Fantasy Baseball Today - Early Spring Training Updates Plus a Mailbag! (2/19 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

Chris and Scott are handling duties today and start off with Trevor Rosenthal to the A's! ... Well, Fernando Tatis Jr. is rich (4:15). Shane Bieber and Frankie Montas have tested positive for COVID while J.T. Realmuto fractured his thumb! ... We also have some early spring training updates and apparently Juan Soto wants to run more (11:14). Should he be the first overall pick in Roto leagues? Clint Frazier has been named the starting left fielder for the Yankees and Andrew Vaughn could make the White Sox Opening Day roster. ... The guys are answering your Apple Podcast Review questions, including some late-round infielders and Shohei Ohtani's value (20:35). ... Chris and Scott spend the rest of the podcast answering your emails (31:08). If you've sent an email over the past week or so, they probably answer it here! ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday '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, @AdamAizer Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ 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

I love the sweet tones of a Jag like Michael Walker, Polanco and Trump. I love the sweet tones of a Kokomo Friday. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today. It is Friday, February 19th. I'm Chris Towers. Scott White's here with me,

and no Frank Stamphill today. He is feeling under the weather. And so we've decided to call a bit of an audible on our schedule. We're not going to be doing the relief. pitcher preview today like we were expecting to. I know you're all very sad that there won't be any relief pitcher talk, but it should make you feel better because frankly, you know, the beginning of training camp is not the best time to talk about relief pitcher. There's so much that's going to change, you know, between now and the start of the season and then the start of the season and the third day

of the season that, you know, waiting a little longer for relief pitcher, not. the worst thing in the world. Scott, how are you doing? I'm fine. I'm fine. We can talk about one relief pitcher breaking from the position previews and there need to be Evergreen. It allows us to address a little bit of news. And Trevor Rosenthal signed a one-year deal with the athletics today, agreed to terms anyway. And he's going to be their closer, sounds like, which means Jake Deekman will not. But that didn't seem totally assured anyway. You'd rather have the sure thing in Rosenthal. I think that brings us up to 15 for sure closers in my estimation.

And we could argue about it. What a time to be in fantasy baseball. We could argue about who is a for sure closer and who isn't. Because even beyond those 15, there are some clear front runners, I think. But I think 15 for sure, Rosenthal among them. I was kind of holding out hope. The Braves would either side, Malanson, who of course went to the podcast. or once that happened that they'd sign Rosenthal since they didn't.

I'm going to go ahead and pencil in Will Smith to be the Braves closer. I know Brian Snitker, the Braves manager, talked about how they could use maybe two or three different guys in that role, but he did single out Will Smith. And frankly, I don't think he's the kind of manager who's going to stick with the committee for long, even if that's his intentions to start out. The Braves' bullpins lefty heavy. They're paying Will Smith a lot of money. I think that's a pretty safe bet, Will Smith.

I think that makes sense. We have, today's episode is going to be all mailbag, all of your questions, Apple podcast, reviews, email questions, fantasy baseball today at CBSI.com. If you want to leave a review on Apple podcast with a question, we'll get that on a future show. And I don't know, maybe Frank threw some tweets in here as well. We'll see. But first, before we start all that, fantasy baseball today listeners, I wanted to let you know about Paramount Plus. you've probably seen the journey to Mount Paramount spots featuring Bill Cower, James Corden, Patrick Stewart, and Beavison Butthead.

Quite a squad. Paramount Plus is live sports, breaking news on a mountain of entertainment. You can go straight from game day to movie night with Paramount Plus. Shroom iconic movies like The Godfather, Indiana Jones, and Mission Impossible, plus new episodes of critically acclaimed original series like Star Trek Picard, The Good Fight, and The Stand. And get this. It's where you can dive into live sports from us,

CBS sports, including the NFL, March Madness, the Masters, Champions League Soccer, and more. Plus, you can stream hit shows from CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, the Smithsonian Channel, and Comedy Central, live sports, breaking news, and a whole mountain of entertainment. Paramount Plus starts streaming on March 4th. Let's get to some quick news, catch up on some stuff that's happening at the beginning of spring training, including Fernando Tatis becoming a very rich man. Frank put Fernando Tatis is rich in the notes, but his dad did have like a 14 year major league career or something like that. So I would assume Fernando Tatis, the Tatis family already had some money. I assume they were doing okay.

But Fernando Tatis Jr., 14 years, $340 million. I will be 47 years old when that contract expires. How about you, Scott? 51, I think, is how old I'll be. Let's hope we both make it. Yeah, that is, of course. Nobody's promised tomorrow. That's a lot of money for a guy who already has a claim to be a top 10 player in baseball. I don't even know if that would be a hot take at this point.

Yeah. No, it won it. It's kind of an unprecedented deal because he's pre-arb. And so normally when you see a team, lock up a superstar going to designate him their franchise player before he reaches arbitration

it's more team friendly than this I mean this is the kind of contract you'd expect Tatis to sign maybe if he was on the open market 14 years I mean I've never seen anything quite that long so maybe it would be more like 11 years you know if he was on the open market but over 300 million I mean there aren't many players

in baseball history that have broken that threshold So I certainly understand why Tatis took it. I think, I mean, the Padres are obviously really confident in how he projects long term. And or maybe they know something that they're foreseeing that the market's going to change over the course of those 14 years in a way that will make this, I think, more in their favor than it appears right now. And look, if Tatis value holds for most of those 14 years, 24 million a year, you know, most of them he's going to come at a discount. But it's just weird to see it happen to see that amount of money handed to a player pre-arb. Ha-ha, money printer go burr, is what I have to say.

Yeah, like, I'm working on a piece where I'm looking at trying to project, like, what a best-case scenario outcome for every player being drafted in the first round right now. And so I'm basically taking, like, what would be a best-case scenario? case scenario for plate appearances, and then I'm putting in like strikeout rate, walk rate, fly ball rate, home run to fly ball rate, bab-ip, and just trying to kind of build out the component parts from there based on, you know, these things that fluctuate a lot from year to year. And, you know, Tatis, his upside's pretty high. You know, it's like a 320 batting average and 45 homers and 30-something steals.

And he's really good. The only thing is, you know, he played way over his head in 2019. And then last year, the batted ball dump numbers were best in baseball. He's probably not going to do that again. And so, you know, we are still at a point where we're entering year three for Fernando Tatis. He's a top five consensus pick. But we still don't exactly know who he is. You know, we haven't seen like a two-month slump from him, which is going to happen because that happens for everybody except maybe Mike Trout.

I feel like he didn't slump until like one August. in like 2015 was like the first time he ever felt. His wrist was hurt. Yeah. And so, you know, everyone else slumps. Yeah. You know, Muki Betz slumped in 2019 at the beginning of the season. So, you know, we'll learn more about Fernando Tatis this season, just like we did last year.

And we'll learn more about him once we see a slump and see how he adjust. But, you know, he is a top five player, I think, for pretty much everyone. You know, you're going to spend $40 or something close to that on him in your, in your, in your salary cap drafts. And yeah, he's awesome. Some other news, this is not quite so good. Shane Bieber and Frankie Montas have tested positive for COVID-19.

It sounds like the symptoms for Bieber are relatively mild. Maybe it's a little more worrisome for Montas, but both of them will be delayed at least a little bit at the start of spring training. But I know Bieber, they were talking about they expect him within the next three or four days. to report to camp. So it shouldn't be that big of a deal,

but just something to keep an eye on. And, you know, as we saw last season, you know, Yoha Moncotta, we've talked a lot about. He's someone who just never felt right. Fatigue and shortness of breath are two of the main symptoms. And, you know, it is something that can have lingering effects. So something to keep an eye on, but I don't think you move Shane Bieber down your rankings until we...

You know, we just did a mock earlier tonight. I still took Bieber ahead of Garrett Cole. ninth overall, I think is where I took them, which, you know, to me was a discount, but I know I'm one of the few who have Shane Bieber as the number one starting pitcher. Yeah. And then some other bad news, J.T. Raumuto has a fracture in his right thumb. He's expected to miss about a month from now, which, remember, February is a short month. So, you know, a month missed in February. is more than a month missed in March or something like that. He's expected to be ready for opening day.

Are you moving J.T. Realmuto down as a result of this? No, I hope others will. I hope others will. He's going too early right now. Yeah, he's going to 30th. He's up to 33rd and NFBC. Oh, 33rd and NFPC.

303rd. NFPC is a different animal. Yeah. But Fantasy pros, I think he's around 40th. He went 41st in tonight's mock, so clearly nobody was nobody was disillusioned by this fractured thumb for Real Muto. But, you know, my hope is it's a situation I can take advantage of like when Clayton

Kershaw had his back injury. Something going on. Yeah, something going on two springs ago. I was the shoulder in 2019. Yeah, I dropped them like three rounds on average. And so I went from calling him a bus to drafting him in a bunch of leagues. And, you know, if something similar plays out through Real Muto, I'll be happy to take advantage because I don't think this is the kind of injury that will have lingering effects.

And usually broken bones have a very predictable timetable timetable. So I feel I feel good investing in Rio Mutual like I always would have. Yep. I think I might be a little less willing to draft him, but I was probably never going to draft him at 40th overall or at least it was going to take a very specific set of circumstances. So yeah, if he drops to 50, 55, makes it a little easier to stomach. Another news item that got fantasy Twitter,

all a Twitter was Juan Soto, apparently wants to run more. According to Nationals manager Davey Martinez, he said Soto spent the off-season working on his agility and wants to steal more bases. Frank put in the notes 1.01 in Roto? I think the thing, Juan Soto is very exciting. And I'm incredibly excited about him.

when we did our most likely players to make the Hall of Fame discussion last offseason, he was on my list. And that was after two seasons as a 21-year-old. I think he is one of the most likely players in Major League Baseball right now to end up in the Hall of Fame. He is historically great at a young age. I think expectations may be just a slight bit too high for fantasy, even without, you know, a put. I think it's unlikely he really gets moved up because he says,

you know, his manager said he wants to run more. But, you know, that would certainly make his ceiling higher and his floor higher. But, you know, I think people are looking at last season and saying, wow, he hit 351. He had an 1100 OPS. He had this, you know, 41 walks, 28 strikeouts. He was amazing. And I think people are kind of assuming that that was representative of, you know, not necessarily a brand new talent level, but a jump from where he had been before.

And, like, I still think Mike Trout's the best hitter in baseball. I think the most likely outcome is Mike Trout's better than him as a hitter, and the steals are probably pretty close between them. So I would still take Trout. Okay. Okay. First of all, I want to say Dave Martinez couldn't have teed up this quote any better for the fantasy baseball audience, right? He literally said he wants to steal more bases.

Yeah. And I have always said stolen bases are mostly a matter of intent. So, you know, expressing that he's. wants to do it. I think if nothing else, for somebody like me who is skeptical how much Soto really wanted to run at all, you know, he had 12 steals in 2019. He had six in 2020, so that's pretty nice pace too. But, you know, anytime you get a middle of the order bat stealing bases, I think that's on borrowed time. And eventually those are going to go away. So I've been reluctant to project steals onto Juan Soto. And now I feel like I can do that.

that. I don't know that he's going to run like Ronald de Cunia, but he will wrong. He only stole eight last year. So, you know, he will keep running like he has the past couple years, Soto will. So to me, like I, I've pretty much talked myself into moving trout back for five by five leagues, because I had him second overall at one point. So behind Bets, behind Fernando Tautis. And I think I will move him behind Soto too. So, you know, I guess I'm moving Soto up one the spot based on this news. I mean, but it's like a 20% increase in his ADP now.

There you go. It's a big move. Yeah, look, I can't argue against it. Like I said, Juan Soto is incredible. He's the next Albert Poo-Hulls. He's Albert Poo-Hulls already. So, yeah, he's an unbelievable player. A couple other pieces of news, Clint Frazier has been named the starting left

fielder for the Yankees, which is pretty interesting. He definitely has had his ups and downs as a major leaguer, mostly I would say downs, but top prospect pedigree, and had a 900 OPS last season. It was admittedly 160 plate appearance sample size. But he has 400 plate appearances over the last two seasons with 20 homers.

So, you know, there's definitely 25 to 30 homer potential without killer batting average. Are you, do you have Clint Frazier in your five outfield starting mix? Yeah, oh, I always did. In fact, I was surprised how, like, I didn't think this was new.

I didn't know people were out there wondering. I wonder if Clint Frazier will get to start because he became the starter last year. He was awesome. And now they have even fewer options to play the outfield. So I didn't know people were holding their breath to see what kind of role Clint Frazier would have.

I thought it was a given, and I thought he was one of the most underrated players considering. It turns out, based on the way people are reacting to this, that that fear apparently was out there, unbeknownst to me. And maybe in the long run, he won't be, on average, the 186th player off the board. Because I think he probably deserves to go 50 or 60 spots higher than that. Yeah, that's where I have. My outfield are 42, I think, in Roto. So, like, 150-ish.

But, you know, it's good to get confirmation. Sure. And Andrew Vaughn could be on the opening day roster. We have heard some rumblings of this over the last couple of months, but that is interesting. I guess Ilo Jimenez would play in the outfield, and Andrew Vaughan could, you know, kind of split time with Jose O'Reu at first base, Andrew Vaughn.

One of the, what, five best prospects in baseball? Certainly one of your top five fantasy prospects, right? You think he's fourth overall? something like that in that I mean fifth seventh in that range of prospects

yeah to be an elite prospect as a first baseman you've really really got a hit and Andrew Vaughn is widely considered one of the best

hitters in the minor leagues of all the news items we've discussed this is the biggest because now we have the assistant GM in charge of player development saying it

we've got the actual GM saying it we got pretty much confirmation throughout the White Sox organization that they want Vaughn to win the job. And they're not saying in a way that suggests they absolutely won't take surface time considerations into account. I think there's a chance they agree to a long-term deal before that. So it's just a moot point. I think there's a chance they go ahead and send them down for the first two weeks.

But the bottom line is Vaughn will be contributing to the major league team. very soon. I think we can say that with near certainty. And he should be skyrocketing up draft boards as a result. Like if I remember two years ago, I got so much Pete Alonzo because the Mets were saying similar things about him. And I don't know if people just didn't believe them or or if I don't know. I don't know what the deal was. I was getting him in like the 15th round of 15 team leagues. And obviously I made bank on that and him hitting 53 homers. are rightly skeptical of teams who say they are going to call or hint that they may call up a player before it is the most financially prudent time.

But even if they're lying, even if it's a little strong. A couple of weeks, yeah. Yeah, we're talking a matter of two weeks. So it virtually meaningless to your fantasy team, the wait for them. Andrew Vaughn, he has only appeared in 55 games as a professional and you might look at the numbers when you search for him and say, on 278, 449 slug, 832 OPS.

That's not that great. But remember, that was straight out of college, jumping, you know, three games in rookie ball, but then he jumped to A and then high A. That's not something you usually see with guys the first year they're drafted. And so he definitely would have been at double A last season, assuming that, you know, nothing went wrong. And, you know, that would have put him on pace for a major league promotion around now, if not earlier, if he had really been hitting well last season.

So, yeah, he's, you know, let me see, 43 home runs in 110 games in his NCAA career, more walks than strikeouts, a lot more walks than strikeouts in college. But even in his professional debut, where, frankly, you see a lot of guys not hit super well. It's the longest they've ever played. They're usually, you know, only playing 50 or so games in a season. 30 walks, 38 strikeouts, and 55 games. So Andrew Vaughn could be a real impact bad. He could be, you know, potentially Elio Jimenez-esque bad,

except with, you know, hopefully better plate discipline, at least with the walks. He will walk more, hopefully. The only thing, I guess, would be Elo is such a disaster in the outfield that if Andrew Vaughn isn't hitting really, really well, maybe it's, you know, there's a relatively short leash, if he's not hitting really well right out of the gate. But definitely someone to get in your mixed league radars

and potentially start drafting inside of the top 250, I think, especially if there's more buzz. So get ahead of the hype train on that if you're drafting within the next week or so. I'm going to make a note right now. Move Andrew Vaughn up the rankings. See, I wish I had a pencil in front of it. That would be a good thing to make a note of.

Maybe I'll just do it while your, talking at some point. Let's move on to the mailbag. And we'll start with an Apple podcast review question from Trenton Andrew 7. If you want to get your questions answered on the show, surefire way to do that is to leave a comment on Apple review with, you know, preferably a five-star rating. I think we're pretty good. That, you know, and that just helped us get out there and it makes us look good for our bosses and all that stuff. So, you know, please do that. Trenton, Andrew I've been using the strategy of waiting on infield and loading up on outfield and starting pitching early. My opinion, there are plenty of guys down the rankings at every position to fill

your infield and having studs at outfield and starting pitcher is more important. You know, so he's talking about first baseman like Miguel Sino, Carlos Santana, Trey Mancini, Hunter Dozier. You know, I know you and I both like Tray Mancini quite a bit. I still like Hunter Dozier. I still like Miguel Suno. I think a lot more than the consensus. And Carlos Santana, if you're playing in a points league, should continue to be great. And I think he'll probably be better than he was last year for Roto, too. Second baseman, he mentions guys like Colton Wong,

Hassan Kim, Jorge Polanco. I like all of those guys as well. Wong is interesting because he's a relatively high on base guy who, you know, has stolen some bases the last few seasons. So the, you know, the ability to get some cheap steals in a Roto league, I think that is worth considering shortstop.

Jorge Polanco, Willie Castro, Paul DeYoung, third base, Eduardo Escobar, Edwin Rios, Josh Donaldson, and J.D. Davis. He uses this especially when you need five outfielders. Do you have any players specifically to add to that late round discussion for the infield position, Scott? Well, I'm going to be honest.

Andrew Vaughan. There you go. That's a good one. I'm going to be honest. I disagree. I think the outfielder's in the same range are more. interesting potentially higher upside than most of the players on this list. So I kind of do the opposite.

Starting pitcher being the top priority, but usually the infield before the outfield, even in a five outfielder league. But if you're insisting on going this route, there are... Yeah, I think it depends on how you define, but like Kristen Walker is someone I think is a first base I was looking at.

A very good source of power should drive in some runs. And his ADP, I know it's after 150. I'm not sure where it is exactly. But he's usually pretty cheap. I'm guessing this is also like a 15 team league he's talking about because these guys are all pretty low end for a 12 team league. I still like J.D. Davis for as late as you can get him. Austin Riley, we talked about him on the third base preview.

We all like him as a sleeper. this year. Nick Madrigal. Yeah, I don't know. Is Madrigal going later than Tommy Edmund? I think he is. Yeah, I think of those two are similar. No, Tommy Edmonds 134 right now.

Nick Madrigal's 217. Chris Taylor's another one. Both of those guys probably helping batting average and steals. Yep. Yeah, Chris Taylor's, Chris Taylor's a serviceable player. I don't think he's going to really set your team apart in anyway, but he's fine.

Jared Walsh is kind of interesting. Bobby Dahlbeck, I think a lot of people are sleeping on him. He might be a liability and batting average, but it should be a lot of power. Jared Walsh, Angels, Bobby Dahlbeck, Red Sox. Yep.

Brendan Rogers, deep sleeper for the Rockies, if he does land his starting job in their infield, still a lot of potential he could live up to. I hope so. He's a full year removed from that shoulder surgery, so hopefully that'll, that'll help him get right. Another one from Tishua.

What's Otani's value in a keeper league with daily moves? So you get all of his stats. Asked a few years ago, started a debate on the podcast. But clearly that's changed lately. So what are your expectation from Shohei Otani? And I will point out, don't panic yet,

but he threw his first bullpen session. The angel said he topped out at 90 miles per hour today. But it's his first bullpen session. they just reported the camp. Let's not freak out about Shohayotani yet. What do you think he can do this year? I mean, I still think the sky's the limit in terms of what he could do, both as a hitter and pitcher.

I'm kind of to the point now where I feel like him wanting to do both is kind of robbing his potential on both sides. I mean, we saw him collapse as a hitter last season and as a pitcher, obviously, to the point they just took him out of the rotation as a pitcher. Coming back from Tommy John's surgery, so you can understand why he struggled as a pitcher, but that it carried over to his hitting, I think is pretty alarming because he could be an all-star caliber player,

I think it either. And I'm not saying he still can't be that at both. I'm just saying I don't have a lot of confidence in it at this point. and because they're going to, because it's impacting his playing time on both sides of the ball. I understand a daily league, you can manage that a little better

and hopefully get the best of both worlds. But like I really don't know what to expect from him in either capacity as ugly as last season was. So I'm not that interested, to be honest. The velocity will be, I think, a key thing to watch because, you know, he averaged 96.7 miles per hour with his fastball in 2018.

All three of his breaking balls, you know, slider, splitter, and cut and curveball were very good swing and miss pitches. In 2020, the velocity was down three miles per hour and the effectiveness on all the other pitches was drastically different. So, you know, if he can get back to 95-ish in training camp, I think that'll push him up boards, especially in daily leagues. But yeah, I think you're kind of.

hoping for like a like Jock Peterson, Kyle Schwabre-esque impact as a bat in a league where you can't use him in both. And that's obviously a little underwhelming. From Zach Ertz.

I don't think it's that Zacherts. I think this one's with a K. Keeper League. Keepers cost three rounds from where you draft them. Keep three. So Walker Bueller in round 16, Tyler Glassnow in round nine. Kentomide in round 12,

Luke Voight in round 19, or Corbyn Burns in round 25. Who are you keeping? I'm keeping Bueller. I think at that discount, you have to, even though neither one of us that sounds like are enthusiastic

about drafting him round two. Round 16 is a different story. Yeah. I think Glass sounds out. Yeah. I think Corby Burns is, I don't know if I made, this comparison the other day,

but I think Corbyn-Burns and Tyler Glass now are kind of the Spider-Man pointing at each other meme at this point. Yeah, because, you know, not knowing the specific rules for this league, I'd say Bueller in 16, Maida, and 12 and Voight and 19, but because I know how the escalation works with the salaries and because Burns is starting so low at round 25, I think I'm inclined to go Burns over Maeda,

even though it's not as good for your 2021 prospects. So I think I said Bueller in 16, Voit in 19, and Burns in 25. Maeda, I believe, is already 34 this season. He's either 33 or 34. He's definitely getting up there. Certainly older than certainly most people would think. Yeah, he's going to be 33 this year. Yeah.

Mike and Ross Chester, this is, I guess we'll make a little announcement here. He's wondering if we could release a printable draft prep packet a week earlier than did last year, last year, it was I think the last week or two before the start of the season. Absolutely. We will be, that will be my project for next week. We are going to have, I think it's going to be super awesome. It's going to be a 32 page printable, downloadable draft guide. It's going to have rankings from, it's going to have consensus rankings for head to head and points.

It's going to have auction or salary cap values. it's going to have ADP. We're going to have a round by round guide with Scott's tiers, breakdowns on all the top players, sleepers break out some busts. We're going to have Scott, Frank, and I's draft rules for our 2021 drafts and a couple other things. So that's going to be really cool.

Hopefully that'll be available. The first week of March, and the way that'll work is you'll be able to sign up on CBS Sports We'll send it to your inbox totally free. So keep an eye out for that. I'm very excited. I think it's going to be a very good product. We did something similar for football and I can go really well.

So keep an eye out for that. And thanks for asking Mike in Rochester. All right. Email is a fantasy baseball at CBSI, the letter, not the part of your brain or head at CBSI.com. from Jim. Hello, Tim, Jim, and Garrett. I don't know that one.

How much of the coaching staff, coaching changes slash reunions slash philosophies, if at all, go into your ranking. Example, Jim says, I personally love Josh Bell as an upgrade because he's going to work with Kevin Long, Long's track record with the Yankees, Mets, and now Nationals has been under the radar great,

leading two of those teams to a World Series title. Does that factor into any of your rankings or sleepers, breakouts, or bus? It doesn't for me, but that's also, it's just one, frankly, it's sort of hard to keep up with. And it's hard to know which situations actually make an impact and which guys. It's hard to separate. Like sometimes guys just get better and it's not necessarily because they were working with a coach. Like Josh Bell, you know, he got better and it's not necessarily.

It's not something that we credit to working with a specific hitting coach in Pittsburgh. And so I don't know. It's just hard. it's the kind of thing that's hard to separate out, separate out the noise from the signal. And in this case, I think that the impact tends to be pretty low.

You know, we've seen some scenarios where, like, Cleveland consistently gets the most out of their starting pitchers. You know, we can say that with a high degree of certainty. I'm not sure there are that many other situations where I feel super confident in that kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, the Astros. Astros, Rays and Dodgers. Yeah. But as kind of a blanket approach, I don't really, it's more of a case-by-case thing. Like, Josh Bell, I get it because it looked like his swing was broken last year, and they're talking about how they have solutions for it.

So, okay, I'm encouraged to hear that. And, you know, I'm hopeful because of it. and I put him in my sleeper column apart because of that. You know, it just kind of depends on if there's something a player needs, and if it sounds like the team or the coach has a grasp on what that player needs, then it's something I'll give some weight to. But I don't think there's any magical coach out there right now. Cleveland and Houston

I think would be you know come the closest to getting that treatment you know a while back maybe I don't know how long ago it is now 10 years almost probably

I do think Ray Syridge with the pirates anytime they signed a veteran who appeared broken he seemed to have a knack for getting the most out of them but obviously his approach kind of it grew stale in Pittsburgh

and now he's kind of you know, we talk about how he held a lot of pitchers back, a lot of up-and-coming pitchers back. Yeah, I think that's kind of a key that even when we do think that there are guys who have that kind of impact, you know, coaches, it tends to be short-lived because the game is constantly evolving and like race-seridge was another one with the Mets. You know, remember when they had, you know,

one of the best young rotations in baseball, and we talked about the race-ieres- Dan Warton, right? Dan Warton, sorry, Dan Warton. and that kind of imploded. And it's hard to know whether it was his fault or whether he deserved much credit for those pitchers in general.

But, you know, it's just, we don't have enough information, I think is kind of the thing that I would say. We've also got a personal keeper question from Jim, 10-team head-to-head categories league. He's keeping Shane Bieber, Nolan Aeronado, and Matt Chapman. So now you pick two out of Zach Gallen, Zach Grinke, Lance Lynn, Corbyn,

Orban Burns, Zach Plyzac, and George Springer. Well, keeping them straight up. I think that might be a Roldus Chapman. That would make more sense, I think. Yeah. Well, I don't, look, with this selection, I don't think you should be keeping a Roldus Chapman, first of all.

I think either one. I think I have Matt and Roldus Chapman ranked pretty much below everyone on this list. So, Bebers, you say Bieber Aeronauton, and Chapman are your no doubters. I'm saying only Bieber should be the no doubter, because of the ones you're not keeping Springer, I think, is a must. I think Springer's better than Aranada, yeah.

Gallen, I think, is a must. And I guess you could debate whether you'd want to keep somebody like Lynn or Burns as opposed to Chapman. Probably do keep Aronado. But I would probably lean toward the starting pitcher there instead of Chapman. Not that that's what you asked, but that's, uh, that's be volunteering some free advice.

Well, it's all free, Scott. I guess sometimes you have to sit through ads. Unsolicited. Let's say. Oh, there you go.

There you go. From Ian, 14 teams, seven by seven head to head categories league, strikeouts and OPS as the extra hitting categories, and holds and whip as the extra pitching categories. Well, what's the extra?

I'm a little confused there. All right, 23 round draft. Need to keep four out of six. Elo Jimenez in the seventh, Denelson Lamet in the ninth, Glassnow in the 11th, Fran Mel Reyes in the 18th, Julio Reyes in the 20th, and Alex Kirillov in the 22nd. Could keep any of these guys for one more year at this season with,

you know, they would move up two rounds in value for 2022. Okay, okay. So Aloi Jimenez in the seventh, Tyler Glassnow in the 11th. I think those are the easy ones. I don't know. What do you think beyond that? Because I have... Eileen Arias as the next guy in the 20th.

Because I don't think I have him ranked too far below Denelson Lament. I think there are workload concerns for each of them. I think they're both pretty good. I think we've seen high upside from both. So in the 20th round, I would lean him as the third option. I might just be down on Erius. I kind of feel like if anybody's going to spend more time in the bullpen of the Dodgers excess.

It's going to be him because that's how they used him in the postseason and he was even better there than in the rotation. It could be wrong. But I don't know that we'll ever see the Dodgers use a Reus like a full-fledged starter. But yeah, I mean the value just from a pure value standpoint, him in the 20th round, I think so. I know we both have Denelson Lemette as a bust. But if you're like, if you're forced to keep four of these players, I just don't think for him. Ramos race in the 18th or Alex Kierloff in the 22nd. I don't feel like that's enough of a discount in the range they go to do it for me.

Does that make sense? Like, I actually like both of them at their ADP. I think in the case of Lemaid Arias and Karloff, you're drafting all of them not that far off from their ADP. Right. So just take the guy who's better. Just take the guy who's better, even though he might be nothing, because we think he's going to get hurt. Yeah, like I have Lomette, I think as like a ninth rounder or in that range, right around 100, 110 maybe. And he's going 81st.

So, you know, that's decent value already. And then you add in that this is a 14 team league, which makes it even better value. And that this is something you always have to keep in mind with a Keeper League or Dynasty League, whatever you're talking. about the prices of players who are back in the pool are going to get inflated. You're never going to get someone at their ADP because there are fewer players available. So that's always something to keep in mind as well. For what it's worth, there was an update on Lamet recently. They say they feel good with where he is.

He's going to start throwing bullpins. I still think there's a chance once he starts throwing those bullpins that, whoa, something's not right here. I also just have concerns about, I just I'm not convinced he's that good. I definitely have more performance concerns than I think most people do. And, you know, it's just, it's such a volatile profile. Two pitches.

The fastball is fast, but it gets hit hard. I just think there's a lot of ways this season can go wrong for Nelson LeMette. Yeah, I, I'm not with you there. I think when you miss bats like he does, really doesn't matter how hard you get. hit, but fair enough. All right, Tyler Huffman, insert three clever names to generate a response here. My question for you all today is how different would you value pitching rankings in a points league where the pitcher only gets one total point per inning pitched?

In other words, hitters usually get their usual points, one for a run, one for each total base, minus 0.5 for a strikeout, one for a walk, etc. and pitchers get third of a point for an out, one for a strikeout, five for a win, minus five for a loss. How much does this devalue pitchers in this format? A lot.

Well, I will point out, and I wondered if this was the case, that our standard scoring is only half a point per strikeout for pitchers, and his is a full point per strikeouts. Yeah. So,

I mean, it probably elevates guys like Tyler Glass now, and Blake Snell, who, we wonder how deep they'll really be able to pitch into games, but the strikeout rate's going to be great. But I think even more than that, I think it creates a wider gap between the really great pitchers

and the not-so-great ones. And then you're having to downgrade guys like Kyle Hendricks and Max Fried. I wonder about that. Because every additional, every marginal inning, that the really, really good pitchers throw when it's a point per inning,

let's say there's a 50-inning difference. That's 50 points. Now, the strikeouts and all that stuff, you know, that matters too. But, you know, innings are one of the primary drivers of pitching value in our scoring system. And so, you know, a 50-point difference in, you know, a 50- inning difference

jumps to 150 innings in. you know, our score, our standard CBS scoring format. So I... Let's strikeouts are too. Yeah. Strikeouts are too. And I think what a good pitcher looks like in this format is even narrower than it is in our standard point scoring,

where you can get the Grankies and the Hendricks up there with the, I don't know, the Corbin Burns and Tyler Glass now types. Okay. Peter, hey guys, I joined a Peter, Channel 9, Kung Fu. Hey guys, I joined a Dynasty League a year ago. It's a 10-man league with large rosters, six starters, three relievers, 13 position players, 10 bench spots, and a 10-man prospect taxi squad. With these rosters, I found that after the first few rounds of the prospect draft, we're off most lists.

With that said, could you name me a few prospects outside of the top 100 using Scott's list that will be in the top 50 next year. I know this is a bit of a ridiculous question, but any advice is appreciated. So I would say that first, this is an incredibly difficult question to answer off the top of your head. And Scott, if you don't want to, I fully respect that. If you do, first thing I would do is go search for CBS Sports Prospect only mock draft for five by five rotissory leagues or head to head points leagues because we did that a couple of weeks ago. And that does at least go like 120 deep. So you're going to get at least 20 names

who aren't inside of the top 100. And I would think it's more like 30 or so just because each person's individual list differs. So that would be where I would start. I got some players up for you. Let's hear them. I got some players for you. So with these rosters,

I found that after the first few rounds, of the prospect drafts were off mostly. Okay. So I, for the first time this year, I did first year player rankings for, dynasty leagues that are only drafting from among the newcomers to the player pool. And of course, it includes a lot of guys

who are in my top 100, like Spencer Torkelson, and Aesel A-C and, you know, Zach Veen. But I go 30 deep among the first-year players. And so probably half the list aren't in my top 100. And it includes international. national signings, the two biggest one, and they're both 17. So, of course, who knows what kind of path they'll actually take. But a lot of times those guys turn into Wander Franco types, you know.

So Christian Hernandez is a short stuff for the Cubs and Wilman Diaz, a short stuff for the Dodgers. Those are probably the two biggest ones. Tyler Soderstrum, who was a pick front by the athletics in the draft this year, a catcher. He looks like his bet's too good for catcher. And there's questions about whether he can play the position. think when you have a bat that good, it's actually more valuable if they're not a catcher because then you don't have the development delays

and the potential loss of playing time in the majors. And so I think he might be getting pushed down unfairly in Dynasty drafts because right now he's a catcher. Don't know that he's going to be a lot. Tyler Sauterstrom. Okay, Tyler Sauter. Austin Wells, similarly for the Yankees, catcher right now,

but probably won't be long term in a high OPS bat just like Sauterstrom. that's Austin Wells of the Yankees. I like Justin Foskew, the Rangers second baseman a lot. Bobby Miller, Dodgers pitching prospect, who wasn't, I'm not even sure he was drafted in the first round, but instructional league he dominated, and of course he's a Dodgers pitching prospect.

So Bobby Miller, somebody you should be high on. Aaron Sabato of the Twins, first baseman, so he doesn't show up high on a lot of prospects. list because there's no defensive value to that, but he has potentially Petalanzo type power. Another 17-year-old Carlos Colmaneras of the race, Carlos Colmaneras. And we'll leave it at that, but they're even more on the list.

Check it out, first year player rankings for dynasty drafts. Good stuff. Matthew and Maryland, Dear Giancarlo, Nelson, and Yordon. Where would you draft the D.H. players in a points league if position eligibility is not an issue. He has four utility spots available. I have Yordaun, Alvarez, Nelson Cruz, and John Carlos stand all in my top 80 in a points league with positional valuations. So that's probably higher than most people would have them, I would guess. And so, you know, maybe the answer is where Chris has them overall,

because there are definitely question marks and risks about both of them, as well as J.D. Martinez, who I think on the whole goes a little later than that group. Not than Stan's. Yeah. I think it tends, I think it usually goes Jordan Alvarez, Nelson Cruz, J.D. Martinez, and then Stan, maybe 20 picks or so after them. Yeah, I feel more confident in Stanton, but totally understand that's, you know, kind of on an island a little bit there.

But I don't really have any questions about whether Cruz, Alvarez, or Stanton will hit. It's mostly just availability. Cruz because of his age, well, there is some, you know, risk that he drops off there. Alvarez because of the knee issues that he's had and then Stanton because, you know, everything. But what about you, Scott? Where do you have them ranked right now? I think I had the top three of the first. that group, which I'm saying is

Cruz, Jordan Alvarez, and Martina-Martinez. I think I had them in the 55 to 65 range initially, even not for a format with all this position, flexibility. And I just pulled them down because it became apparent to me. Yeah. I was going to be reaching

for them if I took them there because nobody was drafting them that early. So I would say about their fifth, sixth round, look to target one if it's a 12th team league, which he says it is. as opposed to eighth or ninth round where you can often get one

in a league with only one utility spot available. How do you approach positional tiers when you're drafting at the turn in a 12-team league? The same way, it's harder. Yeah. I prefer to draft in the middle when I'm for tier purposes. Yeah, I think the turn kind of messes up tiers.

Yeah, you end up having to project more what others are going to do, and that's harder. Yeah. Yeah. So it'll look like, oh, there are four shortstops available in this tier, which normally, if you're in the middle, you could say, okay, I could probably count on one coming back to me. Yeah.

But if you're at the end, you can't. And so it makes it harder. That's why I know most people, most fantasy baseball analysts say they prefer to pick to have an end pick, a book end pick, and pick back to back. I actually don't. I prefer to be in the middle. But, you know, you still try and do it. I mean, a lot of times it'll get to you,

and there will be an obvious pick still, and you make the obvious pick. It's just you can't count as much on the tiers lasting to you like you can when you're picking in the middle. All right, how about one more? How about another keeper question? This is the last one from Matthew. Darvish in the fifth.

He's keeping Darvis. in the fish, fifth, glass now in the sixth, Arias at his ADP, and Paddock at 23rd. Would you draft Jacob de Grom first overall and just hit pitchers until the second half of the draft, or would you go with Trout and a points league and get one more top 30 pitcher along the way? So it's basically, if your keepers are heavily slanted, let's say towards hitters or pitchers, let's say you have all pitchers or all hitters in your keeper league and they're all good values. does that make you more inclined to go away from your rankings in this case and take Trout number one in a points league? Or would you still take your number one overall player?

I think Scott would probably just take the Grom. Yeah. And I'm going to have to fix those rankings too because in a points league especially, I would take the pitcher, the high-inch pitcher for sure. Basically, any time you ask me, should I take a pitcher or a hit every year, I'm probably going to say. say pitcher. That's where we're at at this point. And I think, you know, Darvish, Darvish Glass now obviously a nice starting point for your pitching stuff. But if that's your one and two, that, that to me is more like a one and three. So getting that co-one with Darvish pairing de Grom and Darvish at the top, especially in a points league where you

have fewer hitter spots to fill personally and a lot more versatility and the kind of hitters they can be, you know, you're not looking to balance categories. I think it makes it pretty easy to go with the pitcher there. Bobby writes in, Isaiah Kiner Folefa is a catcher on Yahoo. How early would you take him and where would you rank him as a catcher and overall? I think he would probably be a top 12 catcher for me. Yep, he would. I'd probably put him ahead of like Austenola and James McCann

behind like Grandal, Will Smith and Drav. as darno. You know, it might be a tough call for a lot of people, Gary Sanchez versus Isaiah Kinerfalefa. I would probably shoot

for the upside of Sanchez in that scenario, but that's the kind of range we're talking about. So, yeah, probably before 200th overall,

like catcher eight or nine, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Adam, dear Billy Busty and Billy Dusty and Frank. It says it's a famous rock trio, but I was thinking, I don't know, managers.

It would just be managers. I don't think there's any connection. So it's got to be some kind of famous rock trio. I probably should know this. All right, Adam says, I know Scott doesn't allow off-season trades in his big league. We don't allow it in the league I commish either. Just had an interesting thing happen where a guy said he was keeping Aronado and wanted to know if I was keeping Devers and if I wanted to trade.

Presumably we would both then trade them after the draft. I'm obviously not doing it. He's trying because he's a Cubs fan and I'm a Cardinals fan. It made me think about the interesting skirting of the rules he's trying to do. Would Scott allow it in his league? We only keep five players, if that is at all relevant. This is by the definition of the word collusion. This is working with a player outside of the bounds of the rules to circumvent the rules.

It's a somewhat mild form of collusion, but it is nonetheless collusion. yeah um yeah all right would i allow it no i mean you're you're trying to negotiate

a trade of keepers when it's legal to tradekeepers but negotiate it for when it is legal is that is that the extent yeah so the trade would go after after the draft you would agree to it now see okay i thought it might i mean i mean it's kind of a handshake deal, I don't have a problem with handshake deals in general. It's just as a commissioner, you can't enforce them if one guy backs out.

That's really, that's really... If I found out about this as commissioner, I veto it, kicked them out of the league. Really? No. But I would say, hey, don't... But I would say, hey, don't do that. Look, rules are there.

You're the no off-season trading guy, Scott. Rules are there. We live in a... We even live in a... We live in a society. But even with that rule, I've, you know, people can talk trade before you're able to trade just for a hypothetical trade down the road. And if you, you know, agree to do it and make decisions based on that agreement, I'm just saying it's on you if it doesn't, if the other guy then doesn't follow through on it. That's, I don't think there's anything

underhanded about having those talks, though. Unbelievable. By the way, Billy Dusty. Yeah, it's the famous rock trio, Billy Dusty and Frank is Zizi Top. And I thought it might be. I just, I wasn't 100% sure. So that's on me.

I'm sorry. Jet writes in, wanted you hear your take on the following players that you have been very fond of in the past. Scott, Marcana, Erman Marquez,

and I think that's Sunny Gray. I think so, yeah. Where are you at on these guys? Oh, I'm encouraged that the athletics really didn't give themselves an alternative plan to Markana. Seems like he's going to have to be an everyday player.

And he still gets on base a ton. So it makes sense. I don't know why the power basically disappeared on him last year. but I think I think it's possible it comes back and I was just gonna

it'll turn out I was just a year early on him and that'll be sad Hermann Marquez he throws a lot of innings and the strikeout total should be fine but he's not going to be I don't think he's going to be a stud unless he gets out of Colorado

if they trade him he might be a top 24 starting pitcher he might be. Yeah, otherwise, the ERA is just going to be too high for my liking, especially since I invest so much in building up my pitching staff. Marquez is a guy that's just going to drag it down for me. Sunny Gray, I'm scared of Sunny Gray. It's good.

But the endings aren't there. The upside isn't there. He's averaged five and a half innings per start over the last two seasons. I think he was under five or right at five last season. the innings just are not there. The problem the problem for Sunny Gray is amazing second half of 2019

where the Reds gave him the cheat code supposedly to maximizing his slider missing more bats with it. At the start of last year it looked like he was right about that. He was getting a lot of whiffs still just like he was the second half of 2019. And then the swinging strikes went away.

And then he had a back issue. And then he came back from the back issue and the swinging strikes were still not there. And then there's an innings question. Obviously, there have been a lot of highs and lows throughout his career. He's followed up two near Sy Young, or at least two high-end performance seasons, Sunny Gray has with ERAs near five the next year.

And it's just, other than ground balls, I don't know what to predict for Sunny Gray. And so I kind of prefer Zach Wheeler, to be honest, just because, and I know I'm probably, in the minority there, but I have a better idea what to expect from Zach Wheeler. Yeah, I've been working on a lot of starting pitcher stuff looking at past values and risk factors and what makes a pitcher a bust and all this stuff. And, you know, in writing about Zach Wheeler and Jose Breas, I think it's true of both of them.

They're never going to be top 15 starting pitchers or they would have to have like some outlier win total or something like that to be like a top 15 starting pitcher. but it's probably not, they're not going to be outside the top 40 most likely. Again, it would require something going really wrong for them. They, you know,

it depends how you approach your starting rotation, but Zach Wheeler and Jose Breos both should be good, uh, innings contributors and, you know, just solid, steady, reliable guys at the end of the season.

They're going to have a mid three to high three ZRA and decent whips. Um, you know, I think that your interest in them should depend on, on where you draft, although that was not the question that was asked. So for me, the three players that I've been very fond of in the past that he wants to know about,

Jet Stanton, I love Stanton. I think he stays, I think he's a top 40 player as his baseline. If he's healthy, he's a top 40 player. And you can get him a lot later than 40th overall. And so as long as he's on the field,

he's going to produce like a top 40 player. And if he misses 80 games, it's never cost you less this year. So I'm as in as I've ever been. Kyle Tucker is another one. I think everybody loves him. And I think there's room for him to grow. He's a rare power speed guy.

I think there's 30 home or 20 steel potential. He's hit like 265-ish pretty much in the major so far. I think there's room for that to grow, but he needs to take a step forward. I think there's definitely potential for it. He's still pretty young. Matthew Boyd, man, that could not have gone worse last season.

And the new pitches that he was working on and everything else, it just, it didn't work. He is someone who you figure should benefit from a deadened baseball. But, you know, I'm not sure if he'll ever be anything more than a high threes, ERA guy with a bunch of strikeouts, even in the best case scenario. And, you know, the strikeouts weren't there in the same number last season. So he's not, there are, like, I think. I think Denelson Lemaat probably profiles as a mid-to-high-high-3 ZRA guy with a ton of

strikeouts. Or Lance McCullors might even be a better comp. But I feel much more confident in Lance McCullors actually hitting that than Matthew Boyd. So I'll end up with Matthew Boyd on a team at some point, I'm sure. Didn't happen in our 15 team league today, but I'm sure somebody got drafted. Or somebody drafted him, I'm sure. So not really excited about him as I was at this time last year. and frankly, I would feel better if you didn't remind me of how much I liked Matthew Boyd last year.

Thank you very much. That's going to do it for fantasy baseball today. This was our Friday mailbag episode. We'll be back next week with the return of the position previews, relief pitcher, starting pitcher, outfield. That's probably going to be the whole week. Maybe we'll toss in a bonus episode. Depends on how Frank's feeling next week.

or I guess if Scott and I want to step up, but we usually don't like to do more work. So hopefully Frank's feeling better. Feel better, Frank. We'll see you guys on Monday. Bye-bye.