Fantasy Baseball Today - 01/30: "Who is This Year's ___" (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 30, 2019

We'll try to figure out the 2019 version of Christian Yelich, Whit Merrifield, Trea Turner and more. First we get some rankings debates for Travis Shaw (2:10) and Carlos Rodon (6:55) ... Emails about Domingo Santana (10:25), Flaherty vs. Buehler (15:18) and Matt Carpenter (19:35) ... News and notes (26:40), "Who is This Year's ___" (28:50)? Plus sleepers, breakouts and busts (42:20) for Home Runs, Batting Average and Saves ... 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. Well, fantasy! Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. New Wednesday edition, January 30th, this is the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. We got some good rankings to scoops today, unlike those crappy ones from yesterday,

comparing Walker Bueller to Jack Flaherty. Plenty of your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. And who is this year's Christian Yellich? Who is this year's with Merrifield? Joey Votto will answer it all for you. Oh, also, Heath's categories. Yeah, great, whatever. Later on today.

On the show. I'm Adam. Is it. Scott, a little chuckle. Funny when Adam puts me down? I thought Scott was doing the intro. Oh, yeah. I was going to do the intros and put Heath down like Scott did during Heats intros.

Oh, right. Scott, you want to do an intro? Now the ship is sale. Okay. Maybe next time. Hey, but Chris is here. We're all here. Hello.

Hey, Chris. Bring the pain. Bring the energy. Hey, listen, I haven't seen Heath in a while, and I'm kind of, I have like a far away view of Heath. It looks like he has Bryce Harper hair. Is that true? He does. He does, right?

Yeah. I was calling it Pat Riley here. He didn't take kindly to that. No, because he's got the undercut. That's the key to the hipster guy hair. Heath is the coolest guy in the office right now. Cool. All right.

Good stuff. I have Bryce Harper here and I'm wearing LeBron James shoes. Yeah, it's, what a hype beast. He's going to start coming in and Supreme clothes next. What does that mean? I don't understand what Supreme is. I have no idea. Oh, I remember Supreme.

Yeah. Yeah, he's going to wear like a no fear shirt. You know what I mean? All right, let's do some rankings disputes. That was cool when I was a kid. No fear shirt. Yeah, they were cool. Yeah.

All right. So two guys to dispute. Travis Shaw and Carlos Rodon. So I'm looking at just Scott's rankings and Heath's rankings here for both points in Roto. Travis Shaw is 12th at third base for Scott and eighth for Heath. And Scott, go for it, Travis Shaw. I think it's mostly a matter of upside. Why I rank him lower, I think he's a suitable starter at third base.

I think guys like Justin Turner or Josh Donaldson, if they have good health are elite. So I think they're potentially more bang for the buck there. What I actually like doing is particularly if I don't get one of the high-end

super safe second basement or third baseman. I like drafting Travis Shaw as my utility player to back up to both. So I, you know, I'd probably draft somebody like Justin Turner Daniel Murphy, a few rounds earlier than Shaw,

and then Shaw will still be there. All right, last year Shaw was 12th and points, 11th of Roto. 2017, he was sixth in points, fourth in Roto. He is just going to be 29 years old, so still has some good years left. Heath, you have him eighth. You've always been sort of the Travis Shaw guy. I have a Travis Shaw bubblehead on my desk

that was very kindly sent to me by the Brewers because I am the Travis Shaw guy. Cool. And the big thing for me, first off, I think that there is a chance that Travis Shaw is a little better than he was last year. He struggled against left-handed pitchers more than he had in his career. He had some, what I would say was unlucky, batted ball luck. More importantly, he's second base eligible. And second base is a wasteland.

It's absolutely terrible. and so he's, yeah, number eight for me at third base. He's number four for me at second base. Yeah, that is huge. And he had a 242 babbip last year. He had a 241 batting average, and he's usually around a 300 babb. The lefty thing was strange because he held his own against left.

He's typically, but last year he slugged 296. He was just awful against them. Do we think he's an everyday player? Last year he wasn't really an everyday player because they had scope. They had moustacus. That was the concern in the second half for him, is that they were willing to take him out of lineup

or use him in mid-game situations or pull him out. They don't have scope. They don't have Mastakis. So it's possible that they just won't have the flexibility that they had. But that is a warning sign for me that they were willing to take this guy out of the lineup. And there were changes in his profile that may have made him even more...

Because he has a 286 career babbip, which is low. and there were changes in his swing profile that may have made him more susceptible to low bat. Yeah, and he has a 286 career babbip. It's funny because he doesn't, like he's a veteran, I would say, but he only really has three full seasons. And so you look at his by year, it's in a half year, 304, then 299, then 312,

and then last year it just cratered. I don't think he's necessarily with those changes at 312 or 300 babbip. guy, but even if he's a 270 bad-bip guy, that would make a big difference from 242 last year. The other change he had, he walked a lot more, 13% walk rate and cut his strikeout rate all the way down to 18%. All right, last thing on Travis Shaw. Scott, I'll throw it to you.

I'm sorry, you can weigh in. I just, you know, he has at times looked like he could be a real stud. 2017 in particular, you know, before he probably was playing hurt through the last like month and a half, he fouled the ball off his foot a few times and really struggled. Is that potential still there for Travis Shaw to really break out and be a total stud? I don't think so, no. Scott? What do we consider breaking out?

I'm sorry, but 30 home runs, 80 runs, 100 RBI, and a 270 average? Isn't that a stud at second base? I mean, you know what I mean. Like, wow, I'm so happy I have Travis Shaw. he's carrying my team. He was one of my best picks. Like, let's not put a number on. I mean, I think the upside is more like second tier, like Eugenio Suarez. All right.

But what I was going to say is right now the Brewer's plan is to go with a combination of Corey Spanjenberg, Arnaz, and Tyler Saladino at second base. So barring something like them bringing back Mike Mustakis, I think Shaw's playing time is pretty safe. Okay. Carlos Rodon is the number 67 starting pitcher for Scott, 50th for Heath in Roto, 56 in Points League. So not super far apart, but far apart a little bit. All right, so Carlos Rodon, Heath, he is 50th for you in Roto, 56 and points. You're higher on Rodon than Scott is.

And I can almost guarantee you're higher on Rodon than Chris's. Yeah, well, everybody hates Carlos Rodon. And I've kind of liked Carlos Rodon more than I should. should have in the past. Last year was extremely weird in just about every single way for it on. The strikeouts disappeared. He was actually better for most of the year than he had been in the past. I just am not ready to say that there's no hope left for Carlos Rodon.

He did average six innings per start. If he can get the strikeouts back, and I don't know for sure that he can, he's somebody I'm willing to take a chance on. Scott said it before. You get past starting pitcher 20, and there's really a lot. of, well, just which one do you prefer? I just think there's still some upside left and Rodon. I'm not ready to give up on him, but we're 500

innings and four seasons into his career. And he's been bad. Pretty much every. I mean, like the best he's been was average. And last year he was one of the worst pitchers in baseball in terms, like he had a 418 ERA, but every single peripheral suggests. that he should have been one of the two or three worst pitchers in baseball. Yeah, he didn't give up a lot of hits.

He actually had a career low, 1.26 whip. His whip is usually around 1.4. And that's because he had a Travis Shaw bat, it. Yeah, so. Yeah, there's really nothing encouraging about what he did last year. But otherwise, I mean, I'm basically with what Heath said, word for word, which leads me to believe there are just some other pitchers, I guess about 10 other pitchers.

that I'm more willing to gamble on than Carlos Rodon. I'd be curious to figure out what those are. Josh James, maybe a little bit of an exercise. I would guess one of them is Rick Porcelo. Well, yeah, I mean, I have Rick Porcelo. Shoot, I have him 38, so it's not even in the same stratosphere. I think I have him, like, 70th, so.

Josh James is one of them. I'm guessing Jimmy Nelson is one of them. Marco Gonzalez, Kyle Gibson, maybe. Yeah, those would be so. Jimmy Nelson might be a guy move ahead of Rodon. Actually, he has Kyle Gibson. I think Marco Gonzalez should be higher.

He does have Kyle Gibson higher than you have him, Scott, but he has Kyle Gibson behind Rodon. Basically, everything for Carlos Rodon went in the wrong direction last year. Yeah, you got to hope last year was just like, he was injured, right? He came like mid-season. Yeah, but his velocity was fine. It was where it's always been. He didn't have the feel.

Yeah, he didn't have the feel. They didn't have the touch. You got to have the feel, Chris. That's right. All right. Hey, you can win $1,000 this weekend. Sportsline is running a free Super Bowl DFS contest on Draft Kings. It's only open to sportsline members.

If you go to sportsline.com, you can get all the information. Sportsline.com. You've got to be a sports line member, which is only like $10 a month for amazing content. Let's read a few emails here. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Fantasybaseball at CBSI.com. This is from Jolin. Where do you project Domingo Santana for the season?

Now with the Mariners, is he getting 600 at bats? Is Domingo Santana a full-time option? Is he a platoon guy? We were fairly excited about Domingo Santana at this point last year, and then he had a terrible season. Well, some of us were. Some of us were. He was certainly worth drafting.

Anyway, Domingo Santana, 2008, what is it, 19 outlook? Chris Towers. What do you think? I just, I don't like the profile. There's way too much swing and miss. There's way too many balls on the ground. He hits the ball really hard. And when he happens to hit in the air, good things really happen.

But when you don't make contact and you hit the ball on the ground, it's really hard for good things to happen. Now, the good thing is he should get everyday playing time in Seattle, which he didn't in Milwaukee last year. But he hit two. 65 with a 386 Babbitt and his ISO collapsed last year.

Now he's moving to a much, much worse hitting environment. Yeah. He has the potential for 20 homers and 20 steals and so he's worth drafting but I'm less excited about him than I am Byron Buxton right now. Okay. That's Domingo Santana and he mentioned

the Babbitt, but he is a very high babbib guy, 360 or better, all three seasons, last three seasons, because like Chris said, he does hit the ball really hard. Anybody more hopeful for Santana, Scott? I mean, I'm not, he's not going to make my sleepers list. I don't think it's wrong to call him a sleeper based on the season. He had in 2017, 30 homers 15 steals. Now, like Chris said, there's far fewer obstacles to him playing every day.

although I do wonder how the Jay Bruce Edwin and Carnacion situation is going to sort itself out. I think there is a chance if Domingo Santana doesn't perform, he finds himself on the bench even in Seattle. You know, if he's still available around 70th outfielder off the board, particularly in a Roto League, I'd take a flyer on him. But we'll see how that plays out. So far, I don't feel like he has a lot of helium, as they say. No, he's not a popular sleeper pick. I have no interest in him in points at all. In Roto leagues, I'm kind of interested, because I think the Mariners could be behind the Royals,

maybe the second most run heavy team. They're not going to be very good. They've been aggressive running the bases in the past. Santina does have speed. He didn't run at all last year. So I'm kind of interested in Roto, because I think what Chris said, the 2020 potential. I mean, realistically, 25-25 is there. It is worth noting he has 22 stolen bases and 1,328 career plate appearances.

It's kind of just one year that he ran. That's a little bit over two seasons. All righty, let's move on. This is from Aaron in Kenosha. He says, Dear, Pythagoras, Turing, Newton, and Euclid. What would be the best advanced stat for a 5-by-5 format? X-Woba instead of average war for runs, average exit velocity on fly balls for home runs, ex-woba with runners-in-scoring position for RBI, average sprint speed for stolen base,

FIP for ERA, X-FIP for WIP, swinging strike rate for K's, starting pitcher war for wins, relief pitcher war for saves. Heath, you should make these stats for the for the People League just to mess with Scott. I have often wanted to create a league like this just for Scott. and the problem is, and I think you see it here, that's not necessarily a very, you don't quite have 10 good categories, I don't feel like. I do think for the stolen bases,

you should probably use Van Graf's base running score. Yeah, or like extra base is taken, which is a stat on base. I have a serious problem with these X stats being used for scoring or other predictive stats like FIPP, which aren't real measures of what's actually happening. They're just taking what's happened and predicted what should have happened. That's not what should be being scored.

This is a total troll email. That's all this is. I am the advanced statiest advanced stats guy on the podcast, and I hate this idea. I also like it a lot. I also like kickers in fantasy football. So, calling crazy. Exactly. What's wrong with kickers in fantasy football?

It's really mean and discriminatory. Like, it's just, I just, yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. We shouldn't have kickers in football at all. Oh, God. All right, here's an email from Go Gators. Go Gators always refuses to put his real name in there, so I have to call him Go Gators, which makes me sick every time I read his email.

I listen to... What's the guy's name? Just Go Gators, that's all it is. Oh, stop. Chris, shut up. That's the mean. I listened to Tuesday's podcast and was wondering why almost all of the experts have Walker Bueller ahead of Jack Flaherty.

They usually have him ahead by a decent margin, too. I know Flaherty had a higher ERA, but he had a better K-per-9. He is way more likely for 180-plus in. shouldn't, given Bueller's injury history and innings cap, there'd be more concern about Bueller. What do you think? This is the thing about Walker Buehler that I don't think is getting taken into account with him, is that even under the best case scenario, he probably doesn't throw more than 160

innings in the regular season, right? He threw more than 160 innings last year. Right, but they need him for the playoffs. He threw 137 in the major last year. He threw 153 between the majors and the minors. Okay. Well, actually, with the playoffs, this is huge for Walker Bueller, because, you know, sometimes we get concerned about big innings jumps.

It's hard to find one like this. So I think he threw five innings three years ago. Nine and a third. Oh, nine and a third? Okay, 97, 2017, 17, 176 in 2018. Like, that is a major red flag for Walker Bueller. And that was all coming off Tommy John Turner. Right.

So look, it could be nothing. You never know. But it was a concern of mine for Severino last year. Maybe he got tired second half of the year. But there's reason to limit his innings. So, yeah, I mean, Heath, I think you have Flaherty and Bueller back to back. I actually, and I've been trying to find ways to move Jack Flaherty up higher because he will be one of my prime breakout candidates,

even though he was really good last year. I actually have Flaherty a couple of spots higher. in points leagues. I have Bueller, one spot higher in Roto. Flaherty threw 182 innings last year between the minors in the major leagues had over 220 strikeouts. Yeah, I think there's

a chance that Flaherty, either Bueller or Flaherty could be a top 12 starting pitcher this year. I think what a lot of people are overlooking, though, is just how bonkers Bueller went over the last two months of the season. Even if we just look at what he did in the second half, 203 ERA,

0.88 whip, 10.4, strikeouts per nine. And, you know, early on, when he and Flaherty were like neck and neck in terms of performance, Bueller was getting strikeouts. It was obvious how good the stuff was, but he wasn't getting swinging strikes at an elite rate, and that kind of had me concerned. Well, that changed during that span. He started getting the swings and misses he wasn't getting before and became the Dodgers

ace, frankly. I mean, he's probably the best. pitcher on the Dodgers even now. So, yeah, I think he's already in that ace conversation. So you have Bueller's 16th, Scott, and Flaherty 23rd. I mean, very, very close. Last thing on Flaherty, he had a 283 ERA, I believe, going into September, and then he had a terrible September.

His innings have been a logical jump. 134, 170, 182, and two-thirds in his last three. years. That whole, like, he was great until he fell apart in September. It reminds me a lot of Luke Weaver in 2017, whose last two appearances, Rose's ERA, almost two runs. Yeah, but the way Luke Weaver got to his early success and the way Jack Flaherty got to his success were pretty different. And Flaherty's, based on peripherals, at least, it looked more sustainable. Okay. All right, new email here. Davin from Dorchester. Is that how you say it?

I mean... I want an entire podcast with you pronouncing the names of northeastern cities. It's not Northeastern, it's just Massachusetts. They're all stinking stupid. What? Stink and stupid. They're all stupid. Yeah, David and Dorchester, whatever. Matt Carp... This must have been something I missed while I was away, but this is directed to Scott, I believe.

Matt Carpenter got hit in the wrist. I believe it derailed his season, and Noah mentions it because he played the next day. Starting from his three-day break to the day he got hit in the wrist, I believe he was the number one batter, but I don't know how to check. Talk to me, fellas. Yeah, he was... I believe that's accurate.

He had to have been the number one batter. So he got hurt on August 16th. Let's see what the game log say. Matt Carbender went on a tear that was legendary, a 79 game stretch where he batted 332 with 30 home runs and 1154 OPS. So that was 79 games. His other 77 games, he had like a 600 OPS. Interesting year for Carpenter, who's going to drive me crazy on draft day, guys.

I really don't know what to do about Matt Carpenter. Yeah, I keep moving him down. Like, this is, there's no valor to playing through injury when you put up the kind of numbers Matt Carpenter does when you play through injury. So this is not really reassuring to me because he has a, like, it's, it's, it's, It was an oblique thing one year. It was, I think, like, a knee thing one year. I don't remember for sure what it was. But he's had several years in a row where playing through injury has ruined his production.

And he's 33 now. Like, that's getting into just plain old territory. I feel like there's more downside than upside based on where he's likely to be drafted. Well, the upside is he's the best hit around baseball. Yeah, I'm always... money, come on. He was for half a year last year. Yeah, so what.

Come on. I'm always confused. He was like a top 20 hitter overall, right? Like, even if the upside is not, he's the best hitter in baseball. The upside is he was awesome last year. Was one of the two or three best hitters in 2016, I believe. And you're talking about a career season, too. Like, that's not normal Matt Carpenter.

I'm just saying. if Matt Carpenter's surge had started a month and a half later in the season and gone through the end of the season, we wouldn't be having this discussion. He really wasn't that much better in 2018 than 2015 or 2016. Yeah, he was. He had 36 home runs. He had never hit more than like 28. But he, I mean, his OPS was like 30 points higher, like 20 points higher.

Right. I mean, that'll help in that OPS league, I guess. So I think what was interesting about that, right, like, 2015 was probably his best full season because 2016 he played 129 games. 2015 Carpenter was the number 7 first basement of points number 9 in Roto. Last year he was number 2 in points, number 4 in Roto. He looked a lot better because there weren't that many good first basement. I don't know.

Were the elite hitters just not as good? He was the number 15 hitter last year in points number 22 in Roto. I'm going to have a ton of Matt Carpenter. In Roto too? Because last year I feel like we were like... Everywhere. He's not so great in Roto because he's not. Like, he's going into last year he was like a 270 hitter who doesn't steal,

who doesn't stand out in home runs. He wasn't a great first base option in Roto leagues. You just said he was the number nine first baseman in Roto in 2015, and the number three last year. Four. Right, no, but I'm saying going. That sounds pretty great. No, going into last year.

But don't forget, 2017, he was terrible. He was the number 24 first baseman in Roto. Right. He's had one bad year in the last four. Yeah, yeah, but he was never a roto standout. I spent all of 2017 telling you, I don't know when he's going to get hot, but he will. Yeah, this is ridiculous. I understand he wasn't that, you know, he shouldn't have been that bad,

but I'm just saying Carpenter was never a roto standout. He's much better points. I mean, if you're setting the over under for batting average and home runs, you're going, what, like 260 and 28? I don't know. That's the question about the home runs. Like, you know. And those are both below average from a hot.

from an early round corner. Haven't we spent the last month crying about how bad first base is? Yes, that's why he looks better right now because first base isn't as good. But the one other thing that Carpenter's never been good at is RBI's. He had a career high 81 last year. So that's four categories where he's not standing out. Yeah, the plan is to bat him lead off to again. Right, he's always going to be good in runs.

But batting average, no, steals, no, RBIs, no. And then home runs is really the question mark, I think, for Carpenter. Yeah, I initially ranked him ahead of Joey Votto and decided I just can't bring myself to do it. I feel like there's more to be hopeful about for Votto than there is Carpenter. Yeah, I mean, you guys don't have to draft him, I guess. I'm going to draft him. He's my number three first baseman in both formats. And I think that might be a little aggressive.

I think Joey Votto is an interesting case when talking about Mac Carpenter because he does have, Joey Votto has number one hitter in baseball upside too. But I think you can make a lot of the same criticisms of Joey Votto as you can of Matt Carpenter. The exception is batting average. But Joey Votto, with the exception of a fluke year here or there, is usually not a big home run producer himself,

has asked any Cincinnati Reds fan, and they will scream in your face about how he doesn't drive in enough runs. He drives in more than 80, though. Okay. I mean, health and batting average are two big differentiators, especially batting average. I mean, that's one of the scarce categories in a categories league. And then if you take it to a points league, obviously,

it's not like Carpenter has an advantage of a Vado there either. Yeah. All right, well, good debate, fun debate. We got some news and notes. some of Heath's sleepers, breakouts, and busts in three categories, home runs, batting average, and saves, and who is this year's, you know, Yelich, Maryfield, fill in the blank. We'll get to all that right after this.

So your news and notes, and we'll go through this quickly, guys. Michael Confordo said he rushed back from off-season surgery last year, and his mechanics were off. And also in that same New York Post article, Chili Davis says that he doesn't hate home runs. He just doesn't like seeing guys go up to the plate trying to hit home runs. Can we not with this guy? That's what I said.

Not. The Red Sox were terrible when he was the hitting coach. He left and they were incredible. The Cubs were disappointing when he was their hitting coach. And they were really, really good the year before. Can we just not? I know. Not, Chilly Davis.

That's what I was saying. Well, you missed the conversation yesterday. He hits so many home runs in his career. How could he hate home run? He doesn't hate home runs. He hates when guys tried to hit home runs. The Blue J sign, Freddie Galvis. a one-year deal. The Padres are considering signing Mike Mustakis. Does ballpark matter for

Mike Mustacas? He was actually better at Kaufman Stadium than Miller Park last year. Yes. I mean, San Diego is not a terrible park anymore. I don't know how it bears for left-handed hitters. I don't either. The Marlins signed Neil Walker. And he's their second-best hitter now? He's versatile. Where is he eligible? First second-second. I don't know. That's not even an exaggeration. That's probably bad news for Peter O'Brien, right? It is bad news, though. With this signing, I think it was Mike Hill, the general manager, who I think is just there because he knows the rulebook.

And I don't know that he's responsible for that many moves that are made. But he said that the plan is for Walker and O'Brien to share time at first base, which I think was the clearest indicator O'Brien would have some kind of role. But, yeah, it's not going to be full-time. Walker can't hit lefties anymore. He's a switch hitter. He's first, second, and third base eligible, though. And I just would say he's not as bad as the numbers from last year.

He signed on March 12th and got off to a terrible start and was okay in the second half. But I'm not going to sit here and make a case for, I guess I just did. And I'm only guy. Any more case for Neil Walker. The Diamondback signed manager, Tori Lavello, to a two-year contract extension. and the Red Sox signed Henry Mejia, who was banned for life, except not really banned for life.

Okay, I hope you guys did your homework. Who is this year's Christian Yellich? I gave you all these names. You know, I think we'll get the picture. And I suspect Heath came prepared with a list of players. And nobody else did. I suspect nobody else did. This is the first I'm hearing of it.

I sent the email yesterday. Come on. Notes for tomorrow's show. You think I'm going to review them before the show starts? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, I opened the email, read it, and made, Chris can see, I made a complete list for each player with an option for each.

Now, I thought the Yelich one was the most difficult because I didn't see a young guy switching environments that could have a huge impact and go from good to great. Okay, well, I'm glad. I'm glad you have one. So I went with an old guy, but he is at least an outfielder, and he's left-handed like Yelich. And I do think that the change of environment could make him even better because they make everybody better, and it's Michael Brantley.

Ah, is he pitching for the Astros? No. They just make everybody better. If there is an advantage to find, they will find it. Okay, I like that. Michael Brantley could be this year's Christian Yelich. Scott, Chris. This could be just an Adam and Heath segment.

Obvious one. Oh, who? He hasn't gotten a change of scenery yet, but if J.T.R.R. Oh, yeah. If he goes to Cincinnati, as has been rumored lately, oh, my God. He would be the number.

I mean, he's already pretty much the consensus number one catcher. I think there are probably still some people who have Gary Sanchez ahead of him, but if he gets out of Miami where he has like a career 680 OPS in Marlins Park, he has a career like 850 OPS on the road. And he's going to be in a better lineup and a better hitting environment. And he developed power last year. I think he could have a monster season if he goes to Cincinnati.

I was going to choose Realmodo, but since he was still on his own team, I didn't think he qualified. It's okay. Chris is kind of a cheater. Scott, do you have a Christian Yewitch for 2019? I don't have one in terms of park venue change leading to the big transformation in production, which is the route Heath and Chris were both taking, but just in terms of breakout potential, who could surprise with elite numbers?

I think David Dahl fits that category. No real threats to his playing time anymore. Honestly, if you just project out his half-season numbers over a full season, they're pretty big. You're talking about more than 30 homers. But I would argue he actually had bad Babbitt, Luck last year considering his home environment is Coors Field. It was like right around 300.

He gets that closer to 350 the way a lot of Rockies hitters do. You're talking about a potential five category threat. You know, more like 15 steals, but that's the range Yelich is in, too. All right, so who is this year's Christian Yelich? He says Michael Brantley. Chris says J.T. Ray Almuto, and Scott says David Dahl. I win that round, right? I was closer to playing with the rules than Scott was.

You got second place. Who is this year's Quit Merrifield, proving he's legit after an out-of-nowhere good season. Heath, let the other guys think for a sec. Who is this year's Quit-Marifield? Oh, I've got the perfect one here. Eligible at multiple positions. He was a little bit older for a breakout than we expected.

There are some things in his profile that suggest, maybe he wasn't quite as good as he was last year, and there's a little bit of playing time concern, and that's Max Munster. Please just play him every day, and Max Muncie can be your Whitmerryfield without steals, but a lot more walks in power. Yeah, that felt like a good answer there. That's where I was going to go. Chris, you got a...

I've got two. I think one works better. So I think Stephen Piscotti is going to have an even better 2019 than his 2018, but I also, he was good before, so it wasn't completely out of nowhere. The one who was, and it's similar with Merrifield. Malick Smith similar profile-ish to Whitmeryfield less power but should be a high Babbitt guy if he plays every single day like he should he should steal 40 plus bases with the potential for 60 which is something that he did in the minors multiple times still 88 bases one year in the minors I really like Malick Smith I think he's someone who's going to give you like a 280 285 batting

average, score some runs, steal a bunch of bases. Scott White, who's this year's quit Merrifield? I'm going to go with Jerkson Profar, who at one point in time was the top prospect in baseball, so maybe it's not totally out of nowhere, but nobody was really counting on him making good on that potential anymore before he got an extended look with the Rangers last year. and, you know, I think there's room for him to get even better from this because his beta ball profile lends itself to a perfectly normal badbip, and he didn't have that badbip last year.

It was like 269 or something. So he gets that batting average up closer to 280, guy who doesn't strike out much, seems totally viable, with a lot of extra base pop and a little bit of speed, even he was 10 for 10 in steals last year. I think you're talking about, you know, potentially somebody who performs like a top five rounder. All right. All right.

So here we go. Your answers for who is this year's quit-Mariefield, someone who proves he's legit after an out-of-noware good year. Max Muncie for Heath, Piscotti slash Malick Smith for Chris, and Juerks and ProFar for Scott. We'll do a couple more and we'll save the rest for Friday show. Trey Turner. All right. Turner was good. He had a nice year.

but he was not worthy of being like a top three or four pick. Who is this year's Trey Turner, someone who turns out he's not the elite player or the super elite player we thought he was? It's not based on my rankings, but based on what I've seen in some drafts here recently, I think this one's relatively easy too. I think it's Ronald Ocuna. And Turner really saw his stolen bases didn't quite reach what we were hoping for because he really only stole in one position in the order

and Scott's brought up Ronald Acuna really kind of ran more when he was in a certain position in the order. I think Acuna's stolen bases could really dip. He's going to be very, very good. But I think there's a good chance he disappoints people to take him in the first round. I think there's a more obvious answer. Who?

Have your bias. This guy, like, I get it. Yeah, he's not going in the first round, though. His overall ADP on NFBC drafts, now is 13th. Yeah, see? Like, not even close to the first round. And I just, I still have enough questions about the hit tool.

I think there's a big chance that he takes to John Carlos Stanton, like, step back in his contact. And, you know, we've seen him be a useful player. I was arguing for him as, like, a top 150 guy going in the last season. But there's a big difference between the 130th best player overall in the 13th. What about Francisco Lindor? Because he's going to go with probably a top four pick. You can tell me where Lindor's ADP is.

Does he feel like the kind of guy who could feel more like a second rounder when it's all said and done? Like, is he going to be able to replicate the home runs? He also doesn't stand out in batting average. Is he going to be a 20-steel guy, you know? I mean, this was basically two years in a row with this kind of power. We were asking, can't he do that again with the home runs? at this time a year ago and he hit five more. So I'm not really worried about that.

Okay. I mean, I wouldn't put him in that category. And, you know, honestly, Chris and Heath probably took my top two answers there, so that's disappointing. But kind of to play devil's advocate, this isn't something I believe is going to happen, but it does seem plausible that Alex Bregman just doesn't produce that. kind of power again and ends up being more like a third or fourth round performer than a first rounder, especially knowing he's coming off surgery to remove bone chips. That's going to have him delayed to the start of the season. Maybe that holds back the power at the beginning of the year

and the overall output isn't first round material. Like I haven't drafted to be like a lot of people have drafted to be. All right. I have two points to make. Yeah, real quick. I just want to want to say Akuya and Baez were the answers there. Go ahead. Francisco Lindor. It sounds like you're having some truffle valuing Lindoror. I'm sorry that I delayed that pod. And I've been using this X-Stats tool that Andrew Perpetua made, and it basically takes the bad of all profile, a lot of the, what's it called? The MLB's Trackman data, Stackass.

and figures out what he did and what he should have done. And with Lindor, it basically comes down to he had like five or six homers that probably should have been doubles. And he probably had a lower Babbitt than he should have. So I think mostly what he did last year was legit. Can we use his tool to score our advanced metrics roto league? I'm trying to think of a... You could use whatever you want.

Andrew, I'm trying to think of an Andrew perpetuity joke that I could make to counteract Lindor Truffle. It's not going to be as good. No, it's not. So just don't do it. I won't. Okay, then who is this year's, let's do last one. Who is this year's Miguel And Duhar, off the radar rookie who becomes a rookie of the year, contender and gets robbed of his rookie of the year award because it went to a guy who sat against lefties and missed a lot of time.

Who is this year's annual? You had eight names here. I had good answers for, I believe, seven of them. them. This was the one that I really, really struggled with. And so I went with a pitcher. I went with Jesus Lozardo. He is a top 100 prospect, but And O'Hara was a top 100 prospect before last year as well. And Lozardo may start the year in the minor leagues, but I think he has a chance start pitching in the majors in late April, early May, and win the rookie of the year award, except it'll be stolen by someone who isn't as deserving.

All right, Jesus Lazzardo for Heath. Who is this year's Miguel and? Duhar, Chris Scott, anybody want to go here? You know, I love my big beefy baseball boys, so I'm going to pick two. Williams' Astonio, of course. You can't come out of nowhere when everyone is talking about you. Yeah, you can. And Rowdy Tellez, a big beefy baseball boy named Rowdy. I don't even care about the stats.

That guy's going to hit. That's good because the... Toronto has a history of maximizing power. I wonder how to do that. Probably stealing signs, Heath. And just, yeah, really off the radar. Okay. I'm going to go with Nathaniel Lowe, a first baseman in the race system, who is 23,

and with Jake Bowers out of the way, that's an easier path to the majors. He was not a prospect, by any measure, heading into last year, made some changes to shorten his swing so he could turn on inside fastballs better was already really good at hitting off speed stuff just couldn't catch up to the heat well that changed last year he hit 3 30 with 27 homers and 985 ops he doesn't strike out much he looks like the sort of uh player who is such a late developing prospect that he never gets the quite the attention he deserves and then ends up making a huge impact in the majors. So Nathaniel Lowe is my pick for this year's Miguel

Andahar. So you're saying he's Paul Goldschmidt. That's the example I often use when talking about that phenotype of prospect, yes. Can I just give the rest of my answers even though we're not going to do them? No, we're going to do one Friday. Going to do them on Friday. On Friday, who's this year's Joey Votto,

who's this year's Blake Snell, who's this year's Josh Hater, who is this year's Cole Hamels. So to recap the Anduhar answers, A's pitcher, Jesus Lazzardo for Heath, Toronto's Rowdy Tiles. Is that it, Chris? Routy Toles. Ann Williams, S.Dio, please do not forget my BFiest baseball boy.

He's still on the Twins? He's probably not going to be in the majors to start the season. And Tampa Bay's Nathaniel Lowe for Scott White. All right, Heath will save your category. No, I'm just kidding. Let's do Heath's categories. He's giving you sleepers, breakouts, and busts for all the major categories. Home runs.

batting average and saves today. Yesterday we did strikeouts. Let's start with home runs and a sleeper at home runs. I feel like you're still on vacation. Me putting together half the show. I'll go with Tyler O'Neill for the Cardinals. There's a legitimate concern about his playing time. There is no concern at all about his power profile.

He had 33 hits last year. Nine of them went for home runs. He played 194 games in AAA, 57 home runs. This guy has monster power. We just got to find a place for him to play. All right, Tyler O'Neill is Heath's Sleeper. Your breakout, somebody that's already been mentioned on today's show, home run breakout for next year.

Yeah, it's definitely David Dahl. And listen, the type of contact that he makes in the park that he plays in, he has the ability. I don't think he's going to hit 40 this year, but he has the ability to hit 35. and I would expect 30 should just be like what you're expecting this year. And the bust is on his same team and should not be playing baseball anymore. He's terrible.

Ian Desmond hits more wormburners than Adam on a golf course. And he's probably going to hit like 12 home runs this year and steal 12 bases. I'm going to send you, I don't know if it's going to go through, but I'm going to send you a video of me at Top Golf. And you're going to be like, wow, that was really good. Okay, so just get ready for that. All right, so sleeper Tyler O'Neill, break out David Dahl, bust Ian Desmond in home runs. I will allow Chris and Scott their opportunity to jump on in there if they want to add anything. I don't necessarily think David Dahl is going to be a big home run guy.

Other than that, like Tyler O'Neill has gigantic pythons, and he's going to hit a lot of home runs and strike out a lot if he plays. Is it 34-inch pythons? Is that the measurement? Yeah. You know what I'm in front of. I have no idea we're talking about. Polkogen?

Yes. I'm going to put, I'm going to nominate Luke Voight for this category, who I know he doesn't like. But if he can genuinely, if he can legitimately hold on to the everyday first base job for the Yankees with his swing in that park, I think the floor is 30 home runs for him. Yeah, I just don't. I don't know. he can hold on to that job. I don't think he was ever as good a prospect as Greg Byrd was. He wasn't, but that's not always that way.

Scott, no. Scott, we are not letting Heath troll me into a Greg Bird argument. Oh, okay. All right. I missed what he was doing. Yeah, I didn't. Batting average sleeper breakout bust. You know, one of the things that I think gets overlooked, and Scott and I argue about this sometimes,

but in our standard Roto League, there are two catcher slots. Catchers can destroy your batting average. So my sleeper at catcher or at batting average is a catcher. It's Danny Jansen, who only had a 247 average last year. It was only 95 plate appearances. That's bad. It's also, I think, 15 points higher than the average for a catcher in Major League Baseball. And he hit 285 in AAA, 2.91 and double A.

He's walked more than he struck out each of the last two years. And he strikes out less than 20% of the time. I think there's a good chance that he gives you an average batting average, fairly late in the draft in one of the worst batting average sucks on your roster. Danny Jansen, batting average sleeper. Batting average breakout. We already talked about this guy. It's Jerks and ProFar.

His hard hit rate, he looks like he had some terribly terrible bad luck. And so I think that he should make a 20-point climb in his betting average in 2019. Scott, agree? Jerks and ProFar, 20 more points in batting average? Yeah, it's basically what I said. Just a few minutes ago, Adam. if you were listening. Yeah, that's sort of listening. Heath, you are, I was listening.

Your bust? Another guy we've already talked about. Chris talked about Javi Baez. I think Scott has him as a bust candidate. Almost everything Javier Baez did last year is probably going to go the other direction. He can still be very good for your team. But I would expect that he loses home runs. He loses batting average.

He loses runs. He loses RBI and he probably loses a couple of steals. His BABIP was 10 points higher than his career average. His home run to fly ball rate was six points higher than his career average. Steamers projections have him as a 269 hitter next year. That may be a little bit low, but I'd be surprised if he hits over 275. And remember, Javier Baez is going 13th overall. That's almost the first round.

Yeah, if he was going in the first round, he would have been a good pick for that segment earlier. First round in 15 team or 14 team or even 13 team leads. Yeah, that's true. All right, saves. Sleepers, breakouts, it busts it saves. I'll go Hunter Strickland for the Mariners. It could be Anthony Swarzak. It's going to be one of those two.

I expect the Mariners are going to try to use one guy as a closer, because that's what they've done in the past. I just don't know which one of them is going to win the job. The breakout is a weird one because he was in the top ten in the saves last year. But Brad Hand's legitimately been one of the best relievers in baseball for the last three years. And now the Indians have lost both Andrew Miller and Cody Allen. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Brad Handsteele or saves 40 games this year. The bust is David Robertson.

He's very, very good. The Phillies are not going to use one closer. They didn't have anyone with more than 16 saves last year. They had nine different pitchers get a save, and a lot of their best relievers didn't go anywhere. Okay, this one we can debate a little bit here. I'm going to throw out a bust candidate. We talked about him a little bit yesterday.

Jose LeClerc. I think when anybody has walk issues that severe in their, in their history, it could go wrong for Jose LeClerc. They don't have a very good bullpen behind him. Sean Kelly now maybe the best option, and he's always got injury issues. But, you know, look, there were some great numbers for LeClerc last year.

But, yeah. Bus potential there? Anybody feel that? I was actually thinking, just because I sense people don't realize how overwhelmingly good he was last year, now that he has a confirmed closer role, which I don't think we're going to see. is often these days.

I actually liked him more as a breakout. I mean, in terms of ERA, I think he was third. In terms of FIP, he was third behind only Edwin Diaz and Blake Trinen. K. Per 9, I think, was 10th among all relievers. I see both cases. The walks were kind of high, but the home runs and hits both were insanely low. Yeah, I know. I see both cases.

Like, it could be great for the clerk. I think in 2017, he walked like four and a half batters per nine or something crazy like that. sure somebody could look it up. If you're a bat missing reliever, I don't feel like that's... Like, I worry when you get up around five walks per nine. I don't think... I don't feel like four per nine is so bad.

His walk rate was about what Craig Kimberl's was last year. Last year, last year. But the year before it was 7.9. Okay, I'm sorry. So he walked 40 batters in 45 and 2 thirds in 2017. So it could... Le Clark did? Yeah, yeah.

Wow, I don't remember that. at all. He wasn't very memorable. So that was kind of... I mean, he still managed to have a 394 ERA in spite of that. Right, right. Yeah, that's awful. The first two seasons, he had a 7.8, 7.9 walk per 9, which is amazing. In 57 and two-thirds in his...

47, two-thirds. No, 57. At AAA? Oh, I thought you were talking about AAA. Yeah, 16 and 17. Yeah, he had like a six walks per nine and AAA, too. But what's weird is if you reverse, and I know hits per nine is not a stat we cite often because a lot of it depends on defense and luck and whatever else. But if you reverse his BB per 9 and hits per 9 from 2017, so he gave up 7.9 hits per 9 and 4.5 BB per 9, you wouldn't be as scared of that.

And he actually managed to improve that hit rate last year. It was 3.7 per 9, which I don't think should surprise anyone was the lowest mark in all of baseball. The clerk must have some nasty stuff. 13.3 strikeouts, 3.7 hits per 9. Just keep it in the strike zone, dude. Can I add a bus that everyone's going to get mad at me for? Yeah. Edwin Diaz.

He's going in the fourth round right now, 47th overall. When so much of the value in relief pitchers comes from saves, chasing the guy who had 50s. Yeah, he was the best relief pitcher in baseball last year. Yeah, best in football. He probably won't. He probably won't be the single best reliever in baseball next year. So there has to be some regression there.

He's not going to save 57 games. I would bet he doesn't save 40 games. He's going too early. He's going 15 spots ahead of the next closer in NFBC ADP. So you need him to not just be a great closer if you're taking him that early. You need him to be ahead and short. holders above the rest of the league, and there's just so much year-to-year volatility in relief pitchers as we've seen with Edwin Diaz's career.

Sure. He had a four ERA two years ago. And I think another thing that stands out to me just with the position, which I think is a tricky one, is that Jansen, Kimbril, and Chapman, you know, it's starting to become easier than ever before to make cases against them. Like, they're falling out of their prime probably. Certainly Jansen. Jansen terrifies me this year.

And Chapman keeps, you know, having some injury issues, velocity down a little bit. He's starting to throw a slider more. But yeah, whatever. We've got a relief pitcher preview. We'll get into that. We're going to end today's show. Awkwardly, obviously. On Friday's show, we'll read more of your emails at Fantasy Baseball.

At Cbsi.com. We'll get a few more of Heath's categories. We'll do more Who is this year's and make sure you listen to fantasy football today on Thursday for our Super Bowl

preview. And we'll also end Friday show off. No doubt about it. I am back in full swing. Talk to you on Friday, everybody. See you.