Fantasy Baseball Today - Busts 2.0! Players to Avoid in 2026 Drafts! (3/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Let's get right into Busts 2.0, starting with Spencer Strider (4:05). ... Why is Scott fading Andy Pages (11:17)? ... Sonny Gray feels overvalued right now (15:10). ... Should Nick Kurtz be a top-20 pick (25:30)? ... Chris added Zack Wheeler, Alejandro Kirk and Luis Robert to his Busts 2.0. Scott added James Wood, Murakami and others (39:18). ... Frank added Aroldis Chapman and Nick Pivetta to Busts 2.0 (53:10). ... News (56:56): Jeremy Peña has a fractured finger (51:56). ... We wrap up by recapping our Busts 1.0 from back in January (1:05:26). 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/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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

and tough fantasy baseball today on March 6th. I am Frank Stamphill, join by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we have Busts 2.0. We'll take a look back at Busts 1.0 from way back in January. And we will also take a look at the latest news. Jeremy Pena has a fractured finger. That's the bad news of the day. At least there wasn't much more bad news than that.

It's been kind of quiet. There wasn't much news. A lot of the, I don't know if you guys have heard, but a lot of the best players in baseball are not playing in spring training the last few days. And if we saw the box scores today, it looked like all the pitchers were gone. We had like three or four games that looked like football scores. It was crazy. The Padres dropped 26, I think.

It was a pretty bonkers day. The Dodgers, I think, were losing like 8-0 in that game. It ended up being 14 to 13. It was a pretty wild day of baseball around. We do have some backups that are in there. Obviously, the World Baseball Classic will be in full swing here on Friday. Just an awesome day of baseball coming up. We are recording this late Thursday night.

We've got Australia playing the Czech Republic once again. Shout out of Curtis Mead, bomb. Curtis Mead, three-run Homer, let's go. Trapper keeper. I will say, the schedule on Friday not the greatest. Netherlands, Venezuela, I'm very excited for it. That's going to be a fun one. I did throw a few shekels down on Venezuela,

just because the odds are so good. If they get, if they're pitching, because their pitching's not great, but they got like, I think Ranger Suarez is on their team. And like, if their pitching is just good enough, Venezuela is a real dark horse here.

That lineup is ridiculously stacked. It's really fun. Stacked. Let's get into our discussion of the day. We've got bust 2.0. So let's start with the player you are most likely to fade in this latest update. and Chris, start with you.

Yeah, we got to, technically he was in my bus 1.0, so I'm breaking Frank's rule two minutes and 47 seconds into the podcast. But we got to talk about him as well because I think it's the biggest story in fantasy baseball right now. And that's Spencer Strider and just where he is in his development process or redevelopment process, however you want to put it, what you can likely expect from him this season. There were lots of takes. I've got some takes about Spencer Strider. And as a general rule, Scott and I went super deep on this last time.

So hopefully we don't spend 15 minutes talking about Spencer Strider this time. But I need to see something. And I haven't seen anything this spring. For like, the standard would be different if we were talking about him as like the 50th pitcher off the board. But he's still like 25, 28, something like that. and I got to see something. His velocity was up on Thursday, Thursday. It was, yeah, it was 95.

Up from where it was previously. And that's, I suppose, relative to where we were after his first start, that is good news. Like, he's gaining some velocity. It's not what else went wrong for Spencer Strider. But now he's like back to where he was last year. So, but last year. wasn't very good. He was pretty bad last year. And in the start today, he got chased in the second inning. I actually came back for a third inning, but because spring training rules are fake.

But yeah, I, he threw, I think, 24 fastballs. He got zero whiffs and one called strike. If you do a little math in your head, that is a 4% CSW rate. That is really bad. Like, I don't know, man. If I threw 25 fastballs, you think I'd get one called strike? probably not. I don't want, no, no, I couldn't. No, I might die. Do foul balls count as? No, no, I don't think they do.

But that's all to say, yes, his velocity was up from where it was in his first start, still slightly down from where it was last year. The inverted, sorry, induced vertical break on the fastball was up slightly from where it was last year, but not where it was. two years ago or 2023 when he was really good. He was at about 17 inches today. It was 18 and a half in 2020. And the other thing that we have to keep in mind is fastball shape matters. But it is easier to record a higher IVB number at a lower velocity because the ball takes longer to travel to home plate. So 18 and a half inches at 97 miles per hour is not just a little better than 17 inches at 95.

it's significantly better. So his fastball still looks pretty bad. Yes, he's building up. I know, I know everything. I know you don't have to tell me because that's like every time you talk about, someone jumps in and says, oh, he's actually talked about how he's not going for,

yeah, I know. I know he's not going full intensity. We still have to analyze what we're seeing. And what we're seeing is a very similar version of Spencer Strider to the one we saw last year, who was not very good. And that leads me to believe that Spencer Strider will probably not be very good this season. It's not a guarantee.

Nothing's a guarantee. But at this point, to draft Spencer Strider as a top 30 starting pitcher means you are passing up on serious upside. And yeah, maybe Spencer Strider has serious upside. I actually don't know anymore, but sure, let's assume he does. You are passing up on many players who have serious upside. I know everybody kind of laughs at me for how much I like Sandy O'Connor this year, but dude won a Sion. Like the same year Spencer Strider was last good. And that's just one example.

Right. That's just one example. They're Tray and Savage and like the entire. The 30 to 40 range in the starting pitcher rankings is stacked with upside. And so that's why it just I could be talked into. Yeah, let's take a flyer on Spencer Strider. if it was the 150th pick in the draft and like the 45th starting pitcher. I think that's the earliest I could justify it.

And he's like 115 still. Even since that first start, his price hasn't really moved all that much. I just, I think there are way more ways that it goes wrong for Spencer Shrider. My, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you with the information we have available now. Like it was,

it's hard to like it's the velocity he was throwing at bet was better in the second start than the first but we kind of expected that it would get better yeah I didn't think he was going to throw 93 forever and it could continue to get better yeah it needs to like my

so my whole stance is unless you're drafting right now most people aren't let's just keep monitoring let's see what the next start looks like let's see what the next start looks like but based on what we've seen so far I agree that I have not seen anything

that would suggest he's overcome last year's issues. So I initially had him 30th about where his ADP is at starting pitcher. I've dropped him to 41st. And I've added him to bust 2.0. But I think he's one of the players we need to be watching the closest because there was enough improvement from start one to start two that we need to keep watching it. But we haven't seen anything yet to convince us.

he's fixed. Yeah. And in addition to the fastball, all offseason I brought up, even if we saw a third pitch that looked like it was reliable. But even that, like he threw four curveballs

and three changeups today and they got to combine zero whiffs and one called strike between those two. So it was all the slider. Like the slider, the slider is a great pitch. Even at 84 miles an hour, the slider is a really great pitch.

Yeah. It's just he used to have two 70 great pitch. and now he has one. And I'm not sure the slider is 70 grade anymore at this current velocity. So yeah, it's, I don't know. I don't see it. All right, fair enough.

It wasn't 15 minutes, but we did get, you know, about like 7, 8 minutes there on Spencer Tritner. Let's go over to you for the player. You are most likely a fade in your bus 2.0. I mean, I'm just going to say off top, up top. I don't know why I said off top, up top, at the start.

off the top of the dome I am not that emotionally invested in anyone I added to bus 2.0 I am not I don't feel the ick factor that strongly

when I look at any of them but I had to come up with a bus 2.0 so I added some names. Spencer Strider was one of them another that I have found myself fading subconsciously so I decided to make it conscious by putting it in right is Andy Pahas.

The time comes to take him and I'm just waiting for somebody else to take him because it's really three prongs of concern here. One, just a traditional statistical analysis. You look at what he did from July 1st on. That's 75 games, basically half a season, slash 251, 295-4-18. It was pretty bad.

So it was front-loaded, production without much of a track record previously ended very poorly for Andy Pahas. Two, look at the advanced stuff. He was an overachiever by the stat cast readings for the season, 272, 461 slug, expected stats 258 and 428. 258, 428 from a guy with poor on base skills. Also not very good. So stat cast at face value doesn't think.

he was very good. His exit velocity, average exit velocity, was only 28th percentile. Max was only 40th percentile. And power is supposed to be the carrying tool here for Andy Pahas. So now that looks good either. And then probably the biggest concern of all is the usage one. He was so bad in the postseason going four for 51 that the Dodgers sat him for the last two games, which were lose and go home games, if you'll remember.

remember for the Dodgers. And they decided, they decided Pahez. They didn't want Pahas in the lineup. Now, I think they had, who are they playing in center then? Was it Enrique Hernandez? And he's, he's hurt. Tommy Edmund's capable of playing center, but he's hurt too. So there is a question here of who else would they play in center if not anti Pahez,

but they're the Dodgers. They'd figure it out. If he was really sinking them, they'd figure it out. Edmund's going to be back at some point. He might just take over there. Who knows? Maybe Mookie Betts moves back out there. They have a surplus of infielders.

Betts could do it. He could play anywhere. I just think, I don't think Pah has his job is that secure. And I don't think his skills are that good. And I think drafting him about 120th is where he's going. I think that would be a mistake. Although, you know, I'm in my TGFBI League.

It's 151 right now and he's still out there. It's one of those ones where I very rarely actually see him go at his ADP, and it makes me think it's probably going to drop. But even then I just, like, I only have two outfielders in that league. No, I have three now. I just took Stephen Kwan. But I took Stephen Kwan ahead of Antipaz, and Stephen Kwan is pretty boring himself.

But yeah, every time it gets time to draft Andy Paz, it's just, I don't really see the point. I don't know. That was the end of sentence. I feel the same way. I think Frank is frozen on us. Okay. I thought Frank was just really struggling to process what I said.

Yeah, Frank just froze. It is hard to process, but Andy Pa has none of us like him. And I think you should avoid him. But I guess we'll just continue to talk about our busts. Frank might have just lost electricity in his apartment. Oh, that doesn't sound good. We might be doing bus two point out. me now with just Chris and Scott.

So I will take the lead moving forward. I will mention who Frank's bust was good. Should we do that? We can talk about Frank's bust. All right, Frank's bust. Maybe we'll like him and it'll be like talking about Frank behind his back. Can you believe Frank doesn't like Sunny Gray? No, I agree with him.

Sunny Gray, not someone who made my bus. Although I'm writing it next week and maybe this will inspire me because like you, I'm not really pounding the table. for a lot of my bus for the most part. One, it's just like, it's kind of goche to like, oh, that guy stinks. Like, no, he's a major league baseball player. He's really good. I don't know if you guys have heard. But two, it's just like, it's genuinely hard to find players who I think are improperly

valued in fantasy baseball anymore. And that's usually what I think of when I think of a bus. It's just, this is a bad price. But Sonny Gray, he is 137 in ADP over the last week of the NFBC. but on fantasy pros he's 103.4 as the SB 28 and I just can't get on board with that. We're talking about a guy who has been around for a long time and generally is pretty good. Not usually great, but pretty good. Gets a lot of strikeouts.

ERA tends to be a little inflated. It feels like the skill set is really starting to slip though. His fastball velocity has dropped almost two miles per hour, more than two miles per hour of the past couple of years. And it's just a bad pitch now. It gets just hit really, really hard. He's got a nice, well-rounded deep arsenal, and the Red Sox are a smart team that you figure will be able to get the most out of him. But I don't know, I think even if it ends up being like a 375 ERA at the end of the season and 200 strikeouts,

that feels like an okay projection, but it's really easy to see how things get a lot worse for him. Frank has him closer to 50 in his rankings. and I think it's pretty much the same for me. I'm looking at my overall right now. I have him 154. So that's after Ranger Suarez. That's about 47. It's after Hunter Green.

Mackenzie Gore. Just ahead of like, Zach Wheeler, who I think is going to be in bus 2.0 for me just because I need to see it before I draft him as high as he's going. And Scott, I think you're kind of on the last time we talked about Zahuehler.

I have Wheeler behind Sunny Gray, but I have Sunny Gray much lower than Consensus 2, 46. And I don't know. I just look at the numbers last year. They weren't very good. 428 ERA, 123 whip. Both of those are bad, bad, bad for a guy who's now in his late 30s and losing fastball velocity, like you're saying,

it was a 384 ERA the year before. So it's not like, oh, you know, just an off year. It's, now, the K per 9 was 10, even. The walks per 9 were 1.9. That's a really good strikeout to walk ratio. Yep. And so I guess that's what people are looking at with Gray. I mean, back to back years over 200K, more than a dozen wins.

Like, there, there, I, you can squint and see what people find appealing about him. but for me it's just he's showing signs of decline and you have I were just talking about with Strider you have all these upside plays at starting pitcher this year and I just feel like by comparison Gray I hesitate to call him a bust because I don't see like the floor giving out for Gray and him being worthless in fantasy this year I just think I think he's in that Luis Castillo category

maybe better strikeout. outside, but he's more like a volume guy who's going to hurt you in ratios. And that's somebody you take as your fourth, fifth starter in fantasy, not somebody you take as your second or third starter. Definitely someone you settle for. All right. That's going to do it for that segment before we get to the break. It's about, I feel weird making this announcement without Frank.

This is supposed to be Frank's thing. But we got to do it. We got the show must go on. And that being said, it's about that time for the FBT listener league. So here are the details. You need to know there will be two listener leagues, as always. One is a 12 team head-to-head points league. That draft will be Monday, March 23rd.

Time to be determined, but probably 8 p.m. or later, we're night owls. The other is a 16-te-to-head categories. That is the Heath Cummings Memorial for the People League. That draft will be the night before. the head-to-head points on Sunday, March 22nd, probably also at 8 p.m. If you want to participate in these drafts, email something to fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. It could be a funny Photoshop or a song or a poem or a haiku or just beg.

Just tell us why you deserve to be in the league. Maybe Frank will put his Venmo on. the website and we can we can settle it that way but just make sure you put that's a joke although you want to turn it down make sure you want i wouldn't uh make sure you put fbt listener league in the email subject line we will announce the winners on friday march 20th so do not apply if you cannot make either sunday or monday and if you want to put in which one you prefer i think that would probably also help Frank because he's going to do all this work because Scott and I don't want to do that work. That's what it comes down to.

We didn't want to host a podcast either, but. That's true. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Next up, oh, there's supposed to be a graphic here. I don't think I have access to this graphic. Oh, wait, I do. Whoa. That's up on the, yeah, well, if you're watching, if you're listening, the mock draft

Megastream Marathon is coming on Thursday, March 12th, starting at 3.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. It is an all-day event. Well, we will be doing four different drafts in a row with guests from around the industry. First will be a 12-team Roto mock draft on CBS. Then a 12-team head-to-head categories draft on Yahoo. Then a 12-team head-to-head points on ESPN using their format and their scoring. And then we will wrap up the night with the beat FBT draft on NFBC. It's a Roto Online Championship 12 team. Frank Scott and myself will be sharing that team. It will be chaos.

We will be trying to talk each other into and out of drafting players. It's going to be a lot of fun. We are probably going to be on for eight hours next Thursday all day. Starts this Thursday at 3.30. And we'll probably be live until 1030 or less. 11 p.m. Eastern on March 12th. Remember, that is the mock draft mega stream. Let's just take a break.

We'll be right back on fantasy baseball today. How do I sound? Oh, it's beautiful. Sounds all right. Sounds great. Wow, there is a first time for everything. Ah, geez. A little quiet, little quiet.

All right, well, we'll, we'll, we'll be a little bit. Okay, sounds great. Sounds perfect now. First time in two years since I've moved into this apartment. I just saw everything my house flicker and then all my electric went out for like five seconds it's nice to have you back took a while for the internet to boost back up did you hear a noise like you no i didn't hear okay that's a good thing so who'd you guys talk about all it was kind of sunny gray okay i think we're all

we're all in agreement right on sunny gray yes we made all your cases for you uh scott you you were talking about andy pa has but i think frank was still here so we're all caught up and frank you're going to put your Venmo up so people can bribe you to get into the listeners league. That's a recap of everything. I mean, that would be. That's all right with me. All right. So you went through the listener league.

You went through the mock draft megastream. We are caught up. We are caught up on Bust 2.0. And let's get into some other names here. And I guess I'll kick us off. Because I guess I've been really good to talk before. But I added Nick Kurtz to Bust 2.0 with an ADP. over the past week of 17.9, I realized how unfun this is a thing to do to have a second year player

who's coming off a historic season in my bus column, his full season pace, 49 home runs, 124 runs at 119 RBI. I have no questions about the power with Nick Kurtz, absolutely none at all. I do worry about the holes in his swing and the strikeout rate and what that could do for his batting average this upcoming season. If you look last year, he had a 31% K rate, 35.5% width rate. That ranked in the first percentile. His zone contact, 72.5%. That was about 10 percentage points lower than league average. His K rate in August went down to 26%.

So we're thinking, okay, progress. And then in September, back up to 35% strikeout rate for Nick Kurtz. He struggled against lefties. He hit 197 with a 35% K rate there. his XBA was 2.45 and that's kind of my expectation is that he hits around 250. Maybe he just impacts the ball so hard that he will outperform his XBA. But I'm expecting like a 240 to 250 batting average and I just don't see how that's much different than Pete Alonzo or Adelson. Raphael Devers.

Raphael Devers. So awesome first year, I am fading Nick Kurtz in the second round. Yeah, I've made the case before and I want to find that. the exact numbers, but I think that the easiest way I can make the case is just look at Aaron Judge. Aaron Judge was the last rookie to have a 1,000 OPS in 450 plate appearances. I think is the standard that Kurtz got to. Judge actually did it in almost 700 played appearances, but besides that, 1049 OPS for Aaron Judge as a rookie. It was 102 for Nick Kurtz. So Aaron Judge was even better. And then you look at the underlying numbers, and it really wasn't close.

As impressive as Nick Kurtz was in terms of the underlying numbers, 92.7 mile per hour average X velocity. 372x Woba for a 22 year old rookie is phenomenal. Aaron Judge had a 95 mile per hour average X velocity as a rookie and a 450 expected Wobah as a rookie. And he dropped down to a 920 OPS his following season. Now look, if we get a 920 OPS out of Nick Kurtz, nobody's going to be disappointed there. That's awesome. Like that's going to mean probably 260, 40 homers. It's going to be great.

But again, Aaron Judge was much better than Nick Kurtz. He was starting from a higher point. And the underlying numbers were much better. And he still dropped over 100 points in OPS. Nick Kurtz is a really good hitter. He's super talented. His numbers against lefties, like you mentioned the surface level numbers, 197 batting average, six something OPS.

He was actually even worse if you look under the hood. It was a 261 expected Woba against lefties. Only 88.6 mile per hour average exit velocity. 37% whiff rate. Those are really bad numbers against lefties. He's young. He will improve. I'm not saying Nick Hurst is like a platoon player.

It's just saying that when you're spending a second round pick on a guy who definitely won't steel bases. We know that. They've got to be a super... They really cannot have a weakness as a header. And I think that Kurtz has some weaknesses. So, yeah, he's on my bus list. He's

not on mine, but I think it's logical. I think Frank has the most logical bust list. I remember when our one pointos came out, I shared mine after Franks had already come out and somebody was like, I like Frank's bus list better. And I was like, well, let me look at Frank's bus list. And I've looked at it. And it was like,

Yeah. All those guys seem like they could be busts. Frank has like the people's bust list, and I'm trying to be like sneaky with mine. Like, have you considered this, though? Kurtz, it's a logical argument. Like, if you're going to pick one of the first two rounders to bust, Kurtz is maybe the most logical,

just by virtue of that strikeout rate. My hunch, though, and it may be your hunch too. It's not like any bust pick means a better chance than not of busting, just the potential to bust. But my hunch is the strikeout rate gets better before the other numbers get worse. Because Kurtz, as a professional, has just steamrolled everything he's come up against. And there's something in there in his profile that we don't know how to account for that is helping this to happen. Plus, I think the strikeout rate's going to get better.

But, you know, it wouldn't be surprising if it went the other way. And I'm not so eager to take him where he's going either, just because I like the next group of first basements so much. And it's very, it's a deep group. And that's mostly what it is for me. I will say I took him in TGFBI because he fell to 25. And that's where I'm more comfortable. It's late teens pick.

No, I can't get there. But 25th is, that's more acceptable. Yep. I think that is all fair there with Nick Kurtz. Chris, let's go back over to you and feel free to rattle off a few of your additions to bus 2.0. Okay. The most significant addition is Zach Wheeler. And that's mostly just that I had kind of hope we'd have more on Zach Wheeler by now.

And we just haven't seen anything. Like he's thrown a couple of bullpen sessions, I think. But we really have not seen Zach Wheeler throwing. competitively yet. And that's not to say I don't think he will. We talked about it the other day, but he's at the start of his six-week ramp-up activity. He's going to face hitters sometime this weekend, I think, is what I saw. And that's all great. I think it's worth, you know, keeping a very close eye because if he looks like Zach Wheeler, then I'm going to feel very dumb calling him a bust. And I reserve the right to change my mind. But we're talking about the 127th pick right now over the last

10 days at NFBC and I just I can't get on board with a ninth or 10th round pick in a 12 team league on a guy that I just genuinely have no idea what he's going to look like. It's very similar to the Spencer Strider one except we have at least some evidence that Spencer Strider is not that guy anymore whereas we have no evidence. We have no idea who Zach Wheeler is right now. It's just he's the name Zach Wheeler and he was if not for the Indian, going to be right there with Terrick Scouble and Paul Skeens and Garrick Crochet as a top 15 pick. But now I just I can't get on board with that.

Some of the other ones. Yep. I can't disagree with anything you're saying there for Wheeler. I have a much lower than the consensus too. I wish I thought about him as a bust. It's just I think in my mind I get like well he's hurt. So like, duh, he's a bust candidate. But you know, for where he's going, maybe people need to hear the case.

slightest bit of FOMO just because that five percent chance that he comes back and he's just Zach Wheeler. Yeah, absolutely. I would just kick myself, but it seems like a very small percentage chance that that happens. So it's just like, I put it in much more than five. Yeah, I mean, but the chance he's not. Of him being the exact picture that was before I'm saying. And he might come back and be, you know, 60 to 70 percent.

Yeah. If he's 80 percent of what he was last year, that's probably like Kevin Gosman and that's a fine pick where he is. It's just there's a chance he comes back and he's not good at all. I'm going to say I think it's likelier he comes back as Zach Wheeler. But if it's even a 40% chance that he's ruined. I can't take it that early because there are so many other good pictures there. Right.

Some of the other players I'm adding to Bust 2.0, Carlos Estevez, that's just kind of the. That's the free square. And look, we may get to a point where it becomes so obvious that everybody's out on Carlos Estevez that like Robert Suarez last year, he becomes a value. But I think the underlying skill set for Estevez is just, has one never been as strong as it was for Suarez. He felt like one of the luckier pitchers in baseball last year. So I can't get on board with Estevez as anything more than a fallback option closer. And I think you should very much be looking at Matt Strom or Lerner. Lucas Erseg in deeper leagues with the late round pick.

I'm also considering adding James Wood, this is one where it's just, I think the player is good, but the downside potentials for James Wood are pretty catastrophic. It was basically a 40% strikeout rate in the second half. That is not a rate that you see for any extended amount of time for most hitters. So that's one. Alejandro Kirk kind of depends on where you're drafting. he's very high at the NFBC. He's the number 12 catcher, 150.8 ADP.

I just, I don't see any path to upside with that pick. He's more like the 18th or 19th catcher, I think, for all of us. Yeah, Kirk. Yeah, Alej Kirk. So Kirk was one that I had every intention of putting in my bus 2.0 when we were only seeing NFBC data. but then once we got the fantasy pros data with all the other sites factored in

it's more reasonable it's more reasonable instead of going around 150 he's going around 200 it's still ahead of Kyle Teal it's still ahead of Francis Gophros what is going on with Samwell Basayo is he super late as well on a lot of sites he's so late that he's gotten pushed down to 16 in the composite ADP

he's 166 in NFBC, which seems more correct. But I don't get that. All the other sites, he's like 250, 275. I don't know what's going on there. The point is Kirk is, Kirk's the catcher you settle for. Yeah. And if the prices, like, if all those interesting guys are off the board, then sure, he's going to be fine. But he's probably not going to be great.

So Alejandro Kirk is a bust. Nelve Marte, maybe. I we basically got like two and a half months out of him last year one was really good one was really bad and the strikeout rate was way up in September as well so he's one that just that's another one when he goes around 120 it's like I can't really see it if he falls and I feel like he does pretty regularly then it's easier to get on board with no I'll be Marte but 120, 130 I can't really do it and same with Luis Robert who his price is rising as draft season has gone on and the Mets are not letting him play in games right now. They, they are supposedly, they have a maintenance plan for him and they, they seem to believe that they have figured out why he keeps getting hurt and they can stop him from getting hurt. And I don't know, maybe that's the case.

I don't know. The people running the Mets now are pretty smart, but like, I don't know, three years ago, the idea of the Mets keeping anyone healthy would have been roundly laughed at in baseball circles. So I genuinely have no idea what to make of that, but I just, I, it's easier to buy into the, oh, it was just because he was on a bad team excuse when it happens once. When you do it two years in a row, I have a really hard time believing that it's like mental. Maybe it was, but I just like that he came back. Sure. He had, he had, uh, about a month. month in the second half where he looked really good.

It kind of fizzled out in August, I think, before he got right. And he got, I mean, overall, the strikeout rate was much lower. Yes. Where it was when Louise Robert was at his best. And he talked about basically letting the ball travel deeper into the zone, which is, it does improve success on contact. Like, that is a known thing. And he had been a little, I guess, kind of the kind of, the kind of,

trying to do too much, but not just that is a throwaway line getting into the actual hitting science of what trying to do too much looks like. And he reverted to old contact rates. It was over a small sample. He's still super injury prone. I'm not particularly motivated to draft Louise Robert at his price either. I'm just saying I do see room for optimism there. Yeah. For me, it's more the price is rising and I just don't really see a good reason for the price to be rising.

Yeah. I wouldn't mind buying in on Robert. And I think we said this on our outfield preview. If the price was like 40 picks lower, if he was going around 150 or later, I would say, all right, I could take a shot on a much better lineup

and he seals a bunch of bases. And we still have, I guess, that theoretical upside of the player we saw back in, what was it, 2023. But yeah, around 110,

it's just like, the opportunity cost still seems a little bit high there on Luis Robert. Scott, let's go over to you. I'll rattle off some of your additions to 1.2.0. Kristen, I leave much for me there. I'll get into James Wood a little bit more. Contrasting him with Pete Crow Armstrong because I debated putting Pete Crow Armstrong on this list, too.

I think everybody's kind of tired of me giving my Pete Crow Armstrong takes. I've actually drafted him in three leagues already, three of the six. So I don't know how I became the Pete Crow Armstrong guy. In my head, I'm not, but in practice, I've been drafting. Anyway, the distinction there, because there's seasons James Wood and Pete Crow Armstrong, they paralleled each other so closely. Former top prospects looked like they had broken through his first rounders in the first half and then just collapsed in the second half.

But they both had glaring flaws, even as they were doing well. Crow Armstrong with the horrible plate discipline and it just seemed like that came back to bite him. The flaw we already knew existed. But James Wood, his flaw was a poor spray angle. He didn't angle the ball well enough off the bat to get to the kind of power we were expecting from him. And that wasn't the problem in the second half.

He just, his strikeout rate blew up to near 40% over that second half. And nobody can survive. with the strikeout rate that high, which I don't think it's going to stay that high, but why did it get that high? Explanations I've seen range from him simply tiring out in the second half. Find that a little hard to believe.

But there is also this idea that the launch angle became too steep, probably trying to address the flaw he had. And so that it kind of ruined his attack. angle and made it so he was missing more when he swung. But that's kind of a thinly sourced excuse and not, I don't think it comes from the player or the team himself or itself. So I don't know. I think he'll probably be fine.

But I'm scared of drafting him. And to me, that's particularly when you're talking about an early rounder, if there's any reason you're scared of drafting him, you've got to put that guy on your bus list. Yeah. And that's where James Wood and PCA are both going pretty close to the two three turn. It's closer to 30. But yeah, I think in both cases, you can see very easily how it goes really wrong.

And I think the reason I have James Wood on my bus list and not PCA is, yeah, it's just there's a path for PCA to still be useful. Like he could still be 2025 Luis Robert. That's not a great player, but it's still useful. If James Wood does what he did in the second half of last season, that's just not a useful player. And he's still only 15 bases. Yeah, that's the thing of them both as power speed guys and Jim. You know, 15 is not nothing, but it's not particularly in 2026. It's not an impactful contributor in the category while Crow Armstrong could carry.

you in the category. So that's a good point to bring up too. Okay, one guy you didn't mention was Riley Green, though I think Frank has talked about him as a bus before. He hit 36 home runs last year, and he was good the year prior, too. So I think it's easy to just be like, okay, Riley Green doing what he does. He was good in different ways, the two years. The 36 home runs was upping his previous high from 24 the previous year, when he was a much more complete, hitter.

It's never been good at making contact, but 31% strikeout rate, the fifth highest among qualifying hitters. It's not like he hit the ball especially hard either. It was 48th percentile exit velocity. So, you know, his launch angle became steeper, his approach more aggressive. Maybe that contributed to him hitting 50% more home. runs than he's ever hit before, but it also gave him a much thinner margin for error. And because it doesn't look like the raw power is up to what you'd expect from a 36 homer guy,

I wonder what happens with any regression there for Riley Green. And he's being drafted. Like, he can't miss. I think there's, I think there's a lot of room for him to miss here. I think his hitting profile now looks a lot more like Brenton Doyle than, than, uh, the not. And he doesn't, has play half his games at Core's feet. field. So that seems like a problem for Riley Green. Spencer Strider, I've added him to 2.0. I'm open to changing my mind as spring plays out.

We've talked about that already. But as things stand, I think I've got to call him a bust. Carlos Estevez for obvious reasons. If he sinks too far, like if he sinks as happened in the Tout Wars draft behind Dennis Santana and Griffin Jacks. Sir Anthony Dominguez, he went after. Sir Anthony Dominguez, who I actually kind of like, but obviously there are a lot of reasons to think those closers aren't going to pan out for you either. So it's like, well, let's go with the guy who led the majors and saves instead. I think that's what happened in Tau Wars. That's how I ended up with Estevez there, and I was fine with it.

It's not like it's a sure thing he's going to bust. His velocity was apparently way down last spring, too, and he went on to lead the majors and saves. So it might go okay, but there's obvious reason for concern here. And I'd certainly take Emilio Paghan, Danny Palencia, over Carlos Estevez. And finally, oh, here's one, Kristen, talk about either. Munataka Murakami. So, transcendent power, top of the scales power, the kind of power that won two MVPs in Japan, but also major, major contact issues. His zone contact rate last year was only 72.6%.

No qualifying Major League hitter had a mark that low last year. And if we say, oh, let's not look at qualifying hitters. Let's look at those with 300 plate appearances or more. Okay, well, some of those had a zone contact rate. I'm sorry, one of those had a zone contact rate below 72.6%. And it was Gabriel Arias who hit 220. Others in the bottom 12 for zone contact rate include Christopher Morel, Matt Walner, Michael Tolia, Michael Taylor, O'Neill Cruz, Ryan McMahon, Colton Couser, none of them hit better than 219. Now, there were a few in the top 12 who were pretty good, but the point is, like, this, making that little contact on pitches you're supposed to hit is a easy path to ruin for a hitter.

and in Murakami's case it's doubly scary because according to reports he had an especially hard time hitting velocity velocities are way better in the majors than they were in Japan on the whole so part of me is like well he's going around 200 so why are we going to get in a fuss about it but even going that late I've had no urge to take Murakami there are other first basement going in that rage that I like so much more. I feel like it's just going to be a wasted pick. And isn't that what being a bust is all about? So can I have can I make a quick counter? Sure. I know another hyped young power hitter from Japan who struggled with velocity in Japan and struggled with contact rates in Japan. And that guy's name was Shohei Otani.

It's actually true. Shohei Otani put up very... Did he struggle at his extent? His contact rates, his last season in Japan were very similar to Minotaka Murakami's. It was in, I don't know if Yakuya Cosmopolitan got into that with you, Frank, in the podcast you guys did, or his own YouTube channel, but he does have a comp showing Murakami and Otani in their final seasons in Japan. And it's actually very close.

That's not actually. my comp or my actual argument because Shohei Otani is like the unicorn of all unicorns in professional baseball history, but it is to say we do at least have one example of this. And the other thing I'll say is I've seen a lot of talk about the 93, he struggled against like 93 or 94 plus mile per hour velocity in Japan.

The problem with trying to draw comps from Japan to the United States, especially when you're looking like velocity is the ball moves differently in Japan. The ball is a little smaller. I think the seams are a little tighter. And pitchers get more run on their fastballs. Their fastballs move better.

So at the same velocity, a 93 mile per hour fastball in Japan is, in theory, significantly harder to hit than the same one in the United States. Now, that being said, if the average in Japan is 92, 93, here it's 94-95, so it might come out in the wash, but that's just those are the, the, I agree with you, there's a lot of risk with Monotaka Maracani. I lean more towards him being a, um, a sleeper just because he's so cheap, you know, he's like 220 in ADP. He's so cheap in one respect, but you get in those deeper rotis, rotiss release, and that's like a mid-round pick. On average, he's going ahead of Jonathan Aranda, who I have as a breakout, South Stewart, who I have as a sleeper. I like Stuart Moore.

He's doing right next to Okamoto, too, who we all love. Yeah. Yeah. And part of the thinking here, too, is, like, I only know so much. I don't claim to be, like, I'm not one of those guys who thinks I should be working in a front office because that's, you know, I'm so much smarter than everybody else. I believe those front office guys know a lot more than me. Especially about Munitaka Marcambe.

You could probably work in the Rockies for office guys. And they... I think that'd be an upgrade, actually, yeah. And they... Yeah, you know. Famous, they just hired a famous guy to run their baseball ops. Moneyball. You could have run the Browns into the ground, too.

I mean, come on. It's a different sport, even. Like, it's very impressive that his reputation, I can't even think of his name now. I'm just thinking of the character. Jonah Hill. Paul D. Podesta. Paul D. Podesta.

Thank you. I think he was Peter Brown in the movie or something like that. Anyway. Something like that. It's very impressive that he had such a good rip. that they hired him across sports like that and people need to stop giving him a hard time. He obviously had a huge influence on the way all front offices are run today. So the Rockies may be in good hands.

But that's an aside. What I was going to say is nobody wanted Mutataka Murakami for all the hardware he collected in Japan, for all the hype. He had to settle for a two-year deal with the White Sox. What does that say? I think the likeliest outcome is he's Matt Walner. but there's some Raphael Devers outcomes here at the high end I think. Yeah, I believe when I had Yakyu Cosmopolitan on back in November, he admitted that the range is massively wide here for Morikami.

On the high end, it could look like Nick Kurtz on the low end. It could look like Joey Gallo on the Yankees. So that's a completely unusable player for fantasy or for baseball teams. They named Paul Deepedesta Peter Brand in the brain. Yes. All right. Let's take our final break. When we return, I guess I'll rattle off a few names.

We'll talk about Jeremy Pena's injury and then a quick recap of our Busts 1.0 and see if anything has changed. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Bust 2.0. I already went through Nick Kurtz. I'll rattle off a few more here and not doing any favors with the Red Sox fans, unfortunately. But I've got a Roldest Chapman, who we spoke about extensively on our relief pitcher preview. Just general rule in fantasy is.

you know, fading the 37-year-old coming off one of the best seasons of his career. Pretty good idea to do that. Biggest improvement for him was the control, 2.2 walks per 9, 6.6% walk rate. The previous four seasons combined, 6 walks per 9, 15.4% walk rate. He went right after hitters last year. His first pitch strike percentage was much higher than it's ever been before. And Scott, I know you mentioned that Chapman and the Red Sox found a change. you know, his gripping the ball.

And if that carries over, then he might just be awesome once again. But I will get against the outlier control that we saw from a roll this Chapman last year. Nick Povetta, we've talked a lot about his ADP over the past week is 101 as the SP24. Finally put it together last year, had a 287 ERA. Underlying numbers did not buy it as much. It was a 385 X-FIP 397 XERA. his ex-fip and ex-ERA were both higher last season than they were in 2024

when his ERA was 414. So make it make sense for Nick Povetta. He is a fly-ball pitcher but also had Outlier Babbat last season, 235. That was a clear low for his career. So just expecting some regression. I don't think he's going to bottom out or wreck your team if you draft him.

But I do expect him to take a bit of a step back from where he was last year. And then the last name, and this is one that I'm, already kind of waffling on. I agree with what you said earlier, Scott. It's just like busts for me are the hardest to write about. It's just I kind of want to just take the glass half full approach with so many players.

So, you know, naturally being negative about players, I just don't, I'd rather not do that. But here we are. The name is Jared Duran, who's ADP over the past week is 66.5, 14th outfielder off the board. The basis for this was that Duran might sit against left-handed pitching. and bad numbers in his career against lefties on a team with Williara Brayu who also has bad numbers against lefties but Abraeu is a much better defender.

He is a back-to-back gold glove award winner in the outfield. And so if they just had to choose between sitting one of those two guys against lefties, I assume that it would be Duran. The problem is he showed up to spring, has already hit three homers, two have come against lefties and one has come against Chris Sale. Maybe that means nothing, but I mean it's at least a little impressive based on what we've seen him do against lefties in the past.

So I could just be overreacting to that. And maybe he's just going to play every day and be fine. So waffling on that one, but the other four, Povetta, Chapman, Kurtz, and Sunny Gray, I am pretty much fading at cost. Okay. All good? The Duran thing? Are you guys in on the Duran fade? I just, I don't know.

We talked about it the other day. I don't actually believe he's going to sit against lefties. He might not. I don't. I think it. I don't think their bench is deep enough to allow for that, first of all. And second of all, like, you just don't do that with your star players. Like, what bigger star do they have than, than Jared Duran, at least on the hitting side?

Yeah. The answer is nobody. Roman Anthony, baby. And I mean, Willier or Brave, does he really need to start against left-handed? I don't, I don't really see it. News and notes here, Jeremy Pena has been diagnosed with a fracture on the tip of his right ring finger, and he will be re-evaluated in two weeks. He is out for the WBC and opening day is currently in question.

Have you guys lowered or planned to lower Jeremy Pena in your rankings? I haven't yet. Because I've been busy doing other things and because I don't think it's going to be a dramatic move. You know, they're not ruling them out for opening day yet. Even if he does miss opening day, it doesn't sound like it would be much longer. Directly behind him in my shortstop rankings is Trevor Story, who I have is a bust. So at most it would just be one spot in the shortstop rankings. And I'm not even sure I really want to do that.

Yeah. Yeah, I'll move him down behind Trevor Story and Willie Adamas, but they're, they're all. so close to one another that it's it's effectively treating this injury like a like a coin flip decision yeah and again he could be ready for opening day so it might amount to nothing here but if he is not ready then that means esauperatus could get some playing time early on in the season it's like it's like it's like the flip side if pain is just there then we're kind of back to square one with uh no but it's it's demonstrative of nothing is in stasis, you know?

And like we didn't even see Jeremy Pena's the second biggest injury risk on that infield. Yeah. Life's going to find a way, baby. The astros might find a way even before life does. Yes, that is true. We'll continue on here. Josh Hayter will throw a bullpen session early next week.

That's his first mound work since being diagnosed with left biceps inflammation. We'll see how his arm responds. Xavier Edwards was removed Thursday with left calf tightness. Not exactly what we want to see for a speedster, someone we rely on for steals. Riley O'Brien, who's been dealing with a calf injury for a live bullpen on Thursday and is scheduled to make his spring debut on Saturday.

Brenton Doyle, who is dealing with a left wrist sprain, hopes to return to spring action on Friday. Josh Young began fielding ground balls on Thursday. That's the first time he's done any on-field work since being diagnosed with a grade one adductor strain. Andrew McCutcheon signed a minor league contract with the Texas Rangers. If he were to make the team could form a short side platoon there with Jack Peterson. But again, it's benches are so small right now.

It's four-man bench for a lot of teams. It's like, yeah, is a team going to carry two DHS? They afford to carry just a short side D. He did. You know, I will say he played a little bit of outfield last year, but there was a quote recently that he was. kind of upset about how little they played him in the outfield. For what it's worth, he still seems to think he can play in the outfield.

And, you know, I don't know. I love Andrew McCutcheon. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. I'm just pulling for him. That's my guy, man. Quick mention of some spring performances. We got to Strider earlier, but Matt McLean, man, another huge game, three for three, including his fourth Homer.

And you guys touched on this a little bit yesterday, the fact that he's working. with a longer bat now. He's made some tweaks to the batting stance and things like that. So we are starting to learn some tangible reasons, perhaps, for why he is having this huge spring so far. We'll, you know, see if he just starts to rapidly rise up draft boards. If that's the case, then maybe not.

But if he stays around, you know, 180 to 200, seems fine for like a minute. There's so little ceiling plays, so few ceiling plays at second base, then he probably should. I mean, I'm not the biggest Matt McLean optimist, but it's just given your alternatives there. I know we've talked about how second base is deep and usable guys, but if you want an impact player there, you're not getting him outside of the top five, probably. So the one thing with McLean is we are already starting to see a pretty decent amount of of inflation. He's inside the top 200 over the past 10 days at NFBC. I would guess if you isolated it to just March, which is going to be a very small sample size, but I would guess he's moved up even more than that.

It is 191 in 24 drafts in the month of March. That's not terrible. Yeah, that's still fine. you know, you look at second base and it's like he's still behind Jose Caballero, which is very contact specific. He's behind Jackson Holiday. I think they're actually very similar players, but I think Jackson Holiday is probably just naturally a stronger player. Like the skill set is stronger there. Maybe that's anchoring too much to who Jackson Holiday was as a prospect, but he was a top 120 pick before his injury.

So I don't I wouldn't feel too much too comfortable if Matt McLean got moved up too much But then like if you went ahead of Bryson Stott I'm never gonna like I'm not gonna really blink at that that that seems fine It's just what are you looking for at that point are you looking for bryson stott's boring safe production or the potential For Matt McLean to be more than that it's just Should seven good games in spring training be the reason you push Matt McLean at Yep. No. I mean, that's usually the wrong move. Seven games doesn't mean anything. He hit three homers in the first four games last season, if you remember. That didn't mean Matt McLean was all of a sudden a great player. He might be. No, but I, but what would you need to see to convince you that, oh, things might go better for Matt McLean this year.

Because it's, because it's easy to just say it doesn't matter. Oh, that explanation, I don't buy it. But like, is there anything that, would give you optimism. I would need something more than his bat is a half inch longer. But it's not just that. It could. I mean, that's the, that's the most tangible thing we're talking about. No, it's, there's more to the explanation than that. It's, he was getting beaten.

Mm-hmm. By sliders. And he has made adjustments, that being one of them, one of several to. What were the other? I'm sorry. I'm not, I'm not doubting you. I just didn't see what. the other adjustments were.

I don't remember them off the time. I think he tweaked his stance. I don't remember them off the top of my head, but I remember what I'm saying, I would need a tangible, like here is a change in the underlying skill set. And it's just really hard to do that in spring training. Like it's just really hard when you're talking about a hitter.

The data is always going to be small enough. I would need to see him hit the ball harder than he has in the past or. Well, he has been doing that, hasn't he? Like the home runs have not been. practice league cheapies. No, but it's not like he said a new max EV or anything. The fact that he only has one strikeout in 17 at bats feels positive. But it's 17 at bat.

Yeah, that's the thing is I would guess there were 17 plate appearance stretches last year where he only struck out once. It's everything, including look at how good he was in 2023. And I don't think any of us bought 2023 at face value, but none of us were expecting it to go as poorly for him as it did last year either. So it's, you know, it'd be one thing if it was pushing him up past Ozzy Albies, but if it's pushing him up past Bryson Stott, like you said, which is not even doing yet. It's like, eh, I'm willing to, I'm willing to be open to this idea that he's learned to hit sliders better. Yeah, maybe.

I think for me it's just he went 15 and 18 in a bad season after he missed an entire year. So he can probably be better than that. I think that's okay. Just the year over a year buying low on a player who was in the top 100 last year and that is now going around 200 that has made basis for drafting him I think would be totally fine

and now I just we have this on top of it so I thought he was the most overdrafted player in baseball last year so yeah that this is more appropriate sure no absolutely yeah alright let's wrap up here with a reminder of our busts from 1.0 and figure out are we still out on these guys has anything changed? changed and Chris will start with you.

Remind us, bus 1.0. Yeah, so the guys that I'm removing from bus 1.0 are Nolan McLean, because that's just like, I think he's really good and it's just the argument was mostly quibbling about his price and that just seems kind of silly. Like, okay, I prefer Noel McLean going 15 spots later. That doesn't really. Any concern about this like vertigo thing that's been going on with him? I haven't seen that.

He's been, yeah, he was dealing with some kind of vertigo-like illness. I saw he threw a sim game and is still expected to pitch in the WBC, but I think he was like shut down for a few days. I don't know if it's been like the travel and all this stuff for the WBC. I don't know what caused it. I didn't really read too much into it. But I did see a few headlines that he was dealing with some kind of vertigo like illness. Okay, yeah, I hadn't seen that.

That's something to keep an eye on. We got three weeks until opening day. But if it becomes an issue, that's something to keep an eye on. But everything I've seen is he's still expected to pitch for the USA and the world. Baseball Classic. They're actually still talking about him. If you need it to the finals, he's going to pitch the final if they do. That's just the way the rotation would work out.

Ben Rice is kind of the same thing. It's a player I really like. It's a price I don't like. But that's mostly people got a little ridiculous about Ben Rice in the month of January on the NFPA. BC platform on particular. His ADP was inside the top 50. In February it was outside of the top 50. And so that's like I prefer him around 60.

I can stomach it at 52 or whatever. It was just when when people were starting to push him to like 40 is like okay we're getting we're treating it as if it's too obvious that he's going to be great instead of just good. His fantasy pros ADP by the way, which is culmination of six different websites is 66, which is more palatable.

Yeah. Any other changes to buswomen? Jacob Wilson, I don't really love him, but I also just don't really see the case for the bust. It mostly is just people are treating him like he's really a lot better than Luis Arias, and I kind of just think he's Luis Arias. Like, you just look at the underlying numbers. I know he was better last year,

but there's not much in the underlying numbers that backs it up. Shane Bieber, I'm taking out because he's just too cheap, but he was inside when he was a top 200 pick. Blake Snell, his price has fallen plenty to where I can't really argue with it anymore. I'm in that TGFBI draft. It's 156 right now. And Blake Snell is still on the board. I probably will not take Blake Snell because this isn't 15 team, no IL league,

but I think that's a perfectly fine, reasonable price for him. And then the guys I'm keeping in, O'Neill Cruz, I just, I think you might get stolen bases and like really nothing else out of him. You'll get 20 homers, but 20 homers is not really actually that impactful. Nick Kurtz, like I mentioned, Spencer Strider, I mentioned. Chandler Simpson, I just, look, there's a world where he hits 310 and scores 95 runs and steals 55 bases and he's awesome. But he's the player inside the top 280P that's outside of the rookies, I guess, the most likely to start the season in AAA. I don't think it's especially likely, but it's a possibility.

Or to be there by May 1st. Sure. And that's just mostly, despite we like him a lot for fantasy, he's not actually a particularly good player. He doesn't walk very much. He doesn't have for any power. And he was a very bad defensive player. So he's got to improve somewhere to be a good real-life player.

Senator Raphaela, it seems like his price is also starting to be a little more reasonable. but he was like a top 120 pick, and at the NFBC, he's 124. He's second base and outfit eligible. Dual eligibility does help. I just think Saddam Rafael is not a particularly good hitter. That's mostly where I come down on that one. Roki Sasaki, he's cheap.

I just don't think he's anywhere close to being a major league caliber pitcher right now. It's certainly not an impact one, so it just feels like a wasted pick even outside of the top 200. And then Nick Povetta, everything you said, Frank, I just, I think he'll be fine, but it's probably more like a high three ZRA than a high two's. And I don't really want to chase that. All right, Scott, any changes to Busts 1.0? We wrote those back in January, like six months ago, something like that.

Yep. I was reading about Matt McLean, get some more concrete information there. But we don't need to talk about him anymore. Let's talk about Bust 1.8. So I had Jackson Merrill there. I think people are just a little too, a little to rose-colored glasses with him. Like there isn't much of a track record to draw on.

And there were, like, you stole one base last year. He, it was like a 23 homer, 162 game pace for a guy with bad plate discipline. He doesn't walk a lot. So there's, he showed no speed. He showed modest power, doesn't walk much at all. And, you know, he needed a huge September to get to that 23 homer pace. It was just a bad year all around. I know there were injuries.

There was a concussion. And maybe that explains it. But for the 60th pick, I need more than a maybe. And people get mad about this one. They're just convinced Jackson Merrill is a stud. I'm just not as convinced as you. I'm sorry. He may be.

Yes. He may be. I mean, Chris is right there, Scott. Come on. For that price, for that price, I don't want to maybe. I have a made. I want a sure thing. I want a sure thing.

Subtweeting Chris on the show. It's not just, it's not just Chris. Nobody likes this take. But I'm giving it anyway, and you can ignore, you can take Merrill if you want, it ain't going to be me. You'd have to fall like 20 more picks from there. Nick Povetta is also on my bust list. I keep drafting them because I think everybody has them as a bust,

and I got him 30 spots below his ADP and TGFBI. So it's like, all right. I think it'll be a good source of whip, if nothing else. And I like getting whip in a Roto League. I love when we do our most drafted players later on in March. It's going to be Nick Pavetta. It's going to be P. Croix Armstrong. Yeah.

That's fine. Like, my whole thing is like, yes, I can make a bus case for a player. it's likely to be wrong. Like the odds are it's going to be wrong. You look at my bus picks for my bus columns for the year. If I get half of those right, that was a great year in terms of picking the right bus. So you shouldn't be married to any opinion you have about a player. Yeah, people take it as if like you're not a man of conviction.

If you take a player you think that is a bus. And I just like, you should never like, you should never be. You should never be that confident about, like, these are wide ranges of outcomes for every player. And you might think a player skews more towards the low end range of outcomes than the high end. But we're still talking about imperfectly predicting the future. You should be open to any player at any price. That's just everybody's version of that price is going to be different. Yeah.

I have never been opposed to taking my bust when the price is right. And the price is often right for Pavetta, but ADP says it's wrong. So I'll keep him on the bus list. But, you know, I'll probably keep drafting him because everyone thinks he's a bust. Okay, Alex Bregman is, I think, going to have problems at Wrigley Field, given that he's always played in parks that maximize pole-side power. He doesn't have a lot of raw power. He gets to it by angling the ball well.

and Wrigley Field is like the worst venue for hitters who do that because it's so deep in the corners. I don't think he's going to be a total collapse for Bregman, but I think it's going to be his worst season. Trevor Story, guy couldn't even play 60 games for like three years in a row, and then he stays healthy last year, and now everybody's drafting him. Like, he's just not an injury risk anymore. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Plus, he has major plate discipline concerns, so just performance-wise, I worry about story on top of the injury. risk. Miseryowski major control problems throughout his minor league career looked great when he first

got to the majors, but those control problems came back with a vengeance in the second half. And he was pretty much unusable then. I'm not sure Jacob Misirowski is a finished product. Jacob Marcy, really unimpressive hitter throughout his minor league career. Stole bases walked, but the batting average was terrible. That's the key thing that I don't think a lot of people realize is this was like a 250 or worse hitter throughout. his minorly career. I think at double A it was sub 200 and at AAA it was like 240 or something, 252 maybe. And it was that way in September in the majors too. He just had such a monster August that the final numbers look good. He was pretty bad in September. So worried about Marcy.

Taylor Ward, I don't know that I really want to call him a bust. I just think really I just want to stress I don't see 36 home runs happening again. You're paying for the you're paying for the career. You're there. Yeah. Seidon Raphaella. I just don't. See it. It's not a strong hitter. It's not a, yeah, like blue, stack cast page, totally blue. He's baby PCA. That's low in the lineup.

It's kind of like what if PCA didn't do all the things he does well? He is like a C minus and every time. Raphael is like a C minus and everything, and that doesn't add up to the 150th player off the board for me. Robbie Ray, his swing and miss numbers. cratered in the second half, everything cratered in the second half. And he's old and he's injury prone and he's always given up a lot of hard contact and had control issues. So I could just see it totally falling apart.

Jackson Holiday, I think, was being overdrafted. It's harder to say that now that he's hurt. And yeah, we'll just leave it at that. I originally, let me add one last thing. I originally had Nolan McLean and bus 1.0. I took him out. he is, I think, looking a lot easier to buy into as the injuries start to pick up at starting pitcher. And that six pitch arsenal gives him so much margin for error that he might be a little overdrafted,

especially relative to some of these young guys. But I just think calling him a bus is kind of stupid. So I'm not going to do it anymore. Nolan McLean, off my bus list. All right, a quick recap of my busts 1.0. I broke this down into three different categories, bottom out potential. I had Carlos Estevez, O'Neill Cruz, and Spencer Strider, injury risks. I had Byron Buxton, Trevor Story, Blake Snell and Tyler Glassnow.

That Blake Snell call, that age like fine wine. How about that? Do not pay for the career year, Cal Raleigh, Riley, Riley Green, and Geraldo Perdomo. So still out on pretty much all of them at costs since January. Obviously, we learned like Snell is dealing with the injury, won't be ready for opening day. His ADP over the past week is 148. As Chris pointed out, I mean, that is a steep discount.

He was, I think, probably a top 60 or top 75 pick before we found out about the injury. So his ADP has pretty much doubled. But look, in leagues with multiple IL spots are unlimited, like, sure, you could take the shot. but it's probably just still not going to be me with Blake Snow. I backed off a little bit on O'Neill Cruz, and it's really just anecdotal type things. We learned that he really focused on hitting lefties this offseason,

and I like to see that he understands what his weakness is, and he's trying to get better at that thing. And I also really like the signing of Marcel O'Neill-Zuna there as a kind of, you know, Dominican mentor on the team, kind of veteran presence that O'Neill Cruz can lean on. So I like stories like that. And I think having him around could maybe help reduce some of those slumps that O'Neill Cruz goes through throughout the course of the season. I probably still won't take him at cost.

His ADP the past week is 92 as the 23rd outfielder off the board. But I'm a little less confident in the O'Neo Cruz call now. That 92 is just like. Yeah. I mean, it's still, it is a big price. I get it. Like, or a guy who just said 200, I get it. Yeah, like he was the.

110th hitter last season. And that was basically because he had 40 steals. If you look at the breakdown of his value, he was a below replacement level player in all five categories except for stolen bases. That's just, yeah, I can't do it at a top 100 price. Yep, probably not going to be me either. So again, those were our busts 1.0.

And over the next couple days, I know the way that you to do it is you kind of, include your bust 1.0 and your in your 2.0 articles, but I pretty much just go back and try to, you know, update my 1.0 and I republish those. So I'll be tweeting those out over the next couple of days. I just, I have this backlog of a bunch of things I need to do on Friday. So that'll be my Friday. How about that? We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow with our weekend mailback.

Bye.