Fantasy Baseball Today - 11/14: First Base is Terrible (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 14, 2018

What happened to First Base? The dominant position that was ripe with home runs and RBIs has dropped off dramatically. But hey, you still need to draft one. So today we look at Scott White's rankings. First, we'll tell you which players you should trade for in your Dynasty leagues (3:05) ... Can you believe Scott has Jurickson Profar as a Top 12 first baseman (5:30)? Well it actually makes sense and Scott tells you why. Then we've got some news and notes (13:22) including our thoughts on the Mallex Smith trade ... Getting into the Top 12 first basemen (20:15). Is Freddie Freeman an elite player? is Joey Votto done (26:40)? What happened to Jose Abreu (28:08)? Also our thoughts on Cody Bellinger (30:36), Jesus Aguilar (35:15), Max Muncy, Edwin Encarnacion and more ... 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

First base is terrible. First base is terrible. First base is terrible. And welcome to 2019, everybody. We're going to take a look at Scott White's early first base rankings, the top 12. And I would say much more, but not really that much more, to be quite honest with you. It's going to be mostly that.

Some news and notes there. There was a train. It was a crazy trade. Scott Malick Smith got traded. What? Back to, back from whence he came. Yeah? A brief layover in Seattle going from Atlanta to Tampa. Well, he's back in Seattle.

Can I, can I just get one thing clarified? Eh. It is not 2019. Well, it almost is. No. No, it's a month and a half a way. But we're looking ahead. Give you the most generous reading.

You're 50 days off, Adam. So, you know, I want everybody to sit there on pins and needles at the start of each show thinking, Is Chris on? Is Chris on? I'm so sorry to disappoint. He's on. No, they like you, Chris. They like you. I like you. I like Chris. What did you say before? Do you really like me, Adam?

I do, yes. I was in New York City this week, and you know who wasn't? Me? Adam Azer. He fled. He heard I was going to be there. That's what I wanted to make fun of Chris for. Chris has like a little bit of time to explore New York City. Are you going to make fun of me for going to the Met?

Yeah, you dork? Who goes? The most famous museum in the United States of America? That's the burn you're going with? Yeah, what a dork. Who goes through a museum? Cultured people, Adam. People who want to see paintings by Van Gogh and Cizan.

All right? I saw lots of paintings. I love an art museum. Love an art museum. You should have gone to the movies. They have great movies. theaters in New York City. Here's our tweet of the day.

I'm going to sink Ghostbusters, too. Is it the Statue of Liberty? Yes. Walking. I did. I walked like five miles. It was great. I just left my hotel and started walking. Okay. Then it's acceptable to make a quick stop at the Met on the way to the Statue of Liberty. I don't think he got my Ghostbusters, too, reference to you.

I did. Were they with the slime and the Statue of Liberty comes to life? Yeah. Yeah. The Statue of Liberty is better than a stationary statue of Liberty. Come on. It's a movie that's based on the high C guy, right? The high C guy. Ectocooler. All right, so anyway, tweet of the day is...

Ector Cooler is disgusting. From Baxter Jones. Are there any top trade targets you'd be looking at in Dynasty Leagues right now, Scott White? Well, this is always a difficult question to answer because you don't know exactly what qualifies as an under-the-radar prospect in your particular... League. I would assume the big name prospects are well known and nobody's parting with them, if it's a true Dynasty League. But having done some prospect research here over the last couple weeks, I got a few names for you. Okay. I think Nathaniel Lowe of Tampa Bay, first baseman, really came on last year and it could actually be up this year. He made it all the way to AAA. and just crushed it at every level.

Added power that seems to be legit. I like him a lot. I think another Ray's player, Rays actually have a really deep farm system. Vidal Bruhan, a second basement in the Ray's system, who gets on base a ton, very fast, steals a lot of bases, and is young enough that you could see him developing power. I think the ceiling's pretty high for him.

another young player who is probably years away in the national system, Luis Garcia. The numbers don't blow you away, which is why I think maybe you could get him for less than he's worth. The scouts are super high on him. It feels like there may be like a Robinson Canoe type profile there for Luis Garcia. And then I'll throw one more name at you, Nolan Gorman of the Cardinals. He was their first round pick last year, but only 19th overall, I think, and showed a ton of power in his rookie league performance. And he's supposed to have a ton of power.

Supposed to be in middle of the order bat, already making good on that. Nolan Gorman. All right. Can you read the four names again? Yes. The one who is close to contributing is Nathaniel Lowe of the Rays, the first baseman, and then the three who are further away, Vidal Bruhan, second baseman for the Rays.

is V-I-D-A-L, Nolan Gorman, third baseman for the Cardinals, and a shortstop in the Nationals organization, Luis Garcia. Can you spell the first names of all of them, or just Vidal? I thought the others were self-explanatory.

All right, thank you very much, Scott White. So I want to get into the first base just a little bit, and we'll get into it more a little bit later. So I tried to do something hot, something controversial, something that the people were going to remember. Water cooler talk kind of stuff. Scott White's most egregious first base ranking.

Woo! You know what, Chris Towers? I couldn't really find anything, but here's one. Scott White, that jerk has jerks in ProFar as his number 11 first basement, Chris. Can you believe that? And he was actually eighth and points in 12th and rotos. So it's completely ridiculous, Chris Towers. Jerks and Profar is Scott's number 11 first baseman.

that seems eminently reasonable to me Adam yeah I know it is pretty reasonable stop stoking the flame that doesn't exist if you stoke a non-existent flame you know what you get dust flying everywhere

I will say like jerks in pro fire pro far number 11 that's gross like he had like a 793 OPS last season I think is that the math like okay he doesn't walk he walks a decent amount he doesn't strike out very much he'll run a little

but like really yeah that that's that's kind of what i'm up 12 yeah right exactly well part of it is because you know you're surprised it is surprising how high he finished at everywhere he's eligible not just first base uh but part of it's i think he's going to get better i think i think he was one of the unluckiest titters in baseball last year which may seem kind of strange since it was his best season by far, but really low Babbat in a way that doesn't make sense. Okay, I guess, you know, the nice thing about ProFar, he's eligible at first, third, and short. He played 10 games at second base last year, so it's certainly reasonable that he could become eligible at some point in the season at second base.

And he's good in points leagues. He hits a lot of doubles and triples, 35 doubles, six triples in 146 games. He has a good walk-to-strike-out ratio. I'm assuming, Scott, you have pro far higher in points than Roto? Not at first base. It's the same at first base, but at other positions, yes. Okay. All right, yeah, so we'll dig into it a little bit deeper there,

but that's just, do you think he's a high upside guy, 254 batting average with 20 home runs and 10 steals? Is he a high upside guy or just kind of a steady guy? I think it remains to be seen. I think if the downside is who he was last year, obviously that's still a valuable player. But this is a guy who, when he was 20-21, was considered the best prospect in baseball, and it's dealt with injuries since then last year,

was the clearest sign of him living up to that potential. And like I said, he did it in spite of bad luck. So I don't think we've seen the best of pro far. I'd be reluctant to say he's going to be a total stud in fantasy. but like I said, this is the downside. It's pretty darn good. And that's kind of where we're at with first base. I mean, I guess if I'm drafting somebody to be a top 12 first baseman, in typical years, I'm expecting a lot of home runs, a lot of run production, but I don't know. And the funny thing is, like I feel like pro far eligible at first, third, and short, totally conceivable that somebody would actually use him at first base.

whereas that just would not have happened in previous years, I guess. Yeah. No, I'm definitely on board with the first base is weak argument after resisting it for a long time. I think it's the third weakest position in fantasy. You got catcher, obviously, followed by second base and then first base. That's amazing. So where's ProFar in your shortstop rankings? Let me pull those up.

He's 11th at first base. So in points leagues, he's also a... 11th. In Roto, I'm going to guess he's 12. 12. Yeah. And like in years past, this was a position that you might have seen 12 guys go in the top 100. Yeah. He's 13th in Roto, not 12th. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's a lot of the difference between shortstop and first base in terms of depth. 10th in my shortstop rankings is

Corey Seeger, who people were drafting as early as what, round three last year. Ninth is Carlos Correa, who people were drafting in round one last year. So there's just so many studs at shortstop now. And there isn't at first base. All of them are getting old. You look at the first base ADP from last year.

The top six were all, they're all probably top six. six now. But then you look at number seven, Reese Hoskins, he's not first base eligible. Number eight, I'm an incarnation, continuing to decline. Buster Posey, I mean, catcher, but still not going to be drafted in the top 60 again. Will Myers,

not first base eligible, right? He is third and outfield, yep. First. Daniel Murphy, nobody's drafting him in the top 75. Eric Hosmer was 81, Miguel Cabrera was 84, Miguel Seno was 89. The position has just, it's taken a real hit. And guys that we were hoping would break out,

guys like Matt Olson or Justin Smoke even sustaining his 2017 breakout, they haven't made that leap yet. Chris, how old are you? I'm 30 years old, American. Yeah, yeah, you know what? You're old. You look old, dude. Okay.

Have you ever, Chris, have you ever looked at a photo of yourself from five years ago and thought, I looked young. What happened to that guy? Where did all these wrinkles come from? What's going on with my skin? Have you thought about that?

I do. I do moisturize now. Well, it's not enough. Most guys don't do nearly enough for their skin, despite all it does for them. Soap and water, it's not enough to prevent aging. Moisturizing, get out of here. You need to go to forehems.com. People, you want to get that youthful look back.

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One more time. Forhems.com slash FBT Skin. Didn't mean a pick on either, Chris. I'm older than you are and I look it. Gary Sanchez is younger than all of us, but he had shoulder surgery. A little bit of conflict about. whether or not this actually affected his 2018 production. He says no.

Aaron Boone said, yeah, maybe. But Gary Sanchez had shoulder surgery. Meanwhile, the raise acquired Mike Sinino, outfielder DiR Moherredia, and pitcher Michael Plasmeier from the Mariners. They gave up Malick Smith and outfielder Jake Fraily. So, Chris, value up, down or the same, or Malick Smith.

I think it's probably the same. I don't think he's not necessarily the type of player is going to be impacted greatly by a change in park. And I don't think this is a big change in park for him anyway. He's going from bad hitters park to maybe a slightly better hitter's park, but not one where we're going to see this big increase in power for him. I just, I hope he continues to run. That's the big thing. He started running in the second half, especially last season, a ton.

I like the skill set. He's got pretty good plate discipline. last year he finally figured out how to hit the ball with at least enough authority that he wasn't totally unplayable he can be a really good roto option and you you figure that'll be a better offense than the one he was playing in in Tampa so hopefully I'm not sure because they're well Nelson Cruz is a yeah Nelson Cruz is a free agent so there's there's definitely some questions there but I do think it's good news just from the in the respect that the The Mariners just gave up their starting catcher to get him, right?

They clearly value Malick Smith in a way. I wasn't completely sure the raise did. And when he had Austin Meadows knocking on the door, is it possible? He could have bumped Smith out of the lineup at times had he stayed with the race. Well, now they both have jobs. So I think it's good news for both of them. And, you know, Smith is probably a mid-round pick, certainly in Roto. and I think he probably deserves to be drafted in three outfielder points leagues too.

Meadows is going to go a little later, but they're certainly upside there. I think my reaction to this was like for the raise, why? It seems like they had stumbled on something pretty impressive with Malick Smith. He stole 40 bases. He improved as a hitter. He batted 296 with 47 walks and 98 strikeouts. Pretty good. He was a really stellar fantasy option, even in points leagues.

and they traded him for a catcher who strikes out a ton who's going to hit 200. I have more to say about Zanino, but I just wonder, like, maybe Malik Smith just had his best year as a hitter, and he's just not that good, and the industry knows that. I don't know. It just seemed like a low haul for him. I don't know that I didn't see it that way. I thought, you know, see, Malick Smith is so good defensively that it complicates things, right?

You could make an argument for him to stay in the lineup just because of defense. But in terms of what he brings offensively, it's kind of a, he's kind of an ill-fitting part in today's game. And a starting caliber catcher, as fantasy owners know, is really hard to find. Zunino's considered a good defender, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, he is. But other than that, he's not a starting caliber catcher, really. Oh, he's definitely a starting caliber catcher. Yeah. He's too much.

I think the raise. needed to trade someone in their outfield. You know, Kevin Kiermeier, when he's healthy, obviously one of the best centerfielders in baseball. Tommy Fam really good. And they want to play Austin Meadows. So they kind of had to move someone. And I think that's ultimately what it comes down to is that just they looked at their collection of outfielders and figured this guy was the most expendable.

Now, maybe I don't agree. I think Austin Meadows, I'm not sure he can play. but they would rather, I think that's ultimately what it comes down to is they would rather see if Austin Meadows can do it than Malick Smith. And they also have Brandon Lau, who, you know, they have Joey Wendell, who they like a lot at second base, so where does that leave Brandon Lowe, who looked great at the end of last season? Nathaniel Lowe, who I mentioned, could bump Jake Bowers to the outfield.

They have a lot of outfielders even after. Tritigmsmith. Okay. And look, Guillermo Heredia is not no slouch either. I mean, he probably doesn't deserve to start anywhere, but he's going to get some playing time. What I wanted to say about Zanino is he was the top eight catcher in 2017. He had a really bad year in 2018, although he hit home runs, but batted 201 again.

He had a spring training injury. He got hurt right before the start of the season, and he said it hurt his production. So maybe there's a little bounce back there for Zanito. but could be appealing in Roto leagues. According to Buster-only, the Cubs could trade Chris Bryant. Well, that's something we'll have to track, but that would be quite blockbustery. The Pirates signed Jung Ho Gong to a one-year $3 million deal. He didn't play much last year.

And Junjun Riu signed his one-year $17.9 million qualifying offer with the Dodgers. And then one more note from ESPN.com's David Schoen, he said about Ronald Acuna. Acuna's 552 slugging percentage in his age 20 season was the sixth best ever. The five in front of Acuna with slugging percentage in their age 20 season. Mel Ott, Alex Rodriguez, Ted Williams, Mike Trout, and Frank Robinson. Now do the same for Juan Soto in age 19 seasons. It's nobody, I believe.

Yeah, it's a good point. Melot was the only player who was even close to him as a 19-year-old. Not that I'm saying it should have been Soto instead of Acuna. Acuna was better, but Chris was making the argument on Twitter that in some ways Soto's was more historically significant. I think it's true. Soto Poppinski. That's my team name for next year. Soto Popinski.

Why? Oh, geez. What's the matter with you? It's a punchout. You don't know how much out? I'm sorry, I don't remember that specific reference from the 30-year-old video game. Oh, you older than you. My bad.

So to Poppinski was the best character of Mike Tyson's punchout. Let's take a look at Scott White's first base rankings. You can see them on the website on CBS.com slash fantasy. Here we go. And Chris, the best way to take a look at Scott White's rankings is, of course, without Scott White, who is experiencing technical difficulties. So Chris and I are going to take this one home. We need to be...

I'm just trying to get Chris excited. Oh, yeah. This is great. Chris is not... He's just not feeling it. All right, so here are Scott's rankings. Yeah. These are points rankings.

Ooh. Paul Goldschmidt 1, Freddie Freeman 2, Anthony Rizzo 3. How do you feel about that order? Goldschmidt Freeman Rizzo. It's... This speaks to the place that the position is relative to where it's been, that I don't think, I think Goldschmidt and Freeman particularly are right in the same tier,

and I think they're both probably second tier hitters overall. Yeah. Goldsmith, Goldsmith in a points leave for sure was much more than that after the first month of the season. He was terrific. That said, you know, there are some signs of maybe some decline. and then Freeman Like My first question for Scott Is Freddie Freeman an elite player

So you can pretend to be Scott And answer that question You just said he's a second-tier hitter What happened to the home runs? You know, he's pretty awesome Should I do a Scott impersonation? Sure He's more

Well Well All right That's all I can do Because he's just He's talks slow I can't really do anything else. That's all I know.

That's great. Is Freddie Freeman still an elite header? It's an interesting question, and I'm trying to filibuster so I can pull up his numbers. I think he's really had one. A season and a half. This is a great Scott impression without even try. He's really, he's had a season and a half as a truly elite player. And what I mean by that is he's always been able to hit for power.

He's always had pretty good plate discipline. But 2016 and then 2017, at least before the wrist injury in 2017, he had emerged as a legitimate contender for a top five overall hitter spot because he was hitting for power. He steals bases now a little bit, 6, 8, 10 over his last three seasons.

But the difference is 2016, he had 34 homers, 2017, he had 28, and that was in 170 games. Yeah, he was on pace for like 36 home runs that year. And it was before, you know, really before he, he suffered that wrist injury when he said, it feels like I'm swinging a newspaper, I think, was the quote at the end of the season. He played through it, but he probably shouldn't. And one thing that I think we've seen when it comes to those wrist and hand injuries is sometimes it can take a full year beyond to get past them. And so that's my question with Freddie Freeman. He certainly

has the talent to be an elite hitter. He just has to get back to the 35 Homer pace. And if he does, then yeah, I don't think there's any question he's an elite hitter. It's just there's enough question there for me that I would take him after Goldschmidt and I would probably drop him closer to the second round, maybe middle second round, rather than the late first, early second we were taking him last year. Sure, but I do think that it just needs to get those home runs up. For whatever reason, he hit a lot fewer fly balls last year. Well, the reason is he hit a ton of line drives.

He has 32% of his batted balls for line drives. So his ground ball rate drops almost 10 points. But his fly ball rate drops almost 10 points. His ground ball rate actually only goes up 1.5%. And so, you know, obviously fly balls. We do home runs divided by fly balls. But really, a line drive can be a fly ball too. So he still hit the ball in the air.

And that's important. Just the home run rate went down and the fly ball rate went down. But he's so good. So I still feel pretty good about all three of them. I mean, I don't think Rizzo is old by any means. You know, he had a down year. He was the most consistent player in fantasy, you could argue. He and maybe Chris Davis before that.

I don't really see a reason that he, I don't see a reason why that wasn't just a bad year, just a blip for Anthony Rizzo. You know, there's been a lot of talk about their hitting coach. And Chili Davis coming out, he got fired and saying, and hey, guys have to make adjustments. Pitchers aren't pitching the launch angles anymore. They're going in a different direction. Maybe it just wasn't a good fit with Chili Davis last year,

and some of their hitters really underachieved. Yeah, and what was it? Like Chris Bryan has said that they were, it was all about trying to hit the ball to all fields. Right. It was the approach that they wanted. And they did do that, but it backfired, I think, in a production standpoint.

Yeah, I don't think that's necessarily what you want. I want, when I'm looking at this position, I think I want one of the, these first three guys or I want Joey Votto. That's pretty much it. I want Joey Votto for sure. Votto, by the way, is not next in the rankings. Matt Carpenter is.

He's fourth. And Heath has him second, which is interesting. Now, Heath's rankings are updated? Yes. Oh, apparently they are. Look at that one day ago. Yeah, so Heath has him second. That's probably just in points leagues.

I am a little nervous about Carpenter. I think you have to be. Anytime someone's, I think just as a general rule, if someone's coming off the best season of their career, especially as a 33 or 34 year old, you probably don't want to draft them at cost. And that's what you're going to have to do with Matt Carpenter. And that's not to say that I think Matt Carpenter's not excellent. I think he's really, really good.

But, you know, I'm not sure if Matt Carpenter became a different player last year. I think he had the top range of his outcome, and I'm not going to draft him at that. I'm going to pass on him where you're going to have to take him. All right, Scott. Welcome back. Thank you. Scott's back for 10 minutes, then he has to go, by the way. But, yeah, my second question then, and you can talk about why you have Carpenter ranked ahead of him.

Is Joey Vato done? is Joey Vito done. He was 12th in points. 21st in Roto last year. He had 12 home runs. Scott, is Joey Votto done? I don't think so. I think if there's anybody who you could trust to bounce back at him, especially since he basically broke it down himself.

The way he described it in September was that he anticipated a skills decline was coming that didn't actually come. And so he kind of adjusted his swing prematurely. His fly ball. It's kind of the same thing you were talking about with the Cubs. He

stopped hitting fly balls at the rate he normally hits them. So of course his home run total fell down, but dropped. But it turns out he was hitting the ball as hard as ever so he didn't need to do that. The fact he recognized that, and the fact he has a history of successful

self-assessments, that's something he's done frequently over the years and actually backs up what he's saying. He's old. He's had his share of injuries over the years, too. So I'm not, I don't think it's a slam dunk he bounces back. But there's definitely hope there. Okay.

So it's Scott's top five, Goldsmith, Freeman, Rizzo, Carpenter, and Vado. And then we have Jose Abraeu at six. Yeah. What happened to him? What happened to Jose Abrae? Bad year for him. Yeah, I don't... I mean, obviously he had the...

What was it? Was it a hernia or an appendectomy? Something abdominal at the end of the season. He also had an infection. I know that. Okay, so he had a few things going on. It's fair to say he wasn't at his healthiest. But, I mean, in terms of the bat-at-ball profile,

it was basically what we're used to seeing from Jose Abraeu. I think it was just... one of those weird situations where like everything that everything that could go wrong in terms of law of averages did like he had his worst babbip ever in a way that's hard to explain he had his worst home run to fly ball well one of his worst home run to fly ball rates ever in a way that doesn't make a lot of sense either I think he's fine I think I'll bounce back and I think it was just

it was a it was a version of Jose Abraeu and it was on the lower end of what you his range of expected outcomes. This is a thing that I would love to figure out a way to represent more when we do stuff like projections within our fantasy product or stuff like that is highlighting these range of expectations. Because when we look at, and I'll throw Matt Carpenter out there again, Matt Carbenter and Jose Obrayu is kind of mirror images. I don't necessarily think Jose O'Brayu was a dramatically worse player in 2017 or 2018.

And I don't think Matt Carpenter was a dramatically better player. I think we saw a kind of reasonable end of their expectations. And you can throw Christian Yelich in there as another guy who probably had close to his best case scenario season in 2018. And that just that sometimes happens. Okay. And it's not necessarily indicative. Like Joey Votto, there are reasons beyond that. But I think these guys can largely be explained by variation.

and then Abraeu does have, you know, some physical factors beyond that should not linger into 28-19. Okay, so let's take a little. We're basically going to focus on the top 12 here. We'll go a little bit deeper. So it's Goldschmidt, Freeman, Rizzo, Carpenter, Vado, Abraeu, top six. How about 7, 8, and 9? Cody Bellinger, Jesus Aguilar, and Edwin Encarnacion. Cody Bellinger, Jesus Aguilar, Edwin, Encarnacion.

Next question for Scott. Is Cody Bellinger bouncing back? from a sophomore slump. By ranking him this high, I'm obviously saying he is. Maybe not all the way back, but he wasn't the seventh-best first baseman on a per game basis who were otherwise last year. So to rank him that high, I obviously think that, you know, this, what the version we saw in 2018 wasn't what we should expect to see going.

forward. He's already, he was nearly a 40 homer guy as a 21-year-old rookie, and he still has that power profile in terms of elevating the ball, hitting it hard, pulling it. Like, he should have hit more home runs than he did, and I think, I think his bat-a-ball profile will play out that way more going forward. Do you think, how about this? Do you think, Cody Bellinger is an everyday player or does he sit against lefties? Let me get his splits real quick. His OPS... He literally played every day.

Okay, but not in the playoffs. But not in the playoffs. And he batted 226 with a 376 slugging percentage against lefties. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. He can play center field. So he's not... We think of him as a first basement, but he's not

limited defensively. He plays a premium. defensive position and probably will more often than not now that Max Muncie's in the mix. So that'll help keep him in the lineup. He's not as good against left-handers as Max Muncie was, and presumably is, and yet he was always getting the start over Muncie against left-handers. So particularly because a lot of the Dodgers' right-handed bats are leaving this off-season, the biggest being Mani Machado and Brian Dozier, presumably.

they're not going to have as many options and Cody Bellinger for most of the season wasn't really somebody they considered sitting. How about this? Are you ready for this one? Are your earboxes ready for this? I'm ready. I'm ready. Cody Bellinger should be the number four first baseman heading into next season. Woo!

Bold. So ahead of the boy Vodal? Especially in Roto Leaks. Ahead of your boy Vodda. Yes. He stole 14 bases last season. and I see no reason why he couldn't do that again. Now he's not going to go 14 for 15 again,

but he's still 10 and 480 at bats the year before. This is a guy with some speed, and at this position, that is super valuable. And if he can even take another step forward, like we've seen from Paul Goldschmidt in his career, I think there is huge upside. I think Cody Bellinger could very well beat the next Paul Goldschmidt for fans.

I like it. Okay, okay. Good stuff. I got one more question for Scott before I let him go. Scott, what's your favorite app to buy sports, concerts, comedy, and theater tickets? I believe that correct answer as somebody who listens to this podcast is Seat Geek. Correct. I do have another fantasy baseball question for you after I tell you about Seekek.

And the promo code to get 20 bucks off your first Seat Geek purchase, of course, is Fantasy. Fantasy 20 bucks off your – that's a great offer, by the way. 20 bucks off your first purchase. Look, getting tickets online can be very complicated. There are hundreds of sites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know who to trust. That's why Seekek is the way to go. Seekkeek pulls millions of tickets into one place so you can easily find the seats that you want for a price you're willing to pay.

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Whatever it was. Use Seekkeek and get there. Every purchase is fully guaranteed. And again, it's not just sports. It's concerts, comedy, and theater as well. The code is Fantasy. So download the Seekkekeek app and use the code fantasy. That is $20 off your first Seekkeek purchase with the code fantasy. Seekkeek, life's an event. We have the tickets. Scott, is Jesus Aguilar a stud? I think so But I came out and said that Toward the end of the first half

And then his second half was pretty dreadful But Let's consider why I said that It wasn't just because he happened to have great numbers At the end of the first half It's because He had great numbers Supported by a great

Hitter profile And that Was true even in the second half He he has both a high line drive rate and a high fly ball weight, which lends itself to hitting for both power. And it's average. Sky, you've been hanging out with the babies too much. Yeah, can't talk.

He hits the ball very hard. He's kind of predisposed to having a high Babbitt and doesn't strike out a ton. Like there's nothing really bad. in his hitter profile. And it's mostly all very good. So I, you know, the full season line may be more indicative than the first season line, but it's also, than the first half line, but it's also more indicative than the second half line. All right, Scott, get the hell out of here, sir.

Yeah, before I trip over myself. That was gross. All right. Hopefully you guys do a better job. See you later. All right. That's Scott White for the final time. It's me and Chris.

It's Chris and I going to finish the show now. Just bye Scott. All right, what do you think about the last four guys? So after Aguilar, it's Encarnacion, Carlos Santana, Jirkson, Profar, and Joey Gallo, noticeably absent Max Muncie, that funky Muncie. Encarnacion, Santana, Profar, and Gallo. You could take those four guys, actually throw in Hazers Aguilar, take probably the next 27th. seven guys at the position.

Throw them in a hat. It's going to have to be a big hat. Some of these guys are hefty. And you just pluck them out, and that's who's going to be the number eight first base. Best chance to be a star, Incarnacion, Santana, Profar, or Gallo, or Muncie? I'll do a ranked preference vote and go with Muncie, Gallo, Encarnacion. Yeah, I'd go Muncie one, too. The thing about Muncie is that he's...

slugged 529 against lefties. He doesn't need to sit against lefties. That was what was so curious about Dave Roberts' decision. He's just, he's a fascinating test case this year because he really had no track record whatsoever. And it's a more extreme version of Matt Carpenter, where if people buy into what he did last year, he should probably be like a fifth round pick. Yeah, I tend to not buy into, um,

One Year Wonders. So let me see where... I know I drafted Max Muncie in the... I know I drafted Max Muncie in the draft that we did a few weeks ago. So let me just take a look at the draft results. And... And this is... You know, we saw it with Justin Smoke a couple years ago.

Or Justin Boar going in the last year, both Justin Smoke and Justin Boar. Justin Smoke and Boar. All of the batted ball data and all of the things that we look at as, quote unquote talent metrics that, you know, these things that we think, you know, they get us further removed from the outcomes and they get us closer to the process and the things, the inputs that the players are putting in themselves and these things that they have more control over

and we look at them and say, well, look, the bad of ball data backs it up. Those things fluctuate as well. Now, they may fluctuate. They're more talent based than home runs and RBI and runs, but they're still, you can still just get hot. Like that, the concept of getting hot hasn't gone away, even though we might sometimes think about it. And, you know, we saw it with Hazers Aguilar this year as well. All the metrics pointed out that what he did in the first half was sustainable. It's just he was hot.

He played over his head. And that can happen. And that's the question with Max Muncie is, did he play over his head in 2018? I don't know what the answer is, Adam. Well, I mean, look, I'm not going to be very helpful. Whitmerfield ended up being one of the best draft picks last. year. Do you think Max Muncie is a top 100 player? Off the top of my head, that sounds right, yes. I would take him within the top 100.

Well, I took him 100th overall. Well, then I guess I wouldn't take him in the top 100, Adam. All right, so I was happy to get him there, but that was round 9 in a 12-team league. I don't think I'd take him in like round 7. Well, we were talking about how bad the outfield crop is, starting in that, like, sixth round range, maybe I would reach for Max Muncie in like the eighth or ninth round and just maybe lock in some upside. Well, that's where I took him in the ninth round.

Yeah. All right. For more, check out the website, cbsports.com slash fantasy. Let's read some emails to finish the show. This comes from Aaron from a city south of the north pole. A lot of options there. Caracas, Venezuela. Chris on

Dear Existential malaise Anticipation Research Parties And bubbled to the surface Of baseball discourse These are all things said on the podcast All right Dirty show Who said them?

I would love I would love to know who said those I only know what like One or two of those 13 words means And they're two and the 14 team head to head It categories

OBP League keep five, $260 budget. Chris Sale for 36, Kluber for 32, Snell for 11, Corbyn for 11, Lindor for 21, Turner

13, Mondesie 11, Donaldson 11. Who are the obvious ones? Then we'll go through the rest. Snell, Corbyn and Lindor are obvious and Turner. I assume that's Trey Turner. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It might not be.

Justin Turner for 13, no. Trey Turner for 13, yes. So that leaves us with... So let's assume it's Trey. That leaves us with one spot for sale at 36, Cluber at 32, Adoberto Mondesie at 11, and Donaldson at 11.

I don't... I think it's got to be sale, actually. And my first thought was just throw Sailing Kluber out because you've already got Snell and Corbyn. But I just don't like Mondesie and Donaldson at those values at all. All right. I will redefine.

few more emails here. Here's one. Ed from PDX. Portland? Oh, maybe? I don't know. All right, Ed says, dear Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam. I don't want to answer this question. I want Chris to answer it.

I play in a mini-dainty Keeper League where we keep five players year to year without any draft considerations or impact. In other words, each team keeps five players. Then we start the draft with whoever's left in the pool. I need to choose between Zander Bogarts and Mike Clevenger. It's a head-to-head categories league. OPS and batting average against pitchers is used, and quality starts instead of wins. So Clevenger or Bogarts.

His other keepers are all hitters, Acuna, Albies, Bess, and Jose Ramirez. First of all, I'm not 100% sure that it should be Bogart's versus Clevenger and not Albies versus Clevenger. having said that, I think I would take Bogart's over Clevenger and Albee's Over Clevenger. I got to read. Oh. Okay, here's an email from Peter from Williamsburg. The subject line is,

Atta boy, Chris Towers, with an exclamation point. All in caps and an exclamation point. Oh, yeah, this was fun. And he says, awesome stuff, Chris, and with a link to Bill James saying that all players are replaceable. I guess he's credited with you for that line of thought. No, you didn't see what happened? No.

This was a really weird thing that happened to me last week while I was out of town. So Bill James is one of my, I don't think it would be any surprise to anyone to know that Bill James is one of my baseball idols. Oh, you're in the story. Yes. I got into a Twitter argument with Bill James. And that Twitter argument was about, he made some flippant comment about Scott Boris. said that teams tanking was bad for baseball, and Bill James responded with,

what about players who are paid more than their worth? Which I thought was a dumb thing to say. So I said, what about players who paid less than what they're worth? And he said, I weep for them or my heart bleeds for them. Chris Tower. Okay, here's an NBC sports story. Chris Towers of CBS Sports replied, what about the players who are drastically underpaid for most of their career slash primes?

James snarkily responded, My heart bleeds for them. Towers and James went back and forth for a bit, and various other – Oh, wow, what a surprise there. Various other people from Twitter got involved. And what of James' replies? He wrote, if the players all retired tomorrow, we would replace them. The game would go on.

In three years, it would make no difference whatsoever. The players are not the game any more than the beer vendors are. Yeah, he was really on a – quite a tiring. The Red Sox publicly rebuked him. The MLB Players Association publicly rebuked him. It was bizarre. You're in an NBC sports article.

That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. And that happened. Like, I was away from my phone for the first time ever. When are you away from your phone? The entire day after that.

Wow. That was a strange thing to come back to. Yeah. I mean, I understand what he's saying, I guess, but I really don't believe in it. I don't believe in what he's saying.

Like, it's such a cold-hearted way of looking at baseball. People don't want to hear that stuff. I'm sorry. And it's just like, it really stinks that a lot of people think that sabermetrically inclined baseball and sports writers in general, all view players as replaceable and not humans and all this stuff. And it's like, why'd you have to say it, Bill?

Because now everybody's going to think it's true and it's not. And it's not true for Bill James. If you read his books, he loves baseball. He loves the individual personalities involved. But like he works in a front office. So, of course, he thinks players are overpaid. All right, last email is from John from the Need More Than One Podcast a Week fan movement

Oh, bad news for you, John, and everyone else No podcast next week for Thanksgiving. What? We'll be back after that. Unacceptable, Adam. Dear Wainwright, Shebler, and Woodward Bob's. Adam Scott and Chris.

I'm in it... Did you know that? No. Okay. I'm in an AOL only... I'm not going to figure it out. Yeah, I've been at A.L. Only Points League in the Pacific Northwest that overvalues mariners due to their...

locality. With the rumor that the team is going into full rebuild, which destinations would most help and which would most hurt the fantasy value of the following players if traded, hoping I can gain an edge on my opponents if they over or underbid for former meritors on new teams. And then he gives us Mitch Hanager, James Paxson, Edwin Diaz, and Gene Segura. Okay, that is an impossible question. Answer.

It is worth noting it does not sound like Hanigur and Diaz will be part of whatever rebuild occurs. is it does sound like the team views them as building blocks. I would not necessarily agree that a closure and a 28-year-old. Wait, wait. I think you accidentally contradicted yourself. You're saying Hanager and Diaz will be part of the rebuild. Will not be part of the fire sale.

Okay. Yeah. They view the closer and the 28-year-old coming off his first good season as building blocks. I don't necessarily agree, but it sounds like they're staying. So note that. Yeah, Paxon. I think is getting moved. Yeah, and he's been linked to the Braves most strongly from what I've seen,

and that would be a fine landing spot. I don't think SunTrust has turned out to be the hitting haven that we feared it would be unless Julio Toron is pitching. He has also obviously been linked to the Yankees, and not necessarily the best landing spot ever in terms of the home park he plays in, but that's an opportunity where he could win 18 games. Yeah, I wouldn't be too afraid of any ballpark for him. He's very good.

He is. You're looking at like, well, maybe he goes to the Yankees and puts up a 330 ERA. You're still very excited about drafting James Paxson. The question for him is whether he can stay healthy for the full season. You know what, though? Maybe I'm going to change my tune. I didn't notice this. Two years in a row, his road ERA is at least a run higher than his home ERA.

It was 366 in 2017, and it was, It was not quite a run. It was almost a full run. 424, full run higher than home. 424 last year. So maybe he does benefit from that home ballpark. I do think he's an ace when he's healthy. But it's something to consider, I guess.

Maybe he doesn't worry me that much. You know, if he has a 3-4 ERA as a Yankee, he'll still get to pitch half his games away from Yankee Stadium. Yeah, I don't like the ALE East because there's just – Yeah, there's one road part. There's one pitchers park, and there were a lot of good lineups. Well, there were a lot of good lineups. If you pitch for the Yankees, there's not that many anymore. Yeah, that's the thing.

You remove the Yankees from the equation, and there's one good lineup in the division right now. And they also play in the worst park, or the worst park for pitchers. The other team that plays in a really tough park, Baltimore, they might have, like, one major league caliber player next year. Well, the Toronto's a tough park, too. Yeah, it's not one that. you like avoid the way you do Fenway necessarily or Yankee Stadium i don't think so oh i thought it

well i mean you don't avoid it because the team isn't as good but if the red socks played in well if if a league average team played in toronto i think you give him a little bump but it's not it i'm not worried about james paxton having to pitch at the rogers center especially with the team that they're that he's going to be facing sure all right that's it for today's show and that's it for next week next week's show we'll talk to you in two weeks so have a uh uh thrilling Thanksgiving. Hey, that was, yeah, alliteration.

Nobody ever does that with Thanksgiving. Have a thrilling Thanksgiving, everybody. We're thankful that you're listening. We appreciate it. For Chris and Scott, I'm Adam. See you in two weeks.