Fantasy Baseball Today - 01/29: Sleepers! Breakouts! Busts! (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

Scott White and Chris Towers break down Scott's first edition of Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts for the 2020 season. But first, they discuss prospects-only drafts (1:15) and then the history of players coming back from PED suspensions (5:05). ... Then we run through Scott's sleepers (17:10), breakouts (29:40), and busts (39:40). ... 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. One, one pitch, basketball pulled and passed. Alvarez and twilight. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris.

Oh, we've got a gigantic show for you today on the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. I'm Chris Towers. Scott White's here with me. And we are going to be talking about Scott White's, sleepers, breakouts, and buss 1.0 for the 2020 season. We're going to give you his calls. We're going to read, hopefully, I know I've said that many times this week, but hopefully a bunch of your emails as well, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Scott, are you confident that we'll actually be able to get to emails?

I think my laughter and sarcastic use of the word right indicated that I'm not. Well, you're wrong because we're going to start off with an email from Jack. Once again, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com is the way to get your emails read on the show and we're going to get to one within the first minute and 30 seconds. So in your face, Scott, Jack writes in, I'm starting a Dynasty League this year. We're having one round specifically to pick minor league players with no major league baseball experience. I have the eighth pick in this round. Who would be some good players to target?

Scott, we've done. We did a couple of prospect mock drafts. I'm in the course of doing another one with another site right now. So we should have some answers for this one, right? Yeah. Yeah, we should. Let me actually, I would like to pull up that prospect's only draft so I can give a better answer. But I would think eighth pick in such a draft, okay, obviously Luis Robert is going to be

gone. Joe Adele's going to be gone. I would assume McKinsey Gore is going to be gone. And obviously, I'm forgetting the biggest guy, Wander Franco, he's going to be gone. So, that would put you in maybe Jared Kalenik territory.

Maybe Dylan Carlson, Cardinals outfielder who looks a lot like Jared Kalenick, frankly. Maybe he would be the choice here. If all of those guys are gone, I might look to somebody like Alec Baum of the Phillies who doesn't rate as high on traditional lists, but I think he's probably

the Phillies everyday third basement before season's end, and I like him a lot. That should probably give you enough names. Julio Rodriguez is kind of a longer-term outlook guy with a ton of upside that people like. Yeah, I think Julio Rodriguez, I did one with, I'm in the course of doing one with some people with like baseball prospectus and a couple other sites, and Julio Rodriguez, I think might have gone fifth overall in that prospect's only draft. And that wasn't including guys, that wasn't excluding guys with no major league playoff experience. So, you know, he might be gone by that point.

But yeah, it's interesting, Alec Baum, you seem to be much higher on. He fell to you at number 19. I think he's like your number 13 prospect coming into the season. Yeah. I think I might have gotten him like in the 30 range in the other one that I'm doing. So there does seem to be some divergence of opinion, but you like him because he's a, he's a, proximity. Proximity. Proximity is part of it. But also power potential without many strikeouts is a, is a big part of his profile. Right. Right. Those, those are all things I seem to like more than,

more than the consensus does. It does. And when you're talking a top 30 prospect, like you're talking about where you draft him, I mean, that's still a very high end prospect. So, So the difference between that and like a top 15-ish guy is largely matter of personal biases and that sort of thing. So that makes sense. It bomb strikes me as a guy who's going to have a great strikeout-to-walk ratio and also has a good enough hit tool to help in batting average. So I tend to speak in terms of best case scenarios when I talk about prospects. I know some people don't like that. but I feel like it's hard to peg down exactly what a most likely scenario is for a player who you're mostly...

The most likely scenario for any prospect is that they're not that good. Right, exactly, exactly. And that's no fun to talk about. Prospect evaluation is all about imagining how right things can go. And I think how right things can go for Alec Baum is something like a typical Anthony Rendon season, probably not like last year, but what we're used to seeing typically from Rendon. I could see Bomb being that, and obviously Rendon is a early round pick every year.

All right, let's move on to our email of the day. That's two emails within five minutes, Scott in your face. Richard from San Francisco writes in, Dear Caliban, Richard, Iago, and Claudius, my initial thought was this was the Three Musketeers, but that is because I am not a very well-read person. These are Shakespeare characters. Way to show off, Richard.

We're all very impressed. Love the show, but I've been, and he's calling us dummies in this email. So that's all, this is all Richard showing off. Love the show, but I've been confused by a statement that's been offered up by Scott several times so far this offseason. When evaluating Frankie Montess, I don't want to make Scott fall on the sword for that. I have also said very similar things. It seems widely accepted among those on the podcast that after his guy is suspended for PEDs, he almost always returns as more or less the same player.

When thinking through the cases, it just didn't seem quite right. So I decided to do a little digging. Among players who were suspended in the last year, I found that more often than not, they experience a substantial, if not cataclysmic decline. Here are some examples of players who had bursts of fantasy studliness, or at least relevance,

that evaporated out of the, after the suspension. Melkei Cabrera, Carlos Ruiz, Ryan Braun, Johnny Peralta, Everth Cabrera, Chris Colabello, and Degor. Now, he points out that all of these guys had pretty gigantic declines in their

wins above replacement after the suspension, but I would point out that in the case of Melke Cabrera, Ryan Braun and D. Gordon, they all did more or less have seasons after their suspensions that looked a lot like their peaks. You know, Ryan Braun probably wasn't as good after the suspension as he was before, Melchie Cabrera. But a lot of that is, you know, we're looking at a best season,

and most players never live up to their best season. You know, like, Melchie Cabrera, had one season where he hit like 3.30 or something. Yeah, so there's weird issues going on with all of these players and so I'll just take them one by one. I mean, Malki Cabrera, it was

the year immediately before the suspension was such an extreme outlier that it wasn't reasonable to expect it to repeat that anyway. And then the year immediately after the suspension he was playing with a tumor on his spinal cord.

So it was that was a pretty big issue. And once he got that removed the following year, he was back to what was more typical Melky Cabrera. And Riham has sustained that since then. You know, the last six years, with the exception of one year,

he's hit at least 280. He's not a great hitter overall because there's not a ton of power, but there never was. Ryan Braun, his best season, like you said, immediately after the suspension,

yeah, that was a pretty miserable season. But, you know, a couple years after that, 25 homers, 24 steals, the year after that 30 home runs, 16 steals. Part of the decline in homers was just age, and part of it was, you know, that entered a span of time where, you know, kind of in between two periods where a lot of home runs were being hit in the majors. The league-wide trends were down then. Everth Cabrera, like, power was never something he did. He did have this one random year where he was fantasy relevant because he hit 288 with like four home runs. And he always stole bases pretty well. But it was such an outlier for his entire career.

And his game wasn't at all built on power that he's just kind of a, he's just kind of an odd fit in the discussion of this caliber of player. Because what was behind that? Maybe it was the PEDs. Maybe it was just a fluky season where everything went right. Chris Colabello, the one good year he had, his OPS, I mean his BABIP was like over 400. It may have been, it was, it was just a ridiculous BABIP where everybody was picking him to be a bust the following year before there was even

any talk of him being on PEDs. And then D. Gordon, you know, it's another case of speed was always his game. He entered an age where he slows down. But he still had the year after the suspension, he still had a very good year. I think he stole 60 bases and hit close to 300. Yeah, 308 with 60 steals. That was Okay. That's what D. Gordon does. Or that was what the good version of D. Gordon did. Like there was the one year he had led the majors in batting average, but you're not going to expect a guy to hit 333 every year. He had

308 a year after the suspension. Yeah, I skipped a couple guys on here, Carlos Ruiz and Johnny Peralta. I just, I really don't remember the circumstances surrounding their suspension. Yeah. But you kind of picked out all the potential exceptions and I'm hesitant to even call them exceptions because there were such extenuating circumstances.

Now I have seen more robust studies of like all the players who have been suspended and generally speaking the players do, especially hitters. I think the average OPS declined the year after or after the suspension versus before is something like a hundred points

which is a really big deal. But that study, I think it was from behind the box score, also noted that the average age of those guys was 30. when they were suspect. Right. That's part of it. They get busted at a time in their career where you kind of expect him to start trailing

off anyway. I mean, Alex Rodriguez is, you know, he was in his late 30s. And so it was obvious when he fell off. And in Frankie Montas' case, he averaged 96.9 miles per hour with his fastball in 2018. He averaged 97.1 with it in 2019. So it's not like that would be where you would presumably see the biggest gain if he, you know, was using them to gain strength. Obviously, they could be used for a guy like him

who's had trouble staying healthy for recovery. But the biggest thing with his breakout, it's not like he started throwing two miles an hour harder. It was that he developed, you know, in the offseason, this splitter that immediately became, you know, his by far best pitch and this really good putaway pitch. Now, maybe that pitch won't be as effective in 2020. Maybe the scouting report will get out and hitters will lay off of it.

It won't be. But it was a really, really good pitch that came out of nowhere. And that's what fueled the breakout for him. That's why I like him. Yeah. Right. Another point I'll mention real quickly here is that, like, if you wanted to pick out examples to the contrary, players who had PED suspensions and then went on to have some of the best years of their career, I mean, we probably don't even remember the Yasmani Grundal PED suspension. Nelson Cruz had one. Really back before, back before he was considered his high end of a player as he is now.

Jorge Polanco had one prior to last year when he broke out. Starling Marte just had his best year in terms of hitting at least. He had a PED suspension a couple years ago. So there are a lot of examples to the contrary to. All right. Email of the day number two is from David. David writes in positional scarcity in consideration in draft strategy. I know it's not so in vogue anymore,

but shouldn't more weight be placed on positional scarcity, especially at Catcher, where the gap between the elite and those in the 9 to 12 range is so wide. Here's some examples from the mock draft you guys did last week with Catcher and Outfield as an example. Which team would you rather have? The team with Gary Sanchez and Mark Kana? The team with J.T. Raimuto and Brian Reynolds. Team with Jeff McElean and Sean Murphy. Team with John Carlos Stanton and Christian Vasquez.

Or the team with Mike Mustakas and Tom Murphy. I think, yeah, I think you can. can go either way. I think it depends how much you like the specific players. Like, I know you don't really like John Carlos Stan. I would guess you don't really buy Christian Vasquez's breakout last season. I think the best combination

among these is probably that Gary Sanchez in round six, Mark Cannon and round 16 group. I agree. But I happen to really like Mark Cannon. Much higher than the industry consensus on it. The next guy's taken were Arrested is Aquino,

Nick Senzel, Mitch Hanager, and another guy you really like who we're going to talk about later in the show J.D. Davis. You know, I think it, if you like Markana or J.D. Davis as much as you do, that makes sense. But, you know, Mitch Hanager could, you know, not have much value this season. That wouldn't be a big surprise. So, you know, I think catcher is the only place where positional scarcity exists. At least among the hitting positions. I think that's something that we can very... I would say second base. There's... Second base, kind of. but it's not nearly as wide because we've got another email coming up later in the show about

which catchers you would draft in a league where you don't start catchers and look i'm not sure any of them would be top 100 picks maybe gary sanchise yeah probably not i mean first of all let me say catcher is the position as a position where there is some scarcity but it's not nearly as bad as last year in a one catcher league there are enough options to go around that everybody can feel pretty good about their starter. There are obviously, you know, there's obviously

the Sanchez class, that includes Grandal and he Wilson Contreras, you might even throw like Mitch Garber, maybe Will Smith in there. But, you know, Christian Vasquez, Omar Narvaez, they are perfectly fine options at the position.

Yeah. I'll add that the problem with investing heavily at Catcher It's a unique position in so many ways Is that There's a lot of attrition there It's like pitchers, right? So much can go wrong health-wise

That it's just a risky investment And even if they don't land on the IL And miss a lot of time The beating they take can really impact their production And the other thing is they just don't play as much as anybody else So the impact is always lessened because of that Yeah, I mean you talk about guys who get beat up You know, I think we have two very high profile examples in the last two seasons, Gary Sanchez in 2018 and Wilson Contreras actually also in 2018, of two guys who stayed healthy or stayed active but just didn't perform the way we thought they wouldn't.

It's because they just got beat up and they were healthy enough to play. Both of them did miss time. But when they were on the field, especially in the second half in both cases, I believe, they were healthy enough to play, but they weren't themselves. And that's the risk you run at catcher, along with just like a heightened risk of broken fingers and hands and the beating that they take on their knees and on their backs. It's just a really tough position. There's a reason. You know, it's not just a coincidence that catcher is always and has been throughout Major League history, the weakest offensive position. Yeah.

All right. Let's go ahead. Sorry, I was just trying to fill the silence. Let's move on. Let's do, before we get to Sleepers Break on some bust, let's do team name Tuesday on a Friday, because we haven't had that yet. We need some good team names. We're getting close to the season. And I need some inspiration for my team name, so here's two.

Toss a coin to your pitcher. Scott, do you know the reference? Toss a coin? No, I don't. I haven't watched the show, but it's The Witcher on Netflix. Okay. Apparently, there's a very popular song called Toss a coin to your Witcher. Okay.

And here's one you'll love. That one was from Rob. Here's one from Todd. Can I get a what, what? Ah, that's an Al Milkie or classic. Oh, is it? Yes. When Mark Kana first came up.

Credit where credits do. He's always... Credit where credit is due. Al is always so clever. He's ahead of the game. Yeah. All right, let's move on to those sleepers, breakouts, and busts.

You can find those on CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. Scott White put up his sleepers 1.0, Breakouts 1.0 and Bus 1.0. I'll have my Sleepers Breakouts and Bus later on in February, and Scott will update his closer to the start of the season. But if you want to get a sense for mine, my position previews are also up on CBSSports.com.

And I did a sleeper breakout and bus for each position. We're going to talk about Scott's now, and let's focus on three guys for each one. Who's the first guy you want to talk about is Sleepers? Well, since he's already come up twice in this show, let's go ahead and get into Mark Kana. Let's do it. I cannot understand the lack of enthusiasm for him.

That ADP, according to ADP, on Fantasy Pros. What was that? It's like 278. Okay, so it's actually gone up a little bit since I wrote this. He was barely inside the top 300 before, which meant he was going undrafted in a lot of 12-team leagues, which is insane. You've got a lot of influence in this world, Scott. Yeah.

So, as best I can figure, the lukewarm reaction to Kana is that he is a soon-to-be 31-year-old, who kind of carved out a niche as a platoon guy, you know, a lefty masher, and didn't get the abats to make a worthwhile contribution in fantasy. And that changed in the most dramatic of ways in late June of last year. From that point forward, he was basically an everyday player, and he hit 295 with 16 homers and a 936 OPS during what amounts to half the season's time. His numbers last year were actually better against Ritey's 297 batting average in a 966 OPS than against lefties. So it's not like he has, it's not like the numbers would suggest he's better off in a platoon role. He played a lot of center field for the athletics, so clearly they don't mind what he brings to the table defensively.

He walks a ton. He did overachieve his expected stats a little bit. I don't think he's going to be... His season-long batting averages 273 is probably more indicative than what we saw during his stretch as a starter. But even so, with those on base skills and the power to hit 30-plus homers, I mean, I've made the comparison before. I don't see what's what advantage like a Michael Conforto

has over Mark Kanna, except just reputation and provenness. Well, reputation track record, there's basically no scenario in which Michael Conforto loses his job, whereas it's not hard to see that if Mark Kana goes back to being like a 770 OPS guy, you know, especially if he can't really hit righties all that well after one, you know. We're talking about like he hit righties well last season,

but we're talking about a 340 plate appearance sample size, which is still extremely small. If he goes back to being a 780 OPS guy, that's probably not enough to keep him in the everyday lineup for a team that is willing to move guys in and out pretty regularly. Yeah. I mean, obviously, there is a case to make against him, but for the point where you're going to be able to draft him, and, I mean, for me, he's like, he's in my top 200. Like, that's, when you're looking for upside at that stage of the draft, Kana doesn't just offer hints of it.

He's already shown it. He can't do it again, though. I mean. That was just a bad. joke don't worry okay sleeper number two Scott give the people what they want sleeper number two let's talk about Sam Hilliard who has become kind of a pet player of mind in in in Roto leagues five outfielder formats I like to I like to grab him at the end of drafts there to fill that fifth outfielder spot because I think the

upside particularly in that format is pretty significant. Still prospect eligible. Only 87 play appearances, 27 games last season, hit 273 with a thousand and six OPS, seven home runs. Only two stolen bases, but the stolen basis should be a bigger part of his game than they were last year. Yeah, he had 24 steals between the majors and the miners, and you're talking about a 70-a-bats ban two steals. I mean, that's, you know that that doesn't really prove anything one way or the other home runs he hit 42 between the majors and the minors you mentioned the seven he hit during his time in the majors 42 combined so he definitely has power to spare

the strikeouts are a problem they were even worse at triple a than they were in the majors but if there's any anywhere a player is going to overcome a strike a high strikeout rate its course field, which inflates Babbat to a degree that, you know, you can get by with not having, not hitting as many balls in play because so many of the ones you do are going to more successfully land. My bigger concern with Hilliard than performance or the strikeouts is just playing time. And the Rockies have not been able to be counted on to make the fantasy efficient decision with their lineups the last few years. They haven't.

They're already going to be trying to find time for Garrett Hampson, who deserves it. He can, I would assume he would get priority over Hilliard more days than not. I mean, there's going to be some moving in and out of the lineup for just about everybody, except Trevor Story and Nolan Aronado. But my hope is that eventually they realize it's time to turn the page. on Ian Desmond, and also Daniel Murphy, who doesn't appear to have much left in the tank. And if that happens, they get Hampson at second, McMahon at first. There's an outfield spot available for Hilliard, and the rest could be history.

The only things I would say is he ranked in the 96th percentile, I believe, in 93rd percentile on sprint speed last season per static cast data, which is really, really good. He is incredibly fast, and, you know, the fact that he's six foot five, and 240 pounds makes that all the more impressive, but he actually was not a great base stealer in the miners. He stole a lot of bases, 124 and 567 games, but in 2018, he was caught stealing 14 times, 2017, 17, 17 times, 2016, 12 times,

routinely below 75%. Before last year when he went 22 of 27, and was more selective. it's worth noting. So it could be that as he's gotten older, he's learned to pick his spots a little better. But one thing that we see a lot with prospects is guys who put up big stolen base numbers

but aren't necessarily efficient at stealing bases, oftentimes they'll come up to the majors and not run nearly as much. And so that would be my one concern. If he's not going to be much more than like an 8 to 10 steal guy, then the bat really has to play up. and, you know, there have been peaks and valleys, is the nice way to put his minor league track record.

Yeah, I would say that it starts with the bat for him. And, you know, I'm reluctant to count on steals from anybody. I see the potential for them with Pilliard, but it would be what takes his upside from good to great in my mind. and I'm not necessarily relying on it, especially when you're talking about an end of the draft sort of pick. There's one thing that also stands out in a scouting report is he was mostly focused on pitching for most of his collegiate career,

so it's been kind of a crash course in hitting as a professional. And so that kind of, people seem to be grading him on a curve based on that, based on the progress he's already made and the fact that he's still, there may be a good reason why he turns out to be a late bloomer. Sure, and he is 25, or was 25 last year, so I think he'll be 26 on for most of this season, if he's not already. Let's move on to your last sleeper, Sky. Hit us with it. Adrian Houser. Sorry, I had to remind myself who I was going to talk about. Adrian Houser of the Brewers.

Was pretty good last year. He was pretty good last year. And he might even be better than you realize, because he made 18 starts last year, but a lot of them were in kind of a swing man role, where he was bouncing between, bullpen, rotation. He kind of solidified his spot in the rotation down the stretch last year, and in 12 starts, once that happened, he had a 328 ERA, 109 whip, and 9.8 strikeouts, per nine innings. His 360 X-FIP for the year would have ranked 19th among all qualifiers. He is a pretty good badmiss or more than a strikeout per inning, but he's an especially good

ground ball pitcher ranking up there with Markett Stroman, who's one of the best year after year and ground ball rate. And I feel like pitchers who are able to keep up in strikeouts while putting on the grip the ball on the ground with that frequency are kind of perfectly tailored for this environment where fly balls so easily turn into home runs. So mostly with Hauser, it's a question for me of, are they going to treat him more like an actual starting pitcher letting him go six innings with some consistency

as opposed to the small, the short starts he was getting for much of last year where a lot of times he wasn't even going five. And I think, you know, now that he's not bouncing between the rotation of the woolpen, he'll be able to get stretched out more completely. I think there's a good chance of that. So I don't, I think I said on a podcast recently that I don't see a lot of, I don't want to rely on sleepers at starting pitchers. I'm not even sure they really exist. This is one of the few exceptions to that. I don't want to have to rely on Hauser, but I do see the potential for him to take a big step forward.

He did do a very good job of reducing damage on contact last season. He had a 336 expected Wobah on contact, which is very good. You know, it was in like the 65th percentile, 61st percentile on hard hit rate, 91st percentile in exit velocity allowed. So, you know, there does seem to be something there. My concern would be the strikeouts weren't really there in the minors to the extent that they have been the majors. That's, you know, sort of quibbling because he's been better than that over the last couple of years in the minors. So, you know, maybe, maybe he has figured something out. He is a very

heavy fastball sinker guy. So, you know, the swing strike rate especially wasn't particularly impressive. No, it wasn't. It was. Even relative to the strikeout rate. So. But when we're talking about Marcus Stroman levels of inducing ground balls, I mean, Marcus Stroman is a fine fantasy option. pitcher, right? Like, everybody who drafts him's going to start him every week. Houser has him be in terms of missing bats. So I think there's a much lower standard for strikeouts when you're able to do that with the on bat at balls. Sure. Let's move on to the breakouts. And, you know, the distinction between

sleepers and breakouts is sort of a little bit blurry. I think sleepers are more based on value where you can draft them. They tend to go lower in drafts, whereas breakouts are guys that we're just expecting to take their game to a new level. Let's hear your breakouts for 2020. All right, let's start with Zach Allen, who we've talked about a few times on this podcast.

I think we both recently said he was our favorite breakout pitcher for this new season. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. And part of the, I almost feel like that's cheating and I'll say that for the next guy I talk about too because I feel like the breakout already happened he's just not quite being valued like it yet

and understandably because he made only what was it 12 starts in the majors last year how many 15 15 okay so even more than that okay the most impressive stat at any level of baseball last year in my mind the most impressive stat line was what Zach Gannon did in the PCL. 177 ERA, 0.71 whip, 11 strikeouts per nine innings, and 14 starts.

That's the PCL, always been a hitter-friendly league, but particularly last year, with the MLB balls being introduced, the league average ERA was 548, and gallons was 175. That's 99 Pedro. Pedro Martinez stuff. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, the weirdest thing about him in the majors was that the only thing he didn't do. You know, the strikeout rate was right where it was in AAA.

You know, the ground ball rate was a little lower, but it wasn't terrible. He walked a lot of people. And that's never been an issue for him. You know, the highest walks per nine he's ever had in a season was 3.24 in 2018, and that's still pretty good. And it was 1.5 per 9 in the 14 AAA starts last year. So the fact it was 4.1 in the 15 major league starts That's weird that's weird and and like it was it wasn't just one of those things like it was it was in actual scouting reports like command was one of the areas where Gallin really stood out And so I think it's just a matter of figuring out what major league hitters are going to lay off of versus minor league hitters

He had I think it was two Starts where the walks were just out of control and that probably inflated the the season long mark two. I don't think it's going to be a longstanding issue for Gowan and the kind of production he had, even with it being an issue. I mean, that's an exciting prospect right there. He's going off the board at 123rd overall in ADP right now,

and I've made the comparison, I think, on this podcast, but he's going about 30 spots behind Brandon Woodruff. And I think Zach Allen's just a better pitcher. He has a more complete arsenal. he doesn't rely as much on his fastballs. His breaking balls last year were pretty good swing and miss pitches pretty much across the board. And he did a pretty good job of limiting damage on contact.

So I really like Zach Allen this year. He is one of my favorite pitchers to draft. Particularly if he gets the walks under control because the area where Woodruff really stands out as efficiency and just how few pitches he has to throw. to get through an inning. If Gowling catches up to him there, then I think he is a better pitcher than Woodruff.

All right, let's hear some breakout hitters now. Breakout hitter, I'm going to go with my favorite, is J.D. Davis. And again, I think it's another case of, well, he doesn't really have to do anything new. He just has to keep doing what he's already done in a full-time role. And with Todd Frazier, thankfully not

there to take any of bats away from anybody. I think there's a much better chance J.D. Davis is playing every day, and he absolutely should be playing every day for the month when he was an everyday player for the Mets last year, which I believe was last August when there was just enough injuries that he could be. He hit 295 with eight homers and a 951 OPS for that month. It's pretty good. His season numbers, of course, 307 batting average 22 homers and 895 OPS. pretty good on their own.

And there was a tendency to sit him, you know, him being a right-handed hitter to play him most against left-handed pitchers. But his numbers against right, he's 305 batting average 886 OPS. Pretty much any way you break it down, J.D. Davis was the same player and a really good one last year. And as good as the season rate, the season percentages were 307 batting average 895 OPS, like I said, he underachieved according to the expected stats. That was the kind of, that's how good his batted ball profile was.

It's a lot of line drives. It's good at going to opposite field. Clearly has power. I think he could be just a total stud this year. And I'm going to be sad in every league where I don't wind up being the one who drafts him. The one thing I would say is the batting average might be a little high. higher than I would expect for a full season. And yet, he underachieved his XBA too.

Sure. It was a high Babbip. It was a very high Babbat. But it is a high Babbat profile. And again, the XBA backs it up. So fair enough. But I don't, I think it's more plausible than just the Babbitt alone would lead you to believe.

And then a guy who really already broke out, but we'll let you call him a breakout. Let's move on to your third pick. Miguel Seno. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I guess it's another case of he really just needs the playing time. Played 105 games last year, hit 34 homers, 76 runs, 79 RBI, 247 batting average, and you're never going to get a batting average from him that's helpful.

But that's good enough if he can sustain a 50 homer pace, which is what he was on last year, if he hadn't missed the first six weeks of the season with a laceration on his heel. He may very well have gotten those 50 home runs. He, I think what holds people back, I mean, I guess the main thing that holds people back is that... 36% strikeout rate. Well, I was going to say the main thing is probably that he has yet to play a full season

because something always seems to come up. It's not always as fluky as a lacerated heel, but something always seems to come up. But yes, the other thing that would hold people back is the 36% 6.2% strikeout rate, which is a new level of awful. We've seen hitters like Aaron Judge and more recently Joey Gallo prove that like a 33, 34% strikeout rate is something that can be managed if they're making superhuman. If they're hard contact rate average exit velocity is like a superhuman level,

then that's a way you can overcome that sort of strikeout rate. But Sinoa is testing that theory even further. because while he is that kind of extreme outlier with the strikeout rate, he is just as much in terms of average exit velocity and hard hit rate. I believe he led the majors in both last year. Yes. And he and Aaron Judge were one and two in both, and especially in the hard hit rate. Whoever was third was a distant third. So, Suno is definitely of that superhuman class. player of impacting the ball. And that gives him a chance of overcoming that crazy high strikeout rate.

As he did last year, it's, there's obviously a low margin for error with that approach, but if we're investing heavily in Judge who has a pretty, pretty extensive injury history himself, and Gallo who has- Gallo who has had trouble staying healthy. Missed half the season last year. I feel like he doesn't get dinged for that. it seems like Sineau is being unfairly dinged

by comparison. It could end up being just as good as either or both of those guys. Here's what I like about Miguel Snow. Joey Gallo is being drafted like 79th overall, I believe. There's not much of a difference in their profiles.

They both should be, he's Joey Gallo is being drafted 87th overall. But that's about 50 spots ahead of Miguel Snow. They're both going to strike out a ton. Joey Gallo actually struck out more often last year is 38%. They're both going to hit the ball incredibly hard. Joey Gallo is one of the best power hitters of this era, but McGalcinoe is right there with him, and you can get Miguel Snow for 50 spots cheaper in drafts. The only

difference is Joey Gallo is more athletic and has stolen some bases. But I don't know if that's enough to bridge the gap between them. Yeah. And sometimes I have a hard time with this too. Like, I feel like when I see Joey Gallo there in the sixth round versus Suno there in the ninth, I'm more excited to take Gallo, but I'm trying to overcome that bias because while I think that's a perfectly fine time to take Gallo,

obviously better to wait and take Sano. All right, let's move on to your bus. And let's start off. with the proto Joey Gallo slash Aaron Judge slash Miguel Sinole. John Carlo Stanton, you're not buying John Carlos Stanton this year. So I've taken a different approach with my busts

the past couple years and rather than focus on guys who I just think maybe are getting a little more credit than to deserve and maybe we'll disappoint people a little. I'm looking at guys who I could see things going catastrophically wrong for and Stanton i don't think it's a too much stretch too much of a stretch to say stanton's on that list i mean he's just coming off a year where things went catastrophically wrong he has an extensive injury history um what makes it especially concerning for me

is he had a lot to prove last year after you know MVP season his final year with the marlins where the strikeout rate was greatly improved and he was just the monster we were always hoping he could be. And he followed that up with the year with the Yankees. I mean, it was definitely productive but the strikeout rate spiked again. And

I it wasn't clear why. Was that MVP season just a fluke? Yeah. Okay. Well, like this is something that I've talked about a lot where we look at players who

take a big step forward in the middle of their career and then you look at we crack under the hood we've got all these stats that that we can look at and you know strike our rights a fairly surface one but you know the underlying numbers how hard he hits the ball how often he was swinging how often he was swinging and missing all of this stuff looked like john carlo stan did actually take a big step forward but one thing that i think can get lost in the kind of advanced stats and saber metric revolution is, you know, we used to talk a lot in baseball about guys getting hot. And something that we've sort of realized as we've learned more was usually when a guy got hot, quote unquote, they just got lucky.

Or there was variance. But sometimes guys do just actually play better for a month, two months, three months, a year. And it still isn't. There's a difference between sustainable and repeat. repeatable, I guess. And so I, you know, that's something that I really try to keep in mind when I look at like a Jorge Soler who took a big step forward. It could be the new baseline level, or it could be that he just had a really, really great

three months. I am going to. And I do want to point out before you continue, John Carlos Stanton struck out 211 times in 2018. He was a bit of a disappointment. He was the number 24 player in fantasy. He was the number 7 outfielder. He hit 38 home runs, 100 RBI, 102 runs with a 266 average.

Like, that feels like the floor if he stays healthy. The bigger question is he didn't stay healthy in 2050. He didn't stay healthy in 2016. He didn't stay healthy in 2018. He's a top 25 player. Can't stay healthy in 2019. And 2019 was just every time he made a comeback. he was immediately hurt again and it was just like he was just falling apart whereas previously it was a lot

of kind of fluky got hit in the hit in the face broke his hand you know a lot of stuff that you wouldn't necessarily think is indicative of like oh he's breaking down last year looked like a guy breaking down yeah well that's that's kind of what I'm saying and if that's the case and if we're accepting that stanton's baseline is a 30% strikeout rate that he manages to over overcome by impacting the ball so hard. It leaves a low margin for error, kind of like I was saying for Sineau. And if there's evidence that he may be breaking down, it raises another question of, okay, so this kind of new example of a player that's striking out at historic levels,

but nonetheless succeeding anyway, because he does this amazingly athletic feat of hitting the ball harder than anybody else. What skills tend to diminish the most when a guy gets on the wrong side of the 30, which Stanton now is? He is at a point in his career where you got to start asking the age question. And maybe he'll be great through 35, 36, maybe he'll be great through 40 like Nelson Cruz has turned out to be. But that's the exception, not the rule.

I think a good historical comp for Stanton in terms of. of production and how much of an outlier he was with how hard he hits the ball is Ryan Howard. And this is the point when Ryan Howard's career drops. You did write that in your bus column. Ryan Howard at 22 wasn't the athlete, John Carlos Stan was at 29. You know, maybe the injuries really have hampered him, but Ryan Howard was, not just big like John Carlos Stan but Ryan Howard was like

girthy is the word I'll use John Carlos Stann is an Adonis so that's where that comparison I totally get what you mean and I don't think it's entirely unfair um

John Carlos Stan has a lot more athleticism to lose than Ryan Howard ever did okay like he was still slightly above average and average sprint speed in 2019.

You know, limited sample size, but the exit velocity, you know, he still had a 92.3 average edge velocity, 45.7% hard hit rate. Those were actually higher than 2017. So I don't think we, I will say it is possible that the skills diminish, but I don't think we've seen it yet. Yes. Yes. Okay. Fair enough. I will add that the only thing, the only mark of athleticism that really matters is how quickly he gets the bat through the zone. And I will

also add that I am accepting I am taking the lower probability stance here. And the most likely scenario, Stan hits another 35 plus homers and is great. But I'm just I just think there's a

chance it could go all terrible. It could go terribly wrong for him. And this is the case for it. All right. let's talk about an extremely controversial, controversial bust. That was a weird way to say that word. Fernando Tatis, he is going 19th off the board right now, and it seems like everyone in the fantasy community either loves him at that price or won't touch him.

And you're on the latter side. Yeah, yeah, I think it's fair to say I wouldn't touch him in that price, though I wouldn't take a drop of much for me to touch him just because that's weird phrasing there. I was trying to be consistent with it, but it sounded weird when it came out that way. Anyway, I

yeah, I could see a scenario like with Stan where it could all go very wrong for Tatis and it's much easier to see actually. He had a 414 BABIP this past year, I want to say. his XBA was 259 I believe he hit

obviously well over 300 so something's going to give there and I think it's going to be the batting average if if the drop in batting average is as big as that he still might be an early round caliber player

as long as the power and speed numbers remain good he may not quite live up to the price tag but, you know, he'll still be obviously a significant contributor in fantasy. But then when you add in the fact that he suffered two pretty severe injuries last year that were playing style related. Hamstring and back. Yeah. And he just kind of stopped running the last six week of the season.

It wasn't right when he came back from the hamstring injury, which would make sense. It was after that. he is last six weeks i believe he was four for seven in stolen bases um i'm always concerned about the middle of the order bat who we're relying on to steal bases because rarely does that last for long and never be sure exactly when it's going to end but at some point the player and or the organization just decides we're not risking our best hit in that way. And especially if Tatis is suffering two big injuries,

maybe something was decided there. I don't know. But obviously, for him to be going in the second round, it's not because of the power. I mean, sure, he can hit home runs, but everybody can hit home runs. It's because you're counting on

a good batting average again, and especially you're counting on a big steals total. And I don't think that we can totally count on either. Yeah, I think he's probably more like a 260, 270 hitter. The only thing that's really tough with a guy like Fernando Tetis.

We're talking about, you know, he wasn't necessarily Vladimir Guerrero as a prospect, but he wasn't far off. You know, we are talking about one of the most talented players of the last decade to make their major league debut.

You know, he didn't crush it in the minors, but he was very good. And he was really young. He was only 20 last year. So that's, uh, that's the one thing I would point at. Yeah. We have no idea all the ways he's going to improve. The thing is he needs to improve to justify this cost. Yes. He just, he may. Yeah. And, you know, not to go deep into it, but that's kind of the argument I make for Vladimir Guerrero, too. He's also on my bust list and it's the same sort of thing. Uh,

the upside is as high as upside can possibly be. And at some point in his career, he's probably going to reach it. But he's not there yet, as far as I can tell. And he's being treated as if he is. But Guerrero, not quite to the same extent as Tatis, but people are giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt. Right. And he's another guy who struggled to stay healthy last season. He missed some time when he was in the majors.

and, you know, I've always been the Justin Turner guy, but you can get Justin Turner 90 spots later in your drafts and Vladimir Guerrero is going. And what's more likely? Vladimir Guerrero plays 150 games and takes that step forward, or Justin Turner plays 140 games and gives you a normal Justin Turner season? I think it's probably more likely Turner does, and especially given the cost difference.

So that's one where I have actually drafted Vladimir Guerrero because he is the kind of player that even though I don't love the cost at face value, I still want some exposure to. Because I think you have to have some of those guys. You can't just, this is something I've been struggling with, but you can't just draft the most likely outcome. Because the industry is too sharp, you're never going to get an edge that way.

You need upside. And so... I don't think the fifth round is where you need those. upside though. I think the upside comes later. Sure. And your last bust, Tommy FAM. That's an interesting one. But it is an interesting one. It's worth, he's going 78th overall. He's one of the, you know, we talked about Fernando Tatis being a power speed guy. His most likely outcome might be a 2019 Tommy FAM season where Tommy FAM hit 273. You know, you'd hope for more home runs and stolen bases, but 21 homers, 25 steals from Tommy Pham, gets on base a ton.

You know, the move to San Diego, I'd say it's probably neutral from Tampa Bay. Yeah, Tampa's tough, tough place to hit, too, yeah. So this is another case, even going beyond Stanton, where I'm kind of forecasting decline, which we forecast breakthroughs all the time, so why can't we forecast decline? There's a trend I've noticed with FAM that I find a little concerning. He's never been a good fly ball hitter, but it's been dropping the past couple years to the point that his ground ball rate was Eric Hosmer territory. And you know all the conversations we've had about what's preventing Hosmer from being a good home run hitter. If that trend continues for FAM, I don't know that we can even count on.

20 homers from him anymore, which really puts a lot of pressure on his base stealing. And the base stealing is always going to be, is always going to have its limits. He's not going to be a 40 steal guy. Right. He's 32 years old. He could also just, this could be the year that he stopped running. Right.

Tommy fan, so it's... Tommy fam, it's really unfortunate. His career actually makes me a little sad because he just, he crushed it, and he's talked about this. He crushed it in the minors and just, the Cardinals would just not give him an opportunity until he was like 28. And so he's already 32 years old,

even though it feels like he hasn't been around that long. Right. And I think people are just a little too sanguine on him considering that it's kind of a, it's not an entirely worry-free skill set. There are some things he does there that just are not conducive to success normally. in today's environment,

rarely elevating the ball. And, you know, would he put that kind of limit on a player's power ceiling and at a time when power is so easy to come by, he needs to be really, really bankable everywhere else. And I don't think, I don't think it's fair to put that on fan.

If that's, that's kind of a weird way to phrase it, I guess, but I don't think it is because it's, he's just, he's older than you think he is. and he doesn't have that kind of track record either. Sanguine is a great SAT word to end our Sleepers Breakouts and Bus discussion. If you want the rest of Scott's Sleepers Break on Some Bus,

go to CBSports.com slash Fantasy slash Baseball and check him out. He's got, I think, 12 picks for each one. We gave you three of them, maybe four. I think we snuck an extra one in there for Bus. So you got a little sneak preview. But go check those out on CBSSports.com. And now we're going to finish up our show. with some more emails.

Scott, you doubted me, but we're going to get to like seven emails. It's going to be a... What? Yeah. Counting the ones we already did. Yeah. Okay, all right, yeah.

Yeah, we got two in the bank already. Okay, we're good. Let's do it. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. As always, if you want your email right on the show, Todd writes in, Hey, Hey, Zeus, Zach, and Brendan. I would assume those are Luzardo, Gallin, and McKay.

Some of our favorite pitching, prospects from the 2019 season. Todd writes in, if I told you you had to pick three advanced stats for pitching to blindly build your pitching rankings, what stats would you choose? If Scott is answering, I'll assume one is swinging strike rate. What else? So I'm going to create some stipulations that are not here. I'm going to say you can't do an all-in-one stat.

So no, FIP, Sierra, X-FIP. X-FIP would have been the one, yeah. And they've got to be like real advanced stats. Because, like, innings pitch would be one of yours. But we're not going with that. It's just true advanced stats. Let's hear it. And if you want to think about it, I've got it.

Swinging strike rate would be one. Groundball rate. Mm-hmm. It would be one. And I guess if you're not letting me do ex-phib, I would say, I don't have a great third choice. Well, is Walk Right in it now?

stat? Yeah. All right. It would have to be a walk rate. I have to account for that in some way. Okay. Interesting. Here are my picks. I'm going to go with CSW percentage, which is cot swinging percentage. This is something that I think Alex Fast from pitcher list has kind of helped popularize. And it just, it's basically just exactly what it means. Caught and swinging strikes. And it does seem to to have a pretty predictive ability to tell you what kind of strikeout numbers that guys are going to have even more than swinging strikes. Because swinging strikes are great, but there are some guys who have a lot of swinging

strikes and don't get strikeouts because they don't have necessarily a great putaway pitch. And then there are other guys who don't get a lot of swinging strikes, but get strikeouts anyway, like a Zach Grinke because they're just so good at getting caught strikes. So that's the one I would go with CSW percentage. I would also go with, this one is sort of cheating, but it fits within the parameters that I set. I would go with expected Wobah on contact, which is a stat cast stat that just basically tells you

what your expected results would be just on pitches or balls that were put in play. And I would go with strikeout rate. Those would be my three. Okay. Todd also asks for three advanced stats for hitters. I don't know if we need to go into that, but hard hit rate, strikeout percentage, and expected Wobo would be my three.

Yeah, I'd... Okay. I don't know, I'd have to think about that a little more. Well, you can think about it. We're moving. Okay. Jeff from Cedar Rapids. I'm curious about the comments on your podcast about essentially reaching for pitchers and steals in the early rounds.

I was always taught that the secret to draft success is to Zig when everyone else zags. if most people are reaching on players that address these categories, won't that lead to value in other categories? Sure, your team may not be dominating, it steals or strikeouts, but you could, you will likely dominate the other K8 categories. I would say you could,

and this is a strategy that I've employed in a couple of my drafts, but one of the things is, like, you do need stolen bases. So part of the problem with the skewing stolen bases early in the draft is you're going to have to make up for it later. Either, like, I like Jonathan V.R. in the third or fourth round because I like his all-around skill set. We did a dynasty startup draft yesterday, and I got Malik Smith really, really late. And I, that's one where it's just hope he can bounce back and not be a drain on batting average,

because he's going to steal a lot of bases. But I think there's value in, like, if everybody else is going with one strategy, we talked about this a little bit on the last podcast, but when most of the draft is trying one thing, You have to do the same thing, to pursue the same strategy, you have to be better than everyone else at both drafting and playing in season to be the one who stands out. And that's really hard to do. So there is always going to be value in trying different strategies.

It's like a, you know, in real sports, there's something called like a David versus Goliath strategy where teams that are big underdogs have to take more risks, they have to try different things. you're not going to beat Tom Brady by asking Andy Dalton to drop back and pass 40 times. You know, you have to try something different. So I have actually never been a big proponent of zgging when everybody yells. I mean, kind of the whole basis of the tiers approach is to keep up with your competition. I guess maybe it's a situation where I do have more confidence in myself to just outplay everybody. And so I don't see the need to take this high.

risk, higher risk strategy. Well, see, I don't see it as higher risk. Okay. I mean, look, there are times where it's like, why is everybody else doing this thing? Look, Alex Breggman's here in round four all of a sudden. I'm just going to take Alex Breggman. I mean, that certainly

happens. But apart from like totally wild scenarios like that, I'm not going to go against the grain because, and like, especially if we're talking about the scenario this year of hitting versus pitching. Why don't I just get an advantage in all the hitting categories

and try to piece together this pitching staff? It's because there's such an extreme difference in depth between pitching and hitting that it's not that clear that you're going to have any real advantage in any hitting category except maybe steals. That's the one and maybe batting average, where you really feel good about guaranteeing yourself an advantage by spending there.

And then if you're like if you're not, if you don't at least make a halfway decent effort to keep pace at starting pitching, you're just going to get destroyed in those categories because like there's no way you could possibly get lucky enough to overcome an environment where average pitchers are just getting pummeled. But Scott, there's good pitchers like no assistant. Underguard available at 67th overall.

67th overall is still pretty early. Scott, I was trolling you. Stop! I was trolling you. Yeah. Come on. All right, one last email before we finish out the show. Jeff, or sorry.

Ewan from Stuttgart, Germany. That's a long ways away. Hello, J.T. Gary Wilson and Yasmani. My league has decided to get rid of catchers entirely this year and replace it with a second utility spot. I hope Scott hasn't thrown. up yet, 12-te-to-head categories lead with OBP and Slug instead of average. With that in mind, which catchers would still be worth drafting in this type of league? It's probably not more than

about six, right? Maybe eight. I think you can get to the Mitch Garver point and still conceivably see Mitch Garver being useful. What, Garber? You consider Garber eighth? I think Garver's consensus five, right? I thought he was going a little later than that. Oh, no, he is fifth right now. Okay. So, yeah, it might be five. Maybe, yeah, it's probably five. It's probably Rao Muto, Gary Sanchez, there's Amani Grundal, Wilson Contreras, and I think Mitch Garber would be just a late round pick in this format.

And I don't think you're taking Gary Sanchez in the top 100. I don't think you're taking J.T. Realmuto in the top 100. No, I mean, these are probably all late-ish round picks. you know, I don't know that Yasmani Grondal considering what he's... If he has a season like what he did last year, he would be. 240 hitter with 28 home runs,

240, 240, 245 hitter with 28 home runs. And maybe 75 runs in RBI. This is an on-base plus slugging league, so... Yeah, so he's better in that format. 850-ish, right? But I don't know That just doesn't like compare that to Like certainly Mark Kana who we talked about his ADP

Kana comes out ahead Yeah Rao Muto finished in 5 by 5 scoring Regular standard 5 by 5 scoring last season Without adjusting for positions He finished the 64th player last year He was the only catcher inside of the top 110 But yeah and that's Real Muto That's not even like Grandal

But if we're sticking to the Granddoll thing look at Mike Yistremski he had 272 with an 852 OPS and 21 homers yeah in what was less than a full-time role that role supposed to go up this year and that's a guy Yistrimski who 12 team 5 outfield or league I'm not sure he's not usually getting drafted at least in the mock drafts we've done so far so like there's just so many good hit the the playing all the things that hold catchers back really get brought to the forefront in this format. And it's hard to ever justify using utility spot on them.

I mean, other than Sanchez, Riemuto, and Garver, if I was just totally buying into what Garver did last year, because per game Garber was far and away the best catcher last year. Those would probably be the only three I'd really consider. And it would be, you know, toward the later stages of the draft. All right. That's it for Friday's episode of the Fantasy Base. Baseball Today podcast. Thanks so much for your emails. Thanks so much for being Scott White. And we'll see you next week.