Fantasy Baseball Today - 12/04: An Early Look at 2B (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 4, 2018

Is Second Base terrible this year? Is Jose Altuve that much better than the rest of the group? Who is the next superstar? We'll answer these questions and discuss if some of the older guys like Daniel Murphy, Brian Dozier and Robinson Cano have another great season in them. Plus your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Choose is Travis Shaw over anyone who's great In an Atomazer trade The other team's getting played An ace to Chris is most guys number threes Have any of these dudes ever won the podcast lead But they'll be there for you, you're safe They'll be there for God we'll talk about the praise

They'll be there for The first of two Fantasy Baseball today episode this week. Chris, everyone was bad at me for not doing a show last week. They hate me now. As well they should, Adam. Because I was raring to go. I was here.

I had my little headset on, my microphone, and you just never showed up. Yeah, well, I was sick. I'm sorry, everybody. I did intend to do a show last week. I was sick as a dog. And I'm back now. I'm healthy and ready to go. So we're doing two episodes this week.

We got James Paxson to the Yankees, Robinson Canoe to the Mets, Gene Seguer to the Phillies. Somebody else on the Mariners will get traded today, I'm sure. And we will talk about all of that tomorrow. Why are we saving that for tomorrow? Scott White will be back tomorrow, and I'm sure he wants to talk about all this good stuff. So today we'll do something that doesn't require Scott White at all.

Hey, look at Scott's second base rankings. That'll work. Yeah, we don't need him for that. No, we know. Let's talk about second base in general. Let's start, though, with an email. Email of the day is from Jesse. It says, hey, dudes, spelled D-O-O-D-S. I'm curious, what the conversation will be about openers next season regarding their win potential.

And I think really he's asking more like the guy who comes on after the opener. If my understanding is correct about how a win has acquired any pitcher after the starter that is in the game, when their team takes and maintains the lead, is rewarded the win. Therefore, if one can identify quality pitchers who are pitching between the second and sixth innings, they have a higher probability to get a win. A guy that comes to mind is a 15-win, Ryan Yarbrough. I wouldn't necessarily draft him,

but come spring training, do you think long relievers could be identified as higher win potential players? So I think once the first pitcher is out of the game, doesn't it just become a judgment call on wins, kind of? Like the official score sort of determines if the first pitcher was not eligible for the win. Isn't that how it works? Am I completely off base here?

No, no. The official scorer does have some discretion. Like, it's not like whoever the next pitcher is if they pitch five innings. It's like if the official score determines that they deserve the win. Well, I think, okay, first of all, obviously you have to pitch, your team has to have, your team has to take the lead to keep it. Okay. But let's say this scenario, let's say an opener pitches the first.

Yeah. And then a guy pitches the second, and a team takes the lead. And then a guy comes in and pitches five innings and keeps that lead. I would guess the third pitcher gets the lead. I think so. But I don't really know. I think so, too. I think the official scorer would give it to the guy who pitched the five innings.

But I really, like, and this is almost certainly only going to affect one team, and it's almost certainly only going to affect one or two guys on that team anyway. You don't think it's going to become a little more widespread? Maybe a few teams start doing this junk? It's possible. Like, I know the twins experimented with it late in the season. I want to say the Brewers kind of did in the playoffs, but the playoffs are a completely different story.

But it's just, right now, okay, one team for sure is going to. And so it does seem to have helped Ryan, YAR bro. And one thing that it seems to have helped him with is the fact that he pitched in 38 games and he won 16 of them with a 391 ERA. He was decent, but he probably shouldn't have won 16 games. And it's possible that in a different role, he wouldn't have won 16 games. And the other thing to keep in mind is his ERA probably would have been higher than 391 if he hadn't been used as an opener because he's avoiding the best hitters in the lineup at least once. Right. All right. All right. Well, so not a huge thing here.

Yeah, I'll throw out, like, Jake Ferrea could have a bounce back season and benefit from that. And one guy that I actually really like a lot with Tampa Bay is Riani Chorinos, who pitched. 89 and two-thirds innings had a 351 ERA last season, but he backed it up with a 351. FIP gets a lot of ground balls, generates a decent amount of weak contact, has pretty good control. He's going to be a sleeper for me. I like his potential to kind of out. perform expectations next year. And the last thing about this is that I don't like this opener thing because if you

have any compensation for compensation, no. Any reward for quality starts, that's gone. It kills in head-to-head points. We are going to talk about second base. We're going to get into the position in general. Who's more legit, Javier Byers or Whitmerfield? Who's the next star at the position? We'll talk about second base right after this.

All right, Chris, let's get into it here. We've got hopefully some emails at the end of the show, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Jose Altuve had a down year. He was the number 10 second baseman of points, number seven in Roto. He played only at 137 games. The previous two seasons, he was the top seven hitter.

Back 2016, it was the number three hitter in baseball. How much better do you think Jose Al Tuvae is than the rest of the position? Quite a bit. And I think Jose Altuvae is, he's probably going to be someone that I end up drafting a lot next year, especially if I have a pick in the late first round. If I can get him, if I'm picking like ninth overall and he comes back to me

and I can get him like at the 15 or 16 spot, wherever that turns out to be, I'm going to love that because... Did you say the 15 or 16 spot for Jose? That's something that I've seen in a lot of these early mock drafts is that he's going around 15 overall, if not a little later. He's ridiculous. He should be arguably fifth. I agree.

I don't think his skill set diminished much at all last season. You know, basically he stopped running after the knee injury, which makes sense. And then he didn't run. I think it was just April. And then in May and June, he ran like Jose Al-Tube. And that's the big thing. If he's a 15th steel guy or a 17th steel guy like he was last season instead of a 30 steel guy he was the previous six seasons,

you're going to have to downgrade him. But he's still the surest bet to hit 300. He's the likeliest player to lead the majors in batting average every single season. And there's no reason to think that changed last year. I don't think we saw much of a drop off from Jose Al Tuvae in terms of his skills. I think he got a little unlucky. and then he got hurt. Because the next guy in the second base rankings for Heath and Scott,

and these haven't been updated for a few weeks, but, you know, it's Javier Baez. Yeah, I think there's a, there's obvious, if Javier Baez does what he did last year, there's not much of a drop off at all, obviously. Right. Well, that brings us to our second question. Yeah.

Who is more legit? Javier Baez or Whitmerfield, they were your next best, or they were your best second baseman last year. Baez was one and Merrifield was two and that might be guys who are only second base eligible going forward I think there may have been a few players

last year who were second base eligible that were better than Maryfield maybe like a Matt Carpenter in points leagues or something but either way based on last year's standings Baez was the best Maryfield was second best among players currently eligible at second base

Yeah and I think you probably have to go with the guy who's done it for two years in a row. It is possible that Javier Baez just, it all clicked. This is a guy with a huge amount of upside and maybe he finally figured it out. He's just going to be that good forever. But Whit Merrifield proved last year that it wasn't a fluke.

He is a good hitter, even if, you know, he wasn't quite the power source that he was the year before, the 45 steals. He led the majors in stolen bases last year. That's hugely valuable. He had 28 steals in 67 games after the All-Star break. And, yeah, he batted 304. We had a feeling the power would come down from 19 home runs in 2017 to 12 in 2018 while playing 13 more games.

But the runs, only 88 runs in a terrible lineup. But still, maybe a little unlucky there. 88 runs at 158 games for a guy who hit 304. Seems like he could be a 100-run guy. It is interesting. What was it, 26 deals in 67 games, you said? 28 and 67 games. That's pretty good off the top of the dome.

Wait, I just said it. Yeah, but I remembered. I just said it 30 seconds. Yeah, and then I remembered. It's very impressive that I was listening. I'm so proud of you. Ask my wife. Okay.

Me listening and recalling information is shocking. Oh, gosh. Chris posted a picture of him on his wedding day. It was your anniversary, right? Yes, nine years ago. Who is that guy? A little baby. You were 14 when you got married. It wasn't even legal.

It was 11 years old. It was a beautiful day. Great picture. Yeah, I may have posted that on Twitter, but, you know. Oh, I hope so. You'd have to sort through like 8,000 posts from last Thursday just to get there. What we're talking about? Oh, Whitmer.

Oh, yeah. It is interesting when we talk about Javier Baez being unsustainable. It is probably worth noting that those 28 steals and 67 games is probably not sustainable either. And it's probably not sustainable for the same reason that I've said that I'm not buying Adelbello Montese's crazy second half. The Royals probably aren't going to let them run like that next year. You know, maybe they'll just decide from day one that their games don't matter and they'll just let those guys run as much as they want. But my thought is that that was more a result of them being out of it and them not caring if these guys ran themselves into outs. So I would say probably 45 steals is closer to the ceiling. But I think what we saw from Javier Baez last year is a lot closer to the ceiling. ceiling as well. Okay.

Next question. Can Ozzy Albiz or Glaver Torres become a star in 2019? It is really hard for me to see Glaver Torres becoming an absolute fantasy superstar. And I feel dumb saying that as I pull his page up and see that he hasn't even turned 22 years old yet. He is still about, he is about the same age as I was when I got married. But the big thing for me is you have to be so good as a hitter if you don't steal bases.

At all. Yeah, and he stole six and 123 games. His career high was 21 and 26, or 22 and 2015. So, you know, you could see him getting to that like 12 to 15 range over the course of the 15. Yeah, that's not so bad, actually. It's not terrible. You know, I think only like 18 guys stole 20 bases or something last year.

there's no stolen bases. So if he does steal 15 bases and hits 280 and hits 28 home runs and drives in 100 scores, a lot of things have to go right. It's well within the realm of possibility.

I wouldn't bet on it. All these, man, what a tale of a third of a season and two-thirds of a season. I don't even know if I'd say that. I think it was like, one month. Yeah.

It was like a month in a week, basically. Here are the stats, Chris. He had a 988 OPS in March and April. I remember a few games in March. Yeah. And that was something like 29 games.

988 Ops with 293 batting average, nine homers. Last five months of the season, Ozzie Albies had a 705 OPS with a 254 batting average. Yeah, he actually, his 2018 season looks an awful lot

like Rugnetto Doors. Um, his like big breakout season, very, very few strikeouts, uh, but also just no walks. He just went up there hacking, became kind of an all or nothing power hitter. Yeah. I don't think he's going to go the way of Rognito door, but it's a concern. I, I wonder if he picked up some bad habits. But the, the skill set is there for him to become an elite player. You know, he, if he took an Alex Breggman like leap, I wouldn't be shocked.

Albies struggled against Ritees. He slugged 412 against Ritees. He slugged 548 against lefties. And at least with him compared to Odor, at least Albees had that little cameo in 2017, not a minor cameo, 57 games, where he had 21 walks to 36 strikeouts. You talked about him picking up bad habits.

I think Scott has mentioned this before, too. Maybe he just tried to hit a lot of home runs because his pop-up rate, I won't say infield fly ball, but his pop-up rate went from 1.4% in 2017 to 9.6% in 2018. That really seems like a different approach. And this was a guy with good plate discipline in the minors. I remember last year comparing his minor league numbers to Francisco Lindorz. As someone who walked a decent amount, he was never a huge walk guy,

but he walked enough. He was at least average or above average. didn't strike out and yeah I just I wonder if a few extra balls went over the fence in April and he started

gunning for it sure now well let me just ask you this who'd you rather have Torres or Albies it's okay gosh don't don't be stressed

I think I might rather have Torres I think I think the hit tool is a little better there. I think he's going to make a little more loud contact and that'll make up for the lack of strikeouts and I don't think Albies really has a huge edge in terms of stolen bases

and obviously Glaver's in a better lineup. Albies is in a good lineup. Albies has a much more stolen base potential though. Probably. I mean, you look at his minor league numbers and stole 29 between AAA and the majors last year, 30 and 2016. So there's a little more upside. there, yeah.

All right, let's move on to our next question here. Who is Travis Shaw? He is a primary third baseman who plays for the Milwaukee Burrers. Oh, okay, cool. Thank, I couldn't find it on Google. No, Travis Shaw is second base eligible, and I just feel like when you look at his batted ball data, sometimes he plays through injuries,

one thing or another drags his numbers down a little bit, but I'm not quite sure we've seen the absolute best of Travis Shaw, who in Scott's rankings, Travis Shaw is seventh, and Heath has Travis Shaw fourth. And I think that's probably what Heath is thinking, too, that there's a better player there that we just haven't seen. Yeah, what was the injury for him last year? I know he had a foot thing early in the season.

I don't know. And was it a wrist in the second half? Yeah, I don't remember. And he was kind of playing all over the play. place, you know, 152 games, 587 plate appearances. That's a good sign of a guy who's leaving games early or coming into games late, not playing full games. That can mess with you.

I think we tend to underrate the value of stability. And he was last season not in a very stable playing time situation in the second half of the season. Now, I don't know if that's going to change next year. They are not bringing back Jonathan's scope. They non-tendered him. So, you know, hopefully, I think he's good. You know, he's got a good eye at the plate. He brought his strikeout rate down last year from a, you know, an average rate in 2017 to a pretty good one,

especially for a power hitter in 2018. I definitely think there is some untapped potential there. Do people say the word stink-tastic, Chris? I feel like that's something I've heard Dave Richards say. Maybe. It sounds like it. Or maybe type. Travis Shaw was just absolutely stinktastic against lefties last year.

He batted 209. He slugged 296, two home runs and 115 at bats against lefties. The year before, he wasn't so bad against lefties. He was pretty stintastic against lefties, so that could hold him back. But he hits the ball hard, and at times he looks like a star. And then it just can never seem to do it over the course of a year. Would you take Travis Shaw ahead of those young guys who are going to be 22 years old next year, Glaver Torres and

Ozzy Albiz. No, but I don't I would guess, and I don't have any hard data, but I would guess Travis Shaw is going to go several rounds behind the likes of Ozzy Albies and Glaver Torres. All right, last question here, and I apologize for the kind of

shortened show, but we're doing two this week, so we'll spend about a half hour on each show. Last question I have right now about second baseman. Maybe I'll throw in a bonus question. Do any of these guys have another great season in Daniel Murphy, Brian Dozier, D. Gordon, Robinson Canoe. Murphy's going to be 34 in April. Dozier's going to be 32 in May.

Robinson Cano is 36 years old. And I don't know how old D. Gordon is, but I'm going to guess he is 46 years old. That would make his 2018 season actually very impressive. I'm going to guess he's 31. I would guess he's 30 or 31, yeah. Do any of them have a great season left in them? I am much less optimistic about Brian Dozier than any of the other four. I think Robinson Canoe was great last year.

He just has to not just avoid suspension, but stay healthy because it's worth remembering that I think two days before he was suspended, he broke his hand and was supposed to miss like eight to ten weeks or something. So it's worth keeping that in mind when we talk about Robinson Canoe. it wasn't just a suspension last year. But when he was on the field, he was extremely good. He was actually better when he came back from that suspension. I think he's going to be fine. I'm not worried about him. And let's just mention he's getting a park upgrade.

You look at his OPS the last two seasons, I believe, much better on the road. The only problem with Canoe is that he's a little, well, there are several problems. He's been inconsistent. He's 36. Although it's worth noting when we say it inconsistent, he's never been bad. No, not like his first year in Seattle or second year, whatever it was. And he had some off-field issues. I thought he was pretty bad, but maybe not.

He was, I mean, maybe that was like six years ago. He's had, his worst OPS has been 779. He had 287 with 21 homers that year. Yeah. And 161 combined runs in RBI. He wasn't great. but he definitely wasn't bad. And the other thing I was going to say,

okay, so it was actually last year, Kano had an 802 OPS at home and 780 on the road, but I think the two years before that, he was much better on the road. And City Field is a worse park than Safeco, I believe. It's a worst park? I believe so. Come on, really?

I think so. It's a better lineup, but I'm pretty sure it's a worst park. I think it's going to be terrible for the Mets. Terrible. I know you don't think that. Yeah, I think it's fine. We'll get into it tomorrow.

I'm hoping I can get Robbins and Canoe at a discount. I have really, in a points league, I agree, because his plate discipline's good. But he doesn't hit enough home runs, and he steals almost no bases. Yeah. So in a roto league, he's not as valuable. You will get some batting average. That's nice. But he's not a category standout by any means.

Yeah, so who's the most likely to have a big season? Murphy, Gordon, or Canoe? probably Gordon, um, just because of the scarcity of stolen bases. So if we're talking about Roto, the guy who could steal 40 bases or, you know,

maybe even 50 bases if he bounces back, it's definitely him. Now, is he going to be an everyday player? I don't know. Maybe not. You'd think so. I mean,

they're going to be bad. Who else they got? They won't have an incentive to, to bench him necessarily. Um, so I would assume and hope that he plays every day. It's amazing how things have changed. In 2017, in points leagues, Murphy, Dozier, and Gordon were all top five second baseman.

In Rodo, Gordon was the number two second baseman. Dozier was third. Murphy's never quite as good in Roto as he is in points or categories as he is in points because he doubles a lot, gets on base. But he was seventh. So, you know, it's just crazy. I don't want to overla. look, Daniel Murphy.

After the All-Star break, he came back from the knee injury, the first, like, month that he was active. He stunk. He could not do anything. He had a 6-43 OPS. After that, he hit 315 with 11 homers, 30 RBI, 34 runs scored in 63 games. If you put that on 162 game pace, it was 88 runs, 78 RBI, 29 home runs with a 315 batting average and 844 OPS.

he was Daniel Murphy last year. There's a lot of injury risk. He's old. We're not sure where he's going to be playing. But he didn't, the skills, once he got healthy, seemed to be there. I think that's, is that really it? Are there any of the second baseman you want to talk about? You don't seem convinced on Adel Berthel-Mondisi?

I'm just not going to want to draft him at cost. Is he a second baseman? Actually, I don't think he is. He's a short stop. Yeah. So we get to him later. I will say, I think Scott has DJ LaMahue 9th and Heath has him eight. He's a free agent, right?

Yeah, he's. If he goes anywhere besides Colorado, there is not a, there's not a chance that I will draft him. I would guess he's not going to be a top 20 second baseman. Root Ed O'Dore. He bounced back in the second half, right? Yeah. Yeah, he really did. It's an interesting position.

I don't know if it's a great position, but, you know, it's one where if you don't get out Tuvei, it might be worth just waiting. The gap between number 8, number 15, may not be that big. Something tells me I'm going to really like Ozzy Albiz. I just, you know how I feel about sophomore slumps. I think he'll bounce back. The sky is the limit.

I love the tool set. I think he can be an absolutely first-round caliber type of hitter if he hits his 99th percentile across the board because the skill set is broad and it's really impressive. It's just I'm really troubled by what we saw last year. Yeah, definitely. I hope there's a discount there. Let's read some emails.

Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. is the email address, fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. This is an email from Chris. Subject, James Paxton's new nickname. The Big If. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, I, he wrote a preface. I thought it was funny.

No, it's good. All right. Is that, like, the big unit, but he's not healthy? Like, I don't get it. He's tall. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay.

Look, I, he is, I think, one of the 15 best pitchers in baseball. on a per running basis, just in terms of the talent level. I hope he stays healthy. I really do, even though you'd be good for the Yankees. I certainly do. And, yeah, we'll break down that trade tomorrow because there's R.A., it's not that good. This is John in a city east of the gateway to the west.

I mean, St. Louis is the gateway to the west, I would assume? Yes. All right, yeah, I don't... Denver. That's west. No, east. East. East.

See what I said about listening? Yeah, he's from Kansas City. That's east of St. Louis, right? I have no idea. Just say Fort Lauderdale. Geez. Okay, John's question, 10-te-to-head categories league. Coming off a championship season.

Congratulations. I need help with my keepers. I get five total. I have to keep at least one pitcher. Here are the candidates. He only lists one pitcher He only list one pitcher is Cinderguard So I guess we're keeping him

Kansas City is about 300 miles Of west of St. Louis. Geez, Chris, terrible. Let's see. So Cinderguard he's going to keep. I'm going to go try to find his email And make sure I'm not missing some of these pitchers. I think that's just saying he has a limit

Of four hitters that he can keep. Okay, fine. Lindor, Goldschmidt, Soto, Yellich, Bellinger, Corey Seeger. Pick four. Lindor, Goldschmidt, Soto, Yelich, Bellinger, Seeger. I think the only question is Soto versus Bellinger, and I'm going with Soto. You have enough stolen bases between Lindor, Goldschmidt, and Yelich that you don't necessarily have to prioritize what Bellinger can give you there. And I just think Soto's a better hitter. Now, here's my question. It's a 10-team league.

Yep. A lot of good players. A lot of good players. Yeah, on this team. It's a golden age. Are you tempted to take Bellinger over Goldschmidt thinking... No. Well, are you thinking Goldschmidt, maybe this is the last year where Goldschmidt's better than Bellinger? No.

No, I get it. But there's such a big gap, I think, between them. And I like Bellinger. He was something that I picked as being better next season than this season. But Goldschmidt is still... He basically had a bad three or four weeks to start last season and then was arguably the best hitter in fantasy. Yeah.

And he, we should mention, there's rumors of him going to St. Louis coming out today. So that would be an upgrade in park and lineup. So I think Goldschmidt, he should age pretty well. I'm a fan. I think he's better than Ballinger for sure. Let's go quickly on these here. I'm late for a meeting. I'm going to get in trouble.

Oh, no. Yeah. Josh wants to know in a 30-team points league, which he won. He's worried about Chris Sale. Are you worried about Chris Sale? And if you explored a trade of sale, what kind of batter is reasonable to target? As a guy like Corey Seeger, not enough for sale. That's not nearly enough.

If you're trading Chris Sell, you need not Mike Trout, but not that far off. You know, someone in the tier below Mike Trouton, Mookie Betts. And yeah, you're worried about. about Chris Sale, but you're worried about every single pitcher in baseball. Fair enough. Walter from Detroit, launching a Keeper League for the first time. Do you have any suggestions? How many keepers is the perfect amount? It is a 12-team league with 24-man rosters, its head-to-head points, and what's the best way to determine draft order the following years? How many keepers, and how do you determine draft order? How many weeks should the season be to avoid benching

toward the end. I think you make the season shorter, 21 or 22 weeks should be the full season, including playoffs. That gets you basically out of September. And you determine the draft order based on the previous year's standings. I think that's the obvious way if you're going to make, if you're going to allow players to keep their good players, you have to give some reason for the bad team to have faith. So the worst team gets the best pick, so on and so forth.

And if you just want a keeper league and you're not trying to edge into Dynasty, I think five is a good amount for 12 team league. Here's one right up your alley, Chris Towers, from Brandon. I'm applying for a research analyst intern position for my favorite baseball team. And I was wondering if you could help me out. I need a few other research sites other than fan graphs on my application. And I wanted to know what sources you guys typically use to get your info. Baseball savant is a big one. That's kind of the official

repository of all things, stat cast. So that's a great place to go. And baseball prospectus is still one of the leaders in new stats. They just introduced a really interesting hitting stat that I'm looking forward to diving into. So that's well worth your subscription price. All right, everybody. I want to thank Chris Towers. I'm sorry to hop off so quickly, but we'll have another one for you tomorrow.

where we talk about Canoe and Paxton and Segura and all the trades that are going down. Thanks for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. We'll talk to you all tomorrow.