Fantasy Baseball Today - 2025 Outfield Recap Part 2! Top-40, Breakouts & More! (11/5 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Before we get into the outfield, early NFBC ADP has been released (3:10)! ... Let's jump into the top-40 outfielders from 2025, starting with Jarren Duran, Seiya Suzuki and Taylor Ward (5:22). ... News (16:16): we got some surprising option decisions ahead of free agency. ... Ramon Laureano and Sal Frelick came through in a big way (27:52). ... Jo Adell, Trent Grisham and Kyle Stowers provided big power (34:00). ... Steven Kwan and Ian Happ are high-floor options (44:03). ... Michael Harris and Wyatt Langford have been a little frustrating (47:00). ... Ronald Acuña will be an early-round pick (56:48). ... Chandler Simpson is a fascinating player (1:07:32). We're doing a live podcast at First Pitch Arizona next week! We'll be discussing the biggest questions for 2026. You can help by filling out this survey: ⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/422w5jvv⁠⁠ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@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/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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 league. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hey there, welcome into fantasy baseball today on Wednesday, November 5th. I am Frank Stamphill joined by Scott White and Chris Towers today on the show. We continue on with our Outfield Recap Part of.

two. Yesterday we got through about 20 names. Today we'll try and get through the top 40 or so. We've got some interesting news items to talk about as well, learning more about options being declined and opted in and all this kind of fun stuff. And I might have mentioned this yesterday, but if you want our outfield rankings, way too early rankings for next season, we are discussing those on the Express episode just because we're talking about way too many names already on the full-length podcast. So we'll devote a little bit more time to the way too early rankings on our express episodes. You can also go to the website, cbsports.com, and there is a series of articles that go even deeper into these rankings by position, if you prefer to look at them rather than hear them.

I will also point out. I mean, that's the best scenario, to be honest, looking and hearing. Total sensory overload. I don't think you should turn this podcast off to go read Scott's articles. I don't know if Scott disagrees with me, but I would say you should not do that. We'll also point out, on a more serious note, very early, very limited ADP data is available for the first time today, as is the first round of steamer projections on fan graphs. You can go to NFBC, get a sense of some of the early, very early 20 drafts or so ADP data. But it's out there.

It'll paint a little picture. There are obviously all the structural things we talk about that makes take. some of this with a grain of salt, but it's nice to have a little bit of concrete data to talk about now. Yeah, no, it's a really good point. There are 20 drafts that have been completed so far over at the

NFBC and lots of the interesting names that we're trying to wonder, where will the ADP wind up, maybe Geraldo Perdomo being the most interesting of all. That pops up and the ADP is 84 so far. So just to give you... Seems reasonable. A way too early look on that. And yeah, the steamer projections,

very interesting ones there so far as well. So yeah. If if if if if that's what it remains I'm gonna have a lot of Eraldon Perdomo because that got a twice that eye I think George Springer's outside of the top like 110 so yeah yeah both of them folks aren't quite buying it. It'll be interesting to see how those markets I would guess both move up between now and March yeah I I like to think we're pretty influential I mean the data shows a lot of people listen to us So, you know, once we've had a chance to weigh in on these guys, I think we'll see the market shift some more in accordance with what we think. Not that everybody has to draft like we draft, but just that's the way influence works.

I think pro-Bichette, everybody. Projections have a pretty sizable impact as well. You brought up George Springer. He is currently outfielder 24 in early ADP, and steamer projections have him as the 10th projected outfielder. closer to where Scott has him. So interesting to see if, yeah, that kind of... George Springer. Steamer projections have him as the Outfielder 10.

You're saying the projections like him a lot more than 80P. So far, yes. Yeah. So I think we'll probably start to see that meet in the middle a little bit. Let's jump back in. And yesterday we left off with Tyler Soderstrom at Outfielder 21. So 22, 23, and 24. We have Jaron, Sayas Suzuki, and Taylor Ward,

three very different players. And I think Duran probably, the most interesting of those three after taking a bit of a step back. Obviously, was drafted as a second or third round pick in a lot of drafts. Last year, he was the 11th overall player in 2024 and now just finished 62nd overall in 2025. Batting average power, steals all came down this past season. Continues to struggle mightily against lefties as well. So, Scott, what do you make of this step back for Jaron Duran?

Would you be maybe looking to buy back in in 2026? I think I said a few weeks ago the last time we talked about Jaron Duran that that is one I'd like a do-over on. Sometimes things go differently than you expect, but then you consider the data you had, the information you had at the time. And it's like, well, I still probably would have made the same call with that information. So I can't feel too bad about it. The player just became different. And that's, that happens sometimes. But should you predict it?

Should you predict just for no analytical reason that it's going to happen? No, you should obviously stick to the process. But Jared Duran is on the other side where it's like, yeah, I kind of just assumed he'd be some semblance of the same player again. And there was plenty of reason not to assume that. And for the cost, was it worth going in on him doing that? doing that and no in retrospect

it wasn't I don't think he'll ever repeat that 2024 again that was just a case of everything going as right as it possibly could for Jaron

Duran but he was still pretty good and he could be better than the season that he had I think especially stolen bases he's going to get some of that back because the drop off there was it didn't really make any sense

and I would expect to a lesser degree maybe the batting average to bounce back some the power production I'm less optimistic in that but I think overall I'm expecting Jaron Duran to be downgraded maybe a little too much

I have him 19th in the outfield let's see what early ADP is 15th okay so I guess he won't be downgraded too much too much. But I think the price is a lot more reasonable, going to be a lot more reasonable form in 2026. I would like to know where Jared Duran is going to be playing in 2020, or 2026, 2029 be a different question. It made so much sense for them to sell high and we were all over this last offseason. Well, I don't think it would be selling high anymore. No, no, no, they should have done it last offseason. I think it was Chris Cotillo. I may be wrong. It was somebody close to

the Red Sox was tweeting about this earlier today where he thinks if they're are going to move somebody in a trade, it would be somebody that they feel like the market over values, values more than their own perception of the player. And Seidon Raphael is the one right now. I see, I could see that being the case with Jaron Duran just because I've seen a lot of discussion about like, oh, the Red Sox could trade Jaron Duran. Like Red Sox fans have been doing the like, would you take Jared, would you take Bryce Harper? for Jared Duran straight up.

And I feel like people think Jared Duran's young. And he's not. Jared Duran's 29 years old. He has three years of club control left. So like that's valuable. But like 29, 30, 31 for a probably at this point

corner outfielder who may not actually be an everyday player. I think he had like a 600 OPS or 620 OPS against lefties this season. And it was still a five-win player. That's pretty. Pretty consistent with his career too.

When you're that established, I don't think they start messing with your playing time too much. I'm just saying this is not a player that I expect to age particularly well. That might be more true for real life, but I could see a world where Duran Duran takes another step back this season. His defense is unplayable in center field and all of a sudden you're talking about a guy who's like a good hitter against Ritey's pretty bad against lefties doesn't provide a lot of defensive value. And all of a sudden, I could see a world where he starts to lose a little bit of playing time as a result for that. I'm not saying it's likely to happen this year. I think it's more likely 2027, 2028 as he gets into his 30s. But like, he is at the point in his aging curve where we should, if we knew nothing else,

except that he's 29, we should expect his best season to have already happened. And that's almost certainly what happened, I think. Chris, anything else that stands out to you from these other two names here? Sayy Suzuki, awesome first half. Took a big step back in the second half, hit 213 with a 68 OPS in that second half. And then Taylor Ward, career year in terms of power, 36 home runs, 103 RBI. It's pretty good quality of contact here, maybe even a little bit. I might be selling that a little bit short.

But based on expected home runs, Stackcast thinks he might have overperformed. his ex-home runs were at 29. He hit 36. So any quick thoughts on Suzuki or Taylor Ward? Yeah, I mean, anytime you're talking about a player on a career best season, some regression should be expected. And Taylor Ward is a pretty good, but certainly not a great hitter. And even in his best season, he wasn't really a great hitter.

I think there are clear limitations, clear flaws. This is a absolutely a situation where the Angels should be looking to set high on Taylor Ward coming off this season, whether they will or not. I think it's a different question. But yeah, I don't think anybody will draft Taylor Ward as if he's going to repeat last season. Nobody's ever really seemed to believe in Taylor Ward from a fantasy perspective anyway, so I don't think there's going to likely be a lot of hype. But I think, you know, Outfielder 21 is what he finished as last season, or 24, I guess.

I don't think we're likely to see the likes of that again. So probably not someone you have to draft inside of the top 30. Probably not really someone you have to draft inside of the top 36. He'll be fine when he's out there. But I don't think a repeat of 2025 is reasonable to expect. The early expectations agree with you too. I mean, again, it's very small sample. We're going to continue to say that for the ADP stuff.

But Taylor Ward is currently the outfielder 38 in early ADP, right around pick 160. So that seems kind of fair for what he just did and maybe expecting a little bit of a step back there from Taylor Ward. Before we hit our first break, reminder that Chris and I are doing a live podcast at First Pitch, Arizona later this week,

discussing the biggest questions for 2026. We have created a Google survey. You can find the link in the podcast and YouTube description. Be sure to fill it out so we can get as much data as humanly possible. If you are going to be at first pitch, make sure to pack a Hawaiian shirt because our podcast will be a live

Kokomo Friday edition this Friday at, let me see if I get this right, 7 p.m. Arizona time, which will be 9 p.m. Eastern time. Are we going to be streaming on that as well? We will be definitely streaming on the Baseball HQ YouTube page.

I think it will also be on our own FBT page as well. If it's not stream live, then we'll have a video on demand that will be on the world. 7 p.m. Mountain? Pacific? And then it's not...

Because it's weird. When it's daylight savings, they're two hours behind. And then when it's not daylight savings... No, there are only two hours behind. They're only two. Okay, I know nothing. It's very confusing.

Oh, is Arizona unique in that way? Yeah, they don't... They don't observe daylight savings. Maybe it is Pacific time. Yeah, so it's... I think it's Mountain right now. It's 7 p.m. Mountain time. 9 p.m. Eastern time, if you want to watch on Friday.

What everybody's on. Eastern. They know. They know the conversion themselves. We don't have to do it for them. That's true. Does everybody have a Hawaiian shirt, by the way? Is that just, is that something normal people can just do? I got like six of them. Yeah, I have multiple. You're not normal, Chris. Come on.

Wow. That sounds like we need to get Scott a Hawaiian shirt for Christmas because I don't think he has one. That's what it sounds like. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. Let's hit some news and notes. Two surprising ones up

top. So Trevor's story will stay with the Red Sox after choosing not to opt out of the final two years, $50 million remaining on his contract. And Shane Bieber has opted in with the Blue Jays for one year, $16 million. He definitely could have made more money than that on the open market. But I guess another year to reestablish himself. And if he has a Shane Bieber-esque season or anything close to that, you know, maybe he's getting an even bigger payday next off season. So I thought these two, were at least mildly surprising. Yeah, and I think there's even a bigger surprise to come. But the Shane Bieber one, all I can figure is, look, the velocity held coming back from

Tommy John surgery, so that work he put in a drive line prior to having the Tommy John surgery that held. But he wasn't as good as we expected him to be. And maybe he feels like there's like he's just scratching the surface of. that potential with that velocity and he's really betting on himself to have a better showing in his first full year back from Tommy John's surgery and get a much bigger payday than he would have gotten hitting the open market because he's worth more than $16 million as it is but I I guess he's betting on a long-term deal next off even for much more much more than he is a somewhat

crowded field at starting pitcher especially like there's not really anyone you feel great about as your number one on this. Maybe Frambervaldez depends how you feel about him. He's 32. Had a really rough second half. Dylan Cease is an enigma. There aren't really a lot of aces, but it's like a deep class of number two to number three types.

I feel like it's a deep free agent class in general, right? I was looking at one of those top 50 lists, and I feel like I start losing interest around 15 normally. But I was getting into 25 and 30, and it's like, these are still. There's no, like, 26-year-old future Hall of Famer types. Like Kyle Tucker, I guess, is the closest, right? He's 28. Yeah.

But it's a good, it's a good free agent class in terms of, like, three to five win players who are in their late 20s and early 30s. Like, you look at the pitching. Frambervaldez, Ranger Suarez, Dillon Seas, Michael King, Lucas Gialito, Zach Allen, Brandon Woodruff, Merrill, Merrill, Chris Bat, like a lot of guys who should be in rotations, but that's a lot of competition for the same market for Shane Bieber. So he might have just looked at this market and said, you know,

maybe there's less competition next year. And there were, but I don't think it made sense financially for story to, to pick up his option either. But we did hear some rumblings about that may be happening. and it's good news for his fantasy value. Absolutely. So I think there's a lot of reason to be wary of a repeat for story anyway, just given the injury history and the age and the plate discipline and all those things.

But better chance sticking in Boston than if he had signed most anywhere else. And another one of those pitchers, which is kind of in that same Shane Bieber type market, is Shota Imanaga. And this one also a bit of a surprise. The Cubs declined his three-year $57.75 million dollar. club option and then that kind of triggered Imanaga to have a player option for around 15 million and so he

declined that making show to Imanaga a free agent which none of us really thought that would happen against the offseason it just I didn't even include him in my SP like free agent preview and neither did I it was not something that even crossed my mind could potentially happen

and it it kind of makes me wonder what the Cubs are indicating to us by turning down what seemed like a financially beneficial deal here for a pitcher who, I mean, he wasn't as good in 2025 as he was in 2024 as a rookie. Especially in the second half. At bats, he didn't, he had a great August for what it's worth, but the September was kind of rough.

He didn't miss nearly as many bats, I'managa. The strikeout rate was down. Still a better strikeout rate than Cade Horton, I'll just point out. But it was down. It wasn't that impressive. But he had a ERA below 4. He had a .99 whip. Like, he still seems like a solid three or four starting pitcher who would deserve that kind of financial commitment.

Yeah. So are they, you know, they have a lot more information on Eamonaga than we do. Are they foreseeing collapse here? A lot of the underlying stuff is pretty scary From this past season He allowed a lot more fly balls A lot more hard contact These are a lot of the things we were saying from the beginning

I know Chris and I especially have been among the loudest But it got even worse though Yes it got worse But He still had an ERA below 4 and a 0.99 whip Like he was still good And I honestly I read it as one

I think the Cubs have a lot of faith in their defense to prop up middling pitchers. And I think they believe that if they have to throw out Javier Assad for a full season, they can get a 3-7 ERA from him or Jordan Wicks or whoever. I don't think that's necessarily smart, especially when you are the literal Chicago Cubs and you print money. Like there's no reason the Chicago Cubs should have to choose between Shoddy Minaga and making a splash and free agency. But this is how they operate.

The Cubs do not throw their money around in the way that you would think a team with that. And like, it does not sound like they're going to resign Kyle. Like, nobody really seems to expect them to resign Kyle Tucker or even to really try. Right. So part of my thinking with this wasn't so much they're trying to say something about Imanaga is just they're trying to cut. They're kind of cheap. No, no, not necessarily cheapness, but just every team follows a budget. And they feel like they can apply these dollars.

saving for Imanaga better elsewhere, which is a bold strategy because you never want to go, at least in my opinion, as if you're, if you're, burden the hand versus, like you're competing with so many other teams for a player. You can't just assume, oh, I'm going to sign this guy because I like him more than Imanaga and he's worth this much money to me. Well, you could get in a bidding war and you have to back away. And then what do you do? because you've already lost I'managa at that point.

So I don't know. They might be outsmarting themselves here a little bit. I think the Cubs might be in trouble next season. That rotation might be in trouble. If the Cubs don't sign like Dillon C's or someone, that rotation could be bad. I don't have any information on this, but I think that's the way that they're leaning

is that they're going to try and get maybe an upgrade over Eamaga here and just kind of free agent offseason prediction things I've seen kind of have them in the starting. pitching market. I talked to multiple Cubs fans who are like, we're getting Justin Steele back. He's going to replay. And it's like, Justin Steele's coming back from the internal brace procedure.

Go check out what happened with Spencer Strider next season. I don't think you can go into next season expecting Justin Steele to be great. I think you can hope for it. And the Cubs defense makes it more likely than in other spots, but like, I just don't think you can count on him. Yeah.

Let's breeze through the rest of these. More options decline leading to more free agents. Harrison Bader declined his mutual option. Rees Hoskins and Jose Katana both declined by the Brewers. Jack Flaherty will remain with the Tigers after electing not to opt out of his $20 million contract for 2026. So again, Flarity back in Detroit. The Braves will pick up Ozzy Albies's $7 million club option. There was a little bit of question as to whether or not they would do that, but he is back with the Atlanta Braves. That would have been so silly. Seven million dollars. Come on. Yeah. Jump change. The

Mariners exercised Andres Munoz's $6 million option. Obviously, no surprise there. The White Sox exercised Luis Roberts' $20 million option. So perhaps hoping to rebuild his value and flip him in season, if they can. That contract does not look good. Yeah, like that's a fine deal for Luis Robert. He's been pretty terrible the last two seasons. Yeah, I mean, I didn't realize how bad it's been,

but his past 210 games played, he's a 225 hitting. 650 OPS type ad It's not great for Luis Robert U. Darvish will miss the entire 2026 season after having surgery to repair a torn flexor tendon and an internal brace in his elbow

fair to question whether or not we ever see Udarvish as a starter again especially at his age and having that type of surgery so we'll see Dylan Cis and Michael King are also free agents so my guess is the Padres will be very busy in the starting pitching market as well William Contreras underwent a procedure to address the fracture in his finger.

He'll be sidelined five to six weeks but is expected to be healthy for spring training. Pablo Lopez is fully healthy and projected to have a normal offseason after ending his season on the aisle with a mild forearm strain. The Royal signed Salvador Perez to a two-year $25 million extension, which keeps him in Kansas City through 2027. The Astros placed Chas McCormick on outright waivers. according to Katie Wu, who covers the Cardinals, Yvonne Herrera will return to catch her next season,

but is not expected to do so in a full-time capacity, which is pretty much what we expected. It's just a reminder that he is util only to start 2026, and we're not sure how long it will take him to regain catcher eligibility. In CBS, you only need five games in the NFBC, you need 10, so it could take a little bit of time there for Yvonne Herrera. The Orioles acquired reliever Andrew Kittrich from the Cubs for cash considerations. Kittridge was actually traded from the Orioles to the Cubs at the deadline

and now sent back to the Orioles. So it's kind of like playing in fantasy football, a little bit alone, trading someone a player for their buy week, and then getting the player back afterwards. I don't know. It just kind of struck me as a weird transaction, I guess, for those two. We haven't talked much about the Arizona Fall League, but Tiger's top prospect, Kevin McGonigle had a monster game here on Tuesday. Just wanted to mention this, four for five, with two homers, four runs, four RBI. And through 15 games, he's batting 404, four homers, 1251 OPS, more walks than strikeouts.

So this was expected. A prospect of his caliber should dominate in the Arizona Fall League, but if we see anything close to this in spring training, he's probably up on opening day. Lock him into the opening day roster right now. I'm calling it. And Terrick Scoobal was in attendance for this game

in the Arizona Fall League. I was saying goodbye. He might be. So if he's still on the Tigers, he might have a little bit of say as to whether or not Kevin McGonagall makes that opening day roster. Let's get back into our outfielder recap

and we left off with Taylor Ward at number 24, 24, 25, 26, and 27. We had Jose Altuve, Ramon Luriano, and Sal Freelik. So Altuve we spoke about on our second base recap. He does have both second base and outfield eligibility for next season.

Two names were not used to seeing this high. Ramon Luriano, who was great in the second half of 2024 with the Braves, and then that carried over into 2025 where he spent the first half with the Orioles, second half with the Padres. He performed very well with both of them.

And then with South Free League, for years, we kind of made the Stephen Kwan comp if everything came together and everything came together. And he had a very Stephen Kwan-esque season here. Scott, Luriano is someone I know, you know, you had a closer look at the year before with the Atlanta Braves. He looked really, really good.

and the underlying numbers pretty much back it all up from this past season. Yeah, a year and a half of like a mid-800s OPS from a guy who's still in his early 30s. I'm kind of wanting to just take that as phase value. I don't know that I go all the way to doing that in my rankings. I have Ramon Luriano 42nd in my outfield rankings, so clearly lower than where he finished. 2025. But looking at the early NFBC ADP, he's 58th there. So that seems like a total dismissal that isn't deserved at this point.

And he's going to be back in San Diego. I don't think he hit as well there as, uh, let me see if I can find that real quick. Petco Park. So he hit 218 with a 576 OPS there. So it is a little bit of an Ehuenio-Swaris situation where he got traded to a worse venue and still performed fine overall, but it was really just the road numbers carrying him after that trade. So that is part of the reason why I'm downgrading him a little from the numbers. But at the same time, this will be the first year since I can't remember when, where Ramon Luriano is being treated as a genuine mixed league asset drafted in all leagues. I anticipate that happening for him this year.

Yeah, definitely in five outfielder leagues. I think in maybe three outfielder points leagues, he's kind of on that fringe, Luriano. He doesn't walk very much, but in five outfieler leagues for sure, Luriano's going to be drafted in those. Chris, Salfreelik here did the Stephen Kwan thing. He overperformed expected stats,

but based on how much contact he makes, he pulls the ball a lot. He has the profile as somebody who would overperform a little bit. I end just playing for the Brewers. They do really good work with players like this. I pretty much buy it. What do you think about South Rilich? Yeah.

I just, he is so punchless. But isn't it the same thing as Kwan? And Kwan is, you know, he's been a fantasy mainstay for years, right? I feel like part of it is just our opinion of Kwan has kind of. Well, and I think the main distinction is like Kwan has been doing it for years. And he's in that NFBC ADP, it's about 30 spots difference. price between them and it's like well one guy's been doing it for a long time one guy did it once and was fine but i don't know i just i don't think it's very likely you will regret passing on

south frelick even like look at 200th overall or whatever it is it doesn't really matter i guess but he is just he's unlikely to be a target unless i specifically need batting average I have him and Kwan back to back in my rankings. Sure, I think that's reasonable. Partly because Kuan has done it a couple times, three times, I guess. So three times or four times. Kwan's done it a few times, and Freelick's done it just once, as you said. And part of it's Freelick occasionally sat some against a left-handers this past year,

and Kwan is truly full-time. I expect Freelik to be full-time, but whatever. You're looking for ways to distinguish between two very like players. So I have them back to back in my rankings. You're saying early ADP has Free Lake 30 spots behind Kwan. Yeah. Like I'll definitely be more likely to draft Freelick if that remains so. And I do think there is, I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that in a Roto League,

I just don't want to invest an outfield spot in a player who's probably not going to give me double-digit home runs. I mean, part of it just depends on the precise build and there may be certain scenarios where it's the ideal player to drafts. out Freelick or Stephen Kwan, whichever. But as a general principle, that is not ideally how to use an outfield spot in a Roto League. I'm with that. If we're going to address the points league side of things, you might be surprised how high I rank Freelick in that format, given the very low strikeout rate.

Although, does he rank high enough to be starting caliber? Because that's always the problem with this type of player. It's like, yeah, his game, it translates well to a points league, but I think he'd be right on that fringe, like a low end outfielders, around 40. He averaged 2.8 fantasy points per game last year, which is pretty good. Pretty good, yeah. But then you have to account for, and he sat about 15% of the time. Is that likely to continue in 2026? I don't know. I think it's more likely he's just an everyday player, but.

So he's 34th in my outfield rankings. So technically in a 12-team three outfielder league, I rank him as a starter, though when you're that close to the threshold, he'll be drafted, I feel like, in points leagues, which as shallow as that as a three outfielder format is, I think that's to Freelick's credit that we can say that much about him. There are several players coming up I would much rather have than South Freelick. Sure. Let's talk about those players, 28, 29, and 30 in the outfield this past season. We had Joe Adele, Trent Grisham, and Kyle Stowers, power, power, and more power. Adele finally put it together. 37 home runs, he dropped his strikeout rate. Quality of contact was elite.

Expect the stats say he should have been even better. Frank Grisham out of nowhere, 34 homers, a 3.48 on base percentage, 811 OPS. He is a free agent this offseason, so we'll see where he winds up. Obviously, Yankee Stadium would be pretty darn good for his skill set. and Kyle Stauer is a breakout season here cut short by a strained oblique, but hit 25 homers with a 912 OPS in 117 games. Among players with 450 plate appearances, his 256 ISO was 13th best.

So legitimately one of the best power hitters in baseball this past season. Lots to be excited about, Chris. How are you ranking these three power bats, I guess, for next season? I have Stowers clearly ahead of the other two. It is funny. The way I am asking this question will give away the answer. But who do you think is younger? Kyle Stowers or Joe Adel?

Yes, Stowers is older than I thought. Yeah, Joe Adel is like a year and a half younger than Kyle Stowers. I think Kyle Stowers turns 28 next season. So that is a reason to be skeptical. He was like a prospect but not a particularly highly thought of one. He was always older. There were questions about whether he'd be able to hit lefties. I think he answered those well enough last season.

But Kyle Stowers gives me real Brent Rooker vibes from a couple of years ago where I don't think he's likely to be this good again. Brent Rooker was not as good in 2025 as he was in 2024. I think it's unlikely that he's a total fluke. I would have liked to have had those last like month and a half of data to, to get a little more of a sense of who Kyle Stowers is, but the underlying data completely backs up what he did. He was like top 20 in the majors and expected Wobah, and his Wobah was one point off of his expected Wobah.

So there is the was it a fluke question, which is looking back, no, it was not. Then there's the was it sustainable? I think that's an open question. I would guess no. if you set the over under at a 386 Wobah, I would certainly take the under. But can he hit 250 with 30 homers next season? I think that's pretty reasonable.

Yeah. Maybe not the most likely outcome for Kalshowers, but I think it's well worth in the realm of possibility. And so, you know, Adele, I think there's just always going to be batting average problems. I know the expected stats are better, but this is a guy who has never hit over 240 at the M. MLB level, 246, I guess, in 35 games in 2021. I think that's always going to be a problem for him.

Grisham, he's a pretty good player. I'm fascinated to see what the market for him looks like because I could see him getting $100 million. I could see him having to settle for like a two-year contract. I have no idea. I've seen that all over the place in free agent predictions. I've seen like two for 30 for Trang Grisham. I've seen like five years over $100 million.

So I have no idea what the market is going to be for Trang, I think it just depends on if teams think he can play center field. The metrics weren't great last season, but he's been good there in the past. What's interesting about Grisham is he took this this hugely in performance. That's pretty much backed up by the fully backed up by the expected stats. He underperformed his expected stats as good as he was. And yet you look at what if you go line item by line. item and what changed.

The walk rate was better. The strikeout rate was better. The pull air rate was better. None of them were like an order of magnitude better, though. And so do those slight improvements add up to this much improvement in terms of performance? And will those improvements stick? Yeah, away from Yankee Stadium. Left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium.

That must have been it. He must have been doing like Cody Bellinger and taking advantage of the. short right field porch there. But no, that actually wasn't the case for Trent Grisham. It wasn't a Yankee Stadium phenomenon. Yeah, he was much better. He hit 21 of his 34 home runs on the road, hit 269 on the road compared to 195 at home. So it's the out of nowhere aspect of it, the fact that there isn't some like huge skill improvement backing it up.

And the fact that you can't even explain it by venue and environment, it all adds up to just, I don't know what to make it, this guy. I'd like to think he's this good because if he is, that sounds like a great number three outfielder for me. But when you're looking at him or Taylor Ward or I think Joe Adele will probably be drafted in a similar range, it's hard to think Trent Grisham is, Oh my gosh, Trink Grisham is being faded pretty hard, actually, early in drafts.

So. Yeah. Lots of skepticism there. Yeah. So far. Okay. I think, I mean, that'll make it easy if he's the 60th outfielder, if he's not actually being drafted anywhere close to what his performance was. Okay.

Fine. He'll be the New Jerichson Pro Far and, like, what's the downside to taking him? But I imagine, I imagine that'll trend up the early ADP for Trinckhrysham. Once he signs that, you see that. You see that a lot in this area of AP data. Guys who are unsigned. It's weird, right? People tend to be like, oh, he's just not going to play, I guess.

Right. But he's not on a team. He's not on a team. Maybe he never will be. And that's not specifically an FBC thing. You see that in football drafts. You see that in mock drafts that we do. There's just like, it's reasonable.

There's uncertainty about a player's value when they haven't signed. And there's park factors that can change things and stuff, but yeah. But I think generally speaking, people can take that too far. Oh, yeah. I do just want to go back to Joe Adele for a second. I think Adele versus Stowers is basically a coin flip. I love the adjustments. When I dug it on Joe Adele, what he did this past season.

He lowered the strikeout rate. His zone contact was much better. The quality of contact, the stack cast stuff, was awesome for Joe Adel. So I like both of them a lot. Joe Waddell's strikeout rate and zone contact was actually better than Kyle Stowers. So I like both a lot. I think it's basically a cornflip between those two. I like the swing decisions for Stowers better.

I think that's ultimately what it comes down to. They both have a lot of swing and miss. It was better for Adele this season than it had been in the past. But it's still a very high chase rate, whereas Stowers, I believe, his chase rate was right around even. So his swing decisions were a little better. Yeah, I'm with Chris on that. I have Stowers 25th and I have Joe Adele. That's points leagues.

Hang on. I have Stowers 25th and I have Joe Adele 29th. Okay, closer than I thought. I have, there's more separation in points leagues than that was the rankings I was looking at first. But bottom line, I prefer Stowers to Adele. All right, let's take our final break. When we return back into the outfield position right after this,

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. We are recapping the outfield position, trying to get through the top 40 or so names from this past season. We left off with Kyle Stowers at number 30, 31, 32, and 33. We had Stephen Kwan, Ian Hap, and Ceylon, and Ceylon Raphael.

We spoke about Raphaelah. On our second base recap, he has both second base and outfield for next season. The other two names here, Stephen Kwan, Ian Hap, both high floor options. You pretty much know what you're going to get. I wanted to point out with Stephen Kwan, not as big of a batting average boost as you might think.

I mean, he's had some spike seasons, but his four years in the majors, it's been 298, 268, 292, 272. So there have been some fluctuations in performance there for Stephen Kwan, and Ian Hap is just a metronome for fantasy. You know exactly what you're going to get. 240 to 250, 20 to 25 homers, 10 to 12 steals, solid counting stats. And that's not a knock. I mean, that's a totally fine, like, third outfielder. And someone who's actually a little bit better in points leagues as well as Ian Hap. I'm a little confused about Ian Hap because in that early ADP data,

and look, it's only 20 drafts. It's very, very much in flux. He was 190.1.3. Last year, it was like 123. Nothing changed. The steals came down a little bit, but yeah, not really. Like, it's, yeah, 13 to 6. That just sounds like normal fluctuation to me.

His batting average has been right on. Like everything has been right the same place for three straight years. I'm kind of confused at like, I don't think anybody was baking upside into Ian Hap this time last year, entering his age 31 seasons. So I'm a little confused by his price dropping, but I'll take it. He's rock solid. He's not a difference maker, but he's really nice guy to have around on your fantasy team. I wonder, and this probably isn't true for the NFBC crowd. which is what this ADP is for,

as it would be for just like your own home league. But for the first four months, Ian Hap looked like he was cooked and then he really turned it on the last two months. So the experience of rostering him probably was pretty frustrating. But I'm with you in the broader point that Ian Hap is underrated

and perennially underrated. He's sort of like a tier below Brandon Nimmo, but the same phenomenon there where people just, for whatever reason, they find him underwhelming, but the overall production is consistently quite strong. Yeah, and Ian Hap did go on the IL back in May with a strain left oblique, so that probably accounted for his slow starts of the season, but then, you know, got back on track and basically did Ian Hap things. So I think both guys, I mean, if you're playing deeper five out for their leagues. They both kind of seem like pretty good discounts right now on Stephen

Kwan and Ian Hap based on some early ADP data that we have. 34, 35, and 36. We had Michael Harris, Elliot Ramos, and Wyatt Langford. Harris and Langford, I think, just much more dynamic for fantasy purposes. Harris, awful first half, which we've seen from him multiple times now. And then he was much, much better in the second half and basically got the numbers right to where they should be. Batting average a little bit lower

than we would have liked, but, you know, the experience of rostering Michael Harris is not fun, but he usually does get there in the end. That's what I've noticed about him so far.

Elliot Ramos, pretty similar seasons two years in a row, but it took them a lot more games to get there. I actually think there's playing time risk for Elliot Ramos.

He's not a great hitter, and he's one of the worst defensive outfielers in baseball, so not sure how locked in, he is for next season. And then Wyatt Langford, he went on the aisle three different times with oblique injuries this past season twice with the left oblique, once with the right oblique, still managed to go 22, 22, and 134 games.

And he's still only turning 24 years old this offseason. So I think there's still a lot of upside there with Langford. We'll be interesting to see what the market thinks about him. But like I let off, guys, I think Harris and Langford are infinitely more exciting than Elliot Ramos for fantasy. Yeah, definitely one of these things is not like the other's situation there with Ramos. Just he played 157 games. And I think that's a lot of the reason why he finished as high as he did.

Not that he's a zero for power. He's kind of pre-20205 Taylor Ward. Yeah, yeah. Just a guy who's going to be there. And at the end of the season, his numbers should be respectable as long as he doesn't lose his job. But he's not. He'll eke out 20 to 25 home. with like a load of mid-700s OPS.

If the playing time doesn't go down, Frank, which is a possibility you raised, I think, fairly. White Langford, though, to that point, we already know what the market's saying. He's the 11th outfielder drafted on average, and I think that's exactly where I rank him in the outfield, too. He's sandwiched between Buxton and Springer for me as somebody who hasn't quite delivered on that early round upside yet.

but I at least feel like he has it, which isn't true for the outfielders in the like the 12 to 20 range, at least for me. I am starting to lose, I don't know if I don't know if I want to put it that way, that I'm starting to lose faith. The longer a player, an up-and-coming player who's presumed to have stud potential

fall short of that stud potential, the more you have to question whether that's still in the cards for him, I think in Langford's case, he's young enough that it's, we're not to the point yet where we're seriously questioning it, but just looking at the overall hitting profile for Wyatt Langford, the exit velocities are a little less than we thought they were going to be. It did improve a lot this season, though. It's all, but it's like everything's good.

Nothing is really elite. Right. And so my point there is, I wonder if he's going to remain a liability in batting average. That's what the profile looks like to me between the strikeout rate over 25%. High pull air rate. The XVosities were better, Frank, to your point, than I was remembering as I pull it up again. But the expected batting average was only 247.

He actually hit 241, very similar to his rookie season in both cases. And that just may be part of the profile for Wyatt Langford and what keeps him from genuinely being an early round player and fantasy. even though the power speed production should be pretty good. Is he closer to Randy or Rosarena from a five-by-five perspective? Or is he, you know, at one point we were making like Kyle Tucker comparisons for him? Can he still live up to that? I'm leaning more toward the latter. But I'm building in the possibility of the former still in my ranking of Wyatt Langford.

I'm going to give Wyatt Langford another year. And it seems like everybody else is. His price is basically identical to what it was last year in these early drafts. This is an unfair comp, and I want to be clear that this is not who I am saying White Lankford is. The fantasy community's response to the early career Wyatt Lankford, where it's just like it doesn't matter how disappointing and frustrating he's been so far. We're just going to keep drafting him as if he's a borderline elite player. It's giving no more Mazarra vibes.

Like just a guy who just got endless benefits. of the doubt where the production just was not justifying it. But he's already done more than Mazar did, right? Early career? Not really, man. Am I not kidding Mzara? Enough credit? Mazar's second season was 20 homers 101 RBI. Oh, wow. All right. But like he wasn't a good hitter.

It was just he hit a ball 500 feet one time and he was super young. He had really good skills and was a super high prospect. But like the skills were pretty iffy. I think Langford's better than that, to be clear. Yeah. But it's, but it's, in Mazar's case, he's getting a lot of benefit of the doubt for pretty iffy production so far through his career. And a lot of the issue with Mazar as he just didn't put the ball in the air enough, which was not something analysts we're paying as much attention to back in those days. It's not to dig it old wounds.

What do you do to old wounds? Uh, dig, dig scratch it? I don't know. Dig out. Dig up. him there and I'm missing it. By the way, speaking of like linguistic things,

you said he's giving what vibes? What was the phrase you used? Giving Nomar Mazarra vibes. Giving Nomar Mazar vibes. Yeah. Didn't we used to say giving off Nomar Mazar vibes?

Did we drop the off? Because I've heard this. I've heard that. This is just the Bushwick in me where like these kids, so I'm 37. I had to check what year it was to make sure,

but I'm 37. I'm pretty sure I'm the oldest person who lives in my building by 10 years, except for my wife. I guess she's a month younger than me. But everyone else is like children. And they don't say like giving off blank vibes. No, no, but they don't even say vibes. They just say like if I was truly to have lived my Bushwick experience, I would have said, it's giving Nomar Mazarra?

Yeah, they dropped off and they dropped vibes. Yeah, it's just giving the noun. That's a thing, yeah. It really bothers me. And I had to make sure that I said the vibes part to at least, you know, make sure I'm not doing that. I will point out to get back to the baseball discussion. One, I think Michael Harris is just going to be a good value in drafts. I think people have gone too far on the he's frustrating and overlooked that he's still really good and super young and super talented.

He's like, what, a year older than White Lankford, I think still. He broke in when he was 20. And I do want to point out, I was critical of White Lankford. I made the unfair No Mar-Mazarka. He had three different oblique injuries this season, including one, I believe, during spring training, Wyatt Lankford did, or right after opening day, something like that. So, like, it's also possible.

Those are notoriously difficult injuries to come back from. It's possible he was just never healthy, in which case his 22 homers and 22 steals looks a lot better. So I want to make sure I'm not giving him. Because I still rank Lankford a little less aggressively, but he's 15 for me. So it's not like I'm out on Wyatt Lankford. Yeah, I'm still all the way in.

I give him the benefit of the doubt for the injuries this past season. And I know we don't talk about like war too much on players, but like No-Mar Mazar was never even a one-win player. Sure. And Wyatt Lankford was just a four-win player. Like he's an amazing defender. A pretty good defender. I think we kind of put him on a pedestal so far.

And that's a lot of like the fantasy community is doing and stuff. But if you think about what he's done at such a young age already, like being a four-win player going 22-22 with like an okay batting average, like I think it's still pretty impressive what he's done. But yeah, maybe the batting average doesn't get there. But it wouldn't surprise me one bit if next season he goes 25-25. And like the counting stats being down was kind of a product of just the Rangers not being great. Oh, yeah.

Although I would expect them to go 25, 25. I don't know how I. Batting average in the 250, 2.6 range. Don't know how I feel about that offense, though. It might be a pretty mediocre offense. It's getting old fast. They might be tearing it apart, too.

They're old. Yeah. So I'm not as down as the Nomar Mazar come. I want to, like, I feel like that's going to get thrown in my face at some point. I just want to say, like, it's just that we're giving him the benefit of the doubt that he hasn't necessarily earned yet. And like,

the likeliest. outcome for him and Randy a Rosarena is probably very, very similar. Right. And a Rosarana is going to be a lot cheaper. So if you're playing- Because I feel like people are just, I'm looking at some of the comments now and it's just like all they heard was negatives. And it was probably just a case of us throwing too many thoughts out there once.

Like, again, I rank Wyatt Langford 12th in the outfield. I'm just saying partly it's because there's not anybody who clearly deserves to rank 12th. And I think there's a chance laying for takes a step forward. Do you have him ahead of James Wood? What's that? Do you have him ahead of James Wood? I do not. Okay.

Continuing on with the top 40 outfielders, I'll just kind of lump these last four together here. But 37, 38, 39, and 40. We had Lawrence Butler, to Oscar Hernandez, Mickey Moniac, and Alec Berluson. You know what? I'll throw one more in there.

Ronald de Cunia. He was the 41st outfielder. I'm going to draft Ronald Acunaeonia ahead of these guys. Yeah. I don't know about you guys. Hot take. He only ranked this low, obviously, because he only played, you know, 95 games or whatever it was.

But obviously when he played, he's a first rounder. 290, 21 homers, 935 OPS. And his full season pace, Akunya, was 35 home runs, 160, 126 runs, and 15 steals. And even if he just did that or came close to that, that's a first round player. Yeah, yeah, he's a first rounder. Yeah.

There's no question, I think. Clearly. Ronald Acuna is probably closer to five than 15 for me, I would guess. Otherwise, I don't know, Burleson, Teosker. Burleson. I don't have a ton of interest in these guys. Mickey Moniac. It's kind of wild that Berluson finished that high, a guy with 18 home runs, 69 RBIs, 54 runs, and five steals. Batting average carried it. 290 is very helpful. That's the one stat I didn't mention. And how much do you really want to put on that? I think Alec Burles. has a profile that lends itself to a high batting average, but am I going to pencil him in for $290? I think if he hit $2.75 instead, a very realistic outcome, then the roto formula wouldn't like him nearly as much.

And I do think there's going to continue to be a fair amount of platoonage happening there with Alec Berluson. And just not enough power, I think. to justify more than like a corner infielder or a fifth outfielder, fourth or fifth outfielder spot in Roto. I do disagree on the platoon stuff for Burlinson just because he improved against lefties. And I looked at their lineups from basically mid-June on,

Burleson played almost every day against lefties. I think he missed like three games. So he improved there. He got the opportunities. I've always kind of comped him to Josh Niller. Just makes a lot of contact. He's aggressive at the plate. I think the batting average would be pretty good.

I don't think he's ever going to steal 30 bases or anything crazy like that, but a 2.75 hitting 20 homer good counting stats because I think he's going to play every day, you know, 8 to 10 steals. It doesn't blow you away, but I think it's just like a rock solid player. I think the counting stats have to be there, though. I think they're going to improve. If they were last year, I think they will. Yeah, even 2024, it was 149 combined runs in RBIs, right around one per year.

game. He's just, he hasn't, that was one thing with Josh Naylor, even before he really broke out, is he would put up really impressive RBI numbers for, for his pace. And we haven't really seen anything like that from Burleson so far. So, you know, partially that is the lineup, although Josh Naylor was playing in some pretty bad lineups for a while in his career. But I don't know, I think Burleson is the most interesting out of Tay Oscar, who's just kind of not that different from Elliot Ramos, I think, right now. Probably better, but... I think the playing time is much more guaranteed.

Yes. Just that's... It's probably the contract, but... I don't know, man. Like, the contract is what it is, and they seem to like him for, you know, clubhouse reasons, and Shohei is a very close friend of his apparently and all that. But, like, the one thing the Dodgers have is just a ton of corner outfield talent coming up. And maybe not, it might not matter in 2026, but I think to Oscar Hernandez is...

is not an everyday player by before, well before the end of this contract, whether that's 2027. I don't think it's going to matter in 2026. They think Zerreheir Hope and, yeah. Yosue de Pala. Yeah, and also Mike Serota. Yeah.

And who's the other guy? Scott. They got like four really good. Scott mentioned Zihar Hope too. I don't know if you know. Yeah, they might have four corner outfielders who are like top 50 prospects this season. I can't remember the fourth one's name.

But. So the Dodgers tend to be pretty slow about promoting their prospects. So that's probably more of a 2027 concern. But I've been trying to circle around to Lawrence Butler. I think is by far the most interesting of the non-acuna names on this group. And wasn't really that much difference between what he did last year and what White Lankford did, especially when you account for both playing through pretty serious injuries, as we learned at the end of the season for Butler with both knees.

I was pretty out on him at price when he was a top 60 pick in 2025. He's gonna be a lot cheaper this year and I'm I don't see like the superstar outcome, but if I can get him 120th or something, I like Lawrence Butler. Is he going that late because it's around 125 right now. 128 among outfielders. Yeah. I can get behind that. I think a 240 2020 expectation is totally fair for

Butler. So the problem with Lawrence Butler, okay, if you just say he had bad knees and so he wasn't right, that may be. But it is kind of a leap of faith.

Sure. Because everything was awful for Butler, to the point that they basically stopped playing him against lefties. He was terrible against lefties, wow. So the breakdown I have here, trying to mind it.

Bear with me one second. Two, two point five, two points per game for the season, which is pretty unimpressive. That's bad enough. But then over his final 90 games, it was 2.09. And he stopped playing against left-handers,

like I said. So it was basically unusable for more than half the season. I know he continued to start in most fantasy leagues just because the overall numbers still look decent from the fact that he started the year pretty well. But it got abysmal for Lawrence Butler.

And while he is going much later in 2026 and will go much later than he did in 2025, there are still enough other outfielders in that range who I have far fewer concerns about and I think have pretty good upside themselves. And so I'm not sure I'm going to be the one taking the flyer on Lawrence Butler. Not because I don't think it's possible that the knees could explain everything, but because there's enough upside, enough other places at that point in the outfield rankings that I don't have to take that leap of faith. I'm fine taking leaps of faith on players when it feels like I'm not losing much by doing so.

But I think even though the cost will be down on Butler, it's still going to be forfeiting too much. The only other name here we haven't talked about is Mickey Moniac who actually had himself a nice little season here with the Rockies hit 270 24 homers, nine steals, 824 OPS, he lowered his strikeout rate, hit optimal contact for power, his barrel rate was great, 13.8%.

Expected stats bought it as well. He's not going to play against lefties. He's terrible against lefties in his career. So, I mean, this is a platoon bat that maybe can go 2510, something like that. but the ADP is also much lower than any other name we just talked about. So he's outside of the top 50 outfielders being drafted. I don't know if that's low enough for you guys to maybe take a stab or a flyer,

a late round flyer on Moniac for next year. Are the Rockies, is he under contract for next year? And I couldn't even tell you to. Are the Rockies going to be desperate slash bad enough to play a player as bad as Mickey Moniac as often as they were last season? He's Arb eligible through 2028. Okay. Because, like, he had an okay season because he played at course field,

but he was still a below average hitter despite being shielded from basically all lefties. This is one that just feels like a total product of course field. And look, as a late round flyer... 824 OPS, you're calling them below average? Yeah. I would guess... 110 WRC plus as well. Okay, is that above average?

All right, good for him. It was a 0.6 war over 135 games. Yeah, he's terrible defensively. So just like, okay, I guess he wasn't above average hitter for the first time in his career, basically. I guess 2023 in a much smaller role he was around as good. I just don't think this guy should be an everyday player on a major league team. And he might be a major for the Rockies.

Yeah, he might be an everyday player for the Rockies, because they're not a major league team, but that's, it's like when you're talking about a player like that though, like if they just stumble on one dude who turns out like a Daryl and Lyle type, who just comes out of nowhere and turns out to be like a decent player, they should probably just play that guy over Mickey Money. Well, I think that was Mickey Monea. Yeah. Gosh.

He was that he was their Dalin Lyle. I just pulled up their roster resource page. It is terrible. Oh my God. I mean, they're going to be bad for a long time. I think it's a fantasy-friendly or profile than Daylon Lyle. But we were saying he shouldn't be an everyday player, and I said, well, he might be for the Rockies.

But I don't think even he will be for the Rockies because he wasn't this past year. And that was the biggest problem. Mickey Moniac's performance I was perfectly fine with for fantasy, he just didn't play enough for it to, for him to be that impactful in most fantasy leagues. I think he's just a fifth outfielder, and I think it's perhaps more likely he takes a step back than he takes a step forward by playing more in 2026. Some big names that we have now mentioned so far

in our two-episode outfield recap here. These are ranked inside of Scott's top 36 outfielder. Again, you can read more about them on the site. But there's Roman Anthony, who's the outfielder 20, Jackson Merrill, 23, Jacob Marcy, 34. Luis Robert 35 and Jerks and ProFar 36. We will talk about some of those on the Express episode. So again, make sure to tune into that.

If you want to hear about like Roman Anthony and Jackson, Maryland. We have all offseason to talk about these guys. We should also mention Chandler Simpson. Yeah, he was actually the next group up. He was the 44th ranked outfielder this past season. And look, he's going to be a fascinating player. He had 44 steals in 109 games. He also had 26 RBI.

And he graded out as a terrible defender. I think there's real playing time risk. I don't even know if he's in every day. Like, he might lose his job by like May or June, to be honest. I think he opens the season as an everyday player for sure. I agree with that. And then it's just, I think the leash is going to be very short for him. I think Kevin Cash likes him a lot more than the front office does.

That's just me kind of reading in between the moves each of them we're making in terms of how much Kevin Cash is playing him and the front office sending him down. In spite of that. But yeah, he's a curious player. I didn't mean to steamroll your point, Chris. No, it's just if he can be average in left field, which is a really low bar. Like, especially when you have that kind of athleticism, you should be able to just like, you should be able to sprint your way to average in left field. He's got a decent arm.

Like, was he a second basement? Did he transition? So that was some of the concern. He was really bad defensively in the minors as well. So yeah, and so it is the sort of thing where when you're that fast and it hasn't always worked out this way, but a lot of times players who are bad defenders in the minors very quickly improve in the majors defensively. And with Simpson's speed, I think that's it's a bet worth making. And to your point, defensive metrics are extremely volatile.

I mean, they can change very quickly year over year. And the thing is he's such a poor hitter for power and he also. walks so rarely that this is a guy who probably needs to hit 290 to keep his head above water as a hitter yeah and that's if he's an average defender if he's an average defender and he's hitting 290 that's a that's a valuable player no matter what his limitations are and he's going to play every day and he's going to steal 60 bases and it's going to be a return to the michael born juan pierre days you know like the the truly punchless base stealer that we don't see a lot um he could be a real outlier in batting average steals and maybe even runs if he's at the top of the lineup

could be but it's a real thin margin for error that that we're talking about here so i think he's chandler simpson is going to be a fascinating player for fantasy um i think there are going to be people who take him as a top 24 outfielder i think there are people who will not rank him in the top 40 and i'm 39th for what it's worth i think i'm a little more optimistic but But for some reason, he's, I'm blind to, yeah, I've got him 27, so I'm more optimistic. It's, and I don't mean for this podcast to go on forever, but it kind of gets back to what I was saying about Sal Freelick for Rodo. I just think it's, I think it's bad practice to devote an outfield spot to a player with that little power. If you have to go after Chandler Simpson, it means you did something wrong early in the draft.

Or maybe, maybe you shouldn't, maybe it's not so much a blame thing, but things win. wrong in the early rounds of your draft and you're having to correct in a really extreme way. Not even wrong, but it's just a very specific build. If you start in your team with like Kyle Schorber and Cal Raleigh, you know, like two of those guys. Yeah, like Corby and Carol and Cowrally. Those are great players who have real strengths, but batting average is not among them. And, you know, steals, Corby and Carroll will steal a good amount, but General Simpson could lead the league in steals pretty easily. I can see a world where that's a sacrifice you have to make,

but I don't think you should go into your draft thinking in a Roto League. Chandler Simpson's a big target of mine. It has to be because like... Because if you miss on that, it completely throws off the rest of your team. Yeah, and if, because it's also like, okay, what if you took, I don't know, Jackson Churrio and Terrick Scuba with your first two picks? Well, then Chandler Simpson is a horrible pick. Right.

Because there's just no way you're going to be able to make up for the deficit he puts you at in RBI and home runs especially. But he might be a 65 run guy even with his speed. So it's like it's a really narrow path to walk. And there are other ones like that. I think Kyle Schwerberg kind of represents a pretty narrow path to walk if you take him in the second round. Like you're putting yourself at a big batting average liability. You're putting yourself in a spot where the county stats. He gives you a lot.

He's awesome. No, no, he's awesome, but I'm not saying it's a bad pick. I'm just saying, like, it's a pick that you have to be very conscious of how the rest of your draft goes. But it's easier to do that with your second round pick because you know you already locked it in. If you're building your team around getting Simpson and you miss, it completely throws everything off. He's almost a player that, like, if you want him, join an auction and nominate him first to make sure you get him kind of thing. You know, he's that unique of a player where if you want to be. kind of build your strategy around getting him,

you need to know that he's on your team. It's a very, very interesting player there with Chandler Simpson heading into next season. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again

later this week, live from Arizona. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.