Fantasy Baseball Today - Best & Worst Picks In Each Round! (3/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)
Episode Date: March 13, 2026Frank Stampfl and Chris Towers talk through Chris' favorite and least favorite picks in each of the first six rounds of Fantasy Baseball drafts! Why is he in on Trea Turner and Rafael Devers? Why is h...e fading Yamamoto and George Kirby? Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
The best and worst picks in each round.
Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express.
Welcome into FBT Express on Friday the 13th.
I am Frank Stample joined by Chris Towers.
Let's take a look at Chris's best and worst favorite and least favorite picks
in each round of the draft.
And we will start up top.
First round, Chris.
What is your favorite pick in the first round?
Yeah, Kyle Tucker is someone that I think should probably be at worst,
like the seventh or eighth player off the board.
and his ADP over at Fantasy Pros is 11.6.
So, look, it's hard to have a good value or a bad value in the first round anymore.
Those guys are going there for a reason.
We're super sharp.
We're not putting guys who don't really deserve it in the first round.
But I do think with the move to the Dodgers,
people haven't quite reacted enough to the fact that Kyle Tucker is going to be hitting
behind Shohei Otani and in front of Muky Betts and Freddie Freeman.
In a better ballpark than he's been in,
the counting stats are going to be bonkers.
He's a 30-30 guy.
He's probably going to have a very good batting average.
The injuries the last couple of years have been a fluke.
I don't see any reason Kyle Tucker should be going at the end of the first round.
He's a mid-first round.
I think you could make the case for him as high as fifth overall, I think.
Like you said, there are no bad picks in the first round, Chris,
but if you had to nitpick one of them, who would it be?
So for me, it just comes down to, I think Terik Skoobel, Paul Skeens, and Gerich,
there is zero different.
those three guys. They're all among the best pitchers in baseball. They've all thrown 190
innings. Terrick Scouble goes off the board 6.2, Gara Crochet's ADP is 12.0. Look, the way it works, right,
is if you have the six pick and you want a pitcher, you have to take Terrick Scoobble there, right?
Like, you just, you can't wait until the 18th pick because none of those guys are going to be available.
So I understand how this works, but I would probably not want.
one of the pitchers off the board until Kyle Tucker's off the board. And that's not how it's going
right now. Let's get into the second round. Who's your favorite pick there? Yeah, I think this one
is fairly easy because Corbyn Carroll looks like he's going to be ready well in time for opening
day. He already played in a minor league game or a spring training game on Wednesday. He's coming back
from the Handmaid Bone. There's a chance it saps some of his power or just disrupts the start
of his season. But the fact that he's getting these spring training reps makes me think he's going to be
fine and he's going around 16th in ADP right now.
What about the worst pick in round two?
Who have you been fading there?
I just, I think Kyle Schwerber's ranking is probably fine.
Like he goes off the board right around where I rank him.
That's a hard pick for me to make because you're,
you're locking in, especially in a single util league, you're locking in your util spot
on a pretty guaranteed poor batting average.
The home runs, runs RBI are incredible and will probably.
make him worth his draft pick, but it's just a, it limits your path through the draft the rest
of the way. If a U-Til only player falls, if you're, you already filled up your shortstop spot,
and there's a really good shortstop falling, you can't take those picks, right? So it's just,
I don't want to do that with a U-Till-only pick that early unless it's, you know,
Shohe Otani, and I know I'm getting five-category production. Yeah, I agree with that in a
Categories League. How about in a points league? Are you okay with Schwerber there?
It's okay. He goes.
a little higher in a points league.
Like when we're doing a points league draft,
Scott's going to take him in the first round
if he's got a late first round pick.
So I don't like him quite that early
because again, it's locking up that you tell spot,
which just it makes,
it gives you fewer options throughout the rest of the draft.
All right, let's get into the third round.
Who's your favorite pick here?
I think Trey Turner's a great value.
He missed 21 games last year
and was the number 27 player in Roto Leagues.
He's going off the board at 27.4.
Yeah, the injury history is pretty iffy,
but there are not a lot of stolen base guys, you know, guys who can really give you 40 steals
and hit 300 and aren't like a total zero with power.
It's basically Trey Turner and Bobby Witt, and Bobby Witt's a top three pick.
Rightly so, he's a lot better than Trey Turner.
That's not what I'm saying.
It's just that combination of skills is really valuable.
And I think Trey Turner's being discounted for what he provides.
What about a player you are fading or a value you don't like here in round three?
Yeah, we've talked about it all offseason.
It's Yoshinobi Yamamoto.
It's not a knock against him, but he goes at the top of the second tier of pitchers,
and the way it tends to work is I think we tend to view it as well.
The fourth best pitcher usually goes around the two, three turns.
So I guess that's where Yoshinova Yamamoto has to go.
And I just don't think he's worth that.
I think he's not necessarily better than any of the pitchers in that range,
that four through 12 range.
So I like him.
I don't see any reason to be pushing him up the board the way we are.
All right.
Let's take a quick break and we'll be back right after this.
Welcome back in FBT Express looking at Chris's favorite and least favorite picks in each round.
And let's get into the fourth round, Chris.
Who is your favorite here?
Yeah, it's Raphael Devers.
And this is mostly about the price for him relative to the other first baseman.
because Nick Kurtz and Vimer Guerrero going like the second round,
P. Alonzo goes closer to the two, three turn.
And you can get Rafael Devers 40th in Fantasy Pro's ADP.
I did a draft recently where he went 85th overall.
My gosh.
The value there is just outrageous.
But even at 40, I think he's a good value.
I think Pete Alonzo should go ahead of Raphael Devers.
But I have them ranked about five spots apart in my rankings,
and their ADP difference is more like 15 or more.
So I think Raphael Devers is a good pick here.
And who is a player you've been avoiding in the fourth round?
Edwin Diaz goes off the board in the fourth round, and it's not a problem with Edwin Diaz.
Although he's been shakier, shakier than you'd like over the years for an elite closer.
It's just I don't want to take a closer in the fourth round.
That's mostly what it comes down to.
Mason Miller technically goes one spot ahead of Edwin Diaz on average, but if I was going to do it,
I think Mason Miller is better than Edwin Diaz.
So I'd rather do that.
But I don't think you should take any closers in the fourth round personally.
All right.
Let's get it to the fifth round.
And who is your favorite pick here?
Wait, spoiler alert.
It is Cole Regans, who I mentioned that 4 to 12 range at SP are very similar.
I think in my overall rankings.
Logan Gilbert's my number 4.
He's my number 38 player.
Max Fried is my number 12.
He's my number 57 player.
So those nine pitchers are separated by about 20 picks total.
And Cole Reagan's, among those 12, or among that nine, I guess, is the lowest ranked of them in 80P.
So I'll just take him.
I know the shoulder injury last year is scary, but in terms of pure upside, I think he's one of the few players who could absolutely crack that big three first round group if we get 180 innings out of him.
Yeah, I mean, that's the biggest thing is the injury concerns.
But if you guaranteed me 160, 170 innings, I would rank Cole Regens as a top five starting pitcher this season.
What about a player you are fading in the fifth round?
It's Freddie Peralta, who is just, he's in a different tier from, like, Cole Regens and the rest of those guys.
It's not that I dislike him.
It's just it's more likely to go back to being a mid-3s e-R-A.
You'll get 200 strikeouts.
That's great.
But it's just not quite worth the price you're paying in the mid-fifth round here.
All right, getting into the sixth round, I see one of your favorite players to draft this season.
Who's that?
Yeah, Jackson Merrill.
I have him ranked about 50th.
So there's about a 10 spot difference between my ranking and his ADP and a Roto League.
He was hitting north of 300 before a mid-June concussion.
Then he comes back September, had struggled for a couple of months, puts up a 900 OPS in September.
I think his season mostly just got derailed by the concussion.
I think we're going to get back to seeing him flirt with a 300 average, 25 homers.
The one thing is the steals.
He only had one last year.
He had 16 as a rookie.
If he can get back to being a 15 to 20 steel guy, I think Jackson Merrill is going to smash this price.
Yeah, and he dealt with some leg injuries last year, hamstring, ankle as well.
So perhaps that hampered him from running a little bit.
I do like to bounce back here for Jackson Merrill as well.
Who is a player that you've been fading in the sixth round?
George Kirby, and this is mostly just because I'm not quite sure what to make of him at this point.
Because what we saw in 2025 was a lower arm slot that kind of changed the purpose.
profile here a little bit. He got more strikeouts than we've ever seen. He issued more walks than we've ever seen. That's a tradeoff I'll take for George Kirby. I think it heightens the ceiling. But he also got hit really hard. There were some real blow-up starts. I just don't know if he can do the contact suppression thing and get the strikeout rate higher. We're seeing more lateral movement on all of his pitches. He's throwing a cutter now. He's throwing a change-up instead of a splitter. It's all just to say, I don't really know who George Kirby is.
at this point because he's a fundamentally different pitcher than he was pre-2020-5.
All right. Those are the top six rounds.
Chris's favorite and Lee's favorite picks.
If you want to see more, he actually did the top 10 rounds in his FBT newsletter.
So make sure to subscribe to that if you haven't already.
For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-lane podcast Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts or found.
Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express.
And we will be back again next week.
Bye-bye.
Bye.