Fantasy Baseball Today - 02/05 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Early Rd. Questions; Dynasty Draft

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

After marveling at the greatness of Super Bowl LII, Adam asks Scott some interesting questions about early-round players like Kris Bryant (6:20), Anthony Rizzo (11:48), George Springer (15:06), Giancarlo Stanton (19:40), Clayton Kershaw (23:45) and more ... We discuss our Dynasty startup draft (32:43) and how to prioritize the upside of Ronald Acuna vs. the current excellence of an older player like Joey Votto ... Remember Aaron Sanchez? When should he be drafted (50:00)? And we give some strategies for picking late in a 10-team league (55:00) ... 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

All right, let's kick off another week of some fantasy baseball talk. It's February. Pitching and Catchers will be reporting before you know it. Welcome, everybody. We will not talk exclusively about the Super Bowl, but we will talk a little bit about the Super Bowl. It was a pretty incredible game. It's another episode from Team Scam.

Scott and Adam today, Heath and Chris should be back on our next episode, either tomorrow or on Wednesday. And Scott, seems like you're in a good mood. You're kind of bouncing off the walls right now. You're humming the tune to where in the world is Carmen San Diego. It's just, you're strange today. I like it.

I like what we're getting from SkyW. I get to take advantage of this. Welcome to Turner Field. Attention fans. Leading all. Number one. Rafael for call. Pretty good, right?

It's good. It is very good. Yeah, I get to do that job. I like it. Today I'm going to ask you some early round questions about players. are going in the early rounds. And then we're going to talk about the Dynasty League draft that we did on Friday. And I'm going to tell you the truth, people.

I was really mad at Scott White for making me be a part of it. A 30-round draft on a Friday after night. Not even a real league, a mock draft. On a Friday afternoon, like my day is kind of done. And I'm just, like, I want to just, like, get on with the weekend. I got to do a 30-round draft on a Friday afternoon. I loved it. It was one of my favorite mock drafts.

It was a nice mix of prospects and established hitters. And, you know, you can get, like, in a roto league with pretty deep rosters, Kyle Seeger, I got in, like, the 16th round or something like that. Yeah. You know, so that's the fun part. I think some people went a little overboard on prospects. I'd say so. I'd say so, yeah.

I don't know how much we're going to get into that, but. Oh, a lot. But Vladimir Guerrero, 19 years old, I think, 18. son of now Hall of Famer, Vladimir Guerrero, not the old guy, but the son, Blue Jay's top prospect, went in round three of this dynasty league, which, you know, it's,

the way I had it set up is, there weren't designated minor league spots. It was just a starting lineup and a bench. So any prospect you're drafting, I'm not saying they're not worth drafting, but anyone would have to sit on your bench, obviously, until the day he's useful. Right, I don't know.

Right. Well, who was the first, when did Acuna go? Also in round three. Okay, so that's when it started. Othani, Ocuna, and Guerrero all went in round three. There were the first three, quote-unquote, prospects off the board. But, you know, Otani and Okunia, at least the plan is for them to contribute in a major way this year. Endeavors went with the first pick of round four.

Yeah. So it's not just prospects. I mean, the younger players, like Bryce Harper, I took him with the second overall pick, which I think I might regret. But I'm not sure. Like, why didn't I just take Chris Bryant? I feel like I like Chris Bryant more. And they're, you know, Chris Bryant's 26. I don't know why I did that.

Carlos Correa went third. But, um, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. We'll talk about it later. I love my middle infields. I can't wait to tell everybody about my middle infield. Then you're going to tell all your friends. Injuries, news and notes, Scott, before we get into the first round questions,

there are none. So here's your news and note. Philadelphia won the Super Bowl, 4133. Did you know that? I did know that. Yes, I witnessed that happen. Not live, actually. Every sporting event I have to watch now is on delay because that's what little kids do for you.

Oh, you're kidding me. Really? No, I'm not kidding you. Even the Super Bowl? Well. Did you at least catch up by the end? Like, when did you get live? Well, it's the Super Bowl, Adam.

You're watching the commercials, right? Which, by the way, Big Lett down there. Big Lett. Okay. Have you not realized that they're bad every year now since the Janet Jackson thing? Like, there's no point. I don't even watch the commercials. The Giants commercial was amazing.

The Danny DeVito commercial was funny. I barely noticed the other ones. The Dilly Dilly ones were big letdowns, I thought. Yeah. Yeah. No, there wasn't too many. None of those. There weren't many commercials with real redeeming qualities.

How late after the game ended did you finish? It was like 1130. 1130 it ended around 1030 right yeah so like an hour oh wow so you were off twitter oh yeah that's just common practice now like look i could i could have watched it live and just you know let the enter let the game go during the many interruptions that spring up before the kids are in bed no that's fair i'd rather watch it in its entirety and it'd be a little late that's fine that's fair Did you have a good party? It wasn't really a party, but it was with my in-laws.

It was good. It was fun. Yeah, we enjoyed watching it. It was a good game, fun game. Obviously, I was happy with the outcome. Birds flocked together. Fetius broke my heart last year, and Eagles got it done. So that was nice to see.

That play, the pass to Nick Foles, of course, the play everybody was talking about. So cool. I turned to my father-in-law when I haven't. That might be the coolest play I ever seen, and he agreed with me. Yep. It was a cool bonding moment. Nice. I mean, the Statue of Liberty play, Boise State against Oklahoma, that's got to be up there, too.

Yeah, it was a good one. But this was like three trick plays rolled into one, because first they snap it straight to the running back, and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool. Then, you know, they might catch them off guard with that, and then he hands it off once, and then he passes it to the quarterback. Yeah. Well, the other thing that was cool about that was that was that Brady dropped a earlier in the game.

So it's like, take that. Of course, this was a much easier catch to make. I don't know. It was a really great game. It was a great game. So much fun. And I was rooting heavily for the Eagles last night because I was watching it with Eagles fans. And I decided I hate both teams, so it may as well just root for people that I like, who are Eagles fans.

So I got into it. And I was, like, really jazzed. And then I left and I was like, why don't I just root for the Eagles? That was weird for me. Anyway, Scott, let's get into fantasy baseball. Early round questions. What is more likely, in your opinion? Chris Bryant last year he was the number 15 hitter in points leagues, but number 30 in

Roto, only 29 home runs, seven steals for Bryant. So 15th in points leagues, 30th in Roto. What's more likely this year, do you think? Chris Bryant is the number one hitter in fantasy, or he's outside the top 15? It's got to be outside the top 15. I mean, we've already seen it happen, right? and we haven't seen it be number one overall. I think he'll be inside the top 15, maybe just barely.

He and Anthony Rizzo are kind of similar, I think, and just because they're not big base. They're among the first rounders who aren't going to steal bases and aren't going to contend for batting titles. So they're just, they're definitively high end, and they feel very safe. But chances are pretty good. They're not actually going to be top 12 options,

which doesn't mean you shouldn't take them in the top 12, Brian especially. But, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if they finish outside of that group. Okay, but in 2016, he was, Brian was the number one, two, three, four, like number eight hitter in points and number five in Roto. And he had 39 home runs. Yeah, so I, ten more. I see him as, I'm sure you do too, whereas Rizzo has been like the ultimately

consistent player. Brian, I think, has more upside. Well, he's shown it. I mean, he's had a better season. In 2016, Brian had a better season than Rizzo's ever had. Yeah, he has, I think, a little more upside and maybe more so in batting average than home runs. Yeah, two straight years right around $2.95, which Rizzo is more in the $2.85 range. But, I mean, part of what contributes to me, I mean, they both get on base so much,

which obviously helps in a more direct way in points leagues and categories. but Brian scored at least 111 runs the last two years because he's on base all the time. And I think maybe the Roto formula, and we talked about this in past years, I don't hold to the idea that there's a formula that can combine all five of the stats of player contributes in in Roto and spit out one value for it.

It's kind of misleading, You got five separate competitions going on in a Roto League, five-by-five league. And, you know, a guy with a lot of steals, because steals are scarce, is going to have a much higher singular roto value. But if you don't need more steals, that value's kind of wasted on you. It's not as clean of a comparison as in points leagues where points are points and more points are always better. All right, he had 29 home runs last year. Chris Bryant hit 39 home runs in 2016. How many home runs in 2018 for Chris Bryant?

34. All right. Split the difference right down the middle. Cool. Okay. And then the last thing on Bryant is there is a chance that he's going to not hurt you necessarily, but disappoint in RBIs if he hit second all year. Because last year he had only 73 RBIs.

That's like really low. He had a bad year hit in the 230s, I think, with runners in scoring position. But the year before that, Chris Bryant won the MVP with 102 RBIs. However, he played about half the season batting second. And in those, let's see, he had 45 RBIs and 83 games batting second. So that's less than a 90 RBI pace. So, I mean, there's a chance that if Chris Bryant's second all year, he drives in like 85 to 90 runs, which is a little low.

So just, you know, keep that in mind. Now he would make up her in runs. Well, this is something we've talked about to with Corey Seeger, who I think tends to bat second for the Dodgers. Also a good line. He has back-to-back years of less than 80 RBI, which is part of the reason why I think we haven't seen his best yet for fantasy purposes, and we shouldn't just value him at the level he performed last year. But what if he hit second? Then he's not –

Well, that's the thing. Like, yes. I think in theory, I mean, you look at what Brian did two years ago, over 100 RBI from the number two. No, no, he didn't have that. He only played, what did I say? 73 games? No, 83 games is the number two hitter, and he only had 45 RBIs in those 83 games. Okay, okay.

Well, I mean, you got Charlie Blackman batting mostly leadoff, drove in 104 runs last year. Like, there's this new approach to lineups that managers have started using the last few years where they tend to bat their best hitter second rather than traditionally it was third to get the guy more bats. I mean, that's fine. You want your best hitter hitting more. But obviously, the best hitter,

the best hitters in a lineup, the ones who are being put in that number two spot are also the ones we want in fantasy. And particularly in an NL lineup, it seems to be impacting their RBI total to some degree. I don't know how much you should deduct for batting second,

and I don't know how consistently you can deduct it. I think players, are capable of a solid RBI total from the number two spot, even in a lineup. But it does seem like there's some loss there. All right. Next question. Next early round question. Can Anthony Rizzo take it to a new level, or is he just the 285-32 homer guy?

I think that's who he is, and that's great as it is. But I am not worried about him threatening Paul Goldschmidt for the top spot at the position. He's already 28. That's toward the end of a player's prime, as we currently understand it. So, yeah, I don't see him getting better. Okay. That's pretty much all I got on that then. So he's pretty safe.

And he did have a career high walk rate and a career low K rate last year. That was pretty good for Anthony Rizzo. He had a great year. And he was much better in points. It was the number eight overall hitter in points, number 20 in Roto. And that Roto, by the way, when I say Roto, that's batting average instead of OBP. So it might change a little bit in an OVP later. because he walked so much.

All right, next question. Justin Upton was a top 20 hitter in points leagues and a top 10 hitter in Roto. The question is, what the hell? I feel like we go through this every four years or so with Justin Upton, where he has this year where he kind of changes his expected baseline production. Okay. And gets drafted high the following year because of it. because I think fantasy pro is average ranking last I saw 36th overall.

I don't see Justin up to his third rounder. How often does he lift up to that? No, no, goodness, no. He performed sort of like that last year. Yeah, I know. But, you know, it was an outlier season in terms of BABIP. It was an outlier season in terms of ISO. His hard contact was the highest it's ever been, according to Fangrufts,

but he spent half the year with the Tigers, which is kind of questionable what was going on there with the hard contact rates. They're high across the board. And once he went to the Angels, it was actually a very low high contact rate. So I just think it was a fluky year in many ways, and he'll get back to being the 250 hitting 30 homer guy, which is still valuable in fantasy, but not a third round pick, more like a sixth or seventh round pick.

That's Justin Upton. And he's probably, as Rizzo is probably better in points leagues, Upton's probably better in Roto leagues And in fact he was what do I say He was top 20 in points And I think he was the 10th best hitter in Roto But his play discipline isn't very good And he will get you some steals

You know I guess when you look at it He's got two straight seasons with 30 home runs Right? He had 31 Justin Upton in 2016 35 last year If he can hit 273 Or around there Maybe he can be a stuff 273 with 30 home runs and 15-ish deals.

That's pretty good. But, you know, the problem is he batted around 250 in 2016-2015 and 16. Right. Like I said, it was an outlier year for Babbat 3-41. That was his highest in five years. Yeah. So, actually, it was his highest in – did I get that? No, it was his highest in one, two, three, four, five, seven years. So even more of an outlier.

All right, from Justin Upton to – George Springer. Question about George Springer. Does George Springer have first round potential? If he played 140 games, if he had played 155 games, he would have finished the number 12 hitter in points leagues. I can't do those calculations in Roto, unfortunately, but he was really, like, my narrative on George Springer going into the year was this guy has had basically the same OPS, three straight years, his first three seasons in the league. he doesn't really steal bases, and he's really bad at it. It's like bad percentage. He just played appearances his way to fantasy production. So while Springer was very safe, he was kind of like whatever, like an 830 OPS guy,

which isn't great if you don't get a lot of steals. And then last year he went out and had a ton of home runs and had his best season. So does George Springer, we never see him go in the first round, does he have first round potential? Well, I guess based on those numbers you ran, he technically does. It's not something I'd bet on him reaching because I think there are enough players who with better health would have pushed him out of that top 12, like Bryce Harper, for instance. I don't know if he finished ahead of Mike. If he would have, well, I don't know of Mike Trout. I don't know how far his month out of injury if that pushed him out of the top 12.

But certainly Trout missed a lot of time with injury, and there were others too. I thought Springer had some room for growth prior to last year, but I think he fit in as much growth as he's going to. He has a low fly ball percentage for a power hitter, so he's kind of getting as much as he can out of that. He had a poor second half, which I don't want to harp on too much because then he was awesome in the postseason. Yeah, but you know what it was, actually.

He went on the DL with a quad injury. So 99 games for George Springer before the quad injury, 9.73 OPS. He batted 310 with 27 home runs in 99 games. Then he misses a little more than two weeks with the quad injury. He comes back. He hits 228 in his last 47 games with a 717 OPS. So again, there's 99 games before going on the DL. George Springer had a 973 OPS. I completely forgotten about that before I, you know, did the notes this morning. And I don't know, I got a little bit more excited about Springer. He really had a great year. In fact, I was surprised with the 283 batting average and 34 homers in 140 games and 112 runs in 140 games, that he was only on pace to be the number 12 hitter with 155 games played. And he is going to, like two years ago, Springer led baseball and played appearances.

He played 162 games. He would have been among the leaders last year too. I think he's better in points than Roto, not necessarily because of plate discipline, even though that did improve dramatically last year, but just because plate appearances do mean more in that format. And if you're in one of the best lineups and you're batting lead off, I mean, that's which he could. That's huge.

So, yeah, I don't know. I feel like he does have first round potential, but it seems like everything would have to go right for that to happen. Yeah, yeah, and probably there would have to be a couple injuries from some even higher ceiling players, like I was saying. But, yeah, Springer definitely took a step forward last year in terms of isolated power, the strikeout rate was way down, as you pointed out. And he had a great season, and I'm thrilled to get him, like,

into round two, early round three. To me, it's a tough debate. Him or Aaron Judge, who we know has first round potential. It certainly demonstrated that last year. I think Springer's a lot safer. I think, in most cases, I'd rather have Springer. Yeah. So that's, I mean, that's a pretty high endorsement.

I think it's an interesting call, like Springer or Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez. Yeah. You know, if they played the same position, I'd go Springer. Outfield is easier to fill. Is it? In a three outfielder league, it's easier to fill than, you know, third base or second base. But in a five outfielder league, I don't know.

Maybe you want to go Springer there. What would you do? On the high end, it's definitely higher to fill. On the low end, it's one of the easiest to fill outfield. True. And, I mean, we were saying the same thing about outfield last year. And then, you know, by end of May, we were talking, like, what do we do with all these outfielders? Like, there's just so many breakout possibilities at that position, because there's three times as many players.

I don't think it's going to end up being weak. Yeah. Okay. Here's a question about another early rounder. What other than injury concerns you about John Carlos Stanton? Hmm. You can answer nothing, if you'd like. Yeah, I think that is my answer, nothing.

which is why I have him as my seventh player overall, maybe sixth. And that's, you know, I think I'm one of the higher in the industry ranking him there. But what reason do we have to doubt him other than injury? And it was every year prior to last year, that's about the point he was getting drafted. Seventh overall. He was kind of a fixture there. He has his best season and then moves to an even better environment in the offseason. and for some reason we're not going to treat him

like he's as valuable as he we always did before. I don't know. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You know, he just hasn't, like this was his best year for sure. And I'll remind everybody, John Carlos Stanton had a 46 game stretch beginning just before the All-Star break, 46 games with a 1,400 OPS. He batted, he had basically a full season in 46 games. He batted 353 with 29 home runs.

In 46 games, John Carlos Stanton hit as many home runs as Chris Bryan hit the entire season. Wow. Isn't that incredible? Yeah. $1,400 OPS, 1396, to be exact. So he's, you know, he's probably not going to have that good of a year again because he won't have that kind of stretch. The year before was his worst year, and he had a 29 game stretch with a 118 batting average. He was just completely lost.

So the rest of the season, after that, he had a 906 OPS. So whatever. So, like, you had a really bad version of Stanton in 2016, the best version we've ever seen in 2017. I don't know. It's kind of, it's just weird because I feel like, were we drafting him as, like, number seven overall? That's where I have him. No, but before that, you know, before, like three years ago. Oh, yeah.

I mean, the back half of the first round, that he was a fixture there for most of his career. I guess the only thing. And I didn't like him there earlier because of the injury risk. but I think there's less performance risks now that there used to be because he cut way down on his strikeouts. And, you know, in a way that seems supported by some of the on-the-field adjustments he made, closing up his stance. And, you know, he's actually not hitting the ball as hard as he did when he first came into the league.

But, I mean, it was kind of overkill some of the velocities he was putting on the ball. And it just seems like he's kind of mastered how to, how to tar. turn his ability into skill. And that's how last year happened. And I think that's who he is going forward. So now it's in Yankee Stadium with Aaron Judge in the same lineup. Let me give you his – let me give you the only concern that I think you could have is batting average. Here is John Carlos Stitton's batting average in eight seasons.

259, 269, 288, 265, 240, 240, 281. So he's only had three seasons out of eight With a batting average above 265 And I always give that stat If you don't hit 260 It's hard to be a top 15 hitter most years Or at least two last two years But if somebody can do it at Stanton

Because you know he's got the power And I think the argument that Heath makes for Aaron Judge Because Heath likes Judge in the first round It's hard to envision them not both of them Stanton and Judge not scoring 100 runs And not driving in 100 runs if they stay healthy. Yeah.

Yeah, there's, I think they absolutely do. Yeah. But on the subject of batting average, like I was saying, Stanton cut his strikeout rate drastically last year. So, I mean, that makes, like, his Babbat last year was 288. It wasn't even a career, you know, he's normally 290, 2.95. He's been over 300 before last year,

the Babbitt was 288. Right. And he had one of his best batting averages. So I think he's, I don't think that's as much of a concern anymore. And you like him better than bets? Yes. Okay. Let's go to Clayton Kershaw.

Here's your question. Clayton Kershaw has thrown 149 and 175 innings in his last two regular seasons. And he has finished as the number 16 starting pitcher and points, but number six in Roto, with those 149 innings two years ago. And last year he was the number four pitcher in points, number three in Roto. And he was a distant first. last year behind Klob or Sale and Scherzer. Why doesn't that seem to matter to fantasy owners?

Nobody seems to treat Kershaw as an injury risk, it seems. Well, I am. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's not obvious from the way I rank him. Because he's still my number one starting pitcher. He's still probably the only one I take in the first round. But near the very end of the first round. And I don't think he's in a tier of his own.

anymore. Like he has been for most of his career. I think Scherzer, Sayle, and Kluber, I want them almost as much. And it's because, yeah, I'm not counting on Kershaw throwing 200 innings. Three of the last four years, he's missed time with the same back issue. I think you have to factor that in. But the percentages are still, you know, they're still clearly the best in the league and on a per start basis he's still going to be as good as you'll the best you can find at the position and um you know you just have to you just have to be prepared for the possibility of losing them for a few weeks at a time and maybe it doesn't happen i mean there's you know i said three of the last four years he missed time with the back issue that means there was one where he didn't and it

could happen again and then you know you'll be happy obviously to have invested the first round picking him. So I don't know. You have to factor it in, but it's one of those issues where you can't just assess a player by his total production. You have to consider the by appearance production. Yeah, absolutely. I will say this, and I just, I'm going to hold this in the bank as ammo against the stat heads, Scott. Whenever somebody, whenever Chris or he, whenever Kreeh start talking about FIP, I'm going to say Clayton Kershaw had a 307 FIPP last year. He never. Yeah, it really wasn't his most dominant year.

2.31 ERA. And that's the worst in five years for him. What was it? 231. Yeah. But it was still 231. Yeah. But he had a 307 FIP.

So he's still led the NL and ERA. He's led the NL and ERA five of the last seven years. Oh, and one. One of those years he didn't, he had a 169. He just didn't get the innings to qualify. He's incredible. He's incredible. He's thrown almost 2,000 endings.

Kershaw's a 236 career ERA. He gave up a lot of home runs last year, which was weird. 1.2 home runs per 9. His previous career high was 0.6 home runs per 9. Yeah, but he's the man. That was weird. That's 2017 for you. And I want to say, look at the game log now.

there was one game where he gave up four homers there were two games where he gave up three homers and then there was one game where he gave up two home runs so you know it was just like I feel like it was a few bad starts sure yeah yeah but he had it but he was one two three four starts he gave up 12 of his

how many total 12 of his 23 home runs came in four starts yeah but Kirchel had a 307 FIP so yeah very average and final question how do you not take Joey Votto in the first round in a points or OBP league? How do you not take Joe Evato in the first round of a points or OBP league? He's 34, which would make him far and away the oldest first rounder. And I mean, that's an age.

Anybody, like, it's first basemen are probably going to be the position that can survive that the best, but anybody gets to that age. And you just have to worry that they're going to fall off a cliff. or if they don't fall off a cliff that they're going to have these nagging injuries that pop up because they're not as spry as they used to be. And, yeah, Joey Votto was the second best first basement on a per game basis last year, at least looking at points leagues. So you could argue he's the first rounder because of that.

Who was better? Goldschmidt. Interesting, because he finished ahead of Goldsmith and points. Well, let me double check. Maybe I... No, I think it was very close. I don't know what the games played were. You're right.

Votto. actually was a 3,000th of a 3,000th of a fantasy point better than Goldschmidt on a per game basis. So, very close. But, yeah, but it was technically better. Right. So you can make an argument he deserves to go on the first round based on that. But, you know, it was also his first 30, it was also just the second 30 Homer season of his career. Right.

And like I said, he's old. He's too old. He's too old. He's more likely to get injured. More likely to suffer performance issues. not those kinds of performance issues. I'll say this for Vado. Okay, so he had 36 home runs last year.

He had 29 home runs each of the previous two seasons, 2015 and 2016. And with that, 29 home runs, which is what Chris Bryant hit last year, and he was the number 15 hitter in points, number 30 in Roto. Joey Votto was the number eight hitter in points, and number 18 in Roto in 2015, and number nine in points, number nine in points, number 14 in Roto in 2016. Now again, that Roto is not OBP. It's batting average.

He's great in batting average, but wouldn't you say he's even better in OBP? Yes. Like, he's great at batting average. Obviously, the OBP is NL leading more years than not, or at least NL leading more years than not. So here's the thing, though. Like, career high OPS for Vado last year, career, second best OBP of his career. you could argue he just had his career season at 33

and betting on a 34-year-old to repeat a career season just seems like a bad idea, right? Yeah. And I'm not trying to say Votto is not great. He's like one of the best hitters I've ever seen. But you just like the last year, I think, was the very best case scenario, Ante's old. Plus he only struck out 83 times last year.

I don't know how. That could happen. I mean, that was incredible. The lowest K rate, I think, of his career, like, much lower. So that's another part of what makes points a little bit different than just OBP. Is it also factors in, well, factors in doubles, which he's great at. It also factors in strikeouts, you know. You know he's going to walk a lot, but the K rate was so low last year.

So, yeah, all right, great year for Vado. If you took him in the first round, that's fine. But you could also take him in the second round. It would be reasonable. There are guys that could go ahead of him. Would you take Chris Brian or Joey Vado? I would take Brian. Okay.

All right, Scott White. We'll get into our Dynasty League draft. We want you to send us your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Scott, where do you typically play your fantasy baseball? CBSports.com. It's a pretty damn good website to play your fantasy baseball. We got the commissioner product.

has launched, you can customize, create your own stat categories, adjust scoring by position. We have a deep player pool with minor leaguers and a feature to add your own player. So if you want to play on Dynasty Leagues, you play on CBSports.com because now you can swap up to three years of future draft picks. And so, I mean, I think that's huge. I know a lot of our listeners are really into Dynasty, which is why we're about to talk our Dynasty League. And you want to play a Dynasty League, CBS.com is the place to go.

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I am ready to talk about the draft, and then we'll read some emails at fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. I had the second pick. Scott had the fourth pick. And it was, all right, so it was a dynasty draft. Is there anything we need to know? It was 30 rounds, 12 teams, and it was Roto, five by five with two catchers, corner infield, middle infield, five outfielers, nine pitcher spots that you can use as starters or relievers. Actually, I thought it was pretty interesting that, like, I felt like people didn't really take every closer.

Like, when did I get Mark Melanson? I got Malanson in the 24th round. Yeah, not every closer was taken. I don't believe Rodney was taken. Why? It's a Roto League. You need saves. What the hell? Well, people wanted prospects, too, and you run out of bench spots. I know. I had the choice. Like, I could have taken Rodney or, I think, Shane Green didn't get taken the Tigers Closer. He was the third to last pick.

And, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, so he got to take him, barely. But Rodney didn't. And I had a chance to take either of them. I only have one true closer, Felipe Reve. Barrow. I could have taken one of them as a second true closer, but I decided to take Keone Keller instead because I feel like there's more upside there and there's a good chance he ends up leading the Rangers

and saves this year. Now, if I had it to do over again, I would have taken AJ Minter of the Braves for the same reasons. I just feel like he's even more likely to become the closer than Keller is. But, you want I didn't want to miss the opportunity for longevity in

a dynasty league. I didn't sell out as much for it as some other owners did, but I did to some degree. Okay, then I'm not the best person to talk about this, is I don't play in any dynasty leagues, and this was my first dynasty league draft. But the point of this was this is a startup dynasty league. I want to know how many prospects, how many players out of 30 do you have on your team that you don't think will make the club out of spring training? Okay, how many out of 30?

I don't believe Willie Adams will. I'm not even sure I pronounce that. Is that Adamas? Adamus? The Ray's top prospect of shortstop. I've written about him so many times, and I don't know how to say the name. I don't think he will. Brendan Rogers, Rocky's shortstop prospect won't.

Kyle Tucker, Astro's outfield prospect, won't. I don't think David Dahl of the Rockies will. So that's four. Only four of my seven bench spots are players who I don't think. are going to contribute right out of the gate. That's interesting because I have six or seven, and I figure, you know, if we were actually playing this out with seven bench spots,

there'll be some dropping and swapping. And the prospects list changed throughout the year, right? So, like, I have Julio Reyes, who was an elite prospect, and it's coming off major surgery, and I don't know if he'll even pitch this year, so I could see dropping him or, like, Franklin Barreto, or something, you know,

as other prospects emerge throughout the year, or I just need to, you know, fill in for an injured veteran. Of course, we don't have, like, minor league spots on this. Anyway, my point is, I have six or seven guys that I don't know that are going to break spring training with the club, and yet I think I have a really good team that's built to win this year. So I think you can do both in this type of format. Like, I have Gaddis and Lucreut, Kattcher.

I have Rizzo. I have Miguel Cabreras. Cespitus, Bryce Harper, Yasmani Tomas. I have Carasco, Kiko, Klobber, great top three with Sunny Gray. I won't go through my whole lineup. I also have Kenley Janssen. I have four closers. So I think I'm a setup to be pretty good now.

And then my middle infield, this is what I was very excited about, see when I took these guys. Yoan Moncada, the end of round four, and Glaber Torres at the end of round six. So I have guys, I don't think Torres breaks camp with the Yankee. Yankees, but I think he might be up within the first month. He might break camp with the Yankees. It's totally possible. But I have two guys who were very recently top five prospects, if not number one, Moncada and Torres, who give you something now and could be like stalwarts of my team for five years, you know? So I like that.

Yeah, I mean, they're definitely kind of players. Everybody should want in a Dynasty League. Moncada in round four, probably a little earlier than I would have gone. I like Devers. You picked Moncada toward the end of round four, and Devers was picked toward the beginning of round four. I like Devers more at that spot because I feel even more confident he's going to contribute right now. He didn't give you that longevity.

I would have a-in-devers. Yeah. I didn't have a choice, but yeah. Reese Hoskins also went in round four. I like that a little more. But, you know, like, it was hard to know exactly when to sprinkle in those guys that you're drafting mostly for the upside and not what they're going to do for you right now, which. Molkata could be huge breakout this year.

He's on my breakouts list, but it's obviously not a known thing. So you're drafting him more for the upside, which is fine. A lot of people did that. Kunia, Vladimir Guerrero, went in round three. But what was interesting to me is, you know, I saw these players getting drafted. And what I was doing, I put together Dynasty rankings for the first time this year, Dynasty Top 100. And for the first eight, nine rounds, I was following that, you know, pretty much to the letter.

I wasn't really going off the board out of order at all. So, you know, I was noticing I do have some prospects in that top 100, but they weren't high enough for me to draft them at those places. Other people were drafting them. So then we get to round 10. And not thrilled with the major league are still on the board. so I decided now might be a good time to take my first prospect and who was sitting there in round 10 but Brendan Rogers, elite shortstop prospect for the Rockies,

my number 10 prospect in my top 100 prospects and I'm getting him in round 10. Kyle Tucker's still there in round 11. He's my number 15 prospect. And, you know, I say Rogers is 10, Tucker's 15 on my list. That's pretty much where they are on all the lists out there. These are elite prospects. and I'm getting them in rounds 10 and 11

when some were going in round 3. I mean, my takeaway from that is like you don't, like what's the probability of any prospect making good on all of his potential and becoming this early round contributor for you? You know what?

Maybe Acuna's a little higher because he's about to break through, but somebody like Guerrero who's still in Class A? Right. Like, it's, it's, I'd put the probability of better than 15,000, but it's certainly no guarantee. I feel like people overpaid for their favorite prospects

when at the end of the day, they're all just prospects and you don't really know. If they're rated in the same tier roughly, you shouldn't be too particular about it. Just take the best value. You still have plenty of upside there, plenty of future potential in Rogers and Tucker. And I got nine rounds worth of immediate contributors,

guys who are going to help me this year, and I don't think any of them are old, so they're going to help me in the future as well. Yeah, I guess I felt like you shouldn't change your strategy too much. Right, you don't want to go too prospect heavy. Of course, the idea of getting like a superstar, you know, if you think Acuna could be a superstar, which many people do believe, then I'm okay with you reaching for that guy because that could be amazing for you for 10 years. You know, if, I don't know, what, six years ago, whenever Trout broke in, you took Mike Trout, and I was paying off, you know. But if you took- No, O'Kunia, Okunia in O'Tonni in round three, a little earlier than I'd go, but I could kind of understand it. But the other point I was going to make is, like, let's take a look at the hitters who went in round, okay, 12, or the veterans.

John Gray, Roberto Osuna, Trevor Story, Eduardo Nune. This is not a great round. Corey Canable, Marcus Stroman, Felipe Rivera, Iglese. All right, we have a lot of closers going there. But Cespitus went in the 13th round. Canoe, 13th round. Alex Wood, Nick Castiano. So, like, you can reach a little bit

because you know everybody else in your league is going to take prospects too. There's going to be some value with veteran players. I mean, I was so thrilled to get Kyle Seeger in the 17th round. Ryan Braun in the 17th round. Kyle Hendricks, 17th round, Blake Snell, Alex Colomay, Garrett Richards, Johnny Quato. Yeah, so there will be value later. If you do reach, it's not going to completely ruin your team from a veteran standpoint.

Well, and even if you want to look on the higher end, in terms of veterans falling, guys on the wrong side of 30 in particular, we were just talking about Joey Votto. Why aren't we drafting him in the first round? Oh, he's 34. He went at the end of round three in this draft. right there in between Acuna and Guerrero. And you know what? I like the Acuna pick more.

Like, how many years is Votto going to give you? And look, exactly how you value these players depends a lot on the specific rules of your Roto League. Like, if, you know, of your Dynasty League, like, if you have dedicated minor league spots that allow you to keep those players for much cheaper than any major leaguer, then maybe it makes sense to draft them a little higher.

But the way this one was set up, anybody you draft who isn't in your lineup is just going on your bench. You're keeping everybody on equal terms. There's no relative keeper value. So based on that, I think some of the prospects went a little too high. But I would hope everybody has a couple prospects on their bench. I mean, that is very funny that Kuna goes ahead of Vado. Yeah, very funny. And then, like, where did Buxden go?

Byron Buxton was taken in the middle of the fourth round right after Christian. Yelich and Andrew Benintendi. Like Benintendi is a great pick in this format because he's already good and he's so young. You know, so like Benintendi, Yelich, Buxton is a really interesting. Or how about this whole round? Devers, J.D. Martinez, Donaldson, Hoskins, Ben, Nantendi, Yelich, Buxton. Those hitters, the first seven picks of round four are fascinating. You've got Devers and Ben Intendi and Hoskins in there.

And then you've got... Oh, in Buxton. And you've got Yelich. You're sort of in between. And then you have J.D. Martinez and Josh Donaldson. It comes down to personal preference. And what you want, young and unproven or older and MVP-like. You know, it's really...

I think that's why I enjoyed it so much. You know, different types of choices that I wasn't used to making. So I wish we're playing it out because I like my team, Scott. Yeah, I do too, actually. but no, we're not. How about we're not? I'm in enough dynasty leagues. Let's just go through the first round, maybe first two.

Trout, Bryce Harper. I did Harper because Scott had Harper second in his dynasty rankings. And it's fine. Could end up being a great pick. He's still very young. He's 25 Harper? 25, yeah. Yeah.

Correa, third, Aeronado, 4, Al Tuve, Trey Turner, Chris Bryant, 7, Mookie Betts, John Carlos Stanton is only 28 years old. That's actually on the older side for a first rounder in this league, I think. And that's another thing I look at is that Stanton will be in the American League for a long time and could be DHing when he's in his 30s. Yeah, he'll probably deach some this year. Like think about five years ago where you would have taken Nelson Cruz in a dynasty draft, you know? And he's hit 39 home runs in four straight seasons or something like that.

And de-hing, I think, has been a big part. Same with David Ortiz. For those curious, Nelson Cruz at age 38 now went in round 10 of this one. Yeah, wow. Distraft. All right, so it's Trout, Harper, Correa, Aeronado, Altuve, Turner, Chris Bryant, Betts, Stanton, Freddie Freeman, Paul Goldschmidt, who is 29? No, he's 30.

And Francisco Lindor is your top 12. Cody Bellinger. Like, Bellinger gets compared to Judge a lot. He's like three years younger than Judge. So he went four picks ahead of Judge. Bellinger, Jose Ramirez, Manny Machado. Machado is 25. Machado's 25.

He's going to be shortstop eligible, and yet he went 15th overall. That's late. Yeah. I would have taken him ahead of several of these players. The Stanton and Freeman picks in round one were the ones that surprised me the most. Because at 28, they are good two or three years older than a lot of these players we're seeing going in the second round. Machado, Bellinger, Ramirez. They're both lower on my dynasty top 100.

They're more like third rounders, actually. Okay, I was just to say, like Machado's 25 years old. Why wasn't he a top five pick? Where did you have him? I'm going to pull up my rankings here. Exactly where I have him in Dynasty Leagues. And yes, he's very high because he's young and because he's awesome. And soon he'll be shortstop eligible.

He's eighth for me in my top 100. So should have been a first rounder, I agree. I kind of overstated how far how much more Stanton and Freeman should have dropped. They're 16 and 17. Okay. So, you know, a little on. the early side. Lindor at the end of first round, maybe raise some eyebrows. It's worth noting he is he's only 24. He's my 10th. So I agree he should have been a first rounder. Okay. Bellinger,

Jose Ramirez, Mani Machado, Bregman, Judge, Corey Seeger, Gary Sanchez. We haven't had a pitcher yet until now. Chris Sale goes ahead of Clayton Kershaw. They go back to back. Yep. Two years younger. That's how I have them in my dynasty rankings. Okay. Charlie Blackman, Anthony Rizzo, Luis Severino. Taking Severino ahead of Scherzer, who went five or six picks later, and also went behind, Scherzer went after Sayle, Kershaw, Severino, Kluber, Cindergard, and Rendon. And I had the second pick of round three with Sayal, Kershaw, and Severino off the board. And, like, Scherzer was so tempting to me.

And Cindergarde was also tempting, but I can't justify taking a pitcher who's had so many health issues ahead of Cluber. And I probably would have taken Scherzer over Cindergarde. I took Cluber, so it didn't even matter. But then Cindergarde went ahead of Scherzer. And I think that's just a really interesting debate because I see both sides of it. Yeah, I mean, it's an eight-year difference. Yeah. Shurzer at 33.

He's actually the one I ranked last of the big four. And I think I'm, that's not common in the industry. I think most have Shurzer second. You mean in seasonal leagues? Yeah, in seasonal leagues. I have Scherzer behind Kershaw's Kluber and Seale. Oh, Scott White. And it's because he had a few injury scares last year.

Yeah. And I don't like it. As hard as he throws, like, I just don't think he, as many innings as he already has on that arm, I can't imagine he has too many dominant years left. Hopefully, he has two or three more, but it wouldn't surprise me if this is the year he just falls off, Scherzer. Obviously, I'm not predicting it because I'm still ranking him fourth,

but I'm trying to guard against that a little. So when you put it in a dynasty context, I would rather have Cinderguard over him. And it's not a huge gap. I have Severino 26th. I have Cindergarde 27th. I have Cluber 30th, and being 31 years old. And I have Scherzer 31st at 33 years old.

Okay. Is that the order they got drafted in? Severino, Cluber, Cindergarde, Scherzer. Okay. So I would flip-flop Cindergarde and Cluber. But otherwise, that's how I rank them. Yeah, even though I only took 14 seconds to make that Cluber pick. It was a whirlwind.

The previous few picks debating Kluber, Cindergarde, Scherzer, it was not easy. All right, if you want more results, you can see it on the website on cbsports.com slash fantasy. Let's finish up with some emails. This is from Matt. Dear Stephen A, Max, Skip, and Shannon. None of them are CBS personalities, Matt. I will not read your email. Thank you for playing.

Wow. No, just kidding. Here's Matt's email. Twelve-team Roto League. Which round would you be comfortable taking Aaron Sanchez? Remember him? Aaron Sanchez in. The last round.

Really? Let me see exactly where I haven't ranked. I'm being kind of flipping in my response here. But not high. Like, he never got a chance to pitch really last year. Yeah, forget last year. Last year was blister season. He only threw 36 innings.

The year before, 2016, 192 innings, 15 and 2 with a 3-ERA, 63 walks, 161 strikeouts, and I don't have his whip, but it was pretty damn good because he only gave up like 161 hits or something. I'll tell you his whip. Aaron Sanchez in 2016 had a whip of 1.17, and he finished 7th in Syung voting. I called him a bust in 2017 because he had such a drastic innings jump. Well, look at the strikeout per nine rate for him in 2016 also. Yeah, no, he's not a strikeout guy. He's a ground ball guy, right?

He would need to I think there was room to project more strikeouts for him So I liked him As a top 25 pitcher going into last year And he still has that kind of upside There's a lot more risk than there was thought to be at the time In terms of ground balls He is

Yeah he's you know he's not Dallas Geichael But he's a good ground ball pitcher sure That helps That helps in points leagues In Roto Leagues, that could give you a higher whip and bad strikeouts. It can't, but it's possible to be a good groundball pitcher and a pretty good strikeout pitcher, too. And I think Sanchez has the arsenal for that, even if it didn't come true. Well, then what round are you taking them in, Scott White?

Well, I mean, factoring in all the risk. It is, I do have them ranked much higher than the last round. I have them 194th overall in Roto leagues. so that comes out to round 17 of the 12-team league. Okay. So pretty late. That seems reasonable. Not last round.

Okay, then. Would you take Marco Estrada, J.Hap, or Aaron Sanchez? I want to say Sanchez, and that's how I rank them. So, yeah, Sanchez. Okay. Next email is from Dan Gaffney, 12-team Roto 5-by-5 with OBP. In an auction league, would you keep Giancarlo Stanton at, $38 in a Roto League, OBP, or Keras Davis at $18.

Stanton at 38 or Chris Davis with a K at 18. I could use that $20 toward Trout, Altuve, or even Stanton himself. What do you think? Stanton or Chris Davis, you pay $20 extra for Stanton. In a 12-team league, now that's what our auction values are built for. Obviously, we're doing batting average as the fifth category instead of OBP. but I'm not sure it makes a huge difference in this case well no I mean Stanton walks more than Davis so if anything it increased the gap

okay I have Stanton at $35 I have Chris Davis at $18 so just based on that you're overpaying for Stanton for Stanton by three but when it's a keeper league you got to factor in that certain high dollar players are being kept for cheap and that's going to inflate prices across the board I just think the elite players are so much harder to get in an auction. I think I'd rather pay the extra $3 for Stanton. Unless you're really confident you can get a Trouter Altuvei. But they might go for over $50 taking into account everybody's keepers.

Right. Okay, thank you, Dan. This is from Luke, 16-team Dynasty League, $15 total for players, $15 salary for players. And you keep 15 players each year. This is so, like, why not just put more money? This is so weird. I have Will Myers at 45 cents this year, but I was offered a trade straight up for Kyle Schwerber at 20 cents. Would that be a good trade in your mind?

Would you rather have a 45 cent Will Myers or a 20 cent Kyle Schwerber out of a $15 budget? I'm also a Cubs fan, and I rarely miss watching a game. So I'm leading towards taking the trade and looking elsewhere for first base help in the draft. Okay, so move the decimal point. multiply by two. All right, these are terms I can work with. I think Will Byers is the better keeper. Okay.

Certainly if stolen bases count in your league. This is Brett from a town outside of Sacramento. Dear Will, Willie and Willie, those are former Giants' greats. Will Clark, Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey. Okay, let's see. Ten team head-to-head categories league. Five outfielders, two catchers.

Five outfielers, two catchers. I'm drafting ninth this year. Who should I target with my first and second picks? So he has picks nine and 12. Okay. Head-to-head categories. Okay, and he's just asking who he should draft? Yeah.

Okay, it picks nine and twelve. Categories League. At picks nine and twelve, I have Trey Turner and Carlos Gray. You wouldn't want that combo because they're both short stops. But I would love to get one of them, and I don't think you're going to get Trey Turner. Yeah, there's a good chance somebody will reach for the stolen bases on Turner, which could potentially push down bets, also a steals guy, or Stanton? There are so many hitters you can take, so let me ask you this, Scott.

Yeah. Because I mean, like, if Chris Bryant's available at 9, I think I'll be very attracted to me. But I don't think that I'm going to be disappointed with any two hitters that I take 9 and 12. You're talking about the best of the best are in the top 15. Oh, I mean, the ninth pick, you shouldn't have to settle for Bryant. I mean, unless you just like them more than Stan. Ninth pick, you're going to get one of these. Trout, Altuve, Goldschmidt, Erronautsman.

maybe Aronado, Harper, Blackman, Stanton, Betts, or Trey Turner. Like, that's the, whichever one of those is left over you can get. So maybe it'll be Stanton, and maybe you just haven't liked Bryant Moore, fine. But that's the worst you should have to do. Okay. So I guess the question is, do you take a pitcher with one of the two picks, ninth and 12th in a 10-team league, and do you consider Gary Sanchez since it is a two-catcher league?

And you're not getting him. Well, you could get him in the third round. You could get him. Yeah, 10-team league, yeah, I wouldn't reach like that for him. You know, when it is a shallower league, normally our standard is 12-team leagues. So 10 is on the shallower end of that. I think you sell out even harder for scarcity

because you need the advantages you need at every position need to be even greater. So what do you do that? So I do, yeah. No, that's a good point that you brought up. See, I think I have to take a pitcher. Yeah. Right?

And not Sanchez. I think I'd go... Maybe even two pitchers, because the quality of hitters that get back to you at the two-three turn are going to be higher as well. You get two of those four aces. It's a good point. I'll tell you what, if you've done this league before and it's sort of pitcher-heavy, like you expect like eight to ten pitchers to go by the end of the third round. There's no way one of those four is getting to you with your third.

No, no, no. But that means that there should be great hitters available. Yeah. That going with two starting pitchers is an interesting strategy. I don't know that I would do it, but it's really... I think Scott and I agree you've got to take one pitcher with one of those picks. Yes. And if you don't take a second pitcher, I could see taking a shortstop,

whether you're lucky in it's Turner or you go Correa. But, you know, it might be a little safer to go Stanton and Bryant, but I kind of like that combo. either the two pitchers or throw Karee in there too. Yeah. So that's my advice. I'd have to take Trey Turner if he were available for the steals too. All right.

Thank you for the emails, everybody. We'll take more of them later in the week. Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. Tell your friends. We're just getting started here. We'll be ramping it up to four or five times a week pretty soon. Position previews in a couple weeks. Goodbye.