Fantasy Baseball Today - Busts! Ryan Mountcastle and Other Players to Avoid (3/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 16, 2022

Join our FBT March Madness Bracket for a chance to join our listener leagues- http://cbssports.com/FBTbrackets Busts! Let's start with Scott's top bust: Ryan Mountcastle (1:00). ... Why is Chris fading Nolan Arenado (8:30)? ... What went wrong with Aroldis Chapman last season (15:32)? ... Apparently the vaccine mandate in New York City could affect the availability of Yankees and Mets players (22:13). Breaking news: Anthony Rizzo has re-signed with the Yankees (29:20). ... News and notes: Jack Flaherty's shoulder is being examined and Matt Olson signed an extension with the Braves (31:08). ... We have more busts, starting with Marcus Semien (44:57). ... Why are Chris and Scott off Randy Arozarena (47:50)? ... Jazz Chisholm has a high ceiling but also a low floor (52:10). ... We're fading Jared Walsh and Jesse Winker because of their splits (55:15). ... We wrap up with some starting pitcher busts (1:01:45). '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 Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Which players should you avoid this season? Let's find out. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, March 16th.

I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. We've got a ton of bust coming for you on today's podcast. and more to address. Jack Flaherty is getting his shoulder evaluated. Not looking good there. And there's a vaccine mandate for players in New York. And much more, we'll get to all of it. But first, let's start with Scott.

Who is your top bust this season? Getting right into it, huh? My top bust, as I have said before on this very program, my top bust this year is Ryan Mount Castle of the, Baltimore Orioles, who is, for some reason, going about 110th overall. He's going ahead of the profit pocket at first base, which includes Joyvato, Josh Bell, Reese Hoskins, C.J. Cron. We love the relative value of all of them. I rank all of them straight up ahead of Mount Castle, and I did even before the changes to the layout of

Camden Yards were announced. I don't really understand where the enthusiasm for Mount Castle comes from. Yes, he hit 33 home runs last year. He also batted 255. His OPS was below 800. Basically hitting home runs is all he did last year. And because he did it for the Orioles, the RBI and run production was pretty pitiful considering.

89 RBI 77 runs score. So it's really just the home runs. He gave you 30 plus of them. Good for him. There's a lot of players going after him who could do that and more. And so, yeah, even just counting on him to repeat last year stats, it's like, why is Ryan Mountcastle going that high? But the other problem is, A, he didn't seem like a great bet to repeat those stats anyway.

His ex-slug was only 458 compared to his actual 487 slugging percentage. He seemed more like a guy who might hit 28 home runs than 33. And B, then they made this drastic change to the left field fence in Camden Yards, pushing it back 30 feet for basically the entire stretch of straightaway left field. I've never heard of a change that drastic anywhere before. And they also raised the height of the fence from 7 feet to 12, but it's pretty drastic change in its own right. You add that together, and I think running,

in Mountcastle who hit two-thirds of his home runs at home last year, by the way, could potentially go from being instead of a 33 homer guy, instead of a 28 homer guy, something like a 20 homer guy, in which case, why are we drafting him ahead of like Jesus Aguilar, much less those four I mentioned in the profit pocket. I mean,

I don't get it. I don't get what people see in this guy. I think, go ahead, Chris. I think part of it would be, you know, he was better than that in 2020. Obviously, tiny sample size, 35. Yeah, tiny sample. And he did hit 312 with an 871 OPS at AAA, 25 homers, 278. A numbers now?

Well, no, I'm just, and he was a prospect of some renown. And so I think there is. Yes, yes, oh, yes, yes, no. Josh Bell was a great prospect. Yeah, I don't like, he was a great process. don't want Ryan Mountcastle on any of my teams. Joe Vod is a former MVP. Yeah.

But that would be, I think there is still some former prospection. Like I've got him 18th at the position. So I'm right there with you. I'm not buying Ryan Mountcastle. I've got the entire profit pocket in front of him. I've got, I mean, even DJ LaMayhew and Brayette in front of him. So, yeah, there's an honest. Honestly, it wouldn't take much for me to talk myself into any one of Yuleiguriel, Alex Kirolov, or Anthony Rizzo ahead of him, especially if Rizzo signs with the Yankees and is allowed to play.

So. Kirilov, I mean, I'd rather just shoot for the upside than. Well, and he's much cheaper. You know, he goes off the board 65 rounds later, or 65 picks later. Yeah. Well, yeah, but I mean, just straight up. Yeah. I probably, I would take Kiroloff over Mountcastle.

If he doesn't match last year's home run total, Mount Castle, what else is he doing for you? I mean, you're counting on him improving all around as a hitter, I guess, but he doesn't impact the ball enough to suggest he could do that, and the plate discipline is so horrid. Plate discipline wasn't great in the minors either. Look, it's not like, it's not like he was just. Yeah, yeah, I don't see it.

That's the point that I was going to make, Scott. really the plate disciplines what worries me most about Ryan Mountcastle. And, you know, he had 255 last year. But his 16.2% swinging strike rate was sixth highest among qualified hitters. So what if we start to see that reflected more in the strikeout rate? And ultimately, that drags the batting average down even further. And he's not hitting 30 plus home runs anymore. So if he's hitting, what, 240 with, you know, 22 to 25 homers, it's just like, you know,

you can really find that at any point in the draft. So I will go. as far as to say, I'm with you, Scott. Go ahead, Chris. Boom. No, I just would like to officially register how much I hate what the Orioles did with Camden Yards in left field.

It just, it seems so stupid. Like, it just, like, dislike it with, like, every fiber of my being. It just... I... It's not the outfield wall's fault that you can't develop a pitcher, all right? Like, I hate...

when teams do this. I hate when when teams react to like their organizational failures by trying to change something with their ballpark, especially when it's a fun ballpark and that's a big part of it is that there's lots of home runs. I don't get it. I hate it. Yeah. And if they had good enough hitters, then they would be taking advantage of the ballpark as well. I mean, when they were really good just a couple of years ago, you know, they had Machado and Chris Davis and you know, these guys were all mashing home runs. But. And it's not like course field where like you could. make an argument that like playing in altitude genuinely gives you a disadvantage when you go on the road. Like there are there are reasons to believe that that is the case that the Rockies just play worse when they're not at course field than they otherwise would. This is just like it affects everyone. Your opponents have to play there too guys. So I hate it. Anything with less homers like that I don't know that that that offense could be worse than baseball. I don't mind parts tweaking toward neutrality, but this goes so far beyond that.

You do a park overlay of the new Camden Yards with every other park, and it is the deepest left-field fence from like the left-field corner to left-center, that whole stretch. It's the deepest left-field fence in baseball, and for most of that stretch, it's by far the deepest. It reminds me of the old Marlins Stadium, pro-prose. pro player, Joe Robbie, et cetera, in right field. Right.

Where it was just incredible. It was like 375 to the power alleys, 380 to the power alleys. It was just impossible to hit for power there for lefties. All right, Chris. Let's get your top bus this season. The player, you know, these things aren't really the same, but I guess this is a player that you are very likely to avoid. Maybe it's not the most likely to avoid.

But anyway, your top bust. Nolan Aeronado. And actually a lot of the things that Scott said about Ryan Mountcastle, are also applicable to Nolan Arnado, the key difference being that he doesn't play at Camden Yards. So his home park hasn't gotten worse from last year. It obviously did get worse from 2020 to 2021. And what we saw was a, I don't know, like a one,

a real one-trick pony kind of player. He hit 255, he scored 81 runs, and he stole two bases. So basically what Nolan Aronado did was he hit 35 homers and he drove in 105 runs. And that's, if he does that again, that's great. You know, that, that, that'll play. And if third base is as shallow as we fear it will be, then he'll be fine. But there, he, he kind of feels like he's teetering on a knife's edge for me,

because if you look at his underlying metrics, quality of contact, expected Wobah, pretty much everything was at least below average and a lot of things were well below average. He doesn't walk. He's a bad base runner. His average eggs of velocity was 43rd percentile. His hard hit rate was 31st. His barrel rate was 32nd. And that was consistent with the changes that we saw from him in 2020.

Now, he doesn't strike out and he hits a ton of fly balls in the air to the pull side. And so last season, he was able to hit a bunch of 384 foot home runs. And if he does that, I mean, he had, let me look, let me see. I can pull it up real quick, but he had one of the lowest average home run distances in the majors last season. I have that right here. Which is wild because I have it right here. 387 feet, 117th out of 131, 132 qualifiers. That is bad. That's bad. And again, he overcomes it by hitting a ton of pull, pull side fly balls. And so a 365 foot home run to the pull side still counts. You get the four bases and the RBI and all that stuff. But it basically seems to me like,

Nolan Arnato at this point is just like if he doesn't hit 30 plus homers, I don't know what he gives you that makes him stand out in any way. Because if he drops to 28 homers, which would be I think on the lower end of expectations, but not unreasonable and that could just be random variance. If he just has a bad luck season, it's not out of the question that he hits 240 and drives in 85 runs and score 75. and there's a non-zero chance that he's not that much more productive than Ryan Mountcastle.

Their numbers actually last season were not that different. It was really just Arnado drove in 13 more runs. That was kind of the only difference. The biggest difference in the numbers was that Mount Castle struck out twice as often out of it, basically. Right. Right. But that's included in all of that. Like that's Arnato does make a lot of contact, but. But it's not very good anymore. Well, yeah, it was never as good as the numbers suggested it was.

And obviously he had a lot of help from Cores Field. But I mean, he's also Nolan Aeronado and has a track record of succeeding in spite of those. And managed to continue succeeding in St. Louis, albeit not to the same extent. It was more, I've called it a like a Mike Mustakis path to success. for Nolan Aeronauter where he doesn't strike out much, and yet the batting average is still suspect because he puts it in the air so much, but by putting in the air so much,

he ends up hitting 30 plus home runs. He had a 949 OPS in May. His second best was 835 in September. Other than that, he had a 795 OPS or lower in every month. He also was amazing against Leffees, and he was not great against Ritees. I mean, a 778 OPS against Ritey's. you know, that's not great.

So look, if there is a way to kind of like get the most value out of, the most power hitting value out of a player right now, it is to lean very heavy into this pull fly ball approach where, you know, Nolan Aronado has done it, Alex Bregman has done it in the past, Jose Altuve has done it. So it can work, but I think that maybe you could, you could be prone to variance year over year, you know, if you lose a couple of those home runs.

Yeah. If at 30 or 31 he'll turn sometime during the season, if the skill set slips any further than this, I mean, this is, we talk about busts a lot in like the context of I don't like the value. I actually don't hate his values like 59th or 69th overall in NFC ADP right now, something like that. I think there's a chance that Nolan Aronado just busts, just the bottom falls out. We're talking about him like, like a Kyle Seeger last year kind of season. All right. Well, Scott, overall, it sounds like you're a little bit more optimistic about Aeronado. The ADP is 55.8. He's going ahead of some other proven hitters, George Springer, Nick Cassiano's. You know, Bucks in, you can argue, you know, not as proven, but obviously has a bunch of upside.

Are you willing to take Aronado where he's going right now in drafts? Yeah, I have cooled on it some, and I've been more eager to draft Raphael Devers and Mani Machado in round two, just so I can avoid that. I mean, I get what Chris is saying, and those were my fears for Aeronado leaving Colorado last year, and the first year outside of Colorado went about like I expected, so I kind of just, and I'm sure this is true for any of our bus picks. More likely than not, they're not going to bus.

I don't know that I'd say that about Ryan Mouncastle myself, but for most of my bus picks, it is a percentage chance of disaster, not necessarily a high percentage chance, but a significant enough percentage chance that there's a disaster that I would rather avoid them at their going rate.

All right. And I can say, I don't entirely, I see where Chris is coming from with Aeronado. I could co-sign to it easier if third base was shortstop. you know, and I could afford to be that picky. Because it's not, I feel like you get to round six and don't have a third baseman. I'll trust in Nolan Aeronado to continue to find ways to be successful.

Can I add one more bust? Only if it's quick. 2022 fantasy baseball MLB bust. Frank's hopes for the Yankees signing Freddie Freeman. Why? Did they just sign Anthony Rizzo? Oh, geez. All right, we will react to that when we get to our news and note segment.

My top bus the season, ironically enough, is a New York Yankee. And it is a role as Chapman, someone I've talked about already this off season. And overall, the ERA was still fine. 3.36. The whip was way up there, 1.31 last year. Still had a ton of strikeouts, had 30 saves last season. But the ERA, his highest since 2011, that the whip was a career high. He averaged over six walks per nine last season.

and may have been affected by the sticky stuff. First two months, he had a 0.45 ERA, nearly 40% K-minus walk rate. Final four months, 4.95 ERA, 1.62 whip, 17.6K per 9. So it dropped off tremendously. And among pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched, Chapman had the third biggest drop in K-minus walk rate in April and May versus June on. So basically, you know, once they started cracking down on sticky substances,

I don't really know what that effect is going to be this upcoming season, but there's enough doubt in my mind based on what I saw watching a Rollis Chapman last year and enough doubt overall with the relief pitcher slash closer position that, you know, if I'm looking for a closer one, I just don't really want to target someone who is already coming with a bunch of risk. And that's basically how I look at a Rollis Chapman at this point. You know, there comes a point in a draft where I would consider taking him, but as of now, I'll take Will Smith. I'll take Henley Janssen, who I believe will be a closer somewhere.

Edwin Diaz, I'll take ahead of him. I'm getting closer to moving Jordan Romano ahead of him too. Like, the further we get where the Blue Jays don't make a move, the more faith I have in Jordan Romano. And I'm getting close to moving him ahead of Aroldus Chapman as well. Chris, what do you think about Arolde's Chapman? His, you know, where he's at at this point, are you worried as well?

Yeah, I mean, I think, like Scott said about Aeronado, I think it's more likely that he's fine than that the bottom falls out. But, you know, I think the other thing to be concerned about is just that there's been nagging things over the course of the past three or four seasons for Roldus Chapman. He's had nagging knee issues. He's had an elbow issue. So I do wonder if he's reaching a point where he might be breaking down. I mean, this is, you know, one thing that Yankees fans certainly are spoiled with was Mariano Rivera's consistent excellent. over the course of, I mean, what, 17 years or whatever,

where he was just like basically one of the three best closers in baseball for every single season, that usually doesn't happen. Relievers generally don't peak in that way. They usually have, you know, seven or eight year peaks, and then you see Craig Kimbril had some of the best rate stats in Major League history for a closer up until three years ago. And now we're seeing him start to fall apart. And, you know, I think,

It's something to keep in mind with Chapman that he's already kind of an outlier in terms of the length of greatness that the Yankees have gotten out of him. And it's possible that we're closer. I mean, it certainly seems likely that we're closer to the last save of a Roldus Chapman's career than the first. It's just a question of, does he have 100 more, 150, 50 more? You know, that's a, that's a question. Frank is saying five more. Yeah, look, I am, I'm pretty worried, man. The walks being up, just complete lack of control last year.

And they have some pretty good relievers behind him. Jonathan Loisiga, you know, Chad Green has filled in here and there. Chad Green is, he could be a mess at times. Like, just gives up home runs in the worst spots. But Loisga has been really, really good for the team. Scott, the ADP for Rolla's Chapman is 92. I know typically you don't target closers inside the top 100 picks, but let's say that you were.

How worried are you about a Roll de Chapman? Not nearly as worried as you. I mean, every closer is just a bad week away from losing his job, I feel like. And Chapman had that bad week last June when the foreign substance ban first kicked in. His ERA ballooned from 178 to 471 over the span of like five appearances. But then over his final 29 appearances, he had a 195 ERA. He struck out 48 and 27 and two-thirds innings. The walks were way too high.

But the stuff was still amazing. So, yeah, I think the concern is overblown. And at his cost, he's one of the few established closers that I might end up taking. All right. We will get to some news and notes. This is Anthony Rizzo signing coming in. We'll talk about what it means for the rest of the Yankees. Luke Voigt.

I don't know. I don't know. But first, March Madness is here. We want you to compete with us in a bracket challenge game. I'll be in there. Scott will be in there. Chris will be in there as well

and we also want you. Join us at cbsports.com slash FBT brackets. And the winner gets a $100 gift card to Paramount Plus. That's not the, that's not all you get. You can also choose which league

you want to be a part of in our listener leagues. We got a 12 team points league. We have a 16 team head-to-side categories league. That is the 4. the People League. So you win, you get a Paramount Plus gift card, and of course, you get the option to choose there. With Paramount Plus, you're able to watch the NCAA tournaments on P-plus,

tons of soccer from the Champions League to Concorda Calf, golf majors in the spring, and NFL football in the fall. Also, we're excited for the debut of Halo, which is streaming March 24th, exclusively on Paramount Plus. Head to Paramount Plus.com slash Halo to try it for free. But back to the brackets. Who enters just one pool? You can also create a group to compete against friends and fill out your own bracket for the chance to win a trip to the 2023 final for it's free to enter you can play on the cbsports app or at cbsports.com slash fbt brackets and i will put the link in the podcast and the youtube description if you would like to find it if you need help with your brackets because many people do i don't really watch college basketball there's

too much going on throughout the course of the year i can't pay attention so i'll be listening to the Eye on College Basketball podcast. It is your audio guide for the entire NCAA tournament. Over the next few weeks, Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander will take you from Selection Sunday to the net cutting in New Orleans. This week, they'll help you fill out your bracket and then provide recaps after each day of action as the tournament tips off. If you want the best March Madness analysis, follow and listen to the Eye on College

Basketball podcast anywhere you find this one. News and notes. And let's start with this breaking news. news, Anthony Rizzo is headed back to the New York Yankees. And last year in 49 games with the Yankees, Anthony Rizzo hit 249 with eight home runs and a 768 OPS. Been dealing with some back injuries the past couple of years. Obviously, it's a great ballpark to hit in four left-handed hitters. And we'll likely be in the middle of all this action now.

Judge, maybe. Aaron Judge, we'll talk about that in a second. Josh Donaldson, Dark Hollow Stanton. Well, we should talk about it now because it seemingly may be relevant for Anthony Rizzo as well. There was a report today that clarified that the New York State private employer vaccine mandate will apply to the Yankees and Mets, assuming that it is still in effect when the season starts on April 7. That's a city. That's a city. That's a city thing, yeah.

And it only applies to players who are based out of New York. So players who are not vaccinated, but are on other teams will be able to play. But we don't know for sure who is or isn't vaccinated. But Aaron Judge gave a very evasive answer today when asked if he was vaccinated. I believe Anthony Rizzo has said he's not because of his history as a cancer survivor. I think he got a medical exemption. But I don't know if that would apply for the purposes of this. Or, yeah.

So either way, that, between that and the Canadian federal governments bans on people coming into the country without being triple vaccinated, that means that Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, and any other Yankees, currently, if they're not vaccinated, are not eligible to play in 57% of the team's games. the 81 home games, two games against the mats at City Field and nine games in Toronto. So that's huge. We don't know whether that's going to continue to be in effect all season, whether that's going to even be in effect come opening day. But, I mean, we've seen it in practice with Carrie Irving for the Brooklyn Nets who, you know, dropped 60 points today.

Yeah. Getting rest is nice. But he has not played a home game. and whatever you feel personally about the merits of that policy are irrelevant because that's the policy and unless Eric Adams, the New York City mayor opts to change it. This is the reality that unvaccinated players are facing and now they still have time to get vaccinated. Which could happen. I mean, there's been a mayoral change since the policy was put into place. Although someone asked him the other day,

someone kind of heckled him and told him, you know, hey, let Kyrie play. And Eric Adams responded, yeah, Kyrie Irving can play tomorrow. Get vaccinated. That's the quote from him. So it doesn't sound like the change is imminent if it's coming. And if not, I'd be inclined to say they'll get it worked out because the stakes are too high, if not for the Kyrie Irving precedent. We've already seen, no, they're not willing to make exceptions.

a city hall official said exactly that in the New York Daily News report about this. So maybe not everyone will dig their heels in the same way Irving has, but maybe a lot of them will. In fact, I kind of wonder if the more of them there are who are willing to, that actually causes them to like unite in solidarity and say, okay, let's see you feel the lineup at home with. without us kind of thing. There have been reports that the METs at times, you know, they, the MLB had the requirement that 85% of tier one personnel had to be vaccinated last season. What that meant was on field personnel, but also coaches, trainers, people who were in direct contact with the team regularly.

And so the Mets and Yankees both hit that 85% mark, but there was a report today, I think, from John Heyman, that the Mets hovered between 15,000. and 60% vaccination rate for their actual roster last season now. And he said the Yankees would lose a chunk of their lineup too. I think, yeah, it was like a chunk of the heart of their lineup, but only like three players total. So if we know Judge, you can start to make some inferences based on the rest, but we don't know. I mean, I got to admit. It made me think twice about taking any Yankees or Mets.

I'm not sure practically what that looks like. Okay, so obviously we have judge identified as a likely candidate. Does that mean I let him slip beyond round four? I dropped him out of my first two rounds. I was bullish on him in my ranking, but I did drop him down to about 13 at outfield and like 29 overall. So, yeah, I think you kind of have to. At least does things stand now?

I don't, if I'm drafting right now, I don't think I react that extreme to it because we have time to find out more. We have time to find out if certain players are just going to absolutely refuse to do it and if others will relent and we'll probably be able to put specific names to it in time. There's also Randy Levine, the Yankees president, apparently has a lot of political influence in New York and is said to be on the case.

Political influence is political influence. This is a political matter. What I will say is from what I know about the mayor of New York, Kevin Durant's tactic of calling him out personally and saying he's doing it for attention probably will not work. Eric Adams does not like to be called out in the press from what I understand.

That is a bad strategy. I imagine that's not how Randy Levine is going about it, but I, you know, I don't know. I don't know. There are a number of ways this could be resolved and there's still time for it to be resolved. So I'm not panicking yet, but it's definitely something to take close attention to. It's a risk factor. Yeah. Nothing more. It's not you can't draft Aaron Judge. Like I moved him down a little bit, but I don't think I'm panicking. It's just it's a, it's a risk factor that you have to take into account. So that's that's how I'm treating it. appreciate how much research you did on this, Scott. I mean, you're throwing out Randy Levine's name with political influence. I appreciate it. I just read an article from the New York Daily News. He's working the Tammany Hall political machine as we speak. Yeah. All right, let's get back to Anthony Rizzo, though. That was how all of this started. Science with the New York Yankees. Scott, what do you think about this move? He's dealt with some back injuries the past couple of years. He's not the player that he once was, but it's a good ballpark. It's a good lineup. Obviously, it's very good

for left-handed power if he still has that. Yeah. Well, he's been pretty and pretty steep decline the past few years. And I had high hopes. Remember at the trade deadline last year that this moved to Yankee Stadium with the short porch, you look at expected home runs by park and spray charts and everything. And you say, oh, this could be what rejuvenates Rizzo. And it didn't.

It didn't. It was only a couple months. So maybe there's still a chance that could happen over a larger sample. But given the longer track record at this point, I, you know, I obviously I would have rather than just gone with Luke Voight there. Chris, would you rather have Anthony Rizzo or Ryan Moutcastle, who we spoke about earlier? Yeah, I mean, we're only talking about 23 games for Rizzo is worth, is the context worth putting in there? Plus, whatever, he played in the playoffs, I don't know what the exact number is, but that's what it wasn't the regular season.

I think I would rather have Rizzo if we get the answers that we need between now and opening day. as of what we know now with regards to his assumed vaccination status and the current system and all that stuff, I think you could probably make a case for Ryan McHastell over him. But if Anthony Rizzo is cleared to play home games, I do think that while it didn't work out for him last year,

I do think playing at Yankee Stadium should be a boon for him. And I would expect to see his best production from the last couple of years here. All right, we got a couple other news items, so let's run through these. Jack Flaherty did not participate in Tuesday's team workout after he was sent

for a medical evaluation of his right shoulder. This is awful news because he dealt with, well, it's awful news for any pitcher, obviously, but he dealt with a shoulder issues last season. Jack Flaherty did. He's currently the 19th starting pitcher off the board. 63.6 is the ADP. We're still learning more.

about this situation, Scott, but let's say someone is drafting tomorrow. What do you do with Jack Flaherty? Are you dropping him down your ranks? He's radioactive as far as I'm concerned. I mean, I guess there is a chance it could be a situation where he drops so far that it's like, why not take a shot at the upside? But I was already kind of treating him as somebody I draft around. Just when he comes up in my rankings, I just skip over him. And I think even more so now because of his history with the shoulder and the fact that before he even throws a pitch, it's already bothering him again. Yeah.

So my knee-jerk reaction, Chris, was I lowered Jack Flaherty to SP 41. That doesn't quite sound radioactive. So I probably need to move him down further. That's just behind Framber Valdez, Nathan Avaldi, Tyler Malley. And I put out a poll earlier. and I basically asked where should he be ranked SP 21 to 30, 301 to 40,

40 to 50 or outside the top 50 starting pitchers. That led the vote. 37% outside the top 50 starting pitchers. So are you in agreement that we just kind of stay away from Jack Flaherty for now? Yeah, because I also have him at 49, so technically not outside of the top 50. But right in front of Zach Allen,

who is another guy who I just don't have much interest. And I didn't have much interest in Jack Flaherty before the injury. because I'm not convinced that Jack Flaherty's very good when he's healthy, and now I don't think he's healthy. Or at least he's not currently healthy. And this is one of the things that we were talking about before players reported the camp with someone like Jacob de Grom where there were like a series of questions we had to answer.

And it was first, is he currently healthy? And then can he make it through spring training healthy and looking like himself? And so far, Flaherty has failed the first of those questions. and then you have just, okay, let's say everything goes great for the next week and he ramps back up and he's in the second turn of the rotation. How can you feel confident in him in his performance or his ability to stay healthy? Now that we're talking about a three-month layoff or five-month layoff, whatever it is, and then a re-injury or a recurrence of the issue in his ramp-up to the season. So, no, I generally think with starting pitchers, when you're talking about an injury at the start of spring training, you're probably, it can be, sometimes you can overreact, but you're probably better off just fading until it reaches a point where it's just so obviously a value that it's worth the risk. For Jack Flaherty, I don't think it's, I don't think it's inside of the top 150.

I'll go back the other way a little because you guys are aiming lower than I would have. I would absolutely take, if Flaherty last be on pitcher 50, I'm going to scoop them up as quick as you can say, Jack. But I think I had him 25th already. Yeah. So I had him lower, I think, than you guys.

I would take him ahead of Clayton Kershaw still, I think. And Clayton Kershaw is the 38th pitcher drafted on average. So somewhere in that 35 to 40 range is probably where I'll rank Jack Flaherty. I think I feel more confident in Clayton Churchill being good if he's healthy than Jack Flaherty. All right. We'll see what happens with Jack Flaherty. We had a big extension on Tuesday. Matt Olson signed an eight-year, $168 million extension with the Atlanta Braves.

So if you have him in Dynasty, the hope is he performs well this year and hopefully for the next seven years after that. So Matt Olson, staying with the brink. Braves for the foreseeable future. Speaking of those braves. The weird thing is the park should be better. Truest Park. I've called it SunTrust Park. I forgot that it changed at some point.

I tend to do that. I don't update what ballparks are called. They've got that, you know, relatively short porch and right field. O.com is a bad place for left-handed power hitters especially. Most of the expected home runs and park factor stuff doesn't really indicate that it's like a gigantic win for him. It's been surprising to dig into that data.

But I don't know. He's good. It doesn't really matter either way. I don't know how reliable any of the X home run stuff is, expected home run stuff is by part. You know, I cite it from time to time too to help bolster arguments. But I just think there are so many environmental factors at play that I don't think it's. And in theory,

If Matt Olson hits the ball like he did last season, it probably shouldn't matter where. Like if he's got a 16% strikeout rate and, yeah. It didn't last year. His home splits were exactly the same as his road split. So if all of that is true, if he hits as well as he did last season, it shouldn't matter.

Yeah, he's, if he does that again, it's 35 plus home runs regardless. Yeah. Yeah. The big, the key for Matt Olson is keeping the strikeout rate down and staying healthy.

I think more than any park shift or anything like that. And if he does those things, he's exactly as good as Friday Freeman. Oh, geez. Come on, come on. It's still too soon. Let's not tick off Scott. Yeah.

No, I could go off on a rant right now. You can find it already on Twitter.com. But yeah, yeah. So, you know, you're not willing to go six years on Freeman. But you have to. base of your organization for a decade who's been the most consistent hitter in baseball probably

during that time, certainly in the last half decade. You're not willing to go six for him, but you'll go eight for this guy you just traded for coming off a career year, who hit 190 when Freddie Freeman was winning NLMVP. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know how logically, before even factoring in the heart factor the obvious heart factor that's worth considering when it's a player of that stature, a player who's been around that long

and puts on that good of a face for the team, before you even factor that in, I don't know how just from a baseball perspective that move makes sense. Trading half your top prospects to sign a guy, make a longer-term commitment to him than the guy you already know and love

and who has never seen his production slip. But you have to keep in mind the 110 innings they're going to get from column A Q. A key part of the factor. It is irrelevant to what either of those first basements signed for. To be clear, I am just as upset about the Braves doing all this as Scott is,

and I'm not even a Braves fan. Just the principle of it. Look, I would rather them have, have Matt Olson for eight years than two, I'd rather them give up those prospects for a guy for eight years than two. But to say you can't go six years on Freeman and that this, bring in his replacement and the next day give him an eight-year deal, that's just, that's just offensive. I'm sorry. Cold-blooded. Yeah, it's not right. It's not right. Anyway, Colin McHugh, it's worth mentioning. He did sign a

two-year deal worth $10 million with the Atlanta Braves that included a club option on the third year. He was very good last year. 1.55 ERA, 0.9 for whip, 74 strikeouts over 64 innings pitched and Scott, I assume he'll be used as a reliever, right? Call him McHugh. Yes, yes, they have said so. All right. He joins Paul Seawald and Devin Williams in the relievers with strong ratios and strikeouts category for me. So if you're looking for that later on in your head to head categories draft. Look for Colin McHugh. We didn't talk about this the other day,

but I think it's worth mentioning. The MLB has changed the injured list from 10 days back to 15 days, and I haven't really sat down to think about how this might affect fantasy baseball, but Chris, do you have anything off the top of your head, like how this might change anything, going from 10 back to 15?

It's not interest, by the way. Yeah, position players still have a 10-day. I-L. Gotcha. Yeah, and so I think this, works in conjunction with the change to the CBA where players can only be optioned five times in a given season because what you would see a lot is guys shuttled back and forth from the minors seven or eight times in the course of a season and whenever someone goes on the IL, which when you have a 10-day IL, there's a lot of teams as we all know who if you've just got

like a minor thing that you would miss four days for, if you're not the most important player on the team, teams just throw you on the IL so they can use another roster spot. So I think that's what this is aiming to get away from, to get away from kind of the, you know, I don't want to say phantom IL designations, but the, I think kind of the obvious chicanery that a lot of teams, like the rays were doing with their rosters to try to fudge service time or whatever the thought process. was. So I think that's what this is all about is just trying to make sure that the IL is used for injuries. So that would be my thought. But, you know, hey, every injury that happens now that requires

an IL stint, the immediate impact of this is that it will be a five day longer absence, at least, at least 50% longer. All right. Let's, I'm going to breeze through the rest of this stuff. If there's anything that I say that you guys want to talk about, just like virtually karate chop me or something and just jump in. The bust podcast is going off the rails, Frank. Yeah, I know. Look, anytime we get a signing midway through, it just like throws everything off.

Stop doing this. Anyway, Luis Severino through two innings of live batting practice Tuesday and is probably the, quote, most ready pitcher for the Yankees. Carlos Carrasco said he feels fully healthy and in good shape after undergoing surgery in October

to remove a bone fragment in his right elbow. Apparently, he reached 92 miles per hour with a fastball on Tuesday and he said he usually sits 86 to 88 miles per hour this time of year. So good news. Yeah, I guess I just want to keep an eye on what Carlos Carrasco does in spring training because I don't know, man.

It seems like he just like hates spring training more than any other player in baseball. Like every time he talks about it, it sounds like it just like takes him forever to get ready. And he always like sounds like he's injured while he's getting ready. And so the fact that he's, you know, his fastball velocity is higher than normal. That seems like a good sign. Yep. Mike Levenger. plans to be ready for opening day. Good news there. Lane Thomas may not lead off for the Washington

Nationals. Davy Martinez hinted at Cesar Hernandez in that role. So not great for my guy Lane Thomas. Some defensive position notes from Buckshawalter. Jeff McNeil will be the primary second baseman for the Mets. Robinson Canoe will also get some time there. J.D. Davis will work mostly at third with some reps at first and left field. Dom Smith will also see some time at first and in left. But realistically, I, I don't know how those other two guys are going to play the way that everything else is set up right now. Zach Wheeler has been diagnosed with the flu and will not throw his bullpen on Thursday, which I found a bit curious. Going to follow that. James Caprillion dealing with an 8 with AC joint irritation and is expected to be a couple of weeks behind like many other starting pitchers at this point.

Yeah. Yes? There was one that you didn't have, but Albert Alzale, I think we, you mentioned him as a sleeper maybe a week or two ago. I don't know if it was in the sleepers podcast, but he has a latch strain and he's going to be at, I think, two months. So take him off the late round sleeper list.

Womp, blah. Bad news for my guy, Adbert Aalai. Let's take a quick break when we return. We'll get to more busts here on fantasy baseball today. Let's jump back in and talk about some players that we are avoiding. At the start, we had Nolan Aeronado,

Ryan Mountcastle, and Aroldus Chapman. And Scott, we're going back to. to you. All right. I wasn't expected. Okay, Marcus Simeon, Marcus Simeon, who I think is kind of a bus pick for all of us. It's just a lot, a lot stacked against him. Even if he had stayed in Toronto, it seemed like a long shot he'd be able to repeat last year's numbers. He was one of the biggest overachievers by the stack cast data. Expect a batting average 245, expected slug 455. Those are well below his actual batting average in slug.

So just from that standpoint alone, you could say, okay, I'm a little wary of drafting Marcus Simeon. But then he goes from the Blue Jays, the third best offense in baseball last year, to the Rangers, the third worst offense in baseball last year. Granted, the Rangers will probably be a little bit better than that this year, but I don't think a lot better. So he's going to lose, I think it combined 30 to 40 runs,

and RBI on just that move alone before you factor in any changes in production, his own production. You know, also going from a great place to hit to at least with two years of data so far, a not so great place to hit in a division with the highest percentage of pitchers parks, the AL West. I think there are a lot of ways, a lot of ways where you could see incremental decline. from Marcus Simeon and it may end up being a pretty significant decline, especially when you factor in that right in between the 2019 and 2021 seasons, the only two seasons where he was awesome, by the way,

you get this 2020 season that looks much like the rest of his career with a sub-700 OPS. So yeah, just a lot to wonder about for a guy who tends to go in round three on average. Having said that, I'll take him any time he lasts until round five. Yep, which happened in our most recent mock draft. He went 53rd overall on Monday night. His ADP in February was 39.3 in March. It's actually up a tad to 37.6. I worry about the power for Marcus Semyon.

I wonder if maybe he can run a little bit more. The Texas Rangers have been one of the most aggressive teams under Chris Woodward. He took over in 2019. But overall, I do agree with you. Scott, third, even fourth round, probably not looking at Marcus Semyon. Chris, give us another bust. I do want to say I've kind of come around on Marcus Simeon. Not so much as a second rounder where he was sometimes going early,

but late third or early fourth, I think it's fine. My bus pick is someone that I'm just not going to draft it all this season. That's Randy a Rosarena. Even if he does fall, I just, I think there are so many red flags in his profile as a player. and I think he's definitely a bust for Scott. I don't know about Frank. Nope. Probably after Mount Castle,

Rosa Raina is my biggest bus pick. And this is one that I think is truly a bus pick, not just a, I don't like his value. This is one that I think Randy or Rosarney could have a Cavend Biggio in 2021 kind of season where he's just completely irrelevant for fantasy. And now, look, he is a good athlete,

but, you know, you look at him, The way we often talk about Randy or Rosemary, I think we talk about him like he's like a Byron Buxton type of athlete, but he's 90th percentile in sprint speed, which is very good. That's an A, an A minus. So I don't know if he's necessarily like this incredible athlete. He hits the ball hard,

but not so hard, so consistently that you would think that he's going to be this outlier in terms of outperforming his expected stats. And that's exactly what he was last season. an expected Wobah of 304, which is well below average. 316 is Major League average. He had a 350 actual Wobah, 28% strikeout rate, expected batting average 222, expected slugging percentage 369.

Yeah, that's bottom of the barrel. That's reminiscent of Kavanaugh-Bigia right there, how awful those expected stats are. He does hit the ball harder than Kavanaugh. He's 64th percent on average, Average velocity. 59th percent on hard hit, 86% on Max Examila. Like there is pop here, but his approach at the plate is not good.

The way that he puts his tools into play is not good. And so I just, I think there are, there's real potential for Randy or Rosarana to just bottom out. And, you know, one thing that really stands out especially, he hit,

he had 370 expected well, 418 actual Woba against fastballs last season. 323 batting average, 15 home runs. Against all other pitches, he had a sub-280 Wobah and a sub-250-expected Wobah. Those are putrid numbers. Those are like you don't get to play in the majors numbers. Now, look, you can't just throw a guy 60% breaking balls and change-ups. That's not how it works.

Most pitchers don't have those kind of pitches that they can throw with that kind of reliability. but it just does highlight the limitations in a Rosarana skill set. And I think the fact that he's a 27-year-old who really just has the one stretch at the end of 2020 as like this standout really throughout his professional career. I think there was one other stretch in AAA where he looked really good. But otherwise he just like he looks like a guy who seems like he should be better than he is. and I don't think we're going to get the positive outcomes that we got this season. I don't want to downplay how good he was last year.

I mean, he was pretty good. He was one of 10 hitters who was 20-20. So he was the 50th overall player in Roto. With that being said, I've taken a little bit of a step back on a Rosarani. You guys have talked me into this. And the plate discipline, the fact that he hits as many ground balls as he does, the quality of contact, not great against right-handed pitching last. year, struggles against off-speed pitches.

Like, there is a lot going on there. So I have backed off a little bit, not as much as you guys, but you, I know Scott has him as SP Outfielder 25 and Chris has him down at 28. I've got him up on 20. The other thing I didn't mention, but I would like to mention is then there's just the raise of it all, where this is a team that if he goes through a bad two and a half months to start the season, they might just not play him every day. They have no qualms about that if they think it's going to make them better.

So, yeah, I just, I think there's some risk here for sure. I think there's significant risk. All right. Scottie, another bus for you, sir. Speaking of significant risks, speaking of true bottom-out potential, I'm going to go with Jazz Chisholm here, who I was pretty confident would struggle once he reached the majors, just looking at his minor league profile, a lot of strikeouts. Just great tools, but they're all just kind of out of control. And so it was surprising he had the first month that he did hitting 311 with a 969 OPS.

Maybe I was wrong about old jazzy boy, huh? Well, over the final five months, he hit 236 with a 681 OPS. So it's really just that first month that got his overall numbers to a point where people can feel optimistic about him. Oh, look, there's some power here. There's some speed here. I know I need speed. I know it's hard to find.

But that is not a useful player, the one we saw over the final five months. And as much as he strikes out, I think there's a good chance. I think among the top 100 players drafted on average, Jazz Chisholm might be the most likely who is just straight up dropped in fantasy leagues come mid-May, six weeks into the season, because the numbers are looking so. bad. So definitely not worth the price tag as far as I'm concerned. The ADP for Jazz Chisholm is 88.2. I will mention he was dealing with some injuries and a COVID situation over those final five months, but overall he was

still bad. I mean, you know, doesn't completely defend how bad he was. He is one of these freak athletes like max EV sprint speed is there. He shows flashes, but he is still an incomplete player. All you have to look at is the third deck home run he hit off Jacob de Grom last season on a like in a letters high 100 mile an hour fastball that he hit 405 feet or whatever it was like there are not

a lot of guys in baseball who can do that and so when you combine that with legitimate 30 stolen base potential it's easy to see why people talk themselves into jazz and if you're chasing upside in a market where speed is so scarce I absolutely

get it, but it's not going to be me. Right. And I will root for him incredibly hard. He is one of the most fun players in baseball, but not on my fantasy team. Yeah. Now, that's fair. I mean, the reason he was rated as a top prospect is you look at the upside and okay, but it's just the percentage chance of him meeting that upside. What is it? Is it 20%, 25%? And what does he look like if he doesn't meet that upside. Like I said, probably dropable, except in deeper rotisserie leagues where you just, you have him as a steel specialist. Yep. And he does take quite a bit in points leagues. Takes quite a hit in points league. So keep that in mind as well. The plate discipline is quite bad there. Chris, you are up. Another bust. Yeah, another guy that I just, I'm not going to

be drafting any of this season is Jared Walsh. I'm kind of like Scott is with Ryan Mountcastle. I'm kind of at a loss as to why I'm kind of like that with Jared Walsh too is going as high as he is like you I've been writing these ADP review position by position pieces and Ryan Mountcastle DJ LeMayhue

Jared Walsh and Jake Cronoworth are kind of in a tier of their own between Jose Abraeu and then the what we've dubbed the profit pocket of C.J. Cron, Josh Bell, Reese Hoskins and I don't get it at all. Those guys should be, the Walsh and Mountcastle should be going behind those guys.

Yes, he had 29 home runs last year. Yes, he had a 98 RBI. And even the 277 batting average was pretty good. He can't hit lefties. So you start there. He hit 170 against them. He did have 10 home runs, but 54 strikeouts, nine walks, and 192 plate appearances. I think you can look at the 10 home runs and say, even if he might have some pop against them, he can't hit them well enough.

And so there's a lot of pressure on him to be really, really good against Ritees. And I think he should be good, but he's another one where the underlying numbers just don't back up what he did. And so, I don't know, man, like 26% strikeout rate, 327 expected Wobah, 257 expected batting average, 436 expected slug. He has pop. that's good. I don't know if he does anything else well enough, consistently enough for it to matter. Yeah, he might just be a part-time player.

I don't see the point taking him at any kind of premium relative to, to say one name, Rees Hoskins, who I think is probably a better bet for home runs, at the very least. And he has more of a track record, too, of doing that compared to Jared Walsh. I hate the ground balls for Walsh, too,

and struggles against lefties. which you mentioned in the second half, he fell off too. I mean, the slugging percentage, 437, his hard hit rate was below 30% in the second half. So Chris, I am with you. I am out on Jared Walsh. He was kind of like, it was really like a good month stretch.

I think between like the middle of May and the middle of June for the most part. Outside of that, there wasn't a lot there. I remember there was a stretch where he was really struggling and I was on record saying, drop him, drop him, and then I think he hit a grand slam on the world of Chapman. He had a good September for what it's worth.

But yeah, I just, he seems like a jag at first base. All right, Scott, you have given us Marcus Semyon. You've given us Ryan Mountcastle, Jazz Chisholm. Who else he got? Well, this is a topical player here. Jesse Winker. I am to the point of considering him the bust. I'll point out, I added him to bust 2.0

even before the trade to the Mariners. Same. While he was still a red. Oh, okay. Yeah, Jesse Winker, bust. And here's the case for it. I think he's a good hitter. I think he's a really good hitter.

I think he'll hit for average. I think he'll deliver an even better on-base percentage. He is so bad against left-handed pitchers, like horrendous against left-handed pitchers. His numbers last year, 176 batting average 572. In a career season, that's what he did against left-handed pitchers. I was skeptical, considering he's 28 years old already. There's no developmental reason to keep him in the lineup against left-handed pitchers. I was skeptical the Reds were going to do it.

But it was kind of hard to make the case because, you know, they're looking like a bottom feeder and who else are they going to play there? Why wouldn't they just keep him in a lineup? But now that he's with the Mariners, it's a much easier case to make. And of course, now that he's with the Mariners, you'll wonder what that power output's going to look like. Because for his career, his OPS in Cincinnati, one of the most favorable part for home runs was, Career OPS 100 points higher there than anywhere else. And of course, Seattle's on the opposite end of the spectrum.

So, you know. Not just for home runs, I'll point out. This is something that I think Rudy Gamble was talking about on or at Rosball, I think was talking about this, that Safeco, which is not what it's called anymore. T-Mobile Park is one of the worst parks in baseball for left-handed batting average as well. In addition to left-handed babbip, I guess, in addition to home run. So it's a pretty clear park downgrade. He's a good line drive hitter, one of the best line drive hitters,

which is why I say he'll probably hit. I feel pretty good about him being a good contributor in batting average. But he's to hit, he's so bad against lefties that to hit 305 like he did last year, he had to hit 346 against right-handers, which is just hard to predict anybody doing year after year. you know, having a split that good. So in between the playing time concerns

just because of the splits, the playing time concerns because of health because he's had trouble staying on the field too. 2020 is the only season he hasn't gone on the aisle in his major league career. Yeah, and that was obviously the 60 game season. The, how well he has to hit right-hand to compensate for hitting left-handers

and the likelihood of him doing that. And then, of course, the steep park downgrade, I think Winker's going to, Jesse Winker's going to disappoint a lot of folks. I think, like, I could see him having a season very similar to what, like, A.J. Pollock did last season, which, like, AJ Pollock was great last season,

but the counting stats just weren't there. I think that's going to be similar for Jesse Winker, where you look at the triple slash line. I think that's part of what people are doing where they're seeing like 305, 394, 556. Holy crap, this guy's an amazing hitter. But it's like, well, the Reds hit him from some of the tougher left-handed starters

and he did that in a good park and dealt with the intercostal strain as well. And you know, you just kind of look at all of it. And it's like, I don't know if he's actually as good as the surface level numbers, even if he has similar surface level numbers this season. Chris, you are up. Another bust. We'll mention a pitcher, I guess,

for the first time, right? Just the first pitcher mentioned in the bus? I think so. Yeah, I know Scott has one sneakie. Other than a role just chappen. Well, and Jack Flaherty who I guess would have been in the discussion for me even without the injury. Logan Webb, 25-year-old starting pitcher, had a really nice 2021 season. Really, it was a really nice three months.

And I feel like he's getting a lot of credit for those three months in ways that I understand. because the skill set is, you know, looked really solid. He got a lot of strikeouts. He had great control, great ground ball rate. The thing that I think is being left out of the discussion about Logan Webb is his career didn't start in 2021. And his career didn't start in July of 2021. You know, he's made more than 14 starts in his major league career.

And he was bad before this most recent run. He was not as bad to start last season as the RA was around 4 to, two partial season before that, it was like a five ERA. So I just, I feel like he's getting an awful lot of credit for a relatively small sample size where he pitched not just better than we'd seen him in the majors, but better than we'd ever seen him in the minors as well. He wasn't this type of pitcher either. And so I just, I'm getting a lot of Zach Plessack, 2020 vibes from the reaction to this stretch. in addition to the fact that, look, you missed time with a shoulder injury last season.

And that is a really, really troubling red flag for me. So it's just, it's a lot betting on the best case scenario for Logan Webb when there's a lot of ways that things can go wrong. It's, you know, Chris, it's the shoulder that worries me more than anything else about Logan Webb because you make the comp to Zach, Police Act. Policeack face very favorable competition back in 2020. Last year, Logan Webb was doing it in the NL West against the Dodgers, the Padres. He obviously was amazing in the postseason

two starts against the Dodgers. And he completely changed his pitch mix last year. So that's why I don't really want to compare it too much to what his performance was before last year because he made tangible changes. Lower on the four-seem fastball, using the change-up and slider more. Yes, but that's...

He's the best ground ball pitcher with his side of Framber Valdez, which makes his floor only so low. Sure, but the, The pitch mix thing was also what we were doing in Zach Plizac. To be fair, I'm not saying he is Zach Plizak, but that was absolutely part of the Zach Pleasack is going to be good in 2021 argument. And it's not just Zach Plizac.

There are any number of pitchers who have had really good partial season stretches that get overweighted for them in fantasy. I think Luis Castillo has been that guy in the past. That, gosh, I think it's going back to 2018 when he was amazing down the stretch. Jack Flaherty, another guy who had that. amazing second half and we all were just like that's it that's who jack flared he is now and he hasn't been that guy it's just it's a lot riding on a small sample size and just kind of it kind of requires ignoring basically everything else all right scott i know you have a pitcher that you want to

talk about as well as a bust here who you got yeah case for zach gallon is pretty easy i think I think he's the pitcher who I'm most concerned about going under the knife this year for Tommy John because he sprained his elbow in May. And though he was able to return and close out the season, clearly did not have the same effectiveness. And that's normally what you see from pitchers as they're approaching Tommy John's surgery. They don't seem right and you're not sure why. Even in his final eight starts, Zach Gallen seemed to recover with the 319 ERA. But his swinging strike rate during that stretch was 8.6, which is bottom of the bear.

Went very fastball heavy last season relative to what we'd seen from him before. Right. And if your elbow's not feeling well, you're going to do that. So that makes sense too. And then we find out, like, I already had him as a bus because of that. I already pretty much wasn't going to touch him. And then he shows up to spring training dealing with shoulder bursitis. So he got the shoulder and the elbow. And, you know, the more he's, the more he's, the more he's, the more protecting one, the more the other is likely to hurt. So, yeah, I think this could spiral out of control in an especially destructive way. Scott, you mentioned the word radioactive earlier in the podcast. I moved Zach Allen down to my SP 70 on Tuesday. So him and Lance McCullors are back to back,

and I will not be drafting either one of them. I am scared to death of both. All right, we're going to wrap there. Just kidding. Chris, I will give you an opportunity to talk about your last bust here, because obviously I don't agree with it, but I will let you make the case. Yeah, here comes the money. Shane McClainahan. I'm not playing it. Shane O'Mac.

Look, I get, I absolutely get the Shane McLean thing. You can't watch him pitch and not get it. He looked like the stuff is electric. He looks incredible. He looked incredible when he made his major league. I think the first pitcher ever to make his major league debut in the playoffs. looked electric in the 2020 playoffs, looked quite good for long stretches of the 2021 season, 343 RA, tons of strikeouts.

But there are some real red flags. One is just, I can't shake this question of why didn't the race seem to view him as a starter before last season? Why were there so many questions about him when the stuff was, when he had a four-pitch arsenal that looked as good as it did last season? that makes me wonder if, you know, the four-pitch Arsenal, you know, might have taken some guys by surprise, has changed up, you know, had some issues with quality of contact. And that's really ultimately what it is.

It's just he got hit about as hard as any pitcher in baseball last season. 424 expected Wobon contact. League averages 369, 45.7% hard hit rate, 91.7 mile per hour average. Eads of velocity, 10.7% barrel rate. I mean, these are all bottom 10% kind of numbers among all pitchers. Now, yes, he got a lot of strikeouts and the control was actually pretty good. He was above average and both of those, although it's worth noting 27% strikeout rate is very good. It's not Robbie Ray.

And that's ultimately the path that Shane McClain in has to follow to have this breakout season. He has to, you know, Robbie Ray is the template that, you know, guy who can get hit hard, but he's so good at everything else last season especially that it doesn't really matter. However, the rest of Robbie Ray's career would be what I would point to is that when he's not quite as perfect, things can go downhill really quickly when you get hit that hard. And so on those days when you don't have your control and you walk a couple of guys, all of a sudden, you know, you're not talking about solo home runs. You're talking about three run home runs. And so that's the concern with me is that he just had. had like real, like almost league worst quality of contact metrics allowed last season.

And I just, that's too much of a red flag for me to ignore, you know, when the price is, you know, almost a number two starting pitcher at times. Are you done, Chris? Are you done? Yep. All right. Just had to make sure that you were done ripping my guy, Shane McClanahan. He does allow a lot of hard contacts. So I will agree with you there. I just think that the raise are going to figure it out, man.

The pitch mix, as nasty as his stuff is, it just seems like sequencing, they'll figure something out. The strikeouts, the walk rate was fine last year. He gets an okay amount of ground balls. I'm in. I know the price is high, but, man, I do like Shane McLeanahan quite a bit myself. Well, come up with some kind of gentleman's bet, Chris.

I don't know. Like SP 25 or better, you know, I win. McLeanagan versus Trevor Rogers? You know what? I'm the downer on Trevor Rogers. I think I have Rogers actually ranked ahead of McClanahan. I don't know how that happened,

but I like Rogers too. It's tough. I'll figure something out. We'll figure something out. We'll figure something out. And if you lose, you have to, I don't know, shave your face.

How about that? No. We'll think of something better than that. We'll let Scott decide what we do. Shave your head. Chris has to shave his face. Frank has to shave his head. That's a little,

That's a little, you know, I would do that. All right, we're going to wrap there. We'll figure it out, though. We'll figure it out. We'll come up with something, some kind of Shane McLean bet this season. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank.

Thank you all for listening and watching. And it's baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.