Fantasy Baseball Today - Busts! Fade Bo Bichette and Eloy Jimenez!? (3/8 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

The gang's back together! Who are each of our #1 busts this season (1:49)? Is Eloy Jimenez overvalued? Should you be worried about Max Scherzer? ... We hit the latest news from the weekend as Jake Odorizzi signed with the Houston Astros plus we have an update on Cody Bellinger (21:12)! ... Which pitchers' velocity do you need to know from the weekend (29:12)? How are we feeling about Patrick Corbin? ... We have more busts (33:10)! Why are we all fading Walker Buehler? ... Is Bo Bichette overvalued (37:15)? ... Is Cody Bellinger too risky at his ADP (40:41)? ... We have a bunch more busts here (42:00)! ... 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.

Which players are we avoiding this season? I have a feeling the Dodgers fans out there are not going to be very happy with us. Welcome into fantasy baseball today. Frank Sample joined as always by Scott White and Chris Towers. We've already done the positive stuff. We gave you the sleepers, the breakouts. So today, unfortunately, is the negative. And we will be talking busts.

Plus, we have position battles and some news from the weekend. What's going on? Chris, you feeling better, buddy? I am feeling better. Thank you. Thank you. I got through it this weekend. Saturday was my last day feeling under the weather, but I'm good now. Very good to hear.

Happy to hear that. Chris Towers back on the program. Scott, how's the weekend? A wild one? Oh, wild. Just so many wild things happened. I can hear it in your voice. Yeah, yeah.

Trying to remember if I put on shoes this weekend. Oh, yeah. I went to the grocery store. Oh, yes. All right, so that gives you everything you need to know about our lives and what we've got going on. But let's start with busts. Let's start up at the top. Who is your number one bust?

Basically, someone that you are not going to draft. I mean, everyone has a price. If they fall to a certain point, I'm sure you would consider them. But just normally, when you see this player, you look the other way. Let's get things started with Chris. Welcome back. Who is your number one bus, Chris? Yeah, so my first thought when I saw this question was Denelson the Met.

And then I realized that I'm pretty sure I either took him or was about to take him in TGFBI. So I guess that's not quite accurate because I think he had fallen outside of the top 100. So I will go with a player who's not falling ever. And that's Elohimenez. His ADP is inside the top 36. And I just can't bring myself to pay a premium for a guy

who pretty much projects, even in a optimistic scenario, to be a three-category contributor. And even in head-to-head, points. You know, I don't think the outlook's all that much better. He is a relatively high strikeout rate. He's not Joey Gallo, but he's been at, you know, right around 25% through the first two seasons of his career. He's been a very low walk rate below 6% for his career. And so you kind of need him to be at minimum like a 30 homer 100 RBI guy, maybe not 100 RBI, maybe 90 RBI

to, you know, really feel good about that. investment in the third round. And I just, I think you can get similar production elsewhere. You know, it's a lot to bet on him being a good source of batting average, a plus source of power, a plus source of RBI,

given the fact that he hasn't stolen a base in a game since 2017. And is on, I think his 150 game pace over the course of his first two seasons, it's like 81 runs or something. It's pretty low, which is to be expected for a low on base. slow guy. He over the last 15 seasons, there have been two players in Major League Baseball to have over 30 home runs, over 100 RBI, while striking out more than 24% of the time and walking less than 6.5% of the time. That's Javier Baez and Alfonso Soriano, obviously slightly different players, but I think that actually kind of highlights the risk with Elo Jimenez because the bat has to be excellent for him to just.

justify this price. You know, when you're talking about a third round pick, you're not just talking about very good power hitters. You know, very good power hitters can go in the seventh, eighth round, or later, you know, like Michael Conforto doesn't go in the third round. So, you know, the, the kind of players that you're passing up on, Freelo Jimenez, I just, it's a profile that's too easy to find. Yeah. And he hits a lot of ground balls. You know, he is like a 50% ground ball guy. So it's not necessarily a guarantee that he's a plus power guy. I think with Eloy, the groundball thing doesn't worry me as much because I think it's similar to Juan Soto where when he hits the ball in the air, it's just so hard.

Like, you look at the bowler rate, it's still really great for Eloy Jimenez. But the points that you've made about the walk rate and his, specifically, the runs are going to be not bad for him, but I mean, realistically, you're probably projecting somewhere between 80 and 85 runs scored for Eloy Jimenez. even as good as the White Sox lineup is, he does have a bit of an injury history as well. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to say I won't draft him, but you've opened my eyes a little bit more

to that runs category being a potential issue for Eloy Jimenez. If you're on the clock towards the end of the third, early fourth round, well, rather let me ask you this. How low would he have to fall for you to actually consider taking him? I think I have him closer to 50th overall. I can try to check that right now, but I think that's where I have him. Scott,

47th overall. So end of the fourth round, it's not like a huge difference, but even there, I, you know, if he was there at the 47th, like you're looking at,

I have Aaron Judge ahead of him. I know that's not near, really the consensus at all, but I just think there are better ways to find that profile. Scott, are you as hesitant on Elohimenez? I mean,

I haven't really, ranked 53rd, so. Oh, all right. I'm paying even more than I do. No ball and Chris there. I don't really see him. You have a lot more. You have a lot more pitchers than I do inside your job. He's probably just getting pushed down.

Although I do a Varon judge ahead of Jimenez as well. But I don't know. I don't really see him as a bust. I mean, I think the floor is still pretty high. It may be, it may be a situation where he slightly underperforms his draft position. I do think his ADP is probably projecting another step forward. I mean, you mentioned the strikeout rate,

the walk rate. I think it's very likely both of those trend the correct direction, but both of those move the correct direction this year. Oftentimes you see as players establish themselves as middle of the order threats, they start walking more, which is probably why you don't see many

30-Homer 100 RBI guys over the past decade with a walk rate as low as Jimenez as was last year. Because pitchers around them more. But, you know, I, it's fine. I think he's probably going a little too early. It's one of those things where it's less, like, I don't see a catastrophic season.

But like, I could really easily see him hitting 265 with 30 homers and 90 RBI and being good, you know, being solid. But, you know, not outperforming Nick Castiano's who goes a lot later than him or John Carlos Stan who goes a lot later than him. or John Carlos Stan, who goes a lot later than him. So it's more for me about the profile being relatively easy to replace, making him a worse value. And it's a good point that you bring up, because there are different kinds of busts, obviously. You know, there are guys that we think can completely bottom out.

And then there are guys that we just think are overvalued. And maybe you can get similar production from players that are going later, much later than someone like Eli Jimenez, who Chris mentioned, and a few other names that I'll mention later on as well. Scott, who is your number one bust this season? My number one bus is Teoska Hernandez. I've mentioned it a few times before. He obviously took a huge step forward in a very short season last year.

And that kind of is the crux of the issue that as good as his numbers were, small sample. And it's not like the whole profile changed. He always hit the ball hard. just he hit it exceptionally hard during that small sample. His plate discipline was still horrendous. I mean, Aloi Jimenez looks like Joey Vado compared to Teoscar Hernandez, you know?

And it didn't get any better last year. He just hit the ball really hard for two months, which I don't know, looks to me like a hot streak. And it looks to me like that small sample noise we're going to have to, we're going to have to figure out how to tune out for certain players. I think to Oscar Hernandez, given that there wasn't widespread changes to his profile, and given that he was this fourth outfielder type before that,

I do not have a lot of confidence in him, continuing at the rate he set last year. Teasca Hernandez, the ADP, according to Fantasy Pros, is 78.8. And by the way, Fantasy Pros ADP now has CBS ADP included as well, so it's nice to see that. so we have another outlet to add to the aggregate average draft position. But yeah, Teosker Hernandez is the 22nd outfielder off the board over on Fantasy Pro.

Scott, who would you rather have Teosca Hernandez or Charlie Blackman, who's actually going two spots after him? I should point out Teoska Hernandez tends to walk more than Aloi Jimenez. It's just the strikeout rate is up over 30%. It's awful. Who are you asking me about Hernandez or who? Charlie Blackman. Oh, Blackman.

How about T-Oskar versus Nick Castianos? Castianos. How about Austin Meadows? Scott, are you getting more excited about Austin Meadows? I've moved off. I've moved Austin Meadows up quite a bit. He's already up to three home runs this spring and just, I don't know. I'm having a harder time believing my own concerns about him.

So who would you rather have? Hernandez or Meadows? Meadows. Nice. Chris, I think you're off Teascar as well, right? Yeah, I don't, I don't love him. He's in my bus column. He's another guy where I do think there might be a relatively high floor,

but I think people are projecting, like Scott said, there wasn't as much of a skills change as there was in the actual production. And I think it's, it's more likely than not that he goes back to being a low 800s OPS guy, who potentially loses playing time. I don't want to spend a quarter of the podcast talking about two guys, but it's interesting to me to say to asker Hernandez is having a high floor because the previous two years he hit 235 with a 304 on base percentage, and they're overloaded in the outfield.

Randall Gritchick is out for the time being because they signed George Springer. And, yeah, that pushed an outfielder out. I don't see why if Hernandez isn't like the guy he was in 2018, 2019. Because he was still okay. You know, he was still valuable. He hit 22 homers and 26 homers in the... I mean, Gritchick could do that, though.

Gritchick could probably do that with better than a 235 batting average in 304 OPA. I mean, it'd probably be close between the two. But I don't know. Hernandez hadn't really established himself as a trustworthy full-time player until last year over the 50 games that he played. So I think there is bottom out potential here. Speaking of bottoming out potential, I have won Max Scher as my SP 14 in the rankings this year,

and I don't think that I'm going to have any shares of Max Scherzer, a near 37-year-old starting pitcher who has dealt with recurring neck and back injuries. If you don't want to put much stock into last year, then you're probably going to be fine. drafting Max Scherzer, but a 374 ERA, 1.38 whip last year. The walks per nine were up over three, his most since 2010, and both his average exit velocity against and hard hit rates were the highest since Stacast began tracking data back in 2015.

So for Scherzer, he's allowing harder contact. The BABIP and the batting average against have been on the rise each of the past two seasons as well for Scherzer. So the ADP is 25.4. goes right around that two three turn. This definitely has the potential to make me look absolutely foolish, and I realize that, but

there's just something here between the age and the injuries that he's dealt with, and it seems like the production's kind of lagging as well now. For all those reasons, I could just see, you know, everything falling apart for Max Scherzer,

so I will not have many shares. Chris, I don't know if you'd like to retort because I know you have them as your SP4, which is quite the difference. Yeah, I mean, look, I think anytime you're talking about a guy with his age, 37 years old, who, you know, dealt with back injuries. I will point out that the back injuries were two years ago.

He made it through 2020 without any back issues. He was pulled from one star, but that was with a hamstring issue. But I, and I could be wrong, but I don't remember the back being an issue during the spring at all. And it certainly wasn't during the season, but you guys can correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly. you know, like the thing we're dealing with with last season is like the sample size is so small that his cape, his walks per nine was the highest it's been in a long time. But eight of his 23 walks came in his first 13 innings. He had a 2.5 walks per nine from his fourth start to his final one.

I think it doesn't make a lot of sense to really try to like excise certain things from this small sample size, given how small the sample size is, but I will just say that the injuries are the only thing that concern me. I have no concerns about the performance. I think it's fair to put a red flag on anybody who reaches the age, sure's or does.

I try to treat busts, and, you know, we talked about this, Frank, with sleepers and breakouts, where I have these different categories I have to fit players into, and so I try to be extra precise about who I fit into what category. I write a column about ADP inefficiencies.

And so, you know, just players I think are going too high. That's kind of where I put them. But busts I really try to reserve for this guy could just like bottom out and ruin you. It's hard to maintain that standard for every pick, but that's what I try to do. And I think even though I personally have a fair amount of confidence in Scherzer, I think it's fair anytime somebody reaches that.

age to say, okay, this is the year it could all bottom out. It's going to happen at some point. Yeah. Yeah. And recent injuries and, you know, some underachievement last year, I think, I think it's a reasonable case. I'm just not, I'm just not willing to make it myself. Scott, who would you rather have between these old banged up starting pitchers? Max Scherzer or Clayton Kirscho? I'd rather have Scherzer. I mean, like I said, I, I'm not willing to go where you're, where you're going with him. I think he's going to beat Kershaw and innings.

I think he's going to beat Kershaw significantly in strikeouts. And yeah, I'd rather have for sure, sir. And when I say banged up, I'm obviously using the term very loosely. These guys are not banged up right now. In fact, they're both healthy. So cross your fingers and hope that that remains. But, you know, just older guys that have dealt with some stuff there. Before we move on to some news and notes,

I do want to promote some things and remind everybody that Paramount Plus is now live. You've probably seen the journey to Mount Paramount spots featuring Bill Cowher, James Corden, Patrick Stewart, and Beavis, and Butthead. Yeah, it's quite the squad. But Paramount Plus is live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. You can go straight from game day to movie night with Paramount Plus. Stream iconic movies like The Godfather, Indiana Jones, and Mission Impossible, and new episodes of critically acclaimed original series like Star Trek Picard, the Good Fight, and The Stand. And get this, it's where you can dive into live sports from us, CBS Sports, including the NFL, March Madness, which is coming very soon.

More on that in just a bit. The Masters and Champions League Soccer plus stream hit shows from CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, the Smithsonian Channel, and Comedy Central live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment, Paramount Plus is streaming now. And for my college basketball fans that are out there, there are six tournaments, which means there are six chances to win $10,000. You can fill out one conference bracket or all of them. It's up to you. Conferences, we have the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, the Pact 12, SEC, and the Big East.

You can create a pool with your friends or fill out brackets for your chance to win $10,000 on the CBS Sports app or at CBSports.com slash conference. And the moment you've all been waiting for. The fantasy baseball today. listener leagues are back. Same as last year. We'll have two podcast leagues. One will be a 12-te-to-head points league where you can compete

against Scott and Chris. Plus, Adam and myself will be sharing a team. So that should be a lot of fun. And the other league, of course, is the For the People League originally created, I think, by Heath Cummings, right? He was the one of-hief to troll me. You don't have to keep the same settings he established. FYI. I don't mind playing an head-to-head categories league

with the people, but I mean, come on. There are some absurdities there in the rules. I mean, there's something to be said for tradition, Scott. So, I mean, I think we've got to stick with it at this point. The for the People League will be a 16 team head-to-head categories draft. And that will feature Scott, Chris, I think Heath, and I will be in it as well. That means there are 12 spots in that league and there are nine spots available in the head-to-head points league.

So 21 spots are available overall. The dates for both of these drafts will be. Sunday, March 28th at 6 p.m. Eastern Time for the head-to-head category draft. That's the Four of the People League. And the Head to Head-to-Head Points Podcast League draft will be the next night. That is on Monday, March 29th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. So before you try and enter for either of these leagues, please, please make sure that you can make the draft dates and times. Now, what is the contest? How do you get in last year? We had you send in some song submissions, but, and those were amazing.

They were absolutely fantastic, but we've got to do something different. You know, for people who are not musically gifted, Chris has fantastic guitars behind him. Maybe we should have Chris make a song one day. Hmm, I never thought about this. Why didn't I just, hmm, all right. I actually started, like, writing out a version of shallow about Joey Gallo, but I couldn't quite, I couldn't quite come up with the right one. If someone wants to write one, maybe I'll sing it on the pod.

Okay, all right. Cool. Let's make that happen. But for this year, what you need to do is we're going to test out those Photoshop skills. So that's right. Throw all of our faces. Scott, Chris, Adam, myself, whatever you got. I want to see you crop some interesting images.

And, you know, come on, let's keep it PG-rated. But your favorite movies, your favorite TV shows, a video game cover, a movie poster, whatever it might be, a favorite scene from something, whatever you have, send us some fun Photoshop stuff. So that will be the competition this year to get into the podcast leagues. Of course, people will give some spots away to those who don't have Photoshop and the ability to crop

because, let's be honest, not everyone has a time or the wherewithal to make all that happen. So if you're in the military or if you're a frontline worker or if you just have an awesome story or reason why you should be in the league, please send it in. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. That's the letter I. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. In the email address, put Podcast League in the subject line. And please let us know which league you want to be in.

Between the Head to Head to Head Points League, the Four of the People, Head to Head Categories League. And once again, congrats to the winners from last year, Stephen Lydick and Mike Carter. They took down the both championships. I made one of the championships. I think it was the for the People League, the headset categories,

but one of these guys knocked me out, so whatever. I deserve it. News and notes from the weekend. Jake Oteresey signed a two-year deal with the Houston Astros. Oterreasy barely pitched last season due to injury, but he was actually quite awesome back in 2019,

finished with a 3.51 ERA, a 1.21 whip, and over 10 strikeouts per 9 across 159 innings pitched back in 2019. So, Scott, what are your thoughts on Jake Oterizzi now that he is in Houston? Nah.

Not particularly high on Jake Oterizzi. His fastball became oddly effective in that 2019 season with a lot of whiffs generated and the velocity was higher. And even if he's able to sustain that, like he was basically a five-inning pitcher. He had a lot of

help winning games on that historic season with that historic season the Twins offense had. But I wouldn't expect him to sustain that win rate. He's just kind of a late round arm who can be useful. The ADP for Jake Oteresee on Fantasy Pros is 342.

Chris, how much do you think that moves up now that he has a job? It should. I have him 277, and I'll probably move him up a little bit. He's 86 in my starting pitcher rankings, but looking at it, he probably needs to move into the top 70.

I can't say I'm like going to have him in the top 50, but, you know, I'm looking at like Chris Bassett 70. I can probably move Jake O'Darese ahead of Chris Bassett. I mean, I don't like Bassett, but I want to do that. I want to do that, Chris. Come on. Third time through the-70. I don't even have Jordan Montgomery in the top 70.

Ah, well, that's where we disagree. There you go. Chris. Jordan Montgomery Hive right here. Top 60 starting pitcher. Oof, I like it. I like it. The third time for Jake Oteresey back in 2019, third time through the order, a 5.65 ERA. So you're right, Scott.

They would not let him go deep into games very often. So that would lend itself towards him being a better roto pitcher, assuming that he's effective in the endings that he actually pitches. Are we still buying the, you know, pitchers who go to Houston become awesome kind of thing or no, because they don't have AJ Hinch to cheat her as their manager anymore. I, like, I'm sure they could figure something out, but he's someone who, my assumption is that he benefited from in 2019,

throwing his fastball up in the zone more, you know, because you look at him, he's a high fly ball rate pitcher. you know, kind of like a Marco Estrada type, I guess, where, you know, he benefited from a relatively, I mean, even the BAPB wasn't that low. It was 300. He did get some infield fly balls. His success was kind of hard to make sense of.

Yeah. Yeah, it seemed like it doesn't really fit the profile. Yeah, it could have just been a sequencing thing. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, top 70. that's, it's not really, even if Scott thinks that's too high. I mean, I'm just saying there's some pretty good pitchers outside my top 70.

And I don't think, I don't think he, Oteresey's that good. There's a reason he only signed now. Is there any other random player that we bring up more than Marco Estrada? I feel like we bring them up once a week. How does that happen? It's just like, it's so random. I don't think I've done it yet. Well, it's one of those things where it's kind of like Kyle Hendricks,

who gets brought up way more than he probably should as a comparison where when you're trying to make a point about a player like Marco Estrada, who for years outperformed his peripherals like Kyle Hendricks did, the thing about that is the reason that you have to keep going back to Marco Estrada as that high fly ball, infield fly ball,

weak contact guy or Kyle Hendricks as that elite contact rate and contact suppression guy is they're the two guys who do it. And that's probably why they're not great comps. Is it's really, really hard. Like, the reason these ERA estimators work so well, even after all we've learned,

is because they work for like 98% of pitchers most of the time. And Marco Estrada was, of course, the exception. Yes. As great as he was. Frimer Valdez update. There is no update. He's still holding out hope that he can avoid season-ending finger surgery for the fractured finger that he suffered on his throwing hand.

That's according to John Heyman, of course. Sticking with the Astros, pitching prospect, Forrest Whitley, apparently needs Tommy John's surgery, but is seeking a second opinion. So there goes that. We brought him up as maybe someone that could fill in for Framber Valdez last week, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

So sucks there. Alex Bregman, who is dealing with a hamstring injury, feels about 90%. It seems like him and the team are just being super-capped. just with the injury there. So it's good. Look, does the time to do it? Get it out of the way. Don't return to spring training until you're 100% healthy. How about Cody Bellinger? Is he healthy yet? He has played three in an intrasquod game on Sunday and is on pace to

play in an actual spring training game around March 15th. So I'm sure that will be something to pay very close attention to because you have to use a early second round pick, sometimes a late first round pick to get Cody Bell. under your fantasy league. So we have to make sure that he is healthy. More on him a little bit later on. What is up with the Indians? They cannot follow COVID protocols.

Fran Mill Reyes and Jose Ramirez both violated the team protocols and over the weekend. And we'll be away from the team for a few days. Yeah, that's just unfortunate because they had like the whole Zach Plesack and Mike Clevenger situation last year. Fran Mill Reyes also had one last spring. Yeah. Last July. Yeah.

And Terry Francona said that the response to the two might not be the same since Reyes is a repeat violator. I don't know what that means, but considering they were willing to go as far as to send Plesek and Clevenger down to the minors last year. I don't know. I'm a little worried about what that means for Reyes at the start of the season. Can I go back to one thing real quick? Go ahead. the Frambevaldez injury. I think I would assume that Christian Javier

will be in the rotation for the Astros to start the season. But with Forrest Whitley out, you know, there, that's another hit to their pitching depth. I want to point out Luis Garcia, who pitched in relief a little bit last season. One, there could be three Luis Garcia's in the majors this season, all of whom theoretically could be

fantasy relevant the one for the Reds, the one for the Nationals and now this one for the Astros right. Am I right, Scott?

There's definitely one on the Reds. There's one on the Nationals too. There's one on the Nationals. Yeah, that's probably the most notable prospect-wise. Yeah, Luis Garcia for the Astros

hasn't, except for last season, when he pitched in relief for like 12 innings. He has not pitched above high A, but he put up some pretty good numbers in that time. Let me see. 12.5K per 9 in his minor league career. He's a 24 year old,

so just want to throw that out there. Luis Garcia, remember the name, all of them on the Nationals, the Reds, and the Astros. Some velocity readings from the weekend that I thought were pretty interesting. Scott,

I know you were paying attention to Patrick Corbyn. You wanted to see what that looked like. He threw 14 fastballs on Saturday. And according to baseball savant, he averaged 89.9 miles per hour on that pitch. Last year, he was at 90.8 miles per hour with the fastball. This is Patrick Corbyn. And that was 92.2 back in 2019.

So it's his first start. I guess, you know, there is a chance that he can build up. But it's not completely ideal, Scott. No, it's not. And it sounds like he's making some changes. to the Arsenal because he's not convinced that the old way is going to work so well anymore just living off that slider

so he's adding a change up this year I don't know if that's going to be a positive overall either because he kind of took off when he featured the slider so prominently so I'm not encouraged by what I've seen from Patrick Corbyn so far this spring and

staying away until further notice well would you say the same thing about John means maybe he doesn't mean business, Scott, because his velocity over the weekend on the fastball was 92.2 miles per hour last year, and one of the reasons you are very excited about him, is the fastball velocity went up to 94.2 miles per hour in 2020. So are we taking anything away from this, what John means? I'm hesitating to take him even as late as he goes. I mean, obviously there's a big difference between where he goes and somebody like Patrick Corbyn goes.

there's not much risk to taking means at all. But, you know, in those 15-team deep roto leagues, it's not quite the last round where you're taking means. So you're giving up something else of value. It is early in spring training. It is common to gain velocity as it plays out. But working at that velocity, if that's what it is at the start of the year,

then I'm not going to feel so great about means anymore now. Jameson, I also wanted to highlight. he averaged 92.4 miles per hour on his four-scene fastballs on Saturday. And the last time we saw Tyone back in 2019, he was averaging 95.2 miles per hour on that pitch. So Tyone, of course, is working his way back from his second Tommy John. So, I mean, it could take even more time for him to build up here. But I thought it was worth mentioning. Chris, how do you feel about this?

We're not overreacting. Are we? James and Tyone? No, it's still early. I'll give him another couple of outings. He's working his way back. But, you know, it's certainly worth monitoring because he was not exactly an overpowering guy beforehand. So, you know, it's something to keep an eye on.

If you are watching on the video side, don't go anywhere. If you are listening to the podcast, we're going to take a quick break. But when we return, we have more busts here on Fantasy Baseball today. So let's just go around the horn here a few times, see how many of these names we can actually get to. But we spoke about a few. We've got three busts down so far.

So we're on a roll. We have a lot of time left, Scott. It's perfectly fine. Let's do it. Scott's was very critical of my pacing lately. I like that. I appreciate that. And recording it how we do in Stream Yard,

there's a little clock that plays in the upper left-hand corner. So I'm very aware of how deep we are into the podcast now. It's kind of stressing me out. Scott never knew this before, so he would just, all right, we could ramble as long as we want. So that doesn't matter because I don't have a clock. All right, Scott, that means you have a few busts to talk about. So give me another one. Someone you're scared about this season.

Well, the one I am actually the least likely to draft probably is Walker Bueller. He's the one who goes the highest on average 19th overall. And that's really the problem. I mean, he's being drafted amid these aces, who you expect to dominate, who expect to eat a lot of innings. I expect Walker Bueller to do one of those things. I don't expect him to throw a lot of innings.

He did not have a single... I'm trying to remember the stat. He may have had one. He may have had one six-inning start during the regular season last year. Only three and 13, including the post-season. Including the post-season.

Yeah, he had a couple more in the post-season. The Dodgers have always built him up very slowly. He has actually gone. on three innings in a start this spring. So I don't know if that means they're going to change it. But just given their history

of how they've coddled him after a year when he didn't even throw 60 innings, like, is this the year he takes on an ace workload? I sincerely doubt it. And I suspect he'll be well short of that.

I suspect he'll be well short of what Aaron Nola provides, what Lucas Gialito provides to guys who go after him. you know, if Walker Bueller made it to late in round three, then okay, I'll take a fly on him, because I think he's good. But I do wonder if he'll have the workload even to live up to that ADP.

And I still think it's a risk at that point. And he's outside of my top 12 at starting pitcher because of it. Walker Bueller, the ADP, according to Fantasy Pros, is 19.2. He is the sixth starting pitcher off the board. I will just note that he was on CBS Sports HQ last week. and they asked him about the workload. And he said, quote, I want to throw as many innings as I can.

Obviously, we're going to be a little conservative coming off the shorter season and not go crazy. So do with that, which is well. Yeah, I mean, it's not up to him. They got an eight deep rotation.

Yeah, he ranks ninth in the majors in ERA since the start of 2018, fifth in whip. He is really, really good. Yeah. He's 45th innings in that time.

And even if you include, you know, two deep postseason runs in that time. I think they got kicked out or knocked out in the first round in one of them.

14 pitchers have surpassed his total innings, including the postseason over the last three seasons. So, you know, unless that's going to change

this year, and it would be a weird year for them to change it. Yeah, he's a bus for me too. I have him as SP 14. Yep. And we are across the board.

We all have him in our bus columns. And the, the award winning ATC projections over on Sportsline, created by our buddy Ariel Cohen, who we've had on the podcast a few times before. He currently has 25 starting pitchers projected for at least 170 innings this season.

Walker Bueller is not one of them. So between the blisters last year, the Dodgers, they want to make a deep run. They have World Series aspirations once again. And they have a lot of depth, too, specifically at the starting pitcher position. So we're not doubting the talent. Walker Bueller's awesome.

Chris highlighted some of those numbers, but I am worried about the workload quite a bit. Chris, give us another bust here. Boba Chet, he's 26th in ADP right now. I think it's 26.0 or it was when I wrote. Oh, no, he's 24.2 now. He's moved up a little bit. Not because of you. No, and look, there is not actually, based on what Boba Chabot has done in his major league career, there's not really an argument to make against him.

He's on pace for 32 homers and 16 steals and 300 and a 307 average over 150 game pace. The problem is we're entering his third season and he's played 75 games. The reason it was so easy for me to do that 150 game pace is you have to multiply by two. That's just a really, really small sample size. I mean, think about, you know, guys like Luke Voight in 2018. He played about 50 games for the Yankees. We're in that range for Boba Chet. Yes, he has a really good track record in the minors,

but we're talking about a guy who's had trouble staying healthy so far in the majors. You know, broken hand in 2019, stuff for a concussion that ended his season early in 2019. Then he missed nearly a month last season with a knee injury. Now, you know, those are unrelated injuries, so I don't want to hold it against him too much. But when we're talking about, you know, reasons to downgrade guys, it seems like we're overlooking quite a bit for Boba Shet and kind of just expecting him to be a superstar right away. I don't think he will be.

He's got a 340 expected Wobah so far in his career compared to a 370 mark. So he's overperformed. It's possible that he will continue to overperform. But he's got, you know, pretty bad plate discipline himself. He doesn't strike out a ton. It's, you know, roughly average, but it doesn't walk much either. So I just put it all together and it's just, I can't justify spending, you know, a late second round, early third round pick for for a guy who, you know, might perform like Javier

Baez. And that's not a knock on Bo Bichette, but Javier Bias is going 50 to 60 picks later. I would, I will say this about Bichette. And I don't think you were making this comparison, but just, when you compare him versus Javier Baez, the plate discipline is obviously a lot better with Bo Bichet. And I agree that we've done this before as well, Chris,

that he doesn't have the same type of tools as Fernando Tatis. So Tatis was kind of in a similar situation last year because he was coming off 2019 where he only played 84 games so we didn't really know how to judge him, yet he was still being drafted in the second round. And all along, we acknowledge, like,

this might be the lowest you could draft Fernando Tatis for the next decade. because we know what his upside can be. And maybe it's not the same level of upside, but I feel like Bichette is pretty close. I think that he can be a five-category contributor. So it's a little bit tougher for me to call him a bust, overvalued, maybe a tad.

I think the position that he plays too also makes it tough because there's just so many good shorts. Yeah, him going ahead of Corey Seeger is the one that really bothers me. I mean, Zander Bogartz. Like, Zander Bogartz is just consistently excellent. So yeah, no, I'm not sure he's going to be that much better than Tim Anderson, if he will be. Let's keep those Dodgers fans hating us.

And I have been pretty critical of Cody Bellinger, who has an ADP of 14 right now. So you have to use an early second round pick. And I just want to feel safe with my first couple of picks. I want to feel, you know, like there are no issues. And I don't feel that way about Cody Bellinger. He popped his shoulder out in the postseason last year. We all remember he's doing a little bash bro thing with, I think it was Kike Hernandez at the time after he hit a home run.

And he popped his shoulder out. And he had surgery back in November. He has yet to appear in a spring training game. And we know there are varying degrees of shoulder injuries, but we've seen it affect players' productions in the past. So, you know, whether it's power or batting average, I think that we could see Cody Bellinger get off to a slow start. Maybe that makes him a buy low early in the season.

I don't know. But for whatever reason, the production was down last year with Bellinger. he changed up his batting stance, which seemed like right before the season started. Have no idea why? Because he won the MVP in 2019. Why would you change something? And the only other thing that bothers me about him

is he has struggled against left-handed pitching at times. So two of the past three years, he has had a 681 OPS or less against left-handed pitching. So I worry about those things with Cody Bellinger. So I've been looking the other way when it comes to him. Scott, give us another bust. I'm going to double dip here.

Okay. Pick the pace a little. Make an enraged Canada further because we've already talked about how Teoska Hernandez was my biggest bus. Chris was ragging on Bo Bichette. I got Vladimir Guerrero as a bust again.

And I think we all probably have Kevin Biggio as a bust. I'll talk about Guerrero first because he's going 48th overall on average now. Like, he can apparently not lose the confidence of anybody who plays fantasy baseball because every year it seems like his ADP is exactly

the same even though he's you know it's only been two years when I say every year but still he's underwhelmed he's underwhelmed um the underlying numbers don't seem to be suggesting that he's on the verge of doing something else the ground ball rate is still insanely high uh we know he can make really hard contact he has you know his high end exit velocities or something of the best in all of baseball. And for a guy who can hit the ball that Hardy doesn't strike out very much. So there are definitely, you know, 22 years old, amazing minor league track record. And with those skills, it's a Fernando Tatis argument where one of these years he's going to go off.

And this may be the last time you could get him as late as round four. But like, passing up Tim Anderson, you're passing up. Starling Marte, Aaron Judge, Pete Alonzo, like some guys who provided they stay healthy are going to provide huge numbers, huge numbers for, you know, the chance that this is the year Carrillo figures it out. I understand he's lost a lot of weight.

I understand he says he's feeling great. He's feeling as good as 2018 when he hit nearly 400 in the minors. Maybe this is the year, but like, I don't think, I don't think the reward justifies the risk that early in the draft giving up what you're giving up.

If he's just the same Guerrero he's been for the last two years and you used your fourth round pick on him, that's a pretty big hole to climb out of. Well, Scott, are there any Blue Jays hitters you do like? Sure there are. Sure there are.

George Springer, the one who hasn't played for the Blue Jays yet. That's it. That's the whole answer. Yeah, I think that's probably it, right? Yeah. That's probably it. Should I, have I monopolized too much time? No, go ahead. Can I get to Kevin Vigio?

Talk about him. I mean, Chris has a lot of good things to say about Kevin Vigio. Basically, he doesn't hit the ball that hard. He really sells out for fly balls, which has worked for him so far. Enough of those fly balls have crept over the fence. There is a new ball this year that we haven't seen in play yet in spring training, So we really don't know how that new ball is going to play. It's supposed to be deader than the last ball.

He's still playing in a good park in Duneet in Florida. So, you know, and I think it's especially good for left-handed hitters. So maybe that'll neutralize the effect of the ball. But the bottom line is, like, he was barely eking it out as it is. Like, you could have called him a bust even before the new ball came into play because it wouldn't take much for those fly balls to not be home runs. And then they're just draining. his batting average further.

The batting average that's already an issue. He's not particularly fast, right? But he has a great stolen base success rate. Like that's not something... Like right now he profiles as like a 240, 25-15 guy, right?

I would say for Bichette. And like if he loses anything off of that, it's going to be hard to say he's a starting caliber player in mixed leagues. I wrote

a column last week that was basically just like the players you should target instead of the higher price stars. And it's basically trying to identify production profiles that were similar going later in drafts. And I know you guys weren't going to like one of these, but it was Trent Grisham and Cabin Bidio who have very similar projections from the ATC projections. And the guys who are going later than them who I profiled here with similar. projections or production profiles. Austin Meadows,

who I think, you know, we all agree. You know, in the late 90s is really good. I know I'm kind of on an island on Byron Buxton, but I don't think he, I don't think Grisham and Bizio have more steel or home run potential

than Byron Buxton. They're safer. Tommy Edmund doesn't have the power, but the stolen base potential is there. Ramon Luriano is sort of being forgotten. He put up a very similar. season to what we're hoping for for Kevin Bigio and Trent Grisham. And Aaron Hicks, another guy, doesn't have quite the stolen base potential, but will be a

contributor in both power and steals. I wanted to highlight him because he's, you know, potentially batting third for the Yankees, which could be an awesome spot. So for me, it's like, you're paying for the steals and the power there, but with Bigio, even like he's 72nd percentile in sprint speed last season, which is good, but not great. he's 20 for 20 in steals in the majors. And I think people are looking at that and saying, well,

he's been so good. He's got 20 steals in 170-something games. He'll be a 20-steal guy. Well, he'll probably be like an 80% success rate rate guy moving forward at best. You know, that's really hard to do consistently. So right there,

you're probably talking about more 15, 16 steals. He's probably more like an 18 to 20 homer guy. And yeah, like Scott said, it's just the margin for error is very slim to the point where I could see Scott Kingery putting up a similar season to Cabin Bissio. Nick Senzel, actually, what he's done in the majors isn't that much different than

Cabin Bidio except for the runs. So I, it's a premium price to pay for a profile that has value, but is not nearly guaranteed. And I do want to point out too, like if we're talking to dynasty scenario, Like, I'm not giving up Guerrero or Bichette in a dynasty scenario. Of course. Sure. You know, we don't talk about dynasty as much as we should probably. And I know sometimes people follow up asking,

would you do this trade in a dynasty league after a player we just talked about not liking the value of? Like, Bichette and Guerrero are going to be huge assets for Blue Jays and for your fantasy team for a long time. Yeah. It's just, you know, for this year, are they going to live up to their ADP? more likely they won't than they will. Yeah, and definitely we'll say the same thing about Bobuchet and Dynasty. Like, we're excited about him.

It's just in redraft. You do have to pay a premium for some of these players. And that's, you know, predominantly the leagues that people play in and the advice that they have is, are in these seasonal redraft leagues. So that is why we highlight that quite a bit.

Chris, why do you give us another bust? Nolan Aaronado. It's another one where I don't think the bottom's going to fall out. I don't think he's going to leave course field and all of a sudden be a scrub. You look at his road OPS and it's sub-800. I don't think he's going to be that guy. But I think there's still a lot of name value being attached to Nolanara.

My initial thought when the trade happened was, oh, he might drop into like the 50 range, in which case. Oh, maybe I'll buy Nolan Air Onato. But he's, you know, I think 26th right now. Yeah, 27.6 in ADP. That's too much to pay for a guy who I think is just going to be more like a normal third baseman. You look at the projections and they mostly agree. He's projected to be more like a 270-30 homer guy.

I think the runs in RBI will still be pretty good, but they'll no longer be elite. I'd rather have Anthony Rendon than him. I'd rather have Alex Bregman than him. I'd rather have Raphael Devers than him to name three guys who are going later. I would rather have those guys pretty easily than him. I think for me, A. Erenao is more in the Eugenio Suarez range. And I'm not sure Eugenio Suarez shouldn't be ranked higher than Aeronado right now.

I think that's a little bit because E. Eugenio Suarez is being a little undervalued. But, you know, I do have Aeronado ahead of him, but I have him 69th overall compared to Suarez at 71st. So I mentioned this last week, Chris, but we're doing this great fantasy baseball invitational draft. It's in industry league with a bunch of analysts. And 15 team, 5 by 5 standard roto with batting average.

And I got Nolan Aronado at pick 52. So you talked about him. That's fine. Yeah. And I felt good about it. He was the second hitter on my team. I paired him up with Tim Anderson. I started with two starting pitchers.

And I felt good. I said, all right, a little bit of power to pair up with Tim Anderson. And I felt right about that. I will point out over the last two weeks in NFBC ADP, Aeronado's ADP is 40.30.3. That's a little more reasonable. He has dropped from that 27. I don't think you're going to see him go in the third round of a 12-team league much anymore,

but probably closer to that, you know, fourth, maybe even fifth round range at times in a 12-team league. Let's try and hit some rapid fire. Whoever else we want to quickly mention here, Scott, any other bus? Yeah, I think Louise Robert has bottom-out potential to play discipline. is awful. We saw how bad he was in September of last year. It was just, I mean, we basically saw what the worst of Louise Robert looks like in that second month last year. And his average exit velocity isn't even that high. It's below, it's like in the 80, it's like 88%. It's similar to

I'm sorry, I'm trying to cite exact numbers and do rapid fire here and it's not going very well. It's very much like the Fernando Tatis argument last year. Yeah, 87.9 is the average exit velocity for Luis Robert last year. And in September, he won 36 with a 409 OPS. And the plate discipline is awful. Maybe he blows up and he's a top five pick next year. But like, you're giving up a lot to take him where he's going now.

Chris, you have any other bus you want to talk about? Yeah, Tyler Glassnow. He's 52.6 in 80p right now. And for one thing, Corbyn Burns is going later than him. And I think they're going to be very similar pitchers. I don't think people realize that Tyler Glassnow, since going on the IL in 2019, he missed four months with a forearm strain. Since then, his walk rate is 10.6%.

He has a 461 ERA and a 123 whip over 23 starts. that's including the postseason. He was bad in the postseason last year. Very bad. You're kind of just like the only thing he's guaranteed to give you is strikeouts, but given workload concerns, you know, he's,

he's turned 153 innings and 31 starts, including the post season over the last two seasons. That's not very much. You know, even if he made 31 starts this season, if he gave you 153 innings, that's a pretty low number. So I just, like, if he does that, he'll give you 200 strikeouts. That's the only thing I feel

confident in saying about him. And he's a pretty big risk to even get to 150 innings. I would rather have Tyler Glass now than Denelson Lamett, who is currently hurt. At least Tyler Glass now is presently healthy. Or I guess Lamette is not presently hurt, but, you know, he certainly has more risk to Glass now. But if I'm looking for that profile, I think I'd rather just wait. I mean, it's like four rounds in ADP, but, you know, it's been a lot more than that in recent drafts, I think, for, for Lamat. So, yeah, I would, Glass now in the, in the 50 range, I'm not really touching this year. I would rather have Corbyn Burns in that same range. Glass now in the postseason, you mentioned this, Chris, but he pitched 28 and two-thirds innings, 20 earned runs

since the 6.28 ERA, 5.3 walks per nine. So the control has been, a massive issue for one Tyler Glassdowne. Sky, anyone else who wanted to hit? Bus? Oh, man. Yes. I mean, Chris Bassett, the fact

he's the 51st starting pitcher off the board ahead of ahead of a lot of really exciting pictures like Tyler Malley, Jameson, Tyone, but even some fellow boring types like Hermann Marquez and Dallas, like

come on, what are we doing with Chris Bassett. I understand he had a low ERA last year. I understand he won five games but look at the supporting numbers. Look at the X-FIP. Look at the XERA. Look at the track record. It's not like he became a strikeout pitcher

suddenly. He's a jack. Chris Bassett's a jag. It's very likely if you draft him. He won't be on your roster for very long because you'll find something more interesting to use. If you have other ones, you want to just rattle off. Go ahead, Scott.

Yeah, I mean, sure. Christian Javier, I have a lot of doubts about his sustainability. Also not a big strikeout pitcher depends on weak contact. Kyle Lewis, you know, it's funny. His September was about as bad as Louise Roberts was last year, and yet it was just slightly enough better that he won the rookie of the year between the two of them, but they were both awful. And Lewis, the strikeout improvement he showed in August,

it all collapsed in September. He was striking out more than 35% of the time again. So I just wonder what kind of profile, what kind of hitter he's going to profile as in the long run. There have been a lot of strikeouts, from what we've seen of him so far in the majors. I mean, we've mentioned Denalson Lamett a few times, but that's obviously bottom-out potential there.

He was throwing sliders this weekend in a, a simulated start. So that is a good sign. But it still seems like it could end suddenly, given the concerns over his elbow. Yeah, he did go 119th in my PGFBI drafts, Nelson Lamet. That's one of the things that is making me back off of him a little bit as a bus call. But like,

he's not the kind of guy where if he gets through three spring training starts, I'm going to feel a lot better about him. the injury risk is still there. And so, like, if he's going 120th now that we haven't seen him pitching in games, that makes me think he'll probably creep back up into the top 100 if he makes it through a few starts. Yeah, in which case, he will be back on a bus list. But right now, I'd be fine with him in that range. Kennelly Jansen, it seems like he loses his job every postseason,

and then he gets it back every spring. And one of these years, I think he's going to lose it before they get to the postseason. Once again, thrown around 90 this spring. AJ Pollack hit way too many home runs last year to believe that he can sustain that pace and it wasn't

long before that he was considered just a part-timer. Dodgers still have a lot of alternatives, a lot of different directions they could go in the outfield. I do worry about Dominic Smith just how it seems like he's only playing DH this spring. Every time I look at a box score is at DH and how is he going to get better in left field

if they're not even letting him play out there when it doesn't matter, you know? I don't know what's going on with that, but I worry about it. Dillon Moore definitely bottom-out potential there. I understand why he goes where he does. He just fits such a perfect need there right in the middle of drafts,

and if it works out, great. But, I mean, obviously, he could turn back into a pumpkin after coming out of nowhere last year. Zach Eflin, I could see those strikeouts just disappearing. like just proof and he's back to being a jag himself I do wonder if the hype on Aaron Savali is totally justified

he was pretty awful in the stretch last year Scott I thought we talked this out I thought we you know I thought we were excited now come on no I mean I get the argument for him it's just I mean he's like the 60th pitcher

off the board so it's I don't know I mean, I think he could be a jag, too, given his strikeout rate, given that he doesn't get many ground balls. Ouch. I'm sorry. How dare you?

How dare you? Trague out there. Yeah, a 662 ERA over his last six starts last year. Aaron Savale did. All right. How about Max Fried? Yeah, I think he's overvalued. I don't think...

74, 75.4 overall. 24th starting pitcher. Yeah. Hasn't shown the strikeout rate growth, basically last year he was fueled by weak contact in a way that is incredibly hard to sustain and the guy going right behind him, Zach Pleasack, SP 25 8 starts worth of pitching at that level and we're drafting him as a top 25 starting pitcher no thank you for me I will where it was Matt Olson I don't love at 85.4

Salvador Perez at 88. I just... You hate Matt Olson, man. I don't hate Matt Olson. When he hits 260 with 40 home runs this year. That would be great. It will be great. It would be.

Yeah. Let's see him do it before we actually say he's going to do it. I mean, he's been that guy for more of his career than not. I actually think Elson's one of the most undervalued players in the draft this year. so that's why I stick up for him specifically. I'd rather have Joey Gallo 50 picks later. He's undervalued too. Yeah, he's crushing.

Well, that's what I mean, is that that type of player tends to get undervalued in a way that I don't think is as true of Matt Olson. Salvador Perez, 88th overall. I just, I can't pay that much for a catcher who, for his entire career has basically just been someone you're getting 25 homers from. I just,

I don't think he stands out nearly enough. That's just positional scarcity. I'd rather have Will Smith going 14 picks later. Alec Bome at 108.8.8. That's just too early for a guy who may not stand out anywhere. Mikey Stromski at 116 seems a little rich. So, you know, there's busts out there. There are endless amounts of, yeah, some of these guys are more overvalued.

But again, they kind of fall into the same bucket anyway. Those are your bust for this season in 2021. We're going to wrap there. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank Deagle for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.