Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Redrafting the First Round for the Second Half! (7/15 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Let's redraft the first round for the second half of the season. Up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome in to NPD Express on Tuesday, July 15th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White. We are going to alternate picks here redrafting the first round for the second half of the season. And Scott, I'm feeling nice. I'll give you the first pick. All right.

Starting point is 00:00:23 Easy first pick. I feel like it's kind of crazy how much Aaron Judge has separated himself from everybody else, including a pretty obvious number two. And the main reason why, he's become an even bigger outlier for batting average, Aaron Judge, than home runs. And that's really saying something, given that he is an historic home run hitter.

Starting point is 00:00:46 Most home runs in his season for somebody without steroids ties. But yeah, he's hit 355. I don't know that he can hit 355 in the second app, but he's got to hit, I trust him to hit for a really high batting average and keep producing that power. Well, the second pick, I think, is a pretty obvious one as well. Going with Shohei Otani here, who is currently on pace for 53 homers, 151 run scored, 100 RBI and 20 steals.

Starting point is 00:01:11 I will point out that the steel pace has dropped down precipitously since he started pitching again. But I would still expect something like, you know, six to eight steals the rest of the way. Maybe he gets up to 10, something like that. But still, you know, great power, great run scored, awesome. lineup, and I think the batting average could get a little bit better as well. All right, Scott, you're up with the third pick?

Starting point is 00:01:35 So there are about five players in the discussion to go third overall, but I'm going to go with the chalk pick. I feel like Bobby Witt. So this is the same top three, maybe in a different order, as was commonplace at the start of the year. Bobby Witts of the three, the one who has maybe underperformed the most, but searched into break 3-43 batting average six home runs four steals in his last 26 games and i think that's going to launch him into a big second half i don't see any uh data points that lead me to believe he's any less

Starting point is 00:02:15 than the player we thought he was coming into the year just the power production has lagged until very recently but i think he's got to do great all right the fourth pick i think there is some debate here as you mentioned you could go with a few different names but i'm going to take ronald a Kuna, who since returning, is batting 323 with 12 homers, 39 runs scored, and four steals in 45 games. Hoping that he steals more throughout the second half, I do think he will start to up that steel pace a little bit, but even without it, he's hitting for a great batting average.

Starting point is 00:02:48 He's launching home runs. Now moving down into the middle of the Braves lineup, you know, should help the RBI total a little bit as well. But yes, I will take Akunia fourth overall. Scott, back to you for the fifth pick. So Jose Ramirez is the fifth pick, and I think he has a very strong case to be the number three pick. In fact, maybe most people would want him there.

Starting point is 00:03:11 But that's partly because he ended the first half at his absolute hottest, his final 10 games before the break, five home runs and eight steals. I think he had a steal in seven straight going into the break. Yeah, he was on fire. And so it's kind of inflated. his pace beyond, like he's on pace for over 50 steals now. His career high is 41, which he said last year. I don't think he's going to quite maintain that.

Starting point is 00:03:37 And the runs and RBIs are lagging because the Guardians lineup is so bad. I'm mostly explaining why I don't have Jose Ramirez's third, but fifth, I'll still take him fifth. All right, the six pick again, it's another very close one for me. But I'm going to take Ellie De LaCruz here, who while the steals have come down this season, he has improved in basically every other. way possible here. He's lowered the strikeout rate. The expected stats have improved. He's hitting the ball hard. Barrel rate is there. On pace for 30 homers, 121 run scored, 42 steals for Ellie Dela Cruz. We'll point out that he's probably lower than this in a points

Starting point is 00:04:14 league, but if we're just talking roto categories, I do think he's in this discussion as a top seven player rest of season. Let's take a quick break when we return. Scott, you will be back up with the seventh pick right after this. Welcome back in, FBT Express. drafting the first round for the second half. And Scott, you are up, seventh overall. Seventh overall is for me the last one that I considered as a top three pick for that third spot. And actually, Kyle Tucker is my number three player in a points league because of the near

Starting point is 00:04:45 one-to-one strikeout to walk ratio. But for Roto, I landed on him at seventh. Not for any great reason. Like, I feel like he's a very safe in all five hitting category. but he's not going to carry you in a category maybe the way some of the four ahead of him here could. So seventh is as high as I was able to get Kyle Tucker mostly just because some tough competition there, head of him. All right, eighth overall pick.

Starting point is 00:05:18 I think it's wide open here. And for that reason, I am going to settle on the best pitcher in baseball. And that is Terrick Scouble, who is coming off his AL, A.L. Sy Young Award season and has just gotten better. The strikeouts are up. The walks are down. The swinging strike rate is a ridiculous 17%. There is no question that he has been the best, the most consistent starting pitcher in baseball, and thus he is the eighth overall pick. Scott, you are up at ninth overall. So I think it dipped into starting pitcher a little early there. I hate to separate Scoobel and Zach Wheeler because I think they're about the same for fantasy,

Starting point is 00:05:56 but I'm going to do that because I'm going to take an outfifference. fielder instead. I'm actually going to take Corbyn Carroll who, there are others who we haven't mentioned yet who've outperformed him in the first half. But I actually think this is a fairly conservative ranking for Carol. When you consider that he is a far more capable base dealer that he's been so far this year, one of the fastest players in baseball clearly. He's stolen only 11 bases. That's going to have to fix itself in the second half. He is also underperformed his expected batting average by 25 points or so. So I expect improvement in batting

Starting point is 00:06:33 after improvement in steals. And the home run gains for Carol, I think they're pretty durable because he's hitting the ball so much harder on average than he has in previous years. There is the fact he's coming back from that chip fracture and his wrist,

Starting point is 00:06:46 but I trust that he's healthy now that the Diamondbacks didn't bring him back earlier than he was ready for. And yeah, like I said, I think we're more likely to see improvement from Carol than a decline in the second half. Scott, you just mentioned that Terrick Scoobel and Zach Wheeler should probably go back to back.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Well, one pick apart, not so bad. I'm going to take Zach Wheeler here 10th overall, who at age 35 is maybe the best version of Zach Wheeler that we have ever seen here. He's got a 236 ERA, a 0.86 whip. Career high, 11.4K for 9, career best 237 XERA. And Wheeler and Scoobel, the only two pitchers averaging over 20 fantasy points per game this season, they are in a category of their own. So I will take Wheeler 10th overall, and Scott, you have the 11th pick.

Starting point is 00:07:41 Yeah, I feel like he gave me a gift here with Juan Soto, who hopefully we're past that seemingly annual panic that happens over Juan Soto because he isn't the best hitter in the world every second of the season. season. He kind of has been since the start of June. Since the start of June, Juan Soto's slash line is 311, 455, 659, which sounds ridiculous, but that's pretty much right in line with his expected stats for the season. So for him, it's not so ridiculous. And it may just be who Juan Soto is the rest of the way. you know he's also gotten back to stealing base kind of stealing base is better than he ever has here in his first year with the Mets so i don't necessarily count on him for that but it makes it all the easier to draft him here if that does remain part of Juan Soto's profile and I will note well I'm taking him 11th here in rhodo he would be my fourth pick and head to head points all right the 12th and final pick here redrafting the first round for the second half flip a coin between two young studs whoever you want here

Starting point is 00:08:54 James Wood, P. Crow Armstrong. I'm going to take James Wood, but I don't really think that there is a wrong answer. James Wood, living up to all the hype this season. As a 22-year-old, 24 homers, 12 steals, he's on pace to go 40-20 this season with 120 RBI. He's lowered the strikeout rate a little bit, batting average, around 270, 280.

Starting point is 00:09:15 I think that's totally fine, totally doable for James Wood, who really is just scratching the surface. Again, if you want PCA here, I think that's totally fine as well. And if you want to hear or read about the second round, Scott has an article on the site where he did redraft both of the first two rounds and we actually did the same thing on our full length podcast. So make sure to check that out.

Starting point is 00:09:36 And for more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, you can listen to our full length podcast Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today Express. And we will be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Redrafting the First Round for the Second Half! (7/15 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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