Fantasy Baseball Today - 12/05: Corbin, Paxton, Diaz, Donaldson and More! (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

We're catching up on all the news from the last few weeks, beginning with a Corbin vs. Paxton debate (4:40). Who do we like better, who will have better draft value and can Corbin recreate his 2018 magic? ... Reviewing all of the Mariners moves (14:00) and wondering who the closers will be in SEA and CHW as Alex Colome is a candidate there. We get into a spirited Jean Segura debate (18:25) ... Josh Donaldson to ATL (24:08)! Are we pumped? A little bit? Kinda? And what else do we need to know from around MLB (28:00)? ... 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

It's fun right now. Welcome to your Wednesday, December 5th episode of fantasy baseball today. Scott White is back from... Where was he? I was moving. I was moving and getting settled in. And using some vacation time that is accumulated to take it slow. Must be nice.

Did you get that approved with your boss, Chris Towers? Yeah. I didn't just bolt and with no word to Chris. Chris and I had a discussion about it. And yeah, cool. In my benevolence, I approved it. Oh, what a nice guy. So today is all about the news.

Patrick Corbyn to the Nationals. Sam, glad we waited. We didn't do it yesterday. Patrick Corby to the Nationals. Paxson of the Yankees, Keno to the Mets, Deez to the Mets, Cigura to the Phillies, Alex Colomé to the...

Basically, the NL East is going to be a dog fight. Don't bury the lead. Go on. Every team decided we can make a run this year because the lowly Braves won it last year. What lead did I bury? Merrill Kelly. Merrill Kelly. To the Cardinals.

So that's someone we're going to talk about pretty soon. You're wondering who Merrill Kelly is. Oh, no, I said the Cardinals, so the Diamondbacks. The Arizona Cardinals play a different sport. It was a Cardinals-like move with Miles Michael last year. That's what you were thinking. I don't know about that, maybe that or maybe the Arizona thing. But let's start with some non-news, even though I said everything was going to be news today.

Email the day number one is from Matt. Tribe fan here, love the show, just listened to yesterday's podcast about second baseman. I didn't hear any mention of Jose Ramirez. He should still maintain third base and second base eligibility. He's a bona fide stud and particularly valuable because of his dual position eligibility. I don't believe. Not in our least. You know, yeah.

Yeah, okay. Yahoo. I'm glad you think he should, Matt, but he doesn't. Yeah, no, I emailed Matt separately, and Matt is in a Yahoo League, and he will have, not Matt, Jose Ramirez will be second base eligible. Matt is only eligible at catcher. He'd be the number one second baseman. He's my third overall player, so it's Trout Betz Ramirez, in case, to preempt to the follow-up.

Yeah, yeah, but, no, there's another follow-up. I know he'd be your number one second baseman. But now let's give him second base eligibility. Does he become your number one player? No. I will never. Eligibility doesn't matter. We went over this last offseason.

Eligibility. Dual eligibility is valuable, but no, it's not enough to make that big of a gap. I will never. I will never. Not have Mike Trout as my number one player again. I'll just finish that sentence with again. Because he's so young. and who knows how long I'll be doing this.

But never again. Are you trying to announce something? Yeah, yeah. I'm not trying to announce anything. You know how long will be doing this, Scott? Hopefully I'm doing it well after drought is gone. Forever. Email the day number two is from Paul.

Here's a geography lesson, Chris. Paul is 552 miles east of the gateway arch. East. If you're looking for a nickname to lampoon James Paxton's softness, softness. May I suggest big balsa? Seems more fitting than big maple,

a notoriously hard wood. All right. So here's... I just want to... I want to point something out. No, no sports fan should ever call a professional athlete soft.

One of James Paxton's off-season workout regimens would probably leave the three of us crying. Well, at least two of us. But we have, this is not a good nickname. Balsa, I had to look up. It is like a soft tree.

Balsa would. Yeah, you don't know Balsalliwood? No, I didn't know that. Like the Balsalwood airplanes, you know? They're basically made to break. No, I didn't know. I didn't know what that was. What a sheltered childhood you left.

But yeah, I don't, I just, no, I think, I think no. So here come a lot of news and notes. The National Signed Patrick Corbin and the Yankees acquired James Paxton. all this has happened in the last few weeks. Who do we have ranked higher, Scott, Paxton or Corbyn? I have Corbyn ranked higher, largely because of the fact that James Paxton, you know, you can't even count on him for 160 innings in a season,

much less what Patrick Corbyn provided for the Diamondbacks last season. Now, I do think there is a case to be made that Paxton performance-wise is the safer pick. I mean, he's done it two and a half seasons now, basically, where he's performed like an ace caliber pitcher. But I am not, and maybe this is dumb after what happened with Robbie Ray last year, but I am not going to play the naysayer for Patrick Corbyn.

He's kind of a weird breakout because he did it unconventionally. he actually you know his fastball velocity actually went down but he threw his slider which was his best pitch more than ever basically made it his primary pitch and he was the best swing and miss pitcher in baseball with that is there is that going to make an injury risk going forward is he going to lose the element of surprise with that pitch and it becomes just a gimmick that won't last i think those are reasonable questions but um you know good control pitcher who now gets a lot of swings and misses and is going to a better park too. And so, yeah. Wait a second. Is he going to a better park? Because I think it's probably a worse park than what Chasefield was last year. But we don't know.

We can't say definitively on Chase Field yet. He was actually a lot better on the road. He had a 280 ERA on the road and a 347 ERA at home. So let's say it's not a huge factor right now. It's not a huge. I mean, the biggest thing for him is just can he get a, away with doing that again. Corbyn we're talking about here, not Paxton. Chris, who would you take? Corbyn or Paxton? I would take Corbyn before Paxton, but I am more likely to draft Paxton next year,

if that makes sense. Well, what do you anticipate their ADPs will be? Well, I know Scott has Corbyn as the number 11 starting pitcher, so most of the leagues I play in are with Scott White. So he's going to get drafted before I am comfortable drafting him. Again, after what happened with Patrick Corby, sorry, Robbie Ray last year. Kind of a scary thought, but I mean, since I've made that, started down that path of comparing those two, I will point out that Corbyn,

obviously a much better control pitcher than Robbie Ray is. He's a great ground ball pitcher, too. Always has been a great ground ball pitcher. So even though he gave up a lot of hard contact, like Robbie Ray was known to do, you know, it's a lot of ground balls. How about this? Justin Mason, who put together the

Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational that I think all of us except Adam took part in last year. He put together nine early mock drafts. I think this was probably about a month ago. Yeah, two months ago actually. And in those, so this was before any moves were made, Corbyn's AADP was 56.3, James Paxton's ADP, 57.6. So it looks like they're probably going to go, at least based on that, relatively in the same spot.

If that's the case, I would rather have Corbyn. You know, I got to say, Paxton is actually, in terms of what does this change do to his value, Paxton going to the Yankees. It's a loss. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the most favorable hitters park. He was a guy who, for the first time his career, he struggled with home runs last year,

23 of them he gave up. His previous high for a season was 9. So he was trending in the way of the direction of becoming a fly ball pitcher. And I want to say, you know, it was a few weeks ago now that I wrote about this trade. So just to confirm here. Yeah, I mean, consistently better at home throughout his career, ERA, about a run lower. So that's, you know, there's a trade off there because now he's going to the Yankees who have a great offense and are going to win 90 plus games, I think, pretty easily. So that's going to impact his win total.

And ultimately, win total is one of the, you know, it's not something you can predict very easily, but it has a great impact on a pitcher's value. So even if his ERA, you know, his mid-3s, he'll probably still be pretty close to an ace on a start-by-star basis. Have the Yankees acquired a pitcher from a big AL West ballpark who really struggled at Yankee Stadium? but was okay on the road recently. Sunny Gray, ladies gentlemen. The one thing about Pax is a much more talented pitcher than Sunny Gray. I don't remember if I brought this up like three weeks ago when we did a show

and we just talked about, oh, what if Paxson gets traded to the Yankees? But do you remember when David Price got traded to the Blue Jays? And there was some concern about his history at Rogers Center, I believe, his fly ball tenancies. Yep. And he was amazing. He was. So these guys maybe they tend to step it up.

I don't know. Maybe it's a case-by-case thing. But it is worth noting, yeah, James Paxton. Yeah. Much better at home than on the road. And it's also just generally worth noting pitchers as a whole tend to pitch better at home than on the road.

Players as a whole tend to perform better in their home ballpark than they do on the road regardless. You know, there are. exceptions in the extremes, but for the most part, that tends to hold true. So you do have a little bit of balancing out where, you know, he's moving to a worse park, but he's a little more comfortable at home. He gets a better night's sleep, whatever the case may be. And it's only half of his starts.

Yeah, true. But it's always, I mean, we have this conversation every time somebody goes to the ALE East. Now they have to face the Red Sox. They have to pitch in Baltimore, which would probably be good because it's Baltimore. They have to pitch in Toronto. They have to pitch in Fenway, Yankee Stadium. It's a bad division to be in. There's only one team you're worried about in that division when you're joining the Yankees, though.

Miss the Red Sox. Yeah. Every other team in that division is probably going to be bottom half of the league and runs scored, I would guess. Maybe not the race. But yeah, I mean, Blue Jays and certainly Orioles are definitely rebuilding. You know, there were some concerns raised when Chris. sale went to the Red Sox, and we see how that's gone. It's, you know, you can only, you have, you have to look at the facts and interpret the facts based on, you know, because we're in the forecasting business.

That's what you have to do. But talented pitchers do tend to, to overcome the external factors that might sidetrack somebody else like a sunny gray. Okay. So we have more news to get to, obviously, a lot. Some of the things we will talk about. the Mets, well, basically everything that the Mariners have done. But also, we can't forget about about Carlos Santana going to Seattle.

It's sort of a forgotten guy in all this news. And Josh Donaldson signed a one-year contract with the Braves. That was fun. Yeah, it was. Right? It was cool. So, anyway, let me talk to you first about Robin Hood. Okay?

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Again, a free stock for our listeners at strike. com. So how about the Mets swinging a deal for Canoe and Edwin Diaz, giving up Jay Bruce, Anthony Swarzak, a reliever, and a couple of minor leaguers, also right-handed pitcher Gerson Bartista, but the minor leaguers are pretty good prospects in the Mets system.

They're fairly, well, the better of the two prospects is pretty far away. He's an 18-year-old who is in rookie ball, a 19-year-old. And the pitcher, I think he was in AA last year. There are a lot of questions. Yeah, there's a lot of questions about whether he can be a starter, but he's going to get an opportunity in a good park. well Scott what did you make of the overall trade

well I I thought there's so much money changing hands here that it's hard to assess you know just whether one team got enough for or so like I my thought was Edwin Diaz considering he's an elite closer who's still you know

has a lot of control left years of control left I kind of thought he would fetch more than this, especially since the Mariners were saying that was one of the guys they wanted to hold on to. You know, enclosers don't have much value to teams who aren't looking to win it. So I think it's fair to say the Mets are certainly looking to win it. There was some talk of them maybe moving to a Cinderguard early this offseason. It doesn't sound like that's going to happen anymore.

They are in it to win it. They are in it to win it, yes. They are hot on J.T. Romuta right now. They are kind of considered the leaders, I believe. Yeah, I think so. Pretty much all of the NL East is in Unreal Muto, just like they're all, they're kind of running the offseason. Except for the Marlins.

You know, you'd rather see Edwin Diaz play for a team that's trying versus one that's clearly not in the Mariners. So there's no reason to downgrade him based on this news, and there's no way to upgrade him because he was already my number one closer. Part of me thinks it's going to end up face because it's the Mets and that's what always happens. I think there's a decent chance considering Jay Bruce was injured all of last season two that now you've got to figure he's going to play and he was a reliable source of

30 homers prior to last year. I think there's a chance he ends up being kind of a five outfielder league sleeper now that there's an opportunity for him. Oh, do not get Chris started on Jay Bruce. Jay Bruce is Chris Tower's the least favorite. player in baseball, if not baseball history. I don't know. A lot of players out there. No, that's not fair. Well, the way you were tweeting about him, I mean, he was awful. He's not good.

He was awful. But he's coming off two straight seasons with 33 homers and 99 RBIs, at least. And then last year it was dreadful. It's worth saying. He is usually better for fantasy than he is for real life, because he'll hit some homers. But he's a, he's a. two-category player. Oh, yeah, yeah, but he'll probably be able to DH, which will help, and he won't have to field.

All right, so whose value changes the most when we look at all these Mariners' trades? And you can include Paxton in there, but Canoe, Diaz, Paxton, Seguera, going to the Phillies, and, you know, and the guys going back, Carlos Santana going back to the Mariners. Who are you going to be adjusting the most in your rankings? J.P. Crawford also going to the Mariners. in that Gene Seguera deal. So there's opportunity for him that wasn't there before. I'm just not sure how much I believe in the skills anymore. I mean, the biggest change, it probably is Jay Bruce for me

because he goes from being complete afterthought to, okay, now he's probably an everyday player. Chris not agreeing. What do you got, Chris? You know what it is? Alex Colomey. No, I mean, it actually... Well, Colomé is with the White Sox.

now, right? Yeah, he could close for them. Sure. He would have definitely closed for the Mariners if he was still there. I will say, keep an eye on the Gerson-Bautista guy. He could figure into the ninth inning role for a bad Mariners team that doesn't really have a lot of options. He throws hard. But I'm going to say Gene Seguerah, who

Scott, you don't even have as a top 12 shortstop. For shame, sir. There's a lot of good shortstops out there. And Gene Seguer. is one of them. He is, I, I was pretty famously not a Gene Seguer believer during his breakout 2016 season. But at this point, we're three years in to him hitting 300 like a metronome. He's so boring, dude. Stealing 20 bases. He's so boring. He's going to be in a, what should be a really good lineup, especially if they add Machado or Harper. What is there? Like, this could be a guy.

He's moving from a bad hitter's park to a very good one. Yeah, he's boring. I think he should. I think he could be better than Xander Bogart. Oh, oh, God, no. Looking at the class of short stops who were drafted ahead of him in those early mock drafts that I mentioned earlier, it was Zander Bogart's, Corey Seeger, and Glaber Torres. I might take Gene Seguer over all three of them. Oh, and Chris Towers.

Like, why? I'll tell you why. Well, okay. Go ahead, Scott. Go ahead. Especially in a rhodo. Hold on, especially in a rhodo. he was in that class prior to going to Seattle that one year with the diamondbacks he was unquestionably a lead of the position so if you think

one spot behind zander bogart's last year in roto if you think the the park change is going to make that big of the difference then i'm just not confident it will because he makes a lot of weak contact always has and home away splits with seattle don't really tell that story so i'm kind of more of the mind that that diamond back season with the 41 doubles and 20 ombers was a fluke. Now if you know, you say I don't have him in my top 12 in either format, well the last guy is going, like, it's

Adelberto Mondesi or it's Juerksson ProFar. I mean, ProFar was better than Cigura on a per game basis this year and I think there's a lot more upside there. And Mondesi, I mean, come on. Why is there more upside with Jerks and ProFar? Because

I think he had a lot of I think he had bad bad at the luck this year. I think he was the clearest example of a player who's batted ball profile didn't, his production didn't live up to his bad at ball profile, probably number one on my list of players who that was true of. And yet he's still outperformed Gene Seguera in points leagues. Now, Roto League, maybe Seguara, you could make a case for him over ProFar if you don't think Profar is going to get any better.

I mean, but I do. Like, we're talking about a guy last year who was a top 60 overall. player in Roto Leaks was one spot behind Zander Bogart's in shortstop and you're acting like it's crazy that he could be better than, like, come on. No, I don't think it's crazy.

He's going to hit crazy. I think it's crazy to take him over Corey Seeger and Carlos Corrella like you were saying because those are borderline first rounders. I didn't say Carl's correct. Who did you say? Well, hold on. Corey Seeger's never been a borderline first rounder. He was a first rounder

two years ago. In terms of how he's actually played? He said Glaver Torres. He said... It was Glaver Torres, Zander Bogartz, and Corey Segar. Corey Segar is coming off hip and elbow surgery. And coming off a season where, frankly, he wasn't that good for fantasy and Roto leads. Zander Bogartz is good, but you're basically trading home runs for steals, and I'll take Gene Segaro when it comes to batting average.

Zander Bogart's counting stat numbers were pretty mediocre last year. and Claiboriz, like, I like him, but like Adam and I talked about yesterday, his profile for fantasy, especially in Roto, it may not be that great. Yeah. Bogarts? No, Torres, yeah, in Roto, it's possible. He's certainly not going to be the base deal where that Sigura is. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's a lineup upgrade.

It's a ballpark upgrade. He was a lot better on the road last year. He was actually better at home in 2017, though, Gene Sigura. And I don't know. I think with Seguera, I kind of feel like I'm settling if I take him. And it's fine. Like, I'm settling. You know what?

He feels like what Elvis Andrews used to feel like several years ago. And it was like, look, Elvis Andrews is going to be like a top eight shortstop. He's going to be good. He's not going to be great. Then he had a great year and it kind of changed our perception. And that's sort of how I feel about Seguer. He's going to be good. You're never going to sit him.

But he's not going to necessarily win you your league if you take him too early. Yeah, it's a good comparison. Except he was also, he was the number one shortstop. three years ago. Yeah, yeah, he was, and we never bought into that. And he had that awesome seat. And he slugged 529 in Arizona that year. So he also stole 33 bases that year. So it wasn't just power. Like, he averaged 21 steals as two years in Seattle. So it's clearly not somebody who's going to carry you in a category. He'll help. All right. Let's talk about, let's talk about Josh Donaldson. First of all, okay, closers, closers. So who do you think is closing for?

I heard we mentioned, who do you think is closing for Seattle? And do you think Call him could close for the White Sox? My guess is Columet would close for the White Sox, but there's a financial incentive for them to go with Nate Jones instead. I think it'll at least be a competition to start out.

Seattle. I would guess Swarzak gets the first look. He's coming off a disastrous season, but he was pretty good the year before. They have an incentive to want his value to be up. Yeah. Okay. More exciting stuff. The Brave Signed, Josh Donaldson.

Josh Donaldson had a 920 OPS with the Cleveland Indians. It was brief. It was 16 games. We batted at 280. He homered three times. He doubled three times. And he had as many walks of strikeouts. So that was nice. Where's Donaldson, your third base ranking, Scott? He is right around 12th. I'm not on my work computer here, so I don't have the spreadsheets all available to me. but he's 12 to 13, I want to say. Behind Justin Turner, this move doesn't change any of that. The Braves fan of me is going to be like, oh, yeah, now he's going to recapture MVP form.

But more practically speaking, you got a factor in that amount of time he's missed with injuries the past couple years. Because at his age, I don't think you can bet against that at this point. Chris, how do you feel about Josh Donaldson? oh my calf hurts um look he hasn't shown the ability to stay healthy over the last couple of seasons and it's been the same recurring injury uh so that's got to be a big concern um if i can get him outside of the top 100 i'm i'm okay with it but you know if someone wants to pay up for the name value and hope that he can uh bounce all the way back then i'll let someone else draft him he's someone that I'm fine falling to me.

Donaldson, I actually have 11th, so a little higher than I was saying. You have him ahead of Nick Castianos? Well, Nick Castellos is eligible now. But it's worth noting, Heath does not have Donaldson in his top 12 at all. I can't see beyond that because top 12s are what we have on the site right now, but he's not in the top 12. You have him ahead of Travis Shaw. I do. That's interesting.

And just behind Justin Turner. Okay. And Vladimir Guerrero ahead of Josh Donaldson. That's right. If you go to our rankings page on CBSports.com slash fantasy, then click baseball, then click rankings, then go to third base. We don't have a picture for Vladimir Guerrero. We just have like a generic silhouette. And he looks like a football player.

He looks absolutely ripped. It looks like Thurman Thomas. It's great. That's reason to move him up. He is a big, beefy baseball boy. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is thick. A big beefy baseball boy, I like that. So basically what our rankings are suggesting is that Blue Jays got rid of Josh Donaldson and upgraded at third base.

Apparently. Apparently. I mean, I think the early steamer projections on fan graphs have Vladimir as like the 11th best hitter in baseball next season. Wow. Wow. Are you going to take Vladimir Guerrero or Gene Seguer, your boy, Gene Seguer, first? Chris. I'll gladly take them both.

Because you're going to have to take Vladimir Guerrero 40 spots ahead of James Garrier. He's going to go. I think we're going to see Vladimir Guerrero go in the second or third round in a lot of drafts. Well, you're on board with taking Vladimir Guerrero, you're saying, or no. Because before you were saying, he's going to

go earlier than I take him. Okay, so, again, in those early mock drafts, his ADP was 50.7. I would take him late fourth round, early fifth round. That's a very good place, But in one draft he went 23rd overall, and another one he went 35th.

So it just, it depends on who you're drafting with. There's going to be someone who wants Vlad Guerrero. I'm going to wrap up here in about 10 minutes, guys. So tell me which other move stood out. Billy Hamilton is a free agent now. Jonathan Scopes a free agent. Avi Garcia and Matt Davidson are free agents. The Nationals got Jan Goams,

the Braves signed Brian McCann. Garrett Richards, two-year deal with the Padres, but he's going to sit most, if not all, of this year. Tommy John surgery. Arizona, Arizona Cardinals slash Diamondbacks, signed Merrill Kelly to a two-year $5.5 million deal. And Adrian Beltray retired. Scott, what's been keeping you up at night wondering what you're going to do with your rankings now that this happened? It's actually a couple of non-tenders.

Non-tenders day was, I had a few noteworthy moves. Blake Parker got non-tendered by the Angels, Brad Boxburger, Hunter Strick. Glend got non-tendered by their teams. Those were all guys who were closing much of last year. But the ones who I think I'm most interested in following this offseason are Jonathan's Scope who got non-tendered by the Brewers and Billy Hamilton, non-tendered by the Reds. I think Scope has a much better chance of landing a starting gig somewhere. In fact, I think he will.

Hamilton, I'm not sure. You can make the justification if you're a GM just for defense he's worth having in your lineup. But you could make the justification he's a bench player too. One thing I know for sure about Billy Hamilton, we are going to spend way too much time talking about him in the preseason. Just like if he's signed somewhere and he's got any path to playing time, because he's obviously got the potential league in steals. We're going to spend a lot of time talking about him. What do we think about Merrill Kelly?

I look at his numbers in Korea and am not impressed. So probably a back end guy. It sounds like he, especially now that Corbyn's out of the picture, and Shelby Miller himself was a non-tender. Sounds like Merrill Kelly has the inside track on a starting job. But I'm not that interested. Yeah, the Miles Michael's comparison only works so far because I'm not sure Merrill Kelly has a great mustache and also Miles Michaelis was a lot better

when he was pitching overseas. In Japan too, which I think is a higher level of competition than Korea. Yeah. I didn't say this earlier but, you know, I remember Chris you planted your flag and some argument last year. I don't remember what it was. I will do that.

Right now, as of December 5th, I am anti- Patrick Corbyn. We'll not be drafting it. Yeah, I won't be drafting him. Again, like I said, Scott's going to take him. I don't believe in a guy who has

velocity issues and throws his slider like 45% of the time. I believe he's going to strike out a ton of hitters. I don't believe the strikeouts are a fluke. Maybe the rate will go down a little, but... Velocity issues seems a little unfair. He doesn't throw as hard as you'd expect somebody with his

strikeout rate to throw in 20... He throws pretty soft. He's like a 90s. One mile per hour fastball guy. He averaged like 90 last year. But it's his secondary pitch. Yeah, just like, yeah, I guess. His home run rate was really low last year.

His hard contact rate was through the roof. It was, yep. My thing with him is, and this is mostly a theory. I don't actually know. He throws his slider. And really, last year it was slider and curveball. he threw about 50% of the time. He introduced a curveball, and that was a big thing for him

because it looks exactly like the slider, but it's 10 miles per hour slower. So it kind of served as a change up for him. My question is, you know, we see pitchers when they age, when they lose velocity, when they lose stuff, go away from their fastball. Does he have anywhere else to go?

Like, what, as he ages, he's 29 years old, he'll be 30, I think, on opening. day, he's going to lose skill. That's just generally what happens. What counter does he have? Or if hitters start to figure him out. Yeah, if hitters start, because he threw out of the strike zone, I think more than any pitcher in baseball last year.

Right. That concerns me. And he induced a ton of swinging strikes on pitches outside of the strike zone because his slider is so good. But if the scanning report catches up and all of a sudden guys start swinging just a little bit less. Does he have a counter to the inevitable counter? That's my only question with him. The way he pitched last year, there was no fluke. He was actually better than his 315 ERA or whatever it was. He had, I think, the second best FIP in baseball. He was up there in Sierra and pretty much every advanced

stat. He might have pitched better than his results. It's just a question for me of hitters are going to adjust. I don't know what his counter is at this point because he's. He's already such an extreme slider-heavy pitcher. All right, guys, let's finish off with some emails here at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. We will read your emails in just one second right after this. Here's an email from Sean, Fantasy Baseball at Cbsi.com. Sean says, I was offered Chris Archer and Willie Calhoun for Nomar Mazar.

I believe this is a dynasty-a-de-question, by the way. I should hope so? Should I pull the trigger? Give up Mazar for Archer and Willie Calhoun. Do it, do it now. No more Mazar is barely a starting caliber fantasy option. Nick from Tacoma, Washington is apparently a Mariners fan. He's talking about their GM, Jerry DePoto. Jerry DePoto has made himself fantasy relevant by solving every problem the Phillies have. Now they can play Hoskins at first base. They don't have to write checks to Carlos Santana,

and he doesn't have to let, and Hoskins doesn't have to be the worst outfielder in baseball and let that affect his swing. Can you believe this good fantasy fortune? Seriously, if there were a fantasy manager as bad at his job as Depoto is, trading away young, high-end talent for middling prospects, quote, prospects, and Jurassic players, you guys would be playing the regulator's music and burying the guy. How long can Manfred sit idly by and watch this? J.P. Crawford is now the cornerstone of the rebuild.

Let that sink in. F, dollar sign, pound A5, open parentheses, dollar sign, apostrophe, dollar sign 838W 6262. That appears to be Nick just slamming his keyboard. frustration. Well, I like Jared Kalenik better than... I would call him the Cornerstone of the rebuild than that's first round pick last year.

But I didn't... The return for the Sakura deal, I thought, was pretty surprising. Pretty bad, you mean? And maybe part of it's because Depoto actually... Like, Depoto seems to be one of the guys...

Maybe the GM in baseball who most values OPP above everything. but that's the thing is that Carlos Santana is under contract for two years and is 34 there's no there's no world in which he's part of any competitive Seattle Mariners team yeah no that's good point I mean and Crawford walks a ton that's the one thing he does well that's yeah I mean that's part of the part of what I like he Crawford was always a great strikeout to walk guy even in the minors so You know, that kind of seems like it's just a pet player for Depoto, and maybe he overpaid for him.

Obviously, it wasn't that long ago Crawford was considered one of the elite prospects in baseball and a shortstop to boot. So maybe we shouldn't be so quick to bury him, but I feel like his stock must have fallen. No, we've come to praise him, not to bury him. Dan in Toronto, dear Uncle Adam and Scott's cell phone, I miss you. The offseason is long, and I miss regular doses of fantasy football, fantasy baseball season. I especially love the hot stove season because that's when the only people still paying attention to baseball are Dynasty and Keeper League players. And that's when I get the most advice applicable to my team. With that being said, I'm having a lot of trouble deciding how to fill my final keeper spot.

We can keep nine players. Pick my last keeper. Confordo, Clevenger, and Erman Marquez. Oh, man. It's between, for me, it's between the pitchers, who I have one spot apart in my rank. I feel like we've debated Clevenger and Marquez like six times. Can I make the decision easier? You want Conforto?

One of the players that he's keeping is Nick Castellanos. Why not just put him back and keep both Clevenger and Marquez? Oh. Wow. What a guy. What a guy, Chris Towers is. Solutions. Emails from Hugh.

From Hugh. Head to head points league. Keep five players for three years max. I need to keep at least one pitcher. at least one position player. Shurzer, I'm keeping five players, remember, three years maximum. Shurzer, Kershaw, Bauer, Snell, Krasco. Shurzer, Kershaw, Bauer, Snell, Krasco.

I want them all. Altuvae and Soto. I want them all. Yeah, you're keeping Altuvian Soto for sure. Throwback. Who are you throwing back Kershaw? You're throwing back Kershaw as much as it hurts. And Karrasco.

Probably. Yeah. All right. Mark is in a dynasty. league. He can hold three minor leaguers. They can stay on the minor league roster until I activate them to the main roster. It's a roto league. I've been trying to eye a good keeper outfielder. I have Luis Robert. Am I pronouncing that? Robere. I figured. Luis Robert. Mediocre year due to injury, but a lot of upside. I noticed the other day that Alex Kirillov and Trammel are booth available.

Is there any upside to grabbing either of those two? Kirillov looks like a monster hitter he was I just put together my outfield rankings for sports line

I'm not sure if they're up yet or not my outfield prospect rankings top 20 and Kirillov I think is fourth ahead of Robert or Trammel so like he's he's must own in a dynasty league

yeah his numbers and he made it to high A last year so he'll probably begin 2019 in double A And once you get to double A, you're two good months away from the organization saying you need to work on your defense more. But he hit 348 with 20 homers and 44 doubles last season, struck out 86 times in 561 plate appearances. Like Scott said, that is monstrous production. Well, thank you, Scott for returning and Chris for joining.

I feel good about the day show. Thank you, Adam, for hosting. Thank you. That's what I was, I was fishing for that. Thank you. Everybody, we'll be back next week. Enjoy your weekend. And goodbye.

I have nothing. Wow. I'm going to work on the outroes this off season. I retract my thing. It was horrendous. See you later, everybody. Thanks for tuning.