Bases Loaded Fantasy Baseball Podcast · Fantasy Baseball | Mike Kurland | Age of Radio

Ep. 198: 10 player breakdowns and trends to know!

·34 min·2 clips

Nick Pavetta’s four-seamer is up in velo and he added a cutter, but the curveball lost vertical movement.

1. Bases Loaded Fantasy Baseball Podcast episode 198 is a player-breakdown show focused on early trends, pitch changes, and playing-time questions. 2. The host, who also references YouTube and Patreon, frames the show around fantasy baseball analysis and live listener questions. 3. The episode asks which early numbers are real for pitchers, hitters, and call-up candidates. 4. Nick Pavetta opens the discussion with a four-seamer that is up in velo and a cutter he added this year. 5. Pavetta’s curveball lost vertical movement while gaining some horizontal movement, and the changeup remains hard to trust because he is barely using it. 6. Bryce Elder follows as a deeper-format arm with win potential on a strong Braves team. 7. Elder’s slider usage is up 13% and his sinker usage is down 12%, while his strikeouts are better than his career norms. 8. The host also points to a 26.8% chase rate, an 11% swinging-strike rate, and a 50% ground-ball rate when warning against overbuying the strikeout pace. 9. Shane Bieber gets a skeptical read because the strikeouts are down for the third straight season. 10. Bieber’s K-minus-walk rate sits at 13.7%, and the host says the current pace would put him closer to 170 strikeouts than the 180-to-200 range fantasy managers hoped for. 11. Brandon Marsh is described as running hot while showing extreme plate discipline. 12. Marsh’s 24.1% O-swing rate, 5.8% swinging-strike rate, and 97% zone-contact rate support the idea that he is seeing the ball well. 13. The downside is a 52.4% ground-ball rate and only one barrel, which the host says could cap the power. 14. Gerardo Perdomo is presented as a desperate shortstop option in deeper formats. 15. Perdomo is pulling the ball more, elevating more, and showing a path to playing time as a strong-side platoon option. 16. Jose Barrero is treated as a speed-and-playing-time play whose early 18.2% strikeout rate looks unstable because his 51.1% O-swing rate and 20.3% swinging-strike rate are so high. 17. The tone is practical and data-heavy, with constant references to Statcast-style plate-discipline and pitch-movement numbers. 18. The format mixes solo analysis with live reactions to chat questions and on-the-fly player lookups. 19. Deep fantasy managers tracking early-season pitch changes and call-up paths. 20. Shallow-league listeners wanting polished storytelling over stat talk.

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