Fantasy Baseball Today - 02/08: Risky or Reliable? Plus Realmuto, Mailbag and More (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

We start with our reaction to the J.T. Realmuto trade. Who is the #1 catcher in Fantasy now? When will we see Sixto Sanchez in the majors? ... Chris Sale, Joey Gallo, Whit Merrifield and Eugenio Suarez: Are these players risky, reliable or both (14:30)? We play this same game with some SPs and a closer who had a very interesting 2018 season (20:30) ... Emails about David Peralta (29:30), James Paxton (33:00), auctions (35:00), position scarcity and more. Plus the pros and cons of drafting each of the Top 10 players in Fantasy (41:00) ... 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

Domingo. Today, we have a big trade in MLB. We have a new name for the disabled list, and we have a new name for Zach Britton, sort of. Welcome to fantasy baseball today on a beautiful Kokomo Friday. February 8th, Adam Azer with Scott White and Chris Towers. Heath is somewhere. I don't know. Doing something, hopefully having fun, but he's not on the show today.

What's up, Scott and Chris? I have an announcement to make. Oh, boy. All right. I will be from now on going as K. Chris Towers. Oh, okay. Well, that's good. If baseball is any indication, that'll be a good change for you.

Yeah, I'm trying to keep in with the latest trends around the league. Do people use the team name keeping it Ray Almuto? I'm sure someone does. Okay, it's a good team name. Keeping it Ray Almuto. Things just got Ray Almuto with the hot stove. He's on the Phillies. So now, who's the number one catcher in fantasy?

Scott, it was same as before, right? Yeah, I mean, I had it as Real Muto before. I wasn't totally... I didn't rank him that way without having in mind the probability he would get traded at some point because, you know, there was just too much smoke there. And, you know, it turned out great,

him going to the Phillies, He's one of the best hitter parks and baseball. It's a similar move to the one Christian Yelich made going from Miami to Milwaukee last year. Night and day difference there, pitchers park to hitters park. And Real Muto, his home-away splits during his time with the Marlins, even more extreme than Yelich's. He was 850 to 900 OPS guy each of the last three years on the road with roughly twice as many homers as he was hitting at home. So I think he's easily the number one catcher in fantasy. He already was a distant number one last year.

I mean, I understand Gary Sanchez wasn't himself, but Real Muto was already a distant number one last year. And then you factor in this move. And like he could hit 300 with 30 homers. I don't think that's obviously an optimistic, projection, but I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. I think that... Okay, okay, okay.

Well, look, you sold them a little bit short. I think his OPS on the road the last three years was between 870 and 900, so 850, is even better than that. The only thing I'll say is like, okay, yeah, Reaamuto crushed Sanchez last year, but two years before that, Sanchez was much better than Rayamuto, and Sanchez is OPS the last three seasons, 1032. That's when he came up and he was just, you know, ridiculous. 876 in 2017 and awful last year, 697. So 876 in 2017, that's pretty much, that's a little bit lower than the average of J.T. Rayamuto's last three years in road OPS, but pretty similar.

Yeah, I mean, like if you give both players their best case scenario, it's probably pretty similar. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I just think Rio Muto's, probability of meeting that scenario is much higher. I still think Sanchez's best case scenario is higher just because I don't, I think 30 home runs, like you said as a best case scenario. I think that's unrealistic. He's had about a thousand plate appearances on the road and he's at 37. For Ray Almutto you're talking. For Rao Muto, whereas I do think Gary Sanchez legitimately has 35 homer upside. The last couple years, though, for Riamuto, were more powerful than the start.

of his career. I think he had 13 homers on the road last year, 12th, the year before. I was just writing about this last night, so I'm kind of going off memory. Yeah, no, that's 100% right. I kind of feel like they should probably be taken back to back or very close to it. I would take Romuto ahead.

It's going to be interesting to see if the Phillies let him run at all. That was the one thing that started declining last year. He only had, what, six stolen bases? Three. And that was one of the things that Yeah, so that was one of the things that kind of before his bat really broke out, that was one of the things that kind of pushed him away from the rest of the catchers. And now if he's not stealing at all, then that puts a lot of onus on the bat. And I have trouble with the home road splits with him just because they're so much starker than anyone else on the Marlins.

I don't quite know what to make of it. Yelliches were pretty big too, though. I mean, particularly in terms of home runs, Yeliches were big. So that's why I... But he didn't have like a 200 point OPS difference, right? I mean, right, Real Muto was impacted even more. But Marlins, other than San Francisco,

whatever they call it in that park now, Marlins Park is probably the most difficult park to hit in. It's one of the one on the far end of the spectrum in baseball. So I think Rio Muto's moved to, Philly's fans should be partying like it's 1999 right now, as in Mike Lieberthals, 1999. Check out his numbers from that year. That's potentially what J.T. Realmuto could do. We got a Leberthal ref, what?

Is he a top, is he a third round pick or later? I moved him up to the fourth round. I had him in the fifth, sixth round range, which was close to Sanchez, and now he's in the fourth round. Heath Heath said he was almost willing to say you could take him in the second round Yeah I mean look

Gary Sanchez That's what we were talking about with Gary Sanchez Last year And that was with Sanchez coming off a season Where he had about an 875 OPS Whatever it was 876 And that's what Rayamuto's done on the road

And it's not just that he's playing All this games on the road He's in a great hitter's park now in a good lineup. And I think they're probably going to add Machado or Harper. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a case to be made, certainly. I see a lot of similarities in the profiles of these guys,

like the batting average, the plate discipline. It's similar. I do think Sanchez has a little more upside just because we saw what he did when he first came up, and he's younger than Rayamuto. Adam. Yeah? It's okay for a player to be better than a Yankee. He is better than Gary Sanchez. but they're similar.

The one thing I would say is the argument for Gary Sanchez in the second or third round last year was about how good he could be, but also the catcher position at the top seemed weaker than it does this year, I think. Last year it was really just Sanchez. I know Heath had Posey ahead of Sanchez, but Posey took another step back

and he was already pretty clearly not himself last year going into the season. Now you have Raumuto, you have Sanchez, you have Yesmani Grandal, who we're really high on with his move to Miller Park. So they stand out from the pack,

but the top guys could be bunched up a little more than they have been. All right, cool. That will conclude our J.T. Reamuto discussion. And Jorge Alfaro goes to the Marlins along with Sixthos Sanchez

and Will Stewart, a couple of pitchers, Sanchez being the prize there, and also an international bonus slot. Real Muta, by the way, is under club control for two more seasons, so the Phillies are going to be happy about that. I can't imagine we're too excited about Alfaro. It's a terrible park ship for him. Is he a top 24 catcher? I mean, he might be now just because his playing time is more assured. But he is, even when he was the top prospect, I didn't like the profile that much.

I think it's a lot more tools than skills, and it hasn't transformed so far in the majors. Powers what he, the best thing he brings to the table, and that's going to be hurt, obviously, by the venue change. 24, I think is fair, but I don't. I'm not excited to draft them. His average home run distance last year was 420 feet, though. The raw power plays anywhere.

For me, the biggest thing is strikeouts. he just, he struck out 37% of the time. There's a chance he's just Mike Zunino. That's Jorge Alfaro. Zunino has been a usable, not just usable, but startable rhodo catcher in the past. Yeah, that's the best comparison. And then last question on this subject, Sixto Sanchez, when might we see him? He is a 5'10 righty who throws about 100 miles per hour.

See, I really like prospects, and I'm not generally in favor. favor of teams giving up their best prospects, which Sixto Sanchez clearly was the Phillies best prospect. But he, there's, like, he's so far away, I feel like,

because they have, they have handled him so gingerly. I disagree, though. There's a big organizational difference between how the Phillies handle their prospects, typically, and how the Marlins handle their top prospects.

The Phillies, going back to Ryan Howard and Chase Sutley and Jason Worth, those guys, were debuting at 24, 25, 26, they tend to take their sweet time with their top prospects. Their guys are going to spend a full season in AAA almost entirely. The Marlins called up Jose Fernandez when he had only pitched an A ball. The Marlins tend to have a philosophy, especially with pitchers.

Marcel Lozuna actually debuted from A ball, I believe. So they're basically going to say, we'll call you up when you make us force you to. And I've seen that talent comparison actually. Sanchez to Jose Fernandez. The issue with Sanchez, he pitched 46 and two-thirds innings last year and hasn't even hit 100 in a minor league season yet. So I feel like he needs two seasons just for innings accumulation. I could be wrong about that.

All right. He's also like 80 pounds lighter than Jose Fernandez was. Sounds like my profile. Better fastball. Kansas City officially signed Brad Boxburger. The Brewers signed Josh Tomlin to a minor league deal. The Rangers signed Hunter Pence to a minor league deal. Met signed Devin Mezzaraco to a minor league deal.

The disabled list is now the injured list. The injured list. And Zach Britton is now Zach Britton. He is ZACK Britain, not ZACH Britain. And I like that. I appreciate that. Should be with a guy. So my brother's name is also Zach.

I don't know how to spell it. It started out ZACK. It changed to ZACH at some point. I'm not sure where it stands right now. It sounds like it's kind of like Ulysses S. Grant. you know, the former president. There's no S in his name. It was just like a typo.

Oh, really? It sounds like that's what happened with Britain. His legal name is Z-A-C-K, right? Yeah, which is clear. I mean, my brother's legal name is Zachary, so you can kind of just go and he, you know. But, yeah, his legal name is Z-A-C-K, and it's just, why has he been Z-A-C-H for such a long time?

That is weird. That is very strange. All right, so here's what we're doing today. We have a segment called Risky or Reliable, or both. with an exclamation point and a question mark. So I'll ask you about some players. You tell me if they're risky or reliable or both. My segments are usually self-explanatory.

I explain them anyway. And we got a ton of emails, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. It's a mailbag Friday. And also, if you go on our website, we have a great series by the brilliant Chris Towers. Whoa, whoa. Just a quick sort of pro and con for all of the top 100 players. Scott, no, it's the top 300. Yeah, this was a combined effort, Heath, Chris and I.

I wrote the top 100, and then we split the other, the rest of the top 200. Scott did like 100, right? 90, 90, yeah. Oh, okay. It's a lot. Yeah, it's, you know, I like to think of it as the, when you're in the middle of the draft, you've got the angel on one shoulder whispering one thing and the devil on another whispering the other thing. and, you know, it may lead to some paralysis by analysis.

I don't know, but it's, it's interesting. It's interesting making a case for and against players who you may like or dislike. And that's the whole thing. We made the case for drafting and the case against drafting each of the top 300 players. Yeah, it's cool. I think it's a useful heuristic. You have to force yourself to look at the downside of guys you like and the upside of guys you don't like too. Yeah.

And it kind of changed my opinion on some players, most notably, Robinson Canoe. I had a much harder time coming up with reasons to dislike Canoe than I thought I would. And meanwhile, there's a lot to like. And that's the reason why, it's the reason why I don't like David Price now. I hadn't really thought about him. And then I started looking into it. I'm like, well, this guy's kind of stinky. And today, when I was looking into Ken Giles, I realized that he has not blown, he did not blow one save last year. Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing job of threading the needle for him. By the way, Chris, I think you meant Harry Truman, right, with the S? No. Isn't it? Ulysses

Simpson Grant. No. It's Pyram Ulysses Grant. That's his name. It's one of the famous unknown facts. I read Ulysses Grant biography recently. Okay, fair enough. I think Harry Truman doesn't have a middle name is the story there.

But it's also S that he gets stuck with him. Yeah. Harry S. My dad doesn't have a middle name. Cool story, Adam. My mom doesn't have a middle name. name. Hey, how about that? All right, risky or reliable or both? Chris Sale. Risky, reliable, or both? Both. He's going to be awesome when he's on the mound, but, you know, last year during the middle of the season, he was throwing harder than we'd ever seen him. He was pitching, like, in his prime Randy Johnson, you know, regularly throwing 100 miles an hour, something he had never done. And then he gets hurt, comes back, and he's throwing like 91. Yeah. Yeah, it's scary. Very, very.

But he was still good. He was. His postseason starts were okay. Five and a third. Five hits, two runs. Two walks, eight strikeouts against the Yankees. Four innings, two runs. Five strikeouts against the Astros.

Just he's not in the postseason. He didn't go, you know. He must have had more postseason starts than that, right? I'm selling him short. But he wasn't quite himself. So is Chris Sale too risky to be the second pitcher off the board. No.

Next up, Joey Gallo. Risky, reliable, or both? Both. Both. He's reliably going to have 38 to 45 home runs and he's risky because he might completely tank your batting average. But I have more hope than ever

this year that he won't. It's just he can't keep putting up 250 bababs. It's just, I don't care how often he gets shifted. I don't care. Like, it's not possible. He started hitting the ball the other way last year. Right. He lowered his fly

ball rate in the second half, which is actually good for him. I mean, he doesn't need to have to generate a lot of power. He doesn't need to have an outlier fly ball rate. And his second half, BAPIP was much higher. I mean, the upside is probably like 240. But that, for his power production,

you'd take that. I just want to tell you where Joey Gallo finished at first base and outfield last year. He was the number 14 first baseman in points, number 10 in Roto. Number 34 outfielder in points, number 25 in Roto. He played 148 games. And I missed one postseason start for Chris Sale. It was a bad one.

It was four innings, three runs against the Dodgers. His other two appearances were in relief. All right, risky, reliable, or both for Whitmerfield. Reliable. Reliable. But let me tell you this. Okay. Okay.

It's early. It's February 8th. I looked at roster resource this morning and they project him hit third. Okay. That team is, they're just going to, like, there's no way you go out and get Billy Hamilton, you're starting out Alberto Mondesie,

you go out and get Gerard Dyson. Yeah, they're going old school manufacturing of run. Yeah, but I don't think it matters where he bats. Okay, but it has. That's the only thing. I looked up the last two years, he's kind of got the Acuna thing going. So I could give the numbers.

In 2017, I will. 115 games batting leadoff. He stole 28 bases. He stole 8 bases in 30 games batting 5th through 9th in the order. 2018, 39 bases. He stole in 112 games batting leadoff and 6 steals in 46 other games,

including he barely ran when he was batting second. So just wanted to bring that up. If you think it matters, Whitmeryfield might not bat lead off. Whitmeryfield also just didn't run very often early in the season. He had... looks like 16 steals through June and then they just let him run. I would assume that a lot of that is just timing. And in the first season, eight steals and 30 games, that's a 40 steel pace.

Yeah. So not concerned, you're saying. All right, he's safe. He's reliable with Merri-enio Suarez. He's trying to make the noise Chris just name. I don't know what that was. I've never made a noise in my life. All right, Ehuyaheo Suarez.

Last year was the number seven third basement in points. Number six in Roto, he's 27 years old. Is he risky, reliable, or both? Risky. Where are you drafting him? Are you drafting him to do what he did last year? Then he's risky. Yeah, that's fair.

I mean, I don't think the downside is particularly low. But I would bet he's a little worse. than last year. He had the second highest hard contact rate in baseball among qualified hitters, tied with David Peralta, who we have an email about later. Eh, Oh, Haneo Suarez, batted 283 with 34 home runs. He drove in 104 runs. He only scored 79 runs.

I guess when I was kind of going through the batted ball data, the hard contact rate was great, but he's not a big fly ball hitter, so he had a, you know, 23.4% home run to fly ball ratio. and it's pretty much all he does. He doesn't run. He doesn't double. He's not like a great walks guy. He has a high BAPB batting profile, I would say. And he had a 32 BAPB last year.

I don't. I wouldn't say that's unsustainable. He's been over 300 basically every year in the majors. But yeah, the home run production might have been a little inflated last year, which also helps batting average. So I could see how that his numbers could drop off a little. It's just he's a guy coming off a career high and basically everything. You should fix back some regression.

All right. So would you rather have Eugenio Suarez or would you wait like five rounds and take Raphael Devers? Oh, Suarez. Devers is just, you know, a Hail Mary, which, you know, I still think he has a good career coming, but there's no evidence that he's on the verge of a breakthrough based on what he did last year. Would you rather have Suarez or Travis Shaw? Swares. Okay.

Let's do some pitchers. Mike Clevenger, risky, reliable, or both? A little bit risky. Yeah, kind of what I was saying about Suarez, where I don't think it could go that wrong for him, but I also feel like we've probably already seen his best case scenario. What is it that makes Mike Clevenger good? It's like he doesn't throw particularly hard,

although his velocity went up. last year to about 94, 95 miles per hour. So he throws hard, but he's not like a, you know, a blazing fastball guy. His swinging strike rate is fine. He's not a huge ground ball pitcher, right? I don't know how he's been fine, swinging strike rate. He's 12%. I think it's top 20.

It's kind of a, the sum is greater than the parts thing. But the thing that does make me nervous is last year the control really improved. He started inducing. it wasn't really even the control improving so much as it was just he started inducing a lot more swings. He threw in the zone a little bit more often, but it was mostly just he induced a lot more swings. That makes me a little nervous just because he's had such mediocre to bad control for most of his career. Yeah, yeah. That, you know, any regression there could, you know, could send him back down to, like, I think a high 3 ZRA is more likely than not for him.

So he was 17th in swinging strike rate last year, right in between Corey Kluber and Nick Povetta, who we have been hyping for his ability to miss bats. All right, so I guess I just have to recalibrate what I think is a good swinging strike rate because it was 12%. So I guess that's very good. Okay, then. Good to know. Thank you. That's Clevenger.

How about Mike Fultenevich? Risky, reliable, or both? Super risky. Yep. He is on my bus list, and it makes me sad. but I just, I don't, I don't really see the path to the numbers he delivered last year because he still has control issues. He had a great strikeout rate, but with a very suspect swinging strike rate.

Yes, that one I knew. That one I knew. You know, I had been promoting him as a guy who's a change-up away. He didn't develop that change-up last year, so he still struggles against left-handed hitters. I think he had Babbip luck, home run luck, a lot of factors contributing to that low ERA and well I think he's still going to be

somebody who's rostered in mixed leagues all season. I don't think he's going to be on the fringes of the Cy Young race again. Hell of a year for Fultenevich, 285 ERA, 108 whip and 202 strikeouts in 183 innings. But yeah, my first thought was like,

I'm not drafting. him. We'll see where he goes. What's the earliest you would draft Mike Fultenevich? Maybe like round 12 in a 12 team league? Yeah, that sounds right. He's someone that I never really feel like drafting, but I could see him pulling a 380RA with more than a strikeout printing. He's not terrible. Okay. Ken Giles, in case you haven't heard, he didn't blow a save last year. And he's the closer for the Blue Jays right now. And I think they'd probably use him as a conventional closer

more so than a lot of teams are using their bullpen guys is Ken Giles Whiskey reliable or both? You can't actually be asking that question of us, right? Why? How are we going to answer? How are we going to know?

It's not a physical thing. He throws really hard. He gets a lot of swinging strikes. He's got his sliders a really good secondary pitch. it's the the the peripherals have never been bad you know last year he had a 308 fit the year he had a 411 era he had a 286 fit he just melts down sometimes and it's when he's not saving games yeah it's

they were high leverage situations though yeah like it's it's just a a lot of them were not it seems to be a mental block and i i don't know how we can possibly answer whether he's going to get over that Well, he also was great in 2017. Right. He's been great two out of his four years. One of them was like a partial season, but he was really, really good then. I think he just needs a punch in the face, snap him out of it.

Yeah, that didn't work last year. Got him traded. Well, it's funny because he, Ken Giles, we'll begin the year as the closer, right? Yeah. So he's reliable in that sense, but he's obviously risky. I do think that as we've been doing these drafts, and we had an AL-only draft, we had a roto draft both within the last week and a half,

and in both situations, saves are very scarce. So I kind of like the value that Giles was presenting, and I kind of wanted him. I don't think I got him. I mean, he was a fine high leverage option for the Phillies, like a Phillies team. Like, I think maybe moving to a Blue at Jay's team with no expectations,

it could be what he needs to get back on track. It's just... And, you know, one thing I wonder is, like, we talk so much about the Astro's ability to get the most out of their pitchers, but that also would seemingly require a lot of micromanaging on the part of the coaching staff and the analytics team. Maybe some guys just don't take well to that.

Last guy. Is Jonathan VR risky, reliable? Or both, Jonathan VR? I think he's very risky. If he wasn't risky, he would probably be somebody who goes in the first five rounds of roto drafts because of the steel's potential and some power potential. He'd be at a little bit. I think the upside's a little lower, but yeah, it'd be similar. The biggest risk with him, I think, is just that kind of what happened with the Brewers two years ago. He doesn't set the world on fire right out of the gate, so they turned to somebody else.

I mean, he's not a building block for that rebuilding team. He's just kind of a space hole filler. For who, though? Do they have anyone to replace him with? Yeah, that's right now. Not right now. Who from like John Hopkins baseball team are they going to call up to play shortstop? I don't know exactly who would replace him, but somebody has an interesting year at AAA who's not on a radar right now.

or he gets traded. Because, okay, well, it's not working out here. This other team likes you as a utility guy. Here you go. And then he's not playing that regularly anymore. Yeah, that's Jonathan VR. Could be a good steel source. Was pretty good with Baltimore after the trade.

And, you know, Chris, it's Johns Hopkins. Take that. I also had to Google to make sure it was in Baltimore. It is. Okay. You take that S from Ulysses S Grant, you put it on the end of John Hopkins. That's where the confusion came in. Emails part one at fantasy baseball at CBSI.com, and then we'll look at the first 10 picks and give quick pros and cons.

And then some more emails hopefully to end the show. And we'll be right back after this. All right, our first email is from Jack in L.A. I haven't heard anything at all about David Peralta this offseason. He's ranked in and around the top 100 in all the rankings I've seen. And Peralta had a big breakout last season. He's in a worse lineup now in a lesser hitters park and not in the best offensive division. Where should David Peralta be drafted?

Why and over who? This guy just exposed himself as somebody who did not read my busts column. Because if he had, he would have heard about David Peralta. I actually don't, now that we're getting some ADP data, I actually don't think it's such a risky place to take Peralta. But I don't... It's asking a lot for... him to repeat last year's numbers because it was this unprecedented hard contact rate that caused him to double his home run output, a clear outlier for a guy who's in his 30s. I just

wouldn't expect that to happen again. Also huge splits concerns for him. Big time. Still did not hit lefties well. And just to talk broadly, with Suarez, who at least has done it for longer than Peralta. You know, we talked last year about the sophomore slump and one-hit wonders. I don't know that we're going to do specific episodes about that this year. Probably overkill at this point. I think what we decided was, you know, the players that have the best chance of not just falling off from what they did last year are the ones that do a lot of things or do more than just one thing.

And Peralta, he stole four bases, 48 walks in 146 games, 25 doubles, not very good, although five triples is good. Basically, if the home runs aren't there, you're going to be pretty disappointed. I mean, I feel the same way about Ehuyahuanio Suarez. He's going to hit for average. I think even if the home runs aren't there, Peralta will be $2.85 to $2.95 there.

Yeah, but still, he's not going to give you much run production. He's not going to steal bases, and he's an outfielder. So I guess I'm just saying, like, he doesn't have that much to fall back on. Yeah, and I just think generally when you're talking about these guys who have this big one-year breakout, even if it's backed up, by really good batted ball data.

You know, I'll use the same examples from 2017, Justin Smoke, Yonder Alonzo, and Justin Boar. Smoke didn't keep it up, but he wasn't terrible. Yonder Alonzo was okay-ish, and Justin Boer was just kind of bad. So I think that shows you, like, there are certainly breakouts who sustain it, but I would guess it's about 50-50 with these kind of guys. Does it matter to you that,

Ralta had a 312, 371, 522 slash line in 2015. He was strictly a platoon player, right? That was like 85 games or something? He played, no, he was 149 games in 2015. He had a really good year. He had 10 triples that year, only 17 home runs, 26 doubles. That was his career high prior to last year was 17 home runs. Right.

I mean, that's, he doesn't, he has a low-fly ball rate, which is part of, of why he's been a consistent source of batting average, but it's also partly why it seems crazy he could be a 30 homer guy again. Yeah. All right, cool. Moving on to our next email, Alex from Rapid City, San Diego. Sounds like Jung Ho Gong is going to be pushing Colin Moran for playing time in Pittsburgh. Do you think Jung Ho Gong is worth a late round flyer for some added power?

I do not rank Jung Ho Gong. It would probably take him making some headlines this spring for me to rank him. So I guess no is the answer there. Okay, next email, Kevin in L.A., dear Carl, AJ, Kevin and Jarrett with a T. Jared. Obviously, the backstreet was. I think this is... Is this a Yankee starting rotation? Pavano, Burnett, Brown, and Jerry, right?

I think so. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, because the question's about James. Paxton. So these are like free agent Yankees additions, I guess. I've noticed that... Who didn't work out. Yeah, yeah. I've noticed that the major projections all have Paxton's ERA at 354 or lower this season, but his best single season ERA away from SafeGo in the last four years is 366 in 2017, and that year he only had two starts in hitters parks. Now Paxton will probably pitch 70% of his starts in hitters parks. What do you think the projection system thinks Why do you think the projection systems think a 30-year-old injury-plag pitcher will suddenly pitch better than ever before outside of Seattle?

Is this like Rocky's hitters improving their road numbers after leaving cores? I think partially it's that. Hitter pitchers, players in general tend to perform better at home regardless of the environment. You know, Rio Muto and Yelich and guys who play in extreme pitchers parks are kind of the outliers there. But also, James Paxton's really, really good. He is. Three straight years his ERA has been higher than his FIPP, which is enough of a pattern that maybe you could say there's something to that.

But, you know, the actual number of innings he's pitched over those three years isn't like a Chris Archer like sample. You know, so I still think it's fair to assess him on the fifth than the ERA. There's not like an obvious skill that he seems to be missing. Like one year he had a really low strand rate. The other year he had a really high home run to fly ball. rate. It's sort of been different issues every year. And I think the good news is the Orioles stink, so you can forget about that pitchers park being, or hitters park being a concern. And then, you know, the Blue Jays,

they're going to stink, right? They're not going to have a good line. Yeah. They're not as bad as the Orioles. They could be really good in the second half, though. Once they start calling guys up and if Flatgeret joins Guerrero. Yeah, and maybe Biggio and just like they're going to have an infusion of young talent. They could be feisty in the second half like the 2017 athletics were. All right, from Matt, dear Lonzo, Brandon, Kyle, and any of LeBron's former teammates. Eddie House. Heath and Scott's auction values are going to be substantially lower than the Wild West of an auction for high-end players.

How do you approach those drafts without missing out? Well, I think the fact you know your league's auctions play out that way is a good starting point because everyone is a little different. I've been in a lot of industry auctions where, you know, the top players go for the mid-40s. I've been in ones particularly non-digituary leagues where they go for over 60. So there's a huge range there that's going to influence the rest of the auction. I think the important thing to keep in mind, and we make a lot of effort to ensure this happens, is the math for the auction values comes out perfectly,

meaning exactly $260 has been divided between exactly 12 teams worth of players, 276 in a standard auction, Rotel League, and all the positions are distributed equally. So that if you're in an auction and you see guys going for way too much, that's going to tell you there's going to be a lot of discounts later because there's going to be fewer dollars on the table than we've projected for. And there's always like one elite first round player who gets nominated like 22nd overall. And it's usually Nolan Aaron Otto in the leagues that we do. And he'll always go for like $12 less than the really high guys.

So also keep in mind that if you don't get one of those high guys, if you're not willing to spend on the really, really high guys. guys, someone's going to be a bargain. And you want, if you're not going to go for the $55, $60 guys, you want to be the guy who has the money to go out and win the last one or two elite guys. Okay. And this email didn't age all that well because Lonzo, Brandon, and Kyle are all still on the Lakers, right? I don't know. You tell me, Adam.

They are. You're the NBA guy. I was just, I was testing you. I just wanted to see if you know. Love the next trades. They did lose Evita Zubotch. So, okay. Tough, tough look for my guy, Evita.

Here's a Kellis Booth of Columbia, Kentucky. Could you list some resources for who to look for and what to do in the mid to late round, say in the 170 pick ballpark? I don't want to reach for prospects, but the names in ADP for that range are not very interesting. Scott and Heath's sleeper call. our breakdowns of the 170 to 300 range to find guys who you buy the argument for why they're better than their ranking and, you know, look for upside. 170. I'm trying to think of who I take there. I think I take Luke Voigt, I think I've gotten Luke Void in every one of our mock draft so far. And he's in my sleepers column, which Chris mentioned. But I think it's a little after this range. This range, this range I'm drafting. I feel like I'm getting my second and third closer in this range.

There should be some pretty good pitchers. I'm looking at fantasy pros. Tyler Glass now, Andrew Heaney, Nick Pavetta are all going to this range. Probably pitchers more than hitters. That's where you're looking for like pitchers who have not been good but have a lot of upside. I didn't realize actually Haney had like a 4ERA last season. He pitched so much better than that. Yeah.

Yeah. I can't decide who I like better between him and Skaggs. I'm pretty sure I like Skaggs. How about you guys? Heaney or Skaggs? I go back and forth, too, to be honest. I think if you buy the argument that that groin injury that put him on the DL twice at the end of last season is what ruined Skaggs, and he had a sub 3ERA before that.

If you buy that argument, then he's better, I think pretty clearly. But, I mean, Heaney's skills probably look a little better. Okay. I don't care about Chris. This is from John. Our shortstop and third base, the only too good offensive position. Chris showed me how he feels about that. Our shortstop and third base, the only two good offensive positions for fantasy baseball this season. As I listen to each of your shows, I'm noticing a common theme.

Catcher is awful. First base is awful. Second base is awful. And now Adam is pointing out that outfield is pretty bad as well. Am I overstating things? or are shortstop and third base the only good offensive positions? Shortstop has so much high-end talent.

Like the six elite players probably and then another five who are, you know, either have the potential to join the elite group or are really, really good themselves. It is kind of stunning. And third base is deep throughout. Yeah.

I mean, in a deeper league shortstop, the depth could run out at some point, but third base has layers and layers and layers. I would argue first base starts to look deeper, the deeper the format is as well. So it kind of changes depending on that. But sticking to a standard 12-team league, I think that's a pretty fair assessment. It's partly why I don't consider outfield to be that shallow. It's lacking in high-end players, but there's a lot of worthy starters there.

I also think starting pitcher, it's still top-heavy, but it might be deeper than it's been the past couple years, it seems to, it seems like there's tears of arms again when the last couple years it was basically just the studs and the duds. And the one thing I would say is if you're in a Roto league, the one thing to keep in mind about second base and outfield in particular is there might not be those like elite points leagues guys who stand out because they just rack up counting stats, but you'll get speed guys, you'll get you know, specialists in Roto who can make up for the seeming lack of depth. So I have more emails that I think we're going to try to read in a little bit,

but let's see if we can spend about 10 minutes talking about 10 players. So we'll just go, we'll start 1 through 10, and you guys can give me pros and cons to drafting these guys. I know, Chris, you wrote 1 through 100, so you wrote the story on all these guys, but I'm sure Scott can obviously talk about them. So how do you want to do this? I'll manage.

Yeah, you want to maybe Chris Pro Scott Conn? I think Scott should be pro. I want to play the devil's advocate. All right. Yeah, wow. That's probably a better role for Chris, who I feel like just tries to deplete every argument I make about every player anyway. I disagree.

Well, Scott, we'll give you the layup to start. The pros for taking Mike Trout, number one. I mean, he's not always. number one, but he's always in the mix to be number one. His per game production is always one of the standouts in baseball. There is just nothing that can go wrong taking Mike Trout. And if you, as rare as it is to come away with the number one pick, if you don't use it on Mike Trout, you are... A moron. I think not celebrating all fantasy baseball is properly.

Chris, be a jerk about Mike Trout. He's missed 70 games over the last two seasons, and if you took Moogie Betts ahead of him in two of the last three years, you would not have been a jerk moron or whatever it was. We were trying to malign our good listeners and our good friend Heath Cummings by saying. Okay, that works. It killed you a little to make that argument. Oh, I don't believe it at all. All right, Mooky Betts, Scott. The pros for Mooky Betts.

He is the closest thing to Mike Trell. next to Mike Trout, he might be nearing Mike Trout in terms of reliability. Like Chris said, two of the past three years, he's been right there in terms of production. He's the 1A to Mike Trout's 1. Chris, why shouldn't we take Mookie Betts 1? He's the 1A to Mike Trout's 1 unless he's 17th, which is what he did in 2017, despite playing 152 games. Now, that's not terrible, obviously, but unlike Mike Trout, we have seen a downside for Muki Betz.

And, you know, this came in the midst of his breakout. This came in the midst of his peak. So unlike Jose Ramirez, who we haven't seen a downside for yet since he's reached his peak two years ago. I love, I'm going to, I can't wait to hear the argument against Jose Ramirez. He's kind of destroyed it already. Are we done? Okay. Yeah.

Jose Ramirez number three. So he was basically, he came very close to having a 44, season last year, which is just insane, considering where he was two years ago, where we didn't think his 11-home-or-22 steel season was going to be sustainable. But the most amazing part about what Jose Ramirez did is he did it with bad, bad-bit luck, as much contact as he makes, and really throughout his entire career, he's been a good source of batting average. He hit only 270 last year.

So, I mean, I'm not necessarily betting on him repeating last year's home run and steals total, when you factor in the batting average correction too. I mean, he's the clear number three for me. Quiz? It's been Outlier on top of Outlier for Jose Ramirez. He's never played at an elite level for more than one year. Two years ago, he was pretty good, but last year was his first time really performing as a top five player,

and he'd never done it before. I think he was top five two years ago, actually. Just nobody believed it. And also, you know, he stole what, 34 bases last year? He was in the 52nd percentile on average sprint speed among all players last season, among all hitters last season.

That doesn't scream elite speed to me. And with the Indians' offense looking worse than it has in the last couple years, they could be more judicious in how they risk their outs. Do you think that it's defensible to take anybody else other than Ramirez third? Are you asking serious, Chris, or devil's advocate?

No, it's serious. is Chris. No, probably not. Okay. Then let's go to fourth. Francisco Lindor, Scott White. So Francisco Lindor added speed that we long thought he had last year and he validated his power breakthrough from two years ago, which I think a lot of us were suspicious of. So I don't think there's much concern of a drop-off anymore. And those power speed guys pretty much all go in the first round. I think Lindor has to be among them. Chris, why shouldn't we take Lindor there? Honestly, this is probably the toughest one to come up with an argument against because I think he represents the last of the top tier. But the biggest thing is he, the 38 homers and 25 steals were unprecedented for him

at the major league level. And like we said, with guys like Ahio Hino-Suarez or David Peralta, any time you see someone doing the best thing they've ever done, you should probably expect some regression to the meet. Well, I could make a pretty good case against Lindor. Now, Chris writes in his write-up that he's been... Lindor has been a 273 and 277 hitter the last two years, but some of the advanced stats suggest he should be more like a 300 hitter. Here's my case against him.

Al-Tuvae's going to have a much better batting... The best Al-2i will have a much better batting average and probably more steals. So if you treat batting average as a scarce position, then I don't know that Lindor deserves to go forth when he's 2275. It is easier to make a case for someone else going ahead of Lindor than it is for, than it is to make a case against Lindor in a vacuum. Yeah, that's true.

All right, Chris has Nolan Aronado five. Scott, the case for Nolan Aronado. The case for Nolan Aronado is that he's a perennial triple crown threat. he has led the NL in home runs three of the past four years, led it in RBI twice, has had 130 plus RBI three times during that stretch, and he makes a crap load of contact for somebody with that kind of power. So he is the safest of probably any first rounder to repeat his production,

and we know it's elite. Chris? Are we sure Charlie Blackman's good? outside of cores. Or I guess, are we sure Charlie Blackman is great outside of course? I know he's working on extension with the Rockies. You're talking about Aronado. Nolan Aronado, yes. Sorry. But the same point stands. Are we sure Nolan Aronado is great outside of the context that he plays in? He's working on an extension with the Rockies. But if they don't come to an agreement before the season and all of a sudden, the Rockies get off to a 19 and 30 start, and then,

they're sliding by mid-season, you know, what if he gets traded somewhere else that's not nearly as good of an offensive environment? This is a guy with, I believe, a sub-800 OPS for his career outside of course. He can be good, but like I said yesterday, I think he's probably Matt Chapman outside of course. And he steals at most three bases a year. So that's obviously a mark against him. Okay, number six on the list here is Jose Altuve. Scott, make the case for Altovae? Altuvee hit about 340 with, I don't know, the first three months of the season, he was basically a normal Altuve. And then the last three months of the season, he was some weird guy who we've never seen before.

He was playing with a fracture kneecap, which I think explains everything. And the previous two seasons, 2017, 2016, he was right there. with Trout and bets. He would have been the 1B in that group. And he plays the scarcest position among the positions I actually count as positions, not catcher. Chris?

So the two times that he's been a top five hitter, he's done it in two different ways. He was a minimal contributor in home runs, runs in RBI in 2014, but he stole 56 bases and hit 341, 2016 and 17, so there were three scenes, sorry. He was a real five category guy going 30, 30, 200 combined runs and RBI.

If the skill set has declined, and he wasn't playing like a top five hitter before the injury last year, what if he's a 20-home steel guy? What if he's an 18 home run guy? What if he's a 315 hitter? You know, you need a lot to go right for a guy who may not necessarily have. Elite stolen base potential or elite home run potential. Yeah, I did want to point that out. Before the All-Star break, he was batting 332,

but only nine home runs, 14 steals in 99 games. That's an 864 OPS. The previous two years, it was 928, 957. So he wasn't quite himself. Yeah, not quite. But the batting ball data was the same. And we weren't concerned until things went wrong. I would also add, and I know I'm arguing against fake Chris,

But Altuvae is one of those players who does so many things well that even if he only gives us 75% of his home run upside, he may not justify the sixth overall pick, but he'll probably still justify a first round pick. All right, Max Scherzer's next at number seven. Max Scherzer, number one pitcher in fantasy last year. Scott, the case for Scherzer. He has become the, I think the obvious choice to go number one at starting pitchers. safest in terms of both how much he pitches, how many innings he pitches, and how

dominant those innings are. Yeah, I mean, now that Kershaw is not in that discussion anymore, there's really no comparison to what Scherzer has consistently done now, I think, six years in a row. Pitchers are healthy and dependable right up to the point where they stop being

that. Just ask Clayton Kershaw. Just ask Felix Hernandez, two of the best pitchers of the last two decades. right up until the point where they just weren't anymore. Max Scherzerz is a 34-year-old starting pitcher. Every season, 138 starting pitchers hit the DL last season. How much longer can we expect him to keep out running the odds? Okay, number eight is J.D. Martinez.

So, J.D. was amazing last year. We have a eighth on this list. Scott, the case for J.D. Martinez. The case for J.D. Martinez is that he was amazing. Like you said, he had a year between the Tigers and Diamondbacks where it seemed like everything that could go right did. And so I think there was, it was fair to be skeptical of it coming into last season. But then he completely validated those numbers and actually came into a new skill of staying on the field by playing D.H.

more often than he ever had before. So he seems super safe. He's a soon to be 32-year-old who has played more than 120 games once since 2015. He's played more than 150 games twice. Maybe it was a skill that he stayed healthy. Or maybe it was just luck. Another guy who's not going to give you steals as a first round pick he had six last year. All right, that's J.D. Martinez, who was the number five. overall hitter in fantasy. Trey Turner, he will give you steals.

Scott, make the case for Trey Turner 9th. So it's rare in 2019 especially to find an elite steel source who doesn't sink you in everything else, or at least most everything else. And Trey Turner is at least average at everything elite in terms of steals. You know, it wasn't quite what we expected last year, but he still led to NL, was one of three players with more than 40. And he's elite in terms of scoring runs, too, with at least a decent batting average and some home runs.

So he's, I think especially in rotisserie leagues, it's hard to make an argument against... Oh, is that need in the first race? Is it that hard, Chris Towers, too? How many above-average hitters do we think are in the Nationals lineup outside of Trey Turner? Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon, and gigantic question mark.

If Bryce Harper doesn't come back, they're going to need a lot out of the top of their lineup, and that might not come in the form of Trey Turner batting leadoff and stealing 40 bases. It might come in the form of him batting second or even third to try to produce more runs, especially if Victor Robles shows early on that he's capable of being a contributor.

And if he bats lower in the order, he will steal fewer bases. Yeah, I mean, if he steals 25 bases and hits 17 home runs and hits 270, that's like a healthy, worse, AJ Pollock. And as Chris mentions in the write-up, you can get Whitmerfield at least two rounds later. Right. Bryce Harper is 10. Scott, the case for Bryce Harper, this is a tough one. It's always tough to know when to take Bryce Harper. He's such an enigma at times. Case for Harper in the top 10.

And his fantasy pros, ADP, is only 17. Not that I'm trying to make the argument against him, but... That's Chris's job. So the argument for Bryce Harper is that outside of Trout and Betts, he probably has the most upside of any hitter in baseball. Injuries have been such a derailer for him over the past few years. that it's really compromised his production, but during the stretches he's been healthy,

he still looked like that guy, like clear first round MVP caliber player. I think the patience power combo is so enticing that it's hard to pass him up late in round one when all the players are looking riskier. Chris Towers? He's kind of just Justin Turner with like eight more stolen bases, right? I mean, you look at, he's had two really good seasons, but he's also missed

more than 50 games, I think, in three of his seven seasons. And the Babbat luck from last season might not have just been a fluke. His strikeout rate spiked to the highest it's been, I think ever, if not since his rookie season. And, you know, you look at the rates of shifting around the league and what they've done to left-handed hitters, going by baseball savants, expected stats, he should have hit 254 instead of 253. Congratulations. I don't know why Harper gets drafted over Aaron Judge. They both, to me, are much better in OBP leagues. And Harper's OBP over his last four seasons, he has averaged 410 OBP. But his batting average, he's had two great years and two terrible years. So I mean, when Harper's been right

in 2017 and 2015 he's been a contender for the batting title too that's the biggest difference yeah come on Adam can't you see the upside oh yeah he's against him 10th seems a little early to me if I had the 10th pick and I had in a 12th team league

I'd be really pumped to get Harper with my second pick but it doesn't seem that early it's totally justifiable all right that's your top 10 we'll try to do 10 of these every show at least until we start the position previews which will be coming up pretty soon we're just about

out of time, so let me read a few more emails. Jack wants to know he's a first-time fantasy baseball player. What should he do? What strategy can you give a total noob? Gosh. You should listen to the fantasy baseball today podcast and follow all of the advice from the top-tier team of fantasy analysts at cbsports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. I mean, that really is a good starting point, immersing yourself in conversation,

fast-paced conversation in a kind of a way that can be passively listened to is really, really useful resource. Adam's going to be mad at you for saying it's fast-paced because he's always trying to speed us up. It is fast-paced. Here's a keeper question. I was going to offer more because that was kind of lame. Just finish it with that, Scott.

Finish it with that. No, no, go your final thought. I would look into my tears. I think that's a perfect approach for a beginner. I have tiers by position. The top of each article explains the approach where you're targeting, you're choosing to target a position right before there's a big drop off and expected outcome. And that's kind of the best way to build a well-rounded team that doesn't get left behind anywhere. So many keeper questions I wanted to get to, but I didn't.

And we'll try to do it next week. Thank you for listening. Oh, you weren't going to do the fun one? What was the fun one? The Barry Bonds one. How many home runs from Thomas? How many home runs with Barry Bonds have hit if he played at Yankee Stadium? So baseball reference has a really cool tool.

If you go to their advanced stats page for players and go down to the bottom, you can adjust to different park contexts in different years. And it looks like he might have hit a few more homer. He would have hit 775 for his career if he had spent his entire career playing at 2008 Yankee Stadium. That's amazing. 756 was it? Something like that? No.

That sounds right. No. He didn't hit one more and then... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, 762, I want to say. Okay, so 13 more home runs. That's not really... That's a lot of home runs, guys.

I was just guessing. I was just guessing. Oh, Scott, you have zero home runs and you're going to turn your nose up at 13. Okay. So he hit like less than one more a year by playing at the most... One of the most friendly home run parks. What did I guess? That's 0.7 home runs more than you've ever. What was my guess?

763 or two? Okay, 762 is the final answer. Wow, you got a completely wrong. Yeah, we're out of here, everybody. Have a great weekend. See you.