Fantasy Baseball Today - Early ADP Gifts: Jo Adell, Tanner Houck & More w/ David Mendelson! (12/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 23, 2021

Hey there! David Mendelson joins the podcast (1:15). ... Let's jump into our ADP gifts, starting with an intriguing Astros pitcher (5:33). ... Can the Giants get the best out of Alex Cobb (8:56)? ... Do the Brewers have another Freddy Peralta on the way (12:52)? ... Don't give up on Jo Adell just yet (18:18). ... Do the Red Sox have another Chris Sale (23:53)? ... Can Logan Gilbert put it all together in 2022 (32:14)? ... News and notes (37:59): Buck Showalter is headed to the Mets while Mark Kotsay will manage the A's. ... What is Alex Kirilloff's upside (46:00)? ... Wait at shortstop for this player (50:42)? ... Are we paying the price tag for the Royals top prospect (54:01)? ... Don't sleep on this Marlins starting pitcher (59:21)! 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @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. I drive. Center field. What is magnificent? Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality.

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam. What's happening in, everybody? Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, December 23rd. I am Frank Stamphill. Have another fun show plan for you today. to honor the holiday spirit. We have 10, that's right, 10 ADP gifts for you on today's podcast. We're off to a great start.

Of course, I am not alone. I mentioned on Tuesday that Michael Gowier is one of my favorite people in the industry. Today's guest is also one of my favorites. You can have more than one, obviously. And this is someone who does it all. I mean, this is a teacher by day, a fantasy analyst by night. He's the king of snacks. He posts all these great snacks on Twitter.

guy eats like a dozen donuts in five minutes. He's got everything going on. Fellow rookie golfer, by the way, as well. He is the host and co-founder of Triple Play Fantasy. David Mendelssoe, make sure you follow him on Twitter at D-Mendi O2. What's going on, Dave? Dude, that's, I mean, that intro, man, I don't know how I can even talk after that. But I got to tell you, there's a couple things here.

Seeing the Egyptian pyramids and creating my own cocktail and going on fantasy baseball today. So you crossed one thing off my bucket list. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate you having me on the show. Yeah, so I remember when you had me on your podcast, you had like this crazy, awesome intro, and I'm just like, there's no way I'm going to live up to that. But I'm going to try my best, and I'll mention all this awesome stuff that you've got going on and things that you're doing right now. But yeah, very happy to have you here on the podcast.

What were the other things? Create your own cocktail. I mean, that shouldn't be too hard, right? I feel like there's everything already exists out there. So it's like to think of something that doesn't exist is really hard. But if you do, and it hits, I mean, that's gonna be pretty awesome. That is pretty awesome.

Indeed, I mentioned the dozen donuts in five minutes. Is that actually what you did? Like, what was the story behind that? Because I remember watching a video of you just scarfing down all these donuts. And you were, I don't know, it looked like you were legitimately like shaking at the end of it. Like, you were consuming so much sugar. I could only imagine like how you actually felt while it was happening. Yeah, dude.

So like I had like heard about that challenge. And I was like, why not? Because we have a section on our YouTube channel called the Fantasy Foodies where we talk fantasy and then eat food too and I was like I'm going to do it and so I had the day off of work that day picked them up the lady at the checkout said that she said the fastest she had seen was seven minutes and I was like I was like so there's no chance I'm going to do this then but when you see the donuts if you've had crispy cream they're actually pretty like cloudy like the expression would be but like they're not very doughy and they're kind of light so okay when I got back with them and I was

all right here we go and I just started like shoving them down yeah I've never felt that type of sugar rush before. So yeah, I started shaking. Like, my body was just like going through, like, I'd surprisingly kept it down and did not feel too too sick after, but I definitely had the sugar rush. And it was pretty cool that I was like, I got it on film. So, and you could see like, obviously like full time, five minutes. So I was pretty happy about that. Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. If anyone hasn't seen it, again, follow them on Twitter at D-Mendi O2. And I got to give you, you guys a shout out, right? At the Triple Play Fantasy podcast. You guys actually had Ty Buttry on the pod. And I mentioned this in the season when you guys actually did it. You played

Scott White's Michael Kane impression, impersonation for Ty Butchery, right? Like, what was his response? Yeah, I think he was kind of shocked, but I could tell he started laughing. And we actually, that was the second time we've had. And we had him when he actually still played with the angels before that. So he came back. And I mean, he's, he's an awesome dude. But I actually, it wasn't planned. It was at the end of the show, and it just, it hit me. And I was like, I have to play. This is maybe the last time I got an opportunity. So I quickly pulled it up and played it for him.

But he's an awesome dude. And I was really glad that the audience obviously got to see it. Scott got to hear it because Scott's Michael Kane is obviously incredible. Yeah, that's the stuff that legends are made of. Scott's Michael Kane impersonation there. So yeah, that was awesome. Again, anyone who hasn't seen it, go check it out over at Triple Play Fantasy. So let's jump in.

We've got 580P gifts each. There are 66 drafts done over at the NFBC. We're actually in a draft together right now, Dave. We're in a best ball draft over on fan tracks that our buddy benched with Bubba put together. So excited about that. I had picked 12. I have picked 12, and I started Boba Shet and Max Scherzer.

Great start. I think you had third overall pick? I had second overall pick. All right, you got Trey Turner, Jacob DeGron. and Yerdon Alvarez. All right, so look, if Jacob de Grown could stay healthy, we know that that is a league winning pick there. But let's talk about some of these ADP gifts.

Originally, I wrote these down in order from like, whatever. We have players ranging from like inside the top 100, all the way outside the top 380p right now. But let's start at the back end and then work our way up. You know, we got to give people to stick around and stay for the entire podcast. So let's start with some of these lower names and then we'll work our way up to some of the higher end names

that we've got to. think are currently ADP gifts over at the NFBC. So why don't you get us started here with your number five gift, Dave? Yeah, that would be Christian Javier. So on the season last year, 355 ERA, 118 whip, a 30.7% strikeout rate, 12.5.5 walk rate in 1001 and third innings. Obviously, you kind of look, it was a tale of two seasons for him. As you kind of saw that he struggled with the in the rotation, so they moved him into

the pen. And if you kind of just look at just how kind of that transformation, kind of affected him. It obviously was something very good for his numbers. But there are some things about his arsenal that I kind of wanted to highlight. His ground ball rate, 28.2%, 34% fly ball rate. But you look, he has a slider that had a minus 10 run value, a 0.98xBA against a 49% whiff rate with that slider. And honestly, again, he's a guy. And Frank, there's going to be a theme with at least some of the pitchers I have where you kind of look and we kind of I can look at the Dodgers from last year where you're like, well, this guy might not have a

spot in rotation. Why should I chance to look at these guys? Well, injuries happen, right? And if you take guys that are having their ADP lower because they're in the bullpen, then you can get them at a value right now because injuries will always happen. They can get bumped into the rotation and then they'll be able to give you the numbers that you want from starters. And reading a little bit into him, they had Brent Strom, who was their pitching coach,

talk about how one of the reasons he got put in the bullpen was because he was really struggling against left-handers. And what they did as he moved into the bullpen was they sped up his delivery and allowed him to go a little bit more up-tempo. So he was kind of, instead of having to think about throwing strikes, he was just throwing them. And I think that that obviously made a big of change to his overall profile. And I'm very much in on Christian Javier. Obviously, they got a great offense in Houston. So I think at right around ADP 300, I think that's a pretty good value for him. And you know what's crazy about Christian Javier, too? You mentioned that they moved him to the bullpen, ultimately to help him out and speed up that delivery,

he was even better as a starter, which is crazy. 3.14 ERA 103 whip, according to baseball reference. And you're exactly right. The pitchers that you're going to mention here on today's podcast, they don't necessarily have a role in the rotation as of now, but these are all pitchers that you are drafting the skills and you're just hoping that those skills ultimately went out. And especially when it comes to the Houston Astros,

like, I like Justin Verlander. I believe Scott likes Justin Verlander quite a bit as well. The guy still is, whatever, 38, 39 years old, and he's coming back from Tommy John's surgery. It's no sure thing. And we also have Lance McCullors in that rotation who's dealt with a bunch of arm injuries. He got shut down in the playoffs because of an arm injury. We're hoping that he's good to go for the start of the season. We don't know that for sure.

So Christian Javier, one other thing I will say about there's a theme among the pictures that you are going to talk about. They all have amazing sliders. Like, you talked about the slider for Christian Javier. 0.90 batting average against 19.6% swinging strike rate. I mean, it's just a nasty slider. His fastball is not very hard, but I think he does a good job of like hiding it and he's very deceptive when it comes to his fastball. So Christian Javier, your first ADP gift here. And a 12% swinging strike rate on his fastball too, which I know people like the swinging strike rate number. So two of them with 12 or above is pretty good. Yeah, yeah, for sure. The ADP 308.1

right now over at the NFBC. And what's so interesting, the pitcher going right after him is actually my first gift that we're going to talk about here today. Alex Cobb, 34-year-old Alex Cobb who signed with the San Francisco Giants. The overall numbers were not great in 2021, but they were solid.

3.76 ERA, 1.26 whip, 98 strikeouts over 93 and a third inning's pitch. 53% ground ball rate. Career high, 9.5K per 9. Career high, 11.2% swinging strike rate. So swinging strikes, ground balls, obviously things that I'm looking at here for starting pitchers. Pitchers in general, things that I like to see out of my pitchers. And he has three pitches that he uses.

Sinker, splitter, curve. That splitter is a really, really good pitch for him. 20% swinging strike rate or better, three straight seasons on that splitter for Alex Cobb. I think for him, what it comes down to is, can he stay healthy? He hasn't thrown more than 100 innings since 2018. and can the Giants unlock him, basically? I mean, last year was the most that we've seen out of Alex Cobb in terms of strikeouts.

He did that with the Los Angeles Angels. The Giants have just done a phenomenal job with these reclamation projects recently. Anthony Dez Alfani, they also resigned. He was awesome last year. Kevin Gosman, obviously what he did both in 2020 and in 2021, obviously no longer with the team, now with the Toronto Blue Jays.

But if you just kind of compare Kevin Gosman and Alex Cobb, they're not really like that far off. I mean, they're both like splitter-heavy pitches, pitchers, and I don't usually like relying on pitchers that throw the splitter as much as these guys do. But if I'm getting Alex Cobb as my whatever, SP6, SP7 outside the top 300, like, it's fine. Like, I don't care what the floor is.

It's what's the upside? And I think his upside is pretty damn good with these San Francisco Giants. So, Dave, what are you thinking about Alex Cobb here going one pick after your boy, Christian Javier? I mean, I do like the value here. And there's a great article on NBC Sports, from Alex Pavlovich about just kind of talking about him going to drive line in 2020 and him being able to pick up a couple ticks on his fastball and have his crowball bite a little bit harder.

He actually is working on a new grip on his curveball right now, this off season. And everything just kind of going a little bit harder, which I think kind of helped his arsenal as well. He actually threw his splitter more than Kevin Gosman. He threw it 37% last year, and Gosman threw around 35% last year. But like you said, I mean, the Giants, the king of the reclamation project. You got to think, obviously, the ballpark is a great upgrade for him and the splitter with a good infield defense that the Giants have. I mean, he's a great guy that's going to give you innings, probably a, you know, a mid-3s ERA with that splitter, gave him a little bit more K upside.

I think he's a great value in the 300s right here. Two guys that if you're missing out on guys that are potentially get you innings or good ratios early on, here they are. I'm so, I never thought I would say I'm so excited about Alex Cobb, but some really interesting things that you brought up there. in terms of working on the Curval and how often he used his splitter this past year. Chris Towers, if you're listening, I know you're not listening, but I want to apologize towards the end of the season. We would always give out streaming starting pitchers

for those who play in daily lineup leagues. And Chris would always bring up Alex Cobb, and I would make fun of him. Like, why are you talking about Alex Cobb? And then I looked into the numbers, I'm like, all right, he's actually pretty good. So I do like Alex Cobb quite a bit with the San Francisco Giants. Who would you rather have, him or Christian Javier?

So that actually is a good question. question. That's why you're good host. You got to choose one. I mean, they're going right next to each other, right? Yeah, I mean, it depends on. I mean, I know the cop out answers to say how my team is constructed, but Cobb, you know, is guaranteed going to be starting right out of the gate. So he's going to give you a starter's workload, Javier. I would imagine starts out there in the bullpen. But if you were to tell me that Javier will eventually get into the rotation, then I'll go Javier. But most likely, I would go Cobb based off the safety that he'll probably provide from day one. All right, let's move on to our second ADP gift here.

And no surprise, you have a pitcher who might not be in his rotation. Yeah, let's go to this guy. I'm actually very, very excited about this player. The A-Train, Aaron Ashby, as I call him. Okay, so a lot of stuff to break down here. And he's actually the second most excited guy. I am on this list of the five that I wrote up here. So Aaron Ashby, if you look at his numbers, first of all, he's a fourth-round draft.

I pick 2018 out of Crowder Junior College for those who care. But for those that don't, 3-5-0-ERA in a 126 innings last year between two levels earned Brewer's minor league pitcher of the year. And then the big leagues in his first year had a 4-5-4-5-ER and 31.2 innings. But if you look, he actually had a 358 FIP. And I know FIP is something that we look a little bit more towards, obviously, than just ERA. His ability to miss bats with multiple pitches, he's got a change up at a 34% whiff rate. and then we talked about, Frank, you alluded to it, the sliders. I love them.

42% whiff rate on that slider, which makes him a lock for strikeouts. He actually trailed only Corbin Burns, who had a 0.069 average with his curveball, and Blake Trident with a 0.074 average on his slider for the lowest batting average against of a pitch thrown 200 more times last year. His was 0.077. And I want to shout out Jordan White, who's at Bunt Singles on Twitter, who actually I put out some stats on him today, and then he sent me, a chart that he had made.

And Aaron Ashby's slider in particular, he used the slider the eighth most of all sliders thrown from all pitchers. It's the eighth most. His C had the highest CSW, a 45.1% CSW on his slider. Eighth best width percentage. Again, the 42% width percentage

and a 43.1% O swing. So, I mean, it's a dominating pitch. And if you look at the Brewers just track record in general, obviously you have the Corbin-Burns's, the Brandon Woodruffs, the Freddie Peralta's. These guys kind of all started in this exact same place

where they were kind of that middle reliever, not in the rotation, but you could see the stuff was there. And right now it's Eric Lauer and Adrian Houser. And they're just, I think, masking the inevitable that Aaron Ashby is going to break in there and he's going to help your fantasy team significantly this year. I think he's just an absolute steal around,

I had him as ADP 266. I'd see if he changed since I wrote it. But again, he's, I think, just an absolute dynamite lock to be somebody that you're going to have, if you're finishing high in your league, I think he's going to be a big reason why. All right, yes, Aaron Ashby.

I know someone, a lot of people are talking about right now, and I believe it is, I want to give proper credit, James Anderson of the Rotowire Fantasy Baseball podcast. I believe that he has Aaron Ashby as his number one pitching prospect. And like this is a prospect guru, someone who definitely, definitely knows this stuff. I don't want to misspeak, but I believe that's something I've heard him say.

I listen to a bunch of podcasts. that he does with the Welsh. So yeah, he's very high on Aaron Ashby and rightfully so. I mean, this slider is absolutely ridiculous. I mean, it has a 65 grade on the prospect scale, which is like a plus plus pitch or at least as expected to be. So, yeah, lots of like with Aaron Ashby. And he's in the perfect spot, not in terms of like he's not in the rotation yet,

but the Brewers know how to handle these pitchers. I mean, you mentioned it. Corbyn Burns a couple of years ago kind of bounced around between the bowl, pen in the rotation. Friday Peralta. We're basically in the same spot right now with Ashby that we were with Freddie Peralta this time last year. We didn't even know. We just didn't know what Freddie Peralta's role was going to be for sure. And, you know, obviously it turns out that, you know, he gets the spot in the rotation and he was awesome with that. So yeah, Aaron Ashby, definitely someone to watch heading into this upcoming season. I believe he has

relief pitcher eligibility too for those who play on CBS. If you play in points leagues, obviously he'll be able to be used as a spark. So that's a starting pitcher that has relief pitcher eligibility. Let's see who else is going right around Aaron Ashby right now. So his ADP is 273.2. Even lower than when I did it yesterday.

Yeah. And he is going just behind. Well, there's not really any pitcher closer. Just ahead of Drew Rasmussen with Tampa Bay. Alex Reyes, who they're going to try out in the Cardinals, rotation as well. Frank, this is just, this is just crazy to me. Like, honestly, like, I'm, I think if he announced he's going to be in the rotation. Yeah. He's going to, like,

shoot up draft work, which is why if you're drafting now, I think you're getting him a, a, just a huge discount. Like, yeah, it's crazy to me to see him in this range where, again, I'm not saying he's a top like a hundred player, but, you know, closing in on 300, I think's a little ridiculous. Yeah, his pitching is so deep, man, because, you know, I like Aspie. I think, there is a good amount of upside there with him, but also in this range, Josiah Gray. I still like Josiah Gray. I know he was like pretty bad with the Nationals, but Stephen Matt's now with the Cardinals, they have gold glovers literally all over the field. Kyle Hendricks, I know he let a lot of people down, all the way down at 276 ADP right now.

So, man, this is a range. Like, if you start off hitter heavy and you just kind of want to pound pitching in like these mid to later rounds, there is a lot of names here in terms of early NFBC ADP. My next gift will be a hitter, the first hitter that we're going to talk about here on the podcast. And it seems like people have Joe Adele fatigue because he's still just 22 years old, which just absolutely blows my mind.

He's turning 23 in April. So very early, hopefully, for the start of the season, assuming that we don't get anything pushed back. He was awesome in AAA last year, Joe Adele, 289 batting average, 32 homers, eight steals, a 934 OPS in 73. games. The problem, strikeouts. 29% strikeout rate at AAA.

He gets called up to the Angels. It doesn't really do anything special. He was okay. 246 batting average, four homers, two steals in 35 games, but a 23% strikeout rate. That is massive. I mean, for him to go, I don't know how sustainable it is. Again, it was only 35 games, but for him to go from a 29%

strikeout rate in AAA to 23% at the major league level, that's something that gets me pretty excited about in terms of his progression. I was reading an article earlier about whether or not him and Brandon Marshall will have opening day jobs, basically, with the Angels. And it sounds like they're going to, but they really, really talked up

the progression for Joe Adele, and they liked what they saw out of him last year. I spoke with Michael Govier on Tuesday's podcast about Tyler O'Neill's rare combination of power and speed. Adele, very similar. 99th percentile sprint speed, according to Stackast,

89th percentile max exit velocity. So that combination of raw power with speed. The tools are there. I feel like everything is there for him, and he's going to get the opportunity to play. He was really, really good in September 2. It was only nine games.

So it was very small sample size, but 333 batting average, three homers. He held his own against breaking pitches. And I think the next step for him is if he can pick up off speed pitches, because he was very, very bad against those, that's kind of like the next step for Joe Adele. So I like him. Steamer hasn't projected for a 243 batting average,

21 homers, eight steals. Again, his ADP is 242.6. So if I wind up with him as like my fourth or fifth outfielder in Roto, sure. I'm perfectly fine with that. Dave, what do you think about Joe Adele here in 2022? Yeah, I mean, you had to like the progression you saw from when he looked really overmatched in that short sample in 2020.

I mean, you look, his batting average went from 161 to 246. Four homers and 26 RBIs last year. His on base in slugging percentages made big gains from 478 to 703. Strikeout rate, which I don't know if. For those that don't remember when he first came up in the majors in 2020, he had a 41.7% strikeout rate, put that down to 22.9 last year, which means I think he's getting more acclimated to the game.

And I think even better because we talk about what defense can do to your offense. If you're making errors, maybe you're not focusing at the plate. He actually committed no errors in more than 300 innings and left and right field combined. So not just that, but I was just reading a couple articles, just kind of looking them up a little bit.

And he was quoted as basically saying, that besides the improving numbers, his process he felt was getting better, more acclimated to the game. His pregame prep work, studying opposing pitchers, the ability to navigate at bats throughout the game. I think a lot of solid building blocks are going to be in place for him to be better in 22, as he's kind of learning just to be a better pro, not just a better hitter, but just being able to prepare the right way. So he knows how to go against these pitchers. He knows where they're going to throw in what counts and what to look for or what not to look for. So that's a big thing in baseball that we don't talk about a lot, but I think he's taking strides

to become better at that aspect. Yeah, and something we don't talk about, I think enough, is look at the players that are on the team with him. Shohei Otani, Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon. I mean, these are three of the best pure hitters in the game, right? So it definitely doesn't hurt to be surrounded by guys that talented. I remember a couple of years ago when Nelson Cruz signed with the Minnesota Twins, I liked Miguel Sineau.

I was jumping back in because I'm like, he has a mentor. Like, who is better to mentor Miguel Sennel? know the Nelson Cruz. Like there was literally nobody. I thought it was like a perfect match between those two guys. So just like little things, I think that the Angels,

they obviously have a ton of talent around Joe Adele. So I'm very excited about him. His ADP again is 242.6. He's going right around Harrison Bader, who I think is like a pretty interesting comp. Who would you rather have?

Joe Adel or Harrison Bader? I would, I think I'd rather have Bader for right now. Right. But I mean, if you were to tell me Joe Adele, I'll produce them. I wouldn't be shocked. But I feel right now that it's a little bit safer with Bader because you kind of know the floor he gives you. Joe Adel has a higher ceiling, I think, but I would probably take Bader at this point. What about you? Yeah, I think that sounds right. I think there's a lot to like with Bader too. I mean, the defense is

so good. That's going to keep him in the lineup for the St. Louis Cardinals, a lineup that I think, you know, could get better hopefully there. So yeah, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed for Harrison Bader. He made a lot of improvements in in terms of strikeout rate this past season. So I like both guys quite a bit, where if you're playing in one of these 15-team Roto leagues, even 12-teamers, you know, again, if you can end your outfield with these guys,

like your outfield four, your outfield five, I'm perfectly fine with that. The other name I'll mention, I didn't throw them on this list because I feel like I've talked about him a lot already, but Lane Thomas, man. Lane Thomas is a name to watch, and he is, whether Justin Mason will allow me to do this or not,

I am taking it. He is this year, Cedric Mullins, for me, even though it's totally not fair. That's 100% Justin Mason's thing. I think I really like Lane Thomas. But I didn't want to talk about him again because I feel like I talk about them every podcast. All right, we're up to number three.

Dave, who you got? No surprise. A pitcher who might not be in his team's rotation. So, Frank, you know, we're like roughly the same age. So you know, when you were little, you got that bike on Christmas. You know, when you were a little older, like middle high school where like the iPod came out

and you're like, that's what I want. I want the iPod. I want the old school, like that stuff. So this picture gives me that type of excitement. And that's Tanner Halk. And what I like about him. So this is a guy who right now they're projecting, you read some places they have him as the fifth spot in this rotation. Others have him behind the other guys there.

So remember, Eduardo Rodriguez is no longer there. But they also have now James Paxson and Michael Waka. And they have Nathan Evaldi, Chris Sale, Nick Pibetta. So right now those are kind of mix and match. Obviously, Salony Evaldi are the locks. The rest you expect Richel probably so. Again, right now I think his ADP is where it is because of the not guarantee he's going to start. But if you look, he has a proven track record in the big league so far, whether you look at him as a starter or as a reliever right now.

He posted a 297 ERA, 94 strikeouts and 24 walks over 75.2 innings for his career. In 2021 alone, though, 13 games, he pitched five out of the bullpen. As a starter, he had a 368 ERA and 58 innings and a 261 ERA and 10 innings as a reliever and had a 352 ERA overall between the 69 frames pitched. 258 FIP, again, pretty much almost a run lower than he's ERA. 11.35 strikeouts per nine innings compared to just 2.74 walks. His arsenal just screams breakout, Frank. 30.5% strikeout rate and that slider, again, I love the sliders. It looked otherworldly at times. I can't think of another word to describe it.

The best pitch he has, 41 of his 87 strikeouts came off of that slider and it was just shy of 100 RPM's in terms of spin rate and had a 0.159 batting average against on the pitch, even lower 144 expected batting average against. and he even used a splitter a little bit this season, which had tremendous success against it too. So he has another pitch that is allowing him to throw that slider more, keep hitters off balance. And I just think, Frank, he's, if you look, just the eye test for the fact that if you watch him pitch, he looks like a right-handed Chris Sale.

He's filthy. He's filthy. There's no doubt about it. Yeah. And I just think, again, it's somebody that right now you can kind of look. Okay, so worst case scenario, maybe he's a piggyback starter, comes in after maybe Michael Walker goes three innings,

and he gives you a bunch of wins for people that have, obviously wins are still a category for some reason. So he comes in and gives you five innings, piggybacking a starter. So he can give you great ratios, give you wins. But most likely he's from day one coming in that rotation. He's got a great offense behind him with Boston. And I think this is one of those guys that makes a huge step forward this year.

And he's just going to be a guy that, again, His ADP is where it is because he's not projected to start. But if he's announced that he's going to be in the Red Sox rotation, that thing's going to go up. So you've got to buy low while you can. Yeah, the ADP, 197.8 over on the NFBC right now for Tanner Howe. You're right, man. You watch him pitch, and he really looks like the mirror version of Chris Sale,

which, again, like, we don't talk about this enough. He has Chris Sale in his rotation. Like, who better to learn from than Chris Sale, right? And this past season, pitch in 18 games, 13 of those were starts, 3.5 to ERA, 1.13 whip. Over 11 Ks per 9, he really lowered the walks. That's what I loved about his progression this past season. He only made three starts in 2020. He averaged almost five walks per nine.

This past season, only 2.7 walks per nine for Tanner Halk. 48% ground ball rate. You love that. 13% swinging strike rate, 23.2% K-minus walk rate. which was better than Dylan Sees. It was better than Pablo Lopez. It was better than Julio O'Reas. All of the ERA estimators love Tanner Hauk as well,

3.28 or less for each of Exfip, Sierra, expected ERA for one Tanner Hauk. So like the others, we don't know that he's going to be in the rotation for sure yet, but this is someone where you just bet on the skills and you hope that he works his way in there. And even if not, like you said, I mean, a piggyback starter,

definitely something that can help play into earning wins. for fantasy baseball purposes. And you kind of threw a little bit of shade at the win category. What do you propose that we play with at this point? Because I know the natural pivot is going to be quality starts. But so many pitchers are not going deep into starts anymore.

It's like how many are actually giving us quality starts at this point, unless, which I feel like we should have done this a while ago, there should be a sliding scale for quality starts where if you go five shutout, six innings of one run, or whatever, like five innings of one run ball, six innings of two runs, seven innings of three runs, so on and so forth, that constitutes a quality start. I just don't know. I feel like, you know, guys are not going six innings consistently enough to actually earn quality starts. No, I mean, it's very true. Like, obviously, it's shown that

the average starter innings are going down every single year because teams are liking to deploy a bunch of more relievers now. So, no, I totally get that. I think it's just frustrating too when you have a guy like I'm thinking even just like the Freddie Peralta's of the world who will go in there pitch you know 4.2 innings give you 10 strikeouts but just because his pitch counts so high it doesn't get the win but he didn't give up a run and that doesn't give you a win but then a guy can go seven innings give up six earned runs but if his team puts up seven then he gets the win so it's that's yeah I think quality starts would have been my first pivot but like you mentioned with just how it is

right now with pitchers. I think doing some type of sliding scale, we already do so much difference in the game that having a sliding scale of a quality start, it would not be the most ridiculous thing that they could do. No, it's not ridiculous at all, Dave. Come on. Why would you say that? Tanner Halk, the ADP I mentioned, 197.8 right now. He's going one spot exactly behind behind Joe Ryan, who I think some people are going to like quite a bit as well with the Minnesota twins? Who would you rather have Joe Ryan or Tanner Halk? So, about peeked behind the curtain. Actually, Joe Ryan as one of my guys at first, and I crossed him out,

and I put Tanner Halk instead, because I didn't want to have two guys back to back. But yeah, I mean, Joe Ryan's going to, right from the get-go, but I'm a big Twins fan. And, I mean,

he's going to get an opportunity. He's going to, I think he's slotted in the number two, if I'm not mistaken. I have to double check that. But Frank, Tanner Hock's my guy. He's my Dillon Seas. Dillen Seas was my guy last year.

Tanner Hauks is my guy this year. Lots of helium for Dillin Cis this year, man. I think the ADP is inside the top. 85 picks right now. People love them some Dylan Cs this upcoming season. All right, yeah, Joe Ryan, Joe Ryan's kind of tough for me to figure out because he has awesome numbers at every level. I don't know how he does it. He, like he has this fastball, which is apparently very deceptive, but it's 91 miles per hour and he throws it 66% of the time. So I don't really know. I've got a deep dive Joe Ryan a little bit more,

admittedly, like, have not looked into him enough yet, but the numbers at every level are undeniable. They're great. Every level of the minors. He's just, he's so interesting in terms of that arsenal. So, uh, yeah, how many innings has he pitched? Let's see, in the big leagues, he's pitched a total of 26 and two thirds. Yeah. So, I mean, maybe the league catches up to him at some point, you know, just kind of looking through his minor league track record, he's actually never pitched, uh, a hundred, 100 innings at one level. You know, you look in the same year, he's going to different levels, but never at 100 innings at any singular level. So maybe just that continuity of pitching at the same level that hitters start catching up to

him with that stuff. So I mean, as a Twins fan, I hope not, but it could happen. Great hair, though. Great hair. I love the hair on Joe Ryan. That's awesome. My third gift here, Logan Gilbert, at ADP 146 right now, winds up with a 4.68 ERA, a 1.17 whip, 128 strikeouts over.

119 and a third innings pitch. Pitched just 2.1 walks per nine. You love to see that. Very solid, 12.4% swinging strike rate. 19.9% K-minus walk. Also very respectable for Logan Gilbert. Still just 24 years old. And we saw flashes.

I remember watching this start that he had against the Yankees where he threw seven shutout innings of one hit ball. One hit over seven innings, eight strikeouts to zero walks. I mean, you do that against the Yankee lineup. I know they were inconsistent as a lineup last year, but everyone was in there. You know, it was Aaron Judge, John Carlos, Stan, and he's just mowing these guys down.

So he has to develop some consistency with his secondary pitches, but the underlying numbers are there for Logan Gilbert. 18% swinging strike rate on the slider, 16% swinging strike rate on the changeup. Already gets great extension on the fastball. He's a big dude. He's like 6-6-6-7. So, you know, that fastball, it's 95, but it plays up. I mean, it probably looks like 100 miles per hour to hitters here in the MLB. Speaking of that fastball, 17.5 pitch value over on fan graphs for that fastball.

Eighth best among pitchers with at least 110 innings pitched this past season. That was better than Robbie Ray, Alec Manoa, Garrett Cole, Sandy Alcanswer. I mean, these are pitchers that have really, really damn good fastballs. Logan Gilbert's, based on 2021, his fastball was better than those guys. And I mentioned, I think the underlying numbers are there for the secondary stuff, just has to develop that consistency with the slider and the changeup. If he does that, I think this guy could be one of the breakout starting pitchers in fantasy baseball this year. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he finishes as a top 25, top 20 starting pitcher for fantasy.

Dave, what do you think about Logan Gilbert? I love him. I was actually tempted to put him on as one of my guys here, too. I think he's going to be great. And my buddy SB Streamer put a tweet out that noted that you look at his ERA in August, 913 ERA, a 169 whip and a 373 babbip. But if you take out August where he faced Houston, Toronto, and Tampa Bay, his season stats are 95 and two thirds innings and a 357 ERA and a 105 whip.

Now, obviously, people are like you can't take out starts. But those are three really incredible offenses, which for a rookie pitcher, it's going to be really hard to face offenses like those. I think, like everything you mentioned, everything just checks out under the hood. It looks like it's there. And Seattle's obviously right now, they got a good offense. they're ready to contend. They're ready to bring these guys up.

You know, they got a great young lineup. I love it. Logan Gilbert is definitely, I'm going to try to get a bunch of shares of him as I can. And I feel like as the baseball industry, I think a lot of people are starting to catch on in him. And he's, his ADP is going to shoot up.

Yeah, so I'm just about wrapping up my first real draft of the offseason. It's a 15-team draft and hold, NFBC draft champions format. You draft 50 rounds. Obviously, 15-team Roto. It goes deep. There's over 700 players. in this draft.

And I wound up with Logan Gilbert as my third starting pitcher behind Max Scherzer and Sandy Alcansra. Perfectly fine with that. I like that. I think it was like the ninth round where I took Logan Gilbert and yeah. Like if I can get him as my SP3

in a league that deep, totally fine with that. You mentioned the matchups that he had in mid-August. He had a six-start stretch where he had to face Toronto at Houston. Kansas City is fine. Houston at Houston.

Boston. That's a six-start stretch for a 23-year-old kid. I mean, these are the best offenses in baseball. So, yes, I get it. He still pitches in the AL West. He's still going to have to go up against the Houston Astros. But he'll also get to face the Oakland Aes,

who look like they're going to trade a bunch of people away. They're a joke right now. Yeah, that definitely helps. And it's just like a good ball. It's a good division in general in terms of pitching. So Logan Gilbert, the ADP-146 right now. I do like him quite a bit. Wind up with him as your SP3 and a deep. Super League, SP4 or later in more shallower formats.

We did our first Points League mock draft recently, and I wound up with him as my SP5. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, totally cool with that. When it comes to Logan Gilbert here, we are going to take a quick break, but before we do that, you can now rate podcasts over on Spotify.

So if you were listening to this podcast or Fantasy Baseball today in 5 on Spotify, hook us up. Drop that five-star rating over on Spotify. We do appreciate it. Quite a bit. We're going to take a quick break when we return. I've got some news and notes.

A few things that I want to hit on. We've got some manager signings I'll talk about. And then we'll get back into ADP gifts here on fantasy baseball today. All right, so some quick news and notes. We have manager signings. The Mets signed Buckshaelter, while the A's signed Mark Katsay to be their manager. I liked Mark Katsay back in the day. He was a solid ball player.

Buck Showalter, by the way. He managed the Orioles for nine seasons. Obviously, he managed the Yankees back in the day as well. But most recently, he was with the Orioles. nine seasons from 2010 to 2018. His team ranked 23rd or lower in steals seven of those nine seasons. The Orioles were also last every year from 2014 to 2017. Now, I think the natural follow-up is, well, who do you have on his team?

If he didn't have the personnel to steal bases, I think like, you know, Chris Davis with a C was on those teams, so obviously he's not running. He didn't really have the personnel, but I thought it was worth noting. and this is something that we look into whenever there's a new Madadryl hiring. You know, what have they done in the past? How did he let his team to run? So I just thought it was something notable. Do you have any takeaways when it comes to the Mets signing Buckshaultor and the A's with Mark Cotsay?

I mean, well, the A's with Mark Cotsay. Frank, did you play MVP baseball 2005 by chance? Yeah, that's the one with Mani Ramirez on the cover, right? Yeah, yeah. But he's the guy that comes to my mind when I think that the Oakland A's just remember and be like, Now, and, you know, the announcer said, now Mark Katsay, like, for some reason, age, too. He's got, like, a gray beard and everything now. It's, like, it's pretty wild.

But actual analysis with, like, Buck Shoal Walter, I don't know if you're a record guy. Like, if you look at their managerial record and you're like, does that show if they're a good manager? But 1515151 wins and 1,517 losses. So barely over 500 record in the 20 seasons. He's actually won the division only three. times in his 20-year career. Playoffs only five times, so only a quarter of the seasons he's actually made the playoffs. And he's only reached a championship series once. So that part kind of confuses me. And then you have also have the fact that if he doesn't steal bases, which you said could be

the players, obviously, you got Starling Marte there, who that's basically the biggest part of his value right now is stolen bases. So if it's actually something with him and not his personnel, then we could be in trouble for Starling Marte because if he doesn't steal bases, then he's to be a dud where he's going right now in ADP. Yeah, I hope that's not the case. Again, it's just, you know, something I wanted to bring to people's attentions. I think a lot of that comes down to who you have on your team. So I'm not necessarily just burying Starling Marte, but it's, you know, just something else to

keep in mind for him. And obviously for Francisco Lindor, who, you know, we're hoping he could steal 15 plus bases. I think anybody would want to be happy with that when it comes to Francisco Lindor. There is mutual interest between the Cubs and Carlos Correa. Obviously, we're in a lockout. so teams can't sign players to major league contracts. A bunch of players are signing minor league contracts right now.

So that's been interesting to follow along. What are the Cubs doing? Yeah, I don't really get it. I mean, you know, they trade everyone away last year. They kind of hit the reset button. They get all these prospects in return. And then they sign Marcus Stroman in the offseason. And now they're interested in Carlos Correa.

So maybe they're trying to fast track this. Maybe it's more of like a retool than a rebuild. I don't know, but it's going to take... It's going to take a contract close to what the Rangers gave Corey Seeger for Carlos Correa to wind up with the Chicago Cup. So we'll see if that actually happens or not. The Marlins have had discussions with outfielder Michael Conforto, which, you know, tell you what you want about Michael Conforto.

The Marlins need offense. So I think this would be a very welcome site. Obviously, they already signed Avisa El Garcia. Michael Conforto can help out there as well. As long as he's not taking playing time away from my guy, Hesu Sanchez, because I'm a big Hesu Sanchez guy. I got him in the Scott White Dynasty League. So I'm hoping this guy turns into something.

I almost chose him as one of my ADP gifts, but it's a little too much uncertainty right now when it comes to Jesus. So we'll see what happens with him. This isn't news, of course, but it's that time of year where the baseball writers, unfortunately, are making the Hall of Fame about themselves

and their egos, and I see people tweeting out their ballots. And Dave, it's just, this grinds my gears, man, to no end. people that are tweeting out ballots that have David Ortiz in the Hall of Fame, but not Barry Bonds. It's just, it's baffling to me. And, you know, the normal response, oh, well, Barry Bonds tested positive. And David Ortiz never tested positive.

You know, there was just allegations around him. Whatever, man. Like, we can't have a Hall of Fame where Barry Bonds is in it, where David Ortiz is in it and Barry Bonds is not. So it's just very frustrating. I love Barry Bonds. I have his jersey. He's one of my favorite players growing up.

It's just very, very frustrating. you see. I had to get that off my chest. I don't know if you have any thoughts on the whole theme, but it's very frustrating. Frank, I usually just take my LaCrew and then I put it inside my my Christmas sweater pocket and it just slides in there. And then I just watch it on Twitter because I'm like, if I know if I get too invested, I'll go like nuts with it. Like I'll be really angry. And it's like, because if you do PEDs one way or another, it should all count the same, right? Like David Ortiz has caught PEDs like very, very, very. Bond's called PEDs, like, this guy's caught with PEDs.

It's like, I don't know. At that point, they're still a great player. Like, they're going to be a hallfamer regardless. Like, they, I mean, I don't know. That's, again, that's why I kind of just let myself stay out of it with my lacrew and let everybody else to argue. What is lacroo? Is that, is that shelter or sparkling water or something?

Yeah, it's like me and my wife's favorite sparkling water. It's, they got like a bunch, like, this one is called Pample Moose. A bunch of really weird flavors. cannot drink Seltzer unless there's some kind of alcohol in it. Wait, what's your, not to get too off topic. What's your favorite one? What's your go-to? Oh, man. Definitely cannot do the Trulies anymore, man. I drank those one night and I woke up with the worst hangover ever. So there's a lot of sugar. I'm sure there's a lot of sugar in like all of these, but it's probably going to be something truly related. I do like the watermelon flavor.

Not truly. White Claw. I do like the watermelon. white claw flavor. I like tangerine. Tangerine is really, really good, man. It is. Do you have a go-to? Frank, have you had high noons? High-noons are awesome as well. And I know those are actually, none of this stuff is good for you, but it's better for you because it's actually, I believe it's like vodka and some kind of real juice flavoring. So, yeah.

Frank, they've changed my life. Like, hashtag not a sponsor, but still, like, they are absolutely incredible. Like, I write to them every day asking if they'll sponsor us. I haven't heard back yet, but one of these days, Frank, it's going to happen. And that's, that's all I drink now if I go out and I get seltors. It's just high no noons. Highnoons are awesome. I know that they have a watermelon flavor as well. I've had that. It's really, really good. I've had the lime flavor for it. I believe I've had cherry. I don't know which great. No, we're not doing grapefruit, man. Get at it. But yeah, no, the highnoons are very good. Just to put a bow on this entire Hall of Fame conversation. put all the guys, all the PED users in the Hall of Fame.

I mean, PEDs don't help you hit a baseball, man. Like, these guys were awesome players. Even before they started using PD, like Barry Bonds was on a Hall of Fame track, even before he started using, before he got to the Giants. The guy was amazing on the Pirates anyway. Put Alex Rodriguez in, put David Ortiz in, put Manny Ramirez in, put all these guys in.

They should be in the Hall of Fame. I actually wrote a paper about this back when I was in college. There were a bunch of players back in a day. in the 60s and 70s, that were using greenies, which are also known as methamphetamines. They put them inside of their coffee pots in the clubhouse. Like, say what you want. I mean, they're not the same thing about,

they're not the same as steroids per se, but they are performance-enhancing drugs. So I just had to get that off my chest. Put them all in the Hall of Fame. Let's get back to the ADP gifts here. We have two left each. Dave, start us off. Well, I guess restart us off.

Well, I'm going to go to a guy from my squad here. And that's Alex Kirolov, who plenty of hype around him when he made his major league debut, coming off a consensus top 100 minor league prospect profile here. Short and rookie season, he posted eight home runs, 23 runs, 34 RBIs, one stolen base, and 231 played appearances. And he had four of his eight home runs in a three-game stretch. We kind of witnessed that upside, especially for that few weeks stretch in 2021. But he struggled initially three for 26 in his first eight games.

But after he got his first knock in his six, game, he hit 321, 33, and 857 slash over the next seven games. So you know, obviously everything kind of tailed off with the wrist injury, hit 260 in the final 47 games. Power was completely gone as he slugged just 387 from that stretch. And according to, this is from the athletics, Aaron Gleeman, many of the early season struggles he had were actually because of bad luck, his expected batting average over his first six games, 296, and that trend carried through the rest of the season. And basically, just all the, if you look through all his metrics, he kind of underperform based on what his expected numbers were. And I think if that wrist injury doesn't

happen, I think he's just, he hits the ball really hard, basically. And I think when his power's actually back, then you're going to see that for a full season, especially a team that's going to need offense like this twin squad, losing Nelson Cruz, you know, Buxent's in and out of the lineup. Max Kepler kind of tailed off from what we were seeing from him the year before that. This is a I think this is someone you're going to want. Pick 170. You've talked about on this pot. I know many of times how shallow the outfield is and how quickly once you're drafting, how you'll find it's just complete. Nobody's that you're filling in there. Five outfielder leagues. This is a guy you can get there. You know, is maybe like your fourth, fifth outfielder and you should feel good about it.

Stackcast numbers absolutely love him. You mentioned that. 291 expected batting average. 541 expected slug. The guy absolutely crushes the ball. And I remember all season long, I was telling people pick this guy up, you know, stash him, buy low on him, do whatever you got to do. Look, if you could buy low on him in Dynasty as well, definitely, something that you should be looking to do when it comes to Alex Kirloff. Again, like those stack cast numbers were really, really good. There is some risk involved because he's still young, but, you know, this risk surgery, obviously we would prefer younger players not to have surgery if they can avoid it, but this is something he's dealt with for a while now, the wrist, the forearm, it's been there

for the past couple of seasons for him. So I'm rooting for him. I hope that, I'm, I'm I'm hoping that he can get healthy, stay healthy. The last thing here when it comes to Alex Kirloff, the bad at ball data, let's raise that launch angle, man. I mean, 22% line drive rate, love that. 49% ground ball rate, that's not going to cut it. Especially if we're trying to unlock that power potential. This is someone who I think, you know, if he clicks,

if he gets to his upside, we could be talking about, you know, a 280 plus hitter, 30 home runs when, you know, when he really hits his peak. But that, I think that also has to come with him, raising that launch angle, hitting a few more fly balls and line drives there as well. He will have first base and outfield eligibility. So you like that dual eligibility. He also, if you, people that are into the exit velocity numbers,

average exit velocity of 91, which would have been 30th among major leaguers if he qualified. And his barrel rate of 12.8% had he qualified, would have actually tied the major league league league with Fernando Tatis Jr. So, I mean, it's there, Frank. Like you said, that launch angle gets up a little bit. We see a little Vlad Guerrero Jr. And who knows, right? Yeah, it's still a young player, prospect pedigree, loads of upside there for Alex Kirloff.

Dave, who would you rather have, if you're just looking for an outfielder at this point in the draft? Alex Kirloff or Hunter Renfro? I think I'm going to take the upside of Kirillov there. I know, Ryan Renfro, you know if he's in the lamp every day. He's going to give you 30 home runs. But not great batting average. I think Kirillov has the potential.

to give you a little bit more. I'll go Kirilloff there. Yeah. I think it comes down to what you need to. It's that cop-out answer. But if you're looking for a little bit more batting average, I could see going Kirill off. If you need power, you know, Renfro's probably going to hit you somewhere 240, 250, but I think the power numbers will be better for Hans-Renfro. Yeah, I would take Alex Kerloff as well. I really like that dual eligibility. So being able to throw him in the outfield or corner infield, whatever it might be at that point in the draft, I do like Kirloff quite a bit. And it's not to disparage Hunter-Rentfro. I think he's a fine pick where he's going right now as well.

ADP gift number four, for me, Willie Adomas. And I mentioned his name on the head-to-head points mock draft that we did. And I kind of just mentioned him as like, if you miss out on all the short stops, there are a lot of them. Shortstop is absolutely loaded. Then he's a perfectly fine fallback option.

He mentioned this many times throughout the season that he could not see the ball well when he was playing in Tropicana, when he was on the Tampa Bay Rays. 99 games with the Milwaukee Brewers. he hit 285, 20 homers, four steals, an 886 OPS, 11% walk rate, 25% strikeout rate, with a 24% line drive rate. That would be among the league leaders in terms of line drive rate.

So he makes really solid contact. And the home run and steel pace, over 150 games based on what he did in Milwaukee, 30 homers, six steals. I know a lot of people want more speed out of their middle infield than what he's going give you only six steals over this pace. But, man, like, if he gives you 25 to 30 homers with six to eight steals, I think that that's a pretty damn good player where he's going right now with that 142 ADP. And I think there's upside for him to maybe not be better because he was awesome.

He had an 886 OPS. He wasn't that good in Milwaukee, just in that ballpark. It's not Miller Park anymore. It's American Family Field, I believe. He only hit... Yeah, it's very weird. But, yeah, he was... He hit just 236 with an 8-0.

2 OPS there. So that's a really good ballpark to hit in. So if he gets better there, I still think there's upside. I don't know. We have not seen the best of Willie Adomis yet. He's young enough. Showed us the skills last year. I'm on board. He's the 18th shortstop off the board right now. And if everything breaks right, I could see him having a Jorge Polanco-esque season from a year ago. Probably not the 15 steals, but can he hit 30 plus homers, six to eight steals? I think that's definitely doable for Willie Adomas. What do you think, Dave? Yeah, I love it, man. I've kind of looked in a little bit more over the last couple weeks here.

And I mean, 99 games for the Brewers last year hit 20 home runs. It took them 152 games to do that in 2019 with the Tampa Bay raise. 285 average, like you said, 15 steals, 58 runs batted in, 886 OPS, that OPS plus of 135 after joining Milwaukee. And apparently they talk about for people that are into war, a 4.2B war, which was, was 3.5 of them came after he joined the Brewers. I think there was a quote, if I'm not mistaken, that he had said that he had problems like seeing the ball with the roof or something with Tampa Bay,

and that kind of allowed him to see the ball better when he got out of that stadium. And I think it even showed in his home road splits, if I'm not mistaken, when you looked with the raise. So you're right. I mean, we kind of got a glimpse of it last year. That could just be kind of a teaser of what he can do in a full season with Milwaukee.

Yeah, I like Willie Adamas quite a bit. and I'll pull up the career numbers in Tropicana real quick because they were awful. He mentioned it was like the batter eye. He couldn't see the ball well with the batter's eye there in Tropicana. So let's see.

For his career in Tampa Bay, he hit 2-17 with a 616 OPS. So you get that guy out there in Milwaukee and good things are coming here for one Willie Adamas. All right, we made it to the end. Our favorite. Number one,

ADP gift as of now, 66 drafts in the books over at the NFBC, is whom for you, Dave Mendelsohn? Bobby Witt, Jr. And I know people are going to say it. I'm going to look really quick here because, all right, so Bobby Witt Jr., when I wrote it, he is a, yeah, so he's still right now going around ADP 92, 93 in that range. So people are going to be like, are you serious?

He's already high enough. Well, he's not high enough, Frank. I think by the time the season gets going around, he's going to shoot up to like that Wander Franco area. He's going to shoot up to like in the 40s, 50s. I think when it's all said and done, I see it. Now, just a little bit for Bobby Wood Jr. here. I can't remember who on MLB Network said this quote,

but it's always stuck with me ever since I heard it. They said he's going to be the Patrick Mahomes of baseball. In terms of the impact, he's going to have on the league and for the Royals specifically. He's going to change that whole franchise. And he's going to be the type of guy, that you're arguing might be the number one guy to build around in the Major League Baseball. So that stuck with me for a little while.

But if you look, with dominated AA and AAA this year, hit a combined 293-61-575 with 33 home runs and 299 steals, earning Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year honors. Now, keep in mind, those are over 123 games. So maybe if you talk about over a full season, so let's add maybe 50 games to that, I'm sorry, if you go to like 150 games and you added maybe the rest of, regression with MLB pitching, you still have the potential, the potential, Frank. And I know it's obviously lofty to say, but 29 steals and 123 games has an outside chance

to potentially get close to 30. And there was only one guy they did 30 30 last year, and that's Cedric Mullen. So, I mean, just that type of potential that this kid has. And the fact that he's going around pick 100. Now, Cedric Mollins is going at the top two or three round pick right now. And I mean, just Frank, this hit tool, you'll also look at the fact. that his strikeout rate has dipped. It went from 24% the previous year to 22.5% last season. And again, I just honestly think that this is going to be a kid that comes up there.

Hopefully the CBA works out something where these dangling carrots out in front of these players to hold them down just for service time reasons. That gets fixed. So he's up there from day one. And I think if they make that announcement that he's starting with the Royals, his ADP is going to go up. I think, again, that 30-30 chance, even if it's a 20-25 player, I'm just, yeah, I'm drafting so much Bobby Witt my head's going to spend this year. And you know what's crazy? It kind of reminds me of Boba Chet, who very quickly transformed himself into a first-round pick for fantasy baseball purposes for this very reason.

The fact that Boba-Shet 25-25 guy, yeah, 29 homers, 25 steals this past season. and Bobby Witt is in the perfect spot. Kansas City loves to run. I mean, they just let their guys go. So I don't think that they're going to be playing for much this year. I mean, they've got some prospects coming. So I think it could be a quick turnaround in general over the next couple of years for the Royals.

But yeah, once he's up, they're going to let him go. Like, they're going to let him play. They're going to let him, you know, try and work through whatever issues he has. I worry a little bit because we saw so many prospects come up this past season and struggle at first now. Just because one prospect does it, doesn't mean. I mean, every prospect is going to do it, but it is something that's in the back of my mind.

Steamer already has him projected for a 267 batting average, 24 homers, and 18 steals over 134 games. Those are great projections for a rookie in baseball, right? Like, just face value, 267, 24, 18. How much different is that than what you're expecting from Francisco Indoor? Exactly. But, and this is this guy that's going to, you know,

close, round pick 100. Yeah. I haven't really given it much thought. I will say this. The ADP has dropped. So in November, it was 89.6. So far in the month of December, 100.3. So it's actually, it's going the other way right now.

He's dropped 10 spots. I think, you know, when we had these early drafts in like October, November, people were very excited. I saw someone took him in like the third or fourth round. Something crazy like that that, like, really propped up his ADP. He's taking a step back right now. So if you like Bobby Witt, jump into drafts now, because he is, he's actually starting to fall a little bit.

And for those that are wondering like, oh, man, this is like way too high for a prospect. Last year, Jared Kelnick and Wanda Franco, we're going outside the top 200 in ADP. We didn't know when we were going to see those guys. And Bobby Witt is going to be up early in the season. There is no doubt in my mind. And if you compare his ADP now to other top prospects of years past, Luis Robert was ADP 81.7 heading into 2020. Vladimir Guerrero, 51.1. Ronald LeCuna was 100.5 back in 2018. And as of now, Bobby Witt is actually going lower than two of those names and actually going right around where Ronald Lucuna was in his rookie season. So just keep that in mind. Like, we're actually, I think, getting him at a pretty fair value. Again, that is one, Bobby Witt. My last gift for everyone here today is a pitcher who I had as one of my breakouts last year. And I would, I would, would say that he broke out. The problem was he kind of just got limited by injury here down the stretch.

And that was Pablo Lopez. 3.07 ERA, 1.12 whip 115 strikeouts over 102 and 2 thirds innings pitched. His 21.3% K-minus walk rate was 15th along pitchers with at least 100 innings pitch that was just ahead of Julio O'Reas, Charlie Morton, Lucas Gialito. Three pitchers that are regarded as, you know, top 15, top 20 starting pitchers. In terms of rankings in ADP right now, Pablo Lopez is going outside the top of 30 in terms of starting pitchers. His 11.8% swinging strike rate

isn't amazing, but it's respectable. He had a career high 37% chase rate, career high 62% first pitch strike percentage. He gets a lot of ground balls. He has a great home park to pitch in. I don't really see what's not to like about Pablo Lopez. I'm surprised that he's going around pick 120 again here, heading into 2022.

He has five different pitches that he used as at least 9% of the time. He cut his sinker usage about 10 percentage points from 2020 to 2021. And he uses change it more. He uses cutter more. He uses curb all more. He's turning 26 years old in March. He's in the prime of his career.

Maybe you worry about the shoulder a little bit. But, you know, he returned. He made a final start. I think he went like one and two thirds inning. So it's nothing crazy. But I would actually take Lopez just straight up over you, Darvish, who's going 25 picks higher right now. So I liked Pablo Lopez last year.

I'm going to like him again this year. I think I'm just a Marlins fan now. I don't know. Sandy Alcantara, whenever I see him in the third round, it's just like an auto draft pick for me. So between Sandy and Pablo Lopez, I'm going to have a lot of Marlins' this upcoming season, Dave. Yeah, I don't blame you, man.

They just turn out pitchers like every day. And it's incredible. I mean, Pablo Lopez is actually up to strike all right, four straight years now. And he's, like you said, the K-minus B rate's impressive. And, you know, obviously the injury is probably going to give him a discount this year.

So it might work out in favor of potentially what if he had finished out the year. It could have been even higher. But my question to you then, are you worried because the Marlins have so many great pitchers that if he struggles just a little bit that they have, well, we've got two guys lined up to take your spot in the rotation that he could turn into a bullpen guy. Does that scare you at all potentially in drafting him? Not really.

No, because I think the guys that they do have a lot of depth, but we're talking about guys like Jesus Lozardo, who, I mean, just have. hasn't really been able to put it together in terms of consistency. They have some prospects coming too. Like Max Meyer looks like he's going to be a very good pitcher. I'm not really worried about it. I think Paulo Lopez is legitimately, you know, I was about to say the second best pitcher in their rotation,

but Trevor Rogers is pretty damn good too. So, man, they just, they know how to turn out these pitchers. Nah, to answer your question, I'm not really worried about it. But I think it's, if someone was worried about it, I wouldn't fault them. Just me personally, I'm not really worried about it. But that'll do it. it. Again, our ADP gifts, the top five for me. I had Alex Cobb, Joe Adele, Logan Gilbert,

Willie Adamas, and Pablo Lopez. And my boy, Mendi here, he had Christian Javier, Aaron Ashby, Tanner Hauke, Alex Kiroloff, and of course, one Bobby Witt. Before we sign off here, Dave, you are, you're the snack king. I have dubbed you the snack king. I'm looking at your Twitter right now. You're asking people about these flaming hot, cool ranch Doritos. Sounds awesome. I'm totally in. What do we got going on for the holidays? Do we got any kind of special holiday snacks that we're kind of cooking up or baking up here for Christmas season? My wife makes killer oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I think those are the number one cookie out there. I think it's not up for debate. And just probably stuff like that. You know, cookies and chocolate and all those,

All the stuff everybody loves, of course, but probably some crazier stuff down the road. I always like, if you ever go to your local Walmart, they have all those crazy stuff that I post. That's where I do my shopping. So all that stuff will definitely be after the holidays. Dude, I live in Queens, New York. There's no Walmart around here. That's not a thing. There's no Walmart in the New York City area.

Really? Yeah, I think it's a thing because technically they would be, I don't know, I don't know what it is. Like, I think their prices are just too low. that they would just absolutely crush everybody else. So if you drive out to like Long Island or upstate New York, sure, you can find Walmart there, but none, absolutely none around where I live. You're missing out on the sugar cookie toast crunches, the cinnamon toast crunch popcorn, like the, what is it, like the apple pie kid cats.

Like there's so much of that good stuff out there. Oh, man, it sounds so great too. I don't know. It's the season of giving. Maybe you could send some my way, Dave. I got you. But make sure you follow him on Twitter at D-Mendi O2. He is the host and co-exam.

founder of the Triple Play Fantasy podcast. Do you guys have a website too? I don't even know. I probably should ask you that beforehand. You're good. It's trippplayfancy.com. Triple Play Fantasy was taken. So we had to go the next route. All right. So yes, make sure you follow him and go check out his website there. Dave, appreciate you having, appreciate having you on here. It was a lot of fun. We'll have to do it again sometime. Hey, man. This is being real. It's a dream come true, man, I listen to you guys all the time. This is number one favorite baseball podcast. So, definitely the pleasure was mine. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I appreciate that. I know it was everyone's favorite podcast was when Adam was here.

No, man. You and him, man. It's like tied now. I do appreciate that. Happy holidays to all that are out there. Enjoy this Christmas weekend, obviously. And make sure to stay safe. Obviously, a lot of things going out there going on out there in the world right now. But for Dave, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.