Fantasy Baseball Today - Bonus Mailbag Plus Spring Training Updates! (2/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

Before we get to your mailbag questions, we're taking a look at the latest news and notes (1:25). Michael Kopech is expected to start the season in the bullpen, the Twins are using Alex Kirilloff at multiple spots, and Nick Senzel has been named the Reds' starting center fielder. ... If you left an Apple Podcast rating and review, thank you! This is where we answer your APR questions (14:05). ... If you sent us an email, this is where we answer those questions (36:43)! ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday '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: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank, @AdamAizer 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/ 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. 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.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Saturday, September 27th. It's bonus mailbag time. Frank Stample joined by Chris. Chrissy Towers. What's going on, Chris? Not too much. Frankie. Frankie, yeah, that's right. How's it going? You know, it's all right. I mean, we got spring training games actually starting this weekend, so that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be fun. Watch some, like, number seven starters take the mound.

A bunch of guys wearing number 84. Love it. We're going to get normal starting pitchers. They're going to go for like one to two endings. I feel like that's the usual their first time around and then they'll work up to like two to three. Yeah, and I feel like most teams are going with like their number four or five starter for the first game. Just the way it's going to line up. It sounds like at least. Just want to give a quick thank you to everybody who submitted questions. We are getting a lot right now. So if we don't get to your question today, I'll try my best to answer it in an email. Let's jump right into some quick news and notes before we answer some of those questions.

And we'll start with Michael Kopeck, who apparently will begin the year in the bullpen. That's according to Bruce Levine of 670 TheScore.com. Chris, I guess this isn't all that surprising, considering we have not seen Michael Kopec pitch in a game since 2018. Hey, he pitched one inning last year in spring training. Okay. Remember, it was very exciting. And then, you know, the world shut down.

but yeah, no, I like I've drafted a decent amount of Michael Copac in the later rounds usually, you know, if I can get him like 250th or later. But it's always just a draft and stash kind of thing. You're just hoping that

you know, he can develop into someone who can make an impact eventually. Yeah, we're holding him in Dynasty. We're not freaking out because of this. In redraft, I think he'll get an opportunity to start at some point this season. I think they just want them to build up a little bit,

so they'll slowly work their way up to that. I feel like if everything goes okay this year, it will be 20, 22. That's like the potential, okay, he's in the rotation. We could get a monster breakout, but that's kind of just like my early take on the Michael Copex situation here with the Chicago White Sox.

Speaking of prospects, Alex Kirilloff will get work in left field, right field, and first base this spring as he competes for a roster spot. that comes according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. And I think we're all pretty excited. I don't know that. I haven't gotten your take on Alex Kirloff yet, Chris, but I had him in my sleeper 2.0.

I believe Scott had him in his sleeper 2.0. There's a lot to like the hit tools there. He's got a pretty good amount of power as well. And I think he's going to play pretty regularly, at least early on in the season. So what do you think of Kirloff? Yeah, I like him. I don't think I've officially anointed him as a sleeper or anything.

like that. But there's, you know, it's a profile that that should lend itself to pretty good fantasy production. I guess the only thing is, you know, because he's not a speed guy, you know, he really does have to hit really well, especially if he's going to be at the, you know, lower part of the lineup. But I would expect he's going to be in the everyday lineup to start the season. And, you know, could be a solid all around bat, especially like good lineup, good park. You know, it could be, he's definitely one of those guys. You know, I think around pick 100 is probably a very nice value. Yeah, his ADP is actually 263.

Oh, yeah. He's 263 overall. His ADP is 291. Yeah. I always get those things confused. Which one do you use, Chris? Because when you go to Fantasy Pros, do you have the number all the way on the left? And I guess technically that's the number.

So that's, yeah, that's the ranking. But then there's the actual. average, which is on the right. Yeah. I think the part of the problem is, you know, those two numbers are usually pretty close to one another until you get to, I don't know, maybe 215 and then they start to diverge because that's when you have like Zach Davies, who will probably get drafted in your league.

But it's an open question of whether he goes 200th or 180th or 250. So I think if you're talking about the rainier, that they're likely to go in, I think the average is probably better, but, you know, ADP starts meaning a lot less once you hit that point in the draft. It's kind of just take your pick.

Yeah, once you get outside the top 200, it's like, just get your guys. And Alex Kerloff is one of my guys. What he's done in the minors so far, 279 career minor league games, 317 batting average, 36 home runs, and 863. PS for Alex Kirillov.

So pay attention. Pretty young. Yeah. So pretty excited here. One of the top prospects for the Minnesota Twins. Reds manager, David Bell, said on Thursday that Nick Senzel will be the team's starting center fielder. And I was pretty excited about Senzel early in the off season.

And then I backed off once I found out there was going to be no National League DH because there's a lot of mouths to feed in the Reds outfield. They have Senzel. They have Winker. They still have Shogo Akiyama there. We know Nick Castellano. is going to play, of course. Senzel, in his major league career,

127 games, 14 home runs and 16 steals. I think if he could just stay healthy, he's probably a 15-15 guy, Chris, with the upside to be even better than that. Yeah, I think there's, there might not be that much difference between him and Tren Grisham.

Sorry. But that's not a knock on Tren Grisham. It's just that, you know, Nick Senzel was one of the top prospects in baseball two years ago. And he's shown very viable fantasy skills. The problem is he doesn't hit the ball nearly as hard as Grisham to start with or just particularly hard at all. So, you know, there is still room to grow.

I will add, I think, you know, after this quote from David Bell, I did see that, you know, later, I think in that same interview, he said something like, you know, we do have four guys who need it back. in three spots or something like that. So, you know, I'm not sure it's going to be like an everyday kind of situation with Nick Senzel unless he's, like if he has an 820 OPS, he's going to play every day, I think. Yeah, he just has to stay on the field. Obviously has the prospect pedigree, former first round pick.

Again, that is Nick Senzel with the Cincinnati Reds. And I think they want him to be good. Like, if he's performing well, they're going to play him and they'll figure everything else out between Jesse Winker and Shogo Akiyama. Again, the ADP for Senzel is 277. So similar to Kirillov where, okay, these are guys that have some pretty big upside later on in your draft. So names to pay attention to, of course. And another name to pay attention to is Yerdon Alvarez.

The Astros are being super cautious with him. And it makes sense because Alvarez, as young as he is, the upside that he flashed in 2019, he hit 50 home runs between the minors and the majors combined. I mean, yeah, he had dual knee surgery. So, you know, there are days where he's running. with the team, but then he's not doing batting practice. There are other days where he's doing vice versa, where he's hitting in the cage, but then he's not running and he's not

fielding. So at what point, Chris, do we actually... Are we concerned about Alvarez? Because I was pretty excited to get him in like the 70-ish range in drafts, but I'm starting to get a little bit more worried about him. I guess I just don't see... This isn't really news to me. I think.

It's, you know, he's coming back from dual knee surgery. He's had a lot of issues there. He's working his way back. So I think it makes sense that they're moving him slowly along. I'll, you know, we'll see what happens when games start. If he's, you know, if he doesn't play in a game in the first week, then I think you start to get a little more worried. But, you know, we're projecting him to be there everyday DH.

And, you know, DHS don't do all that much anyway. It's a fair point. While we're on the Astros, Alex Breggman is dealing with a hamstring injury, so something to pay attention to there with him as well. I mentioned this on our starting pitcher preview part two, but the Blue Jays will start their regular season in Dunedin. Dunedin. And Derek Cardi's the bat projected offensive park factors.

They ranked all three of the Blue Jays potential home parks for the season, and Dunedin was the seventh best hitters park among all the parks in baseball. Buffalo was 10th best, and Toronto was 15th best. So basically, that's a long way of saying that you should boost the Blue Jays hitters up ever so slightly and maybe downgrade their pitchers. But the only pitcher we're really talking about drafting is Jun Riu, right, Chris? I mean... I like Nate Pearson a lot at a late rounder.

You know, I think... I'm blanking on the name. Anthony, they pretty much revamped their rotation. Yeah, they have a bunch of... They have Robbie Ray, Stephen Mads. Robbie Ray, yeah. Yeah, I mean, none of those guys besides Riu and Pearson, I think, are really worth drafting in your standard head-to-head league. But I think the thing to keep in mind is, like, the gap between 7th and 18th sounds pretty big.

But if you actually look at like Park Factor rankings, Park factors are typically scaled on a one scale. So one is the average and anything below is below average, anything above. The highest course field, 1.362, this is from Fantasy Pro's multi-year park factors, the last three seasons. 1.362 park factors, that means it inflates runs by 36%. Great American Ballpark at second and inflates runs by about 11%. So seventh would be, the last three years it's been truest park

which if inflates runs by about 6% and then 15th is right around 1. I think like that's that matters but it doesn't even sound like they're going to play all of their games at Dunedin. It sounds like it might be a you know, they might be like a goose or a blue jay and travel northward as the weather warms up.

So I think you know, I was really, Derek Hardy's thread on that on Twitter. And it doesn't sound like it's significant enough in season long to make a difference. It might be more like in DFS. Yep. When, you know, in April, they're playing in Central Florida and it's 85 degrees. And, you know, the twins are playing in Minnesota and it's 37 degrees.

Yeah. You probably want to avoid the twins in that context because offense is better during warmer weather. And so I think it's probably maybe you buy, you sell high on some Blue Jays guys once they start moving or, you know, it's mostly a DFS impact, I think. Before we get to your questions, just want to quickly tell you about Paramount Plus. You've probably seen the journey to Mount Paramount spots featuring Bill Cower, James Corden, Patrick Stewart, and Beavis and Butthead.

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the Good Fight, and The Stand. You know, of those three movies, I have only seen The Godfather, which should not really surprise anyone. I've never seen an Indiana Jones movie. I've... Oh, man. I'm gonna have to...

Raiders Lost Ark is like... A perfect movie. Like, my wife and I have been watching the early Spielberg movies because she hasn't really seen, she really hasn't seen many Spielberg movies. So we've been kind of going slowly through them. And like those like, that first like decade of his career is just like all perfect movies that like set the template for everything. And Raiders to the Lost Ark is that and Jaws are just like perfect movies. Yeah, I don't remember.

I haven't seen Jurassic Park either. I don't remember. Oh my God. I don't remember E.T. Like, I... Jurassic Park has aged shockingly well given that it's like

really early CGI. Yeah, that movie is great. No, you gotta, come on, man. I've got to rewatch E.T. as well, I mean, I saw it as a kid, of course, but I don't remember anything that happens in that movie.

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the Smithsonian Channel, and Comedy Central. Live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment, Paramount Plus streaming March 4th. Admittedly, I didn't read many of the questions. I just plop them here on the rundown, so I am putting a lot of faith in your grammar, people. Don't let me down. We'll start with the Apple podcast review questions,

and this first one is from Macho Row. In the Outfield Preview, it was mentioned, that Dylan Carlson and Ian Hap were liked as potential breakouts in 2021. Just wondering if you can delve into them a bit more. Both are $3 keepers in my Roto League, and I may only be able to keep one of them. So this is actually very appropriate because Chris, you liked Ian Hap and I like Dylan Carlson, so we could take each one here. And I will say, regarding both players, I think Roto is their better format because they're

probably going to strike out quite a bit. So remind macho, the macho man, why you like Ian Hap. for the season. Yeah. So Ian Hap, he's always hit the ball really well. And last season, he was like 75th percentile or better and basically all of the big stack cast quality of contact measures. So average eggs of velocity, hard hit rate, max eggs at Velo, average eggs of velocity online drives

and fly balls, expected slugging, all that stuff. The problem early on in his career, you may remember, 2017, you know, he got off to this incredible start. 2018, he really slumped, and it was strikeouts that became the big issue. He struck out 167 times and 142 games. And he ended up getting sent down to the minors and was basically not on the major league roster for the first half of the 2019 season. He raked at AAA, he came back and in, let me see, it's 115 games. He has 23 home runs since coming back.

However, quite a few of those in 2019 were. as a reserve. He played 57 games in 2020, and only four of them were as a reserve. So he started 53 of 60 games for the Cubs. This is not a platoon bat. It's not a part-time player. In 81 starts since coming back from AAA in 2019, he has 20 home runs. That is a 40 homer per 162 game pace.

The underlying metrics back it up. And he's been more like a 25 to 26% strikeout rate guy since coming. back. He's going to hit near the top of the Cubs lineup. I could see him putting up a very similar season to someone like Michael Conforto, who I like quite a bit, or, you know, Dominic Smith is going 40 picks earlier than him or even, you know, Necastianos. I could see, you know, I think he's probably not going to be a great batting average guy, but I think there is a lot to like about Ian Hap. Yeah, and I like Ian Hap too. You know, you know what I'm thinking of here, Chris, with him is a Yassio Pueig type season. You know, 260, 25 home runs, 10 to 15 steals. I think that's all doable for Ian Hap and say what you want about the Cubs lineup, assuming that, like, if they don't trade anyone, the top half of that lineup's still really good. So if Ian Hap's leading off, he could score 90 plus runs. I mean, that could be a conservative projection. He walks a decent amount. Yeah, like it's a hundred run season is not out of the question. And leadoff was his most, uh, uh, used lineup spot last season. I think 35 homers is realistic. I think 25 I would take the over on that.

For Dylan Carlson for me, I brought him up as a potential breakout. I know Chris is a little bit more skeptical with him, but the first 23 games for Dylan Carlson last year, he was not good. He hit 162, only four extra base hits, a 31% hard hit rate. He was sent back to the alternate training site. and when he returned the final couple of weeks, his last 12 games, he batted 278, 7 extra base hits, a 44% hard hit rate. So I like personally when you see a young player who failed early, got sent down, he worked on some things,

he came back, and he rebounded, and he showed that he can make adjustments, and he also performed well in the postseason. I think it was like three games where he was batting cleanup for the team, but this is the top prospect for the Cardinals, Monster season in the minors back in 2019, where he hit 292, 26 homers, 20 steals. He had a 914 OPS that year.

They're pumping them up in spring, too. I saw this report on Friday, which is actually when we were recording this. He's been refining his already impressive swing and putting on additional muscle in the offseason. So they're pumping up Dylan Carlson. His ADP's a little bit higher than Ian Hap. And I think it's probably just because he's

like the younger prospecty type player. but it wouldn't be surprising to me if Ian Haps actually better than him. But I do like Dylan Carlson quite a bit. So you make your call there, macho man. Whichever one you like more, go ahead and keep him. This one's from M. Rose 1018. I'm in an AL-only 11-man salary cap draft with four minor league players.

I know most leagues are mixed, but at any point will you guys do an AL-only podcast? I'm going to be 100% honest, transparent with the people. a lot of our audience does not play an AL or NL only. When we're talking about deeper sleepers, of course, I think that type of information is translatable to AL and NL only leagues,

but it's just a very niche audience. So we can use the time now to, if you have any strategies, Chris, that you use when playing in a mono league, AL or NL only, what might that strategy be and maybe one or two deeper sleepers in an AL-only context that you like?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing that, jumps out to me when looking at the two leagues is of my top 10 players, only two of them are in the American League. That's Jose Ramirez and Mike Trout. Shane Bieber and Gary Cole are in most people's top 10. They're in my top 12. But there is more of a, you know, the high end and it really kind of continues through the top 25. I have seven players in the American League in my top 25 overall. I'm not sure if your split is quite that extreme, but the high-end players are a little better

across the board in the National League. I think that probably means in the American League, you probably need to spend more in your salary cap drafts or focus, you know, if you're in a Kentucky Derby style draft, this is not the format to get cute and try to get like the eight, the 11th pick so you've got to turn. you need those elite guys

and the elite guys stand out more in the American League. I'm talking Mike Trout, Jose Ramirez, Shane Bieber, Garrett Cole, maybe Alberto Mondesie. But that's, yeah, he's my number five player in AL-only leagues. That kind of tells you,

you know, how big that drop-off is. So I think in Mono leagues in general, getting an elite player, you know, gives you a bigger edge. and that's especially true in AL only. And admittedly, I don't play in a lot of AL or NL only leagues,

but when I have, I really focus on playing time more than anything. And, you know, that seems rudimentary, but playing time is, like, anyone who has a pulse is relevant in a league like this in an AL only. So, you know, there's going to be players that are not exciting towards the middle parts of your draft here. But just I would say focus on guys that have starting jobs or guys that you know are going to play.

Like Cesar Hernandez is not exciting, but you know he's going to play. And he's probably just going to be Cesar Hernandez like he always is. So he's won like Andrelton Simmons is going to start for the twins. I mean, it's another boring one. I would say pay attention to names that, you know,

are not very exciting, but you know that they're going to play every day in AL and NL-only formats. This next one is from C-NOM 77. These are Apple Podcasts. reviews, by the way. Thanks to everyone who left a rating and review. I got the first overall pick for the first time ever. I play in a six-by-six head-to-head categories league with OPS and quality starts as the two added categories. I know Acuna is the consensus number one overall pick,

but I'm leaning towards taking Mike Trout since I've never had the option of taking him. Am I crazy for passing up Acuna here? I will say, in head-to-head categories, I typically like to punt steals, so this would seem to lean into that strategy a little bit more. And I think we feel pretty confident saying that Mike Trout is going to have a higher OPS than Ronald Acuna. So I don't think this is crazy to do. At the end of the day as well, Chris, get players that you like, man. Like, we are playing a game where you are going to be rooting for these players and watching them play all season long for six months straight. Get guys that you like. Yeah, and I would point out that, you know, among the elite players, Ronald Acuna is, when you're talking about OPS,

he's kind of lagged behind the elite guys. Not so much in 2020 because he had that huge walk rate. But his career OPS is 909. Mike Trout, I mean, obviously I think it's a little unfair to make that comparison, but Mike Trout hasn't had a season with an OPS. Actually, Mike Trout hasn't had a season with an OPS lower than Ronald O'Cuna's short sample size, 2020 career high since 2014. It's crazy. And he's typically been about 100 points higher over the last four seasons than Ronald Ocunia's, again, short sample size, career high.

So 9.991 OPS are better in six straight seasons for Mike Trout. This is something I've said a lot, but it's like Mike Trout is the best hitter in baseball. I think he's the best power hitter in baseball as well. I think he's the most likely hitter in baseball to hit 50 home runs in any given season. And I don't think he quite gets the credit he deserves for that because his all-around game is so great that we just kind of like, oh, you know, Miguel Cabrera was a better hitter or, you know, Christian Yelich is a better.

And it's like, no, Mike Trout's actually just the best hitter in baseball. I don't think you can ever go wrong with Mike Trout as the number one player. I think he's probably got the highest floor of the elite players. He might have the highest ceiling. I did that exercise the other day, just kind of trying to project what a best case scenario would look like for each of the first 12 hitters, the guys being drafted in the first 15 picks.

My best case scenario for Acuna was a 294 average, 46 home runs, 40 stolen bases. The power speed combination is really what makes Acuna the number one. pick. My best case scenario for Mike Trout was a 333 average, 56 homers and 16 steals. And the steals are, I think, low for a best case scenario. I think he could steal 25 bases if he wants to. He just hasn't run like that lately. So you can never make a wrong pick with the number one pick if you go with Mike Trout. I think if you want with Mookie Betts, it's not the wrong pick. If you want with Ronald Acuna, it's not the wrong pick. If you go with Fernando Tatis, it's not the wrong

pick. If you go with Juan Soto, it's not the wrong pick. If you go with Jacob Bagram, it's not the wrong pick. It's kind of like I think the top six and really seven for me with Jose Ramirez in that group, I think there's very little

difference between them as a whole. And it just comes down to what you want your base stats to be. This next one's from Keith in Santa Clara. I have an interesting keeper question. Our league allows you to keep a player at the original position drafted regardless of how long you keep them. I have Ian Hap at second base. Where would he be in your second base rankings? It would cost me a lot to keep him

with our rules, which are far from the standard. So if I pull up your, our second base ranks, which is going to take me quite a bit of time to do. I don't know if you have them at it right now for myself, I have Ian Hap as my number 33 outfielder at 109th overall. That would be the number 12 second baseman. That sounds about right. Yeah, and I actually think like Mike Mastakis is a pretty good comp for him. I think, you know, Ian Hap probably steals a few more bases, but not too many more. Has a higher OBP for sure.

So if that matters, you know, he'll score more runs. And I think the power production should be prefer. fairly similar. Yeah, I like that call. Number 12, for me, would be right behind Moostakis just ahead of Dylan Moore in Roto League. So, yeah, that sounds like it makes sense.

Top 12, second baseman for Ian Hap. There you go, Keith. This one's from termite-infested lawn gnome. Dear Tristan, Gore, and Spuds. You know this one? No. That's McKenzie's. Oh.

Tristan McKenzie, Gore McKenzie, and I'm assuming it's Spuds McKenzie as a person. I don't, yeah, that's a person. Or it's a fictional dog, excuse me. From a series of Bud Light commercials in the late 80s. Interesting. All right. So McKenzie's there. First of all, I just want to say thank you that I absolutely love this podcast.

I've been listening since the days. Nando was on the pod. You know what? Me too. So we have that in common there. I am drafting on a site that has Brandon Woodruff ranked 54 overall and Kenton Maeda ranked 63rd overall. I personally rank Maeda higher, but I would love to draft both. So do I roll the dice and draft Woodruff a round before Maeda, hoping that he's there in the next round?

Or do I just play it safe and draft the player I have ranked higher? This is kind of a timeless rankings debate. And I think Scott has talked about he lands more on the, he wants his rankings to reflect what a draft would actually look like. So if he has someone, you know, hypothetically speaking, if he has someone 50 spots higher than they're being drafted, he'll, you know, maybe move that player down a little bit. I think it all comes down to which player you think is most likely to be there the next time you pick.

If you think two guys are relatively close, you have one guy ranked higher, but you think the other guy might be there the next time you pick. I think you take the guy who's most likely to be drafted between your next two picks. And in this case, I would assume that's Brandon Woodruff. And for me, I have Brandon Woodruff, you know, 16 spot tire in my overall rank. So I think he's, you know, a better bet than my Ada. Yeah, I would agree with that.

I think typically I agree that your ranking should be, okay, if you're on the board, if you're on the clock, who would you take ultimately? And if you have Maeda ranked higher, then typically I would say draft Maeda. But, I mean, knowing the rankings, the way they're set up for whatever site you're playing on here, yeah, I mean, just take Brandon Woodruff for the one round higher and try and get both of them.

Why wouldn't you do that if you can? So you're playing with fire a little bit, but I think overall, all of us love, love, like Brandon Woodruff more than Kenton Maeda anyway. I think Scott might have Maeda ranked higher. than Bradford Woodruff. I don't know because I know he likes both of them quite a bit.

But Maeda is a top 12 pitcher for him, I believe. So, I'm not sure. He is pretty excited. He has Maida at SP11. He has Woodruff at SP 16. Oh, wow. So he has them basically flipped from where I do. I think Woodruff's 12 and Maida's 16 for me.

Yeah, I have the same. I have Woodruff at 11 and I have Maida at 15. So I would take Woodruff over Maeda just if we're talking about in a vacuum. This one's from New York Blue Orange. Listening for years. Curious, your thoughts of Yoelke-Susis, who is the...

He's related to Yuenas Cespidus. I think it's his younger brother. Younger brother? That sounds about right. Chris, I don't know if you've... Half-brother. Half-brother. They have the same brows I've noticed.

So that's the telltale of the Cespitus family. do you have any insights here, Chris, on Yowelke's Cespitus, who can be had in most first-year player drafts in Dynasty Leagues? Yeah, he's expected to be the number one, I think he's considered the number one prospect for the upcoming international signing period.

I don't, has he actually signed yet? This is one of those things. Okay, yeah, he does sign in early January. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, if he's available, you know, He was considered the best prospect in the international signing pool. This is one of those things where even among prospects,

international signies do bust at a fairly high rate, but he is 23 years old. I think the thing with him is he didn't produce much in his time in the Serri National in Cuba, 287 average, only a 416 slugging percentage. But it's been a couple of years since he played there. There's been, I think the consensus is he put on quite a bit of muscle since then. I don't know. It doesn't sound like a prospect that is a high chance of hitting.

There seem to be in the scouting reports some questions about his ability to make contact. And it feels like a, I'm trying to remember the guy's name that the Marlins signed. the man I know he and his brother I know who you're talking about so he's got two names I can't remember uh yeah it's yeah looking around like uh eric longenhagen at fan graphs wrote that he doesn't project cesspit is to hit enough to be a full-time major league regular but you know we haven't seen him in you know real games consistently in a while so that's kind of the it it's It's a high risk profile, I guess. Oh, was it the Mesa brothers, Victor Mesa and Victor Vector Mesa?

Yeah, that was Victor Mesa Jr. and Victor Victor Vista. Victor Mesa was his name? I think so, yeah. Yeah. You know, it was kind of a similar thing where the production in Cuba wasn't great, but, you know, there were tools that the scouts liked. And, you know, Victor Mesa Jr. has not hit particularly well, and I think he's kind of fallen off the prospect radar at this point.

It's only been like a year or two. So, you know, the fact that Yoalkeus Cestpides is a little bit older, does, you know, 23 years old without professional experience in America, it doesn't seem like someone who necessarily needs to be super high on your list for the upcoming draft. Yeah, it seems like he might be hyped up a little bit more because his last name is Cestpidavit. and obviously we know what UNis did in the majors

so keep that in mind but I think you're pretty much spot on there with his younger half-brother Yoelkees Cespitus. This one's from RCP underscore 9. I'm in a long-term dynasty roto league. I have fourth pick

with Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Jacob de Grom and Shane Bieber being the top four guys available. Which pick has more value, starting pitcher or out? outfielder. I already have Kyle Tucker, Victor Robles, and Mike Yostrenski, late in the outfield, and Jack Flaherty, Dylan Bundy, Ian Anderson, and Luke Weaver. I'm going to get a recording of just all the

singing things that Adam would do, and then we could use them here. So yeah, those are the players he has is Tucker Robles, Yistramski, and the outfield, he has Jack Flaredy, Bundy, Ian Anderson, Luke Weaver as his pitchers. So if you have fourth pick there, Chris, who would you take? Trout, Yelich, de Grom, or Shane, Bebblis. Well, you know, the good news is it probably won't matter. You know, there's four guys who are in a tier of their own and you have the fourth pick.

So you probably won't have to make a choice. But I would, I rank them Trout, de Grom, Yowellich, Beaver. But it is a long-term dynasty. So I wonder if I would lean with Bieber in that sense because he is far and away the youngest? He's three years younger than Troubler. Trout and Yelich, I think, but I'm not sure, like, being three years younger as a pitcher

doesn't really make a big difference for me. I don't, in Dynasty leagues, the, I don't know if you can really count on any pitcher to have, to retain value three years into the future, just given the attrition rate. I would bet, you know, come 2024, Mike Trout is probably a higher pick than Shane Bieber. And Christian Yelich probably is too. Yeah, that's probably right. I think I would take Bieber. Sounds like Chris would take one of Trout or Yelich.

I think if Scott were here, he would take Bieber. But I don't want to speak for him. Go look up Scott's dynasty rankings. There's somewhere on CBSports.com slash fantasy. These are the emails that we've received. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. That's the letter I continue to send these in. And we have a lot of them.

So let's move a little bit quicker here. Chris, this one's from Tom in Illinois, 12-team Dynasty Roto League. We can keep guys forever, but because of keeper limits, I won't be able to keep all three.

Which of the following would you keep long-term and which would you look to trade prior to the season? Kyle Tucker, Eloy Jimenez, and Luis Robert. I think I know where you're going to go here, Chris. So Kyle Tucker,

Eloy Jimenez, or Luis Robert. I think Eloy is the guy to trade. He has more perceived value in the marketplace right now. He's going higher than either of those two guys. And, you know, I think you'd rather have the two really athletic guys instead of the guy who at 23 years old, you know, already looks like he's 30. Yeah, considering it is a roto league, as much as I like Eloy, I would agree.

I would keep Tucker and Robert around long term. and I would look to see what I could get in return for Eloy Jimenez, because I think you could get quite a bit in a Dynasty League for him. This one's from John Boy. I'm in a standard 5-by-5-12-team roto redraft league. I have the ninth pick in the draft. The last two years, the league is over 30 years old. Four to five of the teams have utilized relief pitcher-only strategy.

I will not be one of them. Do you have any thoughts as to a specific strategy when so many teams are not taking? any starting pitchers. Again, this is a five by five standard roto redraft. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, I think generally speaking,

you want to zig when everyone else is zagging. And so in most drafts this year, I think loading up on hitting in the first 10 rounds is my preferred strategy. In this one, where presumably the teams that are not going to be taking

starting pitchers won't be taking relievers super early. So it's going to be very heavy on a hitter. And that might make me lean towards, you know, trying to get, you know, I might be more likely to get four of my top 25 or four of my top 30, like you and Scott want to. Starting pitchers, that is. Yeah, starting pitchers, because you might be able to do that with your first, you know, eight picks or nine picks rather than your first six or seven. Yeah, based on how aggressive people are being in your league with relief pitchers, you should be able to

pull that off. So we're in agreement there, Chris. This next was from Josh. I'm in a head-to-head points league. And my question is about the best source for rankings. Well, I mean, come on, CBSports.com, obviously, duh. When I plug in my league's point system into the Fangraph's auction calculator, for example, Buster Posey is a top 10 catcher, but clearly he's not a top 10 catcher in most rankings. So should I go by what the expert experts, experts in quotes, say, or by what Fangraphs projects based on my point system. And it will say, I like the auction calculator

on Fangraphs quite a bit. I use it when actually making my own rankings. I see how ATC projects players, Ariel Cohen, who we've had on the podcast. I use it for both my points leagues and my roto ranking. So I take it into account, but I think Buster Posey is probably just a top 10 catcher based on volume, but I mean,

we all know he's not very exciting at this point. So what do you think about this question here, Chris? Yeah, so the ATC projection for Buster Posey is 265 with seven homers and 89 combined runs in RBI. That's pretty mediocre even for a catcher. I think it's a little low. I would take the over on a 269 batting average for Buster Posey. He has been below 284 one time in his career. And that was in 2019 when he was dealing with that hip injury. He had surgery after that. season, hopefully that can kind of help him get his legs back under him and, you know, get the batting average back to, you know, hopefully the 285 to 290 range. I like Buster Posey.

I think he, if you end up with him as your number one catcher in a Roto League or a points league, I think that's fine. There's not much upside there. I don't think. I don't think anybody's going to project him for 20 home runs ever again. The most any of the projection systems have him on. Fan graphs is for 10. But, you know, I think he's a perfectly fine option who, you know, you're okay waiting until

late. I waited one round too long in our roto draft that we did yesterday. And I ended up missing him. I think he went like 250th overall. And I was trying to get him a little later. So that was disappointing. But yeah, I think if you want to wait on catcher buster posies and X. excellent option. That's how you know you have a problem, right, Chris, when you get sniped on Buster

Posey and in a roto mock draft on a Thursday afternoon? I was really, I was really hoping I could combine Buster Posey and Wilson Ramos and just lock up some good batting average from my catcher position. It was very disappointing. Yeah, nothing more exciting than that. I'm looking at our rankings right now, our heads head points rankings. Apparently I'm the high guy on Buster Posi. I haven't ranked as my 14th catcher going into the season. And you'll see when... 16 for me in head-to-head. You have them at 17. So yeah, not far behind.

But I will point out our draft prep guide is coming out soon. Chris is working furiously on it, which we all appreciate it. I think you can be out on Monday. Yeah, so that would be awesome. You'll be able to put your email in a little box and get it sent right to you.

I finished it up yesterday, actually. Very nice, Chris. But one of my rules, one of my draft day rules, is in a one catcher league to come away with one of my top 11 catchers. So that tier ends for me with James McCann, Christian Vasquez, and Sean Murphy. So that's really kind of like the cutoff for me. And I would say just when using the projections and the auction calculator,

a lot of the projections use 50th percentile outcome. So a mean average of what is expected from a player if you run a projection system a thousand times, this is what's most likely to happen. But I think we take into account upside a little bit more when we put our rankings together. Yeah. So, you know, someone like James McCann and Sean Murphy, I think, has more upside than Buster Posey. That's just obvious. So keep that in mind when it comes to rankings versus the projection systems.

This next one's from Nathan, points league, six keepers, and four are definite. He has Freddie Freeman, Brandon Lau, Mani Machado, and Francisco Lindor. Keep two of these three. David Fletcher, Mike Yistremski, and Matt Chapman. Yeah, it's, it's Yaz and Chapman. That's correct. this next one's from JD in St. Louis. I just recently found the podcast about two weeks ago

and have loved getting into it since then. Well, thank you, JD. I am in a 10-team Keeper League with some friends that we have had going since 2013. I haven't done very well recently, and I'm really hoping to turn that around this year with the help of the podcast. I would love to hear your guys' thoughts,

your guys take on keepers, what positions to prioritize or ignore, how big a factor age and team are, and just overall, thoughts in general. I will say when it comes to keepers, unless this is like some super deep keeper league, I am mostly using my redraft rankings because I want to win now. If you're keeping like 10 players and you know other teams are keeping prospects and it goes

a little bit deeper, then yeah, I think you can factor in age and long term projected upside a little bit more. But for the most part, if I'm just trying to win now and it's whatever, you keep three to five guys, I'm mostly going to follow my redraft rankings and give myself the best opportunity to win this season, Chris. Yeah, I think that it just kind of depends on how long the runway is. If you're just talking about 2021, 2021, 2022,

then yeah, your view shouldn't change much. You know, if you can't keep a player beyond that, then their year one value is most of the concern. when you're talking about like, you know, if you're talking about the next three years, then that does change things a little bit. But one mistake I think a lot of people make

in Keeper and Dynasty leagues is focusing too much on the future. Go back and look at any set of Dynasty or Keeper rankings from 2019. And there's probably some really wacky stuff going on in there. And that's not to say that those rankings were bad at the time. It's just to say that, think about how much fluctuates from one year to the next. Zach, please, Zach, as I said in yesterday's pod, 404th and 80P last year.

He's like 68th right now. Then add another year and another year of those fluctuations. And it's just, I think we tend to overstate in these situations how well we can project beyond this year. And so, you know, in a Dynasty League, I don't care about anything more than the next three years, really.

It's just like, if I'm looking at a 25-year-old versus a 28-year-old, I make very few adjustments for that age gap because you don't know what those players are going to be in three years. So, yeah, I would say the focus should be on the near term as much as possible. Okay, just wrote that down on my little handy-dandy notepad because Chris and I are in the Scott White Dynasty League. We've got the salary cap draft coming up. I've got the second most amount of money, and Mike Trout is out there. Oof, let's see how much he goes for.

Over under, 75 bucks. I'm going to take the over there. This next one's from Matt. My draft is coming up in a few weeks. We do a salary cap draft and are allowed 10 keepers, and I'm in really good shape. My hitters, Fernando Tatis,

Freddie Freeman, Anthony Rendon, Aaron Judge, and Jose Ramirez. Wow, that's awesome. Pitchers, Lucas Gialito, Trevor Bauer, Blake Snell, Max Fried, Hianjin Ryu. Lee is a head-to-head categories with OPS.

We count both wins and quality starts. Scott is beating us over the head with pitching, and it's importance. How should I approach my draft? Salary cap drafts are a bit trickier. Any advice as to what my main focus should be in terms of draft plan and building. Continue to target arms, go for bats.

I would say, I don't... Your bats are awesome, dude. You have Tatis, Freeman, Rendon, Jose Ramirez. your pitchers, Gielito, Bauer, Snell, Fried, Riu. I think maybe try to add one more ace to your pitching staff,

but, I mean, for the most part, your base for hitting is phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, because you've got some speed with Tatis and Ramirez. I think you could probably go for one more speed guy. Like, I think in either case, you're pretty good, but I definitely think your pitching

is shakier even without the just general shakiness of starting pitcher. So I would probably make that the priority. At least if I'm talking about my number one player to add. Get another ace in there. This one's from Tony. I'm in a

20 team keeper league where you can keep major leaguers in rounds 1 to 9. Players taken in round 6 through 9. The prior year go up two rounds. Two to five go up one round. And if taken in the first, you cannot keep them the next year. I'm curious about injured pitchers like Justin Verlander and Chris Sale,

both were first-round picks and have no chance of being kept this year. In this kind of format, at what point do I throw a dart at Justin Verlander or Chris Sale, especially since I don't think my team can compete. This year would love to nab one or both of them and potentially get an ace further down in the draft than normally possible. So, yeah, that's interesting. I think in Keeper League, you should be paying attention to those names, even if you're not going to compete this year,

if they're coming back for next year, you might be able to flip them at some point for a younger piece. So that's what I would be trying to do, Chris. Yeah, Verlander almost certainly not going to pitch this season. I think that's the thing to keep in mind, whereas sale, you know, he could be back.

I think late May is kind of the... You know, him, Noah Cindergarde, and Louis Severino are all kind of in the same boat. Yeah. They had their Tommy John search. is relatively close to one another. I think Severino was the earliest. Yeah, he was.

Followed by Cindergarten and then sale. I'm not 100% sure on the exact order, but they were all within like a month, month and a half of each other, I think. And so you're probably looking at all three of those guys, Cindergarde Severino and Sale being back, hopefully by June. And in my redraft rankings,

I have them all in like the 250 range overall. and maybe 200th overall here is where you can get them. I think you maybe push them up the board a little bit, knowing that in your case, you're probably looking more at 2021 or 2022 value where they could potentially be difference makers. Oh my God, we have so many more questions, Chris. Let's go into rapid fire here and try to get through as many of these as possible.

This one's from Ben Rose. I feel convinced that taking pictures early makes a lot of sense. and in conversations with others in the league. They are also convinced that taking pitchers early make sense and will be their strategy. Assuming I'd take two pitchers in my first two picks, what hitters could you not pass up in round three? This is a 12-te-to-head points league.

By the way, I drafted Lucas G.olito last year at Scott's recommendation. And turned out he lives in my hometown and saw him at the park several times, staying in shape during the baseball shutdown of 2020. So that's pretty interesting. We talk about this a lot, Chris. but I think the third round, the guys that stand out to me, especially in a points league, Bregman, Anthony Rendon, those big third baseman.

Corey Seeger is someone that you could probably get in like the third, maybe the fourth round. And I would be perfectly fine with one of those guys as my top hitter. Yeah, to echo something I said earlier, if you think everyone in your league's going to go starting pitcher heavy early on in the drafts, you should not. It's just, I know a lot of people will disagree and say that, you know, the risk starting pitcher means you have to invest early in them because, you know, if they bust, you need reinforcements. I get that, but you're talking about the most valuable resources you have. And so when you're starting to talk about overpaying for pitchers, like would would probably

happen in this situation, I just think like if you can get three guys who should be in the top 15 with your first three picks as hitters, I think that's probably the better option. than trying to to chase hitters. You're looking for inefficiencies in the marketplace. And I think going the opposite of what everyone else is doing, if 12 people are doing one thing, that means you need to be better than all 12 of them at that thing to wait. If 11 people are doing or 10 people are doing one thing

and two people are doing another thing, you only have to be better than one person to have an edge. And to that point, I want pitching in a head-ed points league for sure, but say the top three starting pitchers are the first three picks in your draft. I mean, if you're thinking about doing something rash, like taking Trevor Bauer fourth or fifth overall

just to make sure you get pitchers, that's where you've got to pump the brakes, right? So I agree. I mean, just because everyone is taking pitching early in your league, of course I would love to get two aces in the first two rounds, but it comes within the confines of 80P to a certain extent, right? So like, I'm not going to take Trevor Bauer,

fourth or fifth over. all just to make sure that I get a starting pitcher in the first two rounds. So, I think that makes a lot of sense, Chris. You still need the most value. Like, you still need the most production. And I don't expect Trevor Bauer to outproduce Mike Trout. This next one's from Matt in Annapolis. Listening to the starting pitcher preview got me thinking about my head-to-head categories league. We added losses as a category two years ago. So I was thinking of going RP heavy this year. Does adding losses change your strategy of getting an ace? The thought process is, pitchers generally will lose far less games than even the best starters. So RP heavy could win

saves, losses, ERA, and WIP every week. I have the seventh pick and will likely be able to get one of the big three starters. It's a keeper league and I'm starting with Snell and Chris Paddock as my keepers. With those two starters, I could go all hitting in the first five rounds and add a few stud closers soon after that and ignore starting pitching until later. We did a head to head categories strategy or mock draft recap a couple of weeks ago, maybe last month. And I talked about this pseudo-marmole strategy that I used where I like to get a few aces and then I like to load up on relief pitchers that can continuously help with ratios throughout the course of the week. And I think that's kind of where you're at. I mean, you have Snell and Paddock. They're not,

you know, both aces per se. But yeah, I think I would probably go down that route where I just kind of load up on a bunch of great relievers. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, I think that's probably the way to go. I would suggest you go really, like your first seven or eight picks are hitting, are hitters. And then you start looking at,

you know, some of the closers who go off in that range. But even then, I'm not sure, you know, focusing so much on close. closes makes a ton of sense just because of how much fungibility there is at that position. You know, I think the point if you're going to punt categories is you need to be, you need to get sure things elsewhere. And closers just aren't really sure things. That's the toughest thing is that I don't think the Marmall strategy is, you know,

it's named the Marmol strategy and not the Kimbril strategy. I think it's the way I would put it. Like you're not, the point is not to pay up for. the elite closers. The point is pay up for the middle relievers who are elite in the hopes that one, they become closers and two, that they just

put up elite ratios and, you know, help you there. Yeah. So, Devin Williams comes to mind there. He should be awesome. Although, Nick Anderson. I will say there's a lot of volatility in relief pitchers year over year. So, just because Devin Williams was awesome last year does not mean he's going to be awesome this year, I would

probably bet on him being awesome because I like him a lot. He has great stuff. But I would throw all the Tampa Bay relievers in there as well. Diego Castillo, Peter Fairbanks, I think it's going to be really good. Nick Anderson, obviously. So, yeah, those are some of the relievers you want to target. This one's from a man, shine dog. In my custom points league, you get plus five for a win, plus four for a save, plus three for a hold.

Every team, 10 teams, must play seven starting pitchers and three relief pitchers. Knowing all that, should I be bumping up? and if so, how much guys like Drew Pomeran's and raise relievers that figure two notch, both saves and holds. K's are worth one and a half. So pitching is important, although earned runs are minus two and walks are minus 1.5. What do you think, Chris?

I think you move all relievers down in a saves and holds league is the way I look at it. I don't think you move holds guys up. I just think you look at everyone else, and it's just a much flatter landscape. And the saves leaders will get more saves than the holds leaders. So even in that situation, I don't think you want to focus on holds guys. I think, you know, the saves leaders are usually in the high 20s.

The closer leaders are save leaders are usually in the high 30s, low 40s. Closer, the hold leaders, you rarely see guys getting 35 holes in a season. So I think it's more about flattening the relief pitcher market than moving anyone up. This next one's from Nick in Charlottesville. A question on drafting relief pitchers in Roto. Would it be a viable strategy to draft two pitchers from the same team when there's uncertainty about who will close? Examples Nick Anderson and Diego Castillo in Tampa Bay,

Jordan Hicks, and Giovanni Gallegos in St. Louis. If you start such a pair, you'd have saves from that team covered and project well in ERA and WIP. Generally, yeah, I don't think that's a bad strategy. I would like to get at least one or two closers that I know, or I think for certain will be the closer. I mean, you can't really speak in definitive as much when it comes to closers.

But yes, I would try to get like one of my top 12, maybe another decent number two option, and then probably one team's tandem of relief pitchers. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, the only issue that I think you're running, into in this specific instance would be like Nick Anderson's probably going a little too high just in general for someone who how many saves did he have last year was it one no he had more than that I think it was a really low number not Nick Anderson the basketball player let's get

Nick Anderson had six six six and one in 2019 um yeah I just I think it makes sense in the Cardinals situation where Gallegos is, you know, well outside the top 200, I'm pretty sure. And yeah, it's 240. And Jordan Hicks is even further beyond that. Actually, no. Same range. So, yeah, I think it's another situation where you want to make sure that you're not paying up for this kind of thing. The point of something like this is you're paying low prices for an increased change.

of having the high-price production. The Rays had 12 different relievers get a save in 2020, which is just... They played 60 games. They had 12 different guys get a save. They had five different players get two or more saves. Oh, my gosh. That's what they're going to do.

I mean, they've showed us their hand. I don't think they're going to move away from it now. This next one's from Ben in Morristown, New Jersey. I've been playing in one of the longest running fantasy baseball leagues around the Belmont Track League has been playing since the late 80s. Wow, that's longer than I've been alive. I've been playing the last 15 years with these guys. Last year was the first time the league didn't play,

voting to sit out the truncated season. Two questions. Any extra suggestions on how to prep after a lost season? And how much weight do you give to players with extreme performances in 2020? I've been giving more credence to older players who had an extreme bad year and also to younger ones who had an extremely good year.

I'd love to get your thoughts. Well, I think you come to the right place because Chris is not putting much stock into last season. Yeah, yeah, nor do I think you should. And I thought we had all agreed back in November that this was what we were going to do and then everybody just decided,

no, we are going to put a lot of stock in 2020, and that's fine. I don't think you should put no stock in, but we're talking about 60 game sample size. We're talking about, you know, smaller than that for many players. And we know weird things happen. And the guys who are the best players in fantasy on May 30th are not often the guys who are the best players in fantasy at the end of the season. So I would, uh, my strategy is to be extremely skeptical of 2020 outliers.

And, um, if that means I miss out on a. couple of breakouts. I think that's okay because I think the most likely outcome, especially if it's

a Zach Pleezac who had a huge outlier from his track record, the most likely outcome for those guys is they're going to regress to the mean. And I think

there's going to be more value fading outliers in 2020 than buying them. Yeah, I think the prudent thing to do

is to probably not buy into last year's breakouts as much, although I've, you know, I've fallen for it myself. I like Trent Grisham, you know, that like there are players that I've fallen for, so I'm not, I'm not going to say that, you know, I am even using this own advice myself. But I think that is probably the more prudent thing to do is what I've done for a lot of players, Chris, is last 162. So I take a lot of what they did in 2019, and I combined that with last year. for starting pitchers, I looked a lot at their last 32 starts, because that's typically a full season for them.

So again, it takes some of the end of 2019 and some of last year and you combine it together and you see which players did things differently and you kind of, you react to that however you want to. Do you want to put stock into it? That's up to you. Scott, like someone like Zach Plesack or Framber Valdez, Chris is a little bit more skeptical of those players.

This is the last one we'll take for today, and there's still so many other questions. So I'll answer these individually in an email. but from Brad, dear begbie, spud, and sick boy. Do you know where that's from, Chris? I have no idea. So this is crazy

because I actually do. This is from train spotting. Have you ever seen the movie? Oh, I have seen that movie. Yeah. It's been a while. I think I watched it in college, maybe. I have seen very few.

There are a lot of movies I have not seen, but... You've seen train spotting? I've seen a lot of weird movies. So these are, I mean, those are the types of movies I like. the MS for your mind kind of stuff, Requiem for a dream,

stuff like that, so, yeah, there you go. They're kind of crazy movies, but whatever. I've been listening for a few years, have tried emailing four or five times and never make it onto the show.

You know, I didn't even read this. And I'm happy we finally got you here on the show. I'm hoping the six times a charm. Well, here you go. Brad, you got it. I am preparing for a Yahoo 12 team, Rodo Draft, and have two questions for y'all.

I really struggle after the first half of the second round in 12-team Roto. Going there are players like Mani Machado, Walker Bueller, Cody Bellinger, U. Darvish, Bryce Harper, Nolan Aronado, and Zander Bogart. I was wondering if you had standouts in this group of players. So we'll answer

that question first, Chris. What do you think? Yeah, I think Walker Bueller is probably the one. Well, Nolan Aronado is the one I'm least likely to draft out of this group. Walker Bueller, second least likely. I view Walker Bueller, I think more like a fourth round pick in my rankings, and Aaronado, I think is more like a sixth. Beyond that, I don't think you can really go wrong with any of Machado, Bellinger, Darvish, Harper, or Bogarts. I have Bellinger ranked highest out of that group.

I think then it's Darvish, Machado, Harper, and Bogartz. And yeah, I think, you know, if you can, you. get any of them, I think you're in a pretty good spot. Bogarts tends to go a little later in the drafts we do. And I think he's actually a really good value this year. Yeah, I'm looking at Yahoo ADP now. They have Cody Bellinger at 18. I'm a little bit more worried about Bellinger. I would take Harper over him. So if you prefer Harper, I have no problem with him going in that mid to late second round range. U. Darvish, perfectly fine with him. Yeah. I don't have a problem with a few of those other guys than you mentioned as well.

Walker Bueller, too high. We spoke about him on our pitching preview. Aronado for sure, going too high in this range. Because Yahoo has kept position eligibility from 2019, I find myself waiting until the later picks for a catcher and drafting Isaiah Kiner Folefa as my starting catcher. Do y'all think IKF will be a startable catcher in a 12-team roto?

I do. Yeah, I think he's going to play every day starting shortstop for the Texas Rangers. and could be a potential 10 homer 20 steel guys. So that would, I mean, a Roto, that probably would make him a top five catcher, I would imagine, Chris, in a Roto league? I don't think he's top five,

but I think he's definitely top 12. And if he's going later than that, yeah, I think it's absolutely viable that he can be a starting caliber fantasy catcher. I think that's especially true in ROTO or Categories leagues, because he could be a 10 to 15 steel guy, which at catcher, that's a big deal. Yeah, so I'm trying to pull up my

catcher rankings in Roto, but yeah, he would definitely be ranked inside the top 12, probably top 10, I think close to like that Austin Nola, Sean Murphy range around names like that. Again, that is Isaiah Kinear Flefa. So if you play in a Yahoo League, he does have more value there

because he's going to play every day and obviously that type of volume helps at the catcher position. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching our bonus mailbag edition of fantasy baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.