Fantasy Baseball Today - Early 2023 Starting Pitcher Rankings w/ Nick Pollack! (12/13 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 13, 2022

Woo hoo, Nick Pollack is back on the pod (1:35)! ... What's Nick's usual starting pitcher strategy (3:05)? ... How might the shift ban affect starting pitchers (7:35)? ... Scott has Justin Verlander as his top pitcher while Nick has him down at 18 (9:10)! Why is Nick lower on Scherzer, too? ... How concerned should we be about Shane McClanahan (19:10)? ... Why is Nick out on Dylan Cease (26:33)? ... News (33:17): Christian Vazquez to the Twins and Sean Manaea to the Giants. ... Is Scott too low on Julio Urias and Luis Castillo (36:50)? ... What happened to Kevin Gausman (46:55)? ... What should we expect from Tyler Glasnow (51:20)? ... We wrap up with pitchers we might target and favorite holiday songs (59:00)!  Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox 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. 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. What's up and welcome in to a rare non-emergency edition of Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, December 13th. Frank Stample joined by Scott White and a special guest here to talk way too early. early starting pitcher rankings for next season.

Hello there, Scotty. Long time no C. How's it going, bud? Me? Yeah, you. Did you mean to introduce me? Yeah, I'm not the special guest. I'm just the normal guy everybody's used to sing. Yeah, I just, yeah, I wanted to talk to you first.

You're throwing me a curveball here. Scott, you're not normal at all, and that's a good thing, right? You are unique and special, and that's important. Who is that voice that is talking? I don't know. You know him. You know him. You love him.

You've heard him here before. You've heard them everywhere before. We're talking pitching and you know who we needed to bring on. One of our favorites, one of our friends here, one of the best softball short stops in the tri-state area, I can confirm. Our good friend, Nick Pollack from pitcherless. What's going on, Nick? What is happening?

Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, well, I'll talk pitching. It's never too early. You know, there is no off-season. Sure. And look, sure, it's December. It's fine. Everything's going to change across the next three months.

I think I have a feeling maybe Scott's first, starter off the board might change before the season starts. Maybe yours might change. We'll see. That might, not to yours. I'll tell you that. But I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

And yeah, let's talk some pitching. Yeah. So we're going to try and get through the top 30 or so starting pitcher ranks. We're going to focus on Scots, but we're going to also compare them to Nick's top 30 starting pitchers or where he has some of Scott's top 30 pitchers in his rankings. I'm going to highlight some big disparities in the rankings. And then just some interesting pitchers that I think. are, you know, worth talking about at this point in the off season.

Before we get into all that, you can find Nick's rankings and a bunch of other great resources over at pitcherlist.com. So make sure to check it out. Follow him on Twitter at pitcher list, of course. And Nick, what else do you have going on nowadays? I know you're streaming, you're doing podcasts, you're on Twitch, you're all over the place. Tell people where they can find you. Yeah. As you mentioned on Twitch, Twitch.tv.TV slash pitcher list.

I'm going through all 30 starting pitching rotations, watching video of them. stats of that and then putting a podcast for those in January. But we have all this exciting stuff for PL8 coming in February. And we're making our player pages, which I think already the best ones out there, especially for pitching analysis, even better. So can't wait to share all of that. But yeah, just go to pitchers.com. Check out all that we have.

Yes. Make sure to check it out. And before we actually get into the starting pitcher ranks, I did just want to ask some macro level starting pitcher questions, maybe some strategy. And if things have changed from last year, to this year in terms of just the environment and the way that you're handling pitching Nick.

But let's just start off like normally. What is your starting pitcher strategy in a normal fantasy baseball season? Do you have a set strategy? Do you normally wait on pitching? Do you like to get aces early on? What is your strategy? What is it? What is a normal fantasy baseball season?

Yeah, we haven't had that since 2019. Oh, geez. Even that was the bouncy ball. What is? Yeah, even that home run. Everybody set their career high in home runs in 2019. So. Glaver Torres, right?

He can have 38 home runs again. I think you got to go back to 2015 is the last time we had a normal. Gosh, that's when I started, Scott. No, it was a, okay, my strategy is pretty simple. Play to your strengths. My strength, I like to believe, is starting pitching. So I don't overspend on it. And you want to find value in your draft and whatever you think you're best at.

So for me, I generally don't go for too many starting pitchers early. I like to go maybe one. in the first six rounds or so, and then get them 7, 8, 9. And I think this year, just like last, there are some really excellent starters going around the SP20 mark as the second tier of starters,

or maybe second or third tier, is very long compared to other seasons. It does get very odd around SP50, SP50, where there is a significant drop-off. So it does mean that I'm more inclined to go and jump for my fun, exciting guys. around, rounds 13, 14, 15, than I can maybe in 1920 than I used to.

But in general, there's one phrase I always say, you're not drafting a best ball league. I am drafting with the anticipation of chasing high upside guys and then burning and churning them in my leagues in the back half of the draft. If it doesn't work out early, I want to jump on something else. And plan for that. Look at the early schedules of guys. If you get a guy and you don't want to start him against the Dodgers first week,

And why did you draft him in the 20th round? Might as well go get someone else that you might actually want to play and get early. So that is my general strategy. Go get hitting because I don't want to worry about that stuff. And then I'll figure out pitching later. You know, that reminds me of Kyle Gibson from last year. I think he opened up with the Marlins and the A's. I was just drafting him in the last round everywhere and just streaming him those first two weeks.

Yeah, there you go. That's it. You know, I think it's a good point that you bring up just early on. You know, Scott and I have been talking about how it feels like there's more quality pitching than there has been in years past. I don't know if it's mainly because of the environment, you know, offense being down a little bit or, you know, maybe just pitching getting better the past couple of seasons,

whatever it might be. But it does seem like there's more viable starting pitchers compared to years past. So there's a middle class again. Yeah. Like that was, that was the big thing. That was the thing that stood out to me most during the juice ball era and which started in 2016 and kept getting worse and worse. The peak was 2019.

But, you know, then, things really changed last year. It started to taper off after 2019 and then it really changed again last year. And I think the return of the middle class at starting pitchers is what stands out most to me. And I see it mostly as a product of just home runs not being so easy to hit anymore. You don't necessarily have to be a 12 strikeout per inning, 12 strikeout per nine inning guy to have success as a starting pitcher. So we saw guys like Merrill Kelly, Miles Mike. Nicholas have good seasons. And, you know, that's kind of at the lower end of what I'm talking about.

You go up beyond that. 50, I think, is a good cutoff point that Nick Pollock mentioned. In my rankings, that's about where you'll find Chris Bassett. And he's sort of the, he sort of exemplifies that middle class at starting pitcher where there's not really an ace outcome for Chris Bassett. And yet at the same time, you feel really good about having him be a part of your fantasy staff. And speaking of Chris Bassett, if you want to hear our thoughts on him to the Blue Jays,

we did an emergency podcast earlier today talking about him. We highlighted that entire three-team trade with the A's, the Braves, and the Brewers. And we did talk about Kodi Senga landing with the Mets over the weekend. So again, if you want to find that, it's already in your feed. So go check it out. Nick, I don't know if you've done any research on this yet, but I feel like it's an interesting talking point. I don't know exactly how or who it's going to affect yet.

but we know that there will be a shift ban in 2023. So two fielders on each side of second base in the infield, they cannot stand on the outfield. I'm sure teams will find a way to kind of like finagle this. Maybe they'll like position their outfielders differently than they have in years past. But have you thought about how that may affect overall pitching in baseball and who might be affected most?

Like heavy ground ball pitchers, maybe they lose value, something like that. Have you thought about this at all? Yeah, a little bit. Generally, when it comes to major rule changes, I just say, whatever and move along. This is the hardest part about fantasy baseball. Alex Chamberl put out a great tweet about this a couple of years ago.

It stuck with me saying there are so many variables. There's so many different things that we can focus on now. And it just becomes overwhelming to decide what is the thing that we're going to put our weight on. So I decide to just keep it simple. I believe most in the repertoire of the pitcher, what is good about it? What have they done well about it? Can this change and get better or is it going to get worse? And other stuff like the shift band, sure, as you mentioned, ground ball pitchers generally should be worse a little bit.

If it's a tiebreaker, I'll lean on that. But I'm not going to sit here and say that Framer Valdez now is going to be a 4-ERA pitcher because the shift ban. I don't think he was going to be a sub 3 ERA guy again, but I don't think all of a sudden that pushes him a full tick down on ERA. So it's maybe a little bit of a difference, but it's not really something that I focus on. All right, well, let's jump into those rankings, and we're going to cluster together these pitchers in groups of five. And then, again, we'll highlight the biggest differences and just pitchers that stand out to me so far. Let's start with Scott's top five starting pitchers for 2023. If you're watching us live, Scott is covering his face.

Nick is laughing because right off the jump, we have a huge disparity. One through five, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Corbin Burns, Sandy Alcantara, and Garrett Cole. Nick has Max Scherzer at number nine. So again, the difference there, two versus nine. Verlander at 18. So number one for Scott, number 18 for Nick. So let's just jump. Nick, is it just like, is it age for both of these guys?

Is it potential injury risk for Scherzer? We've seen that more of the past couple of years. Why are you so much lower on both Scherzer and Verlander heading into next season? I'm still pretty convinced that there is a Verlinder. lander ornament on that tree because that has to be the reason that Scott White is is in love with this. I did my ranks in a way that is the first three guys are Garrett, sorry, Corden Burns, Garrett Cole, and of course, Sandy Alcantar, because I have a Sandy crush if you can't see that. Love it.

And I did that because those are guys that are going to go 200 innings. I can actually depend on the volume of this. And if the volume does not mean necessarily wins or. or strike as it does help a lot with it. But it also is expression of ERA in whip. If you have a guy going 150 innings versus 200, you get 33% more frames with a guy at 200 of those same ratios. That's a huge deal.

And I want to have the studs that I trust to go through the full year. Don't have to worry about injuries. Don't have to worry about any of that. That's great. St. Alcantara, 220 plus innings last year. We don't expect that. But yeah, easily over the 200 mark. then after that I have my risky guys

who could theoretically do it start every day but they have some sort of injury question with it and Max Scherzer to me is actually involved in that he has not got 180 innings for a little bit I think that this continues to be a problem for Max Scherzer do I think that his slider is one of the more underrated pitches in baseball yes I do we talk about Max Scherza being great but we don't talk about how good that slider is

it's insanely good but I still think injury is going to be a factor here and if I'm spending early in my draft on a starting pitcher. As a guy that's like, no, no, I'm going to wait on this. But if I'm going to get one in the first three rounds, it has to be a guy that had the most confidence at the highest floor. And floor can be defined in many ways.

One major one is innings. I think Scherzer and Verlander have a much lower floor than those three names of Alcantara, Burns and Cole. So I'm going away from that. I'm saying, no, I don't want to take that risk. I'd rather have the much better sure thing. All right, Scott, you look very confused. Now your opportunity to fight.

Oh, yeah, I did not see his arguments going that way at all, because those are pretty much the same arguments I make for taking Verlander and Scherzer that high. And I think maybe what the issue is, is, first of all, like, really crowded at the top at starting picture. I think there's going to be a lot less consensus here than we're used to seeing, because there's probably, you know, I could probably look at the top 20 in my rankings and make a case for them to be number one for the most part. But certainly top 15. But what I ultimately landed on is that Verlander and Scher give me the most confidence.

Like I think when they're that tight in terms of upside, what I was looking at, it sounds like a similar process to you. I was looking at risk factors for each of these pitchers. What are the risk factors for each of these pitchers? And age is pretty low on the list for me at this position. In fact, age tends to work in a pitcher's advantage because they're used to taking on this big workload. They've proven it time and time again.

I understand Scherzer's had trouble reaching that workload the past couple years, but it's not because he's not going the distance in games anymore. It's just because he's been a little dinged up here and there. hasn't been armed stuff. So I don't worry so much about it. Like, I don't think it's, you know,

I don't think he's going to suffer some catastrophic season, that injury that ends his season early. And I do think it's, because of how deep he goes into each start, there's still a very good chance he does approach, if not exceed that 200-inning threshold. But certainly for Verlander,

he's in only 175 innings this past year. Sure, it was his first year back from Tommy John surgery. He was one of the biggest workloads any pitchers ever taken on after that. I don't, like, I still think, think Verlander's a cinch for 200 innings. And meanwhile, he led the majors in ERA, led the majors in WIP.

He was the top pitcher in fantasy last year. So just by that standard, it seems weird that I have to defend him as the top pitcher in my rankings. But, yeah, I think, to me, that's safer than Corbyn Burns, who's only once gotten to 200 innings. Garrick Cole, you know, he has ERA issues because of all the home runs he's allowing at Yankee Stadium. And then, you know, you get a little first.

down from that. Like Shane McClanhan certainly hasn't proven the ability to take on workload. Spencer Strider, same thing. Those seem like clear risk factors to me than just, oh, Verlander insurers are old. So about Verlander insurers specifically, we've seen degradation with both of their repertoire. So, I mean, when it comes to age, I'm with you on, hey, we've seen these older guys that are just surviving past it.

But the ones that have established that kind of has been. Justin Verlander or Max Scherzer. And I've seen in both of them in the past year their stuff getting worse. Max Scherzer's fastball was adding a lot more hard contact than ever before. I think he got incredibly lucky with the four seamer this past year.

227 Babbup on the pitch after years of 300 on it and more hard contact than in 2021 at 31.5% which is very average if not below average for a fastball which makes them if you remember 2020 allowed the long

ball a lot. This is exactly what the fastball looked like. I think that you're going to see a lot more home runs off of that pitch this past next year. The 229 ERA we saw from Scherzer, I think, is very generous. I mean, I still have in my top 10, but when it combined that, I do think he's going to be a lot worse

from 2020 to 2023, plus the fact is 145 innings last year, has a hit 180 since 2018. That is worrisome for me if I'm taking Max Scherzer early. With Justin Verlander, four seamer, compared to previous seasons, a lot worse.

10% swing strike rate as opposed to 14, 15% that established everything. The stuff across the board as his slider goes, plenty worse as well. And the curveball, not really as big of a factor as it used to be as far as swing strike rate goes. Strike rate went up. He had to use it more because other pitches were a little bit worse. It worked out, but it kind of got away with a lot with it too. The way I see it is that Justin Burnlander had a miraculous season

175, he rate. 0.83 whip. Wonderful. And we all think, oh, he's past Tommy John, 28 starts. He's got it for 200 now. It's going to be incredible.

I'm terrified. I really am worried that there is something else going on that has this stuff this worse. And we're going to see that in a big way. I agree that I'm likely going to be lower and, consensus and especially the point about like the top 15 being like all over the place. Like yes, there are so many good pitchers.

No one can decide what the heck to do with Carlos Redan, for example. Like, what do you do? I don't know. Good point about Shane McClan. I'm getting hurt in September last year, August, September, and that Krillin messed us up. It was about 165 innings. And it's about, yeah, where do you want to take your risk? I don't blame me for saying, look, for a lender insurers have been so good for so long.

And like, I'll just go ahead and take that. I'm terrified of, like, I see the storm clouds coming is what I'm seeing from this, and I kind of want to avoid that. ADP basically splits the difference on Verlander 2, because as of now, he's the SP 10 off the board. So that's basically the middle of you guys. Scott has him at 1 again. Nick has him at 18.

Scher, the field is a little bit lower on in general right now. SP 14 could just be the combination of age plus injuries. You know, he's been dealing with that stuff a little bit more the past couple of seasons. But let's move on to this next group here. And I know we don't want to get stuck on these guys probably, but I do want to make this point because it could come up again. Like part of the issue too is like, I'm probably not taking any pitcher till round four.

Yes. So like it at least round four. So like, you know, I don't, I, I, I almost don't care enough to really make that big of a deal of it. You know, like I'm not going to have a chance at Corbin Burns in all likelihood. because like that's just right just not going to go for him so if verlander's just as good or just as valuable in my eyes then you know whatever I'll rank of number one I I feel just as good about him and if not better 95 mind the wins promoted his player ranking up to he was 18 to 4 last year I hopefully can do that again but I doubt it the early ADP for verlander 50.4 early ADP for

shurs are 56 so even if you want to wait till the fifth round scott paste on that ADP, you might be able to get either one, your number one or number two pitchers. I can rank them one and two, and then that'll kind of keep myself honest, right? Yeah. My number one pitcher's still there. I'll keep them down so that we can make sure that everyone's confused and it stays a 50 ADP. There you go. Scott's next five starting pitchers, six through ten in the rankings.

Jacob de Grom, Shane McClainahan, Brandon Woodruff, Zach Wheeler, and Aaron Nola. Relatively similar between the two sets of rankings with you two guys in this group. here. Just want to quickly talk about Shane McClanahan because he's probably one of the pitchers I'm struggling with most here early on in the offseason because anyone who listens to this podcast knows that I loved Shane O'Mac entering last season. But I'm pretty worried about this shoulder injury. Arguably the AL-Say-Yung Award frontrunner before suffering that injury in late August. But obviously this is something that could linger year over year. Final four starts were pretty bad for Shane McClanahan as well once he returned from it.

5.21 ERA, 1.42 whip, swinging strike rate below 10%. Velocity, however, was fine during that time. Nick, we'll start off with you here. Where are you at? Concern level when it comes to Shane McClan for next season. So I have so many things about Shane McClain. First of all, I'm a Shane McClain.

I also call him Mick Shane for like McBain. But I adore him. He made the fastball a huge thing with the change-up as well. And it just, the fastball was the biggest thing. flaw for Shane McClanahan entering 2022. He made it one of his best strengths. He's insanely good.

Really the only question about him is, all right, what's the health? And I hate this. This is the worst thing that we do in the offseason is guessing innings and injuries. You know, it would be so easy if we just knew that everyone was healthy or how many games we got. This would be the easiest thing ever. It's like, what was it already given about Verlander? Shurs are mostly health. Okay.

So with McClanahanham, it was a shoulder impingement and then a neck injury. And I'm inclined to think that that's okay. Those are just kind of health things and not like scalpula damage or something along those lines. And though off-season is a wonderful thing. It is this giant big red reset button that you can just bonk with your head and it all goes away. And so many times we see this, even like with Zach Wheeler having his shoulder inflammation in the preseason, I was worried about it. Did not stop a thing with Zach with or not even Zach Gallant too, who also had it. And this was in August, September, the raise just slowed it down.

He came back to the playoffs and was throwing cheddar. I mean, it looked like Shane McClain had again. So I think that everything is fine here. Scott made a good argument about like, sure, he's fine now, but what's his fragility like in season? We don't know. That would push him down. On a quality of start or per inning basis, Shane McClanahan, I think you both would agree top five easily in this. I mean, 30% strike at rate 0.93 whip, 254 ERA, even that's pulled down by his September performance when he was dealing with this.

So yeah if we could if we could if we could presume health for shame McClanahan and presume health and 200 innings so shame McClanahan he's probably number one for me right so that's the that's the thing is like make your assessment that you want on his health by March we'll have a much better idea I get a feeling that it's going to be March 17th shame McClanan throws his four innings in spring popping 99 like it's bubble gum and everyone's going to be like this is amazing. I'm going to get him in the second round. It's just that we're right here in December

and not wondering what he's doing at the moment, probably getting some lovely holiday gifts. Nick, did you choose March 17th on purpose? No. I just thought of the middle of March. All right, because I thought you were trying to make like a Shane McClanahan kind of sounds like an Irish last name.

St. Patrick's Day. March 17th? I don't know. Is it always the 17th? Yeah. It's always the same. I always, for one of the reason, I always, like, I thought it changed every year. This is, oh, this is alarming.

And Frank discovered last week that Pearl Harbor Day is always December 7th. Well, that's always going to be the same day. Right. That means a lot more sense that it's always the same day. To be fair, we were in the middle of a baseball podcast. It's got just like, well, you know what today is. It's December 7th. And it's like, the furthest thing from my mind is just like,

I wasn't thinking about it at that point, but you're right, Scott. You put me on the spot. It's like Easter. When is Easter? What is Easter? What is Thanksgiving? I just thought St. Paddy's Day was like that, but I guess that's... No.

No. March 17? Every single year. I will say, last point on Shane McClanahan, this could be a blind spot in my analysis because last offseason, I was not drafting Shane Bieber at all. And not all shoulder injuries are created equal. I'm pretty sure Bieber's was something completely different.

But I was extremely nervous. And, you know, he was going in the second, third round. And I said, No, I was spooked. No Shane Bieber. I'm not drafting him and he came out and he had a fantastic season. So this could just be a blind spot in my analysis.

I will say Frank though, a little different is Shane Bieber was throwing 9091 in those two starts when he came back. And that's what scared us, right? And what did Shane Bieber do this year? He threw 9091. It was a worst fastball. He had a lower strikeout rate. But the thing is, the curveball on the slider were still excellent. Yeah.

And that saved him. But I'm still weirded out by Shane Bieber. He actually had the same amount of strikeouts in 200 innings as Spencer Strider in, I guess, 65 more innings. Something like that. Yeah. Try to only have 130. 135 or something. Yeah, right around there.

Oh, my God. So there's another layer to the Shane McClanagan skepticism than just, oh, is he broken now? Because of what happened in September with the strikeouts and the swinging strikes being down. And I think maybe this is where my analysis on pitchers tends to be most different from the consensus. And I mentioned it already, just how much can you trust in this guy to give you the volume of an ace? And, you know, 166 innings is what McClanahan gave us last year. Obviously nowhere near what we're expecting from an ace. And like part of the reason I tend to value the old guys more is because,

I don't trust you can do it with that kind of volume, that you can provide that volume, that you can hold up over it until you actually do. And Shane McClanahan was approaching it, and what happened? His shoulders started hurting. So he didn't get there. And he's like arguably the hardest throwing left-handed starting pitcher ever. He's only six foot one.

Can his body really take on that kind of workload? Maybe, but I have no reason to believe it can. So the fact that he got injured, it's not so much, you know, is he ever going to be the same? It's just, is this an indication that he's not really capable of that ACE workload? And I think it remains to be seen. Yeah, I think it's a great point. Yeah, I think that's fair. Let's get into double-digit ranks here, 11 through 15 for Scotty.

We've got Carlos Rodan, Dylan Seas, Shane Bieber, Alec Manoa, and Spencer Strider, who, by the way, You both have exactly SP-15 on Spencer Strider. Boom. Something you guys can agree on. I guess so. I thought I was looking lower than the consensus at first. When you do the balls out of the pit, you take them out 15 times. You'll get one right.

Yeah. Let's talk about one that you don't have right. And that is Dylan C's who again, Scott has a 12 and Nick has down at SP-19. early ADP, SP4. People love Dylan Seas. It is absolutely insane. 227 strikeouts last season, the fifth most in baseball,

arguably the best slider in baseball. But what else does he have besides that? Nick, tell us, why do you hate Dylan Seas, man? D.C. is comical, okay? 10.4% walk rate last year. You do not see a 220 ERA with that high of a walk rate. I do not care how good that slider is.

It is very good. And I get it, 18% hard contact allowed that is overall played appearances. That's second best among all starting pitchers. I understand this. I just cannot believe that he can do this for another season. I don't think he's going to have a 6.2 hit for 9 after years of 7 and 8. I don't think that his four seamer can get away with it again. I feel like Jesse from Jesse Pinkman from breaking bad.

He cannot keep getting away with it. this. That's exactly what I thought of when you said that. You know, it's, his curveball cannot be thrown for a strike enough. It's a really good slider. I get this. This is going to burn him.

And I will tell you right now, his whip was way worse. In the second half, he didn't have nearly as many explosive strikeout games. It was a 24% strike rate. Not his whip. I'm sorry, his strike rate was way worse. Not the 30% K guy.

He wasn't the first half, more like a 35%. Second app was about a 24%. I think those drafting Dylan Cs are thinking, oh, okay, I just need to get all these strikeouts, 227 strikeouts this last year, across 184 innings. I don't think he's an efficient pitcher. I think the whip in this peak season was 111. I think it's going to get worse than that. You cannot take an SP in the second round and have a 115 whip.

That's not what's supposed to happen here. is ERA is going to go north of three. Strikeouts will still be there, but this is going to be very, very frustrating as the slider is everything and the supporting cast of four seamer curveball are just not enough. Safe to say that Nick won't have

any shares of Dillins is heading into next season. And Scott, even with you ranking him as the 12 starter off the board, again, his ADP SP4 as of now, I get it, it's NFBC, it's early on, there's only 95 drafts. A lot of these drafters are shooting for upside. Dylan Cease has about as much strikeout upside as anybody in baseball.

But it sounds like you won't have me either based on this ranking. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I think Nick and I both rank in a way that we're not going to actually draft Dylan Seas. Maybe Nick's ranking is a little more of a statement. You know, I try not to make a statement with my ranking. I don't care about it. I don't look at other people's rankings when I make it. I just go like, this is what I think.

If it's a statement, it's a statement. Whatever. Okay. So maybe an unintentional statement. But he's making the statement more nonetheless. You know, when I was first putting together my rankings, I was kind of inclined like Shane Bieber, Alec Manoa. Like I kind of like those guys more than Dylan Seas.

And I may have been influenced like, oh, look at how high he's going. I can't rank him behind those two. So it may be a little bit of the consensus, reeling me in from what my initial inclinations are. But the overall point is, yeah, I have a lot of the same concerns about CIS that Nick does.

And I'd be very surprised if he wound up on my team. Just too many walks for my liking. And I'll also raise the point that he had a 14-start stretch this past year with a 0.66 ERA. 14 starts, 0.66. That explains a lot of why his ERA ended up, finally ERA ended up being 220,

but there were a ton of unearned runs during that stretch. I remember that. He had a stretch where he kept, yeah. Yeah, he kept having these like, the runs, the run column was bad, the earned run column was much lower. And, you know, the whole idea between earned runs and unearned runs is, oh, it's not really the pitcher's fault.

But, you know. as a former picture you kind of put yourself in that position by the way I'm envisioning a political cartoon of me on a little dinky rowboat and then the consensus in this giant cruise ship

and Scott White's Dylan's C's ranking is in the middle and I've got my rod and I'm trying to pull as hard as I can while everyone else is talking to him the other direction it's nice over here it's a one wonderful rowboat. Come join me, Scott.

I may. Like, that gets to the idea, too, of like, I mean, we're having to parse so much at this range of starting picture. Right. That it's just, you can make intellectual arguments for your point of view, but it almost comes down to gut feeling, really. If we're, if you're forced to take a truth serum, that's almost what it's like for me. And it really amplifies to me is right. You're waiting to the fourth round to get a starter. I did the pitch of the stuff mock draft.

I was able to get Aaron Noli in the fifth. Right. And I was like, great, right. Beautiful. I've got it. You know, I don't need to jump to the second, third to get a reliable SP1 with this many qualified starters or quality starters, I should say. Well, also the hitting is way better.

It's a big drop off. Oh, yeah. There, and you have to jump at that. And then you can get this. get Aaron Oli, you can get Dylan C, Salick Mano, whatever you want. Just get them a little bit later. Yeah. Yeah.

Fair enough, let's take a quick break. Before we do that, you may have noticed we have some new short form content coming out on YouTube, 32nd, one minute videos. We also have them on TikTok, a new account. You can follow us at FBTPod. The link to follow is in the pod and the YouTube description. Let's take a break, and we'll be back right after this. Before we get back into the starting pitcher ranks, I do have some news and notes,

some smaller signings that have happened recently. We can quickly run through some of these. Christian Vasquez just here on Monday. Signed a three-year deal with the Minnesota Twins. It's your prototypical second catcher in two-catcher league. 274 batting average, nine homers in 119 games last season. Gary Sanchez, in case you're wondering, is a free agent, by the way. So Vasquez should be the starter.

See the majority of playing time there for the Minnesota Twins. Kevin Kiermeyer signed with the Blue Jays over the weekend. don't really think he has much value, right? Scott? Not much there. I guess there could be some ripple effects. Like, Whitmeryfields, are you going to play outfields, second base? I guess now it would have to be second base, but still things happening here in the offseason. So as we get closer to the season, we can figure that kind of stuff out.

Yeah, when Maryfield's a tough one to figure out, because even if you're like, oh, he can play second base now, of course they have 2021 or 22 All-Star Santiago Espinal. Right. who maybe don't want to find playing time for as well. I'd rather than just start Maryfield, but that's not exactly how it played out after they acquired him. Yeah. We had Sean Maniat's to the Giants on a two-year, $25 million deal.

Disaster season. I know, because I had him in multiple locations. I was all over Sean Mania last year. Did not work out. 4.96 ERA, 1.30 whip. The walk rate was way up. Career worst, 1.65 home runs per 9. Fastball velocity was down one mile per hour.

The only good thing, still had a 12% swinging strike rate. So that's pretty good. Everything else, not so much. Nick, any hope that the Giants could get Sean Minia back on track? I'll tell you this. Better in San Francisco than in San Diego and in Oakland. Hopefully the velocity comes back. It was 92 in 2020.

It got us excited for a little bit when he was doing that. But he also lost feel for his change-up and breaking ball this past year. Hopefully those can return as well. Yeah, the Giants have done a really good job getting pitchers back on track for what it's worth. You know, Kevin Galsman in the past couple of years. I know Alex Cobb had a pretty good season last year as well. So, Alex Boyd. Yeah, their latest reclamation project, Sean Mania, let's see if the Giants could turn them back around.

Trevor Williams is headed to the Nationals on a two-year $13 million deal. And there was a report report that he'll begin the season in their rotation. Solid season with the Mets last year, 3.21 ERA, 1.23 whip. 84 strikeouts over 89 and two-thirds innings pitched. Scott, any interest in Trevor Williams in deeper leagues? I mean, I'm sure he'll be streamable at some point. Against the Marlins.

Yeah, I would not invest any draft capital in Trevor Williams. Last but not least, you hate to see it, man. Well, actually, I'm happy for the guy because he has a job somewhere. Frank Schwindell is headed to Japan. We'll always love you, Frankie Two Hits. We'll never forget that monster second half you had in 2021. I had to in the Scott White Dynasty League, but unfortunately that came crashing down.

You didn't trade him when you had the chance. I unfortunately traded for Frank Schwendell in a 24 team league that offseason. Didn't give up a ton for him, but... You should have hit me up, man. I would have traded him to you. Jeez. You liked him because his name was Frank.

Let's be honest. Yeah, and I, you know, Frankie 2 hits. It's a great nickname. Every box score you looked at, he had multiple hits. It was just a crazy second half that year. Anyway. It was. Frank Spindell to Japan. Let's get back to the rankings here.

16 through 20. We've got Chohey O'Tani, Julio Arias, Max Fried, U. Darvish, and Luis Castillo. Two big differences on this list right now. This time, Nick is higher on both of the pitchers we're going to talk about. Nick has Arias at SP6. Again, Scott has him at 17.

Nick has Castillo at SP 13. Scott has at 20. Let's start off with Julio Reyes here, Scott. Maybe explain why you have have him outside of your top 15. He's been really valuable the past two years. I mentioned the stat last week. 37 wins over the past two seasons. By far the most in baseball, nobody else even has 30. Why are you a little bit lower on Arias? I think there are limits to Arias's upside for fantasy. I kind of put him and Max Fried in the same bucket. They're probably going to be really good

in ERA. They're going to get a ton of run support, which is going to help their win potential. and those are great things. But probably limited to the 180 inning range might be right out of strikeout per inning, if not a little lower. So they're going to fall short in those two very important areas. And I think that makes them, like when I was talking about how there may be,

originally I said 20 and then I lowered it to 15 pitchers who could finish number one this year. part of the reason I lowered it is because I was thinking about Julio Arias and Max Freed at the back end of my top 20. And like, I don't think those guys can finish number one because of those issues I just laid out. All right. Well, now that you mentioned Max Freed, I kind of, I want to see where Nick has him ranked. SP 14.

So you don't necessarily agree, Nick, that you would have those guys in the same conversation. It sounds like maybe you think Arias does have SP1 upside. What do you think? I mean, I love Max Freed, though. So I don't really want to hate against that. Urius, 175 innings plus the last two years. So as far as longevity goes, I feel a little bit better about the stability of him at the moment. The win potential, I just think it's higher because the Dodgers are the Dodgers a little bit more than Atlanta.

It's just how it's gone. Their defense is excellent. It helps out with his hip prevention as well. That's why the whip generally is lower for Huli Urius than a Max Fried. it's been more around the 105 to 110 range for Max Fried. It was a little better to 101 or so. Arias.96. I give him the nod there as well.

ERA is kind of like, all right, whichever one is fine. Strikeout potential is interesting because Max Fried, I think, has more potential in what he offers. I think there's more to unlock with the slider and the curveball from Max Fried. However, Urius has it made right now. his curveball is excellent. It is a massive hard contact mitigator. He is up there in hard contact, 13th best among all starting pitchers.

That's what you want to see. The curb light throws a third of the time, and it is just 200 batting average allowed. It's actually the highest it's been in the last three years. I think that what Arias does is just great right now. He doesn't have that swing, strike rate pitch. However, the four seamer gained in swing strike rate this past year to 13 percent, which is the highest it's been since 2020,

and that you don't really want to count that one. It did drop in velocity slightly, but that was because of the early part of the season, and then he actually got it back later on. I think Urius is incredibly safe. Max Fried, I think is too, just with a worse whip and probably a fewer wins. And I don't really think they're very far away from each other.

I just think Urius has more consistency in this four-seamer curveball approach than what Max Fried offers. with his. Yeah, I don't think there's much of a downside case for either. Like I said, I just think they're missing that last rung at the top of the ladder that could really make them a true ace in fantasy. I'm with you. It could be the four-seamer for OREAS.

If it's consistent through the entire season, we could see an uptick with those fast well, he is elevating a little bit more now. I wouldn't put it past him that he's able to get a little bit more whiffs than he currently does. I don't think it was too high this year, 12.4% for Ureus is just under 70th in the majors. You want to see that explosiveness. But dang, that kerbill is so good.

And it just makes it easy for him to coast. Freed does actually have that slight extra potential of development for me, even though he had a lower strikeout rate. If you're looking for that. But I still think Urius, yeah, I was just thinking, safest of safe here at six. So I'll take it. Tangential point, but I want to go ahead and put it out there here on December 12th.

Braves finish with a better record than the Dodgers. Padres finished with a better record. Does Freed have more wins than Urius? Well, that's a little more. But that's, I mean, Freed has more wins than Ureus. Because Urius is, I think the rotation is better in Atlanta. I don't know if I believe that.

I don't know. You don't believe that. No, I believe the Dodgers will have more game. The big is the free agent market's blown up. Like, it's gone except for. Okay, three really big names out there. But the Dodgers clearly aren't playing in that sandbox. And Ken Rosenthal's reported they're leaving openings for young guys.

So they're, I'm not saying they're not going to make the playoffs because I have a lot of faith in the Dodgers to succeed in general. But they're not going to be up to their usual standards this year, I don't think. Frank, write this down because I can't wait to come back next year and be telling you how wrong I was about Atlanta having a better role. record than the Dodgers. So I'll take the Dodgers here. Dodgers over to the Braves. All right. They have been linked to Danesby Swanson and the Dodgers have the past couple days, but we shall see it would be such a turn there. Yeah, right? I mean, literally Braves versus Dodgers there. Everything that I've seen is that the Dodgers want to leave money open to make a

huge play at Otani next off season, which just makes a bunch of sense. Or just make a trade, as they always do for the best player at the deadline. They get everything and it's They certainly don't have any lack of trade assets. Oh my gosh. They can ultimately do whatever they want. Let's quickly talk about Luis Castillo, Nick. Again, you have him at SP 13, Scott at 20. Not a huge disparity, but you are a little bit higher on him here.

11 starts with the Mariners being traded there midseason last year. 3.17 ERA, 1.10 whip, 77 strikeouts, over 65 and a third. Endings. Got the walks down overall last year, the best walk rate we've seen since 2018. One thing that stands out to me is that oddly enough, while he was better last year than recent years, his change up has been trending down since 2019. His whiff rate by year, 48%, 40%, 33%, and then 26% this past year. So it just doesn't really add up.

I don't know, Luis Castillo's just kind of an interesting one. Why are you higher on him, you think, than Scott? So if you want to hear more about Luis Castillo, Fast and I are going to talk on the corner podcast tomorrow, and I a lot about Luis Castillo, but very briefly, I have a theory that Castillo's changeup got worse because of the emphasis on a four seamers. It's just based on release, just less pro nation coming across, but then forcing me have to stay farther behind.

And that four seamer exploded this past year. We're talking a 17% swing strike rate, which is just gorgeous. Oh, and it's hard contact rate. I got to emphasize this. So I'm around like 27%, 30% for league average. You don't want to do that. That's bad. 18% on a 14, four seamer is unheard of.

And this is the pitch that he's thrown a third of the time. Through it more with the Mariners than with the Reds. Emphasize that. The slider has really come in to be a fantastic offering, 37% CSW on, a 67% strikes, sub 20% hard contact rate, 183 average. It's everything you want to see. The manor said, hey, look, we want to get Luis Castillo and turn him into a fastball slider guy with some changeups.

That has worked excellent for him. We're seeing like classic Luis Castillo in Safeco. Yes, not in Cincinnati with these home runs going crazy all the time. Oh, with a better defense and an offense that will actually get me wins. It's everything that we want. He's increasing his strikeout rate. He's going to lower his whip. He's going to increase his runs.

I'm excited for this. I actually see a 200 strikeout guy. And you're saying, oh, I need to get Dylan Cese to get 200 strikeout guy. No, just get Luis Castillo. Just do that. You'll be happy. and you won't have a 10% walk rate to elevate that whip. You know, you're going to have just as many strikeouts or maybe a little bit fewer,

much better whip. I think higher win potential. Honestly, could be better ERA with Luis Castillo. So I'm a fan. Nick, I don't know if you want to reveal this on air. I don't think it really matters, but what cell phone provider do you have? Verizon. Okay.

I was about saying. Not team mobile. Not team mobile because you just referred to Seattle as Safeco. Oh, yeah. It's still Safeco. It's always Safeco. I don't care. T-Mobile Park, man.

AT&T Park, that's the only one I'll ever call it, even though it's Oracle. And that's just in my head forever. Same thing with Milwaukee, right? Miller Park, it's like, why do we got to call this American family field now? I still think the Giants play a Packbell Park. There you go.

I mean, that's before. Which one is it now for the Rangers? Is it as a field or a park? So the way that I always remember it now is it's field, because when they were changing, someone pointed out, field for future, park for past. So that's how I always remember it. Okay.

Wow. Monique device. So I always remember it as field now. So there you go. Thank you. Let's get into the 20s here. It better be right. I hope you're right.

Someone go fact check me in. If I'm wrong, you can just all completely flamey. It'll be hilarious. Let's get into the 20s here at starting pitcher. 21 through 25. We've got Kevin Gosman, Zach Gallen, for Amber Valdez, Joe Musgrove, and Robbie Ray. Scott, how do we explain what we just saw from Kevin Gosman?

It was such a weird season in that his underlying numbers were fantastic. 24.4% K-minus walk rate, fifth best among qualified starting pitchers, 15.5% swinging strike rate tied for first, 2.94 Sierra, seventh best. The problem is that he had a 363 Babbup. That was the most by far among qualified. starting pitchers. Jose Berrios was second at 328. That is a huge difference, 35 points of difference. He does allow a lot of hard contact, but even with that, Scott, this babbub outlier was just so, so weird for Kevin Gosman. I mean, how do we even explain it? I may not be the person to ask

on this particular panel. Maybe it's a problem with Blue Jays because I just said that Gosman and Berrios were one and two. I was going to point that out, and I will also point out that Kevin Gossman's Babbitt problems were especially pronounced at home. And so it makes me wonder if there's something going on with the playing surface there.

It is a strange dichotomy to lead all qualifiers in both swinging strike rate and Babbitt, meaning bad Babbitt, like have the highest swinging strike rate and also the highest Babbitt as Kevin Gossman did. So I

think it's mostly fluky, but that issue with the home away splits and the Babbitt gives me just enough pause that I have Gossman. I have him 21st in my rankings. Could totally make the argument for him 12, but I am 21st. 4.57 was the ERA at home last year for Gossman. 2.30 on the road. His Babbat was 3.95 at home 3.35 on the road.

Nick, do you have any theories as to why this is going on with Gossman? We've heard it before in Toronto with the... turf, but also I wouldn't say that they are pronounced defensive team. Um, that said, he should not have a three six four bab up again. I think we can all kind of agree like it sure, maybe it's like a three 15, but it shouldn't be that ridiculous. A nine point seven hit per nine. That's no.

Mm. Mm. Mm. Go away. It's nice that he had a four percent walk rate to help mitigate that, but it was a 124 whip in the end. So. 115 whip seems reasonable

to me for Gosman with upside for more if it's actually a fine normal babb. Given that the splitter is still so good. Missing bats at a 27% swing strike rate and he's throwing it a third of the time. Yeah, that's why he led all qualified starters in swing strike rate, right? Fourth among the top 200 batters faced in starting pitchers

as we do it. Four Seamer was weird. he didn't quite miss bats like he has in the past. And it got hit super hard, though. 39% hard contact on it. And in previous years, we've seen Gosman hover around 28 to 30% on it. I'm a little worried that his command of his four seamer was off.

It's part of the reason why I might be dropping Gosman down. Actually, someone who's not in this, who's in your next tier, I'm going to be putting above Gosman, I think. But I, I'm like, I have to give justice. for that next guy. But I, but Gosman,

I still think he's going to get a ton of strikeouts. He's going to pitch a lot of innings. It's going to get a good amount of wins. The whip is going to be the biggest question mark. It might be 119, 120. And if you're able to stomach that, then you're going to be happy with Gosman.

It's crazy to talk about his whip being that high when he had sub two walks per nine last season. It's just, it's crazy how hitable he was. And again, like, the fast ball was just chucked in the middle so much, I think.

And it can be a guessing game at times too. The slider is just a show me thing that you're lucky as a hitter if you get his slider. So if you throw a splitter a third time, then as a hitter, all right, then I win more often than I lose if I'm expecting not a splitter. And that can happen. Let's get into this next and final group we'll talk about here today, 26 through 30 in the rankings. Christian Javier, Trista McKenzie, Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glassnow, and Blake Snell.

Nick, who was that? pitcher that you were referring to? Oh, that is Christian Javier. Ooh. I don't know what the difference is between him and Spencer Strider, say for about six miles per hour on the fastball, which I know. That's a big deal. But guess what?

Christian Javier had a higher swing strike rate on his fastball than I, than Spencer Strider. He throws it nearly the same amount in the zone, or not in the zone for strikes, while the slider also is about the same amount of strikes and nearly the same amount. MCSW and swing strike rate. They're like the same guy. It blows my mind. And Christian Javier is so good at elevating his fours.

It's a top five fastball in the majors. I'm not even kidding. It is. It blows my mind how good this is. He throws it 60% of the time. Oh, and he plays for one of the most winning ball clubs in the majors. And I think over time,

he's going to just be stretched out more. And Dusty Baker is just going to be gnawing on his toothpick. And there you go. Christian Javier has gone seven innings again. 140 innings this past year. I see that going towards 108. Honestly, just every five days. There is a chance the Astros go a six-man again.

I'm not going to rule that out if they want to get Hunter Brown in the mix again. They might just get rid of Luis Garcia in that rotation. They didn't trust them in the playoffs. But Christian Javier is going to pitch every time through that rotation. And he's going to dominate again. I'm a huge fan. 0.95 whip last year, 33% K-rate. 9% walk rate.

Yeah, he's a stud to me. Another player who could be awesome on this list, we've seen be awesome in the past, is Tyler Glass now. Scott, let's talk about his expectations for this season. The last time we saw him in a full, I guess almost full year, 2021, he looked like one of the five,

one of the three best pitchers in baseball, 2.66 ERA, 0.93 whip. Finally got the walks under control, 19.3 fantasy points per game that season. That was tied for third most among starting pitchers. We did see him at the end of last year.

He made three starts, look good in the postseason as well. Velocity looked good. That's something I wanted to see from Tyler Glass. Now, what are your expectations for him this year ranked inside your top 30? I think he'll be very good for however much he pitches. He obviously hasn't gotten to 200 innings before. He hasn't gotten to 180 innings before. Not 160, not 140, not even 120.

Tyler Glassnow's career high in innings is 111 and 2 thirds, at least at the Major League level. So going back to 2019, he has a 275 IRA.97 whip 12.7K per 9. Obviously terrific numbers, but it's just like obviously has not proven the least bit durable. And until he does, you know, I'm going to approach him with some trepidation. I still rank him 29th. I mean, I'm still happy to take him as probably at that point we're talking second or third starting. Well, I want to like him as my second, to be honest. But was that third starting pitcher, I'd be happy to do it.

But it's clearly selling out for upside. He could kind of, I could see him doing it kind of in a way that Strider did last year. I guess it's still this year. But last season, he's not going to be as good as Strider was because Strider was just like historically amazing. but you know, 130, 140 innings, really good ratios, lots of strikeouts. I could see that from Tyler Glass now this upcoming season. Last time I wanted to mention was Blake Snell, Nick, I can't really blame you on your ranking. You have Snell at 47.

Scott has him at 30. There's just so much inconsistency, volatility, year over year, start to start, month over month. You just don't know which Blake Snell is going to show up. And we saw that last year. First seven starts, 5.60 ERA, 1.44 Whip. Final 17 starts. 2.53 ERA, 1.11 whip. Sounds like you're not expecting that Blake Snell

we saw over the final three months or so next season. Yeah. By the way, I think Tyler Glass now is the Byron Bucks end of pitching. I just want to throw that out there. Don't you wish that evil on him, Nick? Come on. Yeah. Sounds right.

Yeah. I'm not going to go after Talakiazna. He'll be great for like a month. And then everyone's going to be like, this is the greatest thing ever. And then all of a sudden he'll be out for two. months. You're like, oh, right. This is really hard this year because I, there are so many guys. I have like tier five, tier six before the tier seven where Snell is. And I actually, in my tier seven is

the injury tiers. What I do every single year in my two early ones where I say, look, these are all the guys that are like damaged in some way that by March will likely go up or down the board. So my ranking at this point isn't likely to be for any of these guys. what it is in March. Now, Blake Snell specifically, I mean, there's so many good pitchers here. It's like, Jesus L'Azardo, Nicola Dolos fun,

and Papa Lopez and Colorado right, and so on and so forth. So many good ones to chase. Blake's Nell, I will not forget this. Last year, in 2000, after his 2021 season, he did this. He did exactly this, where he was bad,

and then all of a sudden he did great, and then he got hurt, and we're like, what's going on? And the big difference then was he got rid of the changeup. To quote him, he put it in a timeout. So here I am, it's February or so. Maybe it's even January.

And I see Blake Snell is on Twitch. He is live right now. I saw this soon. I get excited. How can you not? Oh man, Blake Snell is live right now and he just started. Maybe I can go in and get a question.

So I jump in. I see there's only like 60 people there. I'm getting excited. I'm typing my question. Hey, Blake Snell, you know, great to see you. Is the change up still in timeout? I'm getting like insider information.

here by asking him on Twitch. And I will not forget this. Blake Snell is there. Oh, what's up? Petrolist? No, man, I can bring that changing back. I cannot wait. And I go to, I typed a fast.

I'm not drafting Blake Snell this year. And he brought it back at first. And like, that was the thing. And I feel that eventually he changed it again. Got rid of the change it. But, well, you know, he was great again. It was just fast balls and breaking ball. And that was it for the fastball slider.

I don't have any faith in this. I think he's going to keep trying to get that change up going. And by the way, what is his health? I don't know. There's always something with Blake's Nell too. So I'm kind of avoiding it. I'm happy to chase him as my SP 4 or 5. But like you were telling, you were saying before, Scott,

I want like three or four guys that I know out of my draft. I am not taking them out of my lineup the entire year. I am holding on to these guys that, it. I will find my value on the wire often or in the back half of my draft to really have a full rotation. But I don't want to draft the guy like Blake Snow or Tyler Glasnow that I'm going to have to change for this. So I'm not in. Take me out. Fair enough, Ben. I can't blame you again. Like there's been so much inconsistency and just kind of wish that he would stick with what works is like more sliders, more curveballs. But alas, we haven't really seen him do that

consistently enough. Before we wrap up here, look, Obviously, we only got 30 starting pitchers in, and there's going to be many more that we're going to talk about leading up to drafts in February and March, so on and so forth. But maybe a few pitchers that we haven't mentioned here. Scott, we'll start with you. One or two that maybe you find yourself gravitating towards or you're just like generally interested in that we haven't talked about today.

Anyone come to mind? Scott's on the clock here. From the top 30? Maybe I should go to Nick first. No, pictures that we haven't talked about yet. From the top 30 or outside? Outside the top 30. Outside the top 30. Okay. Yeah, go to Nick first.

Nick, you're up. Two guys quickly. Jesus Lizardo, I think, is excellent. Love him. Love him. And he came back from the beginning of the season, threw harder. Someone in his Kerrubel more got hurt. I actually had Tyler McGill and Jesus Lizardo on the same team, and they both went down the same day.

It was the worst thing ever. Oh, geez. And then he came back with something slightly slower, but still very effective on that four-team or more four-team. sinker, which is good. But the change-up was once again elite. And oh, having the change-up and the curb up with that too, I think there's a really good thing there. George Kirby is interesting to me because he's in a fantastic situation. It's a sophomore year where oftentimes we see guys that are younger that are getting their groove and then they can adapt from it. And Kirby's four-seamer

is a legit whiff pitch, 16% with swinging strike rate last year is excellent. Amazing. That's better than Christian Javier's. It's just that Javier has a much better secondary pitch in a slider. And Kirby's still figuring that out. However, I think that he, if he does develop something, Kirby could be a legitimate stud. And even if he isn't, he's still a very serviceable starter for your team through the year that I won't drop. So I'm kind of leaning towards Kirby who has the best of both sides here. You pay for the floor, but there's more upside that I think people are seeing.

Yeah, I love Kirby too. I was thinking about choosing him for this exercise. I've done two and a half troughs so far that are going to be played out. I have George Kirby on two of those teams, so pretty excited about that. Scotty, who you got? Yeah, there's a nice group of upside pitchers there, Kirby among them, Luzardo, Lodolo, Hunter Green. But I'm going to go sort of a different track here and say Chris Sale.

I'm happy to draft Chris Sale again. I'm happy to have, I'm ready to have my heartbroken again by Chris Dale, who came back. made only two starts, feeling pretty happy with the way things were going. And then he fractured his pinky and missed the rest of the season. Obviously, just a completely fluky thing that happened to him. And says nothing about his durability. But it seems like everybody's out on Chris Sayle this year.

So I'm happy to take him as my number five or something like that, probably. That's actually what I did. I took him as my number five in the pitcherless staff mock dress. There you go. And I love it. I love it because I don't need him to be everything. Like take that ceiling pick. Yeah.

And he might just give you a top 15 outcome. It's possible. It's possible. He'll be well rested if nothing else. There you go. And if you're getting sales as your SP 4 or 5, you don't even need him to go a full workload. If he gives you 130, 150 innings, I mean, those could be really valuable

innings. Well, the thing is, you'll pitch. Like, they'll just let him do it. every five. Who else is going to pitch for the Red Sox? Red So it's nicer to know that he's not a hipster, right? A headache inducing pitcher that cyples the entire roster. So I, so you can actually, when he pitches, he's healthy, he's just going. And then when he's not, he's not.

And you can make your decisions. I love going for the guys like that as opposed to the 130 that is through a healthy season. I'm like, is he going this week? Is he not? Is he in relief? Is he not? That's the worst. And sale won't do that.

Yeah. Two pitchers I've been gravitating towards later on in drafts so far. John Gray and Edward Cabrera, John Gray basically a two-pitch pitcher. I get it, but he was better last year outside of Colorado, and he has the best two-pitch pitcher in baseball, the best pitcher in baseball, Jacob de Grom. Maybe he can learn a thing or two. I'm very interested in John Gray. Honestly, I could draft the entire Marlins rotation.

I just love all of them. But Edward Cabrera in particular, control is a real issue, but his stuff is nasty. fastball, 96 miles per hour on average. He has three pitches with a whiff rate over 30% according to Stackass. So if you can just kind of rain it in and put it all together, I think we could see a pretty big ceiling season

out of Edward Cabrera. So someone else I do like as well. The holidays are approaching. And that means I've got to find out your favorite holiday song. Scott, you told me yours last year. I can't remember it. It was a purely instrumental song.

Yeah. I was thinking about, well, I told you what, last week that I like more of the, like, traditional hymn-like Christmas songs. But I do remember having this conversation with you last year. And what I said at that time was Mannheim Steamroller, Deck the Halls. That's the one. Awesome song. Awesome song. Love it.

Great call there. Nick, you? Favorite holiday song? I love TSO a little. If you don't know what that is, then you don't know TSO. But I, if I, I remember Christmas Eve, every single. you're going up to my grandmother's place in Upper West Side or every east side

and coming home, putting on Z-100 and every single time they play Dominic the donkey. And that's what I'm going to go with. That is... Dominic the donkey. Trans-Siberian orchestra is TSO. Yes.

I am familiar. I've never heard them called TSO. They're TSO. Well, you knew. It's amazing. They are amazing. You know, I almost wonder if the Dominic the donkey thing, Nick, is like a northeast

kind of territorial. I bet it is. And that's, you know, I just wanted to say, like, if you know Dominic the donkey, that's great too, because that's just ingrained in my childhood forever. Yes, 100% agree. Like, I cannot go a Christmas without hearing Dominic the doggie, so that is great. I got to give a shout out to Last Christmas. It might be the stupidest song ever, but man, it is, it is catchy. The lyrics are bad, but like the music, the singing, the music video, if you haven't seen the music video, I mean, get on it. Last Christmas, by Fantastic. You know what else is fantastic? Nick Pollack for joining us here today on the show.

Make sure you follow him on Twitter at Pitcher List and go to PitcherList.com to see all of rankings, articles, great resources again. Check out their picture pages and you can see all the different kinds of stats and analytics they have to offer there as well. Nick, thank you so much, buddy, for joining us. We appreciate it. Oh, thank you so much. This has been an absolute blast. Yeah. For Scott and Nick, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching. Fantasy baseball today. We'll be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye.