Fantasy Baseball Today - 10/25: Are We Buying it; Altuve's Knee; Better/Worse for AL East (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

We've got the Hitter edition of "Are We Buying it?" (2:00) to start the show as Scott predicts the 2019 values of Whit Merrifield, Matt Carpenter, Mitch Haniger and Aaron Hicks ... News and notes including what we make of Jose Altuve's numbers (17:40) now that we know he had a knee injury. Also, Scott gives a movie review (20:00) and then it's time for the Pitcher edition of "Are We Buying It?" (26:00) with Gerrit Cole, Miles Mikolas, Patrick Corbin and Mike Foltynewicz ... Who will be better and who will be worse for BAL (32:00), TB (39:00), TOR (43:05) and BOS (45:51)? ... 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

All right, another edition of the fantasy baseball today podcast. What's going on, everybody? It's Thursday, October 25th. Adam Azern, Scott White here. Chris Towers, not on the show today. So next time he's on, we can make fun of him for abandoning us as usual. What up, Scott? Adam.

How's it going? Does it break your heart watching the Red Sox? Yes. Break my heart, no. Well, does the rest of the league. Boil my blood, yes. Ooh, makes your blood boil. Yeah, yeah, quite mad.

Yeah. Said some really nasty things last night. Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can root so hard against the team. Yeah, it sure can. They are an unstoppable force. And congratulations to them for winning the World Series.

We'll get it. I think, well. No, it's over, Scott. I don't know. I don't know. They're headed to L.A. I think the Dodgers are going to probably beat Porcelo. We'll see.

You think so? Well, I like it. No, by the time they're listening to this, it may already be over. Probably. Yeah, I mean, it is. Technically, it is actually over, but there are still some games to play. But yes, two nothing in the series. Before we get into the World Series and Jose Outube's knee surgery and some other things going on around baseball,

let me tell you what's coming up on today's show. I'm going to ask Scott if he's buying it. Four hitters, four pitchers, four pitchers, are you buying it for next season? And then we will give better and worse for the four American League East teams that we have not covered. We did the Yankees, but who will be better and worse on the Orioles, Ray's, Blue Jays, and Red Sox, and, yeah, the Orioles, that is a tough one. We'll also read your emails at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Let's start with the hitter edition of Are You Buying It?

Or are we buying it? Hmm, working title. Are you buying Whitmerfield as an elite player? He was a top 20 hitter in 2018. Are you buying Whitmerfield as an elite player? Well, I don't have him 20th, and I have actually been putting my top 600s together since we last spoke, Adam. Sixth? Top 600s, because you got to have a top 300 for AL only and NL only, so I just go 600.

That's how I handle it. And I can tell you exactly where he is in those, and it's top 50. He's top 50 in both formats. And in fact, in Roto, because of the steals, obviously he led the majors in steals this past year. He's 33rd. So I have him as a third rounder in Roto leagues. Yeah, I guess I'm buying it. Yeah.

I mean, second base is the shallowest position, I think clearly, other than catcher, which doesn't count as a position. And stolen bases is the scarcest count. category. So you got a guy who does both of them in back-to-back seasons. Yeah. Yeah. Also helps the batting average. I don't know what's so different about him and like Starling Marte. You know? Well, Starling Marte, I have 34th in Roto. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the only problem, like, the only thing I can think of is like, all right. He had 91 games before the All-Star break, 67 games after the All-Star break. Just going forward, you know, I'm sure I'll repeat this. a lot. We don't have our full audience, but because of the way the schedule was laid out,

you know, starting the season earlier, if you look at like first half, second half, and you're using the All-Star break, it's not really halfway, you know, a lot more games played after the all-star break. But he had 17 steals in 91 games before the All-Star break. He had 28 steals in 67 games after the All-Star break and finish with 45 steals and 55 attempts. I guess the only thing is if he doesn't steal, if he's like a 32 steal guy, I don't know, maybe he's not that good because he doesn't really hit for any power. Well, he does hit for some power. He's doubles.

How many, I think he let the majors in doubles, right? 43 doubles. He's probably up there. No, he didn't leave. Somebody else I'm thinking of. But he's, you know, that's a lot of doubles. A lot of doubles. And double digit home runs for the second straight year.

he approached 20 two years ago. Like he performed like an elite player two years ago too. It's just there was less, it was less, people were less willing to buy into it. And the fact that second base is only weaker now, I don't think there's a lot of downside to taking him there. I think he's going to be a top five player at that position easily. All right, that's Whitmerfield. We're buying him as a third round pick and roto. Are you buying Matt Carpenter as a stud first basement?

Now I have a harder time with this one just because of his injury history and his lack of consistency over the years and his age. I mean, that ties into the injury history. I expect him to come down with something next year. How severe will it be? Will it sidelines him? Maybe. Will it sideline him? Will he try to play through it, which hasn't gone well for him in the past?

He is lower than Whitmerry Field for me in Roto, which I don't think is a surprise. I have him 44th in Roto. In Points Leagues, he's higher than Whitmery Field, which again, I don't think is a surprise to anyone. That's Carpenter's better format since he walks, and the steals aren't as valuable in that format. But they're ranked pretty close to each other. But Carpenter will not be second base eligible to begin next year. year and Merrifield will. Yeah.

That would be interesting if either Carpenter already was second base eligible or we had good reason to think he'd gain second base eligibility, seeing as how weak that position is. It might, it would make him a more interesting pick, I think. Yeah, and they both were second base eligible last year, and they finished both of them as top four. They finished very similarly, Merrifield and Carpenter in terms of their fantasy output. Are we buying Matt? No, Mitch Hanigger. Matt Hanager sucks, but are we buying Mitch Hanager?

Maybe I should raise the stakes here as a top 30 outfielder. I have him as a top 30 outfielder. So yes, I'm buying him as a top 30 outfielder. What's interesting with him is he's not really a standout in home runs. I mean, he hit 26 this year, I want to say. Yeah, nice work. Mitch Hanager. He's not a standout and batting average.

What did he hit? What's your guess. 283? 285, Mitch Hanigar. He's not batted either. But what really sets him apart is because he walks at a higher than usual rate and bats high in the lineup, he had a lot of runs in RBI this year. and I don't see any reason to think that's going to change.

Yeah, Hanager finished as a top 12 outfielder, 11th in points, 12th in Roto. And he, you know, I don't know. 285, right, like Scott said, he doesn't really excite you. He stole eight bases, 93 RBIs, 90 runs. But, you know, his season got off to a great start, and then he went on, I don't know, three and a half month wall, something like that, where he was like fine. But then they moved him to lead off.

And he played 45 games as a leadoff hitter. He batted 3.30 with a 388 on base, a 580 slugging percentage. He scored 35 runs in 45 games batting leadoff, Mitch Hanager. It was right. It was pretty much the day after I traded him in one league. So that was bad. But, yeah, he doesn't excite me. I feel like, I don't know when people are going to draft him.

Top 30 seems reasonable. Top 20, no way. Not that I really have a great grip of who my top 20 outfielder should be, but I just can't imagine drafting a boring player like this as a top 20 outfielder. Well, Points League is probably his better format, and I have 20th in that, so he is right there. Who I have ahead of him is actually Aloi Jimenez, which might surprise you, and Starling Marte and Cody Bellinger.

So it's not like, you know, Considering it's a points league and that's not Marte's, you know, Marte is much, much better in categories leagues. And I have him ahead of Mitch Hanig. Like, I think that may be there are fewer high-end outfielders than you're thinking. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the way it is with outfield. It's top-heavy.

Because then behind Hanager, I have Justin Upton, Tommy Fam, Gregory Polanco, Lorenzo Kane. I mean, I don't know if any of those are someone you'd out. Much rather have than Hanager. I don't know. Well, yeah, I'd probably rather have Kane. I don't know. I just, I don't think you win your league with Mitch Hanager. If you get him with good value, he's a guy you can plug in your lineup and feel okay,

feel fine about. You don't win your league. You don't win friends with Mitch Hanager. Simpson's joke, you don't win friends with salad. Aaron Hicks, are you buying it? Aaron Hicks has a 2019 breakout. I see some peripherals that would suggest maybe. there's a breakout coming for Aaron Hicks, who was 16th and points, 22nd in Roto in 137 games.

A breakout coming for Aaron Hicks? A best walk rate among qualified hitters. I think the breakout's already happened for Aaron Hicks. I don't know how you're expecting him to improve. He batted at 248. He's got to do better than that if he's going to be a real breakout. His car game production would probably surprise. you because it was

I want to say top 15 at the outfield in points leagues of course because of how much he walks No it doesn't surprise me he was 16th overall and he missed 25 games Oh well if he's 16th overall Yeah he might have been top 10 in per game 22nd in Roto and two years in a row

He's got to be good in points leagues Because his walk to strikeout ratio is so good But I would like to see him get closer to 20 steals And yeah I buy the power I mean, 27 homer. He basically could hit 30 home runs. I don't know.

I think he'd have to hit 270, and then we're talking about a real kind of stuff. His babbip was low this year, and while he's normally been a low bad bib guy, he's also been a low line drive guy, and that changed this year. He had an average line drive rate, and yet the bad bib was still really low.

So there may have been some bad luck there. All right, we're going to take a look at the news and notes. We'll do some are we buying it pitchers? Let me tell you about Lightstream. This is really a very interesting and very useful website. I want you to go there right now to Lightstream.com. And actually our URL is Lightstream.com slash strike. L-I-G-H-T-S-T-R-E-A-M dot com slash strike.

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as his two-run single, the decisive runs in game two. Did you catch that one, Scott? I didn't. No, I didn't notice. Yeah, he was pretty deep. And there were two outs. And I guess after game one, Dave Roberts said they weren't going to play as deep in the outfield. And he was really deep.

And there's even, you know, evidence in this story. I want everybody to go read it. It's a really good read. not just about where Pueg was positioned, but other things that, like Ryan Madsen really struggles with the cold weather, and they went right back to Madsen in game two in the most important spot.

He himself said that he couldn't get loose with the weather. So it's good stuff. The game inside the game. Alex Cora is amazing. The Red Sox coaching staff, they are doing such an incredible job. Everything they do is turning out right. Using Evaldi as a late-inning gem.

I mean, they're just pushing all the right. What did he call that role? He called it the Rover. The Rover? Avaldi's the rover, yeah. They're doing a great job. The twins hired Rocco Baldelli to be their manager. He was a raise coach for four years.

So if you like Kyle Gibson, he is going to pitch the second, third, fourth, and fifth innings going forward. Just kidding, but, you know, that's the raise. Scott, I've been trying so hard. Oh, I think I got it. All right. I'm going to wait to get to this news item because I've got to pull up a clip here. Tampa Bay signed 16-year-old Cuban pitcher Sandy Gastone. That's cool.

It's not Gaston. I don't know. Because that would have been fun. Is that like Beauty and the Beast or something? Yeah. Never seen it. My favorite, you've never seen Beauty and the Beast? I can understand not remembering it.

I saw it in Spanour. It's out in Spanish class Well, my favorite Disney movie fact is where they're, you know, during the song where they're like singing the praises of Gaston

and he talks about when he was a lad he ate four dozen eggs every morning he'd eat four dozen eggs to help him get large and then now he eats five dozen eggs every morning. Every morning he eats five dozen eggs. That's, sounds like a lot. That's 60 eggs. It's a lot of eggs. Like, that's not, that can't be good for anybody.

No. Egg whites maybe would be better. I don't know. All right. So I'm trying to get this audio clip up. It's not happening. My internet's not working here. But the Marlin signed Victor Mesa, Jr. and Victor Victor Vesa, a couple brothers. And I was trying to play, What's Your Vector, Victor, from airplane. Like, they're always going to have to call the latter Victor, Victor, Mesa. Right? Because if they just called them Victor Mesa, and they had Victor Mesa and Victor Mesa Jr.

On the same team, that would be very confusing. It's pretty amazing. Now, does the older Victor Mesa Jr., does he have a chance to contribute soon for the Marlins? I think 21, 22. I would think so, 22, yeah. Is he that old? He might not be that old.

No, I think he is. Okay. So it's possible he contributes this year, I would think. He is 22 and his brother is 17. Is he a big time prospect? Is this the guy who's getting drafted? In a standard mixed league, I don't know. He's, yes, I mean, he's definitely somebody who we should be interested in.

I don't know that I'm ready to add him to my top 250. I don't know exactly at what point he'll be up. He may not get called up this year. Right. They may decide to give him a full week, a full year in the U.S. before starting him down that path. But, yeah, I mean, he's going to be in my top 100 prospects. All right, you got to make a change to your top 10. You got to move Jose Val Tube back up because he had knee surgery.

He was playing with a knee injury. Makes sense now. He's fine. You know, the Astros have been really secretive about the injuries. Like, to the point it's become a major nuisance for us media types. Because, yeah, this was under, they kept this under wraps all season. And yeah, I'm encouraged to hear it because it gives me more hope that he'll start running more next year. But on the other hand, he's going to be coming off knee surgery.

and maybe they'll decide it's just not worth it. It's not worth sending him, exposing him to that risk. Chance he loses a step. I don't know. I might move him up a little, but I'm not going to move him back into the top five. I imagine he'll hit better. You know, his power was way down. He had 13 home runs.

He had 24 home runs each of the previous two seasons. I only played 137 games, but still, power was down 864 OPS. It had been 928 and 957. 864 OPS before the All-Star break. After the All-Star break, he had a 764 OPS. Yeah. But even before the All-Star break... I was pretty confident the power returning

because the batter ball profile in terms of how hard he hit it and how much he elevated it was basically the same as last year. But yeah, I mean, it I guess gives me more confidence in that. But the other notable storyline for the Astros and Injuries is... There's a rumor that Lance McCullors has a torn UCL and needs Tommy John surgery.

And it's unconfirmed to this point, but it definitely seems to have some smoke to it. Some Astros were interviewed about Lance McCullors recently, I guess after one of the playoff games in this latest. series. And they were, they started to talk about how he was hurt, and then they kind of like caught themselves and didn't say exactly what it was he was dealing with. So, I would be prepared to go without Lance McCullers next year. Obviously, we're going to know more by the time you're actually drafting. But yeah, it doesn't sound good. All right, Scott, it's time for your movie review. I gave you a homework assignment. I told you to watch the original Halloween. I saw you tweet about it, broke my heart into a million pieces

Yeah. But let's hear. Let's talk about Halloween. Okay. Let's talk about it. I have, I can appreciate the idea that it was groundbreaking, introduced a new genre that we've come to be very familiar with today. But I wasn't there in 1978 when it came out, right?

Right. I can't experience it like a 1978 audience can. I've seen a lot, Adam. I've seen a lot before I saw Halloween. And it just didn't do anything new for me. In fact, it was kind of, I was kind, I was frustrated because I wanted, like, when is he going to kill somebody? Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think it was going to scare you. I didn't think it was going to scare you.

I know, that's fine. But it could have been thrilling, at least. least, you know? It's suspenseful. It wasn't, though. It really wasn't. It was a drag. And I, and John Carpenter was so in love with that theme he wrote, like every time a leaf

blue, it was playing again. And it's a good theme. It's a great theme. But it was overkill. And like, I don't even know that I, I like some of what it created. Because then, like, it seems like, is that where the. let me think in case children children are listening is that where the

like the Twitter pated teen came from like is that where that started where that was always the victim in these slasher movies I don't know I'm not sure what movie came first like Friday the 13th because that had that element too no I think it was just like this came before Friday that right yeah this came before that yeah this came before

and like the thing that that is like not that you know Go on. Not that I'm being judgmental about it or anything, because whatever, we, you know, that's part of being human. But, like, if that's all you know about the character, that's not a sympathetic victim. You don't know enough about it to care about what happens to them. So that's always been a part of that genre that's bothered me, because that's literally all we know about them is they're looking to get some. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, all right, fine.

You know what? Look, I wanted to see how it would translate, and I guess it was a little boring, and I could get that, because it does take a while to get going. But it's a good movie. It's a well-acted movie. That's kind of one thing that sets it apart. It's like those horror movies, the acting is often so terrible. The acting is really good. Like Dr. Lumis is great, and Jamie Lee Curtis is great. I don't know. I love it. I think it's got some awesome moments in it. And I think it's creepy. I think it's a great movie. I really want to see the new one. currently working on a movie. This one I will recommend to you because it's, I think, excellent so far. And you know how it is when you have kids, you have two, I have one. You don't really have like a two-hour block to watch a movie start to finish, right? Not often. Unless like your wife, you know, if you're watching with your wife, right? Yeah.

So we have been watching in segments, the movie 1408. Have you seen it with John Cusack? Yeah, I have seen that. All right. Don't tell me how it ends. is right now I love it right now I love it

it's awesome and I'm thinking we're going to finish it tonight I think we've got about 45 minutes left so yeah I love it all right just shut up

shut up you know and I do want to for all the people who love Halloween out there and it has a high rating on IMTV it's the second best horror movie of all time

behind the Exorcist well Well, I just want to remind people that I kind of have this issue with a lot of old movies, where it's just like, I've seen too much to be able to assess it the way an audience could back then, and it's just so often not slow and not involved enough for me. It has trouble holding my attention. Now, some older movies do it fine. Jaws is great.

I saw Jaws recently. It was great. For the first time? For the first time, yeah. I saw recently isn't like within the last two years. Oh, you know when when Austin Hooper does something good, I go, Hooper! From Jaws. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that movie's awesome. Yeah, that is more exciting. You know, it's an exception to the rule. All right. Are we buying it part two? And if you are buying it and it happens to be a ticket to a game or a concert or comedy or a theater and it's guaranteed whether you bought it on Seekek. So get that Seek geek app out, everybody, and look for events.

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All right, here's the pitcher version of Are We Buying it? Garrett Cole as an ace. Are we buying it? I think so. I have trouble with him because the way his first two months went versus the way his final four months went was a pretty drastic difference. But the biggest difference was that the Astros just stopped asking him to pitch more than six innings at a time.

Like, there were a lot of five innings starts over the last four, which is not what you expect from the ace. But the strikeout rate was so high and the supporting number so good. And then in the playoffs, you know, he looked like an ace certainly. So, yeah, I actually have him behind Trevor Bauer, which given the, their personal rivalry would probably upset him. But they're both in my top 10. Yeah, I mean, Cole, so first 15 starts, he had a 259 ERA. Last 17 starts, he had a 316 ERA.

You can't complain about that. The walk-to-strikeout ratios were almost identical. But in his first 15 starts, he had nine starts of seven or more innings, including each of his first five starts, seven innings. Last 17 starts, only two starts of seven or more innings. That's what Scott was talking about. The stuff is hard to argue with, though. My goodness, 12.4 strikeouts per nine.

Miles Michaelis is a top 20 starting pitcher. He was top 13 last year, Scott, 8th and points, 13th in Roto. Are you buying that, Miles Michaelis, top 20? No. I have him 30th. Okay. So I'm barely buying him top 30. And it just seems like it's a, you know, he really has to thread the needle to do what he did this year.

again, the fit. I mean, it's a low fit. It's not like he had a lot of good luck, but obviously it's totally dependent on him having an elite walk rate and an elite home run rate, which is possible. I mean, he's a ground ball pitcher. He's certainly a command pitcher. But if it's just good as opposed to elite,

you know, he could end up being a pretty average fantasy option. Patrick Corbyn as a top 20 starting pitcher. You're not buying Michael as top 20. Are you buying Corbyn? Corbin and Michaelists had basically the same amount of fantasy points. Yeah, Corbyn's 11th for me. He's right behind Bauer and Cole. He had the best swinging strike rate in all the majors.

Obviously, it had to do with an arsenal change he made, basically turning his slider into his primary pitch. Obviously, fastball is the primary pitch for virtually every pitcher in the majors. But Corbyn figured out a way to dominate. And even if he signs with the Yankees in that smaller park, the fact he's a left-hander who misses bats, I think he's still going to be an ace. Yeah, he was actually a lot better on the road. I mean, he was very good at home if he had 347 ERA, but he had a 280 ERA on the road. So it's not like Corbyn leaves Arizona, which had the humidor, and there's a huge problem.

You know how I am. I guess I'm sort of forming a theory, and we'll test it this year. But if Corbyn can go out with a below-average fastball, if he indeed has that, I think he probably does, and be great again, then I'll be more open-minded. But I struggle with guys who don't have a great fastball. Like Kirshaw. I mean, his slider was off against the Red Sox, and he had a crap start. His slider was on the start before against the Brewers, and he was amazing. I want a guy who has a good fastball.

It's important to me. So it's a Carasco thing, you know. Guys who rely too much on the breaking ball, I feel like they can be prone to ups and downs. Corbyn really wasn't, aside from a brief stretch, somewhat early in the year. And he's helped by the fact that he's, you know, a ground ball pitcher, too. So that helped keep the home run rate down.

He did give up hard contact, but if it's mostly on the ground, and it's not that much of it because he's getting the highest-swainting strike great in baseball. Like I don't, I really don't think this is a Robbie Ray, another Robbie Ray situation. And I know I was the highest on Robbie Ray heading into last year of anyone on the podcast. So, you know, maybe I need to. Well, I mean, Robbie Ray. grapple with that a little more. He walked everyone.

Robbie Ray obviously has control problems that Corbyn doesn't have. Yeah, totally. All right. Last buy or sell, I guess, is Mike Fultenevich as a top 30 starting pitcher. Are you buying Fulte top 30? He's just a spot or two ahead of Michael is for me, so he's technically in my top 30. I have him lower than where he finished. I am a little suspicious of the whole profile for him because the swinging strike rate isn't nearly as good as the K-per-9 would suggest.

The arsenal doesn't seem varied. The walk rate still, you know, not particularly good. But the fact is, his ERA and K-per-9 were what they were, and he had no trouble pitching deep into games with as many pitches as he was throwing. So I think by the time you get to that point in the starting pitcher rankings, the upside outweighs the downside. Okay. All right, Scott White, we're going to talk about some crappy teams right now,

including the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays. Also talk about the raise and the Red Sox, and they're not crappy by any means. Ray is one of the nice pleasant surprises. Red Sox are your 2018 World Series champions, it says here, after game two. And we'll get better and worse for each team. So let's start with the Orioles. Here's what I came up with.

Better next year on the Orioles. Who will be better? Nobody. Worth. Who will be worse? Nobody. There was nothing clever. I could think of, okay, like Dylan Bundy, probably a little bit.

That's probably you're better, right? Yeah, he's definitely my better. And I don't know that he's going to be better. But if he is better, he could be a lot better. Because when he's on, the stuff is electric. That slider cutter hybrid gets tons of swings and misses. He had a couple months this year where he looked like an ace and then was just a disaster in between. I still think he's only 25.

There's still a sleeper potential here. and you know how starting pitcher rankings work where you get to a certain point in the rankings and everybody's kind of the same. So the fact that there's clear upside for Bundy actually puts him higher than you might think in my starting pitcher rankings. He's probably going to be a mid-round pick for me.

Let's see, I'm 69th. Okay. Yeah, all right, all right. Bundy, sell high. We'll go off to a great start. Then you sell high. Then you buy low. Then you sell high again.

Just keep trading him. As soon as he has a bad start, you trade him. I'm sure you'll get a great return. All right. Who is going to be worse next year on the Orioles? So I actually did find somebody who I think could be worse. Yeah. I know I was going to do the same guy, but then I looked at his slash line and it's like, God,

he really didn't hit that well. Well, worse in terms of expectation, like perception versus reality, I guess. Okay. Because Jonathan V.R., given the scarcity of steals, is probably going to go a lot sooner than he should. In a way that's reminiscent of two years ago, right? Yes. When he had that great year with the Brewers. But that year he had with the Brewers, he didn't just steal a lot of bases.

homered at a good rate, not a great rate, but a good rate. He walked a lot. You know, pretty much his success with the Orioles was entirely steel-s-dripping. Man-batting lead-off for second, you know? Played appearances in steals. I mean, he had a decent number of homerals.

I shouldn't. But the walks weren't where they were that year with the Brewers. And just to put it in perspective, I mean, he was definitely good with the Orioles. He had, he averaged as many points per game with the Orioles, about as many as Jose Altuva did for the whole season. So, you know, he definitely was putting up points, but it was mostly because he was running like crazy batting lead off.

And, you know, the Orioles having nothing to lose, maybe they'll ask him to do that again. But, like, it's clear VR is not a building block for them either. He's going to be 28 next year. he's obviously a limited player defensively and kind of an erratic player, not somebody who a contender would really want starting for them. Like, I could see him getting off to a slow start and getting replaced by somebody younger just because somebody's younger. Or he becomes just this trade ship to be like a utility player for a contender who hardly ever plays. And if you invested a fifth round pick in him, I mean, that's going to hurt. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to be doing that, but I will, I'll buy into at least the theory that if he's, he batted a lot of lead off toward the end of the year.

He's mostly batting second behind Mullins. That if VR is batting second and I just need steals, you know, he should be a late round pick. If he's an early round pick, then yeah, that's going to be a big mistake. Yeah, it totally depends on, in terms of whether he's a buster or sleeper, it totally depends on where you can get him. Because, yeah, there's definitely, hey, look at this guy, look at how much upside he showed as a base dealer with the Orioles and, you know, not a complete zero power-wise. Like, he could be a great bargain, or he could be a big risk. It just depends on how the draft room shakes out. So what do you think the earliest you'd take?

I assume we wouldn't take him in a points league, but in a categories of roto league, I'm thinking like around 120 or so I would start considering VR. Well, I haven't gotten far enough into my top 600 in Roto to tell you for sure. But looking at where I have them position by position, he's my 12th second basement in Roto. That's behind Lakeland, like, LaMahue and Dozier. That's probably going to be, that's probably going to be in the top 150. Yeah. Maybe the top 125. Yeah, 120 is the more mid-round than late round.

So I could see myself using a mid-round pick on VR if I really have no steals with my early picks. I got to tell you what I had last night. It was awesome. Sweet and spicy chicken grain bowl. Oh, this was delicious. We cut up the squash and the chicken. We roasted it for like 20 minutes or something. Then we had the grains.

What we did? We made the kale salad. We threw that in with the grains. It was really, really good. Of course, this is Blue Apron, everybody. man, I love Blue Apron. I've been using Blue Apron for years now, and you can get your first three meals free at Blue Apron.com slash fantasy baseball.

Blue Apron.com slash fantasy baseball. Here's how it works. My wife and I, we go on the website, Blue Apron.com. We look at the menus several weeks in advance, like, I don't know, five weeks or so they have in advance for you to choose. You can choose three of many options. And you can also tell them what your preferences are. So if you want vegetarian, if you want fish, I don't get a lot of fish options because I don't really like fish. I don't really like seafood.

But I do like the shrimp that they have. Love the pizza. They have the best freaking pizza on Blue Apron. So you choose the chef design recipes. They deliver it right to your door. You can cook incredible meals in as little as 20 minutes. So I get three recipes a week. They're about $10 per person per meal.

They're freaking great. They get me eating things that I've never tried before. Blue Apron.com slash fantasy baseball. Blue Apron.com slash fantasy baseball three meals free. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. Back to the better and worse. Tampa Bay Rays, who do we got? Who's going to be better?

Who's going to be worse? Better for the raise. There's a few candidates who could be better. But I'm going with Tommy Pham. Because I was surprised how high I ended up having to rank Tommy Pham based on what his bat-a-ball profile look like, how he finished the season. and I guess just the other options available in the outfield. I mentioned it earlier.

He's just outside my top 20. This is a guy who at one point in the season, I had dropped outside of my top 40, you know? Very tough player to figure out, but the quality of his contact is still very good. And he hit, after joining the race in about 40 games, he at 343 with seven homers five steals a 1071 OPS just looked totally rejuvenated and a it's kind of a reading between the lines things from various reports we've seen

in various publications but like it seemed like he really wasn't happy with the Cardinals like wasn't getting along with management was just... Scott has such a soft spot for Tommy fam. Boy, Tommy Fam could like urinate in public on the side of like a, you know, a sacred monument and you would make excuses for... You love Tommy Fam. I don't know where I was going with that.

I was going to say something worse. And then I was like, wait, rain it in. Look. No, I agree. I agree. He's a 2020 man who walks a lot. Right? Like he was nearly 20-20 this year, 21 homers 15 steals.

Yeah, there's no consistency with this guy, though. Yeah. Well, I'm hoping he finds it now. I'm hoping he finds it in a place where he feels appreciated. Because you got the sense, like he turned down an extension when he was still making the league minimum. He complained to Sports Illustrated about, you know, he expressed his disgust to Sports Illustrated about how long it took the Cardinals. to figure out that he's good. And then, you know, he was getting benched and stuff during the season.

And then they traded him like a near, like an MVP candidate from 2017, and they traded him for like some fringe prospects midseason to the raise. And it seems like the rays know what they have in him. They played him every day and he was great for them. So I think he's, I think he's closer to, well, look, his final numbers, don't look bad. I think he's pretty close to the guy we saw in 2017. Tommy fam. Who's going to be worse on the race? So this was a stretch, but I'm going to say Ryan Yarbrough.

I don't really see much to like about Ryan Yarbrough. I think just the fact that he is, do we call him a rotation spot holder? Like he made only six starts technically. but he was pitching a starter's workload basically. So he's one of the five guys that I'm going to call him a starting pitcher for the race. And the fact he won 16 games this year in that role with a respectable ERA, but not much of a bat miss or not a great control pitcher, not a great ground ball pitcher, just really nothing to make me think he's anything more than a league average guy

who could get replaced at the drop of hat. or, you know, just not really off for much. Certainly not win 16 games again. All right, so so far we've got Dylan Bundy will be better for the Orioles, and Jonathan V.R. will be worse. For Tampa Bay, Tommy Fam will be better, and Ryan Yarbrough will be worse. For the Blue Jays, who's going to be better, Scott White?

Better for the Blue Jays. And this is kind of, well, he didn't get enough time to really know, what better means. But I think Sean Reed Foley, I think they have something with him. I think there is a lot of strikeout potential here. And he showed it, and a couple starts down the stretch.

I mean, certainly he showed it throughout his minor league career too. In 2016, I want to say he had the best K-per-9 among starting pitchers. Could be wrong about that. Sean Reed Foley? Yeah, and it was even higher this year, 10.4 per 9 in the minors.

And then once he got to the majors, he put together a couple of two-tenth strikeout performances in September. Like, he showed a lot of bat-missing ability. I think he has a rotation spot for sure. And I think he'll quickly emerge as the Blue Jays best pitcher. All right, Scott. How about who's going to be worse for the Blue Jays? By the way, Marcus Stroman was my guy who's going to be better. I think Stroman had some injuries that he dealt with, got off to a terrible start because of it, the shoulder injury.

And I just think he's a solid pitcher. Not great. I don't know that I need to be drafting him in categories leagues. The lack of strikeouts might kill you. But I think Stroman will be a very, very underrated points league pitcher. Who will be worse for the Blue Jays? Justin Smoke, and it won't entirely be his fault. But he, which I don't think it was a surprise to too many people,

but he showed this year that he wasn't as good as he made us all believe. leave in 2017. That was kind of a weird way of phrasing that. But you get what I'm saying. We were suspicious of that 2017 and he showed we were right to be suspicious. He's not a bad hitter. He walks a lot. He, you know, he hit 25 home runs even this year. But he's not good enough at age 32 that a team in rebuild mode would need to stick with him. I don't know that he would have a lot of trade value for them. I think there's just a chance he's benched sooner than later. It was pretty much happening in September.

He was often taking a seat in favor of Rowdy. I don't know how to pronounce the name. Rowdy Tellez, T-A-L-L-E-Z, a power-hitting prospect. I have no idea. He plays first base. Yeah. Somebody who the Blue Jays, since they're not, looking to contend in all likelihood, are going to want to see more of next year.

And I think it'll come at Smoke's expense. Good. I'm not really a huge Justin Smoke fan anyway. Let's go to the world champion Red Sox. Scott, I think Raphael Devers will be better. You know, forget about the numbers. I'm going to give you the narrative. Great rookie year, predictable sophomore slump, awesome junior season, good player rest of his career.

End of story. Yeah, I mean, there's not really a number that jumps out. to make you think he's going to be better. Like, it's not like, oh, he had bad luck or anything like that. But he's 21 years old. Right. You know? The lefty thing, the lefty thing scares me.

I mean, that's the only thing. If they platoon him, then he's not going to be better for fantasy. But if they don't, you know, he'll be better. It's not like he has a horrific strikeout rate, like Yon Moncada or something like that. You definitely see the potential for him to make a big leap forward. And you're just guessing it's going to be next year. I mean, that was going to be my pick until I heard you had picked it. But another guy who I think has the potential to be even better is Nate of Aldi.

Free agent, I believe. Yeah. He is. And, you know, to some extent, it depends where he lands, I guess. But he really changed his arsenal in a way that has made his fast-perseye. ball, which he always, you know, he was always one of the hardest throwers, but the knock on him was, why does he not missing more bats with it? Well, he introduced a cutter here this year that apparently, I guess because it's closer in velocity, his primary secondary pitch is now closer in velocity and looks a little more like the fastball on the way to the plate, that it's made his fastball itself more deceptive. and he's getting much better results.

I mean, you mentioned what he's doing in the postseason. Yeah, as a starter, too, not just as a receiver. And he had stretches this year where he looked great. And, you know, he would fall out of love with the cutter at times and, you know, have to learn to fall in love with it again because, you know, the production was kind of up and down in that way. Yeah, he got hammered. But what was that?

He got hammered. You know, they, they, okay, so he comes over to the Red Sox. His first two starts, his first two starts, he had an 805 ERA. You know, he started getting rocked a little bit. I do wonder if people started to figure him out. And, you know, he finished fairly strong, although he was not going super deep into games. And he had to be good enough. I think it's less than figuring him out than him still figuring it out.

I mean, tweaking his arsenal in that way. You look at the swinging strike rate on the four-scene fastball. It was way up. It was one of the best swing and miss fastballs in all of baseball. And that's where it should have been. A lot of people felt like all along because of what the velocity was. I think this is going to help him take off. I think he's going – I think he has like top 30 potential.

Okay, so that's Avaldi. Scott says Evaldi will be better. I said Devers will be better. Scott said Justin Smoke will be worse for the Blue Jays. and Sean Reed Foley will be better. I said Stroman will be better. Who will be worse for the Red Sox? I think for the Red Sox worse, I'm going to go with...

Oh, I forgot to write it down. Let's go with... Oh, it was a tough one. Yeah, I don't love this one. I'm going to go with Ian Kinsler. Oh, he's terrible. Yeah, he's showing clear signs of fading, I think. For two years.

I'm not sure if he's even going to be a Starzler. Carter next year. He's been bad. Yeah. He had a big hit on Thursday night. I went with David Price, and, you know, he's really looking like he found something. Like, he figured out a way to be effective. He just hammers the inside corner.

His location's really good. And, yeah, I got to hand it to him. He's even seemed to conquer his postseason demons. But it's going to be a pretty decent amount of innings. when it's all said and done, pitching deep into a game for a guy who said if he were younger, he would have had elbow surgery. So I'm always going to be wary of that. Remember he had the scare earlier in the year where he left with an arm issue that may have been from playing Fortnite.

We don't know. I'm going to be a little wary of it. I think off the top of my head, David Price, if I can get him around like 90th or later, I'd be pretty excited about taking a risk there. But if it's earlier than that, which I suspect it may be, then no thank you. But I guess we could look at ADP, right? I mean, I haven't really been looking at that because what the industry experts are doing now is different than what the fantasy folks are going to be doing later. Well, I can tell you because I am done in points leagues.

I have a top 252, basically a standard 12-team points league draft done. and where he is in those rankings is 73rd. So it sounds like you're not going to get much of him, at least in points leagues. I imagine he'll be outside of the top 90 in Roto. Yeah, I don't think I'll take him 73rd, but I can see people doing that. All right, Scott, time for emails to finish the show.

This is from Daniel. Dear Uncle Adam and Scott's cell phone. Yes. Scott's cell phone made an appearance today. I'm in a keep a league. I'm having trouble deciding between Clevenger and Erman Marquez. Who do you think will have the better 2019? Clevenger or Marquez?

I have Marquez higher by two spots, I think. It's, you know, there's more risk with Marquez, but I think there's more upside, too. It's the risk-reward guy versus the safe guy, I feel like. Here's Mark. One spot difference. Rakez is 19th for me, Clevenger's 20th. Here's Mark from Barry, Ontario, Canada. Dear Rollins, O and Kissinger.

I know this. I'll throw another one at you. Rowengartner. Okay. These are Henry. Well, I know who Henry Rowan Gardner. Oh, so they're Henry's? Yeah, like, oh, Henry.

Who's Henry Rollins? Henry Rollins. Henry Rollins. You'd know him if you saw him. Okay. First year in a keeper head-to-head categories league, I won the league. Large part, due to you, fellas. Thank you.

Struggling with my keeper options, I can keep four. Should I keep two pitchers? All right, so he can keep four. He's got Sale and DeGrom. Probably. Blackman and Freeman. That's probably it. Now, it's a head-to-head categories league,

so would you take out Sale, DeGrom, Blackman, or Freeman for any of the following? Chris Davis, Jean Seguera, Luke. Voigt, Mitch Hanigur, Starling Marte, Anthony Rendon. No. Though Chris Davis, Starling Marte since the Categories League, and Anthony Rendon, aren't far off. I don't think I could give up any of those four for them. All right. Next up we have Mike from Athens, Georgia.

Dear Thorny, Mac and Foster. That would be, come on, Scott. Shananagan's. I don't know what Thorny? Super Troopers Okay Seen it? No, I haven't

I think you'd hate it Personally Yeah, I've seen Enough of it To not feel like It was something I had to see Okay I walked out, I think, the first time I saw it

But the more I saw Super Troopers The more I appreciated it And now I think it's funny We get five keepers this year Down from six last year I am rebuilding with younger talent I need some advice Right now I've got

Garrett Cole, Trevor Story, and Walker Bueller as keepers. So I need two more. I'm going after Trevor Bauer in the off season with a picked trade, and Snell and Corbyn his backups if we can't make a deal for Bauer. So he plans on having Garrett Cole, Trevor Story, Walker, and hopefully Trevor Bauer. My fifth keeper is the issue, and I'm leading towards Reese Hoskins. But given how this year went, I'm not sure. What are his other options?

With a sophomore slum for Reese Hopkins, can I hope for a Trevor story like rebound next year or his potential not high enough to hold on to? He's also got Mitch Hanager that he could keep. Okay, no Hanager. I don't think Hanager and Hoskins are in the same sentence in a Keeper League. Well, with it being a points league... He walks, though.

Right, Hoskins? What, Reese Hoskins? Yeah, I'm saying Hoskins, because it's a points league, I put a higher priority on him. But, I mean, these pitchers are so good. He's going after Trevor Bauer with a pig trade with snow. Okay, so he's keeping Cole, Story, Bueller, Snell, Corbyn, or Bauer. You know, it doesn't really matter.

I shouldn't have even read the keeper part. Let's just simplify it and say, do you think Reese Hoskins is worth being his fifth keeper? What kind of year do you expect for Hoskins? I do. I mean, he was good this year. Like, he didn't hit for a high average, so if you just look at his line, you're unimpressed by it. But he placed high in the outfield rankings in both formats in spite of that. So I can tell you exactly where I have. Like, if he's in the top 60 and it's a 12-team league and every team keeps five,

that makes him a pretty easy call to keep, right? And he's 50th for me. So, yeah. Okay. Next up, last email here is from, I don't have a name on this one. Hey, Cisco, Janaway, and Archer. Janeway? Janeway, sure.

Cisco and Archer? Okay, those are captains in the... Yeah, it's Star Trek in her. Three worst Star Trek series. Okay. How about that? Oh, nice. First off, I made the playoffs in all six of my leagues and lost in the first round in all of them.

So, thanks with a question mark. I don't know. I need help deciding my keepers next season. Twelve-team head-to-head categories league. There are some unique categories, but he can keep, let's see, he can keep four. So, pick four. This is a $260 budget. Okay.

$38 Freddie Freeman. Okay. $39 Jose Al Tuve. $16. Francisco Lindor. Ding-de-ding. $16. $1.

All right. $45. Scherzer. $31 Verlander. You can't keep for... Okay, so definitely Lindor. Just so everybody else knows, we got Lindor for 16. We got Soto for 16.

Everyone else is 30 or more. $31 Verlander. $38 Freeman, $39. Altuve. That'd be one for me. And Max Scherzerzer at 45. Yeah, I think just the scarcity of what Altuve provides, you know, if you have half a hope of him bouncing back, 39 seems totally fair. So, El Tuvee, Lindor, I'm going to go with Soto because there's a good chance you keep him multiple years if the starting point is 16.

He's going up to every year. And I think my fourth would be Verlander. Yeah, I don't think that there's $14 difference between him and Scherzer. and they're both old. I think you have, I think just because 31's the starting point, you have a better chance of keeping Verlander longer. That is exactly what I was going to say. Now let's see if this works.

Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor? There it is. What's our vector, Victor? That's what I think of every time I hear. Oh, that was worth a way. Thank you. Thank you, Scott.

I'll just play the rest of it. It's amazing. All right, Scott White. Thanks for indulging me. We're out of here, everybody. What were you saying? That's what I haven't seen. I got to see airplane.

Oh, geez. God. Well, I don't want to recommend it to you because if you don't like it, then I'm going to be over two. That's okay. Like I don't judge, like I was trying to say at the start of my Halloween, like I don't judge anyone who likes it. I understand it was innovative and groundbreaking. I just can't put myself in a place to enjoy it for that.

Okay. Because other things have already broke that ground for me. You know? Yes, but bold prediction. You will love airplane. The movie absolutely holds up. It's still like the funniest movie, one of the funniest movies ever. And you will love it.

And we are out of here, everybody. We won't speak to you before Halloween. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Happy Halloween, everybody. See you later.