Fantasy Baseball Today - Can The 2021 Breakouts Do It Again In 2022? (1/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Happy New Year! Scott White is back (1:00)! ... We're evaluating the biggest breakouts from 2021 and what we're expecting from them in 2022. First up, Matt Olson (5:00). ... What's a realistic power projection for Jorge Polanco (9:50)? ... Is Julio Urias overvalued in early ADP (17:30)? ... How much is Austin Riley's batting average going to regress (25:13)? ... How did Brandon Crawford break out in 2021 (32:21)? ... Are we willing to pay the price for Robbie Ray (37:30)? ... What kind of power should we expect from Cedric Mullins in 2022 (43:21)? ... Should you be worried about Freddy Peralta's workload (50:35)?  '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. I drive. Center field. What 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. Matt Olson, Robbie Ray, Cedric Mullins. Can the 2021 Breakouts do it again in 2022? Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. on Monday, January 3rd, and welcome to 2022. I am Frank Sample, and making his long-awaited return is Scotty Dubbs. Scott White. Woo, the crowd goes crazy.

Happy New Year's, Scotty. How are the holidays for you? Oh, they were good. They were good. We did the whole Christmas road trip thing that we skipped last year going and visiting my folks back in Georgia, the Atlanta area. and so that's where I've been the past week, just got home.

Let's see, people are going to be listening to this Monday morning. So Saturday night, Saturday night I got home. And I feel like I'm still recovering from that. It's a lot. It was a lot. A lot of time on the road with two kids, age four and seven, in hotel rooms and whatnot. Oof.

And, you know, it's definitely worth it. but it does test the definition of a vacation, what it means to vacation. Right. And, you know, I need a vacation from my vacation, that whole cliche. So, you know, still recovering from that, but it was good. So technically you lived out the movie Christmas Family Vacation is what you're saying. Well, no, not exactly. It wasn't that bad.

I was just trying to show off that I've seen some movies. although everyone knows that I really haven't seen any movies. It's all good. I actually watched it. You can say the name of one that you probably haven't seen. I saw it. I swear I saw it. I watched it last year for the first time.

They don't actually go on a road trip in that movie. I know. Everyone comes to them. I know, I know. But yeah, you did something like that. Did you get anything cool for Christmas? Yeah, I got some, got a couple board games. I'm big into the board games.

I got the board game. What's it called? I always call it mission to Mars, but it's terraforming Mars. That's its actual name. And I got the board game pandemic, ironically enough. A co-op game, probably the most well-known co-op game. And yet, how many people listening have actually heard of it? I don't know.

I don't know, but I played it. I played it and got it. It's in my possession. And I got some red tennis shoes. I'm going to call them tennis shoes. People up your way probably call them sneakers or sneaks. Sneaks. Sneaks.

You got the kicks. They're red. Nice. They're red. I watched the Georgia Bulldogs advance to the national championship game, where they will try to beat Alabama again and probably fail again. I don't know. They steamrolled everybody this year, Frank.

And then they face Alabama and the SEC championship. game and it was a it was sad how that one turned out but they get they get another shot at another bite at the apple and they're going to they're going to take care of business this time I think after knocking michigan around all right well i'm rooting for you scotty it was it was a good 2021 for you obviously the Atlanta Braves came through so let's see if that can carry over here in 22 if at all excuse me that i come off as grouchy this month scott it's because i'm doing this cleanse no carbs or alcohol for the entire month. So like, bear with me, man.

Like lots of meat, lots of veggies, no bread, no pasta. It's always, I do it every January. It's like, whatever. Because the holidays are usually rough. They're rough on the body. So, you know, we've got to turn this thing around. But I'm just giving you a fair warning there. Today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about the biggest

breakouts from 2021 and how likely it is that they'll come close to doing what they did this past season. I know that you guys did this as a podcast a couple of years ago. was a good idea. So here we are. And if you can't tell, yes, the podcast is here on a Monday. You're listening to us.

You're watching us. We are moving to three pods a week again here in January, so you can expect them in your feed Monday, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. And I believe Chris is going to join us sometime in the middle of the month. Got some other fun guests lined up.

But don't worry. Keep that a surprise. And we'll talk about it when we get there. Let's jump right in, Scottie. And we'll start with, we'll go by position, I'll mix in a few pictures, but we'll start with first base.

And obviously Vlad-Grew, was like the biggest breakout, but no one wants to talk about Vlad Guerrero. We talk about him all the time. Let's talk about Matt Olson. I feel like we haven't really done a deep dive on him since the season has ended. And he just finished as a 17th overall player in Roto,

271 batting average, 39 homers, 111 RBI, 101 run scored, and even chipped in four steals, although I don't think that you should be depending on that from Matt Olson. Severely cut down the strikeout rate and was amazing against lefties. I mean, that's really the biggest takeaway here from 2021.

How likely is that to sustain moving forward? What do you think, Scott? I'm trading it as pretty likely. I have Matt Olson as like a third, fourth rounder in fantasy, which is, of course, higher than he's ever been drafted before. Yeah, I mean, the key is that strikeout rate. Nearly cut in half from 2020. 2020, obviously, was a freakish season in many ways.

But his... Normally, he was like a 25. to 27% strikeout guy and 16.8% strikeouts this past year is a very good rate, especially for somebody with his kind of power. And of course, we knew Olson could hit a lot of home runs. That was never in question. The fact that he cut down the strikeouts and sustain that low rate from start to finish, basically, and delivered the power outcome we do.

He was always capable of 39 home runs over a full season. I don't know. I think it's all pretty legit. Yeah, I mean, it was his age 27 season. It's just a matter of, we had a pretty decent sample, I would say, leading up to 2021, where you mentioned the strikeout rate typically sat between 25 and 27%. It actually was exactly 26% entering 2021. So I just don't know how likely it is for him to be that good. Now, maybe it just regresses a little bit and that affects his batting average somewhat. I don't know. he's going to hit 270 again. The thing is he impacts the ball very hard. So obviously that goes a long way to maintaining the bad-up there. But yeah, I don't know. I just questioned him being able to keep that strikeout rate down as much as he did.

And then obviously how good he was against lefties. He's got 270 batting average, 962 OPS against left-handed pitching for his career, 243-804. So you look at steamer projections, they have him for 258. I think you could probably be like a 260. hitter with 35 plus home runs. Does that sound okay to you or would you actually project the higher batting average? I think that's fair. I think it's reasonable to dial it back a little. Now, it's interesting you saying, well, that's an outlier strikeout rate for his career. I'm not sure if he can repeat that. I guess I just don't think of strikeout rate as one of those kinds of

stats, you know, where it's where it is susceptible to variance, you know? Like, home runs, if we're talking about a player's home run total, yeah, he hit whatever, 11 more home runs than he's ever hit before. Can he really do that again? Okay, I'm with you, but I feel like

strikeout rate is one of those things that normalizes very quickly. And if a guy has a dramatic change for a full season like that, you know, I see that as like pretty obvious skill change as opposed to just the variance that comes with baseball, you know? Which isn't to say there's never been any players that have had these, that have seen their strikeout rate go down and then back up.

I mean, I guess that happens. But that's, I don't think that's generally the way it plays out. Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, given his age, too, I mean, it could just be something where he made progress. He was a better player. Obviously, we've got to see where Matt Elson winds up because there's a lot of rumors about him being traded. I saw over the weekend, or maybe last week, there was a rumor about the Yankees are interested in Matt Chapman to play shortstop.

I don't know. Like, what are we doing? But anyway, Buster only was on the Michael Kay Show, and he said that he thinks the Yankees are going to wind up with one of the mats. So I think, look, it wouldn't hurt. It wouldn't hurt his value to go to Yankee Stadium, although we said the same thing about Joey Gallo. And look how that turned out. Matt Olson's a better player. There's no doubt about it.

His ADP in the month of December over at the NFBC was 42.8, the third first basement off the board. six picks ahead of Paul Goldschmidt, 17 picks ahead of Pete Alonzo. Does that sound right, Scott, just ahead of Goldie and Alonzo? Yeah, I might have them even further ahead than the ADP for the NFBC does. But yeah, ahead of those two, more like a two-round separation than a one-round separation for me. All right. Let's move on to the next one. Jorge Polanco, who finishes the 24th overall player in Roto. he was the sixth best second baseman in terms of head-to-head fantasy points per game.

He had 269, 33 homers, 97 runs, 98 RBI with 11 steals. So really contributed across the board. Not a huge contributor in batting average, but he didn't hurt you either. I mean, 269 is very serviceable nowadays. His previous high in home runs was 22 back in 2019. That was really his first breakout season. And then this year, he took it even further. his previous stolen base high was 13 back in 2017.

And this is exactly the type of player that you were just talking about, Scott, where you see the power increased by as much as it did, right? Improving his new career high in home runs by 11, getting all the way up to 33. The home run to fly ball ratio, 15.8%. That was never above 10% any season. So I think, you know, we have some reasons to be skeptical of this, but he also did things differently.

You know, he pulled the ball more than ever before. He hits a lot of line drives. He hit the ball harder than ever before. The bowler rate was up as well. So there are some things there. I'm a little bit skeptical still that we're going to get a 30 plus home run season out of Polanco again. Yeah, the average exit velocity was up 89.4 career high. Of course, average exit velocity was up across the league.

I think I compare Polanco's 2021 to his 2019, which at the time, we were thinking of as his breakout season, and then 2020 was a disaster, and we didn't know what to make of him anymore. But remember in 2019, Jorge Polanco at 295 with 22 home runs, an OPS around 850, I believe it was. I think it was actually a little higher than this past year because the batting average was, yeah, 841.

841 OPS that year versus 826 this past year when he hit 33 home runs versus the 22. He hit in 2019. So, you know, in 2019, what was previously regarded as his breakout season, Jorge Polanco had an average exit velocity of 88 versus the 89.4 he had in 2021. And those two average exit velocity stand out over every other year, Statcast has on record for him. Neither one of them is that great of an average exit velocity, though, right? like a guy hitting 33 home runs in 2021 with the way that the exit velocity readings were looking

you know below 90 average exit velocity I think there's reason to be skeptical of that power output now you did mention high line drive rate 2021 he got back to having the sort of fly ball rate that he had in that initial breakout in 2019 he doesn't hit many ground balls and that's that's a valuable thing for a hitter to do. If his batted balls are largely manifesting his line drives and his fly balls,

that's where you're going to get the best outcomes, generally speaking, off the bat. It doesn't strike out much. There's definitely a lot to like here in the profile for Jorge Polanco, but it just seems like a little too much, the 33 home runs. I think maybe somewhere in between that 2019 season and that 2021 season is fair to expect. Maybe the batting average goes up a little.

But the home runs, I think, come down to maybe the 25 range as opposed to 33, which would still make them a must start in fantasy, in all likelihood, being eligible at both of those middle infield spots. But, yeah, I don't expect to be a 33 homer or even a 30 homer guy again. And he's not being drafted as that.

So yeah, doesn't seem like anybody does. A lot like Matt Olson, it was his age 27 seasons. So I guess there's just a chance that, you know, he kind of just unlocked some power that we've never seen before. At the same time, again, it was just a very big jump. So the likelihood that he does that again, I think, is, is not great. He's currently projected for 24 home run. Scott, would you take the over or under on that 24 homers?

it's pretty fair. I would take the over a little bit. I'm going to say 26 myself. Okay. And again, I want to reiterate what I think was the reason for this power breakout again is I brought up this pull rate for him, 52.7% pull rate.

That was below 40% each of the past three years. So I've noticed with hitters that don't really profile as these power hitters, the ones that can make it work are the ones that do have these extreme pull rates. like guys like Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve. Obviously it helps where they play in Houston. But I think for someone like Polanco, that was kind of, that was the recipe for him to get there, was pulling the ball as much as he did and obviously putting the ball in the air as much as he did. So again, just that was something I noticed.

But yeah, I think he's probably more like a 25 homer, 8 to 10 steel kind of guy right now. His ADP in December was 84.5. So that's like the 7-8 turn in the 12-team league. Basically the same ADP as Catelle Marte. Who would you rather have, Scottie? I'd rather have Marte. I think there's a higher ceiling there and probably a higher floor too. Though I do think Palanco's floor is pretty high.

I think that 2020 season where he was just dreadful in between what we thought was his breakdown in 2019 and an even bigger breakout in 2021. You know, that you can just completely discard. He was playing with a bad ankle that I think needed a second surgery. And obviously it was a tiny sample. anyway. So I feel like Polanco with the low strikeout rate, the high line drive rate, he comes with

a pretty high floor himself. But it's more in terms of what, like, does he end up being a 20 homer guy versus a 30 homer guy? I'm with you there. I think I would rather have Kutel Marte as well. And that's not too disparage, Palango, because I actually like his ADP just fine.

And I think he's someone I could have quite a bit of this year. I was looking at you, you're talking about pulled how often he pulls the ball Jorge Polanco and you mentioned over half the time overall. I just was looking at fly balls specifically how often Jorge Polanco pulls them. 34.4% of the time in 2021, more than he hit it the opposite way, which is actually pretty unusual for fly balls to hit the majority to pull the majority of your fly balls. Even in 2019, that other good season that he had, he pulled the ball in the air. only 22.8% of the time, again, versus 34.4% of the time this past year.

So that might be the key to him sustaining big home run production. I still think it's not particularly likely, but if he can do that, like, that's something to monitor early next season is how often he's pulling the ball specifically in the air. And it could be a team philosophy thing, too. I remember a couple years ago with the twins, their entire team was just pulling the ball like crazy, and that's why everyone was just mashing home runs. Like Mitch Garber was pulling the ball a ton.

Obviously, Nelson Cruz, I mean, not that he needs to pull the ball. He's awesome anyway. But yeah, it was something I remember a couple years ago from the Minnesota Twins. Let's take a look at our first pitcher here, Scott. Julio Arias, finished 31st overall in Roto this past season. A top five starting pitcher in that format.

He was a top 10 starting pitcher in terms of head-to-head, fantasy points per game, a 296 ERA 102 whip, 195 strikeouts over 185 and two-thirds innings pitched. How did the breakout happen? It was really the endings,

the fact that they just let him go. I mean, he went six plus endings in 15 of 32 starts last year. He only went six plus endings 10 times in 38 starts from 2016 to 2020. Obviously, you know, he was bouncing back and forth

between the bullpen and the rotation. But I thought it was interesting that he had as many starts of six plus endings last year versus what he did coming into 2021. So how likely is it for him to maintain this breakout season that he just had?

I think it's pretty likely. Yeah, the thing I was most skeptical about for Julio Arias was the workload because the Dodgers play it cautiously with up-and-comers to begin with, but especially

one that they've moved between the bullpen and the rotation throughout his career. And that they could, that they were willing to let him go to the extent that he was the league's only 20 game winner, I think, says a lot. Now, what's interesting about Julio Reyes is, I mean, what are the main things? What are the main stats I kind of fixate on for pitchers, Frank? You know this. Swinging strike rate?

Swinging strike rate, ground ball rate, X-Fit. Those are probably the main ones, right? He's not good at any of those. Not at any of them. Not at any of them. His 296 ERA this past year, that's versus a 373 X-FIP. Not a big strikeout guy. I mean, more than a strikeout per inning,

but that's kind of average by today's standards. But he's done this consistently throughout his career. He excels at weak contact, which generally is not something I put a lot of stock in for a pitcher. I think it can vary a lot from year to year, there's a consistent enough track record of Julio Arias doing this, if outperforming his ex-fip, of having a very low XERA,

which is a stat-cast measures, which more has to do with quality of contact than some of those peripherals I like. And he's done it long enough that performance-wise, I don't really have any concerns for EREAS, even though he doesn't excel in the ways I normally like to see a pitcher

excel. So, partly because of the sporting cast, largely because he's the Dodgers have shown a willingness to let him work deep into games and take on a front line workload. I have Julio Arias is a top 10 pitcher for me next year. So I'm pretty much buying in completely with him. Yeah, no, that ability to limit hard contact.

That's what it's all about, Scott. 94th percentile over on Statcast. So he's one of the league's best in terms of doing that. And limiting home runs too. So obviously, you know, we had our podcast recently where we kind of went through each of the advanced numbers that we like to use, and we talked about how ex-fip normalizes your home run-to-fly-ball ratio to what the league home-run-to-fly-ball ratio is, the league average. He's consistently been better than league

average at home-run to fly-ball ratio. So I do think that, you know, the ex-fip is a little bit misleading when it comes to Julio Reyes. With all that being said, I still do think that he's kind of in this weird territory because the swinging strike rate at 11.2 percent, it is is very underwhelming for the ERA and the whip output that he had this past season.

It's actually kind of similar to his teammate, Walker Bueller. So I don't know, maybe I'm looking too much into that, but it just doesn't really line up.

25th in swinging strike percentage this past season among qualified starting pitchers. It's definitely underwhelming. So the ADP is 34.9. He's the 10th starting

pitcher off the board just after Shane Bieber just ahead of Sandy Alcansvera. It sounds like you're probably okay with that. Yes, I have him one spot ahead, Alcantra of myself.

And who did you say, Arias was just behind? Just behind, Shane Bieber. Yeah, I have Shane Bieber. A few spots ahead. But yeah, yeah, I'm fine with that

in terms of him being between those two pitchers. Yeah. I don't know that I'm going to get up to Julio Arias this year. Remember, Scott, I want to be more selective this year when it comes to

which pitchers do I actually want to draft early in drafts? And I just could see myself shying away from Julio Reyes. got to dive in a little bit more, but that's my early takeaway here on him. Yeah, we both talked about that. I guess I'm not totally sure what my criteria is for pitchers I shy away from him. I shy away from.

I think it might be baked into my rankings more. I don't know. Does Robbie Ray seem like the kind of pitcher you're going to shy away from? Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't think I'm going to have any of Robbie Ray. Just, yeah, just looking for those ones with, obvious risk factors, obvious, obvious combustibility. I mean, guys who I didn't avoid as much as I should have this past year,

and, you know, there were obvious reasons to avoid him, and I just didn't do it, include, like, Dylan Bundy and Zach Plesack. Kenta Maeda. Yeah. That was more injury-related. I was kind of the high guy on Kita Maeda throughout the industry, in fact. So, and, you know, in retrospect, like I guess, Obviously, there were reasons to avoid those guys.

And I can see that for Robbie Ray. Even though I rank Robbie Ray one spot ahead of Arias, I might have to think about that some. I don't see it as much for Arias, though. Like in terms of how good a pitcher he is, that is well established at this point. It's been year after year of him delivering those kinds of results. Yeah.

So I don't worry about it so much. I guess probably like, you know, you think Bundy and Plyssack, they were guys who I ranked out, even though I ended up with a lot of shares of them, they were outside of my top 20 still at the position. And so maybe similar cases for me this year would be like, I don't know, Jack Flaherty, Clayton Curshaw. Yeah. I don't know. I'm going to have to think about that more. It's still January. It's early in January. We've got time to think about that. Like, U. Darvish is one that comes to mind too, right?

But I can see that one. I haven't ranked 29th. Yeah. I can see that one going either way. So that's a little bit tougher. But, I mean, there are, to me, there are very obvious risk factors with you Darvish. But, yeah. No, there's, you could definitely see that blowing up on you. But you could also see it. if you Darvish was the NL.

I don't think that would be the shock of the century at all. So if I get him as like my number four, I don't know. Maybe this is me. Maybe this is me laying another trap for myself. But that's, I like the sound of that right now. Well, Scott,

if you're getting Darvish as your SP4, then that means you're probably spending four, of your first eight picks on starting pitchers, which... Yeah, probably. I don't think either one of us are going to be doing something like that this year. But we'll see. We'll see. We've got some more mock drafts coming up.

Let's get back to the hitters, Austin Riley, from your World Series champion, Atlanta Braves. He finishes the 23rd overall player in Roto. He was the third best, third baseman in that format. He was the fourth best third baseman in terms of head-to-head fantasy points per game. He hit 303, 33 homers, 91 run scored. 107 RBI. And we knew the power was legit. I don't think that really anyone saw the batting average

kind of working out the way that it did. I mean, it was really truly a, I would say best case scenario for Austin Riley this past season. He's still pretty young. You know, maybe he proves me wrong, but we do have some underlying numbers. The expected batting average was 279.

His bad dip was 368. That was the third highest in Major League Baseball. So I like the player that he's become, Scott. the progress that he's made. He makes a good amount of contact. We've now seen that over the course of 2020 and 2021. But I do think that the batting average probably takes a step back this upcoming season. Probably.

Yeah, I mean, odds are that he's not as good in 2022 as he was in 2021. But I wouldn't be totally surprised if he was either. The line drive rate is very high. You can understand how he could, how he could have a 3608 BAPB just in terms of his line drive rate. Now, he hit 303 versus having an X batting average of 279. So, you know, there's obviously, obvious disparity there, but 279 is still like a really good XBA.

Yeah, I think he probably regresses a little bit, but for the most part, it's pretty legit. Yeah, he has this weird reverse split thing going on too, where he is great against right-handed pitching 9-41 OPS this past season, 752 against lefties. I was trying to pull up his splits in the minors real quick to see if that was something

that was consistent with him. But I don't think I'm going to have enough time to do it. This is a weird, like, I don't know, whenever I see a reverse split that drastic, especially for a right-handed pitcher against lefties, I always find that a little odd. All right, so in 2019, he hit 229 against left-handed pitching. Was it 2018?

That was like his breakout year? Yeah, he hit 180. He hit 188. Oh, that was only 11 games. All right, I got to dive more into this. But he did have a weird reverse split thing this past season. Again, that is Austin Riley.

Yeah, the line drive rate is amazing. You mentioned it. Like 10th best among qualified hitters this past season. So, yeah, I think he's still probably safe for like 280. I think that's probably fair for Austin Riley. But yeah, he's still just, he's turning 25 in April.

I mean, there's a chance that he's just really this good. His December ADP was 53.8. He's kind of like in this no man's land in terms of third basement right now. He's 31 picks after Mani Machado. He does go around the same spot as Mondi but that's just completely different skill sets. And then he's 20 picks.

And I think Mondes, NFBC is the kind of the way that contest works. I think it really inflates somebody like Mondesi. Yeah. And you're probably not going to, They're probably not going to be that close in your league, average listener. But, yeah, I find I draft, I haven't drafted that much yet, let's be honest, but I feel like Austin Riley is a high priority for me at that round three, four turn.

You know, if he's there, I'm probably taking him because of how ugly things get at third base. like third base is the position scarcity position this year and Riley is one of those players right at that right at that crux where there generally at the point where he goes there aren't obvious standouts at any of the other positions like the really the real like obvious early round types have all been drafted at that point so why not just take even if you're

even if you have some concerns about him regressing a little bit as we both expressed, why not take the guy who's going to shore up that very scary position for you? I guess my only question, Scott, would be, does Austin Riley deserve to go two rounds ahead of Nolan Aronado? And that could be more of a Nolan Aronado's a good discount versus Austin Riley being overdrafted. Right. Yeah.

I think probably, yes, he deserves to go two rounds ahead of Nolan Aronado. does he deserve to go three rounds ahead of Nolan Aeronado, which is something that I think has happened in the mocks I've participated in so far. If you could guarantee me Aeronado in round six, then I'd probably pass up Riley in round three. But obviously, you can't guarantee that. And then if you miss out on Riley and you miss out on Aeronado,

then you're probably reaching for like a Bregman or Rendon in the hopes that they are. bounce back to what we know they can be, but it's a reach. It feels like a reach. And otherwise, you're probably settling for like a Matt Chapman or Yoan Moncada, who I guess could bounce back themselves, but that's just not, that, that's just not something I have a lot of comfort with. Yeah, I mean, the difference between Riley and Aronado right now is, is 20 picks worth of 80p. So basically two rounds in a 12-team league. And I've, I already competed in one 15 teamer where Aronado was there in the six.

round Scott. So I think some people might just be sleeping on Aronado and sure he's a good value as of now in those middle rounds. We're going to take a quick break. But if you are listening to us on Spotify, you can actually now rate podcasts on Spotify. So for Fantasy Baseball today, for Fantasy Baseball Today and Five, if you can, please leave us five stars there on Spotify. When we get back, we're going to talk about who? Brandon Crawford next on Fantasy Baseball today. All right. So this is probably one of the weirdest breakouts that we're going to talk about today. He finishes the 43rd overall player in Roto, Brandon Crawford, did, and he was the seventh best shortstop in that format.

He was tied for sixth in terms of head-to-head fantasy points per game at that position. 298 batting average, 24 homers, 79 runs, 90 RBI, 11 steals, 895 OPS, all career highs across the board for Brandon Crawford. His previous high in terms of OPS was 792, which he actually did the season before, the shortened season. So it's like how much do you actually put into that as well? And of course, he did that all at the ripe age of 34 years old. He'll actually turn 35 later this month in January. So it's just very weird.

How do you do it? He hit the ball hard more consistently than ever. 94.7 mile per hour average exit velocity on fly balls and line drives. So when he's putting the ball in the air, he was actually hitting it pretty hard. That was tied for 39th among qualified hitters with Jose Ramirez and Jazz Chisholm. It was actually better than Bo Bichette and Randy Rosarena. He had a career high in terms of barrel rate, in terms of expected slugging percentage, hard hit rate. Scott, my question to you is, how much do you actually believe in it with him turning 35 years old later this month?

As a general rule, I'm going to bet against the 34-year-old breakout, especially at a position like shortstop, which you don't see many guys performing at a high level into their 30s, much less into their mid-30s, much less the best they've ever performed before. So, yeah, big dose of skepticism here with Brandon Crawford, who, you know, just kind of had improvement, like small improvements in the margins, basically. You mentioned him hitting the ball harder than ever. What stood out even more than that was the career-high launch angle, at least what we have recorded via stat cast,

and a lower strikeout rate than the past couple of years. So just kind of small improvements everywhere, kind of explain him having this production, but it doesn't fully explain it. He hit 298 versus an expected batting average of 259, for instance. And I know his home run production slowed down quite a bit in the second half. If I could get those numbers pulled up quickly here. Yeah, he hits six of his 24 home runs in the second half.

Actually, he hit for a higher batting average in the second half, though. I'm most skeptical of that batting average more than anything else. But pretty skeptical of everything across the board. The one thing I'll say about Brandon Crawford, 3.25 head-to-head points per game. That's basically, it's better than what Tim Anderson did. It's just a little behind like Carlos Correa and Jorge Polanco. So it's definitely a very valuable player.

And because I don't think anybody's taking his numbers at face value, it's one of those things, it's one of those situations where he could just get passed over to such an extreme, particularly in a position that's so star-studded that you get him for, particularly like a 12-team context. You get him for next to nothing. And at that point, it's worth it, obviously. It's worth it, you know, just because you never know. You never know if there's something that he figured out that wasn't really detectable

in the normal things we look at and can produce somewhere close to the same level in 2022. But that's the only scenario where I see myself investing in Brandon Crawford is just if nobody else wants to, then okay, I guess I'll take the chance on him being legit. You know, I think the craziest part of his stat lines got is the fact that he had 11 steals. His sprint speed was in the 25th percentile on statcast. Yeah, I mean, that's probably the biggest fluke of all, right?

Yeah, and it's not really something that's been a part of his game ever. I mean, his previous high was seven steals in 26. and that was across 155 games. So just a very weird year. And a great year from him. Like, you know, I don't want to take anything away from him. He was absolutely amazing. But the likelihood of him, you know, coming close to this again, I would say is obviously not very likely.

The ADP, though, 198.4. So like you said, like, end of your draft, I mean, that's the 17th round in a 12-team league. Yeah, at that point, if you need maybe a little pop, a batting average that won't hurt you as your middle infielder, I think that's fine. But just, and I suspect in leagues that use a head-to-head lineup, no middle infield spot, only nine hitters total. Yeah, he won't be drafted. Potentially, your last pick could be Brandon Crawford. Yeah. At that point, I don't know that it's a bad idea to gamble on him.

All right. Well, we mentioned this name earlier on, and it is Robbie Ray, who finishes the 37th overall player in Roto. Of course, he won the American League Cy Young. He was the SP7 in Roto formats. He was the SP9 in head-to-head fantasy points per game. and he had a 2.84 ERA, 104 whip, 248 strikeouts, over 193 in a third, innings pitched.

And how did he do it? He trusted the stuff. His fastball velocity saw an increase and the control. The fact that he lowered his walks, 2.47 walks per 9, that was over 7, over 7 walks per 9 in 2020. It was over 4 in 2019.

It was never lower than 3.45. So all of those things coming together, the fact that he had this increased velocity and he just trusted his stuff and the control was amazing. That all kind of led to this breakout here, Scott. Now, the problem is you're buying a starting pitcher coming off literally a career year. Is that something you actually want to do? Yeah, I hear you on that. And of my top 10 starting pitchers heading into next year, heading into next season, that's the one. Robbie raised the one that would give me the Bose pause,

as we just talked about earlier. But if he can sustain the control gains, like that's everything for him. I don't even care so much about the velocity because he's been striking out 11, 12 batters per 9 his entire career. It's just he would walk 5 batters per 9, or at least 4 batters per 9,

would be one of the least efficient pitchers out there, barely go 5 innings most of the time. And with all the base runners, from all the walks, you know, not be terribly effective anyway, but the guy could always miss a ton of bats. So having a modest walk rate of 2.4 per nine innings,

clearly that was enough to put him, to make the most of that incredible bat missing ability that he's always had on display. Now, what's interesting about Robbie Ray, apart from the walk, is that he's always given up like really hard contact.

It's always had a really high bat-bip. Missed so many bats that he could get away with it. But when opposing hitters made contact, they tended to hit the ball hard, even last year, 1.5 home runs per nine. Now he's going to Seattle and the A.O. West, a pitcher's park and a division full of pitchers parks. It's the best environment

Robbie Ray's ever had to pitch in. And he's coming off this career, Sy Young winning season. Like, could things actually get better because of that? I think it's possible. I don't think it's wise to bet on that, knowing his history. But, you know, it's the sort of thing

where if the walk rate comes back, it's all irrelevant. And if it doesn't, then it's probably all legitimate, you know? So, so much hinges on that one. stat that it definitely makes him a volatile, a volatile number one for you in fantasy, a volatile use of a third round pick and all likelihood is what you're spending on, maybe a fourth rounder. And if he walks five batters in his first start with the Mariners, then you're

going to be very worried. Yeah, for sure. You mentioned the hard contact that he allows. And this past season, he had a 268 Babbit for his career. That number is 305. Mind you, I mean, his stuff played up this past year. He made pitch mix changes as well, where he was basically just a two-pitch pitcher this past season. He went for Seam. He went slider that accounted for 90% of his pitches this past season. And really, that fastball usage was up about 12 percentage points year over year from 2020 to 2021.

So the stuff played up. I get that, but I still think that he was lucky in terms of his BABB this past season. So even if he were to regress to his underlying numbers, a 369 FIP, a 3.36XFIP, somewhere in that mid-3s range, you kind of bake something in there because he's moving to Seattle. So I do agree with you in that regard, Scott. He's not pitching in Toronto and Buffalo and all these other places they played this past year. But specifically in the ALEs, you know, he doesn't have to face the Yankees consistently. The Red Sox, obviously, Tampa, they hit a lot of home runs as well. So it's kind of a balancing act here

because some things are good that he's moving to Seattle and then obviously I still kind of expect him to regress a little bit as well. The ADP is 45. He's going just after Lucas Gilito and Aranola. He's going just ahead of Chris Sale and I have a feeling that you haven't ranked

ahead of all of those names. Yes. Yes. I think every name you said there I haven't ranked ahead of. But it's, that's what I'm going to have to think about some more. Like, do I really want Robbie Warray is my number one? I think he could certainly be that. I think there's also a possibility he's dropped before the end of May, too.

You know, it really, really comes down to whether those control gains were sustainable. Yeah, I think his floor is probably lower than someone like Gialito and Nola. Oh, yeah, for sure. His upside is arguably better because we just saw it, you know. Yeah, you know, he won the American League Cy Young. So that's, again, this is a balance. act that you have to, you know, you have to weigh these things when it comes to drafting Robbie Ray. You probably want them as your SP2, but if that's the case, then you're using,

you're drafting two starting pitchers with your first four picks. And I don't know if you want to do that either. So these are all things you've got to consider with him. Stedric Mullins was basically the breakout hitter in terms of fantasy baseball this past season. He finished 20th overall in Roto. He was the outfield six. Outfielder six in that format. He was 15th in head-to-head fantasy points per game. 291, 30 homers, 30 steals, the only player to go 30-30 this past season. We talked about it a lot.

He ditched switch hitting, and the power just took off. He saw this huge jump in homerence of fly ball ratio, 9.4% to 15.5%. He also posted career highs in terms of barrel rate and hard hit rate. I think the speed more than anything is what I trust most

when it comes to Cedric Mullins, 86 percentile in terms of the sprint speed. Kind of took a bit of a step back here. here in the second half of the season, 261 betting average, 822 OPS. I think he's probably more of like an 18 to 20 homer guy. I mean,

that's like my early read on the situation. Now he probably, you know, he's helped out because he plays in Camden Yards in the American League East. But I would say, you know, 25 plus steals is what I would bank on most from him.

And then if I can get, you know, high teams in terms of power, I think I would be okay with that. Just being realistic from like a projection standpoint with him. I don't know that I'm going to be quite that pessimistic. I'm mostly treating Cedric Mullins like who he was in the second half when he hit 261 versus hitting 314 in the first half.

And as he was having that first half, as he was first breaking out in the early stages of the season, you know, expected stats versus actual stats, really the batting average is where it wasn't. up for me. And sure enough, we saw the batting average regress in the second half. But the power output and the speed remains steady, first half to second half. You know, 16 and 16 in the first half, 14 and 14 in the second half. So he had 260 hitter who, you know, maybe wouldn't quite go 30-30 again, but 25-25 and up. I mean, that's certainly worth a third-round pick for me. Now, maybe I'm being a little too sanguine because obviously St.rick Mullins was not somebody many people were investing in at all going into last year. I mean, it's, yeah, you could say, okay, so he dropped switch hitting and he was always better from the left side of the plate.

And so it makes sense that he had a career season. Okay, yeah, there's some truth to that. But he wasn't an 878 OPS guy from the left side of the plate. It's not like he became better even accounting for that. You know, even for accounting for that, he was better from the left side of the plate. He wasn't this good. So, I mean, that obviously raises some skepticism that maybe it was just all kind of too good to be true. But I don't know, the way he sustained the power from start to feel.

finish has me mostly buying in. Small regression, but not somebody I'm really that concerned about investing an early round pick-in. Scott, do you worry about the slugging percentage versus the expected slugging? So he slugged 518. The X-slug was 440. Or do you think this is something where he can kind of consistently outperform that because of where he plays in Camden? I mean, my understanding with the expected stats is that that taking into account venue right I mean that's yeah I mean that would make sense because every Rockies hitter usually they're under usually their numbers are much lower in terms of their expected numbers are much lower on Stackast and obviously

takes venue into account but it's not taking an environmental factors if that's the case it's just it's just factoring for dimensions park dimensions yeah um Yeah. I mean, he puts the ball in the air a lot. He hits the ball not extremely hard, but, you know, sort of like Jorge Palanco, sort of like I was saying about Jorge Polanco, where hard enough that I could see 25 home runs, but it might be a stretch for him to be a 30 home run a guy again. So I'm just kind of saying the same thing and over again with different terms for Cedric Mullins. I think probably another 30 homer season is more than you should expect. But I'm not saying high teens either like you are. Okay. Mid-20s. Yeah, Steamer has him for 25 homers, 26 steals.

I'll take the under, I think, pretty comfortably on the home runs. But I could see him going over 26 steals. That wouldn't surprise me. You know, if he's hitting less homers, but he's still getting on base, you know, maybe that gives him more opportunities to run. So I understand the appeal of Cedric Mullins. but like Robbie Ray, I mean, you're paying for someone coming off of a career year. Is that what you want to do?

His ADP was outside the top 400 last year. These are things that you have to ask yourself. His ADP is 29.6. He's the 11th outfielder off the board. He's going just after Whitmerfield. He's going three spots ahead of Teoscar Hernandez. What do you think about that price range? That's pretty much dead on with where I have him.

I have him as number 11, three spots ahead of the outfielder spots ahead of Teos. Yeah, I mean, I think the distinction between Mullins and and Robbie Ray is there's not so much tied to one specific thing. Like, Robbie Ray could not find the strike zone consistently for his entire career and it killed him. And he does that. You know, he figures it out that quickly. Could he lose it just as quickly? And I don't think, I don't think the concerns are, on the same level for Cedric Mullins.

Maybe it was just a little too good to be true, but I don't think he's going to... I don't think there's as clear of a case for him just losing it, like there is for Robbie Ray. That's definitely fair. No, that's a good point, because Robbie Ray, we had this whole track record, a whole career of him, you know,

kind of showing some flashes, but obviously never coming close to what he did last year. Cedric Mullins, I mean, that was his age 26 seasons. So it could just be that, you know, he's getting better as a player, And now, you know, this is the guy that he's, that he's going to be. But time will tell. I think it's close with Teoska Hernandez.

I know that Cedric Mullins is going to definitely give you more speed. I've done a complete, like, 180 when it comes to Teasca Hernandez. I just, I trust him now. And maybe that's, maybe that's not fair because he's really only done it for, I guess, last year, the short and season end this full year. But a little bit more of a track record than Cedric Mullins. So for whatever that's worth. And the Blue Jays lineup is just obviously so, so great.

A few feathers in the cap there for Teasca Hernandez. Let's get to one more pitcher here, and that is Freddie Peralti. He finished 78th overall in Roto. He was the SP 15 in that format, SP22 in fantasy points per game. Finished with a 2.81 ERA, 0.97 whip, 195 strikeouts over 144 in the third innings pitch. That is just amazing. How do you do it?

He finally developed that slider. His fastball usage went from 70, 3.5% in 2020 to 51.6% in 2021. So lowered that fastball usage about 22 percentage points. The slider went from right around 5% to 26%. Still uses curveball about 11% of the time. So he now has the three pitches. You know, for, you know, his entire career leading up to 2021, he was known as fastball Freddie. I mean, the guy uses fastball a ton. So now he has a slider. He has a curveball. And I mean, the underlying numbers are great. Sixth in K-minus walk rate,

eighth in swinging strike percentage, 14.4%. Scott, I think the only worry you probably have with Peralta and anybody would have is just the usage. What do we expect in terms of innings pitch

this upcoming season? Can you get up to 170, 180 if he does that? He's probably a top 10 starting pitcher. I mean, he definitely has that kind of upside. Yeah. It's another situation well obviously the strikeouts are incredible

so putting that aside it's otherwise somewhat comparable to Julio Arias in that the other measures that I usually look at for a starting pitcher aren't quite there for Freddie Peralta a lot of fly balls and yet he didn't give up that many

home runs the walks are also high 3.5 this past year it explains why he has a 366x FIP versus his 281 ERA. Now, I did have a 270XERA, so he allowed weak contact, but there isn't quite the same track record for him in that regard as there is for Julio Aureas. But I agree it's mainly about workload, big increase innings for him,

and anytime you see that, like I'm talking over 100 from one year to the next. And his previous career high was 85 in the majors. He had 144 and a third this past year. So there's the combination there of him seeing a huge jump innings and still having yet to reach that innings threshold that we want to see from a high-end pitcher. And until a guy shows he can do that,

I'm not totally sure he can do that until he shows he can repeat that I'm not totally sure he can repeat that you know so it's kind of the double whammy there for Freddie Peralta in terms of my level of trust and then you factor in also

yeah some of those some of those underlying numbers aren't quite what I want them to be Mrs. Batts so well that maybe that doesn't matter as much as it might for somebody who's striking out nine and a half batters per nine innings than the 12.2 that he did. But it is worth raising

when we're parsing these kind of early round high upside pitchers. I have Freddie Peralta maybe a little lower than where ADP has him. I'm 23rd among starting pitchers. I could be

talked into moving him as high as 19th maybe, but 23rd is where I have him now, behind guys like Frankie Montas and Max Fried. Okay, so in terms of ADP right now, his ADP is 56. He's the 19th pitch off the board, but there are two relievers going ahead of him. So, yeah, he's the SP17 in terms of NFBC ADP right now.

He's going just after Logan Webb. He's going just before Kevin Gosman. Just in terms of, for consistency's sake here, he only allowed a 2.30 bad at this past season. It's 270 for his career. Now, he did do a much better job in terms of limiting hard contact, but even a 230 bad up is still pretty low. So I would expect that to regress quite a bit. He allows a lot of fly ball scott,

but he actually does a pretty good job of preventing home runs. You know, right around one homer per nine in his career. That's certainly, you know, you can live with that. He walks too many guys who are right about that. The strikeouts are just, they're amazing. So I don't know if this is fair to say, but I, you know, if it's Freddie Peralta, two rounds later than Julio Arias,

I'd rather just have Freddie Peralta. I think the strikeout upside is is much higher too. Now, we haven't seen the workload. Obviously. Yeah, we haven't seen the workload for Peralta like we just saw for Aureas. So, you know, that, that obviously,

that's something in the favor of Julio Reyes, but should they be two rounds apart? I don't know. It seems like a lot. Yeah, I mean, I would have been two rounds. Obviously, I have Freddie Peralta ranked lower than the ADP has them. So, yeah, I would have them two rounds apart.

But just in terms of, is Freddie Peralta's ultimate ceiling higher than Julio Reyes? You know, just based on the difference in strikeout rate, I would say probably. Yeah. But Aureas is just much more projectable and much more polished, I think. Not to take anything away from Freddie Peralta, who had a great season. but I see more potential pitfalls for Peralta than I do for Aureas. I trust the Brewers too, man. What they've been able to do in recent years with Corbynardt,

Burns and Brandon Woodruff too, it's just like, they know what they're doing. That's a lot of people we spoke about, David Mendelsohn and myself, we spoke about Aaron Ashby while you weren't here, Scott. So I have a feeling he's going to be a pretty popular late round sleeper, breakout type pitcher this upcoming season as well. Yeah, I actually guessed it. guested, that's a word, right? On Chris Welsh's

prospect, gosh, am I going to forget the name? Prospect One. Prospect One podcast? Yeah. Yeah, which is all about prospects, of course. We had a long conversation about Aaron Ashby. Yeah. Aaron Ashby, how the industry as a whole is treating him versus,

you know, I think there's a lot to like there. In Aaron Ashby, I think there's also a high probability he won't. lines up being a reliever. So maybe from a dynasty context, he's being overvalued, even though I like a lot of the skills there. But, you know, I won't rehash the whole conversation. It's just, it was an interesting one between the Welsh and I on his podcast prospect

one. So check it out. Yeah. Check it out if you haven't listened to it already. You know, it's just so crazy. I bring up Aaron Ashby because I see a lot of similarities between him now versus Freddie Peralta this time a year ago. We just we didn't really know what the role was going to be.

We knew that, you know, there was some kind of strikeout upside there. And he was going outside to top 200, which is basically similar to where Ashby is going right now. So we'll see if he could work his way into the rotation. I know they have a few other names there. Eric Lauer was actually pretty good for the Brewers. And who else is they have in their rotation? I'm drawing a blank right now. But someone else is ahead of him.

So we'll see. Yeah. I mean, obviously the top three is entrenched at this point. point. But, yeah, I mean, Aaron Ashby could wind up being a starter. It's really just a question. That's not how they used him this past year. They used him more as a multi-inning reliever. But you definitely could see him being the next, the next breakthrough starting pitcher for them if they decide to go that route with them. Adrian Houser is the name that I was looking for, and that's exactly where we're going to wrap. For Scott, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.