Walt Weiss Ends A Baseball Brawl

A tense stare-down turns into a full-on MLB brawl, and the most unforgettable part is who shuts it down: Braves manager Walt Weiss, 62 years old, stepping in like a linebacker to stop Jorge Soler and keep the situation from getting uglier. I break down what led to Reynaldo Lopez vs Soler, why the aftermath matters, and what the suspensions actually mean going forward.

Then I zoom out to the Atlanta Braves’ first 13 games and why I feel better than I expected. Even with major pitching injuries, Atlanta is playing winning baseball and the numbers are eye-opening: a league-leading team ERA, shutouts piling up, and starters and bullpen arms delivering real consistency. I also dig into the offense, including why the lineup is still producing even with some stars not fully clicking, and how surprise contributors like Dominic Smith and Mauricio Dubón change the early story.

From there, we get practical with fantasy baseball, focusing on waiver wire targets in ESPN leagues for both pitching and hitting, plus a few traps to avoid when a hot streak fades. I wrap with quick takes on Georgia Bulldogs baseball surging up the polls and Georgia basketball getting hit hard by the transfer portal, then I ask for help on a very specific categories-league problem: who should we be targeting for holds?

Subscribe for more Braves talk, share this with a friend who lives on the waiver wire, and leave a review if you want more weekly breakdowns and Georgia sports updates.

Transcript

Welcome And Show Roadmap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, welcome back to another episode of Sports Takes with Nate Skates. I'm your host, Nate. So on today's show, we have a lot to talk about. Uh, we kind of had a week off in a way because uh last week was our interview with Michael Schifferell. Hope you'll check that out. But this week we're gonna talk the Atlanta Braves' first 13 games of the season. We've made it to an off day on Thursday. So the we're gonna talk the Braves start of the season. We'll also talk some fantasy baseball, who are some people I think maybe would be good if you picked up in your league. Also, I'll briefly talk towards the end of the show about Georgia baseball is really playing well right now, and also some transfer portal stuff with Georgia basketball. So, but the first thing I want to talk about is the talk of sports media. And we're a little late to the party. I'm recording this on Wednesday night after this took place on Tuesday night. I want to talk about the fight between Ronaldo Lopez and Jorge Soler. So if you're not familiar with this situation, Jorge Soler won a World Series MVP with the Braves in 2021. He's remembered for the humongous deep home run in the World Series. Uh, been with the Braves a couple different times over the last few years. He's beloved by fans, players, organization. However, now he plays on the Angels. Well, there wasn't a lot of love being felt on Tuesday night. So Ronaldo Lopez does not have a good track record with Jorge Soler. Jorge Soler hits him really hard. And so that has been part of the story here. And uh early in the game on Tuesday night, Jorge Soler had hit a home run off of Lopez. Also, earlier in the game, Lopez had hit Soler with a pitch that looked unintentional. And so then later in the game, we had a just an absolutely chaotic situation. It's being reported that Lopez threw near uh Soler's head. I didn't feel like it was really very close at all to Soler's head. No one really thought anything of it. So then there's a play at second base. Uh Brazor trying to throw out a runner at second base. All that's being reviewed. But while the review is going on, Soler is staring at Lopez. They start drawing back and forth, and that leads to uh the brawl. And I'll share my screen here if you haven't seen it. I do not have the rights to this. This was this is coming from Braves Vision, the Atlanta Braves um new TV group. And so here is the situation.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Yeah, look at all the time that evaporates just staring at each other.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Yeah, hard to see a good job by the price to get in there as quickly as possible. Mike Trout does a nice job of stepping in the street. Yeah, you get a lot of stairs.

Walt Weiss Tackles And Defuses

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So that's kind of the situation. That's the situation of what went down on Tuesday night, if you hadn't seen it already. So a lot to unpack there. The main thing uh I want to talk about about the fight is Jorge Soler is one of the biggest guys in Major League Baseball. He's listed at 235. That almost seems underselling it to me. Guy's huge, he's muscular, and this is not a guy you want. You don't want anybody fighting in baseball that could get uh really ugly, but the but this is really a guy you don't want fighting, is Jorge Soler. So who ends this fight? It is Braves manager, 62-year-old Walt Weiss, who takes Soler to the ground. This is everywhere in sports media right now. Uh if you haven't seen it, I'll show you a couple angles of it here. Again, I don't, I, these are I don't have the rights to this. This is not my uh broadcast, but there's a lot of humorous takes on it right now. Here is a kind of a slow-mo tweet talking about Walt Weiss's uh form, form tackling, pad level 10 out of 10, wrap up 10 out of 10, run your feet 10 out of 10, eyes up 0 out of 10, aura 1000. That's from John Tweet Sports. Totally agree. Here's the slow-mo on it.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Weiss, 62-year-old Weiss comes in and takes Solaire to the ground.

Braves Off Day And Big Picture

Pitching Dominance Despite Injuries

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Who's also had a little help from the Braves catching coach in this situation? And then also uh let's get another angle on it here from Glue Guy Sports. What does a glue guy do? Right here. So there's jokes about uh Walt Weiss getting his own bobblehead for this. Uh the Atlanta Falcons made a joke about Walt Weiss strapping on the pads and playing for the Falcons. And uh it's all fun, but Walt Weiss didn't just make this this tackle and break up this fight here. He also got in there after Soler was off the ground. He's he's hugging him, he's talking to him, he's calming him down. See, Walt Weiss and Soler already have a relationship from when Soler was on the Braves. Soler already knows most of these guys. And so um Walt Weiss did a really good job not only breaking up the fight, but helping calm things down. After the game, he talked about this. Soler talked about it. There's uh there's still a lot of love there. It's all good between the Braves and Solaire, it's all good between Weiss and Soler. They are good friends, everything's copacetic, but it was just a tense moment between two guys that needed to be broken up. And Walt Weiss said, you know, I had to stop him from hurting one of my guys. I had to stop him from hurting himself, I had to break up this fight. And that is exactly what I want to see from a manager. And, you know, I thought of the Terrell Owens. That's my quarterback, you know, crying. When I saw that, I was like, that's my manager. And a lot of people are saying that it's been Walt Weiss's first season as manager. He's only been the manager for two weeks. And this is what the guy's doing. He he has now totally won over both the Braves Clubhouse, which all the players had said they wanted Walt Weiss to be the manager, and the Braves fan base. He's doing an excellent job as manager, and then he pulls this and ends this fight, keeps his players from getting hurt, uh, and only Lopez and Soler are going to be suspended. And I'll talk about that in just a second. But so this was a huge, huge thing for Walt Weiss to do. Totally awesome. When's the last time you saw a manager take down a player and end the fight, especially uh a player as big as Soler and Bryn Godon, the Braves um broadcast announcer, has talked about this. Walt Weiss was uniquely positioned to do this because Walt Weiss is a black belt in Taekwondo. He has done MMA training. He has also been in non-sanctioned cage fights before in his life. So he has extensive training for this. He is the perfect manager for this situation. Not a lot of baseball managers probably have a black belt uh MMA training, cage fighters. So this is a tough guy who knows what he's doing. Obviously, he was able to diffuse things. Now, Soler played again on Wednesday and hit another home run against his former club because he has appealed his seven-game suspension. He and Lopez were both given seven-game suspensions. Lopez has appealed his. His has been reduced to five games, which basically means Lopez isn't really going to miss any time at all. He'll be back starting again next week. Obviously, you got to suspend guys for fighting, but very interesting situation. Very good uh job by Walt Weiss. So that's the fight on Tuesday night. Braves followed that up on Wednesday with winning eight to two before going to Thursday, which is the Braves' first off day of the season. Braves did not play on the initial opening day on Thursday. They played on Friday. So since then, they have played 13 straight games. They will now have their first off day on Thursday. So now that we're here, we've made it to the first off day, played 13 games. What are we seeing from the Atlanta Braves? What's the how do I feel about the Atlanta Braves right now? Well, I feel much better than I really expected to. I wasn't totally sure what we would see from the Braves. But with the number of injuries and kind of some of the lack of big splashes in free agency, I thought we were well on our way to possibly having a season not much improved from last year because last year was plagued by injuries. This year the Braves had already been plagued by injuries, particularly pitching. You had AJ Smith Schauver, you have Spencer Schwellenbach, you have Hurston Waldrip, Joe Jimenez. That's just a few of the guys. I mean, just Spencer Strider, so many injuries for the Braves. So pitching was expected to be a real weak spot at the beginning of the season for Atlanta, and no one really expected the Braves to come out of the gates on fire. And that's exactly what the Braves have done. The Braves have been really good. They are 8-5 through 13 games. That's good enough for first in the NL East. And it's more than that. Uh, really, the Braves easily could have won, you know, 12, 11 to 13 games. A lot of these games have been close losses. Braves maybe let a couple get away from them. But really, that's encouraging because the Braves have been really competitive in pretty much every game and are in really good shape so far. So I want to talk a little bit about so dealing with these injuries. First, I want to talk about the pitching and how good the Braves' pitching has been with all these injuries. Shockingly good to me. I I've actually been surprised at just how well the pitchers have performed. So let me pull up um pitching statistics here, and I'll share my screen here for anybody interested in this.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

All right.

Hitting Leaders And Surprise Bats

SPEAKER_00 11:57

So the Atlanta Braves are first in Major League Baseball in team ERA, which really to me is the most important pitching spost important pitching statistic is ERA. How many runs are you giving up? The Braves are not only first in ERA, they are first by a very wide margin. Uh the Braves have a 2.03 ERA. Yankees are second in two less games with a 2.47 ERA. So there's a wide gap between one and two and a much smaller gap between two and three. So the Braves are pitching phenomenally. Uh, it's not just the ERA. Let's look at shutouts. Braves are first in the league in shutouts with three. Braves are uh second in the league in hits allowed, 75 hits allowed, and again, that's only one less hit than the Yankees in two more games. Uh the Braves have given up less runs, earned runs than the Yankees in two less games. Uh let's see here. Believe the Braves are first in whip, and the Braves are first in opponent's batting average. Can't really do it any better than that. And so then let's look at some player statistics, pitching statistics. So Chris Sale, this ERA is good. It's a little inflated because I'm not sure what happened in Chris Sale's last start. In his second start, Chris Sale had been sick, and yet he still pitched six innings and gave up one run and looked really good. Okay, so in his next start, I think possibly that was impacting him. He had been coming off being sick for a few days, you know, was even listed as day-to-day with this illness, uh, had a little bit of a rough start in his third start. And that's obviously what's inflating the ERA a little bit. I'm not concerned about that at all. I think as he gets his strength back, he'll be good to go. But uh, hey, had seven strikeouts in that game and has 16 strikeouts on the season. Chris Say's gonna be fine, obviously. Okay, Grant Holmes. Grant Holmes is a guy a couple years ago. Braves took out of the bullpen, took out of the minors. He's ended up being a starter. Last year was kind of up and down from Holmes. You never really knew what you were gonna get. Um, had a little bit of some injury problems. This year he's been really good. Okay, so he's got a 2.55 ERA in three games. Uh he's pitched 17.2 innings, got 14 strikeouts. He's looking really good. He got the win on um on Wednesday. Bryce Elder, the much maligned Bryce Elder, started his career uh really well, made the all-star game, and then has kind of been the punching bag for a lot of Braves fans because of some inconsistencies. Uh, doesn't have the most powerful arm and can be really up and down, although last year he really came in and bailed out the Braves in an injury-ridden season. Bryce Elder started two games for the Braves, zero runs, not one run in two starts, 13 innings pitched, only nine hits, uh, 13 strikeouts. So Bryce Elder has been phenomenal. Ronaldo Lopez was one I was worried about. So, again, guy a couple years ago, Braves took him out of the bullpen, made him a starter. He was uh the ERA leader most of the season there. In his second season last year, Lopez had a season-ending injury right at the beginning of the year, was hurt all year. So I didn't know what are we going to get with Lopez? Is he ready? Is his arm ready? Um, is he gonna be the Ronaldo Lopez we saw before uh before the injury, or is he going to struggle to come back from that injury? Well, so far, Ronaldo Lopez has been really good. Obviously, the suspension's not great, but he's not injured there. He has a 1.15 ERA. Can't really do any better than that in three starts. 15.2 innings pitch. That's something to always watch with Lopez because in that first season, the Braves were slowly stretching him out, giving him extra days rest, uh, typically not pitching him deep into games. He doesn't usually pitch real deep into games, but even with the uh ejection in Tuesday's game, he's got 15.2 innings, so he's averaging over five innings a game and has 13 strikeouts, so he's doing really well. Now, the fifth spot is the hang up for the Braves. That's kind of a next man up, just plugging holes there because the Braves have so many guys hurt right now. So haven't had real great numbers out of that fifth spot. Martin Perez pitched uh in that spot the other day. He's had two starts. He's doing pretty well, 3.86 CRA. So uh also the bullpen. The bullpen has been really good. I mean, I I don't know there's another word to say. Keep saying phenomenal, fantastic, whatever, whatever superlative you want to give the Braves bullpen, you can give them. Robert Suarez, the big uh addition in the offseason. He's pitched in six games, hasn't given up a run yet. Uh so great there. Rice Al Iglesias, Braves closer, he's had five games, hasn't given up a run. He's got two saves in two save opportunities. Tyler Kinley has not given up a run in five games. Uh Fuentes pitched very well in his one appearance. He's now in the minors, uh kind of getting stretched out more, getting some practice. Really young guy, Dylan Lee's got a 1.59 ERA in six games. So Aaron Bummer hasn't given up a run in four games. So the Braves bullpen really couldn't be doing any better. And so this is a major surprise for uh the Braves to start the season this well, particularly pitching. But it's not just pitching, and uh, we'll look at some hitting statistics here, real quick. Don't want to bore you guys too much with too many statistics. The Braves have not been getting a lot out of Ronald Acunia, Austin Riley, some of these guys who you typically would think would be the Braves' major hitters. But as a team, they are hitting well, and that a lot of that has to do with Drake Baldwin. Drake Baldwin, who won rookie of the year last year for the Braves, has been playing lights out, uh leading the league in homers. So let's look here.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

The Braves are fifth in runs. The Braves are fourth in hits, second in home runs. That's the old Braves that we have become used to. Fifth in RBI.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Uh and even with all that power, not too far down the list in walks, this is one that encourages me a lot. Braves have the sixth least strikeouts, despite playing more games than a lot of the other teams. Not gonna get a lot of stolen bases out of the Braves, even though they're being more aggressive.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Fifth in average, fourth in slugging percentage, and sixth in OPS.

City Connect Jerseys And Nike Rant

Fantasy Baseball Waiver Mindset

Pitcher Pickups To Target Now

Hitter Adds Plus Who To Avoid

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So not as good as the pitching numbers, but uh still really good. Near the tops in the league in nearly every category. And again, that a lot of that's coming from Drake Baldwin, uh, 12 runs, 17 hits, five home runs, 15 RBI, four walks, got a 321 average over a thousand OPS. So he's hitting really well. Uh Ozzie Albeys is hitting pretty well, and he's got a 275 average. Matt Olson has been doing really well, and he's got a 948 OPS. But kind of the story here beyond Drake Baldwin is the surprises. I was critical, I think I even said this on one of the episodes of the podcast of the Mauricio DuBon signing beyond the fact of him just being a utility guy. I said, why we traded Nick Allen, who I said was statistically the worst hitter in Major League Baseball, but the best defensive player in baseball for another gold glove uh infielder who couldn't hit. Well, Mauricio DuBon is proving me wrong. He is batting 333, has two home runs, uh 918 OPS. He has been on fire. Uh Dom Smith, there was an under the radar thing. He had a walk-off grand slam for the Braves. He's hitting 292, two home runs. Uh Mateo hasn't got a lot of at bats. He's hitting 333. He had the home run and mop up duty against a position player. Uh, just some guys that you wouldn't really expect to be hitting so well have been playing really well for the Braves. So a lot to be excited about. It's a Very long season, so you don't really know how this is going to go the rest of the year, but right now it's looking really, really good for the Braves. I'm really optimistic. I've thought Walt Weiss has done a good job. Coaching staff's done a good job. I I really couldn't be much happier. This is such a different start from what the Braves had last year. Obviously, maybe not quite the same level of competition. Last year, the Braves started the season on the road against a really good Padres team and the Dodgers, who are machine and won the World Series last year. So the Braves started the season 0-7, never recovered from that. This year, the Braves got to start at home. That was very helpful for the Braves. Then the Braves ended up winning a four out of seven on their road trip, could have been more, but against uh the Diamondbacks and Angels. So eight and five right now. I'm really happy with that. I'm really proud of the Braves for doing so well despite all the injuries. So that's the Braves. Uh didn't really mean to spend quite this much time on just the Braves, but that's how we're looking so far. I'm really excited about it. Go, Braves. I think this is going really well. I'm going to say one thing about the City Connect, the new City Connect jerseys. So I like the City Connect uniforms. I definitely like the City Connect jersey. Uh I think it's better than the last one. However, here's my criticism, which has been for the last City Connect jersey and for this City Connect jersey. Since Nike became the uniform sponsor for the MLB, Nike has steadily whittled away at how many jerseys, how many uniform combinations teams can have, at the detail of the uniforms. You had the situation a year or two ago with the horrible pants and jerseys. Jerseys are like see-through. People are upset about the quality of it. They're trying to experiment with the fabric and all this kind of stuff. I've been critical. So, for example, say 2010, you took the Braves red jersey, which to me was one of the best-looking jerseys in all of sports. Well, the Nike took that, took away all the white piping, made everything really simple, basically just red, a red shirt with the Braves. And that's kind of how Nike has done a lot of people's uniforms, a lot of people's jerseys, really stripped everything down. I don't like it. Uh I don't know what anybody else thinks. I'm I don't like how Nike does the uniforms. I would kind of like somebody else to be the sponsor who's actually going to allow teams to have detail in their uniforms. And more than that, I am irritated that Nike, who can give Oregon 6,000 uniform combinations, won't let MLB teams have as many uniform combinations as they once had. Now you don't see teams do several different jersey combinations, different throwbacks. The Braves essentially used the City Connect slot both times for a throwback jersey. But instead of getting a new uniform, something based on Atlanta or Georgia. For example, you saw with the Washington Nationals one of their uniforms was the cherry blossom. Okay, whether you like the uniform or not, that's beside the point. It's they did something unique that wasn't just another National's uniform that had something to do with DC. So that's just an example. Atlanta hasn't got that. The Braves haven't gotten that because Atlanta was forced to use uh the City Connect slot for a throwback uniform if they wanted to be able to wear throwbacks. So first was the white and blue throwback. Really, hardly any difference in that in the original throwback jersey, other than putting the A over on the chest. Really, it was a less cool version to me of the hat and the jersey than the original. So now this is essentially the same powder blue throwback, only instead of blue piping around the letters you have red. Uh instead of blue letters, you have white. Changed the hat some. So I think it looks pretty good. Jury's kind of out. I'll see how it looks when it's on the field. I I think the jersey looks good, but I'm just a little bit irritated that the Braves can't just have the throwbacks and City Connect. So there's a little diatribe there. Now, moving on from the Braves, I want to talk about if fantasy baseball, some people I think might be good for you to pick up, people to draft if you have not done your draft yet. A lot of people probably have since the season started. I did my draft before the season drafts plural, before the season started. So uh by now, there's been injuries, there's been disappointing performances. Um I have been uh very aggressive, maybe sometimes overly aggressive, I don't know, in in baseball free agency. You my take is you kind of have to be pretty aggressive in baseball because it's just a daily thing. You have to switch guys out, and you're probably going to be able to pick a guy back up if you drop them. Not everybody's that active in free agency. So I am in a points league, overall points, and I am in a categories head-to-head matchup league in ESPN. So I talked about uh my drafts and everything. My teams are very different from the way that I drafted. Still got some of the same guys. I have struggled with, so on one of my teams, for example, I have Julio Rodriguez. He is off to a snails pace. I've I've just had to take him out of the lineup. I I couldn't drop him if I wanted to because he's on the can't drop list. But also, it's kind of the same situation with Nick Kurtz of the Athletics at first base on one of my teams. Really slow start to the season. So those are a couple guys I'm having to adjust for that. But before I talk about my team, I want to talk about some guys. Some of them I've picked up, some of them maybe I haven't. Just some guys that I've seen that I think would be really good for you to pick up. I'll just list some of them real quick, and then we'll go and break down some and just talk about some of their stats, give you a uh some reasoning behind why picking some of those guys up. So at for pitching, I would say there's there's a lot of guys you could be picking up, but I off what I've been looking at, I'd say about eight that I would want to talk about. So, first off is some guys I've already mentioned. Ronaldo Lopez. So the jury was out on Ronaldo Lopez. What were we gonna get? Well, now we know. I don't know what's gonna happen all season, but we know Ronaldo Lopez is the pitcher that he was before the injury. And there were concerns about his velocity and spring training. His velocity had dipped five miles per hour. Not good. Well, he said it was mechanical, and so he went in, changed some of his mechanics. His velocity's back up. So he has looked really good. All right, second would be another guy I've already talked about, Bryce Elder, really hot. Uh, another guy would be Emerson Hancock, uh, Seth Lugo would be another one, uh Michael Waka, Parker Mesick, uh, Jordan Romano, Edward Cabrera. Those are all guys that I would say pick up if you have the opportunity. These are all guys who are under 80%, under 80% of leagues have these guys rostered. So let's look at them real quick. I want to go over some stats. I was going to tell you to pick up Cade Horton a few days ago. He was a guy I had drafted from the Cubs, but he has been injured. He's out for the season. Stuff like that happens, and so you have to adjust. So let me share my screen here, and we'll look at some of the statistics here on some of these guys. Some of them are on my team, some of them aren't. Okay. So, Ronaldo Lopez, we already talked about, but he is only rostered in 23% of ESPN fantasy leagues. Now, with pitching, a lot of people don't keep guys rostered all the time. They're switching guys out, trying to get the maximum number of starts. Depending on your league, you can get a different number of starts per week. So a guy's only going to pitch every five days. So a lot of guys drop their starting pitchers uh during in between starts, and they'll just pick somebody else up next time. I do that some, but if a guy's pitching really well, I typically don't drop very many of those guys in between their starts. And since Ronaldo Lopez's suspension, uh he has had maybe an even larger number of people drop him 4.2%. But like I said, he's going to be back next week. So there's no reason to panic on the suspension there. But he is only rostered in 23% of ESPN leagues. Uh well, the guy's got a 1.15 ERA. He's already collected 43 fantasy points in if you're talking a points league. So I would roster him unless you're really trying to be aggressive. Uh he's worth just holding on a roster spot. Okay, Seth Lugo, here's another guy. He's only rostered at 38.6%. He is up 7.2%. Now, in his starts, he's only had two starts so far, but a 1.59 ERA, uh 10 strikeouts in those two starts, he's gone 11.1 innings. He will go against the White Sox on Thursday. So if you're able to see this before uh Thursday's game, he's going against the White Sox, might want to pick him up. Another guy would be Jordan Romano. He has taken control of the closer role for the Angels. He is only rostered in 51% of ESPN leagues, despite the fact that he's already pitched five innings, seven K's, four saves already. Uh 40 points. I don't typically roster a ton of relief pitchers. They don't rack up as many points, but 40 points, being one of the top saves guys in the league right now, he's worth a roster spot. I am gonna just probably hold on to him right now. Edward Cabrera, a guy I really wanted to draft and messed up and wasn't able to draft, then missed him in free agency waiver pickups, and then somebody dropped him and I was able to snag him up. That's the risk with if you drop a guy. Say he's had a start, you don't want to hold him those five days. Well, somebody like me might come in and scoop him up. So he is rostered in 70.7% of leagues in ESPN. And his two starts, 11.2 innings pitched, he's got a win, he's got nine strikeouts, zero ERA, 38 fantasy points. That's worth a roster spot for a young guy to me. I think he's gonna be really good. Bryce Elder, we've talked about him. He's only rostered in 43% of leagues. Some of these guys have really increased here in the last few days, uh, but he hasn't given up a run yet. 41 fantasy points. So those are a few of the guys, and then let me switch to the um back to my other team here, and I can show you a couple other guys. All right. So Emerson Hancock, who has really gotten a lot of attention here lately. Emerson Hancock, former Georgia Bulldog, by the way. He is rostered in 66.2% of leagues. He's had two starts already, uh, went at least six innings in both of those, only one earned run. Uh, he's got 14 strikeouts. So he's had a really good start so far. I don't know what we're gonna get from him the rest of the season, but so far he looks really good. He looked good in spring training. So I would say pick this guy up. I've talked about Trevor Rogers. If you don't have him by now, it's gonna be hard to get him. He's at 83.7% rostered, so that would be pretty difficult to pick him up. Oh, another guy that I do not have on my team who I think would be good to pick up. So let's look at Michael Walker. Oh, also I've had Parker Mesek. I decided to drop him and I'm gonna try to pick him up again later. But let me check out Michael Walker. This is a guy you might want to pick up. His next start is against the White Sox. He's only rostered in 41% of leagues, 13 innings pitched in his two starts, one win, 10 strikeouts, uh 0.69 ERA, only giving up one earned run in both starts. Um, and he was sick shortly before that second start where he gave up the run. So if he's gonna pitch that well after being sick, might want to pick him up. I might try to snag him at some point if I can find a spot for him. Uh and again, Parker Mesek, really young guy. He's only rostered in 26.5% of leagues. He's had two starts, including against the Dodgers, 11 innings, zero, or uh excuse me, zero earned runs against the Dodgers, but one earned run so far this season. He's got a 0.82 ERA and 11 strikeouts. So, again, some guys, pitchers you might want to try to pick up. I would say Michael Walka, Parker Mesick, Seth Lugo, Bryce Elder, Ronaldo Lopez, uh Edward Cabrera, Jordan Romano, Emerson Hancock. So those would be some pitchers that I would recommend you pick up. The hitters have been a little bit more difficult for me. It's been uh very mercurial this season. So I'll show you some guys that I've picked up. I've added and dropped so many hitters already this season, uh, it's kind of hard to keep up with. But the hitters, you just kind of you kind of just have to stay on it. You just kind of have to see who's hot, who's not, who's playing that day, who isn't. So a guy that I've picked up, I think in both leagues, Sal Stewart, you can play him at first base or third base. Now he is rostered in 75.3% of leagues. He for the Reds. He's hitting 366, already got three home runs, eight RBI. Uh he's looking really good. So there's a guy you could pick up. Some other guys you might want to pick up. So I just recently in one of my leagues picked up Cam Smith from the Houston Astros because I am really struggling in the outfield. Uh I've got Jackson Churio injured in this league, not getting enough out of my outfielders. So Cam Smith, he is now rostered in 36% of leagues. He has not had a great last two days since I've picked him up uh one for seven in the last two days. So he might be about to cool off here. He is for the season, he's 273, three home runs, six RBI. And again, that might be him about to cool off here. Uh he was on a seven-game hitting streak and had gone 10 for 24 with three home runs, two stolen baits. That's a 1-3-7-5 OPS. So he might be a guy I'm just gonna have to drop. I don't know. Uh, that happens a lot. A guy gets hot for a minute and then cools off. Uh, some other guys you might want to add. I'll switch back to my other team here. I this is showing the have Murakami that was at third base. That was one that a few days ago I probably would have said if you have looking for a third baseman. But the swing and miss strikeout thing has caught up with him, and it's kind of an all or nothing with him. He's been really cold the last couple days. So uh on I'm dropping him right now because I need more. So again, Sal Stewart on this team. I picked up Mauricio Dubon from Atlanta. We already talked about DuBon on the show. He can play outfield, second base, third base, shortstop. He's only rostered in 42% of leagues, and he's off to a really hot start. 35 fantasy points if you're in a points league, batting 333, and he's already got two home runs. So uh I picked up O'Neill Cruz. So I drafted O'Neill Cruz last year, and it really came back to bite me, and I had to drop him. Uh so I didn't want to touch him with a 10-foot pole in the draft this year. Some of the strikeout issues, things like that. I I don't you don't want a guy who's gonna strike out a lot because then you're losing fantasy points on the strikeouts. But he was really hot, and I was in need of outfielders. Also picked up Cam Smith on this team. He's batting 292 right now, 36 fantasy points. He's got four home runs. So we'll see how long he stays hot. The last three days, he is only three for 13, so he might be already cooling off, but he's rostered now in 82% of leagues. But if he's available, you might want to try him. Here's one that's worked out really well for me. Ryan Ohearn, he isn't for the Pirates, he is now up to 73.6% rostered, but he's got 43 fantasy points already. He can play first base outfield. So uh he's batting 350, got three home runs, 11 RBI. He's looking really good. He did go 0 for 4 today, but he's been playing really well, so you might want to grab him. Now, some guys that I do not have or have had previously that you might want to look out for. So I had Brandon Lowe in one of my leagues at one point. He had been playing pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Uh he has since cooled off significantly. I would say don't really worry about picking him up right now.

Georgia Baseball Goes On A Tear

Georgia Basketball Transfer Portal Worries

Holds Category Question And Closing

SPEAKER_00 41:34

I had all three of these guys at one point. JJ Weatherhall was one that was really popular to pick up early. I had him in both teams early on, but he, like a lot of young guys, has already cooled off. He's only batting 244 and only one home run now. So uh I would say you don't really need to take a flyer on some of these guys. You see guys picking up this. I saw this with Connor Griffin, shortstop for the Pirates. He came up, had a extra base hit in his first at bat, somebody immediately picked him up. Well, then he didn't get another hit and they ended up dropping him. That you want to be careful with some of these young guys. Don't don't get attached to them. If you pick him up and he starts cooling off, drop him. Uh so those are some guys that I have picked up. Oh, here's one that I've had in on teams previously who had been hot, Joey Weimer. He's still hitting 440. But that's with he's out of the lineup a lot based off righty lefty matchups. In the last seven days, he's only hitting 250. No power to speak of. So I had him. That's a guy that I would say be really wary of picking up at this point. So there's some other guys to watch out for. I dropped Josh Naylor. I couldn't just wait around for him to start hitting. He's hitting 104, zero home runs, three fantasy points on the season. I just couldn't sit there and wait on him any longer. I would say Ryan Ohear, Sal Stewart would be a couple guys who would be maybe good to pick up. Um one that you might want to look at if you're in a fairly shallow league is Xavier Edwards, who can play second base or shortstop for the Marlins. I drafted him in my league. He is rostered in 78.4% of leagues. He is hitting 400, uh, 18 hits, one home run, six RBI, two stolen base. So he's not a big power guy, but hitting 400 is hitting 400, and he's scoring a lot of runs. So that's a guy you might want to pick up, can play second base or short stuff. Another guy you might want to pick up. So I had him in one of my leagues and ended up dropping him. Had a little bit of an injury issue was out of the lineup a day or two. But if you need a second baseman or third baseman, Brendan Donovan for the Mariners is hitting 316. He's got three home runs. He's only rostered in 75.1% of leagues. I dropped him and then he went two for four with a home run on the seventh, but then today went hitless. So he's a guy you might want to look out for if you're not in a super deep league. So anyway, that's some fantasy baseball. For anybody who doesn't like fantasy baseball, sorry, I hope you skipped through this. But one thing I like about fantasy baseball, it kind of gives you a picture of what's going on around the league and who's playing well and who's not. So moving on from fantasy baseball, I'm going to talk Georgia baseball real quick. So Georgia baseball is blazing hot. And I mentioned some minor issues that Georgia was having a little bit earlier in the season, uh, struggling in midweek games against smaller teams, uh not being consistent through entire weekend series. Okay, all that's out of the window. Starting on March 27th against South Carolina, Georgia hasn't lost a game. Uh swept South Carolina in that series, beat Georgia State 14-9, then I'm so impressed, swept ninth ranked, depending on the poll, Mississippi State in Starkville. This is a team that just won a national championship a few years ago. Uh won all three of those games, including a 10-inning game in Starkville. Then followed that up this week. Uh no midweek game problems this week. Run ruled Presbyterian 28-3. Now I'm going to see a lot of 28-3 baseball games. So Georgia is playing out of their minds right now and really hitting well. This weekend, Georgia's got Florida. So that'll be another tough matchup, but Georgia's moved all the way up to fourth in the polls. I had actually started to get a little bit concerned that Georgia was not a legit top five, top ten team. I no longer am really that worried about that. Uh, the way they handled Mississippi State, I'm definitely hoping this team is a legitimate top five team. We'll see how that goes throughout the year. Again, with Georgia, it's always postseason. How is the postseason going to go? But right now, looking incredibly good for Georgia baseball and have some of the best hitters in the entire country. So that's all I'm going to say about Georgia baseball right now. We've shows long enough as it is. So another thing I want to talk about before we get off here real fast is uh Georgia basketball. So if you tuned in a few episodes ago, the the picture is not rosy for Georgia basketball. And the NCAA tournament exit was going to have ramifications, and it already has. So we talked about how Jeremiah Wilkinson was the only one playing well. The team admitted, the coach Mike White admitted there was no effort. They didn't want to be there, they didn't try, they didn't hustle. Okay, well, there's going to be changes after that. There's not been a significant coaching change, but Jeremiah Wilkinson entered the transfer portal, and I can't say that I blame the guy. If you're the only one trying, you're the only one playing hard in the NCAA tournament, why would you stay and play for this team? He was a leading scorer for Georgia this year. He he may have never been going to stay at Georgia. He may have always been on to the next big thing the next year. I don't know. I mean, I would have been really surprised to see him stay following that performance where he was the only one who wanted to be there. But it's not just Jeremiah Wilkinson. It's gotten pretty ugly. And just like last year, there were a lot of transfers. This is worse. So Santo Cerreal has entered the transfer portal. Uh he's had he had a lot of great flashes. He can block a lot of shots. He's a great defender. He's fun to watch, but I am not sure that's really even going to be that big a loss for Georgia because clearly there was an attitude issue, had been ejected from multiple games while at Georgia. I'm not sure that's a huge loss. So I wish him the best. I don't mean to be insulting to him, but if you don't want to be there and you're not going to have an attitude problem, I'd rather you go play somewhere else. Uh also, there are a lot of guys who are expected to enter the transfer portal. Jordan Ross is expected to. Dylan James is. Uh, one guy who already has entered the transfer portal is Jake Wilkins. So the alumni, Dominique Wilkins, the Hall of Famer, played at Georgia. Jake Wilkins came and played at Georgia this year, wore his dad's retired number. We saw the potential, we saw the dunks, the athleticism. I was always a little concerned that he was going to transfer because he was not getting a lot of playing time. And I'm not saying that Mike White should have been giving him a lot of playing time. I think he probably should have got a little bit more than what he did, but he was not ready. Jake Wilkins was not ready to be a starting player in college basketball last year. And so if he expected to get starters minutes, he he wasn't ready for that. And so now I don't know whether if it's an effort thing, a coaching thing, or he just wanted more playing time or he wants to play at a better program. Uh Jake Wilkins is out. So that stings to lose, yes, the athleticism, but mainly to lose Dominique Wilkins' son to another school because of what's going on in college sports, and I don't know how much the effort issue had to do with it, but Georgia basketball is not in a good place right now. Not at all. And I saw they brought in Jarvis Hayes as a coach uh for the staff, former Georgia great NBA player. That's good. No, we're gonna need a lot more than that because this is a bad spot for the Georgia basketball program. And who wants to come play there? Who would want to come play there after that performance? And we do have Canon Catchings has announced he's coming back. You know, that's really good. He had several really good games. Hopefully he will improve on that. Uh I believe I saw Smurf Millender coming back. Kareem Stag is coming back, so that's good. But George is gonna need Georgia's gonna need somebody to come in and help. We saw Silas Demory go to the national championship game this year after he transferred to UConn last season. And that's the reality of college basketball right now. If you are not a top-level program, you're gonna have a lot of roster changes. Georgia right now is not an elite program. So if you are a really good player at Georgia, you're probably gonna go transfer somebody somewhere else unless you are committed to Georgia. We are going to see what's gonna happen. President Donald Trump did an executive order limiting the transfers. Uh, guys are gonna only be able to transfer once, or they'll have to sit out a year, uh, like things used to be. Obviously, in the political realm, there's a good chance that's not even gonna happen, that that's not even gonna get enacted. But I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. But if it does limit transfers, we'll see, we'll see more roster stability. But I'm sure that's going to be challenged in court and will be held up in court for a long time. Um, and so guys are just gonna keep transferring. So, as a Georgia fan, this is what you're gonna expect. Until Georgia reaches upper echelon, which doesn't seem to be coming anytime soon, this is how it's gonna go every offseason. Is guys are just gonna bail. So hopefully Georgia can improve and become a good enough program that guys want to stay. So that's all I have on the show today. Uh real again, really glad to have baseball back and really glad the Braves are doing so well. So, one thing I will one thing I meant to talk about and didn't and didn't remember to say during the show. So I am in the points league and the matchup categories league. In my matchup categories league, one thing I've got a lot of really good pitchers, the pitching statistics, I'm winning a lot of those categories. However, uh I am still looking, trying to figure out who to grab for the holds category. So that's not going to be a closer, it's gonna be a setup guy earlier in the bullpen relief guy. I'm not typically looking to add guys like that, especially I'm more used to the points league last year. So you're not adding setup guys in your points league. So, but now in a categories league, that hold is just sitting there as a category you could win. Last week in my matchup, neither one of us got a hold. So that's just a category that all I had to have is one hold and I would have won. So I believe this week my opponent has one hold and I have zero. So I gave you recommendations that I thought, guys, you should pick up. If you have any recommendations as to who is going to be somebody who you are going to see, who you would see getting a lot of holds as the season goes on, let me know. Reach out to me, let me know. I could use the help there. I am just kind of sitting and waiting to see if I see certain guys start racking up holds because I don't really want to waste a roster spot on a guy who's not gonna really help me in a lot of other categories just to try to win one category, and I'm not even sure if he's gonna keep collecting holds. So if you have any insight on that, let me know. I'd like to hear from you. I would appreciate it. So if you made it this far in the show, I appreciate you listening and hope you'll like and subscribe and share it with your friends and hope I'll hear you, hope you'll tune in next time.