Fantasy Baseball Today - Best/Worst Picks from our 2025 H2H Points Mock Draft! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: December 14, 2024

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. Frank Stampfl and Chris Towers talk through the best and worst picks in the first five rounds of their H2H points mock draft. 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 in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 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 in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 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

Let's take a look at the best and worst picks from our first head-to-head points mock draft. We'll do that up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FETN 5 on Saturday, December 14th. I am, for example, joined by Chris Towers. And let's take a look at our first head-to-head points mock draft. We'll go round by round, give out our best and worst picks. And the first round, Chris, was Shohei Otani, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Tucker, Bobby Witt Jr., Ellie De LaCruz, Gunner Henderson,

Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Corbyn, and Paul Skeens. Give me the best and give me the worst. It's hard to have a best pick in the first round. They're all pretty good. Bobby Witt falling to sixth worked out really well for Scott. It's not like, I don't want to give Scott too much credit, right? Let it go into his head. He made the pick that fell to him.

He made the obvious pick. I think worst pick is a little more. more interesting. You want me to tell the worst pick? Yeah. All right. You might think I'm going to say Freddie Freeman, who went ninth over here. His ADP is usually closer to 20.

He averaged 604 points in this format from 2021 to 2023. Last year, a little bit of a down year. But it's not like he was bad. So I don't really have a big problem with that one. It's not a great pick. But I think the Paul Skeen's pick at, number 12 overall is worse. And look, that's where he's probably going to go in a lot of head in a lot of

roto leagues especially. And I think you can make the case for it. Right. If he's the best source of ERA and WIP and he strikes out 12 per nine innings over 170 innings, like 180 innings maybe, I think that's probably going to be worth a first round pick in a roto league. And it had to head points lead where volume especially matters a lot more. This is a guy that we just haven't seen get to that 180 inning mark.

And what's it going to look like? when he gets to 180 innings. I suspect it'll be very good, but I've seen Terrick School will do it. You know, I've seen Terrick School will be a 600 point player in this format. I've seen Zach Wheeler be a 580 point player in this format, I think is his career high.

So it's actually 611 last year. So that's where in this format especially, I can't get on board with Paul's games as the number one SP generally, but especially not in the head-to-head points league. Let's move into round two, where we saw Julio Rodriguez, Terak Scoubel, Fernando Tatis, Francisco Lindorre, Yordon Alvarez, Ronald Acuna, Vlad Jr., Matt Olson, Bryce Harper, Jackson, Trio,

Zach Wheeler, and Raphael Devers. Chris, who stands out here the best and the worst pick of round two? I think Wheeler's the best pick. He has been a consistent 500-plus point guy over the past four seasons, 582 in 2021, 611 in 2024. I just, he has surprisingly become like the preeminent workhorse in baseball. And that matters a lot in a head head head to points league.

So I think Wheeler at the end of the second round is great. Who are you looking at for the worst pick here in round two? There are a few, I think a little surprising picks in a points league since. On December 12th, 2024, I have to say it's Ronald Acuna. and that's only because I just don't know when he's going to be back. And there have been, you know, if you compare the timeline to the last time he tore his ACL, he should be back on opening day. That's the,

that's kind of the assumption we had been making for a long time. Mark Bowman, I think of MLB.com, who is their Bravesby writer, there's been a lot of like, he might miss the first two months talk for Ronald Acuna. I don't necessarily think that is super likely. that would mean basically a 12-month absence for a torn ACL, which is pretty unheard of, but un-rare. Unlikely?

Yeah, I don't know, rare. I don't know what word I'm trying to get to, but rare works. You usually see a much quicker, you know, eight to nine-month recovery from that in baseball. So I can't say it won't happen that way, but given what we know right now, middle of the second round, just probably a little too rich. All right. Into round three, we see Corbyn Bairns, Catele-Trey Turner, Cole Regens, Logan Gilbert, Jaron, Jazz Chisholm, Austin Riley, Jackson Merrill, Mani Machado, Ryan Helsley, and Jacob de Grom. Who do you think is the best pick here in round three? Some really good picks here. Jared Duran fell way too far. I don't expect him to repeat what he did last season, but he was a 557 point player.

Stop choosing Scott's picks. Come on, Chris. I'm sorry. I will say something bad about Scott White at some point. Unfortunately, he did not make the worst pick in this round. That was probably either the 11th or 12 picks, which is, you know, weird things can happen on the end of the rounds. But Ryan Halsley and Jacob de Grom, in this format especially, I can see it in a rhodo in both cases, but not not in that.

Yeah, Ryan Helsie here at pick 35, a manual class A when I pick 88. So quite the gap there. And again, in a Roto, room in the format wrong. Yeah, Roto League, it might make some sense, but relievers usually get devalued a little bit here in the head-to-point's format. Round four, Garrett Crochet, Dylan Sees, Chris Sale, Anthony Santanderer, William Contreras, O'Neill Cruz, Jose Al-Tuvae, Pablo Lopez, Kyle Schwerber, Blake Snell, Spencer Steer,

and Pete Alonzo. Give me your best and your worst. I think Chris Sale probably fell a little too far. You know, you look at some of the guys who who went before him or directly after him. And I don't know if any of them have demonstrated the kind of upside that Chris Sale had in 24. Now, look, his season ended with injury. He's missed a lot of time with injuries in the past few years. And maybe things go really wrong for him in 2025. But I don't see any reason to think he's not currently healthy as we're talking about

this. Again, December 12th, 2024. So I think Chris Sale falling that far worked out really well. And I'll just, we talked about this on the big pod. I think the Blake Snell pick, unfortunately, I don't want to pick on you. Come on. Just not his format. Like when he's locked in, he's as good as anyone in this format.

But Blake's now, 2023 won the Salyung, 225 ERA, 14 wins. He had 508 points. You know, I just, I can't see things getting better than that for Blake Snell over the course of a full season. So I just, I think it's a little too early. All right, all right. Round five, Marcus Semyon, Framber Valdez, George Kirby, Logan Webb, Teasca Hernandez, Corey Seeger,

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Garrett Cole, Wyatt Langford, Ozielbies, and Willie Adomis and Michael King. Give us, this is the last round we'll hit, so your best and your worst. What do you got? Yeah, there's some interesting ones here. Like, Marcus Simeon, I think, is a fine pick there,

but based on where he usually goes in a lot of drafts, I mean, this might have been 40 picks earlier than he usually goes. Now, I had to head points league, he never misses a game. I think he missed like three games last year, and it was his first time. I was his first time I was in a while. So, like, you can make that case for Marcus Simeon in a points league. But I just, I think given the value, given what you had to pass up, given his age and uncertainty, I don't love that pick, even though I, if he ends up going there more often, it might be fine.

Unfortunately, my favorite pick. is probably another one of Scott only because he took Corey Seeger with the sixth pick and I remember cursing his name to the skies in my kitchen as I was making dinner and drafting this team when Scott took Corey Sear

because I absolutely would have taken him there so I hate that hate Scott getting good players let's make sure that doesn't happen moving forward yeah it's both the best pick but also the worst pick because you hated it all right we are going to wrap there for more extensive fantasy baseball

coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today in Five. And we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.