Fantasy Baseball Today - 2022 Roto Mock Draft Review! Plus Hall of Fame Thoughts (1/26 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Link to mock draft results- https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/2022-fantasy-baseball-mock-draft-latest-12-team-rotisserie-look-has-fernando-tatis-back-at-the-top/ Apologies but we have to talk about Barry Bonds not getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame (1:00)! ... Let's start with Chris' takeaways from his first mock draft (11:30). ... What is Scott' Roto strategy this upcoming season (14:11)? ... Let's take a closer look at Chris' team where he drafted just one starting pitcher in the first six rounds (17:15). ... How did Scott's team turn out as he targeted power early on (26:51)? ... Let's dive into the first round (41:28). ... Seven starting pitchers went in round two (44:45). ... Francisco Lindor went in round three (48:11)!? ... Is it too early to take a closer in round four (52:10)? ... Cody Bellinger got pulled all the way into the fifth round (54:34). ... Same thing happened with Christian Yelich in round six (1:00:05). ... Email us at [e-mail]. '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. Sanofiis is magnificent. Got a fantasy question. Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. With fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Hey there. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, January 26th. And welcome to our first mock draft review of 2022. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White, and Chris Towers. And you know what really grinds my gears? Cody Bellinger moving up draft boards. That's what grinds my gears.

But also, Barry Bonds, I'll make it to the Hall of Fame. What's up, Scott? Do you care about this as much as I do? Enough to put on a Barry Bonds jersey while you're podcasting. Well, I can't specifically say I care about it enough to do that because I'm not wearing a Giants jersey. True. But no, I care a lot.

Yeah. The Hall of Fame voting and some of the ridiculous standards surrounding it is something that raises my blood pressure every year. Maybe a little more than it should. But it's obviously stupid that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, won't be, aren't in the Hall of Fame. I mean, they could still get elected by what used to be called the Veterans Committee and nobody remembers what it's called now. but that's what it used to be called but the thing is like if it's if it was the old crusty types the old crusty purist types

keeping them out in the media voting then you would think the same would happen with the veterans committee so I'm not expecting to see them in anytime soon and that's obviously stupid because they are the best hitter and pitcher respectively of their generation

I mean among the best all time forget their generation Like, we all know they're Hall of Famers. Like, I don't understand this. You're wanting to be punitive with your voting. And so you're just going to like pretend it didn't happen. You're just going to sweep their career under the rug and you're going to expect nobody to notice this or to care. Like, it's just, it feels dishonest to me.

Chris, you know what I think is the most annoying part? When I see people post their ballots and it's all like these old-timer baseball guys on Twitter, they post ballots. they pose ballots with nobody. So it's just like, what's the point? Why do you even have a vote? Are you really telling me that anybody on the ballot is not worthy of making the Hall of Fame? I mean, there's players that are on the ballot

that were not tied to PED allegations or anything like that. What's the point? Why do you have a vote? So one thing I will say is there was the one ballot in particular drew a lot of controversy. It was Dan O'Shaughnessy or Shonnessy,

I don't know if, you know. And he only voted for Jeff Kent. And what I will say is that is more intellectually defensible than the seemingly dozens of people who voted for David Ortiz and not Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Like, I can at least understand saying, you know what? Anybody who's got a credible link to performance enhancing drugs, I'm just not going to vote for them. I don't agree. I think it's stupid. But fair.

That is a logically consistent position. but all these people who voted for David Ortiz, who was a very good player who I don't think you can tell the story of baseball in the time he played without him. So that is a very good definition. Who is a bigger star in his generation? Derek Jeter,

maybe Alex Rodriguez, but that's about it. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, and so I'm fine with him. Like, him getting in is not the problem. The problem is him getting in and not Gary Sheffield, who has very comparable numbers, has a maybe not quite as good argument for like the soft intangible stuff.

But like I and I, you know, Scott, maybe you agree as well. I don't know. But I certainly don't think you can tell the story of Major League Baseball in the 90s without talking about Gary Sheffield. Like he's there with Vladimir Guerrero in the like, you had to be there to see him. Like he is one of the defining players of that generation in my eyes. And maybe that's me being a Marlins fan

and him being on my favorite team when I was eight years old. But when I think of like the best hitters of that era, one Gary Sheffield statistically is right there. Yeah. I mean, he's one of the only players. Raw statistical comparison. Okay.

But it's obviously not. Right, right. Right, right. But like, right, right. But like Sheffield has a, a non-statistical case as well in my eyes. Like, just he was so,

like that fearsome thing. The thing that got Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame. He was the most feared hitter. Like Gary Sheffield was like... I mean, other than Barry Baum. He was terrified. I mean, terrified.

The batting stands alone. The batting stands alone to get him in. Or like Vladimir Guerrero having to wait a year to get in, but David Ortiz gets in. Like, that kind of stuff just like, why is David Ortiz the guy we're making this exception for? And I get it. Well, I mean, you agree at David.

He had 14... Yes, he had 14 really great World Series games. He barely made it in. It was the difference of like six percentage points between him and Vladimir Guerrero on the first ballot. And I think like first ballot versus second ballot is a stupid distinction anyway. Like nobody knows beyond the year it happens. The thing that the thing that grinds my gears about it is like we do hold the first ballot thing to a higher standard. And we hold the unanimous thing to a higher standard.

and so like mariano Rivera of all people being the only unanimous vote getter or treating Derek Jeter not getting a single vote as like a crime against baseball ultimately that's just a footnote though you know sure

but it's a footnote that I care about Scott I said it grinds my gears I didn't say it grinds the nation's gears but yeah it's like the Bonds and Clemens one is especially stupid because we know they were Hall of Famers without steroids.

We have very good evidence that Barry Bond started using steroids after the 1998 season. If you cut his career out there, he is a top 12 hitter of all time probably. You're talking about the only player with 400 home runs and 400 stolen bases. Career 400 OBP.

Like, three-time MVP should have been four Terry Pendleton winning an MVP over him is one of the worst MVP awards the last 30 years. It's like, Bonds is so like I Sosa I get it we don't know what what his career looks like without steroids I get that I get not being going in on him but you could I don't know I don't want to I don't want to cast this version on David Ortiz it's his big day but what we know for sure is Barry Bonds and

Roger Clemens were both the best in the world at what they did before they ever started taking Stairies. Barry Bonds was the best player of the 90s before he took steroids. It wasn't, it's not Ken Griffey Jr. It wasn't close. Like, Barry Bonds was by far the best player of his error before he started taking steroids. Yeah. And I take it further, if you don't mind me, going out on this LEM, because you're making, okay, before we believe they use steroids, they're a Hall of Famers. You know, a lot of people are making this distinction between Barry Bonds and Ruff. and like Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez, who's maybe a step back from the others, but still, you know, an obvious Hall of Famer just if you look at what he did on the field. Yeah.

Because Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez played once penalties were in place for this and they both were busted and they both served lengthy suspensions. But why are you punishing them again? Like it's almost to me like, okay, it's MLB's responsibility. they punish them, getting busted, cost them seasons. Shouldn't that put less of the onus on you to punish them as well? I don't think the writer should be punishing any of them, but doesn't... Alex Rodriguez lost a full season of his career. That was the punishment.

Right, exactly. Like he might have been the all-time home run leader if he doesn't lose a full season in the middle of his career. So that was already the punishment. By not voting for them, you're saying, well, that puner. punishment wasn't good enough. I'm going to apply my own. And that's just like a power trip sort of thing. Yeah. I just, I hate the moralizing. It's just like, I don't know. And that's ultimately what it's about, Scott. It is a power trip kind of thing where, you know, the writers feel like they have the power to make this decision. Ultimately, they do. But yeah, it's like, look, we all know that these guys

should be Hall of Famers anyway. The biggest thing, Chris, that I agree with that you said, was how can we have David Ortiz be a first ballot Hall of Famer and then have these guys 10th time on the ballot and not making it in general, right? Like, there was even a link of David Ortiz to PEDs. Now, I guess

maybe we'll never know for sure, but the fact that he was, that doesn't cast any doubt in anybody's mind at all. Like, what? Like, there is as much concrete or firm evidence that he took steroids as Samisos. Because the only evidence we have is that they were both on a leak

Mitchell report document for the 2003 drug test, which has been acknowledged that there were false positives, has been acknowledged that it was supposed to be anonymous and those names were never supposed to come out. That's the evidence that we have for both of them. And so it's like Sammy Sosa gets punished more for, I don't know, like cheating better. The thing is, I mean, Sammy Sosa was arguably the biggest star of his era too. Yeah. Other than maybe Derek Jeter, who He's the only player with multiple 60 home run seasons. He has four of them. Yeah.

Like that's... I mean, a lot of what people have said about this too is that Ortiz was really nice to the media. And obviously, that plays a factor in it. Okay, the guy has a nice smile. Like, really, that's what we're basing this on? Like, it's just, it's completely ridiculous. We've got to move on because we've already spent like 10 minutes talking about this. But I think it was right to get it out of the way here.

And just give our thoughts on it because everybody knows that it's completely ridiculous anyway. let everyone in the Hall of Fame, I say. They're all Hall of Famers in my book. Have you seen Chris Towers play softball? If you want to put them in. Jerome Walton. If you want to put Alfredo Emaziga in the Hall of Fame, I say go do it.

Yeah, that guy. All right, let's get to the Roto mock draft. Our first mock draft of 2022, and these guys did it without me. They knew I wasn't going to be here. They knew I would dominate them in the draft, so that's why they excluded me from this one. Anyway, 12 teams, classic 5 by 5,

Roto Categories. The link to the draft will be in the podcast and the YouTube description if you'd like to follow along. And it's a standard Roto lineup, two catchers, corner infielder, middle infielder, five outfielders, nine pitcher spots. Chris was picking in the 11 spot. Scott was picking in the 12 spot. And Chris, I believe this was your first mock draft of the off season. Is that correct? I would say one and a half mock draft because I did a best ball. co-manager draft like a week ago. But yes. First one, first full draft, yes. All right.

Well, what were your initial takeaways here? I mean, if you have anything that comes to mind right off the top, maybe the way that the player pool has shaped out differently in this first draft compared to what we were doing last year or just maybe just a general strategy that you had coming in or leaving the draft with that maybe you didn't expect. Yeah, I mean, I think part of it is that, you know, there is that big middle class of pitchers that you feel pretty good about. And so, you know, I went pretty hitter heavy early on. And I grabbed a lot of my guys. But yeah, I think there is enough starting pitching in the middle

rounds that, you know, you can at least feel decent about waiting, especially if you can grab some higher upside guys late. And then there are Justin Turner fell to 230th in this draft. I don't know if that's just people forgot about him. I think, Scott, you might have said in the chat that you forgot about him. Yeah, well, you know what happened is I had my printed tears here and I was crossing off names as they were selected. And you crossed them off. At some point halfway through the draft, I saw Justin Turner wasn't crossed out.

And I just naturally assumed because much lower in third basement had gone off the board by that point. Oh, I must have overlooked him. And so I crossed him off because, you know, that happens. I miss a name here or there. Yeah, it does seem There were some really good values in this draft I thought that I grabbed and I'm not

I don't think I had a perfect draft. My starting pitcher, I know we're going to beat up on my starting pitching. That's what we always do when we review mock drafts. But, you know, one thing that this draft did make me think is you can get some really, really good hitters late. I mean, my last two hitters were Justin Turner and Eduardo Escobar.

that's two starting caliber players at that point in the draft. So, you know, maybe I do need to be just a teeny tiny bit more aggressive at starting pitcher. Yeah, I mean, those players are not overly exciting, but it seems like every year we have those veteran types who are getting downgraded, a la Joe Evato from last year. And we'll get into more of the values later on, Chris. But I thought getting your starting catchers in Mitch Garver and Joey Barton rounds 18 and 19, thought that was great value as well.

We'll get into it. Scott, what was your opponent? entering this draft. I know that you've been a proponent so far this offseason of not going out of your way to target steals. Yep. I'm calling it the zero SB strategy. And that doesn't that's not the same as punting. I mean, punting, which ironically, you know, you think zero SB are playing off the zero RB thing with football. And then you have another football analogy with punting, right? But no, it's not the same as punting because I am not, I am not trying to lose steals. I'm not trying to finish last in steals.

I'm just saying it doesn't take much. They're so scarce that you can tend to over-emphasize them and get more than you need at the expense of other categories. I believe that happened to me in a few Roto League's last year. But you really don't need that many to finish in the middle of the pack. And because there's no correlation really between stolen bases and any of the other four-hitting stats, It's just kind of its own separate thing, the way saves are among the pitching stats. That's what I think with really that's all you should be aiming for is just by virtue of drafting players who contribute a handful of steals, finishing in the middle of the pack as opposed to selling out for steel.

So I mean, you see that at the round one two turn here. I went with Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman, even though Kyle Tucker was still on. the board and I did that kind of to test it out you know Kyle Tucker I'm not sure he's even a 20 steel guy he wasn't last year and I think if I think if you're only looking at 10 to 15 steals you know that's a very slippery slope down to zero so I kind of think it's silly to inflate Kyle Tucker's value because of the steals to begin with but you know I expect them to have more than Trout and Freeman nonetheless Still, having done that, and I mean, I don't know that we're going to go through all the players, all the, all the stolen base sources I drafted here, but the bottom line is that if you just rank all the teams by the number of stolen bases every player had, you use 2021 stats, rank all the teams, my team would have finished fifth and stolen bases last year without,

you know, I think I drafted two guys who were 20 steel guys last year, you know, and otherwise I didn't put much emphasis on it all. So that's what I'm looking to do. I like the way it played out in this draft. Yeah, so I actually went out of my way to calculate your guys' steals based on steamer projections on fan graphs. And you guys both wound up with, based on my calculations,

right around 80 each. So I don't know if it was also less of an emphasis for you, Chris. But what we're going to do here is, We'll analyze Chris's team and then we'll analyze Scott's team a little bit more. And then later on, we'll go round by round and see how deep we can get into the draft. But Chris, you started hitter-hitter as well. Mentioned you had the 11th pick. So you take Bryce Harper at 11 and then you take Kyle Tucker at 14.

And you took five hitters with your first six picks, Harper, Tucker, Matt Olson, and then two picks for the hashtag brand, Byron Buckston and Catele-Martee. You get a decent amount of steals with all of those players outside of Matt Olson. but did you have a specific strategy when targeting these hitters early? Very good hitters who hopefully won't kill me in batting average was mostly the approach there. I think all five of those,

well, not Matt Olson, but four of the five could get you double-digit steals. And so when I'm looking at, you know, the four categories besides stolen bases, I think I'm in pretty good shape between Bryce Harper, Kyle Tucker, Matt Olson, Byron Bucks, and a Ketalmarte. you know, whatever I might be sacrificing and batting average with Buxton and potentially

Olson, although not based on what we saw last season. You know, I should be able to make up for that with Cattel Marte. And, you know, Tucker looks like a potential batting average. I mean, he hit $2.95 last season. It looks like he could be a real batting average contributor now. So hitters early, solid all-around hitters especially was the strategy. Yeah, I think for Kyle Tucker, Scott, I know you were just talking about him. Even if the steals come back to the little bit, say he only gives you 10, he hit over 300 from May 1st on. So if he's a contributor in batting average, I think the home runs are going to be pretty good. He moves up the lineup.

90 strikeouts in 567 play appearances. I'm not saying Kyle Tucker is a bad first round pick. I think he belongs right at the round one to turn there, but mostly because of his hitting. I think I think the stolen bases, you know, I would give him. I would call him maybe a C grade base stealer. But my point with the stola basis for him is that, you know, particularly when you're talking about a middle of the order bat like that, that's not something you could bank on him sustaining from year to year.

And I think when you're only talking about how many steals do you have last year? 14. 14 out of 16. So he didn't really run that much either. Right. And I think that can very abruptly become zero. So I'm just saying Steel should not be the reason you're elevating him

against other hitters that you may trust or like more. I think in the first round really, I think the only ones you do that with are maybe Trey Turner and Jose Ramirez, but they're also like they also rank up there with the best hitters in baseball in terms of their other four categories. So it's not like you're sacrificing something

to get Jose Ramirez. I mean, batting average, I guess, and Trey Turner are a little bit of run production. but their overall hitting production is going to be elite as well as their stolen bases. So, you know, with Tucker and Harper, I think you would set the over under at 12.5. And I'm not sure if I would take the over on either or both. But you should get something, which is a nice bonus. But that's not the reason I targeted them.

Yeah, I would say 20 plus between the two. Wouldn't surprise me if you get somewhere around 25, you know, 12, 13 from each. I think that is a fair projection. Let's say look at the pitchers. the pitchers you mentioned, Chris. And you only took one starting pitcher with your first six picks, and that wound up being Robbie Ray. Your top three

pitchers, Ray, Joe Musgrove, and Clayton Kirshaw. The entire staff wound up being Ray Musgrove, Kirshaw, Tyler Malley, Sean Mania, Anthony Descalfani, Noah Cindergarde, Alex Cobb, and Aaron Savale. I actually don't hate it, Chris, but do you realize that saves

our category? Yeah. But I also realize it's January and we can confidently say maybe 12 closers right now. And so if I'm drafting right now, and I know Scott will probably say he was drafting as if it was March, but I'm not down with this whole let's push closers up the draft boards thing because there is so much volatility there and we're so bad at predicting who's going. It's sort of like running back in a lot of ways where if you actually look at the handcuffs who get drafted in fantasy football, we're almost never right about who the ones who end up being league winners.

And I feel like that's very true of closer as well. There's a handful of guys who we know will be the closer. There's a bunch of guys who we know have very little job security. I think you can actually punt saves and still compete in the category. You can. I mean, we've talked about it before where you can come in last place in a category and you could still win your league. I mean, it's obviously going to be a lot harder.

And I wouldn't recommend doing it, but it is possible to do. Well, were you saying punting it like just not having any saves all year? Or you mean finding saves during? Yeah, finding drafts as they come. Which finding saves as they come. Which was something I did in a number of high profile rhodo leagues last year after, you know, kind of accidentally finding myself in that situation in previous years. It didn't, it didn't work out great in the 15 teamers.

there's just so much competition for saves whenever they emerge. But in anything shallower, it's probably the way to go. Scott, how would you grade Chris's pitching staff here that we just mentioned. Robbie Ray Musgrove,

Clayton Kirchow is the top three. Well, if Clayton Kirschall ends up being a non-factor in 2022, it's a problem. I don't know. I mean, what does the rest of it look like? I don't know that you,

you can fairly judge it on the top three, given the way the position breaks down this year. I think you really need to look at one through seven. Yeah, so I guess the one through seven would be Mali, Mania, Cindergarde, and Desclyphani, probably. Maybe Cobb or Disclophani. It's not great. No. I think strikeouts are going to be the biggest concern. Yeah.

And wins could be a concern. well, maybe not. I don't know. I mean, I think it's workable. I think there are, I think you can be a lot more adaptable, a lot more flexible with your pitching going into this season than I would have said you could going into the previous two. Obviously, what makes it look a lot better is, you know, I really don't think there's like a true obvious weak spot for at my hit response. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about those hitters. Chris, you wind up with Mitch Garver and Joe.

Bart as I mentioned as their two catchers you got Matt Olson Catelle Marte Anthony Rendon Willie Adomas in your infield you have Eduardo Escobar at your middle infield spot Justin Turner at corner infield than Bryce Harper Kyle Tucker Byron Buxton Trent Grisham Lordes Gueriel and Joe Adele at your utility spot I think it's I think it's pretty good yeah I mean I think there's it's a solid balanced lineup I'm gonna get steals from a lot of different sources I'm not gonna get a of seals from any one guy, but, you know, there should be four or five double-digit steals guys there. And there could be another, you know, handful of guys who are going to steal eight bases.

So I think in that regard, I was able to do that without sacrificing too much. I've got some really good batting average sources to help, you know, make up for where I might be lacking. And then bounceback candidate and Anthony Rendon, I think he's going to be a good value. I ended up getting him at 107th overall. And Joe Adele is going to be on as many rosters as I can get. Everything that we've, like, the production hasn't been good. But in the two stints and the majors that we've seen from him, he's shown just out of this word tools.

You know, he's 98th percentile or something in sprint speed. He's like 90th percentile in max exit velo. And he was really turning it on towards the end of last season. I think it's his last like 7th. 17 games, he was really hitting well and got the strikeouts under control. Obviously, 17 games is a very small sample size. But the thing with Joe Adele, he has played like 360 games as a professional at every level. And he's been a pro for five years. Partially, that's because he's had trouble staying healthy. Partially, you know, he didn't play in 20, he only played 40 games in 2020. That happened to everybody. But he's still very young. I think he's still 22 and very, very raw in terms of his. is playing time. So the fact that he's shown, he's flashed those elite skills already, I'm going to pound the table for Joe Adele. I'm with you. I wrote him up in breakouts 1.0 for me. And he only played 35 games last year. The strikeout rate was 23%. I mean, that's just above

league average. That's definitely workable for Joe Adele. If he puts the ball and play that much, I think good things eventually are going to happen for him. 89th percentile in max exit velocity 98th percentile and sprint speed you brought those up as well so he's got the tools everything is there and he crushed it in triple a last season yeah i mean the strikeouts were a problem but did you have a thousand ops in in triple a last season oh i have let's i don't have the opses written down but he hit 289 high high 900s at least 289 with 23 home runs 29 percent strikeout rate so yeah but yeah he was really good scott let's take a closer look at your team and mentioned you do not over-emphasize Steelers, at least with your first seven picks. And overall, I mean,

you wound up with a ton of power here early on. Trout, Freddie Freeman, Austin Riley, and Pete Alonzo with four of your first five picks. Yep. Give me all the power. I do not want to, I do not want to sell the power short, because with home runs, of course, comes RBI. Usually comes runs, too. And with the early rounders, like the Freeman and the Trout, you know you're going to give your a nice foundation for batting average so you're not going to have to worry so much about balancing that with your later picks. So, you know, that's not to say I would have passed up Jose Ramirez or, I don't know, Trey Turner if I was picking the appropriate spot in the middle of round one as opposed to

at the end of round one, obviously take that big helping of steals along with everything else they give you. But I don't feel like that's sacrificing in the, other categories. I mean, yeah, Trey Turner might not give you as many home runs as the other first rounders,

but he's going to be elite and batting average. And he's going to give you a significant number of home runs still. So I don't really see that as sacrificing for Steele so much using your first round pick on him. But I think maybe the clearest example

of where I was just like, give me the power, as opposed to let me stretch my, let me stretch my interest in this player in the hopes of securing a few more steals was with that Pete Alonzo pick and what round was it? That was at the 5-6th turn,

so pick 60 overall. So the steals play there would have been Randy a Rosarena, who, you know, maybe he goes 20-20 again. Maybe not. His expected stats on stat cast, the discrepancy between his actual numbers and his expected numbers

is about as big as for any hitter in the negative direction. So I actually have him as a bust candidate But even if I didn't, even if I could pencil him in for 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases, I'm just not sure that's worth the potential 40 home run outcome You're getting from Pete Alonzo Understanding that home runs are easier to find than stolen bases,

but the point being a misstep in the home run category can hurt you a lot more in stolen bases because they're just being produced in such high quantities, you know? Well, and if you miss out on the home runs or, you know, one of your cheap home run sources doesn't hit for you, you're also losing out on runs in RBI. That's, I think, the biggest thing. Like you said earlier, stolen bases kind of exist on their own.

You might score a few extra runs, but probably not because you're getting thrown out on the bases as well. And it's not, it's just not tied to OBP at all. Yeah, and so it's a product of getting on base as are runs, but it doesn't necessarily increase your chance of scoring runs all that often. And so stolen bases and saves are the two stats in five by five that really, you know, they don't directly help you in anything else. You know, there are kind of, I can't think of the word.

They're independent of anything else. Yeah, hitting on any of the other stats. The other stats are all interdependent. Right, yeah. So hitting a home run, you are actually helping all four other categories. So a hit with batting average, and then you're getting a home run to run and RBI. So it makes a ton of sense. And especially in standalone leagues, right?

Like most leagues that we play in, redraft leagues, home leagues where it's just that league. Again, you don't need to finish first in seals necessarily. You can finish the middle of the pack and still be really good in those other four categories. and obviously that'll work out quite well for you. Let's take a look at these pitchers. You wound up with Scotty and Sandy Alcantir around three. My man, you know I like it, Scottie. Charlie Morton and Frankie Montas at the 6-7.

That would have make sense. 6-7 turn wouldn't make sense. I guess that would have been one at the 5-6. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, what a rookie mistake, Frank. That just actually annoyed me that I wrote that. So anyway, you took Morton at the first pick of the round six

and then you took Montas with the last pick of round seven. You got Framber Valdez, round 14, Adam Wainwright, round 15, Zach Rankie, round 22. Scott, did you wind up with enough of your top 55 starting pitchers, which is what you're going for this season? I wound up with six of them because you could only draft nine pitchers and I ended up drafting three guys for saves. Okay. So, you know, that's kind of a byproduct of not having a bench. And obviously most real drafts, I'll have a bench.

But for this mock, no, I ended up only with with only six of the top 55. All right. Chris, what do you think about this pitching staff? Sandy, Charlie Morton, Frankie Montas, Framber Valdez, Wainwright, and Zach Rankie. Again, this was, you know, more than in years past, living in that mid-tier. Yeah, Scott's taking after me a little bit with this approach. The only thing for me is just, I think this sort of highlights why. especially if you're drafting with no bench,

that I would rather just go all starting pitchers and just get more bites at that apple. Because Deval and Scott Barlow could be good. It's also entirely possible we get to April 15th and neither of them is giving you saves. So that's where I would rather take the upside shots on starters in the later rounds than that. But otherwise, you know, I think it's a good staff.

It's got a handful of question marks, but which pitching staff doesn't, I think. The only place I think you might actually fall short a little bit might be strikeouts. If, you know, Charlie Morton doesn't give you big innings. If Granky doesn't bounce back, if Wainwright falters, you know, I think. Yeah, I mean, you've got a couple of bulk guys. Which, you know, Adam Wainwright, he wasn't a good K-per-9 pitcher last year. He hasn't been in several years.

but he got 174 strikeouts last year just because he gives you so much volume so you know personally I'm not worried about strikeouts I mean Morton health provided of course Alcantra Morton and Montas could all give me 200

and Wayne Wright 170-ish Valdez you know he's a big inning Zeter too with it was good for a K-per so obviously there's a scenario where it doesn't work out

because that's pitching but I'm really happy with it and to address the closer point I didn't go into this expecting to draft three potential safe sources because the way closers with so few of them being obvious right now are being

tend to be being pushed up that didn't really happen with the guys I drafted Camilla Deval I got in round 16 Scott Barlow I got in round 21 So I just thought the value was good for them. And that's why I ended up with three. Even Craig, where did I draft, draft Kimbril?

Round 13. 13. Yeah, last pick around 13. So I don't feel like I reached for any of them. No, there's a chance, obviously. Kimbril doesn't get traded and he's not a closer going into it. But the assumption is he will be moved to somewhere. Yeah.

Intends to use him as a closer. All right. So let me just read off your overall team here, Scottie. And then we'll just get your last overall thoughts on the team. The catchers, Mike Zanino and Eric Haas. Then you have Freddie Freeman, Jonathan, India, Austin Riley, Javier Baez as your infield. You have Brendan Rogers at middle. You have Pete Alonzo at the corner.

Then you have Trout, Schwaber, Chris Taylor, Robbie Grossman, Marcel Ozuna, and Nicky Lopez. As your offense, I read off your starting pitchers. And then, of course, you wound up with Kimbril, Doval, and Scott Barlow. What do you think overall with the team? I'm happy with it I don't think there's much I would have done differently

the Chris Taylor pick I'm trying to remember who I was debating between it's not interesting when I don't remember it may have been like Chris Taylor versus Fram Mil Reyes and do I want to even go heavier after the power

or take a potential 25-15 outcome more realistically probably 2010. And I think I wasn't sure exactly how my middle infield was going to,

middle infield spot was going to shape up. So I wanted that versatility of, okay, I could either have him as my outfielder or have them as my middle infielder. And I can hopefully get a little bit of steals there. So it was a semi-intentional steals pick, but not in a way that I feel like cost me assured production.

in other areas. I don't know. That's the pick that I might have done differently if I go back and review this draft knowing how my later picks went. The most intentional stolen base pick I made was that Nikki Lopez pick in round 20, the first pick of round 20,

where obviously not going to get any power from him. He was, this is a fun stat I found the other day. Nicky Lopez was one of only three players last year to hit 300 with 20 plus steals, the other two being Trey Turner and Starling Marte. So that's just kind of a fun thing that makes himself more valuable than he is. But he's kind of who we hope Nick Madrigal would be, right?

The high batting average B rate base dealer. And if he can do that again, which I think he can looking at his minor league track record, his strikeout rate, then I think it's going to be a worthwhile pick here. And I feel like I had built up so much so much of an advantage in the home run category that you know for a cost of a late round pick

understanding I might swap them out in week three anyway I think it was worth going with the steals play at that point but otherwise otherwise my steals just came to me you know by virtue of the right guy to take in that moment happened to have happened to be

you know 15 to 20 steals guy yeah I mean you wound up with a good amount of those kind even just 10 to 15 steal guys, India, Javier Baez, Chris Taylor could give you 10, Robbie Grossman could give you 15 plus. Nikki Lopez should come close to 20 as well. And I didn't realize, but Nikki Lopez is a really,

really good defender. So if you're worried about playing time for him with Bobby Witt coming up, they still have Mondessee. They've got some pieces to figure out on that team. Nikki Lopez is going to play. I think that they really value his defense. So as a result of that,

he's going to be out there. The concern would be that he goes the way. of Luis Arias, like that type of hitting profile, it seems safe because it's so contact-oriented. And it's like, well, he's going to hit for average anyway, but it's like sometimes those guys can just get swallowed up. Like pitchers start challenging them, and they just have no, you know, nothing to fall back on.

And so that's the concern there, but it's your 20th pick. To Frank's point, though, Louis Arise is a terrible defender. Yeah. Which hasn't helped his playing time situation. You know, he hit 294 last year. So I want to say a rise has gotten swallowed up. He's been a reliable first-shadding average. But yeah, I mean, it's certainly possible that Nikki Lopez was just a flash in the pan

and that zero power, you know, he'll fade quickly. But I think he's a pretty handy player, latent rotisserie leagues, and doesn't seem to be getting much credit. Nick Madrigal actually went ahead of him in this dream. which seems silly to me. He's not getting pushed up the way Miles Straw is. Miles Straw was a 10th round pick. And I would definitely count on a better batting average from Lopez than Straw.

Yeah, Miles Straw's ADP right now is 138. Nikki Lopez is 230. So that is a pretty massive difference. Almost a 100 spot difference in ADP right now between Miles Straw and Nikki Lopez. Are they really that dissimilar? I do think that Straw is going to. lead off. He's got a pretty good eye at the plate, so he should score some runs, and obviously he's going to run quite a bit as well. We're going to hit a break, but before we do that, I want to remind

everyone, we have a live, live mock draft, YouTube exclusive this Thursday night at 9.30 p.m. Eastern time. This is the first one, and it's a head-to-head point startup dynasty mock. That is a mouthful. Head-to-head point startup dynasty mock, and we plan to do at least one of these live streams moving forward. It's always going to be a different format, so whatever format you play and Hopefully we will cover that. But yeah, we're going to be doing a ton of drafts from now, basically leading up to the start of the season. And we're going to do those live on YouTube as exclusive streams there.

So make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. Tap that notification bell so you get notified every time we go live or we drop a new video. We're going to take a quick break. And when we return, we will try to get to as many rounds as we possibly again here on fantasy baseball today. All right. So let's go round by round. this, we've already talked about quite a few picks that have happened, but let's jump right in. Round one, Fernando, Tatis, Juan Soto, Vlad Guerrero, Trey Turner, Jose Ramirez.

And it kind of seems to me like this is shaping up as the consensus top five. We, all three of us in our Roto rankings, have each of those five ranked in our top five, maybe not the same order. But it seems like even based on ADP, this is kind of how it's shaping out. Tatis, Soto, Vlad, Trey Turner, Jose Ramirez, in whatever order. Moving on, we have Ronald Le Cunea 6th overall, then Bobauchette, Garret Cole, Mookie Betts, Shohay Otani, Bryce Harper to Chris, and Mike Trout to Scott.

I know how Scott feels about Ronald LeCunia, but Chris, sixth overall, it seems a little bit early. We actually got a video that circulated on Twitter earlier this week with Ronald LeCunia doing some high steps in the speed ladder. It's pretty encouraging because, you know, like, we need to see this guy running full speed, but this is the first time I've seen him do it. doing an exercise that kind of tests out that knee coming back from the torn ACL,

and he looked pretty good doing it. Yeah, I mean, the bigger thing will be when we start to see him moving side to side. I think that that would be, you know, the bigger test and turning on the base path and just that, you know, the lateral movement probably would be a better indicator. But all signs, you know, really seem to be pointing in the right direction. And, you know, we have seen guys come back within, you know, eight or nine months from a torn ACL, and it seems like, you know,

the returns are coming a little more quickly with some of the major surgeries. So it's entirely possible Ronald Acuna is ready right around the start of the season, and then he could be the steal of the draft. You know, he was the consensus number one pick last season, and it's entirely possible he would have been that again if he had been healthy.

At six overall, I mean, he wouldn't be the steel of the draft, but I think typically we're seeing more in the middle of round too, which I can get behind. Yeah, the ADP for Acuna right now is 12 overall. So normally at that one-two turn. But Chris, overall, you would say six. Six is too early for him. Probably, but I mean, here's what he's done in 128 games since the start of 2020.

118 runs, 38 homers, 81 RBI, 25 steals, 270 average. If he plays 130 games and gives you that, he's worth a top five pick. Like that's how good he can be. Yeah. So I don't know. Like that's, it's not the safest approach that you could have. And maybe he won't steal as much coming off this injury. But there's no player with more upside in a five by five Roto League except for Fernando Tatis, I think.

Yeah, I think that's fair. It just, again, comes out to health. So we'll continue to get more news on Acuna as we get closer to spring training, assuming that we have a normal spring training. Things, meetings are happening. We're getting some back and forth right now. Overall, it seems like it's a slight step in the right direction. Look, they only have to bridge a $90 million gap in the arbitration bonus pool.

Right. They're right there. Not great. Not great right now. Round two. We see Freddie Freeman go to Scott, Kyle Tucker, Wet's Chris, and then Corbyn's, Walker, Bueller, Max Scherzer, Zach Wheeler, Shane Bieber, Jacob deGrom. A streak of six straight starting pitchers.

then after those guys we see Luis Robert, Raphael Devers, Brandon Woodruff, and Ozzie Albies to finish out round two. So Scott, we get one starting pitcher in round one, Garrick Cole. That's different from last year. I think more often than not, we were getting three. It was Cole de Grom Beaver in round one last year. But then we get seven starting pitchers in round two.

I looked at last year's ADP, and there were eight starting pitchers going in the first 24 picks. There were eight starting pitchers that went in the first 24 picks of this draft, maybe it's not so different overall, the valuation of starting pitchers, at least for other people, not us. Well, I have all of these pitchers that have gone through round two.

I also have in either round one or two and pretty much entirely in round two. So, you know, that is a difference right there. You know, you're not willing to give up your first round pick to get a high-end arm. in itself says the arms aren't as high end as we were presuming they were last year. But, you know, I'm not saying we're back to, I don't know, 2014 standards or whatever of, you know, you can get your ace in round six potentially. It's still an important part of your fantasy team.

But I think last year the approach at starting pitcher, that's, about as extreme as it's ever going to get. You're not going to get a lot of pocket aces this year, although one person did that in this draft. Pocket Ace is obviously referring to the strategy that became very popular last season of drafting two starting pitchers with your first two picks. I think we're going to see a lot more,

I don't know if you call it Anchor SP or Hero SP. Don't do it, Chris. Don't make another football reference. I'm going to start to ding you every time you make a football reference. Yeah, here just, but yeah, here R.P would just be having that one anchor ace and then filling it out around him, which is what you saw Scott and I do. Me, less so because I waited until round three, but, you know, it was getting one starting pitcher in the first five picks rather than two or three like we would have done last season. Wow, I'm looking at that's what you did, Scott, right? Well, I guess that's one way of looking at it. That's not how I was, that wasn't my mindset.

I have Sandy Alcantara, who I took at the end of round three in the same tier as Charlie Morton, who I took at the beginning of round six. So if you're just looking at the rounds where I took them, I could understand that. But you were willing to let him go. But you were willing to take the chance that he wouldn't be there. Or that a lower end pitcher would be there in round six. I was looking at my tiers and seeing I can afford to wait and still get another pitcher from that tier. Sure.

And you might have ended up with. I ended up taking Charlie Morton ahead of his ADP. So, I mean, I kind of, I guess, leaned into that built-in discount. But, you know, if Charlie Morton was the last remaining SP at the beginning of round five, I probably would have taken him there instead. Let's take a look at round three, which started with Starling Marte, and then Mani Machado, Whitmerfield, Julio Arias, Cedric Mullins, and Francisco Lindor.

and that is the first half of round three. And look, even me, the Francisco Lindor apologist, that is just too early, the middle of round three. So I like the discount. I don't love it that you're getting when he's going in round five or maybe even slipping in round six, but middle of round three, that's not enough of a discount for me. The only thing I can figure with this,

why Francisco Lindor would go so far ahead of like a Corey Seeger, for instance, is just that to me is the monument. mindset, I got to get those 15 steals, you know, I'm, I got to sell out to get those 15 steals because I just need them so badly. And that's what I'm trying to avoid is upgrading a Francisco Lendor that much for that small of an impact in a category where you really don't need that much. Well, I mean, just look, I'm looking at round five. Trevor's story went in round five. Is there really going to be that big of a difference in stolen base output between the door and story? I'd expect story to give you more steals than Muntor.

Exactly. It's just, you know, if he's not at Cores, you know, it could be pretty bad otherwise. But I will say, like, if you are going to push up for steals, I think Whitmerfield here is a great value. 27th overall, I mean, the guy hasn't missed a game since 2018 when he only missed four. That's crazy. He's given you 40 plus steals or 40 steals in two of the last four. He was on pace for 30 in 2020 in a full season. like he's going to he's going to volume his way to being one of the better hitters in fantasy

just because he's probably going to have a good batting average with a ton of plate appearances and a ton of at-bats he's led the majors in that bats three years in a row now um and so yeah that's that is sneaky valuable i i think you know a 277 batting average and you look well his batting average is declining three years in a row if he only hits 277, but it's over 650 at bats, and he leads the majors in at bats or comes close, that's more valuable to a roto league than a guy who hits 300 in 500 at bats. Just because of the denominator is bigger. My only issue with Whitmeryfield, Chris, is he is an Iron Man, you're 100% right about

what happens if he misses time, you know, then obviously all the counting stats take a little bit of a step back. I wouldn't project it because he hasn't shown any propensity to miss time, but it is something that's just in the back of my mind. The second half of round three, we've got Yerdon Alvarez, Marcus Semyon, Salvador Perez, Tim Anderson, Robbie Ray to Chris, Sandy Alcantara

to Scott. And Chris, I haven't heard your thoughts on Robbie Ray this offseason. He's signed with the Mariners, so 30 seconds or less. What do you think about Robbie Ray in Seattle? I buy the breakout, you know. I think the change that he made in his approach, which was basically, I'm just going to throw the ball down the middle, and my stuff is good enough that they're not going to be able to hit it, and I'm not going to walk

everyone as a result. Obviously, his track record suggests that there's a ton of volatility in his profile, but when the change was that specific and that simple, it almost tends to make me buy it more than a normal breakout, you know, just because it's almost kind of like Cedric Mullins. just he made one obvious change to his approach in a way that made perfect sense and it worked out exactly like you would think. But there's risk. He's risky as your number one starting pitcher. But there's incredible upside there and that's what matters a starting pitcher for me.

And the pants, the pants, Chris. I mean, the pants are super tight, so that obviously helps. And wears very tight pants. I mean, if you can get him Walker Bueller on the same team, oh, geez, that's got my tight pants on. Good mix. Round four, we see Austin Riley go to Scott. Mattelson and Chris, Aaron Judge,

Teoscar Hernandez, Lucas Gielito, and then Liam Hendricks. It's got too early for the first closer off the board. I picked 42. I'm sure I don't have the highest rank closer as high as 42. I understand why people are doing it, but the quality

of the hitters available here, I mean. I mean, Aaron Nola went right after him. You know, that's a potential 200... That's a potential 220 strikeout guy. You know, saves her... saves matter, but I don't know. The only way I could see it is if you just don't draft another closer.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of doing the same thing I'm looking to avoid as stolen bases is, oh my gosh, I got to get, I got to get saves and there aren't as many predictable sources of them. So I got to, I got to pay more for them. But you just don't need that many. You need, you know, you need to, you need to come into, what, 75 to 90 saves somehow? Maybe low-boring that. I mean, that'll get you towards the top of the- Yeah, okay, so I'm not low-blowing that number.

I think, like, 45 has been right around the mid-range the last few years. And the thing is, the increased turnover we've seen where, you know, you might have a couple guys on the same team with 16 saves, but not because they're splitting the whole season because, you know, one guy got hot for a while and did it for a couple months, and then another guy got hot and did it for a couple months. That makes it easier to keep pace in the category than if there were as, you know, a bunch of bankable 30 to 35 saves guys every year.

I think, just to clarify, I did just look it up. And I think it's more like 60 to 65 will get you in the middle range. But there's also just not a big spread. You know, most of the time, the leader in saves is going to be around 80 in a 12-team league. There you go. I think typically I want to have one pretty good closer, but you could find a pocket while the draft is going on where there's a decent value for that one. Even if it's a top eight or 10 guy, someone like a Jordan Romano or a Will Smith, someone like that, who you feel pretty good that they are the closer on their respective team.

I would like to get one of those guys. But, you know, top 50 pick? I mean, that's probably pushing it. The end of round four, we see Aranola, then Jose Altuve, Paul Goldschmidt, Josh Hader, Jack Flaherty, and Xander Bogartz. Starting round five, we saw Logan Webb, George Springer, Wander Franco, Lance Lynn, Corey Seeger, and Cody Bellinger, and this is what I was referring to earlier, grinds my gears. I don't like this.

I want to be the Bellinger guy. We did the outfield tiers. When you see, no, it's the other way around. When you read Cody Bellinger's name, you want to think of this face. But not in the middle of round five. Chris, the 80P for Bellinger is 100.3. That I like. Yeah, it's a case where, and this will happen in drafts.

You want a guy, so you go get the guy. you probably could have waited two or three rounds to get the guy in this case. And like if you wait until the middle of the eighth round, you're still, I guess that would be right around ADP. So middle of the seventh round would have been, you know, still 12 to 15 spots ahead of where he's going on average. So yeah, it's too early, but we know it can work out.

Like that's, there's no question that it could work out in a big way. But here's the thing. Look, I know Pete Alonza, and I'm not just, I'm not hyping my Pete Alonzo pick again, but Pete Alonzo went seven picks after Cody Bellinger here. How much has to go right for Cody Bellinger to deliver a Pete Alonzo stat line? Or what's more, or to, I'll just pull a Scott here and hype up my own player. What's more likely, Byron Buxton plays 125 games or Cody Bellinger plays 140 and figures out whatever the hell went wrong with him the last two seasons.

Yeah, that's, that's, Brian Buckson's got it. he's got to avoid running into someone is basically the pack. Or avoid balls running into his hands or something like that. Yeah. That was, sound a little weird. Anyway, the end of round five, Trevor Story, Chris Sale, Kevin Gausman, Ricelly Glacius, who was the third closer off the board. Then we see Bucks in to Chris and Alonzo to Scott.

I did want to ask you, Scott. Austin Riley went at the three-four turn and we talked about this exact thing on our corner infield tiers. Noah and Aronado goes in round six. So would you rather have Austin Riley at the 3-4 or Nolan Aronado at the 5-6? So I obviously thought about this discussion as I was making this pick. Am I going to go for Austin Riley again? Or am I going to count on Nolan Aronado being there in round six?

Part of it is just I don't feel like there are many obvious picks in the 3-4 range. I feel like you're beyond the super studs at that point. And there's enough players, like enough players. like enough players to span five rounds who could deliver you, you know, who are basically in the same tier. We're talking about, you know, a variety of positions, but they don't stand out that much from one another. And so it's just like, why chance it with Olin, why chance it with Aeronado, this being

the draft where he goes two rounds earlier than I expect them to, you know? I'll just take Riley. Chris took Matt Olson right afterward. If I hadn't taken Freddie Freeman already, maybe I would have gone that route instead and tried to get Aeronado in round six. But I don't know. I think in this case it made sense to just go for Riley

and secure that thin position while I knew I could. One thing I will cop to not quite understanding in getting back into baseball and my research and doing mock drafts, and stuff. I don't understand Rizzo Iglesias as the consensus number three closer. I get if you're going to push saves up,

which is what's happening, I don't get how Rizzoa Iglesias gets that same bump. The way he's used, he just, he's never been a high saves guy. You know, there are, he led the American League in games finished last season and he had 34 saves, which was

matched his career high. So, I don't know if there's necessary, that doesn't necessarily mean he can't get more saves. How many people get 40 saves, period, these days? I think it's just... Sure, but 34... You know, Ricella Glacius is going to be the closer.

Sure. And he might give you 100 strikeouts. And I kind of like Emmanuel Class A more, but I'm not going to rank him ahead of him. Yeah, I just, I don't know, it doesn't seem... It doesn't seem like it's worth pushing up for, and he's never been the guy we pushed him. up. You know, he's always been a closer you settle for. And I don't think he's just a dramatically

different player all of a sudden. I think it's just by default, you know, by default, this is the guy. But it's not like he's, but it's not like he's falling to 70th, you know? Sure. Like it's, it's by default, he's the number three guy. Okay, that makes sense. But he's by default going in the 50s now, or in NFC drafts, I think in the 40s. So a Glacius in the NFBC is going at pick 58, but overall his ADP on fantasy pros is 68.7. So that's closer to pick 70. And the 34 saves were tied for fifth in baseball last year. So there's just not that many saves to go around anymore overall. He did have 103 strikeouts, 257 ERA, 0.93 whip. And something you talk about Chris, with the batting average in terms of volume, he pitched 70 innings last year as a reliever. So his

ERA and whip just impacts that those categories so much more because he's, pitching as much as he is. We'll quickly run through round six, and I think we'll wrap it up there. Charlie Morton went to Scott. Catelle Marte went to Chris. Then Nolan Aronado, U. Darvish, Tyler O'Neill,

and J.T. Real Muto, the second catcher off the board, 33 picks after Salvador Perez. I like Salvador Perez, the player, but I think this is a combination of maybe Salvi is a little bit overvalued at that spot, and J.C. Real Muto,

just going that much later than him, seems like a really good value. you to meet. Like three rounds later, should that happen? I don't know, Scott. You've got to look on your face. Yeah. No, I think Salvador Perez is as clear,

as distant of a number one as we've seen at this position in quite some time. I mean, he hit three times as many home runs as Rio Muto hit, which isn't to say he's going to do exactly that again, but

he led the mayor. He led the majors and home runs at RBI. Only one other catcher has ever done that before. Johnny Bench, you know? It's, it's just, and it, you know, it's, it's easy to say, okay, but it's, it's this outlier season in his career. He was as much of a standout at the position in 2020. Yeah.

2020 also. We wrote it off then because, oh, but it's such an outlier. And then he goes and has this historic season. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys wrote it off last year. I liked Salvador Perez. But that's why it kind of feels weird that maybe I'm off of Salvador Pres.

I think it's just a price. I never want to pay for a catcher that early, especially in the third round. Real Muto, I like the fact that hopefully the D.H is coming to the National League as well because I think that's something that would help him play more games. And he won't play as many as Salvi. Salvi played 161 last year.

That's crazy for a catcher eligible player. But. Rial Muto did play. Yeah, and Salvi had 40 games as D.H. that he started. But, you know, Rao Muto in 2020, did he miss some time in 2020? I feel like I remember that. There was like a gap where,

because he played 47 games. I feel like he missed time towards the end of 2020, yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out because I thought he actually did play more the year where they had the DH. So that was a little surprising.

Mm-hmm. I'd have to look at it. He was only DH three times in 2020. Or no, sorry, that's 2021. He was nine times in 2020. Yeah, so his nine out of 47 games, I mean, yeah, that's a pretty good ratio for maybe what we can expect moving forward with the Philadelphia Phillies. He did miss a week and a half in 2020 with a hip injury. Okay, that might explain it, yeah.

The. Yep, yep, yep. There was middle of September. End of round six. We see Brandon Lau, Christian Yellich, Alex Bregman, Freddie Peralta. Carlos Correa and Randy a Rosarina Kind of similar with Bellinger I mean Yelich you do get them around later but this is

I mean this is ahead of ADP by about 20 30 picks So again you know maybe that discount starts to go away a little bit on those guys I really like Freddie Peralta too in this spot like I don't know maybe I'm alone But it feels like end of round six feels like pretty good value on uh fredi Peralta Yeah I will say if I was going to reach on one of the former National League MVP's who's fallen from Grace I actually would rather

it be Yelich my heart kiss is that like he's been better than Bellinger the last couple of seasons right like Bellinger's been my thinking is just that he's older Chris and he's had chronic

back issues now so it's I feel like we have more of a concern with that yeah I feel like another off season removed from shoulder surgery for Bellinger it's you kind of hope he gets healthier this all

season, but it's, for what it's worth, Yelich has played 24 games more than Bellinger over the past two seasons. And his OPS is 120 points better. And the best Yelich season was a lot better than the best, or better than the best Ballinger season at least. Yeah, I think I think the the key factor for me, and look, they're one spot apart in my rankings is that I'm not sure what it's going to take for Yelich to get right again. I think Bellinger just needs to fix his mechanics. and it could all come back. But I think Yelich's issues, they may run deeper than that.

All right, Scotty. I like it. Let's make it happen. Preach. And hopefully, Cody Bellinger's listening and we get that guy back on track. We're going to wrap there. You can find the rest of the results. Over on the site, again, the link to this mock draft

will be in the podcast and the YouTube description. For Scott, Chris, I am Frank. Thank you for listening. And watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.