Fantasy Baseball Today - 2026 Lessons Learned & Playoff Updates! (10/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Let's talk playoffs and the Rays owning the Yankees (2:30)! ... These three RP could be SP in 2027 (9:40). ... News (16:13): Crochet will have a healthy offseason. ... Let's get into our lessons learned (24:35). ... You should be open to new strategies (35:15)! ... Saves are a bad use of draft capital (42:30). ... Let's get back to focusing on pitcher skills (51:20). ... Your draft doesn't define your team (56:31). ... Minimize risk early in drafts, plus more lessons learned (1:00:45).Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for the newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters

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For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today. 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. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris.

What did we learn this season? The Rays Own the Yankees. That is for sure. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, October 6th. I am Frank Stample joined by. Scott White, today on the show. We will discuss our 2026 lessons learned. How will they shape some 2027 philosophies,

perhaps some draft strategy as well? But we will start with some playoff updates. And I realize people might be listening into some of these podcasts at different times in the off season, so it gets a little wonky. But I feel like we have to react in the moment, or at least I do, because what I just watched, Scott, was a complete embarrassment meltdown

that I feel like I've seen... 10 times in the past 10 years with this Yankee team. And it was just a rough watch. I realize everyone else out there is just like reveling in this and absolutely loving the Yankees just completely crap the bed here in October. But yeah, game two just ended. They had the same number of errors as hits in the game.

Four errors, four hits. And it is just incredibly, incredibly frustrating to watch as a fan. Just a complete and utter embarrassment. and it just feels like the Yankees shouldn't even be on the same field as the raise, right? It's just, they shrivel up in these huge moments. And you would expect after what happened to the World Series a couple years ago where all the Dodgers players punked the Yankees and said, all you got to do is put the ball in play.

And they just, you know, they'll mess up. They were right. And they continue to be right. It's like nothing is changing here, man. So the rays are up to Zip and I don't have a lot of confidence. So that's where I'm at, Scott. I feel like I'm doing New York talk radio right now. You just went off on a bunch of stuff I don't even know about.

I think the Yankees are really good. I think the Rays are really good. And I think this is basically the ALCS. And so Rays are up to nothing. I looked it up. Well, I just did a quick search on AI. So maybe AI is wrong. But it's seven times.

And the LDS has a team come back from. down two nothing, including the Yankees in 2001 against the A's. Don't try to give me hope, Scott. I'm just, you know, it's never over. Meanwhile, the last time we talked, I was convinced my Braves were going to lose to the Phillies. And that obviously didn't happen. And now the series against the Dodgers is tied with Sail and Malley not having even pitched yet this series. and them not having played a home game yet this series.

So, you know, there's... There's hope. There's hope for you. There's hope for you. I'm just saying, like, I, you know, fortunes can turn around quickly, even in the playoffs. And, uh, Rays are tough, though. Ray's got a lot of good, but Yankees have a lot of good pitching, too,

but the Rays do, and that's, when in doubt, you give the side with pitching the edge, which is why you still have to give the Dodgers the edge in the Brave series. But, you know, there's chance. You know what? The gamble paid off for the Braves not to start Chris Sale in game two, which I understand was a massive decision, but on short rest. And they went out and won that game and that series is tied 1-1.

Game 3, Chris Sale going up against Yamamoto, that could very well decide the series there between those two teams. And you're right, like the Yankees still have freed and Carlos Rodon set up for game 3 and 4. But look, you just watch the race every year. They are just so buttoned up. and they put the ball in play, and they play good defense, and they run the bases right.

It's like the Yankees are just the complete antithesis of all of that. When's the last time the race won the World Series, Frank? Well, they have, I was going to say they have more. No, I don't think that's true either. I was going to say they have more World Series appearances than the Yankees do in the past, like, decade. But I don't know. They've both been there once, right?

In the past, I don't know, whatever it is. Anywho, it doesn't matter. Drew Rasmussen was awesome in game one. The race twice in their history, right? And then the Yankees twice going back to 2009. So I think the Yankees, because the first time the race went, wasn't in 2008, 2007. Yeah.

So they basically have the same number of World Series appearances in the past 20 years, let's call it. So, yeah. Anywho, yeah, Drew Raspicin in game one, took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. So that was good, too. Looking around some of the other series, too, the White Sox kind of,

I know you just said this feels like the ALCS, the race and the Yankees, but the White Sox kind of have like this team of destiny thing going out right now, Scott. Like they're coming through in the clutch. They're going with these like, just crazy pitching strategy. We saw this with the Tigers either last year or two years ago

where they just throw a bunch of different relievers and guys all over the place. And it's working right now. I mean, if you're a Guardians fan going to Chicago after having Messick and Gavin Williams pitching games one and two, it's pretty rough go there. So we'll see what happens.

I mean, that's what teams have to do who don't have good rotations. That's basically, like the Braves have two starters, really, that they're willing to actually start in a playoff game. That's why you're getting these three-inning Ray Kerr starts and Dylan Dodd.

There's just these, these, piece it together with all various bullpen arms going longer than they have all season. But yeah, it's worked well for the White Sox. I think the deeper you get into the playoffs is the harder that's going to be to do.

Anything can happen. So I'm not going to sit here and guarantee that whoever wins this Ray's Yankees World Series is going to the World Series. I obviously can't guarantee that. But whoever wins it should be the heavy favorites in the ALCS. I do feel comfortable saying that much. On the other side in the National League, Major League Baseball or the Brewers, somebody has to figure out what to do with

like this Rafter situation. It actually happened in the Ray's Yankees game here in game two as well, where Spencer Jones went off the rafters, and it fell down, and I think it was Victor Mesa who just caught it, and it's an out. But I guess the rules are what they are, right? Like, if someone hits the ball off the rafters, it's just like still in play. And we saw that come into play in game one of that series between the Brewers and the Padres.

Thai France hit a moonshot would look like it might have been a home run. I don't know if it definitely would have been a home run, but it was kind of trending that way, and it just hit off the rafters, came down, and Jackson Trio caught the ball. And then in game two, speaking of Turyo, I mean, he comes up. Huge spot, bases loaded against Mason Miller. Go ahead, two run single there.

And just like two awesome stars of the game going head to head. Mason Miller, I mean, they overextended him, I think, a little bit. Six-out save, but, you know, obviously his control was waning there. And Turyo took advantage. But, yeah, it's going to be pretty hard for the Pardris to come back from that. So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it looks like we're dialed up for, brewers in the

NLCS and then we'll see what your what your Braves can do against the Dodgers got any thoughts on the Brewers Padres series? That's probably the one I paid the least attention to it's been great it's two great games yeah they're up to nothing the favorite

is up to nothing and so you know they head back to San Diego now maybe maybe that gives the Padres a chance to get back in it but like obviously the Brewers. A very strong team and they have a very strong advantage now. So probably the brewers are going to then. I'll see us. Yeah. And I think this is an interesting theme and we were

just talking about some of these White Sox relievers, openers that they're just using them in different roles. I think relievers who could be starters for next season. I think it's a nice talking point to kind of just bring this back to fantasy because Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor, and then for your Brays, what Didier Fuentes has done so far in game two against the Dodgers. It was three and two thirds, one hit, one run, three strikeouts there. But he's basically been nails in the postseason, and he's been great all year long as well. I think all three of these guys are really talented relievers. And it'll be interesting to see. I don't know for sure that all three will be starters next year. My guess is I would probably lean that way as of now. I think each of Hagen,

Smith, Grant Taylor, and Fuentes could be in their respective rotations. but with what they've done in the postseason, the way they pitched in the regular season, I would be very excited about those guys as potential sleeper candidates as starting pitchers next season. Yeah, I think rightfully, if that happens, and I think it's very much an if right now,

but we've heard, obviously all came up through the minors of starters, and we've heard rumblings of that throughout this season, and they were all dominant out of the bullpen. I think Hagen Smith got the line, least attention because he wasn't up for the majority of the year like those others two were playing a prominent role in their bullpins. But Hagen Smith, 18 appearances, one start this year, 129 ERA.96 whip 13.2K per nine.

And this was a guy who had major control issues in the minors. I mean, even in that role was 5.1 walks per nine. So that's something he's going to have to get a handle on to work as a starter. but overall he dominated. And we have seen in over the last couple years especially, you put a dominant reliever in the starting role and it's tended to go well. Even for like Griffin Jacks this year,

I know there was some skepticism he would be able to to handle that transition, but it went really well. And we've seen a lot of those transitions in recent years actually turn out very well. Yeah, I'm trying to remember There were even bigger ones two years ago I guess Chris Bubich was one, went well

He's had trouble staying healthy Yeah, I feel like the first one recently In the past handful of years was like Seth Lugo did it And then it really just kind of became a trend I'm trying to remember Michael King was another who did it Michael King, yeah, that's another one

I can't remember Ian Seymour is kind of in that mix But he's kind of been back sure Yeah I feel like there was somebody huge last year That we're just not thinking of But that's a plenty of examples as it is.

Again, I'd be pretty excited. The skills for all three of these guys, again, Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor, Fuentes. I probably would rank Hagen Smith the lowest of the three, although he had the highest prospect pedigree, just because of the control and some of those issues that we've seen so far in a very small sample. But yeah, the control for Grant Taylor and Fuentes just looks better, and the stuff plus numbers on all three guys just look really, really good. Well, this wasn't quite, I got a few more examples here just scanning through my rankings. He took a more circuitous route

there, but read Demers. Yeah. Like, it seems like if a team feels like they have somebody who can be a great arm in a rotation, they almost use the bullpen as like a finishing school. You know, like they're not quite there. The talent is there, but they just kind of need to

to put it all together. And the bullpen helps them accomplish that for whatever reason. I mean, another example would be Drew Rasmussen, for that matter. It was going back a few years for him. But it seemed to do the trick. Peyton Tolly spent some time in the bullpen down the stretch last year. Not a long time, but sometime. Yeah.

It's happened a lot. I like it. Again, three names you need to know for next season, Hagen Smith, Grant Taylor, and Didier Fuentes. If you are watching us on YouTube, thank you. for being here. Make sure to hit that like button and stay subscribed. Or if you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe will be here two times per week until the end of December and then we'll start to ramp things back up as we turn the calendar to the new year. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy Baseball today. We'll run through some news and notes and then we'll

get to our lessons learned and how that might shape some strategy for next season. But the latest news, we usually get a bunch of, you know, once teams get eliminated from the playoffs, we start to learn about, okay, what's this guy dealing with? What's that guy dealing with? And so we did get a bunch of Red Sox updates. And Garrett Crochet is on track to have a fully healthy normal offseason. Apparently, he could have returned sooner. But the Red Sox just really wanted to take a cautious approach with Crochet, who they've obviously

given an extension and expected to be the ace of that staff. That was the guy. That was the huge one. That is the guy. Yes. Yeah, the bullpen to the transitioning from the bullpen to the rotation. Yeah. That was gone.

This is good news, Scott. I still have no idea where he should rank among starting pitchers for next season. I think he probably has the widest range of outcomes right now. Yeah, I think Chris mentioned this. If you wanted to rank him as like a top 15 starter, I don't think that's crazy. If you ranked him at like SP 35,

I don't think that's crazy either for Garrett Crochet. I think there are enough good pitchers that people are going to be able to talk themselves out of Crochet. there isn't the desperation that maybe at other times in the not so distant past there was for a high-end pitcher. I think we'll see him drafted more from a safe, not sorry approach, and that would put him closer to the... closer to 30, probably in the rankings. I haven't gotten around to actually ranking them, but just doing a little bit of counting in my head. head. I think that's where it's going to end up.

Yeah. I will point out, though, with Crochet, if you are an early drafter, I would try to take advantage of any massive discount you can now. I mean, if you're a really early drafter, if you're just crazy, if you start to draft in, like, December, January, things like that. But if we see him in spring training, look anything like himself, I mean, that is somebody who's just going to completely skyrocket. So just keep that in mind with Garrett Crochet. Roman Anthony is not expected to require surgery on his injured right hand, Craig Breslo said the team is still gathering information as Anthony aggravated the injury and then some during the postseason. Remember, he was dealing with, there was like a wrist thing going

on in the season, and then there was a finger, and then obviously those things got made even worse in the postseason. So it's concerning, I would say, I want to find out more about this. I'd like to get a clean bill of health on Roman Anthony before I buy back in. I'm sure it's still going to be a pretty big costs on him. A roll as Chapman passed his physical, which was the final hurdle needed for his $13 million player option to vest for 2027. So he'll be back with the Red Sox, likely as they're closer.

And Mickey Gasper is expected to be sidelined four to six months after undergoing bicep surgery. We did get some Mariners updates as well. Cow Raleigh underwent to Bridman's surgery on his AC joint in his left shoulder. He is expected to be fully recovered by the start of spring training. So I think that, in conjunction with the oblique injury, very easily could have explained this massive drop-off

for Cal Raleigh this past season. And I think maybe the same could be said for Josh Naylor, who underwent surgery to repair the triangular fibro cartilage in his right wrist, whatever that is. He first hurt his wrist in early August, and then he went homerless

in his final 41 games after the injury. Nailer also expected to be ready for spring training. Josh Nailer was also bad before his final 41 games, So I don't know that I buy that as much. But the Cowrallie thing, Scott, I mean, you have shoulder surgery and you had an oblique. Feels like pretty good excuses for a bad season. Yeah, it could be.

I mean, Naylor especially, he had apparently been dealing with this since mid-June. And at that point, it looks like he had about, I don't know, I don't have an exact day for when it started, but looks like he had about eight home runs. Yeah. as of June 12th he hit his eighth home run so that was with the season what about 40% over and then afterward he hit just two home runs

the rest of the way yeah that's pretty massive yeah I think that that goes a long way to explaining his bad season cow rally it's interesting he actually had a he surged to the finish line and there was a mechanical adjustment tied to that he raised his hands to

to get to elevated fastballs better, and it seemed to work. If you go on to CBSports.com, check out my latest article published. It's what you missed. What you missed after football started, where I break down, basically August and September of the season,

highlight the biggest developments across the league so that you can just, you know, not you tuned out when football started, you can just pour over everything that happened, a good little recap for you. It's long, but it's not as long as it would have been, obviously, if you were paying attention to the day to day in July and August. I think it's worth doing because it's quick bullet point form. You're going to get a lot of facts in there, including just how good Cal Raleigh was at the end of last season. I think it was like, again, my browser's frozen,

so I can't tell you, but it was like an OPS over a thousand over the last three weeks or something like that. Moving past the Mariners, Byron Buxton had the stitches removed from his surgically repaired right hip last week and has begun the rehab process. He is expected to be ready for the start of spring training as well. Spencer Steer underwent

successful surgery on his right wrist. He suffered a partial tear of the tendon sheath in his wrist. In late July, he is expected to be fully recovered for spring training. I believe Jake Berger had a similar surgery last offseason and he was back in time for spring training and actually had

a quietly solid season in like a Jake Burger way. So perhaps that could be some good news there for Spencer Steer. There you go. Cow Raleigh, final 32 games, so a lot longer than three weeks. 256 batting average 10 homers 935 OPS. Yeah, that's pretty Cal Raleigh-like. Even before the surgery news on the shoulder. Yep.

And the Arizona Fall League is up and running some big names that are competing right now in the AFL. we have Sebastian Walcott of the Rangers Eduardo Cantero of the Dodgers Caleb Bonimer of the White Sox Arjan Namala of the Angels who actually saw homered here on Monday night Aidan Miller of the Phillies

Zahir Hope of the Tigers Dax Kilby of the Yankees I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name I know that he is a prospect that is skyrocketing right now but I could not find a clip of a reporter or a broadcaster saying his name anywhere Anhebel

On Hybel Gomez is that what it is? That's what I would guess. Okay. So, Anheibel Gomez of the Royals. He is only 17 years old and he is in the Arizona Fall League. That is pretty interesting stuff. Bryce Rainer of the Tigers, Tate Southazine of the Braves, Zion Rose, who was the sixth overall picked by the Royals in this year's draft. So very interesting selection of players the Royal sent out. Someone they just drafted and another who is only 17 years old. Harleen Susanna of the Nationals, he actually pitched over the weekend. And his first pitch was 103 miles per hour. So he is a hard throwing righty, a name to know. Dmitro Chrysantis of the

D-Backs, Tai Pete of the Cardinals, Boston Smith of the Mariner, somebody I know you like Scott, Nathan Flewelling of the Rays, Jet Williams, and Breland Payne from the Brewers, and Ike Irish from the Orioles. Last name here, well-being Francisco of the Guardians, who has kind of fallen off a little bit as a prospect, but in his first game, went five for five with a sock a shoe. So it's a nice little start there to the Arizona Fall League. And Chris and I will be out there in early November as part of first pitch Arizona and really hope I get to see Dax Killby. That's the one I want to check in on. But yeah, I'm sure we'll see a bunch of prospects while we're out there. All right, Scott, let's get into some of the lessons learned from this past season

and how it might be if at all shaping any of your strategy for next season. So why don't you kick us off here, a lesson you learned this past season? Okay, I don't know how many I was supposed to come up with. I would say three, but you know, we could just go as far as an hour will take us. Yeah, Chris didn't join us for this one. So that gives us a little more time. Okay, so I'm going to say my first lesson learned here is, I could phrase it a few different ways.

Discounts over opinions. Or you're not going to outsmart anyone anymore. or don't look a gift horse in the mouth ever or take what's given to you. That's the general idea here and I've talked about it before. The other one I've talked about is no intentional player strategy.

That's kind of a riff on Heath Cummings No Intentional Position strategy. Which is, which short end is? Nips. Nips, of course. Yeah. So I kind of, my favorite favorite way to phrase it is you're not going to outsmart anyone anymore, though that's probably

the least revealing way to phrase it. It's the idea that our ability to assess players, to assess how good they are, has kind of flattened. It's, the data for evaluating players has come so far and says as much as I feel like it can that it's hard to get. It's hard to get the an edge that way anymore. Particularly if you're playing against people who really dig into the data, who really study this stuff, you're all going to kind of arrive at the same place on players. There's some room for disagreements, but it's usually around things that it's more like

hunchy stuff, like how much I think this guy's going to play. It's not purely how good, how talented is this player. everybody's kind of in agreement on everybody. Not literally, but for the most part. And so how do you get an edge that way? More often than not, I have found that if you disagree with the consensus on that, you're going to get burnt. You can't outsmart the consensus.

So I think the best way to get an edge now is to just, instead of targeting your guys, instead of saying, okay, I'm going to take Kyle Braddish in round four because I think he's that good. You take whoever happens to slide because somebody else is going to jump in and grab some of their favorites. It always happens.

Every draft is not exactly the same. And there will be a chain reaction that causes someone else to fall because of that. And that's the best way to gain that edge is to just always be willing to take the player who slides. And of course, the most obvious example from that this year is Pete Crow Armstrong. I was not his biggest fan by any

stretch. And yet he ended up being my most drafted player because it happened so many times in drafts that he would just, he would just like pretty much the first half of round three in every draft I did. If I was drafting there, he was up. Nobody ever reached to take him earlier. A lot of times he would slide again toward the middle of round three instead of going early. And so I just kept taking them. And it went really well. But it's hard to come up with a specific player example because it's not really that kind of advice.

It's anyone. Whoever it happens to, it's not going to be the same guy every draft. Right. Yeah. So that's something I've talked about a little. both heading into this year and I think heading into last year too. But I think I'm going to lean more into it ever next year. Because for the most part, looking back at all my drafts,

whenever I reached for one of my guys, instead of just accepting appropriate value or the discount that was available there, it didn't go well. And when I did accept the discount, it did. So my follow-up is how far do you take it, though? because are you willing to draft a player like you vehemently don't like when you dug into the numbers

you were legitimately worried about that player? You said something similar to that about Pete Cromstrung, but I don't think that you were completely against drafting him. You just didn't. I did not. You had some opinions, you had some worries, but how far do you take it? Like, if there's a player you legit do not want at all

and he's like, whatever, the cover boy for your busts article, are you still willing to take even that player if he falls like a round past 80p or something like that. Like how far do you take that strategy? That's a good question. I'm not sure I have a good answer for it yet. I would say my general answer is I am less invested in who I think is a bust than who is available to me at a value.

So I will come up with a bust article. I have to. I have to and I will do my best to highlight players that I think are overvalued. well you know what I'm not even sure that's true that's not that generally certainly in the last five or six years that hasn't even been how I've approached the bust article

it's been who do I think has bottom out potential not just who do I think is a little overvalued but you know let's say I think for example James Wood oh wait you know like how right did that turn out to be in being in my bust article this past year

not very right. No. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be that invested. I know I drafted a lot of players on my bust list from this year. And for the most part, those bust calls turned out to be bust themselves. So you just end up leaving too much value on the table. Now, it gets tricky because, again, since everybody kind of, kind of lands in the same place on every player.

How do you even identify what a bust is? This kind of gets to the Pete Crow Armstrong example, because how did he consistently fall to me? It's because a lot of other people had him as a bust. Right. And I don't think I actually included him on a bust article, just because I already knew I was from drafts up to that point that I was going to end up having a decent amount of Peacrow Armstrong,

and I just didn't want to have to square that circle throughout draft season. But when you're trying to, I don't know, the whole concept of a bust right now, I would say, okay, let me just sum it up with this. I think in the early rounds, of course I am going to be a little more wary of certain players, but if the value is obvious, I'm just going to go for it.

In the later rounds, I'll probably be more particular about players I target because there's less consensus there anyway. Right. And it'll be different. But really with the early rounds, I'm probably just going to accept whatever value comes to me and let the team kind of build itself that way. Yeah.

I think it says more about just the state of fantasy in general. And I don't think this is just particular to baseball. I think really football, baseball, basketball, it's like people are so smart. And to your point, it's a lot of people are landing on the same conclusions on players. And so it's where do you find that edge? I struggle with something like this because every year I come on this exact podcast, lessons learned, and I need to remind myself and everybody to get your guys.

Because to me, I get more frustrated throughout the course of a season when there's a player I really like or like that is going off. And he's not on my teams. than if I draft players that fell to me that I didn't necessarily want and I just drafted them because they were a good value and it turns out they're bad, right? Like I get more frustrated by the former, just not having those guys on my team.

You know, I had South Stewart on a few teams, I had Cam Schlittler on a few teams, I had Chase Burns on a few teams, but like these were guys that I really liked and I just get more frustrated at myself for not having them on like every team. But isn't that kind of, an emotional

aren't you using your emotions to drive you in that case? I can relate because that was something I often felt too and it it's obviously a different experience if you only have a fantasy team or two every year and you

it's hard not to get emotional in that case than when you're like us and you have 12, 15 fantasy teams and like a guy who's somebody who's on your team in this league is on somebody else's team in another league. And so how heavily can you root for

anybody in that case, you know? So I get it. I get that there is an emotional draw there that's hard to resist. But I know that in the days when I would get more emotional

about that, it was because I was often writer than everybody else. I was more right about the players I singled out as this guy is going to be a breakout. This guy's going to have a huge season. And so if I didn't get it, it was like, well, my, my pick was someone else was being rewarded for that. And that was where it hurt. But that doesn't happen nearly as often anymore. So I can kind of let the emotional part of it go. There's no better feeling emotionally than actually winning. Yeah. Now, I totally, I totally get that

point too. And I can admit that. I know that I definitely am the most emotional one here on the podcast, just in terms of like on a night to night basis. I kind of overreacted times. And I let things like that affect me. And it does kind of get to me at times. But it's an interesting strategy and something you bring up for next season. And that'll bring me to one of my lessons learned because I think it kind of ties in together pretty well here. And don't be afraid to try something new.

So I won NL labor this year, even though I didn't have a set plan of players that I wanted in the auction. And that is the first time I have ever showed up to an auction where I didn't have a plan A, plan B, plan C at every position. I normally go into every auction with that mindset. And I had all the auction values,

you know, fan graphs, auction calculator, plug in all the settings, NL only leagues. Like I knew how much players were worth. It did help that. I got to see the AL labor auction the day before,

so I kind of had an idea in my mind of like, okay, these players are comparable, let's see how much they go for tomorrow. But that's the only way that I wound up with both Ellie De La Cruz and Fernando Tatis Jr. on that team, Scott.

Something I would have never done in previous years. In an only league, to get two first round caliber bats, I would never do that. I usually always spread the wealth, but they went for way cheaper than they should. I think I got Tatis for like 31 and Ellie for 33. And typically these are players that are like pushing $40, even in an NRA only league.

So yeah, I just kind of gobbled up the value wherever I could. And then, you know, I had some other lower end ideas of players that I wanted. Like if I need steals, go after Nassim Nunez for cheap, who I wound up getting on that team. But then just other guys that I was just kind of neutral on where look, if the price was right, I think I got Brian Reynolds and he was fine. He had like a Brian Reynolds type year. But that strategy of just like, kind of what you're saying,

no intentional player strategy in the auction, just kind of grab the values where you can. That is something that was very uncomfortable for me. And even after the auction ended, I hated my team. I was like, oh my God, I hated the way that turned out. And I won the league.

So maybe try something new. Yeah. At the point about the auction, the more specific point, making is something I've tried to change the past couple years to, again, because I realize what used to work really well for me isn't working as well. And I, it's kind of along the same lines of what I was saying is the players, the players you are specifically targeting is also what a lot of other people are specifically targeting. Because for the same reasons,

you probably decided to specifically target them. And so if you go and, you go and, you're going, in with that narrow of a focus, yes, it helps you stay disciplined in a certain respect. But if multiple people have gone into that auction targeting that specific player, it's going to be hard for all of them to stay that disciplined, you know? Yeah.

And then on the broader point, if you're not being afraid to try something new, I kind of did the same thing in the podcast league, the original podcast league, the head-to-head points one, where I don't know if you remember, but two of my first three picks were starting pitchers. Now, one was crochet.

One was sale. I'm not saying that's why I had a good season in that league, but I went to the semifinals, so clearly it didn't prevent me from having a good season. No, you made it to the finals in that league, Scott. No, not, they had to have points one? Yeah, yeah, you lost in the finals, yeah. Even better.

I made it to the finals in that points league, despite going against my usual head-to-head points strategy. You know, that's the more forgiving format for starting pitchers. So I like to load up on hitters, the hitters who really excel in that format in the early rounds. Just everyone else was doing it. So I kind of took what everyone else gave me, which was the starting pitchers.

And it still turned out okay. Yeah, I think in a way, it's kind of a humbling experience, right? Like what we're talking about is that, you know, for years, we had something that worked or we thought worked. and you know, you want to be right about players and we're still going to have player takes. I don't want people to listen to this specific episode and say, oh, wow, like these guys are just,

you know, they're not going to give opinions on players anymore. We're still going to have opinions and we're going to tell you which players we like, don't like, who's overvalued, who's undervalued, things like that. I think perhaps this specific lesson learned and strategy is more so for like industry

or expert type leagues, but I mean, in home leagues, people could know a lot as well. And so I think it could be transferable, but yeah you have to know your league I don't want people to get the wrong idea like we're still going to have tons of opinions on players and things like that but yeah just basically gobbling up the value

where you can and don't be afraid to try something different so a couple early lessons there let's take our go ahead if I could kind of Taylor since I was hemming and hauling around your question of what happens how much you're going to avoid

your busts in the early rounds to a certain degree that's baked into my rankings I don't go overboard with it, but I downgrade the players I don't like a little bit. So it is going to be kind of a marriage between how much is this guy sliding in ADP versus how much is this guy sliding in my rankings, and that will help keep me honest in terms of not overvaluing a bust pick of mine.

But again, the broad general takeaway is I'm going to be less tied to my specific bust picks than just how clear. of value as this guy in the draft. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, we have more lessons learned from this past season right after this. Welcome back, Fantasy Baseball.

Today, we're going through some lessons learned how it might shape our strategy for next season. And Scott, I'll throw it back over to you. You started your first lesson was about your nips. What's your second lesson? I have a lot to say about this one. Saves are still one of the worst uses of draft capital. I feel like there's been a lot of pushback to this lately.

And we'll get into Y in a minute. But it is undoubtedly true. Just think through the logic of it all. Relief pitchers are extremely volatile because it's small samples. They have small arsenals where it wouldn't take much for the things to go wrong for them. Short track record usually because they're so volatile, they fizzle out quickly. and so going into the year, unless it's a long-established

dominant closer, and even sometimes then, you don't really know what's going to happen with them. The only relief pitchers in that, only relief pitchers in the closer role can contribute, and that role itself is volatile,

not just how the pitchers perform, but how likely they are to stick in that role. If they lose that, they basically lose all of their value. When a relief pitcher flops and isn't giving you saves, he's next to useless, when a new one enters the role,

he can be just as good as some of the best. And there were tons of examples of that this year. Louis Varlane, Brian Baker, Mason Montgomery in the second half, Jacob Lats. I think I'm missing a couple of big ones. It happened so many times that this guy, you just plucked off the waiver wires,

and it was like you invested in an early round reliever. Now, the reason why I think there's been some pushback to this in recent years is because there's a consumer creator mismatch right now in the fantasy baseball space where most of the people who are creating the content, who are part of the big fantasy discussions, who are on podcast like this one, they tend to play in a bunch of high-stakes leagues. How many is a bunch? Too many. However many it is, it's too many. And so what that encourages is if a team goes south, there's a lot of motivation there for them to just wash their hands of it. They might still go through the motions with it, but it doesn't hurt if a team

flops. It's just one of many entries they have. And as long as a couple of those entries pan out, they're fine. That's what the average creator, the perspective, they're approaching it from. The average consumer is approaching it from the perspective of, I play in a couple leagues, one, maybe two, with people I know. And this is my, this is how I'm invested in fantasy baseball this season. If a team gets buried in the standings, it's going to be miserable for me all year. Like, I need to have something to play for. And so you can't approach it with this you can't quite approach it

with this second place is the first loser mentality where being in first is all that matters like you want to be competitive so that the season is fun for you

right? So, you know, the people who are playing in the high stakes leagues they're like, I just want to not have to worry about closers, grab the saves I need early

and if that guy happens to, to bust. Well, I guess that team's just a bust. But I don't think the average user needs to approach it that way. And usually the average user isn't playing in league so deep anyway. So that helps create more churn on the waiver wire for the upcoming closers. And I think what also lends itself to this point is that there are so many different fantasy baseball league types. And each of them feels very different in terms of how you attack relievers and closers in those formats, right? So in a typical roto league, 12-team Roto League, I don't think you'll see these

astronomical prices on relievers where, you know, you have FAB and things like that. But a lot of the draft boards and the content we hear and see in the winter months are like draft and hold leagues where there is no waiver wire and you have no choice but to, if you don't get your closures in the draft, then that's, then you're not getting saved. Like that is your only way that you're going to do that. So I do think there is a little bit of a disconnect and, and again, this is very niche for like, whatever, people who are paying attention to draft boards and NFBC ADP in the winter months, you're going to see relievers go really high in those formats. And that's because a lot of those leagues are, you know, draft

and hold where you don't have a waiver wire to pick them up. But then things just change very differently from like a home roto league, a home head head head categories league with daily lineups where, you know, your mileage may vary on how many relievers you want on your team, How many relievers you can actually use on your team? How many closers versus like stoppers do you want on your team where you have guys that are just giving you ratios? And then in head to head points, it's a whole different thing because a lot of people are using sparse as their relievers

and closers get devalued like crazy in that format. So it's to that point, Scott, I think it even accentuates it even more because there are just so many different formats and so many different ways to play. And it feels like relievers are valued very different in all of the different formats. Yeah, they are.

And the deeper it is, the bigger the risk you take by going cheap on it in the draft. Yeah. And I'm never saying you should ignore it in the draft. I mean, in head-to-head points, you can kind of ignore it. But in anything else, I'm not saying you should ignore it. I'm just saying it's not something you should put a lot of draft capital in because it's very likely to be wasted draft capital on the front end. And B, it's the position where you can most likely make up for going cheap. Doesn't mean it's always going to happen.

Right. but it's your best chance of if you're going to go cheap anywhere and make up for it by backfilling off the waiver wire, it's it relief pitcher. So, you know, obviously, I'm not saying that the people who play in a bunch of high stakes leagues, they don't have good advice to offer, but you just have to remember when you're listening to it unless you're also playing that way, their risk reward calculus is a little bit skewed. Yeah, and I don't want this to come off as any kind of like sour grapes for like there's a high Stakes player listening to this because I think using high stakes ADP just in general is like a really

good starting point for like people diving back into fantasy baseball in January or February. Just looking at high stakes ADP to get an idea of where players are going, I think generally is a good idea and maybe not exactly just like the number next to a reliever and what draft pick they're going, but the order that the relievers are being drafted and I think that almost matters more than where they're being drafted in those specific drafts. looking at, I just put this together right now, but the top 10 closers on the Fangraphs player raider this year, here's where they finished and here's where their ADP was preseason.

So Mason Miller was the RP1, his ADP was 28. Kate Smith, RP2, his ADP was 40. Jacob Lats was the RP3, his ADP was 730. Louis Varland, RP4, he was undrafted. He did not have an ADP. Brian Baker was the RP5. He was undrafted. He did not have an ADP.

Grant Taylor was the RP6. his ADP was outside the top 500. Mason Montgomery RP 7, ADP 748. David Bednar was RP8, 64 ADP, Josh Hader, RP9, 124 ADP,

Yuan-Duran RP 10, 41.8. So, very wide range of where players were either drafted or picked up. It's basically like a 50% hit rate on the top 10 closures this past season.

And I don't do many things right in fantasy, but the one thing I feel I've done pretty well in recent years, in Roto leagues in particular, is just the way that I've handled saves. I'm typically never the first person to draft a closer. I usually get one of the top-ish tier closers,

like one of the top eight to 10 names, and then I try to get someone that I feel pretty good about in like the 11 to 20 range. It's very rudimentary, but it's actually worked pretty well. Like I typically, and I don't really fall behind in saves in like any of the leagues that I play in. There will always be some outliers,

but it typically works pretty well. It's like, get someone in like the 7 to 10 range in ADP, someone in like the 21, 11 to 20 range, and then just take some dart throws late or play the waiver wire for your third reliever.

And usually it turns out pretty well. Yep. Moving on to- I think it deep leagues especially. That's the approach I like most. Yeah. My next lesson here, Scott, is this, and you guys spoke on this last week,

I think reshaping my pitching strategy and get back to focusing on skills for pitchers. It's another one that just kind of feels so obvious, but I think for whatever reason, I've kind of slipped. I've kind of got away from this somewhere along the way and don't limit the upside shots that you take at starting pitcher. So I look back through all my teams earlier today,

and I just had too many teams with Framber Valdez and Tanner Bybee and Merrill Kelly, right? It's just kind of accumulator types, where, yeah, I know Valdez has done it for years, but he's a pitcher where his preseason ADP was SP20. He's not really a pitcher that's a big win, but it could have always wound up being a big loss for Valdez just because he put so many balls in play,

and, you know, there was a change of scenery and just the way that, you know, he's dealt with kind of mental lapses pitching on the mound. It just, thinking about it now, I just don't really see how that pick was ever going to be a big win for Framber Valdez is like, the SP 20 and ADP. I looked where he finished last year.

It was like SP 38 or something like that. So we didn't really get that big of a discount either. I also like names like Chase Burns, like Cam Schlittler, Trey is Savage, Bubba Chandler. We all like those guys. Those were like the obvious breakout candidates coming in. But I often said that I only wanted

one of them on my teams to minimize risk. And I don't think that's the right way to approach it. And I know, again, you kind of mentioned this last week, but I think taking more shots on those potential for impact per inning per start basis type pitchers is what I need to get back to and really focusing on skills and just taking more shots on those guys rather than the kind of veteran inning eater accumulator types that like might pay off but why wouldn't you just rather chew for much more upside in like the mid to lay round so I got to get back to that. Yeah, there may be a little revisionist history there with Fromber Valdez in particular

because he seemed like a good value going into last year. You mentioned he wasn't amazing in 2025, finished 38th, I guess, by the Roto Raider. I'm presuming that was mostly Whippen ERA because he still had 13 wins and 187 strikeouts. But the previous couple years, we had seen him as a top 12 type. So to get him around 20th seemed like a good discount. But the broad point, I think, is something I've come around to too. And I tried to implement it. I think I implemented it well this year where not going as far as Nick Pollack's stance of just not caring about durability at starting pitcher because it's a hopeless.

sort of calculation. I don't go all the way there, but I go most of the way there, where it's predicting how many innings a pitcher is going to throw in a given year is not something you're going to do very well. So you might as well shoot for as much upside as you can, particularly if you tend to go cheap at starting pitcher like I do.

You have to make up for some of your lack of investment there by taking bigger swings and taking more swings, too. That's part of it because you know some of those swings are going to miss. And that's the harder part to pull off, particularly in deeper leagues, because so many teams are picking that that group of pitcher is going to run out faster. You can't grab as many as you want. But in a 12-team context, you can grab an awful lot of mid-round upside types. And that's usually where I like to live.

Yeah. I think a second part of this too is to not worry so much about role, but again, focusing on the skills, because we had questions for the roles of each of these starting pitchers coming into the season. And it took a while for them to get a spot in the rotation, but we all knew that they had upside. Parker Messick, Logan Henderson, Peyton Toley.

And maybe it's, you know, I'm not saying you have to draft and hold on to them, but like, if you get any inclination at, they're going to be in the rotation or there's a chance for them to be in the rotation, like you have to pounce and you have to be ready to go. But those are three names in particular. I think they all finish as top 20 starting pitchers this year. And we had questions about the role coming into the season, but we knew that they were talented pitchers.

So just really want to hammer that point home and focus on those pitchers more in the mid to late rounds of the draft. And I will at this point mention Chris's, Chris wanted to be on today, but he was feeling under the weather. he did send his biggest lesson, stop being afraid of innings limits for pitchers, which again kind of overlaps with everything that we're talking about right now

and just really focusing on like per inning, per start, impact, and getting back to that. All right, Scott. Back over to you. Another lesson. All right. Your draft doesn't have to and probably won't define your team. This is especially true in head-to-head,

especially true in any league that's on the shallower end in terms of how many players are drafted, which then makes for a more robust waiver wire. I went back and looked at both of my podcast league teams, which were head-to-head. There's a 12-teamer, the one I was referring to earlier, where I took pitchers with two of my first three picks. But there's also a 16-teamor.

So small lineups, but fairly large league. I went back and looked at my drafts in both of those. I made it to the semifinals in the 12-teamer. or the finals in the 12-teamor and the semifinals in the 16-teamor. So the result was good. It was like six of my picks panned out in the 12-teamer and seven of them in the 16-teamer, and the rest of the roster was just assembled on the waiver wire

over the course of the year. So, like, that's... I think people get in the mindset of, oh, I have to really kill it in the draft, and they start comparing how every team drafted, how every team's draft turned out and get really up or down about how their season's going to go based on that. But it's just a starting point.

It really is. And it's a whole season worth of putting this roster together. Again, that's especially true in the shallower things. But I looked at some of my 15 teamers too. Tout Wars, we talked about Tout Wars, how bad some of my earliest picks are. That's a 15 team or that I won the league. My first four picks were all pretty bad,

or six of the first 10 were pretty bad. But early on in the season, I picked up T.J. Rumfield off waivers and an OBP league. I picked up Liam Hicks off waivers to be my second catcher. I picked up Jacob Latz off waivers. He obviously turned out, this was a league where I really got burned on saves.

I drafted Josh Hader and Carlos Estevez, and that was it. Hater turned out fine in the long run, but I wasn't getting saves early. I picked up Lats. That was huge. I picked up, those were probably the three big pickups, but I know there were some others, AJ Ewing, there were some others that helped me along the way. And I wouldn't have won the league without him. TGFBI, I finished second in that 15-teamer.

My pitching, I ran away with all the pitching categories. Well, a lot of that was Tage Brexie. I picked a Peyton Tolly off the waiver wire. I picked up Carlos Rodan eventually. It took a while to pay off, but it did in the end. Ian Seymour. You know, like, it's a never-ending process. And like, you're not going to sink or swim with your draft necessarily.

I think this one also depends on what type of player you are and knowing yourself as a player. Because I feel like if Chris were here, and he has talked about this, that his biggest struggle as a player is probably in-season management. and, you know, free agency and FAB and things like that. So I think this particular lesson just depends on you as a player as well. Like, I think you can miss on things in the draft as long as you are diligent and, you know, putting in the work and things like that on the waiver wire and things like, like just knowing yourself as a manager. So I think that's kind of a second part to build off of that.

But you're right. I mean, I've gone to, you know, I mentioned first pitch to Arizona last year I went. and somebody who won, I think it was Mike Mager who we had on in the last off season to help talk about auction strategy and he won the auction overall and I think like his highest price player

was like, Yoron Alvarez, who barely played last year and he won the overall, right? So like, no way, like you can have a miss, a big miss in the draft and still perform really well if you can gain excess value in other places. I think he wound up with like, you know,

Cal Raleigh in a 60 home run season. So obviously, You know, that helps a lot of it. But yeah, you can miss on some picks. Obviously, you need some big wins the way that you got with like Pete Karamstrung. But yeah, I do think that is a fair point there. My next lesson is getting back to minimizing risk early. So again, I looked through all my teams earlier today.

And I noticed that I had one or both of Kyle Tucker, Gunner Henderson, and Garrett Crochet on three different teams. I also had a lot of Michael Garcia. I had a lot of Cole Regans. I had those guys on at least three different teams. And some of those, there was a lot of overlap with those players as well. And you tell me, Scott, if maybe this is revisionist history again, obviously we all liked Kyle Tucker coming in. Like specifically on this podcast, we were higher than the consensus on Tucker.

But I think that there were risks there that we just kind of ignored, right? And I know, look, first year, first year of a mega deal in a new city, like, there are many times where that doesn't work out. for a specific player. He also had, you know, injury problems in the past. So perhaps those things have just kind of added up for someone like Kyle Tucker. I'm not saying he was a massive risk,

but there were some risks there that perhaps we just looked the other way. Gunner, I was still very in on this year. I basically just took his injury excuse from 2025. And I was like, all right, he's going to bounce back to 2024 for him. And that was never a guarantee. Part of this is also just like eliminating assumption with early round picks. And just focusing on players who have done,

done it year over year, who have had health year over year. And that's like Garrett Crochet was one of my most drafted pitchers. And it was just because he was usually the one that lasted the longest of the big three. And he was the one that went cheapest of the big three in auctions. And so I was open to drafting one of those big three starting pitchers coming in. And Crochet, when you think about it, logically, the big innings jumps year over year the past couple of years. Like, I think that was a pretty obvious risk too. Garcia, I liked his underlying skill said.

he was not very proven at all. Cole Reagan's is someone that I was openly worried about, but I was just so enamored by the skills. I had him as like an SP2 in multiple leagues. But what you were just saying, Scott, is you can miss on some of your picks early on. You can't miss on like, you know, your first three picks, basically,

or like four of your first six or something like that. And when I look back at the teams that did really poorly, it was like, I think I just took too much unnecessary risk early on in drafts. Yeah, I don't like to, taken risk early either. But hindsight is 2020. And like, who didn't get burned by their first round pick this year?

The person who took Bobby Witt, they were a little underwhelmed, I guess, but they didn't get burned. Okay, that's one. You know, obviously, Paul Skeens was a bust. Not as bad as Crochet. Crochet got hurt. But it wasn't pretty. Terrick Scoobal missed a lot of time.

Ronald Acuna wasn't very good. Yeah, and we talked a lot about this. I mean, perhaps it's something that's just unique to this season, but it was, yeah, looking back, I think... You can look at all of those guys and say, okay, I should have been more careful with Jose Ramirez's age or Acuna having the two knee surgeries. But, yeah, I don't know.

Sure, like Kyle Tucker, the people who were worried about the second half injury, with the Cubs ultimately were proven right. But I don't know that I would assess it any differently next time personally. I mean, you're free to. I don't think that was the biggest red flag necessarily among the first rounders. Yeah. That first year of a mega deal in a new city, I know it's like kind of cliche,

but a lot of times it really does not work out very well. You look at, you know, Kyle Tucker and Boba Shad, but even bigger examples is like Francisco Indoor's first season with the Mets. I know that was a trade, but then he signed an extension. and like there was Bryce Harper's first year was not very good. Trey Turner's first year was not very good. So that seems like one that that actually happens more often than not. It's like that mega contract first year in a new city type thing.

Which is kind of why I want to give Kyle Tucker a pass again, obviously not in round one, but in round six. Sure. We'll see where that discount pops out. But yeah, I just really want to focus next year. Early rounds, guys have done it multiple years over, who have done it multiple years over, I've had multiple healthy years over and over again. So, and then, you know, you could take more risks as you get further into the draft mid to late rounds. Like I have no problem taking risk there, but just kind of minimizing that risk early on in drafts.

I have a couple of their honorable mentions here, Scott. I don't know if you do, but if you want, we could just kind of like rapid fire. Just rattle some of mine are related to ones I've already said. Don't be afraid to spend early. This is a fab, specifically for leagues that use fab, which I think is the minority, but it's a big enough minor. minority. Don't be afraid to spend early. A lot of those guys that I picked up off waiver wires of the waiver wire early on, I wasn't totally sold on, but I knew that obviously early in the years when everybody's going to be spending the most and when they have the most, the longest

span of time to make an impact to my team. And that in the second half of the year, the fab bids were going to be much, much lower because of all the money everybody spent. So, you know, I didn't go crazy spending $300 on a player I didn't feel confident in, but I tried to spend enough to win them if I thought I had a spot for them and a use for them. You know, Jacob Lats especially, like, I couldn't, I couldn't imagine him holding onto the closer roll all year, much less than being that good in it. But I just went for it because I needed the saves. And I spent the fab dollars it took and it worked out really well. That's your best chance of,

that's where you're going to get the most wins off the waiver wires early in the season. Yeah. I actually had a little bit of the opposite. One that I wrote down here was that I spent way too much fab early on the season and I just didn't have enough in the second half. Yeah. And that could just come back to like player evaluation and we talk about this a lot, but, and I'm not making excuses, but Sundays are really tough for us between like,

building the rundown and recapping a whole weekend's worth of games and looking through all the games and putting our fab bids in. That's something that I struggle with. So like, I can put more time into that like earlier in the week and things. But I just noticed perhaps I was just bidding on the wrong players and I was as aggressive early on. But I just noticed the second half of the season, I did not have like any money for those prospects that were getting called up in like August and beyond. But here's the thing.

It was frustrating. I didn't either. Yeah. And I guess it was. frustrating, but how much did you really loot? How much of an impact were they actually able to make versus what the T.J. Rumfields did early on?

Yeah, it always comes back to which players who actually won. I'm sure if I look back on the teams where I spent a lot of fab, it's like, I probably just didn't get good players, you know? Like, maybe I just spent on the wrong guys, and that's like a me thing. That's something that I did wrong. But I did pick up, like,

I was pretty aggressive in the first or second week of the season. I think I picked up Brian Baker and Tout Wars. And obviously something like that turned out amazing. I actually wound up trading him for Riley Green just because I needed outfield help so bad. That trade probably happened in I don't know, mid-May

or something. I was a little bit worried about like, oh, is this Tampa guy going to hold on to the closer roll all year? He obviously did and he turned out to have an amazing season. And I need a lot of offensive help. I guess that can get into my next lesson here is just to have patience.

Because at like the midpoint of the season in NL labor, I was shopping Fernando Tatez Jr. to other teams for just like two lower level assets. I think I offered at some point for like Ian Hap and Dail and Lyle, right? Just to get guys in an only league that are playing every day and should be solid. But if I did that, I probably wouldn't have won the league. So it's like have patience, you know, and that goes back to me as a player.

Like I do kind of get emotional about things. Something else. And like, look, maybe anybody would have made the same mistake. But I dropped Jake McCarthy in Tout, which is a 15-team Roto League with five outfielder spots. I dropped them in, I think, mid or late April, just because, like, the playing time was weird and the Rockies had a bunch of outfielders and stuff.

But he turned out to be one of the biggest league winners and fantasy of the season. So patience. Patience is something that I would like to remind people of for next season. I was laughing because one of the next one I have was kind of opposite of that. Okay. I think you're more right than this is,

but I did recognize this year that there does come a point where it's okay to drop a struggling stud. When is that point? Well, first of all, I think it's more likely to come up in a head-to-head league with fewer lineup spots to fill.

But basically, if you get to a point where you're happy enough with your replacement, I was thinking specifically Cal Raleigh. I drafted it. I drafted him in too many leagues, unfortunately, and it would have been easy to just stick with him in my catcher spot and just hope he turned it around. But catcher being as deep as it is,

I'd pick up a Liam Hicks in one league. I'd pick up a, you know, Gabriel Moreno or something. I got to a point where it's like, okay, Cal Raleigh's just taken up a spot on my bench, let him go. He did finish strong, as I pointed out earlier in the, show, but I didn't really miss them. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't like this big disaster. And it was

second half of the year by the time I did this. I held on a long time. But I'm sure people who had Vladimir Guerrero, first base being as deep as it is, eventually Vladimir Guerrero became just deadweight for them. Again, I'm talking shallower leagues. I don't think in the 15 team roto leagues you're talking about. I'd ever get

to the point where I'm dropping Raleigh or Raleigh or Guerrero. And I still think it's a rare thing. that you should do with a player that high end. But it's not unthinkable as long as you're really satisfied with the player you have to replace them. Yeah, knowing when to do it

is just the hardest part of that. I have a story too about dropping Jack Caglione in the 16 team for the People League. I dropped him. He had a bat at April and May. Not as big of an investment as a Raleigh or Guerrero, but still somebody I drafted to be one of my three outfielders in a 16-te-team league, I could have really used his power production the rest of the way. Yeah, I think this specific talking point, patience, is more for those sleeper breakout types.

And I get, like, you know, if you're bordering on a month or two where you're not getting anything from these guys, but reminding yourself that there was a reason why you liked this player to begin with and perhaps just sticking out a little bit long, I know in season it's a little bit tougher when we're like talking about this every day. And it's like, we're getting questions all the time of Can I drop this player? Can I drop this player? But you like Jack Caglio for a reason. I like Jake McCarthy for a reason.

And perhaps you just got to stick with that a little bit longer. My next one here is that I liked and drafted George Kirby in multiple leagues this season. But I didn't have a great reason for it. Basically, my reason was just that he was going later than previous years. And I thought that he was a discount. But I find that whenever I've done that in years past it, it usually doesn't work well for that player, Scott. Like, instead of having a concrete reason,

like a statistical skill-based reason of why I like this player, just, oh, in years past, George Kirby was like a third round pick. Now we're getting even the sixth or seventh. I'm going to draft that player. Like, I just noticed usually that doesn't turn out very well for me when I draft like that. Well, yeah, probably, I'd probably agree that it's not the best reasoning when it's that early still.

So George Kirby was still the 60, fifth player drafted on average, according to fantasy pros. So it's still an early round pick. Yeah. There have been times, I remember making the same argument for Danesby Swanson a couple years ago where normally he's like the 100th pick and we're drafted him like 160 now. Okay, that late, I think that's reasoning enough. Particularly if you think it was just this outlier season he had, outlier bad season.

Yeah. But obviously, you're expecting. not as many of those picks to pan out. You really need your, what is that, round six, seven pick to pan out? I didn't do it. You don't need them to based on some of the other things we've said, but it hurts a lot more when he doesn't. Right, right.

Anything else you want to throw out there, Scott, before we wrap up? And this kind of is overarching of all my lessons learned. Don't be too sure of anything. I don't know if it's just, our social media culture everybody's got a hot take everybody's wants to sound the smartest

sounding the smartest doesn't win you leagues and I mean Pete Crow Armstrong again is the most obvious example of this nobody wanted to have to I feel like a lot of it is nobody wanted to have to defend taking Pete Crow Armstrong so I don't want to look stupid

they're going to point out what his second half numbers were and I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to, you know, they're going to think I didn't know that or something. It's like, no, it's fine. It's okay to take him even if, even if a lot of people are going to make you feel bad about it. I think the most obvious example of this was Josh Hader,

who I was talking about. And I got him in round 10 of a 15 team league. Everybody was so sure because he was dealing with a balky elbow in spring training his season was just going to go down the toilet and so they let him go for this incredible value and yet still nobody wanted to be the one to to say they didn't they that they took josh hater at that incredible value because it means they're stupid they don't know that his elbows hurt or something i don't know like i feel like that's a big part of it uh isaq paredes was another example of this everyone was oh sure he wasn't going to get the abats and he went for i think he's

I think I got him for around 20 in a 15 team league insane. Jacob Lats picking him up off the waiver wire when nobody thought he'd really work as a closer, just because he got a couple saves. And kind of contrary to the point I made about Fab, not going all in on Fab for the $300 pickup because I was so sure that this latest call-up was going to be the savior. and then you blow that many fab dollars in one player, it's still likely not going to work out like you think it is. So just don't be too sure, you know?

Approach everything with some skepticism on both ends. Don't be too sure about how good a player is. Don't be too sure about how bad a player is, how Hardy's going to be. Whatever, if the value is there, it's okay. You know, like accept the value and it may not work out, but you got them out of value. If it does work out, it's going to be great.

Last one I'll wrap up with here is an oldie but a goodie, and I'm pretty sure some people were calling me out for this last year, and I should have paid more attention to it. So if you're listening this late into the podcast on Tuesday, October 6th, please remind me again to not overreact to spring training stats. Because it's like every year, I think it's just like a, for me, it's like a mental thing. I'm just like so excited that baseball's back that I like, I'm just so excited by what I'm seeing that it's like affecting me.

but I think in particular with the World Baseball Classic as well, everyone got so excited about like Vinnie Pasquantino and Jack Caglione and what, like, Team Italy was doing in the World Baseball Classic. I remember... I mean, did Caglione not live up to it? No, he mostly did. Eventually. Slow start.

You might have dropped him, right? Some people might have dropped him. But like Vinnie P very clearly didn't. I wound up with him on a few teams. I remember I started to draft Robbie Raymore just because he looked good in Sprite. I'm like, what am I doing, man? Like this is just like a veteran guy. Like maybe he's just like, whatever.

He's off to a good start in spring training. Remember the Matt McLean hype? The guy who led all of spring training with a 1540 OPS? That guy didn't have a very good season. Actually, look at the OPS leaders in spring training. Matt McLean, Max Muncie of the Athletics, not the Dodgers. Dalton Varshow, Luke Keishel, who took about two months for him to get going. Josh Smith of the Rangers, Jordan Lawler with the D-Backs,

Matt Walner with the twins. Sal Stewart, that one worked. Troy Johnson with the Rockies, Ryan Ritter with the Rockies. Cole Young, remember we were pining to Cole Young? He was like pedestrian this year, but even like Jake Berger, Caleb Durbin, Jordan Beck,

down the list, like Matt Shaw. That guy didn't even have a place to play. T.J. Romfield was pretty good. So like, all right, you could pick and choose. There was like one, two, three names there in the top 20. But like, for the most part, man, it's spring training.

That doesn't matter. Yeah, the Josh Smith thing. I was in preparation for this show. I was looking back through some of my drafts, and I noticed Josh Smith on a couple of them. I was like, what? I had to refresh my memory. Oh, yeah, he had that big spring,

and there was some talk about it. Yes, I think this is, there was that one year, what year was, I think, was it 2021, where like so many of the pitchers who emerged in spring training did hit? Yeah, that was like Robbie Ray, Carlos Verdon that year. where they were doing something different and then they were both awesome.

And I think Trevor Rogers too, there was a handful of pitchers like that. And so that kind of gave us this false confidence, maybe, that we've been having to dial back ever since. I think it's fine if it's a late

flyer on a player who is having a splashy spring. I think that's fine. But you don't want to be, Again, don't be too sure of anything. You don't want to be so confident that this is the bounce back year for Matt McLean because he's having a big spring that you make him your starting second baseman

when you could have had somebody like, I don't know, somebody much more proven than that, Ozzy Albies or Brandon Lau or whoever. Yeah. Remember, his ADP was cut in half. His ADP went from 200 to 100 because of spring training. It was crazy stuff for Matt McLean. So I give everyone permission. Not that you need of my permission anyway,

but you can yell at me during spring training if I start doing that again. We are going to wrap there for Scott. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again later this week. Bye-bye.

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