uh really good.
I got to watch like five and ends of the
outing and then the biggest thing that took out for
me from actually the first pitch was that Homeboy's got
a new delivery and uh, he's gonna Before he was
kind of just a stretch guy, kicked the leg and go.
(09:43):
Now he's at it a little bit more rhythm, he's
going over the head and get um. And for me,
again being a picture, I know how exciting those times
are when you find something within your delivery that clicks
and it just feels like natural and the rhythm is
nice and you could just see from the outing, I'll
it was against the Royals. Um. Don't really need to
much say much more there, but um, but yeah, this
(10:05):
is a little quick shade there. And then as far
as the bad, um, I don't want to stick with
the good for a second because I got a ton
to say before we get to the band and I'm
I'm like so hyped to say it after you just
went through that give you the one, and I was like,
I just want to right so, but way backtrack to
Mike fires and the note Hi there. I fell asleep
(10:26):
that night, I know Matt. Me and Matt talked about it.
He ended up staying up watching it. You broke. I'm
a real baseball fan, and I don't know, you broke
the game down, so you obviously went pitched by pitch
throughout the whole thing. The three plays, the pig fly
out to center field at an expanding average of eight sixty,
the bottle robbery obviously by the bad guy Raisor Razor
uh Raiser laser Ramon. There you go, Laser Ramon. Sorry
(10:50):
about that, Matt Laser Ramona that had the next b
a of six twenty. And the Kyle Farmer robbery by
pro far So. Those are the three plays that really
made the no hitter the no hitter. What I wanted
to discuss with you, Mike Fires, is a picture the
pri fields haven't haven't changed. He's still the same guy
who's swinging strike percentages over three under leak average. He's
(11:12):
still the same guy throwing ninety one for Steamers eighty
six mile bar cutters. This has to be some sort
of deviation from the norm, right, there's no reason to
believe he's onto something here at thirty three years old. Yeah,
so it's not not so much about like what he's onto.
It's funny. I wrote that in the blog post as well,
and then to just Um piggyback off your thing. It
was funny, dude, because, like I have it right here
(11:33):
in my notes, those three, those three plays, and it
was funny, dude because like the one besides obviously the
Botto home run was the Igleciers one that profile had
to die for his Farmer I'm sorry, no, you're right,
it was Farmer. Sorry, I Gleciers was the groundball of
the three. Yeah, yeah, so there was a farmer one,
and it was funny because that one was like, boy,
(11:55):
like you know, centimeters away from being a hit, and
then stack cast has it as like a one ten
expected that. It's so funny though, I mean, gosh, I
can geek out, but no, that's and that's and that's
something that it was funny or shoot men, it was
fun just like writing about it because, like I said earlier, dude,
Fires is a guy that relies on multiple levels of deception.
And what I mean by that is he's mechanically deceiving
(12:17):
you as a hitter, and he's deceiving you with his
pitch profile. So um, without like having the actual data
in front of me, it was he's I know, with
his curveball. Specifically, it was he's only trailing Trevor Bauer
and vertical movement for his curveball, and it's only coming
at seventy two, right, So you're thinking that the hitter
maybe has a little bit extra time to kind of
(12:37):
adjust within that period. But then when I talk about
pitch profile deception, you're looking at the ball of his fastball,
so you're seeing that his vertical I want to say,
he's like top four or five within Let me just
say that you're doing this with an actual baseball in
your hands, Like, is this a visual podcast like we
got on YouTube? Guys? Uh, So you gotta think about
(12:58):
like he actually spins it pretty high. I no spin
rates maybe like a mainstream thing nowadays, but I think
he spins it around. Like, but what what gets me
is the spin access. And I know I can sit
here and nerd out all all day about this stuff, man,
and I'll try to keep a brief but basically the
access of the ball. So you do you think like
the ball spinning twelve six or six twelve, it's going
(13:18):
at a hundred eighty degrees right and his uh, and
his fastball I want to say, it was, uh, it's
like right around maybe one degrees, so you think about
like how his fastball is actually staying true along that plane,
whereas hitters think about what a hitter is trying to do. Right,
he's gaining familiarity within all the other pictures in the
league who maybe they're fastball, doesn't do some of the
(13:40):
things that fires us. So, um, my biggest point in
that blog post that I did was like some days
like you saw in that day until in fourteen in Houston,
was like, he's just he's just throwing those hitters for
a loop. Man, it's really deceiving. Actually, uh did a
little segment on the bat first Senzel. I don't know
how to pronounce that. So it's like you could just
(14:01):
tell his first two at bats, um one of them
was a strikeout, but you could just tell how uncomfortable
he was. And that's that kind of alludes to the
deception that fires creates. So I kind of dug a
little bit more deeper into that and was like, Okay,
well let's look at his his fastball averages throughout multiple
times in the order, and first time to the order,
guys are hit one seventy two second time to eleven,
third time, and and beyond is four. So again it
(14:25):
goes back to like he's a guy that is relying.
Obviously when you look at his stuff, it's like, okay, ninety,
that's blow average. All these things are a little average.
But the exception of the pitch profile, all of these
things kind of gotta take into consideration because like we
saw any given night with the rain delay, with other
things happening, man, where the hitters maybe get kind of
out of focus. You gotta know hitter, and I would
(14:47):
love to uh dive into his pitch tunneling statistics, and
I would love to even speak to him about it
to see what his thoughts. That's a whole another wormhole.
What do you got on that? Well, here's my question
with all of this that we're talking about now, Robbie,
if if a Fantasy listener out there is thinking about
picking up Mike Fires for rest of season, if someone's
(15:07):
thinking streaming Mike Fires, is this enough for you to
say that it's worth a roster spot to go out
and grab Mike Fires. I think his next start is
maybe Monday against the Mariners. On Monday against the Indians,
against one of those teams there you go on Mother's Day,
and I think he's gonna do national uh connections to
Mother's Day and he lost his mom. But is fires
(15:28):
a guy that you pick up two questions? One pick
him up for the start against Cleveland off of the
no hitter too? Do you hold onto him and give
him two or three starts to fee if you roster him? Uh?
To answer the first one to say no, because Bowers
my pick on or it was a Saturday or Sunday,
I don't know which one, but he's my he's my
(15:48):
pick because the Bower is a guy that's uh, you know,
he's easing to get back there. We'll dive into that later,
but uh, you know, it's tough. Man. Obviously with baseball,
there's a ton of variables, right that you've got to consider.
But um, like I said before, man with the deception
that he has you, you you have to look at
the opposing lineup. And I know that's going really like
really deep into it and geeking out. But if you
(16:09):
look at the opposing lineup and you look at how
many plate appearances that guys have off of them, and
it's low. I'm not like a fantasy baseball expert or anything,
but you know, I would kind of consider depending on
who else is available at that time. Um. But but yeah,
it's it's interesting man, because everyone kind of after I
wrote that big piece that were like, so do I
pick him up like that about I don't care an angle? Well,
(16:33):
it's funny too, because like talking about fires man, he
set a record, Um, he set a record for the
highest e r A at the time of a no hitter.
What Yeah, so it was six eight one at the
time of a note hit or set the record for
the high right, Um, So I thought that was pretty funny,
but it was. Uh, it's interesting too, man, Like I said,
there's so many variables that go into it, because he's
(16:54):
a guy that you look at a spray chart as
far as like his pitches and they're everywhere. Now that
could play. That could be a strength for him. We
call it effectively wild or it can be a downfall
depending on the team, right, depending on who's seen him
and and and the familiarity there as far as the
hitting side too. So uh, like I said, I don't
want to be the guy that says yes or no,
(17:16):
but I'll provide information and statistics to back it up
and then you can make the executive decision on that
it's just crazy that he has only two complete games
and both of them can come and know hitters. So
the other guy, Chris Sale, that you mentioned, and you
spoke a little bit about his slider usage increasing, it's
a pretty significant amount of forty two percent this year
(17:37):
at thirty four percent last year. Obviously it has to
do with his fastball not being as effective, the vela
taking a little bit of time to come back, whatever
it is you said. I think you mentioned the max
velo in his last hours ninety s point four obviously
a great sign, but that's not the only pitch that's
taken a step back for Sale, and a lot of
people don't talk about this. The batting average against on
his change up there's two eighties six and he only
threw eleven of them in the start against the Orioles
(17:58):
where he had so much success. This has been a
huge key to sales repertoire over the course of his
entire career. So I'm a little concerned about the changeup
not really being as effective as it used to be.
Let alone the fast ball velo, that's one thing, but
the changeup not being effective is kind of kind of
worries me, right, it goes back to the pitch profile,
all right, So you gotta look you gotta look at
like the big picture, and especially when you're a guy
(18:20):
like Sale who is going to obviously be expected to
go deep into the ball games and save a bullpen
um because he's your ace. But you gotta look at
like when guys see you multiple multiple times. Man, there's
that familiar I can't even say that word a night
familiarity within the hitters. So for him, he obviously has
that forcing that rides with a little bit of left detail,
(18:43):
and he's got that that slider. Obviously we know all
know about that slider. But for him, like you said, man,
that change is gonna be an equalizer. But the thing
that I will say about that change up for him, dude,
is uh, change up is a fuel pitch, right, And
it goes back to my original comment about like he
he kind of took his first like four five audience
as almost like a spring training type, you know, setting
(19:04):
and uh. And for me, like going back to the
change of being a field pitches, like, the more you
throw it and the more times that you see success
with it, the better it's gonna be. So I think
for him man, just getting his feet wet and just
getting out there and hammering those reps. Dude, it's it's
gonna be fine. But uh, that's that's a good topic
because no one really talks about that. I haven't heard anybody.
(19:25):
Everyone's talking about his fastball, fastball, fastball, and his fastball
does still have a negative pitch value. I think it's
at a negative five point. Oh, but it's change up
is something that I see and I say, you've been
effective with this your whole career. What changed now? Vilos
to say everything's everything else seems the same. It's just
I don't know, Well, that's gonna that's gonna make his
stuff play even better. Right now, Hitters hitters instead of
respecting like a flyer that's being thrown of the time
(19:48):
and a fastball at thirty four or whatever it was.
It's it's, uh, it's just the respect factor of like, okay,
you're hitting second, third time through the lineup. It's like
slider basketball. I've seen those multiple already against Orels. Yeah.
It's the equalizer, man, It's the It's the equalizer. It
will be interesting to see, like moving forward to how
(20:09):
he utilizes it in his repertoire to better his um
you know, uh yeah, alright, So we have determined that
Mike Fires outing is not something that our listeners should
go run and pick up. Mike Fires. Chris Sale, we say,
has his velocity back. And for those that were thinking
of dropping Chris Sale because of his slow start, sit
(20:30):
tight because Sale is back. You mentioned the bad is
Trevor Bauer. I don't think anyone's thinking of dropping Trevor Bauer.
You mentioned that you expect a huge bounce back from Bauer.
And in our next segment, I want to get into
the pictures that you like for this upcoming weekend because
for me, I don't think anyone should go through a
weekend and not be prepared for a full d f
(20:53):
S slate. And we when we come back from this
commercial break, we will stick around with Robbie Rowe and
Mike the Rodoco and we will give you a full
weekend breakdown of the DFS slate, including for free Robbie's
picture prospectus for the guys that are gonna win you
money coming up after the break. Hey, guys, are you
(21:16):
at the bottom of your league? Ashamed of you? Small
d aspect account? Is your top picks what will make
the girls go? Na bro, Then listen to the Fantasy
Baseball Hour with Matt Striker and Mike the Roto Cops
and turn your warrants over all right, Welcome back to
the Fantasy Baseball Hour. I'm Not Striker, joined by Mike
the Rhodo Cop and the One, the Only, the Man
(21:39):
behind the Robbie row Show, all six ft four of him,
including the Beard, Robbie Rowland the Man. Robbie, thanks so
much for joining us. In our last segment, you broke
down the good pictures that pitched well last week, and
we also broke down if they're worth a pickup in Fantasy.
You broke down the bed. Now let's talk about the
up coming week. Which pictures do you like for the
(22:02):
upcoming week end slate? And why? Yeah? So, um yeah
I do. I I have some picks. I don't have
too many, but I do um. So on on Saturday,
we're gonna go ahead and go with the Gram versus
the Marlins and uh and my thing with the Grahm
Man is like it's Jacob de Gram. Obviously it's no
(22:23):
secret about his success that he's having, but you look
at the team that he's facing and I don't I
don't think I have the exact date on here when
he faced the Marlins last, but it was this season
and uh, and he went seven innings fourteen k's three
hits on this same team. Um, and he's actually coming
off a pretty decent start in San Diego where he
actually got outdueled by your boy Chris Paddock over there,
(22:45):
but with a guy like the gram Man. Like I said,
I think the stuff is there. Um Again, I don't
know speaking too much about like fantasy terms, but as
far as like his price could be worth it against
a team like Miami because you might see another outing
where he goes seven eight and innings with double digit
k's pretty easily. Like I said, I do have that
date actually April three. We all know that he started
(23:06):
the season exceptionally well right off his uh, right off
a cy young win had had a couple of rus
starts in there, but now he's he's looking to bounce
back obviously. And then my other pick for Saturday, but
apparently it's Sunday now that the Bower the Bower outing,
so it is confirmed that it's Sunday against Cleveland or
last I looked it was Sunday against Oakland. It's, uh,
probably the best pitching matchup on Sunday. Mike fire is there.
(23:28):
You go. There's a lot of things there that we
could talk about. I like I said, I have Bower
at Oakland. Um, I guess two reasons. One I had
already mentioned about the type of individual that Bower is.
He's a competitor. He's a go getter. That kind of
alludes to UM dissecting the bad of why his bad
start happened previously was because Um to really dive into it.
His left on base percentage UM previously in this season
(23:51):
was seventy seven point seven percent. In the game against
Chicago it was actually down to forty three point five.
So obviously pretty draft Uh decrease there and left on
base percentage, So that's something that you should look forward
to UM seeing how he bounced backs from that. But
like I said, he's a guy that's uh just go
goes and gets it. And Uh, next thing for me
(24:12):
with with the Bauer is he's actually pitching on the
road at a two d E d r A three
and one on the road, he's actually doing worse at home.
His homing r A is four four two, And I
know it's early in the season, so it's tough with
all these numbers and stuff, but it can spend multiple
hours on the y of Trevor Bauer and everything. But
my other pick actually maybe a dark horse. I saw
(24:32):
actually an argument on Twitter about this thing about argument.
I don't believe that never over Fantasy baseball. Who then,
but no, it was should I pick up Martin Perez
or not? Sure? And dute? He's coming off. I think
it's fifteen plus inning scoreless. His last two were scoreless
(24:54):
seven and they respected. And he's got the best cutter
in the league. New pitch. He really I don't know
how he did it, but he he revolutionary. He revitalized,
excuse me, revitalized his career here by adding that new pick. Yeah,
and uh, and correct me if I'm wrong. But I
don't know if it's drastically up. But his velo is
actually impressive looking at a yeah, looking at a guy
(25:15):
like him that I know it wasn't really it wasn't
really thought of as as a guy, but as a
guy as a as a yeah. We call in the
sports world, are you a guy or you not? There's
there's two types of people in this world. Guys. He
know it's up to ninety five point four this year,
is that it was ninety three point two last season.
So I mean in a lefty dude. And then uh,
(25:37):
and on top of that, you're facing the Tigers. I
don't want to throw any shade per per team, but
you gotta look into that as far as when you're
making your picks obviously, um, and then in as far
as like the the baseball terminology and being a baseball guy. Man,
we have this phrase where it's just you stick with
the hot hand, right, So you hear that probably around
playoff time when when Skippers will go to the maybe
(25:59):
their four for fifth starter in game one because he's
coming off a three game winning streak or whatever it is.
So you just you stick with the hot hand. And
I think in this particular case, when guys on the
especially startings, are starters, when they when when they have
something click, man. And for Perez, maybe it's the fastball veto,
maybe it's something mechanical adjustment that new cutter gives him,
(26:19):
you know, a bunch of confidence. Whatever it is, he's
going out there, man. And and that's when you kind
of gotta look at his past numbers and go, Okay,
we can't really put too much emphasis on these. We
gotta look at his past few stuff because look, he's
got like this new repertoire is obviously his pitch profile
is a little bit different. Um So for me, man
a guy like Perez, I would say, go freaking get him.
(26:40):
Um maybe he's a little bit more expensive now after
his last two starts, but uh, for me facing the Tigers, uh,
it'll be it'll be fun to watch, alright. Uh. You
mentioned Trevor Bauer and social media and I retweeted this
and I'll send it out again. Another reason to like
Bower is he kind of like did this public service
announced was impromptu in the locker room about some of
(27:02):
the comments that he gets on his social media, and
he ended up posting some of the things that people said,
and he had mentioned, you know, while he's a big
boy and he can handle it, there's a fourteen year
old kid out there, a thirteen year old kid out
there that's getting bullied in school and being told all
these things. And I think it's great that a guy
like Trevor Bauer waves the flag because a lot of
times people talk about all the nation's going soft and
(27:24):
we are too politically correct. At the same time, when
someone like Trevor Bauer comes out and is able to
empathize and try to help kids, it's all the more
reason to root for this guy. On top of the
fact that you mentioned his personality is just this kind
of like I'm coming at you here. It is hit
it if you can kind of thing. So Bouert, deGrom
and Perez are Robbie's picks for this weekend in the DFS. Mike,
(27:48):
do you want to jump in with any pictures or
hitters that you like for either today, Friday, Tomorrow, Saturday,
or the next day Sunday. Yeah, definitely. And let me
just say something quick about Bauer because out that we
have the chance of Robbie here before the season, if
you tell me that Bauer has changed up, would be
this effective. I would have projected him to have a
sub two year a like all the way through. I
(28:09):
want to know from your perspective, because I never pitched
in the minors, I never pitched in high school, why
is he struggling so much with his fastball against left
handed hitters, Because when you look at the zone profile,
if it's not left over the plate. It's either up
away or lowing in. And I don't know, you're a picture,
so what are your thoughts on all that. I don't
know if the location is what's struggling here, or what's
(28:29):
the problem here, or something else left. He's a hitting
three forty three against his forcing festival. Yeah. Well, he's
even publicly stated in the past, like his forcing fastibals
his worst pitch. And I think everybody on the Indians,
the whole Indian staff, that all their fastballs are the
worst pitch. Can we just credit Carlos Carrasco with a
complete game shutout? I love that. I love baseball. I
(28:50):
I just send it threet out. But no, I mean
with with the Bower right, it's uh, it's always kind
of been about obviously pitched location, man, and where the
stuff's going obviously like for any pitch, right, but with him,
especially this year, I think I have him in front
of me. Man, it's like he's given up way more
hard hit forty two point seven percent hard hit compared
to two was thirty five. And then you look at
(29:13):
the barrel, man, and the barrel percentage last year in
his really good cy Young Canada year was four point
four percent. Now it's all the way up to eleven
point three percent. For me looking at that from a
like a pitching guy, because I've dealt with this in
the past. Two is where you get so gung ho
about particular new pitches. For him, he's always been a
guy that's thrown you know, four or five six pitches
(29:35):
in his career. When I when I met him, we
were both in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization and you had
like eight at the time. That's right, Yeah, No, I
mean that's that's all air. But uh, it was funny
because I've always been a guy too that had like
five six pitches and I remember like sitting next to
him at a banquet or something when we were just
talking about like what you have that? But but no,
(29:56):
I mean for him, I think to kind of dive
deeper into that, dude, and maybe I'll answer the question
that you had or not. But uh, for him, it's
obviously the the evolution of that changeup maybe potentially is
taken away from the success that he had with the
slider last year. So you look at the slider last year,
hitters were hitting h literally a CEO they're hitting a
hundred off of his slider. Until I was an eighteen,
(30:18):
it's all the way up to two thirty five now
in two thousand nineteen. There's multiple layers to that, but um,
but sometimes man as a as a pitcher, you just, uh,
you just gotta learn how to sequence the stuff that
you have at that point in time. So for him, obviously,
with the evolution of his change up, and he made
it a point and spring training to throw it as
much as he could. Now it's just about, Okay, I
(30:38):
have all these weapons, how can I best sequence those
for the for to maximize my results? And again, it's
it's one of those things. Kind of same with Chris
sale right, is like he's gonna be a guy that
is going to constantly evolve, I think throughout the season
just because of his his preparation and now that he's
got all of these tools in the toolbox, it's like, Okay,
how can I best sequence those? It kind of speaks
to his curveball too. I know his curveball has always
(31:00):
been his best pitch. Um, but as far as like
the percentages, I know he's throwing it way less this
year than he did last year and hitters are I
think hitters even this year are hitting like, um, let
me see, I got it. I got it somewhere. But
hitters this year are hitting a buck six year off
his curveball. But he's only throwing at fifteen point one
percent of the time, whereas last year he was throwing
(31:21):
at two point seven percent of the time. Obviously, now
he's got the inclusion of the change up and the slider,
so again it goes back to the original thought of
you just gotta find the best best sequences for himself.
Obviously you mentioned lefties. Now that he's got that slider, like,
he's mentioned that he wanted to pitch fading away at
a slower speed to manipulate the two seam and that access.
It's just about, you know, maximizing those results based on
(31:44):
how can I best sequence those for the best results.
So what about you as as a being a picture
yourself and still trying to make the show and everything.
As far as the location of your four team against
right against lefties, are you trying to elevate? Is that
your primary goal? For me? No? Actually, because I'm a
low spinning guy, which I didn't find out later in
my career. Obviously with the evolution of data analytics and
(32:04):
stack cast and all that stuff. Um I was I
was always kind of a hard thrower too. So I'm
sitting there ahead and account and I'm trying to throw
four seamers up and people are getting barrels to it,
and I'm like, what the hecks going on here? Man,
Like that's the nineties seven hour heater that you shouldn't
get a barrel on that. But then I learned later
in my career, like I have the one and in
two thousand and eighteen, I think I had like one
of the lowest spinning fourcing fastballs like eighteen d RPMs,
(32:27):
which is crazy for a four seam evolve like minor
league baseball. And uh so then it's kind of just like, okay, understanding.
And this is why I peek out about data analytics, man,
because it gives the the the athlete, like a complete picture,
right It paints the whole picture of how to actually,
um you know, portray your stuff right now. There's no
guessing it involved. And I know Bowers, and I think
(32:49):
that's gonna be And it is a reason why he's
just continuing to climb up because he completely understands that,
and he understands like, Okay, these are the types of
things that I do well, and this is what the
data show, so therefore I should do this and I
should sequence it like this. But but yeah, for me, dude,
it was just about, you know, earlier in my career,
it was kind of like, obviously I was drafted eighteen,
(33:10):
so it was here, you go, I don't know what
I'm doing, like kind of blah blah blah. And then
as I, as I evolved, and then the evolution of
the data analytics, it was kind of like, Okay, maybe
instead of throwing four teams I switched to a two
seam and get more moving on my ball, kind of
go more down in the zone and obviously in and
out and then play off a cutter with that, get
that like X factor you talk about with uh, you know,
(33:32):
thinker slider guys. But uh, but yeah, obviously there's there's
a ton of different layers to that, and we can
probably tell all night about it. But it's it's gonna
be interesting to see how power progress is because like
I said, I'm I'm I'm curious to see if the
hard hit percentage will kind of stay the same or
is it going to go down? Because he is a
guy that relies heavily on strikeouts and missing bats in general.
(33:53):
So then he kind of gets put into a whole
different category as far as had a grade certain guys
because you know, again, you kind of well, when looking
at guys like that, you go, Okay, does he miss
bats or does he miss barrels? What's the weak contact
look like? As eating groundballs? I know, and bowers last
out in his groundball fly ball is like two to seven,
and you kind of want that a little bit, uh,
you know more. Even so, there's a guy in our industry,
(34:17):
in the fantasy baseball industry depending on Trevor Bauer to uh.
It's a great part. Mike and I are are two
of them. We are talking with the bearded scientist, the
host of the Robbie road Show on Instagram, Robbie Rowland
breaking down so much great content here for pictures. Mike,
I got a question for you with all this information
(34:38):
that Robbie is giving us on our listeners, things like, well,
you know Bauer likes to throw his curveball or so
and so, Perez, you know, how's this cutter? Which sites
do you use? To see how teams hit a particular
pitch that you now know a picture likes to use.
Is there any type of resource out there for people
to find out how do the AI's fair again the curveball?
(35:01):
Or how did the Twins fair against the cutter? I'm
making it up. What do you got? Let me let
me tell you something about Matt probably before you, before
he was a famous w W resl, he was a
teacher in Queens, New York, soul site teacher, right, Matt, Yeah,
where are you going with this? Mike? I'm just letting
Robbie into the into the note here that you love
(35:22):
to teach, and this is one of your teaching moments
right here that you want me to tell the tell
the listeners out there and sites to go on. Baseball
Savant Brooks Baseball fan graphs are really my top three,
and you could just it's like an unlimited amount of
knowledge you can get from those websites. I don't know
you've got anything else, Robbie or dude. It's bad. It's bad.
(35:42):
I like my whole bookmarks right now is just filled
with like all that stuff. Because you go to one
site and you're like, Okay, maybe this doesn't have it,
but then I'll go to check another one and then
maybe that hasn't. And then you get into the graphs
and then you get X, y Z and all this stuff,
and next thing you know, it's eight hours later and
you've got a full product offee and that's all I got.
(36:03):
I piggyback off those same sites on it. Yeah, the
stack cast in Baseball Savant is is really unmatched at
this point. And then all the information is there for
you a day or two later on fan Graphs and
brook Space. Weall sometimes there's discrepancies between fan Graphs and
brooks Space. There is like a lot more than I
thought there would be, too, because like looking at pictures
is like they'll put different categories like forour they I
(36:23):
know Baseball Savant they put his slider sometimes in the
cutter category, just a harder slider, maybe a different access
but like I can't get great. Uh yeah, so um,
I don't know. I can't complain too much because I
think those things are so freaking cool. Yeah, I agree,
but between those three sites, I can't think of any better.
I don't know about you, Matt h No, I mean
(36:44):
I'm in on all those and the thing for me
and the thing for this show is we want people
to be able to apply math to winning money, and
that's what the daily Fantasy thing is all about. For me.
For instance, today Friday, there's a few guys that I'm targeting.
I like Mustakis against Kantana. He's has six extra base
hits in his career against him, and I just I
(37:06):
like that series in and of itself for the entire weekend.
Moving on, I'm gonna be stacking Cardinals because guys like
carp and day Young, they they hit Williams well. And
as far as a picture for for today, I like
Verlander against Texas. I just think that anytime Verlander goes
out there, you're gonna spend for him, but you definitely
(37:27):
can help yourself to win a little DFS money today
at least, I like a Cardinal stack. I like Moose,
I like Verlander. Looking at tomorrow, I like Encarnacion against
Porcello and he's hitting three or two that eight extra
base hits against him. And then I'm keeping with this
Brewers and Cubs series. Chris Bryant is hot, he's on
a torrid pace. He's facing Zach Davis. He's hitting three
(37:47):
sixty eight against him. On the flip. I like Ryan
Brawn against Cole Hamil's no shade to Cole Hamil's, but
he's not the same Cole Hamiles that he that he
once was. And in a pitching matchup, I like Marcus
Stroman against the White Sox. That's for for tomorrow Saturday. Mike,
we have not heard from you. What are you doing
on Saturday in DFS. Yeah, I'll get to it. On
one second. I don't know if you saw the Yankee
(38:09):
Mariner game. Edwindon Connacil is playing second base for the
first time in his career, died for a liner and
heard his left wrist, So if he's in the lineup,
he's obviously gonna be a good play. But that's something
keep an eye on Saturday. You mentioned Chris Bryant, who
I had down here. Uh, he's on fire. Four Homer's
nine RBIs in his last five games. And I know
Zach Davis is doing well, but it seems like to
(38:31):
to juicy of a matchup to turn down. Zach Davis
is just throwing an eight mile prior sinker sixty four
percent at a time. Brian sitting four twelve against sinkers
this year, three forty two for his career. Now where
did you get that information that? Because someone out there
is listening, going, how does he know? This? Fan graphs
game of all that information, you get Zach Davies, you
find that his pitch usage. You go to Chris Bryant,
(38:53):
click splits, click sinker, find out how he's doing against
the sinker. It all gets very simple and you get
used to it. But I guess for somebody who hasn't,
who isn't used to it gets a little harder. You
go on Baseball Savant and you can see in the
top right corner there's a a sliding bar that shows
you their x wOBA X slugging percentage. Chris Bryant is
in the ninety one percent town x well bit this season,
(39:15):
eight seven percent down on X slug so his perip
fields are there. Honorable honorable mention to Paul gold schmid
ten for twenty three extra base hits against Jordan Lyles.
That's for Saturday. For Sunday, I went with Nelson Cruise
against Daniel Norris. He's five for ten with two extra
base hits and three walks against Norris, and it's weird
because it seems like Nelson Cruise doesn't age. He's in
the ninety three percent down hard hit percentage percent down
(39:38):
exit vl oh. He has seven homers in the season,
and historically he's been better against leftist and rieties. Norris
has been okay. He has a three point eight year
eight this year in twenty innings he's primarily four seamen
slider and fifty percent of the time throwing a four
scene with an average revel of ninety one. I think
Nelson Cruise will be able to make some hard contact
and possibly homer in that game. Honorable mentioned to Alex
(40:00):
Pregnant against Adrian Sampson of Texas Roommates. Really Sampson and
I were roommates back. Yeah, so give him a call
and tell him that Mike is gonna bet against him,
even the initiative to just blow out Mike's entire DFS lineup. Please.
Let's say he might be your boy, Robbie, but maybe
(40:22):
he should have talked to you a little bit about pitching.
No shade, but you got all these data analytics for him. Oh,
shade taken. And then moving on to Sunday Mother's Day,
and of course we all know that will all be
spending time with our you know, God willing our mothers
if they're still here, are girlfriends where of course none
(40:42):
of us will be sneaking away to watch baseball wink wink.
But if we are, and we put in a little
dfst act again, I like this Cubs and Brewers series.
I think it's just it's chock full of offense. I
like Anthony Rizzo again, Julius Chastine. Rizzo hits him well,
I think he's hitting about three eighteen or three twenty.
I'm sticking with Ryan Brawn. He sitting four hundred against
(41:03):
John Lester. And the picture that I'm going with on
Sunday is Steven Strasbourg. Any thoughts from Robbie on Strasbourg?
Who's he facing? I saw that matchup he's facing actually, um,
do you know, do you have it in front of you?
I will in a second, yeah, because I looked at that.
But then I was like, I was hesitant to pick
(41:23):
that one because he was actually facing someone that I
I like. And I like all pictures, um, but this one,
especially Dodgers on Sunday. Was it Ryo? Yeah? Yeah, Well
Ryoy has got a sub like to one. This year.
I don't again like going back to not me knowing
like how fantasy points and all that work. But I
(41:43):
don't know how like much of win is you love
fantasy baseball? You really would, I know. I mean that's
why I probably don't do it, because it might be dangerous,
as if you need something else to take up any
more of the last few brain cells that you had
left for anything outside of me? What are brain cells
at this point? Theetically enhanced by data? Mike, what do
(42:06):
you like? Did you give Sunday? Already? My brain cells
are fried from other things. Yes, I did give Sunday.
I gave Nelson Cruise. Do you have any more place
for the weekend? Matter? Now? Now that's it. I ran
down my place for the DFS weekend. Robbie gave us
some great insight into pictures that had a good week
that might be valuable, pictures that didn't pitch so well
(42:26):
but you shouldn't be so concerned about, as well as
breaking down his weekend pictures of de grom Bauer and
Martin Perez. Guys, I think that we stuffed ten pounds
of candy into a five pound bag tonight, But I
think it's a lot of really good stuff. Mike, what
do you got? I just wanna while we have Robbie
here on the air, you interviewed Tyler Glass now before
(42:49):
the season started. That's your guy. Did you ever in
a million years think he would have a one point
for a seven year right right now? I thought he
would have a sub one? So if again I have
to plug it, man, I I gotta plug it. But
hopefully we can include the link in the in the description.
But how do you guys know each other? Did a
full breakdown on Glass? We play together in the Pittsburgh
Pirates organizations. Um uh in twousand four team we're on
(43:13):
the same team high a and uh. You look at dude.
It's funny, man, because like obviously a lot of I
think and no no shape, but like a lot of
fantasy people like will look at just major league statistics,
right and uh, And then you look at a guy
like Glass now and you're like, Okay, hasn't really performed whatever.
Move on. You look at that dude's minor league numbers
and it's freaking video game like I know, and and
(43:35):
the guy, the guy is just unreally you look at
his like pitch profiles and all that again, like go
to that breakdown that I did on him, but uh,
it's uh, it's really impressive perceived velocity around miles an
hour because of extension for the extension, uh in the
game of baseball with a vertical movement of his fastball.
Top top three or top four, I think. But he's
(43:57):
he's impressive. And now that you look at his walker
and it's like four or five, he's in the top
of the league with with his walk percentage, which has
always been kind of that underlying issue with a guy
like Tyler Glass. Now but now that he's got the
point where he's comfortable and uh, he's with an organization again,
change the scenery, going back to like being a player
and understanding that aspect. Change of scenery always helps. Um
(44:18):
going to an organization that maybe has some different tactics,
different tools, uh, to to allow him to really just
maximize what he's capable of doing. And Uh, yeah, a
good question. I like that that that was a really
good interview. When I remember listening to it before I
even contacted you to do this whole thing. I remember
listening to that because it was somebody put in a
fantasy group chat like who's Robbie rolland and how did
(44:40):
he get like Tyler Glass now on this show? Did
you watch the YouTube? Yeah? Yeah, YouTube one. Yeah, that
was good. That was good. He's funny too, man, He's
a clown and it's funny too. I just saw a
quote that he had, like pitching pitching Ninja on on Twitter,
like kind of made it into his little jpeg type thing,
and it was like Glass now talking about how he's
identified he has to go out there and pitch like
(45:01):
he's piste off and it's angry, you know, and pitch
fired up where a lot of guys do. And just
knowing the kid and knowing like how goofy the dude
is and just how much of a Clowney is. It's
just it's funny, you know. But yeah, no doubt so, Robbie. Uh,
if the kids out there are loving this content, where
can they find more of you? Oh? Man? Where the
(45:22):
question is, where can't you find me? And that's I'm
on the side of subway training on Uh. The U
Instagram is my biggest platform. Robbie row one to r
l B b y r ow one to um on
the Instagram, you'll see the link of my bio and
that really will take you to all the kind of
links and the content that I'm creating. Got a YouTube,
(45:43):
Robbie rolland my website, The Robbie row Show dot com
where I'm breaking down. I'm diving all into all these
like baseball geeky data analytics stuff that some people think
is intriguing and they want to dive into it. Um,
which is great. On that website, I'll have like my podcast.
You can also find my podcast, The rob the ro
Show on iTunes, um, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, all those
(46:05):
types of things. Just type in the Robbie row Show UM.
And then I just got a TikTok, which is cool.
I don't know if millennials use it, so I thought
I need to do jump on board, but no, I'm
just don't say the word millennials around. Matt. You can
find me at Mike the Rhodo Cop on Twitter. Uh
do the DFS once a week for picture list dot com,
(46:26):
obviously the show at Fantasy Baseball Hour on Fantasy Sports
Radio fn t s Y Radio, and a little bit
of writing at Mets mariz online dot com. Please guys,
go out subscribe to the podcast. UH like it? Do whatever?
Comment do what it rate. It's five star, fourth star,
I don't even care. Just read it. Do whatever you
have to do so we can, uh, we can get
(46:48):
some feedback from you guys. All right now, Robbie, listen, man,
the next time we have you on, you just you
can't be so shy. You gotta come out of your talk.
Gotten that my whole life. Man might each time would
kick me out of class and they'd be like, hey,
you're too shy, you don't talk enough, get out of
my class. And yeah, right, we've had a great jo
(47:11):
with Robbie row not because rhymes. My name is Matt strike.
You can find me at Matt Underscore Striker Underscore on Instagram,
Real Match Striker. You can hear me on Roodowire Talking Hockey,
you can read me on raz Ball, and you can
listen to Mike and I each and every time right
here on the Fantasy Baseball Hour. A big thanks to
(47:31):
our friends over at the Fantasy Sports Network. Alright, folks,
good luck, be safe, have fun. We'll see you out there.
Hey friends, Matt Striker here, I want to talk to
you about my buddies over at Birdman Bats. Remember when
yasiope wee hit five home runs in a twenty four
(47:52):
hour span. Well he did it with a Birdman back.
My good buddy Gary Mallick and former major league or
Lars Anderson, along with a crew of great guys, have
created an alternative product that major leaguers, minor leaguers, and
ballplayers all around the globe are raving about. They love
the way this bat feels in their hands. They love
the mentality and the mindset that the bat puts them
(48:14):
in as they head up to the plate. So go
check them out there all over social media. Check them
out at Birdman bats dot com. They've got some great
gear as well, and make sure to let them know
match strikers, saying
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.