Fantasy Baseball Today - 03/08 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Late-Round SPs, Position Recaps, New Strategies

Episode Date: March 8, 2018

Busy show today as we finish up our SP preview with SPs 50-80 in ADP (1:00). Talking Aaron Sanchez, Mike Clevinger, Sean Manaea and more ... Now that position previews are finished, let's give a quick overview of each position with overdrafted and underdrafted payers (22:55). We also discuss different strategies for different formats (41:16) including more on the RP-heavy approach in a categories leagues and how your strategies change in daily vs. weekly leagues ... It's Team Name Tuesday on a Thursday (53:35)! We've also got Spring risers like Matt Harvey, Jason Kipnis and Ian Happ and fallers including a few injured players (55:05). Plus we have the best emails from a disgruntled listener (1:02:50) ... 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

Time show today. We are finishing up our starting pitcher ADP review, and then we are recapping every single position with strategies, especially from Heath, and one overdrafted and one underdrafted player at each position. Welcome, everybody. It's Fantasy Baseball today. It is Thursday, March 8th. I am fired up.

This is going to be an awesome show. We've got plenty of your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Hello, Scott. How are you? Hello, Adam. I wish my voice sounded better. the first moment I spoke on the show. It's already better.

Hello, Chris. How are you? Hello. Thank you, Chris. And hello, Heath. How are you? This is going to be the best fantasy baseball podcast, not just of the show or the season, but of all time. Nobody actually answered how they are.

I assume everybody as well. Here is starting pitcher ADP. We went through the first 50 yesterday, so let's go to 51. And it's a guy we actually ended last show with, but here we go. Kevin Gosman, Taiwan Walker, who's a sleeper for a sleeper for. Heath, much better on the road last year, and now he's got the humidore. Kevin Gosman, Taiwan Walker, Kenta Maeda, Cole Hamels, Aaron Sanchez. So we will go five at a time. Gosman, Walker, Maeda, Hamils, Sanchez. And you guys just give me your reactions. Favorites, least favorites,

what you think of the group. Go for it. I think Chris and I are both on the Gosman breakout bandwagon. It's, you look at when he's been good and when he's been bad in the past. And it's basically been good in the second half when he's introduced his split finger fastball to his arsenal. And in the past, he's kind of just worked it in organically, and it's taken a while to come around. But this spring, he came ready to throw all his pitches, and he had a really good start last time. I would like to rephrase what Scott said.

It gets the same general point about Kevin Gosman across. Scott and I are really, really invested in Charlie Brown finally kicking that football. If you draft Kevin ahead of these other pitchers, you're going to need some Goss Man to patch up your roster. Really? Even ahead of Aaron Sanchez? I know you don't like Aaron Sanchez. No, I don't like Aaron Sanchez either. He's much worse. I'd rather have Gossman than Sanchez. I mean, that's fair.

I do rank Gossman lower than most of these pitchers. I think any of these five, honestly, except for Cole Hamels, which is a little sad, are fine lottery picks. Have we got anything yet on any of Cole Hamill? spring training anything. I haven't seen anything. He is someone. He doesn't want to be in a six-man rotation. Right, and he won that battle.

They said he's going to pitch on regular rest. I just, I'd like, he is somebody that if he had two or three pretty good outings and reports were that his velocity is a tip, back up a tick, I could buy in to being a decent value here. But he could also be somebody that, like, April 20th, you're cutting. Yeah, I think he's gone the way of Felix, Danzo.

All right, well, that's cool. Hamils were talking about, I want to mention something on Kenta Maeda. Scott talks about innings all the time and how you get to a certain inning total. He made 25 starts last year. Maeda went more than five innings only six times in 25 starts, more than six innings only four times. So I don't know if that's going to happen again this year, but if you're playing a quality starts league, forget it with Kent and Maeda. I mean five times, five pitching, five starts out of 25 with more than five innings pitched. So please keep that in mind with Maeda.

And there's some decent upside there with Gosman and Walker. I think Maeda could be one of the 20 best pitchers in baseball on a per start basis. I know there are concerns about the innings, but that's true of everything. I think he could be as good as Shohayotani in about as many innings. That's pretty bold. Okay. All right then. Let's go to our next group. and, oh, people want to know about Aaron Sanchez.

So this was a top 17-ish pitcher two years ago, and then he just dealt with blisters. You're not going to get a lot of, he was 14th in points, 19th, and Roto in 2016. Sanchez had a 3-ERA-117 whip and not a lot of strikeouts. Do you rank him in your top 50? He's the 55th pitcher off the board. I don't rank him anywhere close to my top 50. What you're saying is factually accurate. he was a top 20 starting pitcher.

He was also 15 and 2. He was. And with almost three walks per 9 and 7.5 strikeouts per 9. I don't really believe what he did in 2016 is even a reasonable ceiling for him. So I feel like it was a starting point for a very talented pitcher, really good stuff and a good ground ball rate. I felt like he was on the Carlos Martinez path before the blisters popped up last year. He wasn't quite Carlos Martinez. Yeah, but I could see his career following a similar trajectory.

And I think now is, you know, because of the discount, because of the blisters last year, like it's a pretty low gamble. It's a pretty small gamble. Yes, I completely agree. I think he's a fine gamble here. I don't think he has ace upside, but like mid-3ZRA, 1-25 whip in 170 innings, seems like a decent upside. All right, now this next group of five, I think we're going to find a few players here

that we like more than many of the guys in the first group of five. We're at 56 overall at starting pitcher. We're at 216th overall pick of the draft. Oh, Blake Snell, Lance Lynn, Mike Clevenger, Jacob Ferrea, and Rick Porcelo. Blake Snell, Lance Lynn, Mike Clevenger, Jacob Ferrea, and Rick Porcelo. Who wants to gush over Blake Snow? Oh, I'll gush over Blake Snow, because it looks like the biggest problem, both coming up to the majors, where he was just so overpowering that it didn't matter,

and when he got to the majors, the walks, that was his biggest problem. It looks like he slayed that dragon at the end of last year after the embarrassment of getting option to the minors. The walks came around down there and down the stretch, they would look pretty good, too. It's had a really good spring, I think, in his most recent start, four strike, as to no walks and three shutout innings. And I think he's on the verge of breaking out. I like Clevenger a lot, too.

I like those two more than any of the last group, maybe any of the last 10. Clevenger's – I know you've been talking a lot about Clevenger. You were hoping he would win the job over Salazar. He's going to because Salazar is going to open on the DL. Clevenger had a 3-11 ERA. He had 137 strikeouts in 121 and 2-3. He was bad as a reliever, actually, at a 704 ERA. As a starter last year, Clevenger had a 284 ERA.

And in his last five starts, he had a .61 ERA. He was awesome. There is one big problem, and it's walks. He walked 4.9 and 4.4 per 9 in two seasons. Can Mike Clevenger? I mean, he has done it. Can he do it again? Can he be a good starting pitcher with all those walks?

I don't think he's going to have that low of an ERA again. But, like, he was overpowering. Top 12 in both K-per-9 and swinging strike rate. And he seemed to get better over the course of the season. So, yeah, I think it's a, like, you can draft him here as a number five, and he's a good chance he performs like a number three for you. Do you guys like Faria? Sorry, Chris.

Go ahead. Sure. Yeah. Like Farina? I like Ferea. I don't think he has as much upset as those other two, Clevenger and Snell. But he has, you know, he's had the least failure in the majors so far. And just to put the Blake Snell improvement in context, his first two starts after getting back from the minors, he had nine walks.

The final 14 after that point, he had 25. So he improved his walk rate a lot. there's number one pitcher upside here, not, you know, SP1. Now, you might recall last year Scott was a lot higher on Rick Porcelo than Heath was. This year, it's the opposite. I'm looking at head-to-head points, not roto rankings. But Heath, you have Porcelo 40th in points. Scott's got him closer to 60th, 56th overall.

So Porcelo is the 60th pitcher off the board. Heath? Yeah, and I would not like him near that. much in Roto. I'll check and make sure I don't have him ranked that high in Roto, but I do think his value will be that I expect him to still give the Red Sox a lot of innings. I expect the Red Sox to give him a lot of runs. I don't think he's quite as bad as he was last year. Now, that's saying, I haven't really changed my opinion that he's just pretty much a fine starting pitcher. But a fine starting pitcher that gives you 200 innings and realistically should win 14 to

15 games has quite a bit of value in points leagues. I've come around on him a little. I've drafted him for the first time in one of the most recent drafts I'm in. It's a 15-team league. But, yeah, he's drafted to be a starter for me. He's talked this spring about how his two seamer. He just didn't have it last year. And that's kind of his most important pitch.

So he's worked on that this office. How much you like Rick Porcello should probably depend on who you drafted earlier, right? Like, if you have Jeff Samarja as your number three, starting pitcher or number two, you probably shouldn't have any interest in Rick Porcelo. But if you've got a staff with like Luis Castillo and Lance McCullors and guys like that, guys who have really high upside but could also bust out or only throw 130 innings, you probably need someone like Rick Porcelo on your staff. Okay then, let's move on down past the 60s.

61 is Denelson Lemette, who's working on a curveball, could really use another. their pitch, and he has some walk issues, but very talented, Denelson Lamette. Julio Taran, Alex Cobb, Irvin Santana, who's going to start the year on the DL. You might see him in mid to late April, had a finger surgery, and then Brad Peacock, who's a spark. He's going to go higher in head-to-head points leagues where you can use him as a relief pitcher. Again, these five, 61 through 65 are DeNelson Lamet, Julio Taran, Alex Cobb, Irvin Santana and Brad Peacock, who is your favorite in that group?

Well, Matt. There's more upside there for me. Anybody who strikes out almost 11 batters per nine, even with the flaws that he has, I'm not so interested in him adding a change-up. He needs a pitch that can neutralize left-handed batters, and I'm not sure a curveball is going to do that. But even if he doesn't improve that much, there's still room for a high 3SRA with really good strikeout numbers.

Yeah, I'll say Lomette as well. I got to say, Peacock, I was prepared. He was flirting with my top 30 before the Astros went out and acquired Garrick Cole. And now you wonder where the starts are going to come from for him. I still think he'll make his share of starts. I think a dozen at least. But with no clear plan in place. for when that's going to happen.

It's hard to justify taking a guy you're mostly going to leave on your bench. Well, and that's what I'm thinking. I find it hard to justify drafting Brad Peacock. Yeah. And I guess he's going 246, so that's basically the last round of most of our drafts. But I don't even know that I guess I'd have a reserve round spot for him, maybe. Okay. And then Urban Santana, 2016 with the twins, he had a 330-R-A.

His last 18 starts, it was 241. And then last year he had a 3-2080-R. So his last two seasons, 3-28-3-30-R. The ride could be a little bumpy. He had a lot of terrible starts last year. But Santana, even though he's going to start the year on the DL, he deserves to be drafted, right? I'm not drafting him.

No? I would draft him late and, you know, stick him in the DL spot. Because I think when he gets back, he'll absolutely be must-owned. It'll be probably in a number four starter kind of way. But he's definitely an innings-eater, and he's a good enough innings-eater, in an environment with so few innings eater that he has value. He's probably falling too far because I don't even think 248,

given the timing of his injury, probably doesn't tell the whole story. He went about 350 in a draft that I'm doing right now, a 15 team. At that point, Irvin Santana deserves to be drafted. Yep, Irvin Santana. All right, next group of five, we'll go up to 80 starting pitchers here. And then also on today's show, we'll talk about some spring training storylines like Sean Mania.

Scott wrote about him. Matt Harvey's having a good spring, so we'll cover some more guys. 66 through 70 is Lucas Gialito, Tanner Roark, Patrick Corbin, Michael Waka, and Sean Minia. Gialito, Roark, Corbin, Waka, and Mania. Who's your favorite?

We are all kind of, like, it's weird because it's not the kind of player we normally go for. We, you know, fantasy analysts as a whole, but we're kind of all on board with Tanner Roark, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think he's a good value. Yeah.

I like Corbyn, too. Can I say something weird? No. You're going to start asking before you do that now? Yeah. Okay. Lucas Gialito is my least favorite of this group. You're weird.

That's weird because he was the number one pitching prospect in baseball a year ago. He had like a two, three ERA in the majors last season. But I just, we haven't seen. much from him in AAA or the majors that suggests that he's going to be much more than a back of the rotation starter. Yeah, hasn't shown a lot of bad missing ability. I would say I like Waka less than him. Yes.

I don't know why we don't like Michael Waka. Like, we all believe that peripherals matter and that ERA isn't the only thing that matters. He's had a really bad ERA the last two seasons. Adam is on the podcast. No, ERA is not the only thing that matters. This is a guy with a 3-6-fit for his career who had a 36-3-fit last season. The peripherals are good. He got the strike-out rate back up.

What was the strike-out rate? 8.6 per 9. So slightly above average. But the walks, he walks so many guys. But here's the thing. There are lots of pitchers we like who have worse strike-out rate, including Tainer Roe. Waka has that affliction Lance McCullors does, where it's like 150 innings. you just hope he makes it that far.

And when he's not the big Batmister McCullors is, he doesn't have that kind of upside, he has that Julio Taran level upside. Like, that's just not, like, I don't want to pay for that package. Who's got the most upside of those five? Gialito, Roark, Corbyn, Waka, Mania. Who's got the most upside? I think technically...

I think it's Manaya. Yeah, Manaya. Gialito probably is up there, too, if you want to be technical. But, I mean, Roark, two of the last four years, he's been a top 30 starting pitcher. So, you know, he's an inning leader for a first division club. And I think he's going to be somebody we consider must start come May 1st.

Before you say that's probably his upside, I'm just going to tell you, his upside is top 15. That's what Roark was in 2016, and he was top. 21 in 2014, but he also has had two terrible years. Yeah, I mean, and a lot of that is, you know, we talk about it a lot for hitters. He just stayed healthy and got a lot of wins. Right. Which he should.

He should. Yeah, I'm predicting that form again. Okay, then 71 through 75 is Jordan Montgomery. And I just want to, let's say, you know, overview. There are a lot of good pitchers still in this range. A lot of interesting pitchers, a lot of good candidates for your bench. So, you know, there are a lot of guys we like. uh... Jordan Montgomery, Jay Hap, Felix Hernandez, Alex Reyes, Tyler Chatwood.

Uh, not too many guys. I think maybe the first two. Uh, Montgomery, Hap, Felix, Reyes, and Chatwood. Reyes is interesting. We just don't know when he's going to pitch and where he's going to, like, bullpen or starter. Anyway, I'll let you guys talk. Montgomery, Hap, Felix Hernandez, Reyes, and Chatwood. Montgomery's really weird because he, I mean, we've only seen him for 29 starts in the major league.

leagues, and normally with those guys will project some type of possible upside or say they're a little bit riskier. He feels like that's just kind of what he's going to be. I don't know that I see a lot of room from growth from last year's 3880. But if he makes 32 starts and posts a 380RA, he's probably going to win 14 games on this team. He's going to be valuable. He needs to get a little bit better on a per start basis in terms of winnings.

And you can't ask for a lot of growth in that area. All right. So that's Jordan Montgomery. And J.Hap's been a pretty solid pitcher. Seventy-second overall at starting pitcher. Where do you guys have J-Hap? Let me take a look. 50-7th.

So there's some value there. J-Hap at 72nd overall. And then let's finish up with the last five Davies. Zach Davies, Louise Gohara, C.C. Sabathia, Forrest Whitley, who is suspended. And Jake Oteresee. Zach Davies, Louise Gohara, C.C. Sabthia, Forrest Whitley, Jake Oterreasy.

Zach Davies is terrible. Go ahead, Scott. Gohara is the best year, right? Or is it Whitley? No, it's, well, Widley's not going to, if he pitches this year, I think it'll just be his kind of get his feet wet sort of thing. Because Astras obviously have an overloaded rotation as it is. But Gahara is the one I'm excited about. He's missed a lot of spring training with a groin issue, so I don't know that he's going to make the starting five to begin the year. but it'll happen soon enough. And the five starts he made down the stretch last year,

there were only four pitchers, four qualifying pitchers who did what he did in the five-start stretch in terms of strike percentage and swinging strike percentage. And those four starting pitchers were Kirchall, Scherzer, Kluber, and Sayle. And you look at the minor league numbers and you think, yep, this guy has dominant stuff, a left-hander who can touch triple digits with a great slider. He looks like he's going to be a good one. Yeah, between AA, AAA, and the majors as a 20-year-old, so he was young for every level.

He had a 339 ERA, 28.1 strikeout rate, and 28.5% walk rate. That's similar to what Justin Verlander, Trevor Bauer, and Carlos Martinez had. So that just shows you what kind of upside he has. At this point in the draft, I think he's a great value. Okay, we're talking about Louise Gohara of the Braves, 77th pitcher off the board. Scott has him 66. Heath has Gohara 51st. So good value there.

All right. And... All right, you know what, I'm done. I'm done. I'm good. I'm good. Let's move on. You're going to be signing up for fantasy baseball leagues.

Drafts are coming up. Everyone play on CBS Sports. Go to CBSports.com slash FBT to get your league started. That is CBSports.com slash FBT. And I think you're going to love playing on CBS sports. If you're a real fantasy baseball fan, you're going to see we offer an awesome product. We have great advanced stats. We make it very easy to find the best free agents.

I love the projections. You can project for this upcoming scoring period if you're just looking for a one-week replacement, or you can look at rest of season projections. We've got an awesome list of two-start pitchers. So it's great. And it's also great for Dynasty Leeds. You can trade up to three years of future draft picks. You can do points leagues, roto, head-to-head category.

You can customize so many things. You don't have to do any standard settings. Again, you will love it. CBS Sports Commissioner. Go to CBS Sports.com slash FBT. You have to use that URL. CBSports.com slash FBT. I was planning on making an announcement about the podcast league today,

but we forgot to talk about it off the air. So our assignment today, guys, is to come up with a date that we can do a draft, and then we will tell the people, this is when we're drafting, and then you will email us and you will tell us you are in. but I think we're going to have, we should have fun with it. We should make them do like haikus or something, right? Hikus are fun. I'm really looking forward to it.

We also have some exciting, exciting announcements for the People League. For the People League. Yes, and the author of our theme song, Doc Kroitzer, gets a spot in a league of his choice. So that, sorry, that is one less spot. And one spot in the For the People League has already been taken. That's right. So they're filling up not so fast, but they will be pretty soon. And so tomorrow, also I have a plan for tomorrow's show.

I haven't run it by you yet. Ready? I'm running it by you. Let's do a draft. Let's do a live draft with listeners. Okay. That sounds like a great idea. When you want to do this?

Can it not be an A-L-only only? It will not be A-L-only. Tomorrow for the podcast. Figure around 10 a.m. All right. Let's do it. All right. You got to follow me on Twitter.

I'll make an announcement on Twitter. Do not email. How do they follow you on Twitter? At Adam Azer. A-Z-E-R. Thank you, Heath. At Adam Azer, A-Z-E-R. Heath is at Heathcoming Senior, Heath Cummings, SR.

Chris is at C-Towers, CBS, and Scott is at CBS Scott White. I know, Chris. I always forget it. At CBS Scott White for Scott. So I'll make an announcement on Twitter, and then whoever replies will be in the draft tomorrow. All right, let's do some position recaps. If you missed our position previews, you're lazy. We're going to sum it up for you right here.

After this, we have emails with a lot of head-to-head category strategy. We have news and notes. We have team name Tuesday on a Thursday, and we have a segment I've been waiting for for so long, Isaac's greatest hits. Isaac is a guy who listens to our show, emails us all the time, seems to hate us. I have his best emails, Isaac's greatest hits. Chris, give me your thoughts on catcher, quick strategy discussion, and then a one overdrafted, one underdrafted player. So unless you get Gary Sanchez and maybe Buster Posey or Wilson Contreras, I'm not sure they give you quite the leg up. You probably want to wait on catcher because the overdrafted guys are the middle range.

Salvador Perez 107 overall J.T. Realmuto, 119. Maybe even Evan Gaddis at 148 given the playing time concerns. So I either want one of the elite guys or I want to wait. The underdrafted guy is Wilson Ramos. Wilson Ramos is going 205th overall, and he is the ninth catcher off the board. It's fine if he's a ninth catcher off the board, but 205th is low. All right, Scott, first base, your summary. So there's a big four at first base, kind of like its starting pitcher,

not as big of a priority as starting pitcher. But Goldschmidt-Ferreemann Rizzo, like if you pick at the end of the first round pairing them with an ace, that's probably the ideal approach. but otherwise, you're going to want to draft a lot of them because the position's so deep. I have a hard time not filling my first base spot, my corner infield spot, and my utility spot in a standard roto league with first basement,

and then still wishing I had a spot for another. So like the elite ones are worth the premium, but the other ones you're kind of just drafting for need, and there's a lot of options to choose from. Do you have a specific overdrafted and underdrafted? Sure, yeah, specific overdrafted. Just going off fantasy pros data because there's certainly a point where you could call this guy Sleeper, but Ian Desmond going 125th overall, so round 11 in a 12-team league for a guy who was awful last year at course field

with very concerning batted ball data that may have been influenced by injury, but it's not like the guy has the most consistent track record either. I think that it's ridiculous to take him that early. Underdrafted? Underdrafted. I'm going to go with the guy who's actually drafted four spots ahead of him, Matt Olson, who, based on what he showed last year, both in the minors and especially in the majors, I think it's 50 homer potential.

And he is my favorite, he is my favorite mid-round home run choice, just because other than like Joey Gallo, who I think is bigger flaws, I don't think anyone compares in terms of upside. Don't love him so much in points leagues, but even there, he's, Olson's an okay pick. All right, that's first base. The correct answer to underdrafted was Greg Bird. 156 overall. That's okay.

That's okay. Greg Bird looks like the favorite right now to bat third in the Yankees lineup. Heath, second base. So industry drafts are a lot different, apparently, than everyone else's drafts. And based on industry drafts, I really like to grab a second basement early. I'm happy taking Jose Ramirez in the second round.

Jose Altube is my number one overall player, partially because of the position he plays. Dee Gordon is an excellent third round pick, in my opinion. In Roto, he's going to get you a ton of steals. I love the top of second base. But based on where second baseman go in our drafts, I don't necessarily love the value. Now, that is not apparently true for anyone else.

There is everything that you could want in the later rounds at second base. If you need Dong's, Ruegnet-Odor is there, and it looks like the ninth round. If you need steals, Eduardo Nunez is there in the 13th round. If you want upside, Ozzie Albies, Ian Hap, Paul DeYoung, all going after pick 140. So I don't think if I was drafting in these types of drafts, I would make it as big of priority to go get an upper-tier second basement. I think you covered who's being underdial. drafted as in being taken too late. How about a guy who's being drafted too early?

You know who I'm going to say. It's Jonathan's scope. He's going at the 5-6 turn. I don't expect he's going... The one way that he justifies that up is if he repeats what he did last year. But I don't think that should be the expectation. Most of his performance from last year was a career outlier. He could be a very fine, startable second baseman and still be way over-drafted at the 5-6 turn.

Okay. And what was I going to say? to back you up on something. You made a good point. I wanted to bring it up. I can't remember. Oh, Ian Hap. You've been all over Ian Hap for like months,

and he's having an amazing spring. And so far, so good, Heath. All right. So just let him play. All I am saying is give Hap a chance. If you go back and listen to the second base podcast, second base preview podcast, you will hear me call Ian Hapabust.

Don't listen to me. Okay. I don't think that's true anymore. Good, good stuff. All right. So third base, Chris. Remember, I called this a shit. shallow position when you remove

Mani Machado, Jose Ramirez, and Alex Bregman, who people are going to play at second or short. What is your take on third base real quick and then give me an overdrafted and underdrafted? You don't want to be like the ninth person to draft a third baseman. You probably don't want to be filling out your third base or your corner infield spot in like the round

I would say eight through 12 range because that's where the worst values are at the position. That's where you start to have to reach for guys who have serious flaws in their games, guys like Miguel Sino, guys like Nick Castellanos, Mike Mastakis, Joey Gallo, who certainly have upside, but have really low floors as well, and I don't think they're being priced into them. So if you're drafting a third baseman, your starter should probably try, you should probably get your starter in the first six rounds. That's down to Justin Turner, I would say in ADP.

And then your corner infield spot, you want to wait till, I would say the Adrian Beltrane Matt Carpenter kind of range. Yeah. Or you could always obviously go with the first baseman. Sure, yeah. Okay. So I think you covered overdrafted, underdrafted, or no? Or do you want to give specific names?

Underdrafted, I think Adrian Beltray is maybe the single best value in fantasy baseball right now. He's 139th in ADP. I know he's old. I know there's injury concerns, but there's really only one season's worth of injury concerns, and even then he crushed the ball. We've seen zero sign of a declining skill set for Adrian Belchre. Okay.

Overdrafted? We'll go with Miguel Snow at 102 at 102. Gotcha. All right, let's move on to shortstop, and this is Scott White. Scott, take it away. So in an environment where there isn't really a thin position, unless you count catcher, which let's face it, it's hardly a position. Shortstop still looks like the thinnest position. And so it's one where I do get a little worried about getting left out.

It's not where it was a few years ago where you had to reach to get a quality shortstop. But I want a quality shortstop. And if I pick in the spot where it's appropriate to take Trey Turner, Carlos Correa, Mani Machado will eventually be eligible there, or Francisco Lindor. I do. And if not, I'm happy to take Corey Seeger in round three. I'm happy to take Alex Bregman in round five if he lasts there, and I'm happy to take Elvis Andrews in round six.

If I don't get one of them, I'm kind of disappointed, and I'm probably just waiting for really good value. Would Bregman be overdrafted for you? He's going 41st overall. No, I wouldn't say that's overdrafted. Overdrafted for me is Andrew Bogart's. Seventy-fourth. Yeah, 74th overall.

Yeah, I mean, regarded as an early round pick, even though only two of his four seasons, he's performed like one, and both of them there was an outlier that, you know, it was a different thing each time. One, it was ridiculously high babb. One, it was an out-of-character, home-run-to-fly ball ratio.

and that's what put him over the top those years. And I don't think... I think the norm for him is closer to what we saw last year. Underdrafted. Who's going too late at short? Too late at shortstop. I'm going to say... It's not somebody I'm excited to draft either,

but I think people are a little too dismissive of... No, I'm going to go with a different one. I'm going to go with Zach Kozum, because it's easier to say it about Zach Kozum. who was top five shortstop on a per game basis last year. And there are reasons to question whether the power was legit, especially since he's leaving Cincinnati now. But he's a good on-base guy.

He's probably going to be batting ahead of trout. And I think he's still going to be very productive, especially considering he's going to an 211th overall. Tim Anderson also in Roto leagues is someone he want to keep an eye on with his steals potential and what he did. Yeah, there's some interesting late-rounders there. I'm in Rosario with a steel's potential. Labor Torres whenever he plays.

Like it is a thin position, but if you're just looking for late round upside, it has its share of it. Outfield, Heath. Outfield is completely, you have to look at it completely differently, depending on whether you're starting three or five outfielders. If you're starting three outfielers, then there's not a lot to it. Wait until the good values fall and just take your outfielder's,

and maybe you want to save a spot for the upside, that's fine. I don't generally, I just try to get three good outfielders. in a five outfielder league we may underrate how shallow outfield is in a five outfielder roto league I think there are cases where you may actually play at a guy at outfield that's also eligible at second base

like an Ian Hap or even a Whitmeryfield. So that's something Nick Castiano's is another one. Scott brought it up yesterday. I don't have room for Nick Castiano's at third base but there's room for him in a five outfielder league. That's for sure. As far as over-dustianos,

drafted at outfield. I'll say AJ Pollock. The Diamondbacks as a whole just are not falling fast enough in ADP. And even if you look at it on a more recent basis last two weeks or last month, you're just not seeing a huge drop for these guys. I am concerned that Pollock could be like a number four outfielder. He has to have his stolen base numbers bounce back to the level they've only been at once in his career.

And if that doesn't happen, there may not. be a lot of use. And Pollock's going in the sixth round. Who's underdrafted? Who's going too late? There are a bunch of underdrafted guys. I think we've talked about this one a little bit, but I will say Michael Brantley. His ADP, I believe, is basically the last round of the draft.

And Brantley has a huge injury risk. He's actually hurt right now. But if you could, I'd take him pretty happily four or five rounds. I just took him in a 15 team league four or five rounds ahead of this. this. The upside is still really big. He helps you in categories that are hard to obtain late in the draft can be a stabilizer for batting average when he's in there. And you've got a DL spot for when he's not. Okay. Let's go to starting pitcher. And, you know, I don't think we need to, just give me, we could even skip starting pitcher since we just spent three days on it.

So let's do that. Let's skip starting pitch. No, that's not. That's not cool. No, not cool at all. Everybody, instead of underdrafted, overdraft it, everybody just tell me how you're going to approach starting pitcher. How about this? Scott, you tell me how you're approaching starting pitcher in a points league. Heath, you tell me how you're doing it in a categories league, head-to-head categories. Chris, you tell me how you're doing it in a standard roto league. Scott, points league. So points league, I'm going all out.

And I'm probably higher than these other two on high-end pitching to begin with. But points league, where you don't have to consider the specific contributions of hitters that you're going to be getting later in the draft, all that matter. matters as the totality of the contribution. There's so much interchangeability there that it's beyond the top two round type hitters. It's just not worth paying for. So our most recent head-dead points draft, I took a starting pitcher with nine of my first 13 picks, the first of them coming in the fourth round.

So I still got the really elite hitters. But I want to take the pitchers who I think can stand out before they're all gone. But nine starting pitchers with your first 13 picks? Or are relievers included in that? Just starting pitchers. What's the point of drafting four bench spots? Well, for one thing, not all the pitchers are going to pan out. And for another thing, particularly in a points league,

every time somebody that high-in makes two starts, you're going to want them in your lineup. So that's not a bad thing, having extra pitchers. You use all your starting pitchers. It's probably the only position I can say that about. All right. And Heath, head head categories. I don't want to give people the wrong idea that I'm just like not going to draft any starting pitchers.

I would love to have one very good starting pitcher. I'd like to have a couple others that I think have the upside to be very good starting pitchers that don't cost near as much. I'm very fond of Lance McCullors in a head-to-head categories league, guys like that. But I'm also not going to invest near as much in head-to-head categories as I am in other formats. and I'm especially not going to invest in guys like Marcus Stroman, guys like we talked about Rick Porcelo, Aaron Sanchez. I don't have a lot of use for innings eaters in this format. All right.

And how about a standard roto league, Chris? I think innings eaters can be a little bit underrated, but it really just depends on how you build your roster. If you're going high on, you know, one or even two of the big four, if you're drafting two starting pitchers inside of the top 10, you know, then you probably don't need those stabilizing forces like a Jeff Samarjo or Johnny Quato. It really just, it's all going to depend. The way I'm drafting my teams is I'm always pretty much looking for upside in the first

10 rounds at starting pitcher. If I can't find good values, I'm perfectly okay. with waiting and taking someone like, I've taken Masahir Tanaka as my number one starting pitcher. I've taken Robbie Ray. I've taken Aaron Nola as my number one starting pitcher. I'm okay with waiting because, yes, the position's important. Those guys are also hugely volatile.

Finally, relief pitcher, Chris Towers. What's your relief pitcher strategy? I would love to have Kenley Jansen or Craig Kimbril. I think there's a pretty big drop off after those guys, and that's what the ADP shows as well. if I can't and I usually don't because you have to get Kimberl Kenley in the third round sometimes and Kimbril usually in the fourth, I'm perfectly fine waiting, not drafting anyone in the mid-range and just targeting guys that I think are good pitchers who are either coming off bad seasons

or aren't on great teams because those guys tend to be undervalued. The guys who tend to be overvalued are relievers who are coming off one outlier big season. So I'll tell you the overvalued guys, I think, are Felipe Rivera and Corey Canable. Both had never done it before last season. We did this last year with Edwin Diaz. We did this last year with Ken Giles, guys that we thought were elite closers. The position changes a lot. These guys could both easily lose their jobs.

Yeah, I was one of my regrets last year of just not putting enough emphasis on relief pitcher. You know, so I'm going to try to put a little more emphasis on it, but I'm not going to take like, where are Kimbril and Jansen going? Jansen's going like the third round. Third and fourth round. Yeah, that does feel a little bit early to me. Adam. Yeah. You want to hear something crazy?

Yes. I took Craig Kimbril and Tout Wars. Where? Fifth round. She, that's, fifth round. Fifth round of a 15th league. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing.

But I don't, like, I've been the one who. most staunchly opposed to drafting either of those guys, given their going rate. But, yeah, in a league that the deeper the league and the, yeah, I guess the deeper the league and the less consequential starting pitchers feel like they are, that's when those guys have the most value. And I do want at least two closers, preferably three. I just, they're so dependent on saves and close.

You know, 15 closers will probably lose their jobs at some point this year. Yeah. That it's just not worth paying up for the guys who don't have a track record. Give me Hector Nerris and Kelvin Herrera in the later rounds, and I'll feel pretty good about it. All right. Well, I feel pretty good about Seatgeek. I am going to a basketball game tonight. I used Seatgeek to get the tickets.

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The promo code is fantasy. All right, we got a lot to get to. We won't get to all of it, of course. But people want to know a lot about head-to-head category strategies. So let's do that right now. Tim from Plymouth, Minnesota. Does your draft strategy change if you're drafting, oh, this isn't about categories,

but does your draft strategy change if you're drafting for a daily league versus a weekly league? Yes, it does quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah, it changes some. For one thing, the dual-eligible Otani becomes a lot more valuable. Yeah, the biggest thing for me, I've said it many times, is in the one daily league I play,

it's daily head-to-head categories, you set your lineup every day, load up on pitchers because the hitters don't miss that many games, so you can mostly keep them in your lineups. You get the big advantage by, you know, drafting good pitchers and throwing them in their lineup every time they start.

Or I like to get four or five closers. Yeah, more relievers, I would say. Instead of taking crappy ratios from middling starters, in between your good starters, just load up on relievers as much as your lineup allows you to do that. And if you're in a league, that designates starting pitcher and relief pitcher, guys who have starting pitcher eligibility,

but our relievers and are really good ones like Brad Peacock, can have some extra value as well. At the same time, when teams are off on Mondays or Thursdays, you don't just want to take a nothing in that line of spot, so it helps to have multi-eligible hitters. Like Marwin Gonzalez is the most multi-eligible, but also like Chris Taylor, Javier Baez.

Good point. Maybe that's why Baez goes sooner, We're not accounting for the daily league aspect. You shouldn't change your draft strategy too much, though. Not too much. Okay, Max has a question. Last year in my head-to-head categories league, I had a few middle-of-the-road pitchers.

I believe it was Carasco, Kintana, and Stroman. I'd let them pitch, and then if they gave me a strong ERA and whip, I'd sit tight. If they didn't perform, I'd go and get a bunch of two-star pitchers from Waverwire and punt on whip and ERA and win the strikeouts and wins categories. This allowed me to invest much more heavily in hitters on draft day, and no matter what, I'd win at least two-fifths of the pitching categories. I won the league last year.

Is this a viable strategy? So you won your league, so yeah. It's not drafting that many pitchers. He drafted Carrasco, Kintana, and Stroman. And then early in the week, you see how they do. If they do well, you don't get any more pitchers because they've done well for your ERA and whip. If they haven't done well, now you just get pitchers from the waiver wire. You try to win wins and strikeouts.

It begs the question. What about when they don't pitch early in the week? Yeah, this is only viable like half the time. Yeah. Well, I mean, he won the league. Sure, sure. And it's hard to say exactly how much that had to do with it, but in theory it sounds like a pretty good idea when you're able to do it.

Yeah, I think maybe we're framing it just a little bit wrong, as in his, the strategy is not to have the pitchers pitch earlier in the week. It's just after your first few starts, regardless of who they're from, if you are in a bad position on ERA and WIP, this makes a lot of sense. This is what you do in a daily lineup league when you fall way behind early in ERA and WIP is go win those two categories. That being said, I feel like the rules shouldn't allow this because you should either have, like, if you have daily lineup locks, you should probably have weekly transaction locks. Your roster should be locked at the beginning of the week. Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with that.

No, I don't agree that it should be locked at the beginning of the week. No, no, no, not your lineup. Your roster. No, I think you should be able to pick up players midweek and start them. But I play in a league. This seems like exploiting a loophole to me, which is, you know, if it's allowed, go ahead. I play in a league that's not sure it should be a lot. I think it's great.

It's you get seven transactions per week. So one per day, basically, but you can divvy them up however you want. You know, and it's not that, like you have to be a little, you can't just pick up play. Because normally I'd pick up more than one per day on average. But you have to be a little judicious, I guess. But, no, I mean, yeah, I don't agree with Chris, but I guess that's nothing new. I think the bigger thing is if you typically play in almost entirely weekly leagues, then this would seem like a loophole. But it's actually a feature and not a flaw.

It's just a different type of game. All right, here's a question specifically for Heath and his head-to-head category's pitching strategy. Bring it on. This is from Frank the Animator. Loading up on relievers and punting wins and caves is a fool's errand. and don't buy into it. I've yet to see someone actually win a league doing it. You're seating 20% of the categories before the season even starts.

Everything has to fall into a perfect place for it to work, and that almost never happens. So what you wanted to know is, like, Heath, does you actually win leagues that way? I think what we should do is give Frank's email address and all of our listeners that have played relief, pitcher-heavy in categories can send Frank an email telling him that they won the league. We probably shouldn't do that.

No, the one thing I'm not sure of, And I read this email once, Adam, because you told me it was coming. No, it does say in the title, head-to-head category strategy time. So I thought maybe he was talking about Roto by the rest of the email. Oh, no. I understand if you don't like this strategy. I'm also not saying that I'm entirely punting wins in K's. I would like to have one good pitcher and maybe some other guys with upside in case they hit.

Several times last year. I played, I think, four leagues that were head-to-head categories last year. and in at least half of them by mid-season, I ended up with four or five starters on my roster. I just didn't invest draft capital in them. Capital. Capitable? Capitable.

Capitable. So you didn't go the whole year just using relievers? I did have, I believe, one league where I did that. Did you win? I did not win that league. I was in the playoffs. It's never happened. Yeah, it has absolutely happened.

I did win head-to-head categories last year. in leagues in which I drafted mostly relievers. Can you read the last sentence there again, Adam? Hold on. I closed out the email. You closed that. All right. Well, this is my head-to-head categories experience. It's my least favorite format. But I feel like trying to win ERA and whip in a week's time,

like when just one bad start can blow it up. Like, I feel like, I feel like everything has to align perfectly just to win those categories. Scott starts sweating, just talking about this format. And I feel like it's easier for everything to align perfectly when your line is waited toward relief. Can we just, like, the answer here, and the answer when discussing any strategy is there's no strategy that's guaranteed to win. There's no strategy, I mean, there are strategies. that are guaranteed to lose. Scott White's drafting.

Well, yeah, drafting like Scott White is guaranteed to win. But if you can't do that, if you're playing with Scott, you can't do that. So there's no strategy. There's no one strategy that is guaranteed to win. There is no realistic strategy that's guaranteed to lose. Like not playing is guaranteed to lose. But so when we talk about like this can't happen or this will work, it's all like you still need the right players. You still need to be active.

you still need to have a good process. The strategy itself isn't inherently good or bad. It's the person playing and the players that you have on your team. If you draft a bunch of crappy relievers, or if you stick too long with a guy like Sung 1-0 last year believing that he's going to turn it around, your team's going to suffer. Also, there was one Categories league where several people in the league

went into the draft with this plan, and relievers flew off the board way, way early. And so I just didn't do it. I just changed plans. I have listened to so much talk from you guys about this strategy, and I play in one head-to-head categories league with daily rosters. And in that league, what I think I'm going to do is try to draft four or five closers. Definitely four.

Probably draft like five or six starters. No, maybe more than that. But then I will go to the waiver wire, not to get closers, but to get good middle relievers with, you know, good Whippy RA. and K-per-9, I guess. Because that, I don't think you have to draft, maybe you have to draft Chad Green, but guys like Green will show up. Maybe not the Ezwood.

Right, and those guys also are just volatile from year to year. Right, right. All right. Anyway, last email here for now from Tim. On yesterday's Pitching Preview podcast, you totally skipped over Luke Weaver. I, for one, am extremely excited about him and was really looking forward to hearing your opinions.

Can you spend a minute on Luke Weaver? he's going early that's kind of why we skipped over him but we should yeah it's it's kind of where I am with Reese Hoskins and these were guys who I loved when they got called up last year and we were singing about them in the podcast all down the stretch when they were doing awesome things

but like they're they're being drafted as high as you can reasonably justify drafting them based on what they've done and I'm not saying it's wrong to draft them there it's just I can't get excited about it I think the big difference with Luke Weaver versus Reese Hawkins, however, is Reese Hoskins's minor league track record fully backs up what he did in the majors,

in terms of the peripherals, in terms of the production. I mean, Luke Weaver's minorly trackers is pretty awesome. He is really good. 199 ERA and 275 in a third innings. His strikeout rate was 8.8. It's good. It's really good. It's good, but it's not elite.

And his strikeout rate in the majors last season. You're parsing. I don't think I am. I think it's definitely above average. Well, let me ask you this. Let me answer this. Can Luke Weaver be great this year? Yes.

Sure. Yeah. Now, he's going 34th overall among starting pitchers. He's going at the beginning of round 11 in a 12-team league, Luke Weaver. I guess my argument for that, just to play devil's advocate, is I don't see maybe more than a handful of pitchers that I feel like should definitely go ahead of him. Because after Weaver, it's Stroman, Bauer, Castillo, Gio, Cueto, Samarja, John Gray, Danny Duffy, Michael Fulmer, Michael Fulmer. are Chase Anderson, Garrett Richards. Now we're in the 170s.

Now we're 50 picks behind. So, like, it feels a little weird for him to be the 34th pitcher off the board. But at the same time, it would kind of feel weird for any of these guys, most of them, to be the 34th pitcher off the board. Yeah, like I said, I don't think it's a bad pick. It's about where I rank him. I just hardly ever draft him because somebody always seems to be more excited about Luke Weaver than I.

I don't rank him that high, but I think you bring up a good point at him. It's easy to say Luke Weaver's being drafted at his ceiling, and that's not really true. he's being drafted much closer to his ceiling than he is to his floor. Did anybody say that? What? No. No. Just making sure.

No, but we said he was going too early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would just say with both, I'll throw Jose Burrios in here. I think you could probably throw Lance McCullors in here in that 100 to 125 range. They're probably guys I would feel, I would draft if they were in the 170 range. because I don't think those three guys are more talented than Blake Snow. I don't think those three guys are more talented than James and Tyone.

Maybe Lance McCullors is. But for the most part, I think we're talking about guys with very similar talent levels, pretty similar major league production, pretty similar minor league production. And if I'm drafting those guys, those guys who aren't sure things but have upside, I'd rather do that in the 15th round and the 10th round. You focus on other positions. I focus on relief pitcher and catcher a lot of times at this part of the draft, especially relief pitcher. But this is where I'm drafting starting pitchers usually.

It's just not those guys. All right. Well, every draft is different. Every fantasy owner is different. So I, of course, failed miserably with time, and I just want to know who is rising and falling in your preseason rankings. Here's a quick team name Tuesday on a Thursday, though. First of all, we just got one in the mailbox from Vince. I'll be there for you

Pretty good How's the Albies That was one of your worst singing It was so bad That was all pretty off It didn't even go the right direction with that note It was so bad It's a hard line to sing though

Because there are so many different Octaves singing at once And you just kind of have to pick one Pick one Scott Yeah, no I'm not good to it Yeah he's sick My voice like this, you can't make It might be better

Trey Turner Overdrive Yep Legs don't bell tray me now Yeah, good. My name is Josh. I'm not a fan of Josh Hater. I think he's overrated. My team name will be Josh's Josh Hater Haters.

Good. I have Adam eating out of Jake Lamb and Greg Bird and Tommy fam. Eaton lamb, eating bird and lamb. We're eating lamb, fam. Yep. Cool in the gang. Reese's monkeys. Springer, Spaniels.

I'll tear you a new one. We've had that before. That's a good one. But, but, Ben, and Tendi and the Jets. Sure. That's a very good one. Much better. Thank you.

Wobafet. Wobafet's good. I like that. Very good. Ferry. Cindergarten cop, which is a classic. Sure. J.J. puts the lotion in the basket.

Very good. And then a popular prospect one, Acuna Moncada. What percentage of our audience doesn't even know who J.J. puts is? Or Silence of the Lambs, right? Well, maybe. Yeah. All right. So there's so much news.

Arizona's bringing the bullpen cart back. I thought that was pretty much the most important thing. But we'll skip that for now. Matt Carpenter, Daniel Murphy, Adam Eaton. Scott wrote about all three of them. They're all still injured. Carpenter and Murphy may not be ready for opening day. Eaton, they're just being very cautious.

Yeah, also may not be ready for opening day. Are you dropping Carpenter, Murphy, and Eaton in your rankings? I am not... well i i've kind of yeah not not much because i don't think they're going to miss time but i'm i'm starting to wonder about daniel murphy i got an interesting tweet um from a doctor who dabbles in fantasy writing um i'm trying to come up with his name here i think i have too many tweets in my inbox i'm not going to be able to find it but he uh humble brag he he uh he shed some light on um where Murphy is in his rehabilitation process and what that means for him going forward.

And he's under the impression that he might miss like half the season. So obviously nothing's been reported along those lines. But to me it doesn't seem like a far-fetched concern. So I'm thinking I might put him on my bust list 2.0. Of those three, Murphy's the only one that I've moved down. And it's simply because he was the only one that was being drafted high enough to move down. Let's see, who else? Oh, Corey Seeger's making good progress, looking more likely for opening day.

St. Louis Closer, Luke Gregerson has an oblique strain. They're calling it minor, but keep an eye on it, and he wasn't very good last year, although, I mean, a lot of it was like one dreadful, dreadful start early in the year, and then a bad September. For the most part, I guess he was fine. But Gregerson, yeah, he's old. He's already hurt. Tyler Lyons?

Would that be a guy to keep an eye on in the bullpen there for the Cardinals? Greg Holland might be a name to keep an eye on. Did you say Dominic? Leone? Leone? No, I want with the other guy whose name sounds like Lion. He did Tyler Lyons. No, it would be Leone.

I'm sorry. Leon is the righty, and Lyons is the lefty, so that makes sense. Yeah, no, I mean, they both seem to have closer ability. I would think Leon seems to be getting more helium in fantasy circles this spring. The guy's name, by the way, is Dr. Mike Tanner, and he does some writing for... Fan tracks. There you go. That's where that piece was.

So that's comparing Daniel Murphy and Dustin Padroia in their recoveries from knee surgery. Chris, what, did you just Google that? No, I just looked in your mentions. Oh, okay. And Ahmed Rosario has no social damage. I have to scroll down pretty far, though, right? Chris is, I know you don't actually have that many mentions. No, I searched.

Chris is the Twitter. Chris knows what he's doing on Twitter. Ahmed Rosario, no structural damage. Jacob McGrom scheduled to pitch Sunday. Aaron Judge, they say he could bat lead off. It's very unlikely. Jose de Leon towards UCL. So that sucks.

And now the race are talking about using a four-man rotation. Yeah, and I looked through their schedule. It wouldn't really, like, increase the number of two start weeks for Chris Archer, especially through, I looked through the first, like, month and a half. And it's really, like, they have, like, five off days in the first six weeks of the season. When off-days allow, they're thinking they may stick to four-man all season. But there's going to be times where off-days don't allow. Yeah, like I think they only need...

Matt Andrees in there. Yeah, I think they only need a fifth starter like once or twice in the first six weeks. So it won't really change anything for anyone. All right, I'm going to give you guys a name. You tell me if you are moving them up in your rankings. Matt Harvey. I'm not moving him up because I ranked him pretty optimistically to begin with,

but I like him as late round speaker. I moved him from a last round pick to a next to last round pick. Yeah, he's moving up from 570 to 510. He is in like the 245 rankings. I will 100% take a flyer on Matt Harvey. Chris hates him. Chris hates us and he hates him. Jason Kipnis, six home runs leading baseball so far.

You're moving him up. Yes. Yes. Kipnis or Munkata? Magna. Depends on what your team looks like. It looks... Do you need stolen bases?

I don't have any thing clever to say. Jason Kipnis will likely be a better hitter than Yon Mankada this year, so it depends on if you need stolen bases. I'm to the point, and Kipness won't be a zero there. I'm not sure Kipis will be... It won't be better than Munkata there, because Mokata hasn't shown much of that in the majors. I'm to the point now where I'm happy to pass on Munkada to take Kipnis later. Mankada, by the way, last two games, he's five for six with a double and two walks. He's turned it around a little bit.

Five walks, seven strikeouts in spring training with two steals. Still only one extra base hit. How about Kipnis or Ian Hap real quick? Hap. I'll say Hap. Are you moving Nick Castiano's up? He's having a good spring. He crushed one yesterday.

Look, it was, he's, he's making all those people who doubted him look really stupid in spring training. No, I'm not moving. Nope. All right. No, I guess I'm not, but, you know, I like him. Trevor Story. No. No.

Stephen Dugger. Scott wrote about him. Read about Stephen Dugger. He's Giants outfielder. Ronald Lecuna, Big Spring for him. I have been moving him up gradually. It doesn't have a lot to do with his performance in spring. I just feel like the upside makes him worth mid-round pick.

Scott, who's the MLB writer for the Braves? Bowman? Yes, Mark Bowman. He had a piece yesterday, or it might have been this morning talking about ETAs for some of their prospects, and he identified April 13th at Wrigley Field or potentially April 16th when they get back home as Ronald Acuna's likely call updates. He's batting 423 with two walk, six strikeouts, two steals so far, Coena. Lewis Brinson is batting 409, but one walk seven strikeouts,

and he's been caught in both of his stolen base attempts. Outfielder for the Marlins, Louis Brinson? Yes. I haven't moved him up, but, you know, he's in that late round range in five outfielder leagues. Brinson or Piscotti? Piscotti. Yeah, Piscotti.

If I was mostly interested in steals, I could see doing Brinson instead. Am I at a 15-team league and need a fifth outfielder? Or am I in a 10- or 12-team league and need bench upside? You need a fifth outfielder? Oh, Scottie. All right. Brave second-based Monzi Albi is having a great spring. Three steals. Not a lot of power, though.

360 batting average, only a 400 slugging. Three walks, four strikeouts, but he's off to a good start. And then how about Matt Kemp? 3-16 with three homers, and Peterson's in terrible. Nope. I mean, you have to, did anybody have Matt Kemp in their top 400? I do not. I think so.

So, yeah, Heath, you should probably move Matt Kemp up because it sounds like he's going to make the team. Well, I think he's going to make the team. There are a lot of guys that are going to be on team. I don't think he's going to be a starter. I mean, he was a starting caliber fantasy player as recently as this year. As soon as I get a quote from the Dodgers saying that Matt Kemp is our right fielder or our left fielder or whatever, I don't expect, I think he's going to play three times a week. Maybe. I'm under the impression he is their primary left fielder,

and that doesn't necessarily mean he won't play more than like four times a week. But that's what I mean. He was a good hitter. Last year. Last year. Yeah. So if he plays 85% of their games, he's going to be worth using. I agree 100%.

All right, we're going to end the show with Isaac's greatest hits. Here are some of the emails that we've gotten from Isaac recently, who loves Heath. It does not like Chris or seemingly anyone else. I love him as well. Isaac says, and I'm just going to run through him, I can't believe that you think that because there are more hitters in Roto leagues, that hitters are therefore more important.

Imagine if you started 30 hitters and nine pitchers, would you then actually spend $50 to $60 on Mike Trout, considering he's one of 30 hitters you would start? This is troubling. Yeah. Like, do you understand concepts of math, Chris? Mm-hmm. Okay.

Yeah, this is a gross misinterpretation of what we said. All right, how about this? Bumgarner has been replaced by Corey Kluber. I'm not going to research it, but I'm guessing that the average auction value in a roto league for those four stud pitchers has gone up. I'm better at this than you are. Then this one is great. Greatest hits. Lou Whitaker played second base, not shortstop, schmuckface.

Yep. That's the best email right there that we've ever gotten, period. Yes. And I will say that I showed that email to someone, and he said, who said that? And I said, I don't know. I wasn't on the podcast. It was one of the other schmuck faces. I believe it was me.

Yeah. Yeah. And here we go. I'm on the podcast. Yeah, the one. More from the schmuck face. Chris flippantly mentions that he's targeting one, if not two, top four starting pitchers. And he's been promoted.

God bless America. That's right. I have been promoted. This guy. Okay. Hey, Ike. Checks are still cashing. Isaac, if you are ever in South Florida, just let me know.

I totally agree with Heath. With the way innings pitch is trending. Stud middle relievers are more valuable than ever in Roto. Non-studd starters are a dime a dozen. And finally, I think what Heath said about Tommy Canley is really important and often overlooked. When people think about possible waiver wire pickups for the upcoming year, they often think in terms of having that player for the entire year and only picking up the players that have an entire season of good stats.

Can I just say one thing? Isaac needs a copy editor. So, like, hit me up. I'll help you formulate your ideas. And, you know, we can really get the... emails to another level. Okay. Isaac, thank you for all your contributions.

I will let you know what the date of the For the People Podcast League is like. Oh, gosh. Wow. Wow. Congratulations. That's all you have to do to get in. For Chris, for Heath, for Scott, I'm Adam. We'll talk to you tomorrow with a live draft.