Fantasy Baseball Today - Fantasy Baseball 101, Explaining Analytics & Frank's First Real Draft! (12/7 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Before we get to actual Fantasy Baseball talk, it turns out Scott is awesome at wrapping Christmas gifts (1:30)! ... Unfortunately, MLB is now in a lockout (4:35). What does this mean? ... Frank just started his first real offseason draft (8:16). How is it coming along? ... News and notes (19:40): it turns out Justin Verlander wasn't signed by the Astros before the lockout. ... Fantasy Baseball 101 (29:43)! What is Rotisserie aka Roto? ... How would we describe the H2H points format (33:46)? ... Is H2H categories the best of both worlds (39:55). ... Analytics (43:30)! ... What are ERA estimators (47:11) and how do we use them? ... Which hitting analytics do we use (56:30)?  '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 is fantasy baseball? What is X-Fid? What is average exit velocity? If you've asked yourself any or all of these questions, you've come to the right place. place. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, December 7th. Frank Sanfell joined by Scott White. Today's pod is going to be a little bit different. I crowdsourced the Fantasy Baseball

today Facebook page. So we've got a little bit of everything going on. First and foremost, baseball is officially in a lockout. We'll talk about that. Fantasy Baseball 101. We've got some beginner stuff to talk about. Explain the different types of formats. Got some stats, analytics that we like to use. We'll explain those what they actually mean. And I am in my first real draft of the offseason. What does Scott think of my team? We will find out. Scottie has the Christmas tree in the background, which we've talked about

many times. It's a beautiful Christmas tree. He also has some presents here on the desk. I am loving the festivity, Scott. What is going on? How's life going? It's going fine. It's going fine. Yes, I had a busy weekend of wrapping gifts. I am the designated gift rapper in the

family to the point that I get it. I get approached by in-laws to wrap things for them too. Nobody seems to want to wrap anything. I enjoy it for the most part. I enjoy it for the most part. I've made it throughout my life, a goal of mine has been to get good at gift wrapping

and through repetition. I think I'm finally there. I actually posted a thread on Twitter last year with some tips on gift wrapping for those who struggle with it. I may retweet it this year because there seems to be a lot of angst about it. Understandably, I mean, it's shameful to have to shoddily wrap a gift. That's why it was so important to me to get good at it. I always felt this insecurity about it.

My dad was amazing at wrapping gifts. He'd always get it so tight with such sharp folds. Like it really... I won't say this. I was going to say something that I won't say because there could be kids listening. That's right. Don't say it. But it really helped sell things.

I'll just put it that way. All right. Yeah. I mean, my family is very good at it too. I am terrible, Scott. So I would be very interested in whatever thread you have to retweet. Honestly, my first thought, my original first thought, as soon as you started talking about this was like,

can I send you my stuff? Like legitimately. Like, I'll just ship it to you. you, I'll pay you like, whatever. I don't know if you've seen shipping costs later, Frank, but you probably don't want to do that. All right. So that's out of the question.

But maybe I'm thinking right here on this podcast for our YouTube viewing audience, why don't we just have you wrap a gift? Like show us how to wrap a gift on the podcast. Not today, but like. I don't have my supplies at the ready here. But yeah, maybe. Let's do it.

It might, I'm not like quick about it. The thing is I'm self-taught. taught. So, you know, you hear about these people who can do it really quickly or can do it with only three pieces of tape. I use a fair amount of tape. I think the tape helps to get those really, that really tight wrapping. You need things held in place while you then move on to other folds.

So I tend to use a lot more tape than probably an expert gift wrapper would use. I don't buy into the three pieces of tape mindset at all. But it's not like, you know, it's not like there's a lot of excess tape on the outside. The extra tape that's used then gets covered over. Scott, I have a real feeling that anybody who is listening or watching this podcast is also not an expert gift wrapper and probably could use any advice that you have to offer. So I think we could have a little bit of fun with that and before Christmas.

What else is going on anyway? Yeah, I mean, nothing. I don't know. We're only in a lockout, so let's go right there. Let's go from Christmas to the Grinch. That Grinch, Rob Manfred. He held the press conference last week, Thursday morning, noting that the work stoppage was, quote, bad for business

while saying he was optimistic the 2022 regular season would still start on time. So we are officially, again, in a lockout, first time, first work stoppage in baseball since the 1994-95 player strike. And what we need to know about this right now is that ultimately it doesn't really mean much. It matters, but it only really starts to matter for us. Once we get to like mid, late January, if there's no traction or anything going on at that point

or any signs of progress, then that's pretty bad because, you know, February obviously pitchers and catchers and, you know, the further we get into like February, then we're talking about, all right, well, like, spring training might be delayed, we might be in danger of losing some games. So it really doesn't matter right now, but like we have to see something at some point.

During a lockout, the owners quite literally lock the players out of club facilities, meaning no workouts are allowed. And I didn't really think much about the Scott until I saw a tweet from James and Tyone, where he said, since MLB chose to lock us out, I'm not able to work out

with our amazing physical therapists who have been leading my post-surgery care slash progression. Now that I'm in charge of my own PT, what should my first order of business be? I'm thinking I'm done with this boot. He just had ankle surgery. That doesn't sound very good or smart. He's probably just joking.

But I actually think this could maybe affect guys like Charlie Morton, Tyler Glass now. That's more of like a long-term thing. You know, guys that are rehabbing from surgery. So I hadn't thought of it before. And it could actually matter. Yeah, it could matter. It could matter for players who are rehabilitating.

I mean, those are the most obvious ones that come to mind. but, you know, it could impact player progression in ways that we can't even really anticipate. And we'll never really know because, you know, a lot of times these players show up at spring training and they look like different players. And we just, we won't know exactly who lost out because of that time away from the facility because they'll just look like we remember them. They won't have progressed, you know. So I'm not really sure there's any angle to take with this other than, yeah, it seems like that could be a thing.

Depending on how long this goes on. I mean, this is a pretty dead point in the offseason right now. I mean, there might be free agent signings. There might be trades going down normally. There was a huge rush before the lockout started. So, you know, a lot of those December transactions, early January, transactions, we've kind of already seen play out. And in terms of what players are doing behind the scenes, you know, a lot of it,

I'm pretty sure a lot of it would be on their own right now anyway. So, you know, I don't think it's a huge deal as far as that goes, but it's not nothing. One other one that came to mind was Max Muncie, right? I mean, we talked about them last week, the guy's dealing with a torn UCL. That's what pitchers usually have Tommy John surgery for. So that's obviously a pretty serious injury and one that, you know, we need to track his rehab. Obviously, Ronald LeCunia now just popped into my head as well, you know, a borderline first round player this year. So we'll see what happens with those players and obviously what happens with this lockout.

Apparently, minor league baseball is not affected. Opening day for the minor league season will be April 8th. So if nothing else on April 8th, we'll be able to, I don't know, maybe stream like a double A baseball game or something like that. It's got my first draft is going on. I had the itch, I had the urge, and I just couldn't hold back anymore. Yes, I started my first off-season draft in early December. There's a lot that you could say about it. Judgment being passed, it's perfectly fine.

It is a slow draft. Everyone's allowed up to four hours per pick. It's a 15-team, Roto League, 5-5-5, and it is a draft-and-hold format. So basically, 50 rounds worth of players, 50 times 15. I know math whiz, but that's a lot of players. And in this format, there's no waivers, there's no trades. You just set your lineup each week. So I'm going to do a few of these throughout the offseason.

You know, they're nice to pass the time and see which players are moving up and down draft boards and tracking ADP and all this fun stuff. I have made 10 picks so far, Scott. So 10 of my 50 picks. I had the 10th overall pick in this draft. And I started my draft with Bryce Harper in the first round. The very next two picks after I took Harper

were Ronald Acuna and Mookie Betts, and my round, rounds one through five picks, where Harper took Max Scherzer in the second round, Sandy Alcanser in the third round, then I took Randy a Rose Arena, give myself some speed, Wander Franco here in the fifth round.

So go east, A.L. East, NLE East, those are like all the players that drafting the first five rounds. It feels like I have a bit of everything, two aces, and, you know, I got some offensive statistics there as well. It's got to, you know, we went into the offseason saying,

you know, maybe I'm going to fade Aces this year, and then this is what I did. Like, I don't know. They just, they seem like the best players at the time. So that's why I did what I did. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I,

this is 15 teams, you said? Yep, 15 team, five by five. Sandy, I'll count around in round three. Might make sense for a 15 team league. I'm thinking more round four for a 12 team league. Right. But certainly there's nothing wrong with taking Scherzer in round two.

Yeah. I mean, that just seemed like, I don't know. In a 15-team league, he's probably like a borderline first-round pick, and he lasted all the way to pick 20. It seems pretty late, for sure, is there. What I find most interesting about your picks here is you got Randy or Rosaleno in round four, Wander Franco in round five, Jose Al-Tuvae in round six.

I might be inclined to flip those. Al-Tuvae in round four, Franco and round five. He probably won't last to round five, but that might be closer to where I'd take him. and a Rosarena in round six, again, in a 15-team league. It's just interesting how the opinions can vary so much in that group of hitters. Like, this looks topsy-turvy to me, which maybe just means I'm going to have a lot of Jose Al-Tuvae. Maybe the consensus is down on him, I guess, because he's not much of a base dealer anymore.

But, you know, I think maybe people sell out a little too hard for the stolen bases in general. Yep. but maybe the bigger takeaway is just that that range of hitters. And I talked about it when we did our first mock draft. How did I put it? Like round three lasted for four rounds as far as the hitters went.

It was like four rounds of round three hitters. And so there's just going to be, that's a stretch of the draft where you're going to have to lean on your own preferences, I guess. Yeah. And once you get past, that grouping of four rounds of, you know, round three players, you will notice that the hitter pool,

the elite hitter pool dries up really, really fast. So I'll just quickly bring up my round six through ten picks that I made here. You mentioned Jose Altuve. Then I took Jordan Romano. Again, this is five by five roto, so you need saves. And obviously, there's no waiver pickup.

So, like, I'm going to be more aggressive drafting closers in this format. Hopefully, Jordan Romano remains the closer there. He is round, that was my round seven pick. Then Kyle Schwerber, that was just for you, And then I took Logan Gilbert as my SP3 and Reese Hoskins as my first baseman was looking at taking C.J. Krohn in this spot, but he actually went just before. We did take Reese Hoskins, me and my draft partner. We took Hoskins over Joey Votto, which I know it's something you wouldn't do, Scott. But I do like Reese Hoskins quite a bit. I've said that a little bit already this offseason. Hit 27 homers in 107 games last year. That's a 38 homer pace over 150 games. And if you look at my earlier hitters, I thought I needed some more power. So to get Schwerber and Reese Hoskins,

I felt pretty good about that. But my biggest takeaway so far, Scott, again, the elite hitter pool dries up fast. Do not play chicken with third base. Because in hindsight, I wish that I took Manny Machado in the second round, either that or I took Aeronado in the sixth. So we were debating Altuvae versus Aeronado.

And if I would have taken Aeronado in the sixth, Jorge Polanco was there for both my round seven and eight picks. in a 15-team league. Like, I would have been perfectly fine with him as my second basement. So obviously, you know, this is hindsight, and that's why I do these drafts early

just to kind of like figure out the player pool and stuff. But yeah, now, like, I don't have a third basement and I think the best available is Justin Turner. And it's just like, I don't.

No, there's a big drop-off after Aeronado, unless you're really high on, you're really invested in a Bregman or Rendon bounce back, which has certainly happened. So Bregman... Or a match happened.

Bregman and Rendon, both went before my round seven pick. Yeah. So, yeah. Did they go after Aeronado? Yeah, so Aeronado went and then it was Rendon and then it was Bregman. But I was kind of playing the ADP game because, you know, this early ADP said that, you know, Rendon's a round eight pick.

Someone took them in round six. So, you know, someone likes a player. Again, it's like you just kind of take the players that you prefer in that middle round range so far. So, yeah, like third base is bad, man. It really is. Yeah, I mean, if Aeronado keeps lasting to the round six, I'll probably have a lot of Aeronado

because I think while it's clear he's diminished outside of Colorado, he's still worth a six-round pick, especially when you factor in position scarcity. So I think, you know, as much as I like the value of Altovae bear,

I agree with you that you need to shore up third base. And that first mock we did, which was a 12-team, Roto, I took, I took Austin Riley at the end of round three, which was earlier than 19. anticipated how it, because I was fearful of what would, of running out of third basement. Now, I think Aeronado also went written in round six in that draft.

I wasn't counting on that to happen. But then it happened here in this 15 team league too. So I think maybe Aeronado is the name of going to have circled in round six if it keeps playing out this way. Yeah. And this was round six of a 15 teamer, Scott. So, you know, maybe in 12 team league, you might be able to even get them in the seventh or eighth round.

if that's how, you know, the consensus is kind of forming around Nolan Aronado. And I realize many people listening to this podcast playing 10 team leagues and 12 team leagues. So I understand like 15 team. Like what I'm saying doesn't necessarily translate. But we do have some, we're going to do a 12 team mock draft next week and we'll talk all about it. So that would be more relatable. I actually have polled my Twitter following, which there's a lot of crossover. You know, the majority of people who follow me on Twitter do so because of the podcast.

and the number who play in 15 teams are deeper is very small. Yeah, yeah. I would imagine that is the case. The last point I wanted to make here, Scott, I don't know if you noticed this while ranking starting pitchers. I have not started the ranking process myself yet, which, all right, we're getting a little bit late here. Let's start it up, Frank.

Mid-tier starting pitcher, once you get past the top 25 or 30, it kind of feels like there's just one big blob, And not that every pitcher is necessarily the same because they all do different things. Like, I notice there's some ennings eaters and like a Framber Valdez and a Marcus Stroman. Like, you know what you're going to get out of those guys.

You know, there's some upside arms and like a Logan Gilbert, someone I do like quite a bit, a Dylan C, someone like that as well. But it just kind of feels like no one differentiates himself or like no one excels in that group. No one leads the tier. It just seems like there's a lot of like... You're not sure who to draft first,

taking into account ups and... Basically, downside, assurance. Yeah, no, I'm with you. We talked about that a little when we were doing the starting pitcher review slash preview. I marked that cutoff at 30. 30 is where I have Justin Verlander,

who's a difficult player to rank, and usually I stick difficult players to rank at the end of tiers like that. So Justin Verlander's my number 30 pitcher. And after that, 31, who for me is Carlos Rodan, to 55, who for me is Patrick Sandoval. I feel like you could rank them in almost any order and not get much argument for me.

Yeah. So why not just wait and take whoever falls the latest out of that group, right? Well, I was actually going to ask you, in light of that thinking, Logan Gilbert is my number 53 starting pitcher. So he's in that range. He's toward the end of that range, number 53 of 55. Yep. And you come as your fourth starting pitcher here in round.

Third, third starting pitcher. third starting pitcher in round nine? Yes. In a 15-team league. Do you happen to remember what number starting pitcher he was off the board in this draft? Number starting pitcher, I wouldn't be able to tell you that. But I can give you some players he went around. So drafted just ahead of him was Eduardo Rodriguez.

Someone must have really liked him. Lance McCullors. Adam Wainwright and Justin Verlander who went in round eight who Oh gosh I did like quite a bit but he just He didn't make it back to me So that's interesting

Yeah because I have I have McCullors Where do I have McCullors Where is he? Doing a little control left search here Okay I have McCuller's 36 So he's on the higher end of that 31 to 55 range I have Adam Wainwright

45th so he's right in the middle both ahead of Logan Gilbert. But that kind of speaks to that, because I look here at Logan Gilbert, round nine, wow. Starting pitcher gets ugly fast in a 15-team league. But it seems like that was just, you know, you kind of leaning into your preference, which everybody's going to be doing in that range of starting pitchers. Yeah, and I took Logan Gilbert just ahead of Nathan Avaldi and Framber Valdez, who went after I took him.

So my thinking was... Both are in that range, too. Framber Valdez, 38th for me, Avaldi. 42nd. My thinking was taking Logan Gilbert who maybe the Mariners don't let him go all the way next year yet as like a full on workhorse and maybe pairing him with someone who eats innings later on like a Marcus Stroman or someone like that. So that's the plan. He's my SP3 which he's probably not ideal as an SP3 but I think when you have Scherzer and Alcanser, you know, you can wait a little bit longer for your SP3, SP4, SP5. So that's the thinking as of now.

I'll keep everyone updated what happens with this draft. We mentioned Justin Verlander. Scott, let's just jump right into the news and notes here. Oddly enough, this was like pretty interesting, came out of nowhere once the lockout started. The Astros did not make the re-signing of Justin Verlander official prior to the lockout. So he's technically still a free agent. And Ken Rosenthal wrote that the, quote,

logical conclusion is that an issue arose with Verlander's physical. So nothing, I mean, it's speculation. nothing has like confirmed that or denied it. But I thought it was pretty interesting that, you know, this deal didn't get done. Yeah, it's it's not officially done. Of course, when it's reported that there's an agreement, it's never officially done. And it almost always gets officially done. So we kind of just roll with it.

But sometimes those agreements end up being negated and are never finalized. That's not where this one is. It's in limbo. So I'm not ready to say it's fallen through. The deal's falling through. Verlander won't be an Astro next year. But that is at least a remote possibility. There's a chance.

There's still a chance for my Yankees to sign them. We definitely could use some Justin Verlander. But what showed up on the physical if it does fall through? That is a good question. By the way, you mentioned Carl Sward-on. You have him at SP31. In this round 10 where I'm at, he hasn't been drafted yet. So people are scared.

People are scared. Understandably, and I, you know, I look at just the numbers he put up. And, you know, even with the velocity issues late in the season, the sort of sporadic turns and the rotation, his numbers during that stretch were good. His overall numbers were amazing. If there weren't those health concerns for Carlos Rodon, he'd probably be a top 15 pitcher next year. So I'm reluctant to drop them too much in the rankings. but that's why I consider Carlos Rodan at the top of that. Within that blob, at the top of that blob, but within that blob,

because if somebody ranked them 51st instead of 31st. Okay, I get it. Yeah. We did talk about this next move on fantasy baseball today and five, but not on this podcast because it came out so late. We just didn't have the opportunity. Hunter Renfro was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for Jackie Bradley and two prospects, Alex Benelis, and David Hous.

Hamilton last year Hunter Renfro, last season rather. He finished as the outfielder 19 in 5x5 Roto and with 3.0 fantasy points per game, the same amount as Randy Rosa Rana and John Carlos Stanton. It was a really good year, Scott, for Hunter Renfro now moving over to a very good park to hit in still there in Milwaukee. I would argue maybe Boston is better because of the green monster for right-handed power, but I think it's still really good regardless. Yeah, I mean, just in terms of what the numbers say,

the Brewer's Stadium, I forget what it's officially called now. Yeah, it's not Miller Park anymore, right? No, no, it's not. But yeah, it's one of the most hitter-friendly, more so than Fenway Park, which actually overall isn't that hitter-friendly, but of course the odd dimensions make it a little harder to gauge. but yeah, Miller Park has obviously made some hitters over the years or what was formerly known as Miller Park,

Miller Park has made some hitters over the years. I feel like Hunter Renfro having just had that breakout season, I don't know that there's that much more for him to tap into, but it gives me more confidence drafting him as a top 40 outfielder, I think I have him. Yeah, he's just kind of vanilla, you know. If I'm projecting him 250, 25 to 30 homers,

maybe okay counting stats in that lineup, but you know, it's fine. Yeah, I mean, the biggest key to his breakout last year was it's really cut down on the strikeouts. Oh, yeah. Like a 22% rate, which is good. It's a good strikeout rate. Yep.

Stack has to keep that up in Miller Park? In the park formerly known as Miller Park. That's American Family Field, by the way. American Family Field. Family Fields. Yeah, that reminds me of great American ballpark, which also is not the name of where the Reds play, right? I think it still is.

Oh, we are, we're doing a great job here. We're handing out all kinds of endorsements that haven't been paid for. It's still great American ballpark in Cincinnati. Yeah, so you mentioned the strikeout rate for Renfro was really what helped, and Stackass really liked him as a power hitter, 84th percentile in expected slugging, 88th percentile in barrel rate. We will talk about a few of those analytics a little bit later on and explain what they mean exactly. Jackie Bradley Jr. pentled in as the starting center fielder for the Red Sox as of now with Jaron Duran in left

field. So maybe Duran can get another opportunity here with the Red Sox. John Hayman reporting that the Mariners, Astros and Red Sox all have interest in Trevor Story. So those would be Seattle not great. Houston, Boston. Pretty good landing spots for a story if that can happen. By the way, during the lockout, obviously teams cannot sign or trade players, but I guess we could still have reported interest. Lance McCullors should be able to start throwing in about a month.

He's trained his right forearm in the ALDS and has dealt with a lot of arm trouble in his career. So another one where can't rehab with his team anymore, but I'm sure he'll find a way to rehab anyway. According to reports from the Boston Sports Journal, Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays have been the most aggressive on Japanese outfielder, Sayas Suzuki, who hit 321 with 38 homers and nine steals in Japan this past season. His early ADP is 254.94.

So kind of an afterthought as of now, but yeah, like if he were to sign with any of those lineups, then I'm sure people would get pretty excited about one, Sayas Suzuki. Last but not least, this is not really fantasy-related, Scott, but maybe you have some opinions about Gil Hodges, Jim Cott, Miniminoos, and Tony Oliva, who were elected to the MLB Hall of Fame by the Golden Days Era Committee. Did not know what that was before I heard about all this happening. Bud Fowler and Buck O'Neill were also inducted by the early baseball era committee,

the early baseball era committee, consider candidates who made their contributions to baseball prior to 1950, the Golden Days Era Committee, considered candidates from 1950 to 1969. Scott, did you know what either of those things were before two days ago? I think there used to be something called the Veterans Committee, right? And I think maybe it broke into these smaller factions. I don't know.

I don't know for sure, to be honest with you. I know that there is, there are other groups beyond the Baseball Writers Association of America that can vote players into the Hall of Fame after their time on the Baseball Writers Association of America's ballot has expired. Now, if you had asked me, had, if you'd ask me going into this news, if Gil Hodges, Jim Kat, Minnie Munozo, and Tony Oliva were already in the Hall of Fame, I could not have told you with great certainty. They're all names I've heard before, so I might have assumed they were already in.

I don't, I'm not a great baseball historian. Me neither. Prior to like 1990s, basically from the time I started following baseball to the present. You know, but you can't surprise me with too many names. But before that, I don't know a ton. I don't know a ton. I'm actually a little ashamed of my lack of knowledge from pre-1990, let's say. Yeah.

Look, we're in the same boat there, Scott, because really anything. like I know the names from the 90s and obviously like the early 2000s that was you know steroid era and a very popular era of baseball but really like I don't know 2005 to 2010 I mean that's when I like really got into it and then obviously from 2010 on like it's basically all I've done but yeah like baseball historian I am not a quick programming update we will have another pod tomorrow instead of Thursday this week I've got some tickets to wrestling go with my brother to see some wrestling. So we will push our podcast up a little bit earlier.

Justin Mason from Fangraphs and the Sleeper in the Bus podcast, joining us for some rankings debate, Scotty. He's already adjusted his rankings twice, he told me. So fine-tuning them, and we will have the opportunity to debate that on tomorrow's podcast. Let's take a quick break. When we return, Fantasy Baseball 101, here on Fantasy Baseball Today. All right, so let's jump right in.

Fantasy Baseball 101. And what we're going to do for this is, first and foremost, we're going to look at the main three formats of fantasy baseball, kind of explain them, rank them in terms of our preference, and then we'll get into some of the advanced statistics, analytics, why we use them, what they mean, and all that fun stuff. But let's start with Roto. Also known as rotissory or 5x5.

There's also head-to-head points and head-to-head categories. But Roto is the traditional way to play fantasy baseball. I would say the first fantasy baseball leagues were this format, the Roississerie format. And in this format, there are usually five hitting categories and five pitching categories. Those are batting average, home runs, run scored, RBI, stolen bases for hitting, and then ERA whip wins, strikeouts, and saves for pitching. You can customize these to be whatever you want them to be. Some people like to use OBP or OPS instead of batting average or saves plus holds instead of saves.

Quality starts instead of wins, though, I don't know, like, we're not really getting as many quality starts as we once were, so I don't know how much sense that makes anymore either. In this format, there is no head-to-head element whatsoever. You are not playing against a singular person on any given week. You are playing against everybody, every week. And basically, you just accrue as many stats as you can all season long. You want to rank as high in each of those statistics as you possibly can. You want to focus on a balanced roster. Ideally, you use. don't want to punt any categories. Scott, would you say that that is a fair assessment of roto, rotisserie, anything else you'd like to add about that format? So the thing to really stress about roto or five by five, you know, any category,

any non-head-to-head category format like that, is that there are diminishing returns for your team's performance in each specific category. because you can have all the home runs in the world, but the most points you can get from your home run. You can have every home run hit in the majors that year, but the most points you can get from that home run category is 12, assuming you're in a 12 team league.

It's 15. Team league, you could get 15 points. But, you know, it's just the number of points you get from that category is where your team ranks in that category. So, yeah, you have to balance the categories. you can't, there is such a thing as punting where you maybe completely neglect a category and you can get away with it if your team's strong enough in the others,

but probably just one category you can get away with being really weak and still win the league. But, you know, the idea is to finish in a 12-team league about fourth and everything. If you can manage that, of course, it's never going to work out that you're exactly fourth and everything. but that would add up to fourth and everything would add it.

Let's see, nine points times 10, 90 points. 90 points is usually going to be enough to win you a 12-team Roto League. So that's one way to think about it. Yeah, I'm actually looking at our Memorial Magazine League from this past season and Greg Lathrop won it with 92 total points.

I'm not going to say, where you finished, Scott. I finished fourth in this league. I was so bad for like majority of the seasons. Adam would always text me and mess with me and be like, this is the worst roto team I've ever seen in my life. And then lo and behold, I passed him. I finished fourths.

So nice little bounce back there. But yeah, that's what you want to aim to do. You want to finish top four in each category. So again, like building out a balance roster, if you finish last in one category, you need to finish in third place or better in all of the other nine categories. So that's like a way to think about it. But again,

balance is really the way that you want to go in the roto slash five by five rotissory format. Head to head points. This is the format that is most like fantasy football. And I think it's the easiest to pick up if you're trying to play fantasy baseball for the first time. You earn fantasy points for different stats.

For example, you get one fantasy point per single, two fantasy points per double, so on and so forth there. You get one point per RBI, one point per run scored, two points for a sole and base. For pitching, you get one point per out recorded, half a point per strikeout, and you get bonus points. For quality starts, for example, gives you three points. You get seven points for a win. You also get minus five points for a loss.

And you can customize these point values to be whatever you want. So that's just the basic scoring format here on CBS. If you think that pitching is awarded too many points, then you can maybe lower a win to five points or three points or something like that. or just get rid of quality starts, whatever you want to do or make it less than one point per out, something like that. So you could just customize it to be whatever you want it to be, though pitching has been known to be pretty dominant in this format. We'll talk about that a bunch before draft season, I am sure.

Scott, anything that you'd like to add on the head-to-head points format? Yeah, just that it, I mean, it's, it kind of came about because of fantasy football. It's based on fantasy football scoring, and it's more accessible to people who've played fantasy football for a long time, but maybe haven't transitioned over to fantasy baseball yet. I happen to prefer it. It's what I started with, but there are other reasons I prefer it. You know, the idea that the example I gave in Roto,

you could have every home run hit in the majors for that year and only get 12 points from home runs. Well, that doesn't matter in Head to Ad points leagues. I mean, a home run is always worth the number of points. it's worth. So you can construct your lineup at a variety of different ways. You're able to reward all those stats that aren't accounted for in a roto league, like doubles and triples and walks and

strikeouts. And so, you know, you get you get different hitters who pop because of that. And I just think it gives a fairer assessment of players overall. And it's not as there's not such a narrow path to victory either. Of course, you have the head-to-head aspect, which keeps people interested deeper into the year because anybody who makes playoffs has a chance.

So there are a lot of points in its favor, but for fantasy baseball purposes, it's not the traditional format. And there is, there's plenty of strategy to it, of course, but there isn't that balancing act that you get in Roto League that some people really enjoy. I don't think there's much, it really represents real baseball in any meaningful way,

that balance that you get in Roto leagues. But some people just enjoy that juggling act and miss it when they play and head-to-head points leagues. Let's be completely honest, Scott. Roto Fantasy Baseball is boring. It is not fun. It's not the fun way to play fantasy baseball. Wow. Completely.

Everyone. That's, I want to characterize it that way. That's a little harsh. It's preference. I understand. But, look, relative. If you're losing, like, it's easier to lose interest in Roto. Yes.

Because only the top team at the end of the season, only that counts for anything. There's no playoffs, so you can't be fighting for sixth place or something in early August. You know, it keeps head-to-head keeps more of the league interested for longer. Yes. But, yeah, I mean, if you are in one of those. top three teams in a close race in a roto league. It's still plenty of interesting in the end of the season when those, you know, when you're fighting for that top spot.

But obviously not as many teams are involved in that. And calling it boring. All right, Scott, it was a little harsh. That's relative to head-to-head. I think for me, I'm with you. Like my preference is head-to-head points. Actually, a head-to-head point salary cap league, like, that's my favorite. You know, go out and get whatever players you want.

it's my favorite way to play it. That's the format that Tout Wars is. And I guess there's no surprise why I performed well in it this past season. But yeah, I just think head-to-head points relative to Roto. You know, I don't want any fantasy baseball purists coming from my head or anything and, you know, yelling at me. But I do think heads-head points is more fun overall. I do, I can't really imagine having a Roto League is your only fantasy baseball league. I feel like you'd be losing a lot of the experience.

And I've never had that. I've never known that because I started a. as a head-to-head points player and, you know, picked up other formats as I went along from there. So I've never known just, oh, my Roto team. This is my fantasy baseball team for the year and whatever happens, happens. Yeah, that seems like it would be lacking something. And, you know, I brought up the points that you made about Roto.

I brought them up a while ago to Nando dafino, who used to be on this podcast. Actually, fun story. I met up with Nando last Friday. We were in the city, had a bunch of, like, escapades. You know, it was a fun time. But I brought up, I'm like, Nando, a walk doesn't matter in Roto. A double doesn't matter more than a single in Roto.

A triple doesn't matter. He's like, what are you talking about? You're still getting on base. You hit a double. You're more likely to score a run. You're more likely to score some, you know, drive someone in. Yeah, in theory, that's right. But like, in the grand scheme of things, like, if you have a player on the,

let's just say, I don't know, the pirates who hits a lot of doubles, might not really matter, you know? Like, you might not score a lot of runs. You might not get a lot of RBI. So, yeah, that was always my argument against him whenever he would say that. But, alas. I've had similar discussions with Nando Defino. On this very podcast, if you want to dig up the archives.

Ooh, maybe, I would say, maybe I'll look into that, but there's a lot going on this time of year. Football, baseball. We've got some stuff. Head-side categories, that's the last main format. This is basically a hybrid between the previous two formats that we've talked about thus far. You face one opponent each week instead of earning fantasy points for what your players do.

You and your opponents accumulate stats in each of the 10 categories which I mentioned earlier or really however many categories you want to play with, 12, 14, 8 you really play with as many as you want to. If you have more home runs than your opponent by the end of

that weekly scoring period, then you win that category. This is where things get a little bit interesting in head said categories because there are two different ways to track standings in this format. say you win six categories and you lose four against your opponent. You can either count those as one weekly win or you can set it up where your weekly score

keeps adding to your record each and every week. So for example, you win six to four in week one. You lose four to six in week two. Your record after the first two weeks is now 10 and 10, which I actually prefer. I like playing it out. Otherwise it would be one in one if you set it up the other way. Yep.

So yeah, Scott, I mean, this is the format where, like, you can set it up with different categories, and you can kind of get crazy with it and come up with different strategies. And we've talked about the Marmold strategy using a bunch of relievers. And, you know, this is where you can really show off your creativity in terms of strategies. Yeah, some people have described head-to-head categories as the best of both worlds. I kind of feel like it's the worst of both worlds. I agree with you.

To be honest, it's my least favorite of the three. And I think the biggest flaw, for head-to-head categories is that you know the ratio stats that batting average ERA and WIP, the ones that aren't just a

counting number. It's a ratio instead. And those can get skewed pretty heavily in the sample of only one week. And it can, you know, you could draft you could draft a really strong

pitching staff, maybe even go Marmall's strategy with relievers. I'm going to win ERA and WIP every week. And the timing of when one particular pitcher gets blasted makes it so that doesn't happen. And I understand you can say, oh, well, that's the same thing in head-to-head points. A pitcher got blasted when you weren't expecting it, and he scored negative two points instead

of 25 or whatever. But it feels like the consequences are much harsher in a head-to-head categories league, just the way the math works out. This is just my experience. I mean, I haven't actually studied it, but I find it's more frustrating dealing with those outlier performances over a one-week period

when the scoring is categories instead of points. So that's my biggest frustration with head-to-head categories leagues. I think if you're going to go head-to-head, I would say just go points, but, you know, not everybody does. So you're going head-to-head points rhodo headset categories in order of your preference. Yep. Same. All right, Scott. So we're on the same page there when it comes to the formats.

And again, like, as we do specific mock drafts for each of these, we'll talk more about strategy and what our strategies are in those specific formats. The mock draft that we're doing next week is going to be a head to had points mock. The first one we did last month was a roto mock. So we've got a lot of mock drafts coming this off season. There is definitely no shortage there. Let's explain some stats, Scott, and some analytics that we like to use. If you're a faithful listener to this podcast, or I would say really any fantasy baseball podcast, you probably have heard of FIPP, X FIP, Sierra, average exit velocity, expected batting average, Wobah, ex-Woba. There are so many. There are a lot of different numbers and analytics to use in baseball

nowadays. And I understand why it can be confusing or maybe even intimidating at times for people who maybe haven't used those before or just seen them. It can definitely get confusing. I understand that. But I think really, Scott, the reason why we use these so much is because they're just tools. They add context. They add description to the surface numbers.

So, you know, when we're talking about, you know, why a specific player is batting 400 over the first month of the season, well, we can look into things. like Babib, which is batting average on balls in play, or the way that their hits are scattered, whether it's line drives or ground balls or fly balls, or we can use average XIVor velocity and expected batting average from Stackass to just add context and tell us, you know,

is this legit? Why is this legit? And I think that that's on the surface, just like the easiest way to describe like why we use as many numbers as we do, obviously. Yeah, and I will say that I never incorporate any advanced stat into my analysis, really, unless I'm convinced that it means something, and then I know what it means. So you will always find other analysts that start working with the stat before I do. I'll always be a little late to the party as far as that goes,

because I don't want to use it just for the sake of using it, you know? That's just, that's being inaccessible for no good reason, because it is. it is hard to keep up with it. It's hard for me even to keep up with it. When I first started, the idea of an advanced that was OPS. That was about as advanced as anybody got in fantasy analysis. I started, I was heavy into walk rate and strikeout rate when I first started writing about fantasy baseball. And I remember I got profiled as like an advanced analytics guy because of that,

which is kind of funny to think about now, just how much has come along in such a short period of time. So, yeah, I mean, I understand, you know, it's always that, that tight rope walk with your audience, you know, you don't want to talk over them, but you don't want to talk under them either at some point. At some point, we eventually get to a place with the stat where you got to kind of just come along for the ride because we've explained it so many times that there gets to a point where we can't explain it every time. Yeah. But, you know, this can hopefully help people who weren't there from the beginning catch up. Yeah, and that's exactly why we're doing this again. I asked on Facebook, there's a lot of people said they want to hear, you know, more about beginner stuff, you know, the different formats and what all these different things mean. Let's start on the pitching side, Scott, because we know ERA and WIPP.

We talk about that a lot. We reference K per 9, walks per 9, which is pretty obvious. It's, you know, how many strikeouts would a pitcher have per 9 inning's pitched? how many walks would a pitcher have per nine innings pitched. But I realized that over the past couple of years, you know, more people have transition, analysts rather, have transitioned into K percentage and walk percentage.

Apparently, it's more accurate than K per nine, walk per nine. I still like K per nine and walk per nine quite a bit. But let's just talk- It's an accessibility versus accuracy thing, yeah. Yeah, let's just start with all the different ERA estimators because, again, FIP, X-FIP, we're going to explain what all of them mean. Should I present one, Scott, and then you talk about that one,

or should I just present all of them, and then you can talk about all of them, because I have, like, each definition here. What do you think is the best way to go about it? Let's try one at a time. And I'll contrast as we go on. So we'll start with FIPP, which is fielding independent pitching, and these definitions come via MLB.com.

FIP is similar to ERA, but it focuses solely on the, events, a pitcher has the most control over. Strikeouts, unintentional walks, hit by pitches, and home runs. It entirely removes results on balls hit into the field of play. So, if a player has a high babbip, batting average on balls and play, his FIP will be lower than his ERA. And where you can see FIP and ERA differences are with pitchers that have bad defense behind them.

and vice versa. Or good. Yeah. So you could see a pitcher that has a lower ERA than his FIPP. Someone like, Kyle Hendricks for years comes to mind because the Cubs defense was so good,

year in and year out. And I'm sure there's plenty of examples the other way. But that's FIPP, Scott. Yes. And generally the way we use FIPP and fantasy analysis isn't so focused on that. It's, you know, we're looking to predict

what a pitcher's numbers could be based on the factors most within his control, the strikeouts, the walks, the home runs, mainly. And, you know, we're kind of using it to gauge luck. Okay, if his FIP is much lower than his ERA, chances are he's had some bad luck. Now, you do have to account for the defense when you're considering that, but over time, the ERA,

as long as the walk, strikeouts and home run rates hold, which, you know, big if, but if they do, over time, the ERA is going to come closer to the FIP. Now, I used to lean on FIP a lot more than I do. I've transitioned more to XFIP with the, during the juice ball era, basically, I transitioned more to XFIP because XFIP, the easy explanation for XFIP is that instead of home runs in the FIP

formula, it puts fly balls in the FIP formula instead. And during the juice ball era, as home runs were being hit so, easily by such light hitters to the point that basically every fly ball was at risk of becoming a home run just in a broad sense. So I thought it made more sense to look at ex-FIP instead, particularly for the reasons we use it to predict what a pitcher's ERA is eventually going to be if his current indicators hold. I still think X-FIP is probably a better judge of that than FIPP, obviously with the way the ball has changed and batted ball tendencies are changing because of that.

I could see switching more back to FIPP if things continue to play out like they did in 2021. Yes. And I think one of the biggest takeaways for trying to use these ERA estimators, because it can be a slippery slope at times, is again reminding people that these are descriptive stats. they're not predictive. We're trying to use them to predict the future, but it only really works out that way if a pitcher continues doing exactly

what they've done to this point, which you mentioned is holding onto their strikeout rate and their walk rate and those factors staying the same. Those need to remain the same moving forward for that ERA to get closer to these ERA estimators. So that's like a really important factor. Like, there's a chance that after, you know, we have the sample of 10 starts,

maybe after those 10 starts, a pitcher legitimately starts pitching worse and his strikeouts come down and his walks go up. In that case, he's probably earning that bad ERA that he has after that point, if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, up to a point, it makes sense. I mean, if a pitcher had infinite innings, I would still bet on him coming close to his ex-fip. But at some point, the season ends, obviously,

at some point the career ends, and the numbers are what they, are. So it's kind of a theoretical exercise in that way. But yeah, I mean, they're more predict, it's better than just using current ERA to predict future ERA. That is correct. Is looking at the factors a pitcher has more direct control over and predicting future ERA based on that. And generally, I do agree with what you said about if a pitcher has infinite endings. But there are some outliers, Scott. Like, Andrew Heaney is, he's just bad, right? Like his ex-fib is always going to be lower than his ERA

because his home run to fly ball ratio is so high. For someone like Andrew Heaney, he just gives up a lot of home runs. And like we have enough of a sample size now where we can say his home run to flyball ratio is always going to be higher than league average, unless he changes something, which to this point he has not figured out how to change. The Dodgers are willing to bet otherwise. and I'm unwilling to bet against the Dodgers. Otherwise, I might have agreed with you.

Don't do this, Scott. Don't do this. I'm not ready to pass judgment on Heaney yet. All right, all right. A few more ERA indicators that I'll quickly mention. Per MLB.com, this is Sierra, which is skill interactive ERA, quantifies a pitcher's performance. By trying to eliminate factors,

the pitcher cannot control by himself. But unlike a stat such as X-Fit, Sierra considers balls in play and adjusts for the, type of ball in play. So if a pitcher has a high X-FIP, but has also induced a high proportion of grounders and pop-ups,

instead of line drives, his Sierra will be lower than his X-FIP. Technically, Sierra is the best of the three, Scott, because, like, it takes X-FIP and just builds off of it. So, I've gravitated more towards Sierra and expected ERA

over the past couple of seasons, myself. Yeah, I just, I think it might be a little too granular because for prediction purposes, right? Not for explanatory purposes of what happened. It's a fine line between a pop-up and a home run at times.

Yeah. And I think maybe Sierra over-emphasizes that for prediction purposes again. I don't use Sierra much at all. The results tend to be a lot like Ex-FIP. Those two numbers for most pitchers are very similar. Ex-FIP and Sierra. Occasionally,

you'll see one that's maybe half a run difference. but very rarely. And all of these that we're talking about, you can find over at fangraphs.com, FIP, X-FIP, Sierra, and they have included the statcast numbers now as well. But specifically, if you're, like,

if you go to baseball savant.com, that's where you can find, like, a plethora of different statcast data. And if we're talking about stackcast, XERA is their main ERA predictor, which basically tells you what a pitcher's ERA should be based on the quality, of contact that he's allowed.

There's like more to it than that, but that's kind of like the gist of it. Well, that's true for basically all the stat cast stats. So most of the X stats, the stats with an X in front of them. Obviously not X-FIP. X just stands for expected in the, in the analytics world.

But a lot of those X-Stats that we cite, X-B-A, X-X-Lug, X-WBA, those come from stat-cast. And all of the stat-cast stats are based on this, this video system they've designed that that gives a probability for every batted ball. And I've found, you know,

specifically XERA of these ERA estimators, I've found that it's the most accurate at explaining what's already happened. Okay. But my experience with XERA is that it's not particularly accurate at explaining what's to come. I still trust.

Ex-FIP for more than that. And I could have my mind changed on that if somebody has compelling research, but that my experience with XERA is really good at matching ERA, not the best at predicting ERA. A few other pitching stats that I like to use on Fangraphs, swinging strike rate, K-minus walk percentage. Scott, I know you use swinging strike rate quite a bit as well. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Obviously, the pitchers that generate swings and misses. It helps with predicting strikeouts and causing strikeouts to happen. So it's my, it's probably my favorite pitcher stat. Yeah. K minus walk percentage.

I've really come around on though the past couple of years, which, you know, it's, it's obvious, right? Like, it's K to walk ratio, but it's in percentage form. So obviously a higher K minus walk percentage is, is better. And it's, it's generally pretty predictive for, for pitcher performance. On the hitter side of things, we don't have much time left, five minutes here. But I'll talk about what I like to use on Fangraphs. let's just start with fan graphs rather

that's where you you could find specific batted ball percentages line drive rate ground ball rate fly ball rate hard hit percentage home run to fly ball ratio and again each of these help us tell a hitter story

so if they're hitting the ball hard and hitting the ball in the air quite a bit they have a lower home run to fly ball ratio than their career more their career mark that tells us that they are likely do for regression in terms of, you know, yes, more of those fly balls are going to start to go out. If they, again, if they continue to hit the ball the way that they have to this point.

Again, it's not, it's, it's not necessarily predictive unless they keep hitting the ball that way. So those are the things that I like to look at over on fan graphs, Scott. Yeah, that's still, I still look at those a lot on fan graphs too. Now, those predate statcast and stat cast has its own line drive, ground ball, fly ball percentages that sometimes look quite a bit different from what's on fan graphs. And I don't know if, I don't know if that's because they're standards for what a line drive is versus a fly ball are different. I know they come from two different data sources. Yeah, yeah, they do. And Stackcast is obviously the same one, the camera system that calculates probability based on how hard the ball was hit, what the trajectory was and where it lands on the field.

So my hunch is that Stackass is probably more accurate just because that seems to be the way things go. But I tend to use fan graphs measurements of that more just because I'm more familiar with it, maybe a little resistant to change, maybe a little unwilling to recalibrate what my idea of a good line drive rate is versus a good ground ball rate.

And I don't really feel like fan graphs has steered me wrong with that. So I tend to look at that more still. but I'm less inclined to cite specific numbers now because of that disparity. Like, those guys are 55% at ground balls you wouldn't think would be, maybe it's really more line drives.

This guy has a 25% line drive rate. You know, I might just say he has a high line drive rate. Yeah. His line drive rate is comparable to this player, which makes for easier listening anyway than throwing out specific numbers. Yeah. On Fangraphs, another popular all-encompassing

hitter metric is Woba, which is also known as weighted on base average. It's similar to on base percentage, but instead it takes into account how a player got on base. It adds more weight to things like home runs and triples, which makes sense. Obviously, they're more valuable to hit home runs and triples than singles and walks. Yeah, we kind of use Wobah. I feel like we still use OPS quite a bit. What was probably more accurate, but I still do like OPS. It's, I feel like the, the classic fantasy baseball podcast listener, maybe I'm just making this up. But I feel like they probably prefer OPS as well.

I don't know. Yeah, I feel, I don't hear Wobah much. I know Heath was kind of into it. It's a great stat. Like, don't get me wrong. It's, it's really good. So not to disparage it or anything. Yeah.

And the fact that it doesn't incorporate stolen bases as well. I don't think that Wobah does. it doesn't look like in this description here it does. I was led to believe it does. Clearly, I haven't worked with Wobah that much. I haven't felt like it was necessary to. Fangraph's implementation of Wobah doesn't include stolen bases. Okay.

Yeah. Quickly on the statcast side of things, which is just growing in popularity year over year, and rightfully so. I mean, this is probably the most accurate data that we have. I think that we're still learning more about it, but based on everything that you've said, Scott, like literal cameras in stadiums

that are telling us based on how this ball was hit, this is how often it would fall for a hit. It doesn't always happen that way. Like we know, like baseball is a very unpredictable sport. Like some... Probability, I mean. Yeah, someone can hit a 110 mile per hour line drive

if it's right at the center fielder, it's right at the center fielder. Like, that's just, it is what it is. But you can go, to any player's stackass page over on baseball savant.com, and you could find all of this data that we talk about constantly. And we don't have enough time here to explain each one of them, but a lot of them are, I would say, kind of straightforward, right?

Like average exit velocity is how hard you hit the ball on average, how hard it's coming off the bat. Max exit velocity, you know, your hardest hit in terms of exit velocity all season long, that's your max exit velocity. And then expected batting average, expected slugging percentage, expected Wobah, those are all just based on your quality of contact. So again, that just goes back to like everything else that we've said. I don't know if there's anything that you'd like to add on the Stackass hitter side of this. There is.

Sneak peek into what will be a change in my analysis that you've probably already heard if you listen to every episode. In the past, I haven't focused that much on exit velocity for hitters. cited on occasion. But the reason for that is because I feel like that's a measure of skill, exit velocity, average exit velocity, peak exit velocity, how hard you hit the ball. That didn't necessarily match up with result

during the juice ball era. You didn't, home runs could be hit by all variety of hitters. Obviously more exit velocity helped, but it wasn't a clear correlation between those two stats. And I think last year with the introduction of the deadened baseball

for at least some percentage of the time, that skill became more tied to the result to the point that players who aren't delivering those premium exit velocities did seem to suffer in the home run column quite a bit more. I'm thinking guys like DJ LaMayhew, Glaver Torres,

I'm sure I could think of some non-Yankees too. I was going to say, why don't you just name all the Yankees, Scott? I pretty much noticed that across the board and, you know, doing all the research that I do to come up with my rankings for next year. So I feel like moving forward, protect, if baseball sticks with, with the 20, 21 model of the ball and introduces it more consistently uniformly than they apparently did in 2021, as recent reports have indicated, then that will even be a bigger issue going forward. So I may emphasize that more for hitters, especially in 2022 than I did in 2021. Yeah, I think that makes a ton of sense. Alex Breggman, someone that stands out in that category of, you know, would hit a lot of

home runs, but didn't necessarily hit the ball hard. So we have to learn more about the baseball. I don't know for sure that anyone's going to know what's happening with the baseball before the season starts. Maybe it's part of the CBA. That is yet to be determined. But yeah, this podcast was a little bit different. Actually, yeah, I had a lot of fun talking about the stuff and kind of learning about it a little bit more myself as well. So let us know. Tweet at us, email us in. Tell us, you know, if this was helpful enough for you. And maybe it's something we kind of revisit every off season to help not only you guys out, but I think help us out a little bit as well. For Scott, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening

and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Thank you.