Fantasy Baseball Today - Drafting Pitchers In A Shortened Season (06/01 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

The one thing we know for sure about 2020 is that it's going to be a weird season. With that being said, what has changed most when it comes to pitchers (1:58)? Should we be devaluing innings eaters? How about Zack Greinke? ... Frank explains why he's avoiding volatile starting pitchers like Trevor Bauer, Robbie Ray and Eduardo Rodriguez (8:16). ... In our email of the day, we're asking about hitter strikeouts (13:20). How much do they matter in H2H points vs. Roto? What does a player need to do to overcome a high strikeout rate? Why is Chris out on Ryan McMahon because of this? ... In our news and notes, we take a look at the 114-game proposal from the MLBPA (23:10). Also, are we forgetting about Griffin Canning? ... So, how should you draft pitchers in a shortened season (31:41)? Frank shares some of his findings, which lean towards devaluing elite starting pitchers. Why should we target more of those breakout types? ... The guys also like targeting AL Central starting pitchers because of their scheduling in 2020 (45:38). Email us at [e-mail]. '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: @CBSFantasyBB, @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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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, at the wall, grand slam. 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.

All right, welcome back, everybody. Fantasy baseball today here on a Monday, June 1st. Where did the time go? It's June already. Frank Stamphle here alongside Chris Towers and Scott White. How was your weekend, guys? Fine. It was fine. That was yours. Real interesting weekends we got going on. Yeah, I think Frank was looking for a little more enthusiasm from Scott White there. And he couldn't quite provide it. So I'll step up. I had a pretty pretty.

boring weekend too. Yeah. I'm currently in the process of moving, so that's always fun. Good times there. Yeah, not really far from where I live now, but yeah, that's basically all I've got going on. Obviously, there are definitely some crazy things going on just in general around the world, around the country, so hopefully, you know, we can offer a distraction, some entertainment throughout this time for you guys.

Today on the show, I want to focus on solidifying our strategy when it comes to pitchers in a shortened season. I keep getting questions on Twitter. Like, how are you approaching pitching this season, if there is a season? And I really just had to sit down and think about it. So I wanted to talk about some of the things that I found today. And what I think might happen. I have some hypotheses that we could talk about here.

I will also take a look at strikeout percentage for hitters and evaluate a Royals prospect. Daniel Lynch, let's start out with this. First and foremost, what has changed most for you when it comes? to pitchers this season, Scott. The thing that has changed the most is de-emphasizing volume, I guess, specifically, among the pitchers who I was including in that group of 35. I might need to reconsider who's in the 35, who's out of the 35,

maybe even make it a bigger number than 35, because I've moved guys like Jesus Lazzardo and Julio Aureas ahead. of guys like Lance Lynn and Zach Wheeler, guys who I feel like were being pushed up mainly because you could count on them to take, to handle a big workload over a full season and guys who were being pushed down, mainly because you couldn't.

You know, if that latter group, you trust them to be more effective on a start-by-start basis, they probably need to move ahead. Now, there's still the issue of how deep into games these guys are going to pitch, which is probably even a bigger factor than how many total innings they were going to pitch. But I think especially early in the season, everybody's going to be limited to a degree,

maybe for the first two, three, four turns. Because spring, you know, the second spring is going to be so abbreviated. Guys aren't going to have a chance to stretch out fully. But more than anything, I can't afford a situation in what could be on three or four-month season. I can't afford a situation where a Lance Lynn, I'm going to have to suffer through like a 550 ERA for six weeks before turning the page because six weeks is such a larger percentage of the season. So I want to make sure, you know, in the case of a guy like Luzardo, I'm actually more confident he's going to be effective with the innings he gets. So that's

the biggest change for me. Chris, would you agree with that sentiment just in terms of pushing some of those maybe per inning producers or per start producers up the board a little bit. And, you know, maybe even on the higher end, devaluing someone like Zach Granky, who is largely dependent on his volume and the fact that he is as dependable as he is year in and year out. No, I actually, you know, I think you could kind of go the other way there. When you're talking about the desire to avoid a bad start, or, you know, I think you could kind of go the other way there. when you're talking about the desire to avoid a bad start or just bad stretches in general, I think the consistency of someone like Zach Ranky actually benefits him.

He's not someone who's going to need to be babyed early on this season. He's not someone who's going to need to adjust to a different schedule. I would assume, given his age, given how successful he has obviously, it is a different schedule, but that's true for everyone. And I would say the guys who are proven reliable starters, who can go deep into games especially, I think they're more likely to get off to that good start you're hoping for. But really, we don't know.

That's not an exciting answer, but it's the true one. And I think it is our duty and our obligation. to give our listeners, truthful, honest answers. And the truth is we're living in a totally unprecedented situation when it comes to Major League Baseball. If and when it comes back, we really don't have any possible analog for this.

The closest is 1995, but they were able to figure that out, I think, during spring train. And they ultimately delayed the season by a couple of weeks, and teams were able to carry a couple extra arms. But for the most part, you know, it was more like a normal season than this one will be. And then you just have to take into account how different the landscape is at this point. You know, I think it was last week or maybe the week before.

I started looking at some pictures from 1995 who were making their debuts that season and how they were handled. and I can't remember who the pitch is. Isma Valdez. Isma Valdez, yes, who finished like third and rookie of the year vote in that year. And he had thrown like 115, 120 pitches in starts by May. There's just no way that's going to happen with anyone. Like, Max Scherzer might not throw 115 or 120 pitches this season.

I'm not sure he did it all last season. So that's the tough things. When it comes to pitching especially, it feels like this is entirely uncharted territory that I don't, which is to say, I don't know how much you should change your approach. Yeah. That's why I didn't,

I didn't even bother with the high end guys. It's mostly the, the fringes of the, that top 35 group I always talk about where I decided to make some adjustments. Although Zach Granky, it's interesting you bring him up specifically because he's kind of become notorious. for coming into spring training, throwing like low 80s,

and saying, I don't know what's going on and everybody freaking out and then ends up having another Zach Granky season. Right, but we're smart enough at this point to know that we shouldn't freak out anymore. Like, look, he's going to fall off at some point. But, yeah. I just wonder if, you know, him coming, throwing nowhere near what he needs to throw is depending on having a certain number of starts to get ready. Last year, that wasn't the issue.

Last year, he was throwing high 80s in his first spring start. I remember that being a story. And it really, like, neither one should be a story at this point. It's Zach Granky. Maybe he drafts himself in fantasy baseball every year, and he does that purposely so that he can lower his ADP. Yeah. It's like insider trading, fantasy baseball edition with Zach Granky.

To your initial point, Chris, and I'll talk. about this a little bit later on. I think one of the things that I'm going to try and do is avoid volatility. And what I mean by that is in a shortened season, if you have those starting pitchers who typically you don't know what to expect from on a game-to-game basis where they can go out and throw seven shutout innings or they can go out and throw four innings and allow five earned runs, I want to avoid those starting pitchers more because in a shortened season, they don't have as much time for those numbers to normalize. So obviously, I bring up the name a ton, but Trevor Bauer,

13 starts of four earned runs or more last year. Eduardo Rodriguez, 11 of those starts. Robbie Ray, 10 of those starts. I think names like that, where they're more volatile than the average starting pitcher, I'm going to be avoiding. I just, one of the things I struggle with is, to a certain extent,

that kind of describes every pitcher outside of, like, the top four rounds. You know, like, guys who are consistent, and consistently good, really, because there are pitchers who are very consistent, and we don't want them on our fantasy teams. But guys who are consistently good, they're aces. And so, like, in theory, I get that. You know, Trevor Bauer was inconsistent last year.

I just don't know if inconsistency is predictive as well. So, yeah, but you have in your mind, I'm sure, pitchers who you, you trust to actually be good more than others. Like, I know for me, Blake Snell is probably a no, Trevor Bowers and no, I mentioned Lance Lynn and Zach Wheeler. But is that any different than how you would approach your normal season? Yeah.

Yeah, because, well, I mean, it gets to what I was talking about, that one of the variables has been removed here now, and that's volume. Volume's been removed. And so pitchers who you elevate, because of volume, even though maybe you don't trust them on the same level of others you rank similarly, get pushed down. So like a Chris Paddock relative to a Trevor Bauer, there's probably a bigger gap there now.

Maybe. I don't know. Like that volume gap still exists. And if anything, a guy like Trevor Bauer, another guy who can throw 115 pitches in a start, you know, and probably doesn't need. much time at all in spring train to get ramp back up, he might have an even greater volume edge on the guys who aren't proven. Yeah, it's hard to say. You're right.

It's hard to say. There's factors both ways. Like, Hazardos, it wouldn't shock me if he didn't throw 90 pitches in April in a start. And so he might be really good for those five innings he pitches. Yeah, I was about to say it also wouldn't surprise me if he finishes the season with a sub three ERA, but just never goes more than five innings.

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me that happens. It wouldn't shock me if he finished the season with an above four ERA too. He's unproven. I would say both of those. If he had an ERA over four and if he never, ever went six innings, both of those would surprise me for Luzardo.

Obviously, you can count on Bauer pitching deeper into games than Luzardo, just in a general sense. sense but I keep thinking back to the way last season started how many pitchers were just terrible in April or you know maybe even

beyond that maybe some into May I made a list of all of them at one point and I don't have that handy but it was you know Corey Cleaver was one of them obviously he got her Carrasco was one of them Chrisale was one of them obviously Aaron Nola

Flaherty like just a ton of really good pitchers were just terrible at the start of last season. And for a lot of them, it's easy to forget because over the course of six months, their numbers were more or less able to normalize. But there's not going to be as much time to normalize like Frank was saying. And some of those we couldn't really predict. No, well, I guess Sale did have a little bit of an elbow thing going into last season. But like Kluber, nobody would have seen that coming, him struggling so much at the start of last season.

But for the ones where you do have reason to have concern, I think that concern is amplified. And I think Bauer fits that description as well as some of the others I've mentioned, Lance Lynn, Madison Baumgartner, I haven't mentioned him yet. You know, for as much as you can predict that sort of thing, I don't think it hurts to follow through on that instinct. We'll talk more about some of those high-end starting pitchers a little bit later on. We'll get back to this conversation.

I want to jump into our email the day. This one comes from Tyler. How much does the strikeout percentage for players, hitters, specifically scare you as a fantasy owner? Looking at 2019 strikeout percentage inside the top 10, there are players like Ryan McMahon, Ehueheno Suarez, Fran Mill Reyes, Luke Voigt, Javier Baez, Yuan Moncada, Chris Davis.

Are these players you stay away from? Or do you only draft if they fall? from their ADP, or are these players that you draft and just take the good with the bad? So... I think there are... Sorry. No, no, it's all right. I mean, I was going to say, let's answer the first question.

Let's answer this question first. Among the top 15 hitters, I looked at this in head-to-head points leagues, five of them had a K-percentage of at least 20%. Only two had a K-percentage over 25%. That was Ronald Ocuna and Pete Alonzo. And that makes sense. Yeah. There's a double penalty. in points leagues for because basically the thing with strikeouts is they're not that much

different than a regular out like you can't move a runner over you can't get a sack fly but those events are so rare that from a fantasy perspective they don't really matter a strikeout the problem of the strikeout is it's just a missed opportunity to create something um so really what it comes down to in in a points league is it lowers volume because it takes that play to parents away and you get the penalty. So I think in points leagues, you should definitely watch out for strikeout, high strikeout rate guys.

In roto leagues, the other thing I would say is the hitters who are good in spite of a high strikeout rate, like to survive as a fantasy viable player with a high strike rate, you have to be really good and you have to do things that help.

And so, you know, you look at like Luke Voigt, seventh in strikeout rate last year, or Eugenio Suarez, fifth among qualified hitters. Well, he hit 49 home runs, so you don't really care that he struck out 28% of the time. So I just think that's kind of our, it's already baked into their profile. And Eugenio Suarez's case, it's a question of whether he can be an elite power hitter again

while striking out 28% of the time. But if he can be, the strikeout rate doesn't really matter. Yeah, among the top 15 hitters in. Roto. Seven had a K percentage of at least 20%, three over 25%. Again, Ronald Acuna, Pete Alonzo, Trevor Story, Scott, I mean, those are all names where, just going back to what Chris said, they do things that are extraordinary. It's, you know, Ronald Lucuna 40, 40, Ptollanzo over 50 home runs. Trevor Story, you know, 35 homers. Of course Field is also a big part of it. 35 homers and, you know, 15 to 20 steals. So it's like these are players that make things happen

despite the strikeout, Scott? Yes. We talk about strikeout rate a lot when we're evaluating hitters, particularly unproven ones. And so I would say it's the single biggest problem a hitter can have. It's the biggest blight on a hitter, the biggest thing that could potentially keep him from being successful. But there are, of course, ways to overcome it. And for ones who are more proven now, like a Trevor story, You know, we know not to worry about it before, but we don't not to worry about it anymore.

But the things that have been proven to overcome a high strikeout rate are hitting the ball exceptionally hard. I mean, Aaron Judge just strikes out at a historically high rate, but he also makes historically hard contact. So it kind of cancels each other out. And then having the sort of batted ball profile that lends itself to a high Babbitt is another way a hitter can overcome a high strikeout rate. So those are the things we look at when we're deciding whether a strikeout rate is really going to be something that holds a hitter back. But just in kind of a general player evaluation sense, it is something that concerns me. For the specific players you mention, you know, we've already factored into the analysis. And it's not something we think is going to destroy them obviously.

but in some of those cases, obviously, it does limit their batting average potential. Yeah, and I think there's a specific name that Tyler mentioned that really does stand out to me, and that is Ryan McMahon. Because you look at E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E. E.J.N. Suarez, he had 49 homers last year. Framo Reyes certainly has 40 homer potential. He hit 37. Luke Voie got hurt, but he was on nearly a 35 homer, pace before the injury. Hobby Baez. Y'amacotta, you know, might have, the best Babbitt skill set in major league history.

I believe he has the highest Babbitt for anyone with at least as many played appearances as he has. He's been above like 340, each of his three partial seasons. And then Chris Davis was a 45 homer guy. And so that's where I look at someone like Ryan McMahon, and that's why I'm so pessimistic about him because he doesn't have necessarily those elite skills.

He does hit the ball pretty hard, 90% percentile on exit. loss at the 91st and hard hit. But 39th percent on ex-Woba, 25th percent out on XBA, I don't know if he's got the juice to make up for the strikeout rate. And that's really where it comes in is he's got a guy like him, a guy like Danny Santana, who did have elite batted ball outcomes last season.

the question is whether they can have those elite batted ball outcomes to make up for the striker. We know Aaron Judge, Yohan Makata, those guys can't. You know, when you said, I don't know if he has the juice, it reminded me, have you ever seen the movie Encino Man? Like Brendan Fraser way back in the day? It's been a while, but yeah, definitely. So he starts just doing like the 7-Eleven slurpy, like right over his mouth. And the guy's like, no wheezing the juice. No wheezing the juice.

That's what I thought of when you did that. I was thinking of the Lizzo song. The Lizzo song? You know that one? Lizzo? No, I know who Lizzo is. I just, I don't really pay close attention. Oh, juice.

Good song. There you go. The second part of Tyler's question, is there another advanced stat that you recommend looking at to see if there's room for improvement to help predict positive production? I feel like...

Yeah, we've got to cover it, then it was. Yeah, it's bad-hip, hard-hit rate. I mean, bad at all data in general. One thing I will say, I've written about Cabin Bizio a lot this season and he's another guy who has a pretty scary batting average profile because he strikes out a lot.

And I've made the comparison to Yohan Moncada. And both of those guys, what I saw in both of them is just they never swung. And it wasn't because like Alex Bregman, they had elite plate discipline. I think Cabin Bidio probably has better than Moncada. And so the problem with both having these really high strike out rates was they just took too many hitable pitches.

And the biggest thing that Yohan Moncada improved on last season was being more aggressive, swinging at pitches earlier in the count, because, you know, one of the things you see a lot of the high strikeout guys walk a lot, and you see a lot of the high walk guys strike out a lot. There's a correlation between those two things, because the more pitches you see in a given at bat, the higher your chance of striking out is. And so, you know, for a player like Yohan Moncada coming into last year, he needed to be more aggressive to get out of those, you know, three, two counts where he, you know, I think he struck out swinging more than anybody in baseball in 28, or struck out looking more than anyone in baseball.

And so that's another thing where you can kind of get a little more granular and look at, you know, how often is a guy swinging at pitches in the zone? or how often is a guy swinging a pitches out of the zone, and you can say, you know, Horri Alfara, I think, has the highest rate on both in and out of zone pitches. So it's really hard to see where he's going to improve. He just kind of swings at everything. He's always going to strike out a lot as a result.

But if you can identify someone who makes a high amount of contact but doesn't swing enough, you know, that's one place that you can kind of like, David Fletcher had the highest contact rate in baseball, only swung 36% of the time. that's a guy who if he starts swinging more, he could probably be helpful in batting average. Kevin Bizio, be aggressive.

Be, be aggressive. There are two stats I focus on for this, and that's average exit velocity, which is how hard they hit it. And I look at line drive rate. That I think has the best correlation to a high BABIP. Alex Chamberlain has done some work on average. launch angle, but like the, how little variability there is in the launch angle, the tightness

of the launch angle. Yeah, that's something I've talked a lot about with Reese Hoskins. He's talked about that correlating with the high bad bit, but that's not as easy to find. And I feel like the leaderboard for that looks very similar to the line drive leaderboard. So I think line drive rate, which you can find on every player's page on fan graphs, is probably the easy way to go. The problem is it's very unpredictable from your year. that's what's tough with line drive, right?

Some news and notes. The MLB Players Association responds with their proposal. This is a big week, guys. I mean, if they don't get something done this week, it's going to be hard to imagine a season starting in early July. It doesn't mean that if they don't get a deal done this week, we won't have baseball. It just means we probably won't have it for the start date that they originally said.

It won't be July. Then it could be the middle of July, maybe the end of July. So just keep that in mind. 114 games is what the Players Association proposed from June 30th through October 31st. So originally the owners wanted to pay them 51% of their salary in 82 games. Or that's, that was what was rumored. And then now the players want basically 70% of their salary, which would be this 114 games.

Two years of expanded playoffs, this is something that would be good for the owners, because it increases their likelihood to make. the postseason and of course make more money, $100 million in total deferred money and an opt out for all players who say they don't want to play if they have underlying health conditions or it's deemed not safe for them to play. This is the latest and of course the owners are already balking at it. So I see what happens. There's one other detail that I think is important and that the players added that if the postseason was canceled because it sounds like the postseason is

kind of the whole ballgame for the owners. If the postseason is canceled, they've agreed to defer their payment for two years. So basically, if that happens, the owners could push their salary over the next two seasons, which I think is a big thing. Ultimately, I feel like the answer is play 100 games starting July 1st, pay for 82 games. and that would probably be the best solution to this is my thought. It would mean players are playing for free for 18 games, but it gets them the money that they were,

that they believe they were promised to start with at least. My biggest takeaway from this is just that why you can't get too attached to any ideas you're hearing thrown out there because the players counter an extra month's worth of games. And that's a big deal. You're talking about a three-month season versus a four-month season. You know, that changes your assessment of a lot of things. And I'm not sure it's going to end up either one of those.

It might be something in the middle. But, you know, it's really hard to move forward until we know what it is we're dealing with. and there isn't a lot that we actually know of everything that's been thrown out there. I don't know. Everybody's treating it like a foregone conclusion there will be universal D.H. I don't know that we can even be totally sure of that. There's been reporting that the players are pretty much on board with that. That they're,

well, I'm sure the players would be. That would be more of an owner hangout, right? I think the owners have already approved that proposal. Okay. So yeah, I think I don't know what I was going to say It's okay What I was going to say is just

The first proposal from both the owners And now the players It's more for the public than for the other side They're both trying to establish the terms of debate In the public's eyes And then they'll now they'll start negotiating Is I think the key thing to take away there Chris I sure hope you're right man

The other news item that I noticed, Griffin Canning recently resumed throwing live batting practice and has advanced to the 55 pitchmark in those sessions, according to Maria Torres of the Los Angeles Times. Remember, he was diagnosed with a, I believe it was a flexor strain back in February, and we didn't know if he was going to need Tommy John, and it sounds like he's not going to have it, and he's just going to try and work through it in rehab. His ADP back in January was 22.

before he got hurt. That's according to the NFBC. He was going just ahead of Mitch Keller and Jose Orkidie. So there were people excited about Griffin Canning. First eight starts last season, a 365 ERA and a 0.99 whip. His next nine starts. 5.48 ERA with a 1.43 whip. The swinging strike rate went down a bunch, more walks, more home runs. Scott, I'm kind of intrigued by Griffin Canning. I mean, if he can stay healthy, that is, the slider, I think, is absolutely legit. He kind of reminds me a little bit of Jack Flaherty. I was very excited about him. He was on my initial breakouts list. He was one of three pitchers in addition to at the end of last year. Max Fried was one. I can't remember who the other one was.

But there were three guys I pinpointed as taking guys who could take a big leap forward the following year. And Canning was one of them because the swinging strike rate is elite. But, you know, what he actually is. actually got diagnosed with was chronic changes in his ulnar collateral ligament, which is, of course, the one that gets repaired in Tommy John surgery. And the angels have a history of trying to come up with these workarounds for Tommy John surgery. They did it with Garrett Richards. They did it with Shohei Otani. And Trujini.

Andrewini. Yeah. I think there was another guy, too. They keep doing this, and it keeps inevitably leading to Tommy John surgery anyway. And, I mean, um, you're a very. Richard especially, he lost a big part of

his prime because of it. So I'm just not trusting that, you know, anytime you're talking about a UCL injury and it doesn't, and it hasn't led

to Tommy John surgery yet, you can feel pretty confident it eventually will. And given the Angels history, I'm not sure. I can count on Griffin Canning to really

make it through any point at this season. And it's hard to say whether he'll be totally effective, even if he can't pitch. So I'm not, I'm not really upgrading him

based on the layoff like I am for a lot of injured players. It's weird because the times that the Angels did that in the past, I think we're all like in mid-season. And so I think the logic with Heaney, Richards, and Otani was if he has Tommy John's surgery now or if he has Tommy John's surgery in October, he's going to miss all of next season anyway. So we might as well see if we can make something,

work. Canning's was different and that does make me think that maybe the risk of Tommy John surgery is a little lower for him than the other two guys because the other three guys, you know, it was like platelet rich plasma ingestions and, you know, more minor attempts to to kind of stave it off and ultimately it didn't work. But Canning, like if he has Tommy John surgery now, he's going to lose a significant chunk of 2021 as well. So that does make me think maybe it's a little less serious than the other situations they dealt. All right. We'll take a quick break. When we come back, we will try and form some kind of opinion on drafting pitchers. We talked about this a little bit. We'll get back into it. We'll do that here

on fantasy baseball today. Already, we're back here on fantasy baseball today trying to form that opinion on how to draft pitchers in a shortened season. There's going to be a short in season. We don't know exactly how many games are going to be played. But I tweeted about this a little bit last week and I wanted to get your guys' thoughts on my findings and whether or not there's anything actually here. Basically, random things are going to happen. They have happened every single season regardless of how long. They're going to be more likely to happen in an even shorter season. You typically see randomness in the first half of seasons highlighted by breakouts, pitchers who have made some sort of adjustment. And my thinking with this is hitters who are seeing pitchers do something different that they haven't seen before.

And what I mean by that is they changed their positioning on the mound. They mechanical adjustment. They add a pitch. They change up their pitch mix. Things like that. Hitters haven't seen that from that pitcher before. and my thinking is that in the first half of seasons, hitters just don't have enough time to adjust

or to adapt to what they're seeing. And eventually, the cream usually rises to the top, and elite pitchers separate themselves the further that the season goes along. The problem is, in an 80-game season, in a 100-game season, will there be enough time for those elite starting pitchers if they get off to a slow start to pull away

and for those numbers to normalize? And it's something we spoke about a little bit earlier. So ultimately, what I'm thinking is, should we devalue elite starting pitchers? Originally, you know, we did mock drafts two months ago. I'm willing to take a starting pitcher in the first round, a starting pitcher in the second round. Sometimes I'll double down on the first two rounds. Now I'm thinking with more randomness, I should buy into those breakout pitchers and the pitchers that we heard were making adjustments in the spring and throwing new pitches,

guys like Tyler Glass now who apparently were throwing a new splitter and Zach Gallen we expect to be a breakout, moving those guys up the board, devaluing the elite starting pitchers and living in the mid-tier more. So what do you mean by mid-tier? You mean you mean Gallen, you mean Glass Now, or do you mean lower than that? No, I mean, that's a fair range, but I was thinking even higher than that. Like, normally I would be okay taking a pitcher in the first two rounds. Now I don't take my first pitcher until the third or the fourth round. And maybe only getting, you know, two of my top 20, guys that are in my 10 to 20 range, and then really loading up on more of those gallons, Lazardo, maybe even a glass now.

You know, other names that just came to mind for me, Matthew Boyd is someone that I expected to be a breakout. He's someone that I can move up even more now. Pirates pitchers, because we expect them to make an adjustment with the new pitching coach. You say Kikuchi. Now you're crossing into a pretty low-end range when you talk about the pirates pitchers.

Yep. I'm just trying to hammer down what you're talking about settling because it sounds like you're talking about settling for less at starting pitcher and I'm just trying to hammer down exactly what you mean. Yeah, so I looked at data from the past three seasons,

basically the first about 80 games of each season and then the second 80 games of each season. And I'll just tell you some of the things that I found back in like 2017, for example. On June 30th, these 11, mostly random starting pitchers,

had a sub 3.50 ERA. Jason Vargas, Lance McCullors, Gio Gonzalez, Chase Anderson, Mike Leak, Robbie Ray, Irvin Santana, Yvonne Nova, Luis Severino, Jimmy Nelson, Dan Straeli. With the exception of Lance McCullors, each one of those pitchers was drafted outside the top 200 in ADP. Of those 11, nine of them either made a change in pitch mix

or just broke out. Really, it was just McCullors because it was his age 23 C. Everyone else made a change to their pitch mix. Robbie Ray through his curveball, 16% more than ever before. That was the season, the offseason where Severino worked with Pedro Martinez on his change-up. Jimmy Nelson lowered his fastball usage. Basically, the point that I'm making is elite pitchers separate themselves the further that the season goes along. If we only have 80 or 100 games, you're going to have more random things happen in that shortened season.

And what I'm thinking is the players who benefit the most from those random things are pitchers who break out because that's what we're expecting. They're just at that breakout age or guys that have made a change to their pitch mix because hitters don't have enough time to adjust, if that makes sense. I'm not nearly confident enough in my ability to peg the breakout pitcher, I guess is what I would say to that. I certainly have some names in mind and I think my reasoning is as sound as it can get for it. But I think that gets confirmed or denies.

over the course of the season, like you're saying, and some pitchers who I don't see coming end up being among the bigger breakouts too, like a Lance Lynn, for instance, a Frankie Montas. I had no reason to suspect either of them were on the verge of breaking out until the breakout was playing out. And so to put all my eggs in that basket, my ability to predict a breakout, I think is dangerous.

I think it's a low probability play. I think it's true that there is going to be more randomness in a short season, and it's true that you're going to be less confident in your pitcher picks because of that. But I think you still need to trust in what you believe the scarcities are, and I think you need to, and I think it's high in starting pitchers, real difference makers at that position. And I think you just have to accept that the outcomes of your season are going to be more random. And maybe not, you know, that's not just giving in and being comfortable with losing,

but just acknowledging the facts on the ground. Like, yeah, it's going to be shorter where random things are going to happen. You're going to have to make decisions quicker with less information and potentially make a wrong decision because of that. But, you know, if you want to play fantasy baseball this year, that's just something you're going to have to be comfortable with. So I'm not, you know, I mean, I guess that's where I stand. with it. And that might be the answer, Chris. I mean, if that's your answer, too, I don't have a

problem with it. It might just be, we can't predict these things and that we should focus more on the scarcity, which, again, I mean, that's why elite pitchers go where they do, because they are scarce commodities, obviously. But do you think there's anything here, Chris, where last year, you know, Scott mentioned it earlier, that a lot of elite starting pitchers got off to slow starts. And we saw more, like Mike Minor was a breakout in. the first half. Frankie Montas, Lucas Gialito, Jacob Dorisi,

Yanni Chorinos, Spencer Turnbull, had like a 253 ERA in the first three months of the season. But I guess my point is how much fates do you have in your ability to identify some of those players? Because, I mean, really, that's a lot of what we do the entire off-season, no? It's trying to identify

the players who are going to break out. So it's basically just putting more trust in those things. Yeah, one thing, the thing this sort of has some characteristics of the hot hand or not the hot hand what's the what's the argument scott or adam and i always have about uh like the players who are due the gamblers fallacy is basically uh i think that that's the term for basically a player's been on a hot streak so he's due for a cold streak or players on a cold streak he's due for a hot streak this sort of covers kind of the same territory.

And my position on that is always, if a player's on a cold streak, he is no more or less likely to go on a hot streak than for the cold streak to continue. I don't know if that's necessarily, like that doesn't apply in all cases. Sometimes guys are playing hurts. Sometimes guys have an adjustment to make.

But, you know, assuming talent and ability stay equal. And so, like, I don't know if players making an adjustment are more likely to start the season well than start the season poorly. Because, you know, a lot of players make adjustments. And, you know, so in 2017, it was what, 9 of 11 had either a significant pitch mix change or 8 of 11, right? Yeah, it was 9. 9 of 11. And so I guess my question would be. how many pitchers made a pitch mix change overall. Which I do not.

Yeah. No, and that's that's okay. I'm also, I just looked up, I basically just took every split month for the season, for every, for every pitcher. And I'm just kind of looking at like what the standard deviation was between their ERA for each month. And there's not really a, good answer for what kind of pitcher was more or less reliable last season.

Like the pitchers who had the smallest difference in their ERA from month to month were you say Kukuchi, Jose Orania, Dylan Bundy. So that's basically they were all three bad pitchers. All the time. And then, but also Clayton Kershaw, Shane Bieber, Garrett Cole, Zach Grinke, Blake Snell. like there were some pitchers who were just consistently good all the time and there were some pitchers who were consistently bad all the time. And I don't know if there's anything.

And then you look at the others, the least consistent pitchers last season on a month-by-month basis. Mike Fultenevich, Ryan Yarbrough, Joe Musgrove, Trevor Bauer, Stephen Matt's Masahira Tanaka, Spencer Turnbull. Like that generally does seem like a list of worse pitchers. and so maybe the cases that, you know, the good pitchers are going to be more predictable and more consistent over the course of a year, which also makes perfect sense. Yeah.

One thing I found that's not related to this exact point, but I think it's worth bringing into this discussion is I've seen a lot of fantasy analysts talk about how you need to devalue pitchers for this short in season and, you know, making that kind of one of the major talking points. But they're not, it doesn't seem like they're putting their money where their mouth is because we've had, we've been doing mock drafts basically every week since the shutdown. Maybe you missed a week here or there. But basically every week, we've done a mock draft. And the approach to starting pitching, other than what I talked about at the top, maybe moving Lazardo up, gallon up guys like Lance Lynn down, it hasn't changed.

People are going as aggressively after starting pitching as ever. And then when I looked at the way ADP has changed on NFBC, guys who, you know, they're high stakes playing, basically, guys who have a lot of money riding on it. It's the same thing. The guys who are falling in ADP since the shutdown began, they're not like pitchers as a whole. There are a few scattered ones,

but the same sort of ones I'm talking about. So it seems like for all the talk you're hearing about it, and maybe it's just because there needs to be something to talk about fantasy baseball related if your job is to talk about fantasy baseball. So this is settled in as being a talking point. For all that talk, it doesn't seem like a whole lot is changing in the way. People who know what they're talking about are actually approaching the draft. I will add that I've participated in a lot of,

a few of those mock drafts since then. And this is really something that I've just kind of come to my own over the past week or so. So I think, you know, if a season gets announced and we start drafting again and, you know, as we get closer to the start of the season, I actually will, you know, do what you said, Scott, and put my money where my mouth is. And I don't think that I'm going to be as aggressive on starting pitching in the first two rounds as I was before. We did a mock draft earlier, fourth overall pick where I took Jacob de Grom. And you guys kind of found it.

surprising, but originally I was all in on, on, you know, those high-end starting pitchers. But I think based on this, I'm more likely to wait maybe until the third or fourth round for a starting pitcher and pull more of those who I consider breakout starting pitchers up the board. And I feel more comfortable with those as like my SP3, SP4, the Matthew Boyd's, the Hazus Lozardo's, the Zach Gallons of the world. Yeah, and I think that's fine. It's just when you get below the range that I really start to worry. I actually haven't, For as much as I've talked about investing heavily in pitching this year, I rarely spend my first two picks on them.

I might spend my second pick on it depending on who's there. But usually I go hitter-hitter to start out because I think that's the class of hitters that really distinguishes itself from the rest of the hitting crop. And then I go very heavy on pitcher in rounds three through seven. You know, so I'm not, you know, that's why instead of general terms, I was trying to get more specifically what range you're talking about it,

because I'm not sure I disagree with you passing up a Cole or a Verlander or a Scherzer necessarily. I've kind of been doing that all along, though I made this, you know, the reasoning behind it may be different. We mentioned this when we talked about the winners and losers when, you know, the proposals were thrown out there with, in terms of scheduling, you know, the AL Central will face the NL. Central, and I just wanted to reiterate, you know, in a shortened season, I do want to target some of those AL Central starting pitchers, just because, you know, the ones that are going to face the

Tigers consistently, the Royals consistently, they'll also face the pirates in the opposite division. So, you know, the twins stand out, the Indians, Lucas G. Alito with the White Sox, and even some of those, you know, White Sox prospects, like the Kopex that we, you know, expect to be part of the team at some point. I'm just, I'm pushing those guys slightly up as well. in the AL Central. Yeah, so Kopeck and who else did you mention? Just the Indians guys, but I mean, Bieber, you're still going to have to use a second round pick.

Cleve, you might get in the third. Savali was... The twins especially, Maeda and Odarezi. Yeah. Yeah, Maeda. That's like the one good lineup in the AAL Central. Yeah, Maeda, especially, I don't think he's been properly readjusted after leaving the Dodgers either.

He's really good. I agree with that 100%. And even Jose Berrios, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, he was really good for, you know, a large portion of last season, too. And then I know he had like his final two months. He kind of like burned out a little bit. But, I mean, he's another one. His first 20 starts last year.

He had a 2.80 ERA. And great in a points league. He was 10th among starting pitchers with 21 quality starts. So maybe even Berrios is someone we could see finally put it together in this shortened season. We'll save the prospect evaluation on Daniel Lynch. We'll do that tomorrow. Wanted to get to some questions here.

Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Is there anything else you guys wanted to add just on the shortened season before we move on? I would just say don't overreact. Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's how I would sum it up. Like, I just given, I don't know, there, you asked me to, if there was anything quick I wanted to say. So I'm trying to keep it quick. But I think you can look at it two ways.

On the one hand, first of all, the thing we know is that we do not know anything, really, about what the impact of the shortened season is going to be. We can make conjectures and we can do research and look at historical trends, but this is so different than anything we've ever seen that you can't really just say, well, these are the guys who've been good in August or April consistently. These are the guys who've been slow starters and fast starters, because we just don't know what the impact of starting the season. and then stopping it and then trying to start it again is going to beat.

I think we can assume there will be more injuries is one thing that I will say I'm fairly confident in. So you can gain an edge by reacting and trying to find a different strategy. I think you can also really steer yourself wrong. So ultimately we don't know is my answer. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Continue to send in your questions. This one actually came from, oddly enough, not a fantasy baseball today, Apple Podcast Review,

a fantasy football today, Apple Podcast Review, from Jay Bow 3. Buddy, you left your review in the wrong spot. Put it on Fantasy Football today, so make sure you continue to send in your five-star Apple Podcasts, ratings and reviews for Fantasy Baseball today. Drop in a prospect you want us to evaluate or send us a question there.

and we'll be sure to get to it. Hey guys, love the podcast. Could we cover some of the strategies and what makes a good lineup in a head-to-head categories league? I know you typically talk about roto and points, but of course our commission league is not. We use Yahoo and our setup is one catcher, one of each infield position,

three outfielders, two utility spots, two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, four, just pitchers in general. And then there are two, four, six, eight, bench spots. So that's more than usual. Scott. Standard, standard Yahoo lineup except for all those bench spots. Yeah, Scott, I mean, you've talked about how you kind of struggle to, I guess, figure out your strategy in terms of this format. And I've told you that I typically like to

punt steals. What do you think, though? Typically, when it comes to just your strategy for a head-to-head categories lineup construction. I don't play as much in this format as the other two we talk about, which I think is part of it. I just don't have a large sample to work with because the first few times I played, I treated it like a Roto League and it went fine. Still, Heath set up that silly for the People League,

which is like 16 teams deep and uses a head-to-head style lineup. And I don't know. It's possible I'm just overthinking it. And that's why I keep having trouble. But I think what you said, punting on steals makes a lot of sense for this format, especially this year, because you just have to pay such a premium for them.

And it may not be worth it if you can really make sure you're dominant with your pitching staff and with the other hidden categories. I look for impact with every lineup spot. So kind of Jack of all, trade types like Ozzy Albis I'm not as interested in when there's fewer lineup spots to balance the categories like there is in a roto league I want guys who are going to make a bigger

impact so that you know in the week by week I can trust that there's going to be enough to move me ahead of my opponent in a certain category if that makes sense Chris you are you are you are mr head to head categories what do you think about my favorite format well what's what do you typically do you do anything differently in terms of lineup construction? You need to have an answer to one question before you can make a call on this. And that is, do you get one win every week or do you have 10 potential wins? If you have one win every week, I think punting is a totally viable strategy. I think you can punt saves.

I think you could punt steals. I think you could punt batting average. I think you could punt starting pitcher. and just go after, you know, try to win ERA whip and saves every week. I think, you know, because all you need to do is get over the finish line. If you win 5.5 to 4.5 and you have a tie somewhere, you won the week. It doesn't matter. But that strategy does not work nearly as well if you're talking about 10 wins in a given week.

because, you know, winning five or six categories the whole season, you're probably going to miss the playoffs. And so in that, I think you should approach it more like a traditional roto, but maybe keep, you know, some specialists on your bench. If you know you're going up against a team that did punt stolen bases, sit your stolen base guides if they're a drain everywhere else. and that is, I think, the difference. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense in terms of the one win versus the 10 category wins. I've only played in the 10 category wins, and I still punt steals in that format and have had some success with it. You'll hear some people talk about the Mar-Mole strategy as well. That comes down to whether or not you have an ennings limit on a given week.

So if you don't, then just, Sure, you can just load up on as many relief pitchers as you want, and you won't really compete in wins, but you'll have really good ratios. And assuming some of those relievers are closers, then you'll compete in saves as well. But I usually run like a pseudo-type of Marmow strategy where I have maybe two starting pitchers.

I just kind of leave in there all the time. I'll have a few others on the bench where maybe if they have the right matchup, and then I'll have like four or five relievers in my lineup, just constantly helping with strikeouts and ratios. And I would say three out of five of those will be closers. So it's kind of like a more moral strategy,

but not entirely. And another thing... I do still want to be somewhat competitive in wins. So that's why I do usually carry like four or five starting pitchers. Another thing to keep in mind is, and this goes for every format, but I think especially in this one,

is it a daily lineups or a weekly lineups? If it's daily lineups, you can even try to punt the rate stats. You can try to punt average ERA and whip and just rack up counting stats if it's a daily lineups league. And that's another viable strategy. He also said Frank should go with the nickname Francis.

That's a Deadpool reference. Where's Adam, man? Did Adam watch Deadpool? That was like one of the first episodes we did. I never even followed up to find out if he watched Deadpool or not. Which, come on. Top three superhero movie, hands down. no way of fans or butts about it. This next one's from Owen in Virginia. Dear Kurt, Steve, Pete, and unfortunately, Glenn. So I did look this one up.

I did figure out that it was Kurt Schilling. It's a Kurt Schilling trade, right? It's a Kurt Schilling trade. I had no idea who was an Oriole to start his career. Him and Steve Finley and Pete something, Pete Varnish. Pete Harnish. Harnish. Harnish.

We're traded for a guy named Glenn Davis, not the former Boston Celtic. I've never heard of this trade. I imagine it was not good for the Baltimore Orioles. Well, the thing is, of those three, who was the best for the Astros? Like, Harnish, maybe? The Kurt Schelling and Steve Finlay

weren't that great for the Astros. They went on to greatness later for other teams. Yeah, but Glenn Davis hit 24 home runs in three seasons for the Orioles. Yeah, I get it. It was 30. You could maybe blame the Orioles for this trade, but it's hard to credit the Astros if they didn't. Well, you know, Finley was such a good defender.

His war actually was pretty good. It was kind of, I guess, Ender Enciarte like for the Astros. Yeah, the Jeff Bagwell trade helped the Astros make up for the... I don't know, the Astros... The Astros trade out. They traded Schilling the next year to the Phillies for Jason Grimsley in 1992. Not what you want.

No, don't think so. If you're an Astros fan, you do hate to see that. Owen says that he loved the batting stance conversation that we had on the pod last week, really brought back some good memories of playing backyard ball as a kid. I was surprised that Julio Franco, with a bat looped over his head, was not mentioned. That was one that was tweeted at me a few times.

That was Owen's personal favorite. Do you guys think Anthony Santander or Austin Hayes would be worth a late round flyer. Bolt showed some promise last year and should get plenty of playing time. Austin Hayes, for me specifically, he helped me win a league last year and he had a really monster spring.

Scott, I remember, it must have been three years ago now. I think it was entering the 2017 season. Maybe it was entering 2018. I think it was entering 2018 because it was his 2017 that were Austin Hayes had a monster season. You were talking them up,

and I remember that like it was yesterday. Wow. you were listening um yeah no that didn't turn out so well he he did he had a monster year in the miners it was his first year as a professional he hit over 300 with over 30 homers between like three levels and actually made it to the majors as a 21 year old uh but then he had something going on that spring like a shoulder he's basically been banged up ever since and played through a lot of those injuries and the minor league production has just dropped off tremendously, including last year. He was not very good in the minors, and yet it was sandwiched between an awesome spring against

many major leaguers and an awesome September against entirely major leagers. So he's really difficult to figure out. I'm not super excited for him because I think you have to start with the numbers and how they haven't been very good in the minors the last two years. but I understand there may be a valid excuse for him and he has shown potential in the past. Those big numbers came with a low strikeout rate too in 2017. I'm not sure I mentioned that.

So I'm keeping an open mind with Hayes. I think there's upside there. I'm not like he goes so late that I think it's low risk. There just tends to be players I'm more excited about in the same range like another Austin, Austin Riley. Chris, any love, Austin Hayes or Anthony Santay? Sandhair? Is it pronounced like the bank?

I've listened to Orioles broadcasts, and I've wondered this before too, and they say Santander. Okay, okay. So it is pronounced like the bank. No, I don't have a bank. I've only heard of it since I moved to New York. I don't know if I like either of these guys.

I think they're, like I think both could be like useful, fifth outfielders, but I think that's kind of somewhat close to the ceiling for both. And that's okay if they get off to a hot start and you add them and use them, but they're not guys I'm targeting. And also I just want to say, I remember Julio Franco. I only really watched him with the Braves, and I imagined he was gigantic because he was super cut and used like a 37-ounce bat.

He was only six foot. That surprised me. In my head, he's like Andres Gala Raga size. He actually played, I think he was like a shortstop and a second basement. Second baseman, yeah. Yeah, he played a lot of, it wasn't just exclusively at first basement. By the way, he's like 60 now. And he's some kind of hitting instructor in Korea.

And there was a video circulating of Julio Franco on social media a couple weeks back. He's still using that stance at 60. He'll turn it around. He's going to find a way to play somewhere again. He played independent ball seven games when he was 55. And he was playing... He played until he was 48. Yeah, he was playing professional baseball until he was 49.

He played in the Mexican League in 2008. Love that guy. That's insane. Leo Franco legend. We need more Julio Franco. Get him back. Get him back in the Biggs. That'll do it here for today.

Fantasy baseball today on this Monday, June 1st. We'll be back again tomorrow for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Bye-bye.