Fantasy Baseball Today - 2021 Projections Standouts; Vlad Jr. is Projected for What!? (12/01 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

Hey, Scott White is back! And he has a Christmas Tree! How does Scott feel about Charlie Morton to his Braves (2:25)? Is he interested in him for Fantasy? ... There aren't many news and notes but the Royals signed both Mike Minor and Michael Taylor (5:55). ... What are Steamer projections (8:35)? Why is Scott opposed to projections? ... How many starting pitchers are projected for 180 innings in 2021 (14:00)? Should we be concerned with Lucas Giolito? ... Is Dinelson Lamet the biggest wild card among starting pitchers (20:00)? ... What do the projections think of Corbin Burnes, Zach Plesac, and Julio Urias (23:10)? ... Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is projected for what (33:45)!?... Is Mike Yastrzemski being disrespected (37:40)? Scott and Frank are pretty far apart on Austin Meadows for 2021 (40:35). ... We wrap up the show answering your mailbag questions (44:50). ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank 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/ 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. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is projected for what in 2021? Welcome to fantasy baseball today on Tuesday, December 1st, Give yourself a pat on the back because you've made it to the final month of the craziest year I've ever lived through. Frank Stanfield reunited by Scott T. Dubs, Scott White, who has a Christmas tree in the background. If you are watching on YouTube, YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today, you could see Scott White's Christmas tree for all of December. Absolutely fantastic, huge fan of Christmas and the Christmas spirit in general. I would take everyone for a tour around my house and you could see all the decorations, but I'm not going to do that. What's up, man? How was your Thanksgiving?

Yeah, well, since I podcast right here from my living room, it's kind of unavoidable that you see the decorations. But I think it looks nice. It's nice and festive. We got the white lights on right now. Maybe some recordings. I'll go for the multicolored lights. I don't know. Are you more into the white lights or the multicolored lights for your for your Christmas tree, Frank? I would say white is probably more Christmassy. But yeah. I don't mind changing it up if you have some white and some of the multicolored ones together. You just kind of go for it all on the Christmas tree. I think the white looks a little classier. It looks like the old school candle look, you know, on the tree,

which is what those lights are meant to represent. Colorful, you know, that's kind of for the kitties, I feel like. Yeah. I can say we do have arguments between the adults and the kids, whether to put the tree on the white lights or the multicolored lights. But it's nighttime, so that's the parents' time, and they're white right now. Yeah. Are you a bigger Christmas guy than you are Thanksgiving?

I would say Christmas is my favorite holiday, yes. All right. Not that Thanksgiving isn't great. Yeah, but I asked you about it a couple of weeks ago, and you were just like, eh, you know, things. Wait, was that Thanksgiving? Maybe that was Halloween. I'm getting a holiday.

Yeah. All right. Well, something that I know Scott is thankful for is one-year deals, especially when it comes to his Atlanta Braves, who the past couple of seasons, Josh Donaldson, Marcel O'Suna, have really hit on these one-year contracts, and we didn't give you the opportunity to react

to Charlie Morton signing with your Atlanta Braves, Scott. But now you can do just that. He was not very good this past season in 2020. He dealt with injuries and the velocity being down, but then turned it on once the postseason started. So what is your reaction to him joining the Atlanta Braves? Have you moved to up your rankings in terms of starting pitchers? He's moving up ADP a little bit right now.

So I think people are getting a little bit more excited now that they know where he's going to be pitching in 2021. Yeah, I'm trying to find the tweet where I had a good stat for Charlie Morton. And for some reason, it's not coming up. But I didn't move him up with this deal. I knew he would sign somewhere to be a regular guy who takes this regular turn in the rotation. wasn't very good this past year compared to the previous two years, but I can tell you as a Braves fan, he was better.

I like the track record Charlie Morton's shown more than I do. The one Cole Hamill showed before he got a bigger deal, bigger one-year deal last year. So from that context, I feel good about it. He struggled early on with the sore shoulder and the velocity was down. He was one of a few pitchers early in the year where the velocity wasn't quite right. But Morton's recovered over time after he had an IL stint. for the shoulder, came back looking better, to the point that if you combine his regular season stats

with his postseason stats, he had a strong postseason, he ended up with a 403-ERA-131-WIP 10.1K per 9. I'm not saying that ERA and that whip is great, but for the K rate, for a down season, for a guy who just by virtue of the amount of high-end pitchers out there is going to get pushed down to around 40th in the SP rankings probably. You could do a lot worse.

You could do a lot worse. I think it's a good deal for the Braves, and I think, you know, if you're getting Morton as like your number five guy in fantasy, it's all upside at that point. Yeah, I have them as my SP 36 as of now in the ranks. So as of now, people can just see our top 36,

and I know, Scott, you don't have them in there. So just outside that range for you. and in terms of where he's being drafted, we did a Roto mock draft a couple of weeks ago, our first official mock draft of the offseason, and Charlie Morton went 84th overall in that mock draft, which seems a little high. It's the last pick of the seventh round.

His NFBC ADP over the past week or so is 116.3. So I would say if we split the difference, I think he probably winds up somewhere around pick 100, maybe like 100 to 110 in that range. But yeah, I think if you get him as your, SP4, SP5, if you're really aggressive early on. You know me, Frank. He's not going to be less than a five for me.

Come on. Oh, I know. I know. If you haven't figured out by now today on the show, we are going to look at some 2021 projections from Steamer, which you can find over on fan graphs. And we do have some of your mailbag questions to answer a little bit later on.

I wanted to hit on a few more news and notes outside of Charlie Morton, now that we got Scott's thoughts there. There really isn't a lot to talk about. The Royals, apparently. are the only team making moves, Scott. Big moves. They signed Mike Minor to a two-year deal. And Michael Taylor, formerly of the Nationals,

to a one-year deal. Roster Resource has Michael Taylor as a platoon center fielder with Franchi Cordero, so I don't really think that there's much to see there. And Mike Minor, I think, will probably be in their rotation. The good news for Minor, his fastball spin rate, according to Stackcast ranked in the 97th percentile last season. The bad news was everything else.

He had a 5.56 ERA. His fastball velocity dropped two miles per hour, went from 92.6 in 2019 to 90.6 in 2020. So anything to see here with either of these signings, Scott, probably more so minor, I would imagine? Yeah, is it 100% clear whether he signed to, I guess he's going to start out in the rotation, right? Considering it's the Orioles, though.

Considering it's the Royals. Yeah, it's not 100% sure. I'm just kind of assuming right now. I mean, they've... Singer, Boobich, Keller, Danny Duffy, they're all probably locked. So there's really only one spot minor can earn. And if any of those, either of those other two young pitchers come up

as aggressively as Boobich and Singer did this year, those other two young pitchers being, I can't recall off the top of my head, Jackson Cowar and Daniel Lynch, then Biner probably gets bumped to the bullpen. He was supposed to go to the bullpen when the athletics acquired him, but then Anita rose for him to be in the rotation.

And I'm not really sure he has what it takes there. I mean, especially if the velocity is going to be down like it was last year. Maybe that was just a fluke of the shortened season and the hurried buildup. but even in 2019 when Minor looked great, he had a 460 X-FIP. We had reason to worry about him.

Last year, his ex-fip was actually lower, 450 versus 4-60, even though the results weren't good. So I don't have a lot of hope for Minor as a fantasy asset at this point, but he has some success in his past, and if he gets off to a hot start, I won't just ignore him.

Yeah, if we can get those two-star, weeks with the the tigers and the Indians, right? That could be somewhere where he's in play. But yeah, for Mike Miner and

Michael A. Taylor, just names to pay attention to an AL only as of now. Early 2021 projections standouts via steamer on fan graphs. What are steamer projections? You might have listened to

other podcasts and heard people referenced Steamer before. We've referenced Steamer a little bit here on the show as well. But per MLB, dot com's glossary. Steamer is a system of projections developed by Jared Cross, a high school science teacher in,

you guessed it, Brooklyn, and two of his former students, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom. It is currently used by Fangraphs as its primary projection system for individual players. Like other projection systems,

Steamer uses past performance and aging trends to develop a future projection for players. It also uses pitch tracking data to help forecast pitchers. on fan graphs, the projections are updated daily and predict each player's numbers over the course of the remainder of the season. So something that you can look at in season as well.

Scott, before we actually jump into specific players, I know before we started the show, we were talking a little bit, and you said, you have some thoughts on projections just in general. Would you like to share those? Part of the reason we don't talk about projections more is because I don't really believe in projections.

That's like my hottest fantasy baseball take. And it's worded in the most, I guess, controversial way possible. But my point is that I don't think they have a lot of utility in fantasy analysis. I think what projections do best, their best purpose is if you landed here for Matterspace and you didn't know anything about baseball, these names were all completely foreign to you, you had to get a grasp of, you had to do in a very short amount of time, get a grasp of what kind of player every player is.

Projections can help with that because they oftentimes do kind of summarize the past few seasons of what a player has contributed. But if you're like us or people who play fantasy baseball religiously, then you kind of already know who everybody is. You don't need the projections to tell you that. And so what they can actually, So what they actually then end up doing is they can be misleading because they create this hypothetical outcome that, you know, is of course just one scenario of many.

But it kind of becomes this outsized scenario in terms of expectations and can influence rankings in ways that are potentially harmful. Maybe the guy just got a bad projection. For instance, looking at these steamer projections, one that really stood out to me was Hyunjin Ryu projected for a 416 ERA. Well, I mean, the highest ERA Hyunjin Riu has had the past three years is 269. So 416 ERA, if you're going to base your rankings on projections, that's obviously going to skewery ends up. Now, maybe Riu is going to age very rapidly this year and have an ERA over four.

I would be shocked if ZERA said I. I would eat my hat if Yon Jinnu has a 416ERA. How about that? I will ship you this hat, Scott, and you can eat it live on the air. Yeah, so, I mean, that's just one example. But even something more, even if you agree that the projection is maybe the most likely outcome for a player, which is probably true. And in most cases, projections tend to be kind of middle of the road.

what they put for a player. There might be a wider range of outcomes for that particular player. Maybe he's just a young guy breaking in and has a very high ceiling. Well, you're obviously going to want to rank him higher than the middle of the road projection. Maybe the opposite is true if it's an older guy or an injury prone guy. So I don't love projections. I don't love how they're often applied for fantasy baseball purposes. And I'm not sure there is much of an application for them.

Like I said, other than to give you a start. starting point for rankings that then you go and make aggressive changes to. Yeah, and I do want to hit on just specifically these steamer projections. They are more conservative than, I guess, what you would expect, right? So, Hunjin Ryu with an ERA over four, as you'll see with some of the other names that we'll talk about, it's not really dissimilar from other pitchers that he has projected in that range, right? So we'll get into some of those. I don't want to completely downplay. projections because I think there is some use for them, Scott.

And I'm not saying that you said that, but these are mean projections, right? So this is like their 50th percentile outcome and their 90th percentile could be, you know, for Ryu, it could be whatever, a sub three ERA like we saw two seasons ago. His 10th percentile projection could be, okay, 50, a 5.00 ERA over the course of 100 endings where he just gets hurt and just completely falls off the map. So these are mean projections, the most likely outcome. And of course, by mean you mean unkind, right? No, you don't. You mean average. Well, they are kind of mean to Riu. They are kind of mean to all the pitchers. Yes, they are kind of mean to all the pitchers. And we will start there. We've talked a lot about

workload for next season and what it's going to look like. And Steamer currently has five starting pitchers projected for 200 innings in 2021. 40 projected for at least 180. That might be, it's a little bit more aggressive than I thought. But back in 2019, we did have 15 starting pitchers who went 200 innings and 33 that went at least 180. So I guess you factor that in where some of these are not going 200 anymore. They drop back down to that 180 threshold.

All right, we'll meet somewhere in the middle. I think we're probably in that 30 to 1.5. 40 pitcher range in terms of how many we can expect to get to at least 180 innings. Those five that are projected for 200 plus. Shane Bieber, Trevor Bauer, Jacob de Grom, Garrett Cole, and Hermann Marquez. So he's kind of the surprise one in there, but everyone else kind of makes sense. One of these pitchers that are projected for close to 200 innings is Lucas Gialito, who is projected for 196, but also projected for a 4.16 ERA, a 1,000.

1.26 whip, 226 strikeouts. And I remember last year, Seema really did not like Lucas Gialito either heading into 2020. Even before we knew it was going to be a short in season, I remember this stood out to me, and they were just way off on Lucas Gialito. So I wanted to ask God, like, is there anything that you were specifically worried about for him?

Because I brought this up in our early pitcher preview. It's just something that's in the back of my mind where you have to take Gialito, which is, As of now, the second round, maybe in 12-team leagues he falls to the early third round. But he had a two-start stretch, one of those including the no-hitter against the pirates. The other start was against the Tigers, where he threw 16 shutout innings, with 26 strikeouts in 16-in-nings pitch. His other 10 starts outside of those two, a 4.490 array.

Is that where you at all, Scott? No, not really. it's always tricky slicing and dicing a pitcher's game log like that, but especially when you're talking about a sample of 12 starts. And especially since, I mean, the underlying numbers point to a lot of the same reasons for success as in his 2019 breakout. My biggest concern for Lucas Gialito is that the walk rate went up this past year. You know, he had of those, of those, of those,

12 starts, half of them, he had three walks or more, which isn't great. Three walks and a start is never a good thing. So that would be my biggest concern, but I think when he's in the strike zone, he's very effective, and he still ended up with a 104 whip. I have a lot of, I have more faith in Gialito than I did it this time a year ago. I don't think I'm totally confident yet. I know exactly where in the elite range of starting pitchers he falls. If he's more like, if he's more going to settle in as a back end of the top 20 guy or back end of the top 10 guy.

But I think he's going to be good. You know, I have as much confidence saying that about him is really any pitcher outside of the top three. Yeah, and I think that's well said. is while I want to move Gileto down the ranks a little bit, I have them at SP7, same spot where you have him, Scott, and it's just everybody in this range, you kind of have something you're worried about, Kershaw the back, he's getting older, Trevor Bauer,

can he repeat what he did in this short in 2020 season? Is he legit? Jack Flaherty, okay, workload concerns, he had a weird COVID season, Scherzer's getting up there in age, Bueller workload concerns, Gallin has only done it for 15, 20 starts so far. So, I mean, we have concerns with all these guys. I don't know how much further I can move him down,

but these things are just in the back of my mind. He has shown a little bit of inconsistency at times. He does go very deep into his starts, which is something I like a lot for head-to-head points league, specifically Scott, and we know that it helps, that correlates well with wins, so pitchers who go deeper into their starts are more likely to earn wins.

So Gialito has really developed into that workhorse-type pitcher. one other thing I noticed this year really, really reliant on that change-up. Fastball took a bit of a step back in terms of command, but I want to see that slider get back on track. He's fine.

These are things in the back of my mind when it comes to Gioledo. One thing I want to mention in relation to the steamer projection of the 416 ERA, what I'm noticing across these steamer projections is that 2020 is being mostly disregarded. It was just such a small sample,

I think that it gets swallowed by everything else that's being considered. Gioledo through 72 and a third innings, even though he didn't miss his start, I don't think. 72 and a third is all he ended up with, which means he has only two career seasons with more than 100 innings. They're both more than 170 innings. So those two seasons really stand out for Gialito in terms of sample. One of them he had a 341 ERA,

obviously the breakout 2019 season. but the other one, he had a 613 ERA. So if past performance is being factored in for all these pitchers and one of them is a 613 ARA, of course it's going to skew the projection. No, and that's a really good point. Again, these projections, they take the past two or three seasons plus where they do factor in some kind of progression for specific players, as we will learn with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a little bit later on.

And maybe even for this guy, Denelson Lamed, I mentioned his name just a little bit ago. He's projected to be the ninth most valuable starting pitcher, according to Steamer. They have this auction calculator on fan graphs where you can use the projections to find out how valuable a player is. And Denelsso Lomette comes out as the ninth most valuable starting pitcher. And his projection, a 3.62 ERA, 1.18 whip, 11.4K per 9,

in 173 innings pitch. Scott, I like in Denelson Lament. knowing what we know now, to the Yurdon Alvarez of pitchers, because I think inside the top 20 starters, him, Lamet, Strasbourg, Trevor Bauer, those three really come to mind as the three pitchers who might have the widest range of outcomes that are being drafted this early so far for a 2021 draft. So what do you think of that, comp? I just think he's like the biggest, wild card to Nelson Lament, where if he stays healthy, he can be awesome, but obviously ending the season with this biceps injury not being able to pitch in the postseason,

it's usually a precursor for worse injuries to come. Yeah, and he's a guy who's recently removed from Tommy John's surgery too. I think performance-wise, he blew away all expectations. He was kind of a trendy breakout pick, but kind of like Shane Bieber two years ago, whatever breakout people were imagining for it, he went beyond that. I mean, he was top 10 in both X-FIP and swinging strike rate. He was great. But can we be confident he's going to be healthy?

And can we be confident he's going to take on a workload comparable to others in the range he's going to be drafted in, considering the injury history and the fact that he didn't get to really extend himself in this very short season? So I want to like lament more than I feel like I can. I don't think I'm going to have, I don't think I'm going to be heavily invested. in him just because for the cost, it seems like too much risk. So of the 12 starts he made in 2020, one, two, three, four, five, six of them, he went at least six innings. So, all right, about half. He's not in that tier of workhorse pitcher yet. We know that walks could still be a bit of an issue at times. And they kind of worked him in slowly to start

the season. His first three starts were all below six inning. So, all right, he got better as the season went along. I think the upside is tremendous. The slider, you can argue, was one of, if not the best pitch among starting pitchers in the entire 2020 season. I mean, it was that good, and he threw it over 50% of the time, which is just crazy. It's like Patrick Corbyn on steroids from a couple of years ago. But yeah, for me, LeMette, the Yoron Alvarez of pitchers, just the ultimate wild card. Lots of upside, but also lots of downside. Speaking of trendy 2020 breakouts, these are our trendy 2020 one breakout, Scott.

And Corbyn Burns and Zach Plesek. These two, we talk a lot about Corbyn Burns and what to project for his innings. Steamer has him for 158. Might be aggressive for Corbyn Burns, but a 4.12 ERA, 132 whip, and just over 10 strikeouts per nine, that's for Corbyn Burns.

And then you sent me this one. And I think this is where they're taking into account what Zach Plesack has done in his career thus far and really not baking in him progressing and carrying over what he did in 2020. But a 4.73 ERA projection with under eight strikeouts per nine does give you 174 innings.

Scott, I don't think people would be excited about that for Zach Plesack. And there is a contingent of people, Scott. Because I'm doing a few NFBC drafts who really like Plysac. I'm talking like he's being drafted inside the top 20 starting pitchers in these drafts that I've been in so far. Well, I think I haven't been in my top 25. He was number two in fantasy points per start this year behind only his teammate Shane Bieber.

Only made eight starts, but 220.80 a 0.8 whip. Actually, it was a little less than that. I have to round up to 0.8. and more than a strikeout per inning really changed his pitch mix. But even as a rookie, 21-star Tia to 3-1 ERA, so nowhere near this 473 mark. And something weird is going on with the ERAs

in these projections. I don't know if it's kind of normalizing to the center of the pitching pool so that it's not really reflecting the disparity between the high-end pitchers and the rest that we see today because, I mean, pretty much, all these guys

have are projected for high ERAs. We of course mentioned Ryu and Gialito both projected for 416. Dylan Bundy, 454. Aaron Nola, I think he's like 390. Yeah,

390. I mean, Jacob de Grom's the only one projected for lower than three. He's at 296. My man. Yeah. Charlie Morton's 3.76.

So that's actually not so bad, especially considering the year he just had. but again, it was a drop in the bucket compared to the previous two years. Lucas Galdito 365. I mean, that's pretty high. Another one that struck me is interesting because the track record,

ERA-wise, is actually quite good, is Julio Eureas, who Steamberg projects for a 441 ERA, trying to remember exactly what his highest ERA to this point has been. So this year, it was 327, last year, mostly in relief granted, but it was 249. But Julio Arias is a guy who has greatly outperformed his expected stats, pretty much from the beginning,

because he doesn't have this great strikeout rate unless you look at what he did in the playoffs, and maybe that's a sign of things to come for him. Who knows? Not an exceptional control pitcher, but he limits hits, he limits hard contact, not something I normally bank on from year to year, but Arias is developing a pretty good track record of it,

And of course, he comes from a great prospect pedigree. Still isn't even 25 yet. So he's kind of a weird pitcher to evaluate Julio or Reyes. Of course, we don't know exactly how the Dodgers are going to treat him. Is he just going to be stuck in this swing man role for as long as he's with them, going three and four innings at a time? Who knows? A difficult pitcher to evaluate the steamer projection, I think,

kind of shines the light on that. The last thing I just wanted to bring up, Scott, was regarding Pleseck and Corbyn-Berns. I mentioned where they're going in this early ADP, PLEASAC 59.4, Corbin Burns, 59.7, as the 19th and 20th starting pitchers respectively. That means if you're drafting in a 12-team league, Scott, you're taking these guys at the end of the fifth round,

early sixth round. and for most people that's probably as your SP3 would you be comfortable with either one of these guys police act? I feel like for me that's SP3 for most people it might even be SP2 yeah right

it just seems like we might be putting for those two guys I understand what the upside can be based on what we saw it was a short in season it seems like we this early value is putting a little bit too much weight on the short in season

well I don't know I don't know because things can change pretty fast at Pitcher they can change pretty fast if you buy if you buy the reasons

for police X improvement I have them 25th so I have them lower than this early consensus too I think there comes a point where you can't put it much lower because 26th I have Kyle Hendricks who's always been

defamation definitively second or third tier, right? Max Fried comes after that. I have my concerns about him. Zach Wheeler, there are limits to his upside. Sunny Gray, kind of questionable.

Framper Valquez. I mean, you get into some dicey territory after too long. And Zach, police act, did some really impressive things this past year.

I think more than anything, it reflects why I don't want to be, I don't want to be in a position at starting pitcher where he ends up by number two. I don't want to pass up the more secure options at that position pursuing a lot of more questionable guys.

Fair. Police hack and burns is just polarizing guys that we're going to have to figure out basically all off-season long. Did a lot of really great things, but trying to figure out what they will do next season is an interesting task. We're going to take a quick break.

I do just want to let everybody know, know that every Wednesday in December, Will Middlebrooks and Danny Vietti will be dropping a podcast in the fantasy baseball today feed. So starting this Wednesday, our programming schedule is not changing. You will still hear Scott and myself twice per week. We'll have a guest on later in the week.

Actually, this week we have Ellen Adair coming on, and she's been on the podcast each of the past two off seasons. So really looking forward to that. But every Wednesday in December, you will, so four podcasts total, Will Middlebrooks, former Boston Red Sox player and analyst for CBS Sports HQ will join Danny Vieti. They'll be talking more general baseball things, but they have some really good interviews lined up. They already interviewed Jackie Bradley Jr.

You'll hear that this Wednesday. They asked Jackie Bradley Jr. about J.D. Martinez, this whole him not being able to use in-game video. So I'm really interested to see what Jackie Bradley had to say about that. They have an interview with Adam Jones lined up, another one with Justin Upton. So you'll hear that all throughout the course of December. So if you hear a random voice in your feed, don't be alarmed. This is where it's supposed to be.

And of course, mentioned earlier, subscribe to our YouTube channel. I'm wearing my home run Hermanos shirt. You see this guy? This is a little Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado. Home run Hermanos. So Padres meeting Breaking Bad, the best show. Oh, yeah. Very good.

You can see that here. I got my pixelated Bowser shirt. Okay, all right. Original Mario Brothers. I see you, Scott. You can see my shirt. And a Christmas tree. And a Christmas tree.

You can see all of it. YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. We just crossed 1,800 subscribers. So let's get to 2K by the start of spring training. So late February, early March. I think that's a nice little goal for us to set forth. Take a break.

When we return, we'll hit on some of these hitter projections that we found interesting here, fantasy baseball today. Well, just before we get to some of these hitter projections, Scott filled me in with some fantastic news here throughout our break that he did his homework assignment and he watched Euro Trip. Scotty now does know.

What do you think, Scott? Was it good? Did you enjoy it? Well, Frank, I love you. I love you. You got a lot of good baseball opinion. Oh, Scott hated it. They run a good show here.

We have very different tastes in movies. Oh. Frankie. Not going to lie. Not going to lie. To be fair, I watched this movie in my teens. So it was part of like me growing up. It was part of my life.

It is, it has shaped me into the man that I am today. But no, you weren't, you weren't into it. I'm even disappointed by the setup to Scotty doesn't know. Because like, it's pretty messed up. Well, you already, you already knew what's revealed and Scottie doesn't know. It seems like that the song itself should have been the big reveal. like that that would have been a more dramatic

I don't know if it would have been too crushing for a comment I don't know I don't know but you know it seemed like a missed opportunity but I mean

the whole movie was made by some objectively untalented people so I'm not oh Scott I guess I shouldn't go too hard on them we're grading on a curve here look I didn't make the movie

I just enjoy it so yeah miscusi miscusi no Scott All right, all right, enough Euro trip here. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. mentioned him at the very top of the podcast, and it's kind of unexplainable, Scott, because for all these other projections we've talked about,

they take into account very heavily. It seems like they weigh what a player has done to this point in their career. And to this point, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has a 7.78 OPS. He has not lived up to expectations. But for some reason, maybe they're buying insatiated. all these videos and him losing weight in the offseason. I'm like, people are going to go crazy for Vlad again. I get it.

Projected for a 299 batting average, 31 home runs, 94 runs, 99 RBI, and a 902 OPS. That would be a 124 point jump from his career mark, which I mentioned is 778. What are we doing, Scott? Well, I think, this is, this kind of speaks to why he keeps getting drafted. earlier and earlier. Early's not sliding at all,

even with him underachieving for two years in a row. I mean, this is kind of like the dream scenario for Vladimir Guerrero, right? The best case outcome is a little higher than this, but it's not a lot higher than this, you know?

So it's a, in a, considering projecting, projection systems by nature are conservative, this is very, very aggressive projection. Yeah. people are going to continue to chase it.

I get it. Prospect pedigree. He's awesome. I won Vlad to succeed myself. He's played 183 games in his major league career, and he's hit 269 with 24 home runs. Does that mean he can't progress and get better? No, absolutely not. But it just seems very aggressive, as you highlighted. Scott, let's play a game.

Scott, would you like to guess Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s ADP in the month of November? over at the NFBC? I've read NFBC, which tends to swing for the fences with the picks. Yep. So upside guys tend to go earlier.

How many drafts have there been? 23. A decent amount. 23 drafts. 42. I, all right. I overshot it. I overshot it and now it's not going to be,

it's not going to have the same sizzle anymore. It wasn't that aggressive, but it is, it's 58.9. and he's basically going at the same spot as Luke Void. So Luke Void is 58, Vlad is 58.9. In the Roto mock draft that we did, Vlad went 87th overall in the 8th round.

And let me see where I have him ranked. I have him ranked 91. And Roto. So, okay, yeah, I mean, the mock draft that we did is pretty close to that then. So, yeah. All righty. We continue.

You don't seem to like that, Frank. Continue. I have, I'm still, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm, I'm higher than you on Vlad. I want to believe, but I'm not projecting him for, to me, a realistic projection for Vlad would be 280. And this is baking in that he improves. 280, 25 to 27 homers, 80 runs scored.

I don't think he's going to score a lot of runs. He's really slow and just, the lineup around him is, it's okay. It's getting better, and like 90 RBI. So I think that would be a fair projection for him. Maybe not the RBI total because of where he bats in the line. But that sounds kind of like Mike Yistrimski to me. So I don't know, where you drafted Mike Yistrimski? Probably not much higher than 91, right?

No, no, no, no. I think he probably should go around 100. I think that makes sense. But he's someone to me, and let's talk about Mike Yistremski, who I think is being disrespected in some of these early drafts. And the projection from Steamer 247, 22 home runs, 84 runs, 8 steals. That's a solid player, but nowhere near the player that we saw in 2020, who was a top 15 outfielder in Roto.

He was outfielder 9 in head-to-head points. This is a player, Mike Ystromski, with fantastic plate discipline. He had a 13% walk rate. the strikeout rate has been improving. He has great splits. He can hit lefties and righties. What is not to like about Mike Yostramsky, Scott? Well, I mean, the expected stats, according to Stackass, say he overperformed.

He doesn't hit the ball especially hard. But, I mean, the plate discipline is fantastic. He overperformed in 2019, too. So how much should we, how much stock should we even put? in that. I think, look, he was being, he was being a disrespected last year, too. I thought.

I wish I had gotten more of him because I kind of got scared away because nobody else seemed to like him. And I don't know. Sometimes I do that and I shouldn't. But the big concern last year was, is he going to be an everyday player as a left-handed hitter? You know, how established is he in that lineup? But now that's not a concern.

I mean, the Giants know he's their best hitter. They were batting him lead off. for much of last year. And, yeah, I agree. He probably deserves to go right around 100. He's kind of Max Muncie-like, but give him more average, maybe, instead of Muncie. Take away a little of Muncie's power,

give you Strimsky a little more average, and I think you're dealing with comparable players there. Scott, it is time to guess the ADP for Mike Yershrimski. where do you think it is? Well, I got them at 103. I'm going to say ADP is 123. You were pretty damn close.

It is 131.2 over at the end of the scene. 133. Didn't want to overshoot it again. Going right around just behind Alex Verdugo, just ahead of Ryan Mountcastle and Dylan Carlson.

That's an interesting range of outfielders. Verdugo, Yistremski, Mount Castle, Carlson, all separated by 15 picks. All right. All right. This is younger guys. He's not young, but he's new on the scene. He's 30, believe it or not.

He's a great player for, if I can get you, Schremski as, like, my outfieler 2 or outfieler three in a head-to-head points league where you only use three outfielers. Perfectly fine. Love it. There's a few other names I wanted to get to here, but this one specifically, I don't know if we've argued over Austin Meadows. yet, Scott, but I think I am way higher on Austin Meadows than you are. And maybe Scott was the one who made the steamer projection for Austin Meadows because

it's not very good. 255 batting average, 22 home runs, 11 steals in 113 games. So they are expecting Austin Meadows to miss time. I don't know if this is fair, Scott. And then like if you do it for Meadows, you have to start doing it for other people. But I'm just giving them a pass for 2021. I mean, the guy got COVID right when the season was getting ready to start, so he missed the first couple of weeks.

We heard about other players being affected. Some point, and it affects people differently. Freddie Freeman went on to win the MVP. He had COVID. He was fine once the season started. Juan Moncada talked about how he didn't feel like himself all season because he had COVID. Maybe that was the case for Austin Meadows.

He also dealt with an oblique injury. He was being benched in the playoffs against left-handed pitching. I'm not worried about that. He had good splits. in 2019 against lefties, good splits in 2018 against lefties. I'm just really trusting the talent here, Scott. So I am not buying that projection.

I think you get back to playing every day. 270, 25 homers, 15 steals, good counting stats in the middle of a solid lineup. I'm giving them a mulligan. Yeah, it is a very pessimistic projection. A lot of it, I think, has to do with just how, how good the performance was and how how surprisingly good the performance was for austin meadows in 2019 like he had been a he had been a pretty high price high in high in prospect before that

but he wasn't projected for the kinds of numbers he delivered those really like tons of power good average pretty much across the board good uh even the steals weren't weren't bad for austin meadows and I would say just generally the amount of a pass I'm giving anybody for 2020 is, it corresponds to how much faith I had in them coming into 2020. Austin Meadows I ranked pretty high, but I found his 2019 to be difficult to explain. There wasn't, when I tried to explain what happened to Austin Meadows in 2019, well, they got an opportunity, you know. And particularly playing for the Rays, his opportunity is contingent on how well he performs.

Like they switch around their lineup as much as anybody. I mean, basically every Rui, you look at my rankings, I'm probably going to be lower than the consensus because I am fearful of that. So, and we knew this heading into 2020. I was willing to make an exception for Austin Mettos because he was so good. I couldn't see how the Rays could justify messing with his playing time. but now they do have a pretty good justification after the year he just had. So I haven't won 20th overall.

16 or 17 spots behind Mike Estrimski. I mean, the same range if you look at my outfield rankings, but... Damn, Scott. That's a big downgrade from where he was coming into 2020. So where do you have him in your outfield ranks overall? I don't know if you have that readily available. I think he's just a little outside my top 30.

I have arrows arena ahead of him. Yeah, I have Meadows at 18. Yeah, it's a big difference. So that's probably the biggest difference that we have thus far in our rankings. And I'm sure we'll find more throughout the offseason. But yeah, I mean, the stack cast numbers in 2019 really supported what he did.

I understand what you're talking about. Like really wasn't a big power hitter in the miners, so the power came out of nowhere, but did have this big prospect pedigree. But the stack cast numbers backing him, up in 2019 is what really leads me to trust in him and splits and everything that he did basically in 2018 and 2019. So I'm a believer in Meadows. Scott, not so much. We were going to get to a Rosaray and see Oscar Hernandez. We've talked about those guys a decent bit already so far and we'll have

more time to talk about them. I do want to hit some of these questions that were sent in. Continue to send us to your questions via Apple podcast reviews and email us, Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. This one's from Brett. I am in a 10-team Roto League, and we are allowed to keep a maximum of five players heading into next season. Obviously, ADP-slash-last-year's performance isn't always a major deciding factor here,

as people tend to hoard younger players they believe in for the long-term. Example, Trout has not been available to draft in the past eight years. Rules for keepers are you lose a draft pick for every person you keep. If you keep five, you lose your first five rounds of picks. You keep one, you lose.

lose your first round pick, etc. Players I am considering keeping. Again, 10-team Brodo. Walker Bueller, Clayton Kirschaw, Glaver Torres, Mani Machado, Marcelo Zuna, Eloy Jimenez, Lucas Gialito,

and Denelson Lomet. What do you think, Scott? Hmm. Well, Walker Bueller's the obvious one. I feel like Lucas Gialito is pretty obvious, too. Yeah, I thought Machado, too, but I don't know if that's just Yeah.

Me being a homer. Machado's not. Young, I'm curious how, I don't know Marcello Zuna's age off the top. Okay, so Marcella Zuna is 30. You don't really know how much, how many years of elite production. I mean, we don't even know he has one year of elite production left, right? Because it was such, he performed at such a high end about the maximum extent he could perform in 2020. And Jimenez, I mean, that's such a, such a pedigree there.

and he's off to such a good start. I feel like in this format, he's a must. So, and frankly, Glabertores. He's going to be 24 going into this year. Two of his first three years have been great. Shortstop is deep right now. I feel like he's going to wind up at second base sooner or later, which will actually be better for his fantasy value,

just because he, I don't know that he's going to hold up at shortstop. So I think that gives us our five, right? Bueller, Giolito, Machado, Jimenez. and Torres, which leaves Osuna out. It leaves Lamed out, but there's a lot of health risk there. And Kershaw, as we know,

is coming toward the end of his career. So I think I feel good about that five. Yeah, I definitely agree with the four. I was leaning Kershaw over Torres. I mean, if you want to keep the youth factor involved, then sure, you could go with Klaver Torres. But Kershaw, I think Kershaw could still have like two, two good seasons of production left.

I kind of got, I kind of bought into his explanation too much because we're talking only five keepers, we're talking only a 10 team league that's pretty shallow. Yeah, you want to dominate that pitching. You probably should emphasize the year ahead. So I think I agree with you. Let's swap out Torres for Kershaw. Let's do it.

And then we'll be good. This one's from Keenan, 10 by 10. I would read off all the categories, but I'm not going to do that. 10 by 10 head categories, three keeper league. Teams transfer over for next season only. after that it resumes being a keep three keeper league. So I guess they're carrying over just what they did in 2020.

It's a 2021. All right. Interesting. Trade Corey Seeger and Zach Britton for Kenta Maeda and Kenley Jansen to bolster my pitching. Give away Seeger in the deal. What do you think, Scott? Giving up Seeger and Britain for Maeda and Jansen. So it's basically Seeger for Maeda.

Straight up. If you won saves, Jansen. Yeah, I mean, Jansson, fair enough. It's not basically that straight up. Sorry, I'm butchering, I'm butchering these emails, but I think you got to stick with Seeger after the year he just had. I like Maida probably more than the consensus. I have him as a top 10 starting pitcher,

but I have him behind Seeger and particularly factoring in the keeper's aspect. It might be a long time before you give up Seeger. Yeah, I lean that way as well. I prefer, even with getting Kenley-Jance, I prefer the Corey Segar side in this one. Corey Segar entering a contract year as well with all these other short stops. It's Seeger, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa,

Francisco Lindor, they're all entering contract years. So if you buy into that type of thing. This one's from Jake. Which side do you like in a head-to-head points Dynasty League? Juan Soto, Keston Heura, and Eric Hosmer. for Freddy Freeman this guy just wrote

Julio on that which Julio would you assume that is Scott I mean that could be Arias that could be Rodriguez it's probably Julio Arias it's probably Arias yeah does it

all right let's assume it's Julio Arreus all right so Soto Kestenheera and Eric Hosmer for Freddie Freeman, Julio Arias, and Kyle Tucker. Well, you're getting...

I mean, it's hard to put much value on Hosmer in a Dynasty League, right? Agreed. Freeman is the oldest of the rest. But he's obviously very good, and you're getting Erez and Tucker two long-term pieces there with him. Soto is the most valuable of all

and very young. in here, a lot of upside very young. That's really close. I think it helped to know the exact parameters of this dynasty league, how many are being kept and under what context, but just you attaching the word

dynasty to it, I'm inclined to go with the Soto side. It's hard to trade Soto for anything in a dynasty league. Yeah. I don't know that I'm overvaluing him, but I think in a In a dynasty startup right now, Scott, head-to-head points dynasty startup. I might take Soto first overall.

The way his career is starting, and frankly, he's even younger than Pujols was when Pujols was getting off to his start. And obviously, if you got in on the ground floor of Albert Poo-Hawls in a dynasty league, you had it made for over a decade. So I kind of agree with that. Yeah, my original take, like, Kesson Hiro... Especially if it's a points league, I mean, where you don't need the huge steals total of an Akunia or a Tatis, soda with that plate discipline, this is a points league, so that makes it even easier.

And Kesson Hira, like, he's not good in a points league, he strikes out a lot, but he's still young, and he's flashed some upside. Yeah, I can't give up Wantsoto. It's a fair, it's a fair deal, though. It's a good package in return, but I'm, I'm keeping Wantsoto there. Alrighty. So we're going to wrap up. Just a reminder that tomorrow you will hear a podcast with Danny Vietti and Will Middlebrooks in your feed. Yes, it's supposed to be there. There you go. Scott, he's back. He's got a Christmas tree for Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball today. We'll be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye.