Fantasy Baseball Today - Fantasy New Year's Resolutions & Lessons Learned (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:02 Ah, the new year is upon us. Let's talk fantasy baseball resolutions up next. Welcome into FBTN5. Today is Friday, December 30th. I am Frank Stamphel here to deliver my fantasy baseball New Year's resolutions. Some lessons that I learned from last draft season to this draft season, things that I want to do differently heading into February and March. And let's start with number one.

Starting point is 00:00:27 Get your guys, trust your analysis. For those people out there, I guess this will be to trust our hour. analysis, but let's just say that you formed an opinion about a player yourself. I would say to go with your gut and trust that opinion. Of course, you want to listen to as many people as you possibly can. There's a lot of smart people out there. But if you have a feeling on a player, go with your gut and trust your judgment. Because last year, I was just looking through my sleepers and my breakouts, and I had names like Tristan McKenzie and Shane McClanahan, Logan Gilbert, Hazus Lizardo. If you listen to the full-length podcast, you know that I loved Sandy Alcantara coming into the season.

Starting point is 00:01:02 as well. What happened? I didn't trust myself enough. I didn't wind up with enough of those players across all of my fantasy baseball teams. And frankly, if I did, I probably would have had a better fantasy baseball season. So trust your own analysis. Make sure to get your guys in fantasy baseball. Next up, something that I want to do differently in 2023. Don't be so injury-averse. What do I mean by that? Particularly when we hear about players getting hurt in February and March and you see their draft stock start to fall in drafts and they're slipping two, three, four, five rounds.

Starting point is 00:01:37 Gobble it up. Let's buy the dip. Let's get in on the discount. Last year, Luis Castillo, it turned out he hurt his shoulder, Zach Wheeler, same thing. We were completely off of Zach Gallen, Carlos Verdon, Clayton Kirschaw, guys that have had injury question marks or had some concerns

Starting point is 00:01:53 going into the season or generally with Kirschaw, just someone who has been injury prone in the past. All of those guys, turned out perfectly fine. And I feel like every year I kind of kick myself for playing it a little bit too safe. Now, I'm not telling you to draft all of them, but maybe draft one or two when you see that there is a value due to someone getting hurt or being labeled as injury prone, whatever it might be. Maybe not early on in your drafts, but hey, as a draft goes on, I want to be able to take more risks and maybe take advantage of some of those players who are slipping because of injury.

Starting point is 00:02:24 Next up, I want to watch more video and work some highlights into my analysis. You listen in season, you know, I've always got all the games on. I'm trying to watch as much baseball as I possibly can. What I want to do is watch some highlights, watch some videos in the off season to maybe remind myself or players that I'm not too familiar with, maybe guys that I haven't seen pitch all that much. Someone I keep drafting in these early drafts so far is Drey Jamison. Yet, I feel like I need to watch him more to really see, all right, what does his arsenal look like? What does confidence look like, right?

Starting point is 00:02:56 As a young pitcher. And I feel like this is something you can take into spring training as well and see if there's someone doing something differently. A pitcher, maybe adding a new pitch, or throwing a little bit differently than we have seen in years past, or maybe an adjustment to a batting stance

Starting point is 00:03:11 for a hitter, whatever it might be. I think a great example from last year, Jesus Lozardo, someone I watched in spring training, he was going up against the Houston Astros lineup. They're basically their complete full lineup in spring training, and he was mowing them down. down. He was throwing his breaking pitches more, his change up. He was throwing with conviction,

Starting point is 00:03:28 with confidence. The velocity was up. There was confirmation on the velocity. There was a bunch of different beat writers and people tweeting about the velocity being up. These are all things that we need to pay attention to. One of the best players, one of the best fantasy baseball minds out there, Ian Con, a buddy of mine. We've had him on the podcast before. He's someone who watches a lot of film and he studies players. And frankly, that's how he was able to find Spencer Shreder last year in the Atlanta Braves bullpen. So it's something that I want to pick up from Ian Con and hopefully bring into my own analysis as well. Speaking of great fantasy baseball players, I got a few bonus ones here. Rob Silver, I was out in first pitch, Arizona. He did an excellent presentation

Starting point is 00:04:06 about starting pitchers and drafting pitchers on good teams. And really, it was so simple. The most wins in fantasy baseball come from pitchers on good teams and the least wins come from pitchers on bad teams. So it seems pretty straightforward, but let's look at some of the biggest breakouts from this past season. In terms of starting pitchers, Kyle Wright with the Braves, Tony Gonselin with the Dodgers, Nestor Cortez with the Yankees, Christian Javier with the Astros, Tyler Anderson also with the Dodgers, Spencer Strider with the Braves. You notice the theme, they're all on great teams. This isn't always going to work out, I realize that, but it's much more likely that your pitcher is going to earn a win, get the run support, have enough bullpen help behind them,

Starting point is 00:04:49 if they come from a better team. So keep that in mind. And last but not least, something I've talked about for years. And it's kind of a pipe dream because I don't know that it's ever going to happen, but can we just find a way to get all of Shohei Otani's stats

Starting point is 00:05:03 into one player for fantasy baseball purposes? I don't care if you start them at your utility spot or as a starting pitcher as long as you get all of his stats. I realize that this would break fantasy baseball, but I just want to replicate his value in real life. This guy is a unicorn.

Starting point is 00:05:21 He's doing something that we have never seen before, and I feel like he needs to be valued that way in fantasy purposes as well. I can't tell you how many weeks where I've had this guy as a utility hitter, and then he goes out and he throws a 12 strikeout performance, and I just can't earn those statistics. And it's really, really frustrating.

Starting point is 00:05:38 And I would love a way to get all of those stats into one player in fantasy baseball purposes. That would be fantastic. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, Listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five all season long, all year long. Happy New Year to you. Make sure to stay safe.

Starting point is 00:06:02 We'll be back again next week and next year. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - Fantasy New Year's Resolutions & Lessons Learned (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

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