Fantasy Baseball Today - 2025 Sleepers, Breakouts & Busts 1.0! (1/31 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Who is Chris' favorite sleeper (3:23)? ... Who is Scott's favorite breakout (6:18)? ... Which bust is Frank avoiding most (9:00)? ... Let's reveal our Sleepers 1.0, starting with Kristian Campbell (15:29). ... People are sleeping on Bo Bichette (18:14). ... Nick Lodolo was great before he got hurt (23:15). ... Isaac Paredes should be great in Houston (25:42). ... Why isn't there more excitement for Spencer Arrighetti (29:44)? ... Why is Scott targeting Ryan Mountcastle and Michael Conforto (33:16)? ... Who are Frank's sleepers (38:35)? ... Let's move into Breakouts 1.0 (41:53). ... Is Lawrence Butler a breakout or bust (44:10)? ... Dylan Crews has a clear opportunity (50:48). ... Bailey Ober should take the next step (52:30). ... Why is Chris in on Grayson Rodriguez and Bryan Woo (55:26)? ... Scott will never quit Jonathan Aranda (58:22). ... Who are Frank's breakouts (1:00:15)? ... Lastly, we get into our Busts 1.0 (1:03:30). ... Jacob deGrom is way overvalued (1:05:43). ... There are questions with Pete Crow-Armstrong (1:08:21). ... Mark Vientos struck out a lot last season (1:12:20). ... Why is Chris off Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki (1:14:30)? ... Who are the rest of Scott's busts (1:20:20)? 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

And welcome in to Fancy Baseball today on January 31st. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts 1.0. Yes, there was a bunch of news that came out in the past couple days. Max Scherzer to the Blue Jays, Carlos Estevez to the Royals, Hassan Kim to the Rays. But we did a bonus podcast earlier in the day. You guys did.

Chris and I broke down all the moves. So if you want to hear our thoughts on that, be sure to check it out. Yeah, this is my like fourth podcast of the day, you know? You know, Scott, if you really do want to react to those moves. Not really. We can make it one of the FBT Express episodes. I'm upset about Estevez blocking Lucas Urseg, who I think is way better. Yeah.

Nobody's really about it. But really that's all I have to say about those three moves. So we can. We could do the Express, whatever. Yeah. All right. Well, that's why we did that bonus episode is so that we could just focus on sleepers, breakouts, and bust.

Wanted to give that the time that it deserves and obviously give this podcast the time this deserves as well. Chris, start us off here. Your favorite sleeper in 2025. There are so many options to go with. But I picked Brandon Lau as my favorite sleeper because I'm very excited. I think he's just kind of perpetually underrated at this point because he's going to miss some time with injury over the past couple of seasons.

And he's been disappointing since that 39 homer season. But man, this guy when he's on the field is still a really, really productive hitter, a rare source of power at the single hardest position to find any power in the modern game. And that's second base. Brandon Liao has 21 homers in each of the past two seasons. Last year, there was only one player who had more than 25. I think Brendan Lowe's third at the position in home runs with 21, despite missing 55 games. So I'm very excited about him regardless.

But then you add in the fact that the Rays are going to be playing half their games, George Einstein, Brenner Field. Really, they're going to be playing 90, right, of their 162 games at that field because they play two series against the Yankees in 87 games because George Armstrong Steyer Field has the same dimension to the Yankees team. That's what I was going for. Very, very friendly for left-handed power. Look, I don't think you should expect Brandon Lowe to get to 39 homers again.

That's probably an outlier. But a 30-homer season if he plays 130 games, that's realistic. I mean, if he stays healthy and if the raise don't sit him too often against left-handers, very big ifs, ifs I would bet against. But if that were to happen, he's, to eat Alonzo at second base. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's not that big of a difference between them.

And I get where you're saying, oh, he can't stay healthy. I'm never drafting him and blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, his ADP is 239. He's the 22nd second baseman off the board behind, like, I don't dislike Colt Keith. Brandon Lows better than Colt, Colt Keith. Like, he's better than Brendan Donovan. I guess if you like what are we doing like glaubert torres is ahead of him labor torres is in like the worst park in baseball for his skill set

I think brandon law is I am ranking him as a top 12 second baseman me too now if you don't draft him that way that's fine you don't have to but that is me planting my flag and saying I think this guy whenever he's on the field is going to be a top 12 second baseman the fantasy pros ADP by the way you mentioned I believe it was NFBC, Chris. Fantasy pros is 216.8. So not far off, a little bit higher,

but still outside the top 200. Clearly, as the 19th second baseman off the board, you two both ranked Brandon Lau as a top 12 second baseman heading into the season. Scott, over to you for your favorite breakout here in 2025. Well, I'm going to pick another second baseman

because, strangely enough, second basemen are universally undervalued, even though that's, That's the weakest position. I'm scratching my head over why that's the case. But Jordan Westberg is my favorite breakout. Clean sweep across the board. Breakout for all three of us.

Yeah. And I say favorite in terms of he's the one I'm most likely to draft. There are others that maybe I'm personally drawn to more, but they're just going to be hard to draft. Westberg, very easy to draft. He's going just inside the top 100. I think my initial rankings had him 30 spots higher than that. 92nd percentile

XBA and X-slug last year with an average exit velocity that was on par with Kyle Tucker and Bryce Harper and really if you just project last year's numbers over 150 games you get pretty far that way 25 homers 88 RBI

but that was with him being a right-handed hitter in the Camden Crater and you may have heard the Orioles are moving the fences back in and left quite a bit should play much better for right-handed power, especially for a guy who hits the ball as hard as Bryce Harper from the right side.

And this would just be a bonus, but Westberg also has 91st percentile sprint speed. So if he were to start running too, I mean, he might be a top 40 player overall if he were to start doing that. Don't need him to do that to live up to his ADP, though.

to succeed as ADP. You mentioned the ADP for Jordan Westberg is 94 right now. He is the sixth second basement off the board. And I was going to say kind of represents an island. There's a drop off like Semion's ADP is 63.6. Then Westberg is going about 30 picks later. Matt McLean is eight picks on average behind Westberg. I think we all very clearly would rather have much rather have Westberg than McLean.

Yeah. And then the next second basement after that is Bryce Terrang at 119. So it does drop down a couple rounds after that as well. Jordan Westberg does have third base eligibility as well. And I've noticed throughout drafts, you know, if I wait, it kind of offers you that flexibility because then you could just move him to second or third depending on whichever position has a better value later on in the draft. So if you like the second baseman, you know, in round 10, 11, 12 or beyond, then you can just move Westberg to third or vice versa. And then you can just take a third basement.

So it does offer some flexibility within the draft as well. So I do like that for Jordan Westberg. I am going to bring up a bust. Chris had a sleeper. Scott had a breakout. That's how it works. I will mention the player I'm probably most likely to avoid this season is Hunter Green. And this is going to rub some people the wrong way.

Hunter Green is awesome to watch. I mean, he's one of the most electric arms in baseball. I love watching the guy pitch. I'm not rooting against him. but just seems pretty risky to draft Hunter Green just given his profile and the injury history that he has had so far. He was awesome last season.

There's no doubt about that. He did a phenomenal job limiting hard contact. His average exit velocity year over year from 23 to 24 dropped almost three miles per hour. So he legitimately improved in that regard. How sticky is that? How sticky is that year over year? Will he maintain that?

Chris, you bring this up all the time. Dylan Cease in his breakout season, I think it was two or three years ago when he had the sub-25 ERA. Great quality of contact numbers. The next year he came back, it was an issue again for him. So that doesn't necessarily mean that will happen to Hunter Green as well. But he's a fly ball pitcher in the most Homer-friendly park in all of baseball in Cincinnati and the injury history. Last year, Hunter Green went on the aisle with an elbow sprain. He also has issues with his shoulder in the past as well.

The ADP 92.4, SP26, not egregious, but I have him SP 34, and I think me ranking him that low, I'm probably just not going to wind up with Hunter Green at all. Well, I respect you calling Hunter Green a bust, even acknowledging the value is fine, because I don't think a bust necessarily has to be a bad value pick. It just has to be somebody with the potential to out and out collapse, and I think Green has that. It does seem like I'm not hearing a lot of enthusiasm for Hunter Green. Like this, this is, since the start of his career, this is the least enthusiastic. The drafters of a whole have, as a whole have been for him, which I find a little strange because he had a 109 ERA in his last 10 starts. So you'd think people would be celebrating that more, but they're not. And I guess they probably shouldn't be.

so I don't have Hunter Green as a bust but I respect it Frank Yes Hunter Green I did want to just quickly look up his ADP from last year It was 141 so now it's inside the top 100 So while you know we don't hear that much excitement He is going higher than he was last offseason And I will admit like the range of outcomes You know if he repeats what he did last year

He could be an awesome breakout pick and maybe he's a top 12 starting pitcher But I do think there is legitimate bottom out potential here if he gets hurt or if, you know, quality of contact is bad and control is a problem once again. So for all those reasons, I am avoiding Hunter Green. By the way, before we get into all the other names, all of our sleepers, breakouts, and bust articles are live on the website. CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. We're not going to get to every single name today because we all wrote about 36 names total. So, you know, just not enough time to get to them on this podcast.

So if you want to see our full list and descriptions and write-ups for all these players, they are on the website. So I thought that I would get that out of the way. I want to promote a few other things before we hit a break. Our buddy, Nick Pollock, he has his annual pitchcon this weekend.

You can watch a bunch of baseball and fantasy baseball panels, discussions, presentations, pitcherlist.com slash pitchcon. And he just has a live stream going all weekend long, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Scott and Chris already presented on Thursday. so hopefully you had a chance to check that out. I will be on Sunday talking MLB power rankings

at 4 p.m. Eastern Time, so if you want to check that out, feel free. And of course, Nick does this as a way to raise money for charity. So if you have the means, please donate if you can. 100% of all donations from PitchCon will be going to ALS1. So Nick's goal is to raise $10,000 to help with ALS research. Make sure to check it out this weekend. It's going to be fun. I wanted to provide an update on our programming schedule.

Moving forward, starting next week, February 5 podcasts per week, will be live on YouTube Sunday through Wednesday evenings, 10.30 p.m. Eastern Time. And then Thursday, we'll pre-record a mailbag podcast that will come out on Friday. So you will have an audio podcast in your feed every Monday through Friday starting next week until the end of the baseball season.

So from February through September, beginning of October, you will be hearing a lot of us. And if you want to send a mailbag question in, you can either email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. That's the letter I, or leave us a five-star rating on Apple. Drop a question in their view. Okay, that's it, I swear.

It was like three minutes worth of promotion, way too much. Let's take a break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in, Fantasy Baseball. Today, Sleepers 1.0. Chris, we are starting things off with you. Christian Campbell of the Red Sox. Why also have is a sleeper, but tell us why.

Why you win? Well, part of it is just that right now you can get him for basically free if you're drafting. And I think by mid-March, he's going to be a top 150 pick because I tend to think he's just going to win the second-based competition for the Boston Red Sox. Look, they're going to give on Grissom a chance. I'm sure they don't want to give up on him after one injury-plagued season. But Christian Campbell is one of the fastest rising prospects in baseball. he had a monster season. Does pretty much everything you want well.

Good athleticism. Great approach at the plate. Hits a ton of line drives. Hits for some power. I had a 997 OPS in 115 games while getting all the way up to AAA. Now it was only 19 games to AAA. Maybe the Red Sox want to get him a little more seasoning. I'm not sure.

But it sounds like, I believe the report was Von Grissom and Christian Campbell are going to focus on second base. this spring training and Von Grissom probably has the lead Von Grissom is very much capable of losing that lead to Christian Campbell and I think he can be one of these rookies that everyone's clamming for, clamoring for by the time the season starts. I'm very excited

about the skill set here. Yeah, I am excited for all the same reasons. Obviously being a right-handed bat in Fenway helps. He makes a lot of contact. He hits a lot of line drives. There's power, speed for Christian Campbell. One thing that you brought up, Chris, back when we did our New Year's resolutions, is cooling it with the rookies.

Yeah. And I agree with that. I mean, some of the helium the past couple of years, Wyatt Langford going inside the top 75 picks by the time we got to the, you know, second or third week of March, Julio Rodriguez a couple of years before that, wound up being like a top 100 pick

when everything was said and done. Obviously, we love the ADP now for Christian Campbell, which is outside the top 300. but if he starts to hit in spring and we start to get an inclination that he is going to start at second base, then he's going to move up. Let's just take it easy.

Like if he's around 280p, perfectly fine. Closer to 150, all right, but the closer we get to 100 and beyond, that's when we got to like take a step back and all right, maybe we cool it a little bit on the rookies, but, you know, assuming the ADP is fine,

then I do agree on Christian Campbell as a sleeper. Scott, over to you. Bo Bichette, some people might be saying, What the heck, Boba Shed? I mean, this is one of the premier players in the game. How can he be a sleeper? And to that, you would say? Well, yeah, I agree.

I agree. I don't know how we've gotten to this point that Bo Bichet is going as late as he is in drafts. I used to, as recently as last year, I thought he was overrated for fantasy, but he was going in round three last year. And now he's being drafted around 140. He's being drafted in the same vicinity as he. Anthony Volpe. And the only explanation I can see for that is that he hit 225 last year.

So what? He was hurt the whole time. You know, he had calf issues. He was on the IEL two times with that same injury. He clearly wasn't right. And you look at the track record for Boba Chet, he had never hit less than $2.90 in his five-year career before hitting $2.25. last year. He entered the year. His career average was $2.99. He was as safe a source of batting average as you can find. And he's not even 27 yet. Like, he's still early in his prime. And people are just riding him off like this. It's totally bizarre to me. I brought up Volpe, him being drafted around there. Volpe is a for sure liability in batting average. So what are you doing? It simply boggles the mind. And it tells me that people think,

Beau Bichette is catastrophically broken, but I don't see the evidence for it. Even if you want to dig into the data more and not just assume it was health-related. The core metrics haven't really changed. He wasn't swinging and missing pitches inside the zone more often. He wasn't chasing pitches more often. He was hitting the ball pretty much as hard as usual.

It was down a little bit from the previous year, but it wasn't, in 2020, his quality of contact numbers were similar. We've seen him thrive with quality of contact numbers like that before. So I think it was just, I think we just need to chalk it up as a lost season and have some measure of faith that given where he, given his youth, that the track record is going to reassert itself this year. I have a theory. Shoot.

Boba Shett had a fine season in 2023. What? Like the triple slash line was basically, I don't. to what you expect. He had 306, OPS north of 815, I think. The problem was he only had, was it 69 runs and 73 RBI. So he was only the number nine second base or shortstop in fantasy that year. And then he has this disastrous 2024 where everything goes wrong. So I think it's two years in a row of subpar production. But I think the subpar production in 2020 is just a fluke. It's very similar that Carlos Correa 2020 season.

And even if you think this Blue Jays lineup is closer to average than really good, like it was at their best, I still think the leadoff hitter for this lineup is going to be a 90-90 guy. And so I'm really not as long as he's good and I have a lot of faith that he will be. So that's where like even the projections that like him, like the bat has him bouncing back to hit 280. It's only 74 runs and 72 RBI. And so that's where like I think that's what's keeping his price down.

I'm fine. Keep his price down. He should be a top 100 pick. And on top of all of that, Boba Shed is entering a contract year at 27 years old. And he cut his hair. I have to reiterate this. Remember what Vlad Jr. did last year when he cut his hair in June.

He became one of the best hitters in all of baseball. You know what? I have a theory for you. The hair has been weighing these guys down. So you know what? They cut the hair. They become amazing. Obviously, I'm kidding.

I mostly agree with you guys for the reasons you mentioned on Boba Shet. I guess if you're playing the downside game with Boba Shet, he has suffered a lot of injuries to his right leg. So, you know, the calf multiple times last year. He has dealt with a lot of issues with his knee, his right knee.

He also went on the IL a couple years ago with a right quad train. So maybe his right leg is just shot. And if that's the case, then he might just be a shell of his former self. At 26. And he's still a plus defender at shortstop. There are guys that that like Grady Seismore, Rocco Belli. Nick Marquikis is probably.

He had his. It's possible. But yeah, I don't. I just, I'm not that worried about it. I think it was his best. It was close to his best. I don't think that. But, you know, I'm sure the people who.

you know, are drafting him around 140 or later are probably bringing that up as a reason for pessimism for bobbashet. Chris, back to you, another sleeper here. Let's get into some pitching talk. You have Nicola Dolo of the Reds. Nicolodolo, who if

you remember, through the first three months of last season, was phenomenal. Had a 276 ERA with 70 strikeouts and 65 innings in his first six start or 11 starts of the season. Average right around six innings per start. Going deep, was pitching effectively. And then he had a blister in his 12th start.

He came back after about two weeks and stunk. He was terrible. And then his season ended with like a ligament issue in his finger. And he admitted at the end of the season that the blister never really got right. And he could never, he just couldn't grip his curveball specifically. And that ended up leading to the ligament issues with his finger. and he was just horrible. 754 ERA over his final nine games,

six home runs and 45 innings, 49 strikeouts. He just wasn't any good, wasn't the guy he looked like at his best. I just don't think he was healthy. And I think when Nicolodolo is healthy, he can be very, very good. His whiff rate on his curveball was down below 35% after that as well.

So I just think there's a lot to like about Nick Lodolo at a price where it doesn't matter if things go wrong, right? Like he's being drafted, I believe, still outside of the top 200. It's ADP on Fantasy Pro. 252.6 at NFBC. 231 on Fantasy Pros, SP 63. Yes, that's, there is no downside if things go wrong there. You can just drop him.

And there are not a lot of pitchers, even in a deep pitching pool, who have the kind of upside that Nicodolo has shown across multiple seasons. Yeah, you know what? This range of starting pitcher outside of the, the top 200. There are just so many interesting names here. Araggetti, who we're going to talk about shortly. Bauden Francis, I wrote up as a sleeper. He was maybe the best pitcher in baseball over the final two months. Nick Ladolo, Jesus Lozardo in this range,

Reese Olson going later than that. You can grab three or four pitchers early-ish, you know, top 30, top 40 starting pitchers, and then just wait and load up on a bunch of interesting upside guys later on. So yeah, I totally see it there with Dolo. He has the talent. Now, we need him to stay healthy, obviously, but, you know, going outside the top 200, there's not much risk drafting him at that point. Scott, back over to you, where we have Esok Paredes, and I can't for the life of me, he has moved up. I can't understand. The NFBC ADP early in the offseason was 275, something like that, when Paredes was on the Cubs. He gets traded to the Astros, which is a match made in heaven. And the ADP moves up to

just inside the 200 it feels like he should be a top 150 maybe top 125 pick right now I have 132 yeah his ADP has gone up since moving but not nearly enough if you look at his spray chart

you know you can understand why a guy who has third percentile exit velocity readings the tiniest little icicle on his baseball savant page for quality of contact. You can understand why he's been like a 25 to 30 homer guy because so much, so many balls are hit right at that left field foul pole.

The easiest place for a right-handed hitter to put it out. Paredes basically lives there. Except for Wrigley Field. Except for Wrigley Field. That ruined him. So the left field corner in Tropicana Field is one of the closest 315 feet away from home play. at Wrigley Field, it's one of the furthest, 355 feet. And we predicted it would kill him once he was traded to the Cubs.

And it did. In his two and a half years with Tampa, the Paredes homered once every 21 plate appearances. In his half year with the Cubs, it was once every 71 plate appearances. Okay. That's his past. Now he gets traded to Houston. You ever heard of the Crawford boxes? I have.

It is the most. the most inviting place for a right-handed hitter to hit. That left field foul pole, just like Tropicana Field, 315 feet, but it remains shallow all the way to straightaway center. So even if Paredes is a little off the mark in aiming for that foul pole, he's still very likely to put it out at that ballpark. It is a match made in heaven. I think he's basically going to be Alex Bregman there.

Alex Bregman may be the player he's replacing. I don't know. There's talk they could maybe bring Bregman back and play Paredes at second. But even if they don't bring Bregman back, I think they already have his replacement. Bregman hit 26 home runs last year. Pareda's expected home run number in Houston last year was 26.

And you look at batting average profile similarly. I assume he would occupy a similar spot in the lineup, runs in RBI. I think he's basically going to be Bregman. and obviously he's not being drafted like that. He's being drafted about 100 spots lower than Bregman. So I am taking that all day. I would say Paredes, Isok Paredes, is my favorite sleeper of all.

And part because we already know it works for it. Yeah, we've seen it. We have a proof of concept here. He was a top 70 hitter in 2023. Yep. And people might be wondering, listening for years now, we have been poo-pooing Isok Paredes and we haven't been fans of him, but when he was in the ballpark that was conducive to this skill set,

he proved that he can do it multiple times. And then when he went to Chicago, obviously it didn't work because that was a bad ballpark. But we've seen it, and now he's joining an even better lineup. He's going to hit in the top half of this Astros lineup somewhere among Altuve and Yorda and Alvarez and if they bring back Breggman. But he's going to be somewhere in that mix. So counting stats are there. And even in NFBC January ADP, 193 for Paredes, 60 pixels later, 60 pixels later,

than Bregman and 80 picks behind Jake Burger, which I just, I can't get it. I can't get it. So, yeah, I think a totally fine fallback. If you miss out on your third base targets early on, just kind of wait and snag ESOC parade us a little bit later on. Chris, back over to you for another pitcher. I mentioned the name, Spencer Arrogetti. This is another one. Clean sweep across the board. I think I have him as a breakout. Scott either has him as a sleeper or a breakout as well, and you have him here as a sleeper. I am surprised his price. is as low as it is, given how well Spencer Ereddy finished the season.

We've talked about it a ton. 331 ERA, 118 whip over his final 15 starts, the walk rate cut almost in half, strikeout rate 11 per 9. He was awesome. He's got the swing and miss pitches, three of them at least a width rate of over 37%.

My theory as to why Spencer Arirgeti is not getting the love that he deserves is because I think I've mentioned this recently, but I'll do it again. Remember last year at the end, the beginning of August, he went up against the race and red socks and had 25 strikeouts across two starts. And I believe the next week he had the white socks. And he was like the number one waiver wire target. Everyone's

like, this is the guy who's going to carry us like huge week. It might have been a two start week even. And he had the white socks and he gave up four runs and five and two thirds innings. Terrible start. super disappointing then his next two starts he strikes out 17 over 13 and two thirds shutout innings against the orials and fillies and it's like all right we're back baby spencer a reddy we're going to ride into a championship in september and he opens the month of september at cincinnati with two thirds of an inning nine runs three earned i think originally it was six earned and three of them came off because of an error and i I think a lot of people just, he was dead to them.

And I think we can take advantage of that because Spenceri is available for outside of the top 200 overall in drafts right now. And like I said, for most of the second half of the season, he was just really good. Yeah. And I, so the control got better. He figured out the fastball command and the stuff is really,

really good. So since I co-signed to this, I want to add a few things. But my theory is just he had a 453. and 1441 whip overall, which is terrible. Yeah, a lot of people just surface level analysis, this guy stinks. But obviously way better of those last 10 appearances. Again, the numbers were 272ERA, 11.4K per 9.

His fastball is mush, but he began to shy away from it. His curveball and sweeper are basically untouchable. And I think it's legit. My favorite Spencer Aragetti stat, he had more double-double. digit strikeout efforts last year than either Terrick Scubel or Paul Skeens. Pretty good. Yeah.

He had four of them, to be exact. And look, there's going to be control issues, control concerns there. I'm not saying he's an ace. But as your, it turns out you could draft him as like your sixth starter. And, you know, I probably would have been happy with him

as my fourth starter going into the draft prep process. And the Astros just typically do a pretty good job with pitching development. We just saw last year in season with Arrogetti and across the full season with Hunter Brown and Ronell Blanco. I mean, those guys were both awesome last year for the Astros.

Great team, great run support. I think we're all in agreement here on Spencer Arrogati. Scott back to you, I'm going to pair two hitters together, both going well outside the top 200. Ryan Malkasel with the Orioles. Again, they're pulling the left field in in Camden Yards. And Michael Conforto, who is now with

the Dodgers. Okay. So Mount Castle, I'm a little surprised he's gotten so little attention given the announcement of them moving the fences back in. So three years ago, the Orioles, for basically the entire length of left field, moved the fences back 30 feet. It was insane. I keep referring to it as the Camden Crater because right-handed hitters, they just were totally ruined by it. Mount Castle, chief among them, he hit 33 home runs, the year. before they did that obviously hasn't come close since. Even though his exit velocities have gone way up, he hits the ball. Sort of like teammate Jordan Westberg, very hard, very hard. He should be hitting more home runs just based on that. And if he had played in a more neutral environment like Nationals Park in Washington

over the last three years, he would have in fact hit 14 more home runs. So I think it's going to be a more neutral park now with the fences being readjusted. Camden yards in 13 feet in some places, 26 feet in others. With the eggs of Velocities, Mountcastle produces, I think a 25 to 30 homer season is well within reach. And that would be in a great upstart lineup. His ADPs around 250. Yep.

And first base, we've talked about it. If that's a position where if you're not intentional about it, it can quickly pass you by, I think at least in Roto Leagues, Mount Castle makes for a great fallback option. Yeah, I think that's a good call, especially even if you just play in 12-team Roto Leagues as a corner infielder, you already got your first baseman. Yeah, like 20 to 25 home runs with the upside to maybe get to 30 if everything works out for Mount Castle. I think that's totally fine. Scott, what about Conforto here?

Yeah, so Conforto, I'll try to distill this here. the Dodgers obviously saw fit to sign him and the Dodgers can bring in anybody they want. They decided to make Conforto their everyday left fielder. It was like the first move they made. And you don't have to dig very deep to understand why. He hit 20 home runs last year. Only three at home,

which you may have heard is a difficult place to hit, especially for left-handers. 17 of Conforto's 20 home runs came on the road. and his exit velocity is 92. 90.2 mile per hour average, 113.13.6 mile per hour max. It was the highest they had been in years. He basically had a bounce back season after years working his way back from shoulder troubles.

It just got consumed by that giant park in San Francisco. And now he's in a loaded lineup to top things off. the Dodgers GM has talked about them having faith in him playing against left-handers. His numbers don't look bad against left-handers. So I think Conforto is going to be an everyday player in the most star-studded lineup after a bounce-back season that wasn't properly appreciated. This just seems like a tailor-made sleeper to me. Yeah. Conforno could wind up having one of these like Nick Castellanos, Lorda's Guerreel-type seasons where he hits $250, $250,000.

260, 25-ish home runs, even if he's betting seventh in the Dodgers lineup, stacked lineup, counting stats should be there for Conforto. So, yeah, an ADP-300-74th outfielder off the board. I mean, you play in any five outfielder league. Conforto should be on your radar. The ADP for Mountcastle, by the way, was 247 as the 24th first basement off the board. Quickly mention your last two, Clay Holmes for Scott as an ADP of 281.6. He is a SPARP on CBS.

He signed with the Mets this off season. He is a reliever, converted starter. Not exactly sure how it's going to work, but the Mets obviously did great things with pitching development last year. And for Chris, a SPARP here, Mike Soroka. Mike Soroka, that's right. That one.

The ADP is... Extremely deep. 572. So, you know, I think you're only really drafting in points leagues, last round pick, something like that as, again, as a SPARP, has that RP eligibility. but signed with the nationals this off season,

and it sounds like we'll be given a chance to start for Washington. Can I say for Clay Holmes? Yes. 65% ground ball rate last year, and that's been the norm for him. The only full-time starting pitcher that really compares to that is Framber Valdez. You look at his time in the Yankees bullpen, a 269 ERA, 314 last ERA last year.

Run prevention was never Holmes problem. I just think a lack of missed. bats and enough ground ball sneaking through, cause stress in the ninth inning. It really put a microscope on it because it was at the point when the game was on the line. But over an extended stretch, if he's a 65% ground ball guy, I think he'll basically be Framber Valdez just without the volume. All right. I'll quickly mention three names that I have on my sleeper list and I'm pretty excited about Matt Shaw, the top prospect with the Chicago Cubs. Look, the third base job is his, as long as he does not fall flat on his face this spring. There's power, there's speed.

I think he should be able to play every day. Makes a lot of contact, hits a lot of line drives. The ADP, even in January at the NFBC 212. So this is another one like Christian Campbell, as long as the ADP doesn't get out of control, around 200, maybe in that 150 to 200 range. Let's take a shot on Matt Shaw for a little bit of power and speed. Jesus Lizardo, it just fits to build perfect sleeper because last year the ADP top 100 pick this year he's 250 260 in that range

traded over to the Phillies it's a worst ballpark to pitch in obviously but a much better team the context the run support lots of injury risk the floor is very low for Jesus Lazardo but we know what the upside is in 50 starts between 2022 and

23 for Lazardo 348 ERA 115 whip 10.6k per 9 for Jesus Lozardo. And Reese Olson, last name I'll mention here. I think he's legit good. He's 25 years old. He's entering his prime.

He made improvements last year. Did have a shoulder thing. So that adds a layer of risk. But the ADP is 280 for Olson. It's a great park to pitch in, improving Detroit Tigers team. So yeah, I like what we've seen. He's got two great with pitches. I think if he moves away from that fastball a little bit,

we could get a nice season out of Reese Olson. Yeah, I co-signed. to Olson. Mm-hmm. Sweet. All right, let's take our final break. When we return,

we'll get into breakouts right after this. Welcome back in Breakouts. 1.0. Chris Wilson Contreras. Ah, we know this guy. How's he going to break out?

Because he's going to play every day. Because he's the first basement now. And what I love about this one is it's kind of a twofer because Yvonne Herrera is also one of my favorite catcher, one of my favorite sleepers at catcher. And I'm fine.

with just those two as my catchers this season. Wilson Contreras, he's been a very, very good hitter throughout his career, regardless of what position you'd play him at. But since getting to St. Louis, his 150 game pace, 263 average,

25 homers, seven steals. Actually, decent there. And then 74 runs, 74 RBI. That's fine for a catcher, but I would hope for a little more, and I think we can get that.

Look, he's 33. I think, or will be 33 soon. So I'm not necessarily saying Wilson Contreras is just going to play 162 games, but an outcome where he hits pretty similar to his brother, William, not totally out of the question given the playing time he's going to get as a starting first baseman. So I'm very excited by Wilson Contreras. Yeah, love this call as well.

He's definitely dealt with a lot of injuries throughout his career, Wilson Contreras. Last year, mostly unlucky, a fractured left forearm. I believe on a back swing from while he was catching and then a fractured right finger in August which basically shut his season down so pretty unlucky last season and maybe playing first base

will allow him to stay healthy because obviously you're not crouching all the time and you know it should help overall so that's the case and obviously the playing time upside there for Contreras the ADP for him on Fantasy Pros is 101 as the sixth

catcher off the board. It is much higher on NFBC 78. So if you draft there, you are going to have to go a little bit higher to get Wilson Contreras on your team. All right, over to Scott for a breakout. And look, I know we're all friends here. You guys got to keep things civil. Scott, I'll give you the opportunity to tell people why. I won't talk until the bus this time. No, no, no, no, no. Let's do it now. Let's get it out of the way. Because this is the podcast to talk it out, Lawrence Butler. Scott is a fan of Lawrence Butler, breakout this season, and Chris has as a bus. So, Scott, give us the breakout case on Butler. Well, let me first say that if we're talking value, I don't know that Chris and I are necessarily going to be far apart.

To me, where Butler is going off the board is right at the tipping point. If somebody wants to grab him 65th overall, I'm probably out. If you last to 80, it's probably me who does. takes him. So he's like right at the tipping point. But regardless of whether he gets priced out of my range or not, I think he has blow up potential. And so I really want to stress that. And that's why I'm calling him a breakout instead of a sleeper. You know, it's not the, the value isn't stressed in the under the breakout umbrella. But anyway, Lawrence Butler, to sum up, he was a modest producer in the minors had some decent numbers, but wasn't a highly regarded prospect.

The under the hood stats were pretty impressive, though. Specifically, he hit the ball hard, struck out too much, kind of a typical story. But that all changed after he returned to the majors at the end of June. He worked with director of hitting Darren Bush to make some mechanical tweaks, eliminating excess movement and staying back on the ball better. So it wasn't something he figured out in the minor. See, he came back to the majors and they figured it out. right then. And from July 1st on, Lawrence Butler hit 302, 20 homers, 14 steals, 943 OPS. He cut his strikeout rate from 30.7% before that to 20.6% after that. Vast improvement.

And, you know, that was half a season's time. The pace was 40 homers, 28 steals, basically. So we're talking huge upside. The strikeouts improved, like I said. Is it possible that he'll, after an off season, he'll come back and slip into those bad habits again and they'll have to work on a swing all over again? Yeah, that's possible. But I do think the fix was legitimate. And if it does stick, then he could put up first round numbers. Look, I did a piece last week for the newsletter where I wrote about first round contenders for 2025.

26, I guess is the way to put it. And Butler was on the list. I can see a path to a 30, 25, 35, 25, outcome for Lawrence Butler, where he's just an absolute moment. We saw it in the second half, like Scott said. The thing for me, it just, it comes down to price. That's all it comes down to.

And this is why, like, the breakouts, I like writing about a breakout because price doesn't matter. And you can go wild. This is the guy's going to have a career. year or whatever you want to say. Bus for me are all about price. And it's this top 65 pushing ADP. He's at in the month of January.

I swear I just can't get on board, especially when earlier in the offseason, he was like 80th or even lower. He was closer to 100 in October and November. October. Yeah. And when you go month by month, the picture's a little less clear

that it was like a clear, breakout, it's Monster July. He had a 1210 OPS in the month of July. Good August, he had an 889 OPS. Hiff for a lot of power. The plate discipline was really bad in August. September and whatever, a game in October, whatever it was, 739 OPS.

The power really was not there. I think it was two home runs in the final month. Plate discipline remained pretty mediocre. this is four full months of Lawrence Butler in 2024. Two of them were good. One was terrible. One was pretty mediocre. That's not a top 65 pick,

especially not in an era where speed is easy to find in an era where outfielders are plentiful like they are in 2025. I just, it just comes down to the price. It's sticker shot for me. And look, maybe he'll be it, but I,

I look at, then you start to look at, we're at the point in the season where some of the projection systems are starting to come out. You know, steamer dropped early and had him 29 homers, 21 steals, 255 average, 170 combined runs in RBI. It's like, oh, yeah, Lawrence Butler.

It's top 70 pick. Well, you could do better than that. ATC's 2419. All right, that's not bad. Probably not worth that price. Oopsie, a new projection system. 25 and 21, but still pretty good. The bat, 23 and 15, 301 on base percentage, 428 slug.

Oh, well, you know, you realize projections have nothing to do with three. Yeah, they have no determination on what happens. No, no, Scott, we determined you are a projections guy now. So you can't. No, my point is, I think the price was influenced very heavily by the first projection system that got out. no. And I just, I don't think the layman looks out. Right, but the layman's not drafting right now. No, no. I think Chris is right because once the rejections came out, we saw the ADP kind of go crazy.

And the only ADP we had was NFBC. All right. So a lot of those players adjust down do use projections. I will mention like the overall fantasy pros ADP is around 80. Yeah. So that's where I have him at. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I'm with you. So we're all, so he's kind of at the tipping point for it because there's not a big difference between 65 and 80. It's just what's the opportunity cost? Yeah. What are you passing on you? And that's the reason why there's bus potential for Butler, obviously. Like I said, he could come back after the offseason and I'll slide back into the old habits.

I think the chances of that are lower than the chances of him just sustaining or mostly sustaining. And so I don't necessarily think 65 is going to be a wasted pick. I just think, I think the chances of that are less than 50% that 65 is going to be a waste of pick. But I think which else you could get at 65 is just, there's enough additional safety there that I'd rather go that route. All right, Chris, sticking in the outfield, you have Dylan Cruz as a breakout season.

Dylan Cruz, I love his price. Here's the thing. It took Jackson Churrier about two months to figure it out. It took White Langford about five months to figure it. out. It took Jackson Merrill a couple of months to figure it out. Dylan Cruz only played 31 games last year. And the results were not great, but a lot of the underlying stuff, especially the plate discipline, Dylan Cruz for a 21 year old, really had a good idea of what he was doing up at the plate. He didn't swing and miss. He didn't chase. He had a good walk rate. He didn't strike out

all that much. It all points to, I think, a guy who was not overwhelmed. Yeah, he needs to hit the ball harder. Yeah, he needs to elevate the ball. That's, that's all true. But when you're that young with that approach at the plate, I think you're going to figure it out, especially when we know the underlying tools are there for Dylan Cruz to be a power hitter, to be an overall good hitter. And he's still 12 bases in 31 games. That is a crazy pace. He's not going to steal 60 bases. It goes without saying. But 30, well, that feels more realistic than I thought it would with Dylan Cruz who has a 93rd percent of sprint speed so I I think if he hits 20 homers that's reasonable and there could be 30 stolen base upside here Dillon Cruz

ADP is 135 the 38th outfielder off the board Chris would you rather have Cruz or Stephen Kwan might be format dependent I think I'd rather just take the chance on Cruz okay what about Cruz versus Brendan Nemo Cruz Cruz or Adola Garcia Cruz all right there you go All right, let's go over to Scott. Bailey Ober as a breakout, and I believe bold predictions right after the season, Bailey Ober wins the Cy Young Award. How about that? Yeah. I don't know that I want to stick with that prediction like I did the school one last year. We're holding you to every prediction you made in October of last year. Okay. Well, here's my breakout case for Bailey Ober, who you may remember had a 398 ERA last year. I'm going to do the thing. No, don't do it. If you remove, if you remove. If you remove. if you remove just two starts

that ERA goes from 398 to 318 now some people hate when I do that but I think those people don't know ball they don't recognize they don't appreciate the fine line between excellence and disaster and they don't acknowledge the degree

that sheer randomness plays in outcomes it was two games and one of them was his first start of the season So there was all kinds of baggage piled on that game that could have affected the outcome. So yeah, just remove the two starts 398 to 318. If you don't find that compelling for Ober, then I will point you to a fellow named Shoda Imanaga who had a 291 ERA. So you're more than a full run better than Bailey Ober. Expected ERA for these two.

Bailey Ober had the better one. Bailey Ober's expected ERA was 32 versus Shota Imanagas 339. These are pitchers who profile similarly with elite control, flyball tendencies, and average to above average strikeout ability. Similar profile, Ober actually had the better expected ERA, but his actual ERA was way worse. I think it's possible the ERAs could flip this year. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but I think happens. happenstance mostly explains the difference between the two. And, uh, Imanaga is going a lot higher than Ober. Yeah, the ADP for Imanaga is 67 for Ober. It's 89.8. So going

a few rounds later here, both are going to be great whip contributors too. So if you do plan on taking, I don't know, a Dylan Cs, a Blake Snell, a Framber Valdez, someone like that, you know, Ober or Bryce Miller, Imanaga, Kirby, these are all whip pitchers that you also do want to draft to supplement those guys as well. I mentioned 80P, Scott. What about Bailey Ober versus, I just mentioned a name, Bryce Miller. He's going two picks higher.

Who would you rather have? So that's actually a trio, Imanaga, Ober, and Bryce Miller, where I think the profile is very, very similar. I do rank Miller ahead. I mean, I rank Imanaga ahead too. But I'm most likely to end up with Ober, given the going rate.

All right, let's stick with the pitchers. And Chris, over to you. Two breakout pitchers, young-ish pitchers we have here going inside the top 150, Grayson Rodriguez and Brian Wu. Yeah, they're both still quite young. And Rodriguez, it's just he has both come as advertised and been a little disappointing so far in his major league career.

Good strikeout rates, not elite strikeout rates, good control, decent quality of contact metrics, but not great. It's like you look at the individual part, and it all feels like it should be better. And this is just a bet that he's going to figure it out. I don't know what exactly it looks like. Maybe it's going back to the sweeper from 2023, which had much better results than the slider.

That could go a long way. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's just a bet on a guy who has, one, been more expensive than this in recent years, and two just still obviously has potential. And then Brian Wu, I just think he's really good. he's got two really, really good fastballs.

The four seamer gets a lot of whiffs, gets a lot of pop-ups. Sinker guys just beat it into the ground. They can't do anything with either of these pitches. Slider. Whiff rate was down last year. If he can get back to the 2023 whiff rate, I think there's a lot of room for the strikeout rate to grow. I think in terms of skill set,

there's not much difference between George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Brian Wu. Those other guys are much safer. Brian Wu had a lot of trouble staying healthy last year. year. But the fact that over the course of the second half of the season, he started consistently going six innings, started consistently throwing 90 plus pitches, something he was not doing, makes me hopeful that he can put it all together. Yeah, there was a start for Brian Wu on August 2nd. Seven shutout innings with six strikeouts against the Phillies. Could turn out to just be a turning point in his career. Final 11 starts, 333, ERA, 0.90 whip, 64 strikeouts to seven walks over

that stretch and he went six plus innings in eight of 11 starts. Now, I feel compelled to tell you that I have Brian Wu as a bust and it is all injury related. I think that he is a good pitcher, but just kind of feels like a ticking time bomb

here. Placed on the IL in August of 2023 with right forearm inflammation. Placing the IL in March of last year with right elbow inflammation. And then he left a start in May with arm tightness. He was scratched from a start in June. to get MRI.

Every start in the first half of the season, seemingly with something. It's scary. I acknowledge the talent, and it's a great ballpark to pitch in and a great pitching development program with the Mariners. But yeah, I think the floor is nothing. But I guess you can say that about most pitchers nowadays anyway. Scott, back to you. You have Westberg and Arroghetti on the list.

We spoke about those names earlier on. There leaves one more breakout. Mm-hmm. What's dead? This is a sleeper. What's dead may never die, Scott. Jonathan Aranda. Jonathan Aranda.

Yeah, he gets going very late outside the top 400. I'll just remind you that two years ago at AAA, he hit 339 with 25 homers and 1063 OPS. His walk rate was 14.7%. That would have ranked third among all major leaguers. His average exit velocity and max exit velocity compared favorably. to Marcelo Zuna and Corey Seeger. So he was like the perfect hitter in the minors was Aranda. It looked like he had won the job, the DH job for the raised last spring.

Then he broke his finger, needed surgery, came back and did not look the same. His strikeout rate was 34.5%, which we had never seen that from Aranda in his minor league career. That was between the minors and the majors. He got a little time in the majors. Ended up going back on the IL with an oblique injury. And when he came back from that, he looked like himself again. So I don't know what was going on after the surgery to his finger, if he was just rusty or if he still wasn't feeling right.

But he was clearly off. It was clearly out of character. We saw him get right at the end of the season. And after returning from that oblique injury, Jonathan Aranda between the majors and minors, hit 289 with nine homers and a 958 OPS in 32 games. I think he'll be starting for the raise at DH this year. and it'll finally be the year for Jonathan Aranda.

The ADP for Aranda, 351.5. So if you do play in deeper mixed roto leagues, AL only, draft and hold, Jonathan Aranda is a name that could be on your radar. He's moved up a lot since I wrote the article. 350, you said? Yeah, that's according to fantasy pros. So there might be one or two outliers that kind of prop it up. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That is Jonathan Aranda. Some breakouts for me. I'll just mention the names quickly. James Wood, Junior Caminero. Cominameh! And I already feel the thing happening

where we just... I mean, the home run that Camerro hit in Game 7 of the Dominican Winter League Championship, basically, the other day. It's like, we see these things happen in spring, and then we get so crazy, and the ADP starts going up. It's already too high. I can't draft Cominero.

I love him, obviously. I wrote a song about him. To me, this is the same thing as Lawrence Butler, though. Like, I trust the play. I think he's really good. I think long term he's going to turn into a four category stud in the way Devers and Austin Riley and Machado, those guys have kind of developed throughout their career.

He's not going to get all the way there this upcoming season, but can he hit 270, 280 with 25 home runs? Yeah, I think that's possible. It's a big price tag. It's inside the top 100 pick, but I do think the upside is very high for someone like Camerro. The funny thing is, that's the only home run he hits so far.

in the weekend league. Yeah, I know the batting average has been crazy. Oh, he's been huge, but yeah, it's, that was the only actual home run. Yeah, James Wood, we've talked a lot about, we'll continue to talk about, you can read about him on the site. I did want to talk a little bit more about Spencer Schwellenbach because every year, it feels like there's one pitcher that the fantasy community just kind of agrees, like, yeah, this is the guy, right? Like, this is who's going to break out this upcoming season. And I guess you can argue he already broke out because Schwellenbach was great. Last season with the Braves, 335 ERA, 104 whip, 9K per 9, 13 and a half percent swinging strike rate.

His 20.8% K-minus walk ranked 16th among starting pitchers with at least 120 innings. He was tied for first in the pitching plus metric. That's stuff plus with location plus kind of combined. So he's a really good pitcher. I'm just going to say that about Spencer Schwellenbach. The only downside that I see is it was a huge. Huge innings jump year over year. 103.

65 in 2020, 168 and 2 thirds last year. We say that about a lot of pitchers this offseason. A lot of those other guys like Crochet and Regens, you have to use a top 50, top 40, top 30 pick to get those guys. You know, Schwellenbach, the ADP is 93.8. It's a little high, but I just have so much faith in the skill set. You know what pitcher we haven't said that about?

Who's that? Terrick Scoople. His innings increase was 126. Yeah. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Scott,

just give me a yes or no. Are you willing to pay the price on Schoenbach, top 100? I have him as a breakout, but it's right at the tipping point like Lawrence Butler. I don't think I've had occasion to draft him yet, but I do like him and agree with the enthusiasm. All right. Well, I said more words than that. We're at an hour. We're going to just go long because we've got to talk about Bustin.

And this will kind of be a nice segue into our position previews that are all gonna be like two hours long anyway. So there you go. Bus, 1.0. Chris, you already talked about Lawrence Butler. What about Luis Garcia Jr.?

A name we haven't talked too much about this off season, but we have got some questions about why do you have him as a bust? For me, it just comes down to, I liked him when he was free last year. He's decidedly not free this year. But mostly it's just,

I don't think he's an everyday player. And I just don't think you can bet on a guy who's not an everyday player being a top 10 round pick, which is what he is in NFBC leagues. 115 is his ADP in the month of January. And look, if the nationals were ever going to play him every day, wouldn't it have been in the second half of a season where they were already like nine games under 500?

He only started 77% of the team's games after the break. I just don't see much reason to think that's going to change, which means that there's a hard ceiling on accounting stats that you're going to get from him. And for as much as I like him, last year is a clear outlier for his career. The underlying stats mostly back it up. Granted, he's a below average runner who stole, what, 22 steals.

Yeah. That feels like it could be an outlier that could come back down to earth. The nationals just, they ran with abandon in the second half of last season, especially in a way that like, like I said, I like Dylan Cruz. I think he's going to steal bases. I don't think his 60 steel pace from last year is sustainable. I don't really think Luis Garcia is a 20 plus steel guy either. It's just a lot of weight on a very, very limited track record.

And Dylan Cruz was also 93rd percentile sprint speed. Yeah. Luis Garcia, 45th percentile sprint speed. So that was something that stood out to me this offseason. I think he could be more like a 20 homer, 10 to 12 steel guy. Yeah. And maybe they're just so aggressive. he can outrun that and whatever.

We'll look dumb about it. But I do agree with you on the lefties, the splits thing. I just don't know if he's going to play every day. And, you know, ADP is 128. So you do want an everyday player at that point in the draft. Scott, over to you, someone who we're not sure if he will pitch every, I was going to say pitch every day. Obviously, no one pitches every day. But Jacob de Grom, is he going to pitch every fifth day?

Not so sure. He's going to try. He's going to try. Yeah, he's going to fail, is my pretty. prediction and I just think the ADP 51.6. So that is early round five. I'm not sure I'd take them in round 10. This just seems absolutely loony to me.

Obviously, Jacob de Grom is a great pitcher. We presume he's still great as a 37-year-old coming back from Tommy John surgery. He got a small taste last year. He seemed good still. So, yeah, I think it's fair to assume that when he'll pitch he'll be really good. but he hasn't thrown even 100 innings in a season since 2019. And, okay, I've made the argument in favor of like a Chris Sale last year, for instance, coming off a multi-year stretch of injuries, that doesn't mean he won't stay healthy.

But in DeGrom's case, I do think it means he won't stay healthy because what also happened after 2019 is he up his velocity like two miles per hour. It was already throwing plenty hard enough, but he decided he needed to throw even harder, and it was just more than his little body could take, because it's been nothing but shoulder and elbow trouble since then. I don't think his body can hold up to pitching anywhere close to a full-time starter's workload. And I think people who are expecting him to are kidding themselves. The one thing that might make me change my mind is if he comes out throwing a couple miles per hour slower,

Which actually he did. Last year, yeah. Coming back from Tommy John's surgery, and normally it'd be like, oh, that's terrible. Is he not the same after Tommy John's surgery? But it might actually work into Grom's favor if it continues. But I've seen no reports of him doing that intentionally in order to stay healthy.

So I think it was just one of those things. Yeah. The key differences between him and Chris Sale. One, Chris Sale was just a bunch of weird injuries. Mm-hmm. Right? Like he fractured his rib. he broke his wrist, like on a bicycle, if I'm remembering correctly.

Jacob de Grom is just like when he pitches, he gets hurt. Like his elbow and his arm get hurt. That's very different. And the other difference is Chris Sale was like the 150th pick last year. And Grom is the 50th pick. Yeah. So the ADP on DeGrom, 51.6, as you mentioned, the 14th starting pitcher off the board. Scott has all the way down at SP28.

so very likely not getting Jacob de Grom this season. Chris, back to you. Pete Crow Armstrong, who like Luis Garcia, might not be an everyday player for the Cubs, the ADP inside of the top 140. I also wrote him up as a bust just because I think he's going a little bit too high. It's, you know, Josh Lowe is 30 picks behind him.

I expect a similar skill set. Tommy Edmund, 60 to 70 picks behind him. I expect kind of a similar skill set. Are we sure Pete Crow Armstrong is better than Anthony Volpe? not sure the what he did as a rookie wasn't so like i think there's some projecting going on there just because p kramshr has played less but and the volpe was a better prospect they're about the same age maybe a year difference but not like a huge one i think the profiles are very very similar where you're talking low double digit home runs probably 30ish steals

he might be a better bet for runs just because he's probably going to hit higher in the Yankees' lineup than Pete Kramshung is because Craig Counsel already came out and said he doesn't see him hitting it towards the top of the lineup. He's got to prove that he can. I know Pete Kroarmstrung had a good second half. You know, the last two months, especially, quality of contact did get better. I don't really, I don't want to say I don't buy it because it's possible, right? Everybody's capable. He's an elite athlete, good prospect. put up good minor league power numbers especially, but that's a lot to bet on when it's a,

you know, a top 140 pick in fantasy pros 80P. I think it's even higher in, yeah, and if, well, NFPC's 138, so right around there.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's a, it's a big bet to make on a guy who has not proven that at all. Yeah. I'm, I'm going to bring this back to Lawrence Butler,

Peter Armstrong, but your argument against Lawrence Butler. So OPS by month for Crow Armstrong, 778, 608, 395, 611, 933, 677. So it was really just one month.

And one month for a guy with bad data, well, Butler was two months for a guy with good data. On top of that, that good month, August, Crow Armstrong, eight walks versus 14 strikeouts. Oh, look, the plague discipline's coming around. In September,

four walks to third. strikeouts. Yeah, the point I made in my column, I also have Mark Viantos as a bust. And part of it was Mark Viantos has really bad play discipline. He was 197th among 207 players with at least 400 plate appearances in zone contact rate. His chase rate was in the 22nd percentile in that same group. Those are bad marks. But at least Mark Viantos hits the crap out of the ball.

piquor armstrong does not hit the ball very hard and his plate discipline metrics were worse than mark viento so i just i think there's a chance peter armstrong is like a single category stolen base guy and that is it i would rather take victoroblast 60 picks later i'd rather definitely rather take cedric mullins 90 picks later than pique or armstrong i that's one i just i don't get I do want to correct something I said about Pete Cromchong when I introduced him.

I said not sure if he's going to play every day because I just don't know if he's good against lefties. He's an amazing defender. Yeah, the defense. That's the one thing. The playing time is insulated because he's maybe the best defensive center field. And I always thought his prospect stock was inflated. Maybe inflated isn't the right word to use, but inflated for fantasy purposes because of that defense. Yeah, but it will keep him on the field and he will play every day.

So I didn't misspeak with that, but still questions about how good of a hitter is peak. Kromstrung. Scott, over to you. A name Chris just mentioned, Mark Fientos. You guys are on the same page. Yeah, Mark Fientos worked his way into the Mets lineup by striking out just 22% of the time through June 30th. He had always had major strikeout issues that kept him from breaking through in the majors, got it down to 22% through June 30th. After June 30th, it was 33%. So it lost all those gains, made it so strikeouts are a major issue for him. Now, he did manage to hit 256 during that time. If he can keep doing that, fine, he can strike out 33% of the time. That was with a 33-Bap, which we all know is difficult to sustain.

He does hit the ball hard. He is a legit power hitter. Sometimes those guys can overcome those outlandish strikeout rates. But I would bet against it for Vientos. and at the very least, I would avoid him at his ADP because he is going too high for a guy with as much bottom-out potential as he has. He had the seventh biggest gap between his Wobah and X Wobah of any hitter in baseball last year as well. You have a 356 Wobah, a 331X Wob.

Now, look, if he goes out and has a 331X Wobo, but he's hitting third behind Francisco Lindoran Wanzoto, he just might drive in 110 runs anyway. but that feels like it could go wrong really quickly. The ADP for Mark Vienzos is 81.8. He represents a pretty big drop-off in terms of ADP at the position. Machado is the next third basement ahead of him, 33.4. So almost 50 picks worth of difference between the sixth and seventh third basement off the board.

Jordan Westberg, just for reference, someone we all like as a breakout, is going 15 picks later than Mark Viantos. I would. And I think we would all take him straight up. Yeah, but I would rather have Westberg straight up. I would rather have Royce Lewis straight up. I would rather have Matt Chapman straight up, though you'll probably get a lot of arguments for that one.

I would not, but I would rather have Junior Kamenaro. Yeah, yeah. Chris, over to you for two Dodgers pitchers. Blake Snell, who has an ADP of 49.2, the SP11, and Roki Sasaki, who I will mention, now that we're starting to get other outlet ADP, it's starting to drop down a little bit, 109.8. So it's 92 at the NFBC,

but we see 127 at Yahoo and 134 on fan tracks. So, you know, if he's around 130, is that more palatable for Roki Sasaki? Absolutely, yeah. That seems fine to me. It's just what we've had so far was a top 80, pick and a top 20 starting pitcher in the NFBC. And I just have not been able to make sense of that long before the concerns about him, you know, having Tommy John's surgery recommended when he was in Japan.

Velocity was down two miles per hour last year. The fastball shape was not nearly as good as well. The results were significantly worse. But I think you can just make a case that the Dodgers rotation in general might be overrated right now because there's going to be a hard ceiling on the value of all. of these guys if they're spending the entire season in a six-man rotation, which as long as Sasaki and or Shohei Otani are healthy, I have to imagine they're going to be in a six-man rotation full-time, which means no two-star weeks in your head-to-head points league. It means

like a 160 inning cap for all these guys. I think they're all talented. I think Blake Snell is a better bet than Sasaki, but the thing with Blake Snell, and I say it every time we talk about him. You have to know going in that you've got the stomach for it because the worst thing you can do is draft Blake's now in the fourth or fifth round like he's going right now and then get frustrated when things go bad as they inevitably do. He has had an ERA north of five in June in three of the past four seasons. The other one he had an ERA north of five in late May. It just this happens with Blake's now. You have to know that you can handle the ride. And if you can't handle the ride, don't get on.

And I'm not going to get on at that price. I just way too many things can go wrong for a guy who has thrown 130 innings twice in nine seasons. But when he's done that, Chris. But when he's done that, he's one side. The upside I can see the case for it. If you want to make that case, that's fine. Yeah. But you have to know that you have the stomach to stick with Blake's now.

Because every year for the past four years, people have dropped. dropped Blake Snell in May and June. And every single time, they have regretted it. And you have to know. I know. That you are going to be able to live with the bad times because they're going to be there. I did it last year. I know I can do it.

And I'll do it again. So those exact numbers, past four seasons for Blake Snell, April through June, 415 ERA 139 whip. July through September, 256 ERA 112 whip. So by low on July 1st. Yeah. Well, that that would be. Why don't they just make the whole season out of the summer? Last three years, by the way, Blake's now 282.

This is overall, not doing the breaking up the season thing. Overall, last three seasons, 282 ERA, 116 whip, 12K per 9. I'm trying not to overcomplicate it with him and just look at those numbers and say, yeah, that's an ace. But it's nerve-wracking. I am more with you on Roki Sasaki being a bust. I think him signing with the Dodgers killed whatever enthusiasm I might have had for him in 2025 because that was the one team

who doesn't need him to throw a pitch to make it to the playoffs. They're virtually guaranteed a playoffs without him throwing a pitch. So the whole season is going to be about development and preservation. And so I don't think the fantasy impact is going to be much. I also want to share this stat about Rookie. Sasaki that I, it's actually the number one line item in my article, 60 defining stats for

2025. Roki Sasaki, it's well known. Great article, by the way. Thank you. Two mile per hour drop in fastball velocity last year. It was still 96.8, but two mile per hour drop. How impactful was that for him? Well, according to Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com, his whiff rate on that fastball went from 24%, which

is akin to Chris Sale to 13%, which is akin to Chris Flexen. So it became a really bad pitch with that two mile per hour drop. Will the Dodgers regain that velocity? Is his splitter so good that it doesn't even matter? Reasonable questions, but more reason for doubt. All right, Scott, back to you, take us home. Quick rapid fire, three names, Bryce Terang, Carrie Carpenter, Ryan Pepeo, all on your breakouts 1.0.

Oh, my busts. Busts. That would make one sense. Yes, plus 1.0. So the case with Bryce Terang is pretty simple. First half last year or I say it's pretty simple, but now I can't find the numbers. One second. First three months last year for Bryce to rang, he hit 292.

Final three months, he hit 214. And I will say that the underlying numbers, more support the 214. And in fact, he also hit 218 as a rookie in 2023. So I think that's closer to the true Bryce Terang. I think people

who draft him on last year's overall stats are going to be disappointed. Next up is Kerry Carpenter. Chris mentioned the platoon issue for Luis Garcia. He doesn't trust that he's going to play enough against left-handers.

I think it's even more certain for Carrie Carpenter not going to play enough against left-handers. He had 28 at bats against them last year. He's in his late 20s while Garcia is in his early 20s. His manager is A.J. Hinch, who doesn't shy away from platoons, the tigers are actually contending. So they're not going to want to experiment with Carrie Carpenter against left-handers. And people are drafting him as if he's not a platoon bat. If he draft him as a platoon bat, he's basically Jack Peterson.

He has outfield eligibility and Peterson doesn't. But performance-wise, that's who Carrie Carpenter is. Peterson is going so much later. Carrie Carpenter is being overrated. And finally, Ryan Pepio. I don't. I wanted to have him as a breakout. Right.

I like the pitcher in theory. But the scenario I like Pepio in is not the scenario where he's pitching at George M. Steinbrener Field, the spring training facility in Tampa where the Razor forced to play this year, same dimensions as Yankee Stadium. but in that thick, humid air that's going to allow the ball to just slice through it like crazy, like butter. And so it's going to be even a more Homer-friendly park

than Yankee Stadium, one would think. Perhaps vastly more. Pepio, among pitchers with at least 130 innings last year, had the 10th highest fly ball rate. So it just seems like a very toxic mix. That fly ball rate is. in that stadium. His ex-fip, which kind of over-emphasizes flyball rate, was over four last year. And I think Pepio ZRA is going to play to that ex-fip this year. It's going to be over four.

All right. If you want more picks, sleepers, breakouts, and bust 1.0. Again, you can read all of those articles on the site, CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. 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 with position previews. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.