Fantasy Baseball Today - 2025 Roto Mock Draft Recap! Best/Worst Picks & Team Recaps! (1/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

We're recapping our latest Roto mock draft, starting with the best/worst picks from the first round (4:15)! ... The first pitcher didn't get taken until the 10th pick of the second round (8:39). ... Jackson Merrill was a good pick in the third round (18:42). ... Scott got Dylan Cease at the end of the fourth round (25:15). ... We saw a bunch of UTIL only bats go off the board in the fifth round (33:17). ... Framber Valdez was a strong pick while Zac Gallen went a little early (42:44). ... Edwin Diaz was a good value in the seventh round (49:12). ... We wrap up recapping each of our teams from this mock draft (54:53). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi 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/ 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 league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. It's about that time for mock drafts. Welcome in some fantasy baseball today on Thursday, January 16th.

I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White. Today on the show, we are recapping a 12-team rhodo mock draft that we did just on Tuesday night when you were listening to this. We will break down the best and worst picks from each of the first 10 rounds of that one. And towards the end of the podcast, if we have time, always got to throw that disclaimer in there. Scott and I will take a look at our teams and we'll talk about what we did, whether or not it worked. It didn't work. Scott had the first overall pick. I had the second pick.

and Chris was drafting third. Did you do that on purpose, Scott? We would all be drafting it. Oh, I didn't set up this draft. Chris set it up. So you'll have to ask him. Oh, sneaky. I have to think it was on purpose,

but I don't remember getting an email showing the draft order. Do you remember getting that email? No, it might have just been the same draft order from last year. We have just defaulted to the order we joined the league. Okay.

But whatever, whatever. So we were drafting back to back, and so that was, that made for some fun time. So we'll recap our teams towards the end. And again, this was a 12-team of Roto mock draft. This was our first draft here in 2025. It was our third mock draft of the off-season.

So we did another one back in December. I think we did one back in October. But this is the latest one. And don't worry, regardless of what format you play in, more mock drafts are coming. Those results will all be live on the website. But this one that we're talking about today is 12-team Roto. We'll have head-to-head points coming up.

We'll have head to categories. And once we get into March, I think we'll be doing a live mock draft like once every one every week. So either Tuesday or Wednesday nights. So don't worry if we haven't covered the format that you play in, I'm sure that we will do that at some point here. If you're looking for the results of this mock draft, they will be in the FBT newsletter, which will come out on Friday. So make sure to subscribe if you haven't already.

That's CBSports.com slash newsletters. Once you're logged in, you just click on the FBT logo and it automatically signed you up for the newsletter. I will pull up the draft results here, Scott, for those watching on YouTube, so they can get a little taste of what's going on here. And here we go. We'll just go round by round, talk about some of the best and worst picks. And I will read off the picks as we go along here. So the first six picks of this draft were Shohei Otani, Bobby Witt, Aaron Judge.

Again, those top three to you, me, and Chris, in that order. Followed by Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, and Ellie de la Cruz. That was the top six. and then the back half of the first round, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Tucker, Muki Betz, Fernando Tatis, Gunner Henderson, and Francisco Lindor. Scott kick us off the best pick of the first round.

The best pick of the first round is, you know, it's hard to find value in round one. So that's a little more difficult to say than it'll probably be in most other rounds. But I'm going to go with Jose Ramirez at seven just because I rank Jose Ramirez fifth, one, two, three, four were almost exactly the order I rank them in Otaniwit, Judge Soto. I think I have Judge ahead of Witt, but those are my top four.

Soto at four, I don't think we'll see it often, but that is who I think belongs there. Jose Ramirez, though, would come right after them, being that he fills one of the weaker positions and is just a constant in round one, providing power and speed. Yeah, I'm not going to argue with you about Jose Ramirez. For me, the one that stood out was Gunner Henderson, actually. 11th overall. I have him, it looks like sixth in my roto rankings. So, yeah, getting five picks of value.

And it's, like, it's hard to really nitpick any pick in the first round. These are all obviously great elite players. But, yeah, for me, I think Gunner Henderson should probably go somewhere in the top half of the first round. So to get him all the way down at 11, I thought that was a tremendous value there. So anyone else drafting, and regardless of format, I know we're talking about Roto today, but I think Gunner should be a top six pick in both head to points and in Roto leagues. What about the worst pick of the first round, Scott? Which one has you scratching your head a little bit?

I would say the most questionable one is Julio Rodriguez, which, you know, it's not like it's a terrible pick. He was the consensus number three player in this format last year. two or three was between him and Bobby Witt who went after Ronald Takunia. And obviously he's still plenty young. He's still pre-prime, I would say, just from an age perspective. And so for him to deliver on that potential, we all thought he had just a year ago, would not at all be shocking. But from the standpoint of how confident can I be that this pick is going to live up what I invested in him, it's a little off because he's now, for all three years of his career,

he's gotten off to dreadful starts. And while the first two years he was able to finish strong enough to redeem it more or less, we've been pricing in prior to this year, we had been pricing in that the slow starts were a fluke and that Julio Rodriguez could be who he's been to close out the season over a full season. you know and i'm i'm losing confidence that that's that that's actually the case and worse things could play out like they did last year where if he gets off to that dreadful start and then at some point thereafter Julio rodriguez suffers an injury of some kind he doesn't have as much time

to to redeem that slow start and and um that's basically what happened to him last year doesn't mean it'll happen again like i said this pick could be totally totally totally fine, but I'm, I think I'm to a point with Julio Rodriguez where I'm pricing in a little more downside than I have in previous years. Yep, absolutely in agreement here. Julio Rodriguez went fifth overall in this draft was a top three pick in drafts last season, but he let us down. So I think we do have to drop him a little bit behind some of the players that are just more proven, guys that have done it more consistently. You mentioned Jose Ramirez. I think absolutely should go ahead of Julio Rodriguez.

Kyle Tucker has done it for a few years now at an elite level. And, you know, frankly, without that shin injury, he might be, we might be talking about him as like a top three player in fantasy baseball. So I would put Julio at least behind those guys. If you look at our overall rankings on the site, Scott, you have Julio 13th and Chris and I both have him 12th overall. So more of a one-two-turn kind of player is Julio Rodriguez this season. Let's move into the second round of this Roto-Mock draft.

did. And taking a look at it, starting at Pick 13, we saw Jackson Trio, followed by Corbyn Carroll, Ronald Acuna, Yorda, Alvarez, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Jaron Duran, and then the back half, Bryce Harper, Trey Turner, Freddie Freeman, Terrick Scouble, Paul Skeens, and Catell Marte. For anybody listening out there, a pretty popular theme, I would say, for the first 10 rounds of this draft, was that everybody waited on pitching. And that has been pretty consistent with all the mock drafts that we've done this off season. We don't necessarily see that reflected in ADP. I don't know if it's because, you know, we've kind of talked about our strategy, Scott, and waiting a little bit. And so we're, you know, doing mock drafts with other

people that I would assume listen to this podcast, whatever it might be. But people waited on pitching. And so, look, we don't see the SP1 and the SP2 go until picks 22 and 23 in this draft. So everybody waited on pitching except you and Chris. Yeah, because that that, point. I looked at my overall rankings and that's who was next up. I mean, to me, there's a pretty clear I think drop off in the elite hitter pool. Maybe that's

not fair to the Catelle Martes endeavors and Austin Riley's of the world. But it just kind of feels that way in my mind that once you get past Trey Turner and Freddie Freeman, those pitchers should probably be gone. And so those are the next players I had up and so we took those guys. But who did you think was

the best pick here in round two? Well, just a follow up on your point real quick. So Chris took scubel, you took skeens. That left Zach Wheeler there, who I actually rank ahead of skeins. And that was my highest ranked player when my pick came up there at the end of round two. So I almost followed suit. You're a fraud, Scott.

I almost followed suit and took Wheeler right after you took scubel and skeeons. But I was like, this is not how I really want to build a team this year. I've talked before about how the first. four or maybe even five rounds I want to take hitters because I like that good glob, that 15 to 50 range at starting pitcher so much. And I feel like the hitter, the hitter talent drops off at that same point. So that's really where I want to load up on pitching. And so since it's still early in mock draft season,

I didn't want to divert from the plan too much. I wanted to test and see if I was satisfied with the way it turned out. So I agree that there is a little bit of a drop-off there after the Bryce Harper and Trey Turner's of the world when you then get into the Cattel Martes. But I went ahead and took Cotel-Marte, and we'll get into how I feel like it turned out me doing that. Look, for what it's worth, a little spoiler alert for later. I think your pitching staff turned out great. So it might have. I agree.

It seems like it worked out. But what did you think the best pick was? Okay. So the best pick here in round two. I know what the worst pick was, but the best pick, I am, oh, there's actually a few candidates for worst pick. I'm going to say it's Corbyn Carroll. I'd be okay with saying it's Terrick Scoople, who I actually ranked 17th and he went 22nd. But I rank Corbyn Carroll 10th and he went 14th.

So that one spot advantage that Scoopal had, it being later in the draft, same round. I understand, but that's kind of the difference between how much value you can get in the 10 to 14 range versus the 17 to 22 range. If you follow what I'm saying there, that's how much more valuable. It's worth like the extra one spot discount later in round two isn't as worth it to me as getting Carol four picks later than I rank him. Carol should be an elite base dealer. He got off to a miserable start first two months. months, but for the final four, he was top five overall player, I believe it was, something like that. And I think he put to rest with his performance in those final four months. Any concerns about

his shoulder and impact it will have on his power production. And I think, you know, he's going to be a run scoring monster. I think he's basically a first round caliber player here. I'd be happy to take him with the second pick of round two. Yeah. The best pick for me is going to be Terrick Scubel, you know, again, you kind of talked about it, but to be able to get the SP1 all the way down at pick 22, I rank him 16th overall. I think once you get past Carol and Yordon Alvarez there at the, you know, end of the first, early second, Vlad Jr., Lindor, those names, then I would be okay actually taking scubal as high as that. I mentioned, you know, Chris took scubal, I took skeins after that drop off that hitter, but I wouldn't surprise me if they actually go a little bit higher

in drafts. I actually think in NFBC ADP, those guys are actually first round picks, both Scubel and Skegings. So last thing a little bit further here, I thought Scuba, both were great picks, but Scuba is my SP1, so I will mark that as the best pick here. You said there were a couple options, Scott, for the worst pick of round two. Who is your number one worst pick?

Tough to narrow down, actually. So I don't like Jack Centurio here's the first pick of round two, and I don't like Ronald de Kunae is the third pick of round two. I think there could come a point where I do like Ronald de Konya 15th overall. It'll depend on how things play out for him in spring training

if he's able to appear in a game if the Braves offer a clearer timetable for when he's going to return from a torn ACL. When I first put together my rankings in October and we hadn't heard any word of him potentially being delayed for the start of the season, I was ranking Ronald de Kunae of 4th.

So I'm willing to take on a certain amount of performance risk as he comes back from this torn ACL. It's just the playing time loss that's harder to justify. And I'm not ready to justify at 15th overall at this point. But because that could change, I'm going to say Cheerio at 13th is my least favorite pick here. So I'm kind of giving you a double dip if you don't mind. I think Chariot could absolutely live up to this. it's just an unnecessary gamble this early in the draft. I have him as like a borderline second third rounder.

And so after that little dip in the hitter pool that we were talking about earlier, that's when I think it's appropriate to take Chorio, hoping that he maximizes his power speed outcomes. Obviously, he showed he has 20-20 potential last year from June on. He was a really high-end player. but you're talking about early round mainstays, guys that we expect to be drafted in round one most years, like Corbyn Carroll, like Jordan Alvarez,

going behind Jackson Turya. And I just, I have a hard time justifying that. Yep, those are the exact two names that I wrote down here as well. Carol, Yordon Alvarez, Vlad Jr., I think all three of those should go ahead of Jackson Trio. I understand if you want to get the speed. We have explained why we don't think it's as necessary to get speed early on. You can find it.

in the middle to later rounds, I think, easier than years past. I think it's more important to load up on some of that power. So whether it's Alvarez or Vlad Jr. who can hit 285, 290 plus with 30 home runs, I would prefer to get a player like that over a Jackson Trio. But he absolutely could live up to that price tag. Before we take our first break, just a reminder to download and follow FBT Express. Wherever you listen to podcast, it's 8 to 10 minutes.

We talk about either the biggest news of the day, or we take some snippets from this full-lane podcast and we just kind of break it down and condense it into a 10-minute podcast. So wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure to follow that. And we usually actually go live with that podcast right after we finish this one.

So, you know, 15 minutes after something like that. So if you stick around all the way through this and you want to watch a little bit more live content, then feel free to watch FBT Express Live here on the channel. Let's take our first break. When we return, we'll jump into round three. We'll do that. right after this.

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. We're breaking down our latest 12-team Roto Mockdraft, and we are jumping into round three, where the top picks were Raphael Devers, then Austin Riley, Zach Wheeler, Wyatt Langford, Ozzy Albies, and Jazz Chisholm. Then the second half of round three was

William Contreras, Jackson Merrill, Logan Gilbert, Matt Olson, Corbyn Burns, and Manny Machado. Scott, taking a look here. The best pick in round three was blank well again from a pure value standpoint i i feel like i would i should say zach wheeler but if i passed up zach wheeler at a value uh then i i passed him up twice at a value basically i passed him up twice at a value taking catalmarte and raphael devers at the two three turn so i

clearly didn't like the idea of taking wheeler there even though my rankings said i should So I'm going to pass up that one and say Jackson Merrill. Jackson Merrill as the, let's see what is that? That is the 32nd overall pick. Yep. And I rank him 26th. And I have him one spot behind Jackson Churio actually. So I have them 25th and 26th in my overall rankings when in this draft they went 13th and 32nd.

Much rather would have Merrill at that relative cost. I think they have similar, I think they profile similarly in terms of like overall output. Churio is a safer bet for steals, but Merrill's not like a zero for steals. Meanwhile, Merrill, I think is a safer bet for batting average. Power production should be similar. I think they're more or less the same. And I actually have a slight bit more trust in Merrill. Like I don't think either is a bust waiting to happen, but I think Merrill's bust potential is slightly less than Churiel.

Yeah, that was actually the name I wrote down here as well. Scott's kind of stealing from my cheat sheet I've noticed a little bit. Jackson Merrill, I thought was the best pick. Again, he went 19 picks after Jackson Truro. I agree. I think it's a similar skill set. I think there maybe is a little bit more upside with Churio. Definitely in terms of steals.

But the batting average, I actually would expect, I think, to be a little bit higher for someone like Jackson Merrill. He makes a lot of contact. He hits the ball hard. It does have to improve against left-handed pitching. But when you consider he did all of that as a 21-1. year old and while learning a new position too like on all of that combined the fact that jackson merrill just did and he was a great defender just a truly truly magical season from jackson maryland i expect him to build off of that here in year two as well what about the worst pick in round three scott we

might have the same answer for this one too just real quick on jackson maryl uh from june on we we focused a lot of what churio did during that time from but from june on maryl hit two ninety nine with 21 homers, nine steals, and a 901 OPS. So he surged at the same point, Shurio did, to less fanfare, I would say. Okay, yeah, the worst pick in round three, I think is pretty obvious. It's Wyatt Langford as the fourth pick of round three.

Again, it's not unthinkable that Wyatt Langford could deliver a third round outcome. You take what he did last September. it looked like he was finally living up to the potential. We all thought he had what made him such a trendy pick in drafts last year. And, you know, power, speed. He could deliver all that and maybe end up performing on the level of like Jackson Meryl and Jackson Cheerio this year. But nobody's taking him around three.

It's as simple as that. Like, why, when you have Jackson Meryl there, still on. the board as he was he didn't go for until four picks after langford went why would you take langford instead when potentially you could have both you know given given what langford's ADP is so i you're not drafting in like a like a echo chamber or something you you know what the perception what the expectation is for langford even if you have a different expectation there's no need to go this far ahead of what the consensus is. You can ensure you get Langford without doing that.

What is Langford's ADP? So in January over at the NFBC, it is 46.8. So I mean, even that, you're not guaranteed he'll be there in round four. You're not guaranteed to get him late in four, but that's about what the ADP is. Yeah. And for most of the offseason, it's been in the 50s. And I rank Wyatt Langford at 53. I actually wrote him up in breakouts 1.0.

If you look at what he did from June on last year, a lot of that was backloaded by a big September. But his full season pace from June on was like 23 homers, 28 seals with a good batting average. And I think the power was probably the most projectable tool of all for Wyatt Langford. So wouldn't surprise me one bit if he goes 25, 25 this upcoming season. But again, you don't have to draft him like he's already done that. You can, I think even if you wait to the fourth round, you're pretty likely to get Wyatt Langford there.

So that was the worst pick for me here as well. The September numbers I was referring to reference for Wyatt Langford in that one month, he at 300 with eight homers, seven steals, a 996 OPS. And his babbip was only 324. It wasn't outrageous during that month. So like you can understand the enthusiasm for Langford. but it's just it's a reach to take him this early, a reach of

at least a full round, I would say. Yeah, that's who I listed here as well as the worst pick of round three. I did want to give an honorable mention to Jazz Chisholm, which breaks my heart because I love the player and I loved when the Yankees traded for him. I actually have his Marlins jersey.

I like the player. There's no doubt. It's just he feels very boom or bust-e for a third round pick. I don't mind taking players, who have big upside, you know, swing for the fences, more so in the middle to late rounds. I don't really want to do that with my third pick. I understand Jazz Chisholm's upside is massive.

We saw some of that with the Yankees, but he's had a, he has an extensive injury history. So I think there's a pretty low floor here for Jazz, and I would not be drafting him in the third round personally. Maybe he's going to be in Bust 1.0. I've got to, I still have to iron that out, but we'll see. Let's move on to the fourth round here and taking a look at the picks.

we had Jose Altuvego 37th overall followed by Pete Alonzo, O'Neo Cruz, Emmanuel Closet, Garra Crosh, and Corey Seeger, and then Chris Sale, C.J. Abrams, Cole Regans,

Marcus Semy, Michael Harris, and Dylan Seas, who went to you, Scott? So what did you think was the best pick here in round four? The best pick in round four. This felt like a very appropriate round. I don't know if you feel differently.

This round felt like, to me, there were no crazy outliers. I thought it was just a pretty good round all around. Yeah, I would say so. I have Altovae as my 35th ranked player, and he went 37th overall here as the first pick of round four. So that's pretty much right in line.

I guess this is one of those times where I'm going to choose my own pick. That's okay. Boo. Haven't done it yet. I haven't done it yet. But I think Dylan sees here. as the 48th overall pick, last pick of round four.

It's a good pick. I have him 42nd overall, and I don't think I have pitchers ranked as high as most people do, just in general. So ideally, I'd wait another round or two to take a pitcher, but there came a point here where the value is just too good to ignore and Dylan Cese. Look, my top two hitters on the board were Kyle Schwerber and Marcelo Zuna

at that point, both DH only. and there's no bench in this league, I had already taken Shohei Otani in round one. So they just weren't an option for me. Yep. And yeah, I thought the remaining hitters were another step back from who had been taken at this point. So I like C's 42nd or sorry, 48th overall.

But Scott, you could have taken them. You could have moved Otani into a pitcher spot. I could have. But that's not how I plan to use Otani in 2025. And I don't think I'm alone in that regard. Yep, fair enough. I did like the Dylan C's pick. I have him 44th overall in my rankings.

The name that I chose here, and again, I felt everything was pretty fine. Like, I didn't think there was any crazy values here. But Corey Seeger, 42nd overall. I know he just had another sports hernia surgery. His second one of 2024, he had two sports hernia surgeries in one year. And typically he does miss time.

He's dealt with a lot of injuries in his career as well. but when he's on I mean he performs like a second round hitter so he you know when he's on he's kind of in that Jordon Alvarez Vlad Jr. Four category stud kind of mold so if he's healthy

in spring maybe there's a chance this ADP actually rises up a little bit but I think for now fourth round is okay on Corey Seeger so I did like that quite a bit yeah where do you have him ranked I have Corey Seeger at 38th overall 38th because I'm looking now and I actually have

30th. So I should have said Corey Seeger. And in fact, I remember now as the draft was playing out, it's coming up to me late in round 12. I'm seeing Seeger's out there. And I am hoping he comes to me at the end of round four. He didn't it. He went six picks too early, it looks like. But that was what was happening in my head as the picks were playing out. All right. What about the worst pick in round four. This one was kind of tough again. I didn't I didn't really think anything was that far off here in round four. Yeah, I agree. They're all pretty good. I could say a manual class A just because any closer would be too early in round four. I understand it happening sometimes in those 15 team roto leagues. So NFBC if we're also, we're also oriented toward

NFBC ADP that it kind of causes us to inflate the value of closures, but certainly in a 12-team league, there's not the same scarcity in the saves category. And there's just no reason to go for a closer this early. So that's kind of the easy response. I don't really like O'Neill Cruz, though, at 39th overall. Yep, that's my pick. Yeah. Yeah.

So you can talk more about it, Frank. Yeah, look, he's going higher than he was last year. when his ADP was in the 50s, and he was okay. He had a fine season. He went 20-20. I think we're still waiting for that big breakout,

and I think O'Neill Cruz has that potential. We just haven't seen it yet, and he's another player where I think the floor is a little bit lower than people might want to admit. The strikeouts are still a major issue for O'Neill Cruz, and he's bad against lefties, flat-out bad.

I mean, I think it's something like a 40% strikeout rate in his career against left-handed pitching. So he's, look, he's not going to sit against lefties, but, you know, he's, I think playing against them is actually going to drag O'Neill Cruz's numbers down. So, look, six months from now, I could be sitting here and O'Neill Cruz is, you know, on his way to like a 30-30 season. I recognize that upside, but, yeah, I do think there are still pretty big flaws in O'Neill Cruz's game, so I would not be using an early fourth-round pick on him.

Yeah, I don't think we've seen O'Neill Cruz's final form, but, the lack of progress from year to year. I understand he missed almost all of 2023 with injuries. So how much progress do we expect to make? Do we expect him to make from his debut until 2024? But it's basically been none. And he is now 26 years old. So it feels less like an inevitability, you know,

that he's going to transform into this first round fantasy monster than it did when he first debuted at 22. But it could still happen. Scott, were you a Dragon Ball Z fan growing up? No. Okay, because when you say Final Form, it just makes me think of Friza from Dragon Balls D. Like, this isn't even my final form.

It's a pretty popular quote there in Dragon Ball Z history. I mean, like I played enough final fantasy games. I feel like that was something that was always happening in those kinds of games, you know, the enemy, the boss, you'd fight him like six times in the game. But he had yet to achieve his final four. So, yeah, no, same for O'Neo Cruz. I understand the reference in a broad sense, just not in the narrow Dragon Ball Z sense. Yeah.

On the spot, Scott, give me your top Final Fantasy all time. It's a loaded question. It is. because I could go four different ways with that, I think. Five different ways with it. I am going to, I'm going to say, you didn't want me to spend this much time thinking it over. I'm going to say five just because it never gets any love.

Okay. And it introduced the job system. You know, you could really customize your characters with all different kinds of skills. And it was blast. It was blast. That's a good one. But I like eight also. I like seven also

I like four I like six but not as much as everybody else seems to I've played parts of a lot of them but I'm such a fraud Scott I never beat a single Final Fantasy it's just and you go back now it's a little bit tougher because the graphics are bad if we're just being honest

compared you know relatively to what's out now and they're long they're really long game so it takes a lot of time to beat them but yeah I've played seven I've played eight I've played 10 10 2 I don't know if I played any of the other ones, but yeah, those were all awesome.

So one day I'll have to go back and beat those. Let's get into round five of this mock draft, and starting with James Wood at pick 49, followed by Marcel Ozuna, Brent Rooker, Michael King, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Teyazka Hernandez, and then Blake Snell, Josh Hader, Kyle Schwerber, Jacob DeGrom, George Kirby, and Garrett Cole.

So who was the best pick here in round five? The best pick in round five was James Wood because I made it. No, I'm going to go, I'm going to go with your pick, Frank. Yeah. You double check. Yeah, I'm going to go with your pick, Marcelo Zuna. And it's good because that's about where I rank him. It's a little, what number pick are we on here in round five?

have been 50th overall, I believe. Yeah, so I got him 45th. So it's a good value relative to where I have and my trust, after back-to-back studly seasons, I trust him to deliver on it. And I was relieved to see it as part of the thinking here because as I mentioned earlier, I drafted Shohay Otani with the first overall pick. He is my number one overall player, but I'm not totally sold on it, both because he's coming back from a shoulder injury, that he suffered on a slide when he was stealing a base. So is he going to be, is that going to affect his power, the recovery? Is it going to affect his willingness to run, et cetera, et cetera, some concerns introduced. And he's DH only.

So he occupies that spot from the get-go when there are four other high-calibre, or is it three other, yeah, three other high-calibre DH-only players, Marcelo Zuna, Brent Kyle Schorber. Fortunately, they all went here in round five, which I think is more or less spot on. But sometimes we see those guys because you can only stick them in that DH spot. We see them slide to round seven, eight, even beyond.

And if that had happened in this draft, might have been kicking myself for taking Otani over Witt or Judge. Yeah. If you look at the ADP for the NFBC in January, Ozuna is at 67, Kyle Schwerber at 69, and Brent Rooker at 71. So typically in the drafts that we have seen done so far, they do last a little bit longer than this. But as Chris and I have talked about all offseason, other mock drafts that we've done, just any time I can get one of those guys around pick 50 or after pick 50, I think I'm going to do it every time.

It might be what my draft strategy is built around most as of now. And there's still time this offseason to research players and learn. more and figure out what that strategy is. But kind of the early feel is anytime I can get one of those names in round five, I'm going to do that. So that's what I did here with Marcel Ozuna, who I do rank the highest of the three with Osuna, Brent Rooker, and Kyle Schwerber. You know what?

I'm seeing now I actually have Schwerber slightly ahead of Ozuna and Schwerber went the latest of the three. So I'm taking it back, Frank. I wasn't your pick that was the best. It was Jake Collin taking Kyle Schwerber with the ninth big in round five. Yeah. I did highlight that one. I thought that was a good pick.

Just the fact that to me, I think all three of those names should go close to each other, and Schwerber went the latest. So it felt like the best value, and so I did like that pick. I did want to highlight George Kirby as well. Not a huge target for me.

I don't think this offseason, but I have him ranked 48th, so should go towards the end of the fourth round, and he went with pick 59 here, so the second to last pick of round five, and I mentioned that pitching just kind of lasts it a little bit longer in this draft. And to me, Scott, that's just good value.

I think George Kirby is a borderline SP1. It's like a high-end SP2. You probably want to pair him with someone who's going to get a lot of strikeouts. But I do like that at the end of round five for George Kirby. Okay. All right. Okay.

What about the worst pick, Scott? What did you not like in round five? Well, I obviously don't like Josh Hater, but I'm not going to give the same spiel I did for a manual class A. And I don't even think it's the pick I like the least. The pick I like the least is Jacob de Grom. it is absolutely crazy to me that he is drafted as early as he is

and he didn't even go as early in this draft as he goes in the typical NFBC draft and this one let's see he went 58th overall yep and the ADP in January is 46 yeah I mean I get that he he's one of the

he's arguably the most dominant pitcher of his generation, I guess, if we're putting him behind, if we're putting him in a separate generation from like Kershaw and Verlander and Scherzer, or even if we're not, just inning for inning. DeGrom has done remarkable things, but he is going to turn 36 this season, and he's fresh off of Tommy John surgery,

got 10 innings last year. His second Tommy John surgery. His second Tommy. Oh, I forgot about that. Second Tommy John surgery for DeGrom. Wow. Yeah, that even, gosh, as much as we've, as much as we've hammered that home for Shane McClanahan, that's definitely worth bringing up. So he's 36 this year. He's coming back from his second Tommy John surgery.

He got only 10 innings last year. Pitched reasonably well. The velocity was down a little. But the age, the extent of the injury, the fact that we haven't, he hasn't really proven himself coming back from this. And the biggest reason of all, even if you assume best case scenario for DeGrom coming back from this injury, he picks up right where he left off. Well, what was he doing right when he left off? He was maxing out at like 90 innings a year for 21, 22, 23, like four straight years. He hadn't taken on, he hadn't thrown 100 in a season since 2019. And while injuries happen, the nature of de Grom's injuries was especially concerning

because they were all usage-related injuries. They were having to do with his throwing elbow, his throwing forearm, his throwing shoulder. Multiple instances of this every year, it just seemed to me that his body was not able to hold up to the kind of velocity he was generating. And it's worth pointing out that this rash of injury started when he began throwing the ball harder. So he started throwing the ball harder than his body could hold up to is what it seemed like to me.

And now that he's in his late 30s, I don't think that's going to change. The possible silver lining is that like I mentioned, he wasn't throwing his hard coming back from Tommy John's surgery. Okay, normally we consider that a bad thing. Could it be a good thing in DeGrom's case because his body holds up better? I guess you could make that argument, but that seems like a crazy train of thought to follow in round four. I have him going more like round nine. I'm sorry, this is round five is where he actually went here. But I have him going more in like round nine.

Yeah, I have him as my SP 19. He was the 13th starting pitcher off the board here in this draft. And that was my pick as well. It's not one that I would make in round five. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll jump into round six of this mock draft. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today.

We are recapping our latest mock draft, and we are jumping into round six here. Sorry, I just had like a cough attack during that commercial break, and so that's why it kind of sound weird. I'm trying to like regain composure. But here we are, round six of this mock draft, which started with Pablo Lopez. followed by Adley Rutchman, Tyler Glassnow,

Devin Williams, Iiner Diaz, and Framber Valdez, and then the back half of round six, Luis Robert, Zach Gowan, Mark Vientos, Lawrence Butler, Shota Imanaga, and Willie Adamas.

Scott, best pick here in round six. The best pick in round six. I'm going to give it to one of the pitchers, I think, which I'm trying to avoid doing too much because pitchers as a whole went later here. But I'm going to say it's Frumber Valdez. Though Shoda Imanaga is a good pick as well.

I'm going to say it's Valdez in part because he is part of that top 14 that I do think distinguishes itself from 15 through 50. That number I keep referring to. Imanaga is 15. So he's right on the borderline. They're both right on the borderline, I guess. but I have Valdez as being a little more projectable, a little more, you know, he's going to give you the big volume that he always does. So I have him as in a, he's in a tier above Imanaga,

but Imanaga is at the top of the very next tier, you know. And if he obviously just follows through on what he did last year, it's a great pick and you could argue he's even better than Valdez. But I do have concern. with his fly ball rate and the potential for home runs inflating his ERA. Didn't catch up to him last year, but it still could for Emanaga. Yeah, I love that call because I was the one who drafted show to Imanaga. So yes, that was a great pick, Scott.

I do agree on Framber Valdez. That was actually who I had written down here. He went 66th overall. He was the 17th starting pitcher off the board. I rank Valdez as my SP12 heading into this season. And I'm buying what he did last year when he was. He increased that curveball usage over his final 14 starts a 208 ERA.96 whip 10K per 9 for Framber Valdez. I don't think he's necessarily going to do that again, but I think he could deliver low-end SP1 numbers.

And he's also entering a contract year. So I do kind of factor that in here for Framber Valdez, who's a workhorse. He consistently gives us lots of innings as well. What about the worst pick in round six, Scott? Who did you have here? I am going to say it's Zach Gallen, I think. I don't love the Zach Gallen pick. I don't love the Mark Viento's pick.

I don't love the Pablo Lopez big, frankly. But I think the worst of them is Gallen, who I rank outside my top 30 at starting pitcher. And as I've already mentioned, we're more like the 15 range of the starting pitcher rankings, or at least my starting pitcher rankings. Yeah, he was the SP 18 in this draft. I have him 35th, so I wholeheartedly.

agree. And we're kind of used to drafting him in this range, so it may turn out fine. I just, I lost a lot of trust in him last year because it was a struggle, especially coming back from a hamstring injury in the second half, everything just seemed off. His swinging strike rate was terrible. His walk rate was strangely high. and he's somebody who has elbow ligament damage a sprain in his past. And I just wonder, anytime I see these kind of inexplicable characteristics from a pitcher

that just make him seem not like himself, that makes me wonder if something worse is on the horizon. That is the doomsday scenario for Zach Allen. But ultimately, I don't trust him to deliver a good ERA, even if he's totally fine. Final 16 starts last season after returning from the hamstring injury, a 427 ERA and a 141 whip. Yeah, that's who I flagged here as well. I agree on Zach Gowan, the whip being high, the walk rate being up, and consistently gives up hard contact the past couple of years. Now, we're poop-pooing that as the, you know, as a top 20 starting pitcher drafted. If he goes outside of the top 30 starting pitchers, you know, closer to his ADP, which is outside the top 100 overall picks,

then I do think maybe there could be even some very. value there, Scott. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if, you know, Gallen being drafted as an SP3 could return, you know, back to like SP2 form. But the thing here is that you don't have to draft him there to find out. You know, you could typically wait until after around 10 or whatever it might be to take on a Zach Gallen. So don't have to draft him as an SP2, but maybe you wind up getting SP2 numbers from him. It's also easier to view him in a negative light given the depth at starting pitcher this year, the number of high quality options that there are. He just doesn't stand out as much as we've seen in the past.

I did have to bring up one pick, Scott, because you drafted Willie Adamas, and he's on your bust list. How could you do this? Yeah. Well. It looked like you thought about it because he took 44 seconds to make that pick. Yeah, I was trying to talk myself out of it. So this was the 72nd pick in the draft, which is actually a little lower than I rank him.

But I do think there is the potential for him to perform well below that. I didn't, since we're just now entering, you just took Imanaga, who I said is the start of the good glob at starting pitcher. So I didn't want to go starting pitcher because we're still at the start of it. And I didn't have a shortstop yet. And I needed some steals, which, you know, Adamas did that for the first time last year. but he did do it. He contributed 20 plus steals. And I thought, okay, maybe I could hold out for Bo Bichette,

who I think is one of the most undervalued players in drafts this year. But hey, Bo Bichette, he didn't, did you not make it back to me? Yeah, he didn't make it back to me. So I wouldn't have had a chance at him anyway. So I was hesitant to take it down as there, but I think it worked out since Bich wasn't available. All right. Let's move into round seven, where we saw Christian Yelich,

the first pick of that round, followed by Jordan Westberg, Edwin Diaz, Christian Walker, Luis Castillo, Matt McLean. And then Josh Naylor, Mason Miller, Royce Lewis, Junior Camerero. Let's see, do I have this loaded up. Yes, I do. And then after Camerre, we got Anthony Santander and Ryan Helsley. So, Scott, best pick of round seven. Are you obligated to say Junior Camerro? I'm not.

Because you made that song. I know. And I made that song and totally inflated his value. He's now priced out of my range for him, it seems like. So no, I'm not going to call him the best pick here in round seven. I don't know that I love the value of anyone taking in round seven. I guess it would be one of the first baseman, Christian Yelich or Josh Naylor.

Or I could just pick my own guy, Christian Yelich, at the start of round seven. The problem with that is, I know, Like, this is 20 spots later approximately than I rank Yelich, but it's about 40 spots earlier than his ADP. So his ADP needs to improve, but it's hard for me to say it's a great value or anything like that when he does go as late as he does. But I didn't want to take the risk I'm missing out on him clearly, especially with stolen bases being what I've considered a big need at that point in the draft. So anyway, I'll go with Walker or Naylor. I'll call it a tie between the two of them because they're so close in my rankings. And after them, you're kind of having to thread the needle at first base because you've got Vinnie Pass, Guantino, Spencer Steer, Humegos and Outfielder, Tristan Kossis.

Kind of buzzy picks Kossis and Pasquantino that you may end up feeling like you're reaching for. If you don't take one of them, though, things drop off pretty quickly after that. So getting the stability of Walker and Naylor here, I think is a nice move. I'll actually point out a pick from Chris. He took Edwin Diaz 75th overall. And I have Diaz in a similar tier as Class A and Devin Williams and Josh Hater. There's no doubt in my mind. Class A should be the RP1.

He should go ahead of Edwin Diaz. Should he go three rounds ahead of Edwin Diaz? And as a result of getting D.S. here in round seven versus Class A in round four, I did think that was some pretty good value there on Chris's part. What about the worst pick of round seven, Scott? Who you got? The worst pick of round seven is Christian Eilich. Wait, the best and the worst?

He's the best and the worst. Because I did the thing. I just scolded the guy who drafted White Langford about. I took him earlier than well earlier than his ADP. I just don't trust out of the drafts we've done, I haven't seen Yellich go that late. Maybe because I keep drafting him. I don't know.

You probably wouldn't have got him because Chris said yesterday that he likes Yelich as well. So he would have had two other opportunities to draft Yelich. So you probably wouldn't have gotten him. There you go. See, know who you're drafting it with. I think it just accordingly. In the next mock draft, we do, you are not allowed to take Christian Yelich,

just so we see how far it takes someone else to take it. Don't like that. Don't like it at all. All right, so to give you a different name, I'm going to say Mason Miller, who the fact he's going in the same round as Edwin Diaz, I don't think they belong together. But I've gone off on this a few times throughout the offseason. Miller's great.

He's closing for the athletics. And I just, he didn't get to 30 saves last year, even though he stayed more or less healthy all year. And I, I think it's far from a given that he'll get to 30 saves this year. I am going to highlight two players that I just don't really know what to expect. And that's Matt McLean, 78th and Royce Lewis 81st. Now, both just a couple of years ago, I mean, McLean, we saw have the big 2023. He missed all of last year with injury. We spoke about him extensively on yesterday's podcast.

I think he should be more like an outside the top 100 pick. So for him to go inside the top 80, I think is too high for my liking. And then Royce Lewis, you know, first half of last season, he looked awesome. Once again, of course he did miss a huge chunk of time. But when he played in the first half, he was great. Had another injury. Once he returned from that in the second half, he was awful. So we're just kind of left wondering, all right, who is the real Royce Lewis?

And can he stay healthy? So you have two major questions. and you're using a top 100 pick on Lewis as well, where I believe his ADP is closer to like 110, 115. So just two names that I thought went a little bit too early in Matt McLean and Royce Lewis. Scott, put your FBT producer hat on because I'm going to leave what we do up to you. Do you want to just kind of wrap up by recapping our teams, or do you want to try to get to a couple more rounds?

We've got like 10 minutes left. Since we teased it, we should probably recap our teams. Okay, so yeah, we got through the top seven rounds. here. And again, the results will be on the site. They'll come out in a newsletter from Chris on Friday. So obviously be on the lookout for those if you do want to see the rest of the picks in this draft. So let's quickly recap our teams and we will start with Scott, who is drafting first overall once again. And I'll just kind of read things off in order and we will start with the hitters. And in the infield, Scott, you had Joey Bart and Gabriel Moreno,

followed by Michael Tolia. Not off to a good start. Catel Marte, Raphael Devers, Willie Adamas, Danzby Swanson as your middle infielder, A. E. Oh, Henni El Suarez, as your corner. All right, so you pick things up there. That looks pretty good. Your outfield, you have Brandon Nimmo, Jirkson Profar, Lane Thomas, James Wood, and Christian Yelich. And of course, O'Tani as your utility hitter,

who was the first overall pick. And just a reminder, when you're reading off these teams and you look at your team after drafting O'Tani, it always kind of feels like something's missing, but you have to remind yourself that you have maybe the best player he's just in your utility spot right you kind of

your eyes are used to skipping over that utility spot but your best player is there when you draft Otani and that's certainly the case for my team I think it's fine the offense I think it's well balanced

across the categories I think it might be a little light on speed that was the only thing that I came away with. I could be wrong. But yeah, everything else seems pretty balanced. And I know you waited on catcher

to get those two guys in, what, the last two rounds? It's not quite. It's not quite the last two rounds, but late. It was close to it though. It was like the last five rounds

or something like that. Yeah, I find in the two catcher leagues, catchers, uh, the, the quality ones can see their cost pushed up in a way

that makes them prohibit, prohibitive from my standpoint. So unless I get one at a great value, or William Contreras, William Contreras, I might be willing to pay top dollar for, just didn't work out in this draft. But otherwise,

I'm probably going to go the bargain route. You don't want to wait too long, though. You know, you don't want to have Travis Darnow, who's not even a starter, presumably, in one of your catcher spots, if you can avoid that.

So, yeah, I feel fine with the budget catchers. Michael Tolia at first base, that's the weak point. And that was kind of the inspiration for me picking Christian Walker and Josh Naylor as the best picks of round seven is because I didn't take care of first base then. And it kind of felt like it was out of my hands at that point. Like I said, there are others available. But me picking at the end first overall, I couldn't be sure that I could secure one of the last handful of quality ones. So I had to settle for Tollia instead, who could be a big source of power, but he could slump his way out of the job.

completely. So definitely a risky move there. But otherwise, I think the whole lineup is good. Once you get past those first three, Coutel Marte at second, Devers third, Willie Adams at short, Danesby Swanson, a great middle infielder. E. E. Ohenio Suarez is kind of in that toleum mold where he could provide me 30 plus homers or be out of a job at some point, maybe replaced by Jordan Lawler, who knows. And then for not taking an outfielder until Round five, I think is when I took James Wood. I think my outfield turned out fine. I think Nemo's a great value pick. Lane Thomas helps address my speed issue.

Yellich helps address my speed issue. I think it's a solid rotisserie lineup. All right. I did want to point out, you know, hearing you talk about Tolia and just kind of some first base strategy. I really have noticed I want to get one of my top 10 names, which ends with Vinnie Patrick Guantino and Cody Bellinger. in a deeper league, maybe you could stretch that to a Tristan Kossis or Spencer Stier.

I don't love Stier, but he'll probably be okay in a roto lineup as you're starting first baseman. But yeah, I need to get one of those top 12. Just because I don't want Tolia as my starting first baseman. I'm sure you didn't want that either, Scott, but it's just the way that the draft played out. But yeah, that's just another thing that's kind of standing out early on is I do want to get one of my top 10 first baseman if I could pull that off. Let's take a look at your pitching staff and you wound up. with Jose Burrios, Dylan Sees,

our oldest Chapman, Jack Flaherty, Max Freed, Bryce Miller, Arenola, Jordan Romano, and Robert Swares. So you got the three closers, Swares, Romano, and Chapman, we think, going to close games for the Red Sox.

And, you know, look, for waiting until round four to take your first starting pitcher and then not taking another one, I think, until round, what was it, six or seven? It might have even been later than that. Eight or nine?

This is a good staff. I mean, C's Freed, Nola, Miller, and Flaherty. I mean, that's a great top five. So I think it's good. So my number two pitcher was Aaronola, who I took at the end of round eight, the 96th overall pick. And then I took Max Fried with them back to back. So there's eight the ninth picks. And I don't think you can count on that every draft, but that speaks to the amount of quality options in that range, that 15 to 50 range, the good glob, which I guess I'm going to call it.

there's just so much so many similarly capable options there that people are going to start picking and choosing their favorites and I'm happy to just settle for whatever comes to me in this case, Nola and Freed, and later on, I mean, if we had gotten to round 10, the 120th pick in the draft, Bryce Miller, that felt like a total luxury pick for me because his ADP is, he's the 76th player off the board on average and I got him at 120. at the very least he should help with my whip, which was my most concerning category, I thought with CIS being my ace.

So yeah, I should have strikeouts covered, ERA, whip, Jack Flaherty, that felt like a luxury also as my number five starter. And then Jose Berrios was my second to last pick. It's a little surprising that nobody seems to, like he just is a total afterthought in dress. now, even though he's been very consistent from year to year. Mid-to-high-3-ZRA, but a fine whip, always a lot of innings, which makes for a nice

strikeout total, usually a good win total, too. I think he's getting him as just kind of a throw-in on this pitching staff. I think rounds it out nicely because I'm probably not taking him out of my lineup all year. I went a little light on saves, Robert Suarez being my number one reliever, but I never spent big on saves. Jordan Romano number two. Okay, maybe there's some health concerns there. And then I got to roll this Chapman as the third one. Because I'll always take a third one, you know, for somebody who doesn't want to invest in the big closers.

Of course, at this point, it's hard to say with much certainty that Chapman is closing for the Red Sox. But given their current construction, he would be the leading contender. And he was my final pick. So not a big investment there. All right. Again, that was Scott's team from the first overall pick. Let's take a look at mine. I was drafting second overall, so right behind Scott in this draft.

And my infield was Will Smith and Tyler Stevenson, followed by Vinnie Pass Quantino. Vinnie P. Uh-huh. Baby! Yeah, there you go. Jordan Westberg, Austin Riley, Bobby Witt. My middle was Andres Jimenez. My corner was Matt Shaw, the prospect from the Cubs.

And then my outfield was Michael Harris, Brian Reynolds, Tyler O'Neill, Parker Meadows, and Alec Berlus. and then my utility bat was Marcel Ozuna, as we mentioned. So, I don't know. I think it's okay. I think it's balanced. There's not a lot of big names involved here. I mean, obviously, I've got Bobby Witt and Austin Riley, but, you know, not, you know,

don't really have a lot of those typical big names from years past. I think it's probably okay. What do you think, Scott? You know, you said you thought my team might be lied on steals. I think your team's light on steals. So there you go. right back at you. Yeah.

It might be. I thought about it mid-draft. Like Bobby Wood's going to give you 30 plus. I think Jimenez is probably going to give 25-ish. Match Shaw, we don't really know, but based on the skill set, like, maybe he's 15 to 20, something like that. Harris, probably 20-plus. Meadows 15-plus.

Reynolds will give you 10. So, yeah, I mean, it's okay. You're hoping for more for Meadows. You're hoping for sort of like what I got with the Lane Thomas pick. Yeah. It might be light. I thought about it mid-draft. It was like, oh, maybe I waited too long

after taking Bobby Witt, so. But otherwise, I think it's pretty balanced. And, yeah, I mean, not any huge holes. Burleson, Burleson might not be a full-timer, so you may need to upgrade theirs with your fifth outfield spot. Shaw could be huge, but as we've seen from high-end prospects

breaking into the majors the last few years, easier said than Don. presume he's going to click. I didn't even really want him, but I think I got him close to pick 250, something like that. Yeah, you got him later than I rank him. I just didn't have a spot for him. Yeah. Or else I would have probably taken him before you did. Yeah, I mean, I can't.

You took the pitcher in round two. You took Paul Skeens. Right. And I didn't. And I don't know that my offenses, I mean, I think I'd rather have my offense. than yours, but it's not a slam dunk. Yeah. I think one thing that we've learned this offseason, and we had

a discussion closer to right after when the season ended, I like Burlinson's skill set. I know he struggles against lefties, but the ability to make contact, you know, hit for modest power. The package kind of reminds me of Josh Naylor before he kind of broke out. So I don't know that the power

will ever get to where Naylor was last year, but I just like the overall kind of talent base there. with Alec Berlinson. So hoping he can build off of that here in 2025. Taking a look at the pitching staff, I did take Paul Skeens in round two. I followed that up with Chote Imanaga as my SP2, and then Joe Ryan, Carlos Rodon, Luis Heel, and Brendan Fott. And then my relievers, I got Andres Munoz, David Bednar,

and I got Kenley Jansen pretty late, who remains a free agent, but I assume wherever he signs it will be as a closer, at least to start the season. and then hopefully he can hold on to that job. You know, Scott, for taking a starter in round two, I kind of like the way that your pitching staff turned out as a whole compared to mine. Like, I think my top three is really good. I like Skeen's Imanaga Joe Ryan. All will have great whips and, you know, strikeouts should be good.

But then, you know, some questions, Rodon, where are the ratios at? Can he stay healthy? Luis Heel was bad in the second half. So which version of him are we going to get? Brandon fought another one who ended really poorly, but he looked pretty good in the first half. So I don't know.

There are some questions here with the pitching stuff. Yeah. Yeah, mine ended up a lot deeper than yours. Didn't it? And even the one, two, three. I mean, Skeens, I'm Inamaga, and Ryan, I'd be fine with that as a one, two, three. But remember, my one, two, three was cease, nola, and freed.

Is your top three clearly better than my top three? It has a better number one. Skeens out for C's. but, you know, I think we'd both prefer freed over Joe Ryan. So, yeah, that's hard to, that's interesting how it played out. So I think our offenses came out pretty similar, but you had to try, you had to work harder to get that offense, I think. When mine came about, you know, I had the foundation in the early rounds,

and then I could just keep attacking that good glob at pitcher and was, able to pile up some values that maybe you had to forego because you had to make up lost grounded hitting, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think typically I would want to have a better SP4 than Carlos Rodan if I could. I think I actually wanted to take Bryce Miller right when you took him, and it's my own fault because I think, you know, obviously you picked after me. So I could have had Bryce Miller. I just, you had double-tapped pitcher the previous go, so I assumed you weren't going to take

Bryce Miller. And I was like, oh, I could get him on the next turn. but then you actually did take him as a luxury like you mentioned. But yeah, if I had, if it was Skeens, Emanaga, Joe Ryan, Bryce Miller, Bryce Miller instead of Rodon, I think I would like this a good amount more. Not like Rodon could be fine, but, you know, I just have more questions. Yeah, it seems more volatile. Not that Bryce Miller is a sure thing.

Right. But, you know, Rodon, I don't think anybody would be surprised if he had any area over four based on the way last season played out, Last two seasons, frankly. Yeah. All right. Well, that's going to do it. That's our 12-team Roto Mock draft.

Let us know in the comments. If you watch us on YouTube, who had the better team between Scott and I? We read off all of our teams, and we told you what we were thinking, some of our strategies there. But let us know who you thought had a better team. And we are going to wrap there.

For Scott, 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'll be back again. next week. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.