Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Worst ADP Values in Each of the First 10 Rounds! (3/15 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Who are Chris's least favorite ADP values in the first 10 rounds? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. Welcome into FBT Express on Saturday, March 15th. I am Frank Stamphel, joined by Chris Towers. We are taking a look at Chris's least favorite ADP values in each of the first 10 rounds. Hard to have a least favorite, I guess, in the first round, Chris. They're all good players, but Mets fans are not going to like to hear this one. Yeah, I mean, this is the one that has the highest risk of making me look.

Starting point is 00:00:30 dumb, right? Because like, Juan Soto's awesome. Of course he's awesome. He's a first round caliber player. But right now he's going in like the top seven on average. He's 80P over the past two weeks. 7.1. I don't know if he's worth that. He's only a four category guy. He's not going to steal any bases. He's not such a good bet for batting average that you can count on him to be elite. He'll be good. but I don't think he's hit over 290 since 2020. There have been stretches, especially when he was on the Padres in Petco Park where he wasn't hitting for a ton of power.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Cityfield plays pretty close to Petco in terms of how left-handers hit for power. So I just do think there's a chance that he's scare quotes, just a 280 hitter with 32 homers. I think he's awesome no matter what. But I'd rather have Kyle Tucker. I think I'd rather have Mookie Betts. I'd rather have Gunner Henderson than Juan Soto.

Starting point is 00:01:29 All right. Let's move into the second round, and we don't have to travel too far because he plays across town. Come at me, New York for the New York Yankees. Actually, live in New York. Please don't come at me. That'd be scary. Jazz Chisholm is the least favorite pick in the second round. And look, it's not a question of upside.

Starting point is 00:01:47 It's not a question of potential. He has tons of that. I think there's a world in which jazz Chisholm plays like a first rounder. We saw it after the trade of the Yankees. He was on like a 30. home or 50 stolen base pace. If he's hitting at the top third, top four of that lineup, it could be a ton of runs, a ton of RBI,

Starting point is 00:02:05 hitting near Aaron Judge. It's just his injury history. I'm surprised, given how much people downgrade players for injury risk, the Jazz Chisholm is a second rounder. He made it through 147 games last season. Let's not forget he had that elbow strain in August that he came back from didn't look great. It could have been worse for him.

Starting point is 00:02:26 And it kind of feels like Luis Robert last year. All right, let's move into the third round, Chris, and we will just keep annoying the biggest market teams in baseball because Garrett Crochet is the player you are avoiding in the third round. Yeah, Garrett Crochet, look, he, in terms of talent, he might be the best pitcher in baseball, or at least the best starter in baseball. He had a higher strikeout minus walk rate than Paul Skeen's last year.

Starting point is 00:02:50 That is a bonkers number. He's also only thrown more than 70 innings in a season. one time. He had 20 more than he had 25 combined innings in his previous two seasons before. He was covering from Tommy John surgery. He's had a lot of injury issues. He wasn't a workhorse in college, wasn't a workhorse as a prospect. I just I think there are more ways it can go wrong for Garrett Crochet than it can go right. If he was a fourth rounder, I might be okay with it.

Starting point is 00:03:20 Third round top 30 pick. I can't do it. On to the fourth round. Chris, why do you hate fun? Because Wyatt Langford is the fourth rounder with your least favorite ADP. I mean, didn't we learn our lesson last year? Guess not. We had nothing concrete to go on with Wyatt Langford and we just kept pushing him up draft boards.

Starting point is 00:03:42 Last year it was top prospect, having a big spring, looks like he's going to make the team. We ended up pushing him like he was going top 75 after like 30 professional games. Last year, he was a fine player for, fantasy.

Starting point is 00:03:56 He ended up being worth about $13 in FanGraph's auction calculator. That's a must start player. If you actually had him on your team, though, you know he wasn't a must start player. You know, he wasn't very good. You know, he wasn't useful until September. He had the awesome September. It was a sign of what the potential could be. It was one month out of six.

Starting point is 00:04:14 I can't pay what is now a top 40 price for that kind of track record. On to the fifth round. And your least favorite pick is Yiner Diaz. I do want to add a little context here because I believe this is based on NFBC ADP where it's two catcher leagues and he is pushed up the board. His overall ADP on other sites is not this high, but at least on the NFBC it is. Yeah, he is like 56th overall at the NFBC and that's what we're using for this exercise. So look, I don't mind if you want to push catchers up your board that high, but I'd rather do it with Adley Rutchman who has a more well-rounded skill set, much better plate discipline and before

Starting point is 00:04:56 Adley Rutchman's hand injury last year was on a 30 home or pace. Yonner Diaz, look, we've seen the high batting for average from him last season. We saw a ton of home runs in 2023. If he puts both of those together, yeah, he could be the number one catcher. But he played 140 games or 147 games last season. 47 of them came either at first base or DH. Well, they signed Christian Walker, huge upgrade at first base. and the Astros are starting to talk about

Starting point is 00:05:25 or are talking about playing Gordon-Avarez as much as possible at DH. I just don't know where he's supposed to get 600 plate appearances and I don't know how you can justify Jiner Diaz as a top 60 pick and the number two catcher without that. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in, FBT Express, taking a look at Chris's least favorite values by each round,

Starting point is 00:05:50 the top 10 rounds we're looking at, into the sixth round where Wilson Contreras, Chris, the hype just continues to grow. He's playing first base. We love them coming into the offseason, but the ADP just keeps climbing. I thought I liked him. I thought I loved Wilson Contreras. He might have been, was he one of my players that I loved? I can't remember.

Starting point is 00:06:10 He might have been when we did that exercise on the podcast. He's a top 70 pick in NFBC drafts. He is the number five catcher. I believe I just, I don't know, man. I know he's playing first base and the hope is that that will keep him healthier than he has been in the past. And yeah, he'll avoid the nixon and bruises that come with playing behind the home plate more than nixon bruises. He fractured his forearm on a back swing last year. But this is still a 33 year old who has missed plenty of time with hamstring, knee, groin injuries that aren't necessarily the result of playing catcher.

Starting point is 00:06:45 So I'm excited. I like it as a top 100 pick as a top 75 pick, not so much. All right, let's move on to the seventh round where you have a player who missed all of last season. Matt McLean. Yeah, and we're talking about these NFBC leagues where if you've ever been on the IL, if you've ever been to a doctor,

Starting point is 00:07:04 we seem to downgrade you by like three rounds. And then we have Matt McLean, who his 2023 season, his rookie season ends with an oblique injury that was still bothering him last February, five months later. He wasn't fully cleared for the start of, spring training. And then he suffers a shoulder injury that requires surgery, then a rib

Starting point is 00:07:26 injury that ended his season last year. Two straight season ending injuries, three injuries overall, and we're talking about him as a top 80 pick. I get that he hit 290 as a rookie, he was on a 25 homer, 25 stolen base pace. The underlying numbers were not quite as impressive as all that, but I still think he can be a pretty good power speed guy. It's just, it's worth it around the 100th pick, not where he's going. Into the eighth round. And Chris, you must not be a fan of Game of Thrones because the Mountain is your least favorite pick. Yeah, he's still looking for his pre-injury velocity coming back from two separate elbow injuries that cost him all of the 2024 season. We're talking about Felix Bautista, by the way.

Starting point is 00:08:05 Felix Bautista, yes, the Baltimore Orioles would be closer. He won't pitch on back-to-back days. They've already said that to start the season. He actually isn't even guaranteed to be on the opening day roster, according to a recent quote from Brandon Hyde. I think he will be, but it's not a guarantee. He's velocity's been about two and a half to four miles per hour down. I think there's still plenty of upside here, but he's got to be closer to 120 in drafts.

Starting point is 00:08:30 All right. Into the ninth round. And someone I thought you liked entering this draft season, Chris, but your least favorite Christian Yelich. The more I started looking into it, maybe he'll be fine coming back from back surgery. It's just, do I really want to bet one of my most valuable assets on a 33-year-old coming back from back surgery.

Starting point is 00:08:50 He played at an MVP level. He played at a first round caliber level last season. And if he's still that guy, this could work out really well. It's just 33-year-olds coming off back surgery don't tend to get better as they get into their mid-30s, you know? Yeah, let's move into the 10th round. The last one we'll talk about today.

Starting point is 00:09:09 And your least favorite pick is the only closer that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, and kind of the only surefire closure we drafted on a team that we drafted together. Sure, fire, closer. During our mega draftathon, Robert Suarez, the Padres closer, who even at the best of times,

Starting point is 00:09:28 he's less than an elite closer because you just don't get the strikeout rates with him. He's below a strikeout per inning. And he's so fastball dependent. He threw his four seamer and sinker combined like 90% of the time last year, I think with 87% actually, that any even small dip in effectiveness of those two pitches could be completely disastrous.

Starting point is 00:09:47 It just feels like there is a razor-thin, margin for error. His velocity is down this spring. And he's got really, really good relievers behind him on the Padres and Jason Adam and Jeremiah Estrada who can very much step in as the closer if something goes wrong for Suarez. I think he should be pretty good, but there's some disastrous downsides here. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcast. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today Express and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - FBT Express - Worst ADP Values in Each of the First 10 Rounds! (3/15 Fantasy Baseball podcast)

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