Fantasy Baseball Today - 01/23: Shortstop and Third Base Tiers; Prospects! (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

Scott gives his overall thoughts on Shortstop and Third Base, and then we discuss what hitting 30 HRs means in today's game. How many players hit 30 HRs? How should that affect your draft strategy? ... Shortstop tiers (16:43)! Alex Bregman, Francisco Lindor, Trevor Story and Trea Turner give this position some serious star power. But how good is the depth at this position? Can Adalberto Mondesi actually hit? (29:30) Can Jorge Polanco be your starter? ... Third Base tiers (35:33)! This position is ridiculously deep, so does it make sense to wait on draft day? Scott also gives you his favorite prospects for 2020 (50:00) and tells you which ones should be drafted ... Your emails 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

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. We're fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Knocking down the position tiers here on Wednesday night, January 22nd, Adam Azer, and Scott White.

We covered first base and second base yesterday tonight, shortstop and third base. I'm not going to publish this until Thursday morning, so I'll stop saying tonight, because you're all probably hearing this at a different time of the day. But it is fantasy baseball today after dark, so it's going to be fun. And, yeah, we got shortstop.

We got third base and prospects and emails at fantasy baseball at cbsi.com and a possible solution to the Wild Wild West discussion that we had yesterday. Good evening, Scott White. Good evening, sir. How are you this fine evening? Doing well, you know. That might not actually be.

interpreted as evening, as we already discussed. As of right now, I feel good because I had a very unsatisfying dinner at about 5.30 p.m. But then at about 8.30 p.m. I said, bleep this. I'm going to get a couple of slices of pizza. Second dinner. Second dinner. Second dinner. Second dinner. Second dinner. It was good. It was good. As somebody who is up late working at night often. Yeah, I can go with the second dinner. I'm all about that life. I don't want to be like that.

I mean, it's going to catch up to me eventually, but tonight it had to happen. I'm, uh, I think I'm heavier since I started doing this, yes. Okay, well, maybe we should stop. We should stop. All right, so give me one sentence. You know what?

I'll loosen the restrictions. Give me one to three sentences to describe shortstop this year. Ooh. Star studded That's just a word That's not a sentence It is star stupid This requires too much internal editing

For me to do on the spot like this Adam It's star studded It is as As loaded at the top As any other position And it continues to become increasingly So Which is

You know It's been happening long enough That it's kind of quaint To think of shortstop As this weak position anymore because it clearly isn't. In fact, it's probably the second strongest. But obviously, you and I have been doing this long enough

that that's not how we always think of it. Yeah, it is pretty incredible. Indoor, Bregman, Story, Trey Turner, Tatees, Bogarts, all those guys could be off the board in the first 24 picks, depending on your draft. All right, give me the same assignment for third base. Even better than shortstop. That is the number one deepest position.

Deepest, but it's the first. is it as star studded? Not quite, though it's not far off, but it is deeper from top to bottom. There really isn't a weak point in the third base rankings. It absolutely floored me

when I was first putting together my top 20s at the position that I couldn't get Justin Turner in it, who had another great year, I mean, not his best year, but he had another great year a year where he was a must-start player,

and yet I couldn't get him in my top 20, which, you know. Yeah. I think we're thinking of him as top 10 last year. If he stays healthy, he will be, probably. I mean, he's really good, but he's always hurt. He also got off to a very slow start, right, Turner, and then had a big second half, as I recall. Still sort of catching up in my research.

He finished long, yes. You know, when I was looking at this tonight, and Chris Bryant really stands out, who is Chris Bryant? What is Chris Bryant? I mean, look at these numbers. 282, 31 homers, only 77 RBIs. And he's just always been bad with RBIs.

Bet's second a lot. That doesn't help, but it's just bad. But 108 runs, good, you know, 74 walks is a lot. 145 strikeouts, which is a lot of the position, but not, you know, astronomical. Number 11 third baseman. He would be the number seven second basement.

It's just not, like 30 home runs is just, It's whatever. I think he has like the 13th most home runs at the position. 31. Now, are you looking strictly at Roto when you say he was 11th at third base last year? No, I haven't been both points and Roto at 11. 11. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I think especially in Roto, just because there are so few ways to measure a player, just because a guy happens to have hit 30 home runs doesn't really mean much in this environment because there are players you can get in the late rounds who, well, I'm thinking somebody like Lordus Gurriel, he hit 32 home runs last year, right? Obviously, I'm getting away from third base,

but bringing him up, but, oh, no, he didn't. He had 20 home runs. Yuleiguriel, Yuleiguriel hit 31 home runs. Yeah, I know. I just defeated the point I was trying to make. No, but you're right. I mean, I don't know that you can just, See, I think we sort of have said that, not you, but Chris has said it a lot, and I don't like disagree with people when they're not on the show where it's like, well, power's not that important, because you can just get it later.

I don't know that I agree that you're going to get a useful player. That's anything more than just power later. But you know what I mean? It's like you get a steel specialist later, but he's awful everywhere else. You might have a home run hitter like Hunter Renfro or something like that who doesn't really do anything else. Now, I'm sure he hit 30 home runs last year and is available. Right. Very late.

In fact, he might go undrafted in some shallower leagues. Right. But they just throughout the first 100, maybe 120 picks, I'm guessing there are just so many hiters that hit 30 home runs, you know, the year before. In the middle rounds, you're going to be able to find plenty of guys who did that. And it makes you wonder. And it's not just the point I was trying to get to with Lorda Scurrier, I only played 84 games so he didn't hit 30 home runs. But it was a 30 homer pace. And you can find players with that kind of power upside very late in drafts.

You know, Lordeus Guerriel is kind of in the 175 range, I think. So maybe I shouldn't call him very late. But it's not something that is really enough to differentiate a player in the environment we're forced to to reckon to deal with right now. I get what you're saying. I'm at 35 right now. I'm trying to count the amount of players who hit 30 home runs. I'll pick it up from where I left off in a minute.

New rules for your emails. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. All right. Look, getting a lot of them. Appreciate it. Love it. Going to do a mailbag show on Friday. I like the interesting questions.

I like the stuff that is about anything that's not a keeper question, basically. But if you want to ask your keeper question, that's fine. please don't give a seven to pick, narrow it down, you know. If you have a keeper question, the shorter the better. That's my advice to you. So please try to help us out with that. In the meantime, here's our email of the day. It is from Mario from the city.

Okay. It's 59 players, by the way, who hit 30, I'm sorry, 58, who hit 30 plus home runs last year. Holy cow. There's an easier way to do with them what I was doing, so thank you for doing that. Yeah, no problem. Go to like a website that counts them, other than, rather than doing it yourself.

I will add that among those 58, people who weren't in the 58 were Javier Baez, Buckey Betz, the first rounder, Reese Hoskins, Marcelo Zuna, Jordan Alvarez didn't get to 30 because he wasn't up long enough. Aaron Judge didn't get to 30 because of the time he missed. Anthony Rizzo didn't get to 30.

So, like, a lot of guys who populate the early rounds aren't even among the 58 who hit 30 home runs last year. Wow. Wow. And, you know, you consider 252 players get drafted in the standard head-to-head league, 276, excluding benches in the standard roto league. If you have roughly 60, 30 homer guys, plus a bunch of other high-end hitters who didn't quite get there for one reason or another, and then you factor in the number of pitchers that are going to comprise all of those picks,

then, yeah, yeah, there's going to be plenty power. plenty of power available late drafts, which is why when you target hitters early on, I think it goes overboard, but steals is one clear differentiator and also batting average is a big differentiator, which isn't to say you should get non-power guys. You want to keep pace in the power categories,

but you don't need to overdo it for power in the early rounds because there's plenty available late. Right, but I don't think I would, I don't think I would ever make my first two picks something like Trey Turner and another hitter, Scott, who would go in that range that wouldn't really hit for a lot of power. Is there anyone like that? I mean, Tautice has power, so I don't think I would make my two best hitters, guys who aren't going to hit 30 home runs.

I think you might be falling behind in home runs, RBI's runs too much. Be dangerous. Yeah, I'm not totally sure how I want to approach that yet. I've gone on the record a few times, including just a couple minutes ago, saying that people have kind of this stolen base derangement syndrome where they are so paranoid about getting left out in a scarce category that they're kind of not treating it like it's a, it's a category where you would expect to not need. need many to compete in it, you know? But if that approach then leads you down the path that I took in the mock draft we did earlier today, where I didn't really end up with a single viable stolen base threat, then that's a problem too.

So, yeah, I mean, I have a lot I could say about today's draft, but I'm sure we're going to get to that later podcast. Yeah, we did a roto draft. We did a road draft today. And, yeah, I mean, it steals are annoying. Fantasy, I would be so much less stressed out about fantasy baseball if steals were not a category. So, yeah, I guess I'm saying like I would not take,

this is a bad example because they're both short stops, but I wouldn't take Francisco Lindorra and Trey Turner as my first two picks. But I don't really think that you're going to find two hitters other than those two in the first two rounds that aren't going to hit 30 homers unless Mookie Betts doesn't do it again, but I think he probably will. hasn't, yeah, Lindorz hit 30 homers in back to back season. Oh yeah,

he has. You're right. Yeah, yeah, he is, so I'm sorry. I mean, Whitmeryfield would probably be a guy if you're going Trey Turner, end of round one, early round two, and then Whitmer McReyerfield in round three. Well, yeah, or even like Jose Altovae, because I know he hit the

home runs last year, but you don't know if he's going to be a 30 homer guy? He wasn't. He was in his best, he was like a 24 homer guy, right? So... Yeah. Look, I'm still not even sure that's a problem because you're getting a nice head start in steals

probably don't really need to go that heavily after them at all anymore and in batting average between Maryfield and or if you want to say Ltuve and Tray Turner and then there's again there's a lot of power to be found later I don't want to keep going in circles here

but that's right I'm still working my way through that because it's every draft I've done so far, which is only a handful at this point. We're still early in the process, but everyone I've done so far, I go in thinking, okay, I've got to target starting pitcher harder early than I ever have before. And then in the middle of the draft, I'm like, how can I pass up this great hitter here? I guess I'll address pitch your next round. And then the next round comes, how can I pass up this great hitter here? I guess I'll

address pitchery in the next round, you know? And then suddenly all the pitchers are gone and they're still hitters I want. But my lineup is basically full already. It's like, gee, I still didn't go heavily enough after starting pitchers. And specifically in a roto league, you could say the same thing about stolen bases.

So while there's going to come a point in a standard roto draft where I just have to be like, okay, it feels too early to take this base dealer but I can't do it not give myself a chance in the category so I will take him here and just go out of rank to do it

and you know because I don't want to rank them all that high and put somebody in a position where they're getting all the base dealers because that just seems wasteful but there is going to come a point where you have to you have to be conscientious about it and maybe reach a little for it yeah all right topic for a different show I think what I'd like to know though is of these 13

Homer guys. How many of them give you good batting average? You know, let's say 280 or better, I don't know, whatever we want to make it. And then how many of them are available after round five? Something like that. And then you might be able to have a better idea, assuming two of your first five picks at least are going to be pitchers. You know, you can have a better idea of if you can go with two sort of light hitting hitters with two of your first three or four picks or something like that. You have to know, you know, because it's easy to find a guy who hits 260 and hits 30 home runs. Okay, that's a dime a dozen these days.

But how many of those 30 plus homer guys? What, 59 of them, you said? 58, 59? 58. How many of them actually won't hurt you in batting average and maybe, you know, we find out when they go and maybe we can put together a little bit of a strategy? Here's our email of the day.

It's from Mario from the city that has the, quote, Pliny of the Younger and, quote release, looking at you, Heath. No idea what that means. And he says, hey, Huey Do and Louis, I know them. I was listening to the Tuesday podcast when the idea of expanding a categories to help, expanding categories to help maintain starting pitcher relevancy popped up. We ran into this exact issue four years ago and we found a solution that we enjoyed.

We added a negative category. Lowest score wins the category to hitting and pitching. So it was strikeouts for hitters. few of strikeouts wins, and home runs allowed for pitchers. Home runs allowed for pitchers tends to favor RP, so to balance it back out,

we ended up switching wins to quality starts. I just wanted to throw out that new idea and hear your opinions on negative categories. How is... How is adding home runs allowed as a category for pitchers increasing the relevancy of starting pitchers? He just said himself.

Because he did switch. from wins the quality starts. But yeah, this feels like a net loss. Yeah. For starting pictures. You created a new problem to solve, and we already weren't happy with that solution before the new problem you created.

So, yeah, I'm not... Fail. That one's not working for me. Okay. Bad email today. I am sorry. Mario, do better. I know.

It probably makes sense to you, but just not to us. Okay. From that to our news and notes, the Mets are going to hire Luis Rojas as their manager. He is Felipe Alu's son. You can read all about why he doesn't have the same last name. Kansas City signed out.

Gordon Nua one-year deal. Great. And James and Tyone began a throwing program, but we're not expecting him this year or maybe late this year. But that's it. Not a lot of news and notes to get to. So right into the shortstop tiers, Scott White,

a lot of talent at the top, as we mentioned. You have a super elite tier of four. You have an elite tier of two. and then you've got a near elite tier that's gigantic. So super elite. How many should go in the first round? Francisco Lindor, Alex Bregman, Trevor Story, and Trey Turner. I think there's a chance all four of them go in the first round,

especially in a Roto League where there is that emphasis on steals early on. I think of these four story and Turner are third and four. for me. But because of that emphasis on Steels, we saw Story actually go first of this group in the mock draft we did earlier today. I think it was sixth overall. And, you know, obviously, story is more than just Steel. Steels are kind of the, the, you know, his least productive category of the five. Yeah, 23 steals. He does give you some. Yeah. Back to back years. I guess I don't say, I wouldn't say I love it, but I'm cool with it because I remember we did a mock draft several months ago.

And I thought story was going too late. I think he went in the second round, and I think he's a first rounder in Roto. Because he backed it up. I mean, in Roto, he was the number 10 hitter in 2019 and the number six hitter in 2018. In points, he was the number 19 hitter in 2009, number 10 in 2018.

So he batted, he had very similar seasons. 294, 35 homers, 85 runs, 111, R. B.I's, like very similar seasons, about 25 steals. And I guess is 25 steals a big number for you, Scott, this day and age? It is. But this kind of goes into one of the problems I have with overvaluing a guy just because he does contribute something in that category is I don't, I feel like the fewer steals a guy is delivering.

and 20 seems like the threshold where it starts to get dicey, like how reliable is he to do that? You know, like if he's only stealing 20 bases, it doesn't seem like that's such an indispensable part of his skill set that he could just stop, you know? Yep, yep. I mean, we saw Ryan Braun briefly become a 20 steel guy. We saw Paul Goldschmidt briefly become a 20 steel guy,

and then it ended just as quickly as it started. Yeah, and he had 27 the year before. So what if he's 19 this year? Are people going to pay that? Are people going to pay a first round price tag for that? You know, I still think that if he bats 295 hits 35 home runs, has 200 plus runs and RBIs, then it's fine, you know. But there's still downside because of the case.

He's a good enough hitter in a safe enough environment for hitting that if you make him your first round picture of his story, that's not going to be the reason you lose your league. but I don't I don't want to bank too heavily on the steals for him and for a lot of these players going into early rounds here you have some hope that he can contribute in the steals category but you shouldn't depend on it

yeah you're going to have to have some redundancies if this is your steel strategy because you don't really know where they're going to come from can we talk about Bregman he's pretty interesting in a points league you know you could make the case for him as the number one overall player. I don't think it would be a very strong case,

but it would go something like this. He was the number one overall hitter in points league last year. But yeah, he doesn't have quite the track record. In Roto, I guess, do you think he's a 40 homer guy? Because I feel like if he does basically everything he did this year, and he hits 35 home runs instead of 41 home runs, and with that, the runs and the RBIs would come down a little, little bit because you do see sometimes guys have he scored 12 runs and he had 112 RBIs.

Like that could come down. So we're not talking about like a 330 hitter here. We're not talking about a guy who gets you steals. He only had five last year. He feels like Nolan Aeronato with shortstop eligibility, but only one season of Nolan Aeronado, you know, and I know he's in his prime now. He's going to be 26 years old in March. I guess what I'm saying is I'm a little worry that Alex Breggman is more of a second round player in a Roto League. In a points league, his play discipline is so damn good, so I'm not worried about it.

I mean, you say it's only been one year, but of 40 homers, so no one or not. We were driving in the first round at this time a year ago, too. I mean, 41 home runs versus the 31 and he hit in 2018, that's no small difference, but he's so

bankable in every other category except stolen bases. And the walk don't count for anything directly and Roto obviously, but it does increase his run scoring potential. He had 122 runs

scored this past year, 105 in 2018. It's just very, very safe unless you want to make the argument he was wearing a buzzer on his shoulder. No, no. I think he's very safe, but if you have a first round pick and you can choose between a guy like

Bregman and a guy that could steal 20 more base than Bregman, like a Lindor or a Trevor story, if Bregman does what he did in 2018, I think he's going to disappoint as a first round pick, in my opinion, in a Roto League only. And in a Roto League that has batting average, not OBP, because he is great at OVP.

He's like elite there, and his plate discipline, which matters so much in point league, points leagues, is among the best in baseball. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. he hits for a really good average too look I'm not I have Lindor over him in a

Roto League and I have story just after him in the same tier so it's not I don't I'm not disagreeing in a huge way here it's just what what you prefer from an early round pick I think and I see a lot less downside in Bregman than certainly in Story

which isn't to say I think story has a lot of downside but he has more of the Breggman okay cool let's maybe Lendor too let's go to the next here then, Scott, and we have, we have, excuse me, we have, oh, Fernando Tatis and

Zander Bogartz. So their second round guys to you? Yeah, that's kind of what I'm saying, I guess. They, well, in the case of Bogart's, he doesn't have the upside of that first group before.

He's not far off, but he's not quite there. He's kind of like Trevor's story without the potential for steals. And then in Tatis's case, he has the upside of that group of four, but he has a lot more downside. I mean, he struck out a ton last year.

His babbip was off the charts. It looks like there's going to be some batting average regression coming. And he had a hard time staying healthy. So that's, there are some risks there for Tatis that drop them to a lower tier. Bogarts, I think in a points league, you know, he was the third, he was the number three shortstop in both formats. but in a points league, he is a doubles machine. He had 45 doubles in 136 games in 2018.

He had 52 doubles last year. And his plate discipline really improved late in the 2018 season and then into the 2018 postseason and then all throughout 2019. So doubles, plate discipline, that means points league. So I'm not saying he's bad in Roto. He's safer. He's better in points leagues, but he's very good in both. Okay.

If you miss out on those guys, that's six players, Lindor, Bregman, Story, Turner, Tatis Bogartz. Now let's get into the near-elite tier, which is going to have a very big range scot of ADP. I mean, Glaibre Torres could go in the third round, I don't know, maybe the fourth round. Carlos Correa, Bo Bichette, Jonathan V.R., Marcus Simeon, Javier Baez, Mani Machado. that's a big group of Neuroleet, and there's going to be a big price difference between Glabre Torres and, say, Marcus Simeon. Yes, there is.

And that should tell you which I'm much more likely to draft, which would be Simeon, which is kind of the point of the whole process, right? Yes. To make sure you're not paying for something that's not going to make a substantive difference, given the amount you're paying for them. I'm not saying

I'm not saying Simeon you can look at him in every way and say okay this guy's is good, as safe as Glaver Torres but the most likely outcome I think for those two players is similar and it's possible Simeon has the better year he did this past year.

So what's up with Javier Baez? We call him a bust on draft day and I think he was, but only because the steals went away. He actually hit pretty well. He added 281 with 29 homers, but he only had 11 steals and 18 attempts. But yeah, and this is a guy that was going in the, what, the second, maybe third round last year,

and now he's, is he in your top? He's probably in your top 12, but closer to 12 than... He's probably around 12, right, for you? Yeah, that... That's true. He, I mean, the biggest drop-off was in the steals, but he kind of took a little bit of a step back across the board, which was my concern with him. I think that bust label, I mean, there's a few different ways you can interpret bust, obviously. Was it a complete bottoming out?

No, but I didn't expect it to be. It was more a case of him failing to live up to expectations. And, okay, he could have fallen even more than he did, but we did see everything drop just enough that at a crowded position with a ton of studs, I don't think he's that much of a standout. And I think his most likely scenario is that again. Which isn't to say he's not a perfectly fine starter.

I just don't see why he's not somebody, I just don't see why he is, why you would consider him somebody you need to pay up for, especially since you can't bank on steals. and may not get much of a contribution at all in that category. Yeah, right now, Starling Marte, or he's going two picks after Starling Marte, sorry. Javier Baez. Javier Baez is going 36th overall on Fantasy Pros,

and he went 45th overall in the draft that we did today to Frank Stamphill. So, yeah, I mean, that's a significant discount. That's a significant difference of one round, basically, in ADP. But obviously, within the margin of error could change the- And I have him lower than that. I'm not, by tearing him with this other group, I'm acknowledging I'm not going to have much Javier Baez this year. And I'm okay with it.

I think he's a little overrated. I think he's such a headline-worthy, you know, highlight real player that people just want to like Javier Baez. There's a lot to like about him. He's a better real-life player than I think fantasy player because the defense is so good. but that doesn't change the fact that you need specific statistical contributions from him

and in this environment he's not I mean he's clearly a great player but he's not that big of a standout of a position where there's there's so many others who could do similar things glaver torres by the way did go in the third round so in the draft that we did today so and let's see just where Marcus Simeon went who was an MVP candidate last year Scott mentioned he went to Scott with the second pick of

round eight. So big tier there. And yeah, we'll have plenty of time to talk about these guys. I'm more nervous about players that just shocked us last year. But I don't think that eighth round in a roto league like this, deep league, a lot of hitters and middle infield spot for Simeon is bad at all, even though I'm nervous about him. But the one guy I did want to get in this draft, and I was curious to see where he'd go. I was curious to see how people would feel about him at Alberto Mondesie, who's in your next best thing. category and he along with Tim Anderson, both of them would be in a tier lower in points leagues.

I don't think I want anything to do with Monashy in points leagues. His plate discipline is horrendous. But man, does he run? And with Trey Turner the last two years being more of like a 45 steel guy, like Mondice when he's healthy, he's, he's what Trey Turner used to be. Like if Monacy plays, well he's in terms of stolen base. Yes, yes, yes, that's all I meant. That's all I meant.

If Modesey stays healthy, he could win the stolen base title by like 30 bags. So I kind of wanted him in this draft and I did not get him. But at Alberto Monasi, I'll tell you where he went in a second. He went at the end of close to round five, so like 57th overall. Yeah. And I get it. That might be a situation where I just have to hold my nose and take them to shore up steals, even though I don't think he's that caliber of player.

I look at the players surrounding him at that stage of the draft, and I'm like, I want those guys so much more. But yeah, he could single-handedly carry you in that category that is one that you're going to have to overpay for. So that might be one way to do it. I was very enthusiastic about Mondesie last year, as you know, and he really let me down as a hitter. He regressed in a number of ways.

in that phase of the game. And I just really have very little expectations for him whatsoever. Scorn lover. In any of the other categories. He started out great. His first two months, man, he had an 812 OPS. He was on pace for 58 steals, 38 doubles, 21 triples, 18 homers, a 288 batting average. He looked like a first round player.

And then he just was awful after that as a hitter, but he still ran. So, yeah, I don't know. I guess I have to look into that. Was there something to that? Did he get hurt? I know he did get hurt, but was that the reason why he struggled at the plate? Or was he just off to an unsustainable start? And we saw his true colors as a hitter.

But it's easy to forget, Scott. Like, you loved him and you looked brilliant. Because Monosy was basically the most valuable, one of the most valuable players in fantasy in a roto league for the first two months. Okay, moving on here. Tim Anderson is also in this tier. and we're going a little long here on shortstop, so we'll try to wrap it up so we can get to third base.

How do you feel about him? Out of nowhere, he had this great batting average, 335 last year, 18 homer, 17 steals, and 123 games. He was terrific. Yeah, and he tweaked this swing in a way that helped him with secondary stuff, and it's hard to know exactly how to account for that with everything else. I do think he became a legitimately better player last year,

but he's going to be on my bust list. Because I do think for whatever improvements he made, the batting average is unsustainable. The data shows it's unsustainable. He's not going to have that high above 300 batting average again. Maybe a pretty good source of batting average. But then you factor in, like the stolen bases are always just a scary proposition with that. He has stretches where he looks like, oh, he's taking advantage of his speed. Look, he might be a 40 steel guy all of a sudden.

And then he has, you know, a six-week stretch where he doesn't run at all. And he ends up with 17 to 25 stolen bases. And it's like, I don't know. Like the main reason you're drafting him that high is for the steals. Okay, here's another steel source who won't hurt you in other categories. But if he doesn't give you those steals, then he becomes pretty fringy, I think, especially if you're anticipating a fall and batting average. Okay, and then if you don't get those guys,

who do you like to fall back on at shortstop? Who are in the following tiers that you like to focus on? Well, I mean, at this point we're, what, 18 deep at the position, something like that, so you've been negligent if you don't have it filled yet. Oh, no, well, I'm sorry. I was skipping the fallback options tier includes Jorge Polanco, Corey Seeger. That's about 18 deep. I'm fine with them. I'm fine

with them as starters. I think Corey Seeger first year back from Tommy John's surgery. It was a little bit disappointing given his track record, but the underlying numbers, I feel like I feel like he's still a good line drive hitter with good plate discipline, and that's going to

lead to big things still. He's going to bounce back from this pretty well. Jorge Pori Polanco. I'm a little concerned about him sustaining quite the level he performed at in 2020, but he's a really good line drive hitter too with good plate discipline.

Not as much upside as Seeger, but definitely enough to be a starting caliber player. And I like, surprise, surprise, I like Didi Gagorius, you know, as like a dollar player in a Roto league. You don't draft them in a one shortstop league or anything like that, but if you need a middle infielder or if you just load it up everywhere else,

I don't see a reason why D.D. Egarious cannot be what he was with the Yankees before this awful season, which came after he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. So he was really bad in 2019, but he was pretty predictable and pretty good before that. And a guy you can plug in, especially if he's one of your last picks, he can represent for you at shortstop if he gets back to form. He's still in a good ballpark. He'll be in a good lineup with the Phillies. So I'm cool with him.

All right, that's shortstop. So let's go to third base. So we've got in our super elite, No-One Aronado, Alex Bregman and Anthony Rendon. And then in the elite, we have Jose Ramirez and Raphael Devers. That's your top five. Aronado, Bregman, Rendon. Jose Ramirez, Rafael Devers,

are a tier just behind those top three. Yeah. And I struggle with that a little bit. I could see combining those to have one. a five tier of a studly tier that's five deep basically but trying to reconcile the tiers across positions I thought this was a more logical way to do it

I think the downside for Jose Ramirez and Raphael Devers is more obvious than it is for Breggman Aeronado and Rendon and like that seems like the truest of tiers there at the top those three Aeronado Bregman Rendon because I've struggled to rank those three gone back and forth a few times and how I want to do that.

And it varies between the two formats. Do I have Aeronado number one? In Roto, I have Aeronado number three in points. So that seems like a, just like a textbook tier, considering I can't really decide between those three. I think that a lot of people might take

Jose Ramirez over Rendon in a five by five, you know, categories league. That might happen, yeah. It shouldn't happen in a points league, you know. Definitely not. Because Rendon is so good in that format. Right. Not that it's a bad format for Ramirez,

but Rendon's value changes more between the two than Ramirez's does. Right, exactly. Jose Ramirez, what a strange season. Pre-all-Star break, he slugged 652. No, no. Sorry, his OPS. Pre-all-Star break, his OPS was 652.

Post-all-Star break, his slugging percentage was 739. His slugging percentage was almost 100 points higher than his OPS before the break. So he stole bases. He only played, what did he play? 129 games or something like that. Missed some time. But he stole 24 bases, which was nice. And then he really started hitting late in the year.

And then he got hurt. So what a strange, strange season that was for him. It was a strange, full calendar year, really for Jose Ramirez, where he struggled to hit 220. You know, it began August of 2018. And that's about as long of a slump. You know, the peaks surrounding that valley, the discrepancy there was about as large as I can ever remember

for a slump of that length. And it ended just as abruptly as it began. And I feel like the good version seems like the truer version of Ramirez. That's the one I want to trust in. But it's hard to understand just how he could fall off that much for that long. Best I can tell, and I know Dan Richards at Pitcher List has done a lot of research on this and basically every time I talk about Jose Ramirez on the podcast he brings it up to me on Twitter

so looking forward to hearing from him again but it seems like Jose Ramirez got very home run conscious during this lump that you know what I think I almost positive Scott that I read Francisco Indoor actually say that someone on the Indian said you know he needs to

in a nicer way he needs to stop trying to hit home runs all the time trying to do too much basically the home run's kind of got in his head Yeah, that seems to be what happened. And, you know, it was a surprise that he became a home rented at all. So that kind of makes sense. But obviously, he seems to be back on track now, and that's a very good thing. Yeah, all right.

So you got those five players, Aronado, Bregman, Rendon, Jose Ramirez, Rafael Devers. They're in your top two tiers. How much separation is there between those guys and the next tier, which is the Neer Elite, which is Chris Bryant, Ehuehanyos Suarez, who led all third baseman in home runs last year? I believe he had 49. DJ LeMayhew, Max Muncie, Mani Machado, Jeff McNeil, and Vladimir Guerrero. In terms of upside, there's not much separation.

But in terms of most likely outcome, I mean, there's definitely a step back there. There's a bigger step back than I think between those first two tiers. Chris Bryant's been tough to figure out for a couple years now, but I don't think anybody should realistically expect elite production from him anymore. Near elite, sure, that's why he's in the near elite tier.

But it's been a while since we've seen him be that MVP caliber bat. There are some guys here. It's kind of, there are kind of players with a few different issues going on in this group. I mean, Mahehoe and Muncie, they're elevated because of their second base eligibility. Machado, I mean, we know what his upside is, but do I, I don't know that we do. anymore. Well, because he doesn't play

in Baltimore anymore. Yeah, I mean, we're making the same point. We're just using different words for it. Like, we know what, we know what the upside is.

It's first round caliber. He's been that several times in the past, but am I that confident in him breaching it anymore at, outside of Baltimore, given his history, there versus everywhere else. No, I'm not.

And in fact, his most likely outcome might actually be a tier lower than this. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to draft him. Oh, well, we'll see where he falls. me see where he went, where Machado went in this recent draft. Because I heard Heath comparing, yeah, round seven.

Round seven for Machado, one spot ahead of Carlos Correa, but three spots after Mike Mustakas. So, all right. I think I just like to Correa pick a lot in that group. Yeah, I mean, I would take Machado over both. You know what? I wouldn't take him over Correa. I would rank those three personally, Correa Machado,

and then Mustakis even knowing. who Staccas has the second base eligibility. But let me just say, though, in this round, like James Paxton was the next pick, Trevor Bauer, Corey Klobber. I feel like you might want to take those pitchers over those hitters. It obviously depends on your team through that point. I'm trying to make a bigger point, I guess, about hitters.

And I'll get to it after you finish. But what I'm going to say is basically that, Scott, I don't think there's a huge drop-off. from this tier of Neuroelites to the next best things right after. But go ahead. I would, I think the most interesting from this group is Vladimir Guerrero, who I have at the very end of the tier. I think most people are going to have him near the beginning of the tier. And considering how big of a tier this is, how deep of a position this is, I understand that Vladimir Guerrero probably has top, top tier upside.

but when you factor in the downside, which is not top 12 at the position. He wasn't deserving of that based on what he did last year, and there are some issues there in terms of the launch angle, basically, how many ground balls he hits, how many line drives he doesn't hit.

There are some issues there that he's going to have to figure out. The actual hard hit rate, although he had some of the very hardest hit balls in all the majors, the overall hard hit rate was pretty pedestrian for Vladimir Guerrero. Very young. I think he's going to be a star still, but will it happen this year? Given what you're passing up for him, I don't think it's worth the gamble. So I go ahead and tear him in here, but I don't know that that's his most likely outcome.

I'm just, I'm doing it in part because I'm confident I won't be the one who ends up with him because of some of the other third basement I have in this tier. He'll be polarizing, no question, Vladimir Guerrero. And I'm more likely to gamble on somebody like that because I want a league winner. Because like Brian and Suarez, Suarez hit 49 home runs, and he was the number nine third basement in points

and number six in Roto. That was a 49 home runs. So he's more or less an all or nothing kind of hitter. where you know you look at this there's there's a lot of they were pretty bunched together I feel like at the position like he technically may have come out nine but it was very little swinging swinging that him him there as opposed to like fifth at the position you know um I not not quite I'll about 25 points yeah well if you do per game maybe Let me check that.

Let me check that. I feel like we discussed this when we talked about Donaldson being seventh. And it was like, man. Oh, he's only three points behind Donaldson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the difference between seventh and ninth right there.

Yeah, but there's a big difference. There's actually a pretty big gap between five and seven. Okay. Fair enough. Which would be Eduardo Escobar and DJ LaMayhew. And these are points, not roto. So, sorry. Anyway, I think you look at that tier, Scott, of the near elite.

and I'll read the list again, since I'm sure all of you can't remember it. Chris Bryant, Ehuheno, Suarez, DJ LaMayhew, Max Muncie, Mani Machado, Jeff McNeil, Vladimir Guerrero. Who has the most upside there? I think in Roto, I think it's Vlad. What do you think? Oh, it's definitely Vlad. I mean, Vlad could be a first rounder at this time next year

and make me look dumb for including him in my bus list like I'm probably going to do. But I think it's the right process, even though I'm acknowledging, Yes, he has that kind of upside. Yes, it could make me look bad. But if you miss out on him and draft one of these other guys instead, that's not going to be the reason you lose. Drafting Vladimir Guerrero in round four or whatever could be the reason you lose. So don't give yourself a reason to lose.

And let me bring up another point about a deep position. I don't know if I've ever thought this before. I don't know if I believe it. But here we go. Top of mind right now. Because there are so many great players, If you take Vladimir Guerrero, you're probably, or anyone, anyone, right, you're not going to draft a third baseman for a while. If you take a third baseman early, you're not going to take one for a while, most likely.

You're going to fill other positions. All the other ones are going to get scooped up. If you draft a bust at that position, you're going to be in a huge disadvantage, add a huge disadvantage to the rest of your league, since it's such a strong position. Now, maybe you can just go to the waiver wire and get another guy. But. Well, so many are going to be drafted. Yeah. That's true, and you might take two, but you also might miss out on so many.

Even in a head-to-head points league, or head-to-head categories even, you know, the smaller lineups without the extra lineup spots, the corner infield spot, whatever. They're still probably going to be upward of 20 third base eligible players drafted. So naturally what's left at that position is going to be bottom of the barrel. Yeah. Now, it might be easy to work out a trade with somebody who drafted one of those. redundancies, but like leagues are very different in terms of how active the trade market is and people are very different in terms of how willing they are to give up excess, you know? So I just don't like depending on having to make a trade to get out of the hole like that.

Yeah, I would say that some positions are deep on draft day, but not deep during the year, because they get drafted and they're used as utility or bench spots. They're not deep on waivers even though they're deep on drafting. But I wouldn't mind Scott living in the next best things tier of Moncada, Matt Chapman, Josh Donaldson, Miguel Sino, Mike Mustakis, and Eduardo Escobar. I like Donaldson the most I think in that group. You have Munkata, Chapman, Donaldson, Sano, Mustacus, and Escobar in the next best things. A lot of pop in this group here.

and, you know, in a one-third basement league, I don't know that you need one of these guys to be your starter, but in any league that has some depth, or again, we could be talking utility here, I think it's a really good tier. So we're almost 20 deep here. It is, and it was a tier that,

you know, it's not always super straightforward putting together these tiers. Sometimes it's easy. They really jump out at you. Okay, this is clearly a tier, this is clearly the next tier. But these last two tiers here, finding the right dividing line between them, there needed to be one because if you, you know, you look at Chris Bryant versus the last guy in this next tier, who is it, Eduardo Escobar or Mike Moustakis. I mean, they clearly belong in different tiers, the highest guy versus the lowest guy.

But where in the middle does that drop off happen? And I don't think that's crystal clear. I could have easily included Yohan Mukata and Matt Chapman, I feel like, in the next tier up. If I was more upside-minded, I could probably include Miguel Sanoe in the next tier up.

Donaldson, obviously, the same way. I see a lot of downside in both Donaldson and Sanoe, so that's why I ultimately chose to tier them lower. I think there's a lot more that could go wrong there. But upside-wise, I mean,

Donaldson, we were just saying, was even better than Ehoyne Oswars last year. And Miguel Sineau seems like one of the most likely people to hit 50 home runs this upcoming season. So I would be fine with them starting for me at third base, but it definitely feels riskier than the tier above them. All right, Scott, you can check out the rest of the tiers, everybody, at CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball.

It's good stuff. Let's finish up with your prospects. Give me a few prospects that should be drafts. in a 12-team league. In a 12-team league, obviously Luis Robert, pretty clear he's going to be on the opening day roster after signing a long-term deal. It was a 30-30 guy in the miners last year. A good potential steel source in the middle rounds of a roto draft.

Kind of probably like the round 9, maybe even round 8 range. I say potential steel source because we really don't know how often a player is going to run until he's up and running. It's a matter of intent, and that's what makes it such a frustrating stat to deal with. So he's obvious there, Luis. I'm sorry, Jesus Luzardo, needs to be drafted everywhere.

He's going to be a spark for you, points leaguers out there. I wonder about the innings coming off an injury plague, coming off an injury plagued year, and obviously this is his first full big league season as a starter, but I don't worry about the effectiveness. I think it's going to be Chris Paddock, part two, and he's just going to be great. He might even be my A.L.

Rookie of the year choice over Robert. Joe Adele's probably going to be drafted, Angels Outfielder and five outfielder leagues. He has similar upside to Luis Robert. Hasn't actualized it yet in the minors. Only 20 years old, but most people seem to think he's going to be up sooner than later. McKenzie Gore, probably going to get drafted

in 12-team leagues, Padres pitcher. The consensus. best pitching prospect right now. But it could be a mid-season arrival for him, kind of a longer-term stash. So he has crazy numbers, right? Because I remember looking at Chris Paddock's numbers last year, and be like, what?

What? It's just remarkable. Yeah, McKenzie Gore, most of this was at California League, which is one of the most hitter-friendly leagues in the minors. 169 ERA, 0.83 whip, 135 strikeouts and 101 innings. McKenzie Gore is going to be a big deal.

How soon? Don't know exactly, but possibly as soon as the middle of this year. Carter Kiboon, it sounds like he's the front runner for the National's third base job. We saw him a little bit in the majors last year, and it went horribly. He was rushed because of a Trey Turner injury, but he is a really looks like a safe bat, good plate discipline, good bat skills, enough power to

thrive in this environment. Man, I could keep going. Alec Baum, I feel like he's going to take over as the Phillies third baseman eventually this year. And he has great play's discipline, you know, should hit for average in power.

He looks like a legit prospect. Um, Forrest Whitley, I think, is going to get his chance in the Astros rotation eventually this year after they lost three members from last year's rotation, right? They lost Wade Miley, Carolyn Miley, maybe just two. But it'll happen for it. It was terrible in the minors last year, but he was the consensus top pitching prospect of baseball at this time a year ago and was dealing with some shoulder issues,

some mechanical issues, seemed to get right in the Arizona Fall League, still has great stuff. That's Forrest Whitley. Dylan Carlson of the Cardinals. Breakthrough switch hitter with power and speed. Made it to AAA last year. They're kind of lacking in star power in that lineup. So I think they'll be using him.

They'll be turning to him sooner than later. I think pretty much all of these guys, like in a standard roto league with the extra hitter spots, Maybe not Baum, maybe not Alec Baum, but the rest you pretty much see drafted. Let me go further down in my top 100 here. Okay. To like lower probability prospects,

but with clearer roles. Austin Hayes, remember him? Yeah. From a couple years ago. He looks like a shoe-in for the Orioles for a starting job in the Orioles outfield this year. and had it rough in the minors the past couple years, some injuries, some struggles playing through injuries,

but he was awesome last spring, and he was awesome last September. It's like he steps it up against Major League pitching, and it's a really interesting bat, I think. He doesn't walk much, but he looks like a guy who can really hit, unless you look too closely at the numbers. I don't know. I'm kind of an Austin Hayes optimist

because when we've seen him at his best, it's been really impressive. Also, for the Rockies, a guy I just drafted in late in today's mock was Sam Hilliard, who we saw a little bit last year, strikes out too much, but Coorsfield obviously can help make up for that.

Tons of power, we saw him hit 70 home runs, I think at about 70 at bats last year. And I think between the majors and the minors, he had something like 42 home runs. Also can steal bases. You know, I don't know how much he's going to play.

He's a left-handed hitter, and they have some extra pieces in their outfield there, especially if Garrett Hampson is playing a lot of outfield. But Sam Hilliard should be on the roster and should play at least in my regularly. Power speed source at Coorsfield. I think you've got to be excited about that. I'm excited, yeah.

Well, that's a lot of names. I could keep going. It's okay. It's a lot of names. We always get prospect questions. I'll read some on our Friday mailbag. And you try to come up with rules for prospects. You know, like, well, this is what happened last year.

So this is how we should treat them this year. And it's so unpredictable what's going to happen when these guys come up. But remember, Pete Alonzo. Fernando Tautis, Chris Paddock, made huge impacts right from day one, right from day one. And they were all great draft values. Meanwhile, Kestan Hiro was horrible when he came up. Garrett Hampson, Stunk, Vlad. Kestin Jero was horrible when he first came up.

But then he came up later. Right. And who was going to buy into him then, you know? Who's going to pick him up at that point? Just look at the Blue Jays. I mean, Bigio and Vlad disappointed, but Bichette was really good. So you just never know, but it's fun to take a shot on them because sometimes they can have a really big impact. So we'll talk about it throughout the next couple months.

We're like 63 days away from the opening day, which feels like a lot. 62 or something like that. I saw it on our league homepage. Does that feel like a lot? Because I feel like we're just getting into the swing of draft prep here. 63 days, 14 hours. Two months. That's it.

It's March 26th, this opening day. That's the earliest opening day ever, I believe. Really? Yeah. I like that. So they're, I think it started early. Oh, the whole season's starting early, or they're, like, doing a few games in, like, you know, Mars, and then they're going to come back to Earth and play the rest of the series or something?

Mars. I thought you misspoke trying to say March there for a second. Oh, they're not going to Mars. They're not going to Australia. Okay. I think it's a situation where everybody opens on the, Cool. All right. Let's do it, man. Let's do it. I actually, as a fantasy analyst, I loved the new schedule, which was more spread out. Because just having, this is going to sound bad. Like, I don't like the job. That's not the case. But just having one or two fewer games on a Tuesday or a Wednesday night or something like that to go over and to get ready for the next show, it really lightened the workload a lot. I made it a lot more manageable. I don't know if you felt that way, Scott. but I loved it.

Let's see. I mean, I get what you're saying. I guess you're right. I guess you're right. I'm just verifying what I was saying about the 26th that everybody's playing that day. And I can't tell. Go to the NLB scoreboard.

It looks like the White Sox and Royals are playing a game at Surprise Stadium and Surprise Arizona, so clearly their season isn't opening yet. maybe just playing a game in a stadium to be determined. Surprise!

And it's a real game. All right, we gotta go. I'm getting loopy. Thanks for listening. Back tomorrow with a mailbag. See you.