Fantasy Baseball Today - 15-Team Roto Draft Review; Advanced Stats We Like (03/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Do we have any clues about when the season will start? We'll update you to start the show before looking at some recent ADP trends (5:30) ... Which advanced stats do we use when evaluating players (10:40)? From expected stats to swinging strikes to barrels and more, find out what we rely on in our analysis ... We review our 15-team Roto mock draft (16:00). How do you decide between SPs and steals? How did Scott end up with such a good pitching staff? And we also read your Apple Podcast questions (39:00) ... Your emails at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. What a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. And welcome back from your weekend, everybody. Time to talk fantasy baseball.

It is Monday, March 16th. I'm Adam Azer with Scott White. No Chris Towers today. Hey, Scott. Hello. Hi, and Chris is not eating lunch. He has an appointment, so Chris is off today. We just did a fantasy football today reaction pod about the DeAndre Hopkins trade, not Scott, but me, Dave and Jamie.

So check that out, about 17, 18 minutes talking about the values of everybody involved in that trade. And we've got a lot more episodes, maybe up to four more episodes coming this week on fantasy football today. But it is fantasy baseball time here. Scott, how you doing? I'm okay, all things considered. Right. That's pretty much the canned response right now, right? It's hard not to be a little moody, if I'm being honest.

A little moody. I'm not moody. I am distracted. I've had a very difficult time focusing on work. Yeah. I don't know if you're the same way. Yeah. Yeah.

This football week is going to kind of refocus me, though. That's good. That's good. Yeah, that's kind of the one sport going on still is NFL free agency, right? Yeah, that's the sport now. That's the sporting world. Hey, some people would say it's the most interesting part. Maybe.

So today we're going to review the 15-team mock draft we did. We were going to have a player debate, but we're going to save that for when Chris is back. We're going to read your emails of Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com and your Apple podcast questions. first of all, there's really no news right now, but Memorial Day is being floated as a start for the season. NBA was just reading, they're thinking maybe June, mid-June to kick things up again. It's going to be a lot longer than four weeks.

Well, because that CDC recommendation that came out last night, or what was that, Sunday night. Which is last night. No gatherings of 50 or more people for eight weeks. So that, yeah, that Memorial Day weekend start for baseball would seem to fit in that timeline. I saw that they're still committed to playing as much of the schedule as possible, which we don't know exactly what that means. That's vague terminology. But it's been discussed that some of the front end of the season would be tacked on to the end.

So we don't, you know, it's not like you can just subtract. I ever think of June 1st now it's not like you could just subtract April and May and then assume that's how many games are going to be played maybe but not necessarily so there's still it's still very much up in the air

I just don't see why you'd be drafting right now if you want a draft go for it but it's you know I'd still have three drafts going on from before like slow drafts are going on actually four yeah still four slow drafts going on from before three of them have maintain the same fervor. Everybody's picking with the same frequency.

People are still making trades in the drafts where that's allowed. One of them is just dead. Like it's 60, 75% auto picks right now. Well, why are there even auto picks? Just untim it. Well, I'm not running the draft. Well, yeah, tell your commission. She's probably listening.

Untimed, man. I took the timer off our draft. We got all the time in the world right now. Yeah. The thing I'll say like, because it thought to me If I draft a team right now and then I have to wait three months to see them play, I'm going to feel so disassociated with that team, I guess. But it's not really true because I do a draft in June every year of football draft.

We do a June draft for our magazine. And I kind of forget about that team. And then when the season's getting close, I look at it. When the season starts, I treat it like just I love all my teams the same. And it doesn't bother me that I drafted. that one early. In fact, you might have advantages by drafting early, but that's different because that's earlier in the draft prep season. But what I'm saying is, if you are drafting now, I wouldn't worry about like, well, I'm going to not care about this team when the season finally

starts. It'll be just fine. Please leave us a nice Apple Pod review, and you can leave a question in there as well. Give us a five-star review and ask a question. We have obviously plenty of time to read your question, so that's a good way to get them in. And if you're looking to fill that sports void NFL free agency is still happening and not only is fFT fantasy football today going but the pick six NFL podcast has you covered with reactions and analysis to all the biggest moves pick six is always daily but this week they're going to be much more than daily so check out will brinson and company every day of the week for free agency and they've got emergency podcast with when the biggest names in football including tom brady make their decisions download and

subscribe to the pick six podcast wherever you find fbt or any of the shows you listen to to. So just looking at NFBC average draft position from the weekend. I just wanted to see if there were any noteworthy trends. I just looked at like literally the last two or three days. Justin Verlander, 20th overall. And I compared it to where they were going the first week of March. Verlander's now 20th.

He was 12th. Aaron Judge up five spots, but he's still in the 60s, 62, Aaron Judge. Stanton up five spots, but he's still in the 60s, 62, Aaron Judge. Stanton, up five spots, but he's still a little. in the 70s, 80s, 78th. Carlos Carrascoe down seven spots from 122 to 129. And Blake Snell has stayed the same at 47. Scherzer wasn't really worth looking at.

Verlander, Judge, Stanton, Carrasco, and Snell were the main ones I was looking at. I probably forgot someone. But I don't see a reason to downgrade anybody for injury anymore. Yeah, I mean, Chris Sails' timetable is murky. Oh, Sail. time table is murky for that matter but i i think if we're thinking june first it's he's probably fine uh there's always a possibility of a setback with that kind of injury he just starts swinging too soon with that stress fracture in his rib but yeah i mean yeah that's that's the biggest

change for me others are people people are getting kind of wild speculating how much it changes the uh the the uh the the draft pool the draft order how much it changes certain players value the possibility of it being a shorter season as much as it being pushed back, which again, we don't know how much shorter it actually would be. So that's one thing. But the other thing is just like, for the most part, players are ranked in the order of how good they are. And like, for the most part, I rank players in terms of per game production. This is something I've talked about before. I value per game production over the cumulative production.

And of course, there are certain players I downgrade because I think they're going to miss time or because, like, in a pitcher's case, there's a likelihood of them getting shut down early. But for like a Jesus Luzardo, a Julio Arias, a guy who's behind innings, I don't think, let's assume it's a short season.

I don't think the Dodgers, the A's are going to be like, well, he can get those one. We don't need to spread out those 120 innings as much anymore. So we can just let him go seven plus every time. I really don't think that's going to happen. I think per start, how many innings they give is going to be about the same. They're still the sorts of pitchers who are going to get pulled before six innings more often than not. and then obviously the high-end guys are going to pitch deep into games. It doesn't mean they don't move up at all, the Arias and Luzardo types,

but it's not like Ereas and Aaron Nola are going to be on equal footing now. I mean, there's still a big difference in what they're going to be asked to do from game to game. Chris Sale, no change in his ADP. is going about a hundred and fourth overall in drafts, which is a little earlier than I anticipated, but do you think Chris Sayle is like a top 50 pick now? Hmm, top 50. We did a mock draft after this first started just this Friday.

Yeah, over a long ago. That seems like we did a mock draft on Friday, which was after we knew the start of the season would be delayed. And we had less of an idea how, long it would be delayed, but how much of an idea do we have really now? Anyway, long story short, I got Chris Sale in round nine of that 15 team league. So he was being drafted nowhere close to 50th overall then. And I suspect he probably, until his elbow gets cleared, until he's on the path to rehabilitating it, which who knows, who knows how much we'll even hear about that between now and the second spring training or summer training or whatever we're going to call.

It's still to be spring, wouldn't it? Yeah. Although actual spring training is mostly in winter. But, you know, that's neither here and or there. Yeah. I think we're going to have to find, we need to hear that the elbow is actually on the path to being okay before sales value moves up as much as those other players does.

Yeah, so you got him like 133rd overall, Chris Sale, in a roto league, a 15-team roto league. And I think that I said that, You know, you don't have to downgrade players due to injury, but I do think that you still have to consider the ones who have, like, chronic issues here, like Sale, maybe like Aaron Judge, maybe like Blake Snell. But obviously, you know, you don't have to be so worried about if they're okay and don't need additional operations, and that's Sale might and Judge might,

then they're going to be probably ready for the start of the season. All right. So let's read an email. email of the day is from Dave C Dear Albert Little and Baby Albert Baby Baby Yeah I don't know

Albert Little and Baby Come on Google what do you got I think of Albert Bell I think of Baby Ruth And that's the only associations I'm coming up with The Little Albert experiment I don't know what this is

like something horrible. Thank you for bringing that, Dave. Since we have more time before the season starts, could you dedicate some air time to the stats you think are most important? The main ones are obvious, but can you go into detail on some of the advanced stats and what to look for? Well, the answers would vary, I think, depending on who you asked, but the ones I most gravitate toward the stats that I think sum up best what a player should be doing are for pitchers, something like X-FIP or Sierra, in terms of what their ERA should have been based on the way they pitched as opposed to what the actual ERA was. And then for hitters, you know, the expected stats available through Stacaster, largely what I'm looking at now, XBA, X-Lug, X-Waba, which is weighted like on-base percentage. So, you know, mid-to-high 300 is really good.

over 400 is amazing. And low 300 is not so good. So those are the main ones I look at. If we want to pick it apart further, of course, swinging strike rate for pitcher is something I'm really into. You don't say. What? You don't say.

You don't say, yeah. I'm interested. This is something that, you know, I feel like fan graphs has kind of been left behind with the availability of stat-cast data and a site like baseball savant, which makes it so easy to look into. But I think the breakdown of line-drive percentage, ground ball percentage, and fly-ball rate, which is something that stat-cast doesn't offer,

at least doesn't make so readily available, that's something you can find on fan graphs. And I think there's a lot of value in that. specifically in this era where fly balls are so often rewarded with home runs I want a high ground ball rate for pitchers I want a low ground ball rate for hitters line drives are always good for hitters

always bad for pitchers but sometimes just because there aren't that many line drives being hit that's that's not as sticky from year to year as some of the other things but you know if you see a long standing trend like somebody like Mani Machado, whose line drive rate is consistently low,

it kind of makes sense why now that he's in playing in parks where his fly balls don't translate as often to home runs why he's struggling with batting average because he just doesn't have a high enough line drive rate for it. Yeah, I like

guys who hit the ball hard. So I think the question is like what's the best way to get that info? Maybe it's not fan graphs anymore, but hard contact rate, I think is still useful to look at and go to baseball Savon and just take a look at the Barrell's leaders Nelson Cruz, Gary Sanchez, Percentage, Barrel's percentage, like per plate appearance. Cruz, Sanchez, Trout, Suno, Judge, C.J. Crone, Yorden Alvarez, Jorge Soler, Christianielich, Mitch Garver. That's your top 10. They're actually three in the top, three,

four twins in the top 10 last year in Barrel's percentage. Cruz, Sineau, Crone, and Garver. Yeah, I think that seems to translate to success. Hit the ball hard and good things happen. And swinging strikes are also important. You look at the swinging strike leaderboard, it's usually like a who's who of pitchers. But then again, you get like a Dylan Bundy in there two years ago. You get a Masahiro Tanaka in there,

and it doesn't always mean next year's going to be better just because they get swinging strikes. But for the most part... Kyle Gibson. Yeah. But it seems to be a very important skill. when you sort by other measures that you could look into for pitchers like called strikes, for instance, or it's not, it's more, it's spotier, it's spotier in terms of pitchers we think of as great and pitchers we think of as not so great. When swinging strike rates, with all but a very few exceptions, it's really, really good high-end pitchers.

And that, yeah, that does cause me to look, take a longer look at the very few that aren't high-end pitchers and think, how close are they to becoming high-end pitchers? And that's a big reason why I'm still in on Dylan Bundy, hoping this change of scenery going from Baltimore, terrible place to pitch, to Anaheim, a great place to pitch, and just working with the different coaching staff, if that's going to unlock the potential there for him, results this spring, or what was spring, we're looking pretty good.

Let's take a look at that 15-team roto draft that we did on, Friday, the last draft we did, and perhaps the last draft will be doing for a few weeks. I don't know. Hopefully not. But in general, how did you feel about the player pool? This was a 15-team Roto League with 30-man. How many draft? Did we have 30-man rosters?

Yes. It was 450 players deep. It was the biggest draft. It was the biggest draft we did. And I don't know. Maybe we'll do another big one as the season approaches. But normally, this would be the biggest draft. draft we do leading up to the start of the season?

I didn't think it was tough. I didn't think it was like, oh, man, there are no good players. I think when we got to the reserves, the last, we have seven bench spots. Maybe the last four or five rounds felt that way, but I don't know. I felt pretty comfortable with all of my picks except for my one auto pick of Adam Eaton, which really pissed me off. Come on, fellow Adam. Yeah, there's not that many of them.

The part-time player. He has no power. Part-time player. Yeah, I think he's going to sit for lefties. Did that happen last year? I'm pretty sure it did. Take a closer look at this. You can't hit him.

I'll tell you that much. He mostly was starting against lefties. At the end of the year? Yeah, at the end of the year. It looks like, let's see, of the final one, two, three, four they fit. He started against three of the last four they faced. Will he sit versus lefties?

He did it in 2019, but in 2017 with the Nationals, he faced one lefty in 23 games. In 2018, he sat against lefties even before his early season injury. He hit well versus lefties in 2019, but struggled the previous two seasons. Michael Taylor played only 53 games in 2019. Eaton definitely could sit some versus lefties. And that comes from a very respectable source,

which is me, my opinion, as I took notes for Adam Eaton, that's what I wrote for him. I think the fact that Michael Taylor was hurt maybe kept him in the lineup against lefties. Although he was coming back from some... I can't remember exactly what the injury was. It was a knee or ankle or something like that. He was coming back from some kind of injury

during that partial season that made it so they couldn't play him every day. And so they may have just used the lefties an excuse to sit him. And now, I mean, he's still an on-based machine, if nothing else.

Really good at getting on base. Want to have him in the lineup. It was 27th in points, 37th in Roto. 27th in points, I mean, he's not really worth in a three-point-out-out-fielder points league. You don't need Adam Eaton

unless he starts hitting better because he's just lost his power. But it's one of those guys who, if five outfield of Roto League, not bad. Once the attrition hits, And some of these players we expect to be really good aren't for whatever reason. Then Adam Eaton, provided he's playing every day,

he's probably going to be holding steady enough that he ends up starting for somebody in a three outfielder league, especially a points league. Yeah. So anyway, like I was saying, I felt like I liked the player pool enough to put together a solid team. How did your 15-team draft go? And actually, let me start with this general topic here. I wanted to go with the TAP-Hap AMC strategy. Two Aces plus Hater and Paxon and more closers.

Two Aces being two of the top six. But I had to do a modified version of that because I feel like in roto drafts, there comes a point with your early picks, your first two picks maybe, where you have to say, what am I going to prioritize? Starting pitching or stolen bases?

Starting pitching or stolen bases. and I went the stolen bases around this one. I took Jose Ramirez and Fernando Tatis with my first two picks. So that kind of altered my strategy a little bit. But do you find yourself with that starting pitching versus stolen bases dilemma? This is my third 15-team draft I've done. The first two are probably the highest profile leagues I'm playing in NFBC and my Tao Wars league.

The one I'm in is 15-team mixed. So this wasn't my first shot at it I think this was the one though where that choice was one that was most apparent Yeah I feel like I did a good enough job balancing it in the other two But in this one I was kind of like you It seemed like I had to make a choice between one or the other And I went the other way I went with pitching

To the point that I maybe overdid it with pitching But I definitely was struggling for steals and made some picks that I think reflect that because I didn't want to just straight up punt on steals. I wanted to give myself a chance. And so some of my picks in the halfway to two-thirds point of the draft were kind of chasing steals, which maybe wasn't a great idea. I don't know.

I don't hate the way my team turned out, but I would have liked if I was able to secure some steals earlier. Yeah. Well, who do you have for steel? I see John Birdie and Mauricio Dubon, Dubon. Yeah, I hope he can give me 12 to 15. Yeah, you're going to be bad in steals. I'm trying to find my roster here.

You got some, well, you have Lorenzo Kane. He could give you some steals. Right, right, Lorenzo Kane. I'm not optimistic about a bounceback season for him as far as stolen bases go, but he did have 30 in 2018. I mean, certainly possible. I think you and I probably took the same approach here. 15-team Roto League with all these spots to fill,

and you know that there's scarcity. You know there aren't enough closers, really, for everybody to feel comfortable with saves. Look, the player pool is not that bad, but it is deep. I mean, you are going to have some players you don't necessarily want. Catcher was just the two catchers. I just really didn't care. I didn't want to have the two worst catchers in the league, but it became much less of a priority for me with all these.

They just don't hit well enough compared to the other. other guys. So that was an easy place for me to say, yeah, I'm going to let the other guys take the good catchers and I'm just going to look at other positions. Yeah. Yeah. It always surprises me when somebody like halfway through a draft is like,

oh, I didn't realize this was two catchers. I blew it. My whole strategy's out the window. Because it's like, I mean, everybody's going to have a crappy catcher too. Like, why is, would you really want to invest your draft capital and too high-end catcher?

and all the risks that go along with that. I guess some people would. I seem to do fine not doing that, though. You never do. I have Yadir Malina and Kurt Suzuki. You have Sean Murphy and Isaiah Kinderfalefa, so it just wasn't a huge priority for us. Though Kynar Philepha has become a deep sleeper for me.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, because he was having a huge spring, I think four home runs, had made some changes to his setup that was supposed to help him unlock more power and it seemed to be happening. And there was some thought that because

Guzman wasn't really capturing that first base position the way they'd like that they'd move Todd Frazier to first base and make kinder-fileff of their everyday third baseman. That would be huge. Catcher-eligible player, yeah. But he better unlock some power

because he's got five career home runs, 558s. But he was having a legitimately huge spring, and there seemed to be enthusiasm for it as opposed to just head scratching. We'll see. Now that I have my roster open here,

my stolen bases, I'm hoping for 12 to 15. Okay, so mainly Birdie. Birdie, I'm hoping for 30 plus from Bertie. I'm hoping for 12 to 15 from Mauricio Dubon. who might be playing more out center field than second base for the Giants. I'm hoping for 20 to 25 for Lorenzo Kane, maybe more.

I'm hoping for 10 or so from Nick Solac. I'm hoping for 15 or so from Brett Gardner. That's probably, all those estimates are probably on the more optimistic end, but I think I gave myself a chance, considering it's a 15-team league and steals are distributed even more than what we usually talk about for a 12-team league. We'll see. I don't think that you made John Birdie the centerpiece of your Steel strategy.

I don't know. Maybe you did. I did, yeah. You did? Well, it ended up becoming that after I realized I'd missed on my early-round opportunity for it. Yeah. I reached for John Birdie because I wanted to not punt on Steel. So, yes, he is the centerpiece of my Steel's strategy. That makes me so nervous.

And I had to do that in one league, too. It was a mock, but yeah, 17 steals and 73 games, that's awesome. But he's older, he's 30. He's got very little MLB experience. Just seems like he could be a really bad hitter. He only slugged 406. So I took him with, this is what a reach looks like. I took him with the 14th pick of round 15.

Oh, that's not a reach. Which is, uh, yeah, 224th overall. That's not a reach. Okay. I don't think so. I mean, I don't think anyone is a reach at 200 and whatever overall. There are players who went directly behind him that I like better.

I mean, two-catcher league, Omar Norvias went five picks later. Yeah, yeah, that could have been nice. Nick Solac. I took Nick Solac. I took him four picks later. And just so you all know, Scott took Gio Orshella. And Mark Kana? I did. And Mark Kana.

But I took J.D. Davis. So he could not complete the sleeper trifecta. Was not happy with you about that. Of those three, Davis is the one I'm getting the least. And Urchella is probably the one I'm getting most. It's very rare. I've done a draft where I haven't gotten Urchella. Yeah, I made an interesting call on this draft,

and I'll just conclude with this. but taking Ramirez and Tatis with my first two picks. Now, I know we keep saying that Tatis is going too early, so I must have taken him... Do you have the draft order pulled up? Somewhere around 20th overall. And I guess I didn't love it, but I still really like Fernando Tatis in a Roto League.

And, you know, I guess I can deal with the low batting average. I just think he's one of the few players in baseball where you can watch him and realize how incredible. he is. He's that athletic. He's that talented. Yeah, no, you took him with the fourth pick of round two, so 19 overall. And it was interesting because I had the second pick of round two, 17 overall.

I would have taken, a lot of times, Jose Ramirez is available there. And I was hoping Ramirez would be available there. I'd take, you know, whoever normally goes at the end of round one. In my case, it turned out to be Max Scherzer. And then I'd pair him with Jose Ramirez, get those early stolen bases.

but I couldn't do that because you took Jose Ramirez's 12th overall before I even had a chance into pick in the first round, much less the second. And then you paired him up with Tatis. So because you took Jose Ramirez, I was considering taking Tatis with my second pick to get those steals. I opted for Freddie Freeman instead, and then you ended up taking Tatis two picks later.

So we were very much, like you were messing me up here. Yeah, and I would have taken Freddie Freeman if it had been available. I took, I guess you could, argue that I could have taken Juan Soto over Jose Ramirez because Soto's not on nothing in steals. I think he stole 12 bases last year. That's what usually happens. Yeah, but I believe in Jose Ramirez, and I think he's a better all-around player. If Jose Ramirez is right, he's a better all-around player than Juan Soto. So I went with Ramirez, and then at 19 overall, I'm looking, all right, I want one of my top six pitchers, but not Verlander at this point. So top five pitchers,

which is the big three plus Bueller and Flaherty. Well, Flaherty went 18th. So that was the, Freeman went 17th, Flaherty went 18th, Soto went 16th. So Tatez, to me, it was either Tatease, or it was J.D. Martinez or a pitcher I thought would be a reach at that point, like Strasbourg, Bieber, or whatever. So I actually really had no problem with the pick.

But after that, I took two hitters, got some steals, got some power. And then I went with the Tapp Hap AMC, except in a 15-team league. your definition of aces has to be just a little bit lower. So two aces plus Hader. Charlie Borden was my next pick. Josh Hader was my fourth round pick. Then I took Frankie Montas and Carlos Carrasco.

So the idea was have really good high-end starting pitching plus Josh Hater. Then I waited a little while. I took Taylor Rogers in round nine. I took Archie Bradley in round 12. So at this point I have Morton, Motas, Carasco, Hater, Taylor Rogers, and Archie Bradley, and Carlos Martinez I took. We don't have to go through my whole pitching staff.

But that was the basis of it. I've got, oh, and I also have Scott Oberg, who has good ratios, and I think we'll get saves for the Rockies. And the thing is, in a 12-team league, I would ideally have at least four closers. Here, I'm fine with three, because as 15 teams, there are some teams that won't have hardly any saves. So you don't need as many closers to win that category,

win that saves category. And if Taylor Rogers can do what he's done basically two years in a row, we're going to start considering him to be one of the truly elite relievers in baseball, if we aren't already. So that was my strategy. A modified version of the hater strategy. And that's my final thought on – and I like the way my team turned out.

Scott, do you like your team? Any regrets? Well, I was going back through just now and looking at why I decided to continue passing up stolen bases. And we just talked about why it happened with my round two pick because you had already taken Ramirez. And I thought Tatis was a reach with Freddie Freeman there. So I decided not to do it then. We get to the end of round three, which is 44 picks in. And we're running out of ace pitchers pretty quickly. I already do have Scherzer, but you know I want four of mine.

Four of my top, I guess it's back to being a 37 now. His latest the season's going to start. So I took Zach Granky there at the end of round three. Instead of. Beginning of round four. So Jonathan V.R. goes right after my Grinky pick. If he was there, I probably would have taken him beginning of round four. But he wasn't.

and so for steals at that point I'm looking at like Whitmeryfield which wouldn't have been a bad pick but I'm not sure at this point if he's more like 20 steals or 40 steals because he just decided to stop running last year because they weren't in contention I don't expect them to be in contention again so I was a little nervous about that and partially partly I was nervous too because at this point I have two of my first three picks in a 15 team league are pitchers right

Scherzer in round one, Granky in round three. So because it's 15-team league, I'm not as confident that I'll be able to make up ground-in-power production as easily. And George Springer, still being there in round four of a 15-team league, just seemed like too good of a deal to pass up. So I again gave up the steals of Whitmerfield to take George Springer in round four. And then, you know, it's almost 30 picks before I pick again. And by that point, like Victor Robles was gone.

A hero was gone. Maryfield, of course, was gone. Mondesie? Mondesie. He had to have been gone. I'm trying to find where he went here. Oh, yeah. He went around three.

Oh, he went one pick before you took Zach Rankie. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so at that point it was really just, okay, now I have to wait for like the, what's the Cardinals guy's name? I'm forgetting it. Tommy Edmund? Edmund, yeah, Tommy Edmund, yeah. Him or like Cabin Bigio, and it's just your, this is what I've talked about before when I say it's, you're kind of having to thread the needle for steals. You have to time that pick just right, and it's even harder to do in a 15. team league. So it just didn't work out.

It just didn't work out. I really wish I could have gotten one at least one reliable steals guy, but they're so scattered throughout the draft pool that this is going to happen sometimes. And by the way, you can still lose

fantasy by being good in steals and bad in power and like George Springer is one of the premier run scorer in baseball. It leads off for the Astros. So for you to get him like 47th overall. Right.

It's pretty good. In a five outfielder 15 team league, it seemed like I had to do it. So it was worth it. I ended up getting in a 15 team league, this is my pitching staff, which maybe makes me rethink the Granky pick. Maybe it would have been worth going Jonathan V.R. there. But, you know, obviously hindsight's 2020. So my pitching staff in a 15 team league is Max Scher, Zach Grinky, Brandon Woodruff, Mike

Soroka, okay, there's the four right now. By the way, Lance Lynn and Chris Sale. So I don't know what happened to pitching in this draft. You have one closer and it's Brandon Kinsler of the Marlins. Oh, you've workman. Oh, you've workman. Yeah, Brandon Workman. I have Brandon Kinsler.

And technically Wade Davis is the Rockies closer to begin the season. I know you dropped it Oberg ahead of Davis. And maybe that's the right move. I don't have a lot of confidence in this. How did you do this? What? How did you do that? How did you pull this off?

The three closers? You have three closers. Now, one of them is Wade Davis, one of them is Brandon Kinsler, one of those Brandon Workman who hasn't been named the closer yet. But you also have six. He hasn't been named the closer. You also have six of your top 37 starters in a 15-teen league. I don't know how you pulled that off.

That's, I don't know either. I don't know either because I don't know if enthusiasm for going after high-end pitchers was just less because people were consciously thinking about okay, if the season starts later, you know, part of the advantage the high in pitchers give you is that endings total. It does, I think maybe the difference is being exaggerated for the reasons we talked about at the start of the show.

Start for start, is it going to change that much? I don't think so. But there is still a cumulative effect, a cumulative effect that makes a difference. And so maybe people were consciously laying off those guys and are we able to get them easier? Or maybe it was just total happenstance. Well, Scott, I guess I do have to point out. You only have two players that right now rank in the top five of their position at hitter.

You have Freddie Freeman and George Springer. The rest of your team, Isaiah Kinearfate, Sean Murphy, Freddie Freeman, Maricio Dubon at second base, Matt Chapman at third, Corey Seeger at short, nothing wrong with that third and short. John Birdie, middle infield, Gio Arcella, corner infield. Outfield is Springer, Kane, Cana, Calhoun, Gardner. Cole Calhoun.

Cole Calhoun, yeah, Cole Calhoun. Not Willie. And then you have Nick Solac at your utility, and he's going to lose some value with the delay of the season now. Nick Solac? Yeah, maybe. Maybe if Willie Calhoun's ready,

you assume he would be, then that would mean Soak wouldn't be plugged in at left field at the beginning there. I still imagine he'll play a lot. lot, though it might mean Isaiah Kiner Philepha plays less. I don't know. Yeah, no, Solac will probably have that super utility role where he plays, I don't know, five days a week, just bouncing all over the place. Okay. Well, I just want to point out, your hitting is definitely weaker on paper,

but, you know, your strategy is going to be hitting's deep and take advantage of that. Right. Right. Right. And I may have taken it too far in this draft just because geez, that pitcher is still there was constantly my thought. But part of the thinking behind this whole strategy is I want four of the top 37

because I don't think I'm actually, I don't think you can't count on all four of them to actually deliver. So if you only go with two of the top 37, the same thing applies and if you're left with one or zero, you're probably really sunk. But let's say four of them do deliver.

And let's say it's overkill and I'm just crushing it in the pitching categories. I am positive somebody's going to be willing to pay me for a high-end starting pitcher. Pay a lot for it because that's, if they are as scarce as I believe they are, then that's the sort of thing people pay for. That's how all the trade scenarios

were playing out in my leagues last year. I'm very confident in that. So if these six I have here proves to be way too many, then the same way. would apply there. All right. This is, we'll be some Apple podcast email question or review questions. This first one comes from Warren G. Harding, too.

It's like regulator, Warren G. Harding. All right. Dear Dave Rat, Skabies, Brian, and Captain Sensible. Who are these people? It's with you, weirdos out there. Please rank the best and the second best for each group in a points league. So who are your top two here? Jorge Soler, Eddie Rosario,

Fram Il Reyes, Andrew Benintendi, Josh Donaldson. All right. Let's lift those off again because apparently you didn't include this email in the notes. I... What?

Really? That can't be. I'll send him again. It doesn't look like it. It's under Apple podcast questions, not emails, Scott. See? Apple podcast questions? I...

No. Really? These notes from 12... These notes from noon? 1212. Okay, my bad. Top two. Solair, Rosario, Framil Reyes, Benintendi, Donaldson.

Soler and Donaldson. That would have been easy if I had just listened in the first place, but I was frantically searching for the email. They're coming your way right now. Top two pitchers. Berrios Lynn Carrasco, Fried Price. I would say the first two, Lynn and... Berrios.

Lin and who? Berrios. Yes, Berrios and Lin is specifically the order I'd rank them. But yes, those are the two. This is from Soren 77. Do Scott's overall head-to-head rankings pertain to points leagues only or all head-to-head leagues? Points leagues. If you're playing in a Categories league, then Roto's probably the better rankings to use.

Though there are some changes there. In top 300, it's optimized for two-catcher five out-fielder format. So if you start fewer players, you're just going to have to adjust for that. If you don't use 5 by 5 scoring, then you'll have to adjust for that too. And maybe if you use something like OBP or walks among the new categories being introduced, maybe it does become more of the head-to-head points ranking. But it's just I rank for the two most common formats. And if I ranked for any more than that, I'd be doing nothing but ranking.

Someone wrote an email that said, I'm in a 5-by-5 league with OBP, and maybe it was 6x with OVP added. I don't remember. Which should I use? I said Roto. Chris responded separately and said points. Or no, I said head-to-head rankings,

which is specifically for points. If it's... Like, the point of the Roto rankings also is that, you know, it puts the Steele's guys up higher. So if you're playing a five-by-fifference, five league with OBP instead of batting average, the steals guys still have that added value. So that's why I say Roto. If you're playing a six by six league and you add OBP, I still say you go with the Roto rankings.

Just be aware of on-base percentage. If you play in a league that counts total bases, doubles, triples, those types of things, then I start to say use the points rankings. I think you're right. when I did, Tout Wars is a 5 by 5 league except it replaces batting average with OBP. And I used my rhodo rankings as my draft guide for that, just kind of making a mental note, okay,

I got to move the high OBP guys like Max Muncie up. Right. And so that's what you end up having to do. Unless you're going to be going to sit down and make your own rankings for your own format, you just kind of have to make a mental note, maybe draw some arrows if you print out the rankings and highlight those specific players that gain or lose value

because of the changes in your specific format. This is from JK212-002. That is his ATM pin, by the way. I use Scott's method this year grabbing five of his top 37 pitchers. I have Kirchaw, Woodruff, Gray, Gallen, and Arias. Do you think the core of my pitching staff is strong enough? Someone in our league took 10 pitchers with his first 10 picks, so league pitching depth is a bit depleted.

All right, he has Kirchaw, Woodruff, Gray, Gowan, and Ureus. Yeah, I mean, if you got five of the 37, although I should note Urius isn't among the 37. He's not because of the inning's expectation. Though if we lose part of the season, he comes closer to it, then he would have otherwise. Aureas and Luzardo, as much as I like them there, not part of the 37.

But you still got four of them. I don't. And that's all. But I understand that the one guy took 10 with his first 10 picks and that screwed you up. But if I'm just being honest, I'd rather you have a better number two pitcher. Or Kirshall be your number two pitcher. Like, you probably did the best with what you could do, given that guy who stole, hordes all the pitchers.

But in an ideal world, your number two pitcher is going to be a little higher end than Woodruff or gray. Like Woodruff or Gray, to me, feels like, should be your third pitcher. Yes, I would agree with that. Though part of the reason I frame it the way I do is because I'm emphasizing that the quantity among that group is more important than the quality. And there are going to be great hitter values that aren't worth passing up for the highest end pitcher on your draft board, as long as you have confidence you can still get the four that you need. You should be able to recognize

when to take the hitter instead. And it sounds like you did that. You didn't fall for the trap of this other guy taking all these pitchers and and elevating. Like it caught up in a pitcher rush. You were patient enough that you were still able to grab four,

but not reckless in doing so. Unless you're saying you drafts these pitchers with your first four picks, in which case, Wow. It'd be interesting to see what you're hitting looks like. And a few more questions here from the Apple people. From Paul GV or Paul G5, I don't know if it's Roman numeral.

I'm in an eight team head-to-head points, home run derby league. You get four points for a homer, you get one additional point for a grand slam. There are no other categories and no pitchers. Who are some under-the-radar players who could put up big home-run numbers this year? and what's the best strategy for an auction in a league like this? Whoa, nothing but homers. Now that's interesting because normally when I think of late round power sources, they're probably ones that would be obvious to your league,

like a Fram Mill Reyes. I mean, he hit almost 40 home runs last year. He happens to go late, but I don't think your league is sleeping on Framil Reyes. So it would probably be younger guys like Austin Riley if he ends up getting significant time for the Braves, Tyler O'Neill, for the Cardinals, Clint Frazier for the Yankees, I could see him being a big home run source

if the playing time is there. But it's going to be questionable playing time guys like that that are going to be the most projectable. maybe like Will Myers can get back to being a 30 homer guy. Any prospects? Sure. I mean, I could see Ryan Mountcastle being a pretty good home run source, but they're probably higher-end power.

Let me think in here. Okay. While you think about that, I would say in an auction, I mean, there's only a few guys that I'm really going to go heavy on. And I think Joey Gallo stands out to me because he did get hurt last year, but he doesn't have the injury track record that Aaron Judge and Miguel Sano have. I'd be a little hesitant to put all my eggs in the Miguel Sinole basket. He's just been way too inconsistent of a player.

I know for a fact. Joey Gallo is who he is. He might hit for better. You're touting Joey Gallo in a home run-only league? Is this something that really needs to be done? No, no. As terms of an auction, I would value him like, he's Mike Trout.

I would, okay, of the elite power hitters, Gallo is probably the one I trust the most. The elite true home run hitters. Well, no, because Mike Trout is one of the true ones. Depends who you ask. I only gave him an A rating.

Yeah, you're crazy. My skills tiers piece. They give him the A plus. Okay, I was, my top of my head, Gallo, Sano, and Judge feel like the players that are most likely to lead baseball and home runs.

but Gallo is the one I'd pay up for Okay Yeah That would be the trio And you might include Stanton in there You might include Jorge Sildare in there I'm not as optimistic about Oh Nelson Cruz too

Ehio Hsuarez But yeah But he also gets Hurt Prospects I'm not see Like that you know how it is Anybody with skill can come up and hit a lot of home runs

So it's hard to just say this guy is going to specifically give you a lot of home runs. If Andrew Vaughn gets called up for the White Sox, which is very questionable that he even gets called up this year. I can see him doing it. I don't lose sight of like an Edwin and Carnacion or like a Kyle Schwerber. I don't know. I've never played in a league like this.

Me either. It seems like most people would just go in and sort by the home run column. and so anybody who hit 30 plus home runs last year is kind of obvious. How about Ian half? Well, no, because he's not going to... Sam Hilliard hit 42 between the majors and minors last year if he gets the playing time for the Rockies. It's all these playing time questions.

I don't know what my strategy would be. I mean, since there are going to be so many 30 home run hitters, I'd probably spend big to get two, at least two... Well, it's the only guys you're even rostering. Maybe you want at least four 40 homer type hitters, you know? I might pay up for, I assume you set a lineup with positions, right? So I might pay up for catchers in this format. I might pay up for like Will Smith and Mitch Garver.

And Sanchez, obviously. Yeah, and Sanchez. I'm assuming those two would be cheaper than Sanchez, but yes. You never know. All right, this is from Kyle Vincent 12. I have the first pick. Ooh, he said first pitch. I like that.

pitch in the reserve draft of my Rodo dynasty startup. Prospects can only be taken in the reserve draft and can be kept for three years max. Which prospect will have the largest impact over the next three years? Which prospect? I would say Dylan Carlson

is looking pretty likely to have a big impact. I imagine he'll be up sooner than later for the Cardinals, if not on opening day. So you're just drafting right now. It's a startup dynasty draft for the next three years. you have the first pick. It's going to be a prospect.

Dylan Carson, Carlson's your guy? No. That's the question. I was just going with the first name that came to mind. Okay. You can do better than that. First thing. Is it Wander Franco?

Who's got the biggest? Is McKenzie Gore? Well, are we not counting Louise Robert? I don't know. You probably can go with him. Yeah, that would probably be the first pick. I don't think Wander Franco is a bad pick, though, the first year might be a waste. Maybe the first year and a half will be a waste.

Okay, you can't go with him. That's too gutsy. Yeah, if you're asking me to just name the number one guy instead of listing off a few ideas, I would say Luis Robert. And if for some reason he doesn't qualify, I don't know why he won't because he hasn't made his major league debut yet even. then probably like Carlson might be number two honestly. You might be number two. Oh, okay.

That's going to do it. We'll save the emails for tomorrow. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Thanks for listening, everybody. For Scott White, I'm Adam Azer. Have a great day. We'll talk you too.