Fantasy Baseball Today - 2025 Season Recap! Playoff Updates, League Leaders & Trends! (10/2 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

The Wild Card playoff round has been incredible! We also got huge starts from Tarik Skubal, Garrett Crochet, Max Fried and Gavin Williams (4:40). ... What's Chris' latest World Series prediction (12:23)? ... News (15:30): we have more manager updates from the Braves and Angels. ... How did we do in our Fantasy Baseball leagues (24:58)? ... Who were the league leaders on the hitting side (38:51)? ... Who were the league leaders on the pitching side (47:42)? ... We wrap up with a look at league-wide trends (58:27). 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, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@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. And first pitch, Rishing. 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. Hello, welcome into fantasy baseball today,

and welcome to October. Spooky season. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, it is our 2025 season recap. We'll take a look at league leaders, some league-wide trends. Is there anything to learn from that? And lingering questions for 2026. Chris, you're here, and the regular season is over.

How are you feeling? Good. It's always like, I don't know if you guys have this or if you guys have like a healthy relationship with your jobs and your own minds, but like I get really, anxious when the season's over, which is really dumb because my job gets so much easier. Like, I go from writing, I don't know, 18,000 words a week and doing four and a half hours of live podcasts every week to like less than half of that.

And my body's like, this is bad. Something bad's going to happen. And I'm like, come on. Enjoy it. No, it was great. I was out of town the past week. I went to my friend's wedding. They rented out a summer camp in North Carolina.

It was awesome. I did the blob and I didn't die. I went down a big slide and I didn't die. I had Lakewater go up my nose and I haven't died yet. So it seems like I'm fine. Then I went and visited some of my best friends after that. So I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.

It was a nice, nice week. Sounds like you did a lot of stuff without dying. That's always the goal. Actually, honestly, everything I do, that is the goal. That's the baseline goal. If I accomplished that. If I accomplish, I mean, we're all going to fail on that one. Do everything you can without dying.

Well, eventually. But, you know. But not the way I thought our 2025 season recap would start to be honest. I mean, you could see this coming. I hear what you're saying about the workflow definitely goes down. And don't get me wrong. I love what we do here for. a living. But I'll also take a couple of months where we can kind of, you know, refresh and get back

on track and learn things before we kind of jump back into crazy content mode in 2026 as well. So should be fun today. I figured we start off with some playoff updates since it's timely, but also if somebody is listening to this over the weekend, some of the stuff is already outdated. So if you want to skip past this, go ahead. And also, the start of this podcast could have had a very different tenor, depending on what happened in that Yankees Red Sox game. And my goodness, it was extremely stressful. Both games have been extremely stressful for both sides. I was at game one where the Yankees were winning most of that game. And then, of course, the bullpen falters late. A roll of Chapman tried his best to give it up, but he didn't. He wound up striking out the final

three batters that he faced. And then here, in game two back and fourth game, Ben Rice homered on the first pitch he saw in his playoff career. The Yankees scored later in the eighth inning. Bednar closed it out. In fact, the three series that have already played their games are all going to a third game, a game three elimination game. So the Tigers, Guardians, Cubs,

Yankees, Red Sox are all tied one to one. And right now we're recording. The Dodgers are blowing this game opening. It does not look like it's going to go to game three, unfortunately. Yeah. Back to the Yankees Red Sox for a second. Pitchers duel between Crochet and Freed. I don't really think there's anything there to add.

I mean, Crochet reminded us he's amazing and should be a borderline first round pick. He had 11 strikeouts over seven and a third innings. Yeah, I mean, awesome stuff. Crochet and Freed, we're Crochet and Freed. And wasn't that, I don't know, I'm changing games here now. The Terrick Scoobol 14 strikeouts, that was a career high, right? I don't know if it was a career high.

I know it tied the Tigers postseason franchise record, but 14 sounds like it would be a career high. I probably should have looked it up before just saying it. That's something I am guilty of from time to time. On the other side of that one, Gavin Williams wasn't as impressive, but from a... He was great. Yeah, from a analytical perspective for our purposes, he put together a heck of a run right there at the end of the season and then to in his first postseason start at least where

I've been very vocally skeptical of him for a long time and to a large extent will be, will continue to be, but. Those last five starts plus the first playoff start were. Yeah, he pitched in the final month or so of the season, he pitched like he deserved the results he was getting all season long. Is that the right way to put that?

because for about four months he was getting ace results, at least in terms of his ERA, but everything else was pretty bad. And then the last... Yeah, he wasn't that good in the first half. But the second half, he ended up with the 212 ERA, 10K per 9. Yeah, the strikeouts came along. I have been working the last two days on my everything you missed once fantasy football began article, which runs now and also when people are coming back in January.

and it's always like my longest article of the year why I do that to myself after the season ends, I don't know. You could just take like a whole week to do it. You don't have to like write in one day, Scott. Yeah, it's good foundational research for everything I'm going to talk about the next few months and even into next draft prep season. But anyway, the reason I bring it up is because Gavin Williams is the cover photo.

He is the poster child for everything you missed once fantasy football began in my mind becoming, you know, not quite an ace, but a legitimate difference maker in fantasy. Certainly showing the ace upside that I think we hadn't seen since 2023. And do you have a good sense for how it happened? He started basically throwing his curveball slider or his curveball sweeper and fastball. for Seamer at the same rate, right around 25 to 30% on all three of them. The curveball and sweeper got really impressive whiff rates. His fastballs were kind of bad in September. You know, I don't have a good sense of how exactly things came together.

I've tried to pin down how much of it is like pitch selection or pitch movement or whatever. and it just seems like you look month to month for Gavin Williams and what changes in usage we saw in September we saw earlier in the season two. So I don't think it has much to do with that. I think it comes down to commanding better. Not that this is the definition of command, but just in terms of strike throwing, those final five regular season starts for Gavin Williams.

He had a 66% strike rate. Everything before that, it was 61. That's a big difference. Yeah. he also threw his cutter a lot less which was his worst pitch all season so maybe fewer cut i know cutters are kind of you can't always judge how effective a cutter is by what happens when they throw that pitch because cutters are often bridge pitches that serve to set up fastballs or breaking balls and so even if that pitch is bad on its own when they throw it it can get you know

make the other pitches work better, but I don't think it's a coincidence that he started throwing his cutter less and got the best results of the season in September either. Again, that was Gavin Williams, who again went head-to-head with Terrick Scoobal in game one of the Wildcard series there. The 14 strikeouts were a career high, regardless of any level or any season for Terrick Scoobles. So, yeah. I'm glad we gave you enough time to look that up. Tremendous start for him. Game three will be Jack Flaherty against Slate Cicconi. That's coming up here on Thursday.

The Padres Cubs also tied one-to-one. Game one, the Cubs got a couple of home runs from Sea-Sizuki and Carson Kelly. Seas-Sizuki coming back to life the past couple of weeks after a really, really bad second half for him. In game two, Padres got a home run from Manny Machado. Their bullpen was ridiculous, which is one of the biggest strengths in the entire postseason. If you just look at starting pitchers, bullpins, lineups. The Padreys bullpen is incredible.

They threw five and a third shutout innings, one hit, zero walks, six strikeouts. Five of those came from Mason Miller. He has been amazing. He hit 105. Yeah. And this one,

ridiculous. Yeah, and one of those lingering questions for later on, if we get to them, and also will be in Scott's article, how will the Padres use Mason Miller next year? That is a big question. So will he be a starter? Will he be their closer?

We don't know. Game three for the Padres' Cubs will be U. Darvish going up against James and Tyone. Game three for the Yankees Red Sox, by the way. Nothing like two rookies paddling it out in an elimination game. Cam Schlittler up against Connolly Early. It will be the youngest pitcher to start a game for the Red Sox since 1916.

Do you know who that was? I mean, oh, Baberth? Yeah, Baberth. I was like, oh, you said the year. It's probably that guy. The one person you, the one name you might be able to come up with. You don't think of him on the Red Sox, but yes, that is where he started famously. Yep.

Dodgers, we mentioned, they're up 1-0. They're currently in the seventh inning of that game, up to 7 to 2. So it looks like they're going to sweep that. In game one, they got multiple homers from both Otani and Teoska Hernandez. So nice to see Teosker get going again. Blake Snell, seven innings, two runs, nine strikeouts. And it kind of looks like the Dodgers are peaking at the right time again. Or if you don't like the Dodgers, peaking at the wrong time for everybody else's fan.

so we'll see what happens here. Chris, wanted to get a World Series prediction from you the other day. From Scott, we got Mariners over Phillies. I had Phillies over Mariners, so I don't know how much you want to deviate from those two teams. I will mention your preseason prediction was Braves over Rangers. Don't think that one's going to happen. I'm not going to do that one again. Dodgers over?

Over? I'm trying to think just. I'm not going to pick any of the divisional, like any of the wild card round teams, because that, they're not. None of them are guaranteed. That could look bad, that could look dumb tomorrow. Maybe the Reds rally. Mariners or Blue Jays. Yeah, I'll go with the Mariners.

I have a little more faith in that pitching staff. All right, Seattle fans everywhere rejoicing. We all have them in the World Series. Hopefully it's not the kiss of death. Let's take our first. Did we all Andre's in the World Series at the start of the playoffs last year? Or at least Frank and I did. That sounds right.

Let's take our first break when we return. We've got some quick notes to go over how we did in our leagues, some league leaders, all that fun stuff. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. We'll quickly run through some news and notes. Not too much going on this time of year. Honestly, the biggest news is what we're getting on the manager front right now.

So we learned Brian Snitker will not return as Braves manager. Instead, he will transition into a senior advisor role and will enter the Braves Hall of Fame in 2026. Scott, have you used? seen any leading candidates? Have you heard any rumblings on the Braves front? I mean, there's rumblings. I don't know. Is it Skip Schumacher? I think it's all a wish list right now. I mean, Skip Schumacher would probably be at the top of the wish list if the Rangers didn't also have an opening and he's already in the Rangers organization. So that seems like a fake to comply a complea. Whatever,

however you pronounce that. Yeah, I don't know. David Ross seems like a possibility. because he has ties to the organization. Don Maddenley's still out there, right? He's a bench. He's a bench coach for the Blue Jays, right? That's a, yeah, that sounds right. Yep. I mean, I know, I've seen some people mention

Travis Darno getting him out of the final year of his contract. You make a lot more as a player than you do as a manager, so I don't think that's happening. I wonder about Joe Girardi. I still think he's a good manager. I wonder if some team will bring Gerardi back. This is just, this is just me, wishing off the top like I'm not starting a rumor I don't know anything but like Brian

McCann would make a lot of sense to me I don't know if he's at all interested it's kind of surprising to me how many players who actually have legitimate careers where they make multiple millions of dollars then turn around to start managing I feel like it happens a lot more than it used to because like the grind is the whole the grind of the like travel and every day that's the whole downside of being a baseball player, right? But if you've already banked your millions, uh, and you don't have to do that anymore to make a living, like why, like you really got to love baseball, I think to turn around and start managing, really like baseball and really not like time with their family. Well, I think of like if you're the kind of person who becomes a professional

baseball player, there's probably something in you that's, I don't want to say broken, but that needs it. Yeah. There's a, not for everyone, but I think there's an addiction that a lot of professional athletes have to it. And going from being wired,

183 days out of the year, plus spring training, plus the playoffs, like getting that fix every single day, going from that to just hanging out at home. Like, I just,

I don't think, I don't think MLB, the show's going to, going to scratch that edge for you. There are, there are. And Brian McCann. Brian McCann seems like one of those guys who needs it. You know, the way he played, he, he wasn't, he wasn't a particular laid-back sort.

He's, he's been on the coaching staff for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic before. Oh, Mark DeRose has been the manager of that team before and his name always gets brought up in these rumors. So, you know, I guess you could throw that on the pile. Chris, you mentioned a player or former player. just going home and playing MLB the show and kind of getting their fix that way. I saw a fun quote from Jazz Chisholm. He wasn't in the game one lineup famously against a left-handed pitcher, although they've already said he's going to play in game three.

They said, how did you handle that? He said, I went home and crushed somebody in MLB the show. And that's how I got back on track. I was like, force someone to rage quit. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Ron Washington and Ray Montgomery will not return to the Angels next season. And they're wasting no time. Apparently they have big interest in Albert Pujols as the replacement.

there's there's another example like yeah i don't feel like the previous generation of players a star anywhere close to albert pool's caliber would be interested in managing frank robinson was a manager for a very long time there are exceptions jackey robinson tried to be a manager there was yeah there rind sandberg managed matt williams who wasn't like hall of fame caliber but was very good for a long time i'm always did pools has he like okay he's done some managing so far. He managed the team. Lion's del Escoguido. I think the team that Junior Camerro played on in the yeah, they won the Caribbean series last year. Yeah. All right. I know

Yadia Molina has been doing some managing for one of the Puerto Rican clubs. I think he might have been the team Puerto Rico manager. I think so. Yeah. I always like the Travis Darneau is weird because like he's got zero. Like I it's always weird when they just go with someone who has like, hasn't even like done it at any level, I think is always weird. But that's pretty common it feels like now too. Seems like it's happening a little more. Stephen Vote immediately comes to mind. And obviously that's not really well.

But I think he was like a bench coach for, he did some coach. For one year? I think so. Yeah. For one year, yeah. That makes all the difference. That makes eight teams with manager vacancies as of now. The Orioles, Twins, Rangers, Nationals, Rockies, Braves, Giants and Angels.

Did you guys see the way the Angels announced Ron Washington was not returning as a manager? Was it just a tweet? They did a tweet with like a blue sky background with like pictures of him. And like it looked like they were announcing something way different. Yeah. The way they did that. Let's, you know. And he had a health scare this year, which is.

Yeah, no. It was a weird decision for the organization. The Angels famously always making normal decisions. decisions. Right. A couple other updates here. Brian Wu is slated to throw a bullpen session on Thursday, his first time throwing off a mound since suffering a right peck injury on September 19th. They're trying to get him ready for the ALDS. Boba Chet has yet to resume running as he progresses from that PCL sprain in his left knee. The Blue Jays are trying to get him right for the ALDS on the other side. Spencer Torkelson had imaging done on his right foot after he fouled the ball off of it in game two. X-rays came back negative. Giants first base prospect, Bryce Eldridge, is out eight weeks after having surgery to remove a bone spur in his left wrist. So eight weeks from now, I mean, he should be all good to go, but something to pay attention to in spring training, likely battling for an opening day job with the Giants. And speaking of prospects, the Guardians did have Alfeeler Chase DeLauder make his major league debut in game two of the Wild Card series. I saw that he got on base at least one time.

I didn't write in his full line here. also dropped a ball in center field that he lost in the first ball hit to him in the first inning yeah this was crazy like it's not kyle schwarber i think made his MLB debut in the playoffs from remembering correctly and there was a there was another guy uh did common arrow make his debut in the playoffs or they called him up but he didn't play i yeah i think they had somebody just last year i think but i can't i can't remember who now it happens but it's weird but this wasn't especially weird way to go about it because Chase the Lodder, look, if not for injuries, he would have been up already.

Yeah. And that was the justification that they used, but he hadn't played a game at all since July. Yeah. Yeah. And he hadn't played center field since like August of 2024. And they threw him out there in a playoff game in center field for his MLB debut. That, that felt a little unfair. Yeah.

He wound up going over to with a walk in his majorly debut there. And that was Chase DeLauder. Big thank you to everybody who is currently sending in thanks to us on social media. We really do appreciate it. If we helped you win your league or you just enjoy the podcast, please feel free to leave us a five-star rating and review on both Apple and Spotify. It helps a lot. And a reminder of our off-season programming.

Our schedule here will be live on Monday and Wednesday nights around 10.30, 11 p.m. Eastern Time. Audio podcast will be in your feed Tuesday and Thursday mornings. As for FBT Express, those episodes will now start showing up exclusively in the main FBT podcast feed. So don't be alarmed. If you're subscribed to FBT Express, you won't see anything there. It's all in the FBT feed. So again, the schedule Tuesday mornings, you'll have a full-length podcast, Wednesday, FBT Express, Thursday, full-length pod, Friday, FBT Express. Real quick, the player I was thinking of debuting in the postseason, I think I was thinking of Shane McLanahan.

Obviously, that wasn't last year. It was five years ago. The race have done this a few times, I think. When you get to be middle-aged last year and five years ago, or might as well be the same. The most recent before DeLauder was actually Ryan Weathers. It was the same post-season as McClain Ann. And then Alex Kiroloff also that same year, all in 2020.

Yeah, I remember I thought Garry Crochet did it, but he actually did make a few appearances towards, the end of the regular season in 2020, which was already kind of a weird, short in season. But he did pitch in the postseason after making just five appearances with the White Sox out of their bullpen. And then obviously, it went on to become this amazing starting pitcher now. So boom, we love it. How did we do in our leagues?

I know listeners like to get a recap of how we did. Scott and I spoke a little bit about this the other day. I figured we'll expand a little bit more. We'll find out how Chris did. And with that, Chris, how'd you do? Yeah, I won one league out of nine. I made the playoffs in four out of three out. of my six head-to-head leagues and was alive into the last weekend in one roto league my you know quote

unquote experts leagues did not go super well 11th in both tout and labor um labor was a l only and the recurring theme across a lot of my leagues is the pitching just never came together um specifically in labor i drafted grace and rodriguez and george kirby as my aces before their spring training injuries and then I lost Josh Hater mid-season. I think that draft was done on February 28th so yeah. A lot of the expert least really early yeah. And so and in an AL only league losing your two aces and then your closer for the full season, I'm not going to say it's impossible to come back from that.

Maybe somebody better than me could do that but there's no waiver wire in those leagues. So there's there's really no hope. I mean, that was pretty tough. My offense was pretty good in that league. And similar story in tout. I actually had a great offense, even with like Devers being a little weird and Tatease, not being a great head-to-head points player. And Gunner Henderson, obviously, not living up to expectations. But it was just I went really heavy on my offense.

I tried to go cheap pitching. I had Zach Allen. I had Jesus Lazzardo. I had Tyler Glass now as my kind of three big pitchers in that league. and it just, it never came together in either of those leagues. I did have our Memorial Magazine League, which is a Roto Salary Cap League. I was in it right up until the end.

We both were. You finished third and Frank finished second. And that's the auction we do live. I think you mentioned here as the podcast. So Frank was second, Chris was third. Was that a Greg Lathrop win? Ninth. Yes, that was the Greg Lathrop.

We mentioned this the other day. He won that league for the fourth time in seven years. I won it last year for what it's worth, but you and. In that one, you were second and third this year. I just could never make up ground in wins and saves. I think I ended up 10th in saves and like ninth in wins. And it was just,

it was too hard to overcome that. On the whole, I'm interested in digging deep on my pitching strategy, because that seems to be where, my teams fell short this season. The last couple of years, my pitching staffs have actually been better than my offenses. That was definitely not the case this year. Part of that was just I had a lot of George Kirby and that went really south.

Part of that is just in any league we drafted early, I had a lot of Grayson Rodriguez. That obviously could have gone better. But, you know, I've had my very specific pitching strategy, which was always anchor ace maybe a second guy in the fifth to seventh round range but for the most part I take one pitcher early and then double digit rounds is really where I make up a lot of my pitching staff and that didn't work this year and I don't know if it's just maybe I just picked the wrong guys and if I had gone in on ranger swarres and and Christopher sanchise I'd be singing a different tune and maybe I just picked the wrong guys but I'm interested in

you know, kind of diving deeper over the next couple of weeks and, you know, hopefully in time for the podcast the Frank is planning for next week, where we do a little more of what we've learned. Because, yeah, that's the biggest thing. Look, the one thing I will say is what you don't want to do is react to a one-year sample size, especially if it's reacting to a one-year sample size of what happened to you, right? because, oh, my pitching strategy went sideways this season. Well, if I had drafted XYZ pitcher instead of ABC pitcher,

maybe the whole pitching staff pitching strategy works way better. And it's just I happened to miss on the wrong guys and hit on the wrong guys. But I do want to do, you know, a holistic review of the pitching landscape for 2025 and see if there were any significant changes relative. to recent years. I mean, I think, and I don't know how much we want to get into this now, but I think the idea is that you can miss on a pitcher or two. And still, because, like, you can't control for that, but obviously people win consistently.

And it could be that there are just, your entire pitching staff is devastated by injuries and you have to, like, totally throw it together off the waiver wire, which is still possible. possible in leagues of a certain depth. But the deeper the league gets, the harder it is to make up for injuries. As we were saying with your AL-only league, Chris, where, like, there is no waiver wire. So your biggest assets go down.

What trade ships do you have at that point? You're clearly nothing to be found of the waiver war. But, you know, in shallower leagues, the kind that most people probably play in, I would say pitching staffs are halfway assembled off the wheel. for one. Oh, yeah, for sure. That's the sort of position where there's a lot of variance from year to year and a lot of surprises over the course of a year. But I think the ideal strategy, even then there's no foolproof one.

But if you don't put all your eggs in one or two baskets, you can hopefully navigate those mishaps that are bound to happen at that position. And, you know, in looking at the Memorial Magazine League, like, I have. had a good pitching staff. Like I hit on Nick Povetta, Carlos Rodon had a great year. Nick Lodolo was great. That was a league where Terrick Scouble and George Kirby were my two aces, though. And I said wins were where I fell short in that league.

Well, Terx Scoopal only won 13 games this year. I get 19 the year before. The Tigers weren't any worse in 2025 than they were in 22 before. It just didn't work out for him. And then obviously Kirby was injured and weird for much of the season. and he ended up with 10. And then Mason Miller, losing him as my closer, but not because he got hurt or was ineffective,

that's a bummer. That just stinks. Yeah, I am currently in the early process here of kind of diagnosing all my teams and figuring out what went wrong. One thing I like to do in all my leagues as well is look at the team that won and see what they did.

And not necessarily, you don't have to copy every single thing, but there are things to be learned, especially if it's people who win this league over and over again and seeing what that person does, and if it's something that they continuously do, is there a theme that's always on their teams? And I like to just kind of look at that across my different leagues. And, you know, look, for most people listening,

I guess if you only play in one or two leagues, like there might not be that much to learn from. But, you know, I think I played in 16 leagues this year. And so when you have that much of a sample, you can kind of look all across and see what people did. And it's one thing that's, stood out so far is in two of my deeper industry auction leagues the two teams that won when stars and scrubs and that's something that's kind of just been for once yeah it's

kind of just been embedded in our brains like spread the wealth in deeper auction leagues right yeah you know try not to have any you know one dollar players or i i don't think that's right like that's yeah i thought it was interesting leagues long enough to know that look It can work if you happen to get very lucky with your scrubs, and maybe it's not fair to call it luck. I know, actually it happened in the CBS, which league was it? I think it was CBS AL only, no, in-al-only. The CBS-N-L-only league, the winner kind of took a Stars and Scrubs approach.

But some of them, it was like, wow, he was fortunate to get Andrew Abbott for $2. Like, that probably shouldn't have happened in an N-L-only league, you know? Um, so, you know, maybe sometimes you have a good feeling about those low dollar players. I'm talking about lower end than Abbott because it's weird that that happened in a league so deep. But usually the kind of players you can get for that cheap in leagues that deep, you can't really expect anything from them. And so do you want to stake your season on that? just kind of hoping that that die comes up as a six instead of a one, two, or three, I don't.

It doesn't usually work. Yeah, I don't think there's just one specific way to win. I just thought it was interesting, right? In Tout Wars, it's a 15-te-te-te-team roto auction. Brett Sayer, I believe, has won this league two of the past three years. He always does Stars and Scrubs. So there's clearly something that he's doing right. I think he had three 40-plus-dollar players on that.

team and he wound up winning it and in and only again this is an only league the person who won had three players that were valued at 30 plus dot 31 or more dollars on this team it was otani mookie bets and zach wheeler and actually lost zach wheeler and mooky betts was an underperformer and they still won't a great how much did they go for so bets for 33 otani for 46 and wheeler for 31 that's a lot i mean 33 and 31 is an exorbitant for an only but 150 dollars across, right? That's... No, that's like $110

across three players. That's a lot. What I say... My idea of not going Stars and Scrubs of spreading the wealth is spending no more than $30

on any player. So it's not like that's way over that. So that's exactly what I... 46. That's what I did in NL labor is that all of my players were between... Like most of them were between $10 and $25.

I didn't spent over $25 on a single player. The problem is my two most expensive players were Austin Riley and Dylan C so it didn't really work. Yeah, well, I mean it kind of, you kind of have to feel it out as it's happening. If, if these have to be more

guidelines than rules, right? If like a first, a true first round caliber player you can get for less than 35, then it's probably worth bending the rules a little for, for somebody who's that impactful. But if they're all going for like 40 plus, it's like, yeah, I'll, I'll,

I'll stick to those $28, $26 guys. What I will say is, one, the best strategy, as always, is draft the good players. And two, if there was one, you know, one weird trick, the fantasy baseball analysts hate that could win your league every year, we'd be out of jobs. And that's just not how it works, you know, the ultimately what works in one. league isn't going to work in every league because every league's going to be a little bit different. So, you know, that's kind of always the takeaway from these discussions. Let's take our final break when we return, league leaders. League-wide trends, we'll talk about that right after this.

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Let's take a look at the league leaders from this past season. Batting average, number one, Aaron Judge with a bullet. 331 batting average, it was not close. The next closest behind him was Bo Bichette and Jacob Wilson, who were 20 points behind at 311. And how about this? Trey Turner won the NL batting title

with just a 304 batting average, the lowest by an NL batting champion since the league was founded in 1876. The only AL batting champ lower than the 304 mark was Carl Yistremski who hit 301 back in 1968. I believe Trey Turner was the only NL player to hit 300. So we came very close to having the first sub 300 hitting batting title winner.

Well, how about this? I think for the first time in a non-strike shortened season, no player had 185 hits in the majors this season. There were six who did it last year. Yeah. That's kind of wild. Yeah, so I guess the takeaway there, and again, just because it happens one year, doesn't mean it'll happen the same next year,

but finding elite batting average up at the top is about as hard as it's ever been in fantasy baseball. So we had seven qualified hitters hit 300 or higher this season, the same number last year, and that number was nine at 300 or a better back in 2023. On the home runs, we had Cal Raleigh, lead the league with 60. Again, that was most all time by a catcher, most all time by a switch hitter. Kyle Schwerber had 56, Shohei Otani had 55, Aaron Judge had 53. The first time that we had four hitters with 50 plus home runs since 2001, which was the midst of the steroid era. It was the peak.

We had bonds with 73. Sammy Sosa with 64. Luis Gonzalez was 57. A-rod with 52. So high-end home runs. Eh, Eugenio Suarez. Yeah, just missed. Could have given that, hit that one more to make it five with 50 plus for the first time, but he didn't.

He finished a 49. So we had seven total with 40 plus home runs this season, only four in 2024. So while we lost high-end batting average output, we did gain high-end home run output this past season. Is there any takeaway from that? Well, what's interesting is league-wide batting average was actually up slightly from last season. It was 245 to 243. It's not a huge difference, but if your takeaway from only one NL player hit 300 and, you know, only three players total hit 310, is that, oh, well, batting average must have been down league wide. That wasn't necessarily the case.

It's just we didn't have those high-end outliers this season. And part of that is like Luis Raias seems to have kind of jumped the shark a little bit. on not making contact or making contact but not hitting the ball hard. And, you know, like, Trey Turner, he might have almost not qualified, given the time he missed with injury. So I don't take too much from this except to say that Aaron Judge was even more valuable than usual this season, even though it wasn't necessarily the best season from him because he was such a huge help in batting action.

average in a way that that's kind of who he is now. He's not a 330 hitter, but he's got to be hitting well over 300 over the past four seasons, I would guess. How about this? 311 over the past four seasons combined. How about this? You mentioned, you know, the number of 40 homer hitters, 30 homer hitters, 33 this year compared to 23 last year. and yet the total of number of home runs hit was pretty similar right?

Yeah, it wasn't notably higher, I don't know. It was up quite a bit from last year. So we had 5,650 total home runs. Last year it was 5,453, so almost 200 more home runs. That's not a huge difference, though, from league-wide. Yeah, that's... How many has that per game? And the home run to fly ball ratio was, it was negative.

It was 11.9% this year. The home run environment was it's been basically the same three of the last four years. 2023 it was much more favorable to home runs. I mean, it wasn't 2019 standards, but it was much more favorable 2023 than it has been in 2022, 2024, 2025. It was basically about one extra home run every two days across the league. So yeah, that's not one home run every 25 games basically. So there's not really anything there. Yeah.

I just think it was more separation between the top home run hitters and everyone else. But I don't. Which makes that a category that, you know, if we just apply it moving forward, which we shouldn't. But if we were to, then it would say, okay, well, you need to make home runs more of a priority early. I kind of feel like that's been the case for the past few years anyway, but maybe 2025 serves as more of a, more of a indicator of that. Do you think that the high-end home run output is perhaps correlated with the high-end stolen base output being down as much as it was this year compared to the first two years that we

had these new rules to promote stolen bases? Basically, like the league leader this year was Jose Cabriero with 49. Last year, L.E. Dela-Cruz had 67. in 2023, Akuna had 73. Even if you look at, in the previous two years before this, we had three hitters with 50 plus steals in each of those seasons. This year, we didn't have a single with 50, and we only had three with 40 plus.

So I don't know if those things are correlated. Perhaps teams were trying to hit for more power, and we just didn't have as many opportunities to run. I think part of that maybe, but isn't part of it also Chandler Simpson wasn't up all year? Yeah, I do think it's That Ellie De La Cruz got hurt And clearly wasn't himself

In the second half of the season And I think it's kind of circumstantial Like we knew Otani wasn't going to run more Because he was pitching Acuna was coming back from the knee injury Like if Jose Caballero got 600 played appearances Which he shouldn't because he's a very bad hitter Right

But if he did he might steal 60 bases If Chandler Simpson is up on opening day next season And doesn't get sent down and plays every day He's probably going to hit 60. plus if L.A. Dela Cruz is healthy. I imagine we're going to see a bounce back from him as well because he really stopped running quite as much in the second half. If Corby and Carroll runs all season like he did in the second half this past year,

and maybe he gets back to being one of the high-end base Steelers. Luis Robert had 33 and 110 games. He could have stolen 50 if he stayed healthy. Yeah. I whatever Juan Soto is going to do in the, in 2026. I have genuinely no idea. So I think, gosh Naila got to 30. That's incredible. Soto came so close to 40. 30. Soto came very close to a 40-40 season. It's, I think if Chandler Simpson played more, he gets to that close to 70.

If Caballero was an everyday player, he probably gets close there. If L.A. Dela Cruz doesn't get hurt. you're probably looking at 50 plus there. So I, as with home runs, you know, the, the gap between 2021 and 2025 or 2024 and 2025 is actually smaller than the gap in home runs. It's about 170 if I'm doing the math rate. So that's another one where it you're talking probably once every 30 or so games. I don't think there's anything to take from that. The runs leader, Otani, had 146 runs scored.

That was the most since two years ago when Ronald de Cunia had 149. So not really anything notable that I saw there with run scored statistic. RBI, Kyle Schwerber had 132. Judge had 144 last year. So didn't really see anything that stood out for either runs or RBI in terms of fantasy this past season. On the pitching side, the wins leader was Max Fried with 19, Garry Crochet and Carlos Rodan were both tied for second with 18 wins each. Last year we had Salem Scuba with 18 each.

In 2023, we had Strider with 20. So 18 to 20 kind of feels like the sweet spot right now for your wins leader. I don't know that there's anything to take away from that. I'd be more interested in finding out like how many players had, I don't know, 15 plus, 12 plus, a lower threshold than the very top guy and how that has changed. I mean, I'm sure if you go back five or six years, it's changed a lot. But you're looking for how many have gotten like 15? So seven got 15 this year.

Let's start with that. Seven got 15 this year versus last year. I can do it real quick. Okay. But last year was 11. So the, yeah, last, five years, it's 7, 11, 8, 14, 5. Five was 2021.

That was coming off the 2020 short and season. So, innings were down across the board. But that was for 15 wins, right? Yeah, that was for 15. Say that again? Say those numbers again? 7, 11, 8, 14, 5 over the past five seasons. Feels kind of a little fluctuation.

Feels kind of unpredictable. Yeah, there was a little fluctuation. 2021 being the obvious standout, really notable is you go the four years before 2020 1719 1723 yeah everything is completely 2020 yeah yeah I think 2020 is going to go down as a kind of landmark year in the pitching landscape that's when the the number of 200 innings starters basically collapsed the number of 180 inning starters basically collapsed and those things are going to be heavily correlated with wins wins are the distribution of wins is random terrick scubal was the best

pitcher in the American League at least and he got 13 Paul Skeens did he get to 10? Yeah he finished 10 and 10 just got to 10 and he had a a sub 2 ERA so you know good pitchers on good teams get wins good pictures on bad teams get fewer wins Carlos Rodon has gotten a lot of wins the past two seasons despite being iffy I think fair to say across both although in 2025 much better um but yeah it's I think when you look at any good pitcher, you set your expectation at 15 plus or minus four, and there's basically no way to predict who's going to get the four good, the four on the plus side and the four on the negative side. You know, Max Fried getting 19.

He was really good, except for that month and a half or so where he wasn't. He threw a career high innings and he pitched for a pretty good team. But, you know, the Yankees weren't the best team in baseball, despite having two of the three guys with 18 wins. There's a lot of randomness there. The Yankees record actually wound up a lot better than you might even realize. I mean, they were tied for the best record in the American League with 94 wins. They played in the wild card game because they lost the tiebreaker to the Blue Jays.

But I think they actually wound up with the third or fourth best record in all of baseball. So actually wound up with a good amount of wins. And yeah, you mentioned Rodon and Freed, they both went deep into their starts. I did have the numbers on pitchers with 200. innings or more. So this past season, we had just three with 200 plus innings. Last year it was four. The year before that, it was five. So next year, you should expect two to give you 200 plus. Back in 2022, it was eight. And in 2021, it was four. So that was coming off the COVID season. But really, 2022 was our last kind of, I don't even want to say big season, but kind of our last

outlier season in terms of workload, innings eaters, eight with 200 plus. And it's just been consistently kind of trending down. since 2022. Our strikeouts leader was Garrett Crochet with 255. Terrick Scuba was second with 241. We had 12 total with 200 plus strikeouts. Last year, Scuba led all baseball with 228. So pretty big jump up from 228 to 255 here for Crochet as the league leader.

Last year we had 11 with 200 plus strikeouts. So actually won less than this past season. Back in 2023, Strider led baseball with 281 strikeouts. So that was a lot more than this year. And we had 17 pitchers with 200 plus strikeouts back in 23. So five more than we just saw this past season. The ERA leader was Paul Skeens at 1.97. That was the lowest by a pitcher with at least 180 innings since DeGrom had a 170 ERA back in 2018.

And again, it just led to 10 wins for Paul Skeen. So good old pirates, I guess. We had... Throw the pirates in the Allegheny River. That's what I say. How about this? The high-end ERA contributors, actually there was a lot more this season

than the previous two years. This year we had 12 qualified starters with an ERA under three. Last year it was nine. The year before that, it was five. So the high-end contributors in ERA were actually very plentiful this past season.

I wonder how many more pitchers qualified this? fewer pitchers qualified this season. 52 versus 58 in 2024. So that's interesting. And the league-wide ERA and WIP actually went up slightly this year than compared to last year. So it feels like there was maybe a little bit

of a bigger disparity between the aces, the haves, and maybe the mid-tier or maybe even the lower tier, which is like just the complete have-nots. And it's an interesting one. Like I said, I plan on doing a deeper dive none of the sub three ERA guys

I would say there's one that really stands out as an outlier Andrew Abbott we've talked a lot over the past couple of years about what a weird pitcher he is he's one of these cross-body throwing biggest weirdo winner for 2025

generates a lot of weak contact has a good enough strikeout rate very good control this season so like it's not totally unreasonable, but he's he's the one if you had to pick one to not repeat in 2026. I think Andrew Abbott's probably the one. Freddie Peralta too, although look, he's established he's really good,

but he's more of like a mid-tie three's here. I mean, the skill set is stronger than Andrew Abbots, but yes, I agree. Most anybody who finishes with an ERA under three, I would predict them not to the following year. Exceptions would be skiing scoble and crochet.

Like I feel pretty safe about them having an ERA below three. Not that it's given, but I feel pretty safe. It would be surprising. Yeah. And there are others who could. I'm not saying they're all going to finish with an ERA over three, but if you're just playing the odds, I think it's safe to think, okay, maybe a low three ZRA next year for Max Free or Yamamoto.

I do think I expect. I almost said him too, actually. 10% per nine and ground. balls at that rate. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's just, I think what, because that might be surprising because I, I'm not going to rank him as my number four SP. I don't know if you guys are.

I think I think I'm leaning, five for me. I think I'm leaning that way. SP four. It's just a, it's a volume deficit for him. That's the biggest thing is that I think we probably saw pretty close to a best case scenario for Yoshinobiyamoto this season, and it was 173 and two-thirds innings. I would guess it's about 185 strikeouts. 2001.

Oh, you got to 200, okay. But he just doesn't have the like the high, high end outcomes that someone like Chris Sale or Logan Gilbert could have if all goes right. The whip leader was Terrick Scoobal with a 0.89 whip this season. That was the same as Logan Gilbert last year.

We had six qualified starting pitchers with a whip under one. Last year, that was four. And in 2023, there was just one qualified pitcher with a whip under one. So again, it's just, the high-end ratios contributors were really high-end and really big helps this season at both ERA and WIP.

The saves leader was Carlos Estevez with 42. Last year, Ryan Heldley led baseball with 49. We had two with 40 plus saves this year. Last season, that was two as well. In 2023, that was just one. And if you look at 30 plus saves, this year we had eight. Last year we had eight.

The year before that, we had 12. 2023 kind of feels like an outlier in terms of 30 plus saves contributors. We also just had a lot of managers that were more likely to stick with one closer. And again, saves and bullpens are so fickle, so hard to predict. That's the difference between us having a great closer landscape and a great saves landscape. Really, some of the time could just be the managers. Like, which managers do we have that season? And are they willing to just lock in?

Because we lost Skip Schumacher from 2023 as the manager. And he would always just stick with one guy. So maybe if we get him back. Well, the Marlins didn't have Tanner Scott as well. True. As someone who's been writing the Bullpen report, you know, periodically updating all the, all the closer situations that are most in flux around the league

on a near weekly basis for the past few years, I think it was less the issue this year with a few 30 saves guys was less about managers kind of going by committee certainly Dave Roberts

and Los Angeles did but as a whole it wasn't so big of a problem it was more just there were some teams that didn't have a good option to begin with like the Marlins for instance like the Rangers for instance. The Marlins do not have a closer and they never will ever again.

I think that's reasonable. And a lot of closers were moved at the trade deadline. So if that didn't happen, we would have had more guys with 30 plus saves because they were trending that way. Some of those who were traded out of the role. Certainly like Mason Miller. Miller, Finnegan definitely come to mind. Those two, they had huge saves totals at the deadline. So yeah, that is a fair point.

I want to take a look at some league-wide trends here and see if we have any takeaways from these. The offensive environment, Chris already mentioned this, but we had a 245 league-wide batting average with a 719 OPS, pretty comparable to last year when it was 243 and 7-Eleven, so it was up slightly. And back in 2023, that was 248 and a 734 OPS. So the batting average similar, the OPS, I think 2023 was a pretty fruitful year in terms of offense. So the last two years, 2024 and five look pretty similar in terms of offensive environment i would say yeah i think we've reached an equal in the last four yeah yeah yeah three of the last four i was going to say the same thing like i i feel like after some of the greatly fluctuating offensive environments that we saw

in the first half of this decade uh and and even prior to that maybe over the last whole decade 2019 was the really crazy home run season i believe yeah i think we've kind of reached a period of of stasis that 2023 season stands out as the outlier in terms of being really prolific for offense. And, you know, still three out of four is not a huge sample. So if next year, the ball was flying again, I don't think it should shock anybody. But hopefully this is going to become less of a talking point moving forward because we have reached this point of equilibrium.

We spoke about stolen bases already, but we had 3,400. 40 total across baseball. That was down 177 from last year. It was down 63 from 2023, but still way up from 2022, which again, that was before we had these new rules that kind of promoted stolen bases. So it's down a little bit from the first two years with those rules intact, but we still did get a lot of steals across baseball this year. We spoke about some theories already.

I think, again, the player pool, some circumstances, Ellie getting hurt, Akuna missed time, Otani wasn't running. I think if we get a full season from Chandler-Simpson next year, a healthy season from Ellie Daylor-Cruz, we probably get some 50 or 60-plus stolen-based seasons again in 2026. I also want to point out, this is something that I don't think we've mentioned, but Elie de La Cruz did have a death in his family, his sister passed away.

Yeah. Right around mid-season. And, you know, that's one of those things that we can't, know how that's going to affect players, but obviously these are human beings and, you know, his second half slump very well could have been, you know, as a result of what he was going through off the field as well. So I feel like it's worth mentioning that one as well. Yeah, in a game where you're so into and focused on the numbers, I mean, it's a mental game. We'll 90% is mental, 100% of the rest is physical or whatever the yogi bear quote is.

I mean, we lose track. Honestly, we just lose track of these guys being humans. and they have things that are going on off the field as well. Same thing with Brendan Doyle, right? I believe him and his wife lost a baby very early on in the season and could have just derailed his entire year. And then, you know, he did get things going back in the second half. So you just, you never really know what people are going through. In terms of home runs, we had 5,650 total this past season,

which is just about exactly in between 2024 and 2023. So it was 200 more than last, last year, and it was 200 less than back in 2023. But as we pointed out, the home run to fly ball rates were pretty negligible year over year the past two years. 2023 kind of looks like an outlier in terms of home run to fly ball rate. I did want to mention some stat cast data real quick, because we have data that goes back all the way to 2015. So in 2025, we saw the highest

league average exit velocity, 89.4 miles per hour, the highest max exit velocity of all time. The highest barrel rate, the highest hard hit rate, the highest XBA, and the highest ex-Wobo. I don't know if there's anything to take away from that, but my guess is it's probably just going to keep trending up a little bit until I guess we kind of hit some plateau. So what I would say is it's similar to what we've seen across pitching. As as soon as we started having league-wide, the ability to measure velocity league-wide, velocity shot up. And we've pretty much hit an equilibrium this year

or over the past few seasons where maybe it ticks up a half mile per hour, 1.1 mile per hour. We're not seeing huge jumps. I would guess we're not at that point with the hitter side, but it's got to be like Mechleberg's ball or something.

Once you start measuring something, people start training for the thing that you're measuring for. There's got to be some kind of mall for it. Yeah. Yeah. And I would guess this is a product of that, but it is interesting that pitching velocity keeps going up. Strikeout rates have pretty much plateaued. All the hitting stuff keeps going up.

Offenses haven't gotten better. That cat and mouse game is always so fascinating to me and that it doesn't actually seem to change things all that much on a year-to-year basis. Even though you look at five years ago, pitchers are throwing a mile and a half per hour harder. and hitters are probably hitting, you know, a mile per hour harder on average. On the pitching side, we had a league-wide 4.16 ERA, 1.29 whip, both up slightly from last year, not nearly as high as they were back in 2023. If you look at strikeout rate and walk rate, basically right in line three years in a row. It's right around 8.5K per 9, a 22 to 23% strikeout rate, just over, you know, right around 3.1.1.1.000,

3.2 walks per nine. Is there anything that you could take away from ERA whip strikeout walks this past season? I think with the strikeouts exactly what Chris was just saying, that it's it is noteworthy that it's kind of holding steady now. Because I actually, you know, in 2020 when there wasn't baseball going on, but thankfully we still had jobs. And so I was having to get creative with my content ideas that nobody was reading. One of the things I did, oh, I appreciate that.

One of the things I did that I really liked is I did a year by year breakdown of my oldest fantasy league. It was at that point, I think it was exactly 20 years. And I chronicled just a few different notable data points. One of them was league-wide strikeout rate. And it was amazing how over the course of those 20 years, the strikeout rate just kept going up and up and up and up with no drop. And then I think right after I wrote that article, I don't know if it was the very next year, but soon afterward, we finally saw a drop in strikeout rate. And then it's kind of just held steady. So I think we've reached that point where there's just not much to gain anymore from everybody's already maxed out their velocity.

And they've so mastered how to manipulate the baseball and how to maximize. physical outputs that there's just it's plateaued and I think part of it is also where we're seeing a move away from notably the just throw your best pitch as much as possible and now um the number of pitchers who throw five six seven different pitches yeah is notably higher than And some of the elite pitchers, too, like Paul Skeen throws six, seven pitches now. And it's not typically the best pitchers would be like two, three, maybe four. You think about Spencer Strider a couple years ago. He had 285 strikeouts.

It was just fastball slider. That was all he threw. And I think the chase for strikeouts has gone away. And it's more, you know, kind of more of the Seth Lugo approach, where you're, you're not necessarily chasing as many strikeouts you'd love to get strikeouts. Strikeouts are almost a guaranteed out. That's a phenomenal outcome. But if you can keep hitters off balance and generate weak contact

and that is a way to succeed as well. We've seen a lot of guys, you know, notably having success that way, especially it seemed this year, especially a lot of lefties. And even like Garrett Crochet,

you know, last year was a very limited repertoire. And now he's kind of you know. It's four different pitches, legitimately four different pitches. And depending on whether it's a lefty versus or righty, he's kind of got this completely,

that's what you see a lot more of, is guys completely change their arsenals, depending on if they're facing a lefty or righty in a way that I don't really remember being as widespread. And we kind of heard this firsthand from Corbyn Burns, right? We saw a big follow-off from his strikeouts, and he even said in an interview,

if I can get an out earlier in the count and kind of extend my season or extend my career by being able to go deeper into games and provide more innings. If I get an out, you know, two or three pitches into an bat instead of five or six chasing a strikeout, why wouldn't I do that?

I also think there's an elephant in the room like the sticky stuff and, you know, them cracking down on that obviously helps get, you know, lower the strikeout rates and things like that. Yeah. All right. Could be. Here we are.

That's it. That's all I've got for today. I mean, we were going to do, lingering questions, but that was kind of like in case we needed some time to fill, which we obviously never need. But we managed to go over an hour without filling out the rundown. I think we'll do some of those lingering questions on FBT Express. So if you want to hear about those, that's a little tease there for you.

Make sure you check out our latest FBT Express episode. We are going to wrap there for Scott 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 next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.