Fantasy Baseball Today - Buy or Sell These Confusing Hitters with Matt Williams! (12/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 29, 2020

Is there anything to talk about other than the Padres? Of course there is, and we're joined by Matt Williams to do so! Before we get into those confusing hitters, let's put a bow on Snell and Darvish to the Padres (2:08). ... Those weren't the only moves they made as they signed infielder Ha-seong Kim out of the KBO (6:48)! What are the expectations for Kim and where do you need to draft him? ... If you haven't checked out Matt's #2021PlayerBreakdowns than you should! What tools and stats does he like to use for them (9:38)? ... Let's take a deep dive on Randy Arozarena (12:57). What are his pros and cons? Is he worth a Top-60 pick? ... Was Javier Baez's 2020 a fluke (21:12)? ... Can Rafael Devers get back to his elite 2019 form (26:51)? ... Is Trent Grisham being overdrafted (33:00)? ... Why are people in love with Teoscar Hernandez (37:15)? ... What the heck happened to Keston Hiura this season (42:50)? .... 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, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank 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/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, December 29th. Will we talk about anything other than the Padres today? Probably not. Frank Stample here. Scott White took off the busiest week of the off-season, which I guaranteed what happened. So thank you, Scott. I am not alone, however.

Yesterday we had Michael Simeone join us to talk pitching. Today we have Matt Williams on to help us dissect a few of these polarizing hitters. Of course, he does fantastic work. He is the host of the Turn 2 podcast, the founder of rotophonatic.com. Make sure to give him a follow on Twitter at Matt W-W-I-77-I-A-M-S. What's going on, Matt? Hey, not much. I wasn't aware.

I mean, is there a player that's not on the Padres now? I think it's just everybody. Yeah, it's everybody. Everyone's over there. And I'm sure they'll make more moves and I'll have to do more emergency podcasts. And Chris and I, Chris Towers and I have this running gig now,

you know, the running joke that they're basically just going to make a trade every, every night until the end of time. So that we have to keep doing emergency podcasts. And of course, it'll be great. That would be fun. Yeah, it would, right? By the way, everyone's on the Padres except for Zach Davies. Yes, except.

The only guy is not allowed. Yeah, poor, poor Zach Davies. Or not. I mean, now he moves over to the National League Central. He gets to face the pirates, the Cardinals. You know, it's a nice little change in scenery. Let's just dive into all these Padres move. We'll put a bow on these.

They're really the only news and notes going on. So we'll hit on these. And then, of course, we'll get into some of those hitters. Again, Matt has been doing these hashtag 2021 player breakdowns, which you can find on Twitter and over on Roto Fanatic. com as well, where he just goes super, super in-depth. So looking forward to picking your brain a little bit on these specific players. But let's just start off in general with the two pitchers.

You Darvish and Blake Snell, of course, massive deals getting traded over to the San Diego Padres. I've shared my thoughts the past couple of days. So I wanted to give you the opportunity to opine yourself here, Matt. You know, are you moving these guys up the rankings, down the rankings? Snell, Darvish, what do you got? Darvish is lateral. I mean, literally lateral. I say no reason to move him. He was kind of already off of my board in terms of me, my interest in drafting him just because he had had some injury issues in the past. And now, you know, coming off the 60 game season, we don't know. Guys like him, Kevin Gousman, did they just turn it on for 60 games? We don't know. So I was probably going to avoid him, even though I love him. Literally, he was my SP3 coming out of the season. And now I'm just off of him. Snell, I had as like my SP 15 or 16, I assume that this should increase his value, but I was not going to draft him as well.

Same reason. There was Tampa Bay with the whole five-inning thing. That's gone now in theory. But you also had the injury history. He had the shoulder problem in like 2018. He didn't get any kind of an operation on. Then he had the surgery to get loose bodies from your elbow, which, you know, that's not uncommon for pitchers, but still he had that.

that he had an injection. He was complaining about soreness this year. I'm just out on that completely. So I assume the move to San Diego moves his ADP even further up, which makes me even further out. So love both guys probably are completely out on both. Yeah, and that's what's so

tough about just differentiating real baseball versus fantasy baseball. These guys are awesome pitchers and they're really, really fun to watch. We saw what Blake Snow did in the postseason. And it doesn't mean that these guys are bad pitchers, but we play a game in fantasy baseball, where things are tied to a certain value.

And it's because of that, that I probably won't have many shares of either of these guys as well. On the emergency podcast, I mentioned with Darvish, I think it might be a slight downgrade for him. The defense, according to stats that I looked up, like defensive run saved and UZR, is a little bit worse in San Diego. And I think the competition is going to be a little bit tougher for Darvish as well.

Moving over to face the Dodgers, the Giants offense was very good in 2020. I guess we'll find out whether or not that, was real. And just, yeah, like, now that he doesn't get to face the pirates and stuff. So I worry about that and just the change of scenery for a pitcher you have to take in the second round. So I just worry about that just a little bit with Darvish.

And then with Blake Snell, I said cautious upgrade was the phrase that I used for him because I think he'll still be really good when he's on the mound. But I worry that the race just knew how to handle him, Matt. And, you know, as frustrating as it has been, Blake's now has not completed six innings since July of 2019. It doesn't do very well as third way, third time through the order either, like really suffers.

So, I mean, plus they've been, like you said, he hasn't gone through the sixth since then. They've been using him in very limited amounts. I'm worried about even the strongest of pitchers going from 2020 to 2020 to 2021, just because you're going to get the big jump innings. And now you have a guy that's just been literally held back intentionally.

All of a sudden, you want him to take this big jump. I'm not sure that big jump everyone is. hoping is there will be there. So it's a lot of ifs for someone going that high in a draft. Yeah, and if they do push him further, right? Like, okay, we might enjoy the volume more, but that also makes him more of an injury risk, in my opinion. So, you know, there are a lot of tradeoffs with these two guys.

Darvish is going to be a second round pick. My guess is Blake's now, his ADP in the month of December was 52 over at the NFBC. He was the 17th starting pitcher off the board. I think that probably climbed somewhere to like six to 12 picks, either half a round, a full round, and I think at that point, I'm probably not going to want Blake Snell either. Matt, so if you are in the second round

and you want to take a starting pitcher, just who are a few names that you would target ahead of Darvish? Ahead of Darvich. I'd happily take Luis Castillo, Aaron Nola, Brandon Woodruff, all those guys that take in front of Darvish. I'm not taking Darvish over.

I love them. I do. I do. It's just, I highly doubt he makes it through the amount of innings You want either he gets injured, which fingers crossed, that doesn't happen, or his, his innings are just not going to be where you want them to be. I will, I will definitely go in another direction. Well, you must be friends with Michael Simeone as well, because he's a huge fan of Luis Castillo

and Aranola as well. I have dropped the Darvish behind both of those names as well. So I think we're all in agreement there. Matt, you recently had me on your podcast, the turn two, and we previewed the shortstop position, and we spoke a little bit about Haas Young Kim coming over from the Kays. and the fact that when he signs, his ADP is going to skyrocket. And I think the fact that he is joining the Padres, we're going to see exactly that happened.

So Haseung Kim is 25 years old, coming off a career year with the Key Womb Heroes in the KBO, where he hit 306 with 30 home runs, 23 steals. He has really good plate discipline. He had more walks than strikeouts this past season in the KBO in 2020. his ADP in December is 175 at the end of BC. I think in January we see him climb inside the top 150, Matt. I wouldn't be shocked if he climbed well within even further than that. I expect him to jump further, at least from the enthusiasm I've seen.

I've seen people comp him to, they're looking, there are people looking at projections and they're throwing out names like Ozzie Albies and Tim Anderson. And I see maybe more like Dansby Swanson. and the comp I keep throwing out there is Jerks and ProFar, the guy he's replacing on the team pretty much in San Diego. I don't expect him to do that much better than ProFar just did. And if you look at projections, I'm not sure I expect Kim to do much better than ProFar's projected to do this year,

which is fine. I think ProFar off the top of my head, like two streamer has him like 250, around like 15 and 15. I think that Kim's around like 280, a little more power around the same speed. So, yeah, I think he's destined to be a highly overdrafted player. The main thing, he's in the Padres lineup. I don't see him batting higher than seventh or eighth. That's a really good lineup.

So, yeah, you know, draft cautiously, everybody. I know it's exciting, but we're not exactly sure how he'll translate. He's batting at the bottom of a lineup. There's a lot. There's better avenues probably to go than where his ADP is likely to end up. So I've really liked that call that you just brought up. I'm looking at the steamer projection for Jurks and Profar. 250 batting average, 19 homers, 10 steals.

And I tacked on, we have this free agency tracker that we have at CBSports.com, and we're just constantly updating it with every move that happens. And I wrote about Haseung Kim today. And I said, I would modestly project 260 to 270, 15 to 17 home runs, and 10 to 12 steals. So I think we're in lockstep. And that's a very good player. But, I mean, if he starts to move much higher than 150, if he starts to move, like towards 100, especially for a guy that we just haven't seen play in Major League

Baseball yet, that's probably going to be too high for me. So we'll see, we'll see what happens. I think January is going to be a big month to find out the value for Ha-Syong Kim. All right, let's jump into some of these players, Matt. You do fantastic work and a bunch of people know you for everything that you do, but I mean, really, you've kind of become synonymous with these hashtag 2021 player breakdowns. I know you did them last year as well. where you're just really deep diving some interesting players. So just before we get into specific names, maybe just, it's going to be a lot.

So you don't have to list off everything, but just tell people some of the things that you look at specifically when breaking down these players and maybe where you find some of these tools as well. It really depends on the player. Every single one is different. I always go through their stat lines, and I end up going through plate discipline

and batted ball profile, basically for hitters and pitchers. As far as how I get there, it just depends on the player. You know, sometimes there's a narrative like Javier Bios will get to where he's complaining about the video or someone made a tangible change with pitch mix. I use baseball savant, fan graphs, Brooks baseball, Alex Chamberlain's leaderboard. I talk to beat writers, pretty much everything that you can do to kind of dive into a player I look at. Randy a Rosarina, we'll talk about in a second. You know, he had a short amount of season.

I had to look at the postseason data because there's not that much to go on. you kind of have to go back and look into some people's minor league track records like Alec Baum because he doesn't have a lot to go on so you want to look at like plate discipline sometimes transfers over to the majors the rest of the stats don't typically do but it just it just really depends and you know people like to look at certain things like home run to flyball ratio or babbip when it comes to like regression and it's not that simple you got to know what what kind of skills goes into making babbip higher or lower and then you kind of dive deeper so I just kind of take people step by step through the surface stats.

And then I'll teach them how to highlight what to look for in terms of red flags or growth. And then we'll dive deeper and I'll show people like, you know, what you can be looking for, why a player should be getting better or worse. And it's just kind of a fun thing to do and kind of teach the audience at the same time. Matt, when you said step by step, the first thing that came into my mind was the song by new kids on the block. I will be grudgingly admit that it is a guilty pleasure karaoke song of mine. I don't know if you have any response to step by step by new kids on the block.

No, my sister used to listen to that when we were kids. But yeah, other than that, I'm not sure I have any follow-up comments for that. You ever do karaoke? Yeah, yeah. When I lived in Florida, that was pretty much what we did. You get drunk and play karaoke constantly. I didn't really have a favorite by any means. I think the ones like,

I can't even think of the name of it. One Week by Bare Naked Ladies. Okay. Trying to get your way through that really. I don't know if anyone knows the, they talk really fast. It's really impossible to do, but it's a fun one.

You got one way should you look at me. Something like that. I think that's how it goes. But that's just a really bad rendition of it. I also really enjoy singing, say it ain't sell by Weezer, but that's a little. That's a good one.

It's a good one. It's a good. All right, enough of that. Let's dive into some of the players, specifically. What we're going to do is we'll talk about them, and then I'll ask you buy or sell at their current ADP in the month of December. You mentioned Randy Arosa Rana,

and what are we going to do with Randy? Between the regular season and the postseason, the guy was awesome. He hit 333 with 17 home runs and four steals in 141 at Bats. I don't think it's completely fluky or anything. It's not like he was a highly regarded prospect, but he did have a ridiculous 2019 in the minors. He had an OPS over a thousand there,

15 home runs, 17 steals, and his power really improved throughout the summer just in the most odd way. The fact that he contracted COVID, he was in quarantine for a month, and while he was by himself, he just ate rice and chicken and did 300 push-ups a day.

I mean, you probably, if you listen to this podcast, you probably have heard that story by now. But that's actually how he developed his power. So let's talk a little bit more about this. The pros, the cons, you pointed some of these out in your player breakdown, including the struggles with breaking pitches and pitchers pitching in on the inner half of the plate against Randy Rosa Rana. So just hit on some of those things when it comes to some of the cons when it comes to Randy Rose Arena and what might worry you. in that regard. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't, there's, again, not a lot to tend to go on for Eurz Arena.

Enough for the Cardinals to freely admit they made a mistake. They could have kept quiet. They felt like openly admitting they made a huge mistake. He leans over the play. He's really high over there and allows him to get full play coverage. You know, really lean over, get his back. He can reach pitches on the outside to, you know, allow him to make contact.

He doesn't have a ton of power on the outside, but he won't swing and miss there. But it does leave the inside very, very open for pitchers to attack, which some did. You know, you get in on his hands and not even inside, just inside strike zone. You just can't get to him. And I don't see him backing off the plate because then, you know, he'll hurt his play coverage and can't get to the outside.

Again, this is cherry picking a very good hitter, but it was very easy to see that when pitchers identified that, he couldn't really have an answer for that and some high fastballs, which a lot of players have that problem. So between that and breaking balls, the problem is, if you identify those kind of issues, he's a really young player, not a lot to go on. They're going to spend the ALEs for sure.

They're going to spend a whole offseason looking at the stuff. And who knows what we're going to get? I mean, it's the race. And if he struggles at all, they'll platoon him. You know, they're not erecting a statue

in his honor. You know, they don't very few people get the honor of everyday at bats. I would bet on it. I think in my projection here, I haven't projected for something pretty healthy,

but it comes down to very minimal track record in a normal setting, which we're about to have. So, I mean, his biggest con is the unknown. I mean, there's been players, not homestead. There's been no players that've had a hot streak like him. I think I even had him the thread. There's like, he's a historic amount of production he did in a short amount of time.

But, I mean, names like Shane Spencer, you know, as a Yankee fan, you know that. I mean, there's people that have hot streaks. There's some holes in his game. Let's see if there are actual holes that he can, you know, that can be exploited. We don't know. We have to see. But you have to draft. him at his ceiling.

There's some people that think he's Christian Yellick. I think he's more like Tommy Fam, you know, a healthy one, which is great. You know, that's pretty good. But, you know, people are drafting them like they know, and you can't, you can't know. Yeah. And look, he started the, when he first got playing time this season,

he started off as a platoon bat where he was playing against lefties. Now, that doesn't really mean anything because he showed out in the postseason and he was hitting against everybody. Lefties, right? It didn't really matter. But I can't remember a time that we saw a player raise their value that much just based on a postseason performance. I wrote about this while the playoffs was going on. And the only other thing I could think of was a couple of years ago.

Nathan Avaldi had a really nice showing in the postseason. But even then, I think maybe he was being drafted inside the top 150. Like Randy Rose Rainey, you have to draft much, much higher. We'll get to that in just a little bit. Spoke about some of the negatives. Let's look at the positive just in general here. Despite his higher swinging strike rate, Matt, he does have really, really strong plate discipline,

and I think we saw this in the playoffs. While he struggles against breaking pitches, I feel like his pitch recognition is a little bit more advanced for someone his age. It seemed like he seemed very confident up at the play. Like he kind of knew what he was doing. And on top of that, we spoke about Seamer projections a little bit earlier. He is one of only 10 players projected

to hit 20 home runs and steal. 20 bases. So that's not an easy feat to accomplish. Those are some of the pros there. Is there anything else that you would like to expand on when it comes to a rose arena, the positives? Not real. I mean, you kind of nailed it. A lot of it has to do with the plate discipline. Like you said, he has really great plate coverage. I said it earlier when I was talking about his cons. That's a great positive. If he has the ability to just lay off pitches, that that is great. There's plenty of high strikeout, high, you know, high average. It's funny. I was talking about, I was talking with Rob Silver earlier.

He brought up Andres Gala Raga for some reason. I can't remember why. But he led the league in hits and strikeouts once, which is nuts. But, you know, having a high swinging strike rate does not mean you're a bad hitter. You know, you can just be aggressive. But if you can cut down on the amount of bad pitches you swing at, you know, you can get over it. So there's a, yeah, there's a ton to like here. I wish I had my, you know, I'm trying to try to pull up my projection.

I have him, I say, to kind of avoid. him like I would. But in the end, I think I haven't projected for something that's like well, well worth his ADP. So yeah, I think I probably know somewhere on like 30, 20 or something like that, maybe 25, 25, but I believe in a rosarina. But for where he's going, I feel that I like to go the death by a thousand paper cuts approach when I draft where I love to get my steals here and there. He looks, he just looks like someone that has a lot more floor than sealing at his ADP. And, you know, I'm willing to be wrong this year, which, you know, maybe it'll hurt. But I can, I can build around him. He's going just a bit early where if he is a bust, it's going to stink. Yeah. So I pulled up your projection here and 265, 27 homers, 24 seals. That's, that's a pretty damn good player. The ADP for a Rosarena in the month of December is 60. So it sounds like you are selling that. yes yeah absolutely it's it's too early it's just too early you're basing this again we included

the playoffs um how many how many bats you have in the regular season i don't know like 60 he most of 70 that would have been 64 64 i mean that come on that's that's crazy i mean you can look at there's nothing really um there's no red flags here as far as anything metrically like you're not looking at any kind of an insane babbip like you are with bomb or key brian hayes but it's just they're all rookies and there's some other people that have given the opportunity over 162 probably could have really made you know made some noise but for some reason we're elevating him just because of this mystique around him and you know the you know mystique is in a fantasy category so again i love a rosary uh it's just it's a little little early too much risk yeah i would agree

with that i'm i'm selling a rosalena at that price if i could get a and maybe two or three rounds later. I mean, the further you go into a draft, the more risk you could take on. But at 60, that is just, that's the 5-6 swing and a 12-team league. That's too early for me. You mentioned Tommy Fam.

I think that that is a fair player. Not just to comp him to, but if I can get him 65 picks later, which is where Fam is going right now, and he's projected for 22 homers and 15 steals, okay, yeah, I'll take the discount on Tommy Fam, assuming he can stay healthy. So I do like that call as well.

Somebody who does strike out quite a bit. You mentioned the ability to strike out and still get a ton of hits. Javier Baez. And again, mention this on your podcast when I was on. I was off Javier Baez every single year. And then I finally gave in in 2020 because, look,

the guy just does it every year. Like, you know, this is who he is. He can maintain it. And boom. That was just so deflating. Javier Baez hit 203.

eight home runs, a 599 OPS. The plate discipline has always been bad, but it managed to get even worse in 2020, Matt. So tell me where you're at on Javier Baez, how much you're buying into the 2020. You mentioned some of the video stuff as well. So kind of work all that in and let me know. Where are you at on Javier Baez?

This is why I said when I break down players, it's very specific to each guy, especially with how you relate to how you're going to weigh what happened in 2020. there's some players where I would rather throw out negatives than positives, but there's some players I want to throw it all altogether. Jack Flaherty is a good one for the pitcher. Cardinals had a weird schedule.

He never really got in a rhythm. You take out a couple of his bad games. He looks fine. I throw it out for him. Javier Baez, I am throwing it out completely. It's a brutal season and you think it shouldn't, but you're getting a decent discount. He complained about the video. We know about that.

J.D. Martinez complained about it too. They said they really, you know, it's a routine that they have. They'd go in. They'd see what they did wrong. And especially for someone with big holes in their swing, he likes to check in. So I don't know how much that affected him. The Cubs coaches actually as a team, they said they preferred it because they got to talk one on one with their hitters.

And so they actually enjoyed it. But as a team, team-wide, they actually, as the Cubs, they pushed their players to take more pitches. And as someone with horrible plate discipline, Javier Bay is someone who always like, when he saw his pitch, he attacked it. So now you're taking someone who has poor plate discipline and enforcing them into an 01 hole, maybe an O2 hole. I mean, you know, everyone knows how much worse it gets

once you start with a strike against you. So it was just a perfect storm to have this horrible year. So everything just added up to just bad, bad things happening for higher via Bias. He was always a flawed hitter, but they probably just put him behind the eight ball from the get-go. You know, and the whole thing with 2020 is some people that have the, that have a certain routine.

And it doesn't have to be video. It can be, it can be just showing up and doing a workout at a certain time or going to get a freaking smoothie, you know, at a game. Like, so many things that players could not do. And Baez was very vocal about being thrown off his routine. So he just seems like someone that, you know, we've seen him overcome his very,

forward play discipline. He's like one of the worst hitters of baseball like Mondesie, like Robles, except he can overcome due to his, his athletic ability and his talent. So do I think at his age, he just all of a sudden just, you know, turned into trash? I don't think so. So like you, I was off. I was completely off of him for years. But now I am somewhat interested because if he missed on short stops early, it's a deep position, but he's sitting there like right in front of Dansby Swanson, who I actually prefer between the two. but he seems like a nice bounceback candidate where the speed is maybe not going to be

where everyone hoped it once was. But a lot of things went wrong for Baez behind the scenes where if you're not, if you just look at the stat sheet, it looks pretty ugly. And things just went wrong for the Cubs hitters in general. I looked into, so I noticed Anthony Rizzo had a really high

infield fly ball rate as well. Baez just had a 14.9% infield fly ball rate. That was much higher. His career mark is 10%. the Cubs as a team were eighth in all of baseball in hitting pop-ups, basically. They were 25th in that category in 2019. So I don't know if it had to do with something with David Ross coming in as well and just a team philosophy change in general.

But I think that there's enough here. And people might be, well, you know, if you give him a pass, you have to give other players a pass as well. And I think you have to be willing to do that, Matt, based on the season that we just saw. For me, Austin Meadows is a player that I will go back to because the guy had COVID to start the season, and then when he returned,

he dealt with an oblique injury. So, I mean, really how much can we take away from the season for Meadows? Same thing with you on. Well, I think that's why I say it's case by case. Like, I think there's certain place. Yelik actually does worry me. As he had the back issue, he looked terrible in spring training.

He was striking out crazy in the second spring training. I'm happily taking him at the one-two turn where he's going. It worries me, though, because I don't see these extra things that went wrong with him. I don't know if he was just injured. He'll get healthy. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he looks in spring training. I'm not going on record saying that he's going to be bad.

But I'm just saying him, I read a little into the struggles because it was a long way. And there is nothing really explaining. You said Austin Meadows. Jan Mukata also had COVID. He never looked like he got on track either. So, yeah, I think it's just a case-by-case basis with everybody. So let's put a bow on Javier bias. 70.8 is the ADP, the 11th shortstop off the board.

Buy or sell at that cost. Yeah, I'll buy that. I will sell, which means Javier Baez is going to be awesome this year, and everybody else should draft him because every year I don't draft Javier Baez. He is amazing. I will sell him because mainly I like Danes B. Swanson and Carlos Correa,

who are going 30 and 50 picks later, respectively. So I'll take those guys. Another player who, normally I've been on throughout my career. I do have a bit of a man crush on Raphael. Devers. Admittedly, I was at the Yankee game, Sunday night baseball, when he hit the opposite field home run off of a rollous Chapman in the ninth inning. And it was crazy. This was like 102 mile per hour chest high fastball that Devers goes the opposite way with. And ever since then, I think that was his rookie season. It was in September. I was just hooked. I'm like,

the guy has prospect pedigree. He has amazing bat speed. I was just hooked. And now he's reunited with Alex Kora. So I wonder if that is something that will help him get back on track as well. Something I know that notice you pointed out in your player breakdown for Devers, Matt, is that he's been a slow starter each of the past two seasons. Well, this season was just a short season. So if he stunk for the first month, he didn't really have enough time to get things completely back on track. So there's a chance that he's just a slow starter, but there are some other warning signs as well. Where do you fall with Raphael Devers? I like him. He's another guy that I'm more willing to slug.

overlooked 2020 because there was a lot of things that went wrong. Having Alex Corr there, he even admit that it made him more comfortable, more on the defensive side, but he just made him more comfortable overall. You know, some people take the defense and they bring it to the play with him. He showed up overweight. You know, that doesn't help as well. And he's always a slow starter. He said he had more than enough time to make up for that in 2019.

2020, you couldn't do anything. I brought up Yelik earlier. There was something where he had like a, 110 WRC plus for the year. You take out his first six games. It went up to 130. So not as bad as it seems. Same with Devers.

His overall numbers were just never going to catch up. But he still ended the season with decent enough numbers. There were some things that do worry me in 2018. He struggled against fastballs. 2019. He was a beast 2020. He struggled against fastballs again. That's not something you ever want to see.

You know, young player, do I think you forgot to head out of fastball? but he struggled with him before. So I, you know, there is some things here to slightly worry about. But overall, he looks like he was end of the season on the same pace that he kind of had in 2019. He's still very young. I would be willing to bet that he's just going to be a beast, especially with Alex quarterback. So all signs point to him being maybe not quite what we saw in 2019 because he was like,

he was really good. But I think much, much closer to that. For Raphael Devers, in particular with the slow, starts. In 2019, he did not hit his first home run until May 3rd. He hit all 32 of his home runs in his final 124 games of the season in 2019. And then in 2020, his first 22 games, he hit just 207 with two homers. His final 35 games, he hit 297 with nine home runs. So he could just be a slow starter. He struggled mightily against lefties this past season. He had an OPS of 613. In his career against lefties, it's at 726.

So they really and because of that and he was really pulling he he really started to get shifted on more and more and more. I was talking to. I can't even think of it. I was talking to one of the, the socks beat writers about this on how he didn't even notice it. I was breaking down some of the game by game shifts. And yeah, it's just something that he's going to have to work on as far as like going, you know, actually getting his splits down is going like, you know, going to opposite field. going up the middle again because he was getting kind of pull heavy,

and they were really taking advantage of that. And, you know, you don't want to turn, you know, get turned into Ryan Howard here. Yeah. Ultimately, I think that there's just too much talent. And of course, there is the prospect pedigree. Steamer loves the guy. I mean, 288 projection, 35 homers, 104 ribbies. I don't know if we get all the way back there.

But can we get 280, 30 homers, 90 to 100 RBI? Yeah, I think that's possible for Raphael Devers. Still smoking the ball. I mean, the talent is, the talent's there. He hit the ball harder in 2020 than he did in 2019 in his breakout season. So explain that. The ADP is 45.6. He is the 7 3rd basement off the board.

Two picks behind Anthony Rendon. Matt, do you buy him at that price? Yeah, and that's the real. I don't understand the Manny Machado ADP. And I love Annie Machado. But if you're going to have Anthony Rendon and Raphael Devers sitting for me at 45, I will pass on Manny Machado and I love him. But I don't see a big difference between the three of these guys come the end of the season.

Well, it was great having you on, Matt. We're going to have to wrap the podcast up early because you cannot say bad things about Manny Machado. I didn't. I said bad things about the people drafting them that high. Well, I took them that high in one of my draft champions. So I guess I need to go back to the drawing board. All right, we're going to take a quick break when we return. We're going to hit on a few more hitters here.

deep dive these guys and see what happened in 2020 and what we're expecting for 2021. We'll do that here, fantasy baseball today. Remember when I asked how many Padres we were going to talk about today? Well, there is just one more that I want to talk about, and that is Trent Grisham, who finished 2020 as a top 15 outfielder in both head-to-head points leagues and in Roto as well, hit 251 with 10 home runs and 10 steals.

That is a 25-25 pace over 150 games. I don't know what you could say bad, about the guy. I mean, he hits lefties well enough. He has good play discipline, solid stackass numbers, a near 25% line drive rate. What's not to like here, Matt? All right. Here, there's a couple things not to like. Well, on the Padres, he hits lefties well enough. They seem to alternate batting him at the top and bottom of the lineup. So we're not quite sure if he'll be, you know, hitting at the bottom of the lineup here and there. again, track record.

He was a highly touted prospect. People were waiting for him. He struggled when he first came up. But then, you know, he had this monster short season. There are holes here, kind of like a Rosarina. He does have really great plate discipline, which is good, and hits tons of line drives, which is beautiful. In the thread, I kind of am talking about, you know, is he going to be like Michael Conforto with some speed?

He has some holes in his swing, though. he doesn't have very strong contact, which I think is going to hold his batting average down. And he doesn't maybe have necessarily the high BABIP skills I would look for. I think he's going to be more like a 300 BABIP guy, even with the high line drive rate, even though he's fast. I wouldn't worry about the low exit velocity. Same thing with a lot of the line drive guys. You know, look at standard deviation of launch angles, how well they control the bat.

You know, they're not guys that are going to hit like 450 foot home runs constantly, they have enough power to get the job done. So I like him. The only problem is short sample size, he's getting drafted really early. I think I ended up calling him instead of Michael Conforter with speed. He's more like Ramon Luriano with plate discipline, which is good. If Ramon Luriano had plate discipline, that'd be pretty good. It just seems a little early. I think it's fair enough to take him where he's going. I think his spot in the lineup worries me a little bit. But overall, I think I think he looks sharp. So the ADP is 58.

Based on what you say, it sounds like you're like a tentative buy, a hesitant buy. Oh, no, no, I'm a definite pass. Oh, you're selling. I'm more likely to jump on a Rosarina, who I think has a ceiling. I think Grishon definitely has a trap.

I'm not calling it a floor. It's a trap door. Oh. His, I think his batting average. And this isn't that I'm not buying them long term. I think that, you know, 60 games, folks. I think that there could be an adjustment period here for Grisham and it could get ugly.

You don't want to be a sophomore slump with a contact problem. So, yeah, we were talking about Tommy Fam before. Give me all the Tommy Fam instead of Trichrisham. Yeah, if I want to gamble with a low batting average and power and speed, give me Victor Robles. I don't know, 200 picks later. Trent Grisham currently going 58.1 and Victor Robles, he is going quite late. He's going 100 picks later. He's going 163.6.

He's just a guy I ripped off the top of my head. But yeah, there's a little too many holes here for me at that price. All right. Well, I guess I'm alone on an island here. I'm more likely to draft him than I think a Rosa Rana. But I think this probably just comes down to draft philosophy. And if I'm using a top five round pick on a player, I want to take someone who has a higher floor.

I do think, I do think, Richam is that player between the two. maybe it's just because of the plate discipline. But I am pretty excited about him. It is a big price, though, inside the top 60 picks for Trent Grisham. I'm notoriously really, really against people without samples, without a track record, though. So that's also a bias of mine. I am willing to wait.

I'd rather go like boring value. So again, I think I projected him pretty well, too. So it's not that I don't believe in them. It's just that I like to be a little safer. earlier in the drafts. I like to take my shots later. Well, that means you're probably not going to be drafting this next player we're going to talk about. I said this about Sunny Gray. You're about to be proven wrong, by the way. Oh, all right. Interesting. I said this about Sunny Gray yesterday when talking to Michael

Simeon. I said, you know, I have, I have Sunny Gray ranked pretty low, but not with much conviction. So if you can convince me, then I would be willing to move them up. And that's kind of how I feel about Tiosker Hernandez because he hits the ball extremely hard. The problem is he just strikes out a ton. Is it a chance that he's like Aaron Judge with a little bit more speed

and not as much power? Yeah, I guess that's a possibility and you're getting him about 20, 20 picks later than in Aaron Judge. And the last 162 games for Tiosker Hernandez, 252, 42 homers, 11 steals,

an 838 OPS. It's a very good player. It's just, you have to draft them inside the top 75 picks. So prove me wrong, Matt. Why are you in on Tiaska Hernandez? This is the reason I like Toska Hernandez. He has a track record. This actually is who he is. The thing for me is the speed. If you look in the minor leagues, he actually was a speed demon. He always has high sprint speed as well. It's just a matter of they've never really allowed him to. And I don't know if they're going to allow him to in 2021. Look at the Mariners. They started running out of

nowhere. Same manager ran out of nowhere. So that's the gamble you're taking with Tioscar, but I'm willing to do it because I think the power is incredibly legitimate. All of the metrics kind of back up his power. He's going to strike out like crazy. That's a part of his game. If strikeouts are a part of your scoring, this take him out of there. But if it's just the typical five by five, he's not going to kill you in batting average. He'll have an okay one. He's going to have some probably elite home runs and counting stats and will be probably an even further improved Blue Jay's lineup. But the speed, 40 home runs with maybe 15 stolen bases, if they allow him to run as they

were this year, that is pretty valuable. So that is the whole thing. He's someone where I like to do a lot of my main money leagues closer to the season. I would like to see maybe how spring training is looking and, you know, see if they're running. So he's maybe a guy where I will maybe wait for my shares to, see. But yeah, if they're going to let him run, he is very special. If he's not running, you can drop him. You know, there's no reason to, he's one of those guys you wait for Randall Greechak or something. But yeah, the speed really changes things for me. Yeah, so he's,

he's always been like a great athlete. He hits the ball extremely hard. He runs fast as well. The strikeouts mentioned are an issue. I just wonder what the floor is here, Matt, because I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like in years past when he struggled, he just finds his way out of the lineup. I feel like it's happened before, maybe even back in the minors a few times. So that's just all the top of my head. I just feel like his floor could be he's just not playing

if he's struggling that much. Yeah, I think earlier in his career, I think now he's kind of past that where he's just one of those guys that he kind of changes the lineup around him. I think he almost has a reputation where pitchers are actually pitching to the guys around him differently, almost like Carlos Delgado

used to go in and do. where I think that they just enjoy his presence in there, especially with the younger guys. And now Tioskers is, I guess, one of the older guys in the lineup. So I'm not as worried about that because also it's not like that team is the epitome of plate discipline. You have a guy like Kevin Bidio who walks a ton,

also strikes out a ton. So, you know, they're all kind of in the same boat. There's going to be some strikeouts on that team. But, yeah, I like the offense.

I believe in the power. It's just a matter of the speed. I believe they saw something there. They see how, you know, he won, didn't he win a, I think he won a Silver Slugger Award. Did he not? He, I believe he did. No. Maybe I'm making that up.

But, you know, I think they saw how much, how valuable he can be as the power speed guy. So I think that's just what they're going to let him roll with, you know, and they're serious about contending. He did. He did win a Silver Slugger Award indeed. All right. So at the ADP of 71, it sounds like you are buying that. I am. He's probably one of the few players.

he's probably one of the earlier guys I'm willing to take a risk on. But he said, I'd really love to get some more information to see how the Blue Jays are going if they're going to be aggressive on the base paths. But I think that he is someone that you can get a lot of, you can get a lot of return on investment on. I think I would hesitantly buy. I'm going to have more than one team, obviously. I would like him on one or two, just to see if he really just pops off and we get that monster season out of Tiosker because he did make some improvements this year.

and I remember I had him on a few teams, and I said, I mean, the guy just continues to get it done. Even when he, I think when he returned from injury, he was still alright. I'm making that up. But where would you draft him if you knew you were getting his last 162, 252, 42, 42 home runs, you know, 90, 90, 11 stolen bases, which, again, I would, you know, that doesn't include the pace of stolen bases. Most of those were actually in 2020, so I'd bump that up to like 15.

But let's just say you were getting his last 162. Where would you feel confident taking him? I would probably take him around where Marcel Ozuna and Judge are being drafted, top 50. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think that's probably where. Yeah, if he could just duplicate that, then I have no problem with Tiaska Hernandez.

Somebody I do have a problem with, however, is Kestan Hiyura. And this is kind of like the Javier bias thing too, because I really liked Kestan Hira. And the thing is, we tell our listeners all the time, don't do this. Just because you've been burned by a player in the past, doesn't mean you can't go back to them. And I'm not completely off Hira. Like, if I had him in Dynasty, I would be holding, I would be waiting, and I want to see what happens. I'm just willing to sit out 2021 and see him get back on track. And then if he does, then I'll buy back in the next season. But I need to see the improvements from Kesson Hira, because he just hit 200, 220. He hit 212. He hit 212. And, and then, if he does, and, and, and, and, he

And with a near 35% strikeout rate, I believe he led the National League in strikeouts as well. So I just need to see improvements before I jump back in, Matt. I get that. I don't know if I'll have shares because, I mean, middle infield is pretty deep. You can afford to go, you can afford to kind of punt him if you want to.

The thing is, there's not too many players, I think that maybe have the ceiling he does. I highlighted all the reasons in the thread why you shouldn't believe in him. I mean, he's truly one of the worst strikeout headers in baseball. I think in 2019 there was only like one player who was who was worse in terms of like swinging strikes. And he kind of carried that through. But, you know, you had Lorenzo Kane opt out.

You had, you know, you lost a couple of other players. You lost Mustakis to Free Agency. Yelik had a poor year. It was kind of all on this kid's shoulders. And he just gets obliterated in two strike counts. So he needs to kind of be more aggressive earlier on. He is young. there wasn't really a big enough adjustment period for him.

But he did make an adjustment at the end of the year where he's usually kind of hunching over a little bit. I don't know how to try to cheat and kind of give a little more power. A lot of people hunch over the plate so they can lean back and give a little bit of an upper cut. He kind of like just stood more straight up, like just straight up. And that's actually, there's a picture of it in the thread to keep him more even. And that seemed to help in terms of his power and the kind of the guy that we saw back. in 2019 we like the strikeouts were still there. So I don't think those are going anywhere. So if you're going to draft him, just be realistic about what you're going to get.

You have to be able to stomach a low average because I think you're even with growth, you're probably going to end up with a low average because the speed bumps are going to be there. There's going to be highs and there's going to be lows. If strikeouts count nearly, you absolutely can't draft him. But I think 30 home runs upwards of 40 is possible in the end. I would count on 30. and maybe double-digit steals, which is great. But, you know, you're going to get maybe a 230, 240 average in the end. You know, a lot of people don't want to stomach that.

So it's just a roster construction guy, really. I think it was Mike Curlin, who I had on, and he kind of comped him to, like, Rootnett O'Dore. Like, that could be the floor, right? We have to strikeouts get out of control, and the batting average is completely plummet. He'll still give you home runs. He'll still give you some speed,

but the batting average could really end up hurting you. mind you, Kestin Hira, I think, has more prospect pedigree, and they were more excited about him in general. So you look at 2019 and what he did, he had a bad-bib over 400. That was mostly because he had a lot more line drives and his bad at ball data. He hit the ball a lot harder in 2019 that he did in 2020.

But if he can get back to making that type of contact, then that is the path to Kessin-Hira bouncing back and being the player that we all think he can be. So elite barrel, like one of the best in all of baseball as far as barrel percentage. Hey, who would you rather have Keston here or Javier Baez? I believe they're going like five picks apart. Pass. No, my whole thought was what I think in the thread I said, are we looking at maybe peak Javier Baez, what he wants to be, maybe with a little less speed?

Or are we looking at like, you know, rough net a door in terms of power and speed and everything? And I think he's probably in between, which is where he's currently being drafted, which is why I think it's fair. It just depends on how you've drafted your team into that point. Yeah, they're very similar players, and I think it's a good question. I think I would go with Hero. What do you think? Yes, I would go with Hero.

Shortstop is just deeper in general, and I think here, I think he has a ceiling that is exciting, and I just like to rue for it. But yeah, it's, it's ugly. So at 65.6, would you buy? He's one about this. I don't know if this is a cop out. He's a guy that I probably wouldn't reach for, and I probably wouldn't buy it.

ADP. But if he dropped it all and it got to me and I needed a second basement, yeah, I would take a shot. He's no one like last year. He was probably on my list. This year, it's more like I have a list of a lot of guys. And if he happens to fall into my plans, I'll gladly take him. Yeah, I'm going to sell. I'm going to sell for this season. In Dynasty, I'm going to hold when it comes to Kessonhir. I still think that he can get there. But I am a little bit worried just about this season. I want to see him do it. And if that means that I miss out on a monster year, I am perfectly all right with that. We are coming up on the end of the show.

So I'm going to skip this final player, Matt, but I do want to give you this opportunity to promote everything that you've got going on over at rotophonatic.com. I know that's where people could find your work. Of course, the host of the Turn 2 podcast. Make sure you follow them on Twitter at Matt Williams, but instead of the L's, they're sevens.

So it's W-I-77-I-A-M-S. What else you got going on right now, Matt? We have some exciting stuff having a rotafinatic.com. If you want to go there, we have the data monster. We have all of our in-house metrics like stuff and command metrics for pitchers. We have in and out of zone, expected swing and whiff percentages for hitters and pitchers, except it's all based upon zones.

So we actually look at the stuff being thrown to hitters and from pitchers. And it actually takes into account your opponent. So if a pitcher struck out Javier Baez or Kestanira, it's not going to count the same as if you struck out Michael Brantley, and that's going to give you more of a bonus. So there's a lot of things to go into it, and it's actually a lot of fascinating stuff. We also have some prospect tools in there so you can compare and contrast prospects that are currently in the miners. But yeah, check out rotophonatic.com.

There's a write-up explaining all of them. There's a nice, we tell you the averages of the league. There's an index to explain them all, and it's some pretty exciting stuff. Yeah, and I actually checked it out myself. I noticed Zach Gallen ranks very high on both the stuff and the command. It's something I could get behind because I do love me some Zach Allen, man. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Zadamatta loves Zach Allen.

I also loves Michael Lorenzen if we want to bring back Simeon into this conversation. Oh, Cincinnati. I just saw that rotea wear put out the new shirts. So a lot of people excited about Cincinnati Reds pitchers, T.J. Anton, another one that's getting some hype right now as well. Matt, thanks so much, man. Happy New Year to you and your family as well. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Happy New Year.

Yeah, I just want to wrap up here just in general from the Fantasy Baseball Today family here at CBS Sports. And just want to thank everybody for your support all year long. This was the first season that I was here on Fantasy Baseball today, trying to fill the shoes of someone who did this job for an amazing, just an amazing way for so long in Adamazer. So I do appreciate everyone that's continued to support us all season long, whether it's through following the podcast, watching the video content, reading our content at cbsports.com.

So I really do appreciate all the support that you have given us all season long. Thank you very, very much. For Matt Williams, I am Frank Stanfield. Thank you all for listening and watching. You will not hear me next week. I won't be back on this podcast until January 11th. You'll have Scott White, Chris Towers, and a very special guest next week.

But I will talk to you all again in the new year. Bye-bye.