Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨 Baseball is Back! Prepping For a 60-Game Season (06/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

After months of waiting, it looks like baseball is set to return! MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has implemented a 60-game season, with spring training 2.0 scheduled for early July. How does that affect Fantasy Baseball (2:40)? How should you approach H2H leagues with only 60 games? ... What kind of changes are we looking at (6:38)? How do we approach the universal DH? ... Will teams be more aggressive with prospects in a shortened season (9:20)? We could see more of Nate Pearson and MacKenzie Gore than expected. ... With the DH in the National League, should we downgrade NL pitchers (12:39)? ... Are Scott or Chris changing their draft strategy now (17:46)? ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCfkdUcqL9UnNpGfkF039Q 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. 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, Chris, and Adam.

Baseball is back, baby. Well, kind of, hopefully. Frank Stample here with Scott White and Chris Towers, an emergency edition of fantasy baseball today. And guys, this isn't exactly how we thought we were going to get here. It wasn't really agreed upon. It now looks like Rob Manfred, the commissioner of baseball, we'll have to implement the season himself.

And as of now, it looks like we are going to get a 60-game MLB season. And the statement released from MLB has two questions the players need to respond to by tomorrow. Right now, we're recording this late Monday night, June 22nd. the first question that they need to respond to is whether or not the players will be able to arrive in camp by July 1st. And the second is whether or not the Players Association will agree on the operating manual, which contains the health and safety protocols necessary to give us the best opportunity to conduct and complete our regular season and postseason. Scott, what's going on, man? What does this all mean? Are we going to have baseball? I mean, it certainly seems like it, right?

The players said, just tell us win and where and, you know, saying they will, they will be happy to follow through on the March agreement if the commissioner sets the schedule. And, you know, the commissioner of the owners instead sent a proposal to change the March agreement. And that's why we've had continued back and forth since the win and where statement from the players. Well, now the league is implementing win and where. And so if the players were genuine about that, then, yeah, it sounds like they would sign off on the health and safety protocols. They would agree to report on July 1st, which is a little over a week away. So not a lot of time to report there. But, you know, I don't think they're going to let this be the reason it falls through.

So, yeah, it sounds like baseball's coming back. And that's something to be excited about, right? I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it's still going to fall through somehow. But it looks like this is it, but it's actually going to happen. Yeah, baseball is back. It looks like it's back. Fantasy baseball is back as well. Chris Towers is here with us.

Chris, how's it going, buddy? What can you tell us about how long this season is expected to be? And what does that ultimately mean for fantasy baseball? If we want to play head-to-head leagues, if we want to play in Roto leagues, what's that looking like right now? So based on what's been reported so far, and what's been reported in the past. Seems like the season's going to start on July 25th or 26th.

You know, you figure the way they usually do it. 25th, it's kind of an opening night, and then everybody else plays the next day. And then September 27th has been, MLB has been really consistent on that needing to be the drop dead date for the regular season. That needs to be the day where that's the only way they believe they can get the postseason in through the month of October.

They don't see a way that they can play into November, given the fears about the second waves of COVID-19. So given that, it sounds like we're going to get a 65-day season, which is July 25th through September 27th, with 60 games. So that'll leave five off days, 65 days, divide by seven, comes out to nine and a half weeks, something like that for fantasy. So it's not ideal. You know, this was when we're last week when we were talking about it,

you know, there was an extra week. And if MLB is insistent on that September 27th date and they're insistent on, you know, 24 days of spring training, this is kind of the situation we're looking at. You're going to have nine and a half weeks roughly of a fantasy season, which gives you about a seven-week regular season and two weeks for the playoffs. And that's enough. It's certainly not ideal. It's certainly not going to crown the best team in your league as,

often as you might hope, but it's 60 games more than zero. I hear you, it's something is better than nothing at this point. Look, we've been waiting. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to. Everybody has been waiting. And we understand why. Like, there is a global pandemic going on right now.

And every sports league organization franchise is trying to take the necessary steps in order to return safely. Baseball, I think you can argue, is a little bit different because they're also trying to work in labor things and they have the new CBA coming up as well. So it has been a mess. There's no doubt about that. But Scott, based on everything Chris just mentioned,

should we shy away from playing in a head-to-head league this year or should we potentially play double-headers, triple-headers, every single week so that we can kind of make it look similar to what a normal fantasy baseball season would look like? Yeah, if you're going to play head-to-head, I think that's the way to do it. And personally, I'm not going to shy away from doing head-to-head because it's a shortened season. If you are doubling up,

or actually preferably tripling up and getting 21, 21 decisions heading into a two-week playoff, I think that would be the ideal way to do with. That would basically be the same number of decisions as a standard season. And if you're doing that, then there's not going to be, there's not going to be flukiness within

you know, the matchups themselves, the outcome of the matchups themselves. There's not going to be a small sample of matchups where you could just lose a bunch of games where you scored a high number of points. Like that's not going to enter into the equation if you make it three matchups every week. There will still be flukiness from the individual player performances

and maybe that really expensive player just never has a chance to get going because the season ends too quickly. And, you know, there's nothing you could really do about that. That would be true if you converted it to a Roto League too. So if you're in, if you're playing on a site that allows you to do multiple matchups in a given week, I don't see why you would have to change from your preferred head-to-head format. Chris, let's get into a little bit of, you know, how things are going to change on the field

and how it's going to affect us from a fantasy baseball perspective. And we've done this a lot over the past couple of months talking about, you know, the winners and losers from the Universal DH. And it does sound, I know that we've seen some conflicting reports, that there is at least going to be a Universal DH for this season, for the 2020 season, the 60 game season that is being implemented now. How much does that change things for fantasy baseball purposes? I don't think you should change your approach to drafting too much. there are going to be a handful of players in the National League. Someone like Justin Smoke comes to mind as someone who I really do like

if he gets to be the everyday DH for the Brewers. But overall, you know, the way National League teams have built their rosters anyway, it's not like they all have, you know, a surplus of really good hitters that they, you know, Washington Nationals do with Howie Kendrick. You know, you can name a couple of teams. Isn't that crazy? We're talking about Howie Kendrick is a really good hitter in 2020. But he is, he is.

He was based on the expected stats last season from statcast, you know, arguably the best hitter in baseball. I don't think he is the best hitter in baseball, but I think he can be a useful hitter. And so, you know, there are a handful of guys like that, but for the most part, the biggest change you're going to see in this short and season is, well, we'll still have to wait to see what the rosters look like because there has been talk of expanded rosters,

29, 30 men rosters. There is no minor league season as well. So the biggest question for me, will be how teams decide to handle their top prospects. It might be naive. My hope is that they will say, losing a season of contract control, you know, that cheap arbitration season

or that extra season of arbitration of minimum, that is losing that is less harmful to your team's future than losing an entire year of reps. for a guy like Wander Franco or Nate Pearson. Like you just, you can't have guys take batting practice and expect that they're going to develop the same way. And with the, with the shortening of the draft this year to five rounds, with so many players staying in college,

you know, I think teams, hopefully will take the long view and say, we're going to need to develop these guys as well as we can and be a little more aggressive than they normally would with bringing their top prospects up. Whether that will be the case or not, remains to be seen, but that to me is the biggest lingering question. And it's one that we're not really going to have an answer to until we start hearing from GMs. So yeah, we're not going to have an answer to it, but sometimes we have to forecast things that we don't necessarily know how they're

going to play out. So, you know, Scott, how do you think, you know, some teams might handle? We've kind of suspected that, you know, in a shortened season, anything can happen. The Blue Jays could be more competitive. Maybe we see Nate Pearson. We've heard, you know, McKenzie Gore could potentially, you know, break camp with the Padres. That wouldn't surprise anyone. They've been, the Padres have been very aggressive with Chris Paddock and with Fernando Tati. So are there any prospects or specific situations where you can see top prospects having more of a role this year than they normally would have in a in a full season? Oh yeah, absolutely. I think there will definitely be some of those. It's just a question of what extent? How widely will this be practiced? And

what teams, how many teams are going to to sign up for it, basically. How many teams think they have a good enough chance to contend? Because everybody's chances are for contention or better in a 60 game season. But how many teams will want to go that route as opposed to getting some extra service time down the line? So, you know, as far as roster expansion goes, the most I've seen floated out there for active rosters as 30 players. And more recently, I've seen actually less than that,

kind of a tiered system where it starts out maybe as many is 30 and then it goes down as the season goes on. And then there would be like huge taxi squads going along with that too. But as far as the active roster goes, the most I've seen is 30. So it's not like every team's going to have a full system of prospects tagging along with it available to pinch up. hit or whatever. I think maybe the prospects who jump to the forefront for me, who I think

immediately have a chance to be on the roster. In fact, I would be surprised if they weren't in an expanded roster scenario. The first two are Nate Pearson, who Chris mentioned of the Blue Jays, who was probably getting the most buzz of any prospect this spring. And it was, they were really just talking about him being delayed for innings preservation and service time reasons. And then Dylan Carlson, and the outfielder for the Cardinals, who, you know, assuming Universal DH should have a place to play if he continues to perform in the second spring training. He was probably getting, the hitter getting the most buzz in spring training.

But, yeah, I think McKinsey Gore is absolutely on the table. Carter Key Boom of the Nationals, we already expected him to have a spot. We already expected him to be their third basement. But, of course, that's easier now. Nick Madrigal, second basement for the White Sox, would be a consideration. I mean, Ryan Mountcastle, I thought it was a slam dunk, he'd be up for the Orioles at some point in a full-length season. But, you know, that's not a team you would expect to have hopes of contending even in a 60 game season. So is that enough to start the surface time clock

for a team in that scenario? I can't say for sure. Yeah, that's definitely a fair question. And one that we're going to have to figure out as things ramp up in, I guess what you call it, summer training now. It's not spring training anymore, but essentially spring training 2.0. Chris, I want to get back to the Universal DH. And I know that you've done some research on this. And I want to ask, how does this affect National League starting pitchers? Because this is something we've also talked about the past couple of months. Are you going to look to fade them now? Or is this just something you're going to use as, all right, well, if I'm splitting hairs between an AL pitcher and an NL pitcher, I might lean towards the AL pitcher right now. How much does that factor

into your decision when drafting? There aren't enough pitchers that you could reasonably afford to naturally pitchers. There certainly aren't enough good pitchers in the American League to do that. Look, National League pitchers will strike, on the whole, they will strike fewer guys out this year than they did as a population last year. That won't apply to every single player, well, on a case, on a rate basis. It won't apply to every single player.

and knowing which players it will and won't apply to, I think it's basically a fool's errand to try to figure that out. Like last season, Madison Baumgartner was one of the players, one of the nationally pitchers who relied on strikeouts against pitchers the most last season. I think Mike Soroka was another guy, you know, among the fantasy relevant names. That doesn't necessarily mean that's going to be the case for them both again. And both have profiles that, you know, especially in Soroka's case, aren't quite so dependent on strikeouts anyway.

So even if Mike Sorok is a 17.5% strikeout rate guy, as opposed to an 18%. The margins are relatively slim that, you know, I think the bigger concern like, yes, downgrade all your national league pitchers, 5%, whatever the number is, 3%, 5%, whatever you have them projected for. I think the bigger concerns with pitching writ large

are I would expect more injuries. obviously we can't predict injuries perfectly, but given the stop-start nature of the season so far, given the fact that they had to ramp up back in February. I mean, think about that. That's four months ago. They had to ramp up, you know, pitchers and catchers basically reported four months ago. They had to ramp up four months ago and then shut down.

They were all almost ready for the start of the season. You're talking maybe two, three turns left in the spring rotation. Shut down, but keep loose and then get back. It seems like a, it's going to, it seems like it's going to lead to a lot of injuries. Maybe not a lot of, a ton of super serious injuries, but, you know, hamstring injuries, elbow injuries, shoulder injuries. It's just such a weird situation that for me, I'm kind of downgrading pitching across the board. I'm not necessarily looking at one pitcher and saying, I think he'll avoid it and this guy

will be hurt by it. I'm just kind of looking at it and say pitching as a whole, I expect if not to be worse this year much more difficult to predict than even normal, which makes it harder to invest a lot in. Yeah, Chris said the biggest question for him was prospects, how teams are going to handle those with expanded rosters. And what he was just talking about then is that's the biggest question for me is how teams will handle their starting pitchers, their pitching staffs as a whole, because 60 games is so much shorter than regular season.

And we see how radically teams change their approach to pitching. postseason, you know, that's, with that you're talking about like a 20 game season, basically they're working with. So 60 is still a lot more than that. But, you know, where exactly teams fall in their postseason pitching approach and their typical regular season pitching approach. I think it's going to vary a lot team by team, manager by manager. And personnel, you know, obviously that's going to influence it too.

It's going to be difficult to predict when you're drafting, assembling your team. and I think the older the pitcher, and I know others have said just the opposite, David Samson said just the opposite, but I think the older the pitcher, the more established he is, the less of a future he has to protect. My guess is those guys are going to be pushed

to the hardest and the quickest, but it's just a guess. And that's why I think, you know, it will have, what, a little more than a month, assuming this happens. to get to the regular season to talk over the minutia of this. But that first reaction for me is just I'm going to spend less on starting pitcher in a shortened season.

Chris, I think the point you made is absolutely right. Just think about how many injuries we had from the beginning of February, middle of February, when pitchers and catchers reported, we lost Noah Cindergarde, we lost Luis Severino, we lost Chris Sale, Mike Clevenger at the time looked like he was going to miss a decent, you know, the first month of the season. Verlander opted to have groin surgery once the season was delayed. So there are 100% going to be injuries that take place,

especially if we're asking players to report to spring training, summer training, whatever it's called, you know, just eight, nine days away from now on July 1st. So we're really just going to ramp things up. Scott, I know that you've said that you're not going to change things, but Chris has already kind of alluded to it. Does this affect your draft strategy at all here in a 60-game? season. At all, I mean, in terms of just hitters in general versus pitchers in general,

for me, no, I don't think it changes anything. I understand how in a smaller sample, hitters become more predictable than pitchers. And I mean, that's true anyway. But it still comes back to the idea there's just a lot more hitters to go around at every position. than there is competent starting pitchers. And so even though the chances of getting competence from a pitcher have gone down, I still need to make sure I get competent starting pitching. Because if I don't, I'm just relying on getting lucky with, you know, whatever mid-late round option I target or whatever waiver wire pickup I make in the first week or two.

And that's, it's certainly possible someone could win your league that way, especially in a 60 game season, but I don't want to stake my season on that personally. Fair enough, Scott. Again, 60 games is what we're looking at here for the MLB season here in 2020. We are waiting to see how the players are going to respond to being asked to arrive to camp by July 1st.

And the second question that they need to answer once again is whether or not they will agree to the operating manual which contains the health and safety protocols necessary to give us the best opportunity to, conduct and complete our regular season and postseason. That comes, according to a statement released from the MLB. All right, guys, well, now the fun begins. We have about a month, assuming, right now, Monday, June 22nd. Seems like the season could be kicked off July 25th, July 26th. Now the fun begins. It's draft prep season all over again, although we never really

went anywhere. So we're just going to keep continuing what we are doing here on fantasy baseball today for Scott. That is Chris. I am Frank Stanfield. Thank you all for watching and listening to Fantasy Baseball today, our emergency edition. We'll see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.