Fantasy Baseball Today - 11/08 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: Heath is Back! Rankings Disputes & RP Strategy

Episode Date: November 8, 2017

We welcome Heath back to the show as we get another voice on the Fantasy Baseball Today Podcast. Beginning with some MLB news we discuss which players could be hurt or helped by a change of scenery (5:10) and give our thoughts on Shohei Otani and his Fantasy status (9:50) ... Heath discusses his effective RP strategy in 2017 (17:00) and then we each give a player who will be better and a player who will be worse in 2018 for HOU (22:26) and LAD (30:30) ... Heath has Buster Posey ranked ahead of Gary Sanchez! Why (34:50)!? Plus more of Heath's interesting rankings ... 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 season treat for you. It's a three-man show today. Welcome, everybody, Adam Azer, and of course, Chris Towers. Hello, Chris Towers. Hi, Adam. How's it going? Oh, it's going well. We got tired of just talking to you.

I'm sure you got sick and tired of just hearing from me. So we brought in some reinforcements. Welcome back from paternity leave Scott White. How's the family? Don't do that to people. They would actually be excited about hearing from him. Heath Cummings decided, I feel like doing a baseball podcast today. What do we all this?

pleasure? The 280 character limit on Twitter. I can't stand looking at Twitter as much anymore, so I had a little extra time to do the podcast. Now, the two people on the show with me, Kreeh, they love Twitter. They are all about Twitter. Are you guys both, you're not feeling the, how many characters is it? You would know, you just sent out an abomination of a tweet. Okay, this was my tweet.

I'm concerned now that we can all use 280 characters on Twitter. People are just going to write about useless stuff. I'm going to have a sandwich with chicken, salad, Swiss, and tomato. I hate cold weather. Aquariums are fun. Medium rare all the way. I should floss more grapes. I thought that was funny.

I got a lot of, I got 15 retweets and 43 likes. Oh, no. Get that dopamine hit. 181 likes. Get that notification on your phone when someone retweets it. No, come on. I don't do that anymore. How do you feel about the 280, Chris?

I feel it's more like 180 characters than 280. Like if you're using all 280, there's something wrong with you. But if you need that little extra boost, you know? I was following too many people, around 1,500. I've whittled that down to around 1,400 in the first day of 280. And I will continue to do so as people continue to abuse it. Okay. You know what?

I'm all for it. I don't really care that much. So I'm happy to have Heath here to talk baseball. You definitely went with a more relief pitcher-heavy approach in Roto and Category League. So I want to know how that turned out. I'm going to ask you about some of your rankings. Like, I just said, you know what? Chris, we found the guy.

We found the one guy in America who has Buster Posey ahead of Gary Sanchez. His name is Heath Cummings. Congratulations. There you go. There you go. Even though he's the guy who hates old people. Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. Wow.

Real consistent. He somehow has Dallas Keiko ranked ahead of where Scott has Dallas Keikle, which surprised me. But that's really more of my issue with Scott. Here are your news and notes as we get into the show. Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com is our email address. Well, it just needs to be said. Very sad news about Roy Halliday yesterday. And it was awful.

It was the kind of guy that you just rooted for. He was such a gamer. And one of my biggest baseball sports in general. general regrets is not going to the Marlins game when Roy Halliday pitched a perfect game. One-nothing win over the Marlins. I was like, yeah, you know, I think I want to go to that. I think it was a Friday night or a Saturday night. Yep.

And so many of my friends went. Jamie Eisenberg went. And I wish, Chris, I wish I had gone. He was facing Josh Johnson. You knew there was a chance it was going to be a great game. It was one-nothing and a perfect game for Halliday. Yeah, he was one of the best pitchers of his generation. and, you know, I hope he gets into the Hall of Fame.

It would be much deserved. You know, it's just tragic. Yeah. Oh, he absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame, no question. So condolences, obviously, it's just awful. So St. Louis, they cut Trevor Rosenthal. It was fun arguing Trevor Rosenthal last year. Right before the injury, the two games before he had.

He had Tommy John, right? I believe so, yeah. Yeah, so the two games before that, he got roughed up a little bit. But before that, in a 14-game stretch, with a 0.55 ERA, 16 and a third inning, eight hits, two walks, 26 strikeouts. Trevor Rosenthal was dominating, and some of us bought into it more than others. Then Juan Naccio, at one point became their closer for the Cardinals, and he was very good for St. Louis.

He had a 164 ERA after the trade. He had four saves. He had a one whip. He's now a free agent. I don't know. You guys have any thoughts on who might close for the Cardinals and whether or not Juan Naccio would be interesting to you? He would be interesting if he got a closer's job,

but I think there's still a chance. Let's not forget about Song Wano. I believe he's still under contract, and he could end up being the closure there. All right, Heath. Yeah, I don't think Juan Naccio is going to be a closer going into 2017, but if he was, I would definitely have an interest in him. Okay.

So we'll see where Nicosio ends up. There were noteworthy players who got one year 17.4 million dollar qualifying offers from their clubs. They don't have to take that deal, but if they sign with another team, there would be some draft pick compensation. Three Royals, Eric Hosmer, Mike Mustakis, Lorenzo Kane, Lance Lynn was noteworthy, Jake Arietta and Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Alex Cobb, that was interesting. that they'd be willing to give him that. Yeah, $17.4 million for one year. And then Carlos Santana, no surprise there. Is there anybody that I mentioned,

Hosmer, Moose, Kane, Lynn, Areietta, Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Cobb, Carlos Santana, that could have a big-time different trade value at a different park than where they call that. Absolutely. Yeah, I think Heath and I are actually going to have the same. opinion on this one on one of them for sure we are both i would say hoping i don't know if he's hoping but i would like to see erasmer sign with the red sox i believe john haman reported that that will be a

target for them this offseason and you know i don't think erasmer's uh all that good he's had he had a very good season last year um but his swing is perfect for fenway park and we don't usually say that about left-handed batters, but he is a pretty even split on pull and opposite way hitting. But when he hits the ball in the air, it is almost always to the opposite field. And when he hits the ball at the opposite field, he hits it hard. Yeah. So that is a rare left-handed batter who could actually really take advantage of the green monster. I think that would be the best possible landings.

And then I think Mustakis, there have been a, a couple of rumors on him, and they would be both great and awful. If he were to go somewhere like New York, he could be a monster. He could be a 40-homer guy. Are they Yankees? Yes. I don't think that's going to happen. If he were to go to San Francisco, which is another place that has been rumored,

it would absolutely kill his value. He would not even be startable. I think that's probably true. And then Lance Lynn better go to a big park. Lance Lynn is consistently better at home, just checking his ERA year after year. And he has a lot of good road ERAs, but like a lot better at home.

I don't want any part of Lance Lynn if he's not getting that Cardinals' devil magic. I mean, if he went to somewhere like Kaufman in Kansas City, they'd be fine. I know you guys didn't love the strikeout rate for Lance Lynn last year. 78 walks, 153 strikeouts, and 186 in a third. And Cobb, you know, Cobb is also, like we said, he could definitely take that in return to the raise. I thought Cobb was a huge sleeper on draft day. I drafted a lot of Alex Cobb.

He had a fine season, but he didn't fully bounce back. This was a guy who had a sub-3 ERA two years in a row before Tommy John surgery. Can he still bounce back? Could he become one of the best? Best is a strong word. One of the better pitchers in the American League again? Oh, if he signed somewhere in the American League. Better pitchers in the American.

I don't think he's going to be in the top 25 pitchers in fantasy. He just needs to get that strikeout rate back. That was the big thing for him is, you know, in the year that he missed, strikeouts continued to rise league wide, and his strikeout rate dropped from 22% in 2014 to 17.3% in 2017. Given the league context, that's a huge loss. I think the biggest thing for me is if I'm going to take on a pitcher that has, And I think we have to agree, Alex Cobb has some injury risk.

If I'm going to take on a pitcher with injury risk or more injury risk than average, I would like for there to be huge upside. I don't know that there's huge upside with Cobb. All right. So those are some of the players of the qualifying offers. And then... Thanks, Chris. I said Cobb right before you take Cobb.

You did, you did. So here's what just happened. It's been a while since I've got to do this. I like the I am the guys Yeah, now I lost my voice I like to I am the guys Throughout the show to remind them You have to say the last names of the players

You can't just keep saying He he he he he he he So I typed last Heath Welcome to the offseason podcast They're pretty much all like this I typed last names To remind them

Which I do all the time And Chris just decided In the middle of nowhere It's total non sequitur To just say Cobb So thank you Chris Appreciate it Anything for you?

Shohay Otani. He hired an agent. It seems like he's going to be playing in the major leagues this year. There are three teams that can offer Otani more than $3 million in signing bonus money. And those would be the Rangers, Twins, and Yankees. The Pirates, Marlins, and Mariners can offer Otani between $1.5 and $2.3 million in signing bonus money. And that's it. Only six teams can offer them even a million dollars as a signing bonus.

I didn't realize this rule changed. I didn't realize it was so restrictive on the Why in the world is he coming over here? He has to wait two years If you sign when you're under 25 You are limited to the international bonus pool If you sign after you turn 25 You can sign as a major league free agent

Right he's 23 years old So he would have to go through arbitration And everything It does it's weird Yeah and it doesn't And that levels the playing field so much. Like, you don't know who the front runners are going to be for him now. And it's pretty cool.

He just doesn't care about money at the moment. Well, I don't know. I can't say that. But he cares more about playing Major League Baseball. Now, I have, yeah, go ahead. Once you've signed him and he's on your team and he pitches in a game, you can give him a contract extension, right? I don't think so. I have no idea.

No, I think he'd be, like, arbitration eligible. Right, but players, teams buy out arbitration years all the time. Yes. I want an under the table deal. We'll give you $50 million after you pitch your first game. Yeah, but if you're not an unrestricted free agent, like no matter what, you can't get the money that you would command. Right.

You know? So I've had this conversation a lot with Scott, and not so much with you guys. What do you think should be done about Otani if he becomes a hitter and pitcher in Major League Baseball for fantasy? I'm pretty certain that the way we're, going to approach it is he will be two different players. There will be a Shohay Otani pitcher and a Shohay Otani outfielder or D.H or whatever

it is. I will just poo-poo the whole thing and say that if he is a starting pitcher on a major league team, he will not be a valuable fantasy asset as a hitter. Probably. If you have to use two roster spots on it. Like if it was a situation where you could have Shohay Otani the pitcher and then sometimes put him in your lineup as a hiter. hitter.

I just don't think a major league team. Teams are not very creative. I agree. Teams do not like to do things that everybody else doesn't do. Yeah. And I just don't think he's not going to be taking regular bets. I mean, maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's a DH.

Probably not more than a couple times a week. Maybe three or four times a week. It's pretty interesting. It's really interesting to think about, but I'm just saying it's probably not going to be that interesting. Well, you would think that he should probably go to an national. National League team, right? If he wants to do both? Well, not if he wants to DH on the days he's not pitching.

I don't think teams are going to let a starting pitcher play in the field. Play in the... What do you mean? No, I'm saying if he wants to be a pitcher, it would make more sense for him to be to go to the National League so he can at least hit every time he pitches. Whereas... You could just do that in the American.

You could do that, but he might not be better than whoever you're deaching. You know, if he's focusing on pitching, he might not be that good of the hit. You know what I'm saying? You're still, I would think a lot of teams would be more likely to DH instead of using him. He's pretty good hitter, man. He is, but can he really be... He's been like the fourth or fifth best hitter in the second best professional league in the world for the last couple years. Can he be great at both?

You know, I'm skeptical that he could be great at both. I don't think he will be a fantasy relevant hitter. So it's more likely he's a pitcher? Yes. I think he's considered a better prospect as a pitcher. Okay. All right. Well, that would be fun to have both two Otis on your team.

It's so weird. And then we could do like, Great the Trade. Otani, the pitcher for Otani to hitter. Hold on. Fun possibilities here. It is time for our tweet of the day. Chris, are you ready to talk the all-Hawloin team? I am very much ready.

Okay, Matt Pickle tweets us. I'd like to nominate witch Hanigur and Candy Petit to the all-hollow. That's amazing. The all-holloween team with scary care. are you doing the play-by-play? Outstanding. Yes, those are good. Those are very good.

So what do you have for us? So last week we gave it a shot. We came up with some names off top of our head of Ned Ghosts would be the manager. I forgot your crazy one. What was it? Greg zombie. Right. Greg zombie.

I've got a lineup. Okay. At catcher. Scary Sanchez, obviously. Scary Sanchez, all right. First base, although he's got the ability to play multiple positions. Ulyeschi Guleel

Right Second base Joe Panic Obviously Oh that's good It's clever Shortstop Francisco Lindor

What You live in like a fancy neighborhood They give out those Lindor truffles For Halloween Oh God

I thought halfway in it Was gonna be awful And it's this Worst than I thought Third base is Luis Valbuna No Oh my gosh

These are terrible Why not Mike Boo Stalkis. Is that all you think about? Wouldn't that be better? Outfield. What if it were? What if it were?

What if it were? Wait, hold on. Vampire Hunter Pence. That's good. What if we were Mike Boo stalk us? Yes. That's better than Luis Valbuna. D.H.

Is Shinsu Boo. Starting pitcher, Kendall Graveman, obviously. Good, good. And relief pitcher Kyle Bearclaw. All right. So here's the thing. Chris and I forgot to do. the all-holloween team and Chris did it just before the show.

And it was straight-tag. It was terrible. Luckily, Derek emailed us with his own all-holi-team, and it's incredible. So here we go. The manager is Ned Ghost. The announcer is Greg Zonby. And the catcher is booster posy. How is that worse?

That's much better. How is that worse? Scary Sanchez is good. Scary Sanchez is good. Paul Goldschmidt, who I think you said on... Yeah. Yeah. In the last week show.

Witch Maryfield at second base. Very good. Yeah. Joey Gallows. Sure. Yeah. I don't love the shortstop. Angleton Sim Monster. Not great.

Awful. Tommy Famtham. Sure. Hunter Pace. Kind of like vampire hunter. Yeah, Vampire Hunter. Pence is better. I said Pace.

I meant Pence. Yeah. Mooky bats. Okay. Mookie bats is good. And starting pitcher, Luis Severino. Kendall Graveman is better. Candlegrayment is better.

And Corey Knievel. What are we doing here? Come on. What else would you like to talk about in the off-season? If they want to drive to the park, Derek suggests they drive a Buick. No, it's a Sub-Buru. A Sub-Buru, okay. All right, let's talk baseball, Heath.

I'm sorry about that. That's okay. Here's some questions for Heath. How did the RP-heavy strategy work for you in Categories leagues? Very well until football season started. I believe there was a point right around week one in the NFL season where my roto and categories teams were almost all in first place. And I finished second or third in all of our roto leagues. The more that I used it, and the nice part was that one league, I built a huge league.

in both WIP and ERA. And then I started doing a little to start streaming to catch some of the teams that were fading fast in K's and wins. I plan on sticking with this strategy again in the future. It's pretty interesting, yeah. I'm glad it worked. It was a smart move.

Who were you right about in 2017? Well, we have to say Travis Shaw. We do. That's where it starts. I'm counting Cesar Hernandez as a win because he was phenomenal for about half the season. got hurt, but then you could just pick up a different second baseman. I was looking at...

Phenomenal, was he? Yeah, he was phenomenal. He was the number one second basement in fantasy. Oh, it's been a while. I guess you're right. Okay. In my deep sleepers column for every team, I had Luis Severino. Nice.

So I think we'll count that one. And I'm sure there was... I don't remember the busts. Wow. I know. That seems like something I would. something I would remember. You can only remember the things you got right.

No, I'm sorry. I don't remember the busts that I was right about. Oh, okay. I remember, oh, okay, okay. Yeah, go ahead. But then you want to know who I was wrong about next day? Yeah, who were you wrong about? I did call Jorge Solera Deep Sleeper, and he was not any good at all.

I think I was probably wrong about Dallas Keichol and Justin Verlander. Yeah. I'm trying to think I remember the one that we argued about was Blake Snell Oh I was definitely wrong about Blake Snell and Danny Salazar I was wrong about

until I was right And then I was wrong again I mean you could say the same thing about Blake Snell Yes He had a good stretch but Generally speaking if you like someone And they get demoted That's probably missed

Yep You know it's interesting You technically you were wrong about Wade Davis Because he had him as your number one closer but it's not like he didn't get hurt. He had a good year. He just didn't save 50 games. He only had 32 saves.

It's kind of weird. And it wasn't that he had 32 saves with the Cubs blowing everybody out. That was the weird thing. They were much worse this year. Right. It was bizarre. Saves can be, I guess, a little difficult to predict. Mm-hmm.

It was a good year for Heath. Did very well in the leagues. And that RP strategy was really interesting. Good job, Heath. Hey, thank you. I appreciate that. I did a lot of wrong things, too. We all do.

Oh, Rick Porcelo. Kyle Hendricks. Those were the bust I was right about. Kyle Hendriff was good. Actually, I don't think you were right about Kyle. You're forgetting the big one, Jonathan VR. Jonathan VR, yes. But just do forget about Gene Suggera, please.

Gene Cigura wasn't really that good. No. Okay. He wasn't terrible. He wasn't a bust. Yeah. But, yeah, no, he wasn't great. He very singles reliant, if I recall.

and it didn't steal nearly as many bases. So we love Heath. He's the best. Heath is like the seat geek of fantasy analysts. He saves you time and he earns you money with his advice. And look, Seat Geek, I mean, how many times will I have to tell you? It is the best ticket app. It will save you time.

It will save you money. And we will save you even more money because when you use Seatgeek, enter the code fantasy at checkout, get $20 off your first Seatkeek purchase. So that's 20. That's a lot. 20 bucks off your first purchase of tickets on the Seekekek app or go to Seatgeek.com. Now, Seekkeek searches multiple ticket sites. That way it compares prices. It's just competition, folks. You want to get the most websites working for you, trying to find you seats for the event you want to go to.

Seatkeek will do all that work for you. You get the most bang for your buck. You can immediately identify the best seats that fit your budget, and every purchase is fully guaranteed. That's huge. You can shop for tickets on Seekek with Conner. Make sure you're making Seekek your go-to app for sports, concerts, comedy, theater. And remember, $20 off your first Seekek purchase with the promo code fantasy. Promocode is fantasy.

The app is Seekek. You guys going to the big game in Miami this weekend? FIU hosting Old Dominion. That's the one. You use Seekek for that. They might pay you five bucks to go. Oh, boy, do I wish I was going to Miami, Notre Dame. Oh, that one.

That one. Yeah, it's so exciting. Go fighting Irish. Just go away, Chris Towers. That's the real chain. In. Every time a team is eliminated, we give you a player who's going to be better and a player is going to be worse.

So for the Astros, Chris. Yeah. Who's going to be, they weren't eliminated, but who's going to be better next year? This is a tough one. This was a really tough one to come to. a conclusion on I'll go with Lance McCullors he fell off so bad

in the second half I know it was injury related and injuries are a big concern but this if he just stays healthy if he throws 160 innings next season I think he's going to be a huge value well he showed how he showed what he can do in the postseason the question is

can he overcome the walks just throw nothing but curveballs next year his walk rate wasn't even that bad this season he actually cut it down to three per nine and 7.8%. It was actually above average. Still had a one three whip, though. Yeah, he had 3.30 babbip, which didn't help,

although that is his career rate, so we might have to keep that in mind moving forward with him, that he might just be someone who's a little bit worse than expected. Okay. Definitely the stuff in the town is there for McCullors. I went with Alex Bregman. He will be better. and he finishes the number five shortstop in fantasy, number seven in Roto, number five in points, number seven in Roto.

Breggman will be shortstop eligible next year. After the All-Star breaking bat at 315 with 11 home runs, he slugged 536. He had like a 900 OPS after the All-Star break. So I think he's ready for big, big things. He will be better than he was last year. Alex Bregman. Any qualms with that?

I know. My only qualm is that you asked me to say somebody it's going to be better and you don't tell me who your guy is. So now I picked the same guy that you did. I will point out, I might have said this on the last podcast. It's surprising how bad he was in the playoffs. I don't know if it was just that every hit he got was of monumental importance. Because I think we talked about in the last podcast, it just felt like he was having this incredible post. season and he ended up with a sub-700 OPS. He had 208 in the playoffs.

He did. He also hit four home runs. He had five walks to 10 strikeouts. And was just incredible on defense. That's what it was. I think that's why the perception was what it was for Bregman. Yeah, it was incredible on defense. And I didn't realize that you did these because you were a late addition, so I wasn't going to put that pressure on you. Yeah, I have a name for each team. I'm hoping it's the same. I'm going to go after you each time, though, and hope it's the same guy that you picked. I'm not, and I wanted to be careful not to say that Breggman's going to be better because of how great he was in the second half. It's more, I just can't imagine he's going to be as bad as he was at the start of the season

this year. But if he hits, like he hit 284. Right. He had 19 home runs, scored 88 runs, drove in 71, had an 827 OPS. I don't know that the OPS, I think the OPS goes up a little. I'd expect maybe a slug goes up to around 500, a few more, home runs. We had to remember also he's just 23 years old. Yeah. So he's not had his best power years yet. And I think the RBI and run numbers are a good place if he's hitting in the upper

half of that lineup. That's a good place where you can pick up some fantasy points without really doing a whole lot different. The 71 RBI in that offense, if you have an 840, 850 OPS, you should have more RBI than that. Nobody on that team had more than 90. It was weird. That is weird. It was just like single after single. Everybody just kept driving everyone else in.

That's one of the craziest stats. I wonder how many times the team has led baseball in runs scored without a 90 RBI guy or 91 RBI guy. At least once. At least once, yeah. Like the Astros had nobody with more than 90 RBI and the Marlins had two with 120. One thing that I noticed the last couple of years, you had the Blue Jays and then the Red Sox, these like unbelievable offenses. and I guess the Cubs too, took steps back. You know, it is hard to have that kind of year, I guess, two years in a row.

That's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's... But not with Bregman. I think, well, I just think any time you lead the league in something, you're probably going to be like sixth in that the next year, even if nothing else changes, just because a lot has to go right to be the best at something. Call it the Chris Towers Rule of Six.

The rule of like six. It'd be like six. All right, who's going to be worse? Yeah, who's going to be worse next year? Do you want me to go? No, I'm going last. I want to see if Adam picks the same guys I do. I'll go with a pretty obvious guy.

Marwin Gonzalez just had this outrageous out of nowhere season where he somehow led the team in RBI. I just don't think he'll be that good. He doesn't have the track record. Big outlier season for him. Babbitt was 30 points higher than his career norm. I think he takes a big step back. He was my honorable mention.

I went with George Springer. There's no way Heath did. No. You know, the only thing is with Springer, he just hit a lot more home runs. And Scott and I sort of feel like Major League Baseball is going to change the baseball to make sure there aren't as many home runs. In which case Springer will be sort of like a, you know, where he always is.

What was his OPS this year? Like not, he's going to be like... It was about... Yeah. It was higher. What was it? It was 889, which is about 75 points higher than the year before. Right.

You know, if he doesn't know a home run, he could be like an 830 OPS guy. Really good. Great in points. Great in points. Because all the plate appearances. But a little disappointing in Roto because he doesn't steal.

So, That was my pick. It would depend on the baseballs. But if he's an outfielder who doesn't really steal and can't hit more than 27 home runs or so, he might disappoint fantasy owners a little bit. He hit 29 the year before, so we'll give him that. So this is something we're going to have to discuss as the offseason goes on, but that's not actionable, right?

What? I think they're going to change the baseballs? No, I think we'll know. I don't think it'll be a big support. We didn't know that the baseball has changed in the first place. But now everybody's on like high alert. Yeah, I don't think MLB is going to come out and announce that they're changing the baseball because that would be admitting that they messed with the game last year. They're not going to come out and say they're going to leak it.

They're going to leak it. Okay. I think that's unlikely. I was, I could go with the obvious choice or the other obvious choice for who's going to be worse next year, just knowing me. Brad Peacock? Sure. The other obvious, or Charlie Morton. Charlie Morton?

Yes. The Astros pitching staff is going to be worse next year. I would say Dallas Keikl is going to be worse in terms of ratios, or at least ERA next year. But he only threw 145 innings. I would not expect him to get injured next year, so he'll probably be better end points, actually. It's two years in a row. I'll go with Justin Verlander. He's 35 years old heading into the year.

He's thrown 2,500 innings, not counting playoffs. and he outperformed his FIP by a half a run last year. It's pretty interesting. We did talk about him last episode. Yeah, I mean, there were definitely red flags. But the good thing with him, say, like a Felix Hernandez who just sort of fell off the cliff, he's still got that velocity. He does until he doesn't.

Yeah, but Felix trended down for a long time. Right, that's true. Right. Ferlander bounced back in a big way. Yeah. All right. I mean, it makes sense. Let's go to the Dodgers.

Heath, you want to go before me or after me this time? I'd like to go last. All right, one player who will be better next year. I'm going to go with Clayton Kershaw. I know that's kind of weird, but he really did have basically his worst season in five years. That was with a 231 ERA and a .95 whip. They were the highest ERA in WIP in five years for him. And it was the home runs.

I mean, 23 home runs allowed in 175 innings. So I think Kershaw goes back to sub-2 ERA. and does things... He had allowed 23 home runs in his previous 380 innings. And he did it in 175, so... Yeah, they're going to change the baseball. He'll be fine. I'm pretty sure of it.

That's my nominee. Chris? He's finished. He's finished. I actually, I do think we've probably seen the best of Clayton Kirchall. That's not, like, a mean thing to say. He's almost 30. And the best of Clinton Kirchall is one of the five or six best pitchers ever.

I've got a lot of options for this one. I could go with Kenta Maida. I could go with Corey Seeger. But he's going to bully me into going with my guy. Jock Peterson. Jock Peterson. Jock Peterson quietly cut his strikeout rate to 21% this season, but kept. You know, didn't hit for quite the power I hoped for.

But I think the skill set here is still monstrous. And I think the price is going to be so cheap next year that you could get at him with your last round pick. We saw in the postseason, this is still a supremely talented hitter. He's only 25 years old. We'll only be 25 on opening day. Jack Peterson. Heath, who's going to be better?

I will go with the person that I bullied Chris out of taking, and that is Corey Seeger. All the short stops are going to be awesome next year. He's also, like Alex Breggman, just 23 years old. And I don't think we've seen the best power out of Seager. By any stretch, just 22 home runs last year. I believe he's got 30 in him. The RBI numbers should come up. Corey Seeger.

Yeah, it's also dealing with injuries. After all, he was left off the NLCS roster, so it must have been pretty serious. Yeah. Player who's going to be worse next year, guys. Are we all going to just say Chris Taylor or what? I mean, Chris Taylor is the pretty obvious choice. Why don't you guys believe in Chris Taylor? Well, why don't we believe in Chris Taylor?

Because I wanted to come up with a compelling case for him, but he didn't slump at all. And he was actually, he slumped in September. That's it. And then he comes back in the postseason, and he has a, see, 888 OPS in the playoffs with three home runs, 11 walks, and 10 strikeouts. So it's just such a massive outlier from anything really including the playoffs, or including the minors. That that's really what I have trouble with is, did he really benefit that much from the new baseball? because that's really what you're hoping is that he's a 20 homer guy

if he's not a 20 homer guy that Babip's going to come down and if he hits 260 with 12 home runs that's Joe Panic you know that's not a useful player well it is on the Halloween team plus they're going to change the baseball so

all right so Chris Taylor Heath did you have someone else yeah I wasn't even considering Chris Taylor I totally believe in Chris Taylor and all Chris Taylor stands should direct their tweets to Adam and Chris and not me. Exactly. I will go with Alex Wood.

He was, he is, I won't even say was because he has been and he is phenomenal when he gets everything put together and stays healthy. But he's never really shown the ability to do that for a very long stretch of time. He gets his release point right, he gets his grip right, he stays

healthy, everything's good. I'm not going to bet on that happening for even as long as it did last year. Yeah, the drop-off in his strike guy right in the second half, right back to the 2015 levels. That's really worrisome. All right, so we got Chris Taylor, we got Alex Wood, who will decline a little bit next year. Let's take a look at Heath's rankings,

and then we'll finish the show with some emails at Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. Not an extensive look at rankings, but a little snapshot. What? What? Buster Posey ahead of Gary Sanchez? Are you out of your mind, sir? I don't know why that's really that much of a hot take. Because Posey wasn't nearly as good as Gary Sanchez this year.

I mean, he had an 861 OPS. He has been the best catcher in baseball for five years. Not in fantasy. I'm not going to downgrade him just because of one good Gary Sanchez. He hasn't been the best. Catcher in Fantasy the last two seasons, I believe. Fine. I mean, it's true.

That's fine. But he's been the best. He was number two last season, right? He was number two in points. He was number three in Roto. And what was he the year before? I'm pretty sure he was no better than two. I'm pretty sure Jonathan LaCoy was better than him two years.

So we should have ranked Jonathan LaCore number one last year? Because he was better than Buster Pose last year. We had him right there. You don't just change your race. Are you just ranking everyone? No, I think Gary Sanchez is. absolutely better than Buster Posey. You just rank everyone however they finished last year.

That would be a very boring ranking. That is not at all what I'm doing. I'm taking a guy who is 24 years old. It'll be 25 and 20 something days, 25 days. Happy birthday. But who has played 177 games in the majors, has driven in 132 runs, has hit 53 home runs, showed last year that the power was legit and that he is enjoying a legitimate breakout. obviously plays in a great park, has batted ball data to back up everything that he's done.

One guy's trending up, one guy's trending down. Buster Posey. No, Buster Posey had an 861 OPS like that. Buster Posey is absolutely trending down. He was much better last year. He had the best OPS that he's had since 2012. Okay. It was all batting average, though.

Well, it was all walks, really. He hit 320 with a 400 on-base percentage. Yes, he, his, the boost that he had, it was his second-loven. a slugging percentage. It was better than a slugging percentage the year before. No, it wasn't. Oh, sorry. His is slugging. Because his Iso. Because his batting at it was 44 points higher, but his ISO

is the lowest that's ever been. He's clearly lost a lot of pop. He's no longer the force he was. And we're talking about a 31-year-old catcher on opening day. Catchers don't age well. The age part I can listen to. I'm not, I don't buy it. He's declining. He's a high

declines than his head since 2000. Because his Babbup was 44 points higher, it was the highest Babbup he's had since 2012 as well. 66 strikeouts? He had a great year last year. Nobody's saying he didn't have a great year. He's worse than Gary Sanchez now. He was worse last year. They're both going to play about the same number of games, most likely. I will go through the rankings from last year and just rank everyone how they finished last year to make you happy. That's not what anyone's saying. Probably what you should do at the top for catcher. I mean, at least for those two. If you look at what Garry's, what Buster Posey did, his walk rate was identical to last season, his strikeout rate was identical to last season, his ISO was identical to last season.

He had a higher OPS because he had a 44 point higher Babbitt. Maybe the 303 in 2016 was on the lower end, but the 347 last year was definitely on the higher end. If his Babbup's 320, he's probably going to hit 300 this year. He's not a power hitter anymore. I mean, Gary Sanchez had 19 more home runs than him, and he did it in fewer games. games. They're going to change the ball. They are going to change the ball, and he'll probably hit 25 more home runs than Buster

Posey. Also, I love when you argue with Chris, and he uses the word objectively. It's subjective. Chris loves doing that. Objectively true. That's what he tells you that you are stupid for arguing against him. No, that's when you know you've won the argument. He uses that word because he doesn't have any arguments left.

I love it. All right, Heath, you've got an interesting one here. In Roto, well, both points and Rode. You have Whitmerfield ranked ahead of D. Gordon. Homer. Homer. Homer. Well, D. Gordon's old.

He's obviously declining. Whitmeryfield was awesome last year. Objective homerism. D. Gordon was better. D. Gordon. D. Gordon was better in both points and roto, but he played 13 more games than Whitmerryfield. But Gordon was the number three second baseman of rodo. You should not say in points and roto because I have one set of rankings that are the same for points in Roto.

That's how Scott and I do our rankings at the end of the year. We don't do one set of points and one set of Roto. I see. Okay. So it's just based on points. It's based on points. And it was maybe not considerably, but definitely better than D. Gordon on a per game basis last year in points. Yeah, and I wasn't really going to fight you on points necessarily.

I thought it was a Roto thing. But I don't know. I mean, I guess you have to buy into Whitmerichfield. In Roto, I would rather have D. Gordon than Whitmeryfield. Okay. I do think you have to buy into what he did last year, though, with Whitmeryfield. I don't know that everybody's going to. Can I tell you something?

Every time I put his name into baseball reference to search it, because I'm just, you know, sometimes when you have words and you write one word a lot, but you don't write the other word very much, you just add a letter. Like, if I'm trying to write help, I always write heat. I don't write health. So whenever I search for Whitmerfield, I search for White Maryfield. I have one like that. Every time I put together Jamie's start of the week call, there's a bus. I always write buster alert because that's the name of my dog. I was really hoping you were going to say you write butt alert.

Yeah, I say that's kind of what I was thinking. I do, I write pooholes, P-U-J-O-L-E-S every time I write it. So, yeah. So kind of. Anyway, yeah, that's just a points thing. And the funny thing is what Maryfield's a year younger than D. Gordon. There you go. Well, where does D. Gordon play next year?

He's second base. I would think he's going to be a second base. But probably not Miami. He's a free agent, or do you think they're going to trade him? It sounds like they're going to trade. I would guess him and Stan for sure. Okay. Yeah, I don't know.

I'm not sure that it matters. Except they did have two players who had 120 RBIs, so that kind of factors. He scored 112 rounds. Yeah, all right, that could definitely come down. More of Heath's rankings. Johnny Quato, 17th overall at starting pitch. pitcher. Cole Hamill's 21st. How about that? What's the takeaway here?

The takeaway is they both had bad years, and Hamels in particular, I mean, really showed some very negative signs. I'm surprised you have him as a top 25 pitcher. Yeah, I mean, as far as Quo, I expect a bounce back year. He's still going to pitch in the National League in a fantastic park. so I'm not as worried about him and for Hamels it's listen I think you get outside of the top 17 or 18 starting pitchers and there's you're

banking on something being better from last year or something holding up that you don't necessarily believe in 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings you know that was not good no

he battled some injuries Hamels outperformed his fit by more than Justin Berlander did last year. It was 0.42 on baseball reference. Yeah. I thought Verlander was 0.5.1. All right. So, so less than.

Objectively, it is less than. Objectively less than. He is objectively about to turn 34. And Verlander 35. Exactly. Verlander had a bounce back year at 34. Kind of. No, he was pretty much as good as he was last year.

Okay. So there's that. Chris, can you imagine Cole Hamels being the top 25 starting pitcher for you? I can imagine it. Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh. Pitchers. How was weird.

Buster. Pitchers, just, you know, anything can happen. We can't predict pitchers. But no, I would certainly not take Cole Hamels as a top 30 pitcher next year. I don't think if he starts falling into the 30, 35 range, I would probably start drafting him. But if he's going in that 20 range in the fourth or fifth round, I don't think there's any way I'll take Cole Hamill's next year.

Does it remind you a little bit of people kind of holding out hope for one more good Felix Hernandez's year? Yeah, a little bit. And the difference at least Felix got some promising signs last year early on with his velocity pitching in the world baseball class. So we get to next spring, Cole Hamels is throwing a mile per hour. harder than he was this year. Maybe then I'll be a little more optimistic, but that was the only reason I was really hopeful with Felix. Well, no, I'm just saying you're taking him as a top 30 pitcher. That does seem optimistic to me for Hamill. Okay. That's fair. By the way, I love the new

CBS sports fantasy slogan. We can't predict pitchers. I mean, show me the lie. I mean, we have to predict pictures. I never said we can't predict pitchers. No, you didn't. but Chris did, you know. We can't, I just think it's funny. I can predict Pittsburgh much better than I can predict pitchers. You predicted a James Paxson breakout. Everybody did. All of you guys did.

There are, getting a prediction right does not mean that you can predict something, if that makes sense. It doesn't, but, oh, no, it does. It does. And finally, Heath, I'll save it. I'll save it. No, this is one of the ones. I feel more strongly about. Okay.

You have Xander Bogart's as your number five shortstop. I know Scott is pretty low on Bogarts. I don't believe that, like, we have basically seen a different Zander Bogarts every year of his career. And I don't automatically believe that the worst version we've seen is now the real Xander Bogarts. Okay. So let's take a look at where he, oh, I'd tell you exactly where he finished. Yeah, he was not good last year.

I know that. He's such a weird player. Like I understand what he did in 2015 looks unsustainable. What he did in 2016 does. And well, that was the thing is that what he did in 2017, 15 was unsustainable, but he was just as good, if not better in 2016, in a different unsustainable way. And then 2017 kind of looks like everything fits. I think 2017 looks like the worst of 2015 and the worst of 2016.

He went back to less of a more of a ground ball line drive approach, less fly balls, but his babbip went down from the year before. That doesn't make any sense. So this is Andrew Bogart's for talking about who is ninth at shortstop in points, but 17th in Roto. He hit 273. He slugged just 403 last year. Ten home runs, 62 RBIs. But he finished strong.

His last three weeks were great. His babbib didn't really go down. So you want to keep discussing that? I'm sorry, I didn't know you were done there. Yeah, I mean, 335 to 3.27, that's two hits. Okay, so some of the people that you've got Bogarts ahead of, I've to pull that up again, but it's like... Objectively, it did go down. Yes.

Alex Bregman. You're Bogart's head of Alex Bregman. I think I have a feeling Bregman will go ahead of him. Gene Seguerra, Zach Cozart, Elvis Andrews, Dedea Gagorius, Andrews, Andrewsson Simmons. The only one that I even feel questionable about

out of that list of names you just gave me as Alex Breggling? It has to be Breggling. I don't think it has to be Bregglin. No, if there was one that you were questionable. Yeah, but the rest of those guys, I absolutely feel better about Zander Bogartz. Because I do still believe,

and I know Chris used to believe this, but doesn't seem like he does anymore, that last year does not just erase everything that happened in the two or three years before that. Correct. I, yeah, I agree with that. That's a good philosophy. So what?

Yeah. The year before. What? But, but like, he's never had an incredible year. I mean, he batted 294 with 21 home runs and 13 steals in 2016. An 802 OPS. The lineup around him was incredible. He has been a top five shortstop each of the two years before last year.

But look at how good shortstop is now. he's going to have to elevate his game 8-02 OPS with 13 steals is probably not getting it done Well we lost Manny Machado from Shortstop right Mm-hmm yeah And we gained Bregman Bregman

So I don't know that shortstop is going to be hugely better than it was I mean Gregorius could Was better than him last year Yes And I pretty much buy what Gregorius did last year.

I don't totally buy what Gregorius did last year, but I don't think he's going to have a huge drop-off. Like, I think the underlying numbers for D.D. Gregorius are more promising than they are for Zanderbogers. Well, it's interesting. I mean, he's the kind of guy that could be,

I don't know, a post-type breakout or something, someone that people kind of give up on way too early. I would guess based on how everyone seems to feel about him, and I know how low-sense, Scott's going to have him ranked, that I'm going to have Zana Brogarts on a lot of my teams next year. Okay. Well, hopefully we'll have you on more and more podcasts. Let's see, I kind of ran out of time today, but I want to read a couple of emails.

Phil says, I heard you guys briefly discussed Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez on the podcast last week. I'm a Tigers fan. I live in Detroit. I thought I would send over some info on both of them. Along with Miguel Cabrera being heard, it came out recently that his wife filed for divorce on the day before the season. started. Maybe that significantly impacted him. And for Victor Martinez, he was dealing with his irregular heartbeat, ended up getting surgery that ended his season. I can't find the news article, but I remember reading something

that said, due to his medical condition, the Tigers may end up just releasing Victor Martinez. Maybe that could pave the way for Miguel Cabrera to become a permanent DH, which is what me and Chris would love to see happen. And I was actually also surprised to see that Heath has Cabrera ranked like seventh at first base or something, higher than Scott. So it's Bizarro Heath. It is Bizarro Heath. I mean, I wouldn't have Scott ranked very high. Right.

It makes sense with what I have said about like seven different guys now that I expect Miguel Cabrero to bounce back. What are you mean? Are you buying bad performances from anyone last year? No. No. Nothing that happened last year actually mattered. That's exactly what I'm saying. I guess what I am saying is not.

I'm not expecting Miguel Cabrera to be as good as who we thought he was two years ago, but I expect him to bounce back closer to that than what he was last year. So who was a bust last year that maybe you buy into, the badness? The ones that I called. Well, who... The ones who validate Heath's ego. I think Rick Porcelo pitched last year, like he had most ever... other year in his career, except for the one year where he was really good.

Yep. So I would say that Rick Porcelo fits into that. Okay. Man. Jonathan VR. Who was coming off of just one great year. Let's take somebody that had a track record and was actually a bust. Okay.

Let me see if I can, off the top of my head. Wilmire. Matt Carpenter. No. I'm higher on Wilmire's than Scott. What about Matt Carpenter? Yeah, I'm higher on Matt Carpenter than Scott. Robinson Connell.

Was he a bust last year? I would say so. 280 with a 453 slugging percentage, 23 homers. He was like the 10th best first basement in fantasy. What about Rudnett-Odorf? Wait, what about Conno? First we have to answer that. I expect Canoe to be a top 10 second baseman this year, but maybe not quite as good.

He's a little older, too. Answer the question. What? Answer the question. Ruegnet O'Dore? Yeah. He's got a lot of potential, but he maybe dropped in April. All right.

Next email. Last email of the show. From Tyler and Phoenix. Yeah, that's the one. Dear Burton Ernie, this is just me and Chris. I need help figuring out who I'm going to keep. Five total keepers can keep them forever in that round. Ooh, wow.

Luis Severino, I'm keeping in the 26th round. Carlos Correa in the 25th. And Gary Sanchez in the 13th. That's a pretty good start. So I need two more. Do I keep Bregman in the 14th? Ozuna in the 15th? Andrews in the 7th.

Justin Turner in the 5th. Or Reese Hoskins in the 14th? It's a tough one. I think Ozuna is one of the keepers. Oh, Bregman in the 14th. is well. It is,

but you already have a shortstop. And he's, he's your third base. Bregman. Right, but I don't know if Bregman,

Bregman in the 14th holds more value if he's a shortstop. Sure, but you have to play, like, well, what's the other option?

What I'm saying is I think Ozuna hits better than Bregman? Yeah. I think it's down to Bregman or Hoskins for the last spot for me.

Because I just, you're not playing Ozuna or, Andrews. No, with Corray. Turner's 33. Right.

If you're talking about long-term keepers, I don't think Turner fits. So Scott would definitely say Breggman and Hoskins. That's kind of where I was leaning too, because I don't know if I can buy into Ozuna. Maybe I just should. He was, like, if Reese Hoskins ever has a season as good as Marcelo Zuna's 2017, that would be pretty surprising, right? I don't know. If Reese Hoskins hits 321 with 37 homers and 100.

24 runs driven in. That's a huge win for Reese Hoskins. Yeah, especially since they're going to change the baseball. But yeah. And OZuna's not just that guy from now. But the thing is, like, if Marcel OZuna ever has a season like that again, it would be a huge win for Marcel O'Suna. Sure. I'm not keeping him, I'm getting last year's production.

Right, but like there's a track record with Ozuna that represents what you hope Reese Hoskins can turn into and what you hope Alex Breggman can turn into. So, Heath, are you also keeping? I think O'Zuna is easily the right call among those three. All right. All right. I don't think it's easy. I think it's those three are the finalists.

I will say Ozuna and Hoskins. That's where I was leaving. Ozuna and Hoskins, it is. Thank you very much. Thank you all for listening. Heath, good to have you back. It was great to be here. I hope you let me come back more often.

I absolutely hope you're back more often. For Heath and for Chris, I think we're going to get Scott next week, right? Scott is finally back. All right. Outstanding. Looking forward to it. Scott and I were at the same football game last weekend, and we decided not to meet up, but we were too far away.

Wow. Yeah. Kind of a bummer. We'll have to talk about it on the air. I'm sure everybody's going forward to that. See you later.