Fantasy Baseball Today - 2021 Starting Pitcher Recap! Should Corbin Burnes be the SP1? (11/9 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 9, 2021

It's safe to say we have very different thoughts about starting pitching heading into 2022 (2:45)! ... News and notes (8:15): 14 players were extended the qualifying offer but Clayton Kershaw and Carlos Rodon were not. What does that mean? ... Let's start with the top-five starting pitchers from 2021 (17:51). Max Scherzer was awesome again. Should Corbin Burnes be the SP1? ... Top-10 starting pitchers (30:36): Are we buying Robbie Ray? What should we expect from Gerrit Cole? ... Top-15 starting pitchers (42:10): Carlos Rodon and Jacob deGrom are probably the two biggest injury risks. ... Top-20 starting pitchers (52:45): can we trust Frankie Montas?  '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, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ 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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." 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. What 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. Back in 2019, we had 15 starting pitchers with 200 plus innings pitch. This season, we had four. Welcome into fantasy baseball today on two. Tuesday, November 9th, Frank Stamphle, joined as always by Scott White, and today is my birthday. Scott, what did you get me? Whoa. Whoa.

I didn't realize that, Frank. I might have to see, yesterday was my older son's birthday. And here's a little, here's a little taste of the bounty, Frank. Hey there. Hey there, Frank. For those who are just listening. I can we get this to you, maybe. It's pretty dope, you know, I'll take it.

I am a big Iron Man fan. And those of you who are listening and not watching, Scott is wearing an Ironman mask. And I'm a big fan, big fan of Iron Man Scott. It works, right? Yeah, I like it. The little faceplate pops up and you're like. That's honestly awesome. Give me those coordinates.

Shout out to your son, man. Scorpio's Unite. Let's go. Yeah. Oh, happy birthday, Frank. Thanks, Fed. Who's your favorite Marvel superhero? Or I guess just regular superhero?

Oh, well, regular superhero, probably bat, man, I'm basing this entirely off movies, for what it's worth. I wasn't really a big comics guy or kid from the MCU, though. I would say, I would say Iron Man. I mean, oh yeah. Yeah, it's all about Ironman. I mean, you can't really go wrong with his portrayal there. For sure. And I'm a big believer. You can't, you can't like both Iron Man and Captain America. It's like, you know, you can't be a Yankees and a Mets fan. It's one or the others. So I like them both, but I like Iron Man more. 100%. I like that. It is starting pitcher week, by the way, if you haven't noticed already, here on the podcast. So what we're going to do today, much like last week, last week, we broke down the

outfield position, the first podcast of the week. We basically recapped and reviewed the position, the top 20, 25 at outfield. And then the second podcast we did, we looked at Scott's early 22 ranks. We're going to do the same thing this week for starting pitcher. So today we'll try and get to those probably top 20, I think, is most realistic. And then on Thursday, we have Nick Pollock from pitcherless joining us. So it's going to be really fun to talk about starting pitchers with him. Scott, I realize it is way too early.

It is, we're actually recording this November 8th. It's going to be released on November 9th. But what is your early stance on starting pitcher if you have one? Because we've talked about this a little bit off air before. And it seems like the position is much, much deeper than it has been in the past. So how are you feeling about it? Very different. Very different from how I was feeling this time a year ago or even just how long ago was that?

Seven months ago, eight months ago. Very different. You know, I really went all in on starting pitching beyond what I ever imagined myself doing. And I said this should work as long as the landscape doesn't change. Landscape change. So it pretty much blew up in my face. And we've talked about that. before.

So, but I feel like you don't, at least I don't, the way my process works, I don't really get a good grasp of exactly how much it's changed until I start putting together my rankings and really lining up names one after another. And very surprised how low I'm ranking pitchers that I consider to be good. You know, it feels like the past couple years, at least the way I had come to approach starting pitching, I kind of wanted to have my whole pitching staff assembled by the time we were 40 names into the position because I just, with the way balls were flying out of the park and, you know, just how overpowering the high-end arms were, basically the middle class

at the position was gone. And so if you didn't get, if you didn't build within that top 40 at the position. You were just going to end up with a bunch of duds and have no chance of competing. But the middle class returned with a vengeance this year. And in fact,

I would say that most of the position is upper middle class now. I think with the change in the baseball, the deadening of the ball, reducing home runs, that brought that brought that middle class back. And you add the foreign substance crackdown midseason.

It made those really high-end arms just a little more human. And so it brought them down a little. So now the most high-end arms, they don't stand out quite as much as they had in recent years. And meanwhile, you've got this very large middle class. So now, I mean, you get to 55. Basically, I feel like my top 30 at the position is about right. I like the 30 names I have there. I might massage the order from time to time.

But I like the names in the top 30 at starting pitcher for me. But 31, I think there's probably 25 names that have a case for that number 31 spot in the ranking. So we're talking 55 instead of what used to be 40. And maybe even beyond that. Maybe 55 is selling it short. I do see a little bit of a drop off there after 55. Yeah, I was just looking through your rankings that are currently live on a site. And you wrote up a little blurb for your top 40, but then just for fun, you throw in 41 through 55.

And there are some names here where I'm just like, all right. Ian Anderson. Yeah, like this. He was arguably top 25 this year. And I have him outside of the top 50, and he's 53rd. Yeah, like look at these other names here, too. Like Trevor Rogers is 46th. Mike Clevenger is coming back from Tommy John surgery.

He's 48th. Noah Cindergarde is 49th. You have, you know, Zach Gallen is all the way down at 15. Logan Gilbert, who I think some people might like as, you know, maybe a second year breakout candidate all the way down at 53. So, yeah, there's a lot of names that I think are very interesting. And I brought up a few guys that are coming back from injury. I think that also helps the position because we had Chris Sale and Luis Everino and Noah

Cindergarde last year, you know, expected to return midseason we were hoping. But obviously it took a lot longer for them to come back. But we're going to have all of those names now, presumably, ready to go as starting pitchers heading into next year. plus we're also getting Justin Verlander back too. So I think it definitely helps the position, but we'll talk about it. It does feel a lot deeper than it was this time last year.

And I don't fault you for wanting to be aggressive with starting pitching. I mean, we spoke about it a lot last off season and rightfully so. We couldn't really foresee these changes how much they were going to affect the landscape. We just didn't know. They talked about using a new ball closer to the start of the season. We didn't really know exactly what kind of effect that was going to have. and then just the crackdown on foreign substances like we knew that it was prevalent in the game

there was no way to predict that was going to happen mid-season. So I did write down some league-wide stats from April through May and then from June 1st on. So the first two months of the season, the league ERA was 4.03 with a 1.27 whip and then from June 1 1 1 1.301 whip. That jumped to a 4.38 ERA with a 1.31 whip. now pitching normally does do a little bit better early on in the season so I'll

give the caveat there but I mean that that's a pretty big disparity from the first two months to the final four so keep all those things in mind and we're going to talk about pitching for the rest of this podcast but I do want to hit some news and notes here up at the top real quick Scott because there's a lot going on in baseball right now there's like some qualifying offers going out there's some options to be had here and I think we should talk about it so let's just quickly get to it here the four there were 14 qualifying offers handed out and I think the biggest surprises on this list. Again, the qualifying offer, 18.4 million for one year, a player can choose to accept or decline that qualifying offer. And then the team, you know, if the player declines,

then the team gets a, I believe it's some kind of draft compensation when that player signs elsewhere. So keep that in mind. Biggest surprises, Brandon Belt, Eduardo Rodriguez, Chris Taylor, Justin Verlander, and Noah Cindergarde. And there are already some names that declined it, Corey Seeger, Trevor Story, Nick Castiano, Michael Conforto. I think that is definitely fair. A few surprises that weren't extended the qualifying offer. To me, this is the bigger news, Scott. Clayton Kirschaw and Carlos Rodan. And to me, it's pretty alarming because those teams know more about those pitchers than anybody else. They have all the medical history, everything on them. And we have reason to be concerned about them. Kurt

Kershaw with his forearm and obviously Carlos Sward on with his shoulder. So I think it's pretty concerning that those teams did not extend the qualifying offer to those starting pitchers. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Kershaw especially. Kershaw was surprising especially because of

his history with the Dodgers. It's the only uniform he ever wore. He's going to be a first battle of Hall of Famer. I mean, yeah, I mean, that was surprising. Now, I was worried about both of these guys heading into the offseason, beginning my draft prep for 2022, I feel like although Kershaw's elbow has seemingly been cleared of UCL damage,

we've heard that one before. And, you know, it popped up a second time late in the year after he returned and he was unavailable for the postseason. So that definitely makes me nervous. Carlos Rodan, you know, the drop in velocity, the long stretcher in between starts to close out the season. He was still pretty effective during that time. It's worth noting, but it didn't seem right.

And, you know, he's the one that I've been saying this over and over again with Carlos Rodon. How I approach him in fantasy next year is probably going to depend on how he's approached in free agency. And, you know, if he's given a one-year prove-it deal, you know, that's going to make me concerned. And then if he's given like a sizable multi-year offer, well, this is. This is a bad first indication, right? The White Sox, you know, it doesn't definitively mean this, but basically it means they don't think, they wouldn't want to invest $18.4 million in a one-year proof-it deal for Carlos Rodon. Yeah, and that's pretty alarming.

So we'll see. Look, these teams could still resign them. The White Sox could still resign Rodon. The Dodgers can resign Kershaw, but it is pretty surprising that they weren't given the qualifying offer there. Now, I was kind of surprised Noah Cinderguard was. Yeah, I think he's probably going to accept it, right? Because it makes sense for him to do a one-year prove-it deal. And then if he performs well, maybe gets a multi-year contract after that.

Yeah, I would have guessed, like in the open market, he'd get less than $18.4 million after the long absin from Tommy John. He didn't, you know, his stuff wasn't quite there when he returned very late in the year, just a couple of relief appearances. But he didn't quite seem himself yet. So that was surprising to me. And I do think there's a good chance he ends up taking it. But we'll just have to see. I could see Brandon Belt taking it too. You know, one year, 18 million.

What does he get on the open market? I don't know. Maybe like two years, 25 million. So if he wants that, you know, guaranteed salary for one year, I could see him taking that. But definitely don't think he's going to get that, you know, that much over a multi-year span, 18 million for Brandon Belt. J.D. Martinez declined to exercise his opt-out.

and will remain with the Red Sox in 2022. The White Sox picked up Craig Kimberl's $16 million option and we'll look to trade him this offseason. Those are early reports. So a few names that stood out to me, the Mariners, they're looking to compete. They're set to be pretty aggressive in free agency, everything that I've read so far.

Maybe the Padres, they just had Mark Melanson decline his option, so he'll be a free agent as well. So two teams there that stand out to me that could definitely use a closer. Wade Miley was placed on waivers and he was picked up by the, Chicago Cubs as a result for the Reds, both pitching prospects, Nicola Dolo and Hunter Green.

There was a report that they will compete for spots in the Reds rotation. It doesn't mean that they'll both be in there, but there's a possibility. And then there's another rumor that they're shopping Louise Castillo. So if they lose Wade Miley and Louise Castillo, I don't know, maybe we see both of them, Scott, Lodolo and Hunter Green. Maybe, maybe, but that's, you don't see that a lot, obviously. especially from starting pitchers the way they're going to have to

manage the innings over the course of next year to have them in the rotation from the start of April I'd be surprised if they're both in I'd be kind of surprised if either and was in from the very start but they will be competing and it's possible of course I was surprised by just the way the Wade Miley moved played out you know

baseball reference war he was a 5.7 win player this past year nearly a six win player that's massive was yeah I mean that is, you know, some of the guys contending for a Cy Young award this year had a lower award, a lower war than that. So, you know, the fact that they just straight waiver claim the Cubs got him because he's making $10 million. I mean, that didn't seem like an excessive amount. Obviously, we don't really think Wade Miley's a six-war player and he had crashed pretty hard in September.

But I don't know. I guess that goes to show what the Reds and what the rest of the league is. thinking about Wade Miley if he couldn't be traded with that $10 million salary for something, anything, really, because it was just a straight waiver claim. Yeah, and I actually was reading a Ken Rosenthal article about this very situation with Wade Miley. And based on that war that he posted, if you convert that into like salary, what it would be worth?

Something like a $23 million season last year for Wade Miley. And again, they didn't want to pick up, they didn't want to pay him $10 million. so he will be with the Chicago Cubs next season. Alex Bregman underwent right wrist surgery on Monday, which could explain his poor performance down the stretch. And in the postseason, he's fully expected to be ready for spring training. So Bregman, a name that will definitely monitor his recovery here. Justin Verlater threw a 25 pitch session and reached as high as 97 miles per hour with his fastball.

15 to 20 teams were in attendance. And assuming the season starts in April, there's a whole CBA that needs to be negotiated. here in the offseason. Verlander will be 18 months removed from Tommy John surgery. So that's a great. That's a great time table. I don't know that whatever team he goes to, he'll be limited at all. It seems like he'll probably just be good to go. He's SP 30 in your early 2020 ranks. So. Yeah. And could rocket up the rankings if he looks like Justin Verlander in spring training. Like that's, I could see him being drafted within the top 15 starting pitchers before March is over. Some early teams that were, you know, rumored to be in on Verlander. Obviously, the Astros are interested in bringing him back to Detroit Tigers. He has familiarity there. Obviously, A.J. Hinch is the manager there as well. The Yankees, the Mets were both in attendance as well.

So we'll see. We'll see what happens with Verlander. Andrew Heaney signed a one-year deal worth $8 million with the Dodgers. Good riddance. And good luck to you, Los Angeles, Dodgers. And trade rumor season, I mentioned Luis Castillo. Apparently is being shopped. The A's, it looks like they're going to clean house.

complete rebuild coming. I mean, we'll wait until these things actually happen, but rumors that they're shopping Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, and Frankie Montas. So the Yankees are, you know, a team that's rumored to be interested in Matt Olson, which I think can make a lot of sense. They, you know, if they don't trust Luke Voight to stay healthy

or if, you know, maybe he is part of another deal, you got short porch there in right field. Could be an awesome landing spot for Matt Wilson there. Yeah, you could. All right. I just want to mention Andrew Heaney, like, go to the dot and the fact that the Dodgers made an aggressive bid for Andrew Heaney the very start of the off yeah right just when you thought it was safe to give up on Andrew Heaney

true now now who knows who knows obviously the Dodgers have a pretty good track record with these kinds of moves before we get into our year in review for starting pitcher all of our podcasts are still going on YouTube so if you'd like to watch us in the offseason you want to see scott wearing his Ironman mask, feel free to come watches. Subscribe at YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. And as I mentioned, Nick Pollock from Pitcherless will join us on Thursday's podcast to take a look at Scott's early rankings. All right, let's do it. This mask is sized for a child.

So instead of actually strapping it on my head, I have to hold it up to my face like I'm at the masquerade ball. But it doesn't look so bad. You know, maybe do you have a small head, Scott for like normal adults? I don't know. I actually do have a smallish head. Yeah, my hat size 7 and 3 eighths, I think. I think that's the same exact.

What do I got here? 7 and 1 4th, so I'm smaller than you. You are. You are. Maybe I am a big head. Oh, big head, Scotty. All right, let's take a look at this past year. Starting pitcher.

We'll try to get through to the top 20, 25, whatever it is. But number one at the position in 5x 5-5 roto was Max Scher, 2.46 ERA, a 0.86 whip, 236 strikeouts over 179.1 innings pitched and look he was awesome second in baseball among qualified pitchers

in K minus walk rate second in swinging strike rate guy completely hung a fat L on my head this year because I had him in my bus column coming into the season I was worried about the age

maybe you should still be worried about the age because he dealt with dead arm in the NLCS and he said that his arm was quote overcooked doesn't really sound great for a 37-year-old starting pitcher. But, Scott, how do you feel? How do you feel about Max Scherzer?

Are you worried about the age and the injury concerns? I mean, not really. And I kind of came to this conclusion with Scherzer and Justin Verlander, ironically enough, the Tommy John surgery is hard to predict. A couple of years ago where, you know, there's just so many ways a starting pitcher can implode that frankly age feels like the least of those concerns you know

the fact that you have a guy here who delivers elite production at this volatile position over and over and over again that's always a big workload it's always a ton of strikeouts he's led he's led the majors in whip

again this year he's just it's just an amazing pitcher now it is interesting that this is the year, you know, obviously they had a deep playoff run, but when his arm was overcooked, because there was, you didn't see him go quite as deep into games as consistently this year. It was more, he was more of a six, seven inning guy than a five, six inning, or how did I put it before? Basically, he had some really short outings. So if, if you,

you could call him a six, seven inning guy still Scherzer, but more. toward the sixth end of that spectrum than the seven end of that spectrum. And, you know, but obviously that was coming off a weird 2020 season where he didn't throw many innings at all. Maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know. I'm sure he's going to be over the dead arm thing by the time next year begins. And I imagine whether he's back with the Dodgers, really wherever he goes.

You're going to want draft Scherzer in round two. Yeah, I think he could be in conversation for SP1, you know, the late first, early second round, depending on how aggressive you want to be in getting one of those big name aces. But yeah, as of now, I actually, I have no issue drafting Max Scherzer that early. Number two at the position was

Walker Bueller, finished with a 2.47 ERA, 0.97 whip, 12 strikeouts over 207 and 2 thirds innings pitched. He was one of four starting pitchers who went 200 plus this past season. And we knew coming in, you know, coming off of the 60 game, shortened season that we were going to have less volume, less 200-ending pitchers than ever before.

That actually turned out to be the case. We were not expecting Walker Bueller to be one of those pitchers who actually went above and beyond. He went six-plus in 27 of, no, I don't think that's correct. 29, 29 of 33 starts that he made in the regular season. So all but four. They're only going six innings once in all of 2020, the regular season. It was just an outstanding season.

kind of faltered down the stretch. He had an ERA over four in the final month of the season, but he was so great every other month that. Look, I'm not really holding that against him. How do you feel, Scott? Because we were both kind of off of Walker Bueller. Has he earned your trust? Yeah, it's a little weird, Walker Bueller,

because, I mean, the innings thing, obviously. Okay. So we're dead wrong about that, me especially, and that's not a concern anymore. They're going to use him like an ace. He's going to get a ton of innings. every reason to draft him in, probably in round two,

just like Scherzer. Now, it's a little weird the way it played out because he was always less of a bat misser than you thought just based on his reputation and his success, but it went even more that direction this year.

He was just a little over a strikeout per inning. And, you know, normally in the way we evaluate pitchers, that would it would be a little concerning the way his strikeouts are trending but I don't know he's just been so consistently successful

that I just I don't really worry about it I mean obviously there's the practical matter of for the amount you're investing in him you can't count on as many strikeouts as maybe other pitchers in that range but it's it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me I have him fifth in my starting pitcher rankings

for next year number three at the position was Zach Wheeler And breakout season for Zach Wheeler, 2.780 RA 101 whip, 247 strikeouts, over 213 endings pitched both of those categories. Well, let me make sure the strikeouts definitely led the National League. And the innings led all of baseball for Zach Wheeler. So how about that? True breakout season for him.

It was. And, you know, how did he do it? He threw a slider more than ever before. And it really just basically helped everything else play up to strikeouts. were higher. You know, he's always been solid in terms of walks. He's always going to give you volume. But yeah, he had a rough August, bounce back.

He's awesome. I don't know that I'm going to want to pay the like second round price tag for Zach Wheeler, but maybe that's just me nitpicking. Well, no, I mean, a 31 year old taking a step forward like he did, you're always a little skeptical of it. But two things that make me confident enough to at least to rank him that high. Or one, you point to there was a tangible change. in his pitch selection that is logical.

It's logical. It would lead to more strikeouts as it did. And two, remember he had that blip kind of to begin the second half where we wondered, is he turning back into normal, Zach Wheeler? Well, then he finished the season as strong as ever. And September slash October, 147 ERA, 0.91 whip, 11.4K per 9 and five starts. So, you know, that, that I found that reassuring. So, yeah, I like Zach Wheeler in round two.

I was the number eight starting pitcher. And, yeah, feel confident. All right, number four was Julio Arias, 2.96 ERA 102 whip, 195 strikeouts over 185 and two-thirds innings pitch. 20 wins led all of baseball and definitely helped rank him this high in the final, you know, five-by-five Roto standings. but they basically just let him go. Same thing with Walker Bueller and Julio Reyes.

They took the kids' gloves off. He's 25 years old. And he, you know, he did actually make, you know, tangible changes as well. He threw his curveball a career high this past season. He also limited the walks. His control was much better. Dropped all the way down to 1.84 walks per nine,

which is actually like an elite mark. So he actually took a huge step forward. Again, I don't, I think he's probably going to be like a third. or fourth round starting pitcher, I don't know that I'll invest that high in him, but everything I saw this year seems pretty legit. Yeah, so basically everything I said about Walker Bueller, you could apply to Julio O'Reas,

just make him left-handed instead. The strikeouts are a little light, given the amount you're going to have to invest in him, but he's always been so good at run prevention that I don't think it's, I don't think it's worrisome except to the extent it might cost you some strikeouts. And obviously great supporting cast,

exact same team, the Dodgers. And like Walker Bueller, Julio Arias blew away my expectations in terms of workload. He didn't top 200 innings, but he topped 185. And they basically used him like a conventional front-line starter all season long when they got into 20 wins otherwise. The fact he had a 20-4 ERA in the second half,

you know, I don't. I don't know that I buy that he suddenly became this better pitcher midway through the season. I think that's a full season statistics, more predictive than the half-season statistics situation. But it is notable, nonetheless. All right, let's move out to number five. Corbyn Burns, who I actually think is in the conversation

to be the first starting pitcher drafted in 2022. And he was amazing. 2.42 ERA, 0.94 whip, 234 strikeouts, over 167 innings pitch. Just absolutely ridiculous. He was first in K-minus walk rate. He was first in swinging strike rate. And he does everything that you want.

He gets whiffs. He lowered the walk rate tremendously. He went from 3.62 walks per 9 in 2020 to 1.83 this past season. He gets a lot of ground balls. He limits hard contact. And he made a tangible change in his pitch mix as well. He went from a 31% cutter usage to 52% this past season. It was his go-to pitch.

I think he's right there. I think he's right there, and that makes God for SP1 next year. Yeah, yeah, I have him as my number four starting pitcher for next year. He didn't finish quite that high, mostly because of innings. And that's the big question mark for Corbyn Burns at this point is, you know, he went 167.

You know, that's not quite as many as we want. Can he get to 180? Can he get beyond 180? That's the next question he has to answer. And it's not just that. It's also, you know, 167 was 100 more innings, more than 100 more innings than he's ever thrown in a major league season before. And how will he bounce back from that workload?

Will he be dealing with injuries all of this year? I hope not. But it's possible until you see a guy prove that he can do it over and over again. You just don't know. but in terms of how effective he is pitch for pitch I think Corbyn Burns is the best starting pitcher not named Jacob deGrom at this point

he had a 163 FIP this past year 163 I mean that's the kind of stuff well I mean you see DeGrom do that kind of stuff right but that's about it and his ex-fip was a little

little more ordinary 2.30 was Corbyn's X-Fibb. Which was 0.54 higher than any other qualifier. So distant first in both of those categories was Corbyn Burns. And he did have a little stretch when the foreign substance crackdown kicked in where there was a little blip. The spin rates dropped a little. You wondered if maybe he was overachieving.

But sort of like with Zach Wheeler, Corbin Burns' Finns. very strong and effectiveness. That's really not a question for him entering next season. Yeah, so again, these were your top five this past season in five-by-five Roto, Scherzer, Bueller, Wheeler, Julio Arias, and Corbyn Burns. We're going to take a quick break when we return. We'll try to get through six through 20 here. We'll move a little bit faster on each one of these pitchers. We'll do it next on fantasy baseball today. All right, number six this past season was Robbie Ray. My man, Adam Azer, said last year, bold prediction was that Robbie Ray would finish as top three in the National League,

Sy Young Award voting. That's when he was still on the Diamondbacks. This year, he actually will finish at least top three in the American League, Syung Award voting. And I think he's probably going to win it. I think he deserves to win the award. How did he do it? It's all about the pants, baby.

Those tight pants, not for real though. 2.840RA, 104 whip, 248 strikeouts over 193 and a third innings pitched. He trusted his stuff. He threw it in the zone. He had a velo jump on his fastball. the walks went way, way, way down. And as a result, Scott,

this was the best version of Robbie Ray we've ever seen. Yeah, it was. And, you know, this is another guy on the wrong side of 30 having a breakout. The breakout was much bigger than even like the one we talk about

for Zach Wheeler. So skepticism is warranted. He threw it a lot more strikes. I mean, he was just so inefficient previously in his career that it was, you know, It kind of, he kind of looked like a lost cause because even though he had a lot of bat missing ability, just too many walks, couldn't go deep enough into games. And it just kept getting worse and worse.

So the drastic improvement in strikeout rate with his stuff, you know, you can understand the big leap forward. I do have a ninth at the position. I actually have him ahead of Julio Aureas. But I feel like, I feel like in between my number eight pitcher Zach Wheeler and my number nine pitcher Robbie Ray. there could potentially be a whole one round gap in your draft, at least in standard 5 by 5. I don't know if that points leagues are going to make that possible. But I could see Zach Wheeler going in round two

and maybe Robbie Ray not going to round four. So that's kind of a little bit of a tier drop here. Not a huge one, but a little bit. Yeah. And there are a few red flags. As you mentioned, like the age is there. Can he maintain this amazing? amazing jump in control that he had this past season.

And, you know, September, the walks kind of came back up, 3.7 walks per 9. It's a small sample. I think it was like four or five starts. Gave up a few more home runs that month as well. So maybe he was starting to wear down. He's an unrestricted free agent. We'll see where he lands. But an interesting guy.

I want to also see where his ADP settles in. It's going to be pretty interesting to see. Number seven this past season, Garrett Cole, 3.23 ERA, 106 whip, 243 strikeouts. over 181 and a third innings pitched. And, yeah, basically the face of the sticky substance situation, everything that was going on in baseball, gets up on a podium, they ask him about it, he stumbles, he fumbles his words,

kind of just like stutters for like a minute's trade. It's like, dude, how did you not know this question was coming? Anyway, I think I was probably too hard on him towards the end of the season. But what I will say is from June 1st on, he had a 4.15 ERA. That came with a 3.31 X. fit. What I'm thinking, Scott, at this point in his career, the fact that he's getting a little bit

older too, I think, you know, we could just expect maybe some natural regression anyway, because he's just been so awesome in the past couple of years. I think that he's probably more of like a low three's ERA guy at this point. We'll see what happens with, you know, the sticky substances and in the offseason. But even, you know, look, if he's 11Ks per 9, 11, 12 case per 9, a 3.15, 3.2 ERA, low one whip, it's still a really, really great pitcher. I just don't know that he's like head and shoulders better than pitchers like we've ranked him in the past. Yeah. So the big dip for him came toward the end of June when the enforcement of the substance band kicked in.

He like much of the rest of the league saw a big drop in spin rate. His production seemed more impacted than most, but he was still getting a lot of strikeouts. And then he had a six-start stretch in there with a one. 135 ERA and between August and September did Garrett Cole, including a 15 strikeout effort. And the spin rate, you know,

they were back up quite a bit. Then he had three pretty rough starts to end the season. Then he had the bad start in the playoffs. He was dealing with a hamstring injury during that time that seemed to impact his delivery. So I don't know that you can just take his numbers from the crackdown

to the end of the season at face value because that hamstring issue also seemed to come into play there. And he had a middle stretch where he looked as dominant as usual. So I still have Garrett Cole as my number two starting pitcher. If it turns out Jacob de Grom's not going to be ready for the start of the season. I guess Cole would jump to number one. But I do agree with you that it's more reasonable to expect a low 3 ZRA.

He's probably the main guy I was thinking about when I said, you know, the elite starting pitchers don't stand out quite as much as they used to. It's not that Garrett Cole isn't good anymore. It's just that he's a little more human now. Yeah, no, I think that's definitely fair. And something I was reading about as well is the Arizona Fall League is currently experimenting with pre-tapped baseballs. So they already have this, I guess, a sticky substance on them for pitchers, you know, to help them have a better grip. So I guess we'll see what the results are of that. And, you know, maybe it's something they incorporate next season or maybe in future seasons, but we'll see.

Number eight this past season was Kevin Gosman, 2.81 ERA, 104 whip, 227 strikeouts, over 192 innings pitched. How did he do this? He maintained his fastball Velo jump from 2020. He's basically just two pitches. His splitter was absolutely awesome this year. He did kind of fall off a little bit in the second half. He posted a 4.42 ERA, but the underlying numbers were still really, really good.

like 3.23 X-FIP to go along with that second half ERA. It seemed like he was unlucky. Scott, I always worry about pitchers who rely so much on their splitter just because it's like, it's a pretty inconsistent pitch. It's a hard pitch to like really master and rely on that much. Kevin Galsman's awesome.

I just don't know if I'm going to invest the, I think he's probably going to be like a third round pick or something like that. And I don't think I'm going to want to do it. Yeah, if he's a third round pick, I'm not going to want to either. You know, I was kind of just saying I'm not sure any pitcher deserves to be a third round pick, at least in 5 by 5.

And I have Kevin Gossman. I have him 13th for next year, as compared to Robbie Ray, who I have 9th. So, you know, I'm thinking more round 4, round 5. Unlike Zach Wheeler,

Kevin Gossman, who's also in his 30s, did have that drop off in the second half. Actually, he had a 442 ERA in the second half. Though still with a lot of strikeouts. So,

he's faked us out with his blood on the past. Obviously, never a season like the one he just had. But as you mentioned, it's hard to take it entirely at face value, even if, you know, I was still ranking of 13, so I'm not burying the guy.

I'm just, you know, playing it a little cautiously with Kevin Gosman. Yeah, and it's another situation where, you know, he had a 2.881 ERA for the entire season, but, you know, he had a 3.28 X-Fib. He had a 3.42 Sierra. that's probably closer to what you should expect. You know, like a low to mid-3s ERA,

which, again, it still makes him a very good pitcher, just, you know, maybe not as awesome as he was this past season. Number nine at the position was Adam Wainwright. Pretty interesting here. He turned 40 this past season. He finished with a 3.05 ERA, a 106 whip, 174 strikeouts, over 206 in a third inning's pitch. So you see it there.

Like, he's not even close to a strikeout per inning at this point. the underlying number say he would, he really, really pitched over his head. And I'm sure you have him ranked much, much lower than where he finished, Scott.

But especially in points leagues, I mean, he's probably still going to be really good there because the guy has a rubber arm and he's going to be quality start after quality start. So,

Roto, yeah, I think he takes a pretty big step back, but points leagues, I think he's still going to be pretty valuable. Yeah, it's really, he's probably the hardest pitcher to figure out because it was,

it was so good this year. 305 ERA, 17 wins, threw over 200 innings, just four pitchers to do that. And the thing is, it was picking up basically from where he left off in 2020,

315 ERA and 10 starts 105 whip, about the same K-per-9, 7.4. Basically, his ratios from 2020, 2021, virtually identical. Obviously, we were writing him off in 2020 because he made only 10 starts, all the weirdness that went along with that. But it's a little harder to write off those 32 starts from 2021.

he was useless the previous four years. Like he had fallen off a cliff statistically. So, you know, you got to remember that. It's not like just strikeouts aren't good. Like, we have an extended history of Adam Wainwright just not being a good pitcher anymore. And then the 42 starts between this year and last, he was good without the support of underlying numbers. So, you know, I, yeah, I do have a lot lower than eighth for next year. I have him

Where is he? 45th. I have Adam Wayne Wright 45th for next year. Ooh. Which still kind of feels too high. Because I have him

ahead of Trevor Rogers. I have him ahead of a lot of those names you mentioned before. Ian Anderson, Logan Gilbert, Zach Allen. So I feel like that ranking

does give him more credit than I could give him. I mean, I'm including them in that group of 55 pitchers that I think are more or less good. So, you know, but 45 is obviously playing it a bit cautiously considering he was just eighth. Number 10 at the position this past year, Brandon Woodruff, 2.56 ERA, a 0.96 whip, 211st strikeouts, over 179 and a third inning's pitch. He actually finished lower than his overall numbers because he only had nine wins, so a little bit unlucky in that department.

but he does a great job of limiting hard contact. And he became a more complete pitcher this year, Scott. He used four different pitches at least 14% of the time. Now, that's two different fast balls. So it's kind of like three pitches, but his curveball went from 6% usage in 2020 to 16.7% this past year. So it seems like he's just kind of,

his arsenal is just getting better with age. Yeah, I mean, he feels pretty safe. I have him as a top, he's number six for me next year. I have him going in the second round. You know, kind of like, to less of an extreme than Corbyn Burns, Woodruff isn't so proven in terms of workload either. His previous high for a major league season, he may have had some numbers. He may have set some innings in the minors for some of these seasons,

but the most he had ever thrown in a Milwaukee's Brewer's uniform prior to this past year was 121 and 2 thirds. And he jumped to almost 180 this year. So, you know, he's got to prove he can bounce back too. But I do feel like he's a little more battle tested than Burns. And I don't worry about that as much for Brandon Woodruff. So I'm comfortable using a second round pick on him. 11th at the position was Carl Sordaon, who we spoke about earlier today.

2.37 ERA, 0.96 whip, 185 strikeouts over 132 and 2 thirds. endings pitched. The endings there were his most since 2016. The guy has dealt with a lot of injuries the past three, four years. And basically he had this huge jump in fastball velocity this past season. But then the problem was that in September, it fell off. So for most of the year, he was right around 96 miles per hour. Four September starts, a 92.9 mile per hour average fastball velocity. And then his one postseason start, he was back up at 96. So I'm not really sure what to trust, But again, I'm, I'm airing on the side of caution right now, considering he didn't even get the qualifying offer from his own team. Yeah, I just, I don't even really know what airing on the side of caution really means for him because, I mean, his numbers were.

I'm probably not going to draft him to be out. Like, if he's just, he's phenomenal. If he's a top, you know, seven or eight round pitcher, and I'm just not going to draft Carl Sredon. Okay. It's just seems too risky. So remember at the top of the show, I said, I feel pretty good about the names I have in my top 30. but there's about 25 pitchers I could slot 31. I currently have Carlos Rodan leading that group.

He's number 31 for me, just after Justin Verlander, just before Alec Manoa. But a lot's going to depend, as I also said earlier, this show, on how teams approach him in the offseason. There were more changes contributing to his breakthrough than just fastball velocity. and remember early in the year, it was lower anyway. It kind of got higher as the season went on.

It kind of fluctuated a lot over the course of the season, actually. It just was at its lowest at the end of the season. So I think there's a lot more there than just a big fastball, but a lot of question marks too. Yeah. If you do take his numbers at phase value, I mean, top 10 potential here for Carlos Rodon. So I don't want to sell him short.

I just, it's hard to tell exactly when is the right time to pull the trigger, especially now here in early November. And he's especially useful in, you know, a 5 by 5 or a category league. Because I think on a per-ending basis, if he's healthy, he's probably going to be really good. You mentioned it wasn't just a fastball, but the slider was awesome. His control was much better than we've seen. And it added up to more whiffs, more strikeouts. He was really great this year.

Again, he finished as a top 12 starting pitcher. It's just where are we at in terms of health. I think we've got to find out more about that this offseason. Number 12 at the position was Charlie Morton, who had also a huge bounce back season, 3.34 ERA, 104 whip, 216 strikeouts, over 185 and 2 thirds, endings pitched. And the velocity bounced back in a big way. Remember last year the shortened season.

He was dealing with some injury. The velocity was down. His fastball was below 94 miles per hour. He averaged over 95 on the fastball this season, which was his highest since 2018. He did suffer, I think it was a broken fibula in the World Series, but all indications are he's going to be good to go for the start of the season. Scotty, are you buying back in on Charlie Morton?

Yeah, yeah, I thought it was pretty aggressive ranking of 15th, but he actually finished even higher than that this past year. So another guy you could worry about the age, he's a few days from turning 38. So he's old. But, you know, we're not seeing his stuff diminish at all, and we know he can take on a big workload. You know, he's got like the spinningest curveball in all the majors. So it's an elite pitch for him.

Still hits 97 on the radar gun. Yeah, I think I think I'm comfortable with Charlie Morton. You know, if I ended up with him my ace, I don't think it'd be that big of a concession. And we've got our first mock draft coming up too. So I'm very interested to see how specifically you and me construct our teams because we were so aggressive with starting pitchers. So it's, you know, if you wait on him as your ace, you're probably taking hitters with your first three, maybe four picks. So that...

Yeah, what I'm thinking now is, and it may be an oversimplification. And remember, we talked earlier about how maybe we should have been pickier with some of our pitchers than we were. But putting all that aside for now, I'm thinking, like, I want seven of my top 55. Don't do this again, Scott. Don't do this. well, I'm giving myself a much bigger number. That's fair.

But going much deeper into the position too. So I still want to be ahead of the curve. But I don't necessarily have to go for the first second round type pitchers. I don't know. All right. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, you know, I was thinking earlier is I might want just like one ace to anchor my staff.

And then I'm just going to, I'm going to wait like five or six rounds before I take my SP2. That's kind of an early take that I have on the position, but I got to try it out in a mock draft and see how it goes. Number 13 at the position was Jacob de Grom. Now, he did this. He finished 13th at the position with 92 innings pitched. A 108 ERA, 0.55 whip, 146 strikeouts. 92 innings pitched.

I mean, these are like the best reliever in the league type numbers. This guy was a starting pitcher for like half the season. It's just, he was, this was the best performance I've ever seen from a starting pitcher in my lifetime over the course of like one half of a season for whatever that's worth. But he is 33 years old and over the past two seasons Jacob de Grom has missed time due to neck, lat, back, shoulder, forearm, and elbow issues. He was eventually shut down with UCL inflammation. And I was reading an article earlier today from Anthony DeComo on MLB.com. and he wrote, the two-time NL. Syong Award winner didn't feel any abnormal soreness during bullpen sessions in September,

even after he cranked his fastball up to 98, 88 would be really bad, up to 98 miles per hour, all positive signs for a bounce back 2022 season. Scott, draft at your own risk. Yeah, see, I find it really hard to make the case against Jacob de Grom as the number one starting pitcher without a concrete reason not to do that, right? I mean, we know there was something going on

with the UCL, the Mets saying it's healed, are saying it's healed, the MRIs are shown it's healed, he still was throwing at the end of last season. You know, by everything we can see, he's fine. And if he's fine, I mean, he's so far ahead of everyone else's. at this position in terms of Billy. And he was on pace for a truly historic season.

And we didn't think he could get any better, but he did. And, you know, that came with him throwing harder. He was averaging more on his fastball this year than ever before. So, like, he got better beyond just having a low ERA. So I feel like he has to go in the first round until we have real reason not to take him in the first round. I can't see myself being the guy who takes him in the first round. And if everybody says that, he won't go in the first round. And then do I pass him over in the second round?

Probably not. But I don't really want Jacob de Grom, but it's, gosh, he's so good. He's ridiculous. And he's an enigma right now because we just don't know, right? So I'm going to do early drafts. I'm probably going to jump in my first draft. I don't know, within the next couple of weeks over on the NFBC. and I will not draft Jacob de Grom at all.

And maybe this is a mistake. I won't draft him at all until I see him pitch in spring training. I need to see it. I need to see him pitch. So especially like, I guess if he falls to a certain point, whatever it is,

on fourth, fifth, sure, you'll take a shot. But like, this is not going to happen. But I need to see it before I draft him. Scott, we got about like 10 minutes left here and we've, I don't know,

we've got like 10 more starting pitchers. So let's try to do like, I don't know, a pitcher per minute and just give some quick thoughts on each one of these. Number 14 at the position. It didn't feel like he had a great year,

but Jose Burrios, who's actually pretty damn good. 352 ERA, 106 whip, 204 strikeouts, over 192 winnings pitched. He will spend this upcoming season with the Toronto Blue Jays. He did all of that

with a sub 10% swinging strike rate. So, I don't know. Volume, but he doesn't seem great. I worried he might collapse going to such a hitter-friendly division. He didn't. He was fine with the Blue Jays. I think we should approach Burrios like we used to approach Zach Wheeler.

Innings eater, probably going to have a mid-3 ZRA. Not going to overwhelm you with the strikeouts, but we'll eat innings. We'll win some games. As your number two, number three, he should be fine. Yeah, and probably better in points leagues just because of all the volume that it gives you. Number 15 this past season was my man. Joe Musgrove, 3.18 ERA, 108, whip, 203, 203. strikeouts over 181 and a third innings pitched.

He managed to stay healthy, posted a career high in terms of innings. He changed his pitch mix. He threw four different pitches at least 19% of the time. But he did take a pretty big step back in the second half. So I kind of have to see where the ADP settles in, Scott, before I condone drafting Joe Musgrove. Yeah, it feels like he was worse than he actually was. Yeah.

Like, it's kind of surprising when you go back and look at his numbers, whether you're talking about the base numbers or the advanced numbers, and they all look very impressive. And I couldn't justify ranking them lower than 25th, but I'm not that excited about him. And it wasn't just a pure first half, second half thing. I mean, he did, second half, he did have ERA half a run higher than the first half. But it was kind of all over the place all season long,

and that goes for strikeouts, that goes for how deep he was pitching into games. It was very inconsistent from start to start, which made him frustrating. which probably is why he felt worse. It felt like he was worse than he actually was. But in the end, it was a breakout season. And if you draft him as your number three, you're doing pretty good. Number 16 was Lance Lynn,

a 2.69 ERA 107 whip, 176 strikeouts over 157. And that's it. That's 157 in his pitch. His hard contact suppression was the best of his career. He also had the highest strain rate of his career. so he's very good, but I think he's probably more of like, again,

a low to mid three ERA, turns 35 next year in May. He's fine. Lance Lynn is fine. Well, I have him 16th, so he's higher than some of the guys we've been talking about,

um, you know, 269 ERA. The biggest thing for him is like, we, we, we had been thinking of him as this huge workload guy, seven innings,

eight innings sometimes, right? he believed he led the majors in in the short in 2020 season. Yeah, with 84, it was surprising, especially down the stretch, how often he went less than six innings.

They really, Tony Larissa really, really went easy on him. There's nothing even just the second half of the season. I mean, four of his six starts in May were just five innings, Lance Lynn. So, like,

they gave him an extension during the season and given his history, I think, okay, probably they're going to get back to working him like we're used to seeing Lance Lynn work. But if they don't, he's going to be disappointing as a top 20 pitcher, I would say. Number 17 was your boy. Actually, I don't know if he's your boy, but he helped your team win a World Series. So I'll say yeah. Max Freed, 304, ERA, 109, WIP, 158 strikeouts over 165 and two-thirds.

Annings pitched. Not going to give you a ton of strike. He's just below a strikeout per inning, but he posted his career best control this year. He always gets a ton of ground balls. He's another one where like, he's kind of Jose Barrios-ish, where, you know, he's probably going to be a mid-3 ZRA, really good SP3. I don't know that he has much upside higher than that. Yeah, I like him more than Burrios.

I think the, I think we have good reason to believe his ERA potential is better. 225 and his 11 starts in 2020, and we thought, ah, there's no way Max Freight could do that again. Well, if you remove the three starts in April when he was dealing with a shoulder issue, really ugly start to the season for him, his final 25 starts, Max Reed had a 244 ERA,

and, you know, all those ground balls, and they help with run prevention. I am a little disappointed in the direction his strikeouts have gone the past couple years, but in terms of him being an effective fantasy option, And he's still really effective. So, you know, the breakdown on whether or not he's my boy, I would say going into that 2020 season, he very much was going into last year.

I was a little worried about him. Now I feel comfortable drafting Freed is my number two in fantasy. Number three would be a dream come true. Nice. All right. Well, where are you at on Frankie Montas, 3.37 ERA, 1.18 whip, 207 strikeouts over 187 and he's pitched, and he gave up eight earned runs to the Texas Rangers on

June 21st, and I wouldn't be surprised if many people dropped him after that start. His final 17 starts. 2.24 ERA 104 whip, 15.2% swinging strike rate, and it was all about the splitter, Scott. Like, the splitter was on, Frankie Gontas was on.

Yeah, and, you know, the splitter was the key to his 2019 breakout, and we kind of wondered what had happened to it in 2020. He had an awful season, and he really embraced the splitter even more in 2021. Basically, the point he took off that you mentioned and put up those elite numbers, he was like his splitter was his most used pitch.

He was just, he was just, you know, spamming that pitch on everybody and was amazing. So, you know, it's funny, you compared freed to Barrios. I have freed one spot ahead of Barrios. You compared Frid to Montas. I got Montas one spot ahead of Freed. So Montas 20, 321, Burrios 22. All right.

Well, where are you at on Sandy Alcantara? He finished as the 19th starting pitcher this past year, 3190. R.A. 107 whip, 201 strikeouts over 205 and two-thirds. Ennings pitch. He was one of those four with 200-plus innings pitch. And we mentioned this multiple times throughout the course of the season. He had two starts where he allowed 18 earned runs. One of those was in Coors Field.

if you take those two away, he had a 3.01 ERA in his other I was probably like 30 or 31 starts. So I like Sandy Alconcer quite a bit, Scott. Yeah, and he had a change too to his arsenal

really featured the change up more prominently and his swing and miss improved his swings and misses a great deal. He was actually I would say elite in the swinging strike category

better than even his strikeout rate would suggest. And that was especially true over his final 10 starts. He had a swinging strike rate of about 16% to go along with the 221 ERA. And this is a guy who,

let me count about, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7 starts of 8 innings or more. I mean, that's as, his, Sandy Alcantara works as much as anybody. So I actually have him 11th. Ooh.

which is putting a lot of, which is maybe too optimistic because of the team he plays for as good as he was this year, Alcantara went, Alcantara went only 9 and 15 because the Marlins were that bad. Oh my God, they're so bad.

But, yeah. So I hope he gets traded, which I've seen his name floated out there. But even if he doesn't, like I just think, especially with what he showed over the final two months, like I think he's on the verge

of being an ace, if not already an ace. I do want to mention something for Frankie Montas backing up just a little. Okay. Because I only talked about the positive things. The reason I ranked Montas as low as 20th, despite him taking off over those final 17 starts, is because, and you mentioned it with Gosman,

the splitter, because his success relies so much on that pitch. And I just wonder, given the huge swings we've seen from him from 2019 to 2021, if he loses and regains the feel for that pitch off and on. And if it's a situation where it's better to look at Montas's full season 2021 statistics for assessing him. Last one we'll talk about here number 20 was Lucas Gialito, 3.53 ERA 1.10 whip, 201 strikeouts over 178 and 2 thirds. endings pitched. Still had a great swinging strike grade this year.

15%, just over 15%. But he's another one where if you had him on your team, it kind of felt like he was worse than he is. But the final line actually looks pretty good, Scott. Well, yeah, yes. I mean, certainly in terms of how good of a batmissor he is, I think what's happened with Lucas Gialito is we keep expecting him to take another step forward

and he keeps not taking another step forward. So basically three years in a row now, his ZRA has been between 340 and 355. So I think at this point we can safely pencil him in for a mid-3 ZRA, which is kind of high for where he's normally drafted. Plus, he's never had a 180 inning season. He's been very close both in 2021 and 2019, but hasn't quite gotten the workload that you expect for a pitcher

drafted as high as he is. So I'm not going to draft him that high again. and maybe nobody else will either but I have Lucas Gialito 12th for next year so actually behind Sandy Alcantara just ahead of Kevin Gossman Yeah I don't know that I would want Lucas Gialito as my SP1

But I guess if you double tap the position In like rounds three and four If you wind up with like Gialito Charlie Morton As your one two punches it's not It's not so bad but Yeah I'm kind of looking at this now I kind of don't know if I want Charlie Morton as low as 15th. I kind of want him more than Lucas

Gioledo. I'm thinking I can move him ahead of Aaron Nola, Kevin Gossman, and Gioledo out in 12th behind Sandy Alcantara. Aaron Nola, we didn't even talk about him yet. Yeah. Going to be very interested to hear Nick Pollack's thoughts on him because I think he's going to be pretty polarizing.

But yeah, I can see that. I guess he getting Morton up there to you know, like 12 or 13. I think that's fair. Yeah, we got a lot of pitchers to talk about. There's so many, but honestly, we can just do the next five podcasts on pitchers if we wanted to. One that we didn't talk about

that I will be pretty excited to mention next podcast. Dylan Seas finished top 10 in both K-minus walk rate and swinging strike rate this season. He was sixth on qualified starting pitchers and swinging strike rate. Pretty, pretty excited about Dylan Seas.

But I'm going to leave you with that. A nice little cliffhanger. For Scott, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball. Today will be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye.