Fantasy Baseball Today - Dynasty Mock Draft Review; Urquidy Deep Dive (04/01 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

We'll take you through our 12-team H2H Points Dynasty mock draft, but first let's discuss Jose Urquidy (5:00). Is he better than his prospect status would indicate? ... We talk Dynasty and how to balance draft picks that help your team right now and picks that help in the future (14:00). And as we look at Round 1 of our draft (22:08), what stood out? Should Nolan Arenado be taken before or after Rafael Devers? Then, Round 2 gives us our first prospect (28:50). Did Wander Franco get drafted too early? ... As we move to Round 3 (36:05) we see Vladimir Guerrero Jr. go off to the board. Plus we get into a Bryce Harper vs. Trea Turner debate (38:30). And how about those old guys (45:05)!? When did Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton get drafted? Finally, we review Scott's team and how he put together his roster ... 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 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. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Adam, Scott, Chief, and Chris. After extensive research, I've come to the conclusion that Die Hard is actually a Christmas movie. Just kidding. Happy April Fool's Day and welcome to fantasy baseball today.

I am Frank Stanful. by, you heard them already. Scott White, not Scott Towers. Happy birthday once again to Scott White, Chris Towers and Adam Azer. Guys, I think we can all agree with everything going on. April Fool's Day is canceled, right? I mean, April Fool's Day should be canceled at all times. It's the worst day to be on the internet. Nobody's funny. None of you are funny people. Wow. Wow. And April Fool's Day is terrible as a result. So just don't do it, ever. I've gotten duped a few times on April Fools.

Definitely. A couple of, one was just actually about diehard. Somebody, my friend sent me an article about how they were doing a diehard reboot, the original, and Bruce Willis was going to star in it, and he was super old. I was like, what? And then I sent it to Jamie,

and he was like, hey, what's today's date? And I was like, wow, I cannot believe I fell for that. The other one was about 10, no, more than 10 years ago, 10 to 12 years ago. My friend set up an email account from this girl that I interviewed for a segment on something. And the email account was just her like telling me how cute I was. And she wanted to beat up with me and all that. And it went on all day. And then they revealed it was an April Fool's joke.

So does not feel very good. You got catfish. I did, yeah. On April Fool. It does not feel very good to be on the receiving end of an April Fool's joke. So fine. April Fool's is dead, Frank. Agreed.

Is that Adam Azer or Manti Teo? I know this is a baseball podcast, but sorry, Adam. I was Manti Teo for one day. Yes, it's true. Chris, you could appreciate this or maybe not appreciate it. My fiance sent me a fake link earlier today that said starting Monday, New York is no longer selling alcohol. during the quarantine.

So I was ready to pack up and run to my nearest supermarket and buy as much beer as I possibly can. Yeah, I bought some beer last night. I bought like three packs just in case. You know, one way that I've been able to tell that I'm taking this whole situation more seriously as time goes on is my, uh,

my grocery store trips have gotten more expensive and less frequent. Uh, you know, at the start of this about three weeks ago, I was going like every two days, which was pretty normal for me because we just don't have a lot of space. And yesterday it was like a full like weeks worth of grocery shopping at least. My wife, I don't think is going to let me out of the apartment for a week. Now you have a whole palette of beefaroni in your living room is what you're saying.

I did have a launchable pizza for lunch today. And I got two packs of bagel bites this time rather than just one. So we're really taking this seriously. You've become so regressive with your eating habits. You're like gourmet chef on Twitter for a while there. Look at these Brussels sprouts I made so fabulously. My dinners are still very good. I made some delicious Cuban-style fried pork last night with some Tostonas and rice and beans.

It was great. But at lunch, you know, I'm trying to work, you know. Sure. But in like two weeks of two weeks more of quarantining your dinner. is going to be a Cuban-style hot pocket or something like that. Oh, man. Like a Cuban sandwich hot pocket? Yeah.

Hot pockets are great. I need it. Hey, Chris, if you want to send a 12-pack of hot pockets to my house, like, I will eat those on the air, no problem. Chris or Adam, you might want to patent that, the Cuban sandwich hot pocket. I want to remind everybody that we have a fantasy baseball podcast bracket that's taking place and starting tomorrow, Thursday, April 2nd, on the at Baseball Pods Twitter, you can vote for your very own fantasy baseball today.

We're the number one seed in the Cody Bellinger region. And look, we want to take this thing down. So support your favorite fantasy baseball podcast, the only way you know how. Get in on the voting and help us out so that we can continue to reign supreme in the fantasy baseball industry. All right. I want to move on to, I want to finally get into this. deep dive on Jose Arkiti. I've been talking about it for days. And Adam brought it up the other day

that, you know, you guys have never really kind of gotten into it on Jose or Kiti. So I want to start doing one of these deep dives per day. So what I'm going to propose is when leaving a five-star review on iTunes, drop a player that you want us to deep dive as well in there. So like we're doing today for Jose or Kiti, drop in whoever you want us to deep dive and we'll continue to do this at the top or of every show, but I think it's a good way to talk about players that maybe the guys haven't talked about as much throughout our fantasy baseball prep. So I want to start things off with Jose Orkitti in nine games last year, seven starts in the majors. Orkidi had a 395 ERA and a 1.10 whip with 40 strikeouts to just seven walks in 41 innings pitched. He added 10

in the postseason with 12 strikeouts to just two walks. In his minor league career, a 337 ERA, 115 whip, 351 strikeouts in 3203 and a third endings pitched. He has a four pitch mix. The fastball, 47% of the time has a change up that he uses. That's his bread and butter pitch. Slider 17%, curveball 10% of the time as well. 12% swinging strike rate. Very solid pitcher.

And I think that there's a lot to like here. Scott, I think you can get us started here. What's your breakdown of Jose Riccii looking like in 2020? What can we expect this season? Well, part of the reason I don't think we've gone too in depth on him is because I find him difficult to talk about. He is not like this well-regarded pitching prospect. And yet, he had some pretty impressive numbers in the minor, specifically the strikeout to walk ratio last year. And the walk rate has been very consistent throughout his minor league career below two per nine.

That seems to be the thing he does best of all. he seems to have a really good change-up and where that manifested most last year is, even though he's a right-handed pitcher, he just killed lefties last year, 184 with a 544 OPS is what they had against Tricidi in the majors last year. So that change-up definitely seems to be a thing

that's working for him. And the breaking ball doesn't look bad. The scouting reports don't make the slider out to be a good pitch, but it seems like he's getting enough swings and misses with it that I think maybe I think maybe

I'm with more of the fantasy analysis community on this than the actual scouting reports on Jose Orchiti. He's a pretty trendy sleeper and obviously being with the Astros and all the advantages they present him with and I don't mean cheating wise but I just

mean the great supporting cast. That obviously helps his case too. So he already has a rotation spot secured and there's enough interesting going on here that I can back him I can back him as being a pretty good sleeper. The Astros have been known to dabble in the cheating scandals there, Scott. Chris, I want to ask you to rank Jose Orkidi, Dallas Keikl, and Andrew Heaney, who are all going relatively close to each other according to Fantasy Pro's ADP right now. For me, it would be Heaney, Erkini, Keikle. Yeah, I would go the same way, except in points leagues, I'd go,

Keiko won, then Heaney, then Erkiti. Keiko will be last in Roto. Is that the biggest takeaway here that Erkiti is maybe someone you target more in a Roto league? He strikes me as someone who can help your whip more than anything. He's consistently shown good command, as Scott mentioned, throughout the minor leagues. And I think that's something that can help him in the whip category specifically. So, you know, you're not going to find a lot of late round, whip contributors in roto leagues, but does that make sense to target Jose

or Qidi more in a roto league more than a head-to-head points league? I feel like any pitcher you're targeting late, you're not, any pitcher you're targeting late, you're doing it with the hope they're improving, right? Because any of the late round pitchers, their numbers are just going to be bad. They're just going to pull down your ratios if you're just looking at them to repeat what they did last season. Right? Am I wrong about that. So, like, you're mostly targeting upside in the late rounds at starting pitcher. And I mean, there's truth to that at every position, of course, but I think especially starting

pitcher because of the way the way the game is trended recently where, like, there isn't much mediocrity at starting pitcher. It's either really good or really bad. Again, yeah, Jose or Kiti, one of those popular, you know, upside picks later on in draft. So I think that makes a lot of sense. That's a little bit of a deep diver on our Kiti. I know we haven't spoke about him much to this point. So again, if you want us to deep dive a player, when you leave a five-star rating and review on iTunes, drop in a player that you want us to deep dive. And we will do that for said player. Coming up on today's show, probably should have mentioned this at the top, but we're going to be reviewing the Dynasty startup head-to-head points mock draft that we did

over at CBS Sports that Scott White so graciously set up. And we're going to break down that entire draft, or as much of it as we possibly can get into here. And we'll kind of, you know, I think it's interesting, you know, talking about more of philosophy from a dynasty perspective as well. And that's why I wanted to start off today with an email. Normally we save the emails for the end, but I think it's a good way to kind of transition into this draft.

And you can send us your emails, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. You can always tweet at us as well. This one comes from Andrew Hudson, Dear Thomas, Robinson, and Viola. Those are instruments. Those are all Franks. You get a lot of love, Frank. Oh, my gosh. I appreciate it.

Yeah. First of all, Frank. Whoa. Welcome to the show. I'm a loyal listener. I just said, Chris, are you? Look at this breaking. Are you kidding me?

I just sent Chris the tweet. Would you like to read it, Chris? I'm going to Twitter to make sure it's real because you just admitted that you fall for April Fool's jokes Damn it! Damn it! You know, every single year, every year I fool the listeners

with an April Fool's joke. And it's always somebody tore his ACL and is out for the season or something like that and I always start the show. And Frank comes on and he craps all over that right at the top. So I just sent Chris a fake tweet from Joel Sherman that Aaron Judge is going to have surgery

and he's going to be out three to four months. And I did this really professionally. And Chris snuffed it out. So here's the thing, Adam. I'm not an amateur like you. You know, I have notifications set up on my phone for the big baseball reporters. Ken Rosenthal probably would have retweeted Joel Sherman reporting that. He tried to see that.

It was one minute ago. It was one minute ago, Adam. Yeah, I know, right. There wasn't time to retweet. All right. Congratulations, Adam. All right, back to your email. Back to email. In the Keeper League, and I'm trying to figure out how to use Scott's dynasty rankings to help me decide who to keep. In a TED team head-to-head categories,

six by six with average and OPS, I can keep three players for as long as I want, and they count for my first three-round picks. Alex Bregman is a no-brainer, but I also have Jose Ramirez, Fernando Tatez Jr., Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Shane Bieber. After Bregman, Scott has Tatis clearly ahead of the rest, with Ramirez and Bieber back-to-back and Vlad a few spots behind. So I'll throw that one your way first here. Scott is who would you take to pair with Alex Bregman, assuming he's one of the no-brainers for you as well? Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. And I would go out the way I rank them

in that column. Obviously, those dynasty rankings, it's a top 150, and it's not one size fits all because no dynasty ranking especially can be. But I think in this situation, it's appropriate. The fact it's a categories league and the stolen bases have increased value six by six, so not as much as a traditional five by five. But still, you want the steals there and Tatis Ramirez. They're both young. They both give you the steals. Those would be my picks. I agree. All right. And so I want, the reason why I really want to to kind of introduce this question to start is because the next question is how do I balance being the most competitive I can now with investing in the future. Is Vlad still can't miss?

Can I afford to let a potential generational talent like him go? Ramirez scares me with his volatility lately and I hadn't considered keeping a pitcher until I saw how high Scott had Bieber. But to me the main question there, the first question, how do I balance being the most competitive I can now with investing in the future, I think it's just a great way to kind of lead into recapping this dynasty startup head-to-head points mock draft, because I think that that's what people struggle with most when drafting in a dynasty league is how do you kind of balance being the most competitive you can be now with investing for the future? I think there's a tendency to overrate prospects in dynasty leagues because I don't think

many dynasty leagues are set up in a way that gives prospects value that's that that that that's close to like the value a real life prospect would have so we see we see the way actual major league teams value prospects and we want to value them the same way and a dynasty league but what gets lost in that a lot of times is that the reason prospects are so valuable in three life in real life is because they are going to be so cheap to roster for so many years and most dynasty leagues don't have a value element attached to players, at least not one that separates prospects from the actual major leaguers in such a clear way like that.

So if you're just talking about youth, I mean, you definitely prioritize the already proven player over the prospective one who just, you know, if you're picking a prospect who's three years younger than an already established studly major leaguer, You're just taking on risk unnecessarily. I mean, the timeline difference isn't great enough there for me to side with the younger player, the prospect when I could already have somebody who's going to help me win now and for years to come.

And to add on to that, I don't really think much further than about three years. And it's not just because, you know, you don't know if your league will be around in three years, even if it will be. there's just so much that can go wrong. You know, go look at a top prospect list from three years ago. You're going to have a lot of hits, but you're going to have a lot of guys who just turned into average major leagues. And you're going to have a lot of guys who never turn into much of anything.

And so I just, three years is a really, really long time in baseball. And you don't know what things are going to look like beyond that. I mean, you don't know what things are going to look like. year. But, you know, when I'm looking at, like, in this case, Jose Ramirez versus Vladimir Guerrero, I really like Vladimir Guerrero long term. I don't think his long-term value has taken much of a hit with his disappointing rookie season, although it does, you know, it does prove that, you know, they're not always going to hit right away. But I would bet on Jose Ramirez being more valuable for the next three years. And so that's what I would go with because what happens in 2025 is a lot

less important than what happens in 2020. I think considering that you are our resident dynasty perspective, dynasty, you know, analyst here. Yeah, right. What is what is your approach to, if you were just drafting in a startup league, would you, because I feel like there's three different types of approaches where you can be the draft all youth and prospects owner or you're the I'm going to draft old players and try and win now, or would you try and be like a mix of both, ideally? A mix of both. And yeah, I'm not a, not really a prospect guy.

Definitely going to have to start becoming more of that. And I'm not a dynasty guy per se. But I'm just looking at a draft we did earlier this year, a mock draft, a startup dynasty mock draft. I had the third pick, Trout and Acunae were the first two picks. And then this is the points league. And then I took Cody Bellinger. Second round, I took Jack Flaherty.

Third round, I took Glaver Torres. I took Torres over, like, Anthony Rendon and a lot of other players that I would have taken over Glaver Torres in a seasonal league. Fourth round, I took Tyler Glass now. Fifth round, Jesus Lazzardo. And I think we were required to pick – I don't know if Lazzardo counted. I don't remember. We were required to pick five prospects in Lazzardo counted. and he's also RP eligible in this league.

Then I took Charlie Blackman in the sixth round. Okay, so I took Charlie Blackman. The next pick was Shohei Otani, then Matt Olson. Eloy Jimenez, right? So taking Blackman over Eloy Jimenez, I think, is a perfect example. I felt I already had some youth. I had Cody Bellinger, Glaver Torres, Jack Flaherty, Tyler Glassnow.

Those guys are young. They're in their prime or they're approaching their prime. So I'm going to take Charlie Blackman, because there's no reason why Charlie Blackman should last that long in drafts almost the end of round six. So that's like, what is that, 70th overall almost. And a lot of those kind of picks happened in this mock draft, which was the same format.

You just didn't take part in this one, a head-to-head points dynasty startup. And since I set up the league, I obviously know the way the rules are. And the way they are in this league is you have to roster five players with rookie eligibility still. so minor leaguers basically, but you're keeping them on equal terms

with everybody else. So I think the way you played it there was perfect at him and that apart from Charlie Blackman, your first picks there were all guys under 25, right around 25, so still very young with the bright future and yet already proven to be

impact players in fantasy. So I think for that setup, those are definitely the highest priority players. It's another situation. where you really have to know and understand the rules of your league. And sometimes that means playing in it for a couple years before you really grasp it completely. But there are certainly ways where you can set up a Dynasty League so that prospects have value more proportionate with how they're valued in real life and that you may want to value them over a more proven player. The 2014 Dynasty League, we talk about a lot on the podcast that I run.

it's kind of set up that way where prospects start have such a low keeper cost in the beginning and for the first several years after you activate them that it would make sense to value them over a more proven player just depending on what that player's cost is and there's actually a piece on that about cbsports.com it's called setting up the perfect dynasty league but it's kind of the backstory of the scott white dynasty league and it has the full constitution in there So if you're wondering what to do with your time right now, you might look into starting a league like that. In football, if you do a startup dynasty draft in football,

there's a decent chance one of the managers is going to tank and take just nothing but young players and then get the first pick and theory. Who knows how it's going to turn out? But have a really early draft, a really early pick in the rookie draft. This is obviously a completely different ballgame. I mean, having an early pick in the rookie

that's just a different concept and plus you know it's so easy to be like yeah i'm going to take this young quarterback this young running back whatever but it's just different with baseball prospects the timelines are completely different so i would never approach a dynasty draft like that but a young core mostly hitting early i'd say and don't be afraid to augment with the charlie blackbins of the world when you just can't believe how late they're going and scott mentioned the article he has on cbs sports about his home dynasty league that he has and there he's he's has a ton of dynasty content on CBS Sports. He has a top 150. We have this mock draft up there as well. So if you want to kind of dive into some of the dynasty fantasy baseball analysis that we have,

that's all over at CBS Sports.com, I wanted to take a look at the first round specifically in this draft. And reminder that it is the head-to-head points scoring roster construction that we use over at CBS Sports. One catcher, first baseman, second base, third base, shortstop, three. outfielders, one utility bat, five starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, 10 bench spots. Again, five of those spots have to be used on a rookie eligible player. I mean, that player can be in your lineup as well, but you have to have at least five rookie eligible players. The first round looked like this.

Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Ronald Acuna, Juan Soto, Cody Bellinger, Walker, Buehler, Mookie Betts, Alex Bregman to Scott, Francisco Lindor to Chris, Raphael Devers, to me at 10. Garrett Cole at 11 and Nolan Aronado at 12. So Scott, you went with Alex Bregman. Chris, you went with Francisco Lindor. Are you guys pleased with those picks in this draft? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, looking back, I might have preferred Devers,

but I think that's six and one half dozen the other. Breggman would probably be my fifth pick in this format. If, I mean, he's so young still. Yeah, he's awesome. Look how young he is. And with more walks than strikeouts each of the past two years, I mean, this is a guy who's, I'm happy to build a dynasty team around, especially in the points format. Yeah, so Breggman is just 26 years old.

And he was the top scoring hitter in fantasy baseball. points leagues last year. So 657 and a half fantasy points. He was the number one hitter. So I was actually hoping he would make it to 10. I didn't think it was realistic. But yeah, Scott scooped him up at number eight. And Chris, you mentioned that you debated taking Raphael Devers in hindsight. I felt like I might have taken Raphael Devers a little bit too early there. But he is 23 years old. He was third in fantasy points last year at the position. He was third in fantasy points per game, both of those ahead of noan aronado and again he's he's five years younger than noan aranado so in hindsight i kind of thought well should i have taken raffaille devers over aranado but you know when i kind of looked into the

stats i you know i didn't mind it in in hindsight so i was it's one thing about dynasty leagues too is it's harder to have a definitive answer i feel like personal taste comes into it a lot more and i i don't have a problem with you taking devours there as young as he is and he was just I was he the number one third baseman in this format last year? No he wasn't he was not number one but he was pregnant he fragment was but yeah yeah um Walker Bueller was six overall that was probably the reachiest of any picks in this draft but clearly a guy was valuing pitching in the head-to-head points format and uh if you if you want to if you want a dynasty focus starting pitcher I don't know that there's I don't know that there's a clearer one than Walker Bueller I mean

Obviously, the guys we think of at the top of the pitcher rankings are all pretty old. Even Garrett Cole, he's 29, right? Yeah. So he's not going to have a long-term future for you. Hopefully three or four good years left. I did not particularly like the Aeronado pick because of you, Joel Sherman wrote, and this is not an April Fool's joke, that he's going to get traded.

It might not be this year, but if not it's going to be next year. So I don't know how much longer he's got in a Rocky's uniform. He's also going to be 29, I believe. in like 15 days. Yeah, I think the age is more of a concern for me. I actually think the moment Nolan Aronado gets traded is probably the best time to buy him in a Dynasty League. But not as a first round pick.

No, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's still a first round caliber hitter. You know, one of the things that we talked about when those rumors were going on was that, you know, Matt Holliday was probably the last prime, really, really great hitter that the Rockies traded. Carlos Gonzalez was past his prime when he left the team. And Matt Holliday was pretty much as good after leaving the Rockies as he was before. There was a little bit of a decline, but one thing you have to consider with the Rockies is, yeah,

Coorsfield makes you hit really well. It's a great place to hit. But there is really compelling evidence to suggest that players hit worse in the first series after playing coursefield. Both hitters who call coursefield home and visiting hitters. And so, as you might imagine, Nolan Irrado plays a lot of games outside of coursefield, about half of them, usually. and so that's going to impact him pretty significantly. I guess, but his OPS away from Coors Field is really good, but it's not amazing. 867. Last year, 2018, it was 772, which was low for him, 886 in 2017.

But yeah, but it's also the age, as you mentioned. And Corey Dickerson, court wasn't a great hitter, but we were pretty optimistic about him thought he was pretty legit going to Tampa Bay and he hasn't been fantasy relevant since he left the Rockies. Aronado, a career 324 hitter at home with 995 OPS at home on the road, 265 hitter with a 799 OPS. I think, you know, if he were to move over to another team, he would, I think it would be better than a 799 OPS hitter, but I worry a little bit more about him than it sounds like Chris does.

And Chris, I do appreciate David Bowie, your cat. kind of wrapping up your Nolan Aronado analysis for you there in the background. Oh, that's what that was. Yeah, she mostly sleeps all day, but as soon as I start talking on a call or a podcast, she really wants my attention. Why did you name her?

David Bowie is a sheet. Yeah, why did you name any female David Bowie? I mean, David Bowie was famously pretty androgynous, so I don't think there's any reason it has to be a boy. And she's skinny and, you know, all white, so the thin white duke. I'm actually, I'm right with that, you know, reasoning for the David Bowie name there.

I think when people hear Dynasty, they, most people associate with prospects. And Wander Franco was the first prospect taken in this draft, and he went in round two. So round two looked like this. It started off with Jacob de Grom, Freddie Freeman. I took Yurdon Alvarez, Jose Ramirez to Chris, Fernando Tatees to Scott, Anthony Rendon, Wander Franco, Glaber Torres, Jack Flaherty, Starling Marte, Shane Bieber, Xander Bogarts. So Wander Franco goes to the same owner who drafted Walker Bueller in the first round. So it's clear, again, a reminder that, look, there are going to be different takes in ways that you attack Dynasty Leagues,

but it was very clear that this owner wanted younger players and was kind of building their team around that. And I think it was a consistent theme throughout the course of the draft that this owner actually continued to take prospects. So he starts with Walker Bueller and then goes with Wander Franco in the second round. I believe that was B. Don, right, Scott? Yes, B. Don of Rasball, who we've had on the podcast before. He was the most aggressive about building for the long haul. And maybe it'll work out for him. He's making lower percentage picks here.

And you're not sure what percentage of them are actually going to turn into high-end players. So it's not the approach I would have taken. but certainly if enough of them do, he has a very strong core for years to come. And obviously, Wander Franco is the top prospect that should go in this format. I wouldn't target him as early in round two. But should he go ahead of Luis Robert? I think so.

Yeah. I mean, that's how I rank them in my prospect rankings. I have Franco one and Robert two. So I would say Franco ahead. but there's obviously room to disagree there I took Fernando Tatis here early in round two you know I don't like taking Fernando Tatis you know I don't like taking him early in round two especially in a head-to-head points league that that shows you that even

the degree to which my own thinking was being adjusted for the dynasty formats and being 21 year old who's already shown super high potentials, guy high upside I want to say something about Tatis, actually, if you don't mind. So this is a points league, and he's probably in a Roto league, a first round pick in a dynasty league. And, I mean, I thought he should have been anyway. But plate discipline does hurt, right, in a points league. But he's so young.

And plate discipline is something that players sort of acquire. Mookie Betts. Cody Bellinger is a great example, right? I mean, he wasn't a great plate discipline guy until last year when he was. But I don't really know what to make of it because Tatease, his minor league track record, he didn't have good plate discipline. And Bellinger did at times, did not at times, but I don't know that there was any time when Tatee had a good walk to strikeout ratio. So I'm not sure if that's in his future.

And that's sort of like Bregman, Betts, Bellinger, that's a step that they took to become the best hitters in baseball, among the best hitters in baseball, probably Trout too. I don't remember what his plate discipline was. I was trying not to overthink it because he's a 21-year-old who had the fourth most points per game at the position last year. So, you know, that was even with bad play discipline. And obviously we've talked before about how we wonder how sustainable what he did last year was. And that's why he's on my bust list just for 2020. But we were talking about his entire future, how high end is he going to be, and for how long?

Yeah, I just decided it was worth pursuing at that price because he could be, like him and Bregman there leading my team. That could be something that goes on for, I don't know, five plus years at least. I think you made the right call there, Scott. And I think the point that Adam made about you can improve your plate discipline, you see it in the player I took in the first round. I mean, he's the prime example. Rafael Devers at pick 10.

You know, two years ago in 2018, 24.7% strikeout rate. Next thing you know, 2019, he lowers that almost eight percentage points and he's down at a 17% strikeout rate. So look, guys can come up and struggle from the get-go with plate discipline and swing and miss, but it's something that they can improve on. So I think you actually made the right call there. And Chris, just in terms of your argument of Luis Robert versus Wander Franco, I would say to me, and I kind of blurted it out there, I think it just comes down to plate discipline. And I think that's why so many people are excited about Franco is that, you know, 11% walk rate last year. I mean, he was a 6.7% strikeout rate.

It's high A ball. I get that. In single A, he was a 7% strikeout rate. For me, I think it's probably the plate discipline that lends you to someone like Franco over Luis Robert. I think that's fair. I'll just say my philosophy for this draft and for pretty much all dynasty drafts is I'm going to value guys who are closer to the majors.

I'm going to value guys who are more finished products because the history of top prospects lists is littered with guys who crushed in high A and started to falter as they got. Now, I'm not at all expecting that for Wanderfranco, but there are more ways that this can go wrong for him. Or maybe there's more time for the things to go. Like Luis Robert is Major League Red.

and he might be major league ready to be a 30-30 guy. And by the way, Chris got Wander, Chris got Luis Robert 38 picks later. That was, I don't know what happened. I don't know if people forgot Luis Robert existed. I got him 57th overall on a Dynasty League. That was stupid.

Like that's, no offense to the other thing. It probably shows that B. Don reached for Wanderfranco, which was the point I was putting out there. But I mean, like Wander Franco, he's going to be the race starting shortstop for most of next year, right? It's not like he's far, far away.

2020 or 2020? 2021. Although they were hinting at the possibility he could be up at some point, 2020. Obviously, who knows now? So it's tough because the raise are pretty consistently one of the more patient teams with their top prospects. I feel like when we talk about Ray's top prospects, you know, Scott, you write your in-season prospects report column. and you're always doing like the top five to stash, top five to watch.

And it just feels like a lot of the times when you're talking about these raised prospect guys, there will be a guy as one of the top prospects to stash for like four months. But they've never been this close to being a real, they haven't been this close to being a true World Series contender since they went to the World Series, which is a long time ago. They also haven't had this many good players at the Major League. I'm also not sure they've ever had a prospect as good as Wander Franco. I'm trying to think of who that would be.

Longoria. Or Will Myers. I mean, they weren't quite on the same level as Wander Franco. If you were wondering where Vlad Guerrero Jr. went, the answer is round three. Steven Strasbourg, Trevor Story, George Springer, Bobichette, Louise Castillo, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bryce Harper, Mike Clevenger to Scott, Trey Turner to Chris. I mean, Trey Turner, wow. I mean, going in the middle of third round.

I don't care that it's a points league. That just, that seems insane. Ozzie Albee, to me, kettle. Catele-Marté with pick 35 and then Kestanheera at pick 36. Trey Turner, look, he's 26 years old. He's probably better in Roto than he is in a head-to-to-head points league. Well, 3.8 fantasy points per game last season. That was the same number as Fernando Tatis.

He's 26 years old. I mean, Chris, this was a no-brainer. Yeah, my approach was not to focus too much on prospects, but to focus on legitimate right now contributors who are, you know, 27 or under. And that's pretty much my entire core, at least my entire first, I don't know, 15 picks, 12 picks. I got Carlos Carrasco in the 13th round. I just, I don't know, Trey Turner's underrated in points leagues. I think there's number two in points per game in this point.

at last year. Number two. I tweeted earlier today that, you know, people forget that Mike Trout, he's so good at everything that people kind of forget that he's also the best hitter in baseball. Like he just kind of doesn't get as much credit as he deserves for that specifically. I think something similar happens with a guy like Trey Turner where he's so good in Roto and his skill set especially seems so well suited to Roto that people kind of discount the fact that he's also just an awesome baseball player who is an elite option in a points league as well. Yeah. I hated passing.

I had the pick right before you and took Clevenger. I didn't have a pitcher yet in round three of the head-to-head league. So I was getting antsy about that. But like I let the time tick down almost all the way to zero because I wanted to convince myself I could take Turner there. But having already taken Bregman and Patis two short stops. Yeah, he was my utility. That's also.

Yeah. Yeah. But you know what? It's awesome. Bryce Harper, would you have taken Bryce Harper? He went two picks ahead. He went right before Scott and who picked right ahead of Chris. So I think that Turner was a good pick,

but I think he's definitively a third round pick in a points league. But he's also very good and he's in his prime. And I think Harper is a much better pick. You didn't have the choice because he went too ahead. You don't agree? No. I don't. No.

I mean, just look at what they did last year. Yeah. Bryce Harper was the number eight. outfielder last year in points Leeds. Tray Turner was the number two on a per game basis. So is that all we should use is just last year? I mean, Bryce Harper was the number five outfielder in 2018.

No, but Trey Turner has always been Bryce Harper walks so much. He walks, he drives and runs, he scores, Bryce Harper's very good in points leagues. Yeah. It was almost half, it was 0.4 points per game difference between the two, which is

significant. That's just one year. I mean, I think Harper has a better profile in points leagues than Turner does. There's just a lot of volatility with Bryce Harper. So, I mean, as much as I would have liked him to fall to me and I would have taken him over Ozzy Albies here, but I think making, I wouldn't make the argument against Bryce Harper over, over Trey Turner, because, I mean, there's just a lot of volatility. I mean, the strikeouts have consistently gone up for Bryce Harper. While he walks a lot, which helps in points leagues, the strikeouts are also, going to hurt him a decent amount. But, but like, Trey Turner, his OPS in four seasons has been

937, 789, 760, and 850. If Bryce Harper had an OPS under 800, he would be like a massive bust. Trey Turner's done that in two of his last, two of his last three seasons, Trey Ternor's been an OPS under 800. But Trey Turner steals a ton of base, and those are worth a lot of points on their own. But what's going to, but what's going to happen when he ages? We're talking about a diamond. Dynasty League here. Bryce Harper's not dependent on steals, and he's going to hit probably 20 more home runs than Trey Turner. Like, how many home runs did Turner hit last year?

Maybe 20's too much. Harper's a 35 homer guy each of the last two years. So, I don't know. I think Harper's a much better. He's got an OPS over 880, three straight seasons. He's a much better hitter than Trey Turner. Yeah, I don't know. 19 home runs in just 122 games last year.

I mean, he can easily be a 20, 25 home run guy with 40 stolen bases. Yeah, I think Harper could hit 40 home runs. He's done it before. But let's say he's a 35 homer guy. He stole 15 bases last year. He stole 13 bases the year before. He, like, there is no, this argument, I mean, I don't think anybody's going to question that Harper's a better hitter than Trey Turner.

He's a significantly better hitter than Trey Turner, in my opinion. He's less valuable in head-to-head points leagues. Maybe he was last year. I'm going back and looking year by year for Trey Turner. other than 2018 Tray Turner has been significantly better

than Harper last year's Harper on a per game base Turner's 2017 was absurdly good he was almost at four fantasy points per game he was better

2016 he was 4.3 fantasy points per game he's been better than Bryce Harper two of the last three years in fantasy points per game one of those seasons actually both of those scenes he missed a significant amount of time

that's a concern and he was only 13 fantasy points worse than Bryce Harper in 2018. Adam, I think you're just underrating Trey Turner in this format. No, I think you're talking about a Dynasty League, and Trey Turner's top skill is one that fades over time. That's a reasonable argument. I just don't expect it to fade that soon for him specifically. Good, because I really wasn't thinking about that when I first started this argument,

and I'm glad that came to me at some point during the argument, because it does make my case stronger. He's 26 years old. So I think, you know, even for the next three or four years, he can be a 30-plus stolen base threat. And maybe even more than that. I mean, the upside could be 40, 45, maybe even 50 for Trey Turner. So a reminder, he's still just 26 years old.

I did want to move on to where some of the other prospects went in this draft. Wander Franco, the only prospect to go in the first three rounds. and here are some where some of the others went in this draft. Jared Kalenik of the Seattle Mariners went, pick 42 in round four. He was the second prospect off the board. Luis Robert, we mentioned earlier, pick 57 in round five to Scott. He was the third prospect off the board. You know, we've kind of touched on it.

I mean, that's just a tremendous value. I took Joe Adele with the very next pick, pick 58 in round five. He was the fourth prospect. And some of the other names, McKenzie Gore, pick 60, Gavin Lucks, pick 71, Forrest Whitley, 78, Kyle Tucker at 81, also went to Chris. So, I mean, out of all those, Kalenik, Robert, Joe Adele, McKenzie Gore, Gavin Lux, I mean, is there any value that stands out that this guy lasted too long, this player went too early? Is there anything that stands out there?

Forrest Wintley went too early, I think. I would imagine Scott agrees. Yeah, I do. Kalenik went too early as the second prospect off the board. I mean, he's a top 10 virtually everywhere, but I don't know why you'd take him over Robert. I don't know why in this format you'd take him over Jesus Luzardo. He didn't mention Luzardo was actually third.

He went ahead of Luis Robert and Joe Adele and McKinsey Gore. That was the same round, round five. Yeah, go ahead, Chris. Sorry. No, I mean, not to, not toot my own horn. But I think Kyle Tucker at 81 is really good value. I think there's some prospect fatigue with him. And I think that's true in real fantasy. I think that's true in dynasty. He's 22 years old. Agree with the overall point, though. He's technically not a prospect. Yes. Yes. He, I think, has four more plate appearances or at-bats than he needs for prospect. eligibility. So technically he is not a prospect, but he's 22. He has 30, 30 potential. He has a good eye at the plate. He's incredibly athletic. There's no reason he couldn't be a first round pick in fantasy in a year, two years. On the flip side of prospects, we have veterans, and that's where

Adam Azer comes in, the veteran of fantasy baseball today. He mentioned he drafted Charlie Blackman in an earlier dynasty mock draft that they did. And who were some of the veteran values and how long did they last? Max Scherzer went to the same owner that took Justin Verlander, back-to-back picks, pick 48 and 49 in a head-to-head points leagues.

Look, I mean, at least for this year, the next two years, you're going to be really competitive with Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. J.D. Martinez at pick 66, Charlie Blackman, 73, Charlie Morton, 103, Adam. I mean, is this too late for Max Scherzer and Verlander, who might just give you Verlander, I don't know,

two, maybe three years, Scher, three, maybe four? I don't quite share the optimism. And if I may just say one thing, I think that Chris was being very deceitful earlier because Price Harper's score outscored Trey Turner on a per game basis in two of the last three seasons. I don't think that's true, Adam. It is true.

2017 and 2018, Bryce Harper averaged more fantasy points per game than Trey Turner. I think what you said was that Turner in 2019 was better than Harper in two of the last three seasons or something like that. But 2017 and 18, Harper outscored Trey Turner on a per game basis. I think that look what's already happened at Justin Verlander. He had two injuries this year. He's coming off mega, mega workloads. And 48 and 49, you know, I'm sure that there are a few.

were pitchers taken to the top 50 in this format. I looked at the first three rounds, and they were like, you compare the first three rounds of this draft, I think there were nine starting pitchers that went, and then I looked at ADP for head-to-head points, and there are usually 12 pitchers that go. So it's a little bit lighter on pitchers in this form in a dynasty league. You know, both these guys scare me, so there's a lot of risk here. I mean, you might not have more than one. You might not, you might get crap this year from Verlander.

He's already had two injuries before the season was. supposed to start, including surgery on his groin, right? So I think big red flags here, Blake Snell, Jesus Lazzardo, Patrick Corbyn, I probably would have taken, if I had those two picks, I would not have taken both veteran pitchers, both Scher and Verlander. I probably would have taken Scher and then Corbyn probably would have been my pick there. Adam, I just want to say, for the record, you come out. and you call me wrong.

You were right. I'm right, I know. You were right, Adam. So take that, Chris. Yes, I wouldn't have gone back to back with those two guys. Too scary. But Charlie Morton going after Pick 100, that's crazy.

Yeah, and that's going to happen in Dynasty leagues. And you probably don't want to be the owner that takes both Scherzer and Verlander, as Adam mentioned, but maybe pair one of those guys. Like, if you would have went Scher Lazzardo. That's a good way to take, all right, you know, one veteran and maybe one younger starting

pitcher who can still help you this year and obviously help you for what we hope to be many years to come as well. Scott, I did want to just kind of like reveal your final roster and you kind of maybe just give me your final thoughts on it and, you know, maybe a pick that you really liked or something that you regret on your roster here. And so you wound up with real, real muto, Carlos Santana, DJ LaMayhew, Alex Bregman, Fernando Tatis, Nick Castellanos, Mancini, Whitmerfield, J.D. Davis in your starting lineup. You also have Jonathan VR as one of your reserves in this league. Mike Clevenger, Patrick Corbin, Lucas Gileo, Lance Lynn, Mike Soroka, Josh James is one of your relief pitchers, Carlos Martinez,

some of the prospects, Nate Pearson, Matthew Liberator. You have Nate Lowe as well. So you have your boy, Gio Orshella. So what kind of stands out to you for this team? So obviously I went pitching heavy, as I normally do, though I was able to wait until round three to take my first pitcher this time in part because of something Adam pointed out that starting pitchers as a whole were slipping a little bit. It kind of makes sense in the Dynasty League. They're riskier long-term investments because of all the usual, all the usual caveats, injury potential and whatnot. So, yeah, I still made it a pretty strong emphasis there. I probably have the strongest pitching staff for the immediate future. But other than Lance Lynn, I see all of those guys is having long-term value,

certainly Soroka, Mike Clevenger. He's in his late 20s, but he should still have a few good years left. But isn't it risky to make four of your top six picks in a dynasty league pitchers, considering how injury-prone they are? And after you answer that, I would like to say that, that getting Luis Severino in round 14, I thought 161st overall was brilliant. I mean, if you're going to take a pitching prospect like McKenzie Gore,

he went really early in this draft, not too early, but early. And you know you might not get that much from him this year. Well, 164, he went 60th overall, McKenzie Gore. 161st was it for Severino? I mean, you're missing one year, but then he should be Luis Severino. That was a great, great pick. But isn't it risky in a Dynasty League to put? so much of your eggs in the pitching basket and really not having a great core of hitters,

I guess? Sure. Yeah, they're risky or long-term investments. I mean, famously, there's... No such thing as a pitching prospect. Right. What's the acronym Tin Stap or something like that? Tin Stap.

Yeah. I think isn't that a baseball prospectus thing? Well, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Tin Stoffel, people say, tinstaff. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, anyway, obviously since that phrase began, circulating, the landscape has changed quite a bit.

And I'm sure back in those days, I was very much on board with that thinking. It was another situation, even where, from a long-term perspective, I tried to mitigate risk by just having access and, in part, you know, drafting Luis Severino after I already had Clevenger, Corbyn, Giolyto, Soroka, and Lynn. A lot of pitching prospects are there, too. Carlos Martinez, who I'm using as a relief pitcher now, but he's 20, eight, so he might be a high-end starting pitcher for several years, or he might not, but hopefully I have enough access here that I can withstand some of the, losing some of these guys.

Nate Pearson, Matt Liberatorra, Brent Honeywell, Ian Anderson, four of my five minor league picks there were pitchers, and most of them were right on the verge of breaking through to the majors. so even if somebody like Lance Lynn fades, somebody else gets hurt, I should hopefully have potential high end arms to plug in. And I was also counting on the fact that old guys were going to slip. I mean, Carlos Santana obviously a points league stud.

I got him very late. Deja LeMayhew, I think was like round nine. Whitmerfield was even later than that. I was even more confident because of the dynasty format and mixing in all those minor leaguers the way it was going to push all the standbys, the guys we normally target in redraft leagues, the way it was going to push them all down. I was even more confident that I could afford to go heavy on starting pitching early

because I knew I was going to be able to fill out my lineup with high-end bats that just fell. And obviously, I have less of the future with those guys, but I'll be on the lookout for the next J.D. Davis and the next Trey Mancini, the next. guy who's not going to get much attention in fantasy but then breaks through and hopefully be able to fill in as these older hitters begin aging out hopefully be able to fill in the gaps in that way i was basically building this team with the idea that high in starting pitchers are going to remain the most difficult asset to find and once somebody gets their hands on one

They're not going to trade them without you giving up half your team for them. So I just wanted to make sure I'd never be in a position where I had to trade for one of those. Again, Scott took Severino in the 14th round. Chris Sale went with the last pick in the 14th round, and Noah Cindergarde went in the middle of the 16th round. If you were wondering where some of the injured players wound up going, injured pitchers specifically wound up going in this draft, and you can find the rest of the results over at cbsports.com.

emails fantasy baseball at cbsi.com this one comes from darrell in calgary hey guys just curious on your thoughts on a joe vato bounce back season also one of you really liked jesse winker at the beginning of last season and would often refer to him as minivado i haven't heard any mention of him this year any thoughts of him making an impact so joey vato and jesse winker uh chris you are the resident Joey Vado savant. What says you about 2020? I would love to see a Joey Votto bounce back, but I don't see much evidence for it. So it's kind of, if you're betting on it, I mean, it's going to cost you very little to bet on a Joey Votto bounce back, but it's a leap of faith. You know, there's not, it's not something where we can point at underlying numbers and say,

well, he was better than he played. He pretty much deserved what he did last season. not as a person, obviously. He's delightful, but as a baseball player. And then Jesse Winker, you know, he's not someone that we've mentioned as a potential beneficiary of the suspended season or delayed season, I guess, but, you know, he is coming back from a shoulder injury, right? Shoulder surgery? It was actually last off season that he had the shoulder surgery.

I was the guy who loved him. I think he was my player I loved on Valentine's Day last year. And maybe I underestimated the impact. of the shoulder surgery. Or maybe not. Maybe he just overachieved in all the right ways in 2018 to dupe somebody like me. But basically every skill measure that I liked so much about Winker he regressed in, except a line drive rate, still a very high line drive rate,

but the fly ball rate was really low. The walk rate was much worse. The strikeout rate was also worse, though, obviously it was still good. And now they have this outfield surplus that I'm not even confident how much they're going to play him. It's certainly possible he could bounce back and have the kind of season I was hoping he had last year. That's happened in my history as a fantasy analyst before

where I'm just a year too early on a guy and then lose faith at the wrong time. But I'm not especially high on Winker this year, no. I hear you, Scott. Tell that to my 2018 Raphael Demmer shares, which did not come to fruition, and then I got zero in 2019. Yay for me. Jesse Winker also can hit lefties.

907 OPS versus righties in his career. 543 OPS against lefties in his career. This next one comes from Eric Cronin. I enjoyed reading Scott's article on a perfect dynasty league and have a question for that. What are your thoughts on a 5x5 categories league that simply replaces stolen bases with OBP? This gets rid of the emphasis on stolen bases and seems to make the hitting side of points versus Roto a lot closer in similarity. Plus, my other problem with category leagues is the waste that goes into a walk, which is essentially useless besides a run scored and the occasional RBI. This seems like something that works well.

And I've actually made this argument for points leagues versus Roto before. I actually brought up with Nando, who used to be part of this podcast, and he's like, you can't possibly like Head to Head Points Leagues over Roto. I'm like, well, Roto doesn't account for walks if you don't have OBP. So, Scott. Do you like head to head points leagues over Roto? Frank? I love head to head points leagues. It's that I've played in. So my longest standing home league

is a head to head points league and I prefer it over Roto. I understand Roto's like the traditional way to play fantasy baseball, but unless you play Roto with OBP, I think that Eric in this email question is right, Scott. I mean, the walk is just not accounted for enough.

I will say, he was kind of referencing in the article where one of my six points, one of my six priorities for setting up this dynasty league was to make it ahead to headpoints league and I explained why and a big part of it was the inflation of stolen

bases and how that's not that doesn't seem like if you're trying to simulate a real life GM experience like nobody's sweating a player stolen base potential that much in 2020 not near to near the extent we are in

rotissory leagues anyway so if you're eliminating that category and replacing it with something else you know, it becomes better. You could certainly adapt the structure of that dynasty league for different scoring formats. And in a way that lowers the value of steals, I would be on board with that. Specifically, this change, it's kind of scoring batting average twice, right? Yeah.

If he's replacing stolen bases with on-base percentage. Yep. Yeah, I don't know. Batting average typically take accounts for anywhere from 75 for the elite walk guys to like 90s. of a player's batting average. So I think replacing stolen base with on base percentage doesn't make sense. But replacing average with on base percentage is fine. What if it was, do, does total basis count walks or no? It's just, it's just bad balls. Yeah. Okay.

This next one from Matt Cullief, dear McLean, Powell, Gruber, and Gennaro. Powell, of course, played by Carl Weathers. That is from everyone's favorite Christmas movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Yes, jingle all the way, one of my favorites. There is always a lot of talk about players as floors and ceilings. When it comes to roster construction, do you put more emphasis on floors or ceilings

when it comes to established players or rookies? Or when it comes to early round picks or late picks. Adam, I'll throw this one your way. I don't know that I have a set rule. I used to say my first two picks, I don't want any busts. So I think I more or less follow that. I don't like to take super risky players. There are enough really good players to go around.

So why take one that could completely sink your team in the early rounds? The later rounds, what's the point of being safe with a late round pick? Go for upside there. Those players are interchangeable. They're going to be on and off your roster. And in the middle rounds, I guess kind of a mix. So I would say the later I get in drafts, the more I'm looking for upside. Yes.

It depends on how the rest of your league is drafting. If you're playing with a group of players who are really prioritizing upside, I'm totally fine with getting the boring guys who are going to give me consistent, reliable production. Matt also had a second part to his question and asked, how much do you feel that doing mock drafts helps with auction leagues? Do you feel that there is a benefit in doing mock drafts for auction leagues as well? And what I would say to that is, I think it kind of, sets you up with not how much players are going to go for per se,

but maybe different things that are going to happen throughout the course of the auction. So I wouldn't just use like a mock auction as, okay, these players are going to go for this value, but kind of just to set yourself up for, okay, anything can happen throughout the course of the auction. Oh, there's so much value to doing mock drafts. It'll help you in anything.

It's just understanding the player pool, understanding how you want to construct your team, which position you're willing to wait for and those principles you can apply into auctions as well so yeah there's and I don't know if you're talking about doing a mock draft or a mock auction

it sounds like he's talking about doing a mock auction you can practice with the mechanics oh yeah that format it's so easy to just screw up an auction because based on the mechanics not even based on your decision making but just things are happening so fast and you may not be able to keep up with them

So if you get practice at that first, that's definitely very valuable. All right, that'll do it. It's April Fool's Day. Don't get duped by anything out there. Don't get catfished like Adam Azer did as well. For Scott White, for Chris Towers, for Adam Azer. I am Frank Stamphle. Thank you all for listening to Fantasy Baseball today.

We will see you tomorrow.