Fantasy Baseball Today - 2026 Fantasy Baseball New Year's Resolutions! (12/31 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

Before we get to this year's resolutions, let's recap last year's (4:45). ... How did we do with in-season FAAB and drafting rookies (10:56)? ... Do not overreact during spring training (21:08). ... Make sure to diversify if you play in multiple leagues (25:45). ... Do not be as rigid in auction drafts (28:10). ... Buy the hitter bounce backs (33:05). ... News (38:36): Kirby Yates signed a one-year deal with the Angels. ... Chris is trying to be more open-minded about certain pitchers (43:12). ... Be careful with early-season trades and don't overreact to the postseason (46:32)! ... Protect your ratios in category leagues (50:30). ... We wrap up with a bunch of team and player New Year resolutions (55:00). Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Hey there. Welcome in South Fantasy Baseball today and welcome to 2026.

Kind of almost. I am Frank Stanfield joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, we are doing fantasy New Year's resolutions, some as fantasy managers, some for players, some for MLB teams. We'll jump around, we'll have some fun. We'll get wacky with it. Chris, are you an actual New Year's resolution person? Is that a big part of your life?

Not really, no. I am probably more likely to go to the gym in January than other months of the year. I think that's less like a specific New Year's resolution and more that I spend the last two weeks of December like being a disgusting gremlin. Like I made a I made Flon for Christmas dinner. Oh, so good. Yeah, it came out amazing.

Everyone was very impressed. I'd never made anything like it. Chris, I'll send you my address, dude, and we can make this happen. I had never made like caramel before. And my wife has always been terrible making caramel. And I made it first try perfected. So like it was a big deal. But anyway, the point is nobody in my family really had any.

They all had like one small slice because they're not dessert people. And half the cake is missing or pie? Custard. I always kind of went with custard. Half of it's missing already in three days. And, you know, like I've got to do something to overcome that. So yeah, it's more just a result of getting. Getting to the end of the year and feeling like, oh, God, we got to do something.

I totally get that too. I'm sure people are tired of hearing this. I tell every year that I do like a no-carb diet all of January. It's like a nice little reset, I guess. It's smart. Kind of the inverse of that is what you just said. It's, you know, from Christmas on the final week. And all carb diet.

Just like, oh, I need to get all my carbs in now because by the time I get to January, I can't eat carbs. So then it's, yeah. I'll shove in two months worth of cards. Yeah, it's a total mess. Anyway, before we get into 2026 New Year's resolutions, quick recap of our fantasy resolutions from last year, this time, going into 2025.

So we'll jump around here, Chris. You started last year, much like you're going to start this year, stick to your guns on player takes. Did you actually wind up doing that? Yes, and I don't know if we want to get into the next version of it, but... You could mention it. Sure.

Yeah, like, it just keep trusting the process. And that's not to say that there will never be times when you get things wrong, no matter what your process is. But it's just to say that having a consistent process by which you evaluate players and having your handful of your lens through which you view players. And sticking with that is important. You know, it's not to say that everybody has to look at it the same way I do. because I get things wrong. But it is to say when I think specifically about like Seth Lugo, who I was very wrong about for about a year and a half

and then was very right about in the second half of last season. And then it turns out over the course of the 2025 season, fading him was the right call. And so I, you know, I think P. Kare Armstrong is another example where we got a lot of gruff. Guff? Whatever that term is for like not like we, I think we ranked him 17th in our re-ranking the first two rounds at the All-Star break last year.

And it was, oh, you guys don't respect Pete Croner, I'm sure. It's like, I mean, 17. Like, there's only 16 more opportunities to respect him than we, that we had. So, like, we respected him a lot. It turns out too much. We gave him too much credit at that point because he fell apart in the second half. He wasn't useless for fantasy, but he was much worse. And I don't want to like ping pong back and forth because every player goes through months where they look really good and months where they look really bad and whole seasons where they look really good.

Part of what I'm saying and just trying to remind myself is if you have a process that you trust and that you feel good about as far as evaluating your players, you should stick with that. even when there are outliers, even when there are players who make you feel dumb for it. Because one, there are hundreds of players. So missing on one doesn't mean your process failed. And two, just because you feel bad about a player, about fading a player in June, does not necessarily mean you will feel bad about fading a player in September. Now, in P.Corp's case, he was still an awesome player for the whole season. That was a great pick that you made last year if you did.

I didn't make that pick. I had him ranked like 130th or 140th. Big miss on my part. But it is to say that being skeptical about the limitations in his skill set ended up working out even if it wasn't a huge win over the course of the season or even a small win. Yeah. And I know if Scott was here, he would totally agree with you. How many times has it happened where Scott is resistant to come around?

on a player and the moment he does, that player falls apart. It feels like it happens so often in season. And we are in a... And there's a lot of pressure. Like that's where exactly where I was going next. I mean, we are in a unique position. We do something that is not normal

in the baseball space. We react to a day of baseball, but trying to look at it from a bird's eye view and kind of like forecast for the rest of the season. But people who have these players on their teams. They just,

a lot of them want to just kind of be validated by what's happening and how great these players are. And a lot of times if we come on after a player, you know, throws a no hitter or has an amazing game, but we don't, but we don't buy that player. You know,

people kind of get angry at us. But it's, again, it goes back to what you're saying with, like, trusting the process. And, you know,

what I hate about that is early in the season when it is our biggest audience, I'm happy that we have that many people listening early on in the season. They're not here at the end of the season when everything kind of evens out. And, you know, when we're kind of downplaying some of these guys, again, it doesn't always happen that way. We're not always right. You pointed that out. But a lot of times that we are skeptical on a player who breaks out in April, you know, a lot of times that does kind of even out by the end of the season.

But our listening audience is much smaller than, and, you know, people don't realize that by the end of the season. So it's a unique platform that we have here. And I've been doing this for almost 15 years now. I think next year will be my 15th season working at CBS Sports, which is crazy. You're wrong a lot. Just that's the nature of the job. And so we're basically meteorologist, Chris. Yeah.

And they're better than us. And you have to be comfortable with that because there's no perfect way of predicting the future in these games. And that's why having a process that you trust is important. to, you know, that's how you weather the losses, is knowing, hey, I, you know, maybe there was something I missed about these players, you know, Pekar Armstrong, the, the just ability to pull the ball in the air, tent ended up being a really valuable skill set that helped him overcome his limitations. And then obviously the speed was a big part of that as well.

But you also don't want to just throw away a process that works because there are a few outliers. Yeah, I think that's a really good point too. And another one that I was about to make is that there are always going to be outlier players. And you have one of your resolutions for next season later on is this about like being more open-minded to funky, weird pitchers, right? Guys that kind of defy the metrics that we normally use. And there are a lot of hitters like that too. Like for years, a decade plus Jose Altuvae, the expected stats, the eggs of velocities are never good. But he's always a good fantasy player because he's just an outlier player like that.

So there are always going to be players like that. But yes, you should have a process and you should mostly stick to it. Let's move through these a lot faster. Next up for me, doing a better job on in-season fab. I think I did. There are still so many leagues. And I specifically think about Tout Wars, which is a very quirky format where if your player goes on a 60-day IL, you can redeem that player and get that money back for him.

So there are times this year where I look back and I'm like, I probably should have done that to have more fads to play with. So that's a very unique case. But I think for the most part, I did a pretty good job. We mentioned this all the time. Like, Sundays in season are, and I'm not complaining about this, but they are a lot of work. It is our busiest day of the week.

We're recapping an entire weekend worth of baseball and building a rundown out for that and also putting in our waiver claim. So, yeah, you could just say, hey, do that on like Friday and Saturday, which is a totally fine response. But I also kind of just want to relax on Friday Saturday and not really think about baseball or do anything.

So, yeah, so it's tough, but I think I did do a better job with it. Over 20 years, Chris, cool it on the rookies. I think as an industry, we, as you would like to say, the collective, the royal we, I think we did a great job. I don't think that we really overvalued any rookie with the exception of Roki Sasaki, who we told people not to overvalue, so. Yeah, there were a few other examples of players who were overvalued. without necessarily having the track record.

But yeah, there was no, you know, top 75 pick Wyatt Langford. Yeah. This year. There was helium. We were talking beforehand on like Christian Campbell and Cam Smith, but those guys got up to like 175, 150. It never really got out of hand. So. Yeah.

And that's, there's usually maybe one or two players every year who get pushed into the top 100 as rookies. and the data I found has suggested that when that happens, it tends to work out pretty well. But that's more for guys that get pushed up into like the 50 range. Historically, that has actually been a range where if a rookie gets pushed that high, it actually does tend to work out really well, which is kind of surprising. But it does speak to like we are collectively pretty good at this. And there aren't a ton of like obviously mispriced players. But Wyatt Langford for the last couple of years has been a decent example where we've just kind of gotten out of our out over our skis.

But yeah, that none of those rookies last year really got pushed up except for Sasaki, which was more of an information asymmetry thing. I think a lot of people just didn't do the research on where his velocity was and what that meant for for his fastball. But we're also trending that way right now where some of those second year pitchers, you know, those guys who debuted late, Nolan McLean obviously being pushed up way high. But I think for the most part, we'll see what happens with Connor Griffin and Kevin McGonagall and JJ Weatherholt. You know, once if it becomes clear that they're going to make the roster. But for right now, all those guys are outside the top 200. So it's hard to complain too much about it.

The Connor Griffin one absolutely could get out of hand. If we get a home runner to the first week of spring training, a couple steals, I mean, that's the one that can blow past. Fernando Tatee's situation. Blow past the top 100 and just keep rising and really get crazy. But I think he's also kind of that level prospect. So we'll talk about that as it happens. Hopefully he doesn't go too crazy.

Next one up for me, getting better at using draft software. This one did not happen. But, spoiler alert, might be happening early. 2026 so more on that soon some player slash team ones that we can move through here for the orioes you had do something they didn't and they paid the price maybe they should have listened Chris yeah I think they had just signed Corbyn Burns when we did this show um or maybe we're about to something like that I was looking at last year's rundown they they lost Corbin Burns yeah they probably signed Charlie Morton or something like that yeah no that's right they didn't do

anything for their rotation last year and it was a disaster. So yes, I don't necessarily love the state of their rotation right now, even though they have done some stuff. It's getting better. We talk about this on Monday's show, but I think they need like one more move. Yeah. You know, Valdez or Suarez would look very good in that rotation. Yeah. So James Wood and Dylan Cruz jump in the pull. And James Wood's pulled air rate actually did go up from 7.6% in 2024 to 11.3% percent in 2025. We did talk about him extensively the other day. Dylan Cruz, it didn't matter as much. He was hurt for most of the season. But he also didn't. Yeah. So that's not great. Hopefully he stays healthy and he's a nice little rebound potential candidate there in Dylan Cruz for this upcoming

season. O'Neill Cruz, keep running. That he did. But he did that. That's the one thing he did well. He didn't do anything else. For the Cardinals, let Mason win run more. This one did not work. He only had nine steals. He said he wanted to steal 30. He also had knee surgery after the season, so perhaps that just hampered him all season long. It's definitely a possibility.

Reese Olson, find a way to get to Strike 2. I have no idea if this happened, Chris. He missed a large majority of the season with a shoulder injury. He only made 13 starts. He's good when he was out there. I haven't heard anybody talk about him. He might be like a really deep sleeper that everyone's forgotten about.

So the name there, Reese Olson, pay attention. Yeah, Felton. Melton? Troy Melton. Troy Melton is the guy that everybody likes there. Although currently Drew Anderson is in their rotation. I think he's a guy they signed from Korea. I went through all of the roster resource pages earlier today. Let me tell you, man.

Some rosters in baseball right now are absolutely abysmal. There are a lot of free agents still out there, but oof, there's some bad ones. The Tigers, yeah. I saw that Drew Anderson is their SP5. I'm like, eh, that's probably Troy Mountain. But I guess we'll see. He'll get the opportunity at some point, if not on opening day.

Yeah. I had baseball gods. Let Mike Trout play 130 games and Jacob de Grom throw 150 innings. Both of those happened. So that was pretty cool. De Grom finished SP12. Trout finished outfielder 49. So not as good.

Carlos Rodan, you told him to cut the cutter. He did that, Chris, and he had his best season as a Yankee yet. So that was pretty good for him. And I had a few closer related ones. David Bednar, throw more strikes, get back to All-Star form. That happened, pretty cool. He made the All-Star game, right? I don't know if he probably did.

He was great. Who else one made out? Skeens. He threw a lot more strikes. And for the Mariners and twins to unleash Andres Munoz and Yuan Duran, which the Munoz one happened right away. Duran, we needed a trade to happen. Eventually it happened.

So I can't take credit for all those, but the Munoz won for sure. That was, thank you for listening, Mariners. Before we hit our first break, whether you are watching or listening, your New Year's resolution should be to subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you haven't already. Last year, we had the goal of 30K by opening day,

30K subscribers. We smashed that, we flew right through it. Right now, we are just over 33,000. Our goal, 40K by opening day. 40K by opening day. Help us make that happen. Subscribe if you haven't already. Let's take that break.

We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy at Baseball today. Let's talk about what people actually want to hear. That's our 2026 fantasy baseball New Year's Resolutions. Again, we have some as fantasy managers, some for MLB teams, some for players. Let's bounce around. Chris, you already mentioned this one. I don't know if you need to touch on it anymore, but keep trusting the process.

We spoke about that. So we'll keep things moving here. for me, I have do not overreact to spring training. Emphasis on the over. I think that you should react to spring training, especially when there are notable changes, things that could matter. You know, things that stand out, Ben Rice.

I remember you bringing this up all spring, Chris. The improved bat speed, the massive exit velocity, he was flashing this spring, which ultimately earned him an opportunity because John Carlos Stanton was on the IL. Ravi Ray, throwing a new changeup. They learned from Terek Skubel. that proved to be very helpful for Robbie Ray this past season.

So there are things you should react to, but I'll remind people of some players who had big springs where it didn't really matter too much or maybe it mattered for part of the season, but ultimately I don't think so. Jorge Saler, I mean, this one was just me. I can never quit Jorge Saler. I love his swing.

He looked great in spring. It didn't work. Christian Ann Cardassion Strand, Ryan Moucastle, Reese Hoskins, Gavin Williams, I know some people will say, yeah, this one worked. Yeah, the ERA, but process-wise, it didn't really work until, like, the final month or two of the season.

Yeah. But whatever, we'll give credit for that one. Casey Mize, Clay Holmes, Jack Leiter. These were, you know, kind of young-ish, or, in Clay Holmes's case, players transitioning to a different role, and he's throwing all these new pitches. And he was good for, like, the first half of the season. And then, I guess it kind of predictably fell apart. So you should react to spring, but don't overreact.

Anything else to add on that? Yeah, I think. spring training should never fundamentally alter how you view a player. So like if you thought Ben Rice was an interesting sleeper, I think the metric, the stat that I remember was something like he had five batted balls hit harder during spring training than any he had last season or something. And so, you know, like that's an interesting sleeper

who was showing real skills changes. And so that was worth looking at. But, you know, oh, this guy's got a $290 ERA in spring training. That literally tells you nothing. Yeah. Like we're looking at velocity, pitch changes, pitch mix changes, stuff like that. That might hint at an underlying skill change. But it's not always a certain thing either way.

Yeah. I give you full permission, Chris, by the way, to, and you might have done this anyway. During spring training, yell at me. Yell at me. Remind me of what I'm saying right now because I guarantee that I am going to and start to get excited about players during spring. And I just need someone to give me a good slap across the face and remind me, hey, man, don't overreact to this stuff.

All right, Chris, over to you. Don't be sanguine about spring injuries. Yeah, this is one that it's hard to remember. And it's easy to tell yourself. And then in the moment, it's like, ooh, George Kirby keeps slipping because he's got this shoulder injury, but it's going to be back in May. And it's like, one, it's a lot easier to say, oh, I'll just wait. for that player to get healthy.

And two, once a player's already healthy, as we saw in George Kirby's case, it doesn't necessarily mean that they'll just come back and be themselves. George Kirby's shoulder injury seemed to lead to a lower arm slot, which lost him to lose the feel for his change-up and splitter,

which made it much harder for him to pitch effectively. And sometimes you get that discount, it works out. you feel great, but there are already so many ways for things to go wrong for players that when they're already hurt, betting on that is tough. That being said, Neco Horn heard out great. That was one I was really passing on because of the concern about his elbow. And then he ends up missing two games at the beginning of the season. It has an awesome season. So Zach Nettto. Yeah, Zach Netto coming back from that shoulder surgery.

I was really worried about him. And so it's not always perfect, but in this case, and specifically, I was just thinking a lot about George Kirby and how that burnt me. I want to try to make sure that I'm making sure I get a real discount. Now, some of those Kirby picks were before the injury. I think my AAL Tau Wars team, or A.L. Labor team, excuse me, was before he got hurt. Boy, that pitching staff built around him

and Grayson Rodriguez did not go great. Yeah, yeah, that's a fair one. Speaking of George Kirby, your next New Year's resolution, Chris, diversify, as in you had too many shares of George Kirby. Yeah, I ended up with George Kirby

in a lot of my leagues. I think it ended up being like six out of 11 or something like that, like right around half, if not more than half. And that's just, you've got to be, you got to really hit.

for that to work out. Now that the one thing there is like if it does work out, there's a compounding effect. All your teams are going to benefit from it if you're right. But I think maybe the point would be don't try to try not to trick yourself into thinking you're smarter than everyone. You know, like there are definitely cases where I think players are just misvalued. Right now I think O'Neill Cruz is a good example of that as we talked about the other day. But for the most part, this is an efficient market. and you're just not going to get that many wins where you're just way out on a limb compared to everyone else.

So have your guys, and that's easier to say for guys going later in drafts. But when you're talking about your early round picks, you're inviting a lot of extra risk if you're really pounding the same players in multiple drafts. If you're only playing one league, that doesn't really matter. But, you know, for us sickos who, you know, I'll probably end up with like 11 leagues that I'm managing and a couple of draft and holds or gladiators and like you want a little diversity in your portfolio. You know, you want an index fund and not a day trader account, I guess, is the way to look at it. Especially with those early round players. I mean, you nailed that. I don't know exactly where Kirby was going or again, like, if you drafted him before.

four, you got hurt versus not, but your SP1 and your SP2, I feel like you should really diversify that unless there's a player that you're just so convicted on. But even then, pitcher injuries happen so often. I feel like you should still diversify your pitchers early on in drafts. Once you get to SP3 and beyond, again, if there's a guy that you are just all over, you know, you have conviction, go out and get that player. But even early round hitters, too, I would say, look, anything can happen, guys can get hurt. And for the most part, all these guys are really talented, right? So first, second round hitter. I would say mostly try to diversify those players when you can.

Next one for me is you're going to like this one, Chris. I'm finally coming around. Don't be as rigid in auctions. The no plan plan. No, that's not the plan. That's not the plan. But you have been telling me this for years. And this past season was the first time I actually tried it in a few leagues.

kind of against my own volition because I just kind of ran out of time like there's so much going on during draft season and just like all the content that we're putting out that it's it's kind of hard to plan for your own drafts at times but I remember the Memorial Magazine League the auction that we did live on the air which we always do live on the air I didn't have a plan for that

I just knew I wanted to get two star hitters I think I got Corby and Carroll and Jackson Trio or something and I finished second place in that league and in Tout Wars, this is kind of half true because I did plan out the hitter side of things. I didn't get to plan out the pitchers. I said, you know what? Look for pitchers.

I'm just going to go in and grab the discounts wherever I could find them. And I finished second in Tout Wars as well. So basically what I want to do is I want to figure out my hitter pitcher split, which is, you know, 65% on hitters, 35% on pitchers or 6040, something like that. And then just kind of play the board and the discounts.

Get players that you want, obviously. Don't just price and force and get players who are going for cheaper than they should be, even though you don't like those players. You don't want to wind up with that. Players that you either like a decent amount or a lot that you think are going at a little bit of a discount and just buy those players. And so I want to try to do more of that. I want to kind of have like a looser plan, but kind of have more ability to buy values.

Because, Chris, you know this. Every year when you do an auction, there are, always at the end you're like why didn't I bit on this player why did I like it was staring me in the face I wanted to go after this player I don't know why I didn't so why not just do it I mean yeah within your means obviously like you don't want to spend too much but you know in places where you can it's like why didn't I go after that player so do it well and and I think this all often this disagreement between you and Scott and me where you guys have go in with you know you write names down for every position and a little number next to them and like that's what i want

like the thing for me has always been it it's a psychological thing and i witness this every time we do those drafts live where you guys start spiraling because either you're like focus in on one player and you're like i have to have that player or you don't get the plan it's like the whole plan's ruined and it's like well no there there's lots of good players like this year you know if you go into your your draft saying i have to get pete alonzo well that's great. Pete Alonzo's an awesome player, but like, what if you say, I have to get Pete Alonzo and you spend

$29 for him? And then Matt Olson goes for 21. I think those two guys are very similar. Pete Alonzo's probably better, but Matt Olson's been better than Pete Alonzo multiple times in the past few years. So it's not, like, that one is just flexibility in an auction format

really matters because they are as much a a psychological game as a player valuation game. And this is something that, you know, we've had Ariel Cohen on in years past to talk about. And he plays that psychological game in his auctions where he is, you know, as soon as you say 20 to 28 or, you know, he throws guys. And it's like that stuff can really have an edge. I know for me when it comes to those salary cap auction.

drafts. If someone lets the timer go down to one and then bids on a player I was about to buy, like 99% of the time I'm immediately bidding up again because I have ADHD and I hate waiting. It's really what it comes down to. It's just like, you, how dare you make me wait nine seconds for that player? And that's a flaw. That's bad.

Like I am aware that that is a bad strategy. It's not really a strategy. It's a weakness. Yeah. One other thing I wanted to mention with auctions too, and I don't know that I necessarily should try and copy this strategy, but I've seen more so in recent years, even in deeper leagues where normally this strategy does not work, is going stars and scrubs. And it's something I'm starting to think about more, and I might try it this year. We'll see. I play in an NL only auction, NL labor.

I play in Toward's, which is a 15 team mixed. And the past couple of years, the teams that have been winning those leagues are doing stars and scrubs. So I don't know. It might be something to think about. All right, Chris, back over to you. Buy the cheap young bouncebacks. And you have a key example from last season being Bobeshet. Yeah, I'm sure there were others, but the three of us in particular were just, I feel like it was probably annoying at some point last spring where it was just, hey, Boba Shett's undervalued.

You should draft Boba Shet. We don't understand why Boba Shet so cheap and it worked out. And it's not every, like there are players who just for some reason at 26 years old just forget how to play baseball the same way or they're not the same guy. They lose something physically. But generally speaking, multi-year track records tend to be more predictive than single-year track records. And so when you've got a player like Boba Shet in heading into 2025, we knew like that guy's a huge great bet to hit for a good batting average and he's in a lineup with a ton of good players and that just felt like an obvious one where yeah maybe it wouldn't work out but the the price was so cheap for a guy in his physical prime that it made sense to bet on and i think for 2025 i don't know if ellie de la cruz counts he was slightly worse in 2025 than 2024 but he was so bad in that second half and it seems so likely that it was related to that quoddy injury that he played through that I'm actually much more likely to draft

Ellie Dele Cruz this season than ever before because I think I have him as my number six overall player in Rodo and he's usually falling around 10th so anywhere in that six to 10 range I'm if I'm drafting there's a decent chance I'm gonna end up with Ellie de la Cruz and I'd also point to add the Ruchman Kyle Tucker Yor Don Alvarez is a big one for me I just think as a hitter there aren't more than five hitters on planet Earth who are more talented than Yordon Alvarez. So I'll take whatever discount you want to give me. And then Jackson Merrill.

I've talked a lot about him in recent weeks, but I'll bet on the 22-year-old bouncing back from a weird season where he dealt with a concussion. One of mine for later, actually, was Adley Ruchman related. And it's that he defeats the Monstars and actually gets his talent back. I hope so. It's not really a New Year's resolution, I guess. I guess the resolution would be that Adly Ruffman. Rushman remembers how to play baseball at a high level. So maybe it's been just like physical things that have hampered him.

But yes, please, let's get Adley Ruchman back on track. Next up for me, I have similar to you, I guess, buy the injury discounted hitters. And you let me know. This could be a slippery slope that I'm falling for here. But last season, some big wins came on buying veteran hitters who were injury discounts. Names like Byron Buxon and Trevor Story and Christian Yelich, Nico Horner, Zach Netto, Brandon Lowe,

all those guys performed very well this past season. So some names I'm looking at for 2026 that I think would fit this. Austin Riley, Corey Seeger. Corey Seeger, I mean, he's just been so hurt, but he's also going outside the top 100 for the first time ever, which is interesting. Yeah, there's some of that Yordon Alvarez where it's just like, yeah, I get the injury concerns, but when he's on the field,

how many better hitters are there in baseball? Yeah. Like 10, maybe? Yeah, yeah. I have a Luis Robert on this list. Ozzy Albies, Royce Lewis, Anthony Santander, Andres Hamenez. Obviously, varying levels of skill sets. I don't think Hameez is going to be an amazing player by any means.

But do you think just because it happened one year doesn't mean it's going to happen the next year. So I think maybe I'm over thinking this one a little bit. But these are all names that I think if they're healthy, they could still be impact players. Luis Robert, we really haven't seen it for two years now. Yeah, that's the one I'm most skeptical of. It could be a change of scenery thing, though, where, you know, maybe he goes to the Mets and he's just revitalized. So we'll see. Yeah.

I think a lot of those guys make sense. Austin Riley, I'm a little more concerned about just because I think there has been some skills erosion in his underlying skill set. But I took him in the Gladiator draft I'm doing. And I took Anthony Santander. Santander was like the 16th round of a 15-team league. And it's just like. I took him in mind to either. around 15 or 16, something like that.

I've never been a huge fan of him, but that was a guy who was always, even before 2024, which is the outlier for him, he was always like a solid top 150-ish pick. And it's like, you get him at 240 or 250. He was kind of like the Taylor Ward before, and now you're getting him at 250 or something like that. And so that just feels like, you know,

a bounce back's not guaranteed, but you got to like his chances. I am getting pretty bullish on Santander too because I've been reading quotes from their manager where he's basically saying look Tony's back he's fully healthy he's gonna be a big part of what we want to do and he fits what they want to do too he makes a lot of contact

He makes contact has for power He can hit for power too So he kind of fits this like new age mold of the Blue Jays as well So in a really good lineup I think it could work out very well for Santander So he is one in particular that I do like quite a bit Before we hit our final break I just want to mention one news item of the day.

Again, there's not too much going on right now, although Tatsuya Imi, his decision has to happen by Friday. So I guess we'll probably find out soon. We'll probably find out soon. Maybe that's an emergency podcast there. But the low news item of the day, the Angel signed Kirby Yates to a one-year deal. And Yates has closing experience,

but will be 39 in March. He's coming off a pretty bad season, a 523 ERA, 133 Web. nearly two home runs per nine innings pitch, so he really was not good. He joins a bullpen that includes Robert Stevenson, Ben Joyce, Jordan Romano, and Drew Pomeranz. I have no idea who gets the most saves on this team, Chris, but it could be Kirby Yates.

It could be Kirby Yates, yeah, absolutely. Hashtag analysis. His ground ball rate was way lower than it was the year before, but everything else was fairly close. Strikeout rate was still very strong at 29%. walk rate was below 10%. I think there's still something here.

So in your very late rounds, worth a dart throw. Yeah, his swinging strike rate was still amazing. 16 and a half percent. That was his best since 2020. Well, that was a four-inning sample, so that's not great.

But yeah, his best in a full season since 2018 when he had 12 saves and was really good for the Padres. So he still got whiffs. 11.3K per 9, a bunch of swinging strikes. But yeah, lots of fly balls, lots of barrels, lots of home runs allowed for Kirby 8s.

You know what? Is this weird, Chris? I kind of like what the Angels are doing. It more than likely is not going to work. But they're just taking all these lottery tickets, upside plays, guys that have shown potential or have been good in the past. And they're just saying,

all right, let's see how many of these hit. And that's it's it's what you should be doing when you're in that situation. And it's what they did last year when they had, you know, Yon Munkata and, I think Mickey Moniac was on their team in the last couple years.

To start the year, I think so. They had a bunch of like, they had like a weird number of like top 10 or first round type picks that obviously not a lot of them worked. But like, if you've got nothing to play for, yeah, you should be throwing darts at the board and seeing if one of them hits

and you can trade it for a, you know, a compensatory draft pick that might be. turn into a good player. But like, yeah, this is the type of stuff that you should be doing if you're bad. Yeah, fair enough. Let's take our final break when we return back into the fantasy baseball New Year's resolutions right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today.

Let's run through the rest of our New Year's resolutions on the 2026 fantasy baseball season. Chris, I'll throw two of these your way you have, that you want to be more open-minded about pitchers with injury histories and be more open-minded about weird pitchers. So how did you come to this one? Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with the idea that there's nothing we can do to predict pitcher injuries and she just draft based on talent. But I'm becoming more open to it just because I had a lot of Logan Gilbert and a lot of Dylan Cese and a lot of Corbyn Burns on my team's last season, you know, guys who were supposed to be safe. Now, two of them got hurt,

didn't see stayed healthy again, but was terrible. And so if it's hard to predict production, and it is for pitchers, they're much more volatile than hitters, always have been, and if safety is less of a thing than we might assume,

I do think there is something to being, gosh, I don't think pitcher injury agnostic is the right way to go. because I think that's probably going too far, but injury deistic? I don't know what the bridge between agnostic and fully believing would be,

but it's just to say that I need to be a little bit more open-minded because it was like, oh, well, there's no way Garretre-Crochet can throw 200 innings. And then Gary Crochet, obviously, did he get to 200 innings? I believe the A.L. innings, I think. One of three pitchers, I believe, to do it.

um jacob de graham you know oh he hasn't thrown more than a hundred inning since 2019 i think was the number and he threw 170 very good innings last season so it's just to say that certainty usually isn't a good idea just in general i i think when we're talking about pitchers especially um you should be more open-minded to any result good or bad you should not be certain about anything when it comes to pitching and that includes their ability to stay healthy And then the other one is be more open-minded about weird pitchers. I think weird is a positive trait in pitchers, guys who do something different.

A lot of these weird lefties last year, like Andrew Abbott with his total cross-body delivery that just the ball comes out of his arm from a weird angle and hitters aren't used to it. Or Matthew Boyd's got that low-release slot that hitters seem to struggle with. And obviously the Cubs defense helped a great deal in that regard. So I just think embracing weirdness when it comes to pitchers, Trey Savage, I think is an obvious example. But, you know, we might reach a point where making that bet isn't worth it. If he gets pushed into like the 10th round range, he's not there yet.

So I do think there's still some skin on the bone. But Jonah Tong as your late round dart throw makes a lot of sense. Jacob Lopez. Jacob Lopez. Yeah. He had a weird run of success last year with that weird delivery as well. So yeah, I think that's another one. It's just be open-minded to unexpected things happening at pitcher

because unexpected things happened quite a bit at starting pitcher. Next up for me, don't make so many trades early in the season. So I actually have been more of a trader the past couple of years. Trader? Is that a term trader? Yeah. A person who trades in family? Tennessee baseball. Jack McKeon, Trader Jack. That's what they called him.

I just thought of like being a trader turning your back on somebody for something. It sounded weird, but I've traded a lot more in recent years. And I made two trades early last season, which turned out to be very bad. Now, I don't know that this should just be a blanket statement because obviously you can make trades early in the season that work out. Like the people who traded with me, they made the trade and it worked out very well for them. So it can work, but we just have such little information early in the season that it's kind of hard and it could come back to bite you. So in Tout Wars, I traded away Geraldo Pardomo for Jonathan Aranda

at the end of April. I had too many middle infielder's and I needed a corner and so I liked Aronda. That was a great trade at the time. And you know what? Arrondo was a league winner. So that one just didn't work out. And in N. L.L. Labor, I lost Tyro Estrada in spring training

who was my middle infielder. And so I kind of panicked and I traded Michael Bush for Nick Gonzalez. Hey, you got a home run out of him on opening day. I did. And then he also got hurt fractured his ankle on that same play. On the home run trot or something like that. So look, no matter what, Nick Gonzalez was not going to live up to what Michael Bush did last season. And I liked Michael Bush. So I'm kind of upset, like looking back that I actually made that trade. So just be careful if you're going to make trades.

And, you know, because again, we're very incomplete at that point. and anything can happen. So just keep that in mind. Don't, you know, don't get too crazy early on in the season. And speaking of crazy, Chris, don't overreact to the postseason. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Vlad, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto drafters, and maybe Trey I Savage and maybe Cam Schlittler as well. I think there's just, there's a psychological thing where if a player does something

in a high profile moment, I think we are more likely to remember that. I think really good starts to the season. We tend to remember. And then like high profile success, especially in the postseason. And look, the quality of competition is higher, the pressure's higher,

all that stuff. But it's also like, it's still very small sample sizes. And your opinion of a player just should not change very much based on that. And so I think there was a decent chance Yamamoto was going to be the SP4 before that postseason run, but that cemented it and probably pushed him up.

You know, we talked about the other day. He's kind of in his own tier, like around behind the top three, around ahead of the rest of that second group. And that probably only happens because of that postseason, which is just, it's weird. Like the playoffs are a different game. You're facing the same team multiple times. What if he just happened to be a really good matchup against the Blue Jay? or you know, like, it's not to say it's meaningless.

It's just I think you're more likely to be disappointed by buying into postseason success than than not, at least if you're changing your view of them. I remember somebody tweeted at me right after Camp Schlittler had that start against the Red Sox that somebody in a gladiator draft took him in like the fourth round or something like, which is crazy. I mean, look, the fact that you're drafting for the next season while the playoffs are going on is pretty crazy in its own right, but yes, that is exactly what we are talking about. Next up for me...

50th overall. Oh, geez. Yeah, that would... Don't do that. Don't do that draft K.M. Schlittler 50th overall. Next one, Chris, we have a little bit of a double dose here. I've been saying this for years, and I just always need to remember it. Protect your ratios in Roto and category leagues.

So batting average, ERA whip. I mean, ERA whip, look, it's just draft the right pitchers and hope they stay healthy, I guess, right? Batting average, you have a little bit more control over, kind of. But, you know, just paying attention to which hitters you're taking early in those drafts and maybe targeting the ones that are going to give you batting average. And with that, Chris, you really wanted to kind of hone in on whip

and making sure pay attention to that category. And that's just a theme that I'm trying to hit on because I have missed on WIP a lot. Like there have been otherwise good pitching staffs where the whip is just bad and it kind of screws everything up. And it can be hard to think about whip, I think is kind of the thing. Like we just, we don't worry about it too much. We kind of view it as a backseat thing where if the ERA is good, the whip will be good. And like, that's not always the case.

Logan Webb had a great year, but his whip was actively harmful given the volume that he threw. And so I just think you have to be cognizant of that and try to avoid. avoid, at least don't ignore whip, which I think too many drafters, including myself, often do. I think a problem with it too is a lot of the young, up-and-coming, exciting pitchers are ones that get strikeouts but might have bad command, control, leads to a lot of walks, whip issues. We've talked a lot about Traja Savage. He very easily could be a bad whip pitcher this upcoming season, right? Control is a huge problem. In the sample, I think he made nine starts in the majors, regular and postseason, it was almost four walks per nine. So he could be a bad whip pitcher. Bubba Chandler.

Nolan McLean, Nolan Clayne had great control when he got to the majors, but his control was pretty bad in the minors. Yeah, and he gives up a lot of ground balls. So that kind of lends itself to giving up a lot of hits, maybe walks mixed in there too. Bubba Chandler, he walked a ton of batters in the minors, right? So just keep that in mind. Yes, we all like these guys. They're super talented. They look like they're going to be awesome. But if we're also being realistic, they do have issues with walks and so they could be bad whip pitchers. So keep that in mind. Last one for you, Chris, before we get into some of the

team and player related ones, be more skeptical about guys coming back from Tommy John's surgery with an eye on Garrett Cole and Joe Muskrove and Jared Jones, etc. Yeah, I'm sure there were others that I'm not thinking of, but those were the three that jumped to mind. Corbyn Burns will be back at some point. Corbyn Burns, but Cole, Musgrove, and Jared Jones are all cheap enough in these early drafts that it's probably not

issue like they're all going outside the top 200 top 250 i think maybe she musgrove might be a little higher oh no he's 262 okay um and so at at that point there's not really that many ways for it to go wrong you're probably going to get a bad pitcher in that range anyway but like i want to avoid what we did with spencer strider last year um and you look at jared jones and when he had that surgery it should be a pretty similar timetable to spencer sp spicer spicer spire spire spiret where we might see jared coming back from internal brace in spring training. And he's probably going to be throwing 98-99. Let's just remember he wasn't as good as Spencer Strider before the injury.

We don't need to push him up. There's a lot of good pitchers. It's hard to come back and pitch at a super high level right away from Tommy John surgery. So that's just something to keep in mind. Yeah. And I just want to clear this up because I know somebody in the comments. comments or somewhere we'll say, well, Chris, you said earlier you want to be open-minded about pitchers with injury histories. I mean, I don't think that's the same thing. You're talking about,

you know, guys who have been injured in the past and maybe have an injury prone label on them who are healthy now going into the season versus guys who are returning from Tommy John surgery this year. So just to kind of delineate those two things. My next one here, Chris, is actually for the Duffer Brothers. No spoilers. Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything about what's happened and Stranger Things. So if you watch Stranger Things, I'm not going to say anything about the plot. But can we just have a strong ending to Stranger Things?

That's all I ask. And I'll leave it there. It's not too much to ask for. Let's just, the episode's coming out later today. 8 p.m. Let's just, let's all finish strong. Let's have a great episode. Let's enjoy it.

Let's get to the finale together here. All right, some team ones, Chris. Let's do a little rapid fire here. First up for you, Dodgers, trust Emmich Ian, please. That's very straightforward. We talked about it yesterday. My only concern with him really is

I just don't trust the role. I hope the Dodgers give him the vote of confidence and say he's in our rotation for good. I would love to see that. It would make me a lot more confident. Of course, his price would also rise quite a bit if that happened.

I have for Vlad Jr., just be the stud that you were in the playoffs. And this kind of goes against to what you were saying earlier, Chris, but I know I make it sound so easy, but the truth is, Vlad Jr. makes it look so easy, right? Like he did in the playoffs.

We know what he's capable of. He's Uber talented. We just don't see that enough in the regular season for fantasy, and it's really frustrating because in the playoffs, he only played 18 games. He hit 397, 8 homers, 1289 OPS,

14 walks to 7 strikeouts. That player is there. Can we get more of that in the regular season? Please. And for the Red Sox and Astros, trade somebody. Both of those teams, just trade somebody. So for the Red Sox, trade one of Jaron Duran, Willier-Brayu. Let's, you know, open up a spot for Christian Campbell,

just kind of make everything work easier there. And Astros, trade one of Christian Walker, Esoc Paratus. I really would rather Parades stay in Houston, so maybe not. Yeah, I don't trade Eastonk, I actually, I was thinking about this. I was listening to rates and barrels the other day. talking about the diamond backs and just kind of this like what are the diamond backs doing this offseason they're like kind of rebuilding their rotation but they're also maybe thinking about training catalmarte and it's like are you guys trying to like they almost made the playoffs this year they weren't like I think they were alive until the final weekend of the season and so it's like are they try like maybe Christian Walker bring him back see if the aster's will eat some of that salary and bring them back and yeah like that that'd be that'd be cool there are teams that are trying to tow that line. I think the keybacks are one of them where he's on such a good contract. If they can flip him for just an amazing haul, they have to think about it. I think it's the same thing with the Padres

and Nick Pavetta. I don't think they want to trade Nick Pavetta, but he has an opt-out after this year. And if they could turn Nick Pavetta into two pitchers in their rotation, why wouldn't they try to do something like that? So it's, you know, for some of these teams, they're trying to tow that line. But it's like when they traded Wonsoto and didn't get much worse or actually got better, I think, the following season, you know? you might be able to fill multiple holes. Let's go over to the Nationals, Chris, and you are asking them to give Mackenzie Gore a change of scenery.

Yeah, I mean, we've been fooled by him many times, and I almost jumped in earlier when you were talking about one of yours to just say that, like, if McKenzie Gore's ADP stays around 200, I'm going to go against that diversify thing, I said, and just draft McKenzie Gore everywhere, because I think he's so talented and he's so clearly talented, that it's just like he's so close. Like I don't know what it is.

I don't know like improving the curveball. I know the curve ball got worse as the season went on. But like there was a point in, I was looking in like July or August. He was the only pitcher with four different pitches with a whiff rate above league average. Yeah. Like he's just so talented and I just,

I don't know if it's going to come together for him in Washington. I know they have, you know, kind of a whole new brain trust. And everybody's like, their GM is 31, their manager's 33, like everybody. When I saw the ages of these guys, I felt so old just like, they're all younger than me. What am I doing with my life, too?

Every single decision maker on the nationals is like 35 or younger. It might not be a good thing, but I have no idea. I guess we'll find out. But, you know, maybe they hire the right people this offseason and can unlock it, but I would love to see him in like Boston with what they've been able to do with their pitchers over the past couple years. I know... Maybe the Yankees.

We like Connolly Early and Peyton Tolly, so we wouldn't want... or press Peyton Tolly yet. But I would love to see like a really smart, sharp organization get their hands on McKenzie Gore because I think, you know, the breakout-ish

that we saw from Hazers-Lazardo last year, you could see something like that for McKenzie Gore. All right, next up for me, I have two here. Xavier Edwards, run more. I know that he's not as fast as we think. He's not as fast as other, you know, burners who kind of just specialized and stolen bases. 75th percentile sprint speed, it's fine.

But he was much more aggressive in 2024 and he had success. One steal every 2.3 games. Then in 2025, it was one steal every 5.1 games. So if you're providing us no power, yes, the batting average is good. But man, we need 30 to 40 steals at least, man. Like 40 plus would be ideal if we can get that. And I think he's capable. He just has to be more aggressive.

So let's do that, Xavier Edwards. And for the pirates, give Connor Griffin a real shot this spring, man. Don't just say it, tongue and cheek. He goes out, he has a good spring. He's not up until August because you want to... Just got to work on his defense. Preserve it for, you know, after the lockout or whatever. God forbid, please know.

But, you know, just give him a real shot. If you actually want to compete in this Paul Schemean's window, show us. Let's be about it. Let's do it. Chris, back to you. Shane Boss. throw more balls. What? Yeah. My pet theory for Shane Boss is just he lives in the strike zone too much for a guy who doesn't miss a lot of bats in the zone. He's got bat missing ability overall,

but he was one of the highest in zone rate pitchers in the majors last year. I think it was 53%. His in zone contact rate was right around average. He's got to pitch with a little more intentionality, I guess. You know, I think the race have kind of of developed a pitching strategy that has worked out really well for them. And we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but like Tyler Glass now really benefited from just you've got amazing stuff, throw it in the middle of the strike zone and let your stuff win. And that hasn't worked for Shane Boss. He's been too inconsistent.

He's been hit too hard at too many times. I think pitching intentionally in and out of the zone a little more could be what Shane boss needs to unlock his obvious abilities. And we've said this about other talented pitchers in the past too. I mean, you said this about George Kirby for a while too. Is this maybe try and get more chases out of the zone, you know, don't just give in and throw strikes to really good hitters. I remember Shane Peeber when he first came up, he had that same issue where he would just

just throw him crushed. Throw too many strikes and he gave up so much hard contact. Eventually he threw more out of the zone and with deception and got a lot of swings and misses and things like that. So I have like 20. years of PTSD from believing that Ricky Nalaska was going to be an ace for the Marlins. And I remember like, he talked about like, I want to, I want to walk 10 batters a year. And it's like, well, you have, well, you might only walk 10 batters a year, but you might give up

40 homers. I was just going to say, you're going to get everything right down the middle. Three times as many home runs as that if you. Yeah, like, look, it's a fine, it's a fine line to walk, right? Like, that's, that's tough between having bad control and, and having bad commands. man, right? But I just, I think tweaking the approach is what's needed

for shame boss. All right, next up, Eugenio Suarez, do not go back to Seattle. This is nothing against Seattle or the Mariners. Gino just cannot hit there. 195 career games in T-Mobile Park, 2-11 batting average, 7-17 OPS,

a 31% strikeout rate. We remember what he did in the first half with the D-backs last year. He was on a, I don't know, 55, 60 Homer Pace, something like that. He was amazing. And he probably was going to regress anyway because he was just so ridiculously good in that first half.

But just came to a screeching halt once again in Seattle. He remains a free agent, please just do not go back to Seattle. And Roman Anthony, get the ball in the air more. I don't think you need to go, you don't have to try to go too far the other way. But a 51% ground ball rate, 13.8% pulled air rate. You know, we can improve on that. point nine degree average launch angle that's very, very low for a player who hits the ball as hard as Roman Anthony does. I mean, 94.5 average EV, it's just, this is errant judge level stuff. I mean,

it is just tantalizing from Roman Anthony. This was a problem for him in the minors as well, so I don't expect it to just reverse out of nowhere. But man, if he cuts that ground ball rate to 47, 48%, gets the pull their rate up to 16, 17%, something like that, now we're cooking. we cast. Now we're talking about, you know, 25, 30 plus home runs with Roman Anthony as hard as he hits the ball. So that would be nice to see in year two from him. Chris, back to you. Nolan McLean, watch a lot of Logan Webb in 2026. I've made this comparison a lot and I think it's really, it can really work for Logan Webb. He's got that deep arsenal just like Logan Webb does. It's sinker forward with McLean. It's more the curveball and sweeper than the change up, but he's got a

a change up that worked pretty well as a put-away pitch for him last year. He's got this ability to kind of work backwards throwing the breaking balls early in the count. And then he's got, you know, the four seamer was a real weapon for him in two strike counts. That's a, that's a move that Logan Webb has made over the past couple of years as he's expanded his arsenal. And I just think that is a really good, uh, approach for Nolan McLean to try to kind to emulate, and I think he can be that kind of pitcher if everything goes well.

Yeah, I think we made this comp earlier in the offseason, but like a Logan Webb, Framber Valdez type, I'm not saying that's Nolan McLean's ceiling. He might be even better than those guys, but that's kind of what I see in the profile right now is getting 50 to 60% ground balls, 8 to 9, K per 9, something like that, and really kind of cementing himself as like a high-end SP2 for fantasy. So definitely think that's in the range of outcomes for Nolan McLean. I have a double dose of twins here, so I guess technically a triple dose, but Byron Buckson and Royce Lewis both play 130 plus games.

That'd be pretty cool. That'd be pretty fun. And Zebby Matthews, throw the four seamer and cutter less. Throw your breaking balls more. So his four seam had a 92.7 average EV against 388 X Woba. His cutter, a 416 X Wobah. The slider had a 39% wiser. rate. The curve had a 35% width rate.

Zebi Matthews is talented. There's no doubt about that. He needs to learn how to pitch, how to sequence better, how to just get hitters out, keep them off balance. He clearly has stuff. He's just got to kind of just put it all together. So I do like Zeb Matthews as a very, you know, late round deep sleeper for next season. Chris, bring us home in. Marlins do something. Just do something. They've signed Pete Fairbanks. And they have traded for estuary Ruiz. Estuary Ruiz.

They traded away, Dan Myers. I think that's the extent of what the Marlins have done this offseason. There's a little bit of a window here. They've talked a big game about wanting to compete for the playoffs this year. They kind of competed for the playoffs last year. And really, it's just, okay, if you don't want to go all in on making the playoffs, let's get Sandy Alcantra out of there, right? Like if you're not going to make the playoffs this year,

or if you're not going to try to make the playoffs, get what you can for him. I know, let him rebuild his value. I think there's something to that. But it's just like, straddling the fence thing. Come on. We got to do something.

We got to do something for an interesting core. I don't know. Go sign A. U. Hineas Juarez. He would fit in well. Yeah. I think so. Chris, I have a bunch here.

I'm just going to rattle them off all of them. And then you can react afterwards. Gavin Williams, stick with what worked late in the season. So more curves and sinkers, less four-seem fastballs. In his lone playoff start against the Tigers, he led with the sweeper curve cutter through his four-seam just 19% of the time. It is a four-seam fastball that gets whiffs. It also has gotten hit very hard.

I think it's hard for him to command at times too. So I think more breaking balls is a good thing for Gavin Williams. Aranola, remember that it's an even year. So his ERA in even years since 2018, 237, 328, 325, 357. Does he have one solid season left? He might, he might. Rockies gives Zach Bean a real chance.

He's ready. He's 24 years old. He played 90 games at AAA last year. And he was pretty good. He showed some power, some speed. He hit the ball hard, 90.6 average exit velocity. So I would like to see what he can do. That's a good call.

Edwin Useta or Griffin Jacks emerges as the raise closer. and it isn't a committee. So not two guys getting 15 saves. One guy emerges. I don't care who it is. I think they're both really talented. And we get another top 12 closer in fantasy. Would prefer Yuseda.

I drafted him on my gladiator team. I drafted him on one of my draft Champions League. So yes, we are in agreement. Edwin Husseda, let's make that happen. Next up, can the players assign already? Scott Boris, if you're listening, anybody out there, We need action, man. It's just, I know that some

off-season's go like this in baseball. It's just, things would be a lot more fun. If we were getting anything, there's no rumors, there's nothing. I know it's holiday season and all that, but like, Kyle Tucker's out there, Boba Shed, Cody Bellinger, Framber Valdez, all these really talented players, like, come on, man, let's make something happen.

And my last one, Chris, I think we have to wrap it up here. To the MLB and the Players Association, just get along. Get that CBA done. We cannot have another lockout, although it seems like things are trending in that direction. I don't know if this is a hot take, but I'm putting the flag down, hot take. We don't miss any games next year. You know what? 2027, I don't think we miss any games in 2020. That means when we are doing

this podcast next year, New Year's resolutions, there is not a lockout looming at midnight. So I hope you are correct, Chris. Well, you can have a lockout that doesn't cost games, right? Like, we did that in 2020. But let's not even get there. Let's not get to the lockout. 2019? When was that? I guess it's 2019, right? Or 2021? It's every six years or seven years. Is that after the COVID year? Yeah, I think it's,

I think it was a five year CBA. Yeah, yeah. So that would make sense. Yeah. So that's my last one. Let's let's just all get along and let's plan the flag. Let's figure out that CBA. Before we wrap up, I do just want to send out a genuine thank you to everybody who supports what we do, whether it's listening to the pod, watching on YouTube,

you know, the same people I see in the chat all year long. It's so awesome that you're here. I know that we don't interact with the chat as much. It's, if we had another producer here, then we probably would do more things like that, but it's, you know, I'm trying to focus on the show. But I do appreciate you guys being here, obviously. Anyone who sent in an insanely creative listener league submission,

any listener league submission, it is greatly appreciated, reading our articles, newsletters, checking out the rankings, playing on CBS, We really do appreciate each and every one of you. Big thanks to the Facebook moderators. Yes, we do have a Facebook page, and there's like 15,000 people that are signed up on it.

And during the season, it's actually really active, so go sign up. Yeah, it's a good place to chat. And yeah, get involved in the conversation. Sign up, have fun, but those guys do a lot of work. So shout out to them. Big thanks to that as well. I know things can get crazy during the season. During draft season, there's so many questions and comments coming in.

So big thanks to them. And just cheers to a great 2025 overall. let's make 2026 even better. We've got some really awesome plans coming. I know that. I've said that every day, but we are going to be putting out some new things in 2026,

and I think it's going to be really, really fun. So great year, Chris, and I think we'll get even better next year. We are going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to 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 year. Bye-bye.