Fantasy Baseball Today - Early 2023 Rankings Debates! Roto, H2H Points & More! (1/18 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

The Fantasy Baseball Today crew’s rankings are live on CBSSports.com, and Chris Towers and Chris Welsh are here to break them down. We start off looking at the top-five hitters at the top of the Roto rankings (7:20), where Chris, Scott, and Frank disagree on No. 1. They debate Kyle Tucker vs Mookie Betts (14:20), recap the latest injury news from around the league (39:40), talk draft strategy for pitchers (49:20), catchers (54:50), and discuss Fernando Tatís Jr (1:01:03). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. And first pitch, rushing. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. It's a Chris's only show.

On Fantasy Baseball today, I'm Chris Towers here with Chris Welsh. No Frank Stanple, no Scott White. this week, but Chris and I are going to get you through the week, and we're going to be talking about rankings today. If you go to CBSSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball, you can see for the first time in 2023 the full rankings from Frank Scott and myself for the 2023 season for both your roto and your head-to-head points leagues. It's a big day.

We've got our fantasy baseball commissioner product launching today. If you want to go get your league set up, it's a really exciting day. And Chris, Chris Welsh, how you doing? Chris Towers. I'm doing quite great. It's like a subscription service. It's Chris's only. Chris only. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. That's good. That's good. Aposrophy at the end. I'm doing very good. Ranks are always a joyous time. Anytime there's a release across the board. And I actually really like where we're out right now too because I feel like we're just about at the stage of full industry embracement of everything. You know, some things move slowly along. CBS does a great job of just staying relevant the whole year round and never stopping. But you're starting to get everybody now jumping. jumping into the fray where ranks are out there. Systems are starting to open up. We can mock draft more. So it's a glorious time for fantasy.

Yeah, we were supposed to have a mock draft this week. We're probably going to have to push that to next week. But yeah, you got the bat projections were released on fan graphs last week. I think I've seen Ariel Cohen talking about the ATC projections are coming soon. I'm excited to see. One thing I'm really interested to see in the bat is Derek Hardy's very, very smart and very good about like a making adjustments for these kind of league-wide changes that we've talked about. And he's been like one of those guys who's ahead of the curve when it comes to like,

when teams change their ballpark dimensions, his rank in his projection system does a really good job of accounting for that or the humidor stuff. And so I'm very interested to see. I know he had a note that he's going to start tweaking with some of the league-wide adjustments regarding the stolen bases and then that stuff. So very excited to see what that all is going to look like. But we're going to talk about. Frank Scott and I's rankings. We're going to talk about some,

unfortunately, you know, Frank and Scott aren't here to defend themselves. So we'll just crap on their rankings. That's the best. That's the best. That's the best situation that we're into. And we've got more like data for us too. So like they're not here to appreciate. Like you were saying with the bat, I'm a bat and bat ex, you know, apologist, I suppose. I actually sat with Derek multiple years at the Arizona first pitch conference. And I really like Derek. And I like what he does. And I like the setup. And there's some big, big differences that maybe we'll tie into some of this stuff. But yeah, this is like

the best. We get all of this stuff. Frank and Scott aren't here. We get to look and just like roll our eyes and we all get to judge without any counter judgment. It's it's the best. It's perfect. I really, I will say at the top of the discussion, we're going to talk about, you know, take a quick look at just kind of the number one overall player because there's some interesting stuff there with regards to roto rankings, especially. We're going to go through some of the bigger discrepancies from the top 100. And then I'm going to go through like each position in the second half of the show. And I don't think we're really going to be able to give everyone's rankings for every position. That would be kind of impossible.

But some big questions that I've got in looking at the rankings. But, you know, one thing that I always think about when it comes to rankings is like, I don't love the process of rankings just because it's not how my brain works. Like I'm a big high fidelity fan. I don't know if you've ever read the book or seen the movie. But that, you know, largely revolves around the idea of like random, five rankings, you know, top five Desert Island songs and the, you know, all this stuff. And I always struggle with rankings because it's like, it kind of depends on what my mood is.

Like, you know, one, two, three, four, five suggests a distinct hierarchy that doesn't necessarily exist. And I think that that is also true in, you know, when it comes to fantasy sports. Because like, I look at my rankings and my top five in Roto, I've got Ronald Acuna, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez, Julio Rodriguez, and Trey Turner. And they're in that order. And that suggests that Ronald Acuna is number one and Trey Turner's number five. So I must like Ronald Acuna a lot more than Trey Turner.

But what's actually the case is that I've got Ronald Acuna as a $44 player as my number one player. I've got Trey Turner as a $43 player in my auction value. So like the gap between there is not quite as big as it actually sounds in one through five. So that's something I always struggle with is like, why do you have this player eight and this player 12? and it's like, because somebody had to be eight and somebody had to be 12. Sometimes the gaps aren't as big as they actually seem, right? Yeah, and I struggle with this as well. I'm a little bit more, uh, maybe I'm probably like in between, like take someone who just

loves ranks and they're like, I got a rank a gazillion, blah, blah, blah. Like I'm somewhere in the middle. I do like a hierarchy. My hierarchy, kind of similar to what you're saying, though, exists more in tiers. I'm more of a tier based guy where I'm going to tell you like, listen, because I completely agree because I do prospect rankings as well and people get very hyped up. be like, well, listen, this guy's 24, but this guy's 48. And then you just want to reiterate and be like, well, listen, that gap between,

that's kind of a tier of players. And you can choose between that I kind of live in more of that tier-based range. But when we're talking about these type of ranks, at the top, I appreciate and kind of can jump into hierarchy. But I really fall off of ranks, especially like overall lists. Position lists I think are exponentially more valuable than anything else. Maybe we need a little bit more of a blueprint in the top. I'd say 50. kind of seems right, that kind of get you on your way and gets going.

But also at the same point, like that top 50, the differential between the top 50 players is usually relatively minimal in whatever amount of tiers maybe they are, Chris. Maybe there's like, you know, six tiers of players that exist inside the top 50. And picking between the highs and the lows isn't like, you know, it's not earth-shattering stuff. And you don't hate Trey Turner because he's at five. And you don't love Ronald de Kuna more than anybody on the planet because you have them at one. I also, by the way, on my ranks, I've got Ronald de Cunia when we're talking about head-to-head Roto Categories League, really. I've got Ronald de Cunia at one, but I got Trey Turner at two, Ramirez, Judge, and Julio Rodriguez is my top five.

So it's like, we all live in the same range. I think that five is pretty much, although I will point out, we'll just, you know, go through the top. I pulled the top six for everyone, or for Scott Frank and myself for Roto. And Scott goes Judge Ramirez, Trey Turner, Mookie Betts, number four. Julio Rodriguez number five, Ronald Acuna number six. Frank goes Jose Ramirez, Trey Turner, Aaron Jones, Ronald Acuna, Julio Rodriguez, Kyle Tucker, number six. And I go Ronald Acuna, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez,

Julio Rodriguez, Trey Turner, and Mookie Betts. So, you know, of the six players that we all rank, there are, what, seven names in that six? So not very much disagreement. I think there's pretty much a consensus top five, although I think it's really interesting. Scott has Mookie Betts at number. at number four.

And so you do have Ronald Acuna at number one. What puts Ronald Acuna at the top of the list for you? Well, I mean, one of the big things when you look back at this season, obviously the injury had some effects on suppressed power. He was top 15 in an expected home run differential. He was on that top. And think about the amount of games. I think he played 120, 110 off the top of my head.

Okay, 119, yeah. And in 119 games, he was inside the top 15 of expected run differential, which put him on a positive. front. And the big focus was, hey, look at how much power was gone and suppressed from him. He had only 15 homers. We still 29 bases. I mean, he was in like the top portion of the league and stolen basis and he compensated for it. That's actually something that Bryce Harper always used to do. I always found very interesting about him was when Bryce Harper had like this like four or five year span where he would just kind of alterate like, well, I'm not hitting for great average in power here.

So now I'm stealing more bases and the bases would go away and the power. Muki Betts kind of does the same thing. I think the floor is still there. projection still very favorable on his side obviously in categories we're going to put a favor on stolen bases a whole bunch and he has a bigger power potential for me than trey turner there's some unknowns with trey turner maybe josie ramirez is even safer at more of a weird position so i don't i don't blame frank because i think me and frank are probably the our ranks are probably the closest except we're kind of flipped a little bit on ramirez and acunia otherwise we're almost uh you know step in toe there it's a bit of a floor versus ceiling thing and i guess i can see kind of kind of

of the like I think the way a lot of people put it is you can't win your league with your first round pick but you can lose it. I don't necessarily know if that's true. You can overcome pretty much anything that happens every year. But, you know, Ronald Acuna maybe does carry a little bit more risk than certainly someone like Jose Ramirez who outside of that basically one weird calendar year where he was trying to go the other way and it just sapped his power production has been metronomic in terms of his consistency. He's just, you know, you know what you're going to get from Jose Ramirez, Ronald Acuna brings a little more variance to the table. But yeah, I mean, you look at the power wasn't there last season, but he was still hitting

the ball really, really hard. 95th percentile unexpected. Woba, 86 percent to average. Egs of velocity, 98th percentile max max ex-ezyvelos. So it was more a case, I think, of him, you know, like you said, not having his legs, probably getting on top of the ball a little too much. This is something I remember with early career Vladimir Guerrero Jr. year when he was hitting way too many ground balls and one explanation, I think from his personal

batting coach was something like, you know, his weight was making it harder for him to stay back and get under the ball and drive in. So that was the big thing for him. And I think that's something that, you know, when you're dealing with being less than 100% in terms of, you know, leg strength potentially, that that's probably one thing. But yeah, the fact that he was running as much as he was, the fact that, I mean, he has the skill set to be a 50 homer, 50 steel guy. I don't think he will do either of them this season. Certainly not both. That would be, has anyone done that before?

I don't think anyone's gone 50-50 before. No, we didn't like Konseko go like 40-40? 40s happened a few times. Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Jose Cansego. That's happened a handful of times. But, I mean, Acuna has both 50 Homer and 50 steel ups. is I think the way to say it in terms of the skill set. It's unlikely he gets to either one of them, but like if anybody could, I guess.

Yeah. And we're also kind of like we're sitting in this place too where you're looking at these guys that, where we have 30 30 potential. 30 potential is like a whole new like world now. You know what I mean? Like you want to play for that 30 30 in categories and how many guys really have that top end potential. There's maybe four or five that we're really looking at.

And it actually kind of brings me, I'm really curious about. for you not to belabor all of this, but Trey Turner, you have Trey Turner down at five, I believe it is. And Trey Turner, as far as draft champions go on NFBC, is the number one overall player,

almost 30 drafts through. I've kind of struggled a little bit with him, the new destination where he's going to hit, I think is a little bit in question, but like what put you, what put Trey Turner down for you when a lot of the, you know,

higher dollar leagues, even though maybe the format's a little bit different, like when, you know, that he's number one, what put you down him there at five? For me, it mostly just comes down to, I think, as an overall bat, he's a little weaker than Ramirez or Judge or Acuna. So it puts a lot of weight on the stolen base production. And I do worry that he might just be like good in stolen bases rather than, you know, the elite guy that

he's been. Although the last two seasons, obviously he hasn't been quite as much as a standout as he was early on in his career. But I think, you know, what we've seen the last, the previous two seasons before last year was he wasn't running as much, but all of a sudden he looked like a 30 homer guy who was going to score 100 and maybe drive in 100 every year. And now I think with the slightly deader ball, I think that's probably, you know, he's probably more like that 18 to 22 homer guy that he was before the last couple of seasons. And it's nothing against him. He's an incredibly valuable player. He's a five category contributor, but I just do worry like, is it more like 105 runs, 80 RBI, 20 homers, 25 steals? It's a great player. But, you know,

I think the other guys might have a little more upside overall. Also, like, you don't want to make like a huge deal about this type of stuff. Yeah. But at him, where he's hitting in the batting order might be important. Last year, he had 78 games batting two and 59 batting third. Only 23, 23 games in the leadoff spot. So, you know, getting it, because you have Mookie Betts on the Dodgers, you know, you can have him be your leadoff guy. And Trey Turner is put into like a really solid RBI spot. Yeah. If that's taken away from him in Philly, which looks like that's going to be the case.

He leads off, Schwerver hits two, Ramuto hits three until Harper comes back and then they kind of reorder that. Then you are probably taking RBI off. If there's no Harper, maybe there's a little bit of takeoff on the runs. Power seems like it's fine. Stolen bases seem like it's cap. So now you're going from, you know, who he was last year. where it was an almost, you know, like, what was it, 25, I think 29 stolen bases. Yeah, 27 steals, 21 homers, 100 runs, 100 RBI.

And now you're maybe looking at like 20, 25, 85, 85, 85, which is a really good batting average. That's a fantastic player, but it does take a little bit off the top. Though there's a ton of variables out there. And that's kind of the difference between like maybe a floor that exists with Turner, maybe a little bit more volatility with Acuna. And that's why maybe if, you know, the three bears, the porridge is just right for Jose Ramirez, which I don't blame anybody for having him at the top because he's kind of a

mixture of both of those players. Where are you on Kyle Tucker? So Frank's got him sixth. I've got him eighth. I think Scott has him eighth as well. Where do you come down on Kyle Tucker just generally speaking? Yeah, this was another one of those is why I said like I think Frank and I are a pretty lock and step outside of the top in debate or the Ramirez and a Coonion debate because I'm also

at number six. You know, the 30 homer, 25 stolen bases, awesome, really low stress. breakout numbers helps create a floor. Batting average always worries me a little bit, but projections still very, very favorable on his side this year. One of those things, like we see some extreme differences when you start to dig in between Steamer and the BatX, and you're going to probably see more.

This is not one of those. This is not one. I mean, they are almost lock-in step. The batting average is a tick down as far as the Bad X goes, but the counting stats is what I was getting at. He's essentially a 30-20, almost, if we want to do average as 95-95 guy with a 260 batting average in a fantastic lineup, a good hitting spot.

I think he's safe. I think we are paying the high cost. I think we're kind of paying max value on him with, I'm a little weary of like low-bating average, low-ish batting average players with the big counting stats because I feel like there's more volatility. But Kyle Tucker with the low strikeout rates does feel like a player that's always got room to grow on the batting average. He's got a bit of the Jose Ramirez where like he strikes out so infrequently that it's like,

man, why isn't he said a better batting average guy? And it's because like Jose Ramirez, I think he pulls the ball quite a bit. He pulls the ball in the air quite a bit. And so it just, I think it has a little bit of a deleterious effect on his babbip. You know, last year, 261, that's really low. I don't think it's going to be that low. But I think you can see that in the projections where steamer has a 287 babip. The bat has 274.

Bad X has 280. Those are all relatively, it's a, you know, with Babbip is obviously a stat that fluctuates quite a bit, but that's a relatively, I think, narrow range, but relatively low for a player of this caliber. And I think he's probably going to be a low babup guy, although maybe the shift changes help him in that regard. You know, I think it's a, and I think so. I think that's one of those. A lot of people are speculating that the shift could work in his favor. I think a fascinating debate down the line is, because I appreciate that a lot of, I think all of you got, no, not the frank, but you and Scott have already kind of planted your flag on this for Mookie Betts.

I think Mookie Betts versus Kyle Tucker, if you get into the player debate territory, is a really fascinating one because Kyle Tucker seems to maybe have the upside on, it's a little sexier as far as like the counting stat totality goes, especially with the stolen basis and stuff. But, you know, Mookie Betts, I think you have a hard time believing that he ever can really keep under 260 on the batting average. Yeah. Get a career high in homers this past year. runs were through the roof.

You've still got most of your players outside of Trey Turner. Stolen bases have kind of tapered off a little bit. But then there's this extra, this extra little incentivized thing. The Dave Roberts talked about him maybe playing second base more this year. And there's questions around the middle. What if that happens? What if you get your second base eligibility in a position that is kind of weak?

So like the floor of Mookie Betts versus that up, and I'm not trying to say there's no upside with Muky, so don't get that twisted for anybody listening. But like that floor of what Mokey Betts provides and maybe that second base eligibility versus Tucker with this pretty loud counting stats. I think it's a really fun debate. And I can appreciate that you guys both, I believe I just turned away from it. You both have Mookie bets over Cal Tucker.

You and Scott White. Yes. Yeah, yeah, I do. And part of it for me is just I do. I trust Mookie's like hit skill, I guess would be the way that I would put it. I think, you know, 2021, the last two seasons especially, you've seen a bit of a drain on the batting average. It's similar to Kyle Tucker where very rarely.

strikes out 16% strikeout rate around there for both of them but batting average in the 260 to 270 range over the past couple of seasons I have a little more faith in mookie like figuring that out and starting to you know maybe go back to being not a you know 300 hitter every year but you know potentially getting back to like the 290 300 babbip range in which case you know I do think he can be someone who hits 290 I think he's probably got a better chance of that than Tucker and I think part of it comes down to one is weird in terms of the stolen bases because he's fast, but he's not necessarily a blazer. He went from, I think it was 14 steals two years ago to 25 last season. He's been a very, very efficient base stealer.

And then for me, it's also just like, Mookie Betts might get a hundred more plate appearances than him. Like that's, you know, that matters a little more in head to head points. I think there's more of a clear distinction between the two of them there. But, you know, that's a court, three quarters of a plate appearance per game. You know, that's massive in head to head points where you're. Your best players are probably averaging close to a point per plate appearance. But even in a head-to-head point or in a roto league or a Categories league, you know, last season we saw it came out to what?

17 more runs for Mookie Betts, a similar number of similar RBI totals, I think, right? Or was it? I think so Mookie got like 100 and almost 200 combined runs in RBI, 199. Bet Tucker was like 180-ish, 170. Yeah. Well, one thing I'm, and I don't want. want to like try to create this narrative. But one thing to think about is what we're just talking about, you're taking

Trey Turner out of that lineup. You know, I mean, I think it was monkey bets having 117 runs being a leadoff guy. You still have Freddie Freeman in there. But they are going to implement guys like James Outman and Trace Thompson and Gavin Lucks. might play someone something like every day for them. Bengal Vargas is working at second base. So I guess my only point is like you are taking a hundred RBI guy out of that lineup in a primary spot. And maybe you could question there's going to be a down tick in overall runs. And I think

like the bat X is equating for that, 107 runs projected for Steamer, only 98 on the bat X. So he's an under 100-100 guy. But the homers and solo basses are pretty relative. Again, I think that's why it's a fascinating debate because is there a better floor with mooky bets, but maybe there's a question about the runs. And Kyle Tucker is just a little bit louder on the stats. It's just one of those that like you know this is a quintessential player debate of the first round that I don't think 10 analysts are going to have a primary feel on one of those guys but but Cal Tucker is kind of the narrative player that's higher NFBC the draft champions he is going off at six where mooky bets was going off at 11 and I think that makes sense to Tucker you know you're also

different parts of the aging curve so I think that explains some of it and then the stolen base premium which you know as we talked about I mean all of the time all off season but especially last week You know, the rule changes could really drastically impact how stolen base rates look. So that's something to keep in mind. I want to move on to some ranking discrepancies from the top 100 that stood out to me and looking at them and just kind of get your thoughts on where you rank. And I think the first one's really interesting because last week on the show, Scott was talking about how because we expect stolen bases to be more prevalent. He's a little less worried in the early rounds about making sure he gets his stolen base. and I think that's reflected in Raphael Devers, who ranks 11 for him versus 21 for Scott.

Now, Raphael Devers is, I think, at the very least, a three category and probably a four category stud. I mean, the counting stats last season were not where you want them to be for a player of his caliber, but he's going to hit for power. He's going to hit for batting average. You know you're not going to get any stolen bases from him. So Scott's got him 11. Frank's got him 21. I've got him 15 right in the middle.

Where do you come out? I am at 20. So I'm, me and Frank are kind of lock and step there. I actually found it really difficult. The third base is like so top heavy. And then it really just, it's like a funnel. It just goes, whoop. It's a really quick funnel that starts to go down.

But that top end of Austin Riley versus Devers versus Mani Machado, I really think is tough. And I wouldn't kill anybody on any side that they wanted to take. I think I like Austin Riley a little bit more this year, which I put him ahead. I am taking a little bit of team context in. I do think, though the Red Sox have sneakily brought on some okay contact player. I mean, Justin Turner, Kike Hernandez is going to be out. Like, there's a couple interesting guys that are going to get in position for RBI opportunities, but I feel like Atlanta's offense is just better.

And Austin Riley really proved to be a consistent hitter. So I put him above, Mani Machado, I think kind of speaks for himself as well. I like Devers, but in my own personal ranks, I teared out those three. And Devers came out a little bit lower. I do agree with the assessment that stolen base might be a tiny bit more prevalent throughout drafts. But it just doesn't deter me personally from still getting the top in. I've kind of been of the ilk for a couple years now that it's like, yes, this is true. But those top in stolen base guys in the first couple rounds, there's a reason that they're there.

The consistency is what I want to pay for. So I'm much more likely to pay for consistency with higher stolen bases on the top end. But again, this is not like a down talk of Raphael DeVer. I'm just not the high guy, but I do sit in the Frank category on this one. Yeah, I've got Devers, Machado, and Riley in my overall ranks. And actually, we can throw Bobby Witt in there, too, because they're literally all backed up. It's 16, 17, 18, 19 for me and my overall ranks. So it's one tier.

It doesn't necessarily. I don't have a strong preference one way or the other. Devers, just a little more proven. I don't think the cops are coming for us for our office. Well, I think they know we're about to talk about Bobby Witt, so I think they're getting ready. Someone's going to, it might be me that's about to get arrested, by the way, on the Bobby Witt conversation. We're about that. Bobby Witt will move on. Scott has him 24th. Frank's got him 14th. Again, I'm right in the middle at 17. Who are you closer to? I'm going to guess

it's Frank, given the nature of the conversation so far. Yes. And unfortunately, I'm going to beat all of you guys. I'm higher than any of you guys on him. I've got him at 12 right now. So I'm the high guy on it. And this is one, now I think there's volatility that 100%. We all know this. He was very pull-heavy last year. Only two of his homers did not hit that left-to-left center field wall, which I suppose could be a little bit concerning. It's a poorish team context as well, which is a little bit concerning.

But just what he did last year, 20 homers, 30 stolen base is a 254 batting average. I think it's hard to ignore. Also, at a position that we're paying a premium on Jose Ramirez. and this is another one of those guys. He's going to qualify at third, also have shortstop eligibility. Not that we necessarily care about the shortstop right now. I mean,

if you're paying up for him, and that's kind of what I'm putting my foot down here is I'm paying up for him for that third base spot, that I still think there is room to grow. Now, I don't know if I'm not the type of person that's going to be like, well, look what he did in his rookie year. What can he do in his sophomore year?

No, I think the league is going to make some pretty dramatic adjustments to him. But I don't think the stolen base numbers are going to come off the board. they still need to manufacture runs. I think he proved to be a really solid hitter, even through some of the warts that he has in this team context has. That like Holy Rodriguez, I'm willing to bet on the rebound in a sophomore year that I do think it's going to be

a little bit closer to repeating than it is going to be massive growth. So am I willing to pay for 20, 25 or 2030 again if I can get somewhere in there? Yeah, I am. And the BatX, batting average actually improves this year with a 23, 24 homer stolen base for Derek Carty's abattacks, which you guys can find on fancrafts. And that's not quite as good as Steamer, but I love to see projection systems go on the upside of batting average. And I think that is a huge key to his success.

So that's why I think he's like a really good wheel pick for stolen bases, but he is more volatile than a lot of these other guys. And I would be taking him over, you know, probably some premium names as well. Yeah. And the thing with Bobby Witt is there's no denying the talent. You know, the underlying stats, you know, they suggest he about earned what he did last season in terms of his expected stats and all that. But 100th percentile sprint speed, 92nd percent on max exit velocity.

I mean, we're talking about a guy who very much is a rough, unmolded bit of clay in a lot of ways. Yeah, good way to put it. Not as, like not as with heavy as you would think. like 45th percentile on whiff rate, 49th percentile on strikeout rate, he's a very aggressive swinger. He goes out of the zone, but it's the kind of thing where like,

the fact that he was so aggressive and that there wasn't as much swing and miss in his game as you would think, given, you know, I think relatively poor plate discipline overall, I think probably suggests that just a few tweaks in terms of his pitch selection could make a big difference. And we saw last season, you know, he was a bit hit or miss,

much better in the first half than the second. half. I think we already saw the adjustments. The OPS dropped from 749 before the All-Star break to 686 afterwards. And, you know, baseball's all about the adjustment, then the adjustment to the adjustment, and all of those things. But generally speaking,

like, you're talking about a 22-year-old, still 22-year-old player with great prospect pedigree, very loud tools. It's a type of player that, like, it's not a bad idea to bet on. So, you know, there's not a lot of, we talked about it a couple

weeks ago, I think there's not a lot of like, there's not a lot in his skill set that like screams unsustainable from what he did last season. So I don't think we're going to see much regression from him, even if he doesn't take that big set. Yeah, 21% strikeout rate. I mean, that's solid. That's above average or below average. Yeah. Yeah. If you saw like a 25, 26, maybe like, no, I don't know, but this isn't O'Neill Cruz or anything like that. These are big counting stats. And again, you know, citing this for just for the purposes of you guys knowing, when you're taking. bigger shots, which the NFPC leagues will. That's where our ADP data is right now, just to talk

about. He's going seven. So people willing to take the risk on a bigger shot for Homer's and stolen bases, also at third base, which is pretty cool. Here's an interesting one. Scott's got Ozzy Albi's 27th. Frank and I both have him outside of our top 40. What do you think about Ozzy Albies? Yeah, I'm with you guys. I have him at 43. And I don't think this is going to be super popular, but I think I can have this conversation with you about it, of anybody. And is I'm a jazz chism guy this year. I have volatility in my fantasy game. I'm definitely not a play it super safe.

I think you have to pick your points. And I don't know if I want to go and have like Bobby Witt and jazz chism and then go take O'Neal crew. I'm not going to do that. But like I want to take my shots in certain places. I'm very pro jazz chism this year, especially if he can get healthy. I always worried a little bit that he's going to become, you know, the newest version of Giancarlo Stanton.

There's always something with him. He's also really volatile. Kyle and how he attacks the baseball. He's very pull heavy and ginormous bat speed. But what I love, and you're going to get my vibe here is like, I like 25, 25 guys. And Jazz Chisholm is that. Ozzy is safer on a better offense. And I like Ozzy, but I have him actually exactly in Frank's spot.

I was surprised about that. I'm at 43. So I'm with you and Frank on the Ozzy Albies front. But I have Jazz above everybody. He's my top second baseman for willing to take a shot because I think there's kind of a big crew. I don't want to overpay or anything like that, but I also think there's just kind of a crew of guys. It's like, hey, if I miss on, you know, Albies,

do I think I'm losing anything with Altuve? Nope. Do I think I'm losing a ton with Marcus Simeon? Batting average, but not really anything else across the board. So I think it's kind of a bigger tier. So I don't see the need in overpaying for Ozzy Albies. When there have been some questions about where he bats in the order, though Danzby's gone, a little bit of injury stuff.

If he gets back to being a high, you know, a good stolen base and home run guy, he's going to be exponentially valuable. but I'm citing on jazz chisholm. One of the few instances where I'm really pushing my chips in on a player on a worst team, because I do want to have a focus on, you know,

letting the edge be a player that's on a better team with more run and RBI opportunities. This just kind of isn't one of those cases. Here's an interesting one. And we'll talk about some that I'm out of the range on. And that's Carlos Rodon, who is, he's my SP6 and he's my number 33, overall player. Frank and Scott both have him outside of their top 45. He's more in the,

uh, like 11 to 12 range for Scott and Frank at SP. Do you agree with them or me? Okay. So let me take a look because I will tell you this. I am lower on Redaun than most. Where did you say he, they had him at pitcher? 11 and 12. Yeah, I'm lower. I haven't met 17. Okay. So, and I've got him quite a bit lower on the overall rank. I, I do have him in a tier. I want to put him. I have him in a tier that starts at SP11. So again, if you want to, like, we can pick apart ranks and stuff like that. But I have them in this tier that goes 11 to 18.

I'm worried about the New York context. I really am. The high strikeout numbers are fantastic, but I am worried about what it's going to do. Obviously, you know, Garrett Cole can break the mold and Luis Severino when healthy can do it. But Frankie Montas just kind of fell apart and we see pitchers find success

success when they get out of there. I'm worried about it with Redawn. There's also the injury stuff that always seems to be looming. He got his money. I he's not a player that I feel adamant about reaching for and I feel safer with I mean a couple guys I have above I've obviously got aeronola above but uh Zach Allen Kevin Gossman those are a couple players I would rather pay the price on than Carlos Redaun right now but you you are obviously pretty high on him so New York doesn't scare you no I mean I think you you account like there's pluses and minuses to it right it's a a team that's going to likely win a lot of games they're going to have you know good run support the the the the He is a fly ball heavy pitcher. That's the one thing. You know, the ground ball rate, 38% in 2021, 34% in 2022.

He's benefited from relatively low home run to fly ball ratios. In 2021, it was 9.6%. Last season, 6.5%. He's not going to do that again. There's a big difference between pitching in San Francisco and pitching in New York. And that mostly comes about in the number of home runs you're going to give up, especially when you put the ball in the air. That's going to be an issue for him.

And as we've seen with Garrett Cole, that can be an issue. I think the thing that I like about Carlos Rinal, one, just ridiculous strikeout numbers. I think he's right there with anybody in terms of strikeout ability. Two, I like that last season he actually came out and was slightly more fastball heavy than he was in 2021. And I thought, wow, this is a really, relatively speaking, a very fastball heavy guy, 59% in 2021. I was like, I don't know if you can do that every time, but his fastball is just so overwhelmingly dominant that it. It's actually a swing and miss pitch for him. Yeah, 61% to your point.

He increased it up to a little over 61% with a 27. The whiff rate went down a little bit on the fastball this past year, but he actually added some spin, but the whiff rate was still, you know, 27.9%, which is probably for a fastball on the higher range of overall width. Yeah. And so, but the way I look at it is like, let's say the fastball does start to get hit a little more.

You know, he does start to, he throws up in the zone, he gives up a few home runs. I do think there is room for him to change his arsenal and still be very effective because his sliders are really, really great pitch as well. So I think there's room for him to still make some adjustments and still be a very effective pitcher. I don't think it's the kind of thing that like he starts to get hit hard and loses a ton. So I do think you're betting on just absolutely ridiculous, possibly, you know, best in the league kind of strike on numbers that are going to mitigate some of the issues that can come from pitching in Yankee Stadium, like we've seen with Garrett Cole.

The injuries and the workload, I think, are a concern, but the fact that he made it through last season without issue, more or less, does, you know, make me feel, I don't want to say good about him in terms of health, but I tend to think all starting pitchers come with a very high degree of injury risk outside of. Sure. Garrett Cole, you know, Garrett Cole and Aaron Nola and like, you know, a handful of guys. But otherwise, you know, your risk of missing six starts for any given starting pitcher is very high. So his is higher, but I don't think it's so high that it makes me want to avoid him. One pitcher that I'm surprised I was lower on in the overall ranks is Tristan McKenzie.

He's 91 for Scott, 85 for Frank, 111 for me. And I was the Tristan McKenzie backer last year. Where are you on Tristan McKenzie? Well, Mr. Christos can ask you something? Why do you hate Tristan McKenzie? You clearly hate Tristan McKinsey. That's the right question to be asking. For me, I think a lot of it comes down to, one, I think there was a little bit of luck in terms of his home run prevention last season.

He didn't miss as many bats as he did the year before. And I just, I kind of look at him as like a guy who he's going to have a very good bat. I think that's a strong skill that he has. But other than that, I'm not sure, like, what he's great at, right? Like, I don't know if I believe that the control, you know, 2.1 walks per nine last season, I feel like that's probably going to regress. I think the strikeout rate is probably going to be a tick above average, but probably

not great. And I just think when you add in, you know, likely home run regression, I just think he's probably going to be good, but not great, you know? Yeah. I have him at 95, so I'm kind of in the range with Scott and Frank, but I'm pushing a little bit towards yours. I think his cost is moving up, which I'm not going to love. He has had a three-year decrease. I mean, obviously his first year was minimal pitches, but he's at a three-year decrease in K percentage. The hard hit percentage is sat in the 40 percentile range. He's not like an elite

over-the-season type of strikeout guy. He definitely gets those games going. There's three pitches over 20 percent of the time, which I think keeps people on their toes. His fastball is not elite, but his curveball is 45% whiff rate, which has been really dominant. So controls like a big key with him. I like him. I guess I'm a little bit indifferent. I don't feel passionately that he would be a player I don't take. I don't feel passionately that he's a player that I have to have.

I am probably cheating a little bit, looking for a little bit more strikeouts where I can. I want some safety net in those middle, like probably 50 to 60 overall range. I'm looking for some safer pitchers. I'm trying to cheat on stolen bases a little bit higher with a few guys I like more than most people, like Strider and McClanahan. And then McKenzie is just,

I'm a little bit indifferent about the range because I kind of agree with you. I'm not sure where he's elite. He definitely puts up some of those games. And he doesn't maintain crazy hard hit stuff. And his ERA was obviously a crazy low this past year. But he had an expected ERA of like three and a half. So yeah,

I'm just kind of in the middle on McKenzie. You know who he reminds me of is like Jose Burrios four years ago? Where like when you watch him and when he's on he looks so good that you're like man this guy could be an absolute like ace ace pitcher and then you take a step back and you look at the overall numbers and it's like it's a fine pitcher and i think we get enamored with like you know the the really pretty curveball jiffs and and stuff like that but i think the overall uh arsenal and actually they're pretty similar pitchers in terms of that they're you know below average velocity the fastball tends to get hit somewhat hard you know i think that's

more of an issue for Tristan McKenzie, but, you know, Burrios very, you know, relies on the curveball for his swing and miss stuff. That's a big thing for McKenzie as well. And so I just, it's one where like, I think Jose Barrios was someone that people kept chasing upside with for like three straight years and he was just like pretty good. And I think that's probably where Tristan McKenzie's going to end up is like a mid three ZRA, not a ton of strikeouts. Hopefully, you know, what we saw last season with 191 innings, like he was a efficient last season. If he can be, you know, close to 190 innings every year, then I think that's a very valuable pitcher. But like Jose Brrios, where it was sort of, he's good every year and also

disappointing. Yeah, I can almost see like if there was a path of maybe if he had ever developed, like, this really dominant changer. We would call him like, you know, San Diego Contra light, you know, because he can just eat innings and the strikeouts are kind of equivalent to the innings. He did improve his slider, I mentioned a little bit. He added a just about a full mile per hour. increase on the slide of this past year. It lowered on whiff percentage, but they were also hitting it like almost two miles an hour less. So, I mean,

it was a really low EV on the slider, which I think that that slider in its higher efficiency added to the fastball being able to set up and the curveball being able to get strikeout. So he's a fascinating pitcher, but I kind of agree. I kind of think we're capped, even though I'm like,

hey, it could be like Sandy Elka. I don't think he'll be like that. I kind of agree. I think he's like a three ERA pitcher that he's a workhorse. might get you to 200 strikeouts. He's coming at a decent cost. I think he actually sits in this range. There's a couple of rookie pitchers.

I particularly really like Nick Lodolo this year. Like Nick Lodolo, Hunter Green, him, they kind of sit in there. Like I wouldn't hate getting a McKinsey and a Lidolo as like my SP3 and 4, depending how heavy investment I'm putting into it. But yeah, it's interesting seeing the kind of path of where everyone has him ranked. All right. We're going to move on to some news and notes. And then we're going to go through some other positional questions that I've got for the rankings.

but news and notes, Tray Mancini signed a two-year deal with the Cubs, according to the Athletic. This also means that Matt Mervis, who is also left-handed, almost certainly starts the season at AAA. That's frustrating. I know a lot of people like him as a breakout candidate.

Would you still draft him later in your drafts? Yeah, I think it's funny, because Frank texts me this immediately, and he texts me, and he went, no, because we had this conversation. I've been a little bit more loud about this, and Frank turned it into a different thing we talked about on here. But I've been saying since free agency started up,

The Cubs have been telling us that they don't trust Mervis in some capacity. Yes, Eric Hossamer is on a very cheap contract that they could get out from if they would like to. But I think defensively they want him here. That's not something that Mervis is good with. And I don't think you brought Trey Mancini in for that. And it's a clubhouse leader as well. And then they bring in Trey Mancini a second piece who's probably going to be more of a primary D.H. They're telling us something that maybe they want more control.

Maybe they want Mervis to prove a few more things that he didn't in, the AFL after his three stops. They're just telling us something. Does that mean that Mervis will not play? No. If he has a great spring, it's going to be hard to keep him off the roster. If he has a great spring,

and then they just send him down anyways, and he has an awesome April and AAA, he'll come up. So I think in deeper leagues, more than willing, but I am more pessimistic on Mervis, I think, than everybody kind of else is right now.

Any interest in Mancini for your mixed leagues? Minimal. Yeah, minimum. Like late flyer, maybe Corrinfield or something. like that. All right. Frankie Motas is expected to miss the first month of the season dealing with shoulder

soreness. That's a scary sign when it's January. We're already talking about, well, he probably won't play until May, especially given how his season ended. I mean, he's worth drafting, but how low does Frankie Montas move? Pretty low. I mean, I got to tell you, it's moving into the territory where not interested. I, like, if I got-

I think especially in those like NFC leagues where you don't have an IR spot. almost anything at this point like I really don't want to go into a season with an injured player Fernando Tatis is a completely different story it's a suspension I'm willing to take the rest guys a pitcher that has as an injury going into the season that's not something

I think I'm going to be getting like a big old steal on people on so I'm going to probably overall of why I don't want to be like he's off the list but if I'm going to lose a month out of a pitcher that already had a down year I'm out of it and that splitter has got to be on for him to be going And so I think I'm out. Yeah, we've seen there's a minimal margin for error for him.

And I'm, I'm genuinely, generally the injuries don't matter guy. I think that's the way people tend to view me. But I think it's more past injuries are probably overrated in terms of risk. Present injuries probably a little underrated. We tend to be a little more optimistic about injury timetables and guys coming back and being themselves when they're currently injured. So yeah, I think for the month I tell you some, you have to move a lot down. I saw today the Blue Jays are changing their outfield wall dimensions.

They haven't announced exactly what that's going to look like. They're currently in the process of, you know, making the actual physical changes in their stadium. And they're supposed to be an announcement in February. It's all the rage. What the dimensions are going to be. Sounds like it could be moving the fences in, but making the walls higher, what that impact will be. I'll leave that to someone smarter than me. to figure out.

That's all the rage. If your team isn't moving their walls, does your team even care? I don't know. I don't think so. I love it. Yeah, the Marlins moved their walls in and clearly made a huge difference.

We're going to have like Little League, we're going to have like Little League softball, like 200 foot walls. It's just we're going to be cranking homers. This is how they're going to curb back to the homer era of the 90s. No steroid. It's just 200 foot walls and 98 homers by July.

It would be great. All right. Alex Kerlov could be a bit behind in spring training coming off wrist surgery per the athletic, but he should be ready for the start of the season. And, you know, it's not like they're concerned about him. It's just he's getting a few fewer reps at this point than, you know, most other players. This is his second time though. Yeah. This is his second, right. I didn't interrupt you. I apologize. It's his second wrist injury that I love Kirloff more than most people. I actually got to interview him on my prospect one show a couple years back. His dad is a

hitting coach. He's a really smart guy. But like, this dude can't stay healthy. He cannot stay. healthy whatsoever. So I am very, very concerned about Kirolov. And he's not, I'm disinterested in this year, especially if we're coming off of a wrist injury, we're like, I think we'll be good by the season. Well, if you're going to miss all the spring training, that's going to hold you. But Royce Lewis actually literally told me that when we were talking about him and his return in, I think it was like 2019, that it was like missing all of spring training. You then spent the time in the minors doing your spring training and you kind of fall behind. I, Keraloff has just not found his footing. He needs to go into his season healthy.

He's not doing it on a recurring injury. So no point. Yeah, I got to see it at this point. Kyle Hendricks, uncertain for opening day coming back from a shoulder issue, but said he feels good. So, you know, if he doesn't, if he's not ready for opening day, it probably won't be too long after that. Although at this point, I don't think we have much interest in Kyle Hendricks. And the Red Sox signed Jorge Alfaro to a minor league contract. I don't think we have much interest in him.

But the Red Sox's catching situation is pretty grim. They have Reese McGuire who had decent finish to last season. I've got a fly in my room that was flying around my face. So that was fun. But, you know, Al Faro does have a chance to, you know, lock in a role with the Red Sox, not necessarily someone we'd be interested in, but still has interesting skills. I don't know if he's ever going to turn them into actual baseball production. And that's going to do it for news and notes.

And let's move on to some more starting pitcher rankings discussions. and I think the most interesting one here is Justin Verlander, Scott's number one starting pitcher. That is, you know, I've got him, let's see, third. Frank has him sixth. I assume you're probably closer to Frank. I have him seven. Yeah, I've got him at seven. So, yeah.

It's not for me, you know, I'm in the middle. It's not that I dislike Justin Verlander. It's not that I love Justin Verlander. I think, like, you know, Corbyn Burns is a better pitcher. I think Garrett Cole's a better bet for volumes. So Justin Verlander kind of splits the difference between them. But, you know, Verlander's strikeout rate wasn't where we typically want to see it for a guy who ranks number one at starting pitcher, 951 last season. 175 ERA.

Look, nobody thinks he's going to repeat that. But I think does it come down to just, you know, I think Scott has talked about it quite a bit this off season. So for you, is it just the strikeout numbers aren't quite where you'd want them to be for an elite? Starting pitcher. Yeah, I mean, I think that kind of boils it down. I mean, also, we're getting older. It's a mention on here a bunch of times, a falling knife. You don't want to be the one that's catching it when it's coming down.

But, you know, he is kind of bucking that trend and curbing that. But it was 175 innings. You know, he hadn't pitched under 200 innings. I mean, my God, like pretty much, 2015 was the last time he'd been under 200 innings and a full season marker. But yeah, the strikeouts went below 10. nine and a half. He's still a great elite pitcher, but I don't feel, I don't feel adamant enough, especially with a change in destination. That doesn't, that doesn't correlate with me of like

changing teams and going over to the Mets and leaving that. I mean, a Mets great offense. I don't want to be like, that's much different than what he had in Houston. But I think team context and adjustments and going into a much bigger market, that there's something there. So I don't, like, I can't talk myself into him going back to being number one outside of he is just, been consistent in his entire career. I got him at 7, which I thought was pretty aggressive. NFBC is the 11th pitcher, starting pitcher going off the board, technically the 16th pitcher in those draft champions.

Yeah, exactly. So I think it's solid, but he's not in my top five. I'm going a little bit younger inside my top five, to be honest with you. Is Garrett Cole number one for you, though? He's not. It's actually Corvin Burns. But I've got Burns and Cole as like the one two tier. I think those are the top guys.

I think they belong in the same territory, good strikeouts. You could talk about team context, which can get Cole, maybe the edge. But there's just a part of me that still feels that blow up that is going on with Cole. And obviously, the ballpark factors really don't necessarily work in his favor. But it's huge strikeout numbers. I just think they're one and two. I'm just banking a little bit more on Corbyn Burns. But I will point out, both are not in my draft peripheral.

I am not looking to draft either one of those. I probably on an overall have them lower than most. I'm not sure about you guys. Points would completely be different here, but I probably have them a little bit lower than most. Yeah, I've got, let me see, I'm looking at, yeah, I've got Cole, Cole and Burns are 21 and 22 for me. So, you know, I, there's a decent chance I'll end up with him. And I actually like the kind of, you know, we call it Hero RB in football. I think, I think the way I think about pitchers and running backs is very similar where I want, like, one.

or two really good ones and I probably want to avoid you know in football we've called it the rb dead zone which is like rounds three ish through eight are where like historically running back tends to be just a bad return on investment starting pitcher from the research that I've done it tends to be more like rounds four through eight four through ten tended like there's not that much of a difference between what you historically get in terms of the pitchers that you draft in the third and fourth round versus like the ninth and tenth rounds. This is what I've discovered, like, the elite starting pitchers tend to be really good and tend to be really good every year.

And that's the same for running backs, right? The top 12, top six, whatever you want to call it. And we've had this argument and I throw these numbers out every year and I'll do my research again soon and make the same argument I always do. But it's basically like you want one or two really, really good pitchers. and then I think you want a lot of guys in the like 150 plus range is generally how I tend to view it, but 100 plus. So that's, you know, I'm probably more likely to take one of the aces than, you know, I think most people on our, on our show for sure. And then the other question I want to ask you at starting pitcher before I move on, does Joey Otani belong in the top 12?

I've got him at 12. I'm the only one with him in my top 12. Am I, am I being too aggressive? you're not i've got him at 10 on my list as far as an sp i do i mean you know what he's done has kind of just broken the mold and it also comes back to like i would reiterate we talk about hey number one if you play in a daily moves league and tonyas one player he is the number one overall player and there's just there's just no discussion about it it's just he is the guy it's almost uh trite at this point like i want to like talk and i want to do mocks in different ways when I do, you know, you have to like differentiate when you do

mocks and be like, is this head, is this a daily or a weekly transactions? Because just Otani has to go at number one at every point. But yeah, I mean, elite strikeout number, almost 12K per nine last year, walks lowered elite ERA 233, an ex-fip of 265, which was elite. He had 28 starts this past year. Obviously, he's going to get maybe a tad bit less if they're going to run out six-man rotations. But I don't know.

The 28 starts makes me feel pretty good. The strikeout numbers, also elite. He's going to, he had 15, thinking about this, he had 15 wins on that Angels team, on that Angels team, who tried their best. Tried their best to improve the offense this year, maybe a little bit more health. So yeah, I think he's in that top 10 category,

maybe a little bit more volatile than others. But single pitcher Otani is a top 10, top 12 guy, I think, pretty easy. Yeah, I think one, I guess a couple of things that impact his values. One, there's just, he inherently has higher risk. in terms of injury because he's doing both. You know, like, sure. No other pitcher in baseball has the risk of spraining their ankle on first base.

You know, like that's just, that's a risk for him. I don't think it's the biggest risk for him. You know, I think it's a bigger risk. I was just about to say, I look at it at the inverse that it's the pitching to me.

Yes. That makes the hitter more susceptible because we're actually paying a higher cost for just hitter Otani, I think. People are going to jump. Even though he's util only, the stats are ridiculous. you're paying higher cost for util only Otani than pitcher.

And it's the pitching that I think is exponentially more dangerous for that hitter version of Otani. Which, by the way, I continuously hate talking about this person as two different people. Yeah. The other thing that I think impacts his value as a pitcher is just like you're probably going to draft him as a hitter. If there's only one, if you have to make that choice every week, you're probably going to use him as a hitter more often than as a pitcher. So I think that just kind of, you know, might drive his pitcher value down when we're, talking about it, just you're less likely to use him there. I don't know if that factors into the way other people rank him, but that's just one other thing I would think of. When you look at him in a

weekly, let's say it's one, it's one Otani, but you look at him from a weekly standard. What is your approach on him? Because I think, you know, the hitter approach and the pitcher approach are kind of becoming a little bit easier if they're individual players. But like in a weekly league, I own him in Scott's Dynasty League. Yeah. And nine out of ten times I'm using him as a hitter on a weekly basis, unless you can try to get tricky and you can really get that Monday and Sunday start with a push or something like that. But I mean, where do you think his sweet spot is in a weekly league? Because he's probably 75% hitter in those formats.

And you almost have to look at him as a primary hitter, not even a pitcher. I would think that's probably the way you use him. I think there are a handful of circumstances, mostly like the rare occasions. I think there might have been one or two times where he got two starts last week. And the angels last year did towards the end of the season. and they went to more of a modified six-man rotation where they were willing to skip someone to get him on the sixth day

rather than just going on the sixth pitcher, which it's a mild impact. But if they did that over the course of a full season, it might mean four two-star weeks instead of one or two. I think the other situations would be like if they only have five games for hitting and he's starting as a pitcher, that might lean it towards him being a pitcher.

And then the short weeks. You know, week one, if you play where it's only Thursday through Sunday or whatever it is and he's starting as a pitcher. I think you definitely use him as a pitcher there rather than a hitter. Is he top 10 overall to you? That version? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I think either way, especially in Roto because the speed power is so valuable. And I think there's, you know, there's potentially some room with the shift changes that he could, you know, be a little bit of a better batting average source as well. So move on to catcher and I'll try to, we'll see how many positions. We're obviously bumping up against it. So I'll try to just get one question for each position. We'll just see how many we can get to. And I think the big one at catcher is Scott and Frank both have a fairly significant gap between J.T. Royal Muto and Dalton Varsho in J.T. Rielmuto's favor, $25 J.T.Ral Muto for Scott, $20, $20,000,

for Scott, 28 and 22 for Frank. I've actually got Varsho as my number one catcher. And it's very close, $1 difference between them in terms of auction values. Am I getting over my skis on Dalton Varsho? No, I don't think so. I don't have, I mean, I do have Romuto is my number one, but I don't have a big gap. I'm actually looking at my ranks right now. I have them within 10 spots of each other on my overall. So they're in that range. And you know, you can make the art. Ramuto saved a lot of his value on the way uptick on stolen bases. I think if those stolen bases didn't exist and I'm not, hey, breaking news. Great analysis. But like if he didn't have those stolen bases, this wouldn't even be a conversation. But he did have those stolen bases and he continues to prove it. But Varshaar Shas is. But Varsha. does too and varsho is going to be probably moving around might play more catcher than we think he's going to be in the outfield

hopefully the team is going to still let him run and it's a big power guy I really just think they're kind of 1A 1B and then you got adly Rutchman you kind of throw into that top tier when you're looking at like you know top elite hitters but adly might look like more of a version of Romuto without the stolen bases

so you could argue that Varsho and Ramuto are just the top tiers I don't see a need for a huge differential between them all right let's move on to first base where pretty much everyone agrees on the top five in some order the freddie freeman or vladimir at number one paul goldschmidt or pto lonso at number three uh where do you come out on those are you freeman over vlad and goldschmidt over alonzo or vice versa i am vladd at the top

um which i will tell you i this has actually been my biggest struggle a position at this top where there was a time where i had goldie at the top and i think it was warranted but i settled with Vlad on the top, Freddie Freeman at 2, and then Alonzo, followed by Goldschmidt. So that's how I paired them out. I think it is crazy close. But I kind of do agree, like, bad year of Vlad was a pretty good year. And there's some pretty considerable, like, changes that he can make and getting the ball back up in the air a little bit.

And projections, like, fly on that as well. And Freddie Freeman at Freeman is just so, so safe. So I think all those guys are just like 1A, 1B, 1C, and 1D. and it's a great spot to be in. But I am Vlad and then Freeman and then Pete Alonzo. The one thing with Freeman, and I wonder how it's going to be impacted, is he always steals a handful of bases in a way that's not like super projectable.

But he had a career high 13 steals last season, which is you think going to the analytically inclined Dodgers wouldn't be the case, but he's one of those guys kind of like we talked about with Bryce Harper, where when he's hitting more singles and doubles rather than home runs, he runs a little bit more. He's compensating. He's such a smart base runner. He's such an efficient base runner over the course of his career that, like,

I could see that being a situation where he steals like 15 bases with the, with the new rules and just takes advantage of it being a little bit easier. So that's one thing in his favor. And something I would add in with him just real quick also. Interesting is he bat he was hitting in the two hole more than any other spot. But it was 83 to 76 games between hitting two and three. His stolen bases were almost identical at both spots. So it's like he wasn't stealing bases when he was hitting two.

He stole seven hitting two and he stole six hitting three. So still even in that primary RBI situation, he was still kind of going when Trey Turner was hitting in front of him. So I think that's interesting. The guys behind him, they were still willing to let him run of it. That's a good one. All right. Second base.

It's Altuve for Scott and Frank at number one. I've got Marcus Simeon number one. Are you on Altuve? Do you trust the stolen base increase for him last season? and he got to 21. And the other question for me that might just explain the gap between them is, do we think Marcus Simons just going to be a slow starter from now on with the new ball and how it affected offense in April league-wide last year?

I kind of wonder if he will be. I think that could be easy to bake in. But boy, the thing that makes you feel good about him is he knows how to build it back up. Like he was really able to kind of like recompensate for that misty, that horrid April that he had. But I mentioned before, I'm actually a jazz guy. I like jazz at the top. Okay, a little smooth jazz.

So that's my top guy. And then it's Al Tuve. So if we want to not have jazz in the conversation, then we're going to go to Altuve. I don't believe a repeat of those exact saline bases is on the table. And that's what if I did, I think I would have Altuve at the top because he is. Safe as safe can be. So I think it's tier one of Chisholm and Altuve in my mind. And then Albi's and Simeon exist in tier two.

All right. We already talked about the third base question that I was going to ask you. That's the Bobby Witt question. So we'll move on to shortstop. How are you handling Fernando Tatis coming with that suspension? I want to draft him. Probably not drafting him. He's going to keep moving up.

He's going right around the top 20. So you have got to expend a top two round pick for him. Projections are insane on him, obviously, on this year. I actually think he's a great buy in dynasty overall because there's just a lot of negativity that's surrounded by him. I am willing to do it, especially in like, let's take a 15 team roto, and I have like the third pick

and it comes back around and he's falling. I just don't want to overpay for a month's missed production. Except in smaller leagues, I'm way more likely. If I'm playing in a 10-team league, I am going to overreach for Tatis because that's going to give me a little bit of an advantage. Maybe even 12-team, if we're being honest,

12-team, I might be willing to pay the cost. 15, I think it's a little bit tougher. You could definitely make due and you can definitely get going, with it, but I'm probably not going to have as many shares, but I would love to. I would love to get my late April on or May on stats of Fernando. Yeah, I mean, the thing about him, and you can't just say, well, this is what he did in 130 games in 2021, because every season's different and production fluctuates. But it's hard not to look at what he did in 2021 when he played 130 games

was dealing with that shoulder injury throughout the season. 42 homers, 99 runs, 9,000. 97 RBI, 25 steals, 282 batting average. Those are his numbers in 132 games. Like that's just, if he does that in 130 games this season, he probably, that's probably first round value. That might be top five player value. Oh, I think it's easy first round value. I just think that the only thing you're also attaching to him, just is a little bit of a

question with, you know, whatever it was, the ringworm and blah, blah, blah. You know, like what effect did that have on here? There's a lot of protection in that lineup. There's a lot of potential to be hit in or to hit guys in. And he is an elite athlete. And he's probably going to be out for blood. I mean, this dude is going to want to prove everybody wrong. But you have that slight little thing in the back of your head.

Some people in his locker room based on the whole. I mean, the quotes that came out last year when he got suspended. Him and Mani seemed like they were best buddies. But I don't know. Like I've been at the potteries camp for like three straight years in the very beginning. And those two definitely have like a rapport and stuff like that. But it does seem like it was a little bit fractured.

like, man, he wasn't afraid to call. I mean, Joe Musgrove was obviously the most outspoken, but I agree with you on that. There's, like, guys in the locker room that he's going to be trying to prove as well. All right, and then we'll go a little bit over. We're a little bit over already, but it's an hour and two. That's fine.

Outfield, I just got one question, and this is for you. You're the Arizona guy. I've got Jake McCarthy inside of my top 24. I'm too excited about him. He's outside of the top 30 for Frank and Scott. He had 284 with an OPS right around 770 and 99 games last season. Uh, 23 stolen bases is the headline number there though. And his numbers in AAA are very good.

307, 14 home runs and 86 career AAA games. You will be 26 in July. He's a little older. Was last year one is, was that a fluke? Do you think he can be a very, very good fantasy option? Well, I have him just a little bit outside of yours. I'm, so I think I am higher than them. I'm more in your camp on this.

I believe I've got him at outfielder 26 right now. So I'm just a little bit outside of where you are. My question is going to be the commitment Arizona has to him, because I'm not 100% sure on that. I have heard rumors from some people that the Diamondbacks were shopping McCarthy around. Corby and Carroll is the guy. I think they put at the top, but I wouldn't put it against them doing it. Here's the deal. Like, I don't think it's ever going to be an elite power guy, but if Lavello is comfortable with this team to continue to run,

they might lead the league in stolen bases if he allows it. Because you're talking about Rojas and McCarthy, 20 stolen base guys. Corby and Carroll, I legit think can go 30 this. year if he hits well at the top of the lineup. It's just going to be the commitment with the amount of guys that they have out there. I'm worried about a little bit of platoon. There's a lot of lefties that are in that lineup. But I think it's worth the risk because the overall cost isn't insane.

And outfield is the worst this year. So I will take more risks. And that's why I've got McCarthy up there because, I mean, even on, you know, the lowest of projections, you're looking at the bat X, putting him at 28 stolen bases, which is actually, I was about to say this, that's higher than steamer. So I'm very much in for McCarthy being able to do it.

I'm a little bit about worried about how the team treats him, but I'll take the risk. All right. And that's going to do it for fantasy baseball today. I almost said fantasy football today in five because that's the other podcast I host. And it's just like as soon as I go and that's going to do it because that's how I close every episode. And my muscles immediately went to fantasy football today and five. But no, this is fantasy baseball today.

Today, the full episode. We're going to do fantasy baseball today and five shortly. and there's a very good chance. I will mess that outro up for sure. For Chris Welsh, I'm Chris Towers. We'll be back tomorrow. Talk some first year player draft ranking. We'll see you then.