Fantasy Baseball Today - 12-Team H2H Points Listener League Draft Part 2! Rounds 13-21 Picks & Team Recaps (3/26 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

We're into the second half of our 12-team H2H points listener league draft! We're breaking down rounds 13-21, highlighting picks, strategy and roster construction. When did the SPARPs get drafted in this one? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 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/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." 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

Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Welcome into our two, part two of our live head-to-head points. Listener League draft. We are into round 13, where the last couple picks were Zach Eflin, Tanner Scott, and Bowden, Francis. Chris, I hope the spark you were looking for was not bowed in Francis. You know, can you just, like, cool it? Can you just, like, be chill for once and just, like, not blow up everyone's spot? I'm not gonna take another Sparp,

so there's only one other person picking. So hopefully that person doesn't steal someone from you, Chris. That would be unfortunate. It was not, it was Spencer Arrogetti. So I am up, and let's take a little gander here. Need either third base or second. I need a third outfielder. I need another starting pitcher.

I need another reliever. So let's take. a look at starter. It's kind of dwindling a little bit here. Who do I want to take? Do I want to take? Nah. Don't want to do that. That guy's kind of boring. I never take that guy. Take him. Ah, go ahead. I'll take Nathan Avaldi. He's kind of boring, but I think. That's what you were referring to. No, he's not who I was referring to. He's extremely boring. Nathan Evaldi is a totally fine pitcher of Scott.

I would not call it a bad move by any means. He is only fine, but yes, he is fine. I took Chris Bubich, so we had, what, five scarps in the last round. Chris Bubich looked awesome today. Eight strikeouts and five innings against what is probably pretty close to the opening day lineup for the Texas Rangers. No, Corey Seeger, but everyone else looked pretty opening day-ish. He has kept most of the velocity gains that he had, pitching out of the bullpen last year,

average 92.6 miles per hour with the fastball, has three different secondaries that he can lean on. I think Chris Bubich, obviously this is early for him in anything but a points league where he's SPARP eligible. He's my most drafted player because I always get him at the end of like a points league draft. But this always happens, though. When we do points leagues,

especially with people who are really plugged into this format, Sparps go way higher than we have them ranked. And we will probably see Mike Soroka within the next 50 or so picks. We will probably see

who's another spark that I'm not thinking of. No, no more name dropping. Nick Martinez just went, by the way. Nick Martinez goes, yeah, this is what happens in this format, though. Yeah.

After Boobitch, there was Randy Rosarena, Nick Martinez, and Shane O. Mac. Here comes the money. Here we go. Money talks. Well, you know.

Like on a delay. Like, right, like the money is, you know, Western unions on their way, but, you know, maybe in four weeks, maybe in two months, we'll see. Yeah, like we're only delivering half the money. We can't guarantee you how much money there will be, but we're hoping for maybe half the money.

That is Shane McClanahan, who the latest we've heard is that the arm is feeling better, but there's still no timeline. We don't know when he's going to throw or anything like that. So still very much so up in the air. And next pick was Austin Wells, who will lead off against right-handed pitching for the Yankees. And Scott, we are over to you.

Let's check in and see what we've got. J.C. Rilumuto, Bryce Harper, Jose Altoouva, Mani Machado, L.E.D. La Cruz, Yelich, Luis Robert, Lawrence Butler, and Sonny Gray, Jacob deGrom, Hunter Brown, and Spencer Strider as the pitchers. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reminded me of South Park. I am, Lord. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am Scott. I'm going to take Sean Manaya. Come on, you used to be so excited about Sean Mania. I know, I'm just not, I want to time it perfectly. And that one sounded like it hurt.

This is why I don't like picking at the end, because it's hard to know what's going to happen in the next 22 picks. It's hard to anticipate that. And I may be doing things too early and I may be neglecting things I should do now. I mean, I'm tempted to take Racine Rodriguez too. You can't. Come on. You absolutely can.

You only got one starting pitcher who doesn't have injury concerns. Fill up all three IL spots. That's why we have them. This is the kind of thing I would do and everybody would say I'm crazy. Well, crazy like a fox. Oh, gosh. All right. He did it.

It's a Grace Rodriguez. Yeah. So three of my bench spots, well, two of them are going on the IL, but three of my bench spots are full for the draft for the purposes of the draft. Three of them are going on the IL. Right. Two are going on the IL because that's as many IL spots as we have in this league. One will sit on the bench. It's three, yeah.

Oh, it is three. Oh, okay. Perfect. I thought I was paying attention. Yeah. I talked earlier about increasing it. from three, but I never did. So it's still just three.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Scott, should we have a waiver run before the season starts? I guess Wednesday into Thursday. I was going to ask you guys beforehand, but another thing that I forgot. I mean, we usually do, I think. But that's a lot of work for the commissioner.

So that's kind of up to you. Yeah. I mean, well, if either of you guys want to step up, feel free. I almost took Ryan Walker, who just went afterward here. Um, and, uh, I almost took him, which I don't normally do. You know, I like to wait until the end of the draft to fill in my RP spots unless it's with the SPARP. Yeah. So I was going to break one of my own rules to do that because I do think he's a high end closer who lasted a long time.

But I also think closers are really interchangeable in this format. A lot of interesting players falling much further than ADP or where we have them ranked. Um, it kind of feels like ADP is this out the window, right? Oh, yeah, no, I think rankings are out the window. This is, we talked about this last week. This is what happens in the last few days. You just, you throw that stuff out of the window and people just get who they want to get because it's usually the last time you're going to draft.

And so if you haven't drafted a specific player, just go get them. So the next couple of picks after Ryan Walker, Kevin Gosman and Nick Povetta, we are firmly in a pitching run. And Scott, I was surprised you didn't take Nick Povetta. someone that you like. I was debating Avaldi and Nick Povetta at my pick. I don't typically take Nathan Avaldi, but if I was to do it, it probably would have just been for content if you wanted him so that I quote unquote sniped you. But yeah, it's just, I hope it works out for Povetta in San Diego.

I just, I don't know that I have as much confidence as you guys do. Well, it's... Oh, confidence is not the word. It's also like kind of a default roto opinion. You know, because, okay, Povetta, he's going to make up ground in strikeouts. He's going to hopefully make up grounded whip. I feel pretty confident about him in both of those categories, less so ERA. But I think he looks a lot more ordinary in head-to-head points because preventing base runners

and collecting strikeouts just aren't really the name of the game in this format. I think I'll be a fine starter in this format, but I think it'll just be kind of ordinary. Yep. Which is why I sold out for ones who I, even though they're injured, who could be extraordinary. Yep. And then the next pick is Jose Barrios, who is someone I think would be pretty good because he gets a lot of quality starts. He goes deep. I think he had 16 wins last year. Not that that's repeatable or projectable, but if you go deep into starts, you are more likely to win games. And Chris, you are up. Oh, he's got the, he's got the thinking face on. It's not great. Like, there's just not a ton of great options right now. So I'm going to shoot for some upside at out. field and take Jason Dominguez. Yeah, that was one of the other ones I almost got. He's a long time.

I know I have Ronald Cunia waiting for, you know, May. And obviously, look, with Brent Rooker, like the needle is relatively narrow here in terms of making this work. Because if Dominguez is good by May, then I've actually got a problem because I'm going to be sitting a very productive player. And I do think Dominguez, like, he is probably. better in Roto than points, but his skill set can work in this points format. There are going to be some strikeout issues, but hopefully it's not 30%. Hopefully it's like 26%. And he's a patient bordering on passive hitter.

He walks a lot. And so I do think there's going to be a decent on base percentage. He'll steal some bases. I think Dominguez can be overlooked in a head-to-head points format. Yeah, I thought about him the past couple rounds. I might have taken him here if you didn't. Yeah, no, I think it's a great pick. Oh, thank you.

Like I said, it's one I wanted to do too. I just felt like I needed pitching depth more given how much early capital I invested in hitting. No, I'm with you. I still only have three healthy starting pitchers plus Chris Boobich and George Kirby. So I'm not overflowing with pitching right now. And I like your pick there too, Frank. Drew Rasmussen. I don't know why.

I mean, we haven't discussed him as much either, and I tend to overlook him among the sparks. I think early on, it wasn't clear he had a rotation spot, but now it's very clear because the Ray's rotation has gotten hit like so many others have. And stuff's look very good this spring. Yeah, he's better than Nick Martinez probably, if we're just talking ability, pitching ability.

Bouten Francis too, I would guess. So I probably just need to move him up in the rankings as good as it does anybody now a day before the season starts. After I took Drew Rasmussen, Yandy Diaz, Adolius Garcia, Cedric Mullins, and Nesser Cortez. Yandy Diaz, if he gets back on track,

I mean, he could be really good in this format. It's a good plate discipline. I think I saw somewhere he wasn't going to lead off this season. He's going to hit more in the middle of the lineup. Have you guys seen anything on the Ray's lineup and where Yandy Diaz will hit? I did not see that, but it's entirely possible if that's correct, yes. Let's see what roster resource has. They still have them lead off, so all right, maybe I was wrong, or maybe they changed their minds. It felt like I saw it somewhere, but we'll see if Yandy Diaz can get back on track. Spencer Steer, 168th, and then the first pick of

Round 15 is Nick Castellanos. Is this an okay time to take an injured Spencer Steer? Yeah. If he needed a first basement. I wonder if the guy did need a first basement. Let me check Binnie and the Jets. He did need a first basement. I think that's the perfect use of Spencer Steer in this format

because nobody else is really startable. They're startable. Like they, you can start them. but it's an emergency start situation as opposed to somebody you truly want in that first base spot to begin the year. The one thing I've seen about Yandi Diaz, I'm reading a story about it now.

He's going to play more DH, but I haven't seen anything about the lineups spot. So if he is dehing more, they're just going to play Aronda in the field at first base, I assume. Yeah, Ronda is going to play more first base. Curtis Mead has played first, second, and third this spring. So I imagine he'll be part of that as well.

well. And yeah, I think it ultimately will come down to Mead and Aranda and who gets hot. All right. After Nick Castiano's Christian Encarnacion Strand, Merrill Kelly, Ryan Pepio, and Xavier Edwards. So, oh, I was going to say, interesting strategy.

I thought the person who took Steer also took Encarnacion and just kind of, you know, handcuffed those two together. But it was two different teams. So scratched that. am up and still have a few holes in the line up here. I really wanted to Xavier Edwards for my utility spot. That was when I was saying it's hard to anticipate 22 picks ahead.

It was between that pair of injured pitchers and Xavier Edwards. And it looked like I might have picked right there with Edwards making it back to me. Didn't it happen? all right i'm going to go ahead you guys tell me if this is too early but i just feel like he's going to be so much better in this format uh i went ahead to took jonathan india who i can play at second base and then put westburgh at third so and it seems likely he's going to be outfield eligible at some point i don't know how early that's going to be but they've been talking a lot about playing him in the outfield at times

this season so i think it could work out um i have the second base rankings pulled up right now because that is a spot I need to fill. So let's pull the trigger. I didn't have, yeah, I don't have it ranked that way, but I probably should change it because, like Luis Garcia, much better in Roto, not sure he's going to play every day. Bryce to Rang, much better in Roto.

You know, yes, steals help here, but. All right, Scott's going to hate this one. He's bad against lefties. Ooh, Christian Campbell, 175th. Shooting for upside. Yeah. He thinks it's too early. It's not too early.

Nobody with upside is too early at this point. Christian Campbell obviously has a ton of upside. I don't think if you end up dropping your round 15 pick because he gets optioned to the minors in week three. Yeah, it's going to sink your season. No. So it's fine. Jackson Holiday goes right after.

That's who I would have taken instead. It was between the two of them. Yeah. I was considering him for my upcoming pick here. So would you guys have taken both of those over Jonathan India as well? I would have in, yeah, I would have. I mean, I say in this format, it is India's better format, but his upside only goes so high.

And I feel like more than anything, what you need, more than walkers, more than non-strikeout guys, you need upside above all. Yeah. as my approach to the draft would suggest that's how I believe. I was trying to figure out which of the three would likely make it back to me when I was picking previously and it turned out none of them because, well, I took one of them. Scott, not as cool as a cucumber right now. Double snipe.

I was, if I didn't take a second baseman there, I was going to take Lodolo and. I thought about it too. The thought I have is, did I will the Jackson Holiday pick into existence by taking Christian Campbell? I think so. Like if I just didn't touch it, does one of the two make it back to me? I think it's pretty obvious that once one goes Christian Campbell versus Jonathan Jackson Holiday, they probably, the next one should go fairly soon after. Yep. After Campbell and Holiday, we got Alec Boe, McKenzie Gore, and Ladolo.

Those were the two picks that set Scott in two. a flurry here. Lauren La Dolo, I was going to take them. My pitching was going to be awesome at that point. Oh man, I guess I guess I'm going to take Luzardo. You guys are high on him. I'm not as much, but. I kept passing on him just because of there's one area he does lack its efficiency and going

deep into starts. Yeah. And I'll pair him with Matt Shaw. I'll get the last of the young upside bats. who might I think he's less prone to striking out than either Jackson Holiday

or Christian Campbell so he may turn out to be the better play for this format anyway it's format utility spots so position doesn't matter just shooting for a little

upside there with Matt Shaw all right and the next pick is Pete Crow Armstrong let's take a quick break and when we return we'll catch you up on

week week round 16 right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today doing our live 12 team listener league, head to head points league by the way should mention that as well. Our last live draft that we will do so you could see where all the risers are going and where the injured players are falling to as well throughout the course of this draft and in round 16 we now have Pete Crowe Armstrong, Yohan Duran and Jake Berger.

Jake Berger does not walk very much, so this is not his preferred format, but it's a pretty big fall, 180 fourth overall. Yeah, I just don't even know that he's going to be more than borderline rosterable all year.

2.60 points per game last year. Okay, maybe he'll be better than last year because the lineup's improved, but 2.60 feels like you can find that off the waiver wire any given week. Next pick was Walker Bueller, And Chris, you are up.

Your pick was Mumma, Mike Soroka. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Sorok. It's probably the last spark. Maybe there's one more

who gets drafted, I think. But that's maybe two. I don't know. I think there's only two sparks who haven't been drafted who are in rotations right now,

I would say. So I don't, yeah. I don't. think I would take either of them. Did West Neski already go? No, I feel like I saw his name.

Maybe I'm mixing this up with one of the... No, he hasn't gone yet. So there are three sparks who are in rotations right now. Yeah, I'm not taking any of them myself. So you guys can have Adam. Wes Neski is pretty interesting. He's got a deep arsenal

and the stuff metrics like him a decent amount. So I'm... I'm open to it in this format. I went ahead and took a player I don't ever draft, and that's Royce Lewis, 187th overall. We have the three IL spots, and like you said,

last pick, Scott, just trying to shoot for some upside here and get them back at some point, and I have that flexibility with Westberg, I can move him to second or third, and, you know, if Royce Lewis comes back and is anywhere close to the same player, you know, we saw early last season

and in previous years, then who knows, I might have a stud on my hands for, I don't know, 50 games. I have no idea how long he'll play. All right. After Royce Lewis, Tanner Halk, Luis Renhifo, and Victor Robles, who should steal a lot of bases and usually drafted around this range in a Categories league. But, Chris, what do you think about in a points league?

Can you still take Victor Robles in this range, or is it too early? if you buy what he did at all last season it's a great pick because he was not quite three points per game i would guess but with seattle he might have been because he wasn't playing every day in the like 12 appearances he made with washington so it is possible that victor robes was a three point per game guy when he got to seattle so if you believe in that you know, I don't think he's a 330, 320 hit or whatever it was, but I think there are 307 overall. But I think there were legitimate skills improvements last season that potentially started in 2023. His quality of contact was much better in a limited sample in 2023. He started swinging harder last season.

And I think there's a decent chance Victor Robles isn't that much different than Xavier Edwards or P. or Armstrong, who we're both already taken in this draft. So he's going to hit 3.05. There you go. He's going to hit near the top of the lineup. His defense is going to keep him in the lineup. I think there is more upside than you think with Victor Robles based on what he did last season. All right.

After Victor Robles, there was Williare Arbrew and Paul Goldschmidt and into round 17. Brandon Fott, Kyle Finnegan, Nolan Aronado, and Max Scherzer. I am on deck here. Starting pitcher has thinned out. Thinned out is a good way to put it here. You know. Yeah, I was hoping Scherzer would make it back to me. I was thinking about Scher myself too,

who has dealt with a thumb injury this spring, but on a per game basis, we would expect him to go deep into his starts regularly, we hope, and obviously that's really good for this format. so, but on either of our teams, Chris. And then Tommy Edmund, so there goes that. Getting snipped left and right. I like Josh Lowe, but in a points league, I don't know.

I think I probably waited too long for my third outfielder here. So I'm just going to keep waiting at this point. And I think I'll take a starting pitcher. Don't want to do that. you know what? Another player I don't ever really take, but I'll take a shot on the upside at this point. He's on my bench,

and we'll see if he can put anything, put it together. It's Taj Bradley, who lasted a little bit longer here, 198th. And back-to-back raise, Shane Bos to you, Chris. Yeah, kind of just the same thought. I think there's a little bit of upside there.

Obviously worried about the ballpark and what that's going to mean. But if Shane Boss or Taj Bradley, find consistency with their secondaries especially. I think there's plenty of upside there. I just, Baws got no strike house at all this spring. Four, nine and third innings.

It's only nine and a third innings. But, you know, obviously you would prefer seeing more from him, especially I just haven't seen anything on the slider being back. And that was the big key for him before the injury. And he just hasn't gotten it back. So it's a, it is concerning.

with Shane Bos. I wish there was more to be excited about. Max Muncie going. That may save me from myself. I thought about taking him too and just playing the hot hand at second and third between him and India and Royce Lewis when he's back. I probably should have done it. But yeah, that's the last, I think, points league standout.

3.09 points per game for Muncie last year. I think people just don't trust him to stay healthy. or maybe they're expecting to sit against some lefties. I don't know. He's kind of disrespected in general, but given how, given that he's a specialist for this format specifically, you would think he'd get pushed up a little more.

I'm actually, I'm up now. I'm a little concerned about the relief pitcher situation because the bottom of it's kind of gotten wrecked here with Alex, Alexis Diaz removing himself from the equation, David Bednar has a lot of concerns. The Royal situation is still up in the air. I think I'm actually going to go ahead and take Jeff Hoffman here because he's far and away the best closer left.

Yeah. This is such a far fall for him too. Yeah. Didn't it quite make it to the end of the draft, but round 17. It's in that spirit. right it's in the spirit of waiting till the end of the draft to take a closer let's see what other player am i going to take here a couple starting pitchers i'm looking at it's a question of which one

how much time do i have left 30 seconds um i'm going to take sugano because i like his week one matchups more all right we're already thinking about we're thinking about week one let's go yeah Well, I need somebody to start in week one. That's true. And Toronto and Kansas City are his first two matchups. I think that's decent. All righty. So Tomoyuki Sugano, first pick of round 18,

who signed with the Orioles this offseason over from Japan, where he routinely put up great ratios, but didn't strike many people out at all. He's looked pretty good here in the spring. so we'll see if that success will translate here in the majors. He's so efficient. I trust he's going to work deep into games early. I think he'll have the element of surprise early too.

And the Orioles need it. They need depth. Oh, yeah. I mean, length rather, from their starters. I do have one starting pitcher ranked ahead of him. It's Reese Olson. I'll just go ahead and say it because I doubt he's coming back to me. He goes, no sooner does it come out of my mouth,

and Reese Olson goes off the board. So that was the other one I would. considering. Not like I was thinking about taking him or anything, Scott. So thank you for that. I think he had already picked draft before it actually came out of my mouth. Nope. I'm still going to blame you for that one.

A couple other picks that happened. There was Bryce Terang, Spencer Torkelson. Those were in round 17. After Olson here, we get Dansby Swanson. And Chris, we were a couple of picks away from you. I don't know if you want to talk about what you're thinking. You might not want to give it away. Oh, I don't think anybody.

is listening or cares what I have to say. So I'll talk about it. Yeah, a pitcher. I have four picks left and I'm probably going to take a whole bunch of pitchers. Yeah. With those picks, at least three, possibly four.

But there aren't that many good ones to take. There are not many good ones to take. Yes, I agree with that. But there are some interesting talents left. And that's what we're looking. We're for. We're looking for interesting talents.

So we'll see. All right. Next pick. Gabriel Moreno. I do agree that there are some kind of interesting talents as you put it. There are. I mean, we go really deep

into the starting pitcher pool in these head-to-head points drafts, which is part of the reason why we are so shallow with the hitter pool and why the replacement level is so high for hitters, as I've been stressing this whole draft. If you don't get a stud hitter, you might as well not bother at all.

Yeah, I'm going to go with um hayden bird song's an interesting one but of course he just he's he's beginning the year in the bullpen i i imagine an opening in the rotation will develop for him sooner than later but with me having so many injured arms i'm not sure this is the league where i can wait around for that yeah is it five in season appearances to gain r p eligibility 10 yeah so that that's tough because that's probably at least a full month probably more five to pick up sp to pick up sp to pick up RP. That's that's tough. I'm do I want to go boring or do I want to go upside? I'll go upside because I hope the two boring guys. One of them will be there. I'm going to go with Jack Leiter who it's just a bet on high end talent and stuff. I would guess as with Christian Campbell and Jackson Holiday that picking Jack Leiter probably speaks a Kumar Rocker. pick into existence within the next handful.

Not that it has to, but that's just my prediction. But I think Jack Leiter, the stuff is really, really good. A lot of command concerns. The arsenal is deeper now than it was last year, and I'm interested to see what it looks like with a real chance. I think to get at least a couple of turns in the rotation. Patrick Corbyn signed there. He got sent down to the miners today.

Sounds like he's going to make two tune-up starts of the miners. So we'll see how quickly Patrick Corbyn becomes an option for them. Ideally, it never happens. Yeah. But they signed up for a reason. Jack Leiter has to perform for. Yeah, Leiter and Rocker can both absolutely pitch Patrick Corbyn into irrelevance. But it's not the likeliest outcome.

I wanted to point out a couple things here. So two picks before your lighter pick was Gabriel Moreno. And I kind of talked, I said earlier that catchers once Will Smith and J.T. Rio Nuto went off the board. They didn't matter in this league. There are two, I think, high upside late round catchers for head to have points. One's Gabriel Moreno because of how little he strikes out. And the other is Austin Wells, who I'm not sure we've talked about enough in general. He did get drafted much earlier, though.

He did. And so, you know, his stock apparently, regardless of our lack of talking about him, his stock appears to be on the rise, huge spring, a swing that's geared for Yankee Stadium, going to bat lead off against right-handed pitchers. And I think has more upside than we've been getting credit for. Bat speed reportedly up three miles per hour this spring. He could have a huge year. and be the biggest breakout of all at catcher Austin Wells.

He was quite good up until about September. I think it was September. It was when just everything fell apart for Austin Wells. But he was looking like a legitimate breakout last year until things kind of fell apart. Yeah, he had a... The data was good last year before picking up three miles per hour on his swing. Yeah, but he had a 795 OPS on the last day of August last year.

And then it was terrible in the playoffs, terrible in September. but I think there's plenty of upside there, yeah. All right, catching people up on the picks after way back when Chris selected Jack Leiter. I took Dustin May, then there was Michael Waka, Mitch Keller, Kumar Rocker, Lane Thomas, Tyler Fitzgerald, and then into round 19, Max Meyer, Tyler O'Neill, Logan O'Hoppe, Bubba Chandler, and Trevor McGill.

The other pick I wanted to comment on was Mitch Keller, who I like for this format, because I think the damaging starts are less damaging than in Roto. And especially I like them for week one, because in the extra long 11-day week one we're using in this league, Mitch Keller's first two matchups are the Marlins and the Rays, who actually were the worst of the two Florida lineups last year, the Rays. So you can't ask for much better than that.

I think the Rays have more upside than that. I think they'll have a better lineup than the Marlins this year, but I don't know that it'll be a good lineup, and you can't ask for much better matchups than Keller has their first two times through. Did you guys talk about Kumar Rockers start from Tuesday by any chance? No, we have not mentioned that, but more of what we talked about in with his last start. He was throwing that slower curveball a lot more often,

21 times out of 70 pitches today. Got six whiffs with it on 21. one pitches. He looked good. Four shutout innings, eight strikeouts, 13 whiffs on 70 pitches, six on the curve, four on the fastball,

two on the sinker. He's, Kuma Rocker is trying new things. He's got this throwing a cutter. Curve ball. He threw a new cutter five times too. Yeah, so,

and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like he didn't really use a sinker very much last season. It was his most used pitch in this start. So, yep. He's trying. Kuma Rocker's trying some things out

and seeing what works. So it's entirely possible. that wrong on Jack Lighter taking him ahead of Kumar Rocker. He went, Kumar Rocker went about two picks after Jack Lighter, if I'm remembering correctly. And yeah, Rocker, it was 90, it was about 80% for Seamer slider. The rest mostly sinkers, but he only threw 16% of them. So yeah, it was almost entirely for Seamer slider. All right. Next couple of picks, I selected, well, there was even more. Where do I leave off?

Gosh, I don't even remember. This entire round, Max Meyer, Tyler O'Neill, Logan O'Hoppy, Bubba Chandler, so he's a stash. He won't be in the Pirates rotation to start the year. Trevor McGill, I took Justin Verlander. Chris, you selected Eduardo Rodriguez.

Yeah, I mentioned two, like, older boring guys when I picked Jack Leiter, and those were the two, Justin Verlinder, and Wardo Rodriguez. So there you go. After Erod, Colton Coutter, Josh Lowe, Casey Mize, A Eugenio,

Juarez and Scott at the turn, Jordan Romano and Jose Soriano. Yep. Jose Soriano, another pick with week one in mind. His matchups for week one are the White Sox and the Guardians. Again, this is for the extra long week one, the 11-day scoring period. Two picks before him wasn't my pick, but Casey Meyes, an even better situation with matchups to open the year, Seattle and the White Sox for Casey Meyes. I want to highlight my Eduardo Rodriguez pick because we really haven't talked very much about him.

I think there was a little bit of conversation about a week ago because he's having a good spring. And is his velocity up? Is that way we were talking about him? He just had a really good start. Yeah. But he, you don't have to go that far to him being a really, really good fantasy option. In 2020, he had a 330 ERA, a 115 whip, 383 fantasy points and 150. two innings. He's backed by a really good team.

There's a lot of win potential there. He can go deep in the games when he's pitching well. I'm happy with Eduardo Rodriguez as a bench pick in this league. On March 14th, Erod win. Three and two-thirds perfect innings with six strikeouts. That'll work. Yeah, he was pretty good in that one. I'll quickly pull up the stack cast data because I feel like there was something kind of interesting about that start. Maybe it was Velocity related. The last couple picks, by the way,

were... Ah, I was gonna do it, Chris. I was... It's about, you know, whatever. There's two picks left, but last couple of picks, Yvonne Herrera, Brandon Woodruff, Richard Fitz, Ryan Presley, and Chris selected Jared Jones, who,

we got an update on Tuesday, has no torn ligaments and will not need surgery. He's shut down from throwing for the next six weeks, but as of now, not done for the year. Probably out until June at the absolute earliest. So that is a pick where it's

Stash him on the IL immediately And ride it out and see what happens It does mean that I'll have two players on the aisle To start the season in Ronald O'Cuna and Jared Jones So I got- I got room for one more injury And that will definitely happen in the next couple of weeks

Any if the second injury I'm going to have to make some tough decisions Yeah I mean obviously it's it's not the final verdict on Jones but it's it's as encouraging as we could have hoped for they they it wasn't it wasn't he has ligament damage but he's going to try to rehab yeah it's not an elbow strain at least based on what they told us they said no ligament damage so um i don't know if that they needed the second opinion because the inflammation was too great i mean it took this many days to get the second opinion so i kind of suspect that's it they just needed to wait for the inflammation to subside to get a good look there at it uh

Any pitching injury has the potential to bring about a torn ligament because of you compensating for that injury. So it's not like there's no other shoe to drop here. Maybe there is, but based on the reporting we have right now, we should take this as good news for Jones. But yes, he's going to miss at least the first couple months. And so it's a late round stash. Yeah, I would say I think the likeliest outcome. is he's just not very useful at all this season. And to the point you made, you know, like about it, oh, there's no ligament damage.

Well, Garrett Cole didn't have any ligament damage last year. He had a nerve injury. He ends up tearing the UCL this. So like there are a lot of situations where there's a delayed effect to these kind of things. Obviously, then you have like Gavin Williams last year pitching through that elbow injury was able to pitch, but just wasn't very good. So expectations should be low, but as a bench pick in a league with multiple IL spots, I think it's fine in the later rounds. It's probably undraftable in leagues with no aisle spots,

but that's a different question than the one we're talking about. All right, lots of picks going off the board. I took Luis Severino, just kind of another boring starting pitcher that I can maybe you've played the matchups with there. Jacob Wilson, U. Darvish, who will start the season on the IL. Roman Anthony,

who you have to stash, Sadan Raphaela, and then Jeffrey Springs. We are into the final round. Brendan Donovan, Ryan Jeffers, Zach Netto, Shane Bieber.

Another good I.L. Stash. Lots of injury stashes here flying off the board. We've got three IL spots, but they're going to fill up fast and I'm just letting you know. Jeff,

Jeffrey Springs, I've been kind of down on all spring, obviously coming back. Oh, shoot, Chris Bassett goes. That was going to be my end of draft inning, Zeter. But getting back to Jeffrey Springs, his last start was encouraging. Obviously shut down with an elbow issue at the end of last season, so we kind of needed to see something from him this spring. I'm in the wrong file, which is why I can't find what I'm looking for. Okay.

So on Saturday, Jeffrey Springs struck out. eight and four innings. His whiff rate in that start was 27%, which is, you know, as an overall whiff rate, pretty good. We didn't have the full data

to see what his velocities and everything looked like, but eight strikeouts and four innings with a 27% whiff rate, I think, says a lot. So hopefully he's rounding into form, Jeffrey Springs, just in time for the season. And I don't love him for the

two strikes in the long week, but if you play and just the weekend is its own scoring period, Jeffrey Springs gets Seattle for his first matchups. Pretty good. Start there. Chris, I think it's a fine pick. You took Hayden Wesniewski and freaked out immediately.

So I'll talk you through my thought process there. There were six pitchers in my queue. Three of them are Sparks. Hayden Wesneski was one of them. Shane Smith is the other one. I'll just sell them all, Luis Ortiz. So I did want a third spark.

However, I also know that there are only six picks left. And so it's very unlikely, at least before I said that, the Hayden Wosneski, Shane Smith, and Luis Ortiz would all be drafted. I think it's, none of the three are necessarily must draft players in this format anyway. We talked about that earlier. I wanted a third spark to be able to take advantage of matchups with the two that I have. You spoke it into existence. Yeah, I figured that would happen.

If I hadn't mentioned any of them, they probably all go undrafted. Maybe Luis Ortiz gets picked now because Shane Smith was the next pick after Hayden Wesneske. Whatever. You're welcome. The reason, so I did pick Hayden Wosnowski and then immediately regretted it because the guy was also considering, I was considering Ben Brown because I think. He's in the Cubs rotation. He's in the Cubs rotation, which I did not expect. I'm frustrated because I just dropped him in one league.

Um, he's got an insane knuckle curve. His curve ball is legitimately like a 70 grade out of 80. He's got a very good fastball as well. He's been working on a changeup. Who knows? Um, so I like the upside there. I also thought about Ryan Weathers or Brian Bayo just because gives me another,

basically it allows me to draft three extra players to, you know, I'm going to put guys on, three guys on the IL. I probably could have just picked up Hayden was an or Ben Brown or Luis Ortiz or whoever it was if I had taken Ryanweather. So I probably should have taken the IL stash. Yeah.

Just from a roster construction standpoint. And I probably should have done the same thing instead of taking Severino because I probably could have just picked up Luis Severino. So yeah. So that's something to keep in mind as you get to the end of your drafts is you might prefer one player to another, but when waivers run, you have to consider how, likely it is it that that player is going to be available because there are still a handful of useful pitchers left who I will be interested in with the right matchups and in the right

situation. So I probably should have, you know, probably should have just taken the IL stash, but it's fine. I have two already. So it's not like I've lost the ability to get a few extra bites at the apple, but that's, that's where I'm thinking. And in this final round, I also took Lars Neupar as my third outfielder. I think I took two in my first three picks. That's a good pick, though. With Tucker and Julio Rodriguez, and then waited way too long, and he's going to lead off. He's good OBP guy, so I'm hoping it works out for Lars Newport.

If it works out, he should be awesome for this format. Of course, this is like the fourth straight year we've said that. That's exactly right. Leading off, great plate discipline. Yeah. It could be a must-start player, even in a head-to-head points league, yes. And Scott, Mr. Irrelevant went to you, Chris Paddock, who I know has a good matchup early on and you probably need that. Yep.

I kind of, with my late round pitching selections, since I wasn't able to zero in on my favorites necessarily, with so many others being, with so many of them being scooped up in between my picks, I went for ones that, yeah, I kind of like, but a lot of it had to do with their early season matchups too. because some of the pictures I drafted earlier aren't going to be available to me at the start of the season. But Chris Paddock, I think, has been really interesting his last couple starts here in the spring. The induced vertical break on his fastball has been up. This was also true of his start Tuesday. Not up quite as much as in the previous start,

but up enough that he got seven whiffs on that fastball, which you know I love to see. and in his previous start Chris Paddock had even more than that on the fastball it was like a Gavin Williams start nine swinging strikes on the fastball on his previous start

so there may be something here with Chris Paddock his first turn is against the White Sox he might get a second turn in the long week one and that would be against the Astros Yeah I don't love that but if he doesn't

I would take a second start against anybody in a place But if he doesn't what I wanted to point out is if it's not, then it's at Kansas City, not a bad matchup. And then probably versus Detroit. So the schedule is pretty favorable for Chris Paddock. If he's what he was last year, then it doesn't matter. Right.

But I think he's an interesting early season. Let's see what happens kind of guy. All right. Let's wrap up by taking a look at each of our team. Scott was drafting 12th in this one. And the hitters, you got J.T. Real Muto, Bryce Harper. Go Phillies, Jose Altuve, Mani Machado, Ellie Dealer Cruz, in the outfield,

Christian Yelich, Luis Robert, Lawrence Butler, and your utility is Matt Shaw. And those are my only hitters on the whole team. What do you think of it, Scott? What do you think of it? I think it's really good. I mean, you know, you don't have a first or second or third round player in the outfield,

but it's still players that should be really good. Lawrence Butler, Yelich, The infield is awesome. Matt Shaw, I did see that I think he's expected to bat eighth now, even after batting fifth two times in Tokyo. So that doesn't help

his fantasy value, obviously, but I mean, he's your utility guy and you have three injured pitchers, so you can pick somebody else up if he wants to. It's the sort of thing where, if he hits, he'll move up the lineup. I don't know that he's going to move into the top third of the lineup, but he'll move up to

fifth or sixth or whatever. if he's performing well. And if not, there are a lot of good hitters on the Waver Wire. I just went with the upside play for my utility spot in this deep format. Yeah, it's a good lineup. There's no knocking it, independent of any other context. I kind of wish for as much as I invested in it, I kind of wished it looked a little stronger.

The Louis Robert pick. I don't know, for some reason I'd feel better if that was Jerks and Provin. far even though I rank Robert ahead of pro far. ProFar is just better suited for this format. And really, I wanted a pro far type for that utility spot. And I'd feel much better about it then. My first two picks, remember, were Ellie De La Cruz and Bryce Harper at the one two turn, both of which felt a little early.

But part of that is we've had to bump some of the early round bats down and some just aren't as good in this format. So, yeah, it's a great lineup. and I hope it holds up because it's clearly going to be the strength of my team. Because the pitching staff is Sunny Gray, Jacob de Grom, Jesus Lazzardo,

Hunter Brown, Tomoyuki Sugano, and the relievers Jeff Hoffman and Jordan Romano. But there are some hurt pitchers here on the bench. Sean Maniah, Chris Paddock, Jose Soriano, Spencer Shrider, and Grayson Rodriguez. So shooting for upside here, Scott, hoping that you get

a borderline ace back in April. with Strider and then maybe like an SP3 type with Sean Mania. Like Grayson. Could be an SP2. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's just a matter of can I piece it together until those guys are back. And look, maybe they suffer setbacks. Maybe they're not the same when they get back. Those are risks. But I think given how forgiving this format is for pitching and how much of it is just playing matchups, capitalizing on two-star weeks,

which have gotten harder to predict, but there's still a thing. I think you can go the piecemeal route at starting pitcher in this format much more than a categories league. And clearly I leaned into it. I didn't come in with a plan to draft all these high-end injured pitchers, but nobody else was. And they seemed like the most impactful at the time I took them. So I'll make do, you know, like I said, I loaded up on guys who I feel like our good matchups play

at the start of the year. Jose Soriano, who's the headliner of the week one, sleeper pitchers, Chris Paddock, Tomoyuki Sugano to a lesser degree.

And I do have Hunter Brown there too to kind of stabilize things. Hopefully Jacob de Grom's healthy at least for now. Sunny Gray is the real wild card here because it's possible

he's just broken or it's possible you know, two starts into the season we're not thinking about spring training anymore. So it's I'm not going to say my pitching staff rides on Sunny Gray,

but it looks a lot better if Sunny Gray is okay. All right. Let's slide over to Chris's team. He was drafting seventh in this one. And you've got Wilson Gutreras, Christian Walker, Christian Campbell, Junior Kamenaro, Carlos Correa, Yorda, Alvarez, Jason Dominguez, Jackson, Turyo, and Brent Rooker. So some unproven names here, but lots of upside. Correa is someone who excels in this format when he's healthy. What do you think about it, Chris? I'm happy with that lineup.

I think if the top prospect making his debut on opening day is the weakest part of my lineup, I feel pretty good about that because Christian Campbell, look, it's no sure thing. And I don't have a backup second basement, so I will probably try to grab one on waivers. But there's plenty of upside there. I mean, if he's as good as we think he can be, he's a must-start player even in head-to-head points league. And I think everyone else in my lineup is pretty much a must-start player in this format. Except for Jason Dominguez, he could be that. But obviously, Ronald Ocuna will be a must-start player when he's healthy.

So I think I'm very happy with this lineup. It's a similar approach to Scots, maybe less upside and less risk in the pitching staff. But I might prefer Scots, actually. Yeah, you know what? Reading it all off and then forgetting that you had Ronald de Cunia on your bench, that definitely does change things because he was your fourth round pick. So, I mean, he could be a stud from mid-May on. And yeah, that would make this lineup look even better. On to the pitching staff, you got Zach Wheeler, Carlos Rodon, Shane Baez, Freddie Peralta, Jack Leiter, two Sparps and Mike Soroka and Chris Bubich. On the bench, you have Eduardo Rodriguez, George Kirby, Jared Jones, Hayden, West. Nesky. So looking through the pitching staff, I was like, there might be something missing here. It's the car. Yeah, and you have George Kirby on the Pence. So if he comes back in April

and pitches at 85% of what he was last year, the pitching staff looks a lot better because you're swiping out lighter probably for George Kirby. And Jared Jones, whenever he's back, I've got three guys I can put on the IL to open

the season and that gives me, an opportunity to add maybe a boring rotation filler to play some two-star matchups with or probably at least a second baseman, maybe a short stop with Carlos Correa's injury risk.

But I'm okay with this in a 12-team points league. It's a lot of risk, but the worst thing that happens is I'm in last place. Who cares? I mean, that's a pretty bad thing that would happen.

I don't want that to happen. But I'm just saying like, your life's not over, correct? Yeah, I'm going to survive, you know, like,

you know, you know, you know, is the worst thing that could happen in a fantasy baseball context to be clear. Well,

no, like we don't have a, a punishment for this league, you know, I don't have to like, eat, you know, 20 waffles at the waffle house or whatever.

If you're going to be that lackadaisical about it, maybe we should. Well, I'm trying. It's just I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to tear my hair out about it.

You know, it's a, it's a risky build. At the end of the draft, you talked about taking another injury stash. Yeah, I had forgotten about a cune. You already have three. 100%. That worked out.

All right, we'll take a look at my team. I was drafting right next to Chris, and I was sixth pick in this one. I've got Jainer Diaz, followed by Tristan Kossis, Jonathan, India, Jordan Westberg, Trey Turner, Kyle Tucker, Julio Rodriguez, Lars Neupar, and Marcel Ozuna. On the pitching staff, I've got Nathan Avaldi, Tyler Glass now, Framber Valdez, Joe Ryan, Christopher Sanchez, two Sparps, and Drew Rasperson and Jackson Job on the bench. I've got Justin Verlander, Luis Severino, Dustin May, Royce Lewis, Tage Bradley. I don't know why I read off my whole team instead of...

Yeah, that was hard for me to keep up with and I'm looking at it. I don't know why I did that. I think I'm just tired, man. We're ready for the season to start if you can't tell. Scott, what do you think about my hitting lineup? I guess we'll start there. You know, on paper, it looks really good. Yeah, it's excellent.

I think there are things that could go wrong that would make it less good. Lars Nubar, you know, obviously that was your last pick, so it's hard to complain too much if that goes wrong. Tristan Kossis, you know, I have concerns about him. I think Jonathan India's upside is only so high. But I'm nitpicking. It's a strong lineup. So if we look at your pitching staff, which you already read off, it's the strongest pitching staff of the three of us, right? Yeah, I don't think your offense is significantly worse.

I will point out like the ideal scenario. It's not significantly worse is what you're saying. Yeah, it's not significantly worse. And the ideal scenario for Frank is Royce Lewis is back in late April and Jonathan India is not his starting second basement, right? He moves Jordan Westberg to second. Royce Lewis is a must-start guy when he's healthy.

So, you know, it definitely could come together. Yeah, I think I invested the most of us three in pitching and just pitching in general because I took sparks a little bit earlier than I usually do. It was just, I kept saying it throughout the draft. There were these points where the hitter pool felt very flat to me. And so I figured, let me try to get an advantage at RP and draft some of these sparts here.

So I do get Jackson Job and Drew Rasmussen. Rasmussen, not someone I typically target, but with the injury to Shane McClanahan, they are relying on him a little bit more here. Reading your teams and then mine, I felt like your offense was clearly much better than mine. but maybe I'm just being a little bit too harsh on my team. I don't know.

I wouldn't say it's much better. It kind of depends how you feel about some of these players. Julio Rodriguez, I think there are diverging opinions on him for this format, specifically. Tristan Kossis. Yeah, I mean, I already named them off. Yeah. So I think you have three key, well, four key guys in your lineup who are clearly better in Roto than points. And that's Yiner Diaz, Jordan Westberg.

Trey Turner and Julio Rodriguez. But that doesn't mean they're bad in points. Julio Rodriguez, like I said earlier, 2023, he was a top 15 player in this format. It was like a 560 point player. Trey Turner is actually, I think, consistently underrated in this format because he is almost always a 500 plus point performer

when he's healthy. And even last year when he missed time, I think he was still clear of three points per game if I'm doing the math right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like way clear. Yeah.

So I think it probably looks a little worse because of that because they're just Roto specialists, but you got them at good values and the overall build makes sense. The one thing I do want to point out about the approach that Scott and I took in a head-to-head points format. The thing you have to keep in mind is you don't have to have the best team all season. you can be under 500 for two months. But if your team gets it going and you're a top six team and a team where six teams make the playoffs and you're really good and you have difference makers by the playoffs,

that doesn't, it doesn't matter that you were bad early on in the season. It narrows your margin for error. You know, if you're like not having Ronald O'Cunia and George Kirby in April, that's going to be tough to navigate for sure. but if those guys come back and are 85% of what they were the last couple of seasons, this team is going to be really, really tough to face in the playoffs. And it's the same with Scott. If half of his injury risks stay healthy, it's going to be a great team.

I think it's a good point. And we receive a lot of questions about that specific thing, is drafting injured players in head to head where you are looking more towards the playoffs. You have to make the playoffs, obviously. thinking about how can I field my best team by the time we get to the playoffs. My thinking was with only three IL spots and I feel like they fill up so fast in that I didn't want to start with all three of them full because I feel like things are just going to go sideways very early on in the season and players will get hurt. But I totally get why you guys did it because you got all those

players at values. I'm trying to think if there was a specific name that I was targeting. Jared Jones is one for sure when you took him, Chris. And I think when Scott took Grayson Rodriguez, I was kind of thinking about it. Strider. Stryder was the other one. I debated Glassnow versus Strider, but opted for the pitcher who's healthy now. But yeah, strider might be amazing once he's back. So. Tadah Glassnow looked amazing the other day for sure. Yeah. Oh, he generally is when he's healthy. Yeah, Glassnow is a top 10 pitcher in this format when he's healthy. There's no question that. It's just who would you guys take straight up, Strider or Glassnow?

I rank glass now higher and yeah I think I'd follow through on that cool all right so I made the right pick well I guess we'll find out once the season starts let us know what do you think of the draft in the comments and who won the draft whose team did you like best between Scott Chris and myself we are going to wrap there for Scott 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 with our season preview. It's almost here.

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