Fantasy Baseball Today - 10/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Recapping BOS & ARI, Top OFs

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

As we bid adieu to Boston (10:45) and Arizona (15:55), we give you one player on each team who will improve next year and one who will get worse. Which Red Sox SP could struggle next season? Which Diamondbacks hitter could have great value late in drafts? ... Adam destroys Chris for his ludicrous tweet (8:20), and we review the Top 5 at Shortstop (23:45), Outfield (27:25), Starting Pitcher (31:10) and Relief Pitcher (34:21). ... Plenty of Aaron Judge talk, and should you take a pitcher in Round 1 next year? ... 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

off baseball and postseason fantasy baseball. What up everybody? Welcome to the show. I guess it's really off-season fantasy baseball. This is FBT. You loyal listeners sticking around during the off-season, I love it. I'm Adam Azar, and here's Chris Towers. Chris, my beard, almost as thick as yours.

I don't think that's true. Look at it. I'm cultivating, and I think this is like the longest my beard has been in years. I haven't trimmed it in like two months. Really? So I'm kind of going wild. I guess you win. Yeah, I'm not on camera anymore.

I can just look whatever I, look however I want. Yeah, that's how I feel. I'll take my L, I guess. We're going to, as teams get eliminated from the postseason, we will recap their seasons and give you one player who will be better next year and one player who will be worse next year. So we have Boston and Arizona,

and I guess we could have done Colorado too and Minnesota, but I don't care about them. They're old news. Their last week's news. John Farrell got fired, and we'll talk about that. But you know what? Let's talk a little bit about a guy who's pitching in like two hours. We're recording this at 2 o'clock Eastern.

Steven Strasbourg, at least right now, he's supposed to be pitching. It's been a bit of a saga. And by the time you all hear this, you'll know. I have to confess, nothing about this makes any sense to me. Like, I don't understand anyone's motivations. I don't understand Stephen Strausberg like hinting at not pitching. I don't understand Dusty Baker making weird comments yesterday, lying about when he threw his bullpen session. I don't understand why the media.

He lied or he was just mistaken? Whatever. I don't know. He said he threw a bullpen session yesterday and that's why he could like it was just, I don't understand why the media is freaking out like trying to like hang Stephen Strasberg for the, like, nothing about this makes any sense. and the fact that Stephen Strasbourg's going to end up pitching anyway, just like, it's like the worst controversy ever.

Well, it's done now. And the thing is, like, if you can have Strasbourg pitch on regular rest, he has to pitch. So he's healthy, he's pitching. But what a second half for Stephen Strasbourg. Stephen Strasbourg went 6 and 1 with an 8.86 ERA in the second half. Opponents hit 171 against him. Now, compare that to two seasons ago, 2015.

Is that like three seasons ago? I mean, I guess not really. Two seasons ago. Two seasons ago. Jake Areeta. So Strasbourg is 0.86 in the second half. Arieta is 12 and 1 compared to 6 and 1. 0.75 ERA and 113 and 13.

He actually threw about 50 more innings, 45 more innings than Strasbourg. But very similar ERAs. Opponents hit 148 off of Arieta in that second half. Opponents at 171 off Strasbourg. Amazing second half surge for the Strassman. And I asked you off there, I'll ask you now on the air, because people care. Who would you take next year? Jake Areeta or Stephen Strasbourg?

You know, Jake Arita had a really good second half himself. You sure did. Sub 3ERA. But I think the answer has to be Steven Strasbourg. Don't sell him short. Last 14 starts, it was a 226 ERA for Arietta. And his strikeout rate went back up. But the thing I look at with Arietta is, even when he was at his best, he was a pretty inefficient pitcher.

Like, he needed to be the best pitcher in baseball to get to like 220 innings. But, you know, now that he's not at his best, and I think we can say fairly easily that he's probably more of like a mid-3s ERA, the chances of him pitching. 200 innings in a season are extremely low. And I know the same thing can be said for Steven Strasbourg, who has done it one time in his career. But with Strasbourg, it's about staying healthy. If Strasbourg stays healthy, you know, you might get the number one pitcher in fantasy. I don't think that happens with Jake Arelletta. Mid-threes?

Mid-threes for Areietta? That seems harsh. All right. I don't think it's harsh. I think he's a diminished pitcher. I think that's still very good. But I think he's probably a mid-3 ZRI pitcher with like 180-190 innings. And it's a little hard to get excited about that kind of pitcher, especially given the ups and downs we've seen.

All right. So the news and notes for you today, the Red Sox are moving on from John Farrell. And I kept meaning to look this up, but I kept forgetting, so let me look it up now. I'm going to say the, what's their name, the Red Sox? That's who he managed. I'm going to say they led the American League in steals. I'm just going to say that. Do we know that?

They had a couple of 20 homer steel guys, right? Oh, boy, I was off. Not by much, though. The Angels led the American League in steals, followed by... Everybody was running there. Followed by the Rangers and then the Red Sox. Third in the American League, they were sixth in baseball with 106 steals. I guess you worry that they'll run a little less,

but this is also a team built. around a young dynamic athletic core with Xander Bogart's Moogie Betts, Andrew Benintendi. So I think you expect those guys to keep running. Yeah, Ben Intendi probably has maybe 20 steel upside. But I wouldn't expect a managerial change to change much about them. Okay.

And now the other thing is they didn't hit for a lot of power. If they hit more home runs, they're going to steal fewer bases. They need some bops for sure. They need to go out and get someone who's going to hit some homers. I don't think you can count on Hanley Ramirez Bouncing back or Moogie Betts to be a 35 homer guy.

This is a team that probably needs to trade for John Carlos Stanton. And Miguel Sino, he's missed so much time with the shin injury. He may need surgery on that shin. You know, I always find it so interesting how it's like, oh, guy needs surgery, whatever. It's just a shin. It's no big deal. I don't want to have surgery. I don't have any surgery.

I don't even want to get my wisdom teeth. I sell my wisdom teeth. I do too. Mine came in mostly okay. But you know, you see this every once in a while in sports. I remember a couple years ago, there were a lot of reports about Carmelo Anthony's knee and how he needed to have like, he had like Bricitis or one of those things where, you know, he had a lot of swelling on the knee and it was the playoffs. And they were like, he needs to get the knee drained. But he was really like kind of not. looking forward to having that done and tried to postpone it as much because they have to

take a big ass needle and stick in your knee. I'm sorry if you have to bleep that. But like that's, I'm going to keep it. That's kind of my take is like we treat this stuff so, so we have such a cavalier attitude about this and we talk like people call Rob Grancowski soft. And it's like, no, this stuff sucks. Like Rob Grancowski has like broken his back. Yeah. Like we, we, the way we took like, yeah, man, having surgery on your shirt. probably stinks. You probably have to not move for like a month. Getting your knee drained is that painful?

See, that one seems like it's nothing to be. I don't want a big needle stuck in my knee to pull liquid out of it. Like nothing about that sounds like fun. I didn't feel like it would feel really good to get that liquid out. I'll have my knee drain right now. I don't even need it. Like, I'm in. I mean, there's a chance it could be satisfying. Like, it could be like the world's greatest pimple being popped.

Exactly. Exactly. There's a little bit of pain, but afterwards, like, oh. No, I get the squeamishness around needles. I'm not trying to get a flu shot. I'm not here for that. No, I mean, the flu only kills people every year. You don't need a flu shot. Confession, I've ever had a flu shot, but I always feel like, I should get a flu shot. All right, here's your tweet of the day. It's from our own Chris Towers. I don't know. I just don't understand this. I just, I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something. I don't know.

But from Chris, got to be honest, I'm kind of enjoying the freak out. over the U.S. men's national team. Yeah. And 21 people like this? 21 people should be kicked off Twitter. Don't encourage, Chris. I mean, yeah, don't like any of my tweets. Like some of them, but not this one.

Why are you enjoying people freaking out over our soccer team not qualifying for the World Cup? Well, because first of all, our soccer team just won a World Cup. let's give some credit to the actual good U.S. soccer team. We love the women's team. Dominates every year and nobody cares. They get kicked that F-Cod. We got one dude, this Pucilic guy, and all of a sudden everybody's talking about him like he's the best player in the world. That's not his name, Chris.

Look, I root for the U.S. men's national team during the World Cup, but I'm not going to act like I'm heartbroken because some team that I watch every four years isn't going to play in those four years. But it's kind of funny. You don't have to enjoy it. It's not funny. You don't have to enjoy other people being upset about it. It's kind of funny. Oh, God.

Because this is like the one time where Americans get to act like we're underdogs. We are underdogs. And we really relish it. And like sometimes the underdogs lose guys. You know what happens in the Little Giants, too? They get stomped by 60 points. Wait, there's not really a little Giants, too, is there? There probably should have been.

Not if you're right. I want to know what happened to the Ice Box. Who would see that movie? They get stomped by 60 points. It's terrible. Junior's dating a cheerleader and not Icebox. I don't know, man. It has nothing to do with Underdogs.

That's our country. That's our team. We root for them. I wanted them to go to the World Cup. I watch all the international games. Not like every single one, but pretty much. Yeah, I watch a bunch of it. It's, it's, I just think it's funny.

I'm a jerk I guess I don't know what other explanation there could be but all right we're learning more who liked that tweet

what's with you people I got that Adam I got that dopamine rush every time I get a like so just keep them coming people that can't spell dopamine without dope well you can I guess you can

you got a mixed letters up yeah all right let's recap the Red Sox one player who will be better next season Chris Towers better. It's actually really easy and I'm just going to kind of trample over

this whole discussion. It's really easy to find players who are going to be better for the Red Sox next season than they were this year because I kind of think everyone. Like except for Chris Sane and Craig Kimbril, I look at this team and like nobody really had a great season for this team. Am I wrong? No, I don't know. I don't think you're wrong. Devers in short amount of time. Yeah, he was pretty good. But I think he mostly just lived up two expectations. You know, he played 58 games. He had 10 homers, 34 runs, 30 RBI.

I don't think he was great. It's kind of, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with John Farrell being fired. Like I had been saying, I remember they were underachieving, and I thought he was going to be the first midseason guy to get fired. And then Heath said, no, actually, they're just going to win the division. So I guess we're both right. But he's won, I think, 93 games two years in a row. And, yeah, a lot of those guys underachieve this year. Now, Betz was actually really good in fantasy

because his plate discipline was amazing. He stole a lot of basals. He was the number five outfielder in points, number 10 in Roto. Yeah, and I just think he's a really easy call. I thought he was a really easy call to be kind of a bust this season because I thought he had, you know,

you look at pretty much everything he did in 2016 and, like, he had one of those best case scenario seasons that you see every once in a while. We're just like every indicator, you know, The Babbip was a little bit higher than you would expect. The home run to fly ball ratio was a little bit higher. The lineup around him, so the counting stats were great. Everything moved in the right direction all at once for him.

And I just think you kind of had the opposite in 2016. Yeah, except it's really only the batting average. Yeah. The home runs went down from 31 to 24, but the steals were the same, 26 steals. The runs and the RBIs both came down. But he scored 102, he scored 101 runs and had 102 RBI. So if Mookie Betts, I don't know why he hit 264. His plate discipline improved.

He had as many walks of strikeouts. He had a low Babbat. 268 Babbat, that's it. Yeah. So there's no reasonable, there's no, it's perfectly reasonable to expect Bets to hit around 300. If he hits around 300 with 25 homers, 25 steals, 100 runs, 100 RBIs, I don't know that he would have been a bust.

I think he's a top five player if he does that. Right, but maybe not bust. He was an easy bet to not be as good in 2017 as he was in 2016. I think he's an easy bet to be better in 2018 than he was in 2017. Yeah, I'll take him over Charlie Blackman next year. I don't know, just because Blackman gets to playing Cores. That's such a big advantage. He's been a thousand OPS guy for like the last year and a half.

I said that for shock value. I'm not sure. I think they're really close though. They're very close. And Betz is giving you, the last two years, he's giving you a lot, you know, about 10 more steals. That's big. Yeah, it's something.

All right. So that's a player who's going to get better. A player who's going to get worse. Do you want me to take this one? I really struggled with this because, like I said, I look up and down the lineup. And even, you know, Craig Kimball, I guess, is probably someone who's going to be.

to be worse in 2018 than they were in 2017, but I don't really think that is actionable. He's still in a league closer. If he has a 2.1 ERA instead of a 1.7 ERA, who cares? Yeah. Maybe Chris Sale, just because he's a pitcher and pitchers are just unpredictable, but that guy's about as predictable as starting pitchers get. You know, you're going to get what you're going to get from him. Nobody else really had, like, nobody played above their heads on this team.

Pomerance. He had a 332 ERA in 2016 and a 332 ERA in 2017. But look at his whip, man. He had a 1-35 whip, I think. Yeah, 1-35 whip with a 332 ERA. Maybe that was just unlucky. Now, Pomerant's like every year, it seems like he's really good at stranding runners. But I also felt this was a difficult question who's going to be worse on the Red Sox.

And technically, yeah, like, I think Sale will be worse. because Sale had, I think Sale had an ERA over three in both 2015 and 16. That sounds about right. But again, like Kimbril. Like, he'll be great either way. If Chris Sale has a 3-3-ERA instead of a 295 ERA, and he strikes out 280 batters instead of 310 or whatever it was, he's still going to be one of the five best pitchers in baseball.

Like, there's very little downside with Chris Sale. So even if he is worse, I don't think it matters. Yeah, I think that Pomeranz would be my best answer here, unless you want to say like Doug Fister. Yeah, I think Pomeranz is probably a pretty good bet. All right, let's go on to Arizona then. One player who will be better on Arizona next year, Chris. You know. Hold on.

Remember, the humidor could be coming next year. It could be. So why don't we go with a guy that doesn't really rely on power who actually, you know, know, there's a chance that AJ Pollock could benefit from the loss of the Humidor because this is a guy who, you know, the 20 homer pop in 2015, the 14 homers this year. That's nice. He can be a, you know, if he's just a 15 homer guy next year, but he benefits from that gigantic outfield in the way that someone like, you know, DJ LaMayhew has in Colorado and you see it kind of boosting the batting average on balls and play. I think that's something. that we might see in Arizona next year is maybe the home runs come down. But because outfielders have to chase so many more balls, that outfield is so big, you know, that could lead to a player like AJ Pollock who has more gap to gap power benefiting. And I just think, you know, AJ Pollock was disappointing, but still pretty good.

And if he gets that babb up to the 320, 330 range like it's been in the past, I think you're looking at another guy who's probably going to be a 300 hitter with good pop, good speed, and good run in RBI production if he can stay healthy. Yeah, I like A.J. Pollock. I thought he got sort of a bad rap this year. He went into a slump in the second half, and people were really mad at A.J. Pollock. But I thought he had a nice year. And they're a lot better when he's playing well. Yeah. I went with Cotel Marte as a player who will be better. I like the walk to strikeout ratio. He had 29 walks, 37 strikes. breakouts in 73 games. He didn't really do much, you know, but I feel like he could be a doubles guy or something like that, maybe a points league guy for Marte. The steals are surprising. Why doesn't this guy steal more bases? Yeah, I mean, did he steal? In the minors this year, he did, and he only stole seven bases this year's minors. But he has a, he has a reputation. He's been a 25 to 30

steal guy. Yeah. I don't know. There's, there are skills there for, for Mattel, I think he could be a little bit of a shortstop sleeper, specifically in points leagues. Who's going to get worse on the Diamondbacks next year? He's probably not going to be on the Diamondbacks next year, but Jady Martinez is the obvious call. He had one of the best power seasons in the history of baseball. He's not going to do that again. I don't know if we need to spend all that much time on it.

Because not to sound like a broken record, but just like Chris Say on Craig Kimbril, if J.D. Martinez is a little bit worse next season, he's still really good. We're talking about a player that since his 2014 breakout, I think he's fifth or sixth in the majors in OPS. Like, underrated elite hitter. Yeah, he's so good. He's so good. So J.D. Martinez might be a little worse, but he's still going to be great.

I went with Granky. Granky was number five in points, number eight in Roto. I just don't imagine anybody's going to have him ranked in the top eight. But he's got some durability. I mean, we could say that for him. Yeah. And that's something. He'll be 34 next year.

It's another season with 200 innings. It just feels like because Granky doesn't have great velocity, it feels like someone who could go backwards kind of quickly. But then again, you know, he's dealt with... He's already bounced back. He has, yeah. And I was wrong. Like, I didn't really think he'd ever get back to this.

But I don't know, man. I just... I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it with Tricky. I take him top 15. I wouldn't take him top 10 next to him. I think he's like a safe, low-end number one. Like, you don't know.

have maybe the gigantic upside that, you know, even someone like Robbie Ray, I think, has more upside than Zach Rankie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Zach Rankin is so safe at a position where safety is non-existent. Safety first. If you want to take a number one starting pitcher that you just, you're probably not going to have to worry about, Zach Rankie's a pretty good bet. And one player who will be exactly the same is a bonus category for me, because I was

going to use Jake Lamb as someone who will be worse. But I think he'll be mostly the same, except this is really an interesting study for Jake Lamb on, for fantasy baseball, on stats that we can't really control. Because just take a look at the batting average home runs and RBI is the last two seasons for Jake Lamb. 248 this year, 249 last year. 30 home runs this year, 29 home runs last year. So he hit the same exact average in home runs. almost identical. But this year, Jake Lamb scored eight more runs and had 14 more RBIs.

He also drew 23 more walks. But when you just talk about counting stats and you've got 22 more runs plus RBIs, that's why he was fifth in points leagues this year and was like 13th last year or 14th last year. He was 7th in Roto this year and Lamb was 15th last year. So, I mean, like the runs and RBS. What did you say? that's the team around him. Paul Goldschmidt had a better year.

Yep, yeah. So, right, and J.D. Martinez, obviously, help when he came over. But I think, you know, I was going to say Lamb would be worse, but you just look at the end of season numbers, and he hit $2.50. And I knew he would, everybody knew he would regress. He can't hit lefties. Yeah. The one, the two things that look good for Lamb is that this particular year,

2017, his home road splits were nearly identical in terms of power. So, you know, maybe the Humidor won't affect him. and number two, so bad against lefties. Like, he hits like 170 or something like that against lefties. But they did face the eighth most left. They had the eighth most that bats against lefties in baseball. So that's a weird stat that you can't really predict. I mean, you could go into rotation.

I mean, I guess the Dodgers have a lot of lefties, but you probably, it's like the Jake Arenda made 10 starts at home, 20 on the road kind of thing, where Ed might just be how the schedule lined up. Yeah, right. So maybe he sees the eighth fewest amount of left. He's next year. Who knows. But Lamb with another solid year. And I don't know. Actually, I don't know the rankings off the top of my head. Did they have Lamb as a top 10 third baseman next year?

I don't think so. Let me check that real quick. All right, while you do that, I'm very excited about Sea Geek. I'm very excited about Seek because I had been looking for tickets to a Hurricanes football game for next month. and I found some good ones on Seekkeek, and I compared them to another website, and they are about $25 cheaper. Nearly identical. Same section, about two rows difference, about $25 cheaper on Seekek. This is the whole point of Seekkeek. They find more tickets.

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Yeah. Jake Lamb is 12th and he's third base rating. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, so last week we looked at top five at certain positions. I think we did first, second, and third. Let's do the rest.

Top five short stops in Roto leagues. Elvis Andrews was number one. I told you Elvis Andrews would be number one. He hit 297 with a career high. He career high in home runs, RBIs, runs, and strikeouts. Andrews won, Lindor 2. Jonathan's scope was 3. He played five games at shortstop, gained eligibility.

But we won't count him. Mani Machado 4. No, Mani Machado 3, no scope. Trey Turner 4 in Rodo. And Chris Taylor 5. What's your reaction, Chris? I think this is who Elvis Andrews is now. 20 homer guy?

I think that part is about the change in the baseball, I think. But yeah, I think he's a 300 batting average, 25 steals, maybe not 20 homers, but probably 15 homers, given the park he plays in. And, you know, it's amazing. He's got five years left on his deal. Well, you know, what else is amazing is he's been around so long that he feels old, but he's only 29 Elvis Andrews. He's in his time.

I think he's just kind of peaking right now. You know, when you look at the batted ball profile, he's hitting fly balls more frequently over the last three years. You know, up to not a flyball guy, but he's up to 30 to 32 percent where he's with 20 percent before. Hard hit rate up to 28 to 30 percent. You put it all together, you know, the seams are a little lower on the baseball, so it travels a little further. And yeah, I think he can be a 15. Homer guy. You know, last season and this season, very similar in terms of batting average in terms of, you know, stolen bases.

And then you just add that little extra boost of power on. And I think he's, you know, not the number one shortstop. I would probably lean towards, you know, Scott has him number five, I think. Yeah. In Roto, Scott has Andrew's fifth and Heath has him ninth. Yeah, I would probably lean more towards where Scott has him than where Heath does. I would probably, I would take Andrews over Seguera. Why not?

Yeah. And Heath has Segarra over Andrews. But I would take Bregman over Andrews, which Heath has, but Scott doesn't. It depends on the format, I think. Oh, no, Scott does. They're back to back for Scott. Andrews 5 at Breggman 6. Yeah, I might go, I would probably just change that.

and go Bregman over Andrews and put Andrews six. Sure. Yeah. Okay. And number five is Chris Taylor. I don't think he's going to be making the top 10 or top 12. Does not rank on either Scott or Heath's lists at any position. I think he's eligible at, what, three positions?

I don't know what he will be next year. Let's take a look. Second base and outfield. That's it, actually. We only got 14 appearances at shortstop. Yeah, I mean, look, it's easy to throw away second or like late season numbers, but maybe all the good luck just finally caught up to Chris Taylor. In September, he batted 214 with three home runs in a bad month.

That would certainly be my guess, yeah. I mean, the underlying skill set has just never really pointed to him being the kind of hitter that he was for a long stretch last year. That was short stops in Roto. How about top five outfielders? in points leagues. Charlie Blackman won, Stanton, two, Aaron Judge, three, Jose Ramirez, who led baseball with 56 doubles at four, and then Mookie Betts 5.

So your top five outfielers in points leagues are Blackman, Stanton, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez, and Mookie Betz. And Blackman, you said you would take, who was it over him? Betts. Mookie bets, okay. Then I kind of backtracked. Yeah, the thing with Charlie Blackman is the home road splits are obviously insane, but he's going to keep playing at course. And something clicked in the second half of the 2016 season.

He went from being a mid-800s OPS guy to hitting 338 with 1,000 OPS in the second half of 2016. And then he carried that over and was just consistent pretty much all year. he had a couple of, like the down months for Charlie Blackman now are what his peak used to be. His down months are at a high 800s OPS. I'm buying into Charlie Blackman as, like, someone we need to consider in the top half of drafts. I'm not sure how much Aaron Judge I'm going to have because, like, look at what he's doing right now against the Indians. I know he's faced good pitching, but he's won for 15 with 12 strikeouts. Like, come on, dude.

It doesn't take much, it seems, to get him off kilter, probably because he's so tall. And, like, tall people are not, are tricky in baseball. Because mechanics are so important. And it's, it often takes a while for tall players, especially pitchers, to figure it out. And Judge hit 52 home runs, okay? He was awesome. Yeah, but the 284, like, he feels like a 260 at best hitter to me. I don't know. I know he hits the crap out of the ball. That's going to help.

But, yeah, he's frustrating. I remember in the first half of the season, there was a lot of talk of, like, well, Aaron Judge is going to be a, you know, 370 Babbup guy. And he ended up hitting with a 357 Babbup. And he's a tale of two seasons guy, the first half of the season. You know, he was striking out a lot, but not alarmingly. So, you know, we talked a lot early on about how he had really, gotten the strikeouts down to a manageable rate, you know, 28% rather than 35%. And then in the second half, the strikeout rate was in that, you know, 35% range for, you know, long stretches. He actually got it down to 32%. If that's where it ends up, that's pretty good. But I think he's probably, like you said, more of a 260 batter.

I'll take 260 with 50 homers. I just, he's not a first round pick, so for me anyway, probably. Definitely not in points. Maybe in Roto. Maybe in Roto. Although he does walk so much, so that helps too. What would be the argument for taking him over, Stanton? Health.

But that's the other thing. He was dealing with a shoulder injury, so you could look at that as a good thing, actually, that he dealt with a shoulder injury for much of the second half, and that could have contributed to the slumping. Yeah, I would just say health, but they are pretty similar. I think the best format for Aaron Judge is a categories league that has on-base percentage. Oh, yeah, definitely.

He's a first-round pick there for sure. Yeah, I can buy into that. All right, let's go to starting pitchers. Top five starting pitchers, kind of a boring list. Top five starting pitchers in roto leagues this year were Kluber, Sale, Scherzer, Kershaw, and Strassberg. Kluber, Sale, Scher, Kershaw, and Strasberg. Now, Kershaw had a pretty terrible year for Kershaw. I mean, 231 ERA, 0.95 whip, actually both highest in five years for Kershaw. And if he's actually, like, if that's going to be Kershaw from now on, like, still amazing, but only like normal amazing, then he probably shouldn't be the first picture taken because he's got, like, chronic back issues.

Yeah, I think you have to be really concerned about the chronic back issues. Part of the reason why he was a top five starting pitcher this season, even though he only threw 175 innings is he won 18 games. That's not going to be predictable, even on a great team, because, you know, in 2015, he threw 232 innings and won 16 games. That stuff just fluctuates. So I think you throw that out. But look, he's absolutely one of the first three or four pitchers off the board. It's not like, you know, all these guys, with the exception of Chris Saylor, are starting to get into their 30s if they're not there already. I know Scherzer and Kluber already are.

Kershaw will be 30 next season, so there's also the chance that they all slip just a little bit. Yeah, I'm probably not taking any of them in the first round, but that kind of goes without saying when it comes to me. What about you, Adam? Who, Scherzer or Kershaw? Any of them? Yeah, I'll take one of them.

I'll take either of those guys in the first round. I might even take Kluber. You know, well, we'll see. Like, those guys just feel. safer to me than Aaron Judge. You know, I'm old enough to remember when one Adam Azer said that

Cory Kluber was not an ace. Well, I'm not. I don't remember that at all. I'm old enough to remember when Chris Towers burned the American flag after the U.S. men's national team lost. That is libel or slander.

Yeah. It's a blaspheme. Yeah, no, I was clearly wrong about Glover. He's incredible. I heard something interesting about Severino on the broadcast. Who the heck was it? Tom Burducci was saying that Severino lost weight after 2016 and got more flexibility, which helped with the life on his pitches.

And I heard that. And I'm like, how is a fantasy analyst supposed to be able to fork? something like that. There's a lot that goes into it, you know? And that's the thing with pitching. And this is why, you know, a big part of why I don't like investing is it's just, it's so hard to predict, you know. Yeah, it is.

Some small off-season change turns this guy with obvious talent, but not much track record, into one of the best pitchers in baseball. And I really do think Louis Severino is a guy who, you know, if he's a top three, top two starting pitcher next season, I wouldn't be surprised at all. Top five relievers in points leagues, not counting sparks, so just closers. Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Alex Colum. I was going to do the Colomay, but I won't. Alex Colomay, Cory Canebel, and Roberto Ozuna.

It's all about saves. I mean, in points leagues, it's all about saves. What else can you say? I mean, you know, Way Davis was incredible this season and didn't end up as a top five closer because he didn't have the save opportunities that we were hoping for. Not really that close either. But Ozuna was fifth.

He was nearly 100 points worse than Kimbril at number two. Because you look at Kimbril had the incredible performance and a bunch of saves. Roberto Arzuna was pretty good. You know, had some... 39 saves. He had 50 save chance, 49 save opportunities. But I still think you don't look at saves when you're drafting these guys. You look at the guys who are in the role, just rank them who you think is the best,

and hope the guy that you took gets the most save opportunities. Except the Cubs two years in a row. But the Cubs weren't nearly as good. I know. But look at Cody Allen. It's the weirdest thing. Cody Allen is the weirdest thing. He gets like low 30 saves every year.

Like, what's his name? Alex Colomé had 47 saves this year. Cody Allen is a better pitcher. The reason we thought, and I think in 2016, I think it was, the Blue Jays had like two save opportunities in the month of April. Like that stuff just, it's so unpredictable. The reason we thought the Cubs might not get as many safe chances is because last year they blew everyone out. This year they didn't.

I know, I know. But, okay, Cody Allen is the weirdest one, though. Cody Allen has never had more than 34 saves. And just the last three years, I don't know if he was the closer the entire year for 2014. I don't remember all the circumstances, scenarios, but he's been a great pitcher for four years in a row. And he never gets that many saves.

It's the weirdest thing. All right. So here's probably why. In his 69 appearances, he pitched in the seventh or eighth inning 16 times. I would guess that's just not true for Roberto O'Suna. I would guess Roberto Ozuna didn't pitch in the 7th, eighth inning all that often last season. Yeah, probably not. And so Cody Allen's one that because we know Terry Frank Cohn, yeah, Roberto is in a

pitch four times in the eighth inning in 66 appearances. Because we know Terry Frank Cona does use his relievers, I would say in a more optimal way, but certainly in a different way than most managers do, he's probably going to get fewer save opportunities than you would expect, given how good he is and how good his team is. Let's read a few emails. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. This is from Ryan. He wants three keepers from this group. He's already keeping Trout, Altovae, and Correa. So no pitchers.

Pretty good. That's very good. Three keepers from Daniel Murphy, Gary Sanchez, Jacob de Grom, Jose Ramirez, Reese Hoskins, J.D. Martinez,

Quato, Carrasco, Granky, Tanaka, Justin Upton, K.Riss Davis. All right, let's eliminate some people. Reese Hoskins eliminate. I think J.D. Martinez eliminate. Quedo eliminate. Tanaka eliminate. And Justin Upton and Chris Davis, I think you have to eliminate. Which gives us Daniel Murphy, Gary Sanchez, DeGrom, Jose Ramirez, Carrasco, and Granky.

I'm going to go a little off script and take DeGrom. I just think you have so much offense already. Go get a pitcher. I agree. Gary Sanchez, I think, is an obvious call because he's the top pitcher. and then I'm torn between Daniel Murphy, Jose Ramirez, and Carlos Carrasco. I'm not. Okay. Carrasco. Yeah, I guess it's just a... I want that second pitcher.

Yeah, do you want that second pitcher? Can you get a Chris Sale, you know, coming into the draft because you're so, you're already so top-heavy, do you just throw all your draft resources of Chris Sale if it's an option? That might be the option. But you might reach a point of diminishing returns on offense once you have Trout, Altuve, Correa, and Gary Sanchez. You've filled up three of the toughest positions to fill. This is from Isaac. It's time for start limits.

He's not in favor of two start pitchers. He wants start limits. I mean, it all depends on what kind of league you want to play. And if you're in a hyper-competitive league where you want to know, and I know this is where Scott White, this is what Scott White lives for us. He wants to know that the best fantasy baseball player won, 100%.

The person who's willing to put in the most time, the person who does the most research. And I think that's, that is perfectly fine. And if that's the case, you should not have start limits. Because the ability to spend that time, that's all part of winning. But if you're just looking for,

you know, everybody to be on relatively, equal playing field. Like, if you're looking for a fantasy football type experience, it would kind of suck if one person was able to start three quarterbacks and the other person only had one, just by luck, you know, by fluke. So it depends what your experience, what experience you want with your game. I mean, if you play in a categories league, like a weekly categories league head-to-head, you absolutely have to have innings limits.

I don't know if it needs to be starts limits, but you need to have an innings minimum and an innings maximum. if there are daily transactions. Otherwise, then it's just like the guy who has the more, or the girl who has the most time is making transactions all the time and beating. That's why I don't like daily transactions and daily lineup leagues, because you're giving too much of an advantage to the guy who's willing to be the most anal retent. But the one I'm in isn't like that.

Like the one I'm in is really well run. Yeah, if you have limits. Yeah. But, you know, you have to have those limits. You do, yeah. And if you're in a weekly head-to-head points league, I got no problem with people streaming two-star pitchers. Because a lot of times they drop good pitchers. Weekly, yeah.

Yeah, weekly. Again, daily, daily especially in head-to-head points leagues, there's almost no downside to throwing out any crappy pitcher there. Right, no, you can't, yeah, agreed there. All right, Leah in Canada, said, I won my league, and I was the only girl to make it into the playoffs. Thanks for all your help, I will be listening in the off-season. Happy to send you a box of donuts or something else weird and hip that every everyone is eating these days if you give me your office address. Chris?

We will definitely give the office address. Okay, I'm going to put that in your hands since I don't work in the same office as Chris. Man, I'll do it. I'll try to remember. Is it going to be donuts? Notoriously bad at remembering anything. Chris is the cool one, so he would know what the kids are eating these days. Oh, that's good or not?

Are cronuts still a thing? I don't even know what those are, but I heard that word like the other day. It's a donut made with croissant dough, which is a different kind of dough. It requires like folding cold butter into your, I don't know. Boy, that is interesting. Yeah, come on, it's a New York thing. You should be able to find them. Yeah.

And also, Leah says, also ate one of my kids' mini raisin boxes last night. Raisins are underrated. I stand by that. Because she offered to give us donuts, I won't come. on raisins. And finally, Chris Richards in Plover, Wisconsin.

That sounds like a very cold place to me. Clover, Wisconsin. I have a lot of good keepers. We can protect three players, but I have five guys I really like. So pick three. Gary Sanchez,

Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Freddie Freeman. Sanchez, Bellinger, Stanton, Judge, and Freeman. Assuming they all. cost the same. I think Sanchez, Stanton, and Freeman are the answer.

You're keeping Sanchez over Aaron Judge. I think so. You're drafting Sanchez over Aaron Judge then. I don't know. And I was thinking the same thing, but then I was like, well, that means I would rather have Sanchez than Judge next year. I might. He's a catcher.

Yeah, I mean, and he's really, really good as a catcher. I mean, this might be someone who, if he stays healthy, hits 40 homers next season. Yeah. And it might be as simple as I want Sanchez on my team more than Judge, but in a draft next March, I might feel like I can wait 12 picks and get Sanchez versus Judge. I don't know if that makes sense.

It does. It sure does. Okay, Chris Towers. Way to go. Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Go USA. Women's soccer. We're all about it now.

They're all we've got. The World Cup we care about is in 2019. And basketball is about to start. Sorry for your next. Sorry for my next. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you all for listening. And we'll talk to you next slide today. Take it easy, everybody.