Fantasy Baseball Today - 01/03 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Favorite Mid/Late-round Picks

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

As we enter 2018 it's time to get ready for Fantasy Baseball season, and we'll start by getting you acquainted with some mid-round and late-round picks you should know. But first, let's talk about a possible solution to the Wins vs. Quality Starts debate (2:15)! ... Wade Davis to the Rockies (7:45), what is his Fantasy value now? And Chris discusses his team from a recent Roto draft (14:20) as he surprisingly drafted SPs early. He compares Noah Syndergaard to Madison Bumgarner and Justin Verlander (17:45) ... Names to know in the mid-to-late rounds including Adam Eaton (24:00), Scooter Gennett (27:40), Jackie Bradley (34:00), a couple of dependable OFs for your Roto rosters (40:00), two late-round OFs you may not know much about (46:15) and plenty in between ... Email us at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I've got good news for everybody. Football's over. It's baseball season. Yeah. Yeah. Fired up. Get excited. Chris Towers.

Scott's there. Chris, you need to get there. Get excited. What? Get excited for face. Uh, nothing. Nothing. I was listening.

Okay. This is like one of your outro's, Adam. His intro. But not my fault. It's Chris's fault this time. I think it's Adam's fault. Scott, whose fault do you think it is? Adams.

All right. Well, if we have a new audience today, we're usually better than this. And if you are a fantasy football listener, don't tell anybody else that I said that. It's always football season. We love football. But right now, it's time to get excited for fantasy baseball. We are going to talk about some late round picks for you. Get acquainted with some players that you could take in the late rounds that we like that right now are being undervalued.

We'll read some emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Talk about Wade Davis going to the Rockies. And Scott and I talked about our roto teams that we drafted a couple weeks ago on last week's show. Chris did not get a chance to do so. So, Chris, are you looking forward? Can you hear me now? Are you looking forward to talking about your rotisserie chicken team? Yeah, it's a great team.

It's the best team. I think many people are talking about how good this team is. It is a good team. And apparently a demon from outer space took over your body and drafted your team. Well, no, I do it to troll Scott now. Every draft is going to be wildly different now So I can mess with Scott's head And destroy the sanctity

Of the mock draft system He's throwing drafts basically He's taking a dive This is his best draft This draft was a great draft You should take a dive more often Yeah All right let's start with an email

Email email of the day From Dan and St. Paul Dear Butros Kofi Bonn and Antonio These are I actually knew this These are heads of the UN Yeah Butchers, Butchers Ghali.

I know that guy. I didn't know Antonio. I didn't know that he just recently took a... Kofi Annan. Yeah. Bonn, me, right? Bonn Qimun, I believe. Bonki Moon, yeah.

I didn't know there was an Antonio. That one I had to do the Google. Sure. But he's a new. Butchers Gali. Yeah. There you go. I have a peace proposal for the wins versus quality start conflict as we start a new year.

See, he's making it relevant to the greeting. It's good. I generally agree with the quality start crowd, but it's really annoying. when a starter or a lever gets the win, but no quality start credit and quality start leagues. Why not combine wins and quality starts just like saves and holds? It will be a better metric for performance.

The better pitchers in the end will likely have more wins and quality starts. What do you think? Combine them, one stat. I assume he's talking about a categories league. Yeah. Because if we're talking about points, you're already getting.

Yeah, there would be, there would be some unintended consequences there. I think it's an interesting idea. I think, like, the problem is, like, wins are an arbitrary thing. You have to, like, you have to go five innings, or you have to be the person that the official score decided won the game. Which really happens. But, like, quality starts are pretty arbitrary, too.

Yeah. Like, a quality start where you allow a 4.5 ERA, like, eh, that's fine. It's kind of stretching the definition of the word quality. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess if we're talking about, I have no problem with quality starts replacing wins in a categories league because there is already no built-in reward for innings.

So this kind of rewards it, which, I mean, wins do too. Normally pitchers or pitch deeper into games leave less of the, you know, completing the game to the bowl. are more likely to pick up wins. So there are some kind of like indirect rewards for pitchers who pitch deep into games. It's a little easier to get quality start as opposed to a win. I mean, I've kind of wondered why Roto leagues don't just use innings as a category instead of wins or quality starts. But I'm sure maybe there's some unintended consequences I haven't thought all the way through

there as well. I think it's fine. I mean, five by five leagues when you don't have to worry about weighing stats relative to other stats, I think you can mix it up a little easier. Now we're just talking about quality starts versus wins, like specifically this idea of combining the two categories. I like it. Yeah, I think it's the one thing that I will say that the analogy to the save slash holds combined category is

save slash holds opens up a different. group of players to fantasy relevance, quality starts wins doesn't really. The guys who gets quality starts are generally also the guys who get wins. They're generally also the guys who get a lot of strikeouts. They're the guys who get low ERAs, you know? Like, the best players are still the best players. So it's not really solving an issue, you know? Yeah.

It's just kind of reducing the luck element. And here's the other issue. I mean, it might make the elite aces just, extremely valuable over the non-lead Aces? Yeah, I mean, Max Scher probably gets 45 wins and equality starts in a good year. Right. It might make the best starting pitchers a little bit too valuable. But I do want to ask you guys a question.

There were four pitchers in baseball last year who won 18 games to lead baseball. Can you name them? 14 who won 8. No, sorry, four. Four pitchers who won 18. Four, 14. Four pitchers who won 18. Corey Klobber.

Yes. I think Clayton Kershaw, even though it was short, I think he got there. You are correct, sir. Did Ervin Santana get 18? He did not. You idiot, he got 16. Isn't there one, like, weird one like that? Chris, I'm not going to tell you if there's a weird one.

Chris Sale? There's a weird one. Not Chris Sale. Okay. But you got... Somebody else for the Indians won 18 games or something? Right. Trevor Bauer?

Carlos. Carrasco. Carlos Carrasco. Khrashaw, Krasco, Kluber, and who's the weird one? Trevor Bauer won 17. The weird one. Same division. Same division as the Cleveland Indians, but it wasn't Irvin, Santana.

It was... He did not make... Justin Burlander? No, but same initials. Jason Vargas. Jason Vargas. Yeah, that was the one I was thinking of. I thought it was...

Yeah. Yeah, good job. And he had 16 quality starts, the other three in that 18 win group. Kersha had 20. Carrasco had 19. Klober had 22. There you go. Okay.

So, thank you for the email, Dan and St. Paul. Thank you for bringing peace to this process. News and notes, really not much. Still been a pretty slow off season. Colorado did sign Wade Davis to a three-year $52 million deal. They have a really good bullpen, at least the makings of it. Davis was the number 11 reliever and points. number 10 in Rodo, but it's really only because he only had 33 save chances. He converted 32 of

them. And he had a pretty high whip. He had his worst walk rate of his career, 4.3 walks per 9, but also great strikeout rate, 79 strikeouts of 58 and 2 thirds. 1.14 whip is pretty high for a reliever, especially a great closer. Anyway, what do you think about Wade Davis going to the Rockies? He's clearly their closer, right? And that's number one. And number two, where's he going fall in the rankings. I think you probably have to drop him a little bit. I already had him pretty low. I had him in Greg Holland right next to each other, the back end of the top 12.

And that was kind of assuming Holland would return to Colorado, which obviously isn't going to happen. I think Colorado kind of just replaced Greg Holland with Greg Holland, frankly. So if you liked what Greg Holland did for you last year. And the ERA was kind of inflated because of a ridiculous. bad stretch in August. But for, you know, five of the six months, Greg Holland was a very reliable closer for you. And I think Wade Davis will do fine. Scott, yeah.

Did you know that Wade Davis had the highest swing and strike rate of his career last season? That is surprising to me. I do. Walks. A lot of walks. So his, um... Holland had a lot of walks, too. Wade Davis's primary secondary pitch.

primary secondary pitch is his cutter. And his primary breaking pitch is his curveball. I do wonder just what the impact. And this is something that we'll probably want to research a little. And there's been a bunch of research about the effects, of course, field on specific pitch types. I wonder what the effect of it is on a, on the curveball. Because curveballs rely so much on spin rate. I'm trying to find there was a fan graphs piece last year about

the Rockies approach to trying to figure out course field and it was about pitch selection but I can't find it right now so it's not that interesting. Well, bigger picture, Wade Davis is, I think he's 32. A great year with the saves 32 and 33 chances, but 4.3 walks per 9, but also the velocity keeps dropping a little bit. It's two straight years. His velocity has gone from about 96.5 to about 95.5 to about 94.5.

He was at 94.6, according to Fangraphs last year. Still throws pretty hard, but velocity's dropping a little bit. Do you see busts potential for Wade Davis? Not more so than, you know, most closers. Pretty much every closer but Jansen and Kimball, I think, is on shaky ground. I, Wade Davis, I have him 10th in my rankings officially, and I think the drop off at closer is right after 12. So I still have him, you know, there's those two at the very top, Jansen and Kimbril, and then it's kind of like everyone else I'm more or less trust between three and 12. But, I mean, it's a position with a role with notoriously high turnover rate, and that's partly because players you think,

thought you could trust just go south all of a sudden. Like happened to Zach Britton last year. Like happened to, well, I mean, Wade Davis had some bumpy stretches with the Royals the last couple years when he was dealing with forearm. How about Kelvin Herrera? It was a total d'Und. Exactly. There you go.

Yeah. It's a weird position for sure. And I don't know if these rankings are updated. I'm assuming they aren't. But right now, Heath has Wade Davis third. Oh, he loves Wade Davis. He does. He had him first last year.

He had Wade Davis first going into last year, even coming off those forearm issues. Yeah, I know. And I think Wade Davis would have had a better year if he had more save chances. It was strange that he didn't. Maybe he drops him now that he goes to Colorado. I don't know. The last update was before that happened, I think, for Heath. He's taking a little sabbatical.

Yeah, he's on a vacation. He's in the wilderness. Yeah. So next week. Interesting point. That Fangraph's piece, have the Rockies found answers at altitude. It is actually about throwing more curve balls and relying on the high fastball. low curveball combination.

So it's... Maybe that's why they swapped out Holland for Wade Davis. Holland is more of a slider. Yeah, this seems to be fitting within an organizational philosophy. The Rockies started throwing more curveballs as an organization last year, which is bucking the trend league-wide, which is to throw fewer curveballs and more sliders. Chris, if I could get you to say something controversial here,

can we just do a quick word association? I give you a word. You tell me what comes to my. Don't even think about it. Empty your brain like Ghostbusters 1. Just don't even think. Here we go. Ready?

I feel like I'm being trolled here, but sure. No, you're not. Ready? Here we go. Derek Jeter. Terrible. Okay. Okay.

Chris is the Marlins fan. Just wanted to see how you felt about Derek Jeter right now. That's all. Yeah, we haven't talked about it in a while. Yeah, we haven't had you on. Yeah. Well, he wasn't on this show where we reacted to all the Marlins. I will say.

Marlins had the best rule five draft of baseball. Did they? I like both the guys they picked up in the role. I think they were Rule 5 picks. Garrett Cooper and Caleb Smith. I think they might be a... Caleb Smith might be like the Marlins' second best pitcher. That's not an exaggeration.

Wasn't Garrett Cooper on the Yankees last year? Yeah, both of them were. So what happened the last time the Marlins took somebody from the Yankees? Derek Jeter. He's been a great owner. Exactly. Cooper was picked up in a trade. Oh, okay.

So not one of the Rule 5 picks. Neither of them are. Oh, he was the Stanton trade? No, they had another trade. No, Caleb Smith. I was traded with him for Michael King. Oh, okay. And international bonus money.

Big trade. So the Mariners, now that the bills are in the playoffs, the Mariners have the longest postseason drought in professional sports. 2001? On that. Yeah, must be. Yeah. Because the bills hadn't been in since the 99th season, 2000 playoffs, I believe.

So, yeah, Mariners have the longest drought. And they're trying so hard they'll probably make three trades by the time we're off the year. All right, Chris's rotisserie team. I don't know what happened here. But somebody took over Chris's mind and drafted starting pitchers in rounds one, four, and seven. I got good values on all of them. Plus 11, 12, 14, and 23. So he was starting pitcher heavy.

And, you know, not surprisingly, I. I like his team. I think I got really, well, I think the big thing is I think I got really good values on all of my starting pitchers. I got Clayton Kershaw at number 10. I mean, I spent my first round pick on Clayton Kershaw. It's good value. But then, Noah's Cindergarde of 39th overall. I know he's coming back from the lad injury, but if he's healthy, that's a guy who has the potential to join that Kershaw sale, Scherzer Kluber group.

So, and then James Paxson, it's at the seventh round 82 overall. there's risk there, but that's another guy that I think we all agree has top 10 starting pitcher potential, and it's not like you have to wish on it. Right. Okay, so it's Kershaw in the first round, Sindregard in the fourth, and Paxson in the seventh for Chris. Pretty good. And then McCullors in the 11th, Marcus Stroman in the 12th. It's a good pitching staff, and I don't feel like I really reached on anyone.

Stroman is, I mean, I have no problem. I doubt Scott does with Stroman in the 12th round, but he is a guy who's better in points leagues than Roto. Sure, and he exists sort of to balance out Lance McCullors. Lance McCullors is all upside, but, you know, if he throws 140 innings next year, I might have to consider that a win. Marcus Stroman, he's proven pretty durable since that knee injury. He's a guy who goes deep into games, but he doesn't have the,

The big upside. So you pair him with a guy like Lance McCullers. You got a little lightning in the thunder. Oh, nice. Is that Imagine Dragons? Yeah, I hate that song. I don't know why I did that. Why do they do that?

Thunder. It's bad. It's real bad. All right, so, well, anyway, we don't have to go through every pitcher you have, but you obviously have a very good pitching staff. And you were able to get Joey Vado with the third or fourth pick of the second round, which is third, yeah. Great in a Roto League, or points league, whatever, but this happens to be Roto.

All right, how do you feel about your team? What takeaways do you come away with? Like, do you feel like maybe you'd be more willing to prioritize pitching than you had been in the past? Because I know you like to sort of experiment with mock drafts. Yeah, this gets into that where, like, with the mock drafts, I like to go into each one and try something different. This time I went against my usual path. I think it worked out pretty well. Now, it's dependent on, you know, if someone had taken Kershaw at 7, maybe I don't go with a starting

pitcher there. But, you know, I looked at the shape of the draft and I figured I could get Votto coming back or, you know, one of those last couple of elite first baseman. And, you know, once that happened, like Votto and Freeman were available where I picked, I really like that turn if you can get out of that with Kershaw. and then one of the elite first baseman. Okay, the rest of your team, I mean, I really like your team. Scott, am I alone here, or do you like Chris's team too?

I was trying to refresh my memory on what my own team was. Well, your team is weird. You took the Chris approach. You didn't take a pitcher until the seventh round. Well, yeah, but it was Chris Archer. I mean, it was still a high-end pitcher. It's true, yeah, I got a little lucky. A-E-R-A pitcher, more like.

I don't know. I mean, I'm not as interested in investing in, you know, the really obvious innings, questionables like Cindergarten and Paxton. Not that I think it was, you know, he took them too high or anything. I agree with that assessment. I just, I don't know that I'd want that to be the strength of my team necessarily. Like if I'm going to invest in pitching, I want it to be in safe innings guys. more so than, you know, hope to get lucky with the innings,

and they'll give you great ratios if you do. I mean, Cindergarde threw, what, 200 and or 190 innings in 2016 between the regular season and postseason. In 2015, I think he was over 200. Yep. So he's... I mean, he could get back there. He's certainly shown the ability, and that's something you've always taught.

But as your fourth round pick, right, fourth round in a Roto league, you kind of need him to do that. Yeah, I mean, there's some risk, but it's a lat injury. That's not an elbow. No. And he's thrown 190 innings two of the last three seasons. And what you always talk about is you want a guy who's shown the ability to do. Yep.

Not necessarily. Like, isn't Madison Bumgarner a bigger risk than? I don't feel that way about him. His injury was a more serious one than no. Cindergards, and he went, right, but he came back and pitched, what, a month and a half? Sure. Two months when Cindergarde just kind of got like a tune up start, basically. Yeah.

And just, you know, I feel like, obviously Madison Bumgarner's injury wasn't baseball related. But he sustained a motorbike. Serious damage to his shoulder. To his throat. Cinderguard throws unnaturally hard. He's the hardest throwing pitcher of baseball, and it was the back of the shoulder muscle. that went on him. So I feel like it was directly related to his manner of pitching.

And I think the injury risk with him is very high still, even if he does have a pass with pretty good innings totals. Yeah, I would just say the guys that went directly ahead of him at starting pitcher, Stephen Strasbourg, Luis Severino, Jacob de Grom, Justin Verlander. DeGrom's the only one that doesn't really have an injury. risk out of that group and even he know what about Ruther? Bertlander is very

he's 30 always he's 200 in it he's he's 49 years old though I mean look look he has not been consistent over the last couple years like the final numbers end up being low 3s ERA but the ride to get to that 330ish ERA has been pretty rocky the last

couple of seasons yeah and for someone who's going to be 30 on opening day, there's a chance. It's going to happen at some point. Well, I will say this. I mean, Kershaw, Cindergarde, Paxton. I would hope, I would expect none of them to give me 200 innings. I would hope.

I'm hoping for five. Maybe two of them could give you 180. But those three are all going to have such good ratios that, you know, even if you end up falling back a little in strikeouts, you're going to have such a head start in ERA and WIP that it may be worth it in this format to pair injury risks like that when you know when obviously inning for inning their pitchers as high end as those three. And three guys who are going to strike out 10 batters per nine.

Yeah, okay, so let's see how we feel about Chris's lineup because obviously he's got a lot of talent in his pitching staff. Salvador Perez and Travis Darno are his two catchers. It's a two-catcher league. Joey Vado, Brian Dozier, Miguel, Sano, Javier Baez, that's a starting infield. Vado, Dozier, Miguel, Sano, and Javier Baez, and then he's got Addison Russell at middle infield, and corner infield is Justin Boar. So Vado, Dozier, Sano, Baez, and Russell, and Justin Boar. And then in the outfield, Brantley, Yelich, Lorenzo Kane, Dexter Fowler, Matt Kemp, and Jackie Bradley.

I don't have enough power For sure I don't have enough speed for sure right Yeah I mean I've got I could probably use one big steals guy But I've got some guys that will steal 20 I've got multiple guys that I think will steal 20 So it's more who

Cain Lorenzo Cain is going to get to 25 to 30 Michael Branden should steal about 20 Christian Yelch should steal around 20 But then Bradley's never even stolen 10 before. Yeah, you don't have enough speed.

Okay. Yeah, so I need some speed. Sure. All right, you got Dozier and Sinoe and Vado on the infield and Justin Bore. Dozier will steal some bases. Yeah, he'll give you about 50. You have the need for speed, for sure. I need a speed guy.

Yeah, all right. Well, you have to make a trade with the owner who took like every steals guy. That was also, there were not many of them available. Yeah. Wrap it up. It was Justin. Your final thoughts on your team and the draft? The offense isn't as good as I would like it to be,

but if we're buying the trends of the last few years, offense should be pretty easy to find. There's going to be some corner infield option who comes up on waivers who's going to hit 38 home runs next year, and I just have to make sure I get them. All right, it's time to do our favorite late round picks. So we'll talk about some guys that went in this draft, in a previous points league draft that we did,

And, you know, some of our favorite guys that, you know, just put in your cue maybe, or just early, your mental cue, I guess, right now. And I talk about Adam Eaton all the time, and he's more of a mid-round pick. But I think he's going to be really good. And here's a stat that means nothing. But it's interesting. He averaged 3.9 fantasy points per game, Adam Eaton. If he had played 150 games, he would have been the number four outfielder in points leagues. So obviously, I don't expect him to average 3.9 fantasy points per game.

He, in fact, had four games at Colorado in 23 games last year. So that's inflated. He had one of his home runs at Colorado. He probably wasn't going to sustain his 170 run pace. No, but I think he will score over 100. That's my – Yeah. You know, he's never done that, and I think that'll happen.

I think Adam Eaton's going to be awesome value in points leagues. He's the kind of guy you can just start every week and not even worry about it. And then in Roto Leagues – let me see where he went. I think he went in like the 11th round or something. He went in... 11th round, yeah. Yeah, the end of the 11th. One pick before I took Brett Gardner, I wanted Adam Eat.

And I think I've talked about Adam Eaton enough this offseason. But that is a guy that I'm going to be targeting around 11 or so. And I think it'll be very reliable. Not great, but very reliable. All right, let's keep the conversation going. I've got like eight guys that I can give brief thoughts on. But Chris, Scott, jump in there. Some of your favorite late-round picks that we've seen so far.

Let's talk about Mr. Irrelevant. from the roto draft we just did. If Chris Davis is going to go in the 23rd round, he's going to win some fantasy championships this year. I know he hasn't been great, I think, for a couple of seasons, but we also, we know who Chris Davis is. We know what kind of upside he has. And it's just a question of can he have one of those 38 homer seasons?

If he can, and you can get him with your last pick to be your utility player? Yeah. That's huge vow. It does seem weird that this is the year we choose to penalize Chris Davis for his... Oh, he was terrible last year. Right, but he's been terrible before on bounce back. Like, it's just the nature of his skill set. Like, there's so much variance to what he can do from year to year, and he could totally bounce back with 40 homers this year.

Bad ball rates were all excellent. Here's the thing. If he hits 40 home runs, this guy has had a 221 or worse batting average. in three of his last four seasons. If Chris Davis hits 40 home runs and bats 220, how valuable is that? That's a batting average killer. That's what Chris Carter used to be.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's at least Joey Gallo, right? Who, granted, went way too early in this draft, but he, if he wasn't, if we weren't drafting with someone who had a man crush on him, he still would have gone much earlier than. With Gallo, you're hoping the second half improvement where he hit like 250 and kind of strikeout right? 230. Yeah, like you can live with that.

Can you live with anybody hitting 230 in your lineup? Yes, especially a guy like Joey Galler or Chris Davis, and this is kind of something that you have to keep in mind with them. And it's going to be kind of a weird thing to say, but they don't get as many batting at bats as most players because they walk so much. So, you know, a 220 batting average over 650 at bats versus one over 550. There is a marginal difference to there that makes it a little less hurtful. Okay, fair enough. All right, good, good call. So so far Adam Eaton, Chris Davis.

Scott, it's your turn to nominate a player. I think relative to, like, Chris Taylor, Scooter Jeanette is being highly overlooked. Where did he go in this one? A guy who hit nearly 30 home runs last year, despite not becoming an everyday player. 17th round, 197th overall. Yeah, yeah. And he's still going to be in Cincinnati. Zach Cozart is gone now, so it's not like he's going to have to worry about Jose Parraza stealing at bats for him.

Second base job is Janette's. And I think a lot of what he did peripherally supports the up-thousy. tick in power and uh i i don't think it's such i don't think it's such an obvious fluke that we should be dismissing him so quickly scooter janet okay all right good stuff so scooter janet went so where's the eligible scott just second base just second base all right so some other second base like would you rather have um jason kipness or scooter janet scooter chris I'd probably rather have Kipness in a vacuum Well he went later

Well this is a vacuum He went later, okay And then I'd rather have Kipness Yeah, I took him With the last pick of round 19 12th pick of round 19 I have Jeanette 14th in my second base rankings

And Kipness 18th How about Javier Baez or Jeanette? I'd rather have Jeanette How much is Javier Baye is going to play Well I don't know You're the one who drafted him Tough guy Because at the end of the season

If he gets 23 home runs and 10 stolen bases and hits 270, that's a pretty valuable player, even though he's not going to play every day. Although, you know, 508 plate appearances, he's, you know, going to play 75% of the time. I think he's okay. Here's an interesting stat for Scooter Jeanette. From June 18th on, which does not include the four-homer game he had, we're leaving the four-homer game out. Scooter Jeanette averaged 3.3 head-to-head points per game. The only second baseman to average more than that over the course of the season were Altuve,

Jose Ramirez, Daniel Murphy, and Brian Dozier. Well, if you would do it from June 19th one day later, then it could be since my birthday. So you just missed the cut of a relevant stat. Sorry, Scott. All right. Such an arbitrary cutoff I picked there. I'll dominate a new player. You know, I'm not sure how I feel, but there are a lot of pitchers, a lot of pitchers that are good late-round picks, you know.

But Jose Barrios is really interesting to me. The only problem with Jose Barrios is it's all based on an eight-start stretch. He went 7-1 with a 267 ERA, 15 walks to 53 strikeouts and 54 innings. He was awesome. And then his last 17 starts of 2017, Jeanette had a 468 ERA. And he had an 802 ERA in 2016. So the one thing I like about Jeanette – Berrios, excuse me.

The one thing I like about Burrios is that the innings shouldn't be an issue. 169 and 2 thirds in 2016, 185 and a third last year, so it's not like he's on a restriction. And we know how great his minor league numbers are, but is Jose Berrios a good late-round pick, or should we prioritize, you know, like a Denelson-Lamette and Garrett Richards and guys like that?

Oh, and better than that. When was Burrios a late-round pick? He was in the 12th round in the Roto draft. Yeah, I know. That's still... Yeah, he's a top 40 pitcher for me next year. Because, like, Denelson Lemaet's actually someone that I have on my list of late round picks,

but he won the 21st round. Right. He went 120 picks later. We're still in the mid rounds, but I mean, it's a lot of picks. Like, it's 144th pick. So, he lasts.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's, I think that's fine value. I do wonder if Jose Burrios, what is better than a like a 5A player? Like, I think he might someone who just never lives up to the minor league stats, but is still pretty good.

Like, I just wonder if he's a little too hitable. If he works in the strike zone a little bit too much, he might have a little bit. This is going to sound like a real insult, and I don't mean it to, but he reminds me a little bit of Ricky Nalasko. Like when Ricking Alasko was like putting up really good peripherals, looked like he should have been better, but just ended up being too hitable, works in the zone too much. Yeah. No, I think it's fair to wonder, and that's why Jose Berrios was one of the rookie pitchers who got the most attention last year. And when I was putting together my starting pitcher rankings, 38 felt actually a little low for him. But, I mean, his swinging strike rate was below the MLB average last year.

He got 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings, which is fine. But, you know, it's not like his control was off the charts good. it was a little below average also. Like there's definite upside here with Burrios and I don't think he's going to be a disaster but he is among that group of pitchers where you just don't really know.

He's on the higher end of that group but it's kind of like I was saying last year there's a stretch of pitchers from like 35 to 80 who I feel I could finish in basically any order. Right. They all have some degree of upside, degree of downside. Rios is on the higher end of that list, but he's not like a safe pick in the middle round.

He was drafted during a really interesting run of pitchers at the end of the 12th round. Jeff Samarja, Johnny Quato, Alex Wood, John Gray, Jose Burrios, right at the end. That's a really interesting mixture of safer, old guys, riskier old guys and Johnny Quedo, and then three guys with huge upside and Alex Wood, John Gray, and the Jose Barrios. I think the order that they went in would gray Barrios for those three kind of younger guys make sense. Would gray burrios? All right. Chris, later on pick. Go. I'll toot my own horn. Do we know who Jackie Bradley is? Is he the guy from 2015 and 2016? Clearly you don't because you thought he was going to steal your 20 bags. Oh, I was talking about somebody. I was talking about Michael Brantley. He can steal 20 bags. Did I just mishearred?

I think so. No, I think we just got our wires crossed. I think you said Jackie Bradley. Well, I met Michael Brantley and everyone knew it. This discussion is falling apart. But Jackie Bradley, you know, he was not very good last year. He was obviously the worst hitter in baseball for the first two seasons of his career. Who the hell are you talking about right now?

Jackie Bradley. Oh, okay, okay, okay. 19th round, Jackie Bradley posted 832 and 835 OPSs in 2015 and 2016. 16, has 30 home or pop. Presumably, I mean, we have to see where he ends up playing. But if he stays in Boston, if they can't get this J.D. Martinez deal done, going to be playing in a good lineup, going to be playing in a good park for his swing. And in the 19th round, I think that's a great value.

Oh, man, I don't know. He might not be very good. There's a lot of bad there for Jackie Bradley. Yeah. I mean, he was bad last season. the first two years, I think you kind of give him a pass because his minor league track record is so good. The breakout happened.

I have faith that Jackie Bradley can be a mid-800s OPS guy. And actually, if he gets traded, if Boston does sign Janey Martinez and moves Jackie Bradley, that might not necessarily be a bad thing because left-handed power is hard to come by in Boston. He could move to a better park. All right. All right.

So Jackie Bradley, Brantley, Jackie Bradley. Jackie Bradley, Jackie Bradley, that's what we're talking about. Scott, you're up. Late round pick. Late round pick, okay. So I am going to stick with the pitchers, and I want to nominate, I want to nominate Jordan Montgomery, actually, is somebody I'm going to be looking to draft a lot at the end of drafts, particularly in league. Not sure. Not sure that's a good idea. He might get bumped out of the rotation.

He might get bumped out of the rotation, but I think by the time we're drafting for real, we'll know the answer to that for sure, right? Yeah. So, wait, is he in line to be the fourth or fifth now? The fifth? Right. Right? Tanaka, Sabathia, Severino, Sunny Gray. Right. He's in line to be the fifth. I think he's actually better than Sabathia, but... Yeah.

Good swing strike rate as a rookie last year And got to a number of innings that would lead you to believe he's equipped to go 180 plus this year if the Yankees allow him to. But really it's just I have so much confidence in that Yankees lineup, which was already the second best in the AL last year. And now they're adding Giancarlo Stanton to it. I have so much confidence in the Yankees bullpen, which to me has five closer caliber relievers in it. that leads are going to be frequent and they are going to be held on to. So I think there are a lot of wins in Jordan Montgomery's future if he is, in fact, in the Yankees' rotation with a decent strikeout total. It's not like the other numbers are going to be questionable.

I could see him having like a throwback Andy Pettit type season. You know, Andy Pettit for his time with the Yankees. It's not like he ever really carried anybody in ERA and whip, but he had a decent strikeout. a lot of wins. That's what I think Montgomery could be for fantasy owners for a very low cost. And definitely somebody I'm going to be looking at a lot. Sort of a side conversation. I do wonder, first of all, on Montgomery, I don't know how much faith the Yankees have in him.

I don't know why they would be trying to pursue these starting pitchers if they liked him as much as the peripheral number. Greed, Adam, greed. I guess. And, you know, factoring in attrition. Yeah. Which every team has to do these days. But the other thing on him is that I, so quality starts might be tough to come by with him. You mentioned all the great relievers in the bullpen.

And you look at what the Dodgers did last year. And I wonder if the Yankees are the next team to just not let their starting pitchers other than maybe Severino and Tanaka face an order three times. That's fair. That may be true. I wondered that about Sunny Gray as well because it seemed like he wasn't pitching his deep into games after joining the Yankees. last year. But the thing is that bullpen is so deep and that offense is so good. I still think there are going to be a lot of wins there, even if the quality starts suffer a little.

Okay, he's not going to go deep into games. That puts him in the company of all but about 11 pitchers. No, it's just somebody to keep in mind. And actually, if that is a trend in baseball, then it does make the quality start statistic and category more valuable. More scarce. More scarce, yeah. The one thing I wonder with him as a pitcher, he's a guy with a five-pitch arsenal. And I just wonder a little bit if he's a little bit of a jack of all trades master of none kind of thing.

He doesn't have like one pitch that he can go to. He has several decent pitches. That's exactly right on Jordan. And I wonder if that can be a positive in the miners. It can be a positive when people are starting to figure you out. But once you develop and the scouting report is out on you, you know, I do wonder whether that. But no, I fully agree with, he went in the, like, he's never going to be James Paxton, I don't think. Right.

I don't think Montgomery is somebody with ace upside. He went in the 21st round after Dan Strelie in the head-to-head mock we did earlier in the offseason. Yeah. And did not go in the road out draft. It's fine. Yeah. All right, Jordan Montgomery, good stuff. Who's up, me?

Me again. Yeah, let's see where I keep doing these mid-round picks. So, you know what, that's fine. What's the harm in talking about mid-round picks? Two outfielders in a Roto league that I like in a five outfielder league. Ender NCRte and Kevin Kiermeyer. They went in the 13th round. So NCRte was the number 17 outfielder in points, number 22 in Roto. He does not strike out all that much, so he's better in points leagues.

but he gives you a good batting average. He's batted 303-291 and 304 in his last three seasons. It's very valuable. He scored 93 runs last year and NCRTA stole 22 bases. So I guess he's sort of a category specialist, but a lot of times when you think category specialist, he thinks steals. He's a batting average specialist.

Guy can hit around 300 and get a lot of it bats. That's very valuable. And then Keirmeyer, like, I don't know. Scott was very high on Keirmeyer last year. He got hurt. He only played 98 games. But he batted 276 with 15 homers and 16 steals. And I kind of feel like he might be a player.

If Kiermire ever plays 150 games, maybe he could get you like 25-25. And it might be ugly the way he gets there. There might be times where we're like, you got to drop Kevin Kiermaier. He might have total terrible stretches. I don't know. But in a Roto league, especially a five outfielder league, Kiermeyer could really get you power and steals. You just have to worry about batting average.

276 last year was really good. A lot of times he's been in like the 240 to 250 range. But I think those guys were good. We're solid picks in round 13. They're not going to win your fantasy in Sierra Day and Kiermeyer, but they're not going to lose your fantasy either. It is also worth noting that he went in the 19th round in the head-to-head draft that we did earlier. Who's that?

Three outfielder league versus five outfielder league. You probably are talking about a late-weigh. rounder for Keirmeyer and he could be you know breck arder had a great season last year i don't think anyone's counting on him doing quite that again because he's been up and down and he's 34 years old and keermeyer's seven years younger doesn't have stanton and judge batting yeah yeah yeah okay cool so those are just two two mid-round outfielders and five outfielders league's late round outfielders in three outfielder leagues in siarte and keirmeyer uh chris go for well this will uh this will be our last emails and finish up on fantasy baseball today. Chris, go.

I have drafted this guy in both of the drafts we did. He was the 21st round pick, my last pick in the head-to-head draft, and that is exquisite value. Dexter Fowler. In a points league especially, but even in a roto league, he's pretty solid. And I get that he's not someone who's a very sexy name. He doesn't have a ton of upside. and he's gotten hurt the last couple of years and hasn't played more than 125 games. But it's been a mid-800s OPS guy two years in a row, very good on base abilities, walks a bunch.

He'll steal a few bases. You're hoping you get 15 out of him, decent pop, but just a solid player all around. But Chris, if you're not in an OBP league, what does Dexter Fowler do for you? I mean, you're exuling the virtues of Kevin Kiermire because he hit 276 one time. Dexter Fowler could be a better version of Kevin Kiermeier in a much better life.

I don't know because I think Kiermire... But wait, but just hold on, because Kiermeier, more home runs, more steals. Maybe more home runs. Over the last three seasons, he's averaged 17 home runs per 162 games. Dexter Fowler has actually hit that many home runs in a season. But over his last two seasons, Kevin Kiermeier, his 162 pace would be, oh, come on, I have this somewhere. No, I don't. I don't. I lied. Um, would be higher. I don't think that's true because Dexter Fowler's 162 game pace is 21 home runs and 14 steals.

Oh, you're right. You know what? It's not true. It's not true. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that Fowler hit 18 home runs in 118 games last year. It's pretty good. And 13 and 125 the year before.

He's a not a great source of power, not even a very good one. But he's a, he's someone who across five different categories helps. As much as you like Adam, Eaton, Adam. I feel like you should like Fowler. I think if he was Adam Fowler I think game for games They're basically the same Fowler's biggest issue

Is health He's limited to like 120 games No I used to love I used to love Dexter Fowler I'm just kind of over it But in 2015 He played 156 games Scored 102 runs

Only drove in 46 Only hit 250 But 17 homers 20 stolen bases And he's a 275 280 batting average guy Yeah I don't know I think he might be kind of

done. I think he's on the downside. He was really good last year. He was better than Kevin Kierremyer last year. If you look at his later than Kevin Kiermireman. He had streaks. If you look at his point per production by week, he's got a lot of really bad weeks in there. Because he didn't have missed a lot of time. But I'm not looking at the weeks where he had zero and he was out. I'm looking at most of his week. He had some huge weeks and I feel like this is not a standard you are holding your boy Kevin Kiermeier to. I'm not, no, Kevin Kiermeyer is not my boy. I think he will get more steals than Dexter Fowler.

I think he will blow Dexter Fowler away in steals, and that is why he's more valuable in Roto. But Fowler probably would be better in a points league. Yeah, give me Dexter Fowler eight rounds later in a much better line. That's fine. That's totally fair. I think he's a great late round pick. I think he's being weirdly overlooked in every draft we've done so far,

and I will happily take him in the 19 to 21 round range. All right, but he is like extremely, he gets hurt all the time. I think that's probably what it was for. me. I used to love Dexter Fowler. He used to be with my Adam Eaton. But I love guys like that. It's consistent producers that are underrated and you get late. But he gets hurt all the time. It's extremely frustrating. And Adam Eaton's a picture of health, obviously. So Scott, go for it. So Fowler, I have 40th in the rankings I'm looking at here. Kevin Kiermeier, 47th. I'm moving down even further in the outfield rankings to a pair just outside my top 60. So we're talking. We're talking

and definitive late round picks here. Jesse Winker and Austin Hayes. I prefer Winker in a points league because his walk rate is pretty phenomenal. Like he could, you know, he's probably going to finish second to Joey Votto and on-base percentage for the Reds. And then Austin Hayes really hasn't shown the ability

to walk much at all in the minors, But what he did do between two stops, high class A and AA last year in the Oriole system, is he hit 329 with 32 home runs, was one of just a handful of minor leaguers to eclipse 30 homers, and a 958 OPS. Got a cup of coffee late in the season, and the way the Orioles off season is gone, it looks like he's probably going to be there every day right fielder, come the start of the season. So didn't walk much but made a lot of contact.

Obviously has power potential. I think has a very high ceiling and is going to get the opportunity. He was my fifth outfielder in this roto draft. I think he was my last pick or maybe second to last pick. And then Winker, with all the walks and the points format. Now, his issue in the minors, good hitter, but not enough power. Well, he came up late last year and hit seven home runs. In 47 games.

And the weird thing about him was, I think he had a wrist injury in the 2015 season and basically didn't hit for power in 2016 or 2017 at AAA. He played 191 games, AAA, hit five home runs, but only struck out 105 times in 195 games, hit 308. And I'm pretty sure he had a wrist injury. If that's healed, I'm with you. I think Jesse Winker has like low-key star potential. You go back to 2014, 2013 in the minors when he was still a teenager, and he had back-to-back 15 homer seasons. And obviously we're in the age, the juice ball era that doesn't,

it seems to not really translate in the minors so much as the majors. So you expect players' power to uptick in the majors. I felt like that was something that generally happened anyway, because pitchers are more in the strike zone. Players are getting stronger. as they enter their mid-20s. So I think Winker, you know, he may not be a 30-Homer guy, but I think he'll give you enough power to make good on all his natural hitting ability

and be a fine value in the late rounds. Yeah, I think he could be really, really good. Jesse Winker for the Reds, Austin Hayes, for the Orioles. And unfortunately, we're about out of time today, cutting it a little short. I have a bunch of emails in the notes that I wanted to get to. Matt from St. Louis tells us that we forgot the general manager of our all-Christmas team. That would be Billy Green Bean Casserol. Like Billy Bean, Billy Green Bean Casterall.

Yeah, I associate that. I associate that. That's more of a Thanksgiving. Yeah. But I appreciate that. Oh, he did say Thanksgiving and Christmas. He did say Thanksgiving. Oh, okay. It wouldn't better.

So listen, our next podcast, not sure if it'll be this week or next week. I think next week for sure we'll start doing two per week. We will read a lot of your emails, so please sit tight. Adam. Yes. Yes. Tony Fala-la-la-la-la-la-la-Rusa. Goodbye, everybody.

That's Chris Towers and Scott White. I'm Adam Beezer. We'll talk to you next week for sure, perhaps later this week. Until then, fantasy baseball is back. Yes.