Fantasy Baseball Today - 10/04: Recapping the Year and Looking Back at Our Predictions (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

2018 is in the books! We're back to talk about David Dahl's awesome week that may have won Fantasy owners a championship, Christian Yelich's remarkable season and when to draft him next year and which strategies did and did not work ... A lot of talk about steals and how much to prioritize them. Can Adalberto Mondesi be the key to your stolen bases next year? And who should win the major awards in the AL and NL this year? ... Reviewing our 2018 bold predictions. Adam's were terrible. Scott's were solid. What about CREATH's? ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. All right, starter sit for week five. Quarterback, oh wait, this is baseball. Baseball, everybody.

Don't rub it in. Yeah, no, I love it. I'm so happy to be talking. Actually, I am. Very happy to be talking about baseball right now. I missed everybody. I missed all the listeners. Scott and Chris.

Chris is actually on a show. He cares about us. Of course I care. Once the season ends, comes crawling back. Yeah, once all the heavy lifting is done. Yeah. Here comes Chris Towers.

You know. Now it's just the fun part. Talk about whatever. It is the fun part. Yeah, what are we going to talk about today? We're going to do a little season recap. Just some overall thoughts. Read some emails at Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com.

You know, Scott. Scott and I were certainly on the let's draft starting pitchers early side. Chris was, I think that way in points leagues, not so much in Roto. So let's see what ended up being a good strategy. And talk about some news and notes. Give a little postseason chatter, maybe, a little chatted up postseason. Talk about some awards.

I think Chris is going to be very adamant about who should win the American League Rookie of the Year award. Very adamant. I don't know. No? You know I love the Yankees. So I may He couldn't possibly be as adamant as Yankees fans are about who they think she went. I may throw my weight behind the worst defensive player in baseball.

Who knows? He'd be pretty bad, except Gary Sanchez isn't a rookie anymore. But let's start with an email. Email of the day from Nathan. You should do a special podcast just to give a shout out to the guy who said he was going to start David Dahl in the final week of the season. Unreal, like a 30-second podcast. Scott, I hope he didn't listen to us. I hope he started David Dahl, who wasn't even the number one hitter in fantasy in week 27,

but he hit 303 with six home runs. Yeah, he numbered on four straight games, I think. And that's good. I mean, this is a good thing. It's not a good thing if you had them on the bench, you're fine a week. You're probably not feeling great about that unless you happen to win anyway. But I'm happy with the way David Dahl finished the season because I think, A, it assures he's going to have the inside track on a starting job next.

year, which is the biggest thing toward determining whether he's valuable in fantasy or not. And B, there were indications basically all year long that he was the same hitter he was

in 2016 when everybody got so excited about him. The bat of all profile was virtually identical. He actually had a higher ISO even before that late home run binge. It's just in 2016, he had this crazy high babb that he obviously wasn't going to be able to repeat.

That was the only difference. So we were just reminded of how good he is, and the Rockies hopefully were too. I just can't trust the Rockies to be smart given. Like, I hope so. I hope they give Ryan McMahon a shot next year too. But they're so invested in these mediocre players that they have a bunch of money in that I would guess David Dahl

will get a chance to be an everyday player. next year. I would hope so. He started the wildcard game, or the game 163. Against Lester. And Cargo's a free agent. And that's important because he only hit 234 against lefties. Yeah.

Harardo Parra is also a free agent. So those are good signs. Yeah. David Dole. So, all right, let's have a draft right now. We'll just draft until we get up to David Dole. What round do you think? 12-team league. Is he a top 100 pick?

No. No. No, he can't. Especially because he hasn't, he didn't run that much this year, and that would be a big part of his appeal now. Top 150? I think it happened. I mean, at that point you start talking about guys with upside.

I think that, yeah. Mid-round sleeper is what I'd call him. So that sounds about right. I'd call him David, but you can call him whatever the hell you want, Scott. Who was the number one hitter in Fantasy Week 27? It was Christian Yellich, who probably locked up the MVP. 429 with four home runs, 11 walks, 15 strikeouts, and a double and a triple. and Scott, when was the last time you updated your first two rounds?

Well, it was early in September. Christian Yelich messed it up a little. Christian Yelich and Andrew Ben and Tendi both messed it up a little by doing opposite things. Chris, you look, Andrew Ben and Tendi, I think Homer twice in the entire second half. Christian Yelich, meanwhile. You look at what he did just in August and September, right? entered the season with a career high of 21 home runs. That's how many he hit in August and September of this year.

Now, he had far and away the highest home run to fly ball rate in baseball, like it was an outlier. So I don't know that we can reasonably expect him to hit 36 home runs again. But if he's in the 25 to 30 range with all the other ways he's good, I think second round pick. Yeah, I'll be the one to say. Christian Yales is going to be an easy fade for me, especially if people are going to be taking him.

Like if I'm going to have to invest in the second round on a guy who doubled his home run total from 2018 to 2017 and nine fewer games had a 373 babbip. Now he is a high babbip guy, but previous two seasons were 336, 356. He's not going to be this good again.

This is first round good. Right. He's a number four hitter in family. Tennessee this year, Chris Dulloch. So, yeah. But the home ballpark has a lot to do with it, so you can buy into the improvement, but not to this degree you're saying. Right. Like, he's always been a high home run-to-fly ball ratio guy.

He nearly doubled his career high or his career mark in 2018. It doesn't, Miller Park is a good part. Now, can you look at his home run to fly ball rate at Marlins Park? Is that possible? Probably. Yeah. Because that would be interesting to me. If just looking at the home run total is home and away when he was playing in Marlins Park, obviously one of the most pitcher-friendly parks, much more productive on the road throughout his time there.

Much more. And then this year, Miller Park hit her friendly park, 22 home runs there versus 14 on the road. And that's all true. But he had a 42% home run the fly ball ratio at home. That is like. But he could hit, I mean, would you buy 30 home runs? Would you buy 28? I think it's possible.

It's 28, 28, and he's... Well, what's a good comparison? Like, Freddie Freeman with speed, right? Like, are we to a point with Freddie Freeman where we expect 30 home runs? Probably not. I mean, he didn't hit 30 this year. Right, yeah, right.

I know what you're saying. And yeah, right, Yelich will give you 20 steals. He had 22 this year. He'll be in a good lineup. He's a safe guy. I just don't, yeah, second round. Because the last time we spoke at length about Christian Yelich, it was like, well, maybe he's in the third round, early fourth, something like that.

But now top 24 player. Like, where did he go last year? His 80s. I think he went in like the fourth round. Fourth round. Yeah. Yeah. So he probably deserves to move up a round from that.

Yeah. Which is like 30th. I could understand taking, here's who I have them ahead of, who I could understand, maybe you'd rather take him than Yelich. Judge, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton. Oh, those are tough calls. I mean, I could understand those. I think they're in the same category.

But then, like, there's no argument to be made for taking Ben and Tendi ahead of Yelich next year. He's like a bad Ben and Tent. He's like a bad yellich. I don't know if I'd use the word bad, but he's a worse version of Yelich. Yeah. I agree. And then who... Trying to think of who else I have in that range.

Like, Ben, Ben, Tendi... Springer. ...is pretty much what Yelich was before this season. Yes. They were... So how... How much do we think... Like Yelich more, but they were similar.

No, no, no, but I'm saying, like, what Ben Intendi did this year and what he did as a rookie. Like, the skill set that he showed is basically what we were expecting Yelich to do before this season. I think it's his former Miller Park. Before Miller Park. He just can't hit. I think Ben, Tendi, until he starts hitting lefties, is going to be held back from being a truly elite player. I think that's fair. Yeah.

And Yelich can hit him. I mean, he's not going to crush him, but... I think he did crush him this year? But I guess my thought is. is it's not, it's definitely not, I think, Ben Intendi's better than Yelich. I think there's a chance Ben and Tendee's a better value than Yelich. That could be. I mean, Ben Intendee's, well, he stole 21 bases.

That's nice, but he might be a points league specialist with the plate discipline. But you know what? Let's move on. Let's talk about some other stuff. Let's talk about a little bit of a season. Oh, no, he mailed in a number two. Sorry, I forgot about this one. The vegan pagan.

He's from Mapleton, New York, Miracle, Texas, and Melbourne, Australia. and he says, hey, Kevin, Nora, Matt, and Lori. These are all references to the leftovers. They are, but wasn't it Perth, Australia, Scott? Did you watch The Leftovers? Oh, you know, I love that show. Really? I didn't know that. Love that show, Scott White.

One of the most unique shows I've ever seen. I've never seen a show like The Leftovers. So good. It was good. It was, you know, that was one of the lost guys, primarily behind that. I know you haven't seen lost. But some of the, some similar weirdness in those two shows and character development. But anyway.

Yes. Here's the email. Would you like me to read the email? I can read it. So the vegan pagan says, I'm the commissioner of a long time 30-year NL Roto Keeper League with a 15-page living constitution that does not, yeah, does not explicitly address stats from possible games 163. We have four teams, including mine, that were closely bunched together from second to fifth. Only the top four finish in the money.

Fifth gets the number one farm pick. As our Constitution says that final standings are based off of the regular season stats, should games 163 on Monday count? I am a strict constructional list. I believe in the letter of the law. And in this case, the letter of the law does not allow for game 163 to be counted. So no. This is not the regular season?

The Constitution says what it says. But this says the regular season. It sounds like it doesn't address it at all. Exactly. It looks like any powers not granted to the federal government are something with the states. I don't know. Is there a clause in the Constitution that says that, though? This is tough.

We got a lot of questions. I got a lot of questions on Twitter. Do games 163 count? And I got a little secret for the listeners. When I don't know or I'm too scared to answer, I just ignore. So I didn't say anything. I had no idea if they counted. I did not answer a single question about that.

I'm not going to touch that one. What really complicates this is that one, those ones, the stats in game 163, those are regular season stats. They count on to the players regular season stat total. So if your league is set up to include all regular season stats, that would, you would think that would be among them. Also, commission. or leagues defaulted to including

the game 163 stats unless you happen to adjust your advanced schedule editor at some point of the season and click save with showing the end date for that final week being September 30. If that happened at any point in the season, then it wasn't set up

to count those October 1st stats. So what should happen? I think if it's not explicitly addressed, you shouldn't count it just because nobody's expecting it to. Now, roto leagues, I think maybe

there's a stronger case to count it by default, but in head-to-head leagues, I don't think you can't. You know what the real answer is? This may be the wrong audience to say this with, but the fantasy baseball season

should end way before game 163. Oh, of course. I said that to Scott. When we previewed the final week of the season, my first question was why? Yeah. Why are we doing this? Why are we playing this week?

The fantasy season should not stretch into a month that begins with a nine. I agree with it. David Dahl owner would disagree. I agree with Scott. Originally, I was going to say, no, the regular season games, they should count. But I think it's a little unfair. So, like, everybody assumed the season was over.

Their season was over on, at the end of day, September 30th. Everybody thought it was over. I know because I was seeing the emails in all of my leagues. And it had to be addressed. So I think, first of all, everybody who has a constitution, like this. They need to update their constitution, so there's no uncertainty going forward. But if it caught you by surprise, I would say you'd probably shouldn't count it. What is happening, Chris Towers?

I'm taking a picture of your George Costanza wallet. Oh, it's huge, yeah. I got a big wallet. I got a big wallet. Do you, like, carry it in a knapsack? There's no way you put that in your back pocket. I don't keep it in my back pocket logs. No, because I always take it out of my pocket when I sit. It's a pretty big, it's, you could go ahead. I wouldn't tweet that, actually. It's a big wallet. I put a highlighter next to a for comparison.

It is. To call it a George Costanza wallet, by the way. I'm just worried about, I'm sincerely worried about your hip. No, I'm good because I take it out. You're going to be like a golden retriever. You're going to get hip dysplasia. Let's recap the season. So how is fantasy baseball for you guys in 2018, Chris?

It long. This is my biggest problem with keeping up with fantasy baseball. I just, I have so much going on, as you may have noticed, as listeners as the podcast, that I hit, like, mid-August, and I just can't afford to think about fantasy baseball as much as I need to, and that's when I fall off. And it's especially evident in Roto League, where I just, I can't keep up with the schedule. But, you know, you look at, we're going to, we can have the, like, zero starting pitcher versus starting pitcher heavy discussion, but it's going to go the same way it always does,

which is, depending on which is, depending on which. starting pitchers you ended up with, you did well or you did poorly. And it's not really the strategy. It's who you got. But how do you guys feel about your heavy starting pitcher strategy? I was fine with it. I'd do it again. Because you can be wrong and still take advantage of the depth at hitting.

It just felt like... What was the depth of hitting there this year? I think it was. Okay. Because offense was down. Yeah. It was. There's, there's,

the thing about hitting is the first two rounds are mostly populated with true standout difference maker hitters. But then after that, like how much difference is there, honestly, between Anthony Rendon and Ehuehineu Suarez? Well, this year not, but I, that's, right. I mean, that's a tough example because Suarez was one of the, best sleepers in baseball this year, as it turned out. But I get what you're saying, and I agree with you. And even though Scott and I were saying pitcher-heavy, we always took that approach. For me, I usually wasn't, I was not taking pitchers in the first two rounds.

I was more three, three, four, six, three-five-six, something like that. Three pitchers, my first six or seven pitches, but hardly ever in the first two rounds. I would do that again. I think we would just sort of have to figure out where the aces end. and I would like to get two of them. It might not work out, but that's something I would stick with. I probably had too optimistic of an end point for what is an ace, and I was settling for the last of that group too often.

Bottom line is I wound up with too much Robbie Ray and Chris Archer. That was probably my biggest problem in the leagues where I got like Jacob deGrom instead. Which kind of was for instance. It depends on what pitchers you get, right? Yeah, the, the, 11 through 20 group at starting pitcher was not great in terms of ADP.

Zach Ranky was good. U. Darvish, Robbie Ray, Madison Baumgartner, Carlos Martinez, Chris Archer, Dallas Keikle, Aaron Nola, Jose Cantana, James Paxton. Two of those were good. Two of those pitchers lived up your two expectations or surpass them. Every single

other one was kind of a, was varying degrees of disastrous. Right. And if you look at the top pitchers this year, Scherzer Verlander, Kluber, de Grom are your top four pitchers. And not that we had them ranked one for four, but you're right, pretty chalky. Then Nola, Snell, Garret Cole, Miles Michaels, Patrick Corbyn, Luis Severino, Zach Ranky, Kyle Freeland, Carlos Grasso, then's a mix.

This year, I don't feel like was as chalky as previous years. Well, I mean, Kershaw and Sale weren't exactly bad picks, you know? was a good pick. Not Kirchall. I mean, Kershaw was like... Kershaw may have been a bad pick, actually.

Eighth in the majors in ERA and great whip and a decent number of Shrekas. Kershaw definitely got things back on track towards the end. He just only threw 150. Except his last two starts were terrible,

and they're not starting him in game one. That's amazing. They won't have him for game four. No, they'll have him for game five, but they won't have him for game if that's an elimination game.

And that tells you something. They're going with a pitcher who has an ERA under two this year in Jun Jun. Thank goodness. I say as a Braves fan. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. But Ruse had a really nice year.

And the finish for Kershaw, the back injuries, big concerns. Is he in your top 24, Scott? Oh, yeah. Overall? He's fifth. No, no, overall, overall. Oh, overall. Yes, he is. He's toward the back of it.

I have him going late in the second round. So do you want to talk about strategies or anything that you noticed this year? How down was offense? Well, I'm looking up the exact final numbers now, and I'm going to look up the last, I'm going to compare the last 10 seasons and see where this season ended. So strikeouts, obviously. Up in a massive way. 21.6% to 22.3% walks, not up. Slugging percentage actually, or isolated slugging percentage down. So there were fewer home runs. I think it was almost 500, 450 fewer home runs than last season across the league. that jibes with the idea that the ball changed, which there was some indication early on. And, you know, Chasefield plays a little part in that, but you're still looking at it fairly.

It's mostly, I think, what we kind of worried about is that the ball changed. Now, home runs were up over 2016. So it's basically even with 2016. So it's not a total drop off. But, you know, that is, it's a different environment. than what we were used to. It was down about 10%. That's not insignificant.

No, that is pretty significant. And that does give me a little pause about saying, I'd take three pitchers with my first six picks. And the other thing is... I don't really think that's so extreme, though. Stolen bases continue, I think, the lowest total in a non-strike season ever. 2474. I think Whitmerfield...

There ended up being 340 steel guys because Whitmerryfield... and Malick Smith went nuts at the end. Marrifield actually ended up leading the majors surpassing three turn. Right, right. But yeah, the fact that the leader didn't even have 50 is pretty revealing at its own right. And the players, everybody was targeting

to carry them in steals, basically none of them came through, right? Hamilton, D. Gordon. Wasn't there a third? Billy Hamilton was six. Oh, yeah, Byron Bucks then? Yeah, Byron Buckston definitely did. Whitburyfield sure did.

But yeah, that's, there isn't really, I'm not sure there is a hitter who you can trust to carry you in steals going in the next year. Oh, Trey Turner, Scott. Is that who you were thinking of Trey Turner? He had a pretty good steal. How many does he steal? Yeah, he was second in the majors,

led the NL with over 40, but that's not carrying you. People were hoping for like 70. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, so I want to sit here and, say I will never prioritize a guy like, okay, okay, let's back it up. My big, big dilemma pre-season, draft time. I knew I had the third pick in a roto league, and I could not decide between Noon

Aeronado and Trey Turner. And I went with Aeronado, and I can't say I made the wrong choice, but I finished like 10th out of 13th in steals. And I had Billy Hamilton, too. Yeah, so, you know, it's like, I don't know. Sorry, I didn't have Tray Turner, but I did have Billy Hamilton. I don't see how you can look back at the season and say you should have taken Turner over Aeronado because Aeronado was a lot better.

But at the same time, like, those 43 steals really, really valuable. And maybe you could have made up for what Aeronaut gave you. So I still wouldn't do it because I think unless it's a guy like Trout who's going to steal in bets where you know the hitting is going to be there, I think you have to take the guy that you know is going to hit for average, hit for power, drive, and runs and then try to make up steals otherwise. but I really sucked at Steals in my two Roto leagues this year. Steels killed me. Took me out of contention.

I was not high in Steels either, and my primary Steels target was Whitmeryfield. So I got the major league leader in Steels and still had trouble competing in the category. Though, how did you do? Because I did, I did. I didn't have a great year. In Rota.

I didn't win a Rota league this year. I finished like third or fourth and pretty much all of them, I think. So it's not like it was an embarrassment, but yeah, I didn't win any. That's not good. I finished eighth and one out of 12, and then the 13 team league, I don't even know where I finished.

It would be collapsed, but I was in first place at one point, and I had Al Tuvei. I traded for Altuvei. I had Sale. I had Aronado. I could have won that league, but all three of those guys

kind of screwed me at the end. So I think I could have overcome the lack of steals if I had stood out in every category, but you do have to have a lot of things go right if you're going to be terrible. Now, here's the question. Malik Smith came on huge

in the second half in stolen bases. What do you have? 23. something like that, there's a big number. Jonathan V.R. had a very big second half and stolen bases. He was actually fourth in the majors in steals.

Guy who was what, was he sent down? Definitely wasn't playing every day for a while. No, he wasn't. They got traded. At Alberto Mondi. At Alberto Mondesie, huge second half. And this is going to be the question. Can any of those guys turn that into a 60 steel season? Can Billy Hamilton

go back to... I don't know why Billy Hamilton stopped running. He didn't get nearly as many plate appearances, I would assume, because he was batting ninth. Yeah, I mean, he had 556. I, he went from 633 plate appearances last year and 59 steals to 556 and 34. His on-base percentage was the same. So it's actually, he just didn't run. And now, there's a lot of people who think in the industry, and the Adelberto-Modesty debate

is going to be just so boring this option, because it's just, just it's all anyone's going to talk about. The last week of the season, the entire fantasy community was just ripping each other's heads off about Alberto Montessi. Where are you guys on Bondisi? There's not a chance I'm going to draft him. And some of these like really, really early mock drafts that I've seen, I've seen, you know, going in the 50 to 70 overall range. And I just, I can't justify that for a guy that swings at every single pitch and had been like a 35 steel guy in the miners. If he's a 35 steel guy, he's probably useful. But he's not. worth that. And that's

interesting that you've seen him going that high because I don't have anything against him, but that does seem more like higher than I'm able to justify because shortstop is really deep right now. I have him and you can find these rankings published

on the site. I have him 12 at shortstop, which I thought was a pretty generous ranking given his history. And you look at some of the players I have a rank at head. of him. Like, who are you going to pass up for Adelberto Mondecy? So just ahead of him, I have

Glaber Torres and D.D. Gregorius. Maybe. Maybe you could pass up those two. But then before that, Corey, Seeger, Xander Bogarts, Carlos Correa, and we're only up to seventh at the position. And that feels like a pretty aggressive rank for Alberto Montesee based on half the season. That was a huge outlier from where he'd been in his previous. Now, and the one thing I do want to point out is there's a stack called Stolen Base Opportunities or Stolen Base. I don't even know what you would call the stat. I don't think there's an official name, but there's stolen base.

Let's figure it out. Let's do it right now. I feel like stolen base rate. But basically, it's how often you run when you have an empty base ahead of you. The league average is 5.1%. Compensity to steal. PTS.

That's a bad name for a stat, but we'll go ahead. PTSD. PTSD. The league average was 5.1%. Nobody runs. Among players with at least 50 stolen base opportunities this season, which is like, it was like 380 players.

Atabata Mondesi led the league with 45.5%. That means basically half the time. Second place was Starling Marte at 27.6%. So really high PTSD, Chris. And it's an unsustainable PTSD. PTSD, yeah. So that... What does it stand for?

Propensity to steal? Propensity to steal. Billy Hamilton's highest career rate was 36%. The year Jonathan VR stole 60 bases, he was at 27.6%. he was at 27.7%. Nobody runs this often. Like, Lou Brock did a couple times, and Ricky Henderson did, like, three times in his career.

But basically, the rate at which Alberto Mondesie ran, nobody does. And he needed that to be on, like, a 60-steel pace because he had, like, a 270-on base percentage. I keep talking. I'm trying to think of a better anagram. I, um, you know, I don't want to frame it so that he needs to have the pace he was on.

in the second half to be good though because i mean that's fair the thing that the thing that distinguishes mondessy from the other big base dealers is that it looks like you know based 14 home runs in in less than 300 plate appearances it looks like he's going to be a power hitter too that's uh what he profiled to be coming up to the miners even though the stats didn't back it up and and certainly he performed like that during the second half too he was just good all around now plate discipline wasn't good the babbip was kind of high mid-300s in the second half. So, you know, I don't know that he's going to be a great hitter.

But if he's a 20-40 steel shortstop, which, you know, is cutting down on that stolen base rate considerably, still going to be awfully valued. So here I'm going to do, it's the last, it's the first podcast of the off season. We can call it an encore. I'm going to play the hits. Adelberto Mondesi could be anything. Or Jonathan V.R. is Jonathan R. but Alberto Mondesie could be anything.

He could even be Jonathan V.R. It just feels a lot like the Jonathan V.R. 60 steel season where every time we talked about him, it was like, there's no way Jonathan V.R. can do that again. But even if he doesn't, he should still be pretty valuable. And then it turns out John V.R. was kind of bad. But if they had committed to him to an everyday role, which they didn't, then he would have been a 40 steel guy and he would have been valuable.

That was one of the points I was going to make. Mondesie is a good defender and clearly one of their prime assets. And that's all fair. But if Jonathan V.R. goes into next season still on the Orioles, there's no reason to think he shouldn't play every day too. And he's probably going to go 40 to 50 spots after Adaberto Montesey. And it is entirely possible that the upside we saw from Adelberto Montessie last year was real. And he can be a 30 homer 60 steel guy.

The more likely outcome is he just does what Jonathan V.R. is likely to do. and we've seen similar upside from it. So it's just for me, modesty, it's not that I think he's going to be bad. It's that there's every single draft we do, there's going to be five or six people who like him five rounds more than I do. Yeah, no, like I said,

I only have him 12th at shortstop. The way you're talking about him, you're expecting him to go fit their sixth at shortstop, and I think that would be... But you have him 12th in points, or you have him 12th in Roto? I have him 12th in points. I think you could make the case

for him to be as high. tie 10th enroto, but I want to go fifth or sixth. Yeah, all right, because these, I mean, points are going to be a lot different. All right, so I've got a new name for the stat of what we were talking about. I'm going to tell you about it after I tell you about C-Geek, because getting tickets online can be really complicated with hundreds of sites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know who to trust. I trust C-Geek.

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It is the likelihood of stealing stat. Okay. Or loss. Sure. Yes. I was just call it loss. I was trying to make it loser, but likelihood of stealing every, I just couldn't get there. So likelihood of stealing said, it's a loss.

45% loss for Alberto Mondesie. You know, here's what I learned about fantasy, sports in general. More and more, so clear. It's about the players. Strategy all you want. It's about the players you pick. I had too much Chris Bryant. I had too much Charlie Blackman.

I had no Jose Ramirez. I had no Mookie Betts. That is a good point. But that's not a strategy. No, it's not a strategy. Like, that's... You got to get a little lucky. You got to get a little lucky.

Yes, absolutely. Yes. You need to get the guy who turns from a third rounder to a top three player. You need the guy who turns from a 20th rounder into a fifth rounder. But it's still about minimizing risk. But even the guys... Even the guys deserve to be second rounders, their first rounders. You've got to get the guys who play like it.

There was a... or fourth, then it probably comes down to what players you get. But if you have a sound strategy, it's hard to finish last in the league. I agree. And I pretty much never have crappy teams. And there was a discussion on

Twitter, on fantasy football Twitter a couple days ago, people were like beating their chests about zero RB or other people were beating their chest about zero wide receiver. And it's like, first of all, it's four games. So let's calm down. Nothing's proven yet.

You imagine in baseball after four games? But also, like, the thing you have to keep in mind with any of these strategies, in football with zero RB, in baseball with zero pitcher, any of these strategies, spend 65% of your auction budget on hitters versus 80%. It's all about finding a 5% edge in your odds or minimizing the risk that your team falls apart by 5%. We can, like, we, we talk about these things as if they're much bigger deals than they are, but in reality, a lot of it is out of your hands.

You can set yourself up for success and things can still go wrong. We are mostly, for the most part, talking about relatively minor shifts in odds based on a good strategy and a great strategy or a mediocre strategy and a good strategy. So, you are right that it's about the players. You need good players. If you drafted Chris Bryant in the first round, You probably didn't do anything. Well, look, I drafted Trey Turner.

To Scott's point, I drafted Trey Turner and Chris Bryant in the podcast Points League. Those were my first two picks. And got to the semifinals. Got a little lucky. I probably had a good points against, like a low points against. But I also managed to kind of, you know, scratch and claw a little bit. Savvy waiver, savvy free agent moves, streaming two-star pitchers, you can make up for it.

But right, unless, like, if you drafted Jose Ramirez, I know he had a terrible September. but that was one of the best picks, even though it was a second round pick. You drafted Mookie Betts instead of Jose Altoouet? That's how it goes. Francisco Lindor instead of Corey Seeger. Yeah, that's how it goes. Yeah.

But you're right, Scott. I think that's well said because I should have really factored that in, too. If you do have a good strategy, if you play the game the right way, you will avoid, most likely you will avoid having a terrible team unless injuries just destroy you. Yeah, I don't get too broken up

about the fourth place finishes because that's margins, like Chris was saying. I don't think it means I necessarily need to change my approach. If I have a year where I'm finishing in the bottom half of half my leagues, now that probably says something about the process that I want to look into more. Yeah, I only had one bad team and it was our Roto League, finished 10th, and I had the second most pitching points. And I have the fewest hitting points.

So maybe I should have gone more hitter heavy there. Maybe. Also, nobody trades in that league, you know? Nobody ever trades in that, except for me. This is a problem. Which league? The Memorial League. This is a problem I've run into in my home league.

It's a bunch of friends from college, a couple of people who work at CBS now, I think, four of us now. And it's 14-team fantasy football league. I think we're in year eight. And we have reached the point where nobody trusts anyone in trades. because it's just like, what are you trying to do to me? Right. And then that's something you run into

with a more, with a more serious competitive league. Like, there's no edge. You know, that's, that's one thing. It's like, there's so much information out there that assuming everyone is relatively invested,

it's hard to have like a legitimate edge. There's so few genuine sleepers at this point because they get talked about for so long. The word itself, like, everybody in the industry loved Blake Snell, and everybody had him as a sleeper. Well, if everybody's talking about someone, he was not really, but he wasn't being drafted that. Yeah, right. Because he was like 200. It's the same thing as Alex Bregman as a breakout.

Like, everybody had him as a break. And I guess you could be a consensus breakout more logically than a consensus sleeper, just thinking about the definition of the word. All right, let's move on. Let's help the people a little bit. Let's talk about some stuff. Jack Flaherty finished with the fourth highest strikeout rate for a rookie in ML. be history, the minimum of 150 innings. Who are we taking first next year?

Walker, Bueller, or Jack Flaherty? I would have said Flaherty in, like, mid-August, but I think Bueller clearly surpassed him in the end. I'm not so sure heading into the playoffs, Bueller isn't actually the Dodgers' best pitcher over even Kershaw. He started their most important game, right? Yeah. What I was fearing would happen.

Wait, am I crazy? Yeah, he started game 163. He started game 163, right. What I was fearing would happen is I looked at the success he was having early on and like, okay, he's doing this, but with a low swinging strike rate. But what actually ended up normalizing was, or regressing, I guess, was the swinging strike rate itself. He started getting tons of swinging strikes. And instead of having like a low 3 ZRA, he had a mid-1 ZRA down the stretch. Now I don't think he's actually a mid-1 ZRA, pitch of that's crazy.

But why do you hate walking? I think there's ace potential here. If he had already exceeded last year's innings total by 40 going into the playoffs, I'd feel even better about him, as it is. It's still going to be in my top 25, probably. Red flag. All right, that's interesting. Okay, more news.

Nomar Mazar will not undergo thumb surgery. Nomar Mazarra sprained his thumb in July right around the All-Star break. Up into that point, he was batting 272 with 15 home runs in 91 games. It's only slugging $450, but solid. And then 37 games after coming back from the thumb injury, he batted 221 with five home runs. Issa was pretty much the same. His home run rate was probably a little lower,

but he hit more doubles. I'm just going to say something. Don't talk to be a mountain. Don't talk to you about Nobar Mazar. Don't talk to me about Nomar Mazar until he starts hitting the ball in the air. I don't want to oversimplify it because there are other places. where this year especially he made small improvements. He did increase his hard hit rate,

and he was a little better against lefties, although that his plate discipline was still awful, and it was mostly just that he hit seven home runs instead of two against them. But it's Eric Cosmer all over again. There is no denying the raw talent that Nomar Mazar had. So what's the difference between that and Yelich? Christian Yelos is a much better hitter.

Like he just, it's more... Mazarra is like, 23. Right, right. And there is still room for him to incur. But he has not shown the, the, really, it's just. Quality of contact, right? It's the quality of contact.

Yelich always has a high bad bit. Yelich always has a high home run to fly ball. But I don't even, like, Noamar Mazar, his batted ball data in terms of like the stack cast data or the hard hit rate, like it was fine. It was not elite, but it was good. For a guy who doesn't want me to talk to him about Noamar Zari, sure is a lot to say. Well, no, I'm saying that this is the last time. we're talking about No more Mazar

until he starts hit ever again. Shohay Otani. Can I talk to you about Shohayotani? Oh, very much. Tommy John's surgery, he will play, he will hit next year. He's a very good hitter. And he steals bases. You know, he had 10 steals,

but I forgot to look this up. I think all of them came after he stopped pitching. So he... He's really fast. Yeah. He can run, he can hit. But what he can do is hit left-handed pitch at least not yet. He had a 654 OPS against lefties.

Yikes. So I don't know if he's going to be an everyday player, Scott. Otani. Yeah, it obviously, the fact that he won't be pitching next year, this is such a weird situation all the way around. So he's having Tommy John's surgery. It will be, even if you look at him from the standpoint of how quickly position players come back from Tommy John's surgery, it'll be a rush to have him ready for

opening day. Obviously, he's not going to pitch at all next year because it takes pitchers at least twice as long as position players to recover from that injury. Because he won't have to have those extra days to get ready for pitching, to rest up for pitching, there's at least the opportunity for him to play every day. But you still think they're going to want some off days just to keep the elbow healthy. You still think they're probably going to be. You still think they're probably going to bench him against some lefties. I don't see him being more than like a mid-round pick next year. I also, I do need to point out, Jeff Zimmerman of Fangraphs, yeah, that's where he's from.

He has a list of 22 hitters who have had Tommy John's surgery, and he looked at the average time to return. The minimum was 182 days, so six months, which would put him right around opening day. because he had Tom and John, what, five days ago, something like that? The average was 345 days for hitters. What? Not a... Wow. That's interesting. I don't believe it.

Now, there are a few that were like, something went wrong and they didn't return for two years, but... And it's just such a small number that a couple of real outliers, I think Labor Torres was back. I mean, his happened at a point where he was back in the offseason, but, you know, I would not expect him to be available for opening days, what I would say. Okay, and Buster Posey is going to catch next year, according to the Athletic, and Kenjin Ryu is starting game one instead of Clayton Kershaw. We'll read some emails in a moment. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com.

We're going to revisit our preseason predictions in a moment. Let's do the awards real quick. Who should win the awards? A.L. Say Young. Scott. We're talking real life, right? IRL. Like some kind of fantasy game.

In real life. In real life. I'm going to say Justin Verlander passed Cory Klober in the end. Oh, wow. Not Snelly, huh? Well, I guess Snell's the other one. Yeah. Okay.

You want to take another anger added? I would vote for Justin Verlander. Snell probably is second, but I would vote Verlander, because I value innings and durability. Sure. And, I mean, Verlander was awesome on top of it. Okay, Chris, A L Sall. I'm going with Snell.

Okay, fair enough. Should I give answers? Yes. you're on the podcast I will go with Blake's now the best opener in baseball and El Sai Young

Got to go to Grom I wanted to go Scherzer but I For most of the season I was saying it'll be Scherzer But I said that expecting DeGrom's ERA to normalize And it never did And also

He had a 199 FIP Yeah To go with his 170 ERA Pretty good wild stuff. All right, what do we got? We got AL MVP. Yeah, we'll do MVP now.

AL MVP. Give it to Mookie Betts. Like, it's a coin flip between him and Mike Trout, so fine. One guy made the playoffs, the other guy didn't, whatever. Give it to the guy who made the playoffs if it's a coin flip. That's bets. Yeah. It's bets.

NL MVP. Jacob de Grom. I was going to go. I liked Baez until I think the last month, what Yelich did. and got his team to win the division. It will be Yelich. I understand we're not necessarily predicting. We're saying who we think should win,

but it will be Yelich, and I think it should be Yelich. It will be Yelich. I think Jacob de Grom was the best player in the question. Didn't win enough games. He did not win enough games. Yelich. 10-9. He got over 500.

Down the stretch. Hobby Baez would have been my pick at one point, because I just, I love the defensive versatility. it seemed like he came up with some big hits I don't know if that's true or not but it felt that way I'm actually very happy Christian Yelich had such a good last month because I love Hobby Baez I think he's super fun

but like just as a like a fan of the history of the game he would have been a pretty crappy MVP because of the OVP? No just historically based on historical standards like it would have been a historically weak on MVP choice and Yelich is not

he led the NL and OPS. He had a he led the NL and OPS. He had a thousand an OPS. I will save the most controversial for last. Oh, this one might be tough, actually. NL. Rookie of the year. It's Akunia. Yeah. If not Soto? Soto,

if I was picking like a fantasy rookie of the year, I would pick Soto because he was the impact player for longer. But Akunia's last two months. Yeah. On Soto, you picked up on waiver as Akunia. You had to draft the fifth round. Right, that's true.

I know. He was like a 10th round pick. I got him. There are, yeah, okay. There are some ways Soto is better than Acuna, you know, even looking at the full season numbers. But like Acunia's August just moved him so far ahead. And defensively, it's not even really a comparison who's better. All right, fine.

A.L. Rookie of the year. Shoha-O-Tani, let's move on. It really, it should not be a competition. I'm sorry. I do it. I told you. Miguel and Du Hark. had a nice year.

He had a... He had his name right. What? You have to say his name properly. Isn't it and Duhar? And Duhar. And Duhar. He had a very nice

Chris Cogland-esque rookie season. I mean, he set... He said the third most doubles ever by a rookie, I think. What do he slug? Like 870? OPS, like, 870. He had a great rookie year.

Chris Coglin? Okay, Chris Coughlin's rookie year. He had an 850 OPS. He hit 321. Oh, so he was. He had a great rookie year. I just forgot that. Chris, but that's the thing is that, like, he had a very good rookie year that we will probably not remember unless he turns into a... Shohei Otani did something that literally nobody has done.

Did he do it enough, though? Yes. Okay, here's my thing. If Shohei Otani had the exact same season as a hitter. And let's remember, he was like the seventh best hitter in baseball on a per play to parents' bases. And he had just thrown 50 innings as a reliever. Didn't get hurt. just was a high leverage reliever

throughout the course of the season and had a 304 ERA or whatever it was. There is no question. He would be the rookie of the year. But how many plate appearances are you talking about? And Duhar had 240 more plate appearances than Shohei Otani. That is...

That's another way of breaking. That is... The guy didn't even start against lefties. That is true. He was an everyday player. That is true. His defense was so bad that I probably would give it

to Otani but that's that's not And Du Har's defense was terrible, but also Shoyotani did face 211 batters, so it's not like you can just look at play appearances. I know, I know, but even if we're calling Otani's pitching what he did as a pitcher, like that was just bonus points.

We weren't giving it as much credit it deserves. Okay, he pitched some. We'll give him bonus points for that. If we're just comparing these two as hitters, Otani, who never even took the field, had a higher war than Miguel Anduhar. Is that because And Duhor was so bad at defense?

Okay, but I'm sorry. See, that's where war doesn't factor because you're talking about an everyday player who's in the lineup every day and did field compared to a D.H who sat against lefties. But if we're taking away the pitching stats, then And Duhor is better. He's dought for different, like, his defensive war, D.H is defensive war as negative two. This is millennial culture. No, I'm sorry. Get out of here with your participant. The New York Yankees are the official team of participation trophies.

I value an everyday player. That's the bottom line. Like I could never give it to a guy who sits against lefties and DHS. I mean, if he played third base, he'd be worse than Anduhar. If we're keeping it 100. What? Miguel and Duhar played in the field every inning. He only batted like once every third inning.

He was worse for most of the game. Keep it 100. I think if you're not... So, Scott, you're going to go with Otani? Yeah, definitely. It's no contest. It's a contest. I'll go with Otani, but... Glabertor. He got 1.4... He got 1.2 war just as a pitcher.

He was wonderful, but did he have... Did he have as much of an impact as Miguel And Duhard did? I don't know that he did. And Duhar played so much more. It depends how much you value war. I don't understand, like, to me, two years ago, I guess it was, when Michael former beat out Gary Sanchez, that's the one the Yankees should have gotten upset about. Yankees fans should have got upset about, not this. Like, Otani.

This is history. But that was the same philosophy, right? It was probably like Sanchez didn't play it that much. Yeah, he only played like two-thirds of the season, maybe a little less. But he had a higher war than Michael former. And we're doing a clear standout offensively at catcher. I don't know that we're going to have time to revisit our preseason predictions. We can do it.

We can do some. We can do some. Let's revisit our bold predictions, at least for now. And we can look at the sleepers and breakouts and stuff at another. The bold predictions are fun. I think I remember mine. I think they were all terrible. Number one was Luis Severino will not be the best pitcher on the Yankees.

Wrong. Number two was Adam Eaton will be a top 20 or 15 outfielder. And I don't remember number three. Cody Allen saves 40 years. Didn't cover yourself. I feel like you called me out for saying that wasn't bold. Forty saves is pretty bold.

I said your bold predictions weren't bold enough. And none of them came true. Yeah. But 40 saves is not that easy to get. I mean, is it? Severino, I guess, was the Yankees pitcher. But he wasn't as good as everybody thought he was going to be. So you get half credit for that.

He is such a mystery. I don't like last, okay, he pitched last night. He threw four no-hit innings. Walked four. Or was it five no-hit innings? I think it was four. Was it? Okay, four no-hit innings with seven strikeouts.

Then he came back out and he gave up two hits and they lifted him and Patentas got him out of the jam. He is throwing so many pitches. He's extremely inefficient. He can't just, like he strikes guys out, but he can't just fastball, fastball slider, you're gone. Something went wrong with his slider in the second half. And there's, there was, I think, you know, Sarah, did a breakdown of it. It wasn't.

When I said it, Chris didn't believe me. When, no, it was Mike Petriello, I think, on MLB.com. In my defense. You say a lot of things out. So many words. Am I to believe them all? Let's talk about No Bar Mizarra. What were Scott's bowl predictions?

You nailed one, Scott. This was a good one, because he was, this was a very popular. popular guy. Domingo Santana did not get to even 400 at bats. He got to 210, I think. Yay for me. The other two were also published online. The Diamondbacks have three of the top five Sa Young finishers. You didn't mention their best pitcher. Oh, that's funny. Well, look, they may have two, right? They might have two. Grinke and Corby. I wasn't counting on Corby. I was thinking Granky, godly and Ray. Yeah.

But Granky and Corbyn might be in the top five. I think at least Corbyn will be. That's funny. And then David Doll is a 2020 player. They got half of the... Did he hit 20 overs? Oh, he didn't?

16. 16. Okay. But next year. I'm pleased by the spirit of my predictions, even though only one of them came true. Yours were... We don't want to be mean.

But yours were better than Heath's. Oh, over Heath's. Jose Cantano wins 20. games. He did not with two. No one on the Diamondbacks hits more than 25 home runs. Two guys did. Who?

David Peralta and, what's his name? Paul Goldschman. David Peralta had a monster season. That's going to be an interesting guy in terms of how he's valued next year because. And. Yeah, what was the last one? Ian Hap finishes the top three second baseman. He was, I will say, a top three second baseman on the Chicago Cubs.

And I feel okay about making that joke Because I made it to Heath earlier today What were yours? Tyler Glass now is a top 20 starting pitcher From the moment he joins the rotation He wasn't, but he was good He was, yeah, once he got to the raise rotation Joey Gallo hits more homers than Aaron Judge

Nailed it Nice 100% true How many can judge finish with? I do not have to sing Yes, you've pushed on the petty bet Wow And the Marlins won't have a single pitcher With 100 plus strikeouts

eat this haters, they had three. I believe one guy had like 130. So, suck it, hater. Trevor Richards. I got to start looking at some final, some spinal. Aaron Judge, only a 27 home runs. Pretty good year for Aaron Judge, though. 278, 392, 5, 28.

And I bet those numbers were a lot better before he got hurt because he was pretty bad after he came back from the injury. predictably so. It was a bit. It was nice to see him Homer yesterday. Even though he missed. much of the second half with that chip fracture. I think this season was a huge success for Aaron Judge.

I thought he was going to be a bust, Scott, so I agree. Yeah, I mean, I had him on my final edition, the final edition of my bust too, just because there seemed like there was, for the going rate, there was so much downside that wasn't being factored in, but he backed it up. He had a, he showed that that 2017 near MVP season was more or less legit. Yeah, I mean, he had a 947 OPS when he got hurt, which was 100 points lower.

And I think that's, he wasn't going to be the best hitter in baseball. Yeah, or one of the, but he clearly, he's the second round hitter. He's not bad. Yeah, he's a good player for sure. There was some potential that he would come out and like just be Chris Davis. That was my fear. Yeah, I thought he could hit like 240 and as pleased with Judge.

All right, let's finish with some emails real quick. We actually have to get out of here. There's another podcast coming in. From Rob, is the Vlad Jr. Hype Reel. This is another player There's just not a chance I'm going to draft People like him too much I think he's awesome

Obviously he has 400 I'm pretty excited about him I think he will be great But people are gonna be drafting him In the third or fourth round And there's just no way No way Yes yes

There are drafts going on right now With industry people And I'm not criticizing anyone who does that I totally get it He could be He's not gonna be Ronald Ocuna Because the skill set's not the same but he could be Juan Soto, and that could be worth it, but he's never done it.

I can't take a player who's never hit in the majors before, like, the eighth round at the earliest, I'd say. But you're going to keep, this guy is a dynasty league where he keeps seven players. I think Vlad could. Right, he is in the discussion with Ronald O'Cunia and Juan Soda for the best under 22 players in baseball. So, now we've got to go faster, but go ahead. Vladimir Guerrero's stats might be, I can't, I can't recall another minor league hitter whose stats were more exciting or were seemingly foolproof like Vladimir Guerrero's are. Yeah, you look at third base.

Like, which of these third basemen are you taking behind? Which of these are you taking Guerrero over? Jose Ramirez, Nolan Aeronado, Alex Bregman, Javier Baez, Matt Carpenter, Anthony Rendon, Chris Bryant, Ehuehanyu Suarez. I mean, how, where does he deserve to go among that group? I mean, because I think, I think, at the very end, which makes only nine. Once you got to Javier Baez, I started. I'm thinking like, oh, maybe here, especially in a points league with bias.

But not necessarily. But no, the question is more long term. It's a dynasty league for Rob. And, you know, if you're keeping seven players in a keeper league, it's one thing. In a dynasty league, you know, you can keep these guys forever. I think there's a good chance that you're keeping Blad Jr. As a hitter, he is, he's not quite the overall prospect Ronald Acuna was because he's not going to play center field and not going to play it well and not going to steal bases.

but as a hitter, he is as good a prospect as anyone that's come along in whatever number of years you want to put on that. And final question, Alex in the Great White North, where do you rank Max Muncie next season? I don't have to do rankings, thankfully. He's got. It's difficult to rank him because we don't know what role he's going to fill. He should absolutely be an everyday player, but he should have been for all of this season two and wasn't. Machado's leaving presumably, Dozier's leaving presumably, so that should open the door for him to play every day again,

but since I'm not sure I have him 12th at first base, behind Joey Gallo and Jerks and Profar. I think he has the potential to rank his high as 7th or 8. He did not, I don't think, have a month under 800 OPS, which is wild considering how bad he was after the All-Star break initially. Guys, we are done. This was fun. I enjoyed it.

Made up a new stat called loss. And it's wonderful. So if you got nothing out of the show other than that, take the loss. For Heath and Scott. Nope. For Chris and Scott. Sorry about that. Really?

That was legit. For Scott and Chris, I'm Adam. I make such an impression. Talk to you next week. See you later.