Fantasy Baseball Today - Catcher, First Base, and Second Base Tiers! (1/18 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

It's tiers week here on the pod! Today we're starting with catcher, first base, and second base. But first, how do you define tiers in Fantasy Baseball (1:09)? How do you use them in a traditional draft or a salary draft? ... We don't have much news to report but what are Scott's thoughts on Corey Kluber to the Yankees (6:31)? Martin Perez returned to the Red Sox while the Angels signed catcher Kurt Suzuki. ... Catcher tiers (10:18)! The elite tier is filled with one player and you guessed it, JT Realmuto. ... In the near elite tier, do you prefer Salvador Perez or Willson Contreras at their current costs (12:40)? Is Will Smith's transformation legit? What's up with Gary Sanchez's price? ... For the fallback options, does Sean Murphy deserve to be higher (19:40)? ... For the elite tier at first base, we have Freddie Freeman, Cody Bellinger and... DJ LeMahieu (30:05)? Bellinger vs. Freeman at the top. ... The near elite tier features the bad BABIP bros Anthony Rizzo and Matt Olson among others (36:40). ... For the next best things, we have Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the best shape of his life (39:15)! ... Second base is still not a great position (47:06). For the elite tier, LeMahieu or Ozzie Albies? ... The next best things tier is a wacky one (50:54). Are Brandon Lowe and Cavan Biggio worth top-70 picks? We wrap up with thoughts on Dylan Moore (57:22). ... 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/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Hey there. Welcome into Tears Week here on Fantasy Baseball today. Tears of joy, tears of joy, Chris. No worries. Monday, January 18th. I can't tell if he's happy or sad, frankly. But we're about to find out. More importantly than it being Monday, January 18th,

of course, it is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Always a very special day. But I think even more so in 2021, I am Frank Sanful, joined by Scotty Dubbs, Scott White, and CPT. Chris Towers. I mentioned it's Tears Week. Here on the podcast, we've got a jam-packed show breaking down Scott's tears at three different positions.

I have no idea how much. we're actually going to get to, try my best. But catch your first base and the second base position, Scott, for everybody out there who might be new to how tiers work in general, for fantasy sports, but in particular on this show, fantasy baseball, how would you define tears? Well, it's a really simple concept that I find very helpful. You kind of go through each position and you mark where the biggest,

drop-offs are and where it kind of gives you a broad sense of how the distribution, what the distribution of talent works like looks like at each position, how deep they are at the top versus in the middle versus toward the bottom. But where it's

most practical use is I think during a draft where you can see how many players are left in an active tier at a position. And obviously the position with fewer players in an active tier is probably the one you need to target next because the drop-offs coming there. Scott, I apologize. If there are times

where I'm just laughing throughout the course of the podcast, it's not because I'm laughing at anything you're saying. I'm laughing because Scott's, Chris's awesome cat here. This is David Bowie, right, Chris? This is David Bowie. Yeah, he's just like tapping Chris on the shoulder while you're talking and like trying to get Chris's attention. And it is awesome. And it's very cute. Of course, you can watch us on YouTube, www.com slash fantasy baseball today. Make sure to subscribe as well. But yeah, I thought that made a lot of sense. Scott, when you're grouping these players together, are you doing it by ADP?

Are you doing it by similar kind of skill sets, what you're expecting out of these players? I don't know. This is all my opinion. It's not really thinking about ADP at all. Obviously, I'm going off my own rankings. They're listed in the order I rank them, but it's kind of a way to,

it's kind of meant to supersede the ranking process. Like it's kind of meant to say, okay, yeah, this player is better than this player if you're forcing me to pick. But the idea is if they're in the same tier, they're more or less equal and you shouldn't care that much about what you get. So in theory, it shouldn't matter what order they're listed within the tiers. And I think that's an important point more generally when you're thinking about fantasy baseball. is it's easy to get caught up on this guy's my number three first basement and this guy's my number five

so that means the number three guy is better than the number five guy and that's true you should think your number three first basement is better than your number five first basement but like the name doesn't matter and a lot of times it's like three might be a bigger name or five might be a bigger name but if three generally costs a top 15 pick and five generally cost the top 30 pick, you should probably draft number five,

if that makes sense. Yeah, it does make sense. And that's how you can use it from a snake draft perspective. But Chris, we often hear people talk about specifically when it comes to tiers, how they're used in a salary draft, formerly known as the auction format. We are now adopting the term salary draft here on fantasy baseball today. I think the reason why people use tiers in a salary draft is because, because you kind of, once you get towards the end of that tier,

the last player in a tier, most people know, right? So we know there's a big three starting pitchers. There's Gary Cole, there's Shane Bieber, Jacob de Grom. Usually the last pitcher in that tier within a salary draft is going to go for much more than the other two because people know that there's a huge drop-off coming in terms of value, in terms of skill in general. Was that for Chris or was that for me?

And Chris muted a tough thing. I had my microphone muted. That's always a tough thing because when you're looking at you know, when you're looking at an auction, the one thing you don't know is when the last player from that tier is going to go. And so something you'll see a lot, you know, I feel like last year would see a lot with third base, where you kind of had,

I think it was five guys at the top who were all like first rounders or top 15 picks. And sometimes you wouldn't see like Nolan Aeronado get nominated until the 40th player. And there are times when everybody's just kind of waiting for that last guy. And then there are times when if it goes too long, everybody, like you might have more money than everyone else and you're in a good position. So it's not necessarily cut and dry. That's why, you know, a salary draft is much more difficult to, you know, to give hard

and fast rules on it, I guess. But yeah, generally speaking, like if it's early enough in the draft and there's that last player in the tier, you can sometimes see people get really desperate for, you know, de Grom and Bieber already off the board. They get really desperate for Garrett Cole. I'll go as far as to say I don't pay Like I don't use the tiers as much as a guide in a salary cap draft as I do in a regular snake draft You know it's helpful to know there's only two players left in this tier whatever in the middle of a salary cap draft

But like you can't you can't get you're not going to be able to time it as perfectly in that as you can in a in a snake draft Yep all good points when it comes to tiers in general for both snake drafts and for salary drafts. And today we're going to, again, focus on catcher first base and second base. A few news and notes, really not much going on. Scott, we didn't get your thoughts on Corey Kluber signing with the Yankees a one-year, $11 million deal. D.J. Lemayhew returns to the Yankees.

Chris and I did an emergency podcast on Friday, and it seems pretty status quo. LeMayhew is the number one second base, and we'll talk about him a little bit later on. Is there anything you'd like to add when it comes to Corey Kluber? Does this signing him going to the Bronx change anything for his fantasy value? Well, it's not a great venue. It's a good supporting cast. I think more than anything,

the fact he's guaranteed $11 million when it wasn't so clear everybody was that interested in him. I think that points to him having a pretty good showcase last Wednesday. And he was throwing like high 80s, maybe topping out at 90. But the thinking is he'll be able to get

up to his usual velocity. And, you know, we may be too quick to ride him off. Like, we're kind of just presuming decline because he's been, he hasn't pitched in like to 2018, more or less. But he could come back and still be really good. So I'm encouraged that the Yankees are so encouraged, I guess. The ADP, again, for Kluber is outside the top 200. That would be all the way down at 232.

So towards the end of your draft, you want to take a late round flyer. on Corey Kluber, feel free to do so. He can be had at a very good discount, more so than ever before. The Red Sox have re-signed starter Martin Perez to a one-year, $4.5 million deal, which includes a $6 million team option for 2022. He had a 4.50 ERA, 1.34 whip, only 46 strikeouts and 62 innings pitch this past season. So I don't really think there's much to add on Martin Perez outside of AL-only leagues. You might want to look at him just because anybody with a pulse.

you look at in the AL or NL only league, the Angels. This one is not really for Kurt Suzuki, who signs a one-year deal with the Angels. But I think this kind of hurts Max Stasi, Scott, who is someone I know that you like, and I kind of liked, because I thought he was going to be the starter.

But now it seems like they're going to at least split time between Kurt Suzuki and Max Stacey. Yeah, you would think. You would think. In fact, I'm not so sure. I mean, we're going out a very small sample for Stassie. where like 100 abats basically, where he was good. And okay, maybe he could be that good.

I wouldn't surprise me if Suzuki got even the majority of the abats there. So they're both, they're both probably in the 15, 20 range in my catcher rankings going forward. Not much else going on. There's some rumors about Brad Hand, Kirby Yates, getting closer. The Mets apparently were in on Brad Hand. The Blue Jays, Astros have been on on Brad Hand. And so we'll see where those guys sign, hopefully soon. There have been rumors about Luis Castillo being dealt to the New York Yankees,

but apparently that came from Hector Gomez on Twitter, but not really all that credible, it seems like Jeff Passon called them out. That was wild. Yeah, Jeff Passon tweet. Luis Castillo, this is from Passon, his tweet. Luis Castillo has not been traded to the Yankees. Stop believing people who consistently get things wrong. So that's where we're at.

We'll see what happens with Luis Castillo. Positional tiers. What's up, Chris? That's rough. It is rough, but probably warranted because nobody else in the industry has reported anything being close between the Yankees and Luis Castillo.

For these positionals tiers, of course, we're not going to go super deep on every player here. We're going to save that for our position preview podcast, which will come sometime in the middle of February. This is more so about just the groupings of players and just strategy discussion in general. Catcher, this position stinks. It's like time.

tight end in fantasy football, except worse. How can you possibly be worse than tight end? Well, you know, you're probably going to have three tight ends in fantasy football go within the first two rounds. That's not going to happen with catchers in fantasy baseball. And even worse is you need two of these. You have to start two catchers in most roto leagues. The elite.

J.C. Real Mutzo. Not really much to add here, Scott. Of course, these are Scott's tiers, and you can find them on CBSports.com Fantasy, click on baseball, and you can find all the articles there. They should be up on Monday by the time you're listening to this. JT. Real Mutu has finished as the number one catcher in Roto, each of the past three seasons. He's finished first or second in head-to-head points leagues during that span. The ADP is 41.3, Scott, he is the number one catcher. There's really no doubt about it. Would you actually take him at his ADP in the fourth round?

probably not it would it would actually be easier to do in a head-to-head league with the smaller lineups just because you'd need more impact from every position and by the way these tiers aren't made up just for

for roto leagues like I mark I mark where a person would be lower if it was a roto league or if it was a points league I actually put them in their highest tier regardless of format and then mark if the union need to drop them a tier

depending on your format. So a real muto would be in a tier of his own, regardless of format. The only thing I would say about this is I have him in the elite tier at catcher. Because the top catcher is going to go later than the elite at virtually every other position, the tier actually called the elite, I have half of mine to just skip the top tier at catcher altogether. So as to make it clear, you can wait. to get this guy

relative to elite players at other positions. But this is how it is for now. That's kind of the thing with like an elite catcher is probably more like a I don't know, you usually break it down elite,

sub-elite, very good, etc. Yeah, yeah, the elite catcher is more like the very good tier at other positions probably.

Right. The near elite is what I call it. Yeah. Yeah. The near elite at this position, Wilson Contreras and Salvador Perez, just two names here.

Salvador Perez. missed all of 2019 with Tommy John, and it seemed to really reinvigorate himself in 2020 career year, 33 batting average, 11 home runs, 32 RBI. He did all of that in just 37 games for Salvi. He had a 986 OPS. His OPS was never higher than 792 in another full season. Wilson Contreras, this past season, he was fine, 243, 7 homers,

37 runs and 57 games change up the bat of ball data a little bit but I know that I prefer Salvador Perez Scott prefers Wilson Contreras but Chris based on what you said earlier that just because a player is ranked higher doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to draft that player

I think that's how I feel about this because if you can get Wilson Contreras 25 picks later which 35 picks later on according to ADP on fantasy pros, I would much rather do that. Like I love Salvador Perez, but if you're telling me

you'll get Contreras for 35 picks later, I'd much rather do that. And they're in the same team. And I've got, for my salary cap values, um, I've got Real Mutu at 21. I've got Salvador Perez,

Will Smith at $8 and Wilson Contreras is seven. So that, that tells you that I don't see much of a difference between those guys and Yosmani Grondal is right there for me as well. So I'll just take whichever one goes latest, really. Well, yeah, I mean, what I would say about this tier with just Wilson Contreras and Salvador Perez is that it's really tempting to just combine it with the next tier,

which it seems like Chris did include Will Smith and Yasmani Grondal alongside Wilson Contreras and Salvador Perez. So the next tier, the third tier down, which I call the next best things, and includes Grandal, Will Smith, also Gary Sanchez, and Travis Darno. Like, it's tempting to make that just one big tier with Salvador Perez and Wilson Contreras, but I know that's not how I've been drafting so far. Like, it's weird because even though ADP shows Salvador Perez going after Wilson Contreras, like every draft I've done, Salvador Perez has fallen and fallen and fallen.

and like, I clearly value him more than somebody like, well, certainly like Gary Sanchez, who I include in that tier with Will Smith and Yasmani Gruntall. And I'll also say that Will Smith, if the playing time was for sure there for him, like statistically the percentages, like he could be the number two catcher in fantasy, but I just don't trust the Dodgers usage of him

because I mean they didn't they didn't treat them like a regular catcher last year except until the playoffs when of course there was a lot of a lot more at stake yeah but it's worth remembering with this team that I want to say going into 2019 was that the year that they 2018 was the year they used Austin Barnes a lot in the playoffs he played I think more than half the starts yeah I remember I don't remember exactly there was one year where Austin Barnes played more in the playoffs than then Yosmani Granda and there was some thought that oh, maybe Yosmani Granda and I think

Yosmani Grandal probably ended up starting 130 games. Yeah. So I think that was going into Grandal's final season with the Dodgers. Yeah, I think that tells us something. You know, I think Will Smith playing that much in the play. And look, based on what he's done in the major so far, if you think he was going to do that, he would be the number one catcher. I think, you know, he's got like a 900 OPS in the majors. It's just because he's,

got called up midway through 2019 and because he, you know, 2020 was 60 game season. I think he's only played like 76 games in his career or something like that. That would be 91 career games at a 937 OPS. So pretty damn impressive for Will Smith, who is just 25 years old. He'll be 26 by the time the season starts, but really made some just massive improvements from 2019 to 2020. It was just a completely different player. Cut his strikeout rate by 10% walk rate. raised it by 5%, 27% line drive rate.

It was a metamorphosis for Will Smith. So I have them as my fourth catcher in my rankings, but I kind of, I agree with the tiers though, Scott. I do think that Wilson Contreras, based on, Wilson Contreras and Salvador Perez, based on their track record and what we just saw Salvador Perez do this past season,

I do think that they're still kind of in a tier of their own. But if we're just ranking within the tier, I do think Will Smith should be at the top of this next team. tier, Gary Sanchez is included and super interesting because his ADP is way behind all the names in this tier. And he's actually behind some of the names that are even in the next tier. So it seems like the people who have been burned by Gary Sanchez, they've all kind of united and they've agreed

we're just not drafting Gary Sanchez. I have never rostered him in my life. His ADP is 177.7.7 on Fantasy Pros. Last year it was 53.1. Scott, this is a classic, this is just a floor versus ceiling. Like, I think his floor is, you know, he could probably be benched at some point, but his ceiling is he could be the number one catcher. He can

hit, you know, two, 60 with 30 plus home runs in the middle of a great lineup. So... Yeah, I mean, this is the most, this is the cheapest he's ever been. Yeah. Ever. Um, there have been years where I put him in the elite tier with real muto. I think going into last year, that's where I

at him. So I having him third tier now, you know, if he's going well behind those other three, that just means I'm going to end up with a lot of Gary Sanchez. And I'm fine with it because the downside, if you miss a catcher, okay, you're going to the waiver wire. But there's usually pretty good options there, at least in a one catcher league because no, nobody ever roster's a second catcher in a one catcher league. Yeah. And just to kind of, you know, paint the picture of that, like, if you miss a catcher. I have Gary Sanchez as a $6 player. There's, I only have 10 catchers right now who are, have any auction value.

Because I did my top 600 and gave auction values to each of the top 276. And I will have to move 14 catchers into my top 276 because that's how our rankings work. I'm sorry. But yeah, there are, there are not many. Gary Sanchez is one of the few catchers, I would say maybe five or six. Who can produce like a player who would be worth starting in another position? This next tier, the fallback options includes the aforementioned, Alcinola, James McCann, who is now with the New York Mets, he'll be their starting catcher,

Christian Vasquez, and Mitch Garver. The tier right after this got is the last resort. That is just one player, Sean Murphy. I kind of feel like he should be in this tier with these other names. why didn't Sean Murphy make the cut? Because I do feel like he has the potential to perform like those other four, but he's not quite there yet.

So it's a lower level of comfort for me than Nolan McCann, Vasquez. And Garver's kind of with them just because he was so amazing in 2019. So, you know, I value him about the same level of those others just as a bounce back candidate. Sean Murphy... Yeah, I mean, I think these are fitting names for these tiers, the fallback options.

Like if Christian Vasquez is my starter at catcher, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Clearly, it's not a position I invested a lot in, but I'll probably be fine there. So I fell back on Christian Vasquez. Last resort, Sean Murphy. Okay, there's still the upside that he could be like a Christian Vasquez, but it's not as assured. It is not assured. does have some prospect pedigree,

but had a really, really big September. Mind you, it was only 16 games that he played in September. 277 batting average for Murphy with an OPS over 1,000. Five homers, 13 runs scored. I want to say he had some playing time issues too, kind of like Will Smith, and that's part of the reason. I'm not as high on him as I could be.

Yeah, the 16 games would either be he was splitting time or he missed time, and he does have a very extensive injury history. Again, this is Sean Murphy of the Oakland A's. He was starting like two out of three games, sometimes just every other game for the A's. There was a lot of off days for him. The plate discipline for him really does stand out. So from a points league or an OBP perspective during September, he had a 20% walk rate.

Chris, if I just group these tiers together, All Sonola, James McCann, Christian Vasquez, Mitch Garver, Sean Murphy. To me, and this is the whole reason why we're doing this, this tiers discussion, this is the drop-off. This is the last group of catchers. that I would want as my starter in a one catcher league and in a two catcher league, this is probably the last group that I would, I would want at least someone to this point to be my first catcher in a two catcher league.

I think that makes sense. Yeah, like having two guys from that group seems like a good idea. And they're also cheap that it doesn't really, there's not really any reason not to target one of these guys. But yeah, this is the kind of one where if I don't have anybody from one of the tiers in this one,

before that. I'm probably just waiting until my last couple of picks of catcher. The next tier we have the deep leaguers. This includes Max Stassie, Pedro Severino,

Yadier Molina, Buster Posey, Jorge Alfaro, Tom Murphy, Sam Huff and Alejandro Kirk. Huff and Kirk, specifically, Scott,

are two youngsters with potentially a good amount of upside as your catcher two. Yeah, those two guys I plan on draft as my second catcher in a lot of two catcher leagues.

Kirk more geared for contact, Huff more geared for power, and actually a lot of strikeouts. So they're kind of polar opposites in that way. But they're the upside plays from this tier, I would say, you know, there's still a chance Tom Murphy could provide a lot of power

if he plays regularly enough. And Buster Posey, you know, maybe he's healthier than we've seen him in a few years and is still pretty good. But for, yeah, I mean, these are catchers will pretty much only be drafted in two catcher leagues. And then I don't even think we need to do the tier after this.

The leftovers tier, it's so long. Yeah, there's so many names in here. I think we can probably just move on to first base. The one name I did want to point out from the leftovers tier, Scott, is Dalton Varsho, who came up last year for the Arizona Diamondbacks, a unique prospect because he could play in the outfield and he can also play as catcher. And as of now, expected to start in the outfield. So I wonder, would you consider moving him up in the...

a roto context got just because he can contribute some steals maybe 10 to 12 homers 10 to 12 steals and I think he's going to play more regularly than other catchers if he's starting in the outfield so do you think where did you see that he's expected to start in the

outfield because I hadn't seen that yet that is it's according to Ross the resource so these are just like super early projections right so they're just filling out they're filling out a lineup with the names that are there as opposed you know they have presumption is the diamond backs will have more players between now and opening day.

So I'm assuming Varsho and Kelly are going to split at bat's mostly behind the plate, with Varsho maybe occasionally appearing in the outfield. If Varsho is an everyday player somewhere else, I mean, that might move him up. A couple tiers. That might, maybe he joins Sean Murphy in the last resort. I don't know. Because usually that's a big boost to a player's value if he's playing, if a catcher eligible playing, his player is playing mostly somewhere else.

I mean, you just look at what he's done at AA. let alone, you know, he didn't do much at the majors last season, although three steals and three homers and 37 games. That's nice from a catcher. But at AA was 108 games, 18 homers, 21 steals, 301, average 899 OPS with good plate discipline. It could be a very good profile. I mean, he's a better prospect than Sam Huff and Alejandro Kirk.

It's just I don't see as much opportunity for him to play as of now. So he played 10 games at catcher and 19 in the outfield last season. So it seems like they don't mind throwing him in the outfield there. According to Ross to resource, they have him on the strong side of a platoon in center field starting as a left-handed bat against right-handed pitching. So we'll see. Love a catcher slash center fielder.

He can move to second base later on in his career. It's just, it's such an interesting player. But the minor league profile is pretty good. And I will just point out the 80P for Varshot is 209. That is just ahead of James McCann. Three spots ahead of James McCann and 20 spots. ahead of Mitch Garver.

So, you know, you just kind of, you mentioned Scott that if we knew that he was going to play in the outfield, that he would be up around that Sean Murphy range. It seems like people are assuming based on his ADP that that will be the case. So we'll see, it's something to watch closer to spring training and, you know, we'll see a bunch of camp battles and where he's playing throughout the spring. And I think all those things will help us form an opinion. He is not catcher eligible on CBS leagues though. He should be.

He played 10 games at catcher. Is he not showing up? Are you looking in a league that hasn't had its settings adjusted for the shortened season? Maybe I went with the Roto League we played last year. Yeah, so it's possible. So his primary position is outfield and if it doesn't. Yeah.

And yeah. Yeah. And that's just a really good point. It's a really good point to mention because people have been asking on our fantasy, on our Facebook group page, they've been asking what the eligibility is for this year on CBS. And for position players,

it's 10 games played in 2020. Normally it's 20 games over the course of a 162 game season. And if we were going proportionately, that would be like seven to eight games. We thought that was too few. So we rounded that up to 10 games. If a position player played 10 games at that position in 2020, they will have that eligibility on CBS. But if you're in a commissioner league,

that's, you know, you're playing in the same league that you were in last year. That's the setting you'll have to, like those aren't going to be adjusted. We're not going to go in and change your settings for you. Okay. If you're starting a league fresh, that's what it's going to default to. But if it's an old league, you'll have to change your settings to reflect that or not reflect it if you so choose. Before we get to first base and second base, I just want to let everyone know that we have

reached that point of the year where there's a lot, a lot of sports going on at once. The NBA, college hoops, hockey, remember hockey? not to mention the NFL playoffs and golf, which is why we wanted to tell you about the CBS Sports app and how it's not just the best scoring app for your phone, but it's also where you get breaking news alerts, stories by all of our CBS sports writers, including everyone here on this podcast,

standing schedules, team pages, and all the sportsy digital stuff you're used to. And of course, if a game is airing on CBS, that means it's streaming on the CBS sports app. Easy, right? download it and redownload it if it has that little cloud logo next to it on your phone and you know we love those five-star ratings so don't hesitate to drop one for the app if you do tweet us a screenshot along with the mailback question for us to use on an upcoming episode

thanks as always for your support and we mentioned earlier if you haven't yet you want to see chris's cat you want to see scott's awesome living room subscribe to our youtube channel YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. Hit that big red subscribe button. Thank you very much. We're going to take a quick break. When we returned, first base tiers here, fantasy baseball today. The elite tier, and I noticed Scott, I actually went back and listened to your guys' podcast on tiers last year, just to get an idea of how to set this bad boy up. You do not have a super elite tier for first base. Now, what would constitute being in a super elite tier and why don't you have one for first base? Well, it's

Some positions need more tiers than others And sometimes they need an extra tier on the top end Sometimes they need an extra tier on the bottom end The first first baseman is Freddie Freeman Is he distinguished enough from Cody Bellinger To deserve a separate tier? Maybe you could make the argument But to be consistent across the positions

I only gave positions a super elite tier if they had somebody who so obviously had to be a first rounder versus the next one down who so obviously had to be not a first rounder. So it was just kind of a way, the positions with the super elite tier tier, saying, all right, it's still the first round. If there's a super elite tier guy left, regardless of the position, you need to take that guy.

And Freddie Freeman is a borderline first rounder, but I think we most often see him go in the second. That's about right. He goes usually around that turn at the one, two, turn in a 12-team league. That elite tier includes Freddie Freeman, Cody Bellinger, and DJ LaMayhew? DJ Elite! Scott, that would mean that you are considering

what does that mean like you're considering taking him at that turn as well because he's in the same tier as these guys? Or do you just expect similar overall production from DJ LaMayhew? Well, it gets complicated when he got multi-eligibility guys, right? Obviously, LeMayhew's most often going to be drafted at second base and I think he's the only one I could call a lead at second base. He's in a tier all to himself at that position. And again, I'm trying to make the tiers consistent between positions as well as reflecting the breakdown of the position itself.

I suppose you could argue and I'm comfortable saying this that it's better to bypass Freeman and Bellinger for something else and take LeMayhew as your first baseman. But that's just a weird a weird way thing to plan for because you'd much rather have lameu as your second basement. So I don't think anybody's actually going to say, well, okay, I won't draft Freeman or Bellinger because then I'm blocking LeMayhew from playing first base, you know? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. You definitely want to use him at second base. I think that's probably the biggest takeaway from this.

Most likely. I could see in a salary cap draft where you haven't filled first base and he just goes later and maybe he winds up your first baseman. but I think that's a pretty weird scenario for the most part. You know what is interesting that you can do mid-draft if you take LaMayhew, though, is, and I just did this, I'm currently in an NFBC draft going on. I drafted him in the third round of a 15 team. This is a 5-by-5 roto.

And I drafted him as my second baseman, but as the draft went on, it turned out that there was another second basement that just kept falling. So because of that, I drafted that player, and then I moved DJ LaMehu over to third base. Yeah, that's happened to me too. Having that option and that type of versatility mid-draft is really awesome for someone like LeMayhew, who of course has triple eligibility, first, second base, and third base. The debate here is Freddie Freeman versus Cody Bellinger.

Freeman. Higher floor, I think he is probably safer in general. Cody Bellinger potentially has more upside than someone like Freddie Freeman. He is younger, of course. But shoulder surgery, Bellinger had shoulder. surgery. He had a batting stance change last year, which kind of threw him off. He has now struggled against left-handed pitching in two of the last three years. 681 OPS back in 2018 against lefties, 666 OPS against them here in 2020.

Chris, if you have the 12th pick and you want to take a first basement, are you taking Freddie Freeman or Cody Bellinger, both of them are on the board. I think I'm going with Bellinger, but it's pretty close. I think I have them separated three spots overall in my rankings. So I think Bellinger gets just a slight edge, but it's not a significant one. And, you know, I definitely do think there is more risk with Cody Bellinger, given the injuries, given the fact that he struggled so much last season. But last season was, you know, obviously a small sample size.

He was arguably the best player in fantasy in 2019. So I just think I'm not going to overreact to the to the, to the, a, you know, 60 game season there. Freeman is consistently going to be, you know, one of the 10 best hitters, 15 best hitters in fantasy every year. He's been that, you know, pretty much every year. I think there might have been the one year where he had that wrist injury and wasn't quite himself.

But otherwise, you know what you're getting. And what you're getting is a high batting average, tons of runs in RBI and good home runs. I just, I think Bellinger's steel potential, you know, he could. could match Freeman across the board and also steal 15 bases. I don't know if the batting average has that much of a chance. Bellinger hit 305 in 2019, but he is a 273 career hitter. So, yeah, I think the batting average is much safer for Freeman, but you're right about the steals.

And it's worth noting he did sustain his plate discipline gains in 2020. Yeah. He only struck out 17.3% of the time. So, you know, when you compare, you know, the fact that he only hit 239 F last season, that's really bad. But, you know, he was only like a 260, 27 hitter his first two seasons. That was back when he was a 27 to 24 percent strikeout rate guy. Now that he's a, you know, 16 to 17 percent strikeout rate guy, presumably moving forward, I do think the batting average ceiling is there.

He's not a sure thing as Freddie Freeman in that category. That is, you know, one of the places where Freeman really stands out. but, you know, I do want to note that for Bellinger's sake. And that is fair because his Babbat was 245 in 2020, 2.97 for Cody Bellinger's career. So did underperform his Babbat where he's been at for most of his career in 2020. I prefer Freddie Freeman. I just prefer the safety in my early round pick. So I'll take Freeman over Cody Bellinger.

The near elite tier, Jose Ibrahim, Luke. Voigt, Anthony Rizzo, who is lower in a categories league. So, Roto, or in a head-to-head categories. Yeah, he would be in this tier for a points league, but not in a categories, not in a categories league. Pete Alonzo and Matt Olson. This is a solid, an interesting blend of career years versus big underperformers this past season. Jose Ibrahim, he was awesome this past year. I love him. You know, I was talking him up. And, you know, he's annually. he was annually under value, but now the ADP is caught up. It's 31.7.

So as much as I love Jose Ibrahim, coming off of a career year, I think it's tough to pay that early of a price. Pete Alonzo, ADP 54.7, that's higher than I actually thought it would be. I kept making the argument last year. Why would you take Pete Alonzo when you can get Matt Olson three to four rounds later, and we're basically in the same spot again? So unless you just really don't like Matt Olson, which brings us to both him and Anthony Rizzo here,

who these are, these are the bad Babbit bros. That's what I've labeled them because Matt Olson, 227, Babbip in 2020, 277 for his career. That's 50 points below his career mark. The average exit velocity is still in line. Anthony Rizzo, who has an extensive track record, 218, Babip in 2020, 286 for his career. So what do you think of this tier in general, Scott, Abrae, U. Voit, Rizzo, Pete Alonzo, Matt Olson. And I've been kind of just gravitating towards Rizzo and Olson

because they're going picks 85 and 91 respectively, which seems like good values. Yeah, I do want to stress again, Rizzo's only in this tier in a points league because his plate discipline is so good. Strikeouts very low year after year, and that matters in that format. I really don't want much of anything to do with them in a categories league

because he just doesn't compare power-wise. It's become increasingly so over the years to some of the others at this position. position. I think this tier, the fact that I'm tiering a Brayu and Voight with Alonzo and Olson shows why I'm not going to have much a Brayu and Voight this year, because I'm not sure everybody would do that based on the way their 20, 20 seasons went. Although in our most recent mock draft, Alonzo went before Voix and the tier was just down to Voight and Olson. So I ended up with Void, I think, in round six. So that, you know, that's one way you can use the tiers to

keep you on track and it may not play out exactly the way you think it's going to. The next best things tier includes Paul Goldschmidt, Dominic Smith, Vladimir Guerrero, Max Muncie, Carlos Santana, who is lower in a Categority. In a Categorice, Mike Mustakis and then Reese Hoskins, who is also points league only for this tier and he would be lowered in a Categories League. Scott, is this the cutoff for the position in general who you want, who you would want as a starter. Is this the last tier that you'd be looking at to fill your starting first baseman?

Yeah, if I don't have my first baseman by the end of this tier, it's... Something went terribly wrong. I mean, the thing is, first base has a lot of depth in these middle to late rounds. Like, that's a very long tier for the next best things, what's normally the third tier to position.

That's an unusually big tier. but the tiers had been pretty small building up to this so I'm not going to say all is lost if I don't get a first basement front among this group it's pretty easy to do but like you know the next tier I mean the next tier would include

I'll just go through it. Miguel Sineau Eric Hosmer Josh Bell who's very interesting Ryan Mountcastle Tommy Lestell and Jake Croninworth you're probably going to draft him to play another position. But, you know, there's, I feel like you probably need to double up at the position to kind

of hedge your bets with like maybe a Josh Bell and a Ryan Mount Castle if, if you miss out on the first three tiers at third base, at first base, if you don't get, you know, Paul Goldschmidt or Vladimir Guerrero. Yeah, and you know that that tier does shrink if you're not including Carlos Santana and Reese Hoskins in it, if you're, if you're doing a, five-by-five league. So I guess that would make it a little harder. So yeah, it's, it's, I don't know,

I haven't done a draft yet where I haven't gotten a first basement by the end of this tier, I guess. Scott, I guess you haven't seen the pictures of Vladimir Guerrero recently that have been making their rounds on the internet. This guy is jacked up. The streets are ablaze. He has lost all the baby fat.

He still just has a seven. Has he? Maybe not. There's like one picture of him from far away. way that we're like like there's the it's like it's all based on like this one picture that one person posted comparing to another picture from another person but like one of them's outside and close up and shot from below one of them's inside and far away and shot at eye level he's wearing a stretchy shirt in one of them and a baggy shirt and it's just like look as a chubby guy

I am well aware of how much your clothing choices and the fit can create the illusion that you are slightly less chubby than you are. He looks to be in better shape. But the thing I struggle with with this whole conversation, he wasn't, he wasn't like jacked when we thought he was the best hitting prospect of his generation. Right. And so like this idea that like, oh, he's skinny, so he's going to be good now. like we have no, we don't have a control here. You know, we don't have like a sample size where he was spelt and cut and a sample size where he looked like he did last season.

And then, oh, now we can compare the like, we're just looking for reasons to like Vladimir Guerrero. And I would very much like Vladimir. He is outside of drunk Carlos Stanton since he joined the majors, basically the elite batted ball guy in baseball in terms of max exit velo, number of batted balls over 150. 15 and 110 miles an hour. Like he's, he's right there

with everyone outside of John Carlos Stanton. I would say the, are you done? Yes. I would say the problem with Guerrero is what his launch looks like, not what his lunch looks like. Oh! I had time to think that one through.

Yeah, just, and to be clear, I think the Blue Jay's hitting coach coming into the 2020 season, you know, back in the off season said that, you know,

he was going to try to hit the ball in the air more, but it wasn't because he was going to try to change his swing. It was more about getting his legs into his swing so he can get under the ball. And part of the issue for him in 2019 was that, you know, he was getting fatigued late in the season. And that was why he wasn't able to get his legs under him. So it's possible that getting into better shape will lead to these results. But let's like, we do this a lot with like the training camp pictures of a guy looking fat or

skinny or in shape or when it usually doesn't mean anything. Best shape of his life. We're only like a month away from that season. And I will point out, as we've seen from James Hardin pictures that we're making their rounds on the internet, that it's very easy to kind of deceive your audience about what your weight is. So just keep that in mind.

Black is black as a slimming color. That is one thing to keep in mind. Safe to say, Scott, you probably won't have many shares of Vlad because his current ADP is 61. and he is going ahead of even names that you had in the tier before this. So I don't really see him falling in many drafts. There will always be somebody in at least one draft who thinks he has, you know, first, second, third round caliber upside,

which one of these years it might actually happen. It just hasn't happened yet. He does. He does. He's 22 still. But, you know, I think the saying is to the acronym is T-A-O-A-I-A thing is the, the acronym for... Tejawa. What's that?

Tejawa. Yeah. I'll let you guys figure that one out because I don't want to get in trouble for saying it out loud. The fallback options, you kind of mentioned some of these to know, Eric Hosmer, Josh Bell,

Ryan Mountcastle, Tommy Lestella, Jake Cronowardt, all kind of interesting names. Eric Hosmer had that whole launch angle fiasco early in the season last year where he's finally hitting line drives and fly balls,

but every month preceding July, he started hitting more ground balls. So keep that in mind. His ADP is right around 150. The lineup context, the team context for him, is still very good. So it might not even matter if he's hitting in the middle of a really good Padres lineup.

The last resorts tier, Christian Walker, Jamer Candelario, Brandon Belt, Yuli Guriel, Jesus Aguilar, Jared Walsh, Bobby Dalbeck, who would be lower in a points league. Scott, anyone you want to hit on here real quick from this tier? I was torn what to do with Jared Walsh and Bobby Dalbeck Walsh was amazing in September.

Huge power surge and he hit for a ton of power in the miners. His strikeout rate was strangely low, much lower than it's ever been in the minors or what we saw from him in the majors in 2019. I mean, if he can keep that up, then I think he's easily in this tier, but it's, you know, not much to go on. It's just obviously once you're down to this tier,

you're at a very late stage of the draft, and you don't worry so much about the downside for a player anyway. Yeah, anything from this last resort's tier and beyond is probably someone you want as your corner infielder or utility bat in a roto or deeper lineup kind of league. The last two tiers, deep leaguers and leftovers, there's 18 names included in both of these tiers, and I'm not going to read all of them.

You can find them on our site. Again, cbosports.com slash fantasy. Click on baseball. but I do love Rowdy Tellez and Nate Lowe and to a lesser extent. I like Joey Votto who made a mechanical batting stance change mid-season and hit for a bunch of power over the final month. But there will be time to talk about Joey Votto.

Second base. I've seen some people refer to second base as a deep position or I guess deeper position than we're used to and I will say that there are a lot of solid options in second base. So I guess if that's the definition you want to use for deep, fine, but it's still not a great position. There's just not a lot of top tier talent, elite level talent up at the top. And you know, you're not going to see a second baseman drafted in the first two rounds. That's including D.J. LeMayu, who we've

spoken a bunch about already today. He is in the elite tier for Scott. He is alone. He is head and shoulders above everybody else. And I think that's the case in a head-to-head points league. I think he just averaged 4.0 fantasy points per game. That was tied for 10th among all hitters and points leagues. But in Roto, I think that it's pretty close between D.J. Lamehue and Ozzy Albi. So, Scott, how close were you to having Ozzy Albies if maybe you weren't close at all to having him in that same tier as Z.J. LaMahue? I wasn't that close. Okay. I think I think Ozzy Albies gets a little overrated in Roto leagues. He's he's good at everything, but he's not great at anything. Probably his greatest category is batting average

and he's nowhere near LaMayhew or even the other guy he is tiered with here Witt-Merryfield, I'd take Witt-Maryfield to outperform Ozzie Albys and batting average and Steele's way. You know, frankly, frankly, I have a hard time

justifying ranking Albies behind Whitmeryfield, but I kind of like Whitmeryfield more for Roto Leagues because I think the the Steele's upside is so much higher and the other categories are probably going to be pretty similar. Yeah, I mean, the two harder categories to come by in Roto

leagues are batting average and steals. And Marrifield is probably going to be better than Ozzy Albies in both of those. Ozzie will probably hit for more power and most likely score more runs in a better Atlanta Braves lineup. But I will just say for Albies, it was a weird 20-20 for everyone. But for him, he's out with a wrist injury. He only played

29 games. In those 29 games, six homers and three steals for Ozzy Albies. That is a third. 30 home run, 15 steel pace over the course of 150 games. So if you want to take anything away from this season, Albies was still pretty good in that regard. Yeah, I'm got to go out on a limb and say Ozzy Albies will never have a 30 homer season.

I just don't think he has quite that much power. Obviously, a small pace like that, it's possible for him to do it. But I think 25 is probably about his upside there. Yeah, I think that's, I would agree. If I'm projecting him, it's probably 20 to 22 home runs with a ceiling of 25. But if he gets the 25 home runs and 15 to 18 steals, all right, now we're talking about him potentially flirting with being the number one second baseman.

Only in a Roto league, I think, again, I think LeMayhew is far and away better in a head-to-head points format. The near elite includes Asi Albies and Whitmeritfield. Kind of feel like Merrifield is like a blend of DJ LaMayhew and Albies. You batting average is not going to be as good. The best power source of the three, I feel confident now that he's back with the Yankees where he's hit 27 of his 36 home runs the past two years. I'm pretty confident saying the best power source of the three is LeMayhew, which is a big reason why he's number one. And he's the best batting average source by they're all good for batting average.

And yet I feel like it's not a stretch to say LeMayhew is the best source of batting average by far among the three of them because he's just. I mean, he might be the best source of batting average in baseball. Yeah, yeah. And he hit 327 and 364 his two years. of the Yankees. Right. Yeah, it's hard to argue with his approach

in that stadium. After the near elite, we have the next best things tier for second base. This is, of all the tiers that we've talked about today, this is probably the most interesting one.

Cotel Marte, Jose Altuve, Kevin Bigio, Kessen Hiara, Brennan Lau, Max Muncie, Jeff McNeil, and Mike Moostakis.

Let's just start off with Kevin Bizio and Brendan Lough because I think that at least I do there's questions for all these hitters but I probably have the most questions for those two in particular. Lowe was super

streaky. The final numbers in 2020 were still very good. 269, 14 home runs, 36 runs, 37 RBI, three steals. And Bigeo he's probably a 2020 player but with a low batting average, better in OBP formats. The underlying... He's like... He's so weird, Chris.

He is scraping absolutely every ounce of value he can out of his limited tool set. Like there is, he is, you know, when you look at the batted ball data, 30.6% hard hit rate, 5% barrel rate, 87.4 mile per hour average exit velocity, 103.3.6 max exit velocity. You look at all that and that's like below average pretty much across the board. But he has hit 24 home runs in 159 games, which is, you know, roughly average for a fantasy relevant player, probably a little, you know, maybe a little above

average for a major leagher. And so, you know, his approach, it's a lot of fly balls. It's very Matt Carpenter-esque, except Matt Carpenter hit the ball a lot harder. And we saw, you know, with Matt Carpenter, there was a lot of peaks and valleys. And, you know, I think if Biggio wasn't a stolen base source. I'm not sure he would be particularly fantasy relevant. But, you know, again, 20 stolen bases in 159 games. If he's a 20 steal guy, it doesn't matter.

Well, the things he, yeah, I mean, for the 5-5 leagues, he's somebody who can give you steals. And for the points leagues, he's like one of the best walkers in baseball. So he's just like, he's perfectly optimized to matter in a way

that, you know, you'd be afraid. of them if he didn't stand out in those two very important areas for those two formats. Scott, would you actually use a top 70 pick on either of Lao or Bissia? I think I have them both just a little outside of that.

It depends on the way the draft is going. It depends how close this tier is to depletion. But those tend to be among the earlier's taken in this tier, the earlier ones taken. I will point out just to use a head-to-head points example,

Lowe was actually third at this position and head to head points per game last year behind LaMayhew and a guy who we haven't gotten to yet. Lao was third. So it was a really good year, even a format where you'd think because of a strikeouts, he might have issues. But he was really good.

Like you, I think there's a lot to prove. Obviously, he could tell Marte and Jose Altovae and the not too distant paths have been elite performers here as well. So I think I don't want to, to drop them too far. Yeah, it's just a really interesting tier of guys who mostly underachieved in 2019, 2020. Yeah, mostly underachieved in 2020.

But it being a 60 game season and a lot of them have the track record to suggest the track record are in the case of like a Kest and Hero that skill set that you don't want to drop them too far here. New Year, same Scott. Text message is going off. Who's texting you, Scott? Because I don't know.

My wife's in bed. I know. I feel like the night, the text messages have not been as big of a thing. We didn't get one during a meeting on Friday, which was a nice surprise. Yeah, we're recording this. It's past 11 p.m. on Sunday night. And you know who it was? Frank, it was you.

Well, you must have sent a group text. And sometimes they get those really late. Oh, well, that would answer a lot of questions because I'm like. It's you from the future, Frank. Like, one question I have. have about this tier and I'd like to get your guys thoughts on it because I'm looking at my auction or salary cap values I have a dramatic drop off between the end of this tier which for me would be Bigio and the start of the next tier which for me would be Nick Madrigal. It's like a

50 plus point 50 plus spot in the rankings six dollar jump is that like that it kind of feels like it's more than one tier for me. No that's definitely a fair point. And if I'm just looking at ADP, Mike Moustakis is towards the end of this tier. His ADP is 129. Nick Madrigal's ADP is nearly 100 picks later.

221. Yeah, that doesn't make that doesn't make sense. I actually had Nick Madrigal lower in my rankings. But then when I started putting together these tiers and I was forced to grapple with

who I really want relative to other people ranked around them. I moved Madrigal way up. And I think, I don't know if it's uncertainty about what his role's going to be,

but I don't see who else is going to start at second base for the White Sox. I think it's the shoulder concern, Scott. He had shoulder surgery, so. Yeah,

he did, but like power's not his game. Any of like power is far from his game. Nick Madrigal really might, he might struggle to hit for power with the shoulder injury. Is it possible to hit? That's not,

that's not what you're drafting. Like, he's easy batting average. If anything. easy batting average. You know, if anything, if his ground balls are even slower, that just might lead to more infield hits.

Is it possible to hit negative home runs? Because Nick Madrigal might actually do it. No, I think it's a good point that you bring up, though, Chris. The next best thing's tier that Cotel Marte, Altuve, Bigio, Heera, Lao, Muncie, McNeil, Mustakis,

that's, I really want to get one of, that's the cutoff for me. I really would like one of at least those second basemen to be my starter. It's actually just Madrigal for me in that tier. In the next year. You're jumping ahead to the next tier now. Yeah, so let's do that right now real quick.

And we'll end on this. The fullback options at second base, Madrigal, Dylan Moore, Tommy Listella, Jake Croninworth, David Fletcher. We've really liked what we saw from Cronerworth last year, Scott. But I just kind of worry about the playing time now. They signed Hacian Kim. They're talking about Kim potentially being a super utility player.

So maybe that means Croninworth is still in everyday bat. I think if the D.H is in the National League, certainly frees playing time up for someone like Kronoward. So I like the skill set he showed in 2020, but just have some question marks there. And then Dylan Moore, who just came out of nowhere. He's hitting home runs. He's stealing a ton of bases. A lot of people seem to like him, but he's just kind of this guy that came out of nowhere,

this mid-career breakout who really didn't even have great numbers ever at any point. I was actually looking at his minor league track record, and it was better than I thought it was. But you're right. It was, you know, he wasn't even projected for having a real role with the Mariners last year. And, you know, he's elevated a lot by the fact he stole bases and certainly in a five-by-five league, anybody who does that needs to be on your radar just because there's so few who do it in the quantity, a quantity like he delivered. But he's that guy who I was referring to earlier second in head-to-head points per game at this position behind DJ LaMayhew. was Dylan Moore.

That's wild. Yeah. His plate discipline wasn't good. He was just that good. But 8.8% walk rate, 27% strikeout rate. He was just that good on a per game basis. He just made things happen.

38 games. He had eight homers, 12 steals. That's massive. 314 Babbitt. It's a very strange profile. And obviously, I'm, you know, I'm not ragged him anywhere

close to how he was last year, so I'm as much of a skeptic as anybody. but yeah second base really drops off here madrigal and more at the front of this tier because their potential steel sources lestella cronanworth david fletcher i only have in this tier for points leagues but you're talking about significantly less upside for this group than the previous tier um who showed a lot of them showed the extent of their downside like kestin hira and hosea ltuve but they still have significant significantly more upside. I think I'm going to have a lot of time with Stella this year,

even though I think he's kind of towards the end of this tier. Just super safe batting average and should have good runs in RBI, hopefully. Yeah. Is he going to play for the Williamsburg Towers this year? Are you just going to sign him to your personal softball league? Because he doesn't have a job. I mean, I guess it depends on him getting a job. But, you know, it's, it's, you know, the economy's recovering.

We're on an upswing. I think he'll find work. The last thing that I will point out on Dylan Moore, I was very wrong. His minor league track record was actually pretty good. He's just super old for a minor league. Yeah, we just, it came out of nowhere. He's 28 years old.

It feels a little John Bertie-esque. And Bertie last year basically returned to just being like a decent stolen base guy with nothing else. So that's the feeling I get from it. I will point out, Dylan Moore in 20s. 2018 across AA and AAA, 14 homers, 23 steals, and 885 OPS in 2016. We're going back here.

14 home runs, 42 steals, and 820 OPS. So he has had some seasons in the miners, big OPS numbers, some power, some speed. He was old for high A in 2016, and that was six seasons ago. Yeah. But there were a lot of articles that came out last year about him just completely changing approach and he hit a lot of line drives nearly 25%. There might be something there with Dylan. What's his ADP? Do you have it?

Oh, it's... His ADP would be 128. He is going 22 spots behind Jeff McNeil and one spot ahead of Mike Mustakis. So based on it, it sounds like a hundred spots ahead of Madrigal, which, okay, like if the ADP was... Look, the ADP is clearly higher than I ranked Dillamore. So I guess I can't make...

the what do you have to lose argument for him you have a decent amount to lose yeah yeah it's a fair point uh on dillan more the last resort's chris taylor and jonathan vr were waiting for him to sign somewhere and he would be in a lower tier in a points league he'll move up from here though if if he signs to be an everyday player somewhere it's getting back in baltimore yeah that would be that would be great uh deep leaguers gavin lux jerks and pro far jean sigura nick solack scott kinkerick skingery John Birdie, Ty France, Garrett Hampson, Nick So like someone. I just can't quit.

See what the playing time looks like in spring, but somebody I do like. And then there's a whole big tier full of leftovers. You can see those on the site. We're going to wrap up there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball today.

We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.