Fantasy Baseball Today - Fantasy New Year's Resolutions! James Wood, Oneil Cruz & More! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

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. Happy New Year! We have Fantasy Baseball resolutions, starting with the rookies. James Wood needs to raise his launch angle. Oneil Cruz and Masyn Winn need to run more! To display your continued support of the show, please vote Fantasy Baseball Today in the Sports Podcast Awards in the "Best Baseball Podcast" Category https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify 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

2025 is here. Let's make some New Year's resolutions up next on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 on Saturday, January 4th. I am Frank Stanfield, joined by Chris Towers. Let's make some fantasy New Year's resolutions. Players, teams, whatever it might be. Chris, you're up first. Yeah, I've got one for fantasy players that applies to baseball players as well. Can we cool it on the rookies? we got a little out over our skis last year. And look, I know you can point to Fernando Tatis and Julio Rodriguez and Corbyn as rookies who have been hugely productive and really game-breaking players for fantasy. And I've done some research that when guys get into the top 100 in ADP,

they tend to do pretty well. Last year, the highest rated rookies didn't quite get that high in ADP. White Lankford, Evan Carter, Jackson, Churio all ended up right around 120 to 135, but there were a lot of draft where those guys were going inside of the top 100. I looked at the last rhodo draft we did last year. They were all top 95 picks, Jackson Churio and White Lankford, top 80 picks. It did not work out. Jackson Churier was awesome. Assuming you didn't drop him when he had a sub 600 OPS at the end of May, which I'm sure plenty of the people who drafted him did, especially in the shallower formats.

So you didn't really get to benefit from the huge final four months. And why, Lankford, Nevin Carter just didn't work out at all for fantasy. So, look, it's just really hard to be a good rookie, especially if you don't have major league experience.

Dylan Cruz, Jason Dominguez, they're going around 150. I'm totally fine with that. The problem is we get to fast forward to late February. And if Dylan Cruz has three good games in a row to start his spring training, that's going to be 110, 190 ADP. So let's just keep in mind how things can go wrong and not just focus on upside above

all else with rookies. I have two New Year's resolutions for the Washington Nationals. For James Wood, please hit less ground balls, a 55.6% ground ball rate in 79 games with the nationals last season. That was 52% at AAA. But he routinely posted 40 to 45% ground ball rates in year. prior in the minors. And we've seen other young players, someone like Ellie Dela Cruz, lower his ground ball rate year over year. And if James Wood can get his ground ball rate into that 40, 45% range, I do think that he has 30 home run upside as soon as this upcoming season. And give Luis Garcia Jr. a chance to play against left-handed pitching. That one's for the nationals as a team. Just let him play every day. The career numbers for

Luis Garcia against lefties are not great. he got a little bit better in 2024, but he's still young enough. It's not like they have a great platoon partner. He was really good this past season. Give him a chance to play every single day, and maybe the batting average comes back a little bit, but we're looking at a potential 2020 bat.

The counting stats would be much improved. Like, can we get 80 plus runs, 80 plus RBI? So make Luis Garcia, Jr., an everyday player, and I think good things will happen. Chris, back over to you. All right, I'm going to have O'Neill Cruz a new year's resolution that I have failed at many times in the past. Can we start running more? O'Neill Cruz, in his case, it's keep running because he had 22 stolen bases last season.

Only seven of those came in the first half. And he was on like a 25 homer pace. He was hitting like 247. And every discussion about him was like, ah, it just feels like he should be better. Right. And then second half of the season, he steals 15 bases in his final like, six. 65 games and like you start to do the math on that and that can be 30. I mean 30 stolen bases. Can you give me 35? 40? At the high end, I mean, he has the physical tools to do it. We saw a little bit of improvement against lefties last year. We saw the strikeout rate come down in the second half.

You can see it all coming together for O'Neill Cruz and he doesn't need stolen bases to be a must start, you know, fantasy difference maker. But if he can be a 30-30 guy, I think that ceiling is there. starts to look a lot more appealing. Very similar New Year's resolution. This one's for the Cardinals. Let Mason win run more. He had a very solid rookie season, but only 11 steals.

He's 87th percentile in sprint speed, and I have no doubt that he's capable. He had 32 steals his first season in the minors. He had 43 in year two in the minor leagues, and great success rates. He's fast enough, leading off for the Cardinals. If they really just unleash him, I think we can get 25 to 30 steals

this upcoming season for Mason win. Chris, back to you. This one's kind of harder, but Reese Olson's got to find a way to get to strike two because he's got these two outstanding whiff pitches in the slider, the slider and the change up. They're like 45% whiff rates. And you look at that, how many pitchers are out there with two pitches that they throw 20% of the time with a 45% whiff rate that can work against batters of both handedness by the way, and are below average strikeout rates. There's not that many guys like that.

And it's because his four seamer is like a 10% whiff rate. It gets hit really hard when he throws it. This is one case where I kind of think throwing the sinker more, maybe developing a cutter that can help you, you know, generate some foul balls, generate some called strikes. I think that might be the path forward for Reese Olson, just because the four seamer just hasn't been there yet for him. This next one is for the baseball gods.

Mike Trout plays 130 games. Jacob de Grom throws 150 innings. To be very clear, I don't think that either of those things are going to happen. Mike Trout is 33 years old. He had two surgeries on his left meniscus last season. But if he can, we see the steamer projections. 130 games, 251 batting average, 31 home runs, 85 RBI, 9 seals, 833 OPS. That's with an ADP of 1.3.3.0.000.

34.8. That would be awesome to get from Mike Trout. Again, if he can stay healthy for 130 games. Jacob de Grom, he returned from his second Tommy John late last season and very small sample size, but he looked close-ish to the Jacob de Grom of old. He has not thrown 100 innings since 2019. So again, that's why I'm not really betting on this to happen. But if we can get 150 innings, I would bet on a top five fantasy SP season for. from Jacob de Grom. So please, baseball gods, let's make that happen.

Chris, back to you. You know, a lot of it is, this is a thing I'm going to do in the new year. But I think part of it is also, let's avoid falling back on bad habits. And for Carlos Rodon, just don't go back to the cutter.

He introduces this cutter last season as to try to bridge the gap and give him another way to steal some strikes. And it just didn't work out for him. That pitch got crushed. 355 batting average against, 647 slugging percentage against, didn't get a lot of whiffs.

And he did cut it out. By the end of June, he wasn't throwing it, didn't throw it at all in the second half of the season. Let's keep that the way it is because while he doesn't have the dominant fastball he used to and he does need more than just the two pitches that he really made his bread and butter at his best, the changeup was really good last year. And so I think four seamer slider change up, maybe the occasional curveball. It wasn't a great pitch, but like as a strike stealer in the early count, I think that's okay just to keep hitters off guard. But let's really focus on what worked. And it was the four seamer, the slider, and the change up for Carlos Redan.

I still think he has top 20 potential if he can do that. Let's make all those things happen in 2025. If you want to hear about other New Year's resolutions that we have, you can check out Chris's fantasy baseball today newsletter or listen to our full-length fantasy baseball today podcast. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five,

and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.