Fantasy Baseball Today - 09/26: FBT 2019 Award Show! (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

Fantasy Baseball Today Fantasy Award Time! Scott White and Chris Welsh are back to hand out season awards across a multitude of categories. "Most VALUEable player", the "Bobby Big Bat" Award, Scott's worst and best call award and even the "most perplexing pronunciation award." These and many more as Scott and Chris have some fun ending out the 2019 season. 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. One, one pitch, basketball pulled and cast, Alborated toward the corner. 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. Just when you thought you could get rid of us, we are back.

It is CBS fantasy baseball today. It's the CBSE. the what's the award show we call it the CBS category the way I kind of broke down the categories it really reminds me of the Dundees from the office because it just felt like I kept coming up with different awards that would that could go to players I wanted to talk about kind of like Michael Scott did you know found an award to give to everybody in his office even if they weren't deserving of anything noteworthy that's that's kind of what it felt like you know what that is a magical way to set the tone for the episode because that is what it is

I'll be honest with you, when I saw what we were doing here today, I got all excited because Scott White put together some really good stuff and you're asking yourselves right now, what are you guys doing? You guys weren't supposed to be back so soon. Well, we are keeping you on your toes. That's why you don't go away. You don't unsubscribe because you don't know when I'm going to go left

or when I'm going to go right. You don't know what we're going to do, but we are going to bring you some fun content today. And this is going to be a good thing to chew on through the end of the off season. It is the Fantasy Awards, courtesy of Fantasy Baseball today. And our illustrious host here is Scott White. Scott White is going to be giving you some amazing awards that we're going to sit here and talk about today. Though I want to present one of one.

I want to present an award myself, if you will, if you'll allow me, Scott. That's fine. That's fine. I mean, the Emmys has multiple hosts. Certainly. Do we have any groups? Do we have any musical groups that we plan to bring on today? No.

No. Okay. No, my cat. My cat was just scratching around to the litter box behind me. Oh, and he's meowing now. Oh. That's a musical guest. He's got a serenade us.

Musical guest, Scott White's cat. There you go. What a start to this. Though we don't have any special appearances from Adam Azer, Heath Cummings, or anything like that, we are going to be doing a full load of these. So this should be fun. This should be a good palate cleanser because I just want to remind everybody next week. Scott and myself are going to be back and we're already going to be doing a full

through October preview series of each position. We're going to be doing two a week. So I just want you guys to get all set. It looks like the plan is going to be Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we are going to be knocking those bad boys out. So it should be a really good, fun conversation as a primer to set you up for the 2020 season. Because as we all know, as baseball ends, it actually never ends. As I'm out here in the Arizona Fall League, you know, with all these guys, I was just telling you,

just interviewed Julio Rodriguez and Jared Kelnick. People are interested in that over on my prospect one show. you know, there's always baseball going on and we digest it to the fullest. Now, my award is the single-handedly win me my championship award slash, we told you to pick up these guys. Slash, oh my gosh, I will never forget these players because of what they're doing for me. And I have two winners, co-winners, if you will. Number one is, yeah, they did share it. It's like Jason Kidd and Grant Hill back when they shared the Rookie of the Year Award of basketball people.

And I got this one from, I got an email from Scott earlier today saying, look who showed up. Mr. Garrett Hampson is one of those because since the 18th, like a week ago, he's got five stolen bases and four homers over the last five games, Garrett Hampson. That guy single-handedly won people championships as well. John Birdie probably single-handedly won you a category in one day. as John Birdie stole four bases on the 24th. Unreal performance in the final week of the season.

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we could feel good about Hampson because I think we're all over that one. But it's Hans, there's a category coming up the guy fantasy football players won't see coming.

I love that one. They tuned out before he became a thing. And Garrett Hampson could kind of fit that. He's not the one who's in there, but he kind of fits that description because, you know, the overall numbers are going to look terrible. and people are going to remember what a disappointment he was as a sleeper,

but he's really come around here, just the last two weeks. Single-headed League won championships. Those are those guys. And just to give you guys a taste of what we're in for in this episode, we're going to have some of the obvious ones. We're going to have, you know, the most valuable hitter, the most improved pitcher. We'll be doing some of those.

Then we're going to get into some fun ones where we've got best and worse, Scott White call. That's going to be great. Underachievers. then into just we're going to kind of blast through at the end some really fun ones like the I can now spell your name award, the most perplexing pronunciation award and the bionic man. Those are what is in store for this episode. And I believe you're going to have an article that's going to kind of accompany this episode coming up soon. Yeah. Yeah, it'll be a lot of the same things. But you know. But you should read it because it's going to be in all your words without me talking over you or interjecting or trying to counter your arguments, right? Sure. Yeah. Oh, definitely. Are you glad to see me, by the way?

You thought you were getting a much bigger break and then all of a sudden we're back. I'm just looking for confirmation. I'm cool with that. That's not what I was looking for, but that's fine. That's fun. This is fun. This will be fun. This will be fun. First, we want to tell you about our friends over at Seat Geek.

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We needed music. I want to put some music in there. Yeah, we're going to have... Yeah, I feel like this is yours. We need a drum roll. We need like a fanfare effect after it's announced. It's all in post. It's all there.

Just pretend it's there. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of words. Yeah. Okay. That's what I'm here for. This is part of what I'm here for. All right. I'm going to announce the category, and then, Scott, I want you to give us the winner.

First up is the most impactful player. Now, this is a tie, kind of like your category was, but I promise they won't all be ties. But most impactful player for 2019 goes to Astros, Co-Aces, Justin Verlander, and Garrett Cole. Two pitchers. Two pitchers. Now, before you get into it, before you get into it, did you give consider, to players like Cody Bellinger and Ronald Acuna into this category. Because I think a lot of people may have just, you might have heard an audible gasp that not only

was there one, but two were the most impactful and they're on the same team. Yeah. No, I gave consideration to every single player who wore a uniform in 2019. I vetted them one by one. And this is what I came up with. Now, Verlander and Cole are so far ahead. of every other starting pitcher this year in terms of... I don't know who's going to win the Cy Young between him.

It's a complete toss-up. I kind of hope Cole wins just so we can see another angry reaction from Kate Upton on Twitter. I mean, anytime I see anything from Kate Upton, I agree, so I'll take anything I can get. Starting pitcher was the story of 2019. Like, if you had aces, you were in good shape. If you didn't, you were in bad shape. Well, and everybody thought they had aces. But everybody thought they had aces.

That's actually even a bigger point that pushes to you. Is everybody thought they had the aases? At the end of the day, little that everybody know that a guy that is practically touching 40 years old and then an acquired pitcher in Garrett Cole were not only going to be awesome teammates, but they were going to be at the top of the pack. And Garrett Cole's pushed 300 strikeouts this season, 316 as we sit here. Yeah. I kind of wanted to give it just to Cole, but it was, you know, the numbers are so close.

And the fact that Verlander was basically this guy from the start of the season to the finish, I think he deserves some credit for that too. He was really, maybe the only pitcher who never had a stretch that gave us cause for concern. What was the hitter that was the closest to in this category? I mean, I know at the end of the day, this sounds like this is a runaway to you,

but was there a hitter that pushed it all that you were like, well, probably Yelich. Probably Yelich. Though Ocuna was got some consideration as well. Most impactful players, Justin Verlander and Garik Cole. Next up, the most valuable hitter. And the winner is...

Cattel Marte. Cattel Marte of your Arizona Diamondbacks. Absolutely love it. This is a phenomenal choice. This is why they pay you the big bucks, and this is why, where you are, where you're at. Let's hear it. So, obviously, he wasn't the very best hitter,

but he was among the best hitters, and he was the best second basement, which was probably the weakest, infield position of this season. He could also play him at shortstop. You could have also played him in outfield. But the thing is,

he got off to a great start. The power was unexpected. And, you know, the supporting numbers mostly backed it up, but it's like, this is Ketalmart. He's not supposed to do this. He got even better in the second half.

He got even better. He was, for the amount you paid for him, which was a late round pick. I passed him up for Andrelton Simmons. in Tout Wars, which was my worst draft move the entire draft season. And I want to throw it in.

You've got a category that it says, this is a little for me here, where you say your best call, anybody that listened to me on in this league, they know this was mine. I was all on Catell this year. So I'm in spring training. What's that?

You weren't expecting like a 320 batting. No, no, no, no. No, I came on and said on ITL. I said he will have a career year across the board. He will hit 20 plus homers. I saw that coming. Did I see him hitting practically 330? Had he not got injured,

he probably would have pressed 100,0030 season with double-digit stolen bases and a 300 average. I mean, that's unheard of. He way, way surpassed expectation, so I would never take credit for that. But this was one of my calls. And to your point here, when you talk about the most valuable,

it's going to be production based on cost. And it just, it's almost undeniable that Catele-Marte wins this one. This is a great call. I appreciate it. I expected some backlash because, you know, Christian Yelich, I mean, for what he did, you could make a case that it was impactful enough. I think the injury hurt his chances.

I mean, Ronald Ocuna, same thing. But I think just the, you got Cotel-Marte so late and the positions he was eligible at. You ended up with 329 batting average 32 home runs. And that was, you know, his injury, his season was ultimately cut off by injury too. Yeah, and I see this as like capital value when we talk about most valuable player. I think that's that's kind of a tone that both of these went because if we wanted to go straight MVP, you're looking at, you know, Ronald Acuna, you're looking at Yelich, that type of thing. But this is, this is good for people to process around. Most valuable pitcher. The winner is

Shane Bieber. You got the fever. Cleveland Indians, yes, yes, who I, Heath Cummings actually predicted would one of his bold predictions with Shane Bieber would be the the Indians ace this year and hey he was right in fact Shane Bieber uh I assume he's going to be the third finalist for A.L. Cy Young voting he might you know he might be a top five pitcher now in baseball uh just everything that could have gone right in his development did this year he already had that great slider he improved against left-handed hitters and he was pitching it deep into games consistently he's such an efficient pitcher. He was a true ace. He was a true ace that you didn't have to pay close to ace value for.

And that's why he's the winner here. And what's interesting too is he's one of those guys where you look at and you're like, is he really the best pitcher on a staff that has Kluber, Carrasco, Clevenger, and even had Bauer for a period of time and you walk away. It's kind of hard to deny that, I mean, he's the best. And actually he pitch, as we were recording this, seven strikeouts and five and two thirds of an inning. He didn't get the win.

but, you know, he just continues racking on the stuff that he did and has got a, you know, close to, he's got a sub three-ish ERA on the season. Just a phenomenal year. On a per-start basis, you could talk about Clevenger being right there. Maybe even being a little better, but obviously Clevenger missed a significant portion of the season, and Bieber's just, he's right there. So I'm giving it to Bieber. Plus, you paid more for Clevenger. Exactly. And again, the most capital, valuable player.

Most Improved Hitter in the 2019 season is? Somebody who may not have won just two weeks ago, but it is Marcus Simeon, Most Improved Hitter. And I think this is shaping up to be a guy. You know, I kind of, maybe I'm developing a reputation. I don't know if around the industry necessarily, but certainly within our group is being the guy who is willing to, invest the most in the player who just had the big, unexpectedly good season.

So you're less skeptical about the big performance season. You don't have that. Like a lot of people walked into this year with the Yelich stuff being like, well, it's fine that he did it, but he's never had a, you know, what, 30 plus home run a fly ball? He's never done this before. Hey, I like him, but I can't take him in the top half. I'll take him at eight or nine. That's how a lot of people approach it.

I didn't, but I took it from a little bit of a different approach this year with a guy like Yelich, where I was buying in on elite hitters with high stolen base probability. So I had Akunia and Yelich up. But Marcus Simeon is such an interesting one that you pick too, because go and compare him up against Catell Marte, who we just put as the big value. Everybody talks about him. Marcus Simeon, I'm going to give him another side award. The least talked about most productive player of the year.

Nobody talks about Marcus Simeon. He's got 32 homers, 120 runs, 91 RBI. 10 stolen bases with a 287 average as we record this with like two days left in the season. That is a ridiculous season that I'll bet you nobody that had been paying attention at least for the last couple weeks to Marcus Simeon would have had any clue he was remotely close to that. 120 runs. Yeah, it kind of followed the same pattern as Ketel Marte where he got off to a good start and you're like, okay, this is fun. How long will it really last? And then it got better as the season played out.

he made much harder, more efficient contact, especially in the second half. That's why we saw the numbers continue to rise. His ground ball rate went way down, so it was all line drives and fly balls, which are the best ways to hit the ball. And most significantly, his strikeout rate dropped. His walk rate improved.

These are things that back when he was in the White Sox organization, you thought he would become that kind of player with the plate discipline. And, you know, he might finish third in ALMVP voting behind Trouton and Bregman. We'll see, but he's definitely, he has the kind of war to justify it. He's, he's a really good player.

I just did my shortstop rankings. He's going to be 10th for me going into next year, which isn't giving him full credit for everything he did this year, but it's obviously given him partial credit. That is wild, and I'm going to tell you right now, monitor Marcus Simeon now in the conversation that's based around him to the start of next year, because I think he's going to give a big rise. I think a lot of people are going to be able to

sit back and look at what he did and the buying is going to become more aggressive. And he might be another one of those guys. Jokingly, the award of the award for the people, you know, football guys stopped paying attention to. There's enough football people that also checked out maybe in July. I don't think they'll have the concept. Wait, what? Marcus Simeon is a top 10 shortstop?

They won't. There are a lot of candidates for that category. Sure. But I found a different one for Marcus Simeon. Yeah, you got a most improved hitter. You got a very good one. Yeah, exactly. Very good one.

All right, most improved pitcher of the year goes to Probably obvious if you stop and think about it. It is Lucas Gialito. Yes, sir. Huge breakthrough season for the White Sox. Underlying numbers, I think, fully support it. And, you know, obviously he had the prospect pedigree, but it was, he wasn't giving you a lot of reason for optimism

heading into this season and just totally took off. I mean, he boosted his K-per-9 by five. 649 in 2018 K per 9 up to 116 this year, dropped his walk per 9, almost two walks. He was phenomenal. 3.4 ERA and a friend of mine online, if you go and take a look back at his Twitter, Lance Brosdowski, he does a great job.

He had interviewed Lucas Gialito, and they talked about the pitching changes and the stuff that he was going with and attacking this year. And Lucas Gialito became a smarter, more efficient pitcher, and the results were near the top. and Lucas Gialito is going to be taken in a very elite-ish tier of pitchers next year, as long as there's not the people like you just said that are going to be like, well, you know, it was one year.

He was garbage up until this year. There'll be some naysayers, but I think I'm a buy-in with you, and I agree, Most Improved Pitcher. There you go. All right. Most Improved Mid-season Edition. Who is the winner of the Most Improved Mid-Season player? edition, E-D-I-T-I-O-N, just to clarify.

Yeah. Mid-season edition of the most improved player is U. Darvish. Yeah, we all saw that one coming. Give me a break. Oh, there was a... You could have made the case for Jack Flaherty, though.

I mean, Jack Flaherty had an ERA about five mid-season, and now he's likely going to be a top three Sion guy in NL, but... It almost felt like U. Darvish was so good. Like, he made such a dramatic turnaround that you actually... just blew my mind remembering that. I almost forgot that we were experiencing that with Flaherty because U. Darvish took everything. I mean, what did he go? Like 24 innings without a walk? He'd like nine walks in the second half pretty much. The world was done with U. Darvish based on the way his first injury short in season went with the Cubs. The world was done.

I was out there on a limb after every start saying, you know, in terms of dominance, in terms of swings and misses and how good his stuff looks. There's a chance he could salvage this still. He just has to cut down on the walks. And lo and behold, seven total walks in his final 14 starts. A 295 ERA during that stretch, 12.6K per 9. And he was an ace again. He was an ace again.

And, you know, ending this season healthy, he'll be 33 going into next year, but even so, it looks like he's somebody at the position that really has the greatest determinant in your fantasy success. Somebody you're going to want to invest a lot in. Our 2019 CBS Fantasy Baseball Today Awards is brought to you by our friends over at Lightstream. It's a fact that refinancing your credit card balances

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Subject to credit approval, rate includes 0.5% auto-paid discount. Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash strike for more information. The awards must go on. Now we're getting to some pretty funny ones here. The Bobby Big Bat Award. First explain the Bobby Big Bat and then give us our winner. Huge power impact

unexpectedly. Oh, this is an easy one. Jorge Salaire. Has to be. Jorge Salar. Yeah. Pretty much written off for dead. You know, there was some hope when he first joined Kansas City. Oh, he's going to get

a pat's in that. Maybe he can finally live up to that potential. But he squandered that last year and basically nobody wanted him. But he had a huge breakout. Kind of quietly, just because home runs were so prevalent. But, I mean, he was, you know, he was pushing 50. When people see drafts with Jorge Saler and Marcosimian going in the top 100, and they checked out in July, people are going to be like,

what is happening here? Jorge Saler hit more homers this year than he did in his entire career. I mean, 45 with 112 RBIs hit 262. He is the prototypical recipe of the type of, you know, bat leader in a draft that you want to take. He's not an albatross on your batting average. He's scoring across the board. He's a three category monster. One is a deficit.

And then it's serviceable with the batting average. I think he's a phenomenal guy to draft later. And I'm buying into, I'm not sure I'm going to buy into the 45. He hasn't given me a Chris Davis-like vibe where I can believe he can continue to do this. But it's going to be hard not to feel that you can get 35 out of this next year. Improvements are real. You know, I think so. And he impacts the ball so hard.

even if there is a like a ball change, I feel like he would still be among the best home run hitters in baseball. I mean, I feel like it's totally legit breakthrough. The strikeout rate got better as the season went on, which, you know, that was something that held him back previously. He looks like if not quite a stud in fantasy, just the very next layer of being a good fantasy option. Do you think he's one of these guys, too, that if we hadn't a,

I had originally, I was writing some just notes down of maybe ones we would do, but you came up with such a great list of like the guy that improved his draft stock from the beginning of 2019 to the beginning of 2020. I mean, he's got to be at the top of the list, right? Because we're looking at Soler as, I don't know, what, top 80 next year. I mean, formats could, you know, alter it a little bit. But I mean, he's a no doubt top 100 player in probably every single format. Yeah, probably. Well, Catel Marte. I would still put Catel Marte.

It's on the top of that list. Yeah, you're right. Okay, but Solair is in that same general area. So Jorge Salair, the Bobby Big Bad Award. How about the Freddie Fleetfoot Award? Who's our winner? That one is good. Yeah, so in the past, and I have given this award in the past, believe it or not,

I've gone with, you know, kind of an under the radar steel source, but I had to go high in just because there were so few steals to be had this year. And so the Freddie Fleetfoot Award winner is Ronald Acuna. And the reason it goes to him is because even though he was highly drafted and there was some hope that he could be a good base dealer, there was a lot of doubt too. There was a lot of doubt.

He stole only 16 bases as a rookie in 2018 and it was pretty much mostly confined to the leadoff spot. And, you know, the Braves were looking to move him out of there, I think justifiably. That was the big thing. And that was the big thing, too. I want to point out where the sole, because, I mean, you know, I've seen Ronald Acuna,

in the Arizona Fall League and whatnot. He's a very aggressive base runner. Every time he would get on, he was trying to run. I never had a question that he would attempt to continue running like this. But as soon as they talked about moving him to that three hole, that was a spot where you would say, or yeah, four, anywhere in there, three, four. That's a spot where you had to start projecting if he's a 30 stolen base guy, maybe he's down to 18.

He's just not going to run as much. He's a run producer. So that led to a lot of those questions. It was all very murky because strategically, it, made sense for him to bat lower in the order, I feel like. It made, it strategically, it makes sense for him to run more batting lower in the order, but that's not what he did as a rookie. And it was just, it was just a lot of speculation over a category that's, that's very hard to hammer. I mean, it, it's not just an ability-based category. You know, there's a lot of variables going into how

often a guy runs. And he wasn't running at the start of the year, but then he got moved to the lead-off spot, and it just seems like his comfort levels higher there. So I think he's going to stay there. And if he does, he's going to be an elite base dealer along with everything else he does. Yeah, which makes him right at the top of the list and why we do see him going number one overall or guaranteed top three. And there's still a couple days left, but he currently sitting at 41 homers, 37 stolen bases with a whole bunch of runs in RBI is a really, really phenomenal year. All right. We're now going to hone down in, these are the Scotty's, the Scotty Whiteys. They are the best call by Scott White Award. The Skydy

Scotty Whitey's. I don't know that I like that one. I don't think so either. I'm sorry. I really hope our listeners don't really love that and continuously use the Scotty Whiteys. But we'll call them the Scott White Best Call Award. And that goes to Pete Alonzo. Good one. It took a while to come around. I went back, you know, doing writing the articles for these early position by position rankings for 2020. I looked back at last years, and my top 20 at first base this time of year didn't even include Pete Alonso. But then he get to spring training. You see what he's doing there. It's looking more and more likely that he's going to have an opening day job.

And I started trumpeting Pete Alonzo hard. I kept trying to pin the nickname Pete the bat on him at every opportunity because, you know, I got little kids. And I read the peek the cat books to them. Pete the bat. It made perfect sense. Of course, now he's what the polar bat. Bear. Yeah,

the polar bear or something like that. Yeah. So that opportunity's passed. But yeah, I, he, you could have made a case for him as the Bobby Big Bad Award winner. I mean, more home runs than Salar.

Yeah. But like the thing is, I expected him to be a huge power hitter if he got the job. It was an 80 grade power bat. And he just totally, totally lived up to it. I got him in a ton of leagues. And hopefully my advice led to you getting him in a ton of leagues to.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm going to agree with you on that one. He was another one of those. and I know I annoyingly do it, but I want to give you guys context of conversations. And Alonzo was out here in the fall league last year, and I got a chance to meet him a couple times, talk with him, such a great personality. And like getting to see him in person, you saw how he would attack the ball with just pure

raw power. And my buddy James Anderson from Rotowire, he had hit me up and he was like, is he real? Is this real? And I said, James Pete is real. And then the Fall Stars game came up. And that was repeat Alonzo. Everybody bought in the moment, too. where Pete Alonzo hit a 104 mile per hour fastball from Nate Pearson over the wall.

I mean, his power is unreal. He's just fine as far as his pitch recognition goes in its major league level. And I'm with you. It's a fantastic call by you. But there has to be a bad call. So the Scott, not Scotie Whitey, the Scott White worst call award is. Jesse Winker. And I could have gone a few different directions here,

but Winker, I think, was one of probably the five hitters. I was the most vocal about this preseason. Just liked his batted ball profile, thought he could be kind of a, kind of this, you know, kind of Joey Votto like with it. And it turns out he was, just not in the way I expected. But yeah, he looked like somebody who was geared to hit for average with a great on-base percentage.

And the power looked like it was really starting to come around last year. I didn't buy the minor league power production, which was lacking. But, you know, there were injuries. There were all the usual issues minor league hitters have to deal with. You know, the guy who takes a lot of pitches, they don't see a lot of strikes down there. I thought the power he showed down the stretch in 2018 was a sign of things to come. You know, it's hard to say that the shoulder. surgery he had in between 2018 and 2019.

It's, it's, can't say for sure that that didn't have an impact on his disappointing season, but right now I'm leaning more toward the idea he's just not that good, not good enough of a power hitter. And, you know, not clear enough of a prospect, I think, that he's assured everyday playing time heading into next year. Yeah, and he looked good with how powerful the Reds offense

looked like it was shaping up to be and then a guy that might potentially lead off, even half the time. Yeah. There was a lot of enticing stuff about Jesse Winker. I agree. How about the thanks for making everyone look good award goes to? A dual award winner here because that also goes to Shane Bieber. Wow.

Taking home too. Yeah. It seemed like everyone in the industry was in on him. Yeah. Was buying into the breakout potential. I'm kind of surprised he was as affordable as affordable as he was considering. But, you know, a lot of times, a lot of times the trendiest names don't end up panning out.

And everybody looks bad. But in this case, everybody looked good. Shane Bieber lived up to everyone's most optimistic projections for him. Thanks for making everyone look bad. Who is our award winner? Yeah, it's got to be Christian Yelage, because everyone thought he was going to be worse. Yeah.

And like you and I, I feel like can take some small credit here. you already gave your reason for it, but kind of what we're talking about with Marcus Simia, where I seem to be a little more willing than everyone else to give the benefit of the doubt in these surprising circumstances where a player overachieves. Christian Yellish needed an outlier home run

to fly ball rate to have the MVP season he did in 2018, and everybody was sure the home runs would drop, a year later. I was sure too. Yeah. You know, he was a late first rounder for me, but he was still a first rounder.

And obviously he got better. The home run actually went up and he was better overall. And, you know, he's an anomaly. He's an enigma wrapped in an anomaly, you know, packaged in a paradox. We don't know what to do with him.

He's just good. Well, I know what to do now. Yeah, just do it. Just draft them. Yeah, unless you're worried about injuries. That'll be the thing this year. They'll be like, well, he got injured. So I don't know if he can repeat with that injury.

You know what I'm saying? The lowest he will go in any league is fifth, right? I mean, that would even be like, wow, I just got him at five type of thing. Yeah, I know. I mean, he should go second. Yeah, he should. Some people will argue third, I guess. I'd say he should go third.

You can preference second. But, like, I mean, I think I have such a hard time with this top three right now. It's going to be really interesting talking about it. And what will be fun is when we get to our outfield episode that we'll be breaking down in a couple of weeks. The top three picks in the coming drafts are all outfielder. So we're going to kind of be able to have that 2020 conversation around it. Biggest underachiever, the award goes to Max Freed. And how can you say a pitcher who was pretty much off everybody's radar coming into the year

and then went on to win more than 15 games? How could he be an underachiever? You're right. Well, that just tells you what kind of upside I think Max Fried has. He was among the best in baseball in ground ball rate, had more than a strikeout per inning, you know, good swinging strike rate, everything. Like, normally it's one or the other, right,

that makes a quality pitcher in fantasy. It's the elite ground ball rate, or it's the ability to miss bats. Well, Max Fried demonstrated both, and yet the ERA and WIP were both high, considering. They were not very good, those two numbers. Okay, but they weren't very good. Probably one of the biggest gaps between ERA and X-FIP of any pitcher this year

in terms of ERA being higher than the X-FIP. Usually we usually see the other way around among the pictures we talk about in fantasy. So, yeah, I think the future is very bright for Max Freed. On the other end, the biggest overachiever. The award goes to Double E. Bo. Eduardo Escobar.

Yes, boom. Can't have it all there in Arizona. Yeah. me. Talk to me about Eduardo Escobar because I feel like for the last month, all I hear is everybody going, what is happening with Eduardo Escobar? This is a nobody buys Eduardo Escobar remotely close to the production he has. I don't buy his actual output where he's sitting. But at the same time, though, he's flourishing in Arizona and in his time in Arizona. And there's some relatively impactful bats that are around him. So what makes it so overacheevy?

Well, it's like I said for Max Freed, him having a big gap between his ex-fip and ERA in a good way. Eduardo Escobar is one of the players who has among the worst gaps between

like his actual batting average and ex-batting average, his actual Woba and X-WOBA, and what we saw in the second half is that he sustained the power gains, the home-run production, but the batting average has dropped along with it. His swing is so sold out for power right now

in terms of high flight ball rate at the expensive line drives that he really needs big power production to be a fantasy standout. I'm not saying he can't be a useful fantasy player, but I do think 2018, Eduardo Escobar is probably more realistic than 2019 going forward and... Obviously, his numbers, you know, if people are just drafting him based on the previous year's numbers, he's going to go way too early.

Now, we've got some fun awards coming up. It'll be a little bit more quick burning ones, but there's some really, really fun ones I'm excited to get to. But as we come towards the end here of the CBS Fantasy Baseball Award show, we want to let you guys know that this episode is also brought to you by Hymns. You've heard us talking about Hymns and how they're helping guys look their best. If you haven't yet, it's time to see what they're all about. 99% of men start to lose their hair by age 35,

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forhems.com slash FBT. We are closing out our awards with some really, really fun ones, and it shows the good chops that Scott White has, a great prowess. When we got on the episode, I was like, you're going to make all of these

into an article, right? Because they're just, they're clever and they're witty, and I just want to give you some nice accolades for the stuff that you put together because, frankly, these first two are my favorite. And these awards started making me think

of, like, the Welsh Awards. Like, the guy I always say, wrong. And there's such a long list. You could have Andrew Heaney, Julio Urius, Sandy Alconstra. I mean, the list never stops on the names that the Welsh gets wrong. Who would be your award winner for what I say wrong the most? Oh, famously, the name I say wrong. I don't know if I did it this episode or not. No, me. Me. Oh, for you? Yeah. I mean, how can you pick? I know there's so many choices. What would be the Welsh award? Well, one you haven't been called out for is I think you say, Arisides Aquino wrong.

I'm saying Aquino. I hear myself say it occasionally. Yeah. It's Aristides Aquino. Akeno. Yeah. No. Just an end. Aquino.

You know what I did? I just interviewed Mariner's prospect, Jared Kellenick. I just did it right there. That's so funny. I just did it. Because it's K-E-L-E-N-I-C. So when I look at it quickly, I'm like,

Kellanick, but it's Kelnick. and I made sure to do it before, so I didn't screw that up. Same thing happens to Padres prospect, Taylor Tramel. People look at his last name, and everyone calls him Trammel. So when I interviewed him a long time ago, I was like, it's Tramel.

Can we clear this up? He's like, yes, it's not Trammel. So it's always, it's the Welsh pronunciation award, and that goes to Aristides, Aquino. But you've got some really fun ones. How about the most perplexing

pronunciation award winner is? I'm not even sure I'm going to say it right. Do it. Jordan Alvarez. Yes. Right? We got it. Yep.

Absolutely. You seem fully convinced. I don't think the world in general is fully convinced. Well, because there's a why, Scott. There's a why and we're saying Jordan. Right. I know. Right.

I mean, everything from his own manager to Astros Broadcasters to Adam Haser. Well, if Adam says it, I mean, clearly it's right. I mean, Adam's my authority on pronunciations. It's Jordan. Okay. I know. We got to do it. There's still, there is still all these months later, inconsistency within the industry

on this. You're very conspiratorial with this. Like, I feel like this is like your thing where you be like digger, you know, you're like digging in. You don't believe this. I got to check it into it. And it's like, it's Jordan. But it's, I know it's spelled Jordan. I know this one eats at you.

But it makes me happy. It makes me happy because when you say Jordan, I feel a little bit. it more whole for every time I say a quino or I say you know, Haney. I mean, is he on record himself as saying this? I believe so. Yeah, I think I watched a video on it when

this first started coming out where he said Jordan. Like someone asked him and he said Jordan. Because that's the only person I'm going to believe ultimately. I mean, even baseball reference doesn't usually, if there's any doubt, they have a pronunciation guide. They don't have a pronunciation guide for him because it's let's get a video. Let's get a video.

Let's get all the producers. Let's get a video. for Scott White. The next up, this is a great one. The I can spell it now award. The winner is some historical significance here too. Mike Yistremski. Yes, that's also a pronunciation one too for a little bit, little tongue twister sometimes. Y-A-S? Are you looking? No. Okay, this is great. Okay, yes, you are correct. Y-A-S. T-R-Z-E-N-S-K-I. Yes, Strimski. Crowd goes wild. You absolutely hit that out of the park.

That had 111 exit velocity with a 28 launch angle. That was phenomenal. Yeah. No, it's always fun as a writer when you have to look something up like the first five or six times you write it. And then you eventually stop looking it up. And that's where I am with Yistrimski, which is nice. I like it when my phone finally stops trying to fight me. And it's like, all right, I get it.

It's Yistrinsky. I'm like, thank you. All right. A couple of prospects. my wheelhouse. Biggest prospect payoff for the 2019 season. The award winner is, I mean, this, we could just call this the AL Rookie of the Year award

winner also goes to. Jordan slash Jordan Alvarez. Our second dual award winner. Okay. And you know, this happens all the time these days because, you know, people, when there's a big news in the baseball world, we want those immediate clicks, so I have to log in right away and write a little

reaction piece to it and, you know, that happens for the biggest prospect call-ups. And it's usually very enthusiastic because it's a lottery ticket and why not take a chance on lottery ticket, you know? What's the worst that could happen? You lost your best player in the process. This is the I wish I was on the forefront. I just wasn't on the forefront of Jordan Alvarez enough. I wish I was more on the forefront of it.

Well, I was on vacation when Alvarez Collap finally happened. And I kept waiting for somebody else to write it up. it didn't happen, it didn't happen. So finally the next day I just said, screw it, I'm going to write it. And it was one of the most clicked on articles I wrote all year, I think, even though it was, you know, a few hours later than it probably should have been. I just think you wrote this article thinking his name was something completely different, too. That's true. But it paid off obviously as even beyond anybody's wildest expectations.

He was a top 10 hitter from the day he was called up. And I don't know that we can be that optimistic of him being that good next year. But, I mean, he's going to be like a third rounder for me next year, even with, he'll be DH only, at least in CBS leagues next year. Yeah, absolutely. He went third round. I think first pick in the third round of our most recent. We just dropped it in this league. We did the early 2020 mock draft, and he was the first pick in the third round.

So it's justifiable in the 12-man. Biggest prospect T's award winner goes to a couple here. Well, Jesus Luzardo is my win. And this is a guy whose weekly prospects report column always had the top five to stash. The number of times I wrote about Jesus Luzardo and his latest injury escapades was exhausting. Exhausting. And it's not his fault, obviously, that he kept getting hurt. But first there was, oh, he's going to have a rotation spot in spring training and dominate right away.

Rotator cuff strain. Then in June, he's building back up. He's going to come back. it's next week. He'll be back. Lat strain. And then finally he did arrive in September, but they weren't making a rotation spot

for him. He's looked good, by the way, in the relief appearances, but ultimately a lot of buildup for no payoff. All right, these final ones here, we'll do kind of quicker burns on, they're really good ones, and I implore everybody. Go and check out the article that Scott White's going to have that you can read up on more

of these guys. But first one here, everyone is dumb award. The winner is? It's DJ LaMayhew. Yeah, who was also a candidate for the, thanks for making everyone look bad award. I mean, nobody thought he was going to be the same guy with the Yankees. And it turns out he wasn't the same guy.

He was much better than ever. So much better. So much better. You're totally right. I love this one. This is always my favorite thing, especially like when I'm doing prospect list. Sometimes there's guys, I want to go away. I want them off my list.

And it's just like, I don't how to handle you anymore. Please stop it and get off of here. this is the go-away award in fantasy, and the winner is? Ian Desmond. He went away. It's enough already. Come on. You're holding up so many good players.

I mean, this late surge from Garrett Hampson, and it just so happens that the Rockies top prospect who we saw a little of this year, Brendan Rogers, also a middle infielder. Is Ryan McMahon going to be able to stay at second base with those two, beating him down? No, he's probably going to have to be. move somewhere else. Oh, and by the way, Sam Hilliard

showing up in the outfield. He looks like he has a lot of potential. Ian Desmond doesn't anymore. He's old. His skills sets, you know, his skills have eroded. It's got a big, bloated contract. But hopefully the Rockies do the right thing and give other people a chance instead. Yeah, and I think you could maybe have just given that a word to the Rockies, because the Rockies are a bigger problem with all of these guys. But Ian Desmond can go away. This is one we've been teasing. The guy fantasy football players

won't see coming award. The winner is? I think I'm going to give it to Tommy Edmund. I was torn on this one. Garrett Hampson, I mentioned, as a possibility. Even like you, Darvish, is a possibility, you know? Because the overall numbers are going to kind of understate

how good he became when he became good. I like the context of what you're doing with this, though, because I get what you're saying with you, Darvish, but you need someone off the beaten path here for, like, even you have a side, now I'm not trying to jump over what you might bring up, but you said like, or a Boba Shet. And Bo Bichette, he definitely qualifies, and I think he'll be a shock to people that play fantasy football that are coming back in to see how high he is.

But he had such pedigree where a guy like Tommy Edmund in 88 games with 11 homers and 14 stolen bases with about a 300 average, no one's going to have seen that coming, especially when you start to extrapolate. And if we see him as a 15 homer, 25 stolen base guy with, I don't know, 90 runs, 60 RBIs, and, a 300 average, that's a really valuable tool that none of these guys are going to be ready for. It's really the steals that set him apart, the success rate on it, the frequency of it. It looks like he might have like 20 home or 25 steel potential. And, you know, not great on base skills and, you know, every position is so loaded. I'm not sure he'll be top 20 for me at any position going into next year. But he'll be on a lot of sleeper lists, I bet.

and people who tuned out in August just won't have heard of them. Yeah. The worst injury award, I'm going to just say the winner, and if you would like to say what the injury is, because I cringe every time. The winner is Mitch Hanager. This is actually a Lifetime Achievement Award that Mitch Hanigar just got for the horrific injury, which you are more than welcome to let us know.

What was that injury again there, Scott? Rupured testicle. Yeah. What happens when it ruptures? I don't know. Do you know? Yeah. It comes out.

It keeps them out the rest of the year. Yeah. It goes out. It's just horrifying. It's just, it's a worst nightmare because it ruptured. You know, that's not soft tissue. It's the worst word that you can put to that region of all time. There's no worse word than rupture.

It's not a soft, it's not soft tissue. So the impact to rupture it must have been so hard. And that's an area where just a glancing blow doubles you over with pain. So I can't even imagine what that felt like. I'm also, I'm calling that the Thoughts and Prayers Award for Mitch Hanneger. It's a Lifetime Achievement Award, worst injury. Last couple here, Mr. It's Not as Bad as It Looks. The winner is?

Chris Sale. I'm gonna, you know, every time I bring it up on Twitter, people show up to tell me how dumb I am. And, you know, he's finished, whatever. Just look at the peripherals. Just look at the peripherals. Look at the X-FIP. Look at the strikeout rate, this winging strike rate. I mean, he's dominant.

And it didn't work out with the ERA and win-loss record this year. But he's going to make somebody very happy next year. Two more here. The Bionic Man Award goes to. I mean, he's almost 40. And he played the last month and a half with a torn tendon in his wrist. It didn't matter. Nelson Cruz.

I don't know when it's going to stop for him. But it seems like nothing can slow him down. And finally, the final award. of the night, we are going to give the Streaking Comet Award and explain that. And I'm not going to say his name because he's my award. He's my award winner for the thing I say the most wrong. Aristides Aquino, yes, Streaking Comet Award. What does that mean? Is he going to follow into next year? I was looking for a way to describe. I was thinking Haley's Comet. Like he came through in one bright light

And then we'll not see him again for 48 years or whatever Well that would be a strange career trajectory But that's not exactly what I'm thinking I don't know that we're never going Like he's never going to be a useful fantasy option He'll probably be among my top 40, 50 outfielders heading into next year But yeah that he was setting every home run record

For the start of a career And then he was doing nothing after that So that was a full. fun little thing that all the fantasy football players missed. Well, or baseball. No, at football, because, you know, they didn't even hear of them because it happened so late. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Contained in such a short period. That's a good, no, that's a good point. I was like, what just happened? Why are you talking about fantasy football? I got it. We're back to the awards and you're totally right. They missed that entire, they missed the whole thing. Like it was like an eclipse.

They just were inside and they missed the eclipse that happened that was a keynote. I did it right. Strieking comment. Yeah, streaking comment. Don't chase the tail, I guess, when you're trying to look for the front end of that comment. That's it. That's the award show. You did a killer job.

You did a lot of the front work here on setting up your awards. I think it's going to make a killer article. And I think this is a fun pallet cleanser leading into, you know, we just walked away from the season. A couple days left as people might be listening to this if they're consuming it very early on. But also, this is a great pallet cleanser to step us in to these positional rank episodes, which are you ready to get down with these guys? Do you have everything, like what is in order or what still needs to be in order in your world?

For the position previews, I got outfield still to write. I'm putting it together tonight, putting together the order tonight. And then next week I'm going to tackle starting pitcher and relief pitcher. Okay, who I got one for you? Where are you least confident right now? I know you're a confident person.

You trust in yourself, but do you have a position that you feel a lack of confidence in until maybe we sit down and discuss it. Am I a confident person? I think you speak in confidence. I think you're a human being that will question anything, rightfully so. But you come off confident because you're a smart person. Okay.

Make it to make it. That was a compliment. Yeah, that's good. Third base. Third base where I presently have Vladimir Guerrero 14. I think he went second or, in the second or third round of every one of those six early mock drafts that Justin Mesa put together.

But I just don't see how that's justifiable, given how deep that position is. Oh, we're going to have fun. We're going to have fun on those episodes. This is going to be good. So make sure you're tuned in all through October. We got your guys back. We got you covered fantasy baseball today and going anywhere.

I'm going to be sitting Scott up. We're going to be talking about all his position previews. And you're going to be able to check out the articles as you listen to the podcast. So no reason to go away. CBS fantasy baseball today has got you covered. Follow Scott on Twitter at CBS Scott White. You can follow me at Is It the Welsh. I hope you guys enjoyed the musical performance from Scott's cat.

He's throwing up behind me. It's what I'm looking at checking on the status up. It's a good thing that never happened when this shot of me was on video and he was always right behind me on the sofa. Yeah, he's just... He's just vomiting? I can see him. That's the best way we could go out.

There's no better way. That is, I mean, that is the performance of the night, better than anything Britney Spears could have done. Scott's cat vomiting in the background. I got nothing else. You guys know where to find us. We're going to talk to you again next week. Hope you guys won those championships,

and I hope you guys enjoyed the Fantasy Awards here for Scott White. I am Chris Welsh. You guys all have a great one.