Fantasy Baseball Today - ADP Risers/Fallers, Chris Sale Traded to the Braves & More! (1/03 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

We've got pitchers on the move, starting with Chris Sale to the Braves (3:00)! ... Vaughn Grissom is set to be the Red Sox starting second baseman (9:50). ... The Red Sox then turned around and signed Lucas Giolito (15:18). ... Frankie Montas got a one-year deal with the Reds (18:36). ... Yamamoto and Pablo Lopez keep on rising up draft boards (23:23)! ... Gleyber Torres is also moving up (37:30). ... Is Jackson Chourio worth a top-150 pick (41:28)? ... Josh Jung and Eury Perez are two names falling in ADP (46:10). ... Should we buy the dip on Junior Caminero and Wyatt Langford (53:00)? To display your continued support of the show, please vote Fantasy Baseball Today in the Sports Podcast Awards in the "Best Baseball Podcast" Category https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. I told you he wasn't going anywhere. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, January 3rd.

I am Frank Stample joined by Chris the Welsh. And boy, do we have some stuff to talk about. Today on the show, the Braves traded for Chris Sale, the Red Sox sign Lucas Golito. Plus, I have the biggest ADP risers and fallers from the NFBC. That's the National Fantasy Baseball Championship in the month of December. So, you know, who's climbing up the boards, who's falling down the boards. But first, New Year, New Welsh, look at him, no hat. He's got the comb over, the slicked hair.

What's going on, Welshie? Happy New Year, man. What's not, I was actually thinking I was like, I should put on a hat. This is weird. I don't often, at least on here, I actually don't mind doing my little waft and making a little thing about it. But I was like, maybe I should put a hat on. But I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's one episode, new Welsh, one episode hair.

And then everyone will shame me and I'll put my half back on. No, I dig it, man. Like, if I was to do my hair, it would look something like that. But I am just, I don't know if I've ever revealed this. I'm just really lazy. And I don't like doing my hair. Yeah. So that's why I wear a hat on this podcast.

There you go. I don't either, actually. I'm way too old to have like any type of trendy. hairstyle. Like my hair should be like this, but the side shouldn't be shaved. But hey, you know what? We'll do an episode early on, January's when we can show off the hair. I'm very, very glad to be here, Frankie. Good to see your face in 2024. Yeah. What'd you do for New Year's? Anything fun or, you know, in bed at 1205? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Actually, I was staring at my NFBC draft. I've did a, started up at DC, I think, like the day before, like New Year's Eve or the day before

New Year's Eve and just kind of peruse the drafts and not go out and listen to four. It sounded like I was in a war zone with fireworks. So I had plenty going on around me to enjoy, but nothing. You buddy? Yeah, I was out in Arizona. Come on down. I was in Indiana visiting my sister. She just moved out there. So spent the new year out there, went to a Knicks game, Nick's Pacers. Nix made a huge trade too, which was like, oh my God, crazy stuff. Frank, literally, I text him the trade of Emmanuel quickly. That day that had happened. But I hope I broke the news to you. I probably didn't.

But I sent it to you and you're like, I'm going to the game tonight. So they took away RJ Barrett and quickly from you on the game that you went to, which was insane. Yes. And I already had bet on the game. I bet on the Knicks and it didn't work out. But people don't care about basketball or the Knicks. They are here for baseball. And let's jump in because there are, you know, there were some transactions here.

The Red Sox have been very busy over the past week or so. And we will start up top with Chris Sale. The Braves acquired Chris Sale from the Red Sox. in exchange for Vaughn Grissom. Let's start the Chris Sale side of things. He turns 35 years old in March. Isn't as dominant as he once was, but the skills are still there.

Among starting pitchers with 100 innings pitched in 2023, Chris Sale was 9th in K minus walk rate, 11th in Sierra, tied for 16th in swinging strike rate. We know the problem. He cannot stay on the field. He hasn't thrown more than 102 and two-thirds innings since 2019. The ADP since the start of December is 181. 1.7 going just behind Carlos Rodhan and Shane Bieber, just ahead of Brian Wu and Erod.

So Welsh talked to me about this move, Chris Sale. Obviously, great run support in Atlanta. They do great job with their pitchers, but it's a matter of him staying on the field. What do you think about Chris Sale? And this price tag, around 180 is the ADP. I don't mind the price tag. Maybe I just get a little bit dumb about it, but like you get outside like the 125, 150 range and you're going to start building in like, you know, solid. upside, especially from a strikeout perspective, like, I'm in for it. Actually, I'll tell you, Frank and I were spent like probably 20 minutes before the podcast started up. We were just talking about both of our DCs that we were doing on NFBC and just kind

of talking about the strategy of drafting pitchers. And one of the things that I think Chris Sale could end up qualifying for is like if you take, like the team I had, I ended up taking two like lower strikeout high floor players in George Kirby and Yamamoto. If I'm missing out on strike you can like with take some of the risk of some of the players outside the top 100 who have a high strikeout upside. Now, you could argue that maybe that's not quite there anymore with Chris Sale, but he still had an almost 30% K percentage this past year, which was the highest he had since 2019. It was one of the better whiff rates on his slider he has had since 2018, actually. It's the highest, 38, almost 39% whiff rate on the slider.

Fastball be able is going a little bit down, but then you just bring it all back to like the Braves and the Braves and their management of pitchers and their run support. So I look at it and I go, I think there's easy top 1, 25, even touching the hundreds upside overall. So it's really going to be like,

what can I stomach with the injuries? So if I take and I have a team that has got some inning eaters early on in drafts, maybe a little bit lower strikeouts, he would become a target for me because I think there's a high potential that he can run in to a whole bunch of wins on that team. He can go deep into games.

I don't think the Braves would use him a whole bunch in like an opener situation. It's just literally going to come down to health. And I think you can stomach that outside the 150. I don't know if you feel different though. No, I like it. I think like you're saying, it comes down to roster construction with Chris Sale because if I draft a Tyler Glass now early on, I don't want to pair him with Chris Sale. Right.

Like if I draft Tyler Glass Now, I want to pair Glass Now with like Aaron Nola or Framber Valdez. or Logan Webb, right, and get those innings and probably want to get at least one more innings eater type, like a Jose Burrios or Merrill Kelly somewhere in there. I don't want to have Chris Sale on a team with another injury prone pitcher. And I understand like all pitchers are technically injury prone, but the ones that we are aware of, right? Tyler Glassdown, Carlos Rodon, Shane Bieber, you Darvish coming off these injuries. With that, I do like the price tag on a lot of those names, right?

Like I kind of want to leave my draft with at least one of these quote unquote injury prone guys because there's a lot of upside with a Chris Sale or a Carlos Rodan. Rodon, his first season with Yankees, complete disaster. I think you kind of throw it out, but 2021 to 2022, he was one of the best pitchers in all baseball. I knew you were going to say Rodon. I knew you're going to say Redon. But just to add to your point, you can also take it to not just the injury prone, the other thing you were saying, like the earlier injury prone guys, you can take it to guys that might lack innings. So with a Chris Sale, a Chris Sale and Redon, you would want to be careful maybe about pairing them with some of the young upside pitchers.

Like how many innings can Yuri Perez? And by the way, maybe you just allude to that and I just missed it. But like if you have like the Grayson Rodriguez, the Uri's or something like that, that Cole Regens would be another example. There's a little bit of volatility in there and what innings can they have. You probably want to move away from those. But if you missed out, if you missed out on a bunch of that upside and you maybe early on, your big risk was Tarek Scouble and Freddie Peralta, let's say you just did that for argument's sake.

then you're going to probably avoid some of those rookies. Then you go take, make a boring innings eater and Merrill Kelly. And then you take another upside player and Chris Sale. Those early guys, I guess in this situation I just built, it's kind of the opposite. You'd want to have the team like I have. When you've got good innings eaters, they can support the risk of the Redons or the sales more than taking actually what I presented to you, the Peraltas or the Uri Porez, whether it's injuries or whether it's capped innings. There is a scenario where you want it. But there's also, some people don't like players that have caveats.

You know what I'm saying? Like, Chris Sale is kind of a caveat player, but maybe he's not. Maybe Redaun isn't either based on that price tag. Maybe we're presenting this whole thing and being like, well, you can do it in this scenario. But at that cost, I don't know, maybe they're just, you could do it with whatever type of build because we're not talking about top 100. Yeah, he's just going so late too. Again, this is Chris Sale. We're talking about the ADP in December 181.7.

Maybe following the trade, he climbs up a little bit. but I like that price tag for him and I like him getting out of the AL East because last year he got crushed by the Orioles. I don't know what it was about them. They saw him so well. In four starts against Baltimore, Chris Sale had an ERA over 10 in 2020.

So I think getting out of the ALE East, now he'll face the Marlins, he'll face the Nationals. You know, the Phillies obviously still have a really good lineup. The Mets kind of so-so. I think this is a good move for Chris Sale and I like where he's going. I think maybe he's going to climb up a little bit. What did you say the, what were you citing?

What was the 80 piece you were citing? In the month of December, it's a 181.7 for Chris. Okay. Because the only, I did December 1st on in draft champions. And he had a 178. The interesting one, his, his highest draft pick was 151 over the last month in draft champion. So the highest of any single pick was 151.

So he still hasn't broken that seal yet, which is a good thing. Yeah. Which, look, if that's his min pick after this trade happened, then it might just kind of, it might become the norm for him to go closer to that range. Which, you know, if that happens, obviously we'll see the draft trends and we'll let you know about it. But yeah, as of now, based on like 175, 180, I really like that cost for Chris Sale. Let's talk about the other side of this trade. Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Bresloos to the team views Vaughn Grissom as its everyday second basement. And I do think there is some upside here.

Grissom has good contact skills to go along with modest power and speed. We saw in 41 games in 2022 with the Braves, five homers, five steals. This year in the minors, Vaughn Grissom hit 3.30, eight home runs, 13 steals, and 102 games at AAA. His ADP since December 1st, obviously before this trade was 383.6. And my guess is, maybe I'm being too aggressive with this. I think he moves up like 100 spots. I think he goes inside the top 300 because he's getting. getting everyday playing time. It's a good ballpark to hit in. And there is some power and speed. So

what do you think about the price tag? Where does this get for Von Grissom? Does he get inside the top 300? Yeah, I know. I agree with you. I actually put him in after the trade. I just finalized my first set of redraft ranks and he's inside my top 300. I'd say just barely, by the way, because there's a pretty robust middle infield that you get to choose from. I think, if I remember correctly, I actually don't think he qualifies at second. No, he's shortstop only to start. Yeah. Yeah, so he's only at shortstop. So that kind of pushes him down. If you know you can get him at second base later on,

I'm not sure it really changes a whole bunch. In like an NFPC draft and hold, I'm a lot more interested in him. In deeper leagues, I would hold him as a bench spot knowing he's going to get a little bit more flexibility. But, you know, getting that bat live, that's the thing that kept him around was as much as he was.

They didn't trust the defense was the bat was live. He hit pretty well last year against lefties and righties, 265 against lefties, 2.93 short sample size in Ritey's. He was a tiny, I mean, 10 at bats in the second half of the pre post all-all-star break splits. But, I mean, he hit relatively well. May was his only big struggle. I think there's 15 to 20 home run power.

I think he can steal. I'd like to see some better contact. The batting average stabilized, like his expected batting average to actual batting average, we're like within like 0.01, I think of each other. I think it was 280 to 279 expected batting average. But I think worst case scenario, he's probably like, a 15, 10, 15, 15 type of guy. But with every day it bats in that ballpark,

and maybe even hits higher in the lineup based on what they're doing, I think there's a lot of like offensive potential that maybe he could break out and that bat just goes nuts. But he's a good bet at the end of drafts right now. And an idea that I have for a podcast coming up soon is I want to try and find sneaky lineups that you want to get a part of this season. And I think the Red Sox are going to be one of those for me. Because I just kind of like what they're doing, right?

bringing in Tyler O'Neill, if he's healthy. Obviously, that's always a big question mark. But they have mainstays. They have Rafael Devers. Tristan Kossis looks like he's getting ready to really break out. He technically already did last year. Trevor Story, another year removed from injury. Yoshita looked great last year. A lot of smart people like Jaron Duran and Williara Brayu.

I kind of feel like the Red Sox lineup could be sneaky good this year. Let me ask you something real quick. Do you think, because this is really interesting. I'm looking at roster resourced. They've got Duran leading off. But they also have the Red Sox going three straight lefties. It's not happen. We're not going to do that. I don't see that happening. And Yoshida is a lefty if you want to talk about the lead off spot. Do you think there's any scenario? I mean, the one thing Grisham

has done is he has hit for batting average. Do you think there's a possibility we could see him hit higher in a lineup based on every other bat I'm seeing, you know, you want to dream on Willier, Abrae, or Yoshita, these are all lefties. It is a lefty parade. And then Grisham comes in as one of the few Riteys that's out there. I suppose they could go Trevor's story. Do you see a scenario where Grissom could jump up in the lineup? Because he's currently scheduled to hit eight.

I don't think it's crazy. I think if he hits well, maybe there's a chance they do it against like left-handed pitching. And more on Jaron Duran a little bit later on. He is one of the ADP risers we'll talk about. But he was actually pretty good against lefties last year. He made a lot of improvements. So maybe he's just an everyday player.

But that wouldn't surprise me. Maybe Von Grissom kind of in a platoon role moves up against lefties and he's like a little bit lower down against right-handed pitching. But I wouldn't say it's crazy because again, he's flashed some power and speed, some contact, good batting average. I like it. I think Von Grissom is someone who will be inside the top 300. And if you play in a roto or categories league, draft him as like your middle infielder or maybe even a bench option for as late as he's going to go. Steamer projections 285 batting average. Only, it's essentially like a 10-10 guy, but in like 120.

20 games. So if you span that out, they're probably projecting 15-15 with a really high batting average. So, hey, it's hard to chase batting average. I think they say the, we heard a first pitch. The hardest thing to get off the wire is getting batting average. This might be one of those few cases of someone that can bring you some high batting average. Maybe there's more offensive upside. Yeah. Well, quickly run through the rotations for both of these teams, the Braves and the Red Sox following this trade. And for the Braves, they have Spencer Shrider. They have Max Free, Charlie Morton, Chris Sale. And it turns out Bryce Elder will be competing with Rinaldo Lopez and A.J. Smith Chauver for their fifth starter spot.

And then the Red Sox rotation, which, look, they needed pitching this offseason and they just traded away Chris Sale. They made another move that we'll talk about. But as of now, Brian Bejo, Nick Pavetta, who, if you listen to our podcast yesterday with Lance Brazdowski, he does like as a sleeper quite a bit, Tanner Hauke, Cutter Crawford, and their newest edition, Lucas G. G. Lido. So let's talk about Gialito, who signed a two-year $38.5 million deal on Friday of last week. And Gialito, if you look at 2019 through 2021, was really performing like a borderline SP1, top 10, top 12 starting pitcher. But since 2022, it has gone the opposite way. We're talking 63 starts.

This is a big sample size with a 489 ERA and a 137 whip. still gives you the strikeouts over a strikeout per inning during that time but the walks and the home runs have really piled up here for Golito there's a lot in terms of like the mechanics with him and the velocity it's like if his mechanics are going well and he can command and you know the fastball velocity is up around 94 then I think we could see an effective Golito but that has not happened very much over the past two years

and now he finds himself in Boston in the ALEs so the ADP since December 1st is 222.6 I can't do it, Welsh. I'm not going to do the Lucas Eolito thing. There are pictures that are going after him that I think are more interesting. I have no, I have no interest in Gialito. Like, I actually think he's like a really smart guy. The problem is I just don't think he can land on anything.

You were talking, you were kind of talking about the mechanics. Well, I think it was two years ago, he was throwing inside his body. And if people remember, there's a lot of discourse about it, where he like, would keep his arm inside and try to throw disaster. Then he opened it back up. disaster. I was like 280 two years ago because he's a big dude. He's like two inches taller than me. It's like 6.6 or whatever. Like 280 didn't work. Lost a bunch of weight this past off season. None of it keeps working. And he's and he's chasing himself. He's always

chasing to try to find the next thing that's going to repair whatever was lost. Like you mentioned a couple years ago, I'm just not into it. He had a little bit of Velo increase this year. Great. But he had with decreases kind of across the board outside of his slider. He's inconsistent. He's getting barreled up. He had 11% barrel percentage against this year, which is the first time he's ever had a double digit percentile. Hard hit numbers are still bluff.

Three straight years of being in like the top 10 percentile of a worse hard hit. And now you're going to put him in the AL East. No thanks. Yeah. I'm not about it either with Julito. Maybe he refunds his form and makes us eat our words. It makes us eat our words, but right now again, the ADP is not prohibitive 222, but some names going after him. Shota I'm gonna see where he winds up. I'm pretty interested in the player. Christopher Sanchez with the Phillies, who was awesome last year and maybe people just aren't buying it, but I kind of like him. So those are just two examples of...

I got one for you. Yeah, who you got. What did you say Gialito's ADP was? 222.6. How about Gialito or at 297, your love, Lance Lynn? Oh, God. Ballpark factor. Yeah. Lance. You know, I got to think more about it, but like,

I guess Lance Lynn kind of has a lot of the same issues, right? Like, he just got crushed last year. He gave up so many home runs. It's a better park. I think I would probably go Gileo there, but like, I don't know.

I think I'm probably just over Lance land. I'm probably just over Lance Land and I'm probably just not going to draft either of those guys. Yeah, don't do any of them either one. Yeah. Let's move on to the Reds

who signed Frankie Montas to a one year $16 million deal. Pretty surprising. You look, It's the one year prove it deal. I think the money, at least in my opinion, a little bit high. 16 million for Frankie Montas here,

who nearly missed all of 20203 after undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery last February. He did make it back for one appearance with the Yankees towards the end of the season. He averaged this 94.3 miles per hour in that outing. Again, it was just one outing.

It's a super small sample size. But he averaged around 96 miles per hour with the fastball in 2022. So we've seen Montas be a very useful fantasy starter when he's healthy, but A, we have no idea about the health. Now he's going a great American ballpark too. Look, the ADP, he's free. It's like 365.1.

Well, so you think there's any chance you can see yourself kind of buying in on a super, super chief Frankie Montas with the Cincinnati Reds? Probably not. I think he's designed to be a streamer at this point, a matchup streamer. I'd probably be into, especially if he shows some signs of that VLO increase. I think that's going to be super important. two mile per hour decrease from year over year. It's not like he's a massive home run issue guy,

but now you're going to put him in Great America's ballpark? No, thanks. I will pay attention to see if the VLO comes back, and I'll try to probably target road starts if I were to do it. Maybe it'll work out early on, but I don't think there's anything that's like telling us, at least in more recent history, why we should. And then you put them in like the worst ballpark you possibly could.

no, I would rather bank on Nick Ladolo this year, which I have no idea what the ADP is comparatively. But like, Lodolo, if I were buying back into a Reds pitcher, it would be him, not Frankie Montas. So in the month of December, Lodolo was at 240.9 and Montas was 365. So it's pretty massive difference. Yeah, it's a big massive difference,

but both like, to like what you said earlier, they're both kind of free. Outside the 200, those are kind of free players. I would do the bet on Lodolo, 10 out of 3. 10 times before Montes. Some other news. The latest on Wander Franco, he met with authorities in the Dominican Republic on Monday. And then we got another update that he was arrested by authorities after he failed to appear

at a summons last week. There was some kind of stuff about how he fired his lawyers. And so that's why he didn't show up to the summons. Look, it's obviously a very messy situation. I have no idea what's going to happen. I don't think anybody does, but that's the latest on Wander Franco. Yeah, the interesting thing to point out, you said the first part, that he had new lawyers.

So that's why he didn't show up. He was arrested for not showing up. That was the arrest. That's where some of the confusion came out. I will say one thing. He should not take any pictures right now. Like that picture, that smiling picture in the detention center was just like,

let's not see any of Wander. Let's not, let's lawyers, let's keep all of that. It's all messy, but like that situation is nuts. But he did get arrested for not. showing up to that first arraignment, but it ain't looking good.

Mani Machado might not be ready to play defense on opening day. It doesn't mean he won't be ready, but that would limit him to DH early on in the season. He is recovering from elbow surgery. Not Tommy John. It was something different, like a tennis elbow injury, but it's probably going to take us right up to spring training and we'll see how he progresses then. According to Dennis Lynn of the athletic, Robert Suarez is the Padres projected closer even after the team's addition of Yuki Matsui. I still kind of think it's like going to be fluid and it's going to go based on how these

guys are performing. But I think if you want to follow the money, if nothing else, Robert Spores is making more of it. So perhaps he gets the first shot. He is right handed versus like a smaller lefty in Yuki Matsui. But they signed Matsui for a reason. So we'll see. Yeah. I don't believe you. I'm going with Matsui in drafts. That's where my investment has been in. I mean, you cited you were one of the first people to do it. Like, I mean, this is a career saves guy. This is what he is built to do. Lefty advantage.

I don't know. I definitely think there's a committee in play. And Suarez is costing more, I think, than Matsui right now. I'm drafting Matsui in leagues. So I'm going to keep doing it. And lastly, the Angels signed Zach Plessack, but that doesn't really matter for fantasy. So let's take our first break.

And when we return, we'll talk about the biggest ADP rises. Rizers in the month of December. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back into fantasy baseball today. let's go through the ADP risers in the month of December. So the way that I did this is I looked at drafts from October through November, and then I compared their ADP to just December.

And these are the names that were the biggest risers inside of the top 100. So we'll start there up at the top. And Yamamoto, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, we have talked about him a lot recently, for good reason. His ADP went from 81.5 in October, November, up 22 spots to 59. point three in December. And if between Enosarish's article where he was pumping up Yamamoto and signing with the

Dodgers, obviously it's an amazing team. They do great work with their pitchers. Going to be a lot of run support as well. I'm in a draft right now. I am in a 15 team 5x5 Roto draft and hold. He went at pick 47 in that draft as the SP12 off the board.

Welsh, what do you think about that price tag? Well, I took him in my DC 15 team, Roto in the fourth round. So I took George Kirby in the third round, which was, I'm trying to do the math here, it was probably pick like,

I'll be 30. That would be, but, but, like 37. So I guess I took Yamamoto at roughly pick like 52, right around there.

So I'm kind of on board. I will say I was a little bit torn just where I wanted to go in general. But I don't know. I think sometimes there's the mystery of these pitchers and like, you know, what could be. I didn't have the decision between Trix Scoobel and him, and I would have gone with a guy like Scoobel for those high case upside.

But one thing that pushed me to want to go with the Amamoto is we saw some of the success, especially the strikeout success with Senga this year. We've got a really interesting delivery that's going to be in play for a lot of hitters to adjust to. And this isn't like a, when we talk about delivery and like the IVB, the inverted break that he has is like pretty wild for his extension and his size. It was like 20 inch. That's like a big. That's a big IVB of 20 point whatever it was for a five foot 10 pitcher.

My point of this is this is a guy that has a unique skill set with high command. And I think that can lead to low whip numbers and might help with the ERA on arguably the most dominant team right now with the run support and innings. And I think if we kind of look at where Sango was, think Senga's of all starting pitcher, Senghis Fork, Ghost Fork, was the highest whiffed single pitch of a starter this year. It was like 59. something percent. I might be misremembering that a little bit,

but I'm pretty sure it was the highest single pitch of any starting pitcher's pitch. So if we're talking about a guy that has a similar ghost fork with command, I think there's really high strikeout potential. So this all comes back around to say, like, we got to take our shots. People are taking their shots on Treg's schoolball as a top. top 10 SP, why not Yamamoto on a Dodgers team for a pitcher that can eat innings that just signed a big deal? And they're expecting him to come in and eat those

innings in immediately that I felt it was a perfect pairing with a guy like Kirby. So I can't really pick apart what you're talking about because I took them only a couple spots later than what that men was, I think, or where you went in yours. Yeah, so he went pick 47 again. The ADP in December was 59.3. I think you even throw that ADP out. I think that's gone. I think he's up around 10 more spots, right? He's, he's probably going in the, you know, 45 to 50 range, I would say. That's kind of where it's going to settle in. That's where mine was. And his men 30 since December 1st in draft champions. If you just sort by draft champions, 30, he went overall in a draft. That's where we're heading.

I think if someone is listening to this into the future, hello, if you're in March, I will bet you we are inside the top 40 and the men is closer to 25 to 20, somewhere in that range, especially for like NFBC drafts. It might be a little bit different for some more like consumer fun leagues that people play in, but also put into consideration like points leagues.

I know SPs in some regards get pushed in points leagues weirdly. He's the type of guy that screams like, oh my gosh, the strikeouts, maybe low walks, Dodger wins. I mean, he might be glorious in points league. He could push top 20. That's where we're heading for better or for worse. Yeah, and he was an innings eater in Japan too.

So if you start to get quality starts in a points league, and obviously the win potential is really great. So he's giving you the innings, and he's got good command and strikeout should be there. Look, we've talked about him a lot recently and rightfully so. He's on the rise, and I think he's going to continue to rise. I have four other pitchers here. Oddly enough, the biggest risers all inside of the top.

100 were all pitchers. So the other four names, Pablo Lopez is up 12 spots from 80p 51 to 39. And I think this is people just kind of piecing together how good he was last year and the adjustments he made and the twins do great work with their pitchers. And Pablo Lopez, I mean, the velocity was up. He added this new sweeper.

But I'm just going to throw all these names your way and you kind of let me know which one you might buy into at the new price or which one you're fading at the new price. Hazel Lozardo is up 10. spots from 90 to 80. Bobby Miller up 10 spots from 84 to 74. And Joe Ryan is up eight spots from 95 to 87. So four more big risers here. Pablo Lopez, Jesus Lazzardo, Bobby Miller, Joe Ryan. Is there an aim or two that stands out that you would still target at the increased price tag and maybe one that you'd be looking to fade? I'd like to say Pablo. I think I'm going to start being

out on Pablo. We're getting crazy. I mean, it was our buddy Vlad Sedler mentioned it. on Twitter that he had a draft where Pablo went three SP and didn't make it out of the second round. I think part of the reason is when you start to look under the hood, you see the expected numbers, you see kind of just the eliteness as far as strikeouts go and what completely changed when that sweeper came into play. Like, he's super exciting. And there's a feel for more upside. But the cost is becoming like really, really high.

Like you could pass on Pablo and maybe get Luis Castillo later. Or you can get, I'm probably not Wheeler, but maybe Gos. I mean, it's just what you can do past Pablo is pushing me out. I'm super interested in Bobby Miller. I would personally love for him to not move a whole bunch higher. Obviously, a lot of people like him. Eno likes him. I jump out when I've said this a bunch of times, but look at stuff plus numbers.

Bobby Miller, 125 on the fastball and 125 in the secondary. Only three pitchers registered that. Tyler Glass now, him and Hunter Green. but Bobby Miller also had four pitches that had 100 plus stuff plus, which just means those pitches are really good. And he's on a Dodgers team. So I like Bobby Miller and I actually also like Joe Ryan. I think Joe Ryan is in that Pablo Lopez mold a little bit light.

And I kind of want him as a guy that I think could eat some innings this year as well. So Bobby Miller and Joe Ryan, I will probably invest in a decent amount of drafts. I think I'm priced out of Pablo Lopez right now. And I'm not enamored with Jesus Lazzardo. He's just not really a draft target of mine. Yeah, Pablo, if it stays at 39, I could still be in. If he starts to push ahead of that group you mentioned, Castillo, Gosman, Wheeler, no way. I mean, those guys are just more proven.

They've done it for longer. There is not as much of an injury track record. I know Pablo Lopez has been healthy the past two years, 180 plus innings in each of those. But he still did have some shoulder things a couple of years ago. But if it stays around 39, I think I could be. be in on Pablo Lopez. I didn't finish my rankings yet, but I think he's going to be

like a top 10 starting pitch for me. I agree with you on Lazardo. Very streaky. Gives up a lot of hard contact. I think people are kind of falling in love with the strikeouts here, which I get, but I think I agree with you.

Like not really a target, especially if he's going to be on the rise, like around 80p 80. It seems... I like Scott's mantra. And I've cited in a couple places. Like, I think Scott is on to a good perspective for this show.

year. It's like you do want to target high strikeout starting pitchers. I know that can seem so arbitrary like, uh, but no, like move them up, move up that upside. But it doesn't mean I still don't want to pick and choose some of those. And I want to be a little bit more finicky about the guys that I do decide. Like I'm going to, I'm being more aggressive on Yamamoto for him qualifying not only as like what I think could be a higher strikeout guy, but like the high floor, uh, floor. But guys like glass now, I'm moving up. I can't move them all up. I don't want. to move them all up. Like, I want Glassnow and Scoobel specifically.

I'm not as super interested in Peralta. I'm not as super interested in Lazzardo. And then we move down a little bit like maybe a Cole Reagan. So I want to take his philosophy and I want to be a little bit more picky about it. But overall, I think that's a good way to go. And that just leads to what you were saying. That is part of the reason that Lazzardo is just coming up because of the high strike out upside.

Yeah. And again, it's like the biggest risers are all pitchers. And it's only January, right? We normally see that as draft season goes on, pitching tends to rise, especially in like February and March, once the big drafts roll around. It's already rising.

And it's like, this is only December ADP. So I, yeah, I think it's- Remember when everyone's going to like not draft pitching? Remember this year that, ah, we're done.

There's globs, all the globs and everyone's just going to just go later. That's not happening. And it is important to know, though. And I say this a lot to people. NFBC is a different beast than like, what you might play in your home points. Like I'm not saying that they're not the same.

Of course they are. But like you will have a lot of value driven from the way NFPC drafts are approached. And that might not equate to yours. And that's kind of the goofy thing because like you see catchers rise and pitchers rise and saves rise a whole bunch of NFPC drafts that might not quite jump to everybody. So you do have to like keep your ears to the ground on that whole thing because we literally were two and a half months ago talking about like, we're probably going to just avoid. pitching and now it's like if you don't get two pitchers by the fifth round buddy you're in trouble

you're i mean in these 15 team leagues you're going to be behind the eight ball on a lot of people no i think it's a good point you have to kind of recalibrate because again not everyone is playing it over at the nfbc in fact i would say the vast majority listening to this podcast probably aren't but i think it's good to know which players are rising in that format because these are really smart people who are putting their money on the line and i'm not saying that like people who play at the NFBC don't get things wrong, everybody gets things wrong. But I think it's good to follow draft trends from some of the smartest people in the industry. So that's why we are talking about these players. And just wanted to quickly mention Bobby Miller, I am in. Like even at 74, I agree. I don't want him to rise much

more than that because, I mean, if we're talking 12 team league, that's now like the 6, 7 turn. You know, I don't really want Bobby Miller as my two. I'd love for him to be my three. But I mean, in a 15 teamer, he's probably going to be your two. The way that it's trending, right? But man, the stuff plus you mentioned, it was fifth best among starting pitchers with at least 120 innings, gets a good amount of ground balls.

He made a pitch mix change in the second half last year. This is Bobby Miller, where he threw more curve balls. That looks like an elite pitch for him. He has elite level velocity. Pitches on a great team. There's just so much to like about Bobby Miller.

The one that I don't agree with is Joe Ryan. And he is up eight spots from 95 to 87. Steamer projections love him. And I think that might be playing a factor here because they have Joe Ryan as the SP-24. When you run all the numbers through the auction calculator, that's what you get. Steamer projections, SP-24 for Joe Ryan.

I just don't know if he has enough outside of his fastball. And it's a deceptive fastball. He kind of is doing this new trick, like other players in the league where he's throwing that fastball up and it's deceptive and he's getting whiffs on that pitch. But he gives up a lot of home runs. And he just ended this past season with a 451 ERA. So I know the strikeouts are really tantalizing the K minus walk rate's awesome.

But Joe Ryan has a real home run problem. And yeah, if he's going inside that, like there's no way I could take Joe Ryan inside the top 100, let alone now he's up to 87. I can't do it. I think, I mean, I like it because, again, my flavor of starting pitcher tends to be like lower walk type of guys. And that's where he thrived this year. 5%. He was in the top eight percentile a league with almost a 30 percent K rate.

He had a full, better, full run, better expected ERA than his actual ERA, 451 to 353. And I know we're picking on the home runs and stuff, but there was a pretty severe like pitch change that happened not only like dominantly adding the split finger, but the sweeper then took over because the year before it was fastball slider, change up and heavy fastball. this year split finger almost became 30% of the pitch and then the sweeper became over 10% and that held a 32% whiff rate the highest that he's had of any single pitch over the last two years.

So I think there's a big change that happened. We saw how successful Pablo was. Joe Ryan with low walks, good strikeouts and that I think there's still improvement to be there. The expected numbers say it. I get some of the concerns and stuff like that because it's not a dominant fastball whatsoever. So the split finger and sweeper have to improve. But I guess I'm willing to take that bet around the hundreds. But yeah, don't make it any higher.

I'm not going to pay for Joe Ryan into the 70s or anything like that. Yeah, look, look, look, I mean, the first two months of last season or maybe even the first three months, you know, I didn't like Joe Ryan last year either. And he made me look completely foolish. And then it went sideways. He was pitching through an injury for some time. So maybe that factored in.

Those secondaries have to improve. it's possible, but if they don't, I think home runs are still going to continue to be a really, really big problem for Joe Ryan. And at that cost, I'm currently passing. I'm going to throw five names your way, the five biggest risers inside of 100 to 200.

So now we're moving on to like, you know, the next 100 picks in the draft. And Jordan Montgomery, surprising to me, of 20 spots from 155 to 135, going just ahead of Chris Bassett, Michael King, Gavin Williams, Merrill Kelly, Jared Duran mentioned the name earlier. He's up 20 spots.

I think it's just projections coming out and people starting to realize like, Alfield is not very good and there is an interesting power speed combo there with Jared Duran. Yainer Diaz is up 17 spots from 124 to 107. He did get a vote of confidence

from general manager Dana Brown said that Yiner Diaz will be the main guy at Catcher in 2024. There's a lot to like. Contact rate, home runs. Good power there with Diaz. Eduardo Rodriguez, he's up 16 spots up to 182.

I think this is mostly because he signed, and he signed with a good team, with a really good defense. So I think that's fine at the cost. And Glaber Torres is up 13 spots from 107 to 94. And a lot of the drafts done at the NFBC right now are 15 teamers. So I think people are valuing floor, and I think Glaber Torres has a really good floor. I think he's rock solid, a little bit of power and speed.

He's entering a contract year, 27 years old. he's in his prime, so I think it's fine. But is there anyone here that stands out to you, Welsh, in these risers, maybe either in a good way or a bad way, Glaber Torres, Erod, Jainer Diaz, Jared Dier, Jaron, and Jordan Montgomery, your five biggest risers from 100 to 200? I'm not super interested in Jordan Montgomery. I just point that out.

Like, he's the exact opposite of everything we talked about from, like, high strikeouts. We don't know where he's going to go. I kind of still assume that Texas is on the table and there's win opportunities, but I guess I shouldn't say he's, He's a contingent where he goes, but I don't know, a little bit. Glambert Torres is the one that I really complete like turnabout. I had this past year.

Changes profile, 14% under 15% strikeout rate, which was in the best 9% of the league. He destroyed sliders. In 2022, Torres was swinging at 25 and 33% of the time on the middle outside quadrant of the zone. So 25% in the middle and 33% on the outside quadrant. of the zone, he lowered that to 13 and 20%. So he just stopped chasing overall on the outside portions of it, which just made him an overall better hitter. And the hard hit numbers have been there.

I mean, everything else speaks for itself as far as like the dominant stolen bases we saw early on in this past year, the strikeout numbers in the 9%ile with a double-digit walk rate, I absolutely fell in love with. And I think Labor might end up being the guy. I have way more shares than I expected of. Also, on the, if you break down the pitches like fastball breaking off speed, he significantly lowered his whiff percentage just completely across the board while still

maintaining 40% hard hit rate. I think, I think Claver Torres in that hitting environment is going to be solid Homer, solid stolen bases. And the most important thing to me was him becoming a better hitter. Like I know you could hear that thing I mentioned about sliders and just be like, okay, whatever. but it's just like he's not, he's finding his pitch. He's avoiding this outside garbage.

Slyders destroyed him last year. He fixed that and guess what? He actually became one of the more prolific non-strikeout players this year who can hit homers and steel bases in a great ballpark. So, Glaber Torres is somebody that I'm going to have probably a decent amount of investment in this year. The ADP up to 94 in December going ahead of Bryson Stott and Andres Jimenez. Does that sound right for Glaber Torres?

Yeah, yeah, I kind of like Stott. I would take him over Jimenez, though. People chasing the stolen bases. I think Glaber Torres, it's like a more complete player. 282XBA, too, by the way. Stott is a little bit closer, but I still think I have Glaber over both of them. I want to quickly mention the top five risers between 200 picks 200 and 300. Craig Kimbrel, this is a very obvious one.

He's up over 100 spots from 232 to 127 in December. He's signed to be the Orioles closer. He's going just ahead of names like Kenley Jansen, Clayholm. Adbert Alzely. And frankly, I'm fine with it. We had Greg Jewett on the podcast last week, and he's like, yeah, that's where Craig Kimberl is going to wind up in ADP,

and he deserves to go there. Jackson Trurio is up 63 spots to pick 139, one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He signed an eight-year extension on December 3rd, and Brewer's GM, Matt Arnold, said that Truroo will have a chance to make the team's opening day roster. Up to 139,

ahead of names like Cedric Mullins, Santanderer, T.J. Friedel, Ian Hap, just behind Evan Carter. What do you think of this new price tag on Jackson Churio? So I'd love for it to be cheaper, but I have him higher in my ranks than where he's going. Like, I don't want to say significantly, but enough. I have him ahead of all of those guys. I'm in. I'm trying to be aggressive early on right now to establish some of the rookies that I think are going to be of impact this year. And I'm very, I think I'm probably from a rank perspective. I haven't seen everybody's.

So I'm not trying to be like, ooh, look at me. But I'm probably more aggressive from an overall rank on White Lankford. Been digging around and poking around and, you know, trying to see the legitimacy of White Lankford getting an opportunity. And from some connects that I have, it is legit, for him to have an opportunity to break.

And the expectation is he will break the major league roster. The same thing with Churio. I'm also ranking guys like Jackson Holiday higher. Because I believe like those three specific, are guys that have very high likelihoods of breaking camp. Churio and Langford are the ones that I'm hyper-focused on. And yeah, I've got Churio inside my top 125. So I'm game.

All right. The other three names, big risers here in 200 to 300. Jamer Candelario up 59 spots up to 216. He signed with the Reds on December 7th. And I'm totally down with it. 30 years old coming off his best season, 22 homers,

eight steals to sign a three-year, $45 million contract with Cincinnati. They have a log gem. Candelario is not part of it. He is going to play in an up-and-coming lineup in one of the best ballparks in all of baseball. So I am in at 216 on Candelario. Jose Alvarado is up from 247 to 194.

I think people are just kind of assuming Alvarado will be the Phillies closer. They haven't done anything yet this off-season. Again, we had Greg Jewett on last week. I recommend listening to that. He kind of speculated Alvarado and Jeff Hoffman early in the year until Orion Kirkering is ready to take.

takeover. So I would say maybe played a little bit cautious with Alvarado right now, not just assuming he's going to be the guy for sure. And Tyler O'Neill, up 45 spots up to 242, and he was traded to the Red Sox on December 8th. And very clearly, they went out, they got him, they wanted Tyler O'Neill, he's going to play, he's got the green monster. And I just think a general rule with Tyler O'Neill is by whenever he's coming off of down year, an injured year. And at 242, I mean, this guy was a top 30 player, you know, in 2021. So I like it. I like the cost. Again, I'm, I think the Red Sox lineup is really sneaky.

So I do like where Tyler O'Neill is going. And I think it's actually going to continue to rise and probably get closer to the top 200 as well. Also remember Scott's statement that I, I've kind of taken in my head as well is when in doubt draft outfield because outfield kind of gets away from you. Anytime you can find post 200 outfield targets that have, I mean, I, I guess it's subjective, but it's like, you know, quite a bit of upside in their lineups and whatnot. Take that and run. And Tyler O'Neill, I completely agree as one of those players who's going far outside the top 200 that is on a sneaky lineup is going to be in a sneaky portion of the lineup for runs, RBIs. With that position kind of stank in a little bit, especially as it

goes deeper, you should really be paying attention and be willing to jump a little bit on Tyler O'Neill. And even with the injuries, if he plays 120, 130 games, I still think, I think O'Neill could get to 25 homers, 10 to 15 steals. Maybe that's just optimistic, but when he's on the field, I think he's going to be pretty good with Boston. So I like the cost there, and I agree with the rise in Tyler O'Neill. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll take a look at the biggest fallers in ADP in December. We'll do that right after this.

Welcome back in. Let's take a look at the biggest ADP fallers in the month of December. Again, this is comparing October and November, NFBC ADP, to only the month of December. These are the biggest fallers inside of the top 100. Josh Young, I think people might be listening to Scott White on this one because he is down 14 spots from pick 91 to 105. Christian Yelich is down 12 spots from 73 to 85. Jazz Chisholm down 10 spots from 64 to 74.

Yuri Perez down 10 spots from 63 to 73. Interesting. And Nick Castellanos down 10 spots from 102 to 112. I'm trying to make sense of it all. all. I think maybe with Josh Young is the fact that there are other third baseman going later on that are also pretty interesting. Jake Berger, Candelario,

as I mentioned, the plate discipline is obviously subpar for Josh Young, but man, he still hits the ball really hard. I think I'm still in. Like, I'd be buying on Josh Young at 105. I think that's fine. Yelich, I think it was kind of finished the season,

hurt, and not as good over the final two months of the year. Jazz Chisholm, he underwent surgery to repair turf in mid-October. So he is out 12 weeks. That brings us to the end of January. So I guess we'll have to see how Jazz Chisholm is looking in spring training. And he's dealt with obviously lots of injuries.

Yuri Perez, I think maybe when things started off in the off-season, people were just a touch high on him. And the steamer projections don't really like him. They have him as the SP-47, if you're running through the auction calculator. So I think maybe that's playing a factor. Nick Castiano's, I'm not entirely sure. Like, he had a really good year. I think with his plate discipline

it's probably a matter of when not if he kind of like has this Javier Baez fallout because like the plate discipline is just so bad with Cassano's but Welsh what do you think about the fall on these five and maybe if you're looking to to buy the dip on any of them

well I definitely am a buy the dip on jazz guy I know the risk he might be a new Jean-Carlo Stanton type or it's just we wait to see what the new injury is every single year. But his fantasy upside is crazy. He actually fell quite a bit in my in my DC, which I did not expect he was going to do. And I was a little like, I kept battling and I kept picking somebody else. But that is someone with 30 30 upside. So you're literally just coming to terms with like, is he going to get hurt again? It's really not, I really don't think

it's too much of a crazy performance based issue. I mean, there are strikeouts in play. And that kind of takes me back to like Josh Young. I'm, I'm not enamored with Josh Young this year. Everything you said, I think he's fine. I just think there's massive strikeout issues. And unlike a guy like Jazz, jazz has the stolen bases to kind of cure that young. I wouldn't,

I'm not going to like put any major injury, though he's had injury stuff. I'm like putting major injury stuff on Josh young. But, you know, a lot of that also came from like a big powered offense this past year with the Rangers, which I'm not sure it goes completely away, but 75 runs and 120 games. they're barely projecting him more run in RBI in 150 games this year because it was kind of out of this world on the offensive potential.

And then just coming back to it, I think he's a fine third baseman with probably the biggest strikeout worries at that position right now. So I don't get hyper-focused unlike with a jazz or an Ellie on a guy like him with those same strikeout issues because he serves absolutely no stolen bases for me. So it's okay. But like you said it before, there's other guys at that position that I'm, you know, that I think I can fill at least adequately

or, you know, guys like Spencer Steer that offer maybe similar counting stats with better stolen bases, maybe a little bit less run in RBI. But jazz is one that I'm buying because I like the stolen base potential and I'm probably less interested. And I agree with the dip on Josh Young. So with Josh Young completely hear you on the strikeouts. The only thing is that this is someone who had prospect pedigree, like top prospect, hits the ball extremely hard, and he's part of a great lineup, right? Like, he's basically lived up to what we expected so far. He looked great in the postseason two after he returned from that injury. So I just think there's a chance that we can get like an Austin Riley light type season from Josh Young. I don't disagree with you.

270, 30 homers, 100 RBI, which for where he's going is really good. But to your point, the strikeout risk is like, what's the, does he hit 270? Or does he hit 240 or 250? And that's the big key. That's the difference. And the thing is, going for him is like, an improved playoff is great because he had like an awful into the season when he came back. Yeah. 229.

He hit 229 in the second half comparative to pre-all star break of 280. That's kind of aligned in there. So I'm open to it. I'm just like, I think the fall is more warranted. I am more interested in him right outside the top 300, especially if I did not build that position. And if I'm looking for some more power numbers, if I'm looking for, you know, high RBI with maybe 30 plus homer potential, I can do that. I just don't want to take that risk inside the, you know, 90s, like where it was last month or in the 80s where some of the men's go. The Yuri Perez drop down 10 spots from 63 to 73 in December going right around Bobby Miller.

Which one would you rather have? Bobby Miller. Same. I want to love Yuri. You know, I actually think an interesting one was like, Yuri next to Grayson was one that was kind of floating around. And I think the strikeout potential is higher with Grayson, but I think Yuri is just a more complete pitcher.

I just, I don't know exactly what those endings are going to look like. And I know I came on like, you know, the new 120 is 150 and stuff like that. But I put those two, I think at a different tier than Bobby Miller right now. I think this,

I think you actually said it. I think it's just people realizing like, oh, we pushed them up a little bit too high. There's more consistent. Yamamoto. entered the room. And, you know, he was able to jump up on those guys and people prioritizing closers, maybe a little bit more in NFBC drafts that I think it might be more important

to focus for Yuri on how many SP spots did he drop in the SP ranks versus like an overall perspective. Like, who did he drop behind that people were changing their mind in more than like, how far did he drop on an overall? Right. I don't think I'm going out on a limb or anything here, but if I'm ranking the three, Bobby Miller, Yuri, Perez, Grayson Rodriguez, is just, you know, the second year pitchers with tons of upside, obviously. I think I'd put Bobby Miller at the top of the list,

which maybe that's crazy to say, but like I would go Miller, then Grayson, then Yuri. Yeah, I think the innings can be better with Bobby Miller. He's with the Dodgers right now, which is, I think that might literally just be two or three extra wins versus those other two. It's nothing to take away from Grayson or Yuri, but yeah, Bobby is at the top.

of the list for me. All right, here are the top five ADP fallers that started inside of 100 to 200, and very clearly they have fallen well outside of it. Yaneer Canoe is down 139 spots from 175 to 314. Obviously, the team signed Craig Kimberl, so that makes sense. Max Scherzer down 62 spots from 127 to 188. He had back surgery this offseason. That was announced on December 15th. If you look at the ADP just since then, it's 305.6. And I think that makes sense. Like Scherzer is probably going to miss half the season and he's either 40 years old

or approaching 40 years old. So yeah, outside of the top top 300, I think that's probably where Max Scherzer should go. These next three are all kind of interesting. Junior Camerro is down 31 spots from 197 to 229. Hunter Green is down 23 spots from 122 to 145. And Welsh, your boy.

Wyatt Langford is down 17 spots from 141 to 158. I think maybe with Hunter Green, I think maybe people just kind of were a little too hot on him early on in draft season. And then they realize, all right, he still has a lot of warts. There's injuries there. He gives up a lot of home runs.

Especially with the guys that he's around. Like you start to look. You're like, ooh, this guy might have the best strikeouts. But then you look and you're like, these guys all are healthy and they get wins. And I'll take Merrill. I'd rather have Merle over Hunter Green. Yeah, so I agree.

But the other two, like Caminero is, I don't know if he's still playing in the Dominican Winter League, but he played 21 games there already. And he's, he's got five homers. He's got no PS over 900. I know he doesn't turn 21 until July. But like, I think he's going to be up on opening day. You know what my gut is about this? I think this is the distinction between people that were doing their drafts early on, taking their shots, and the distinction between people really doing their research. It's right around research time. Books are coming out. People are digging in. And what people are doing is they're weighing out risk.

Like I know NFPC drafts can be very like risk weighted. But I think that is the period of time over like between November into late December where people step back and be like, okay, I don't know if Langford is going to make it. Can I really take him over? Da, da, dot. Junior Camero, there's no guarantee right now on that roster. Can I do this? I think it is simply about people understanding the player pool more

and not wanting to take those big calculator risks. I guarantee you, White Langford gets that gig and it's announced. He's inside the top 100 without question. Junior Caminero, actually the Caminero, you did it in a draft we did. You got him like the 200s. And I was like, why did we let that happen?

I think he is an easy top 125 on power potential. It is purely the unknown and people understanding the player pool more. That's my take on it because I don't think there's any other viable reason because like I said, I dug around about the Langford stuff and is from as far as I know for people that I talked to with the Rangers that this is viable. Like they are giving him every opportunity and their expectation is that right now. Caminero is a little different story, but that's my take on it. No, I think it's very well said. And again, pointing out a lot of these drafts are 15 team leagues and they are drafted hold formats. There's no waiver wire. So I think you're

right in that people are maybe stepping away from the risk a little bit. They want higher floor options and I get that. But just to point out again, like if these draft trends continue and they remain consistent into like February and March and it just turns out that Camerro is outside the top 200 for whatever reason, look, he does some stuff in spring training. Obviously he's going to be on the rise or if we get any kind of indication. But if you're drafting now and you want some upside, I think that is like he is the guy to target right now.

Caminor where he's going. Could not agree more. I'm on both of these guys. I'm going to take all the discounts. Because even if they don't make it off of camp, it's within the first month. And the upside is exponential with those players. So I agree with you bringing them up.

I agree with your take on it. I think my little logic is just why it's happening. And I think everybody should capitalize on it, unless you're in a league with Frank or I. The top fallers from 200 to 300. James MacArthur, reliever for the Royals is down 69 spots, not nice,

264 to 33, the Royal signed reliever Will Smith. So obviously they're going to win the World Series in 2024, or whichever team they trade them to is going to win the World Series. But I think that makes sense with James MacArthur. Jordan Lawler from your D-backs is down 41 spots from 247 to 288. The team traded for A. E. E. Oh, Hennio Suarez. They re-signed Lordus Gurell. So it's kind of throwing a bit of a wrench in things,

playing time-wise, for Jordan Lawler. Jake Fraley is down 31 spots, down to 312. the Candelario signing for the Reds. Again, it kind of created this log jam where we got to worry a little bit about Nelvi Marte and Encanaccio and Shrand and Spencer Steer and all these guys. Yeah, and now Jake Fraley finds himself on the bench.

So I think that makes sense. Eloy Jimenez is down to 242. He's only utility, but this feels really late, man. Like the ADP last year was 71. The ADP the year before was 65. I get people might just be done with Eloy Jimenez, but like 242? You look at me in the eye and you tell me, 250 is there and Eloy is on there and you're not taking him. I mean, I have been a sucker for Eloy Jimenez his whole career.

Why would I stop now at 250? Yeah, I'll fall in. I mean, let's not have the bucks in conversation, but you know, you get out those 200s, like, I'm going to be a sucker for that. Yeah, I'm not going to fall over myself to get Eloy, but I agree. Like it's, it is crazy, crazy low. And you can wonder what if he is healthy. The only problem is it's like him and Robert and, you know, God knows else. I try to name the entire White Sox lineup right now.

Oh, not actually, but you know, Paul DeYoung starting at shortstop. That should be fun. It should be great. Andrew Vaughn. He's going to play. That's cool. Right. Those are players.

Yeah, they are players. Paul Skeens is the last name worth mentioning here. He's down 27 spots from 291 to 318. And perhaps people just. just not believing that the pirates are going to push him on opening day, which is definitely possible. But we spoke about him recently with our starting pitcher prospects. Anything else to add on this group, Welsh Skeens,

Elohimenez, Jake Fraley? I guess Jordan Lawler is something that you could speak a little bit more to, and James MacArthur. Yeah, I mean, I think the Lawler one could be a payoff into the near future. I really, really think we got to get to Camp, unfortunately. I do still think there's a path where Lawler is playing, maybe not every day, but on a regular basis. They could move Johanio into a DH spot.

They've got that DH essentially open. It could go between Lourdes and Johanio if they'd like, and that would give opportunities for Loller to play third base. The bat has kind of went away from Pardomo a little bit as well. So I don't think Loller's done. But the problem is, is he is not going to be handed anything this year, and they're not going to wait around for him.

So that makes him a little bit less appetizing than a lot of the other prospects we've talked about. out. But in this type of format, I actually would be very willing to take the discount on Lawler, because I think there is still a path and this is not done. And guess what? Here's the other path. I know they haven't done it and probably don't, but the dimebacks wanted to make a move and they wanted to consolidate because Tommy Troy's coming down the line and they traded Lawler. It's going to go to a spot where he's going to get an everyday lineup play. So I mean, of all the players you're talking about, Eloy speaks for himself. But Lawler's the one that I think has the most potential to like really benefit

fantasy teams this year. and take the discount late in your drafts. Yeah, top prospect name there with Jordan Lawler. There's power, there's speed. Will he play? Again, I think that's what people are looking at. But I think it's, like you said, man, they could throw Gurriel in a corner outfield spot.

They could put Suarez at DH if they wanted to. Obviously, the team likes Geraldo Perdomo a lot. And I get that, obviously, like he had a great year defensively, offensively. He was really good for them. But there are still pads here. So spring training, what's a lot us a lot more, but if you want to take advantage,

Jordan Lawler is someone who is sliding drastically down draftboards right now. We're going to wrap there. For The Welsh, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.