Fantasy Baseball Today - 2023 Top Shortstop Prospects! Will Volpe & Peraza Make An Impact? (11/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

Shortstop is loaded with top prospects (5:46)! Where is Jackson Chourio expected to play (7:05)? ... Jordan Lawlar looks like a five-tool player (9:32). ... Are there any concerns with Anthony Volpe (12:25)? ... Elly De La Cruz was arguably the breakout prospect of 2022 (16:07). ... Will Ezequiel Tovar break camp with the Rockies (22:30)? ... What about the other top shortstop prospects (28:25)? ... When might we see Royce Lewis again (38:04)? ... What are the expectations for Oswald Peraza with the Yankees and Masyn Winn with the Cardinals (39:57)? ... News (47:46): Cody Bellinger was non-tendered by the Dodgers last week. ... We wrap up with shortstop trade targets in dynasty leagues (58:20). Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch with the promo code 'FANTASYBASEBALL20': https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 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. Got a fantasy question, email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Happy almost Thanksgiving, and welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, November 23rd. No Scott White, but I am Frank Stample, joined by Christopher Welsh, aka the Welsh. I've never asked you this. Do you prefer Chris or Christopher or neither or the?

Definitely, well, the is always appropriate. The, you know, my, my legal name, of course, my God-given name. But Chris, definitely over Christopher. Christopher's when I'm in trouble. Chris is me. So, no Tofer, no Christopher, just Chris. So when I was growing up, I was Frankie. And then I guess when I became an adult, I became Frank. That was, I don't know, I just kind of outgrew it at some point. Yeah, but like are you, does it bother you when you hear Frankie? No, that's fine. Yeah, see, like I'm not really bothered. Like, you call me Christopher.

It would be fine. I'm not going to get it. But I have had a couple friends who have taken that name thing. And they've turned it the opposite direction where it's not only do they go from in the specific name of this person was Dave. They were Dave the entire time growing up. And then sometime around the mid-20s, you know, like they were educated and everything in college. they became David and you weren't allowed to call them Dave and I was like yeah yeah we're gonna do that we're gonna do that the whole time like I don't know I think it's fun to mess around with the names I'm not I'm not too stuck as someone titled the with any names though so I guess who am I to speak I would say it is a little weird now if someone consistently called me Frankie like if you do it out of the blue whatever or as like a nickname that's fine I drop the Frankie stamps the Frankie's Frank stamps that doesn't work so I you know Yeah.

It's like with Scott. I call him Scotty dubs or like Scotty. I'm pretty sure he's told me not to call him Scotty, but I just do it anyway because I don't know. I'm just like so used to it at this point. Anyway, today on the show, loaded show. Why? Because we are talking about shortstop prospects.

There are so many of them and there are so many elite level shortstop prospects. So we'll look at it from a dynasty perspective. And then of course the names to know for redraft leagues in 2023. And non-tender day was last Friday. And of course was headlined by Cody. Bellinger, unfortunately for him. So we'll talk about that and a few other names that were non-tendered by their respective teams. But speaking of tenders, you have to be a chicken tender guy, right? Welsh, like, you get you good with the tendies or? Yeah, no, I mean, tenders are where it's at no bone.

Yeah, sure, go with the tendies. Yeah, just, are you a condiment on the tenders kind of guy or? I'm kind of a condiment on anything type of like. I like ketchup probably more than the normal person, which would get me negative points in, you know, the Midwest. I like some mustard on there. Not a big, you want to know, speaking of condiments. We, uh, I do this goofy episode we do on our Twitch, our in this league, uh, Twitch. Twitch.tv slash in this league, if anyone is ever going with it. And we have this thing we call the wheel, Frank. And we spin this wheel a couple times over and there are not great things on there sometimes. There's, uh, you know, fantasy related stuff, all this different things.

And we landed on one last week where my friend Bogman was forced to eat a peanut butter and mustard sandwich. I don't know if you've ever had that. And it was his last spin. So the odds of me coming back on that same thing were, you know, exponentially not in anyone's favor that people wanted. And I did. And I was forced to eat a French fry with mayonnaise on it. And you want to talk about condiments. So, disgusting.

And I think mayo might be off the list forever. That was a long way to go around saying, I do tend to like condiments with whatever I'm eating. Plain food doesn't really work. But mayo is off the list for pretty much anything anymore. Yeah, I mean, I'm just completely out on mayo. I'm also out on mustard. I mean, I guess that shouldn't surprise anyone.

Really? Picky eater, haven't seen any movies. Like, does this really surprise anybody at this point? So I'm good with the ketchup on the fries. We're going chicken tenders. We're going with like ranch. Is it just spicy mustard or is it all yellow mustard? Any mustard.

I like honey mustard, but like yellow mustard. That's the one you don't want to like. Brown mustard. No, I'm out. I'm out. Anyway, let's talk about shortstop prospects. By the way, as I mentioned, I mean, an absolutely loaded position here up top. And I guess let's just start with, I've got your top five.

I got a few more here. You sent over a top 10, I guess. Well, you know, I wanted to throw out to you real quick. You talked about how deep it was. I sent you 10 and that didn't even crack inside my top 50. I mean, we were inside. We didn't get outside of my top 50 overall prospects with 10 shortstop. It's a much different situation that we're talking about in dynasty or in redraft,

I suppose, than any of the other positions where it's like, you know, we're having these conversations about like, well, does this guy really qualify here and first base? And I'm giving you guys an extra name shortstop is just not that, which really shouldn't be any surprise to anybody. All right. So let's jump in and we'll start off with the top five here. You've got Jordan Lawler from the Diamondbacks. Jackson Churio of the Brewers.

Come back to him in a second. Anthony Volpey with the Yankees, Ellie De La Cruz with the Reds, and Ezekiel Tovar with the Rockies. Now, as we've done for many of these podcasts, we are projecting forward. We're trying to figure out where is a player going to wind up playing. I looked into Jackson Churio.

And in the minor leagues, he has played 118 games in center field, six games at second, zero at shortstop, yet you have him on your shortstop list. Okay, that's, you know what? That's actually something I hadn't fully paid attention to positional stuff on Jackson Truro this year. It's been so focused on the bat.

And you know what? You are right. I even see the listing on the outfield. He was playing shortstop. So he had just such an interesting rise last year where when the minor league season started, Jackson Shurio was a guy that was in extended spring training. I don't know if people know what that is. that's like everything's ended, nothing counts.

It's essentially just guys hanging back, playing games in the same league for roughly two months. And then what they'll do is they'll then come in to when there used to be like short season ball. You know, and then they would have like the short seasons that would start up. And then these guys would get to move over. He started in extended spring training where that was positionally where he was going. But one thing that happened, and this isn't a shock to me of the positional stuff. I will tell you, that is hilarious. That is 100% something I had not paid one ounce of attention to

was positionally where he was playing this year outside of the bat. But I saw Jackson Churio during instructs this year. And one of the things that stands out, which isn't a huge surprise to me, is his size. He grew pretty, pretty big from even extended spring training going into the middle of this season. His body got bigger. So this will be something I actually have to change,

which can add a name. And we can gladly add a name because you have the rest of the list. here. But this was his first position that he was set to go and where they had him running, I think some of extended spring training. And then obviously the decision seemed to change early on. And I hadn't, like I said, hadn't even noticed positionally he has been even changed on his pipeline position page to outfield. So that looks like that'll be his spot, which is kind of odd to me because usually extreme bats like this unless they really hate the defense, which obviously they do,

they would press and keep a guy like this at that position as long as they possibly can. You're seeing it in the minors with many players. You saw it with O'Neill Cruz. They're going to keep in there as long as they can. Maybe L.A. Dela Cruz is another one of those players that you could take a look at. But we can take Jackson Trey off there. But just to know if he were and he did actually qualify in some formats for you, that's where he would be.

All right. Well, I guess we'll use that as a little tease for Jackson Trio, and then we'll dive deeper on him in the Outfield Prospect podcast. So just a little teaser there on Jackson Trio. Let's start up top with Jordan Lawler, who was the sixth overall pick last season with your Arizona Diamondbacks. He had a huge year in the minors. 303 batting average, 401 OBP, 16 homers, 39 steals, a 910 OPS, did get 20 games in at AA as a 20-year-old. And he wasn't. was sent out to AFL where he got off to a nice start, and then he suffered a fractured left scapula. So he was shut down, should be good to go by spring training. Hopefully everything is good there with Jordan Lawler. But, I mean, really incredible hit tool. Obviously a good eye. I mean, the on-base percentage really stands out.

Up over a 400 OBP. He's got some pop. He's obviously really fast, super athletic. I mean, I think he's probably going to be ranked inside everyone's top five, maybe even top three coming into the year. Your thoughts? Yeah, should be. I'm a huge Jordan Lawler fan.

One of the cool things he was able to do as well was he was able to go in and push four levels of the minor leagues this year. He played a little bit of rookie ball, which was more in a rehab stent. I actually was at two of those games when he was out here in rookie ball. He played in A ball, which he put up 44 games, hit 351 with nine homers and 24 of his stolen bases came in A ball and only 44 games. moved to high A, where he hit 288, had some more homers, 13 more stolen bases. Then he touched AA, where he had four more homers hitting 212, which was a little bit of a struggle and two stolen bases. But that also leads to the next point, Arizona Fall League, like you said, that's a five-level move in one year. And that's big.

And it's also kind of a telling point why Jordan Lawler might be coming up to the majors sooner rather than later. We've talked about this a whole bunch. The diamondbacks are covered with the player that they need for. the potential for an extra pick in compensation for the new rules, that's Corbyn Carroll because he qualifies as a rookie for rookie of the year. So what I expect is Jordan Lawler to play a AAA for at least half the year. And the Diamondbacks give serious consideration because that scalpel injury is not expected to hinder any spring training. And what I've seen out of him is a complete, complete change in how patient he was.

You know, coming in to the draft, Frank, he was seen as a strikeout issue. He was seeing as more free swing and miss than any of the other prospects. And what he's done is he's honed it in. He's walking more. He's hitting for power. I have that video out on my Twitter. Is it the Welsh where you can see where he thought he didn't hit a homer and he did? And he runs like crazy.

He is the epitome of five tool player. He was the best AFL player here, at least for the first two weeks. And he started to taper down and then he got hurt. So it's going to be really hard to tell. But Jordan Lawler, I think, is in an elite class where he just doesn't. have a lot of holes in his game, and he is rocketing through the system that I think he could touch the majors in 2023. Let's move over to Anthony Volpe with the Yankees who had a solid season, but it definitely took a step back from where he was in 2021. And this past year, he hit 249

with 21 homers and 50 steals. You like to see the steals too, because obviously we're expecting players to run more in general at the Major League level this year. But the Yankees were one of those organizations that were more aggressive on the base paths than we have seen in years past. We just saw with Aaron Judge, he sold 16 bases and they let a few of their other players run a little bit. So I think that's only a good thing for guys like Paraza and Volpe who are coming soon. Did get off to a really slow start and then picked it up from June 1st on. Welsh, are you still in on Volpe maybe the same way you were going into the start of 2022? Yeah, I'm unapologetically a big Anthony Volpe guy.

A fun little fact, too, when we're talking about all these positional stuff, it's so funny how you will see MILB when you go and check out their player page. He's actually listed as a second baseman. And in the minors, he has played two career games at second base. And he's played 245 at shortsop. Just a nass little fun fact that's going to be able to. I'll tell you what. As a Yankee fan, I don't think that he is going to stay at shortsop.

I think he's going to wind up playing second or third base. I also think that is absolutely a possibility, though they have kept what you can tell is they have kept him there to continue that defense, to give them more flexibility to make sure that he can. But this team is built around them. I mean, one of their top prospects, international prospect, Roderick Arias, who did not have a good season this past year in his international debut, that's one of those guys are building off of, and Oswald Praza, someone we're going to talk about. But I think Anthony Volpe is a elite player. He really, really struggled at the early part of the season, which kind of,

it kind of set the tone for the early part of the year and kind of set the tone for the early stages of what he did. In April, he hit 197. In May, he hit 207, and that took everything back. But starting in June, he hit 298 in June, 296 in July. And then he hit, actually, whatever this number didn't calculate, 247 in August where it tapered back. And he kind of found that average again.

I think Anthony Volpe kind of just, just like we're talking about with Jordan Lawler, he is a full-on five-tool player, 20 homers, 50 stolen bases, and 21 homers and 50 stolen bases this past year. I think the batting average is better than what's put on the table here. As far as like his career goes, you know, being like a 250 hitter is really not, you know, what he's built around being. He's been better than this. And I think he's going to hit.

I think the way he makes contact is more contact base that I would think the power would go away, but he's going to steal bases. and any of these guys, I come back to that conversation, you know, you and Scott and I had, where it's like you can dismiss stolen bases at the lower levels, but when you really start to focus and think about the advantage that minor leaguers had now and major leaguers are going to have with potential stolen bases, why not take guys that have done it at elite clips? Why would you not consider that at elite clips with some of these guys?

And this guy just stole 50 bases this past year and is stole 89 and 275 games. So I believe in Anthony Volpe. I think his bat is way better than what you saw this year. He hit 294 the previous year when he had one of the bigger adjustments going from A to high A. And the double A to AAA adjustment was there, but you're kind of starting to develop more power. I think Anthony Volpe is underrated. This would actually be a guy I would be trying to go and buy, especially if someone considers him not a top 10 prospect right now.

Number four on this list is Ellie De La Cruz. I guess if we're not counting Jackson Trio, it would be number three on this list. Elie Dela Cruz with the Reds who, I guess you could call him the breakout minor leaguer of the year. It probably would come down to him and Jackson Turyo, right? Just I guess where they started and where they finished, just like what they accomplished this year. I think it would be Churio because Churio was literally not on any radars. I remember during that extended spring training, I actually shared some information. Brewers have this great, a lot of these teams now, if anyone ever wants to check them out,

A lot of these teams now have these player development Twitter accounts, which are awesome. And some are better than others. And sometimes they share information. The brewers are really great about it. And they were sharing info and they were sharing Jackson Trio and nobody was on Tchereo whatsoever. I mean, nobody was in on him. L.E. Dela Cruz definitely had some eyes and some attention last year. In 2021, he stole 10 bases, hit eight homers, hit 296, only 61 games with the Reds.

And this was between rookie ball and high A ball. And this is like a large human being. He's six foot five. They list him at 200 pounds. So he had some stuff on him. But back to your point, it's like 1A1B, but Churio definitely was the breakout prospect. But Ellie is right there because Ellie went from, he's very intriguing. And preseason, there was a lot of kind of juice going on him.

Actually, my prospect 180Ps I do where I create the ADP system for prospects, he was on there. Churio was not drafted. Ellie Day of the Cruz was pushed up pretty big time coming into this year. And to my shock, I got to say, I was kind of negative on him. And I didn't mean to like cut you off. I want you to set up whatever else you want to set up with L.A Dillacruz. But I was kind of shocked at how well he performed, 28 homers, 47 stolen bases, hit over 300. Just like last year, he moved two levels.

And what's super impressive is he hit over 300 at both of these levels. Transitionally, starting at high A as a 20 year old. And let's see, he turned. Yeah, I mean, so he spent the whole season as a 20 year old. there's a 20-year-old in high A to then go to double A, that's wild. And to have the success he had, that's wild. But, you know, I will say he's got really long levers. He's six foot five, destroys fastballs.

He's doing even better at learning how to destroy mistakes. He's playing in the Dominican Winter League right now. And he went from someone that I think, I think I might be like a heightest, Frank, a little bit. Like, because I had the same thing with O'Neill Cruz. There was just something about the Kyle Blanks back in my brain, the six-fifference. foot seven, these six foot six guys that get out on the plate with these big long levers who have strikeout issues, kind of swing and miss issues. I always just feel like it's going to be really hard from then to transition. And O'Neill Cruz is answering that call. And I kind of associated some of the

similar things to L.A. De La Cruz, but L.A. Dela Cruz is probably a better athlete. And Nolvi-Marte, they traded for, he ain't taken over that short spot, just like we talked about. That's going to be at least given an opportunity to L.A. de la Cruz. And it might be this year, which is wild. So, I mean, the future of this team could be Jonathan Indy at second, L.A. de la Cruz at short. And then you got Novi Marte at third, not to mention the slew of other guys that they have.

But this is a massive, massive power speed combination player that regardless if there are some warts, if there are strikeout issues, he had 158 and 120 games. He walked 40 times. That's going to be a problem. He's going to be challenged big time this year and we'll watch it. But listen, that type of elite stats, almost 30 homers and 50. 50 stolen bases, you buy on it and you just pray that it clicks at the major league level and

they can develop him right. Yeah, I mean, I really want to hammer home the point that you made about him getting up to double A, not just getting up to double A. He played 47 games at double A as a 20 year old and he was awesome. He had a batting average over 300 and OPS over 900 at that level too. So it's regardless of where he played last year, he was amazing. So he's going to, I would say probably start at double A again, right? And then work out. Well, no, see, that's funny that you say that. I think there's a decent opportunity that he starts a AAA this year because think of that workload that you got at AA where you played almost 50 games and you dominated it. Then he went out and he's playing in the Dominican Winter League right now.

That's like this is another version of the Arizona Fall League. That doesn't seem like a move to me where you're going to push him back down to AA like he's got anything to prove. I think L.A. L.A.A. and I think they're going to attempt to give a really good long full season look. look. They've obviously made a bunch of moves. I know we're going to talk about that are kind of stop gap moves. And they also have a guy named Jose Barrero who they probably don't want to

quite give up on. But I think if L.A. Daly Cruz repeats even 85% of what he did last year, I don't know how they're going to justify keeping him down. And we're talking in June or July territory because he's going to get a ton of reps. But again, that's going to be a big challenge for him. And he is going to see a lot of different pitching. You know, he probably started to see it a AA, which he really dominated, but that was on the back half of the year. I want to see early AA or early AAA and how he reacts, but he has got all the tools to put up big old stats. And it would be the same type of, the same type of risk you would take on a guy like O'Neal Cruz you would do with Ellie De La Cruz. So this is really cool. If you go to baseball reference, they actually

show you Dominican Winter League stats. And Ellie Dele Cruz, as you mentioned, he's out there right now. he's hitting 274, he's got one homer, he has nine steals, he has 27 strikeouts and 25 games with a 791 OPS. Pretty small sample, again, it's only 25 games. He is on average eight years younger than every other player that's playing there right now. So it's pretty crazy, right?

Like he's getting his feet wet right now. So really, really interesting player to pay attention to. And he's someone who could make a massive impact in the second half of this. season as soon as this year, L.A. D. LeCru. He really is. You know, by the way, on people can see on the ball wall, it's actually covered, but one of those balls at the top right

here over across. If you're watching on the live stream on YouTube, which you guys should be doing, go and subscribe to Fantasy Baseball today on YouTube. This top row up here are all futures games baseballs. And we've got an L.A. De LaCruz on there. So a little L.E.D.A.C.

Trio, who does not qualify at shortstop. Dumb Welsh. All right. Well, let's talk about Ezekiel Tovar. Yeah, I think we've been here for 20 minutes. I think we've talked about three players so far. But hey, they're really good players. They're really interesting players. Ezekiel Tovar, he missed a bunch of time this past season of the Rockies, by the way.

I should mention that. But when he played, he was very, very good. He hit 319, 14 homers, 17 steals, a 927 OPS in 71 games. I just combined the words Welsh and question. Question for you, Welsh, would be how much do you buy it? How much do you buy into what we saw from Ezekiel Tovar this year? Because he was a sub-800 OPS bat the three seasons before this one. How much do you buy it?

Yeah, see, I have like a longstanding, like, issue with Ezekiel Tovar. But also what I recognize is that just about development. I have this vivid memory that anyone that's listened to my show, Prospect One, has heard me talk about. But it's just two years ago, Zikil Tovar was like the youngest guy in the Arizona Fall League. They brought him up. And this was a preceding move until him hitting the majors. Now I'm standing with Enosaurus and Eno, we're sitting and watching Tovar and I'm like, look at this guy.

This is Ezekiel Tovar. And he's just like, I don't like him. And he's like, body's too small. I just, I don't like the approach. I don't like the swing approach. And again, this is like the youngest guy that's in the Arizona Fall League doing this. And it kind of stuck with me, even though he had a high batting average and he had a little bit of a pop in his homers that year.

I just wasn't really sold, especially with Rockies prospects. And I kind of took that into last year. And he went in and though he was, you know, he was dealing with some injury stuff, had a really, really great season. And 71 games hit 14 homers with 17 stolen bases. The strikeout rate, I mean, in perspective, 57 strikeouts in 104, 71 games in 2022. He had 66 strikeouts. So it's just like a minimal increase that this guy isn't a big strikeout guy.

He started to hit for power in a place that we're going to give extra. bonuses for in Colorado and he was still stealing some bases. So as far as my belief goes, I don't think my belief is as extensive as other people that Ezekiel Tovar is going to be an incredibly elite, elite player. But he has increased his batting average every single year since 2019. That is including a COVID year that was in there. His power numbers have been sustainable and were much higher this year. He had 15 and 104 games in 2001 and 14. And 14. and only 71 this past year. So he's learning to hit the ball for a little bit more power.

That's where the strikeout numbers came up a little bit. And he can steal. So is Ezekiel Tovar on the path to potentially being a 2020 player? Yeah, especially with Colorado. They're going to run. I think they're going to run more than we're used to. You know, we joke about all these guys that could run there and they never utilized them. But when Zach Veen comes and Tovar is there, I think they're going to be able to run a little bit more.

I think I'm a little bit more skeptical that the power is going to be elite. I'm kind of worried that he's going to be like, 10 to 12, a homer, 20 stolen base shortstop, which at the end of the day, that's usually like, you know, maybe 15th at shortstop, maybe sub 15, you know, you're getting into maybe middle infield. I'm worried he's going to live there a little bit because the one thing I didn't see was a big major change developmentally in his body. And you want to see some growth there. But let's see what happens in this offseason. And uniquely of all these guys, he has got the greatest path to break camp with the Colorado Rockies than anybody else.

they also let go of Garrett Hamson on that team. So there is a good possibility. He breaks camp with the team. He is the guy and he can get you some cheap stats. No guarantees though, because they got Brendan Rogers there. But hopefully we see him. Yeah, I mean,

that was my next question. He played nine games with the Rockies in September slash October. He only has five games at AAA. So I didn't know if it was a sure thing that he would break Camden. And obviously, nothing is a sure thing right now at the end of November. But if you want to talk about a team that needs to take advantage of this, hey, let's put ourselves in position to try and get an extra draft pick compensation rule,

it's the Rockies, right? They need to be in on this. What I'm torn about, though, is he seemed like the most obvious of obvious player to go to the Arizona Fall League. He missed significant time. He needs those at bats. Yet the team decided to send him to the majors and then not send him to the Arizona Fall League, which, by the way, his team played at their complex here, where he could work out with their coaching staff that would be here.

So a lot of that didn't make sense to me if there was something else. So I'm really torn. I have no idea if he's going to end up breaking camp with the team. I think it makes more sense that they put him at AAA, but also, like you said, look at that Rocky's team. He's the only guy on that team unless they break camp with Veen that could get them that extra compensation. They should be fighting for that type of stuff.

That team of all teams should be. So that is an extra little tiny push of why Tovar could be a really, really good right now. Like, I have no idea where he's going in NFBC drafts. anything like that. I could actually take a look. I think I've got it up here, but I think I have it marked by shortstop, which actually would have worked. But Tovar is going, let's see. I have 287.6 right now. I'm actually surprised it's that high, but that's great. I mean, that you can see that, you know, the smart money on the NFBC drafts high, high, high, more competitive, high dollar stuff, they're drafting them inside the top 300. I think that's a really good bet right now

because why the Rockies are really going to have to like justify why would you not have this guy out there who you're going to, who are you going to go sign? You know, sign as Drubal Cabrera after he's punching players. You're going to bring him in shortstop? No, Tovar's the guy, dude. That was crazy by the way. That is Drubbacabreira thing. What is going on with that guy? Anyway, let's, I guess let's wrap up here on the dynasty shortstop prospects. I mean, gosh, we could just do a whole hour just on these names. But a quick shout out, three more names here, Jackson Holiday, who is the son of Matt Holiday. He looks like he's 12 years old,

but he would definitely beat me up, no doubt about it. First overall pick by the Orioles in this year's draft, Marcelo Meyer, he was the fourth overall pick in last year's draft by the Red Sox. And this past season, quality year, 280, 888 OPS. I've heard some Corey Seeger comps for Marcelo

Meyer. The other name is Marco Luciano, who seems like he's lost some of his luster as a quote-unquote top prospect with the Giants. He was limited to just 65 games this past season. He's obviously known for big power, but he has not really put up those gaudy numbers that you want to see in the miners since 2019. So three obviously very big names there. Some quick thoughts on each of these. Jackson Holiday, Marcel O'Meyer, Marco Luciano.

Yeah, Jackson Holiday is just the big bet for the future. Has a whole lot of tools. Had the bloodlines, first year player guy, draft him high, had a really good start to, you know, his rookie season, rookie ball play. So, you know, I think that's kind of easy stuff on holiday. Mayor's kind of, he's been a little iffy. I mean, kind of similar to how the Red Sox development has been, like even with Nick York, you know, Nick York had a little bit of a patch. Mayor, this was always my thing. There was this big debate in that draft where it was Lawler or Mayor, and that's where everybody was sitting. And I was on the Lawler side over Mayor because I always felt that the counting stats were going to be bigger with Marcella Mayor. And I felt,

mayor had the floor. And it looks like that it's maybe not even either one. I mean, Lawler still might be a little bit more volatile, but I just don't know if mayor's going to be like an elite category player. So I'm not quite as high as everybody else on him. You know, Michael Luciano, I think I'm just kind of, there's a ton of worries and warts, if you will, on his game. The strikeout rate is a problem.

He missed a lot of time this year. He was actually out here. in Arizona for a decent amount of the time while he was hurt, just kind of, you know, hanging out, working out. And then he, I think they really slowed his push back. He played in the Arizona Falle, the previous year. And then he played a little bit on the back end. He has not put up those big, gaudy numbers that he did in the Arizona

Folle. But, you know, my argument still with him is that he's just young. You know, he just turned 21, I believe. Or maybe it was, I guess he just turned 22. This just hasn't updated. his birthday was in September, it looks like. But I still think in how he's gone, they've slowly pushed him along.

And what I saw from him as a young player was just huge impactful power, a really good way to beat mistakes. The problem is for fantasy, speeds going away. He's never played a position outside of shortstop. And I think that's going to be coming this year. And I think that'll be very telling about him. but I'm not ready with what I saw early on. And what I still think is out there if they could,

and this is what's so wild, the Giants have been such a great team of developing a whole bunch of on-based percentage type of guys, 400 OBP players, guys that can walk, guys that are a whole, really, really patient.

And that's not something that Marco Luciano has done. I really hope that they press that with him. And he can start to show some lowered strikeout rate. Because if he does, I think it's going to manifest into more power, and more hits to an elite level. And I think this is a A plus critical year. It's full season, should be, I guessing at AA, should move through AAA.

And if he's successful, you might see him in the major soon. If he's not, I think he could be a trade piece for the Giants, especially if they're going to make some of those big free agent moves that we're talking about. They might want to get in on the trade market. But I just don't think it's worthwhile giving up on Marco Luciano yet. All right. Just a few other names. I'll quickly mention Welsh, if there's anything,

else that you want to hit on these guys or someone that I haven't mentioned. Just feel free to throw their name out. Again, these are more so from a dynasty perspective. We're looking at this long term. We'll get into the redraft names in just a bit. They are mostly names that you've heard already, but a few others that we haven't mentioned. Brady House, Luis Anhele Ocuna, Edwin-Aroyo, Matt McLean, Brooks Lee. Again, the position is loaded with prospects. Those are, those guys are probably all inside the top 100, top 120, at least, something like that. So anything that you'd like to hit on from those five additional names. Well, I'm going to throw out one that you didn't mention that probably is, it's above a

handful of them, at least on my personal list, is Jackson Merrill. You didn't mention Jackson Merrill, who was, I believe, the youngest player out here in the Arizona Fall League and showed veteran, veteran moves out here as far as how he was hitting, started turn on a ball for power. He's a contact base hitter. He can steal. He's bigger. That was one of the things.

I remember. Actually, that was the first game you and I were at. We were actually standing next to Jackson, Maryland. He was the double, double, double. Remember, he was the double, double player. And the whole crowd was screaming at him to hit a double. And he turned around at one guy who was kind of yelling at him. And he's like, come on, man.

He's like, burgers are like five bucks. They're not that expensive. Like, Merrill's just a great personality. He is insightful to the game. And he took the test of being one of the youngest players out there. So I just want to throw him out because I think he might be, of all those names he threw out, one of the, probably one of the best. And I'm trying to look like, I think I only have Brooks Lee above him.

The guy I have right next to Merrill though is Brady House. Brady House, I don't think is going to end up necessarily being a shortstop, had, I think, a pretty miserable season compared to the expectations. He is a physical specimen. He's a big power guy. He did not tap into it this past year. And I'm really hoping that he, I think Brady House has a potential to overpower some of all the talk of what's going on in the national system.

You got Robert Hassel, you got James Wood. I think Brady House could be the best of all of them if he could tap into his potential. So I really like Brady House. Jackson Merrill's a guy. Luis Alana Cunia, I think is fun. I think he's fringy, top 100. I think he sits in that range. And I don't remember if I missed anybody else you brought up.

Brooks Lee. Brooks Lee is going to be a great first year player guy. I like Zach Netto more than him from the Angels in first year player. But Brooks Lee looks like he's going to be a little bit more of one of those power shortstops without the speed. where Netto is going to have, I think, all five categories. All right. Before we hit the break, we do have a nice little deal going on for you.

If you want to support your favorite fantasy baseball podcast, you can do that by heading over to the CBS Sports Store, where we have FBT shirts, hoodies, sweatpants, hats, pint glasses, and much more. Just search Fantasy Baseball Today, CBS Sports Store on the Google Machine, or just pull out your phone and scan the QR code that we have in the top right corner here. If you're watching us, it's just above the Welsh there. pick out your phone, pull out your phone, and take a picture of that.

That'll send you right over to the website and seeing as how it is the season of giving. We're going to give you a nice little deal here. Use the promo code Friday. Friday at checkout this weekend for 25% off your purchase. Again, it has to be used this weekend. November 25th through Sunday, November 27th, the promo code Friday for 25% off. There you go. You just did it.

I just did. I scanned it. I scanned the code as we were talking. I see some great mugs. I see some shirts. Some hat. Ooh, is that a pint glass? I want that pint class. Someone get that for me. Some good stuff on there. That was really easy. Just scan the code and perfect. This right here. Ooh, this is a really nice hoodie. There's a really nice gray hoodie out there. It's a little bit going. But I like it. I like it, Frank. Very nice. All right. We're going to take a break and we'll be back right after this. All right. Let's get back into the top shortstop prospects. And these are the ones that will help you most hopeful. hopefully in the 2023 redraft leagues. Up top, we've got Ezekiel Tovar because frankly we're expecting him

to break camp with the Rockies. Then we have Anthony Volpe and Jordan Lawler. Could be a couple of months into the season before we see either of those names. Three more that we haven't talked about yet. Royce Lewis still has prospect eligibility of the Minnesota Twins. One of the top prospects, or I guess former top prospects

in the game, hit the ground running for the twins this past season and then tore his ACL for the second time. And hit the wall running. Yeah. What is it? Like a two or three year span where he's now tore his ACL twice? It was twice in a year and a half span.

And that's what. And, you know, I just want to throw out. I'm going to let you finish. But I just want to throw out like the redraft side of this is really, really difficult on these guys that are going to be out there. And that's why, you know, we're even, in many cases, I think Royce Lewis could not be put out there because of the ACL because he's probably not going to be back until probably June. is the look. So maybe you could get a half season out of everything if everything goes correctly.

But that's kind of the state of it because the dynasty part is so rich, but there's so many players that I don't think are breaking camp. It's such a primary position, the shortstop. It's kind of the captain of the infield that handing over the reins to young guys is very few and far between, especially kind of at this stage of development, that we just don't have a whole lot of those guys that are jumping at that spot right now. Speaking of Royce Lewis, though, what he did this year, he looked really impressive. 34 games at AAA, 5 homers, 12 steals, OPS over 900, played 12 games with the Twins, where he hit 300 with two homers, four doubles, 94th percentile max exit velocity, lots of like there with Royce Lewis. We just unfortunately have to wait for him to return. Oswald Paraza with the Yankees.

Yes, they have two top-ish shortstop prospects in the game. I think Paraza sticks at shortstop. I think Volpe probably winds up playing second base or third base, whichever one it might be. And then Mason Wynn, who we did see out at the AFL. He is a Cardinals prospect. Big speed, 43 steals in the minors this past year. But don't want to discount what the other things that he did. He hit 283, he's got 12 homers, OPS over 800.

And he got 86 games in at AA. So, yeah, I think he probably starts the year at AAA, and we probably could see him up sooner rather than later for the Cardinals. So three names there. You already kind of talked about Royce Lewis. What do you think about Oswald Parraza and Mason Win making an impact this year? Yeah, I mean, Parraza might actually make the most sense of any of these guys if you're drafting because, you know, he's got the major league experience. So if the Yankees do, I mean, you know, they've got LeMayhew and they've got some flexibility out there.

I don't know that this team would go out and immediately throw Paraza and Volpe out on day one. So it might be Parza at the start. And I've been an Oswald Parza fan, 19 homers, 33, stolen. basis this past year. His batting average kind of sank. This is actually very similar to Volpe. It was kind of a Yankees thing that went on, but he's got a big home run approach and he can kind of do it on all facets to the field. So he might get the best chance. Mason win is a wild card here because here's the thing I think about him. He has got major league defense ready now. He could go out there and he could give you gold glove, I think, shortstop play today. And what's

funny about that is this is a guy that was a pitcher like three years ago. He's a two-way player. he's famously now the whole Justin Turner rivalry where he threw 100 at the futures game and Justin Turner kind of, you know, crapped on it and was like, why do you need to do that? And then he kind of like, you know, pushed it back. The guy's defense is phenomenal. He can run. He can definitely spray the ball to all points of the field. The power's a little bit in question, but the body is pretty impressive of where he's at.

Here's a problem. This team has already got Brennan Donovan, who just won a gold glove at second base. They've got Tommy Edmund that's sitting out there. and they are tied with lots of rumors to shortstop, Danesby Swanson being another one of those. So if they go and pick up one of those guys, what I will struggle with is now where do you even go with Wynn? I mean, it's already a clog without a new shortstop coming in.

If Edmund is going to, let's say it's Edmund and Brennan Donovan, how do you crack that? I just don't know. So I'm a little bit worried Mason Wynn might have a full season of minor league in him. I wouldn't throw it past them to maybe throw him back at AA. But I think AAA is the play. I think he goes with, Jordan Walker, if Jordan Walker doesn't break camp.

But Mason win would be higher if he was on another team. If I thought there was a better path, I think his defense, like a team like the Diamondbacks who are kind of floating around, I know we have Lawler, but just bear with me, a team like the Diamondbacks that are looking for a shortstop to play now, if they had that type of defense, I think Wynn is the type of guy they could justify just right now. I mean, Lawler is a fantastic defender, but Mason Wynn is killer with that arm, great glove. and if there was any need, a team could just throw them out and justify, hey, we're just going to go with it.

But the Cardinals just don't need to. Yeah, no, I was going to bring up Nolan Gorman too, right? Just another player in the mix. Not that, you know, he's not the defender that we've talked about with these other names, but they have Donovan and they have Edmund and they still have Nolan Gorman. And, you know, I've seen some trade rumors with Gorman, so maybe they try and flip them somewhere for pitching or an outfielder or something like that. It would make a lot of sense. But, I mean, I guess the D.H spot is open now that Pooholz isn't there, but I don't know what they do with him, too.

Yeah, I think D.H would actually make the most sense if they do keep him. I think he would make a lot of sense in a move. You know, he still has some tradeability. Teams could justify playing him at first. He's played second. He obviously was a third baseman. He's got light tower power. Maybe a team can kind of overhaul his swing.

I still like Nolan Gorman, but I think he might need to head out in a different trade. And we'll just have to see what the Cardinals do. But again, this is kind of a, this is kind of the reason why shortstop for redraft is how it is. I mean, I could have thrown out L.A. de la Cruz, I think I could get a possibility with how the Brewers move Cheerio, even though he's on a shortstop.

You know, I think that's a guy that can move up. Like, I just don't know with some of these young guys how these teams are going to move all these players. And I could, if you told me right now that like Ledy De LaCruz, Volpe, Loller, and Wynn, we're all at the majors in May, I really wouldn't be that shocked. But I just don't know. And there's not a lot of like major league ready process. expect short stops that fit the bill until you start to go really, really far down the list.

So that's why we kind of talk about these guys. You're just not going to get immediate help. And hey, if Royce Lewis was healthy, he'd probably be number one on this list. If he were going to start and break camp, I think he'd be the number one redraft shortstop, pretty much without question, even over Tovar. Last point on Oswald Paraza, the early NFBC ADP, now 24-15 team leagues that have been drafted. So we're starting to climb.

We're starting to get some data here. Paraz's ADP is outside the top 400 at 4-18, which he's going 1205 picks after Ezekiel Tovar. And I like Tovar, but I also really like Paraza. This isn't a Yankee biased thing. I think he's their starting shortstop, at least for the beginning part of the season.

He looked really, really good in the small sample that he played with them. 18 games, he hit 306, one homer, three doubles, two steals, plate discipline look good, 10% walk, 6%. percent strikeout. He looked really, really poised when they called him up. I think they're starting shortstop.

And the team has openly talked about their love of Paraza and Volpe. They had a chance. They had a chance to sign. I guess they still have a chance to sign any of these short stops. Obviously that will determine a lot. But last off season, they had a chance to go after a Correa or someone like that. And they basically shot it down because

they said, we have Paraza and Volpe coming. And there was no joke. Yeah, you're a hundred Right. Also, all of these rumors out there, I just throw this out, even though, you know, a lot of second base, but, you know, if there's these Glaber Torres rumors that are kind of floating out there. I think he's gone. If they move Glaber Torres out, that's just more room for these guys, for them to kind of let these guys go. And really, you know, it's, I've liked it. I was just talking about this with, with a couple other teams, but, you know, it's like that auction strategy of the studs and scrubs. Teams can start implementing. If you have a good minor league system, you can implement. more studs and scrubs where this is the Dodgers. This is my point to the Dodgers being able to do this, where if they were to unload for Judge, and then you got Muky Betts and Freddie Freeman, and then you obviously have some money tied to like Muncie and Will Smith,

you've got the guys, you've got the Miguel Vargasus that can come up and play. You've got Gavin Lux, you've got controllable players. You can't just spend $20 million at every single position. You have to have young controllable players that are major league ready, and the Yankees know that. That's the way that you can compete, and they can go and buy a couple of the big impactful bats. They can go and buy pitching, which they really love to do, which is totally fine,

but you've got to develop some of these guys and give them an opportunity. And Paraza and Volpe seem like those guys, which would be probably an incredible thing, Frank, if you saw the Yankees with two rookie infielders controlling the middle infield, but that's where we might be headed with some of these teams. Yeah, I mean, I think for sure Paraz is starting, and Volpe depends how aggressive they want to be, you know, they're still going to have LaMayhew. I hope they trade Josh Donaldson, but I don't know that they're going to be able to move. I think he has $25 million left on his deal. There's a lot of smoke with the Glaber Torres rumors right now, and I think

they wind up moving him for a pitcher. I know Pablo Lopez was a rumor mid-season, so would not surprise me one bit. Let's get into some news and notes before we wrap up with a few buy and sell candidates at the shortstop position in Dynasty Leaks. And I mentioned earlier, Non-tender day, last Friday. 77 players were non-tendered in Major League Baseball, which means they are now free agents. And every year, we get a few surprises and undoubtedly the biggest name. I don't know that it was a surprise,

but I think it's a surprise in the way that just his stature, right? Cody Bellinger, just three years removed from winning the National League MVP, 2019, now non-tendered. Why? Over the past three seasons, 2020 through 2020, He is batting 203 with a 648 OPS and a 25% strikeout rate. Has not looked the same since his shoulder surgery following the 2020 postseason. We all remember he did the Bashbro thing.

Dislocates his shoulder, has off-season surgery really has not been the same since. I don't know that he can get back on track well. I mean, we've seen some Rockies rumors. I guess obviously that would help with like the Babbup and every. everything, but he just looks completely lost. He's going to wind up somewhere. He'll be a starter. But even at his suppressed cause, I don't know that I'm going to be buying on Cody

Bellinger. Yeah, I want to. I was a big Cody Bellinger guy. I believe that the, um, the fixes could happen. And it's just, it's so difficult to believe that guys can go from MVP caliber seasons to nothing. That's why the Rocky thing would be embarrassing because you want a prime example, look at Chris Bryant, you know, Chris Bryant has just never been the same.

And Colorado wasn't any real fix. So, yeah, I'm kind of with you. Like, the thing I've been waiting for, there was some, like, things that maybe he did behind the scenes that he stopped doing this past year, which was kind of a rumor that maybe that would help, you know, help him focus a little bit better. That didn't help. I would love to hear about some real mechanical changes, working with some groups, working with some hitting coaches, working with somebody to rehall this because all that's happened is he looked at

like he is up there guessing at every point. And he's one of those dudes. You get him, you get one strike on Cody Bellinger and he's done. You know, if he, if he doesn't have the advantage in a count like a two one, three one count, he's done. And I just don't know where the fix is going to be. I still think he's crazy, crazy talented with insane power. I just hope he can go to a place that can actually fix it. I'm just not hopeful because I mean, tell me on a team with Muky Betts and Freddie Freeman, the Dodd, there's nobody that can help. I mean, I, I mean, I, I would love information. If they had a hard knocks of baseball,

I would have loved for it to be with the Dodgers and find out, like, what were they doing behind the scenes with Cody Bellinger? That would make me feel better about what is potential and what's possible with him. But surface level stuff doesn't really matter.

He's just a name. He's just a name without production. Look at what he's done the past two years against breaking and off speed pitches. I don't want to. This past season, he hit 140 against breaking pitches, 160 against off speed.

Last year, 183 against break. breaking pitches, 195 against off speed. And what is his batting average against fastballs? Probably 220, 230? 253.

So, you know, he's still serviceable against fastballs, I guess, but look at what he did when he won the MVP. He hit 327 against fastballs. No.

It's crazy. Yeah, but that's the problem is when you're guessing, when you're guessing and you're sitting up there and you're cheating for off speed because you can't hit it, you also learn to not hit a fastball. And that is like that,

that is the ultimate effect, the cause and, and reaction to all of it. Couty Bellinger feels like he has got all the tools that are just wired wrong and you just wish there was a baseball electrician that could put them back in place. Other notable names that were non-tendered last week. We saw former top pitching prospect Alex Reyes of the Cardinals. He was non-tendered. Garrett Hampson, Jamer Candelario, Edwin Rios, Brian Anderson, Dominic Smith, Jorge Alfaro, Rhym Elfarro, Rymald's Happia, Luke Voight, and another former pitching prospect of the Cubs, Brelin Marquez.

So, you know, I guess those are like the bigger names that highlight it. Anyone else stand out to you here, Welsh? No, I mean, I love Alex Reyes. I always loved Alex Reyes, just destroyed by health. If the Cardinals can't fix you, I think that's a big sign. If they're not, they're going to let you go, that's a big sign. But I will tell you, I'm a sucker for Alex Reyes. And if he, God, wouldn't you just love to see him go?

I mean, I'm like, please go to the dinavacs. But if you're not, if you. went to like the guardians or the mariners or somebody take a shot on him. I wish he could be a starter, but I think he could still be a really impactful back into the bullpen guy just because of his stuff. But I feel like we barely seen him pitch in the last three years. So that was one of probably the biggest outside of Cody Bellinger non-tender that kind of made my eyes jump. Yeah, I would throw Tampa Bay in that mix. I mean, they just do a great job of, you know, either developing pitching or getting pitching back on track. You know, Houston has a good track record of doing that too.

So a few other organizations, you know, we'll be watching and see where Alex Reyes lands here in the offseason. We had some minor trades as well. Kevin Newman was traded to the Reds. Kyle Farmer was traded over to the twins. Gio Orchella traded to the Angels. He does have a history there because their manager is Phil Nevin, who used to be the bench coach of the Yankees, the year that Gio Orchella was actually pretty good or the couple of years. So obviously they have some faith there in Gio. And you know, I saw Scott tweeting about this.

I didn't really think about it, but he's going to have to play shortstop because Anthony Rendon is still their third baseman. They're paying them all this money. Maybe they, they DH Rendon here or there, but how are they going to do that? They have Shohei Otani. So I don't know. I think Urchella is probably just their starting shortstop, which seems kind of weird. I would also throw out maybe this is also a little bit telling of the state of Anthony Rendon. Just think about that.

That might be the state of how the team is viewing Anthony Rendon. But yeah, I think this is a guy that they know can play third. and it can be a more impactful bat at shortstop than they've gotten in God knows how long. So he just might not be an everyday player, but I do think this is a little bit telling about Anthony Rendon. Yeah, maybe they slide Rendon over to first base, something like that. You know, I haven't seen any rumors of it, but I look, it might be, it might help them stay healthy, you know, going from third to first or whatever. So could make sense. Yep.

L.A. Hernandez was traded over to the Mets and your Diamondbacks got in on the action here. Welsh, Kyle Lewis, former AL Rookie of the Year with the Mariners, he was traded to Arizona in exchange for Cooper Hummel, who, if you remember this past season, played some catcher, played a little outfield, he's a unique player, but, you know, Kyle Lewis, there's still some upside there if he can get back on track with his health. Yeah. But the Diamondbacks have a lot of outfielders, too, so how do you feel about this trade personally? I love it.

By the way, you broke this trade to me. I was doing a live stream on my Twitch. Sometimes I break some cards. I like cards. I like collecting and stuff and we were doing a break. And I'm like, oh, wait, hold on.

Frank just texts me. Kyle Lewis got traded. I love it. The early indications are that he's going to be one of the primary outfielders versus righties. So he's going to be out there a whole lot. He might get platooned a little bit against lefties. The problem is,

is they've got a lot of lefties that are already out there. And he would be up for some DH. That would be some of his spot. There's a lot of rumors that are going on with other outfielders as well, Dalton Varsho, Jake McCarthy, and Alex Ray, Alex Thomas, Alec Thomas are all kind of in rumors about teams inquiring about outfield help. One that's really interesting to me is the Cubs have been poking around. Alec Thomas has some ties to Chicago. He lives in Chicago. I kind of wonder if there would be, his dad used to be the bench coach for the White Sox and he went to high

school there. So I just wonder if there's any connection with that. If the Diamondbacks, I think they're going to be a little bit more active than usual. if you're going to see them make a move during the winter meetings, that would answer questions. But even if not, I think you're still good to go. I think Alec Thomas is going to be viewed as a bench outfielder. Corbyn Carroll is going to be out there. And then you're going to have some platoon between McCarthy, Varsho, Lewis, and Thomas. And Varsho still play some catcher.

But I think this is a great spot for him. He's going to get to DH a little bit more than he got in the other spot. Hopefully he can revive his career. Chase Field, pretty, pretty hitter-friendly. spot. So I'm very hopeful for Kyle Lewis and I think the team has a plan for him and they do plan to get him out there a decent amount. The early Rossal resource page for the Diamondbacks has Pavin Smith as they're starting DH. So God bless you, Pavin Smith, but I think Kyle Lewis might have a little bit more upside at this point. So we'd like to see him get an opportunity there.

Former first base prospect, Lewin Diaz was claimed off waivers by the Pirates in 112 career games. Diaz is batting 181, 227, 340. All right. Nick Sondell underwent surgery to repair a broken bone in his toe. It's fair to doubt if Sanzel will ever contribute anything at this point, unfortunately. Michael Kopeck's rehab process has been slower than expected. He missed the end of the season with a shoulder injury and then had right knee surgery in early October. Even with the slow rehab, the White Sox expect him to be ready for the start of spring training.

And last by and least, shout out to our M. VP award winners, Paul Gulchman in the National League, and Aaron Judge in the American League, who won 28 of 30 first place votes? I was not expecting that kind of disparity between Judge and Shohei Otani. No, I was, I mean, I clearly went. If anyone listened to me all season long, I was not expecting that. I don't believe that. Like, I get why Judge won it. And I get at the end of the day that, you know, maybe he gets a majority of those votes, but for that almost unanimousness, like, I don't know. I really do think that people are burning themselves on like, yeah, Otani did it and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I don't think you're really recognizing

how incredible what he does is. But I totally understand the, uh, the focal media point to Aaron Judge and stuff like that. But I don't know, man. I think it's almost Otani fatigue in the same way we see in the NBA where like LeBron James, whenever he's healthy, probably, she's, should win the MVP, but there were just years where he didn't because it kind of just felt like there was LeBron James fatigue. It might be going on a little bit with Shohe Otani right now in baseball as well. Let's wrap up with some buy or sell candidates in Dynasty, specifically at the shortstop position. And Welsh, I see you have three names here. Who are you looking to buy? Yeah, I just threw out a couple. Wanda Franco, I'm putting him out there because I think he's at an all-time

low. He had an incredible first month of the season. It really fell off the second. And then he got hurt and he never regained himself. The pace that he had in that first month would have put some elite stats out there. I mean, he probably would have been pushing 30 30, but then he fell off. So who's the real guy? Either way, I do think it's risky if you're paying a high, high price, but I just feel like it's at an all-time low. Everyone cares about Bobby Witt. Everyone cares about Julio Rodriguez, Wander stats kind of low. Projections, even Seamer projections are not crazy favorable to him. I think he can beat the power projections. I hope he keeps stealing. I think he can be a 300 plus hitter easy when healthy,

but there's tons of questions out there. I just think it's a decent time that you can buy on him. An older-ish name, which I just think this could be a prime spot, is Corey Seeger. Corey Seeger is someone I'm going to be more interested in redraft this year, really, really low Babb. I think he's going to have a bigger breakout season this year, put up, you know, obviously immense changes as far as the hard hit that he had when he was with the Dodgers, even into the Rangers.

Bab, incredibly low. I think he's going to bounce back, and I think he can come in a really good cost. And like a further one down is C.J. Abrams. And C.J. Abrams has actually got some pretty interesting numbers with the Nationals projected on Steamer. It's like 11 homers, 18 stolen bases. And the one thing that stands out to me,

CJ Abrams is a great hitter. And he's one of the fastest players in baseball. The 18 stolen bases really stood out as far as the projected games go, because I think they're projecting him around 140 games. In the minor leagues, C.J. Abrams had essentially a stolen base for every fourth of a hit. So it would work out that, you know, if he had 100 hits, 25 stolen bases would be the number. That's the best way that I can put that out for you. This number of 18 stolen bases based on his hits is well under that.

I think it's under like 15%. So if you go by track records of what he's done in the miners, which he's an aggressive, aggressive base stealer and he's super fast. This is way underselling him. And I want to say it was around 140 hits he's projected at this year, which would be closer to 30 stolen bases. So if he's getting the regular playing time, which he should,

he's a better hitter than being giving credit for. He's a really good athlete. I think he's going to steal way more bases. So I don't know if the homers will get up there, but I just feel like he's going to steal more, score more runs for a team that can afford to put him higher in the lineup. And I think it's just a great time because I don't think Abrams cost you anything in dynasty right now.

Now I'm obviously talking probably about more roto and head-to-head points. I'm probably a lot less interested in him. But I just think he's, I'm going to call him free or anything like that. But he doesn't have like one, I don't know. I don't even think he has like 75% of the value he had a year ago right now. So I just think he's free. Yeah, I like that call quite a bit. And for whatever it's worth, CJ Abrams in September and October, he played 30 games.

He hit 303 with 14 runs scored and five steals. So it was kind of starting to figure it out towards the end of the season. I don't know what the power looks like at all. I mean, could see this guy being like a six to eight homer guy, but I think he could still steal 25 to 30 bases and hit for batting average too. So I like that call quite a bit on CJ Abrams. For me, you know, this one, I think this is so interesting.

O'Neill Cruz is obviously a player that has talked about so highly in fantasy, right? And he's such a freak and what he does athletically. I mean, the exit velocity, 122.4, the highest in the stat cast era. The way I feel about him right now in redraft is actually very similar to Dynasty, right? You're buying on the upper trend, but if he hits his ultimate ceiling, you're talking about a player who is like perennially a first round pick in fantasy baseball. Now, if he flames out, which is definitely possible, given as much as he strikes out, I mean, he could be back in the minors this season.

That wouldn't surprise me. I mean, you know, he could end up being that player. Hey, remember that guy who played like half a season with the Pirates? And he was really awesome and then just flamed out. Yeah, that was O'Neill Cruz. I think it could go a bunch of different directions. But if you're just shooting for upside Welsh, I could see buying right now on O'Neill Cruz before he gets there.

Yeah, if you can't, and this is what's fun for me. I get to wash myself of the O'Neill Cruz hate. I was a hater last year. I hated, you know, when he made his debut, oh, dude, I was a hater's ball. when he came up, he instantly became the favorite to win rookie of the year. And we're talking, think about when he came up. I thought that was wild.

And everyone's giving him a pass and the early projections. People were drafting him crazy in early drafts and he didn't play for months. I just thought it was also silly. But I get to wash that clean because now you have a full season. He made really, really positive adjustments on the back half of the year. He started to learn the game. Steamer projections are wild on him again this year. It's close to 30 homers.

it's almost 20 stolen bases. So you're talking about hitting his peak. I'm in for it. Redraft, I'm very much going to be in for O'Neo Cruz. I'm with you on the dynasty buy. It's just it's got to depend at what cost. I just don't know he comes cheap. I really don't think he is.

I think he's going to come at a really, really high cost. So I don't know if I'll be a major buyer. But like in a nutshell, I really like this one because there's a lot of potential upside. A few players that you're looking to sell at shortstop. Who you got? So I found this one a little bit tougher as far as sales. Dan v. Swanson was one that jumped out to me. He has been relatively consistent as far as the power has gone.

I thought his batting average popped up a little bit. Babup was a little bit high this year. I think that's going to come down. Projections agree. I think the stolen bases are going to be tough to be repeatable. And at the end of the day, Atlanta runs. And where is he going to go? And is it going to be a team that's going to let him run as much?

Is it going to want to run as much? And I think he's kind of tied to some of the speed. So I only put that there that I don't think he's going to do a full repeat. So if you're able to sell him high, I would put out there. And this other one I'm throwing out, and I like your comment that you put on it. This one is it because I don't believe in this player. This one is because he just won a World Series ring in an MVP. It's Jeremy Pena.

Jeremy Pena, I would just put out there to see what I could get. Jeremy Pena's numbers are very Carlos Correa-esque. And I wonder if he could go that same path. You know, Carlos Correa never lived up to the dynasty price that you would pay. He can never statistically get there. Projections on him are around, you know, a little over 20 and 10. He had some batting average issues and stuff like that. I absolutely think he can mature and he can be better.

The only reason I put it out there is to test the waters. What does it look like after projections are solid? But he had that playoff run that he just had. Who would you rather have, Jeremy Pena or O'Neill-Cruz in Dynasty right now? I would say O'Neill Cruz, but I... Maybe you could trade Pena to get Cruz right now. Yeah. I mean, is it crazy to say you can trade Pena to get Wanda Franco in Dynasty right now?

I don't think so. But that's what I'm talking about. Like, put it out there. Let's see what's going on because he does have room for improvement. And you do hate to sell, especially if he's going to move in the other direction. I just don't know the stolen bases are going to always be there, but I really could see him being a 30 home run hitter, but maybe the sky's the limit. So it's always a smart move to maybe jump on one of those hot hands.

hands. And as far as anyone that's paying attention to the playoffs, Jeremy Pena's that. I do have one name here as well. And I actually kind of hope I'm wrong about this one because after everything Jorge Mateo has been through in his career, being a top prospect, and just kind of jumping around the league, Oakland A's, Baltimore's, he's settled in and he's become a viable MLB and fantasy player. But it just kind of feels like this is the pinnacle right now. And it wouldn't surprise me if, you know, he's not in the league for much longer. Again, I hope I'm wrong. I mean, he's turned into a solid baseball player. But yeah, I feel like if you're going to try and sell Jorge Mateo,

now is the time to do so, specifically in Dynasty League. All right, Welsh, well, Thanksgiving is coming up. It's just about a day away, two days away when we're recording this. But what do you think of here? You big Thanksgiving guy? What are the plans? Yeah, I'm a pretty big Thanksgiving guy. I do have one tradition and being very careful about talking about it,

but if you're familiar with the white Russian, if you're a big Lebowski guy, that is my, that is my Thanksgiving tradition. where I always do a little white Russian action. I'm pretty big into the extra pieces. And this is what I'm fighting for. And people are going to feel crazy about this. What I'm trying to get to happen this year.

So I've never been able to convince my wife to do mac and cheese during Thanksgiving. Because there's all so much. I know. This is crazy talk. There's always so much. It's a little bit of health nut. And she's just like, we got so much.

We don't need. It's mac and cheese. And I'm trying to hit it home that like, listen, it might just be mac and cheese to you. but mac and cheese on Thanksgiving. So I'm going to be fighting for some mac and cheese this year. Give me some mashed potatoes. Give me some stuffing.

Give me a white Russian. And it's a happy Thanksgiving. I'm very, very much a fan. What about you? You know, I have never had a white Russian in my life. And as you saw during the NFL weekend, I like to drink a little bit. I like to, you know, I wouldn't have paid you for a guy to not have a white Russian, to be honest with you. I never had one.

So you know what? I think I might join you in that tradition. Yes. Maybe I'll make myself one. I'm going to have to watch a few YouTube videos because I do not know how to make a white Russian. So I am interested to try that out. So we'll get that done. Tradition of mine,

I mentioned this as Scott. I watch Just Friends every Thanksgiving night. Great movie. And it's just like the kickoff of the Christmas season for me. I love it. I think it's a comedic masterpiece. I absolutely love that movie. And yeah,

I'll be watching that once again. Maybe with a white Russian in my hand. Who knows? But I hope so. happy to do so. And just want to wish a happy Thanksgiving to you, Welsh, and everyone else who's listening and watching and supporting us all year long,

because obviously it wouldn't be anything without you supporting us. So we do really appreciate it once again. Happy Thanksgiving to all. We're going to wrap there for The Welsh. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Happy Thanksgiving. Bye-bye.