Fantasy Baseball Today - 02/21: Drafting Mondesi; Deep League Strategies; Pitch Clocks (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 21, 2019

Spring Training begins and reminds us that the MLB season is starting with two annoying games in mid-March. Should Fantasy owners include those games? Also Scott tells us why he insists on drafting Adalberto Mondesi in Roto leagues (6:15) ... News and notes (15:00), Scott's list of great movies he's never seen (21:30), the effect of a pitch clock (26:40) and the "World Series Hangover" theory (28:50) ... Recapping our 15-team Roto draft (33:00) with some deep league advice and then we discuss players who have to prove themselves in Spring Training (48:00) like Lucas Giolito, Byron Buxton and Domingo Santana ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. We're fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. It is Thursday, February 21st. Scott, do you know what today is?

It is the start of spring training. It has been team versus team, scores being kept, batters, pitchers, all of that good stuff. Oh, yeah. Start at Spring Trade. That is awesome. Only two teams going today. They are Oakland and Seattle.

This is very significant. We will tell you why in a moment. On today's show, it's our little hiatus from the position previews. We did second base yesterday. We'll have shortstop on Friday. And then hopefully we'll get through all of the hitting positions next week. Oh, we definitely will next week. And then maybe even start on starting pitcher.

Our email address is fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. We'll be reading some of your emails later. Scott wrote an article about Alberto Mondesi that he referenced in yesterday's show. I want to talk a little bit about it today. And, of course, we'll get into it tomorrow on the shortstop preview. We do have some news items to get to, but we did a 15-team roto draft. And I want to talk about it. I want to talk about deep league drafting and stuff like that.

Also some players with a lot on the line in spring training. But yeah, it is spring training. And why is it significant that Oakland and Seattle are playing? Because they're screwing up fantasy baseball for everyone, Scott, by beginning their season one week before everybody else, with two games in Tokyo, March 20th and the 21st, Seattle and Oakland. What do we do about this as fantasy owners? Well, you know, I'm kind of a stickler for counting every game.

I include the last week of the season. And I've always in the past. this is hardly new. It's been a couple years since this has happened, but a season opening series overseas that begins well ahead of everything else. I've always included it in my fantasy leagues. I think it's easier to justify in rhodo leagues than head to head. I think if you do include it in head to head, you have to be willing as the commissioner to manually make lineup adjustments for owners upon request in between that series and when everybody else plays March 28. So that obviously, you know, any number of injuries could happen during that time. You don't want owners to be locked out. So you kind of have to, if you are going to include it, you have to be more hands-on. It's more work. It may not be worth it to you, but it's worth it to me in the league's eye commission.

I think the default setting it for head-to-head will definitely have it off. It's a box you can check in the league schedule section of the commissioner tools. whether you count those games or not. I think the default setting is often head-to-head leagues. I would guess it's probably on in Roto, though I haven't had a chance to look at one. I could do that. I mean, it's such a no-brainer to include those games

if you're doing a Roto League. But I worry about the teams that are doing Roto drafts and drafting after March 20th, which will be a lot of leagues. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's a good point. I would guess, you know, Final weekend before opening day is the biggest draft weekend. Everybody waiting until the last minute.

And possibly for good reason. You know, obviously you have the newest news. And I would guess the majority of drafts, I would guess that's still probably the biggest draft weekend. March, what is it? March 23rd and 24th. So after that series, and obviously that takes care of it for you. but it's another point to bring up.

If you do want to make sure you include every game in your league's schedule, you've got to make sure you draft before then. I did a draft last year, and it was after opening day. It was one or two days after opening day, and it was basically determined that you would get the stats of anybody you drafted. And it was really only one player that became very interesting with that rule, and that was Matt Davidson because he had three home runs on opening day. and I was going to draft them

and then probably drop him, you know, but somebody beat me to it. But I would have gotten his stats because it was a season-long Roto League. So, yeah, I don't know what to do in that situation. I mean, if you draft somebody, do you keep the stats from those two games? Like retrospect.

Yeah. Yeah, like you're drafting on the 24th and those games happened on the 20th and the 21st and you get all of, you know, all of D. Gordon steals I mean, I don't think I would do it that way obviously that's a workaround

if you don't want to have to draft, but you want to include every game, if you don't want to have to drop that early. The most important thing is making sure everybody's aware of it going in. Yeah, right. You know, you really got to not even just one, you don't want to hide it in one post

like a week before. You want to make it clear as soon as possible and keep reminding people. make sure everybody knows, so nobody complains of unfairness later. I've had a chance to look at the default settings for a Roto League this year, and it looks like the default setting in Roto is also not to include the Japan series. The way that works, the way you can change that is a little different, since obviously there's not a schedule in a Roto league. You have to go to scoring periods, like on your league.

details page, click the C in the upper right, and season starts, it'll be a drop down. You can choose either Wednesday, March 20th or Thursday, March 28. Gotcha. All right, thank you, Scott. Now everybody knows what to do, or do they? Why Mondi is a must-have, this is a must-read story. I got to say, it was a pretty convincing case for Adelberto Mondesie, who you can probably get in the fourth round, and a guy, his numbers were just absolutely off the charts.

75 games. He batted 276 with 14 home runs and 32 steals. If he had played 155 games, this actually surprised me a little bit. If you gave him double his games, his fantasy points, it's 150 games. I'd like to give guys 155 games. Well, it's been

only the number seven shortstop in points leagues, but probably would have been you know, more like four-ish in Roto because his play discipline is so bad it's going to knock Mondesi down in points leagues. This is probably mostly a category slash roto argument. Scott really wants that Alberto Mondesie. And I think you talked about it yesterday. And I know we're going to talk about it tomorrow. And I'm looking forward to getting Heath and Chris. Actually, I think it'll just be Heath tomorrow.

And I don't think he's going to be quite as high on Monashie as you. No. But why is Mondesi basically like the most important player in Rodo for you? It's just this one of a kind skill set that he brings to the table. If you want to just double the stats from last year, it comes out to 28 homers, 60 steals, which would, in a roto context, would probably translate to early first round numbers. I mean, Trey Turner was 50% short of that home run and steals total last year with a similar batting average, and nobody's questioning whether he's a first rounder in a standard Roto league, standard 5x5 league, which includes head-to-head categories as well. So that's the key to remember.

Like, if you're not paying for him to sustain last year's pace with a fourth-round pick, if you were, you'd be investing a first-round pick in him. So that's one important thing to keep in mind. And yeah, he did overachieve a little with batting average last year. It was like a 335 babb, which is high. It's not crazy high for somebody with great foot speed who has normal, drive and fly ball rates. The argument I'm making is let's say he regresses to a 250 batting average, which I think is a

pretty conservative estimate. Let's say the, you know, extending those numbers over a full season translates to more like 20 homers and 50 steals. I mean, you're still talking about an elite contributor. And you're still talking about that one-of-a-kind quality I mentioned earlier of being able to carry you in the scarcest category stolen bases without losing any ground

in the category that's most important to continue feeding home runs because home runs are so plentiful if you devote a lineup spot to a hitter who doesn't provide any like if you wanted to fill your steals with D. Gordon or Billy Hamilton or whatever

it forces you to you have to be really aggressive about pursuing home runs to make up for it Well, if your steals are coming from somebody who hits for power too, like Mondesey seems capable of, it's not such a big concern. So the fact that that kind of player is so rare in today's environment, you know, pretty much the big base dealers who are going to contribute something else all go in the first round. And they don't even provide the steals total that Mondesie looks like he's capable of providing. it's

it's to me the easiest way to to solve the steels problem and not have to worry about it the rest of the draft and you know it just seems like

it just seems like good value even factoring in the risk round four you know I don't think there's I don't think there's a lot that can go wrong really at that taking him at that point. I will say a couple things on that.

If you are planning on taking Mondesie in round four or late round three or something, I think that you have to have a pitcher in one of your first four picks. Because rounds three and four to me is a really good pitcher round. I typically like to start my team with two hitters and then maybe three, but I'm not waiting any longer than round four to take my first pitcher. And then I've been finding myself taking Trevor Bauer and, well, Trevor Bauer or Luis Severino as my ace, my hopeful ace. And they're typically round three or four around MondiC time.

So, you know, you could go with those two picks, Bauer Mondesie or something like that. After starting with two hitters, that would be a perfectly normal start. Of course, you could draft Chris Sale on the second round or something and then you don't have to worry about that. But this is just to stress it. Like this is what I'm aiming to do in all of those five-by-five leagues. any league where the steel scarcity is an important part of your planning. I have passed over Manny Machado at late first, early second, many times, just because I don't want to have shortstop filled.

I want to make sure I can devote that spot to Mondesie when my fourth round pick comes up, possibly even late third, depending on where I'm picking in the draft order, if I'm not confident I can get him in round four. It's that important to me. You know, we project him for the highest steals total of any player this year. I think we're projecting them for 54. And there's not going to be a lot of players out there who you can reasonably expect to give you even 30. I think the question, though, is, is he a good hitter?

And I'm going to end the debate today. I'm going to save it for tomorrow for the shortstop preview. But because we have gotten burned by speed guys who can't hit. Billy Hamilton's a perfect example of it. Byron Buxton, a huge bust. I mean, we're actually going to talk about him a little bit later today. You know, sometimes these all-speed guys, they're really bad, and then they get moved to the bottom of the order.

Monaco's, I think, has a great chance to bat first or second at the start of the season. There's a lot to like. I'm going to let you guys discuss it tomorrow. We'll save the rest of the Monashie discussion. The other thing I was going to say is I don't necessarily agree that if you draft D. Gordon, you really have to overcompensate with power because Gordon is going pretty late.

So I think it's late as it was 96th overall around there. So late as in... Most players you draft this year are going to give you 20 homers or so. Even the late rounders. Guys you draft late to fill line of spots are probably good for about 20 homers,

the vast majority of them. So you got somebody giving you five? You could probably do it once. You can't do it too many times with your lineup. I agree. I agree with that. Yeah, you can't do it too many times. But I think you can do it once.

And I think the more lineup spots you have, the easier it is to justify a player like that. Whereas I'd be probably less likely to take D. Gordon in a shallow league with three outfielder, one second base, no middle infield. But a five outfielder league with a middle infield, corner infield utility. Yeah, D. Gordon is going to, I think, stand out in steals

and won't really kill you in power because you have so many lineup spots to make up for it. And if I read it, boy, I don't know if you read it Scott. Guy, we used to work with Scott Miller, now at Bleacher Report, wrote a feature on D. Gordon. I was actually almost crying last night. It was about his mother who was murdered when he was seven. and I recommend reading it.

It's really, it's kind of trying to shed some more light on the domestic violence issues that we have. And it's a tough read because it's such a sensitive subject, but it was a very well-written piece. And Gordon's interviewed in it. It says a lot of, I don't know, touching stuff. So give it a read if you can. Got to promote a couple things. You know, there are many ways to listen to this podcast. One of the ways is Stitcher.

Stitcher is a great app for podcasting, so give it a listen. They help promote our shows. And we're very popular on Stitcher. Fantasy football today and Fantasy Baseball today, among the most popular sports podcasts on Stitcher, which is awesome. And Commissioner Leagues, everybody sign up for the Commissioner Leagues on CBSports.com. It really is the best. I'll give you the URL in just a moment. But you've got great dynasty stuff, great dynasty features.

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Seasonal leagues as well. Great stuff. And you can play basically any type of format you want with any type of scoring system. All right. The news and notes. So we only briefly touched on this. Carlos Martinez has the shoulder injury being shut down for two weeks. Scott's very concerned that maybe they'll throw him in the bullpen, at least to start the year.

I took him as my number two starting pitcher in this 15-team rhodo draft before I saw the news, and then I was told of the news, and I was very disappointed in that draft pick. But, yeah, I'm not sure I'm looking at Carlos Martinez until, off top my head, like, I don't even think he's a top 10-round pick. so I'm thinking pick 1-20 or later for Carlos Martinez. He might have to be my fourth starting pitcher before I feel comfortable taking him. Am I overreacting?

No. No, I mean, I was the most pessimistic about Carlos Martinez from the start because I wasn't confident in his durability or really in his role. There was a lot of buzz this off-season from Cardinals beatwriters about, you know, maybe maybe. he's not for sure going back to the starting rotation. And then once pitchers and catchers reported,

there was Mike Maddox and the pitching coach there and the manager. They were both like, yeah, he did a really great job in the bullpen, right? Like kind of talking him up for that role. And now there's this where he's not ready to be on a normal pitching schedule yet, not ready for a normal buildup. I think if they were looking for an excuse to keep him in the bullpen, this provides them with the perfect one. And, you know, I don't think closer is where he winds up if he goes to the bullpen.

So I think that would obviously destroy his fantasy value if he's not a starting pitcher. That's my biggest concern here. If they're committed to him starting, it delays the timeline. I suppose it's possible there's a short DL stint at the beginning of the season. But in the long run, I think he'll be who you draft him. to be. I just have serious doubts. Serious doubts about that role. It's not even, you know, it's not just Alex Reyes, who doesn't have a spot now. It's Austin Gomer and, uh, they have, they have a few different arms. They have a few different arms. They can slot it to the rotation

instead if they wanted to go that route. Yeah, Martinez, you know, you're, maybe you're thinking, well, maybe I could use them, you know, like I've used, uh, Dellen Patensis or Josh Hater in the past. I don't think the whip is going to be good enough. I mean, in the bullpen last year, he had a 147 ERA, but he gave up 11 hits and 11 walks in 18 and a third with 19 strikeouts. He had big control problems last year. So maybe the whip would be good enough. You could see him that way, but we don't want Carlos Martinez to be a super relief pitcher.

We want him to be a starter or a closer, and Scott thinks there's a chance he's neither. Buster Posey progressing well, he won't catch until March, though, but he's making progress. Jet Lowry has a knee issue. The Mets are pretty concerned about it, and he's surprisingly high in Scott's first, second base rankings. I think Jed Lowry is like top 15 or something, right? Because second base stinks so bad. I'm not sure off the top of my head.

I can confirm that. Let's see. It's a race to confirm that. Click the wrong button. Now I click second base. Now we're going to scroll down. I have him 16. Damn it.

And head to head. I was there. I scrolled past him. I went too far down. Or I would have beaten you. Yeah, 16th is not that. And Heath has him 14th. So Jed Lowry, we just did our second base preview.

Would you like to update your feelings on Jed Lowry? Or is it too early? Yeah, that's not really going to change too much for me. Saezar Hernandez, who I have right behind him is about in the same category, I guess. But after that, we just did our second base preview yesterday. After that, you get into the interesting options with major playing time concerns like Brandon Lau and Jeff McNeil, et cetera. And then Josh Harrison, signed by the Tigers, to a one-year $10.5 million deal.

So where's Josh Harrison going to end up in your rankings? Low. The Tigers might be one of just two or three teams where he would have signed to be a starter. Okay, hold on. I'm going to ask a stupid question. Does it affect Nico Goodrum? Oh, I would assume so. Oh, it's a smart question then.

So Goodrum is a bench player? Well, a roster resource has Goodrum and left field. Yeah, I mean, obviously there's Christian Stewart there, who I suspect will get more playing time than Goodrum. But Goodrum is somebody who can play multiple positions and might wind up in a Marwin-Gonzalez role. I don't think he's very good either. I don't think we're talking mixed league material for...

They go Badrum. Am I right? Sure. No, I think we have a Nico Goodrum question in our notes today, and some people are, like, sort of intrigued by him. Nico Goodrum was in my all-foody team that I tweeted out a couple weeks ago. He was the starting second baseman for that. So it's a shame.

I have to find another second baseman. That was the hardest spot to fill on the all-foody team. Scott wrote just had a, just an eye-opening, shocking, horrifying tweet about movies yesterday that we'll also get to. And second base sleeper at the very end of the show, I mentioned this guy, Eduardo Nunez. Alex Kora said, Eduardo Nunez is more explosive and has two knees now.

Basically played through a knee injury in 2018. He had a terrible year. 2017 with Boston, he played over his head. But he batted 321 with eight homers and six steals and 12 doubles in 38 games and 892 OPS. And he is a bench player to start the year. Dustin Bidroia will get hurt. It is a guarantee.

We can talk about Eduardo Nunez when that happens. Other random topics to talk about. Yeah, Scott has not seen any of the, like, great movies that have ever been made. He's basically skipped all of that. That's ridiculous. He tweeted yesterday. I gave you like half a dozen. Movies that he's like, that, I don't know, that, like, it's somewhat surprising that he hasn't seen.

It was one of those, it was one of those hashtags making the rounds on Twitter that seemed like it was, you know, an interesting. exercise to participate in. Of course, after I do it, people just crap all over my list without submitting their own. I think those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones because I'm sure if we dug through their viewography,

we would find some pretty high profile movies they haven't seen either. But go ahead. Go ahead. Are you asking me to get out of my glasshouse? We'll get into that in just a minute. Okay, so Scott said the movies that he

hadn't seen. Why am I not finding this? I got it here. I want me to read it? Oh, yeah. The first two on the list are literally by two favorite movies of all time. The hashtag is admit movies you've never seen. So, saving Private Ryan. Yeah, that's number two on my all-time favorite list. Braveheart. Number one. Indiana Jones, the second and third. I've seen Raiders at the Lost Heart. Number three is the best one. That's not what everybody says. I think the majority say Raiders of the Lost Star. Yeah, I have heard others say The Last Crusade is the best.

Yeah, number three is great. I have not watched Lord of the Rings either. Okay, yeah, the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've sat when it was playing on a TV in the room I was in. 100%. Yep, me too. But I just wasn't in the mood or I just wasn't able to attend to it. All right, listen, everybody, before Scott goes any further here,

saving Private Ryan and Braveheart are bad misses but they're like three hour movies they're really long they're not on TV I guess like all that often it's somewhat understandable what Scott is about to say next though the next group of movies that he's never seen it's like please don't start listening to another podcast out of complete disrespect and hatred for Scott white because of what he's about to say go ahead Scott

all right so the entire Rocky series I think I have seen the first one. Obviously, it didn't make a huge impression on me. Only one best picture. One of the greatest movies of all time. Predator. Yeah, one of the greatest badass movies of all time.

Total Recall, which some people have told me it doesn't deserve to be listed with these others. Yeah, I don't love it. It gets referenced a lot. It gets referenced a lot. I got to see that one again, because I didn't love it the first time I saw it. I was in high school when I saw Total Recall. Any Tarantino

movie other than Pulp Fiction and kill bill. I think I've actually seen both of the killbills. It didn't do much for me, but whatever. And I've seen Pulp Fiction, but none of the others. And Scarface was on this list. Yeah, it's an overrated movie. Something I saw somebody else contribute later that I probably should have included. I have not seen a single James Bond movie.

I hadn't seen any until the Daniel Craig once. Which I've heard are good. Yeah, the one, the poker one. Which one is that? Casino Royale. Yeah. It is freaking awesome. That movie is terrific.

Yeah. And then the one after that was really good, too. I can't remember their names. But the Daniel Craig ones are good. Dude, Braveheart is my favorite movie. Saving Private Ryan is probably the best movie I've ever seen. I hope you find time to watch them. And the Rockies are phenomenal.

No, I should point out. These are not like I am opposed. to seeing these movies. It just hasn't happened. And I imagine most people have a list like this. Maybe not these insane movies, but you, Adam, were one of the people giving me crap on Twitter for this. And I have it on good authority that you yourself have never seen a single Star Wars movie. That's not true. That's not true. I didn't hear we going there. It's not true. I watched. So here's my Star Wars history. When I was a kid, I watched the episode four.

What the hell is it called? The original Star Wars? A New Hope, right? A New Hope is what it was named after the fact, yeah. I didn't like it at all. I thought it was extremely boring. And then I saw the other ones, but I don't have any recollection. So I think for the purposes of this argument, I will say that I've never seen the Empire Strikes Back or any, the only one I've seen is a new hope.

which I watched like two years ago, and I was like, damn, this is really good. I think I was a little harsh on all the Star Wars people. So I would like to watch Empire Strikes Back as soon as possible. So this is a great discussion, but let's talk a little more baseball. Baseball is cracking down on sign stealing. That's good. Baseball is going to have a pitch clock in spring training and maybe in the regular season. That's pretty big.

haven't really talked about that, a 20-second pitch clock with nobody on base. I think it's going to have a big fantasy impact? I'd have to... I don't know. I don't know. We've talked about this some in the past when there are rumblings about it happening, and there's some theories out there that it could impact pitcher velocity if you look at...

I remember looking at a leaderboard. I'm not even sure how I'd find out a leaderboard. board now but most time in between pitches and O'Roldus Chapman, the hardest thrower of anybody with number one. So it's hard to say. Now, I think they have been using a pitch clock in the minor leagues for now. This is not something I, honestly, this is first I've heard about this happening in spring training, so I'm not totally prepared to talk about this. But I think they've had one in the minors for a while now. And I don't remember seeing reports of, you know, crushing pitchers velocity or anything like that.

So it's probably much ado about nothing. Rob Banffred's calling Scott right now to talk about it. Yeah. He's like, don't, don't, no, this is, you need to back me up on this, man. I will see what kind of impact it has. I know David Price takes an eternity in between pitches, and that's a guy that I've been somewhat excited to draft, actually. And maybe a pitch clock would affect that.

I don't know. Don't forget that the later these guys sign, These free agents, the worse it is. The late signies last year, some of them were just terrible. I think Mustakis was the only one who wasn't completely terrible. Oh, J.D. Martinez. How late was he, though, that he signed? He was about now.

Okay, no, I'm talking about like into spring training. Remember they were, well, I don't know what I'm talking about, to be 100% honest with you. Like, Neil Walker was. Well, Greg Holland signed on opening day. Greg Holland was awful. Neil Walker was awful. Lorenzo Cain was late but not that late. I think he was late January.

So just keep it in mind. It's not good. We want them signed already. And then I wanted to see if World Series hangovers were a real thing for pitching staff, Scott. So I went through the last five World Series participants, really the last four, because no data on Boston, L.A. this year. And I looked at pitchers, starting pitchers who threw 180 or more regular season innings and then had some postseason work.

And what happened to them the following year? So there were 18 starting pitchers in the last four years, not including last season, that had 180 or more regular season innings plus postseason work. And here were the pitchers who had a better ERA the next year. Madison Bumgarner, Bartolo Colon, Corey Klobauer, Trevor Bauer, and Justin Verlander. That is five out of 18. 13 had worse ERAs. Ten had an ERA a half a run, higher or more.

The good news is three of the last seven starting pitchers in this criteria improved the following season. Really the only ones that really improved were Kluber and Verlander. And then the other good news is that there is only one pitcher, I think, from last year that actually met this criteria. I did this whole exercise, and then I said, wait a second, did the Red Sox or the Dodgers actually have anyone that threw it 180 in the regular season and more in the postseason. And the only guy was Rick Porcelo. So it's probably a big waste of time.

And that's why I didn't dedicate more time to it in the show. I do believe that pitching deep into the season, deep into the World Series can have an effect the following year. I don't know that anyone on either team is really going to be affected by it. If Rick Porcelo has a worse ERA than he had last year, he's going to be terrible. I think he'll probably have a better ERA because I think he's a better pitcher. Did you bring up Bueller? Walker Bueller? No, that's a good one. And I am super concerned about his innings, at his cost, which is pretty extravagant.

Like top four rounds, we're talking. Yeah, I'm pretty high on Bueller in general, but if there is one thing that would hold me back, it's that because he didn't even get to 100 innings in 2017 coming back from injury. and then last year between the majors, minors and postseason, I think he was about 170. So that's concerning. That's a big increase. All right, Scott, let's talk about our 15-team Roto Mock,

how to draft in deep leagues. Let's also talk about some players with something to prove in spring training and emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. It's all coming up right after this. So 15T mock, it was long. It took about two hours, but Scott did a nice thing. He gave us only one minute on the clock. So hastened the draft a little bit.

That was good. What did you think? Yeah, I'm down with the one minute clock. I used to be a holdout. I really like to debate my picks, but I'm down with the one minute clock now. Even in real drafts? In mock drafts, fine, but in real drafts? No, two suits.

I'd be down for it. No, a lot of times your first. instinct is the right one anyway. So leave the debates out of it. What happens? What you want to do? Make the pick. When your cue gets destroyed right before your pick and then you're scrambling. You need those extra 30 seconds. Okay, so first question, Francisco Lendor, he went eighth overall. 15 team, roto with big lineups, two catchers, five outfielders, middle infield, corner infield, nine pitcher spots. Are you more or less likely to draft Francisco

Indoor, you know, around 8th overall in a deeper league. I am less likely probably than the average person. That calf injury really scares me. Caves are tricky cats. That's one of our favorite sayings on this podcast back in the day. Phrase coined by Jimmy Rollins. It's true, though, if you've ever hurt your calf, even just a little. And I mean, this is obviously something severe enough to earn a seven to nine week,

timetable. It's, it really hurts. Sorry. I don't want to, just to speed up the show. I'm sorry, I got a lot to get to.

Does your opinion of Landor change based on shallow versus deep format? Do you avoid risky players earlier? You know, because it's harder to replace them in a 15th team league. No, that makes sense. I mean, I might be more aggressive

than a shallower league where you know, you need, you need the bigger impact from every lineup spot and you have more replacements available. But part of it's, I don't know how much the impact suffers because if he's dealing with his calf injury, even if he comes back and doesn't miss another game, do they let him run like they did last year? The SEALs were a big part of what vaulted him from late first round to early first round status.

Okay, what's my next question here? Betts and Starling Marte were my first two picks. Let's talk about how we approached steals. Starling Marte in the second round is obviously pretty early, but this was 29th overall. So at the end of the second round in a 15-tee, I had the second pick. So I took bets and I took Marte. Two outfielders, I had absolutely no problem with two outfielders

in a five outfielder league being my first two picks. I think outfield gets kind of shallow. Look, I won't get into all that. But I had no problem with that. but I just want to know how you approach steals. That was basically how I did it. I wanted to take one more steel source. I don't know why I can't pull up my team right now, but I will get it.

What did you do for steals? Oh, you took D. Gordon and Jonathan V.R. in this league, right? Yep, yep. I tried to get at Alberto Mondesie, as I intend to do in every league of this format. But he went in the middle of the third round. I was picking 15th, so, you know, I didn't have a realistic shot at him.

I wasn't going to reach for him at the beginning of the second round. And so that meant I had to scramble. D. Gordon with the first pick of round six, and then Jonathan V.R. Getting him with the first pick of round 10. Wow, that's good value. That's almost 150 picks in. I agree it's good value.

I mean, I think the downside. to VR is there's just there's a chance he's not worth starting for very long. You know, there's a chance by June 1st. We won't even think of him as a starting caliber player anymore. But steals being as scarce as they are. I think I got two of maybe eight, maybe 10 or so that you really feel confident are going to give you 30 steals. And one of them, VR, I mean, if he does keep the job, he's not going to be a total zero for power.

Yeah, I guess I would say I didn't really do very well with steals after those first two. I took Kyle Tucker, who knows what you'll get from him, but I really don't have a lot of steals after bets and Marte, so I might not do very well in steals. But I won't do horribly having those two guys, you know, maybe put me in the middle of the pack. I did a couple of interesting things. I took a pair of players. Probably my favorite pick was in this format.

Yeah, so let me look where I picked. Let me see where I picked him. Round 19 in a 15-team draft, D.D. Gagorius. And probably going to miss, let's just say misses half the season. But maybe a little bit less than that. But I also took Troy Toulowiczki, who's my starting shortstop, which is a little scary. No, he's my starting middle infielder. Paul the Young is my starting shortstop.

But I have Toulow, and then I have D.D. so too will probably be useless when Didi gets back. And I took a pair of Astros pretty late with back-to-back picks. I took Kyle Tucker in round 14 and Uli Gouriel in round 15. And that is fairly late in a 15-team league. And I sort of felt like, you know, they might be linked. That, you know, if Goreal's... I sort of felt like Tucker's playing time might depend on Gueriel and how well he's doing.

And whether maybe they move Tyler White to first base and they start using Kyle Tucker at DH or Outfield or something like that. You know what I mean? So I sort of used two picks on one spot. And I was okay with it because I think Tucker obviously has an enormous upside. And Guriel himself, if he plays well enough to play every day and maybe keeps Kyle Tucker out of the lineup, he would be a good pick there. He would be a good pick by himself. Or there's certainly a possibility that they both play.

So I wanted to know what you thought about those two Astros, Guerrille and Tucker. Well, I'm especially down with the Kyle Tucker pick. I think that's a key to these really deep leagues, like the 15-team roto format. You got a full bench to play with. You really need to stock it with upside because any one of those guys, if you just get one big breakout from your late round picks,

it can make a huge difference in a format where there's not much of a waiver wire to speak of where everybody's lineup is a little less impressive than those of us who typically play in 12th team leagues are used to seeing. So Kyle Tucker, I mean, whenever he does come up, if he performs at like a 30, 30 pace with a good batting average, which is totally possible. I mean, that's a big advantage you've given your team. I'm trying to think if I had any picks like that, where it was just late, but, you know, total commitment to upside. And I don't think I had one with quite that upside.

I had Brandon Lau in round 23, who I think is a sneaky candidate for 25, 30 homers. But that's probably my best one. And, oh, Clint Frazier in round 27, who actually is contending for the starting job, left field job with the Yankees. They're not automatically giving it to Brett Gardner. I still think he's pretty interesting. I took Ryan McMahon in round 28, even if he doesn't win the second base job. Obviously a possibility. Something opens for him down the line at first base or wherever else.

Yeah. So those are good pick. Like my first year in Tout Wars, I've played Tout Wars two years now. It's a 15-team rode a league. My first year I finished second. My second year I finished third. I haven't won yet. But, you know, I've been up there.

Aaron Judge with, like, my round 29 pick or something ridiculous in 2017 is what totally made my season. I mean, nobody wanted him. And then he goes on to have this near MVP season. It was huge. Yeah, and I took Alex Verdugo also later in this draft. So I took him in round 22. How many rounds did we have?

30. So we were drafting bench spots. It was a really, really deep league. My favorite pick of my team was Jose Ibrayu at the end of round four. So that is nearly 60 picks in. And when we talked about this on the first base preview, that is a position. If you like Joey Vado, if you like Jose Abraeu, if you think Anthony Rizzo is going to perform. more like an early second rounder.

These are guys you can target and get good value on, and they might perform like they have in the past. So I was thrilled to get Jose Abraeu. And last thing I want to talk about is closers, Scott. So this is a 15-team Roto League and a 12-team Roto League with nine pitcher spots to be divvied up between starters or believers, however you see fit. You know, the conventional wisdom, I think for a lot of people,

was try to get six starters, three closers. I am more on the seven starters, two closers thing now with the way the closer position looks like, with the way it looks at the moment. I feel like you can draft two and then be aggressive on waivers and get your third. Or you could just have two all year and still be among the leaders in the categories

in the saves category if you draft the right guys. I mean, at least hold your own, at least finish in the fiddle. But I actually took three closers or three players that I expect to be closers because one of them was Greg Holland. But I took Ken Giles. Well, first I took Wade Davis, then I took Ken Giles, then I took Greg Hollins. Part of it was I didn't want to use a pick on some crappy starting pitcher

just because he was a starting pitcher. So Holland I took at the end of round 18, in this 15 team league pretty late. And I think he's got a very good chance to end up the closer in Arizona. and I would love to have three closers in this league because they just might give better numbers than the starting pitcher that you're streaming. I mean, they won't get better strikeouts or anything, but you might be using the starting pitcher

who's just not that good in this deeper format. So let's try to get three good relievers. Let's maybe have some trade bait for somebody who's really struggling with saves. For whatever reason, I put more emphasis on getting a third closer in this league than I would in a shallower league and of course my third closer isn't officially a closer,

but I have high hopes for Greg Holland. Anyway, what did you do about saves? It was hard to make a big investment in saves in a league this deep just because everything was running out faster. You know, it throws off, when you add three teams like this to the mix, I mean, it throws off how quickly positions deplete, how many opportunities you have to fill your hitter spots. and it was hard to justify really the pursuit of one category

at the price I would have to pay. I mean, Wade Davis, who we normally think of as one of the very last closers who we feel confident is going to have a job, you had to spend an eighth round pick on him. And I was taking my second starting pitcher that round, you know? So that was hard to justify. I didn't take my closer until the first pick,

my first closer until the first pick of round 14, I took a Rodas Viscayino, who's not for sure the Braves closer, but I think is the obvious frontrunner, and if they do go with the platoon roll there between him and A.J. Minter, the righty, Viscayino would presumably get more of the chances. And then the other two,

I took Drew Steckenrider at the end of round 19. I took Willie Peralta really late. Who knows? Who knows if they're the closer for their teams? I mean, Willie Peralta is not even good, but neither is Brad Boxburger. and it was just a total saves play. Right. So I'm not confident, obviously,

that I'm going to be a force in the saves category or that I'm even going to be competitive. But there will be players who emerge on the waiver wire even in a 15-team league. That's the thing. Like, if there's one position that remains just as abundant on waivers is in a shallower format, it's the setup role.

It's the next in line among closers. You know, somebody like Sir Anthony Dominguez wasn't on anybody's radar this time year ago. There will be opportunities for safe still on the waiver wire, and it may be the best thing you could possibly find on the waiver wire in a format this deep. What's the position that you think is easiest to wait on in a format this deep?

Probably third base. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I was content with Raphael Devers being my starting third baseman, and I waited at third base. I can't remember who I got. But I think outfield, there's a case to be made for outfield, too. It's a little harder when it's a five outfielder league, but there's always something interesting in outfield.

I understand it's kind of weak at the top, so we tend to talk about it like it's a shallow position. But there's always at bats to be found at the outfield. There's always upside to be found in the outfield, even late. in a draft like this one, even when you're in that 300 to 400 range of picks. If you want to see more about this draft, you can check the website,

CBSports.com slash fantasy. We got good stuff there on different types of draft formats, position previews, tiers, blah, blah, blah. It's good stuff. Check it out. Okay, Scott, players that have something to prove in spring training. This is a story on our website on CBSports.com

slash MLB. I am promoting everything today, crushing it. And they gave one player on each team. So I just picked a few that I thought were interesting. I picked like 10. I'm going to give you a name and you tell me real quick. I want to save time for email. So tell me quickly if you still have fantasy hope for these guys, one of them doesn't quite fit in. I'm just going to go ahead and cross you Darvish off the list because we obviously have hope for him. Danesby Swanson for the Braves. Do you have hope for him? No. I think his best

application and fantasy is like in an NL only league where you just need a bat's, you need a guy who's going to give you some totals. But I don't see a big breakout coming. He's already 25 and there isn't really anything in the bad a ball profile to suggest it. Danesby Swanson, nope. How about Lucas G. Alito for the White Sox?

Lucas Gialito. Yeah. There's still a faint hope that I think he has the tools to be a good bat misser. He just has had pitch selection issues and control issues. I'm not totally ready to write him off, but I'm not investing a lot in him either. Gialito had a 10-start stretch in July and August with a 382ERA, 57 strikeouts in 61 and a third, 10% swinging strike rate.

Things to build on, but he was then terrible in September. He is doing neurofeedback, or he did it, neurofeedback. It's an off-season program to improve his breathing and stay relaxed. And Gialito did this to combat his early inning problems. Scott Gialito pitched 62 innings among the first and second innings. 62 of them. He gave him 64 run runs in the first and second innings in the first and second

innings. That's bad. Yeah. So he's got to get that figured out. All right. How about Jorge Soler, who also had an encouraging stretch last year? Jorge Soler for the Royals. Yeah, it was a really encouraging stretch for Jorge Saler.

And obviously he dealt with health issues again last year, but 820 OPS, 9 home runs and 223 at bats. It's mainly can he stay on the field for me. That's the biggest question. I think if he does, he's a good late round type power source, like a Randall Gritchick type. He batted 33 with five homers in his first 35 games, and he had a 425 Babbup,

so we knew Solaris production was going to come down. last 26 games. He batted at 175 with four home runs, a 599 OPS. He was terrible. Then he fractured his toe and did not play again after June 15th. All right, that's Solair. Next up, Jimmy Nelson for the Brewers. Missed all of last season after shoulder surgery.

How hopeful are you for Jimmy Nelson? I am, I wouldn't say hopeful. He's the most likely that we've mentioned so far, other than Darvish, of course. Nelson, I think, is the most likely that I would draft in a standard mixed league. But it's not totally clear he's going to be ready for the start of the season. And the bigger issue is what he's coming back from, torn labrum in the shoulder. Not a great track record for pitchers coming back from that. It's ended careers of some, more or less into the careers of some big-name pitchers over the years.

And it's often cost-a-pitcher velocity. Now, his was a partial tear rather than a complete tear, so maybe it's not going to be as bad as, some of those instances, but I don't, it's far from a foregone conclusion he's going to be back to being who he was before the injury. So that's Jimmy Nelson. How about Byron Buxton? He had migraines at the beginning of last year, and then he was playing through, I think, a toe injury. Yes, he had a hairline fracture in his toe. He batted 156 and 28 games. How about Byron Buxton, Scott? I know I'm not going to be the one to draft him. It just has such a small margin for error with as often as he strikes out.

And I'm not convinced there's enough. He hasn't shown enough power upside, at least at the major league level, to make it worthwhile. But he's still young. He's had tons of health problems. I'm not ruling out a big breakout. I'm just not investing in it. For Buxton. Kevin Kiermeyer for Tampa Bay.

This is someone that you and I were both interested in as maybe like a 20-homer, 25-steel sort of guy. he was so injured and so bad last year. You still have hope for Kevin Kiermeyer? I do. I do. I think it's pretty easy to dismiss it as a lost season because of... What was it? It was a fractured hip.

It was something... Don't remember. It was something pretty severe. That cost him a good stretch in the middle of the season. Yeah, you just look at his numbers from 2017, 2016. it's pretty obvious he's still of value in like a standard 5x5 league

where those power speed types you know I think he still profiles as one that's Kevin Kiermeyer how about Domingo Santana and then Adam Eaton I'll lump them together who would you rather take a shot on Domingo Santana or Adam Eaton

Adam Eaton I would definitely draft ahead of Santana I think Eaton's going to be useful when he plays it's not clear he's going to be an everyday player anymore. Michael Taylor's in the mix there. But Eaton still gets on base a lot. I think the plan is for him to bat lead off when he plays.

But Santana, I'm not, I think there's upside there too. I mean, he hits the ball. He hits the ball hard. It's a question of if he elevates enough to be a power hitter, but he's shown he can hit home runs in the past and also has some speed. There you go. the article, players that have something to prove in spring training, one for each team. I didn't want to bring it up, but the Yankees guy was Greg Bird.

All right, emails, fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. This is from Seattle Sports. Love the podcast. I seem to be stumped, though, about the middle of the draft. Can you go over some players you would target between picks 150 and 250? That's a big range. 150 and 250, who are you targeting?

I'm going to say a name and then I'm going to look up as ADP to see if I'm right. I'm going to look up. Oh, yeah, totally. Holy cow. 237th overall. I'm going to tie those skags all day, every day. Love it.

Yeah, Rick Porcelo is a pitcher I often drafting from that range. You Darvish. You know, a lot of closers go in this range. Yeah. So that's where I tend to be filling in my saves. Not the very best closers, of course, but my second and third closers, I'll get them from that range. A lot of starting pitcher sleepers, Tyler Glass now. Nick Povetta in there.

Sure. Yeah, Povetta is very trendy pick this year. I like Billy Hamilton. Once you get past pick 150, I think it's hard to pass him up. Billy Hamilton. Jesse Winker, by the way, we've been worried about his playing. playing time, but David Bell, the new manager of the Reds, first of all, Winker, no limitations heading into spring training coming out shoulder

surgery. There's no reason for the Reds to hold him back, and David Bell says he sees him as an everyday player and potentially one who could bad lead off. Wow. That's great. Okay, Jesse Winker. Andy Green in San Diego says, Dear Jake Fox, Chad Fox, Andy Fox, and Star Fox. Oh yeah, a bunch of foxes.

Well, Scott called Andy Green, Andy Foxx yesterday, and then he said, Andy Fox was an infielder, and I don't know how I didn't. Of course, I know who Andy Fox is. I used to actually really like Andy Fox. He played for the Yankees and the Marlins. I like both of those teams. He wasn't very good, but I remember him very well. I listened to the second base preview yesterday.

I did not hear Adam Frazier's name. I like him some as a sleeper, and I'd like to hear your opinions on Adam Frazier, who is likely to lead off for the pirates and look great late last. season. And I will say we have a staff writer RJ White who does like Adam Frazier as a sleeper at second base. Yeah, I'm

going to write a deep sleeper's column eventually. There's a good chance Adam Frazier will be on it. Now that Josh Harrison is out of the mix there, should have the second base job, Frazier, all to himself. Good on base skills and showed some power

last year. Not that I think he profiles as a 20 homer guy. I think he might be I think he might put tune though. He's so bad. He was last year terrible against lefties. Only 67 at bats, but like really terrible.

And then they have Jung Ho Gong. So I feel like he could puttoon. But in a deep sleeper scenario, that doesn't mean you have to avoid him. I mean, you're going to deal with part-time players in that scenario. Yeah, I'm curious. Let's see how often he sat against lefties last year. I mean, you can go on to the next one if you want.

Okay, we'll do that. Marty has a Dynasty Roto question. I think it's very interesting. I have a feeling I know where you're going with it. Six by six-by-six Roto League, Marty would give up a $21 D. Gordon and get a $6 Malix Smith. Who would you rather have, $21 D. Gordon or a $6 Malick Smith?

Well, Malick Smith now has a question of whether he's going to be ready for the start of the season, which makes us a little hard. but I would still rather save the $15 for what should be a similar steals total. And I might even give Malick Smith the leg up and batting average. Okay, I thought you'd go that way. And one thing about Smith not being ready for the start of the regular season. Part of that is their regular season starts a week earlier than everybody's. By the way, Adam Frazier, he wasn't playing every day down the stretch.

They still had Harrison. But it's not like they were, you know, he started against three lefties the last. week of the season. So he was playing against some lefties. I have so many questions in so little time. Last one here. From let's say Daniel, I like this question. I have the first

pick in a 12-team six-by-six categories league. I'm taking Trout number one, but I find myself loving my teams when I take three starting pitchers with my next four picks. So I usually end up with Trout and either Kluber or Verlander and then a combo of Paxton, Carasco, and Granky in the fourth and fifth. So let's say, I don't know that you're getting Verlander.

I think Klubor's more realistic. So let's say you have Trout, Cluber, and Carasco. No, Trout, Cluber, Carrasco Granky, or Carasco Paxton. Do you like that start with one other hitter mixed up in there? You'd have a third-bound hitter in there. Two days ago, we talked about my favorite team I've drafted so far. And it was a Categories League, had had Categories League 12 teams just like this. Those specs are important.

And I also drafted three starting pitchers with my first five picks. Just because that's just kind of the way it played out. That seemed to be where the value was in that particular draft. I think it's more realistic to be able to pull this off in a Categories League just because traditionally hitters have already been valued more in that format. One of the side effects of the way home runs are distributed now, where there's so many 20 homer guys, and it's not like there's a ton of 50 homer guys like, you know, the previous time in the majors when there were a lot of home runs being hit,

that means, you know, past the hitters you're drafting in the first couple rounds, it's kind of hard to differentiate. what comes after that. There's a lot of value to be had among hitters in the middle rounds, in the late rounds, even of a 12-team league. Not so much the 15-team league we were looking at earlier, but a 12-team league, yes.

So it's not that difficult to build a, what feels like a quality lineup even when, you know, even when you're drafting hitters with only two of your first five picks. I don't know that it's a wrong way to go. I want to experiment with it more, and to a certain extent,

it just depends on what happens to fall to you. But I don't think this is... You may be on to something here. Yeah, it's not bad. I would like it more personally if it were Verlander over Kluber, and I just don't know that I want to draft Kluber. I'm just kind of nervous about him.

But that doesn't mean I wouldn't be nervous about, say, like, John Carlo Stanton, or an equivalent hitter that would be going around Clover. So, yeah, I think we could definitely work. It would definitely work. As Chris said on an earlier podcast, there is no one winning strategy. A lot of ways you can go.

Thanks a lot for your questions for your emails of fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Get ready for a shortstop preview. It's coming up tomorrow on fantasy baseball today.