Fantasy Baseball Today - Evaluating Spencer Torkelson and Taj Bradley! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. Let's talk about players we haven't spent enough time on. First up, Spencer Torkelson. Is he a first base target for Chris? Next up, Taj Bradley. What went wrong last year and and how can he get better? Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 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

Which players haven't we talked enough about? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday. February 17th. I am Frank Stanful, joined by Chris Towers. And look, it's hard to talk in depth about every single player. So we'll be using these bonus FBT and 5 episodes to discuss players we haven't talked enough about. I pulled Twitter.

I got many requests, but multiple for these two players. Spencer Torkelson and Todd. Bradley. Let's start with Turkelson here, Chris. Former first overall pick. He figured things out last year. He popped 31 homers, 94 RBI, raised the launch angle, hit more fly balls, started pulling the ball more last year. The expected stats offer some hope, a 253 expected batting average, a 487 expected slug. The problem is that he plays in Detroit, where his home splits were very, very bad. So that will probably limit his overall upside. But even with that,

I, if it works out, you could hit 250 with 30 plus homers. What do you think about Torkelson? Yeah, I mean, we saw in the second half of last season in particular, this big step forward for Spencer Torgeson. The batting average only jumped from 228 to 238, but after hitting 12 home runs and 376 plate appearances to start the season after the all-star break, he had 19 in 308. And this was a case where the underlying metrics,

all screamed by Spencer Torkelson. He's going to be better. And the skeptical case was, yeah, but his home park's going to hold him back. And that didn't happen in the second half. I don't think batting average is ever going to be a strength for Spencer Torkelson, but his strikeout rate is high, but not outrageously so. He hits the ball very hard. Ninety fourth percentile and hard hit rate, 89th percentile barrel rate, 87th in average X velocity. I think this is a legitimate 30 homer guy. He might be a 35 homer guy somewhere else. Even in Detroit, I think he's going to be a 30 homer guy. I think he's going to drive in 95 to 100 runs and hopefully a better batting average than the, what was it, 233 mark, the expected batting average

253. I think he can get closer to that. All in a, I think he's a very good first baseman right around the 100th pick. The ADP is 119.6 to 12th first baseman off the board. Chris, you have him 10th in head-to-point at first base and 11th in Roto. Is Torkelson a target for you at the position? Yeah, we did a mock draft on Thursday night. I drafted him like 110th overall or something in that one. I'm perfectly happy paying that price for him. All right, let's slide over to Tage Bradley, a starting pitcher with the Tampa Bay raise.

A weird rookie season for Tage on the surface. He was quite bad, a 559 ERA, a 139 whip, big struggles with walks and home runs. 1.98 home runs per 9 was tied for eighth highest among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched last season. But he did get a good amount of strikeouts. 129 strikeouts over 104 and 2 thirds innings. That's 11.1K per 9, a 28% strikeout rate.

He has a four pitch mix, four seam cutter, curveball, and change up. The four seam in the cutter got destroyed. The secondary pitches looked quite a bit better. Chris, what are your thoughts here on Taj Bradley? I think there's some upside. I think he's got some things to figure out. Looks like he will be in the rotation

at least to start the year because Shane Boz is behind schedule. We praise the raise a lot in the fantasy baseball community. And rightly so. You remember last season, Jeffrey Springs, Gerasmson that the success that they got

out of guys who were considered fairly marginal talents when they acquired them is to be praised. The raise last year watched Todd Bradley strike out 23 batters with two walks and his first three starts,

and then sent him back down to AAA for a month. It was baffling at the time. It looks completely baffling now. I don't think that's the only reason why he struggled, but hey, the human element of this game is real, and it's hard to quantify. But when you succeed at that level early in your career

and you don't get any kind of reward for it, I can see how that could derail you. Tage Bradley, like you said, fastball and cutter, 367 expected Wobah, 3.58 expected Wobo with those two pitches. He gave up a lot of hard contact, give up a lot of home runs with them. He's probably got to change the pitch mix. He can't throw those two pitches 70% of the time like he did last year.

More curve balls, more changeups. He had much better results on those pitches. But the cutter, I think, still has a lot going for it. Maybe to trade some of the fast balls for that. He had a lot of whiffs with it. And I definitely think there's still an incredibly talented pitcher here. Todge Bradley was a sleeper for me. in my sleepers 1.0 column.

Betting on the race to figure it out is probably not a bad idea in this instance. And I'll bet on a guy that's talented when he's going pretty cheap in drafts. What's so weird is he got crushed by right-handed pitching too. So you don't normally see those reverse splits from a starting pitcher that has talent like this. You know, he throws hard and you look at the scouting grades. It was, you know, a 60 grade fastball, a 60 grade cutter. Command was 60 grade. and we haven't seen that yet.

Obviously, he's still really young, so he can develop. The ADP is 314 for Tage Bradley. He's the SP 86 off the board, going just behind Ranger Suarez, Luis Severino, Christopher Sanchez. Would you take Tage Bradley ahead of any of the names I mentioned?

I also had Luis Severino in my sleepers column. We all like Christopher Sanchez. So I can't say that I would take Todge Bradley over all those guys for sure, but he absolutely belongs in that discussion. and will be one of the many late-round dart throws that I make a starting pitcher. I would definitely take him ahead of Rangers-Swarres. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Infinitely more upside. If I'm ranking this group, I would go Christopher Sanchez, Luis Severino, Tage Bradley, and then Ranger Suarez. But I agree. I mean, there is some intrigue there, and I think Tage is worth a look as a late round, maybe a deep league play. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else. else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today in five, and we'll be back again next week.

Bye-bye.