Fantasy Baseball Today - 12-Team H2H Categories LIVE Mock Draft! (2/26 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Frank Stampfl, Scott White and Chris Towers are doing a live 12-team H2H categories mock draft! We'll talk through picks, rankings, strategy and daily lineups. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. And first pitch, watching. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Here we go.

First live mock draft of 2026. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, February 26th. When you're listening to this, of course. I am Frank Stamphle joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Here are the details of the draft. We have ourselves a 12-team head-ed categories with the standard 5-by-5. Batting average runs, RBI, home runs, and steals, ERA, whip, wins, saves, and strikeouts. Daily lineups, 25-inning weekly minimum, and it's all categories, not one win.

So if you win week 1, 10-Zip, you lose week 2, 0-10, your new record is 10-10. 10. So there you go. We tried to model it after the most popular format on Yahoo. So that is, that is, if you're wondering why those settings are different than the ones we normally talk about, well,

you know, we're broadening our horizons here, catering to a large section of the audience that maybe feels underserved. And as we learn during our category strategy week episode, there are a lot of people that play

Ted Ted categories in daily lineups. And so we are, we're looking now for you. So let's get this thing started. I have won the lottery. I am picking first overall. Chris is picking sixth. And Scott is picking 12th. So we'll talk through some of our decisions

and all kinds of wacky picks that happened throughout this draft. And Scott, without further ado, if you can hit that start button, we'll do it live. Do it live. And I am up. No surprise.

Going with the guy. My guy, Aaron Judge. first overall. Even with the two utility spots, should that change your pick? Two utility spots? Maybe Otani goes first overall? I mean, we just talked about this on yesterday's show.

We think Judge is just better. Yeah. Across the five categories. Mainly batting average, but I think runs an RBI. He gets an advantage too, right? And Otani steals advantage isn't what it was. really just that one year where he had the 59.

We got a lot of picks coming in real quick. They are flying off the board. So after I took Judge, no surprise, Otani, Bobby Witt Jr., Jose Ramirez, Juan Soto, pretty standard top five in a category draft. And then Chris, you are up at number six, Ronald Acuna Jr. Yeah, I'm glad. I'm glad Juan Soto was taken with the fifth pick, as he normally will be, just because I didn't want to have to explain why I was going to take Ronald Acuna ahead of Juan Soto.

I know everybody thinks. I'm crazy for doing that. But that's what I'd be doing. So I was going to take Ronald Ocuna, whether I was fifth or six. He's my number five overall player in the rankings. But now I don't have to explain it. Ronald Cunia, clearly the best player on the board at number six. I mean, Soto going ahead of going behind Jose Ramirez.

I think the ADP shows Soto ahead of Ramirez, right? That sounds right. 3.6 versus 5.2. The way I plan to do it is the way it played out. here Ramirez over Soto for position scarcity reasons, third base being the position of greatest anxiety this year. But yeah, I think it's a close call between those two. After Chris selected Ronald Acuna, we get Kyle Tucker at 7. Terrick Scouble, Julio Rodriguez, L.E.D. La Cruz. Scott, you're coming up soon. We'll get to your pick. Just want to highlight

Kyle Tucker once again, seventh overall in this draft. His ADP on Fantasy Pros is 12.6. On NFBC, it's even later than that. So in this draft at least, people seem to, or the person who drafted him, Raymond Atherton, agrees more with us that he should be a mid-ish first round pick with the Dodgers this season. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the right move, Raymond. I actually have Tucker ahead of Acuna even at 6th because of the bump I expect him to get

in the Dodgers lineup. But, you know, I'd take 7th. I think that's more appropriate than 12th. I actually just set my Kentucky Derby order. KDS. KDS, yeah, that's what KT stands for, right? Kentucky Derby system. Yeah.

Kevin Durant, I believe. For NFBC, and I specifically put the 12th pick very high. Like the order I hope to draft. It's like a draft for draft pick. I put 12 very high, specifically because I think Kyle, Tucker is being undervalued and I hope to get him there. Scott, I'm just going to let you know that you're on the clock. I am on the clock.

Oh, this is going to be fun. I didn't want you to just keep talking and then not realize you were on the clock. No, I realize. One of the reasons that we cite the NFBC ADP a lot is one, it's just the most active early on in terms of drafting, but two, it allows you to sort by date so you can take a closer look at movement. And I'm surprised, even in February. Kyle Tucker signed on January 21st with the Dodgers,

or at least that's when we learned about it. Even in the month of February, Kyle Tucker's ADP on NFBC is 14.3 behind Fernando Tatis. Like, I look, I like Fernando Tatis a lot, but I think Tucker's a very similar hitter, arguably better.

You know, I think the 30 homer potential is a little more clear there at least. Yeah. And he's in that much better lineup. So he's going to get more played appearance. is I think this is partially a reflection of that format's aversion to drafting perceived injury risks, although I think the injury risk with Kyle Tucker is probably overstated. But I think, yeah, Kyle Tucker super undervalued here.

So Fernando Tatez Jr. went at 11 and then Scott was up at 12 and I was wondering, would he do it? He did it. Yeah, he did it. That's what I took the two pitchers. I took Garrett Crochet and Paul Skeens back to back. That's what I meant when I said this is going to be fun, getting an opportunity to try this out. Obviously, it goes against my every instinct.

I have talked about how this year those top three pitcher in addition to Crochet and Skeens, who I took, Terrick Scoobel, how I do like them at their going rate. I would be willing to invest a first round pick in any one of them because of the advantage they provide at that position. But to invest my first two picks in it and sacrifice that much. hitting right from the start. It's going to be interesting how it plays out. I think it helps that this is a head-to-head lineup league as opposed to Roto, fewer hitter spots to fill, not going to be stretched as thin there.

And I think it also helps just because it's a categories league versus a points league. And guarding those ratios, preserving those ratios is, you know, if you go too light at starting pitcher, it can sink you. And clearly I'm not going to go to, no matter what I do at starting pitcher the rest of this draft, I am not going too light at starting pitcher. So we'll see if I put together a good enough hitting roster to feel good about it. Now, one wrinkle here is we are using the Yahoo scoring format and lineups. We are not using Yahoo eligibility. True.

You know, one thing we talked about yesterday is a lot of those DH and Util-only guys do have Yornais being a key. example of a guy who has outfield eligibility on Yahoo and ESPN I guess but not on CBS or NFBC or fan tracks or underdog presumably um so that is a wrinkle where Yordon probably goes a little later than he I mean he goes a little later in general but yeah I think he probably goes even later as a result of this after Scott took Paul Skeens we have junior Camerero Followed by Kyle Swarber, Vlad Jr., Corbyn Carroll, so one of the hamate bone injuries are off the board.

Gunner Henderson, and then Jazz Chisholm went to Chris. I did want to highlight Kyle Schwerber for just a second. He went 15th to the same team that took Ellie De La Cruz, so it could be a punt batting average build there and just kind of build out everything else. You got a bunch of power and speed between Kyle Schwerber and Ellie De LaCruz there. But Chris, you took Jazz Chisholm to pair with Acuna.

So lots of power and speed. for you too. Yeah, I think with jazz, there's a little bit of batting average risk there, but I don't have it ranked jazz ahead of, I had Jackson Cherio and Kyle Rally ahead of Jazz Chisholm, Cal Rally. I'm kind of leaning towards just bucking consensus and going Chisholm higher than those guys, though. I think given that he is one of just a few high value third baseman, and given that I do think he's a real 40-40 potential guy, I kind of just think he's being a little undervalued, which has not really been my position on Jazz Chisholm over the years,

but I'm kind of leaning that way that he should be like, it's not a big difference, it's probably like 16 instead of 19, but I think I'm going to make that move in my rankings right now. Jazz Chisholm 50-50, he said he's gunning for it. After you took Jazz, there was- straight podcast you referenced that. Yeah, I don't know why.

I was talking to my barber about it too. We were just laughing like, what is he talking about? The streets of New York City are a blaze with jazz chisholm. It's every time you go into the coffee shop, everyone's talking about jazz chisholm going 50-50. Yeah, did you hear? Wow, 50-50. After he went, we got Nick Kurtz, Zach Netto at 21 overall. Pete Alonzo, Trey Turner, and I am up here at the turn.

And you know what? Two players I did not expect to be here. I'm just going to gobble up the value. I guess I'm going to wait on starting pitching here. Jackson Trio, he is one of these players that I don't think he is a category standout anywhere. He probably just winds up being like a 25-25 guy by the end of the season. But I'll go ahead and just take the power and speed. And I typically don't ever take the big dumper, Cal Raleigh.

But here we are. 25th overall. We only start one catcher. But man, give me that huge jump in power between him, Aaron Judge. And I got a little bit of speed with Churio as well. So I'll just go ahead and hope some pitchers fall to me at the next turn and just build out that offensive base. I mean, there's not a pitcher you should take here anyway. That's the stance I've had if you don't get one of those top three.

I wait until round five probably to take one. But others might argue four. But Cal Raleigh, yeah, that's a big fall for him. The ADP we generally work off is for two catcher leagues. and so that might partly explain it. But I had Cal Raleigh as my top hitter back at the one-two turn when I took the two pitchers. Cal Raleigh was the top hitter on my board.

And for him to last you to the two-three turn, I don't think anybody would object to that value. And it really fits with the approach I like to take in head-to-head categories, which is to get category dominators, specifically among hitters. And whatever questions you may have about Cal Raleigh, He is a category dominator, for sure. Yeah, one thing I'll have to track throughout this draft is, did I fill up my outfield too soon?

Because two of my top three picks here with Judge and Churio being outfielders, and you only start three outfielder's in this format. There are two utility spots, so, you know, I'm sure a couple more outfielderers will be used there. But we'll see if that becomes an issue for me later on in the draft. I doubt it with the extra utility spot. I mean, I feel like a four outfielder league would actually be perfect to accommodate the... My home league is a... four outfield head to head points Lee yeah the distribution of talent there so I think if you just treat that

Sega utility spot like a fourth outfield spot not that you have to do that but if you think of it that way you'll be fine that was also part of my thought process on passing on jackson churio is just is he such a dominant player that it's worth filling up two of my three outfield spots with my first two picks he's good and I do think there's plenty of room to grow but the thing that's weird about jackson Churio is we think about him as this like ludicrously tooled up but raw player because he's so young. I think he was 21 last year or 22. The underlying numbers aren't as impressive as you think. It was slightly above average exit velocity last season, actually slightly below in his second season.

It's one of those ones where it feels like the stat cast page should be lit up in red. and it's just kind of a blue-tinged pink more often than not. So, yeah, I was willing to pass on Jackson Cheerio because of that. He's really good, but I don't know if he's quite great yet. Yeah, I hear everything you're saying. I don't particularly worry about it just because of the prospect pedigree and what he's done so far at a young age. I would take him around like 15 or 16 overall.

But you're right that the stat cast numbers are not as great as we would want them to be or what we think they are for Jackson Trio. A lot of picks to catch up on here. After I took Cal Raleigh, there was Pete Crow Armstrong, Bryce to rank, 27th overall. Yordaun Alvarez right before Chris, I'm sorry. Francisco Lindor, Catelle Marte did go to Chris, Raphael Devers, Matt Olson, Mani Machado, James Wood, Bryce Harper. So all those first basemen starting to go off the board.

And Scott, we are back. to you with the pocket aces build. What kind of bats are we looking at here? I mean, it hasn't gone great. Nobody reached in, like Yamamoto's still out there. So nobody reached in to grab a pitcher, which makes the hitter ranks even thinner than I was expecting to see.

And the top hitters I'm looking at are certainly not category dominators. should I go out of my way or should I just take the best on my board? I'm definitely going to take Freddie Freeman because he is the last of that group of first baseman with Harper and Olson endeavors. I mean, clearly we're not sticking to NFPC ADP with those first basemen going off that quickly,

but I think they're underrated in NFBC. Otherwise, I'm looking at two short stops here or maybe just go with the Dodgers stacks, Scott, and try and get all the counting stats. Yeah, at the risk of overthinking it, I do think I'm going to do that. I'm going to take moogie bets here. And I don't know.

I'm not in love with it so far. We'll see how the remaining picks. I'm trying to figure out because this is ahead of 80. It's where I have them ranked for a minute. Scott, triple down, take a third pitcher. No. Don't be a coward. I, no, I'd rather not be a stupid person.

So I, it feels like Freeman and Betts, like I'm trying to figure out who is going behind ADP that I'm having to take them 36 and 37. And I guess it's probably just pitchers, right? Tarang usually goes way later than this, but I would think you would have him ranked around here. I would, yes, personally. But I'm saying, who am I missing from ADP? Maybe Wyatt Langford I know I'm a little lower on him than consensus He just went right afterward

Yeah By the way Not to obsess over my picks Which I don't think are very interesting But the Bryce terrain at 27th overall I wonder how much of that was driven by him Having the two homer game On

On uh what was that was just that just Wednesday? Yeah both over 400 feet home runs Over 400 feet? over 106 miles per hour. You know, my enthusiasm for Bryce Terang is that I think he can, I think he, with the exit velocity jump he saw last year, that power spike we saw in August from him, I think he can make that a more permanent part of his profile

and emerge as a real power speed threat at a weak position. And so there's a little bit of evidence of that. It's one game, I understand, over valuing spring sample. but, you know, the past Bryce Durang would not have had a two homer game, period. I have a quick update for you, Scott. Mike in the chat, who selected Bryce Therang, said he wasn't affected by it, not one bit. Yeah, that's what he says. He has a subconscious that maybe he's not tuned into.

Chris, you are on the clock, and hopefully you weren't looking to get your boy, Geraldo Perdomo, because he just went. After Scott took Mookie Betts, we are into the fourth round here, Wyatt Langford. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, so the SP4 goes off the board at pick 39 when the SP3 went off the board at 13. So just a huge disparity between SP3 and SP4. Brent Rooker, Roman Anthony, Haraldo Perdomo, and Chris, you are up. You are cornering the second base market. How about that? Yeah, I do have two second baseman, Cattel Marte and Jazz Chisholm.

Jazz Chisholm slides in as the third baseman right now. I am, I don't know. This is definitely a weird. because we talk a lot about not wanting to take pitchers in the fourth round. The problem is nobody's taking any pitchers. There have only been four pitchers drafted, I believe, by this point. Yep, that's true. I'm also kind of struggling because my rankings in the draft room are not up to date.

That is fine. That is who I was going to take. I was going to take Logan Gilbert as my number one SP. I would feel more comfortable taking my first SP in the fifth round if I'm not going with one of those first rounders, but in this specific draft where everybody's passing on starting pitchers, the hitter group. I think we're about to see a lot of them go off the board, though. Yeah, I mean, my top eight players when I made that pick were all starting pitchers.

Yeah. That's the point in the draft we're at because Harper and Devers and Matt Olson and Mani Machado, guys who maybe usually last a little longer than this, at least when we're talking about it, are all gone already. And you have Logan Gilbert as your SP4 in the rankings, right? Yes, that is the way I rank it anyway, so I'm totally fine with that. And I have him ranked 38th, and I got him 43rd. So that's perfectly fine.

Yeah. I did see he made his spring debut yesterday or two days ago, and he looked good. The velocity was up a little bit. It's like, after the flexor thing last year, I don't really want to see more velocity from Logan Gilbert, but what? We'll see where that velocity settles in as spring goes on. That was me watching the Ryan Weathers start today. Oh, he looks so good.

I believe the highest average of velocity of his career in any start. Yeah. And it's his first spring training start after a basically lost season due to all kinds of injuries. Some of them were, I think it was a finger injury at one point. So it wasn't, you know, I think it was a... Didn't he get hit in the head by a pitch back from the catcher or something? During warmups. Yeah. But it was a lot.

also, I think, a forearm strain or flexor strain, something like that initially. So, you know, my reaction watching that start and seeing all the data roll in was, like, Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar, you know, when he's watching the video of his kids growing up and he's crying after getting off that one, the water player. You guys know what I'm talking about. Everybody's seen Interstellar. Yeah. And he's like crying.

That was me watching Ryan Weather's start. Not everybody has seen interstellar, Chris. Everybody has seen interstellar. You can't just assume things like that. Here we are, catch it up after Chris's Logan Gilbert pick, Jackson, Merrill, Brian, Woo! Hunter Green and Chris Sale. So I am up here.

Do I double down on starters because I'm sure quite a few of them will go between my next pick? I will take at least one starting pitcher, but I'm going to let the clock go down so I can... You got to take at least one. I mean, they're kind of gift-wrapped for you here. We are getting a run finally. Yeah. Maybe a round later than usual. But my top four available players are all pitchers, and it's that ace tier that's...

And you were hoping, you were hoping a pitcher to come back to you after starting with three hitters. So you get your way. Yeah. I'm actually going to do something different here. I'm going to go ahead and take Christopher Sanchez. We'll see how this turns out. And then my next pick here is going to be my RP1. That is Mason Miller.

So pick 49, the first pick of round five. I think maybe a little bit earlier than we're used to seeing, but it's right around Fantasy Pros ADP, and I think it had to add Categories League to just not have to worry. You get that ace reliever, one of the best in the game, on a great team, ratio, strikeouts, hopefully 30 plus saves. We'll see how it turns out. We'll see if I actually like that pick in hindsight later on.

So we are into round five, and the next pick here is Max Fried. and yeah, we've had quite the run of pitchers here. So after Logan Gilbert, it was Merrill, and then one, two, three, four, five, six pitchers in a row. One reliever, five starters during that time. Which after you took Logan Gilbert, Chris, I said, I'm pretty sure a lot of pitchers are going to start to go. Yeah, that was kind of the start of the,

I think Yamamoto went a little bit ahead, which is usually how it works. Yeah, early fourth round, I think. There was like four or five picks between him and Gilbert. and then after, which is, I think what we saw in this draft is the way it should go. Like, that's pretty close to the way I think all of us have it ranked, where it's three starting pitchers in the first round, and then none until like 35 or 40 overall. And the way it usually works is Yamamoto goes like 22nd, and then you start to see the pitchers

come off a little after him, maybe a round later. And I think it should be more bunched up like it was here. So, yeah. All right. So then after free, it was Hunter Brown and Edwin Diaz. How relieved are you, Frank, that Edwin Diaz went three picks after your Mason Miller. It makes me feel pretty good.

There's nothing worse than sticking your neck out and taking the top player at a divisive position and then seeing no more go for three rounds. Yeah, I mean, I also did that with catcher, to be fair. I took Calarale and we didn't see another catcher go, I think, until right now with William Contreras in the fifth round. But yeah, I was hoping that me taking Mason Miller would maybe get that ball rolling a little bit and we see other relievers start to go off the board. So after I took Miller, it was freed, Hunter Brown, Edwin Diaz, William Contreras,

and perhaps to the chagrin of Chris, Jacob de Grom, looks like, I don't know, you were pondering that pick, Chris. I was really thinking about it, but I look at it and my top hitter is C.J. Abrams right now. he's good, but he's kind of samey from a lot of the guys I already have. Like, I've already got Acuna and Jazz, who are both, you know, kind of all-around contributors. I don't know if Abrams makes enough of an impact in any one category. And then a couple of catchers, but catchers so deep in this tier that I think there should still be a pretty good catcher by the time I make my next pick. We'll see. And you only start one catcher in this format.

And you only start one catcher. So, yeah, if we reach a point where some obvious catchers start to fall. I know, Scott, you know, you love Carter Jensen. I would guess Carter Jensen's going to be taken a little earlier than normal in this draft. But it's probably still going to— Only 12 catchers are going to be taken in this draft. I don't know that he's going to be one of them. He will be.

With people who listen to the podcast for the most part, I think Carter Jensen is definitely going to be taken. He's more popular among industry. insider types than with the general public. All right, who you take in? Oh, you already made the pick. Yeah, no, you took DeGrom. You were the one who took to Grom.

Yeah, I took DeGrom. Yeah, Chris selected to Grom with Gilbert. Yeah, that's a great one-two punch there. And then right after that, we got Andres Munoz, which again, I, every reliever that goes off the board between now and my next pick, I'm just going to, you'll see a smile on my face. Followed by Corey Seeger and Cole Regens.

Nope, that's not the. the right sound drop. What do I have here? There you go. That's the right one. So Scott, I assume you're going back to the hitter well and seeing Austin Riley and Corey Seeger come off the board, probably not what you wanted. Well, I did take mooky bets already. So it was doubtful I was going to take Seeger. I did have my eye on Riley, which is ahead of ADP. But, you know, obviously feeling third base is a priority for me. And I think, I think, I think, reports of Riley's demise are greatly exaggerated. I was actually surprised you didn't take Regans, Chris.

I thought you were a Reagan's over DeGrom guy. No, I do have DeGrom ranked ahead of Regens. Okay. Yeah. So just before me, Doc Eisenhower took CJ Abrams. I wasn't looking at him. Again, I've already filled shortstop. So I am going to, it's pretty straightforward, actually.

I'm going to take Josh Naylor. Even though I took Freddie Freeman, I think he's clearly the best hitter left. and with that second utility spot, you know, it still allows me to take advantage of a DH-only type or a extra hitter at some other position later in the draft. It makes it far less concerning to double up at a position like this in round five, knowing you've got that one extra DH slash utility spot buffer. So Josh Naylor there.

Got, you're stolen bases. Hopefully. 30 steals. Hopefully. Hopefully he'll continue to get enormous leads. Ficky Henderson, 80 grade nickname. Very good nickname. 80 grade.

And I'm going to pair him up with my first outfielder. The guy who I discussed is my favorite outfielder to draft in recent weeks, Cody Bellinger. Come on down. Bronx Bombers, baby. I like it. But I guess what you talked about during head. category strategy is getting kind of these category standouts. So far, Scott, you've kind of done the opposite.

I know. I know. I do wonder, I mean, you'll still have some at some point, if you want to go with a Chandler Simpson, just throwing a name out there, or, you know, a huge power bat like Suarez or something. Like, you still have opportunities to do that if you want to. Sure. But for now, just kind of building out that base.

I feel like with the hitters, I haven't had a lot of choices. it's more like when I have the choice, I would rather get the guy who can, I can feel confident that he's going to fill this need for me every week as opposed to it being spread out so much, like 25 home runs over a 26 week season. Well, that's an average of one per week. And obviously it's not going to play out that way.

Some weeks is going to be three, some weeks it's going to be zero. And so I feel like the category dominators give you a better chance give you a more predictable path to winning. And it becomes all the more predictable if you're, if you go overkill at a category. Obviously, you don't want to do that in a roto league because you're leaving value. You know, if you win the home runs category by 40 home runs,

well, gee, that would have been stats better applied to other categories. But because it's a weekly competition here, going overboard in a category, like that just makes it that much more predictable. You're going to win that category every week. After Scott selected Cody Bellinger, we're in round six here. Mikel Garcia, that one,

right in my heart. Shea Langalears, Sea Suzuki, Logan Webb, and Ben Rice. You know, I would have had a decision. Even with Cal Raleigh on my team,

if Ben Rice made it all the way back to me at pick 72, I really would have had a decision on my hands there. And then Chris at pick 67, George Springer. Ooh. Yeah, there are a couple of catchers ahead of him in my rankings, but catcher prices are very devalued in this draft. So I'm going to keep seeing how far I can push it because something we've talked about a lot, and I haven't tried it yet in a head-to-head points or categories league with the one catcher spot, is just waiting on catcher and just kind of taking whatever's left because there should be some very good options left at the end of the draft. I know we're drafting bench spots in this one, so that might not work, but there are more than 12 viable starting catchers right now.

So I think despite, you know, one catcher has been my top player for about two rounds now. And I haven't taken him yet. And I'm probably not going to. We'll see. Maybe if he's there the next time, I might take him. You got to keep people on their toes. But I'm leaning towards not supposed. spending up on catchers in this draft.

After you selected George Springer, George Kirby, then Jaron Duran and Riley Green. So some outfielder's starting to go off the board. I did have my eye on George Kirby. Mentioned yesterday, one of my favorites to draft. I like the value on him just a couple of years ago. He was top 40 pick, and now we're getting him around, you know, 70th overall. So I do like the value there on George Kirby,

assuming he's healthy, of course. And then A. Eugenio Suarez. So that is the end of third base pretty much. We have hit the fall off, unless you like Alex Breggman, which I don't think any of us here really like Alex. If it was a points league, he'd be an okay pick right now. But Rodo, I think I haven't ranked 40 spots lower than this. Yeah. So I've got a few options here.

The team build is weird so far because it's two outfielders. catcher and then one starter and one reliever. I don't have like any infillers outside of Cal Raleigh, but I would go ahead and take my guy, Vinnie Pee! Baby! Let's do that and lock in hopefully another 30 home runs this upcoming season from Vinnie Pasquantino. And we'll get back to who else is available here.

And I think I'm gonna go with a starter, just make sure I'm not missing anybody. And I know I differ from you guys in this way, but Joe Ryan is most of you, my highest ranked. I know he's dealing with the back thing right now, but I don't think it's overly serious or anything like that.

So I'll take him the first pick of round seven as my SP2 to go along with Christopher Sanchez. And here we go. I've got four hitters, Cal Raleigh, Vinnie P, Aaron Judge, Jackson, Trio, and then Christopher Sanchez, Joe Ryan, and Mason Miller. So nice balanced team so far. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the Mason Miller pick was a little early in this league because I just didn't. Especially when I see Yuan Duran and Kate Smith here at the 6-7 turn. Yeah, that's what I think in this kind of league, with the people we're drafting with, especially, I think relievers were probably going to last a little longer. You know, that's the one thing that's tough about this time of year is a lot of the discussions are going to be based around NFBC leagues. And because those have an overall component and a lot of them are, you know, those draft and hold or those types of leagues.

leagues getting certainty at catcher or closer pushes those guys up the draft board in a way that is not necessarily true in other fantasy leagues. I feel like though in the daily format, the relief pitcher, if any position gains value, it's that one. Yeah, that's why I thought they would go a little bit higher in this draft. Yeah. Because you like to mix in between your starts. Obviously, you have the opportunity to change your lineup every day. The problem is there are just so many

good relievers that you can do that with. They don't all have to be closers. But if they're ones they get saved, it's even better. Yeah, yeah, for sure. After I took Joe Ryan, we've got Framber Valdez, Yohan, Duran, Cade Smith, Kyle Braddish. So another pitching run here and we are back over to Chris. Let's check in on your team here.

You've got Cotell Marte, Jazz Chisholm, George Springer, Ronald Acunae, Jacob DeGrom, and Logan Gilbert. So pretty balanced start. so far for you as well. You said you're annoyed. Why is that? Because nobody's taking catchers. And I don't want to do that, even though

I have Hunter Goodman ranked 30 spots higher than my current pick. So I'm going to avoid that, and I'm going to take I don't know about this one. Christian Yallick. Christian Yelich. Utility. We've got the two Util only spots, so. Sure. Yeah, we've got the two utilal only spots. That makes it a little

easier to stomach. Yelich is a very nice all-around player. I think the batting average like we talked about yesterday, probably done being like a $290 hitter, but the tradeoffs that he had to make to make that happen were worth it, I think. So good source of powers, we'll steal some bases. Counting stats should be great in Milwaukee. A lot to like about Christian Yelich. And this is how you know Chris is not an ageist,

because the average age of his last three picks is about 45 years old. Well, I'm pretty close to 40 myself, so I'm more open to the contributions that our elderly contributors can give. After Yelich, we have Jesus Lazzardo off the board here. Pick 79 in round seven. We are in the middle of round seven here. And then Alex Bregman. So again, that fall off at third base.

We are there pretty much. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'll roll the Chapman next pick up. So we do start to see some of those. relievers go as well. Scott, we're two picks away from you. It was pocket aces followed by, what, four hitters in a row after that. Yes. Chapman was somebody I might have considered. I know I'm higher on him than you guys, a Rollerist Chapman specifically. And I have him as an elite reliever. He

was the last left in my tears. I was just saying, I think drafting relief pitcher is more important in this format. So I was considering it. But ultimately, I think I would have gone a different direction regardless. Byron Buxton just went. He was one I was considering. Not fun to take on that kind of injury risk, but... Much easier to do in a three outfielder league. Yeah.

And obviously he showed last year the kind of impact he can make. If he's even in healthy 80% of the time. And then Yuri Perez and Scott, you are up for two. I am up for two. Ooh. Oh. Uh-oh. Ooh, I'm immediately having second thoughts.

I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do, and now I don't. All right, so third base, we've talked about how weak it is. We've talked about how Alex Bregman maybe went a little early for this scoring format, but to avoid a disaster at third base, you may have to reach at this point. talked about how I like category dominators. There is a player who is not third base yet, but he's expected to be, and he's a category dominator, and his name is Bo Bichette.

I didn't want to bring up his name in the middle of this round just in case he made it back to me, but yeah, that's a good pick. Curiously, if this was a league with just one utility spot, I'd be slotting Boe on my bench until he gained third base eligibility because I already have a shortstop in Moogie Betts. But okay, now both of my utility slots are full. I'm going to keep in mind, though,

that eventually Bichette's going to be my third basement, so I'm probably going to draft some scrub there later. And what do I want to do with this other pick? Roman Anthony's already gone, right? It's been gone for like five rounds yet. Man, Hunter Goodman has been my top player, overall player, for a couple rounds now. Chris was referring to him to him getting passed over.

and I was just planning to take him because, okay, he's a category dominator. I understand there are a lot of good catchers, but not all of them are category dominators. But I'm looking at my tiers. A big outfield tier is close to depletion here, and it's a very skinny outfield tier after that. Plus, I need some stolen bases, so I'm going Randy or Rosarena. Let's go Mariners, baby. You got Randy and Josh Naylor.

How about it? Hopefully they're both 30 steel guys. Right. Oh man, what are the chances of them repeating that again? Look, Randy, it's much more likely, obviously. But Josh Naler, yeah, I think we probably expect, you know, 15 to 20, something like that. But we'll see where he winds up. Boba Chet, interestingly enough, I guess we should point out,

he goes into your second utility spot because you already have Mookie Betts at shortstop, but with the hope of playing Boba Shet at third base after the first, you know, week or two of the season. And if it wasn't clear, the category that he dominates his batting average, which is yeah I prefer counting stats there I think they're more reliable to week to week but RBI too I think he could have a hundred twenty RBI this he could and it's a good it helps to offset Randy erode a Rosalana's one weakness which is batting average yep so I think it's a good pairing there we are into round eight and raft after Scott's pick of Randy a Rosarena we have a Luke

Keishel but Chris you already have five second baseman on your team so I don't think that's where you're going No, no, that was not where I was going to go. Man, we are all just collectively playing chicken with these catchers, though. I hate it. I already have Cal Raleigh. I can't do anything. It happened in another one catcher league, Hunter Goodman specifically.

I got him at pick like 105. We're at 89 now. I think that was a points league, though, so it made a little more. It was a little easier to justify there. It's not his best format. Yeah, just for some context. He's my 49th overall player in Roto. I think he should take him right now, Chris.

And Roto, which is two catchers. Yeah. So it's this is what, I mean, this is why every time we've done analysis breaking down the catcher position, I'm like, you can't mess it up in a one catcher league. You're going to have half a dozen backups on good backups on the waiver wire if you pick the wrong guy. And so why invest real draft capital in it? Hunter Goodman's the best left, clearly. but there are 10 more that I feel really good about beyond him. Yep.

After Luke Keishel, we got David Bednar, Josh Hader at Pick 88. Reminder, Josh Hater, dealing with bicep inflammation. Not sure if he's going to be ready for opening day, and his NFBC ADP over the past week is 103. So usually goes a little bit later than this. Freddie Peralta at 89, that's good value. That's fair value for Freddie Peralta, where, you know, we spoke about his ADP, it's usually in the 60 to 65 range.

He falls two rounds here, and I think we could all agree that's a pretty good value there for Freddie Paltz in round eight. Then Trevor Rogers at 90, Jeremy Payne went to Chris. Nico Horner is the next pick, and wow, all the middle infielers that I was looking at are now gone, so I don't love that. Trevor Rogers, this is earlier than we're used to seeing him go. He had another start here on Wednesday where his first two starts in spring. I know it's a very small sample, but he has looked exactly like the pitcher he did last season. Stop the presses.

Hunter Goodman just went 93rd overall. Finally. Yeah. Be done. Trevor Rogers looked very good today. The stuff looks more or less like it did last season, which is the more important thing right now than the results. Although the results have been very good as well.

He's been spotting his stuff really well. Velocity was down about half a mile hour today. That's fine. We don't really care about that at this point in spring. My initial ranking for Trevor Rogers was significantly higher than where he's at now. Just because even where I have him now, I'm pretty sure it's like 40 picks ahead of ADP, which is, I have it at 134. I think that's about 30 picks ahead of ADP, if I'm remembering correctly. His ADP is 144, so it's about a round ahead of ADP, I guess. I had him like 70th, I think, originally or 80th,

as like a top 25 starting pitcher. And I just moved him down because it wasn't worth drafting, ranking him there because never going to need to draft him there. After you selected Jeremy Pena, Nico Horner as well, then Hunter Goodman went, O'Neill Cruz, who could be a stolen base category dominator, Tyler Soderstrum, and then I was up at the 8-9 turn. And this was a weird turn for me.

These are not players that I typically target. I actually wrote Trevor's story up and busts 1.0, but he looked like the end of a tier for me at shortstop. And I don't know if he'll stay healthy, but if he does, I think he's still a pretty good bet to go 20-20 once again the season. And he's going to hit in the middle of a solid Red Sox lineup. The other pick I made was Dylan Cease. And while we have questions about, you know, ERA and WIP and things like that, he still is going to provide a lot of strikeouts. So on a weekly basis, head-to-head categories, I think that Dylan Seas will be a pretty big help

in the strikeout category there for me. I was looking at second base a little bit, but no one really stood out to me. You know, part of the reason you had to take Trevor Story, part of the reason that tier depleted faster is because a couple of the teams have doubled up at shortstop already. And no, that's a good point,

because we talk about how great shortstop is, and look, some of them could be used at other positions, Bo Bichette for third base, right? And they're such good hitters that people might just grab them for their utility spots. So keep that in mind. Absolutely. Yep.

After I selected Trevor's story, Brandon Nimmo, Michael Harris, and Michael Bush, you know, I took Vinnie Pass Quantino at the previous turn, 6'7, assuming that Michael Bush would not make it back. Oh, gosh, God, you are. I understand why the kids do it. It just becomes a reflex.

Well, it shows up. They're right next to each other. Yeah, yeah. So I was hoping that Michael Bush would be gone at the 8-9 turn when I took Vinny past Quintino, but he made it all the way back. But I did not want to double down on another first baseman. Devin Williams was the next pick,

and then Chris, you got the pitcher you love. Yeah, I haven't drafted Chase Burns very often, but... What number SP is he for you? Three. So he's my first pitcher because we're doing the two SP, 2RP, 4 pitcher spots designation. And so I have Logan Gilbert, Jacob de Grom, and Chase Burns. So two flexor strains and the guy who hadn't thrown 100 innings since 2019.

That's probably ideal. Yeah, it's good. Yep, yep. But look, I think if you are going to take Chase Burns as your SP3, when you've invested, you know, two of your top five-round picks to the starting pitchers. I think that's the right way to do it. The next pick was Jose Al-Tuvae.

That's the second baseman I was referring to. I thought about Jose Al-Tubei, but, you know, he's just kind of... He's not a category dominator. Kind of a boring guy for this format, you know. Does have some flexibility. You can move him between second base and outfield. Wow, look at that pick. Jack Caglione at 104.

His ADP is... Someone's getting the guy. Outside of the top... Not that. I don't care what George Kurtz says. That had to be influenced by Caglione's 460-foot home run. Off of a lefty, by the way. Yeah.

Which, I mean, yeah, he can really impact the ball. And he was one of the biggest underachievers by the stack cast data last year. I mean, for as hard as he hits the ball as a rookie, the fact that he struck out as little as he did, I think it's very encouraging. But the top line numbers were just dreadful. And so you just have to ignore him. Like I don't think the upside calculation has changed for Jack Caglione, but you have to completely ignore the actual stat line he put up in the majors.

And like if you're going to draft him, you just can't even think about that because it's obviously he's useless if he does that again. And I don't think he will, but, you know, it's a little early to take that gamble. The Fantasy Pros ADP for Jack Caglione is 21. So just a reference point there for him. Next three picks were Salvador Perez, Tyler Glassdale, Augustine Ramirez. So some of the catchers

finally starting to go here and Scott we are back to you at the 9-10 turn. So we are. So we are. The problem is two of my top three players right now are still catchers and three of my top ten. If people are watching on YouTube you can see my rankings up

and the top two players are catchers for me. Yeah. I'm definitely taking Rice sell Iglesias here because I still don't have a reliever and he is the last in a tier for me. So that's pretty easy. This would be a pretty interesting format to just double down with him and Robert Suarez too. Because you could just leave Suarez in your lineup to get away to you and stuff. Get every brave save.

Yeah. Yeah, potentially, but obviously not right now. No, no, no. Is a pitcher, a starting pitcher who's last in the tier? and I've avoided taking pitcher since taking them with my first two picks. Do I just go for it? So I was going to say when you made those picks that you can't take another pitcher until the 10th round. But this is the 10th round.

This is the first pick of round 10. Yeah, I mean, the tears say to take Nick Povetta. So I'm not going to argue with the tears. I'm just going to take Nick Povetta. We did get a faint, uh, from Chris there. Yeah, he's a bust candidate for me too, but he tends to go earlier than this. Yeah, for like 20. 2025 picks.

Look at us. Look at us, Scott, just drafting our bust. Who would have thunk it? Listen, I am not so convinced of any bust pick. Like, every year, I make an article, you know, my top bust picks for the year, the players I think are most likely to bust. And it's a good year if half of them are right. You know, more likely it's going to be a third of them are right.

So you can't be too confident with any of your picks. If the value is obvious, just take them and don't sweat it so much. So that's what I did here with Povetta. I think he gives me he should be really good at WIPP if nothing else, and that's the hardest category to control for. The thing is there is no player who does not have a price I'm willing to pay. I suppose that's not entirely true. There are some players who are just very bad.

There's not really a league where I'm going to draft Jorge Mateo. You know, like it's just not going to, they're just, but among fantasy relevant players, you know, like Frank you were talking about this the other day I can't remember with who but there was somewhere where you were like I'm not going to do it I'm not going to draft him Blake's now Blake's now and it's like I've been like the biggest Blake Snell down or maybe in the entire industry the past couple years and I don't know if he falls to like 170 yeah I'll take Blake Snell yeah sure every player has a price there's no like it's like Scott said there's I am not confident enough in my ability to project this stuff and that I'm willing to buck any player entirely. It's all about the price.

Yeah. As Ted DiBiase said, everybody has a price. Into round 10 after Nick Povetta, Nolan McLean. Nolan McLean. We got to email, Scott, that you and I don't say Nolan McLean's name correctly. So we cannot say McLean. We cannot say McLean. It's McLean.

But it's ma'n and not Mick. McLean. McLean. McLean, it's McClean. McLean. I'm just going to keep saying it. That's what we're supposed to say. I mean, I don't know. I keep waiting for baseball reference to give us a pronunciation. Yeah, that's what I was looking for.

It didn't give us one. McLean. Yeah. After McLean went, we've got Ryan Helsley, Brandon Woodruff at 112, back to him in a second. Ozzy Albies and Kyle Stowers. Were you reacting to the same guy I was Chris? I was going to take Stowers, yeah. Oh, okay.

That was going to be my picture. Yeah, you already have second base field. Albies, if I didn't take Nick Povetta there, if I didn't take Nick Povetta there, I would have taken Ozzy Albiz, but I thought it was too early. I thought Albiz had a good chance of making it back to me with my next pair of picks.

So did I, Scott. He's 80s more like 150. I thought Ozzy Albies would make it back to me as well. He definitely wasn't making it back to Scott. No. Yes, after Kyle Stowers. Sorry, just one second, but Frank and Scott are both experiencing

what we talk about a lot when you're picking on the ends, which is you kind of have to throw ADP out altogether. Like you should never just picking based on ADP is a surefire way to finish sixth in your league. Like it's just you got to take some chances apart from the consensus. But that's especially true in a- Or capitalize on the chances everyone else is taking by grabbing the players that are sinking. Sure. But what I mean is when you're on the ends, you have to

be more willing to take chances just because otherwise you're just taking the top two players on your board and then you're just writing off the next 20 basically and the next 20 might be better fits we do these ordinal rankings and especially once you're outside of the top 30 to 50 a lot about who the best pick is versus the fifth best pick in any given spot

is just random variance slash what your team needs and so you'll see us diverge from our rankings a lot more as the draft goes because one guy might be a better fit for your team or you just you make a decision in that moment that hey this guy might be 105th and this guy might be 112th today I want the guy who's 112th the difference between those two guys is never going to be as big as the rankings actually make it so you have to be comfortable when you're picking on the ends with reaching, I guess, a little more than you otherwise might. Yes, that is a fair point. Sorry, I'm trying to figure out who I'm taking here because I'm on the clock. I'll go over the picks. Okay.

So Kyle Stowers. Oh, all right. One pick ahead of me. I would have taken it ahead of you. Then you took Kevin Gosman, followed by Sandy Alcantara. Joe. Two Marlins fans who I was either between Kevin Gosman or Sandy Alcantra, the other Marlins fan took Sandy one spot after me.

after joe adele it was drake baldwin then jeffman then nick la dolo who well frank ended up taking nicolodolo at the end of round 10 so frank tell us about your two picks nick ladolo at the end of round 10 yondi diaz and round 11 i don't feel like this is yondi diaz's format no not well i think it could be because i do think he's going to be a batting average standout and so looking at my team uh yes i have erin judge but i have a few guys that bring it down as well Cal Raleigh, Trevor Story. Maybe I didn't need batting average that much. But Yandy Diaz is a batting average standout.

So, look, I think I will be very competitive in batting average every week. Going back into the trop, I expect the home runs to come down a little bit for Yandy Diaz. But 18 to 20, really good batting average. Counting stats, I think, will be really good. And Nick Lodolo, I've talked about a bunch lately. There weren't really any hitters here that I loved. So that's why I took Nick Lidolo, even though he's my SP4. like I've already got five pitchers on my team in my first 11 picks.

Like I don't love investing that much in pitchers, but just not really, not many hitters that I love at this spot in the draft. So hoping by the time we get to the next turn, maybe the value will feel a little bit better in the hitter pool for me. So that's why I wound up going with Ladolo and Yandy Diaz. And right after Yandi Diaz, Brandon Lau goes. Yep.

So just like Ozzy Albies was about 30, 40 picks ahead of ADP, Brandon Lau was even more than that, right? Yeah, and just, go ahead. He's a category dominator. He's probably the best pure power hitter at second base. And I was thinking, okay, well, no big deal. I was sad that Albi's win, but Lau's there. That might be a better fit for my team anyway.

And this might go to what Chris was saying about throwing ADP out the window, particularly when the ADP refers to, to is for one set format. Standard roto leagues, there are a lot more positions to fill than this, where there are just the eight lineup positions plus two utility spots. So those scarcer positions guys might get elevated like we saw with Albiz and Lowe here just because there aren't distractions to take people away from that. And to that point, Xavier Edwards went two picks after that too.

His ADP is around 175, 180. I thought for sure I could get Edwards later on. I mean, that was going to be my target at second base. It's my fault, guys. Because I think I need a little bit more speed on this team. How many did you take, Chris? I took two second base in my first three picks. I ruined it.

I'm sorry. It is your fault. After I took Diaz, go ahead. I did notice, you know, we've talked a lot about starting pitcher price is falling, catcher price is falling specifically in this draft so far. And what I've noticed, like jumping around other positions, like, if you want to jump scare open the RP tab of your rankings it's bad you don't want any of those guys yeah as you're a top RP and I don't have an RP yet so I'm not going to take Carlos

Estevez his velocity was down like five miles per hour in his first spring counting that might mean nothing make it six Chris six it's also second base some people like said on Raphael a lot more than I do so if you're one of those people then say down Raphael is fine here, but other than that, it's definitely a drop-off there. First base has already really dropped off. Jonathan Arronda is probably the top first baseman left. Third base, there are a couple of guys left. I know we all like Kazima Akamoto, Novi-Marte has some upside,

but we have hit some real tier drop-offs at a lot of the positions. And it's making getting through this part of the draft kind of tough because I would love to have taken an RP there. I don't really like the RPs that are available. At least not at this price. So, yeah, it's been an interesting draft so far. It's causing some tough decisions. Outfield, I think we've hit kind of a point where I'm not really comfortable with the guys available

or I just don't see much separating any of these guys. I don't really see any point in taking Andy Paa has as the top out. outfielder in my rankings, do I really think Andy Pahas is that much better than Ramon Luriano? Not really. So, and there's 10 picks between them in my outfield rankings. So this is a, this is a tough part of the draft right now that we're navigating, I think. After I selected Yandy Diaz, we'll quickly catch you up on all these. Brandon Lau, Cam Schlittler, Xavier Edwards, Jacob Marcy, Yiner Diaz, the catcher went to Chris,

followed by Zach Wheeler, Spencer Shreter, Jacob. Miziarowski. This is kind of like the variance round of starting pitchers. Luis Robert Jackson Holiday at 131. So even with the Hammate bone still goes off the board, pretty much where he was going before the hamate injury. Then Scott, with one of your picks, you selected, Trey Yassavage. Oh, yeah. You know, this is the variance round for starting pitchers. You said this is the range of the starting pitcher rankings that I like to live in. The guys who I think, think have ace potential. And they just, you know, obviously haven't proven up to the task yet, but I think they could.

And so I want to get as many from this tier as I possibly can, according to my normal draft strategy. But since I went starting pitchers one and two, there's, I feel like there's less incentive to do that. Like I'm pretty safe with the pitcher categories. But then to get what Chris was to what Chris was saying and what. what's going on in the hitter ranks. In a format like this, where there are so few hitter spots to fill,

you want true standouts at those positions. There are a lot of hitters that in a roto league where you've got to go deeper into the hitter pool that I think would be plenty valuable and I'd be happy to take here. But in this specific format, they just feel like, it just feels like there's a lot of redundancies out there at every hitter position.

And so I think even with me emphasizing pitcher early, I'm going to take advantage of this, high volatility but high upside group of starting pitchers and take Trey Yassavich and Gavin Williams. Yeah. I officially hate the pick of Yandy Diaz that I made. I was debating a few players. In hindsight, I think my team needed more steals and I was debating Luis Robert. I probably should have just taken Luis Robert.

It would have been my third outfield already. But as Chris mentioned, you know, we're kind of into a flat area of the outfield pool. And I think my team needed steals more. So in hindsight, I would have liked to have Luis Robert over Yandy Diaz. After Scott selected Gavin Williams, Alec Berluson, Spencer Torkelson, so it could be a category dominator there, big power, Nathan Avaldi, Mike Trout, Bubba Chandler, and Emmett Sheehan. So really, rounds 11 and 12, we just get a lot of the young pitchers and other names that have upside but also have a lot of variants.

guys like Zach Wheeler, Spencer Strider, that we're not exactly sure what we're going to get. And with that being said, Blake Snell just went. So, there you go. Yeah, I've been, I think this is the first time I've taken Emmett Sheehan too. I'm, yeah, I don't know if this starting pitching staff makes a ton of sense. It's very heavy on risk and variance. It's super talented. Logan Gilbert, Jacob de Grom, Chase Burns, Kevin Gosman, and Emmett Sheehan.

I'm not sure. I might be taking on too much risk at once, but it is a relatively shallow league, only two SP spots. This is the kind of league where I've got five SPs right now. If it goes wrong and three of those guys get hurt, which is entirely possible, at least having two SP four pitcher spots available,

gives me some flexibility on the waiver wire where, okay, there are no good starting pitchers, on the waiver wire right now maybe, but I can pick up some good relief pitchers and just get by trying to win ratios and saves especially. All right, so the last couple of picks here, I will go ahead and make a pick in the meantime before I read those off, but Bryce and Stott will be one of my picks, which, again, is not exciting at all, but, you know, 25 to 30 steals. After Emmett Sheehan and Blake Snell, Chandler Simpson, I mean, good.

you know, have 50 plus Steels. I'm talking about category dominators. Yeah, I mean, could be out of a job in May, could have 50 steals this year. Chris Boobich. Yeah, I kind of wish I had thought of him. Chris Bubich, who we all love, again, going way ahead of ADP at Pick 142, Cosima Okamoto,

who smoked a home run over the weekend in one of his first games of Spring Action. Then I took Bryson Stott because I needed second base and I did need some speed. And I was considering Okamoto, but now that he is gone, Another fallback option that I usually wind up with at third base. I mean, this turn is just so boring. But Bryson Stott and Matt Chapman, lower batting average, but 25-ish home runs.

I think the counting stats will be better this year. I kind of like the Giants lineup. Full year of Devers in there. Bryce Eldridge destroyed a home run earlier today. They just have some professional hitters, Willie Adamas, guys like that, Luis Arise. So I think it'll be an improved Giants lineup. And Chapman, I think, is fine as a fallback third base option. So I wound up with him and Bryce and Stott on the turn.

And we are into round 13. Next up we have Will Smith the catcher and the ESOC parade is. So I mean, Will Smith to go at pick 146 in a one-catcher league, that is phenomenal value. Who doesn't have, how many teams don't have a catcher right now? Scott doesn't have a catcher. Chris, you selected Yiner Diaz, what, two rounds ago? Last round, two rounds ago, yeah. You like Yainer Diaz straight up over Will Smith?

I do have your idea as I had a Will Smith yet, but I think I'm in the minority there. But only two teams don't have a catcher, and they're probably going to wait a while. Mm-hmm. I would guess. I don't want to put Scott out there, but I'm going to guess Scott's not going to take a catcher for 10 more rounds.

Yeah, it might just be the last pick of the draft, something like that. We got ESOC Paredes. We're still waiting for something to happen with the Astros, whether it's a trade or an injury, Not that we want an injury, but we also want Esauk Paratus to play. And right now I'm not sure how likely that is to happen. And then two relievers after Paratus, Kenley Jansen, who should get the first save for the Tigers.

We'll see how many more after that. And then Trevor McGill, who, you know, we're kind of split on the Brewers' bullpen here, trying to figure out who will be the closer. Might just be two guys. Might be McGill, if he could stay healthy. obviously Abner Arebe in the mix there as well and then Chris you went ahead and took the hitter I love

Sal Stewart how could you I'll tell you how you could you're muted sir I I was gonna say that that pick was gonna make people mad because what we are seeing in this draft is guys that we like as a podcast are going a little higher guys we don't like going a little lower it tends to happen a lot of these people listen to the podcast

and South Stewart, I have ranked lower than this, but when you look at the first base tiers, Aranda, Manzardo, Murakami, Christian Walker. I have a couple of those guys ahead of South Stewart. Or actually, I think just Aranda is ahead of him, but, you know, I just, I think I'd rather take the flyer on South Stewart. There's a little bit of a mystery box element there where he only played in, what, 20 games last year,

We've seen more of Aranda, more of Manzardo, feels like they're a little more certain as to what they are. South Stewart could be anything. It could even be Cal Manzardo. Mm-hmm. Or better, hopefully. Yeah, I think we're all hoping for a better batting average from South Stewart. And look, we've went over it many times already. But if you haven't heard before, just awesome numbers in the minors for South Stewart.

Great play discipline. Hits the ball hard. Makes a lot of contact. and in that ballpark in Cincinnati. I mean, it's just a great setup there for South Stewart. Some people worried about whether or not he'll play every day. If he hits, it won't matter. They'll find a way to get his bat in the lineup.

He's already started a game at second base during spring training. So whether it's first, second, DH, they'll find a spot for Sal Stewart. After he went, Mackenzie Gore, change of scenery over to the Texas Rangers. Willie Adamas, Michael King, Nuevalvi-Marte, Yvon Herrera. Interesting pick with the two utility. spots. Great pick. And I think probably the hope. Let me see let me check out Doc's team to see

if he already has a catcher. That's a second you tell. Does he have a catch already? He does. Alright, I just knew Ramirez. So yeah, just planning to use Herrera as the Util only bat and as we spoke about yesterday he's good enough to do that. And Scott up with the

you went pocket aces to start. Now we're going pocket closers. How about it? Yeah, Amelia Pagan who hopefully it was just a weird spring thing that happened, the six mile per hour drop. Wait, did that happen to him too? Isn't that who we're talking about? No, Carlos Hustimus.

Oh, okay. Okay. Good. I'll let's say, don't scare me, Scott. Jesus. No. If that's the case, then I don't know why Emilio Paghan lasted this long. Not that he's the safest closer round, but he is for sure the closer,

and he had a very good year last year. And I think Palencia, I mean, he was great, too. So in a league where it's more important to get relievers, I like that I have three closers now, these two to go with Ricelleglacius. I was looking at some outfielders, and I'll just say it, Lawrence Butler, I was considering taking there. But I feel like there are enough other outfielers I like,

and this would be from my third outfield spot. Yeah. And closers are, like, there's a finite number of closers. And so to be able to enter with, I mean, this is probably the most saves I've had on my roster coming out of any draft. It's not over yet, obviously, but this is a really good position to be in if you're looking for saves. And when did I draft Rice-Elegalias? It wasn't that early. I think at the 9-10, 9-10 turn, I think.

I'm hoping I inspire a run here, too. And sure enough, Dennis Santana was the very next pick. Hmm. Chris trying to grab himself a closer here coming up We are into round 14 by the way How many how many rounds do we have today Scott? I don't 20 24 3 I believe

It's kind of a lot Are we drafted bench spots soon? Yes Come on It's five bench spots Too many bent spots It's the standard Yahoo lineup. Frank's got to get up early tomorrow. Yeah, I'm flying out to Arizona, man. I got to get

out of here. After Dennis Santana, Tatsuya Imi, oh man, Scott, you inspired a closer run because we got Tatuya imai, Ryan Pepio, the pep boys, shout out, Carlos Estevez, and Pete Fairbanks. Those were two of the last three picks were my top two players in my queue. I would have been happy with either Ryan Pepeo or Pete Fairbanks. Pete Fairbanks was the priority. And now I don't know. Boy, I'm not happy. Not happy guys. I like to see Chris tilting. I know this doesn't happen often. No, it's usually cool as a cucumber It's usually you and me Scott that's freaking out here on the ends. My plan. You never you never have a plan Chris. That's that's plan a plan a plan. All right, I'll yeah, whatever.

The guy who's been telling everybody, don't push Griffin Jacks up the draft boards, takes him at 163. Well, you just, you look at the other RP options up here and it's... Sir Anthony Dominguez, baby. Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop name dropping. There are some mediocre closers like Sir Anthony Dominguez or Ryan Walker. And then there's a bunch of totally uncertain guys like Abner Uribe and Brian O'Brien-Arew and Griffin Jacks. So I'll go with Griffin Jacks, who I'm. sure we'll get some saves.

I'm not sure Brian Abraeu or Abneryribe will definitely get saves. Griffin Jacks will get some saves. Is he your first reliever, Chris? Yes. Do you just, in a league like this, you can do it if you want to. Just grab multiple raise relievers and just, I mean, they should be good when they pitch, right? And just try and snag as many raise saves as you can. Yeah, possibly.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm disappointed in a player who just went right after Griffin Jacks. Dalton Varsho. That was the sneaky reason. I didn't want to fill my outfield spot yet because I think Varsha is going to be a category dominator. I think he is going to be among the home run leaders this year

with that big jump in exit velocity last year. Missed some time with injury, but pro-rate his numbers over 162 games. That comes out to 46 home runs. I think he's going to hit 46, but he could hit 36. Wouldn't surprise me. Yep. And I am up here, the last couple picks after Varsho, Luis Castillo, Kate Horton, and Ramon Luriano. And for those watching, you'll see I have a few relievers ranked higher

than Sir Anthony Dominguez, but I do want to lock in those saves. So I'm going to go ahead and take him as my RP2 there with Mason Miller. And I need some more steals. Scott mentioned his name at the previous turn, I do worry a little bit about Lawrence Butler coming back from the knee injury has not appeared in a spring training game yet.

And just the fact that the nature of his injury is a knee, like maybe he just won't run as much this year. I mean, that's definitely a possibility. But just hoping what he did last year was the floor 2020, and I think if he's fully healthy, we get that batting average up around

like 250, 260, 20-20 bat, and needed a couple more steals on my team. There's another way that could go, though, too. It could go the Christian Yelich way, where he had back surgery last off season. And that's more concerning the knee injury. The knee surgery usually is back surgery. Very unpredictable those outcomes. But it was an injury that had plagued him for years, and I think suppressed his production for years.

It comes back from it and has his best year. One of the reasons Lawrence Butler was such a disappointment last year, possibly. I'm not saying it's an open and shut case, but possibly was he was plagued by this knee issue all year. And so if having surgery to correct it, he comes back looking more like the 2024

Lawrence Butler, obviously that pick's going to be a steal. We are into round 15, and the next pick right after I selected Dominguez and Butler was Ryan Walker, who is gunning for the Giants Closer job. Says he found a mechanical fix

this offseason. And, And it's a wide open bullpen, so he does have some experience and could wind up being the guy there with the San Francisco Giants. And next up is Sadan Rafael. And you know what? He lasted pretty far past ADP. I considered him a few times when I took Bryson Stott. Right now I just took Butler and Raphael is probably going to give you around 20, 25, seal, something like that. I just hate that he bats ninth in the Red Sox lineup.

I think you guys are a little bit more skeptical of Raphael is just, I guess skill level, but he slips here and I just wish he he hit higher in the Red Sox order. I think this price is fine. Yeah. In a Roto League, I, you know, it's fine to take him here. I do think there's just true bust potential here for Seidon Raphaella, but you know, the, the likeliest scenario is that he's he's fine. The nice thing is he'll play. He'll play a lot.

Yeah. He is the opposite of a category dominator, especially batting low in the lineup, like you say. Frank. I mean, his week to week contributions are going to be scarce or nothing. That's basically what you're looking at. All right. After Raphael, we get Robbie Ray, Max Muncie of the Dodgers, and then Chris, you selected Abner Arebe. So is that with the hope that he does get saves or just trying to grab good relievers at this point? Trying to prioritize good relievers over relievers who are getting saves just because I don't

think we have a good sense of who those guys are going to get saves anyway. So might as well get guys. I'm very confident or good at least in Griffin Jackson, Abnerierebe, and hope that they get saves. If not, they'll help my ratios and strikeouts at least. After Abneribe, Robert Suarez, then Wilson Contreras, now with the Red Sox, followed by Dansby Swanson. Scott, were you considering at any point the Robert Suarez handcuff with Ryssela Iglesias?

It was in the back of my mind. I wouldn't say it was ever in the front of my mind. and particularly now that I have three closers, at least to the extent that we can count on any closer keeping his job, I wouldn't say it was much of a priority for me. All right, well, we are one pick away from you. Jorge Polanco was the next pick there. Projected to about somewhere in the middle of the Mets lineup,

fourth or fifth, but right behind Lindor, Soto, Bobeshire. jet. There could be huge RBI counting stat numbers here for Jorge Polanco. And then the next pick 179th was Ryan Weathers, who Chris mentioned earlier, made his Yankee debut here on Wednesday, and I will quickly pull up the stats. It was three and two-thirds shutout innings, one hit, zero walks, five strikeouts, 12 swinging strikes on 49 pitches, and I think the highest fastball average velocity of his career there with Ryan Weiss. addition. Yeah, I mean, the thing with Ryan Weathers is there is some question of whether he's like

actually a great pitcher because if you actually look at the numbers over the past couple years, it's decent ERAs, but less than a strikeout winning, not that helpful whips. Like, Ryan Weathers has not been a particularly good fantasy option so far in his career. There's obvious upside. The problem I have with what I think will be the reaction to this start, is the question for Ryan Weathers primarily is not, is he good? And it's not even, is he healthy currently? Because he didn't like have surgery or anything, right? Like there was no, there was no real concern that Ryan Weathers was not going to be ready for the start of spring training.

And the question was certainly not, can Ryan Weathers throw a baseball really, really hard? Because we know he can. He did that last year. The question has always been, can Ryan Weathers stay healthy? We have no reason to believe he can. He's never shown the ability to do so, certainly not at the level he's pitching with the velocity right now. And that is not a question that can be answered during spring training. So I think I'm going to try really hard to avoid moving Ryan Weathers up in my rankings this spring, just because

he's not going to be able to answer any of the questions I have about him this spring. I have him 93rd at starting pitcher. Okay, I can move him up from there. But I'm talking about moving him into like must draft territory. I think he should draft in a 12-team league. But he's still, for me at least, is more someone I want going outside the top 200. Yeah, that's Ryan Weathers was someone we were talking about on one recent, show where starting pitcher preview i think it is it i'm not joking when i say it's a spring

tradition brian weathers comes in he's throwing even harder and and baseball twitter goes bananas over it but he is he has one pitcher who i actually don't want to see throw harder not because it won't mean he's better but he already can't hold up to the his current velocity yeah so it's yeah i think it's uh i think it's a i think it's fools gold pursuing him that's as he appears right now. I think I mostly agree with that, unfortunately. After the Ryan Weather's pick, Scott, you were at the turn 15-16 with to Oscar Hernandez and Taylor Ward.

We'll get back to you in a second. Riley O'Brien, Brian Abrayu, I think is a sneaky pick there at 183. Sunny Gray, Addison Barger, Ranger Suarez. I do want to take a look very quickly at Jeremy's team to see if he also drafted Josh Hater. and he did not. So just taking Brian to Brayu with the hopes that, look,

he could pick up saves early on in the season, and if not, he'll just give you great ratios and strikeouts throughout the course of the season. Scott, talk to us about your two power bats here with Teosker and Taylor Ward. I love it. I love it. It's great value for both.

Yeah, and they are both going to put a real dent in the home run category. Teoska Hernandez, his final numbers ended up great, but a lot of it came in April. And then he got hot again in the postseason. But just the way his season played out, I was worried at 33. Eh, maybe he's fading.

He revealed just a few days ago that he was early in May. So when the drop-off happened, he suffered a groin injury, just kept playing through it. And so I think between that information and the fact that he looked better in the postseason, I think, I think Teasca Hernandez still has plenty left in the tank. He's going to dominate both home runs and RBI in that Dodgers lineup.

And I'm thrilled to get him here. I like the way the team's coming together. It was a bumpy start with Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts being the first two hitters after the ace duo at the top. But I think I've found a way here to put together a pretty good squad. All right. After the Ranger Suarez pick, Chris took Andy Paez. Pretty sure he hated it because I heard a grunt as soon as he drafted him. Was not thrilled.

Connor Griffin, the very next pick, Chris. Maybe you should have this taken Connor Griffin. Maybe it probably should have. I think you would have felt a little bit better about that one. At least that's exciting. Two homer game for Connor Griffin the other day. He was hit by a pitch here on Wednesday and left the game as a precaution. We also got an update that Griffin and the Pirates are open to extension talks here.

that, Chris, would change everything. Because if they somehow sign an extension between now and opening day, guess what? He's up on opening day and his ADP and any of those drafts after that is probably a top 100 pick. Agreed, yeah. I think that's likely. I don't know. He's not like a Scott Boris guy, is he?

No, he's not. I have no idea. That would be the big hurdle to getting an extension signed, obviously. But I would love to see an extension sign. think he has a chance to be up on opening day despite even if he's not signing an extension but that would certainly help grease the proverbial skids and this is a it looks like a Pittsburgh Post Gazette reporter who put that out there it's kind of a tacit admission right a tacit admission from the pirates that they want them up on opening day they want them up on

opening day yeah uh yeah i have been a skeptic and I remain a skeptic, but the louder his performance this spring, the more you have to entertain the possibility really will happen. And I think he's a great pick at this point. I probably need to move Connor Griffin up my rankings. I think so too. I mean, I have been steadfast in believing that he will not be up on opening day just because of, you know, the comments from Don Kelly that,

oh, it would be hard to see him being up on opening day. He hasn't played much, a bunch of double A. But now that you hear stuff about like they're talking about an extension, you know, that does change the calculation. a little bit here on Connor Griffin. So it's not really, I'm not reacting at a two-homeer game, but the fact that they're actually thinking about an extension,

it does mean something there with Connor Griffin. Here at the end of round 16, I just took Royce Lewis with one of my picks. I have no idea if he could stay healthy, but in round 16, I pick 192, I will take that shot to see if it actually does happen. He's somebody I've warmed up to this spring with some of the changes

that were reported him making with the swing after a year and a half of just terrible production. I was about ready to write Royce Lewis off. I'm not moving away up my rankings, but I'm warming up to him. And I should catch people up on other picks too. After the Connor Griffin won, Drew Raspison, Brian Reynolds,

show to I'maaga. That was the one I kind of grunted at because I wanted Inaga as my SP5. I just really like the value. You know, he was a top 100 pick last. year. Now we're getting him around pick 200. Made a start yesterday, or today, yesterday, I think. And his velocity

was way up, like two to three miles per hour. We'll see if he can maintain that over, you know, more innings in a start. But it was encouraging there for Imanaga. So I went with Royce Lewis. The other pick I took was Brenton Doyle. And I think there's a pretty good chance of a bounceback for Brenton Doyle. Dealt with a lot last season, especially

off the field. And in a head to head category's daily lineup league, you could just play him whenever he's at home. And I also needed more steals on this team, so I'll take a shot on a 30 steel played Brenton Doyle at home type player at this point. So

after I selected Doyle, there was Stephen Kwan, Joe Musgrove, I was also considering coming back from the Tommy John surgery and Joey Cantillo who is competing for a spot in the Guardians rotation. What do you guys think about my play Rocky

hitters whenever they're at home strategy in a daily lineup league. I think it's fine. Brent Doyle, 24 is probably the career year. I think so. I would think he was still, honestly, I have not looked at the splits, but I would guess he was still quite playable.

Insane home road splits. Yeah, he had like a 650 OPS on the road, right? It was like really bad. Oh, no, I was talking about last year, but yeah, that might have been the case in, No, no, last year, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah. It's rare that a Rockies hitter doesn't have traumatic homeaway splits. I just want to want to do that with more than one,

because your bench base is limited, and pitchers are going to be a better use of them, for the most part, I would think. Also, the Rockies just don't have that many players who that's actually worth doing with. You know, as bad as Doyle was last year, at home he hit 306 with 10 homers, 11 steals, 843 OPS. he was still really good at home last year and if you take that back one year further 2024 when he had his career year 313 batting average at home

899 OPS at home and then on the road it was 211 with a 635 so yeah daily lineup league just play these guys whenever they're home we are in round 17 once again after Joey Cantillo there was jerks and pro far Chris you selected J.J. Weatherholt

and Kyle Manzardo So I wonder if we collectively need to just move some of these prospects up our rankings so we don't forget about them. That's mostly seeing Griffin go off the board. It's like, oh my God, right, let's add Weatherhole and McGonigal to the rankings. And maybe Colt Emerson, who they are still very much talking about as a potential second baseman for the Saddam Mariners, although. I think he has struck out every abat so far. And they have also talked up. Cole Young, so it's not like it's just Colt Emerson getting the hype.

I would think Colt Emerson among those guys is probably the longest shot. After you selected Weatherhold, there was Kyle Manzardo, Shane Baz, now with the Orioles, and Matthew Boyd, Jonathan Ironda. Scott, were we looking at Aronda? I was. I almost took him with my last pair of picks, so I would have had to if he made it this far, though it would have been my third first baseman, so probably. Probably don't need him.

All right, what am I actually going to do? Ooh, that guy's still out there. Ooh. Don't take my guy, Scott. Where is he out there? Nope, I missed him. Joe Musker, if he went early in the round. I was too busy.

Garrick Cole was the last pick, by the way. Hopefully back in May or June. That's probably the right range room. I think the better choice along the same lines as Garrett Cole is Carlos Rodon. So I'm going to go ahead and take him. Rodon, I think, usually goes ahead of Garrett Cole. Both are actually pitching live batting practice sessions already. I think Rodon's going to be back at least a month before Cole.

It could be late April, early May for Rodana. Yeah. And for my next trick, I'm not sure. I'm thinking about just taking Adley Rushman and being done with it because he should, if he has that bounce back, he should put a great run in RBI numbers, but there's still so many catchers I like. I'm going to take a shot on a potential category dominator

that Chris especially has been talking up lately. And let me just make sure I'm not missing a pitcher here. Yeah, Colson Montgomery. Oh, all right. So, Colson Montgomery, the way, Taylor Ward was technically my first bench player, but the expectation is on, move Bichette to third base and then Ward would slot into that utility spot.

So Colza Montgomery is my first true bench player. And he might be the last one I draft because I need to make sure I get enough pitcher surplus here. I thought about putting him in my sleepers 2.0 column that came out on Wednesday on CBSSports.com and the fantasy baseball today newsletter. Subscribe CBSSports.com slash newsletters. I went with J.J. Weatherholt instead. But I do think Montgomery is a very viable sleeper because I thought he would be a lot more expensive. And that's definitely a case where a guy a decade ago, Colson Montgomery is probably a top 150 pick coming off the rookie season he had.

But because his minor league track record is pretty poor, because we can look at it and say, yeah, he's probably going to struggle to him for batting average, especially. He's like 250 in ADP. and so I was expecting to be anti-Coulson Montgomery, but with his ADP, it's 217 in the month of February and NFBC drafts. I just can't really argue with that price. Yeah. You guys reminded me of this recently,

I think on the air, actually, so people may remember the whole concept of sleeper it means people are just kind of overlooking it in drafts. They're sleeping on it, right? That's what it means. But for so long that was because they don't recognize how good of a player he really is, right? So it kind of got twisted in my mind where I thought of sleepers as players who are going to outperform what we've known them to do previously.

But Colson Montgomery is a truer fit for the real definition of sleeper because. People just aren't recognizing how good he is. Mm-hmm. Yep. There were some very interesting picks in this round, so let me catch people up. Round 18, after Scott selected Colson Montgomery. We got Andrew Painter, Tanner Bybee, Shane O. Mac.

Here comes the money. Here we go. Money Talk. Here comes the money. That's Shane McClanahan, by the way. Marcus Semyon, Ian Hap, Dalyle, to Chris. Muna Taka, Moracami. If you're watching on YouTube, you saw me throw my head back.

back there. I was, could be a category dominator himself. Lots of home runs. Hopefully, John Carlos Stanton, lots of home runs, Dylan Cruz, and then Jacob Wilson, big slip here, 215 should give you a big batting average there. Chris, talk to me about Dail and Lyle, who you selected here. I am starting to talk myself into Dail and it's another one where a decade ago, this guy probably goes a lot higher than he is now, and I kind of, and I mentioned this I think on our Outfield preview podcast when we talked about Dale and Lyle. He's one of those guys that I think, I certainly made this assumption when he got called up last year. We kind of all wrote it off.

It's just, yeah, it's fine, but he's not really a big deal. I guess I had assumed he was like 26 when he made his debut last year. And it was like, okay, organizational guy came up, had a high babbit, but it's not real. He was 22 last year. And now he was not a big prospect last year. I looked up baseball perspectives list. He was not on the top 20, entering 2025 in the Nationals organization. Not a particularly great organization for prospects anyway.

But it seems like there was a big step forward for Dan Lyle last season. As a 22-year-old, he started hitting the ball better, didn't sacrifice any contact, makes a ton of contact, has average-ish pop, but good speed and athleticism. I just think he might be like a 285. 15-20 guy. And he's going outside the top 200. So I really like the Atlanta law. For my two picks at the 18-19 turn, I went with Edward Cabrera, who is my SP5,

traded over to the Cubs this off-season. Another one, like Royce Lewis, I have no clue if he can stay healthy. But he started to put it together last year. Best ERA and whip that we've seen from him. We know he has good strikeout stuff. And now he has the Cubs defense behind him. So at this point, yes, I will take a shot on Edward

Cabrera and this other one, Jose Caballero was the pick that I made there. I needed steals on my team and I think in the daily lineup context, if you're really on top of it, you can just throw Caballero whenever he's in there and you can just rack up a bunch of steals too. Like he is someone that could still be a dominator. So I needed steals and he's got all this different kind of positional eligibility, second, third shortstop outfield. Everywhere basically, yeah. Yeah, I think he's a particularly good fit in a daily lineup league. And then after Caballero, Robert Garcia of the Rangers, Andrew Abbott, Carrie Carpenter, Lucas Ersig, Zach Gallen went to Chris, Noah Cameron, and Williare Abraeus.

So starting to see some of those platoon outfielders come off the board. Again, if you're on top of it in a daily lineup league, you could just play those guys whenever they're in there. Zach Gallen, Chris, made a start here on Wednesday, first start of the spring. He only threw one inning, but his velocity was up quite a bit. So something to watch is Zach Gallen. You'd rather that than the alternative is all I will say. I'm not going to say that that factored into my decision to draft Zach Allen. It's just a kind of blind faith.

This used to be a top 25 starting pitcher for a half a decade. Now he's outside the top 200. Let's see if he can get something back. He's playing on a one-year prove-it deal. Let's see if he can get something back. I'd rather see him throwing harder than not. So I'll take that. I did want to go back to Shane McClainahan for a second.

He was picked in the last round. And we talked about Ryan Weathers. And it was kind of one of those. With Ryan Weathers, I don't have any question that he is healthy and able to throw effectively right now. It's just a question of whether he can stay healthy for a whole season or even enough of a season where you feel okay taking him 200 or whatever. With McLeanahan, that is actually. actually one that we need to see on a mound before I can have any real opinion about him, because we haven't really seen Shane McClain on a mound. He got into one spring start last

year, I think, or maybe two or three. He made a couple of rehab starts coming back from the biceps injury, but we really have not seen this guy pitch since midway through the 2023 season. I have no idea who Shane McLeanahan is anymore. There was the very funny report the other day that he was throwing 95 miles per hour in a bullpen session while working at 80% exertion, which if you do the math on that, hey, maybe Shane McClanhan's maxing out at 115 now. I think that's probably unlikely.

But that's one that it will be reasonable for his price to rise if we see him on the mound in spring, but that's only the first step to answering the Shane McHanahan question. And unfortunately, there's no answer. to the biggest question, which is can he stay healthy? We'll find that out after the season at best. But we do need to at least see him on the mound before I can start

actively considering Shane McLeanhan. So he's someone that probably needs to hit 250. Like, in theory, a person who drafted him put in the chat, after Pick 200, the upside of Shane O'Mack easily justifies the risk. The problem is I have no idea if the upside's there anymore. It's entirely theoretical upset with Shane McClainan. At least until we see, if he makes it into a spring training game and he's averaging 95, 96 miles per hour with his fastball, then I think we can say, yeah, the upside's worth the risk. Right now, there's no,

I have no idea what the upside looks like for Shane McHan. It's a totally theoretical kind of thing. Peter Clement, who made the pick, by the way, did defend his pick. After 200, the upside of Shane O'Mack easily justifies the risk, especially with how deep the waiver pool will be in this league. And it's his SP number nine on his team. I tend to agree with that. Usually, and when we're talking about upside, it's theoretical. Usually. Right, but we can at least, I can at least point to Jack Flaherty and say, yeah, he was not very good last year.

he still had a strike rate around 30%. And he still had huge whiff rates on his swinging straight, on his breaking balls. And it's just, then the command needs to be a little better. The efficiency, consistency needs to be a little better. So I can't say that with my plane. So you want confirmation of Lanahan skill level. Yes. Okay.

But before I start talking about upside, because I just don't actually, I have no idea if there's upside there anymore. But that's, I think most of the time. when you talk about upside for a player drafted that late, you don't really, it's a lottery ticket. Sure. It's a lottery ticket. And so, like, you don't go in with your eyes wide open. You just take a shot on some theory you have and hope for the best. Sure.

Right. I'm just explaining that for me, I don't, like, I think he's fine there. I think it's an okay gamble. It's just, that's not, that's not where he's actually. going to go once we see him on the mound? And so I wanted to talk through the multiple steps of trying to answer the Shane McClanahan question because right now it's the question is, is he healthy? I guess. I mean, he's not currently hurt, but as we saw with whichever, there were a couple of pitchers who got hurt, Pablo Lopez, very first batting practice session. We got the answer, no,

Pablo Lopez is not healthy. That might happen to Shane McLean. Unfortunately, it just, it just, It's just the reality of it. He hasn't pitched in two and a half years. And so you have to answer that question. Then you have to answer, does he have the upside question? And then you have to answer, can he stay healthy? That's the one we can't answer. Let's catch people up on picks.

There were a lot. So we are going back to around 19, where Chris took that gallon. Then there was Noah Cameron, Williara Breu, Aaron Nola, Grayson Rodriguez, Shane Smith. At the turn, Scott selected a pair of Orioles. Jordan Westberg and Adley Rutchman. I feel like you were talking about Adley Ruchman's got for like five rounds.

Yeah, it's the same thing happened to him that happened to Goodman just on a lower tier. After you selected Adley, there was Connolly Early, Trent Grisham, Glaver Torres, Jonah Tongue, Michael Burroughs, Logan Henderson, Parker Messick, Matt Walner, Kevin Ginkles, Zeb Matthews. So round 20 here,

pretty big round for some of these upside starting pitchers that we've mentioned a lot lately, the Burroughs and Messick and Zebby Matthews types. And even Logan Henderson, who you selected Chris. Yeah, it seems like people taking their shot on pitchers they like, which is kind of what you should do at this range of the starting pitcher rankings. I'm a little surprised we're this far into the starting pitcher pool in this format, pretty shallow format.

But I think it speaks to the idea that people are mostly loading up with pitchers on their bench. But I, you know, that Jordan Westberg Adley Rushman pairing I made in the middle of all this, it just sticks out. If you're just talking the quality of the names you're hearing, right? It just like jumps out at you. And I think those are good gambles to make in a shallow league where you know you're going to have quality you can use to supplement with off the waiver wire.

And Jordan Westberg, partially torn UCL. Who knows how this season plays out? In theory, he's going to miss a month and a half. And if that comes to pass, I may still have a 30-homer third baseman, which would be great. And Stasheman and I L.Spot in the meantime. And I guess I miss out on Jacob Lopez or something like that because of it. It seems worthwhile. After Zebby Matthews when I was at the turn around 20 and 21, I selected Edwin Husseta and Sean Mania.

Next two picks after that, Caleb Durbin, Robbie Snelling. Hoping that Robbie Snelling still has a chance to make the Marlins rotation. I'll quickly talk about my two picks here. Edwin Usata, he's dealing with the shoulder, cranky shoulder, cortisone injection. Not sure if he'll be ready for opening day, but even if he isn't, hopefully back soon after that. And he was a reliever we all really liked quite a bit from a skills perspective. And, you know, maybe he picks up some race saves across the way. But even if he doesn't, just stick him in the lineup and I think get really good ratios and strikeouts from Edwin

Useta. And then Sean Manaya, we talked about him recently. The underlying skills last year were still really strong. The K-minus walk, hopefully past the loose bodies in his elbow. I mean, I guess those don't really go away, right? But hopefully they aren't as much of a hindrance this season. And if Manaya could get anywhere close to the pitcher he was in the second half of 2024, then I think he's a steal. I picked 241. So I'll take an upside shot there. I do want to talk about this is what I was worried about taking you know

Yiner Diaz fell a ton and I'm happy to have him I think he's going to be awesome I think he's going to hit 280 with 20 homers and be a really good catcher um Francisco Averres is still there right around 250 Gabriel Moreno San Juan Ossoio Kyle Teal Carter Jensen

the catcher is just so loaded with really interesting players in a one catcher league that I couldn't bring myself to do it I couldn't bring myself to keep passing on these guys. Next time we do a one-catcher league, stop me from drafting a catcher early. I want to see how long I can let it go.

I think it's a little different Goodman relenting and taking the sinking Hunter Goodman versus Yiner Diaz because it's just you're not going to be disappointed with what Goodman I guess anybody could be a bust. He kind of came out of nowhere, but we all think he's legit.

And if that's the case, you're not going to be disappointed what you get from him no matter where you take it. But Yiner Diaz, I'm less sure about that. After Caleb Durbin and Robbie Snelling, we got Roki Sasaki, Justin Sterner, who could be a saves option for the athletics. Justin Crawford went to Chris, sneaky pick, Jordan Lawler, Brian Beyo, Jack Flarety. And then Ryan Nelson.

Lots of interesting picks here in round 21. Roki Sasaki wanted to mention with him was throwing a new cutter here on Wednesday. The results in that start weren't great, but he did get like three or four. four whiffs on that cutter and it's something to watch. He needed a legitimate third pitch that he can go to and so far so good with at least with the cutter. Everything else didn't look so good for Roki Sasaki. Yeah, he also started throwing a sinker, which is relatively new for him.

I still just think it's hard to get around bad fastball bad command. And even though he's throwing 97 now instead of 95 like he was for a lot of last season, his history in Japan shows he really needs to be thrown 98 on average. Yeah, he needs to be 98, 99 to really have that to overcome just really bad shape. Like it's 15 inches of induced vertical break. It's the wrong arm angle. It doesn't get a lot of spin. It just doesn't move the way an ideal fastball.

Like I made the case on Blue Sky earlier that Roki Sasaki is kind of a test case on how much you've been keeping up with like the modern developments in pitch pitching development or prospect discussions because roki saki is definitely a guy that 10 years ago even would it would be and he was last year coming into the season but i think even now people would still be very very excited about roki sasaki and i think the more we understand about what makes pitchers work and what mitch makes pitch is effective he just doesn't have a lot of that going for him right now and there's still talent famously not big on on pitch design. I mean,

I think it was always going to be worth adding him no matter what. He cost $3 million. The Dodgers could do whatever they want. It came for very little cost because he was an amateur signing technically. It was just a little joke. But that's one that it's, I just have a lot of trouble getting excited about him, mostly because the fastball's bad despite being 97.

But also I just, I don't think he's, He has good command. That's, you can kind of get away with like, hey, you throw hard, but you've got bad command, but at least your pitches look like have good movement. He's kind of missing all three, or at least he throws hard, but that's kind of all he has going for him right now, unfortunately. After the Jordan Waller, Brian Beaux, Jack Flerty group, we got Ryan Nelson, Christian Walker. At the turn, Scott selected Jacob Lopez and Matt McLean. I got Jacob Lopez anyway.

Look at that. Yeah, you were talking about him last turn. Chris Martin of the Rangers, Bryce Miller, Elliot Ramos, Sam Basayo, another catcher finally off the board in round 22. If you're watching on YouTube,

you could see my overall rankings. The top five players in my rankings right now are all catchers. So just a reminder once again in those one catcher leagues. Scott, talk to me about Matt McLean. What are your expectations this season?

Well, I hadn't filled second base yet. So that was the biggest reason I took him because what remained beyond Matt McLean was Otto Lopez-Garcia, Brett Beatty, who's not even a full-timer, Lenin Sosa, who's not even a full-timer, Brendan Donovan, who might not be much help in any category

but batting average. So it seemed like I had to take Matt McLean and just hope for the best, and that's my expectation for him. I think his rookie season was a big fake out. and I was expecting a step back, especially coming off a year lost to injury, but it was so big of a step back that I feel like there's

there's got to be some regression to the mean in the positive direction this year. And if not, my investment is low. I'll scoop up an auto-Lopez or whatever off the waiver wire, but Matt McLean at least gives me the hope of potentially achieving something more. All right, catch people up here after, I forgot where I left off,

but Chris Martin, Bryce Miller, Elliot Ramos, Al San Bessio. Owen Casey, who is now with the Marlins, should get an opportunity opening day with them now. Jack Leiter went to Chris,

Quinn Priester, Carson Benj, had a three-hit game here on Wednesday and battling for the Mets' right field job. Jared Jones and Sal Freelick, Jared Jones returning from elbow reconstruction surgery. He's already been placed on the 60-day IL, but it sounds like they want him to return as soon as that is up.

So late May, early June could be the expectation for Jared Jones. Chris, talk to me about Jack Leiter, who actually finished last season really strong. Yeah, it's a bet on a live arm at a time when we're just throwing darts. I'm not necessarily a big believer in Leiter. I've had some interest in him in the past, but he's still very much searching for the right mixture of pitches and right movement profiles and all that stuff.

And I'm not sure he's going to find it, but if all he does is what he did last year with the 386 ERA, 128 whip, that's a little high, but you can live with it, and then bumps the strikeouts up a little bit. I think he'll be pretty exciting. All right, here we are. This is the last round of the draft, by the way. Round 23.

after I selected Kirby 8's Braxton Ashcraft, someone who I like quite a bit, maybe I should just take him. I should mention who I took, by the way. It was Cody Ponce with the Blue Jays who came. That was my next dart throw if you didn't take him. Look good in the spring debut, Cody Ponce. Yeah, velocity way up like we heard about in the KBO.

Last year, by the way, over 250 strikeouts in the KBO. Now coming back to the States and, I guess not technically, to Canada with the Blue Jays. And I selected Kirby Yates just, one more closer dart throw there with the Angels. Braxton Ashcraft, Carter Jensen. There you go, Scott. Carter Jensen. You could have had him in, well, I guess not round 23, but round 22, if you wanted him.

Followed by Codai Senga and Marlins pitching prospect, Thomas White. Robbie Snelling already went, so they're not going out of order. Yep, yep, yep. And Chris, you are up, your last pick? Oh, no. Yeah, I'll take the injured guy who fell, Merrill Kelly, who is boring but has generous. been very good over the past five years and it's just how much does this back injury that he's dealing with that seems like it will keep him out for opening day how much does that limit him

i think there's real concern there i don't know if meryl kelly has a huge margin for error but if he's healthy he should be very useful at least so it's a fine late round dart throw he probably should have gone earlier and we are starting to get some more of those injury stashes corbin burns who we're expecting back, probably second half of the season. Shane Bieber is starting on the aisle with a forearm fatigue. We don't know when he's going to be back, but he has been throwing. Moises by Asteroz. We have the two utility spots, so you could play him when he's in the lineup for the Cubs.

And we are coming up on Scott's last pick here. Mr. Irrelevant. I was looking forward to making Shane Bieber, Mr. Irrelevant. I was just a few picks shy of that. Obviously, valid reason for him. concern, but he is throwing, and we may get a more optimistic outcome here than everybody's presuming right now, and obviously the risk gear would be very, very low. Man, a lot of good dart throws at starting pitcher to the point that I'm not sure there are any

other dart throws I'm eager to take. There's some I could take. so instead I think I will pick my week one third basement as Mr. Relevant here waiting for Boba Shet to move into that spot and take Alec Bohm All right bat and clean up for the Phillies right he won't be on your team for long who cares all right let's quickly wrap up here

take a look at each of our teams we'll work in reverse order and take a look at Scott's team who went with the pocket aces approach Again, this is a 12-team head-ted categories with daily lineups. And let's see how the lineups turned out here. Sky, you got Adley Rutchman a catcher, Freddie Freeman at first, Matt McLean at second, Jordan Westberg, who is hurt for now. But, you know.

Yeah, it's actually going to be Alec Bohm for week one and Bo Boshet there. Bobesh. And Jordan Westberg just hanging around in case something good happens. Mookie Betts, Teoska Hernandez, Cody Bellinger, Randi-Rosarana, Josh Naler, and the aforementioned Boba Chet. It's actually going to be Taylor Ward starting over Boba Chet. Let's just imagine Bobichette at third base,

Taylor Ward, and that second utility spot. Do you think he got enough? Did you get enough? I think I got enough. The category I'd be most worried about competing in is stolen bases, but it is a week-to-week competition and not a year-long competition.

A, so, you know, there are going to be some weeks where weird stuff happens. But I probably won't be that competitive in steals. I think I'm going to be competitive in every other hitting category. And the pitching categories, obviously, taking those two aces right away. I should be doing pretty well in those two. So, yeah, I feel really good about the way this came out. If it was a true Roto League, you know, be interesting to try it out there. Maybe it would still work.

Obviously, that's 14 hitter spots to fill instead of just a ton. 10, which means that much deeper into the hitting pool, which means a lot of these spots are filled with even lesser guys. Second base, if it doesn't work out with Matt McLean, I'm going to be pretty weak there. But I think I got good values everywhere else. I was thrilled with that Teoscar Hernandez-Taylor Ward turn around 180. I was thrilled to get Bellinger when I did.

It's hard to mess up catcher in a one-catcher league, and I leaned into that, taking Adelaie Rushman very, very late. Yeah, I feel good about it. Yeah, well, quickly take a look at the pitchers. You started with Garrett Crochet and Paul Skeens at the one-two turn. You also got Nick Povetta at a good value. Gavin Williams. Trey is Savage.

Stashing Carlos Rodon on the aisle and an upside shot on Pablo Lopez. The relievers, you do have three closers that are locked in. Jacob Lopez, not Pablo Lopez. Yes, Pablo Lopez would be very bad. Don't travel. him. Three relievers who are locked in to start the season. Raisel Iglesias, Emilio Pagan,

and Paul Skeen. So, look, the pitching is fantastic. Raisel Iglesias, Emilio Paghan, and Daniel Polencia, not Paul Schenzstein. My brain is just mush, dude. This is the first, like, two hour. I can't even say that, because all of our position previously had been two hours. We just finished two weeks

and two hours. It's our first mock draft, so by the end of it, my brain is just mush here. That's fine. Yes. Would you do it again? Would you recommend going pocketices? Yeah, I tell you, I wasn't feeling good the way around three played out and left me with Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, who both felt like reaches at the three-four turn,

but I knew I couldn't go pitcher there. And the main reason they felt like reaches is because people passed over so many pitchers. But I think things went a lot better thereafter. And look, I think Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts are going to still be really good for fantasy. the following turn getting Cody Bellinger and Josh Nader immediately relieved a lot of my concerns. And then I think I got some good values that hit her after that too. So yeah, I would do it again. Not that I'm going to go into any draft saying this is the goal.

I think just looking at ADP, it's rare that you'll even be able to attempt this. It just happened to work out in this draft that pick 12 came up and two of those guys were still available. So unless I was going to take Cal Raleigh or Junior Cominero there, it was the obvious thing to do. All right, let's take a look at Chris's team. He was drafting sixth in this one. And you've got Yiner Diaz at Catcher with the Astros, Sal Stewart, Cattell Marte, Jazz Chisholm, Jeremy Payne, George Springer, Ronald Acuna, Andy Pahez, Christian Yellich, JJ Weatherholt. And on the bench for the hitters, you have Dale and Lyle and Justin Crawford. So you do have some speed there on the bench.

this doesn't look like a typical Chris team. How do you feel about the lineup so far? I think it's okay. I think it's pretty well-rounded. It's not like the best stolen base team in the world or the best home run team in the world or the best batting average team in the world, but I think it's pretty well balanced.

There's some upside. I took some reaches on like South Stewart and Yelich relative to ADP was a reach, but I think it's fine, especially in the two-util spot. league. I think it's okay. I do wonder if I have too many pretty good at everything, not great at anything, guys. But I think it's okay. I think I can love with that. Yeah, look, to your point, you do have some guys that are, they're kind of good at everything, but some of them are really

good at everything, right? Like, Jazz could be a 30-30 guy. Acuna could be a 35-35 guy, and Springer could be 20-20 once again this year. They are all, you know, they do a little bit of everything, but they do a lot of it. So. Yeah, Marte and Diaz are probably the only true zeros for speed in the lineup. But it's a lot of 15 to 20 steel guys. And we talk about this a lot. Just in this format when you're playing week to week, there are going to be a lot of weeks when those guys get zero steals. So it'll compete in steals.

It won't dominate. Let's take a look at your pitching staff. And up top, you wound up with you've got Jacob Grom. and Logan Gilbert. You also have Kevin Gosman, Zach Gallen, Emmett Sheehan, Chase Burns, Merrill Kelly, Jack Leiter, Logan Henderson.

The only two relievers on this team, Abner, Aribe, and Griffin Jacks. I think the starters are, starting pitchers are really, really great here, but obviously only two relievers. So what do you think about it on this side? Yeah, it's a team that could dominate in pitching if some things go right,

especially if Uribe and Griffin Jacks are just 25 save guys, then I think it's going to be a really strong pitching staff. If not, saves will be an issue for sure. I think everything else should be pretty good. I could see WIP being a concern. Gilbert is obviously elite with WIP, but Gossman could be pretty bad with WIP. I mean, DeGrom was a sub one whip last year.

Yeah, it was 0.94, something like that. But after that, there's definitely some WIP question marks, but I think it's a super high upside pitching stuff, so I'm pretty happy with that. I think overall it's a pretty strong team, but it's not without its flaws. In hindsight, do you wish that you wound up with a few more relievers,

just like take some stabs on some saves or maybe even take a closer earlier on in the draft? It would have been hard to actually do it, and this is something that we talked a little bit about in the RP preview, but I just, I feel like it's absolutely the position of haves and have-nots right now, And you either have to pick a pitcher early.

Like I did have Kate Smith in my cue. I think you won a couple of picks before me in like the fourth round or fifth round. But otherwise there's no sure things outside of the top. I mean, I mentioned it during the draft. We reached a point where we're only like 11 RPs deep. And all of a sudden I'm staring at Carlos Estevez is the top option. It's like, well, I don't want to do that. So I do think you either have to go

Greater late at relief pitcher And at least the guys that I have Yeah, there's questions about the role for Abneryrii, Baner, Griffin Jacks I think they're going to be very good Yeah, from a skills perspective, yeah, they're awesome All right here, let's take a look at my team I was drafting first overall in this one And I have Cal Raleigh who's someone I never draft

But at the two three turn, he was just the cleft You had to. You had to. Obvious best available. Well, I know with my guy Vinnie Pasquantino, followed by Bryson Stott, Matt Chapman, Trevor Story,

Aaron Judge, Lawrence Butler, Jack Centurio, Yandy Diaz, and Royce Lewis as the bats there. On the bench, I picked up some stolen bases. I felt the steals were light in the lineup.

And again, from a daily lineup context, if you need speed, you can kind of plug these guys whenever you need that. So I took Jose Caballero and Brenton Doyle on the bench. could play Brent & Doyle whenever he is

at home in Corse field. It's definitely a weird infield. I mean, it's a second, third, short, are not names that I, well, I do wind up with. They're just not very sexy. They're all solid. I think it's a really good hitting lineup overall, especially when you consider the steals on the bench, right?

Unless you guys feel differently? No, I think it's pretty solid all around. You don't really, like, what's the biggest weakness, I guess, Lawrence Butler? as your third outfielder. And then the U-Till spots, there's upside there. But I think we expect Yanni Diaz to take a step back. And Bryce Lewis, I mean, one of the true unknowns,

I just genuinely don't know what the skill set there is even. But there's upside there, certainly. I mean, starting out with Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh and Jackson Churrio. Yeah. You're so far ahead in hitting already. it is a little weird that I was kind of noticing this with Chris's lineup too and also yours Frank that

if you're just picking out the weak points in the lineup yours are maybe higher in number than mine the number of weak spots like me obviously second base is weak but otherwise I feel pretty good you guys have maybe more weak points there which is I guess speaks to the idea that like You have to

you have to kind of overcompensate at pitching. Most people do. Maybe it's not even overcompensating, but I had the luxury of undercompensating at pitcher, basically. And so that that made it so I could keep hitting hitting while you guys were having to divert to pitching. But you don't have Aaron Judge Cowrally and Jackson, that's true.

That's like that that that's the thing is as I was going through Franks lineup I was like there's some weak spot But it's like does that actually matter when? Aaron judge cow rally are going to combine for 100 homers 100 homers 240 RBI and 220 runs and jackson churio is going to hit 280 like it's just yeah the weak spots definitely matter less when you're when your impact spots are so much better And I think that's a big thing to keep in mind where, like, you know, Scott, I think you have some weak spots in your pitching staff. But you have Paul Skeensigar Crochet. So it's like the 250 or the 450 combined strikeouts and the sub 250 ERA and the sub one whip you get out of them is going to cover up for a lot.

Yeah. I think it's interesting the way, Scott, me and you, we just, we contrasted so so differently, right? compared to you going pocket aces and then me the three hitters to start and just being able to see the way that we built out our teams. Let's see how I built out the pitching staff here. I wound up with Christopher Sanchez,

followed by Joe Ryan, Dylan Seas. I've got Nicololo as my SP4, Edward Cabrera as my five. On the bench, I took some upside shots here. Sean Mania, Cody Ponce. At reliever, I have Mason Miller and Sir Anthony Dominguez.

So those are the two locked-in closers. I've got another closer stab on Kirby Yates, and then Edwin Usata, who maybe gets a few saves, but more so just for ratios and strikeouts. I've mentioned in a head-ed category's Daily Lineup League, I like to have four relievers in there, two locked-in closers, maybe a third closer stab, and then a fourth reliever that I could just leave in and get stats from throughout the course of the week.

I do think, you know, initially I thought Whip could be a problem with like CIS and Edward Cabreroero. but I think having Joe Ryan and Nicola Dolo kind of balances it out well, so I like it. I like the pitching staff. It doesn't have a ton of great depth on the low end, but I think the top four or five are very solid. It does appear to be a very solid pitching staff. Yeah. Yeah.

In hindsight, when I took Mason Miller, I probably would have that pick back. And I think I could have got Kate Smith or Yohan Duran at that. next turn. Sure. Yeah. But I thought they would go a little bit higher in this format. I guess maybe my concern would be particularly if we get the, this is kind of the problem with drafting Dylan Cis in a roto league is his upside and downside are so divergent that

if you can get the wrong side of Dylan Cis and then Edward Cabrero is also a big part of your pitching staff. There's a chance it all blows up. It goes sideways. But that's not what I think is the most likely scenario. I think it's easier to do when Cases your SP3 as well. And then I got La Dolo as my four who I love. So I feel like I've kind of insulated him well with those other three pitchers.

Yeah. And then, you know, Joe Ryan's a very good whip guy. Sanchez, the whip is the one thing I'd be concerned about with this team. Yeah. It was higher two years ago, yep. Yeah, I think Sanchez, you know, it was a 106 whip last year, but it was 124 the year before. You know, even if he's very good, I do think.

there's some whip risk just because he has a ground ball pitcher. He needs the strikeout rate to be as high as it was last year. I think it probably will be. But Edward Cabrera, his good year is a 123 whip. So I'm very concerned about that as well, although the Cubs defense could help mitigate some of the risk there. Yeah, I think it's pretty solid. All right. Well, we are going to wrap there.

Just a heads up that we will not be live tomorrow on Thursday night. Again, I'll be out in Arizona. I'm going to watch some spring training games. I've got NL labor this weekend, so looking forward to that. We have a mailbag that's coming out on Friday, so check that out. And then Sunday night, these two will be live without me. So enjoy that. Chris and Scott will be here to talk some ADP risers and fallers.

We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Kind of. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.

Thank you.