Fantasy Baseball Today - 01/18: Rankings Disputes, Regulators, and More Prospects

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

We solve some of your league dilemmas, go through some early rankings disputes, and give you the low down on the rest of the prospects you'll need to know come Opening Day. Scott and Heath debate Trevor Story and Andrew Benintendi rankings (1:00), help sort out some league disputes (12:20), and go through the prospects with a chance to make an early impact (40:10).  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

We're going to do a little fighting, we're going to do a little regulating, and we're going to finish up prospects on fantasy baseball today here on Friday. I'm Chris Towers here with Heath Cummings and Scott White. Fellas, how's it going? So good. Just the best. Exchange some pleasantries before you start arguing with each other. I don't really have any reason to argue with Scott White.

I thought you were going to say I don't have anything nice to say. Well, notice I didn't say anything nice. Okay. Fair enough. So let's jump right in after the pleasantries. That was so pleasant. Thank you guys for playing along. We're going to do some rankings disputes.

Heath, you finished your rankings? Oh, they were done. They were done yesterday. Scott, you finished your rankings? They are done and ready to publish. They're going to be on CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. Beginning Monday, we're going to be launching our fantasy baseball draft prep guide next week. Sleepers breakouts and busts from Scott are.

coming. It's happening. It's going to be great. In the words of Maya Rudolph, it's happening. And sleepers and breakouts and busts are going to come from Heath, too, just in a slightly different format. Yes. So that's interesting.

That's exciting. Weird, me taking something that's traditional and normal that everyone else does and doing it in a different way. That's what you do. Speaking of which, let's get into these rankings disputes. Starting off, you guys cannot. We'll do one for head-to-head, one for Roto. Heath, you have Trevor Story 30 second.

Scott, you have him 20th. I'm going to give you, let's say, 30 seconds to defend your position on why Trevor Story should be a third round pick and why everyone's going to be overdrafting him this year. Everyone's going to overdraft him. He's terrible. He's not actually, no, Trevor Story is very good. He is better in Roto than he is in head to head. For sure.

For sure. He is still, even though his strikeout rate went down last year, he's still going to strike out a ton, and I wouldn't be surprised if that strikeout rate inches back up just a little bit. And he's just right on the borderline of being a second round pick with as many strikeouts as he's going to have. I do think there's a little bit of concern as well that maybe the power numbers come back down just a tad,

maybe somewhere in the low 30s for home runs, more of a 27, 28, there we go. I think that's a reasonable case to be made. Scott, you've got Trevor Story in the middle of the second round. Yeah. This is a guy who was going, what, 120th last year probably? Yes, but he became a different player last year for a couple of different reasons. He cut way down on his strikeouts and suddenly emerged as a base stealer.

If you don't believe either of those can continue, I can understand why you'd rank him lower, but I don't see anything in the bad of ball profile. That really raises alarm. I think he just became a better player, which, by the way, way, even in this format, meant he averaged more head-to-head points per game than every first baseman, more than every second baseman, obviously more than every catcher. He's really good in this format, too. Well done, guys. You really timed that well. I think the alarm really detracts from the segment. I don't think it does. Okay. I think it lets you know. It lets you know when

you're done. It needs to be louder and clearer. You have a different type of alarm, though. That one, that one really... We need an air raid sign. That one goes off when I need to wake up, and so it makes me hate you. What the air raid siren is on a, I can't figure out what the air raid siren is on the iPhone. I'm going to go ahead and say, Heath is more in line with my thoughts on Trevor's story, which means he's right. Just to be clear also, a little foreshadowing. Chris does not want to seem like he's favoring either of us, and he knows that he is going to strongly take Scott's position on the next debate, so he chose my side on one where he didn't really care. But I'll also, no, I do. I, I, I, I, I'll, I'll sum up my argument for why Trevor Story's probably being overdrafted this year with two words.

John Carlos Stan. He took that big step forward in 2017 with his strike rate. Cut it from like 29% to 23% all of a sudden. He's the number two hitter in fantasy, stays healthy, becomes a contact hitter, has a monster season because he's putting the ball and play more. Trevor Story didn't just cut his strike rate. He also just all of a sudden stole more bases. he ever had in his professional career. So now you're talking about two things

that you have to avoid regression with Trevor's story. So he might be the most boomer bust early round player because I mean if he's a 30-30 shortstop. Oh, he's a monster. Yeah, he's a monster. Yeah. But he might hit 220 with 25 home runs and 12 steals. That seems pretty unlikely.

But, you know, I could see him regressing to like 240, 250. It's what he did basically in 2017. With like a dozen steals. And that would be obviously not good enough for a second round pick. But I think he got away the upside there too. Moving on. Here's a rankings dispute from Roto where you guys really disagree. Now, when you're looking at rankings, you'll see differences of like 50 spots,

but that's usually when you get into like the 100, 120 range. we have a 19 spot difference between where Heath ranks Andrew Ben and Tendi and where Scott ranks him in Roto. Heath has him 12th overall. Scott has him 31st. Scott, I'll let you make the case. I legitimately don't understand. I kind of wish Heath would go first because I don't even really know what to argue against.

This is a classic debate tactic. Make the, no, no, no. His point's not even valid. Make the case for why you have Andrew Ben, Ben, intending as a solid pick, your third, maybe your second hitter, your third player overall. Make the case for why he is that. Because I think that's what he is. He's not a standout at anything.

He's above average at everything except for maybe power. And it looked like for, you know, the first half of last season, maybe even the first two thirds, he was taking a step forward power-wise. He ended up hitting only two home runs the entire second half. And it's not like, you know, it's not. not like you look at the fly ball rate, you look at the hard contact rate and think, oh, well, he should have hit more home runs. I think 15 to 20 is what you should expect.

Same for the steals with a solid batting average. Dave. Andrew Penitendi is an elite, elite, elite contact hitter, 7.6% swinging strike rate each of the last two years. He walks more than 10% of his plate appearances. He says on the best offense in baseball. I expect him to have 200 runs and RBIs combined. I know he didn't have that last year. it was only 190.

I think he's got a good chance of hitting 300, and he's just 24 years old. He hasn't grown into his man strength yet. Ben Intendi's going to hit 20 home runs, steal 20 bases, 100 RBI, 100 runs, a 300 hitter. That's a first round hit. Okay. I have to bring this up.

You have him ahead of Christian Yellich. Who just grew into his man's strength, and it's probably going to regress a little bit from last year. Sure, but he more than doubled Benintending in home runs while doing basically everything else the same. I expect Benintini to be better in four categories than Christian Yelich. And I just, there's so many, I look at all the players in between 12, where you have them in 30th, where I have Benintendi, or 31st, actually.

And it's like, so that means you must have Benintendi ahead of, like, de Grom, I assume. Alex Breggman. Aaron Judge. Aaron Judge, sure. Obviously Story. Charlie Blackman, Ronald de Cunia. Yeah. Yeah, I...

Like, what kind of upside is there for Ben Intendii? I don't see the case for Ben Intendi above... Now, Alex Bregman, there are extenuating circumstances because of the elbow surgery that he just had. We don't know what he's going to look like. I had Alex Begman ahead of Benintendi before that injury. Which four categories do you think he'll outperform Christian Yelich in? Batting average.

Why? I don't think we've seen... This is basically what the crux of the argument is. Did I alarm ever go off, by the way? Yeah. Okay. It did. But now we're just in the...

I jumped right back in. Okay. I don't think we've seen the best of Andrew Benintendi. Okay. I think he will hit over 300 this year. What's the... What is the best? Yeah. But make the case...

The best case is 320. But make the case for why he hits 300. He hit 290 last year. He hit like 271 the year before. And he hit 290 last year with a 320... Well, I mean, there's not a big difference between 290 and 300. Right, right. But he hit 290 with a 30.

336 batting average? He was well over 300 before the late slump, right? I mean, my point is, even if he hits 300, how is that drastic? Like, he needs a drastic improvement in production to compare to some of the players you're ranking him ahead of him. Well, just, in Christian Yelich's case,

he's a 297 career hitter with a 359 career babit. And he plays in a great hitter's park, whereas Andrew Ben Nintendey plays in a pretty... At least for power. For power. I don't think for average it's a bad hitters park for left-handed hitters. It's not a bad hitters park for average for left-handed. No, it's fine.

Right. But you're still, he needs to either, the strikeout rate's good. Well, I think he's going to hit more home runs. Yeah, but he's probably going to need to hit 10 to 15 more home runs. I don't know that he used to hit 10 to 15 more home runs. Okay. I think he needs to have a little bit better bad-bip than 328. Okay.

And I think he needs to hit a few more home runs. But to move your batting average 10 points, don't need to do very much of either of those things. No, you probably need about seven extra hits, I think. Right. But again, Christian Yowal's hit 326 last year. Christian Yalach is probably going to have a little bit of regression. We just talked about that.

Sure, but he has a career 359 Babbab. And then... He's not his career 300 hit, though. And then, let's not even talk about that one, because they're one spot apart. Charlie Blackman, in a down year, was 291, 100-plus runs, nearly 3rd. 30 homers, nearly 10 steals, and like 70 RBI, in a downseat. So you think that 30 home runs and 10 steals or 20 home runs and 20 steals is better? I think it's probably the 2020.

Right. But we've also seen Charlie Blackman, he's one year removed from being the number one player in fantasy. But that year now looking at the last four does look like the outlier for Blacklin. He was more like 2016 last year And he was not quite that good in 2015 No, he was probably better for fantasy in 2015 Than he was in 2018 But not in 2017

No But we're still talking about a guy Who's been basically a top 10 hitter For like four years in a row Like in the discussion at least In the discussion, sure And he's been the number one hitter And you have him ahead of a guy who finished

40th last year? I don't know where he finished. Blackman's also 32. He's probably not getting better. He's been in 10. He's 24. It's bold. You've got to admit it's a bold ranking. I never disputed that. I'm signing with Scott on this one. Well, no one never doubted that. You've made that clear for the last 10 minutes.

It hasn't been 10 minutes. All right, so let's get into rest of the show. Obviously, if you're a baseball fan, you know, there's not really a lot of new stuff to talk about right now. So what we are going to talk about is... Hold on, I have to pull it up. It's not coming up. Hurry back at him.

Can you turn the volume up on your phone? It's plenty good. It's so good. Regulators. Let's start with... We're going to go through a couple of regularies emails. And this one is... I think Heath's going to enjoy this one,

because there's a lot of pettiness involved. Dear Poo-Bear, Piglet, and Eeyore. I've had trouble over the last decade in my league, but I finally turned into a consistent contender, and I was trash-talking the commissioner the other day about the upcoming season and his team's bleak future. In response to my heckling, the commissioner responds by saying

that I will not be allowed to keep Vlad Jr. Because our league, quote, does not allow for minor league keepers. Needless to say, the commissioner finished in last place, arguably tanked at season's end to improve his draft status, and now has the first pick in the draft this year. While it's true that our league does not allow for minor league players to be kept as minor leaguers, quote, in addition to the 12 additional keepers, there has never been an interpretation of the rule that minor leaguers cannot be kept with one of the 10 traditional keeper slots. In fact, last year, Ronald Acuna was a keeper of his. Another team

kept Michael Copac, another team kept McSenzel. Years ago, he kept George Springer in at Castianus when they minor leagues, et cetera, et cetera. He has endured nearly 10 years of league mates hoarding players like Mike Trout, Chris Sam, Miguel Cabrera, et cetera. Now that the shoe is on the other foot and he's beaten them all on the next era of studs, they see the writing on the wall. If the commissioner wanted Vlad Jr., he should have drafted him last year. Please tell me you see the hypocrisy in this self-serving misinterpretation

of an established league rule in common practice. Your commissioner should be removed from power. I don't think that's unfair. I'm not 100% sure. That's the way I would go, but... Yeah, I mean, this... Yeah, he's being a crime. This is obviously twisting a well-established rule.

And even if it didn't have that precedent, I would agree that the... You know, if you don't specify a distinction between minor leaguers and major leaguers when it comes to keepers, then they're all the same. But when you throw in the precedent that's clearly established here, I mean, this is just the commissioner

suddenly changing a rule to benefit himself, and it's totally unethical. Can I add one more, just incredibly petty note from Mark? P.S., the league mates have made a concerted effort to hold on to my two CBS sports championship bobbleheads and not give them to the rightful champion so I can put them on display as a reminder of my epic dynasty of destruction. I can't help but wonder if there's a little bit of karma happening here. Like, yes, this is an unethical moved by the commissioner. Yes, your lien shouldn't withhold the trophy, but why

do they all hate you? Could it have something to do with the persistent trash talking? That doesn't matter. We don't have different rules for trash talkers. All right. The next regulator's email, Will writes in, hello, Billy, Sebastian,

and Raymond. Billy the Marlins, Sebastian, the Ibis, and I have no idea what Raymond is. I'm pretty sure these are Miami-era. Sports mascots. I have no idea what Raymond is. I could be wrong on that too. Raise here! Ha ha!

Is the Ray's mascot Raymond? I don't know. Maybe. Oh, that would make sense. Okay. That would make sense. All right. Any keeper added to a team from the waiver wire can be kept for four years. The player's draft value will be round 25 the first year kept, and there will be a penalty of five rounds added per year. Will it says some people think the last rule is unfair, especially for someone like him who added Juan Soto from the Waiverter. Waverwire. They think him keeping Soto should be a bigger penalty. What do you suggest for keeping WaverWire ads?

We do not auction, but we have a fab for free agents. He added Soto for about a quarter of his fap. So basically, what do you think is the best way of handling these elite Waverwire ad keepers in a league that has a relatively long-term keeper system? I think it's fair to, I mean, obviously nobody had the foresight. Nobody thought they were good enough on drafting. to draft so I don't I don't I don't I've never understood why okay if you um if somebody was good enough to draft in the last round and ended up living up to it why he should be a cheaper keeper than somebody who just came off the waiver wire um if you have fab and it's he does have Fab, right? One way you could treat it is relative to the amount of money spent on the player.

I don't know if that's what he was suggesting. I don't have baseball keeper leagues that don't have salaries. Right. So that takes care of the problem if you have salaries. If you don't have salaries, I think this is exactly the way you handle it. It should be a last round pick this year. Either that or you'd have to come up with a way to convert back dollars to draft range.

Yeah. I mean, yes, it's benefiting people who pick off. good young players off the waiver wire. I would say... Do that. My kind of middle ground position would be, okay, you keep him for a 25th round pick the first year. Maybe you keep him for...

Maybe it jumps to a 10th round pick the second year. Maybe you start... Because once you start looking at these long-term four-year keepers, it's going to be 25th round, 20th round, 15th round, and then 10th round. For a guy in Juan Soto who we think, you know, Scots use the Albert Poolehole's comparison. You know, this is a guy that we think could be an absolute monster in fantasy.

And so it swings. You should have that long-term benefit, I feel like, because if you go from 25 to 10, I mean, once Soto takes a step back as sophomore season, he may not be worth much more than a 10th round pick next year. That's a very plausible scenario. And I feel like the more gradual moving them up mirrors the way salaries work in MLB closer anyway. I mean, teams call up their best prospects. They get them basically for free the first three years.

And then for very low salary, the next two, if not the next three years. Excellent point. All right, Adam writes in, regulators. We are entering the third year of a three-keeper lead where draft pick trading is allowed. One owner traded the farm last year and just said he wants to quit. despite finishing third. Obviously not much you can do to make him stay in the league, but how do you suggest preventing this from happening?

A few of us have discussed deposits for the next season, limiting draft pick trading, but so far I've not come to any agreement on what everyone would be okay with. You feel either of those would keep owners in line if they have any feelings about quitting, or do you have any other suggestions? I actually like the idea of deposits for the next year. Absolutely.

But anyone who's commissioned a fantasy league, knows that it's getting people to pay on time alone is like hurting cats. And so I would say, if this is a serious league and you have had this problem, having this problem right now is going to make this easier to solve because everyone sees what the problem is. And I would just say before the draft each year, you have to have paid for not just that year, but the year in advance. And then after the first time you do that, then you're only paying for one year each time. you're just paying for the year in advance.

And then if somebody drops out like this, whoever takes over this trash team with no good options gets a free year. But they have to pay for the year in advance. I actually like that. Yeah, I just, I have a hard time seeing how this is going to become an epidemic. I mean, if you have a fantasy baseball league that's competitive, I assume these people like to play fantasy baseball, and I assume they don't have a million options at their disposal.

If they leave the league, assume in this circumstance, I assume you're not inviting them back ever. So they're, they're totally burning this bridge. And I just can't imagine that many of your owners are going to want to do that. The first time that it happens, especially if it's a, like a significant, not a ton of money, but a significant amount of money, it's going to be difficult to get someone to come in and say, pay this money for this year and you have no chance of winning. No. Yeah, I do actually, I like the idea of the, the owner who takes over a team that, that, that screwed the rest of the league over doesn't have to pay for their first year i actually think that's a

pretty that that's a pretty reasonable answer by the way i play in a league where one of if not the most famous national baseball writer did this wow putting people stacked a team by trading all future assets away won the league and said see you guys wow that is outstanding yeah i'm not going to say who it is but uh you would definitely know the name. All right. That's it for the regulator segment. Thanks for your emails.

Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. If you need your league regulated or if you just want some regular old advice, let's move on to the quote unquote big news from around baseball the last few days. All right. Let's move on to the email. No. Yankees signed Adam Ottivino. Ridiculous bullpen in New York now.

he was an incredible middle reliever last year, was one of those ones who was valuable even if he wasn't getting saves, likely to be the same case here? Yeah, I don't see why not. It takes his name out of the closer running, obviously, because Yankees have a good enough option there already. I have about five. Yeah, and actually, between him and Cody Allen,

it looks like he has a deal in place with the angels as of last night to become their closer. So between those two signing, Aadivino and Allen, it kind of makes Jose LeClerc look more attractive because the Rangers were apparently in on both O'Divino and Allen. So that, I think, is really the biggest news from this.

To whatever extent people were doubting LeClerc in late January, you don't have to do as much now. So this is not fan. fantasy baseball related. But the Yankees are now spending like $45 million on their bullpen. Probably more. Because Chapman's like $18, $20 million. Yeah, Chapman's 9 and Britain's like 7 or 8 or 9?

Chapman's 17. Britain is 13, so that's 30. Ottavino is 9, that's 39. But Tantas is 7, that's 46, plus all the million dollar guys. Do you think it's... What do you think of that? I just wonder, like, if you take the $20 million that you're spending on Zach Britain and Adam Ottavino and spend 25 on Mani Machado, aren't you better?

This is the thing about the Yankees with their, like, we'll go off on this tangent for a second. Anybody who's followed me on Twitter, you know what I'm about to say, but this idea that the Yankees have a budget that they could conceivably overrun is stupid. Like, it's ridiculous. This team prints money. They're worth like $11 billion. There is no world in which the Steinbrenner family is going to go hungry for a night. Go hungry is not a business of profit. Because they have, right.

But if they sell the team right now, they're going to make a 4,000% profit on what George spent it. But they're not selling the team. Fine, but they're not, they're never going to lose money. Go ahead and finish your money. They could sign Manny Machado and Bryce Harper and not lose money in the 10 years. years that those guys are under contract. It's ridiculous. Like, there's no, like, oh, they sign this guy instead of that guy, or they're worried

about it. Like, no. Is the standard to not lose money? Just break even? For who? Well, for the owners. I don't know. How much profit should they be seeking that you say that's an acceptable amount

of profit to seek? They can seek whatever amount of profit they want, but fans shouldn't defend them maximizing their profit margins overfielding the best team possible. Fair enough. What about making a profit or we're feeling the best team possible, though? Fans shouldn't care about Hal Steinbrenner's bank account.

Yeah, maybe. The Yankees are close to trading Sunny Gray as well, which will just really help them get under that set luxury tax line. That's going to be great. Alex Reyes is long tossing. He will be on a mound

within one to two weeks, so it sounds like he's progressing nicely from that lat surgery, expecting him to be ready for the start of spring training, if not a little later. One of the big questions in spring training is going to be what his role is. Because we talk about this, I think, in the most recent episode, or maybe the one before that, but there's a chance he's hugely valuable in multiple roles,

or there's a chance that he's not that valuable in one or two roles. Yeah. If Trevor Story is the most boomer bust early-round player, Alex Reyes might be of the entire. draft. I'm going through and putting together my first sleepers breakouts and busts columns for 2018. Just throw him in all three. 2019. Well, I really want to include him in breakouts, but it was just like, okay, first of all, it's obvious. Second of all, it seems like it's a very high probability fail because he hasn't been able to stay healthy and as hard as he throws. Scott, I don't think that it's, you know what that sounds like to me? What? Sounds like Alex Ray is a bust.

Well, no, I don't think for where he's projected to go right now, I classify him as a bust. I may have a lot of shares in him, but it's just, yeah, I mean, he could be, he could be, I think he could be an ace as soon as this season, I do. For a month or two. Not necessarily. I don't think you throw more than 100 innings. You may not, but I don't know if the Cardinals won't. He's thrown 140 innings, I think, in a season before.

that was like three years ago. But there are some teams whose philosophy is that once you've done it, you can do it again, rather than working gradually back up to it. You know, we saw it with... Zach Wheeler. Zach Wheeler last year, sure, but I was thinking on the Cardinals, the guy who throws the... The guy who came back from Tommy John surgery...

Lance Lynn. Lance Lynn. Now, it's... Obviously, Lance Lynn was a free agent. He threw like 200 innings, like six years in a row or something. Sure, but we're not asking Alex Reyes to throw 200 innings. he throws 150 innings and pitches like he can. That's a top 20 pitcher probably.

His career high looks like it's 109. Okay. That's basically 140. And that was, and he has thrown about 25 in the last two years combined. I don't think he's setting a career high this year. I don't know. Yeah. It may not be 150, but 120 doesn't seem far fat.

I'll say there's no chance I'm drafting Alex Reyes, so I'm not sure why I'm defending him. I think I'm in the same spot. Okay. Even more chance I have a lot of shares of Alex raised. Where do you have him at starting pitcher? Heath, do you access that quickly? Oh, yeah. Head to head?

Yeah, that's what I have open. I have him 42nd. Oh, yeah, I'm not anywhere close to that. Wow. Okay. 40 seconds seems like the ceiling. 40 seconds seems like taking on very little risk, though. I mean, you're passing up Jose Cantana at that point.

I have him 70 second. It is worth noting in NFBC drafts right now, his ADP is only 176. At that point, you're not taking on any rest, basically. He's going in the same range as Jose Cantana and Yusay Kikuchi. Give me the plus 200, plus 300, that Julio Reyes is better than Alex Reyes is sure. I don't know what those numbers were you mentioned.

The odds. I don't know how to apply those. but... Two to one would be plus 200. Okay. That Jose Arias is better than Alex Reyes? More valuable in fantasy leagues. Similar...

Minus 300. Did that right? Reyes will be better than him. You think Reyes has a three to one chance of being better than... Yes. Julio Reyes? Yeah. Wow.

See, I think it's very similar. Yeah, I'd put it pretty close. Alex Reyes was probably a better prospect than Julio Eureus, but you have to consider that Julio Erius was... like considered major league ready at 18 or 19. We've seen him pitch effectively in the majors, at least for stretches. I don't think he has near the strikeout potential Reyes does. I mean, a strikeout per inning, sure, but Reyes looks like a dozen per nine kind of guy.

Well, he was at about 10 per nine in 2016 in the 77 innings. Who was? Urius. Yeah. And that was 15 of them were starts, so that was mostly as a starter. and that was in an environment that wasn't to strikeout heavy. It was also, you know, with a 1.5 whip. So, you know, if he pitches well, he was a literal child.

Well, I know, but this is the argument that always makes about strikeout percentage versus K per 9. You get up a 358 bad-bip that year. Also walked a lot of guys. Heath, I have some bad news. Eric Scogland will not be available for the first half of the season for your beloved Kansas City Royals. I actually, at the end of December, quit my last AAA fantasy baseball league, so I was not planning on using Skogling this year anyway. Okay, good, good. He has been suspended for 80 games to start the season.

He was probably going to be their fifth starter. Whoever their fifth starter is, is probably not going to matter. And Wilmer Flores signed with the Diamondbacks. I like Womor Flores? I don't think this matters for fantasy. And that only. He's going to be their starting second baseman, apparently. Okay.

That's what their MLB. Tom Beatwriter has reported. So that's, I mean, that's the first time he's had an everyday role. Ever. Well, maybe, yeah. Yeah, it's been a long time since he's even been in consideration. It's sad because it takes away and it only steals option. Who?

Dyson. Because Dyson is going to be the center field. He's probably going to start in center field now. He's one of those guys that we've been kind of waiting on a breakout. We saw flashes of it last year, but overall he wasn't that good. But if he's legitimately a full-timer, Wilmer Flores... You could hit 25 homers. Yeah, with a very low strikeout rate.

So in points leagues, I think he... I think he has top 10 potential at second base. You know, I'm not going to draft him probably even inside the top 20. Well, he's only first base eligible to begin the season. But he's outside my top 300 in that format. But I definitely see potential there for him to be a surprise contributor. Not to get us stuck on this, But getting back to Ereus for a second, when do you think he joins the rotation?

Because I'm not exactly, like, right now they have Kershaw, Bueller, Riu, Hill, and Maeda. I'm sure at some point, Arias will get a chance to start. Hill will start off the season with his mechanics out of whack and need to go on the DL to fix them, probably like mid to late April. Jhund Jain Rayu will probably... Blister, strain of groin, yeah, something by a... like the fourth or fifth week of the season. Clayton Kirshall will need some time to rest is back.

Walker Bueller will probably get a Phantom D.L. stint at some point. I mean, who's to say Ross Stripling isn't going to take these turns over Aureas? I mean, they, what I'm getting at is the Cardinals need Reyes a lot more than Aureus. And I think Reyes is more proven at the Major League level than Areas, too. So I'm going to stick with my take. Minus 300.

All right. Continued the program. All right, we're going to move on to a couple more emails before we get into more prospects talk, finishing up what we started on Tuesday. First email, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com, if you want to get your email on the show. Nick from Shoreview, Minnesota, excuse me. Dear Ken, Felipe, and Bobby. That's like the 80s Giants outfield, right?

I was thinking those were, aren't those dads or brothers? Felipe was... Bobby. But Ken, I was actually thinking Ken Brett, and that's not right because he's a brother. The others are dads. Ken Senior? Is there a Ken Brett Senior?

Is this a Braves out there? Oh, Ken Griffey Senior. Yes. Those are dads. Of course the dad gets it. I'm interested to hear what you think about these three infielders based on last year and who will have a better fantasy baseball season in 2019.

Matt Carpenter coming off a career year, Max Muncie, who broke out or Anthony Rendon, who was as solid as ever last year. Who do you think will be the best in 2019, and who would you want to prioritize in drafts? I'll take Carpenter, and there seems to be more expectation that he's going to fall back in the consensus rankings than I really have. But at third base, Carpenter is my number four third baseman. Rendon's my number six. I think they're both going to be very good. Muncie could be as good as both of them if I felt more, if he didn't play for the Dodgers, basically.

I just am concerned that he ends up sitting for a month. Carpenter would be my least favorite of the three, actually. In terms of how likely I am to draft them, obviously you have to take him ahead of Muncie. But Rendon is the safe, no worries whatsoever pick, who I would take earliest. And Muncie is, I think, the upside pick.

In fact, when we do the bold predictions in late March, I think one of my bold predictions is Max Muncie will be the number one fantasy first baseman in 2019, which is bold. I mean, it's meant to be bold, but it seems plausible to me. And just for some context in those NFBC drafts that have been going on so far, Anthony Rendon's ADP is 45,

Matt Carmendar's is 71. Seventy one? Seas is 100. 71's ridiculous. And I feel like Anthony Rendon, like, I don't know, I never feel like he goes 45th. He's always the guy that, like, nobody really wants to take. And every year he hits $2.95, $300, and with 20 homers and 80 runs and 80 RBI, at least.

Yeah. There is... He's the guy you let fall to you. In Roto. If we are talking about points leagues, I think you... And I'm not saying people are, but you should be very enthusiastic about drafting Rendon. I mean, all three of these guys are probably better in points than Roto, because they walk so much. All right.

next email is from Danny from Boston. Guys, he's talking about a public projection system. Why do they have Hazus Aguilar hitting 242 next year? Don't see anything in his hard hit, babbip, et cetera, that shows his average should drop that much. First of all, I think the main reason is because he has such a limited sample size and because he wasn't this great of a hitter in the minors, you're probably going to see projection systems bake in quite a bit of regression for Hazer's Aguilar projection systems tend to be pretty conservative when it comes to a guy like him or Max Muncie or, you know, pick your favorite breakout. And the other point I would say is Justin Smoke didn't look like a 240 hitter after 2017.

Yonder Alonzo's batted ball data looked like he was legitimately breaking out again. Justin Boar, same thing. It's these out-of-nowhere breakout guys, you can point to examples of guys who turn into superstars. J.D. Martinez probably being the best example of the last decade. Most of them don't sustain it, even if the hard hit, because hard hit, it's a skill. It's a skill-based measure more than batting average, let's say,

but skill can still fluctuate. And I think if you look at his last four years, last year he hit 274 with a very normal BAPB. And nothing about that looks like, well, man, he hit the ball hard. The year before, he hit 265 with a 37 badfitt. The year before that, he was in AAA and hit 247. That was with a 255 Babb.

And the year before that, he was in AAA and hit 267. With a 305 Babbup, yeah. So I don't, like, 242 seems low, but 250 seems well within the range of possibilities. I'm a little bit concerned about Aguilar falling off the face of the Earth. And it started in the second half last year. To directly answer this question, there is a formula behind the projection and not a person, right?

I mean, the reason why we don't know the formula, but the reason why Aguilar's projection spits out what it does is because certain variables are weighed such and such, such and such and such and such and such. And I'm not even sure the person behind the projection system could give you an explanation beyond that. That's just kind of the... But it's based on...

But it... They will be based on historical precedent and what tends to be more predictive from one year to the next. They have his striking out percentage going up 1%. They have his home runs coming down by 6 next year. Both of those things would cause your batting average to come down. They have the Babbitt falling down to 290.

He's a borderline... I think he's a borderline skills guy. There's a reason he didn't break out until he was 28 years old. And in the second half last year, full season stats are more predictive than half season, but he hit 2.45 with like a 760 OPS in the second half last year. One of the variables that may weigh very heavily is second half stats. That's not uncommon.

Coming from this one, I would be surprised if that weighed heavily, but maybe. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I am not probably going to have much Aguilar because I feel like he is, he is really a just, do you believe it or not kind of situation? Because you could make the case looking at all the things we normally look at to project sustainability that this is exactly who he is. Or you could look at his track record and say, no, he's this other guy. And it's just, we're just, I don't know which of those to trust. I really don't.

And it's my job to know, but I don't. You don't have to know everything, Scott. It's fine. You just have to act like you do. All right, we're going to talk prospects right after this. And we're back. Let's lead off our prospects segment, finishing off discussion over Scott's Top 100 Prospects piece

that went up on CBSSports.com earlier this week with a couple of emails. No name on this one. Hey, guys, I'm in a 14 team head-to-head category league where we can keep players for three years. as I'm listening to the newest podcast on prospects, here's my question. In a league where prospects aren't available until they make their appearance in MLB, there are a few big-name prospects.

Would you ever trade a draft pick for someone's high waiver slot in order to get Vlad Guerrero, Ilo Jimenez, Fernando Tatis, in a league where they are not available in the draft? Okay, so they become available as soon as they're called up, So mid-season. Okay, so Vladimir Guerrero is not going to be available in all likelihood because we don't expect them up until mid-April. Yeah.

What round? The round you would want to draft them in. So you're saying this guy should probably give up a second or third round pick, especially in a Keeper League? It might be a first-round pick. I mean, I don't know that that's where I'd want to draft Vladimir Guerrero. You're going to have to decide that for yourself. And I guess, but I mean, if you're going after the owner who has the number,

like there's not a chance somebody can, after you make that trade, somebody can pull the rug out from under you. You can only do that yourself by spending that waiver claim on somebody else. So I think if, you know,

obviously you start at, you try to lowball the guy to start out and find middle ground from there. But yeah, I would trade probably early as high as a fourth round pick for the presumed rights to Vladimir Guerrero.

I think, in a Keeper League, I think those guys might be first-round picks. It depends, too, though. How many players are you keeping? Sure.

Because if you're keeping, like, if you keep as many as you want, then a first-round pick's not worth very much. Sure. Like, I don't, I don't think I'd give up Flight Groreau for a first-round pick. Okay. Yeah. If you're keeping three players...

I think this guy's trying to out. Smart has competition. I understand. But if you're trying to... If you're... It really depends on the number of players that are kept. If you only keep two players, then it's a completely different equation. What is the draft pool looking like after everybody's kept?

And I wasn't even thinking in those terms. So that's a good point. Yeah. That's why I'm thinking you give away a first round pick if someone's willing to give it to you. Yeah, in that context. Yeah, I wasn't so sure if you're talking about the starting point of a draft because so many of the first rounders are right around 25. So they have plenty of good years ahead of them, too, and they're already proven.

But yeah, I understand how the circumstances change here. All right. One more from David in the city west of Mississippi. Hey, fellas, something I would like some additional color around in regards to the top prospects conversation. Does the past experience with super hyped of prospects like Yohan Moncada and Byron Buxton change how you view guys like Vladimir Guerrero and Eloi Jimenez? No. I think it's just, it's just.

a reminder that there's risk. Yes. And it's good to keep those reminders. Like, when you're taking Vlad Guerrero in the second or third round of a redraft league, it's important to remember those names. And he's a better prospect than those guys were. He may be the greatest hitting prospect that I can remember. I think he is.

And part of what that goes into that calculation to me is how much he makes contact, which is absurd for a modern power hitter. You just, him and Jimenez would be absurd himself, but Guerrero manages to top even that. And that's really the distinction for me is when Buxton and Moncada, the talent was obvious, but one concern you had, and it was true for Chris Bryan, it was true for George Springer, they happened to overcome it. But Moncada and Buxton couldn't overcome the contact issue. That's been the main thing holding them back.

And that's not an issue for Guerrera. Guerrero and Jimenez. It's not an issue. I do, and it's something that I said with, I think it was with Mancotta a couple of years ago, I do still get a little bit of concern when a guys played 61 games in AA, 30 games in AAA, and that's the closest he's got to Major League competition. But also, in both of those cases, too, Moncada and Buxton, you saw them kind of peak at high A, right? And then the numbers kind of drifted after that.

I mean, Vladimir Guerrero was basically Ted Williams in the minors last year. It was... He was Ted Williams and AA. I... I don't want to be prisoner of the moment, but I just... 336. I don't recall ever seeing a bat that was closer to Can't Miss than Guerrero. He...

I wouldn't draft him in the second round because I'm just super risk-averse in the early rounds, but I totally understand the people who do. All right, let's move on. We talked about guys that we expect to make their major league. debut, if not right on opening day, shortly after. Let's talk about guys that are fighting for a job in the spring. And this does include Vladimir Guerrero and Elo Jimenez. I don't think we need to make a lot more discussion about them.

We know how Scott feels about them. Best prospects ever. I love them. So of this list of guys fighting in spring, it's a list of about 20 guys. We're not going to go through all of them. Scott, just go through and tell me who you think has the best chance of being up, if not on opening day, within the first couple of weeks. Should I mention their names when I'm passing by there?

Yeah, Blackoramero, Elo Jimenez. Let's start there. Those guys. Okay. We expect them up before the end of April. Mid-April. They're on the Ronald de Kuna timeline. They'll be drafted in the first 10 rounds of every single draft this year.

Yeah. Yep. Nick Senzell's next. I don't really know about him. Kyle Tucker, same thing. Don't really know the timetable there. Alex Reyes, I would expect him to be up sooner than not, though it would, I think it would behoove the Cardinals to hold them out longer

so that they have his best, the more critical point in the season, but that's just not what teams typically do. And there's no, with him, there's no contract shenanigans that make any sense. He's been on the 40-man roster for three years. His service clock has already started. So I would draft Ray is expecting to see him at some point in April. Brent Honeywell, I am now. Imagine the raise will be extra cautious with them coming off Tommy John's surgery,

Jesus Lazzardo of the athletics. He might be their best pitcher right now. Oh, I think so. Yeah. Actually, the only question is another guy later on this list. The thing with Luzardo just might be instructive, Sean Minai, I think, who had very little AAA experience. They called up at the end of April.

So he may not be up that soon, but I think it's at least possible. And there's been some things that have come out of Oakland that it made it sound like. he could actually compete for a job in this rotation? I think he is. He could. But they could go with a four-man rotation for the first few weeks, too. Well, I mean, and it's one of those things, oh, he's competing for a job, and he may be their best pitcher in the spring, but they still decide.

I mean, he moved so quickly last year, and he's 21, I want to say. Like, there's no, yeah, I can't draft Luzardo with an expectation in mind for when we're going to see him. Though, you know, it could be April. We don't know. I do have Lazzardo ranked ahead of Alex Reyes. What about A.J. Puck? Since we're on the topic of the athletics, another guy coming off Tommy John's surgery, he had it a little later than Brent Honeywell, right?

Honeywell was in, like, February. Yes. And I don't, you know, yeah, I think that's going to hold him back some in spring training. But he's a good example for what could happen with Luzardo, because he was competing for a rotation spot last spring, was doing great. But the consensus among the beat riders, even before he suffered the Lerner, elbow injury was, yeah, but he's not really going to make it. It's just, you know, they have to dangle the carrot in front of their top prospects to

ensure they get their best out of them, I think is part of what plays into that. And just, you know, the potential that other guys get injured before spring is over and suddenly there's an opening they didn't expect. I think that has a lot to do with the he's competing for a spot talk when it may not be so realistic. The A's are one of those teams that may not have the luxury. avoiding a couple weeks, though, given how bad their rotation is and what a fringy playoff team. So it's worth, I think there's a decent chance.

I wouldn't say it's 50-50, but there's a chance. Peter Alonzo at this point. Yeah, I know you guys have soured on Alonzo's chances. I just don't see how they could hold them back more, particularly since they have designs on competing. He's at worst, their third best hitter, if they put him in the lineup today behind Conforto and Nemo. am I forgetting somebody? Well, we don't... Like, he's age-wise, progression through the miners-wise, he's absolutely ready.

You could have made the case he was ready at the end of last year, but okay, they wanted to play the financial game, hold him out until mid-April. I still... I expect to see him then. You know, I don't have him in my top 300, so maybe I'm not totally drafting him like I expect it, but deep down, I think we're going to see him before the end of April. Yeah, I'm not drafting him.

period. Like, I don't think he should be drafted. You don't think he should be drafted among the top 276 players? No. Plus eight, six reserve rounds? In reserve rounds of a roto draft, sure. Okay. But outside of the top 276,

and definitely outside of the top 252. And he, I mean, he played appearances in AAA last year, struck out a lot, but he's got a ton of power. But he might, he might be a 30, 35% strikeout guy this year. He might be.

He might be. But like I was saying before, we had those concerns about Chris Bryant, George Springer. It does often get overcome, too. I will say I'm a little bit concerned. I usually don't worry too much about hitting coaches, but given the last two years where Chili Davis has gone to the Red Sox and Cubs and seen a bunch of their best hitters just fall apart in his hands,

I'm a little concerned about the Mets this year with him because his approach is not very tall. 2019 friendly is how I would put it. It's not a maximized power approach, right? It's more of a hit the ball to all fields kind of thing. Yeah. And I think that could be a good explanation for why Chris Bryant hasn't been the guy we quite hoped for the last couple of seasons, along with the shoulder injury.

Francisco Mejia. I expect him to be up. Yeah, I expect him to be on the opening day roster. What's going to be interesting for him is how much of a time share he, he gets behind the plate because obviously Austin Hedges defensive standout Mahia has the shortcomings there.

I think it'll be about 50-50 to start out and I expect Mahia to take a bigger share as the season goes on. That's why I rank Mejia as a top 10 catcher. Mike's Searaca for the Braves,

I mean, they probably have more than two rotations worths of arms competing for jobs. So I don't think you can count on him being up, but I do think he is one of the more likely of them, along with Tuki Toussaint, and who gets a shot? Who gets a shot first?

Soroka or Louise Gahara? Soraka. Why they call him Saraka? Soroka, if he's healthy. Yeah, Gohara has a lot of trust to win back after a season where, I mean, he put on a lot of weight and his stuff was compromised. He had some off-the-field issues, but. but yeah, he needs to win back the faith of the organization, I think.

Who is more likely to make their opening day starting lineup? Alex Verdugo or Tyler O'Neill? When I say off-the-field issues for Gohar, I mean family tragedy issues, not like he was getting in legal trouble or anything. Just to clarify. Okay, so what were you asking? Who is more likely to make the opening day lineup? Not the opening day roster.

Tyler O'Neill for the Cardinals or Alex Verdugo for the Dodgers. Verdugo, you have 38th, Tyler O'Neill 58th. I think it's O'Neill because he just has to beat out Dexter Fowler, who basically lost his job last year. Well, you know what? He doesn't just have to beat him out, because there's also Jose Martinez. He was the one taken at Bats from Fowndes.

Yeah, I think it's Verdugo. Just trade Jose Martinez to the Rays or Yankees. I think Tyler O'Neill could be really good. I love his fantasy prospects. I expect that Dexter Fowler has to be terrible for another month before he's actually lost a job. One of my favorite stats, I can't remember if I was doing it for 160 games or 162, but basically I was projecting out O'Neill's pace for a full season, roughly.

It would have been his minor league stats projected to 65 home runs over a full season. He was stupid in AAA last year. His major league stats projected the 303 strikeouts. I'm not sure which of those is more impressive. The 65 homers are the 303 strikeout. Yeah, he struck a. got 57 times and 142 plate appearances. That's an awful lot.

But I still, I love the power speed combo potential there. So if he gets a chance, I'll be excited. But Verdugo, we expect, has a better chance. Yeah, I mean, he could be a Nick Marcakechus type hitter, but we do also see that profile, the really good bat skills, not much power suddenly find power in the majors. So I think, I think there's a chance he could catch fantasy owners by surprise. All right, this next guy, we've got an email from Jeff and Cedar Rapids.

Hearing a lot of buzz about Josh James being a strong breakout candidate. Haven't heard you guys discuss him much at all. Is he a good sleeper? Is he too much of a reach for a guy playing in a 10-team categories league like me? I think Josh James is awesome. I know he's the last on this list, but he's in my sleeper's column. I think he might be one of the safest bets of this group to have an opening day job because the Astros have basically three roads.

rotation openings from last year with Keikl and Morton leaving and Lance McCuller's going on the DL. Josh James, he's 26 years old, so they need to, if they want to get something out of him, it's now or never. He gained 10 miles per hour on his fastball last year. Well, and he started throwing strikes. He had walk problems in the minor leagues, and all of a sudden he gets to the majors and doesn't walk anybody. I don't understand that. Josh James was, let's give the numbers, he was stupid good last year.

249 ERA and six appearances at AA, 340 ERA and 17 at AAA, but that came with almost 13 strikeouts per nine innings, a strikeout percentage of 35%. Gets to the majors, 32% strikeout rate, 4 to 1 walk to strike out to walk ratio, and a 2.30 or 235 ERA. Yeah, 240 was the benefit. Yeah, I don't know if the control he showed in the majors

is something you could expect, but I think this stuff is good enough that, It doesn't, you know, he doesn't have to be a control pitcher. His swinging strike rate on his fastball was ridiculous. On the change-up was ridiculous. On the slider was still pretty good. So you're talking about three swing and miss pitches, 100-mile-per-hour fastball,

obviously going to have a great offense backing him. And he's at an age, like I said, 26, where I don't think the Astros have much reason to preserve his arm for the long term. I think they have every incentive to just go, you know, work them as much as he's able to. So I think, yeah, I'd be excited about his prospects this year, although there's obviously unproven and downside and all that. But worth drafting. There's a reason why he took a huge statistical step forward. His stuff reached a different level.

But there should be, he should be drafted in every league. Maybe not shallow roto leagues, but yeah. I would say every league. Even an eight-team league? Ten-team or deep? Not a four-team league, Keith. Come on. No four, six, or eight-team leagues,

unless it's an eight-team league with deep benches. All right, let's run through a last handful of guys. Just tell me who of these would be drafted if your draft goes 350 spots, let's say. Justice Sheffield? Probably not. I low-ball Sheffield in my prospect rankings, because I think his future's in relief.

No. Luis Gahara, Sean Reed Foley, Framber Valdez. Reed Foley and Valdez, potentially, yes. Both technically have to win jobs. Reed Foley may actually be on the outside looking in, which is unfortunate because he had two 10 strikeout efforts last September with the big club. So there's definitely strikeout potential there. Valdez

Valdez is interesting Probably in the starting rotation Right? Probably And I was writing him off

For Amher Valdez For the Astros Yeah I was writing him off When he was pitching for them at the end of last season Mostly because I wanted to see

Josh James pitch But He is an elite Groundball Like Dallas Kichel level Groundball Generator Thanks to a sinker

Curveball combo I'm worried He's not going to throw enough strikes I'm worried he may not miss enough bats, though he did a pretty good job of that in the miners. But yeah, that elite ground ball profile is always, always has the potential to catch everybody by surprise and fantasy.

I think he's probably draftable in 350 or deeper. All right, and let's just talk about some stash candidates. Forrest Whitley, are you stashing? Yes. Yeah, he's the top pitching prospect to stash. Alex Kirillov. took a big step forward last year. You got too many bodies now. It'd have to be an A-L-only league. I think there's a chance he's up this summer because he was so good last year,

and I could see him moving quickly, but yeah, it would be fast. Who do we see first? Brendan Rogers shortstop for the Rockies, Bo Bichette, shortstop for the Blue Jays. Rogers. I think so, though. It's a lot of bodies there, too.

60-40. Who do we see first? Dylan Seas for the White Sox, Ian Anderson for the Braves, or Mitch Keller for the Pirates. Or let's throw in Tristan McKendry from the, McKenzie from the Indians. I think, I'm not sure we're going to see all four of them this year. I'm going to give Mitch Keller the leg up there. Sure. All right.

That's it. That's the prospects. That's the podcast. See you next week.