Is Bubic the Next Spencer Strider?

Fantasy baseball championships are won by the smart waiver pickups that are made in April and May every season. And some pundits will throw in that the waiver picks made in June, July and August help out too. But it is true that the smart picks made in the early part of the season have the biggest impact due to the fact that those players can garner the most playing time and have the greatest impact. Spencer Strider was drafted in the 6th round of my 20-man keeper dynasty league in 2022. And the genius who drafted him plopped him on his bench as Strider was a reliever for the first two months of the season. And then on May 30th Strider got a start and the baseball world has watched him dominate since. Well, we might have gotten a glimpse on the next Spencer Strider last week and his name is Kris Bubic and he pitches for Kansas City.

The Bubic story has an interesting sub-plot to it about a somewhat obscure baseball analyst named Lance Brozdowski. You see, Brozdowski is getting all sorts of attention because on April 6th he put out a tweet on how Kris Bubic had added 2 miles an hour to his fastball, and that there were changes to his changeup and slider. The comments in all honesty were very technical and may have sounded like a conversation in a clubhouse. And because Brozdowski doesn’t write for ESPN, Yahoo or CBS Sports, the fantasy baseball community didn’t react to his comments. But one CBS columnist did notice the Kris Bubic comments. And then Bubic went out on Sunday night, April 9th and threw a gem. It was 6 inning of work which led to a no-decision. He left the game with a 1-0 lead. He had struck out 9 batters without allowing a single base on balls, and only surrendered two hits. It was a gem. And in my dynasty league which has an 11pm deadline on Sunday night for waiver picks, it was too fresh to notice and react. And so, nobody did.

Flickr/Minda Haas Kuhlmann

Kris Bubic is going to get his next start this past weekend against the Atlanta Braves, If he tosses another gem, there is a great chance FAAB bidding will be raised and there will be competition to landing him as a waiver pick. A 2-mph increase in someone’s repertoire can often be the difference between ordinary and superlative. But in the world of fantasy baseball, this is just the sort of breaks that successful owners seem to get. You don’t need to follow guys like Lance Brozdowski either to avail yourself of breaks like this. You do need to do some simple screening though and we all have the time to do that. Maybe I will tweak my screening procedures though based on what happened here and it will pay dividends. I always screen “The Last 7 Days” through the ESPN system. I look for 3 things. I look for anyone who has hit 2 home runs, stolen 2 bases or struck out 7 or more batters in their latest start. Since I had run my screens on Sunday morning and Bubic threw his gem early Sunday evening, I missed it.

And so CBS Sports was writing all about Kris Bubic’s breakout on Monday morning. As the deadline for this article comes up, he is only owned in 7.8% of ESPN leagues. Time can still be on your side. But as it was Easter Sunday I had not paid close attention to the Sunday boxscores. Fantasy baseball is not forgiving to lapses of any sort. You have to be first. You have to beat the competition to every possible nugget. And even if Bubic gets torched by the Atlanta Braves in his next start, you have to go out and grab these possibilities and wish on these possible stars. It is the Spencer Striders and Kris Bubic types that you want to be the first man in on.

There are some other waiver wire possibilities that people should be paying attention to this week. The Minnesota Twins have called up a very promising prospect from their minor league system named Edouard Julien. He hit 17 home runs in the minors last year and plays some ordinary defense at 2nd base. What he does do however that opens eyes, is that he absolutely gets on base at a ridiculous pace. His on base percentage was .440 last year at Double-AA. That is Mike Trout territory folks. Throw in 19 stolen bases and you get a very interesting value proposition at 2nd base. Make sure you get in your waiver claims this week on Kris Bubic and Edouard Julien.