Fantasy Baseball Today - 12/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast: The Craziness Begins!

Episode Date: December 13, 2017

Let's start with the Marlins trading away Giancarlo Stanton (10:30), Dee Gordon (18:30) and Marcell Ozuna (21:05) before we talk about Shohei Otani and his elbow issue (27:25). Are the Marlins doing the right thing for their franchise, and do their fans actually care? ... Relievers are changing teams (35:48), but how many of them could close? ... Wait until you hear about the worst commissioner ever (48:12) ... 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

Find our mates will wait. We're talking here. Hot stove is heating up. Welcome to the show. Fantasy baseball today. No Chris Towers. He's out sick today and said it's just me, Adamazer, and Scott White. Now, when I say me, Adamaser and Scott White, it sounds like there are three people,

but what I meant is that I am Atamaser, and Scott White is the other person. Me, comma, Adamazer. Right, exactly, exactly. Yeah. Chris is out sick. He is sick to his stomach over what the Marlins have done here the last couple days. Yeah, I don't blame them. But here's my impression of Scott White from, like, last week.

Nothing's happening. There's nothing going out of the off-season. There's too much jelly on peanut butter and jelly. It needs to be a one-to-one ratio. I just made that one up. Oh, okay. You know, the ratio is very important with peanut butter and jelly. I mean, one-to-one ratio, yeah, one slice of each, right?

Well, like the same amount of jelly and peanut butter, I'd say. That's hard to quantify. I guess it is. Anyway. Yeah, off-season, yes. What a week. Yes, exciting stuff. Now, obviously, you know, I joked about Chris being home because he's torn up, broken up over these Marlins moves.

And it seems like a lot of people are. It seems like the world at large is just destroying the Marlins over this. and I find that to be a little silly at him. I'm not going to lie, a little silly to be so angry at the Marlins for what they've done here because I think it was obvious

at the time John Carlos Stanton signed that deal that that was too big of a deal for the Marlins to be handing anybody. It's too big of a deal for most teams to hand anybody. Few teams could take on that kind of salary. When I heard some of the offers the Marlins were getting back from the Giants and Cardinals, frankly, I thought it was better than they were going to get.

And so you can understand why they pursued those deals, even not knowing if Stanton would accept a trade to either of those places. Once Stanton rejected those places and narrowed the list down to Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, or Cubs, I mean, it really limited the Marlins' options. There wasn't much left they could do. And, you know, just by, you know, considering the Dodgers themselves didn't really want a part of the Stanton contract, that shows you how hard it is to move. Whatever team took – it sounds crazy, I understand, because John Carlos Stanton 59 home runs last year, NL MVP. But whatever team took that contract off the Marlins' hands was doing the Marlins a favor.

Of course. The deal was getting rid of the contract. And any players that were going to get thrown into that were just a bonus. And I'm reading, I was reading this ESPN article earlier today about Scott Boris, just torching the Marlins and saying they're a pawn shop. And he said, you have a community down there that grew to know four or five star players. They have a tremendous outfield there. They have a new ballpark. They have an excitement they grew to know.

They suffered a tremendous tragedy and loss with Jose Fernandez. As a community, they bonded around that team, end quote. No. No, they didn't. They don't care. They don't. They can be up in arms all they want, but they don't care about the Marlins. They don't show up. They didn't give a crap about the young outfit. Like, give me a break. That's not even close to true. And I mean, I get it. Your Scott Borish, you're looking out for the players, but I'm sorry. I mean, some of the Marlins fans, like genuine Marlins fans, the few that exist. Like I said, it seems like by and large they are very upset about this. For some reason, they got the rug pulled out from under them, even though. this was the most telegraphed trade in the history of trades, we'd been waiting two months for it to happen. But now it's Dee Gordon, it's Ozuna who just got traded. Yeah, but I get it.

I get why the real fans are upset. But the thing is, like, the community does not care about the Marlins. They just don't. No, they don't care about the Marlins. And the only way they're going to care about the Marlins is if the Marlins do something they've never done before and make the playoffs two, three years in a row. That's never happened in their history. And the only way you attract fans is by winning, you know, more than just this fluke year where you catch everybody by surprise, but actually having interest going into the season.

And, you know, I don't know if Jeter and Mike Hill and that group is capable of building that kind of winner, but that's what they're trying to do because that's the only way it's going to succeed. And having Stanton's albatross contract on the books, which, by the way, was. totally backloaded. It was completely transparent by the terms of that deal that the Marlins were just trying to squeeze another couple years out of Stanton and then unload him once

the backloaded portion of the contract kicked in. They weren't going to build what they wanted to build with that salary on the books. There are only about six or seven teams in all of baseball that could build something around that salary. The Yankees, of course, being one of them. Yeah. Okay, well, I think a lot of people think it's a great trade for the Yankees.

I'm not so sure. I'm not sure. I don't really... You don't really know. What are you talking about? This is awesome. You got Judge and Stanton, the two, the two, like, era-defining power. I mean, only one year for Judge, but it looks like from the bad at ball tendencies and everything, he is... On the level of Stanton in terms of era defining power hitters. It's a lot of strikeouts. It's a lot of strikeouts. Okay, well, the thing about Stan's MVP season.

I know. It went down, but he still struck out like 160 times. A lot of strikeouts in the middle of the order. It's a lot. It's, you know, the only player who's like this outrageous strikeout guy is judge. The only player in that lineup who's, well, and maybe Byrd, maybe Greg Byr. But they don't, but they need to cut down on their strikeouts. This is how I feel about it.

This lineup is probably as close to a guarantee as you can get to make the playoffs. But I am worried about when they face great pitchers, great relievers that come in in the postseason. Adam. Come on. Look at the Astros. The Yankees were within a game of the world series last year, and they just added their new best hitter. The Astros made a concerted effort to cut down on their strikeouts, and they went from worse to first, and they became a better team because of it

and they won the World Series. It was a big deal. And I just personally... We probably also see... We might have just seen the best seasons of their careers for Stanton and Judge. You bought high on Judge. This is the first time... This is the first time I think that Stanton is being viewed as one of the best players in baseball.

So they gave up two marginal prospects and they bought high on Stanton. This is the lesson that all of these teams are learning. that these backloaded contracts are terrible ideas when you're starting to pay these players close to $30 million when they're in their mid to late 30s. Every team is regretting them. Look at the Angels with Albert Pujols. Think about the Tigers and how they feel about Miguel Cabrera right now.

How many bad years is there going to be with this Stanton contract? Well, I don't know. It doesn't take them into the ages. It's like Pujol's contract. is taking him. Takes him up to 37. The thing is relative to the contract, the Yankees were going to have to hand Bryce Harper next offseason

if they went that route, Stanton's a bargain. I just don't think he's even close to it. I don't think he's close to it. I don't think he's close. You know, now that Arod's off the books, Sabathia's off the books. Pretty soon,

you know, before too long, Ellsbury's going to be off the books. McCann is going to be off the books. They have so much spending power that $30 million for them, if it's invested in their best player, which I think for the next at least three or four years, Stanton is going to be their best player,

is not a big deal for the Yankees. This is like, you should be dancing in the streets. I don't know. I don't see it. I think this, you know, there was a case to be made that the Yankees were the World Series favorite even before this trade. I think with bringing Stanton and introducing Stanton

to that already very good lineup, it becomes the best lineup in baseball. makes the Yankees the World Series favorites. They have the best lineup, the best bullpen, an enviable one, two, three in Severino, Gray, and Tanaka. They're talking about adding Garrett Cole. Yeah, that would be nice. I just think it reminds me a little bit of the mistakes that the previous Yankees teams

made, chasing a guy like Gary Sheffield and getting these. This is so much smart. I was talking in the office yesterday to Heath and a couple other guys. This is the smartest I've ever seen the Yankees organization run. Brian Cashman positioned themselves to have financial flexibility like they haven't in decades, while also building up the farm system. So at the same time they have money to spend, they're getting this influx of talent from the miners. This is going to be the start of a new Yankees dynasty.

Those old Yankees teams, they used to just look at the best free agent, throw as much money as it took to get them, and worry about the first. repercussions later. I think this stand and straight for them with the room they have in their budget and with the kinds of contracts we're going to see some of the big name free agents sign next off season. I think it's a totally responsible move. Okay. Well, I hope you're right. I think it is good short term. Long term, it scares me because eventually they're going to have to give big contracts to Gary Sanchez, Didigorius, Luis Severino, Aaron, Judge. They're going to have a lot of players that need big contracts. I don't know that they're going to be able to

keep all of them. Even the Yankees may not be able to keep all of them. But let's talk fantasy. John Carlos Stanton to the Yankees for Starlin Castro, who could still get traded and some other prospects. Value up, down, or the same for John Carlos Stanton. I think it has to be up just from the kind of park, the transition from one of the most pitcher-friendly parks to one of the most hitter-friendly parks. And for the most part, I feel like Stanton, as hard as he hits the ball, is immune to park factors. but I've seen some estimates that this kind of park change could up as a home run outage by 25%. To me, that seems...

That's insane. Aggressive? But, I mean, considering he was almost a 60 homer guy last year, you're talking like 70 homer run potential. He didn't hit one fly ball at a right field that left Marlins Park or that did not leave Marlins Park that would have left Yankee Stadium last year, from what I saw. Maybe it was one home run. Look, and I don't want to oversell the home run growth because I feel like as the kind of home runs he gets would for the most part sail out anywhere. And there's just going to be some normalization, I think. Like even if you stayed with the Marlins, I'm not, I wasn't expecting him to hit 59 home runs again.

Right, right. But it was enough this move for me to move Stanton one spot in my outfield rankings ahead of Mookie Betts, who I was already a little undecided about taking ahead of Stanton. Oh, I'll still take bets. Now I think I definitely want Stanton. I'll still take bets. Especially, you know, because you get the steals and they're just so hard to come by. He gets some stole.

You know, he'll give you like 25 steals. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's important. But compared to ownership. of the home run category. But Betts could hit 25 home runs. I mean, Betts could hit 25 home runs.

Yes. I mean, Betts is a very good player. He's only one spot behind Stan. Oh, it's a huge spot, Scott. 60 home runs versus a 25-25 fare with a batting average. This was his first year hitting 40 home runs. He's still... Stanton? Yeah, I mean, a lot of that had to do with health,

and a lot of that was fluky injuries. Most of it, yeah. Um, you know, and, and like, from a points league perspective, because we're just talking about the category perspective there, it's, it, their production this last year wasn't really that close. Now, I think it was a down year for bets. I think it was, uh, kind of a worst case scenario based on bets profile. I think he's going to be better next year. But it's, it's a big gap he has to fill. And I think Stanton's potential just went up with this trade. So, all right. Yeah, I'll take Stan ahead of bets. I think the other thing you'll get with Stanton.

should be like you got this year, a lot of runs and a lot of RBIs. Stanton hit, I don't know, he had over 100 of each. He hit 281 with 59 home runs, 132 RBIs, and 123 runs. Those numbers probably come down, but he still should thrive in runs and RBIs. Any other side effects of this trade? Let's start with the Yankees that we can go to the Marlins. Christian Yelich, I mean, if he stays on the Marlins. Like, talk about runs going down.

Well, yeah, and conversely, They talk the Yankees lineup talk about runs going up. Yeah. Like I said, this is their new best hitter. Added to all the hitters they already had last year, which was the second best offense in the American League, maybe all of baseball. D.D.D. is better.

In terms of runs scored. I'm talking objective measurement. Yeah. So, yeah, I think RBI potential goes up for D.D. Grigory's, sure. No, I mean, D.D. is better than Stanton. But I was kidding. Oh, okay. Brett Gardner, man.

What if Brett Gardner is leading off? Aaron, yeah. If Brett Gardner is healthy all year, I don't see how he doesn't score 100 runs. I was surprised he fell short of that last year. But Greg Byrd gets the most gentle introduction to full-time at bats that could be imagined. I mean, there's a chance he bats in between Judge and Stanton, which would be unbelievable lineup protection. obviously Gary Sanchez's RBI potential goes up. Everybody in the Yankees lineup gets better with this deal.

But even more so than the Yankees lineup is what this means for the pitching staff, which as much as I can remember any pitching staff is in a position to collect a ton of wins. And that goes obviously for the top three guys, Severino Tanaka and Gray, who we trust to pitch six plus innings consistently. Not only are they going to have more leads, but when they leave the game, there are five closer caliber relievers in the Yankees bullpen. Beyond the lineup, that's really the strength of the Yankees team, is just how deep that bullpen is. So a few of those leads are going to get blown. They're going to be a ton of wins for those three.

And I think for Jordan Montgomery, too, if they're still a spot available for them in the rotation once the offseason's over, showed a lot of potential last year, should be better equipped to pitch deep into game. and I think it's going to be a great sleeper. If only because of his supporting cast, forget the fact that he has a good swing, strike rate and all that. Yeah, and if the Red Sox go out and sign J.D. Martinez, it's time to start looking at the pitchers in the American League East

that aren't on those two teams. And other than the Aces, they'll be fine. But these two teams, if the Red Sox sign Martinez, they're going to feast on bad pitching or even mediocre pitching. It would give me a little pause on taking American League East pitchers. Their match was could be really, really tough a lot, and you'd have to sit them. I'm not talking about the high-end ones. I think I'm talking more about the J. Haps of the world.

But also, Glaver Torres could be the second baseman for the Yankees. They're going to need a third baseman, too. And then they traded Chase Headley after that. So they have openings at second and third. I think by the time Glabre Torres is back from Tommy John surgery, he'll have a spot ready for him. All right, the Marlins, Yewitch is the only guy. Oh, Boer. Yeah, Yelich and Boer, well, I mean, Rio Muto's not bad.

Right, yeah. But that's largely because of the position he plays. Yeah, there are not going to be a lot of bats left over in Miami, and that hurts the stock of all of those players. I think there's enough elasticity in those first base rankings after the top eight or so that Justin Boer could drop four or five spots in my first base rankings. when the dust settles.

Obviously, we've talked a lot about the Stanton trade. Just today, the Marlins trade in Marcelo Zuna to the Cardinals, and Dee Gordon was already out the door. So it doesn't sound like they're actively looking to trade Yelich, but there's the chance he could be moved to, and then what is Justin Bore left with? He was an intriguing hitter because of how hard he hit the ball and the batted ball profile, along with plus plate discipline, gave him sleeper appeal.

But if he has no lineup protection at all, he might lose some of those strengths, in addition to just losing the RBI potential, run scoring potential. Yeah, Christian Yellish scored 100 runs last year. I mean, I just can't believe that he was the number 10 outfielder in points leagues. He was something like 17th or so in Roto, Yelich. And like 282 with 18 home runs and 16. steals, 100 runs. There was nothing great about him.

He was consistent, but just nothing great about him. 80 walks, 100. I don't know. I just, I can't believe that he finished as the number 10 outfielder in points leagues and even top 20 in Roto. But if he goes down to 80 runs, it's obviously going to hurt him. And I don't think that's out of the question. All right, Seattle acquired D. Gordon.

Interesting trade. So they get D. Gordon from the Marlins. Gordon is going to play center field for them. He basically has been a very consistent 60 steel guy, three of the last four years, and the one year he didn't do it, he got hurt, or no, he had the PED suspension, and he stole 30 bases in 79 games in half a season. So, I mean, you set the, if he Gordon's like on the Marlins, whatever, you just said he's going to steal 60 bases. The Mariners, though, they're not a big stolen base team. They were 13th in baseball last year in steals, which isn't bad, but they had Jerry.

Gerard Dyson. They had Gene Seguera. We were worried about Seguera's steals going down, and they did. 33 in 2016, 22 last year. But he did play 28 less game, 23 fewer games. Yeah, 28, excuse me. Anyway, are you worried about that? Are you worried about D. Gordon going down

to maybe like the 45 steel range or something? No, no, not really. I mean, that's, you get D. Gordon. That's what you're getting him to do. So, you know, past tendencies, I think, go out the world. window at that point. I think the most notable thing is just that he's moving to center field, and while that won't impact his 2018 value, part of the value to D. Gordon was getting that big number of steals from an infield spot in a categories league, just because usually the steel

specialists are confined to outfield. There are a couple of others. Altuvae, of course, contribute steals in the infield trade turner, but those are really high-end players. Getting somebody in the fourth, fifth round who could add that kind of steals impact at an infield spot. It just made him a pretty handy player in those formats that he's going to lose come 2019, assuming there's no injuries then moving back to the infield, of course. Who is the best second-based eligible player on the Marlins? On the Mariners. That's a more appropriate question.

Who is the best second-based eligible player on the Mariner? It's Gordon for me. It's Gordon. I don't necessarily trust Robinson Canoe's power production to bounce back. It's one year out of, what, four, where he's been a good power hitter for the Mariners, and he's only getting older mid-30s now. So I don't want to invest a lot in Canoe next year. And finally, the Marlins traded Marcel Ozuna to the St. Louis Cardinals for a pitcher,

Sandy Ocantara, and some others that we just don't know. It's been a very recent trade. But now that's it. Stanton, Gordon, Ozuna. Hopefully that's it. No, hopefully not. Keep going. I don't care.

What hell do I care? What do you think? Value up down are the same for Marcel Ozuna with St. Louis instead of Miami. Well, first of all, if Sandy Alcantara is the biggest player coming back in this deal, a cost-controlled player like Ozuna, I think that's more reason to be frustrated as a Marlins fan than the Stanton deal was. Yeah. So just putting that. out there. I think Ozuna's value is pretty much exactly the same.

The Marlins lineup was actually a little better than the Cardinals last year. In terms of park factors, very similar parks. It doesn't seem to matter, really, in Ozuna's case, because he was much, much better at home last year than on the road, actually. But I'm not going to move Ozuna up or down or anywhere in my rankings. He's my 13th outfielder. There are already concerns just because the BABIP was really high last year in a way that didn't necessarily seem sustainable,

that he was going to take a step back this year, but going to the Cardinals isn't going to be the reason it happens. Now, yeah, so Zuna was the number five outfielder in points in Roto. He hit 312 with 37 home runs and 124 RBIs. In the first three months of 2016, he hit 314 with 16 home runs and 44 RBIs. He had a 920 OPS, and he had a 924 OPS all of last year. He played her the second half of 2016. So you could make the argument that in the last year and a half of healthy Marcel Ozuna,

we've got a 920 OPS guy who's a 35 homer guy, bats over 300. But, I mean, it's a lot to ask for. It's made, like, I trust the power from Ozuna. I don't necessarily trust the batting average. And maybe, you know, maybe he's more like a 275 hitter. I feel be a good fantasy option. He ranking him 13th, I don't think is any slight on him. But I don't.

think, I don't think he's quite as good as we saw in 2017. Now, what's interesting about this, Ozuna's value stays the same, but the Cardinals had a lot of intriguing bats that they were kind of cycling through their outfield last year, that now, I mean, it looks like their outfield set in stone, right? You got, you got Fowler, you got Ozuna, you got Tommy Pham, and everybody else who is part of that mix, Randall Gritchick. I think we can forget about him being a cheap source of power. Are we giving up on Stephen Piscotti already?

It sounds like Stephen Piscotti is going to be moved, at least. I mean, at least, and they signed him to a long-term deal, so obviously they wouldn't want that contract wasting away on the bench. But it does sound like in Stephen Piscotti's case, at least he'll have an opportunity to get at Bats elsewhere. The athletics are a team that's very interested in him, I know. So he may not end up losing that much value. But he won't be starting in the Cardinals outfield.

Gritchick won't. Who else was part of that mix? They have a couple of pretty good prospects coming up. Harrison Bader, Tyler O'Neill. Don't expect them to make much of an impact this year. Jose Martinez is somebody I'm worried about. Now, he did play mostly first base for the Cardinals down the stretch, but obviously they would prefer to play Matt Carpenter at that position.

and Outfield's not an opening for Martinez anymore. He's a big sleeper hitter for me if he does find it bats. Hopefully, the Cardinals are reserving that first base spot for him. And so who is the best outfield eligible player for the St. Louis Cardinals? I said this one right this time. I have Tommy Fam two spots ahead of Marcelo Zuna. And the power's similar. but FAM's a better on base guy and certainly a better base dealer.

All right. Tommy Fam, top 12 outfielder for Scott White. What about in Roto? Would you go with FAM over Ozone there too? Well, yeah, I mean. Because of the steals. The steals make it a pretty easy call. I do think Ozuna's floor is higher.

But, you know, I think Tommy fans' upside is significantly higher. Well, that's 25 minutes of Marlins' talk. Let's go to That's more than you're going to get on sports radio in South Florida The team that just worships Worships those morals Nobody cares about them on They do not

Actually there's been some lately People are angry Yeah I don't blame them Anger always sells at him And you know what this whole Derek Jeter thing Like I honestly don't feel like Derek Jeter Is doing much

That doesn't happen all the time In other organizations You know I just think Derek Jeter It's an interesting story everybody wants to see how he does as an owner. Everybody's going to click on the Derek Jeter headline. Oh, the optics of this aren't good. Let's bash Derek Jeter.

That's what I think's happening here. Yeah. It just makes you wonder how much he's doing and how much Mike Hill is doing. There's that, too. I mean, he is Mike Hill's boss, but there are a few owners in baseball who really get any attention over moves that are made by their general manager. And they're all obviously above the general manager in the packing order. Right, right, exactly.

So, you know, I imagine Derek Jeter instructed Mike Hill to trade junk Carlos Stanton, but I don't know that he was necessarily involved in the negotiations, at least not on a granular level. He's not even at the winter meetings. Exactly. How much is he doing? I don't know. I mean, was, did you hear any complaints that some other owner wasn't at the winter meetings? But he is also the president of baseball operations.

He's not just an owner. Is he, I don't think he's president of baseball operations. He does oversee baseball operations, but it's not like, you know, normally when people get the president of baseball operations title, it's just, they're a GM, basically, and that's not what Jeter is. Yeah. All right, well, any, you know, first time GM making these trades would be a scary thing. You better have a little help from Mike Hill.

We got more, oh, oh, Shohay Otani, that guy. Oh, yeah. So sprained UCL in his right elbow, which required a PRP, injection. Oh, by the way, he's signed with the team. It's been, uh, that happened since our last podcast. Sure did. New news is happening now with Otani. So, yeah, so Otani is with the Angels. Yep. And would you rather have, rank these three pitchers, see where I'm going with this. You, Darvish, Shohei Otani, Masahiro, Tanaka. Darvish, Tanaka, and Otani. But that's how I rank them even before this elbow news, which calling it a scare, I think, is too dramatic.

It caught a lot of people by surprise, but this is something all the teams pursuing him already knew about. This was, you know, he had this injection back in October. So this was a surprise to know when the angels weren't taken aback by it at all. It's, you know, UCL is always scary because that's the Tommy John ligament, but he's going to be on his normal pitching schedule. Like Tanaka had had his UCL scare a few years ago, and we're still waiting for his Tommy John surgery. Does it increase the fact that there's a small tear in that ligament?

Does it increase the odds that maybe at some indefinite point in the future Otani will need surgery? I guess it does, but it's not any more predictable than any pitcher who doesn't have that elbow issue. And I think it's a non-issue when rating his fantasy value. Tanaka hasn't been the same since that entry, since this first year. Okay. Is that the reason why? I don't know. It has, but I don't think his fastball is quite what it was that first year.

Okay. He's not the only one either. What do you mean? Urban Santana. Yeah, that's true. It comes to mind. And I think there are others. I mean, the Angels just dealt with Garrett Richards, who had a more significant UCL issue.

and managed to avoid Tommy John surgery came back looking very strong at the end of last season. But, you know, this isn't even near that significant. So, Tani's not in jeopardy of missing time because of his elbow. So where I rank him, yeah, that's close to the rich hill range of pitchers. And that's more because I feel like there are going to be limitations innings-wise. If he does go, and Mike Soch has even said, there's no doubt about it, he's a two-way player. First of all, it's going to have to be basically a six-man rotation for the angel, so he's going to get fewer turns than the average starting pitcher, as will all the Angels pitchers. And, you know, if he's starting two or three times in between starts, I got to figure there are going to be points in the season where they let him rest a little beyond even the,

the six turns. So I'm thinking an upside of like 160 innings for Otani this year, which I wouldn't give Rich Hill the upside for more earnings than that either. And I think the production inning for inning would be pretty similar. Rich Hill's been a very good pitcher with the last two years inning for inning. All right. Let's go over under. Three 20 ERA. I will, that's a good over under. I'm going to take a little under. Strike out per inning. Over. Ooh, that's a lot of strikeouts. One-15 whip. A little bit under.

Okay. So we've got a 310 ERA with a 1.14 whip and 165 strikeouts and 160 innings. And he wins 11 games, 12 games. Okay. 11 and a half over under, you tell me. Under. All right. Eleven wins. Fine.

That's a good pitcher. So would you take James Paxton or Shohei Otani? I'll take Paxton because I think he'll be a little better, inning for inning, and I at least give him a chance of going beyond 160, though not a very good one. David Price or Shohei Otani? Price. How about Garrett Cole or Otani?

I will take Cole still But again, it's mostly an innings thing Like I think the innings are going to be There are going to be clear limits in Otani Just because he's trying to do this two-way thing I mean You can't ask him to take on a normal pitcher Or hitter workload

All right, here's a scenario You're playing in a league Where You can only count the first 160 innings That a pitcher pitches that season. You also get credit for his hitting stats. Uh-huh.

And you get to double his hitting stats. So... This is a dumb scenario. Where would you rank Otadi in that league? That's going to be the podcast league, by the way. This is going to be the what league? The podcast league. Oh, okay.

Okay, so you only get to count 160 headings for every pitcher and you double their hitting stats. I think his 160 innings will be pretty evenly distributed over the course of the year. I don't think he's going to get shut down in August or anything. It's a Roto League. So now the pocket. But you're doubling, is he the number one pitcher of that scenario? Is he the number one?

No, no. Really? Not the number one. But you double the hitting stats. Okay. There's no scenario in which both the hitting, both his fantasy owner is going to get credit for both the pitching stats and the hitting stats. In this podcast league, it's happening. In this podcast league it's happening.

In that special podcast league, he will. Okay. All right, fine. Okay, then there's a chance he's the most valuable player. But I'm glad you brought this up because last time we talked about Otani, it seemed like the product team was leaning more toward making two Otanis in the player pool, a hitter version and a pitcher version. So he could be split between two owners. And now it sounds like, and again, it's not final, but it sounds more like it's going to be a dual-eligible Otani. He'll have to earn DH eligibility, but that'll happen pretty soon.

And depending on where his owner starts him, those are the stats he gets credit for in that scoring period. So if you start him as a pitcher, you don't get the hitting stats that scoring period, but you get the pitching stats and vice versa. You won't get both at the same time. But it still makes a big difference in daily leagues. That's where I think you're going to see the biggest discrepancy in Otani's value, weekly leagues versus daily leagues. because a weekly league, even with the dual eligibility, knowing he's going to start just two or three times a week probably as a DH, you're going to start him as a pitcher all the time, right? Weekly league, you start him on the days he's pitching, but then you still get a chance to take advantage of his hitting on those days. In the daily leagues, the daily leagues.

Yeah, and the daily leagues. Right, right. So there's going to be a pretty big difference in his value in those formats. Yeah, it really is. If we decide to go that way, which again is not a final. There's some hurdles to clear there, but I think that's everybody's preferred solution. Okay, yeah, I wasn't going to bring that up, but you are a more important person in the fantasy baseball operation than I am. So I'm glad you did that.

Maybe I shouldn't have, but we've gone down that path before. So we'll go there again. This has not been our most efficient show, so let's stop wasting time and talk about this email from Dan at Fantasy Baseball. Atc.com, which has more Christmas-themed baseball names. Oh, the important stuff. Yeah, Elphus Andrews and bad Santangelo. Like Bad Santa. Okay.

Yeah, these aren't as good. Elphus Andrews is pretty good. I thought he was going with like Elphus on the shelf is. That could work too. That could work. All right, so here's some more signings. And let's hit on these quickly here. So the interesting stuff.

Colorado signed Jake McGee to a three-year $27 million deal, but they also signed Brian Shaw and Greg Holland is a free agent Brian Shaw according to Buster Only has the most appearances in baseball since 2013 do we have closer potential here with Brian Shaw or McGee I guess that was the talk yesterday after they signed him which I don't think he'd be a great closer

he doesn't have the you know the consistent strikeout per inning track record but it sounds like the Rockies are going to end up getting Greg Holland too so okay I think it might end up being a boot point. Stay tuned. He's got a high whip, Brian Shaw for a reliever. I don't know if Colorado is a great place for him, but we shall find out.

Now, Brandon Morrow to the Cubs. Brandon Morrow last year, 6-0, 206 ERA, nine walks, 50 strikeouts, and 43 and two-thirds. 0.9-2-wip. Brandon Morrow was outstanding. He pitched in all seven World Series games. He made 14 postseason appearances. is 11 of them were scoreless. He did end up with a 395. The RA had one really bad appearance against the Astros.

But is Brandon Morrow in line to be the Cubs closer? As of now, yeah. It doesn't sound like they've ruled out bringing another late-inning reliever in. And if it's one that has more closing experience, I would imagine he would get the first knot over Brandon Morrow. But Morrow actually did look like a closer last year, and I think would be fine in the role. There are obviously some injury concerns there,

just given his track record and all the work in the postseason. But if he is the Cubs Closer, he wouldn't be far outside my top 12 relievers if he's outside at all. Yeah, Wade Davis only had 32 saves last year in 33 chances. It's two years in a row the Cubs just not giving their closers a lot of saves. And the first year was because they were bludgeoning everybody. And this year is because they were a little disappointing, I guess. I don't even know what the reason was.

I don't. I don't know either. I'm not putting as much stock into that as I was last year when we were looking at Wade Davis because I don't think the Cubs are this runaway favorite. The Yankees are obviously the runaway favorite. Yeah, so are you going to be – no, they're not. Don't say that. I appreciate all this Yankee love.

You love them, but I don't know. They're still adding. That's crazy. They really don't need anybody else, but they're still going to get more. Yeah. Do you worry about a role as Chapman getting more than, like, 35? five saves. Interesting, right?

Good question, Adam. Yeah. You know, it'll be interesting to see how the Yankees are managed this year, not only because they have somebody with no management experience there in Aaron Boone. But with that bullpen, Chad Green, Tommy Canley, David Robertson, Delimpetanzas and Aroldus Chapman, obviously not all of those guys are going to have to pitch every day. But say you wanted to use three every day, you know, are you pulling the starters early than you normally would to take advantage of that bullpen? Yeah, they did it last year. I mean, I know it's a different manager.

In which case, I think it improves Chapman's chances of getting saves. Maybe not. Yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to think why I think it does. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it wants to make a difference as far as Chapman's concerned. So, you know what?

Chapman's my number three reliever. and if he gets 32 saves or 42 saves, I don't think I'll be terribly disappointed in him. Cubs signed Tyler Chatwood to a three-year deal. I guess he's kind of like an analytics guy. People think there's some untapped potential with Tyler Chatwood. And you look at his last two seasons on the road. 2016, he was 8 and 1 with a 169 ERA.

2017 on the road, Chadwood had a 349 ERA. And opponents hit 200 against him on the road last year, away from Cores, and I think they hit 190 against Chattwood away from Cores in 2016. Is Tyler Chatwood a mixed league relevant starting pitcher? I think he's on the fringes of being that. And I can understand the enthusiasm leaving Cores fields and some of the underlying numbers there, great ground ball pitcher, which is always a good thing

no matter where you're pitching. And even though he hasn't been a big strikeout pitcher, at least last year he was a pretty good swing and miss pitcher. So it looked like maybe he had some untapped strikeout potential. But that being said, and he hasn't actually delivered the strikeouts yet. He has bad control. He walks a lot of players. So probably going to have a high whip.

And I'm just not enthusiastic about drafting him in a mixed league. All right, it's Tyler Chatwood. Some more middle relief stuff. The Phillies signed Pat Nyshechek to a third. two-year deal. The Rangers signed Chris Martin. Not the Coldplay lead singer? Is that who they signed? Yeah.

I think that's who they signed. Yeah. It's pretty risky. It's a cold play song. The, what's, is risky a a cold play song? No, sing us one. Oh, sing us one. Usually break out in song. Scott, it has to be spontaneous. You know that.

Okay, sorry. No, you're not my dancing monkey. I understand. The Met sign Anthony Swarzac. The Philliesie. are apparently closing in on signing Tommy Hunter and the Cardinals signed Luke Gregerson. Do we have any closer potential? We've got some good relievers being signed here. Anyone that could end up getting saves?

Well, Gregerson's been a closer in the past, and the Cardinals don't really have one of those, but I think they're looking to get more. Tommy Hunter may be the Phillies' best reliever now, but I think they're looking to get more. Swarck's the most interesting to me because this happened what on Wednesday

and on Tuesday the Mets manager Mickey Calloway new manager was saying they're not going to have a designated closer that they're going to you know that they're going to operate situationally with the bullpen liar it seems like there always is somebody who emerges

at the head of the pack even in those instances so I imagine at some point we'll be calling somebody the Mets closer but it wasn't clear even before Calloway said anything whether it was going to be Jay Rees Familiar or AJ Ramos next year. And then if you add Swarzak to the mix,

and if Calloway's being legit about that, I think Swarzak is now the Mets' best reliever. So I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility. He could emerge as the lead safe source there. Yeah, and look at where the Mets new manager is coming from. Mickey Calloway. He's coming from the Indians. If anybody did a, you know, no official closer thing

effectively it was them, but still, Cody Allen was their closer, you know? Right. So, like you said, they'll settle on someone. All right, 2019 stuff. The twins signed Michael Panetta to a two-year deal and the Cubs signed Drew Smiley to a two-year deal. It's not guaranteed that either will pitch in 2018. The other stuff, Mani Machado could be traded to a team that would play him at shortstop, so that would be nice. The Padres acquired Chase Headley and pitcher Brian Mitchell from the Yankees for Jabari Blash.

I assume you don't care about this No This to me was the most Transparent salary dump I've ever seen And it was a great trade Dumping the salary on the Padre This was a great trade

No question No question But Javari Blash He's gonna be like He'll be in their spring training lineup That's maybe if they don't DFA him And you know whatever He's not good

No, but Headley had a very good finish to the season. Does that matter to you at all? No. There was not a lot of power, but a lot of batting average. Okay, so forget that. Tampa Bay acquired Ryan Schimpf. Do you care? If they played in a silo, I would care.

If they played in a silo. Yeah. But don't they? No. They play in a big park. If they played in a silo, the way Schimp hits elevators, the ball. Never mind.

Yeah, okay. Somebody out there gets it. Okay, fine. You're right. They don't play in a silo. I just confirmed. He'll hit the ceiling a couple of times in Tampa Bay. What else we got?

Detroit signed Mike Fires to a one-year deal. What month do you think we'll pick him up? And how many months will that last? Mike Fires. June, 1.5. Okay. That sounds good to me. Jimmy Nelson will not be ready for opening day.

still draft Jimmy Nelson right now, as of right now? I did draft Jimmy Nelson and the one mock we've done so far. I got him later than I thought I'd have to get him. And I wasn't at all expecting him to be ready for opening day. So I think he's a good late around gamble, considering he was emerging as an ace last year. It's a scary injury he's coming back from, but the cost, the price is right.

Okay. So you'd rather have Shohei Otani than Jimmy Nelson? Yes. Now, you play in a league. that only tracks pitcher stats from the beginning of Jimmy Nelson's season, whenever that may be. And a pitcher's hitting stats count negative. Like, any single is worth negative one point? Okay, forget it, forget it.

And Alan Trammell and Jack Morris were elected into the Hall of Fame. I really put that in the notes for Chris, because based on his Twitter, he had strong feelings about it. But he's not here. Yep. He's sick. Yep. And I don't, you know, Jack Morris, if I had a vote, back when he was in the right back when the writers could vote him in this was this was a different

you know once they graduate from the 10 years where writers could vote him and this was a different group voting these two and i forget what it's called but uh if if i was a writer voting for hall of famers i would never have voted for jack morris but at the same time i don't understand like i don't understand the feeling of i'm angry that this guy got in the hall of thing i understand relative to this guy who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, how is this guy getting in? But just, I can't be angry. Jack Morris is in the Hall of Fame if he was that meaningful to people

and they want him in their baseball museum. Like, who cares? He was arguably the ace. And, you know, I use ace in quotation marks because by today's measurements, maybe he wouldn't have been. But he was the ace of three different World Series winners, Tigers, Twins, and Blue Jays. That's pretty impressive.

That's impressive. Just from a stature, standpoint, Hall of Fame, you know? Like, I get it. Yeah. And he threw like a ton of complete games. Yeah. And that was, I don't know if that was normal back then, but it's obviously a lot more normal than it is now. Yeah. But I don't, I'm just going to basically stop having strong opinions on players that I have never watched pitch. So, or hit. So that's, that's, I don't have a strong opinion on this. I'm just a little. And, you know, again, I don't think Jack Morris would have made my personal cutoff, but I don't like the idea of just turning Hall of Fame into a, you know, a war leaderboard, basically, because that's, that's not what it's meant to be.

It's supposed to memorialize the most impactful players. And there's a lot more that goes into impact than just the statistical measurements we value today, which, by the way, won't be the same as the ones we measure tomorrow. So, yeah. And Jack Morris had 175 complete games. He also had a pretty high ERA. He had a career 390 ERA, and that's why people are opposed, I guess, to Morris being in. But his last six seasons were rough, most of them anyway, except for one.

His first 11 seasons or 12 seasons, he had a 359 ERA. It's much more respectable. So, all right, good, good for you, Jack Morris. is an email about the worst commissioner of all time. This is Jason from a small town south of Birmingham. Scott, you're from the south. What's a small town south of Birmingham? I don't know.

Minneapolis. Okay, yeah. I play in multiple baseball leagues. This one in particular is a 12-te-to-head points league with a $100 buy-in. Playoffs, get your money back, the champ takes the rest. Our commissioner, listen to this. This is unbelievable. Our commissioner expanded from 10 to 12 teams after the end.

inaugural season three years ago, with owners that, quote, lived multiple states away. So the new owners, the two new owners lived multiple states away. According to the commissioner, they were family friends of his. Since the expansion, the commissioner has won three straight titles while making very lucrative trades with the expansion teams. All right, very fishy here. He brings on new player, new owners, they live far away, their family friends. The rest of us in the league communicated with the expansion owners via text but never

personally met them. They would never trade with us unless it was overwhelmingly in their favor, but seemed to give kick-ass deals to the commissioner while giving the rest of the league hollow explanations to justify them. Long story short, we discovered the commissioner was running the two expansion teams himself, as well as communicating through a texting app, pretending to be the other owners from far, far away, in order to get a leg up. Oh, my gosh. Needless to say.

A true scandal. This is. This is awful. With this much money being involved? It's awful. Needless to say, the league got our money back and made me the new commissioner. Have you ever heard of anything like this? I was hoping if you guys would share some collusion stories to help people not be taken advantage of,

especially in situations where there's money on the line. I mean, was this in... Like, what was... It sounds like because you didn't know these other people that you knew this commissioner before the league ever started. I mean, what was, I feel like you would have had to have some concept of his character before agreeing to be in a league he was commissioning. And like, this is just so wrong. Like, I don't understand how you could do this and then still expect to be friends with these people after. I hope he isn't.

That's the thing. I hope he is. It's so underhanded and manipulative. Like, it's, it's stealing, basically. Yeah, it's 100%. Yeah. It's stealing. Yeah.

So he made $700. If one of your friends stole money from you, like legitimately stole hundreds from you. Like you wouldn't be friends with that person anymore, right? Definitely not. He made $700 every year on this scam. That's just awful. I can't like. And the thing is, if you really want to scam people out of money, there's better ways to do it than this, right?

This is pretty clever. Not that I'm condoning that, but I'm just, I just don't understand why he'd want to do this to people he knows. And I just don't. Well, the other problem with this is like, it does take a while. Let's just be criminals here. You're trying to make 700 bucks. That's not that much money. It took you six months to do it.

Yeah, I know. Right. Inefficient way to steal from people that you have a personal relationship with. Yeah, yeah, it's bad. Was it worth it, Camish? Was it worth it? Probably not. Probably not.

I've never been involved in a situation like that. I play in a lot of fantasy leagues in football and baseball. I don't play in that many money leagues, and they're not a lot of money, so I don't think people would really go out of their way to do something sneaky. I played in one league for like $175 or something. It was the biggest buy-in I ever had, and I hated it. I hated it because it took away the fun, you know, because it was like, now is all about the money. I was the guy who went to the big market and got the big contract and hated all the pressure that came with it. It lost the joy for the game.

Yeah. No, I don't like that either because it, you know, unless you're just having to be in a league with really rich people. That's what it was. There's a drop in the bucket for them. That's exactly what it was. For me, it was a lot more than it was for the rest of the other. Okay, so maybe they weren't feeling the pressure. That's what I'm saying.

But if you add, if the league becomes all about the money, No, for them it wasn't. I think it robs some of the enjoyment you get out of just the competition itself. I mean, if you just want a money contest, again, there are much more efficient ways to do it than playing out a six-month season. And I really think in terms of collusion and that kind of stuff, I know people don't agree with me on this, so I'm just going to take the unpopular opinion. I like being in leagues that allow the rest of the owners to vote. on the trade and if it should be vetoed. And, you know, it has to be a pretty high threshold where you need a certain amount of

votes to actually overturn it. Well, let's say you're in a 12-team league and two teams make a trade and the other 10 vote on the trade, I think it's got to be like at least six saying no. And you also have to have owners that are that understand the difference between just a bad trade and collusion. So maybe that's asked. There needs to be a certain maturity level. Yeah, right.

Maybe that's asking a lot. But I don't mind putting it up to a vote. I don't, in general, I don't trust other owners to be impartial in their voting. So, you know, I don't set up leagues that way. Now, obviously, if I'm playing with, like, industry people, that's different. And, you know, if you're playing, if we're playing with industry people, there are never really any. trade conflicts. But, you know, I would rather, my preferred method would be like having a trade council,

like you as the commissioner and two other people who you really trust to be impartial and make good decisions. Shouldn't they be from outside of the league? How about that? That would be even better, though, if you have, if you know fantasy baseball people, that good fantasy baseball people that aren't in your league, then you have a lot more baseball loving friends than most people do. But let's just assume they're in the league.

None of the three of you are ever allowed to complain about trades. It's just if there's enough of an uproar on the message boards of your league, then it goes to the three-man council and you vote on it. And ideally, you don't even vote on it. You just talk it out and come to a consensus, the three of you on the same page. And then that's what happens. And, you know, for the most part, like, 199 out of 200 trades shouldn't even be rejected.

Well, there's an obvious problem with your trade counsel, right? You see it. You see the problem. No, well, tell me what the problem is. Well, what if one of them is involved in the trade? Oh. They're not allowed to make any trades. I guess that one's left out of the decision making.

It just becomes the other two, and it has to be a consensus at that point. What if they make a three-way... No, okay, I won't give you any more crazy hypotheticals. I was going to read some emails, but I'll save them until the next show. Here's the biggest moral dilemma I have in fantasy baseball, fantasy football. And I do it sometimes. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Praying on the weak link in the league.

You know? Making trades that you know you're just kind of... Like, not an all-out rip-off, but obvious wins. I struggle with it, because if I don't do it somebody else, Will. I try not to. I never, ever, ever, ever do trades with owners that aren't active because that's BS. What?

What were you going to say? Why would those trades go through if they're not active? Well, I never even know. You must be active to some degree. I never even offer. I never even offer. If I look into teams not making transactions, I don't even bother offering. Okay.

Because you never know. They might get a trade offer. Be like, oh, sure, I'll take it. But I never offer. I struggle with that, picking on the weak link. It's going to be very helpful. No, it's, I mean, the best thing is finding a stable group where you can all build up a skill level together. And there is no novice to pick on.

But you know what? I think the guy has to take his licks, the newcomer. And I understand whoever gets to it first. It's unfair for the rest of the league, but he's not going to trade the whole roster to him. other people will have chances to make bad trades with him too. This is what I call him. The only way he's going to get better is by making mistakes. This is what I call the Isaiah Thomas effect for you NBA fans.

When Isaiah Thomas was running the Knicks, you had a bad contract. Hey, Isaiah Thomas, you take this crappy. He saved so many franchises. I would have felt bad if I were an NBA general manager calling up Isaiah Thomas. It would have felt like I was cheating. That's how I feel now. That's the Isaiah Thomas school. It's the Dave Stewart effect, too.

Is that work? More baseball related. That would be better. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for keeping us on task here. Okay, that's it for today's show. And by the time we speak, I don't know, the Marlins might not have any major league talent. You're going to see.

And the community is going to be in an absolute uproar for the team that they never watch or attend games. We're only going to have 8,000 people next time. That's the game. All right. For Scott White, I'm Adam Azer. We'll talk to you next week. Have a great weekend, everybody.