Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨 Alex Bregman to the Red Sox! - Emergency Podcast | Fantasy Baseball Advice

Starting point is 00:00:00 Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Welcome into FBT Express on Thursday, February 13th. I am Frank Stamfield, joined by Chris Towers. Just a heads up that we are also dropping this in the FBT feed as an emergency podcast as well. An emergency because Alex Bregman is signing with the Red Sox on a three-year, $120 million deal with opt-outs after the first and second year. Apparently turned down longer-term six-year, $17 million deals with. with other teams to go to the Red Sox. On top of all this, the plan is for him to play second base, Chris,

Starting point is 00:00:37 which has plenty of fantasy baseball implications. You know, if Bregman was not heading back to the Astros, I think Boston is probably the next best landing spot for fantasy. Chris, what do you think about the move? Do you plan to move Alex Bregman up the rankings at all? Yeah, maybe Cincinnati would have been a better landing spot, but yeah, among the places that might have actually given Alex Breggman, the fourth highest average annual value in major league history tied with Aaron Judge, if you'd believe it.

Starting point is 00:01:11 That is the contract, obviously, $240 million less than Aaron Judge overall, but still, the average is a bonkers number. Yeah, among the teams that might have actually signed in Boston is pretty close to the best case scenario. Now, you might be thinking that because Dakin Field, Dakin Park and Fenway Park have relatively similar dimensions in the outfield, especially left field, that they are relatively similar ballparks. But that's not actually the case. Fenway is a much better ballpark for offense overall, at least by park factors. It's one of the five best in baseball, Minutemate Park, Dakin Park. one of the more average ones. But when you look at expected home runs,

Starting point is 00:01:58 there is a big gap between how baseball savant expects Alex Breggman would have performed over the course of his career to date. If he had played all of his games at Houston in his career, he'd have 239 home runs. That is the second most of any ballpark. In Boston, it's only 169, which is surprising because they're both short porches to left field. but what you realize with Fenway is, one, the fence is taller.

Starting point is 00:02:26 It's five feet closer down the left field line, but it's significantly taller than it is in Houston. And that giant left field fence extends way through to the power alleys to the point where unless you hit it right down the line, you really got to give it a ride to hit it out in Boston. And Alex Breckman does not really give the ball a ride much these days. He makes a ton of contact. He has a swing that is relatively geared towards hitting the ball in the air to the left side. But average XVosities are closer to 89 miles an hour, hard hit rates usually in the high 30s. It's average at best raw power. And because Boston is a tougher place for right-handed hitters to hit for power,

Starting point is 00:03:11 I think you're looking at Bregman as more of a 20 homer guy than the roughly 25 homers he's hit the last two season or last three seasons. seasons. But man, he might hit 285, $290 here with how much contact he makes. Fenway has a huge outfield, really great park factors for both singles, doubles, and triples, all three. And so, you know, it's a situation where the overall offensive production probably going to be pretty similar. He'll get on base a ton. He should score a bunch of runs, drive in a decent amount. You're probably looking at 170 total of each. Maybe only hits 20 homers,

Starting point is 00:03:50 but if he hits 285, the overall package is probably roughly as valuable as it has been in Houston. And looks like he's going to play some second base over in Boston. And that's much needed

Starting point is 00:04:04 because second base is the weakest of the non-catcher positions this season. And yeah, I would slide him in my rankings right between Jordan Westberg as my number five second base and Luis Garcia, who's my number six.

Starting point is 00:04:18 Westbrook 70 overall, Garcia is about 134. Bregman comes in right around 100 in my update here. Okay, so yeah, that would make Alex Bregman a top six second basement in fantasy. Again, he doesn't have that eligibility to start the year. It's only third base, but the expectation he'll play second base in Boston, so he should gain that eligibility the first week or two into the fantasy season. Let's take a quick break and we'll return right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball Today Express, and Alex Bregman is signing a three-year,

Starting point is 00:04:51 $120 million deal with the Boston Red Sox, expected to play second base. Chris, I agree with your take on the ballpark. Maybe the power comes down a little bit, the batting average goes up. You know what comes to mind immediately is Justin Turner, who was there just a couple of years ago. He had an awesome season. It's like 276, 23 home runs, 800 OPS, drove in all these runs. Like, I could see something like that. And that was more towards the tail end of his career.

Starting point is 00:05:17 So again, it's like maybe Bregman could be even better. 280 plus, 20 to 25-ish home runs. I think that could happen here for Alex Bregman in Boston. If we are looking at the updated Red Sox lineup, Jaron, Rafael Devers, Alex Bregman, Tristan Kassas, Masataka Yoshita, Trevor Story, Willioreau, Connor Wong, Seidon Raphaela. One name is missing from this, Chris.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Someone we all liked as a sleeper this season. one of Boston's top prospects, Christian Campbell. This kind of complicates and kills his sleeper appeal for now. Yeah, now the Boston Red Sox all of a sudden have three top 20 prospects who don't seem to have a place to play on opening day, which is fine because though all of them have gotten to AAA, none of them have played a ton at AAA. They all got called up late in the season. So if the Red Sox think they need more seasoning, that's a reasonable position to take.

Starting point is 00:06:14 but all of them seem, Marcel, Maya, Roman Anthony and Christian Campbell, all of them seem pretty close to ready. And so they're going to have some problems at some point. They're going to have to make some trades to free up room for them. It would be really disappointing if we didn't see Campbell and Anthony, especially fairly early on this season. But you look at the lineup and Yoshida's got to go. And we've known that since the end of last season,

Starting point is 00:06:41 but they don't seem in a particular hurry. to eat the money that they're going to have to move him. Look, there are, the bottom half of this lineup is not great. It's not terrible, but it's not great. And so none of Yoshida, Willier-Abreu, even Trevor Story, despite the contract, none of those guys seem unbenchable. And so if Roman Anthony and Christian Campbell and Marcel O'Meyer forced the issue, the Red Sox could make that move. But yeah, it now seems like all three of those guys are squarely in the

Starting point is 00:07:19 probably not drafting to open the season range. And that's frustrating and a little disappointing. Injuries can still happen. Trades could still happen. But it's a crowded team that just got a little more crowded with Bregman. So it doesn't seem like the path is there for those top prospects in Boston, at least right now. Yeah. Life finds a way. eventually, but right now doesn't seem like it's going to. It certainly does. Christian Campbell has played all over the diamond in the miners, so he's very versatile. If someone gets hurt, you know, Trevor's story has had a lot of injuries the past couple of years or, you know, Seidall-Rofiela, anybody else in the outfield,

Starting point is 00:08:01 you know, there could be another path for Christian Campbell or even Roman Anthony a little bit later on in the season. Chris, let's quickly wrap up with some ADP here on Breggman. It's 117.8. Would you rather have a... have Bregman or Matt Chapman at third base? Bregman. Would you rather have Bregman or Jake Berger? Bregman. Would you rather have Bregman or Bryce Terrang, almost the same exact ADP?

Starting point is 00:08:26 That one really depends on what your team needs. And obviously, if you're in a head-to-head points league, Tarrang is probably not even draftable. But in a Roto League, as long as you don't specifically need steals and a lot of them, I think it's Bregman pretty clearly. What about Bregman or Junior Caminero? I do have Camerra ranked a little bit ahead, but hey, if you don't have a second basement by then,

Starting point is 00:08:54 maybe you could use that as a tiebreaker. I think I'd still rather roll the dice on the upside of Common Era. All right, we're going to wrap there again. Breggman over to the Red Sox on a three-year deal for more extensive fantasy baseball coverage. Listen to our full-lane podcast Fantasy Baseball today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Beach Ball's Day Express,

Starting point is 00:09:15 and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.

Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨 Alex Bregman to the Red Sox! - Emergency Podcast | Fantasy Baseball Advice

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