Fantasy Baseball Today - First Half Lessons & Second Half Breakouts (7/21 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

DISCLAIMER: We recorded this podcast before Shane Baz got hurt. DO NOT try and trade for Baz in redraft leagues. What mistakes have we made so far this season? Did we rely too much on veterans? Which players do we think can break out in the second half? Can Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson get going? If you support the show, please nominate Fantasy Baseball Today for The People's Choice Podcast Awards in the "Sports" Category: https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/ Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get 20% off Fantasy Baseball Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Will there be a new Shane McClanahan in the second half? Probably not, but let's try and find one.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. Frank Stamphill joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, lessons that we learned. in the first half and predicting second half breakouts. Chris, how's life going, man? I know that it's a very busy time. Baseball, football, crossover, there's a lot going on. Yeah, football starting up is, you know,

it's taking a little bit of my time, but I'm here still. So, you know, hopefully I'll be able to stay here for a few more weeks at least. And, you know, let's get us through the meat of the season. You are present. That is half the battle when it comes to fantasy baseball. Just a heads up that we are once again recording this in advance.

So just in case we talk about a player that got hurt or something and it sounds weird to you, that is the reason why. All right, the first half is in the books, Chris. How are you doing in your league so far? Mixed bag, which I think is true for everyone. So looking at my roto leagues, I'm in four roto leagues. I'm in first place in one. I'm in 11th place in another out of 12.

So there you go, mixed bag. And then in the, so first place is in the Memorial Magazine, which is our salary cap auction, Roto League that I've been leading pretty much wire to wire so far, which is exciting and nerve-wracking, because I'm looking forward to seeing how I managed to screw it up. Then in TGFBI, which is the big industry league, 15 team, and then an overall component, I am in, fourth place in my league and 78th overall. So I think that's that's pretty decent out of like what 500 and something teams. So I think I'm actually in the overall component I'm ahead of you and Scott I think. At least I was last I checked. I haven't looked. I'm a hundred and forty-ninth overall so there you go. And then where's my other oh and then in tout wars I am in sixth place. I've been kind of bouncing between fourth and seventh for most of the year. That's an

OBP saves plus holds and innings pitched league and I have like one category point saves plus holds so that's really hurting me. So you know there's room to make up ground. The 11th place team is

frustrating because it's one of those teams that like I have 12 hitting points in that league. Oh my. And then I look at my roster and it's like I've got guys. You know, I've got, like, a lot of guys who have been disappointing, like Atalmarte and Ronald Acuna, although Acuna, I don't know if he's been disappointing, Byron Buxton, Nick Castellanos, Marcello Zuna, Corey Seeger, like,

I still have a lot of faith in those guys figuring it out. And so maybe I can go on a second half run if they do start to figure it out. But yeah, that's been frustrating because I never know what to actually do with a team like that because I don't want to just give up on Marcelo Zuna or Nick Castionas because we know how good those guys can be and how dominant they can be when they get hot. And so like what if I trade Marcelo Zuna and he goes on one of those stretches where he hits 400 for 25 games and I miss out on all that. So that is I think a lack of flexibility.

I stick to my priors strongly is one of my probably weak. weaknesses as a player and maybe, I would say maybe a strength as an analyst. But yeah, it's frustrating when it happens like that in so many different ways. Yeah, it is, it's tough with the hitters that are struggling because Ozone has actually come around in terms of the power. But you know, Castellanos and Catel Marte, it's, it's been a pretty rough go all season long. And, you know, even though these guys are, you know, talented players and we've seen them be great in the past, it's fantasy baseball is one of these weird things where, where guys could just, have a bad variance season and it can last an entire season and it's not really anything that

you did wrong. It's just sometimes things sometimes things just happen that way in baseball. And I think you can make a case for, you know, we've talked about it with Castellanos in particular, but I think Marte is probably a similar case where the type of power that Nick Castiano's hits for tends to be to the power alleys, which are, you know, I think it's a misnomer to refer to them as the power. because for a lot of players, like, you have to hit the ball further to get it out when you hit it to the power alleys. And most of the time when you're hitting it to right center and left center, you're hitting it with some draw or some slice. You know, the ball's not carrying true the way it often does if you just hit it right down the line.

And so not only does the ball have to travel further, but they both play in fairly, you know, Catal Marte plays in a really deep park to the power alleys. And Castiano's moved from one of the best parks in baseball for the power. rallies to a more a more middling one and that is a place where a lot of power has been lost this season relative to last years. I ran the numbers a couple weeks ago, but with the ball not carrying as far, you're seeing like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but you were seeing like a fairly significant reduction in expected Wobah to left center and right center. It was like a like a 40 point swing in expected Wobah relative to last year to those parts of the field. So, you know, when when you're talking by Castellanos in particular, it might not just be bad luck.

I mean, there's probably a little bit of bad luck and he's not hitting the ball as well as he did last year. But the environment's also not as conducive to a player like him succeeding. And we thought that offense would be down, right? But with these environmental changes and ball changes, it's like we can only predict so much. We don't know exactly which players are going to be affected. And, you know, is it specifically guys that hit to the power alleys that are going to be affected? And it's just, it's hard to figure out, uh, We knew offense would be down.

It's just we didn't know exactly which players would be affected. First half for me, mixed bag. Same thing here, Chris. I'll start with the redraft leagues with waivers. I've got five roto teams. One, a 12-team league, four, 15-team leagues. I'm third, third, fifth, seventh, and eighth. The fifth-place team is my NFBC main event league,

which is far and away my most important league. And, yeah, I'm just trying to finish in the top three to, like, you know, get some money back. as a result of it, but like, I don't think there's really any chance of me actually winning this league because I don't know, I'm like 30 points, be 30, 40 points behind, so that doesn't seem likely. Head to head points leagues, these are all 12 team leagues.

I'm tied for first in Tout Wars. Defending champion would be pretty awesome to go back to back if I could pull that off. Third of my home league, third in the podcast, listener league. And head to head categories, just one league. 16 teamer, that is our podcast. Another podcast listener league.

I am first in that league. I didn't realize, I don't like, at the standings all that often, which maybe I should. I'm like far and away in first place. And I feel like just something catastrophic is going to happen in the second half where my team just kind of like falls apart. I don't know why. Just doom and gloom. In the Scott White Dynasty League, that is a 24 team head-to-head points. Dynasty League, once again, I am ninth out of 24 teams there. And then I've got five draft and hold roto teams. First, first, seventh, 11th, 12. So if you're following all that, it's a mixed bag. Some teams in first place, some in the

middle, and of course some down at the bottom as well. Lessons learned in the first half. Things that we've done right, things that we've done wrong, you know, maybe things that we want to kind of change up moving forward when it comes to drafting or picking players up, analyzing players. The first one for me, Chris, and I think maybe we could all kind of relate to this one, two invested in older players this season. And I mean, this has always been, like, people that I share teams with, they laugh at me. How often I want to draft old players. So I'm like, this guy's undervalued. He's going to exceed his value by this much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, Charlie Morton is the shining example. I don't think any of us could have seen this coming. It's,

I know he's been on a recent stretch where he's looked much better. But overall, if you've had him in your lineup for the entirety of the season, he has been more hurtful than he has been helpful so far this year, Chris. And then, you know, on that main event team, I drafted Scherzer, Morton, Votto, Adam Wainwright, Uli Gurell, A.J. Pollack, and it's just, it's way too many old players, and I think that's something I've kind of got to shake off moving forward. Do you find yourself kind of falling into a similar trap? Yeah, I mean, that one's tough, though, because, like, Scherzer's been awesome. He has.

Verlander's been awesome. He sure has. You know, I guess, like, Joey Votto hasn't been great, but I'm sure there are some. older hitters who are doing well. I'm just kind of blanking. Yeah, I'm trying to like go through and I don't know. I guess it depends on how you define older, but yeah, pitcher like Verlander and Scher are kind of the only good old guys. So, you know, maybe there's something there. A lot of the breakouts this season have been younger hitters. But like, I don't know, you drafted Charlie Morton and Joey Votto and, you know, Yule Gariel, if you had drafted Justin Verlander and Paul

Goldschmidt, you'd feel really good about old guys, you know? So I never want to, like, write off a category of player without actually knowing, you know, without doing like some in-depth research. Like Jose Al-Tuvae is having a great season. He was someone that people had a lot of questions about. So I just, I don't know if that's a lesson that is more frustrating because of the specific guys. Like Charlie Morton, maybe the better example would be coming off an injury as an older guy. Although I do still feel pretty good about him moving forward. You know, as we're speaking, July 13th, he's having a bad start. But he'd been pretty awesome for, you know, a month or so before that.

So, um, Wainwright has continued to be pretty good. Yeah, Wainwright is actually solid. I think you can kind of pick and choose things that happen with each one of these, right? So like Vado, we were buying him coming off of a career power year, something we've never seen before. So it's like, why were we buying in on something that he never did? That seems like bad process. Or A.J. Pollock, you know, Pollock's a little bit tougher because whenever he's played the past couple of years, he's actually been very good.

And he was undervalued. But, you know, maybe getting traded right before the season. That's something that, you know, a change of scene. you know, back in... Yeah, changing leagues. Changing leagues. You know, that's something maybe we should have seen coming.

Uliq Uliol, that one's kind of tough to figure out because he's still part of one of the best lineups in baseball. I mean, maybe part of the environmental change as well there. Maybe it's just a little bit drafting too many of them, Chris. Like, I think it's okay to like,

okay, you mentioned drafting Verlander and Goldschmidt. That's fine. I mean, your team would be awesome if you did that. But like, you know, maybe in a league, like, specifically the main event, NFBC like where you're shooting for upside you probably don't want to get caught up drafting too many you know boring players that you just think can slightly beat their ADPs I think that's the the thing is old players are going to be inherently risky because there's always the the older

you get the the more the the attrition rate increases and so when you're doing that I think it's important not to necessarily like the ULigreel types who it's like well if you're Lee Griel doesn't take a step backwards. He's probably going to be like the 14th best first basement or something. You know, he's going to hit 280 with mediocre power, but hopefully decent run production numbers. But there's not a lot of backdrop. Backstop there, you know, if things go poorly. Votto, I think, is in a different category just because I do think there was and remains some pretty significant upside.

But obviously, it's more about the, the attrition risk. and, you know, Nelson Cruz is another guy who has been disappointing. But he's also kind of the case for the opposite of having faith in the old guy who hasn't shown signs of slipping yet because while it didn't work out this year, it's worked out like six years in a row for Nelson Cruz. Yeah. All right, let's move over to another one. And I want to talk about, you know, players who had either labeled as sleepers or breakouts,

and it hasn't really come to fruition. and I think what I learned here is trusting a player's track record. So, Sean Mania is a pitcher that I was very heavily in on, invested in coming into the season, and Lordus Gueriel on the header side of things. And I just think, Chris, that I was trying to make something where it wasn't. And Sean Mania, last year, 2021, he had a strong K-minus walk rate, strong swinging strike rate. But his ERA was still near four. And if you look at what he's done so far in 2022, it's a lot of the same.

You know, he still is getting hit hard. And, you know, K-minus walk is fine. Walks are up a little bit, which is kind of weird for him. But he's getting a lot of swinging strikes. And I just think this is kind of who Sean Minaya is. Like, he's a high-3s-era guy, which is fine. He's serviceable. But, like, I thought he was going to take another step and it didn't happen.

Same thing with Lordis Gareel, who, like, you know, we've seen flashes here and there before. He's a very, very shrieky player. We know he's good for batting average. maybe affected by the environment too, but I was expecting him to put it all together and have like this monster season and we just haven't seen that yet. So what do you think about trusting the track record of players

and maybe stop trying to project something that hasn't happened yet? Yeah, I think you could call this like they are who we thought they were category or maybe the full season stats are more predictive than partial season stats because with a lot of these guys, like Yule Uriel is a good example

where multiple years in a row we've done the like from, from July 7th on, he had a nine. And it's like, well, yeah, but why didn't he do it for a full season? You can come up with explanations. I think Uly-Gri-R-R-L dealt with a knee issue early on last season and missed some time and kind of played through. Maybe it took him a little while, but I don't know. Once you start, like, fantasy baseball is all about finding exceptions and identifying the guys

who struggled because of injuries. And, you know, that's an explanation for it. But generally speaking, once you start slicing sample sizes up, you're going to be less predictable than just taking the whole sample size. And you can't, like, being, getting, getting the most likely outcome for every player is a good way to finish in fifth place in a fantasy league. Like, that's just you need outliers. to avoid the guys who have the bad case scenario and you need to target you need to end up

with the guys who have the high-end scenarios so it's not just all about a median projection for every player but it's also about knowing how to price those guys and yuleiguria or lordis ghariel and shamaniah they were reasonably priced enough that i don't think there was a ton of risk but if you were banking on them taking a big step forward you've certainly been disappointed Yeah, and they haven't completely sank you. Like, you know, they've been fine for fantasy this year. It's just, you know, they haven't been exceptional. They haven't pushed you over the edge or anything like that.

I had a few other names here too, Chris. Like Alex Cobb is another one where we were just kind of like speaking it into existence. And I know his underlying numbers are still really good, but the fact of the matter is he's looked a lot like Alex Cobb so far this season. And then Cody Bellinger, it's just like, I mean, I guess you could just look at what he did the past couple of seasons and realize like, yeah, stay away. I mean, you know, there's a glass half full versus glass, glass half empty approach to Cody Bellinger,

and I was glass half full. It's just like, come on, man. Like, this guy's being drafted around 100. He was the MVP just a couple of seasons ago. But we had a good amount of data that basically past two and a half years that said Cody Melanger is not nearly the player he once was. Yeah, and Bellinger, I think the biggest thing that I was avoiding him,

and I think the Ballinger-Yallich debate was a pretty strong one. in the preseason and Yelage hasn't been amazing but I think he's been better and a big thing for me with that was how many things did Yelich need to fix? Well he probably

which was a big deal but Bellinger also needed to stay healthy and that had been an issue for him but Bellinger's swing was just broken last season and so he needed to not just stay healthy but he needed to completely rework and rediscover his swing and he's been better,

but I think a lot of the issues that plagued him last year are still there. You know, he's not consistently driving the ball with the kind of power we've seen in the past. He's still striking out a bunch, which, you know, that was something he had stopped doing in 2020 and 2019. And so, you know, I think in Bellinger's case, there was just, there was so many things that needed to go right. And I think he wasn't, like I have Bellinger on. few teams. I think he was an okay

risk, especially like he started falling to like the 12th round at times after he was so awful in spring training, but as it turns out, the concerns were not unfounded and the spring training struggles were indicative of where

he was as a player. And I don't know. I still have some small amount of hope, but yeah, I think in Bellinger's case, whatever happened to his shoulder, I think, has really derailed him. Yeah, and I think that last point that you made, Chris, is something that we can also take

away is using spring training to either, I guess, validate or, you know, go against something that we thought coming into spring training. So, like, we had all these concerns about Cody Bellinger, and he basically lived up to all of those in spring training. So, you know, maybe we should have trusted that a little bit more. And I think a lot of people did. Like, he started to fall down draft boards and rightfully so, because he just looked at completely lost.

But yeah, maybe just like leaning into that a little bit more. Next one that I have here is trusting your analysis, trusting your gut. You know, if you have a feel for players or you just, like, someone just stands out that, like, you just have a really good feeling for. And, you know, I've referenced this a lot. Obviously, Sandy Alcansfra, Shane McClanahan, those were two guys that, like, I was all over this year. And Justin Verlander.

Justin Verlander was another one that I think we all talked about as, you know, if he looks right in spring, there's a good chance that he's going to be. going to just be Verlander this year and just be a tremendous value. My worst teams, Chris, are the ones where I am struggling big time with pitching. And on all of those teams, I do not have any of these players, Ocantra, McClanahan, and Verlander. And they were players that I liked, and I just didn't wind up with them enough. And I feel like this is something I tell myself every single year. And it's, it's tough because, you know, during draft season, I'm listening to you, I'm listening to Scott. I'm listening to other analysts and following

people on Twitter and you know there's a lot of smart people out there and I you know I kind of want to challenge myself but at the same time it's like you know we had this job for a reason I think that we're like pretty good at analyzing players and figuring out you know who's who might be good and who might be not so good so I think I say the same thing every year but just kind of trusting your own analysis and your feel yeah I always that's that's one though that I always I always worry you fall into and I don't mean you specifically but the the royal you you know, all of us, it's easy to fall into like the hindsight bias or selection bias or whatever you want to call it of like, yeah, that that would have worked out with Sandy and McClanahan. But we were also super high on Charlie Morton like we've already mentioned.

Correct. And we were all, you know, super high on. I'm trying to think of some other. I'm sure there were other. I mean, Shamanai is a guy that you mentioned. And those were guys where, you know, your gut told you one thing and it ended up being wrong. It's to balance that. I will say, like, a good example for me would be I ended up just really buying into Kevin Gosman.

I thought I was going to be skeptical of him. And then I ended up seeing his price. And it was like, oh, SP 18 or whatever in drafts, well, he was really good last year. I know he's struggled a little bit in the second half, but for the most part, he seemed to have figured it out. And, you know, aside from this ankle thing, he's been really good this season. There was a little bit of a stretch where he wasn't great,

but for the most part, Kevin Gosman has lived up to expectations. And that was one that worked out for me, but I've got a lot of Charlie Morton. Who was the other one? Oh, Carlos Rodon is another one where, you know, he was one we just if we if he was healthy and he looked you know and he was throwing with the velocity that he did last year he was probably going to be pretty good and that's turned out to be correct as well on the other side of that jacob de grom who jumped into the first round for

like two weeks when he came out in spring training and was throwing 101 miles an hour and looked like himself you know that was one where a lot of people trusted their gut or whatever however you want to define it and it ended up burning them because what you see in spring training can deceive you especially when it comes to injury because it's not it's not just a question of is jacob de grom currently healthy it's a question of can jacob de grom stay healthy and the answer to one of those questions was yes the answer to the other one was no and there was no way of knowing at the time it was just that the answer to the first question didn't prove the second one. And I think we acted like it did to a certain extent.

I think the real lesson here is that fantasy baseball is hard, right? Because baseball's not random, but fantasy baseball to a certain extent is very random. Things just happen sometimes. We use the word variance a lot. I mean, you can hit the ball 120 miles per hour and it could be an out and you can hit the ball at 60 miles per hour and it could be a bloop single, right? This is something that I think about a lot with like the, the frustrated emails we get about Juan Soto or Vladimir Guerrera or Ronald Acuna where people like almost get upset when we say, I understand why you're frustrated with Juan Soto, but we think he's going to be fine. We think, you know, you look at the numbers, you look at everything that he's doing,

he's probably going to be himself moving forward. And if that doesn't happen, we'll get another email a week later and a week later. And it, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, natural tendency, I think, to get frustrated by that. And people don't like to hear that, like, hey, this bad thing that's happening to you. And, like, that's a dramatic way of saying that your fantasy team is slightly underperforming. But, like, this thing that is happening to you, it's not happening for a reason. That's frustrating to hear. Like, if your team is struggling because you drafted Juan Soto and Charlie Morton and we keep telling you, I don't know what to say, but I think they're going to be fine moving forward and then that doesn't happen. It's like you want a reason

for why Juan Soto's struggling. And if there isn't one, you're going to try to come up with one because an explanation. You know, humans don't, we don't do well with random acts of nature. And Juan Soto or Corey Seeger having a Babbat 90 points lower than his career can be described in certain terms as an act of God. And, you know, hopefully it'll work out moving forward. But sometimes things just happen. Sometimes it do just be like that. Especially in fantasy baseball.

Let's wrap up with a conversation on Roto. I've noticed the leagues that I'm lower in the standings, it's the rate stats, Chris, where I'm really hurting batting average, ERA, WIP, and I think I want to make this more of an emphasis moving forward. But it's a little bit harder to say with ERA and WIP. because, I mean, you just got a hit on the right pitchers. There's no way to say like, I want to improve my ERA and whip next year outside of just maybe investing

earlier round picks in pitching or, you know, getting lucky in your analysis or whatever it might be. Not lucky, but you know what I mean. Batting average is something, you know, maybe you can control a little bit more. You target higher line drive hitters, whatever it might be, players who have a track record of hitting for a better batting average.

And specifically, the problem, Chris, is that if you fall behind, in those categories at this time of season, it's so hard to move up. It's harder than to move up in the volume statistics, like, you know, home runs or steals or saves or anything like that, because you can either, you can find someone

on the waiver wire, or you can make a trade, and you can move, those are bunched up a little bit more where you can move up easily. The rate stats are much, much harder. So I think I just want to put more emphasis on those moving forward in Roto. Yeah, that's always tough, though, because those are the stats,

particular ERA and batting average, that we know are hardest to predict. You know, I mean, counting stats are hard to predict because they're a result of playing time as much as anything, but it's like, it's not that hard to predict,

you know, per play to parents, how many RBI X hitter is going to have. You know, that's a function of their production and their lineup spot and a bunch of other things. But batting average is like,

how good is he at avoiding strikeouts. How good is he turning balls into play into hits? And then we know that one season all kind, there's a, you know, a 60 point variant swing between most players batting average in any given season. And so it's, that's a really hard one. And I will admit that those are probably the categories that I neglect to in, in my analysis because of that. Because it's just, it's harder to know, hey, this is a good batting average team. Hey, this is a bad batting average team. And that is, you know, to a certain extent, a flaw that I probably have. Like I, my best league is the Memorial Magazine League where I've got like Alessro Kirk

and Manny Machado have been like carrying my batting average. And I could have expected both of those guys to be pretty good hitters, but to have both of them 300 more than halfway through the season. I don't know if I necessarily expected that. So it's tough. It's really tough to manage the rate stats because if, if Manny Machado hits 255 the rest of the season, I wouldn't really be surprised.

And he's hitting 305 right now. You know, that would just be like, yeah, that happens sometimes. Like Manny Machado is probably a 280-ish true average hitter. And sometimes those guys will just hit 255. and sometimes they'll hit 305. And that's hard for me as a lesson. But yeah, I think it's harder to make those up because the more innings that you accumulate,

the more at bats you accumulate over the course of the season, the less each new hit, the less each new earned run changes your overall number. So those numbers start to get set in stone a lot quicker and you need more and more and more to make up. There's nothing more frustrated. and it's happened to me recently where I'll have three great starts in a day. 21 endings pitched, one earned run, 20 strikeouts, and you don't move up in the standings.

But you just don't move up in the standings because like it's so hard to catch the next person in ERA in a Roto league. It's just it's frustrating. You need like a streak of, you know, a couple of weeks where your team is just really, really dominant in pitching. And then, you know, then you can maybe move up a couple of spots. But it's it's really, really tough. I will say, I think WIP is probably. the one that you could be most cognizant of when drafting or even in season. Because, I mean, we know guys like Luis Castillo and Dylan C's, they're always going to have bad whips. They just

walk too many batters. But, you know, maybe for every Dylan Cs you draft, you look for a Tristan McKenzie later on, someone who has excelled in the whip category so far in his career. And it's just, you know, that's something I think you want to play a little bit of a balancing act. So if you, you know, you take Cesar Castillo, you kind of balance it out. Speaking of Roto, we had a few people, you know, sent out a tweet asking what people want to hear about throughout the All-Star Week, and they were asking how to manage your categories in Roto down the stretch. And this is kind of a lot of what we're talking about right now.

And I think it's a really, really tough question. But to me, the best answer is if you're trying to move up in other categories, if you play in a league with trading specifically, you kind of want to move out of a position of strength. Maybe, you know, one of these rate statistics, if you rank highly in batting average, or ERA and WIP, because we just talked about

it's not easy to move up or move down in those. And trying to find categories where you can move up the quickest, saves, steals, home runs. Those are, to me, Chris, the categories that are bunched together most. So if you get some, you know, Marcel Ozuna who goes off and just hits 20 home runs in the second half, like that's something that can legitimately move you up, you know, three, four spots in the standings

over the second half of the season. So does that make sense to you? Is that something that you could see yourself doing, like trading out a position of strength, and trying to move up in a category, which is more bunched up together than usual. Yeah, I think that's kind of the obvious answer. If you're, you know, if you've built up a nice lead,

like I was talking about my Tout Wars team where I'm really bad in saves plus holds, well, that might be one that's pretty easy to make up ground in because one, there's just like saves in general and saves plus holds to a lesser extent. There's just fewer of those in the league. And so it takes fewer

to make up and you know if you've been focusing on counting stats in you know strikeouts and wins and you've been focusing on starters well having a few weeks where you just throw a bunch of relievers into your lineup can help you make up that ground so it does depend

on what the category is too it's going to be a lot harder to do that with runs and rBI and it's going to be a lot harder to do that with strikeouts because there are so many of those around in the league that you're going to be you're just going to be trying to make up huge chunks. I mean, I'm trying to see, like, in my Tout Wars League, I'm in sixth place and runs with 536,

and second place is 563. So that would require, what, 30-something runs to be made up over the rest of the season to get to second place. Whereas stolen bases, I'm in sixth place with 60, and second place has 74. You know, that gap is just going to be, it's a smaller gap to make up. So there's, there's, if you get the right guy, you know, that's the kind of thing where like a John Bertie would have just made that gap up by himself. Yeah.

It's going to be harder to find a guy who can make up 30 runs over the course of the season over a replacement level player. So, you know, that's saves are similar like that where the gap between sixth place and second place right now is eight. So like one guy, you know, I think we talked about the, Stanley Jansons missed what, two weeks for the Braves as we're speaking. And he's expected to be back before the All-Star break. They've had, I think, seven save opportunities in that stretch because the Braves have just been awesome. And Jorge Lopez is another guy who's got 19 saves.

He's had a bunch of saves recently. He's been kind of under-rastered all year. But he's racked up a lot of saves lately. And if you have Jorge Lopez, you've probably moved up a decent amount in saves in the last couple of weeks. And I think your point, Chris, about you can kind of change the complexion of what kind of pitchers you start. I think it's a really good one because there's not really anything that you could do like that on offense, right? So, you know, in Roto, you could, I think most people traditionally, six starters and three relievers in their starting lineup, or seven and two, something like that.

You can change that up over the, you know, final couple of weeks, final months, and see, you know, if you're chasing saves, starting four relievers or five relievers instead and trying to make up ground that way as well. I think that's a good point and it's a really unique one specifically for Roto as well. Chris, I know you wanted to mention some things with like the ball change and environment and and just overall lessons that you've learned from that in the first half. You are muted, sir. Yeah, it's going to be really important over the next few seasons to you know, assuming that they don't change like the environment where the balls are stored and the relative humidity and all these things that we've talked about that like you're probably

annoyed about how much time we've spent talking about them, but we have been like such an important factor this season is the offensive environment that we're playing in. And, you know, you can see that in the monthly splits. In the month of April, the average ISO in baseball was 137. In the month of June, it was 164. The average Wobo was 299. In the month of April, or in the month of June, it's 317, or it was 317. So, like, Like, these changes are really significant. If you remember back to the way we were reacting to things in April, I think it's clear now that we overreacted.

But when we were in the moment, it was hard not to because it looked like this dramatic, dramatic change in the way that baseball was being played and was going to be played. You know, the home run to fly ball ratio in April is 10%. which was, I mean, by far lower than we'd seen in recent years. I think in, what was it? 2019, it was up to 14 or 15%. Like, that's just a mad. That's a 50% increase in how often home runs,

fly balls are being turned into home runs. That is a dramatic change in the way that the game is going to play. And now it looks like that was a little bit of an overreaction. We've kind of settled in right around 12% over the, the past two months in June and July. And I think that's a result of the offensive environment changing because of the weather changing. It's warmer. The ball's traveling further. The differences between the relative humidity that the balls are stored in and the humidity where the game is being played has changed. And if that continues to be the case, we're just going to have to get

used to offense being behind pitching in the first month of the season especially because the ball is not going to travel as far. And maybe teams will start to adjust because that's what what baseball wants. They want a more contact oriented, action oriented game. Major League Baseball wants more singles. They want more, you know, fewer strikeouts, fewer walks, more singles, more stolen bases, fewer home runs. And that's how they're going about trying to get this. And we're just going to have to, I don't know, maybe they'll keep tweaking. You know, we know rule changes are coming. We know, I think the bases rule is changing next year. I think they are going to have the large bases in major league baseball next year. I think that's one of the ones that they've confirmed.

We know a pitch clock's coming at some point. We can assume that they're going to have some rules limiting like pickoff throws. That's one that's in the minors right now. And so the environment is going to continue to change. And we're going to have to react to that, but not overreact. And I think next March and next April, it's going to be important to remind yourself that when your offense looks like crap, it might not necessarily be that for the rest of the season. And to maybe take advantage of that. You know, sell some of those fast starting pitchers for slow starting hitters is a potential way to take advantage if not everybody that you play with is as tuned in as you are. Yeah, stream all the Brad Keller's and Madison

Bumgarner's in April as you possibly can. And then buy low on pitchers after the first month whoever might be struggling and you know um hitters yeah yeah bylaw on hitters that after the first month uh i look forward to talking about you know which which hitters are going to be affected most by um the band shift chris because i'm sure we're going to get a bunch of questions about that and actually i saw today they're they're experimenting with a rule i think in the florida state league uh starting in a couple of days where the shift band currently is you have to be on one side of the back the way it's going to work in the Florida State League in the second half of the season, I think it's the Florida State League.

It's one of the low A, one of the A ball leagues, is there's going to be an image, a chalk line from the first base line or the line from first to second base out through the end of the outfield grass and the same for the second to third baseline. Those lines are going to extend to the outfield grass and you're going to have to be on the inside of those lines. you're not going to be so if you want to shift over closer to the bag you're going to have to stand next to the bag you're not going to be able to do it close to the outfield got you and so that's an interesting wrinkle to the shift ban if I'm explained I hope I'm explaining that right yeah yeah yeah like that that is going to be really interesting to see how it impacts offense as a whole you know we're talking about relatively small sample like we're talking about probably only a couple of points in Babib, but that's going to be distributed unevenly throughout the league. And there are

going to be some hitters who are much more impacted than others. And so it's exciting if you're a baseball nerd. It's frustrating if you're a fantasy player because unknowns are killer. You know, we want to know as much as possible. And the last few years in baseball, we've known less than ever, you know, going into any given season and even during any given season because of rule changes and ball changes and all this stuff. So it's fascinating and frustrating. You know nothing, Chris, no, and I will join you on this journey of knowing nothing

and we'll do it together. Let's take a break, but before we do that, just want to remind you that if you are listening on Spotify, help us out and give us a five-star rating there. If you listen on Apple, that would be great as well. Five-star rating, drop a question in the review. We do really appreciate it. We'll take a break and we'll be back right after this.

All right, so let's move into second-half breakouts. And the way this is going to work, We're going to use first half breakout archetypes to try and predict second half breakouts. Now, this is obviously no kind of scientific formula. I just think it's kind of fun to figure out who broke out in the first half and see if we could find similar players that kind of fit that mold here entering the second half.

And Chris will start with hitters. And one of the biggest breakout hitters this season has been Dansby Swanson. And the archetype that I kind of built for him was obviously had prospect pedigree. He flashed in the past, you know, he's had some good offensive seasons, not, you know, superstar caliber like we're seeing this year. And he's in a contract year. So this is pretty tough because, you know, these are a few different moving parts here.

You don't have to fit all of them. But is there a player maybe that comes to mind that you'd be looking to buy on entering the second half that is kind of Dansby-Swanson-esque? Yeah, like the future, the contract player thing is harder. I would have to look up a list of players who are, contract years but like the has pedigree and has flashed in the past one name that came to mind was hazoo sanchez who i know you like coming into the season and it's been a a bit of a rough go for him since a hot start but like he honestly has some skills he obviously has like the ability to hit the ball very hard he you know when he pulls the ball in the air especially the ball tends to

go really far so he's someone i would think of kubrienne hayes i i've been higher on than his performance pretty much all season um it is nice to see he's on basically a 20 steel pace and I think he's going to be a good source of batting average moving forward he's someone who has definitely flashed obviously not in a contract year he's you know very early on in his contract but I think there's room for him to to play better and Jesse Winker is another one again not sure if it's a contract year he's probably pretty close though and has just not been the guy we thought he would and I think there's reasons for that but I think there are also reasons to believe that he can be a lot better moving forward.

Brian Hayes, man, you got to raise the launch angle. That's the biggest thing for him. He just hits so many ground balls. He hits the ball hard and he's very fast. And he makes a good amount of contact. Like there's a player there for sure. We know he's great defensively, which doesn't matter much for fantasy. But, you know, if he ever just learned to raise it a little bit, line drives, a few more fly balls,

we could be looking at, you know, a 15 to 20 home run hitter, 15 to 20 steals, which, you know, it's not amazing, but it's, it's a pretty valuable player. Jesse Winker, by the way, has one more year on his contract and will be a free agent in 2024, but I think he does fit this mold as well. And let's just stick with the Mariners

because I found one that fits all three. And it's Mitch Hanigar. Not that he was a great prospect. He didn't have like this tremendous pedigree, but you know, he was a prospect-ish of note. And he's flashed in the past and he is in a contract year. He's missed the past like three months due to an ankle injury.

He's not going to be ready to go. to start the second half. But later on in July, maybe you get them for the final two months, August, September. We've seen Mitch Hanager have some pretty big seasons in the past and would not surprise me if, you know, with the weather hot in the middle of the summer,

you know, Hanager just comes out and has, you know, like 15 home runs over the final two months and trying to get a payday here. I think it makes sense to maybe target him and, you know, five outfieler league, something like that on the cheap. Oh, and Joey Gallo. Oh, no.

Come on, Chris. Stop. You know, I saw his name and I'm like, he does fit this mold, but no. No, just can't do it. He's either going to be traded or like TFA'd and he'll wind up on a team somewhere. I don't think he'll be playing with the Yankees

in the second half, but who knows? New York has this weird thing that happens to players where, you know, sometimes it just doesn't work out here and they go somewhere else. Only in New York. I appreciate the accent, by the way. Julio Rodriguez.

Very obviously, one of the top prospects in the game. I don't think, uh, even his biggest supporters could have seen the season that he is having, what he's doing so far this season. But this one's pretty obvious, Chris. Is there a prospect or two that you think can take off in the second half that you'd be looking to buy? Yeah, so I was actually just looking at the free agents in one of my leagues

because I had a roster spot and Jared Kalinick's still out there. Obviously, I think there are real reasons why he struggled beyond just like, oh, he's young and it's a small sample size. He's really struggled with breaking balls in particular. And I'm not sure if he's fixed that in the minors, even though he is, you know, I believe still hitting pretty well in the minor. So I'm looking up his numbers right now. Yeah, he's got 966 OPS and AAA.

So, you know, still striking out too much. That remains a concern for him. But like, if you're talking about a top prospect, he's, you know, very recently was considered as good as anyone. And I think Spencer Torkelson is another one. who has had a really rough of his rookie season, but still think there's a ton of potential there for him to develop into a very good hitter. So Spencer Torkelson's another one that I think,

you know, you might be able to pick him up as a by-low at this point. I, you know, someone emailed in recently about Spencer Torkelson, and they brought up the fact that he has raised his launch angle in the month of July, and he is hitting for a higher batting average, He's got a WRC plus of 100 so far in the month of July. So a league average hitter and yeah, he's hitting more line drives more fly balls

He's hitting the ball much harder Yeah, his quality of contact marked are okay You know, he needs to be a lot better. He needs to make more contact than he has I'm not sure the strikeout rate, you know that that's one where it doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense that he's striking out as much as he does because he actually You know doesn't swing and miss all that often. So He's someone who could definitely definitely like have a moment where it just clicks and he starts to to hit the ball all over the field. I think Kellanick is a great call too. You could probably pick him up and just dash him for now.

But you know, in the month of July at AAA, he is just absolutely crushing the ball and he's not striking out much either, which frankly has been the biggest issue for Jared Kellanick. Look, the problem is like there's a lot of mouths now in Seattle. Like if Kyle Lewis returns and Mitch Hanneger returns, like I don't know where everyone's going to play, but these things have a weird way of, working themselves out. I want to stick with a tiger hitter as well prospect. Riley Green, who, so far he's been okay. I think more than anything, the plate discipline has been fantastic for him. He's walking a bunch and he's been leading off recently. But it hasn't translated to production yet. He hits the ball very hard. A lot of it has been on the ground. He's another one, a small tweak away where based on his pedigree and how hard he hits the ball and leading off, I think we could potentially see a big second half for Riley Green. And potentially just,

the entire Tigers offense, right? If he can get going and Torkelson and Javier Baez and maybe Akele-Badu, then I think that we could see a big second half from the Detroit Tigers. This next one, Chris, I'll admit, it's quite random. Brandon Drury is having a fantastic season. Frankly, All-Star snub should have got in there.

Maybe by the time you're listening to this, he got in because someone got hurt or whatever it is. But anyway, he's just kind of a random breakout. The thing that he has going for him, he has a great ballpark, a really good home ballpark, and you look at his home road splits, and he's hit great in Cincinnati,

and I think it makes a ton of sense. So is there, do you have like maybe a random name, someone who's part of a good offense or a good ballpark that you could see kind of breaking out here in the second half? Hmm. You know, I did have one,

and then it just slipped my mind. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's kind of cheap to just go with a Rockies player, but I think any of those Rockies guys, who we've hyped in the past who have been disappointing. Brendan Rogers, Ryan McMahon, Connor Joe.

It's been a frustrating season for all three of them. And especially Ryan McMahon, I think he's probably just a guy. But I also think he's probably better than he has been so far this season. He certainly was last year in 19. So I think any of those Rockies guys could absolutely put together a big second half.

And, you know, then probably be overdrafted next season. I've got an outfit. fielder that is less than 70% roster right now on CBS leagues. And his name is Hunter Renfro. And he's coming off a great year last year with the Boston Red Sox. He was traded over to the Brewers. He's dealt with injuries, but he's still on pace for 35 home runs, over 150 games. So you look for someone who's part of a good offense and a good ballpark who hasn't

necessarily lived up to expectations or done anything amazing yet. And Hunter Renfro is one that I would either look to add or, trade for in a deeper five outfielder league. I think he kind of fits this archetype. I'm going to kind of double down with the Rockies with you, Chris, and one of their prospects, he's been called up a few times. He hasn't really gotten an opportunity to play every day.

L.A. Huris Montero, just a name to watch in deeper leagues. He's having a great season in the minors, and it's like, at this point, what are the Rockies really playing for? I think it would make sense for them to call him up and give him every day at bats and see what he could do. And obviously, in Coorsfield, I would be very excited to see what Elah Huris Montero can do.

Let's move over to the pitchers. The biggest breakouts this season, Shane O'Mac. You know the deal. Shane McClainahan, I mean, this one's pretty easy, Chris. He was a top pitching prospect, absolutely nasty stuff. Some people had concerns about the quality of contact that he allowed. I'm not going to say any names or point any fingers. but when it comes to McClanahan, yeah, it's I think this one kind of, you know, it's pretty obvious.

Do you have a prospect or someone with nasty stuff that you could see breaking out in the second half? Yeah, I mean, I think Shane Boss is the most obvious one that comes to mind. I think you could throw Dylan Cis in there with Shane McClanahan as one of those examples that he hasn't been quite as good. But, you know, similar situation. But I think Shane Boz is the one that that definitely. definitely first came to mine. And then I would throw out, you know, Max Meyer. I think he's definitely going to get an opportunity with the Marlins. He's shown really good stuff in the miners. And, you know, that's sort of a different answer or a different question than what you asked. But, you know,

I think he's one of the guys that definitely jumps out for me. Yeah, Shane Boss for sure. And I think you could technically buy low coming off one of his worst starts of the season right now. So that's really the point of all this. Some players who might be able to add or just buy on the very cheap. So Shane Boz, I think, fits that description. And how about Tyler Mallee? I know he's on the IL now with a back injury, but he's expected back before the, or after the All-Star break. So he is 14th in the majors and strikeout rate this season. And, you know, would love to see him get traded. His numbers at home versus on the road are pretty dramatic. But he's been someone who, you know,

Last year, the second half, was really good. He's put up big strikeout numbers in the past. So Tyler Malley, you know, not quite a prospect, but someone who I think could fit this bill. Oh, Chris, I've got it for you right here. The Dodgers, they swing and miss on Luis Castillo, and instead they wind up with Tyler Malley. I mean, that'd be fun. That would be fantastic. I don't know if they trade within the division, but I feel like the Cardinals could always kind of use more pitching.

So Tyler Malley and St. Louis with a great defense behind him, I think that would be pretty awesome as well. I did want to bring up Aaron Ashby. I know he's dealt with like the forearm injury and hopefully he's okay by the time this podcast comes out. But he's got everything working for him. You know, mid-90s fastball. He's got the secondary stuff. He gets ground balls.

Control is a little questionable, but plays on a good team. Run support should be there. Good division to pitch in. I think everything is there for Aaron Ashby. And a few other reds. You know, I'm with you, Chris. You know, Hunter Green,

if he can kind of figure out his control a little bit, home run issue, the stuff is there. Nick Ladolo is another one. I think he has really, really good stuff, and you've kind of seen it in the strikeout rate so far, but not the surface level numbers, the ERA, and the whip just yet, but a few reds there along with Tyler Ballet,

I do like Hunter Green and Lodolo. I don't know if Patrick Sandoval counts, but he's been disappointing, but we've seen some really impressive flashes from him, and I think he's going to have a big second half. All right. Next one up, another one of my favorites. Sandy, O'Connor, approved it.

last year and some people just didn't really trust him. You know, he's been solid for a long time, but he really just took a step forward and something like that is, is kind of hard to predict, obviously, but somebody in this Sandy Alconso remote, Chris, that you might be looking to buy on. Yeah, he's kind of, you know, this year's version of last year's Corbyn Burns in some respects. And I think, you know, this is a harder one to find answers for because it relies, it, it requires a player who's good, but doesn't necessarily get the credit they deserve. Maybe Framber Valdez works in that regard. Maybe Logan Webb.

Yeah, Logan Webb kind of came to mind for me too. Yeah, and then, you know, I could see someone like Kyle Wright, who had a lot of hype early on in the season. He's definitely slowed down, and I don't know if he's an ace. But even with him slowing down, the overall numbers still look quite good. And I think there might be a buying opportunity. And someone that I've been very skeptical of is Nestor Cortez. And I still think people are pretty high on him.

And I'm not sure you can necessarily buy low. But he could certainly fit the bill of someone who's just this good in a way that doesn't necessarily get credit, even though I am skeptical of that. I have one, Chris that I think just kind of fits it to a T here. And it's Chris Bassett. He's been criminally undervalued the past couple of years. the surface level numbers are not great because he had a few blowups, but, you know,

the X-FIP, the Sierra, the XERA, those are all much better. And he's over a strikeout for ending two seasons in a row, swinging strike rate up a little bit from where he's been at. And pitches for a good team right there in the middle of the NL East race. I think there's a lot to like with Chris Bass.

You know, you're not going to buy low on him because whoever has him probably, you know, values him a good amount. But he's just a buy in general. and maybe he just kind of takes off and has a big second half. So I do like Chris Bassett. Yeah, he's good at everything.

You know, it's kind of one of those guys where he doesn't have like a standout skill. And I think that, you know, the way he goes about it is different than Sandy. But Sandy's kind of like that too. Like he doesn't get the huge strikeout numbers. He doesn't necessarily like he has the wipeout stuff, but he's not Shane McClanahan.

But he's just really good at everything. in a way that, you know, because the strikeout numbers on particular don't impress, he's probably ended up being a little undervalued. All right. Let's wrap up with Tony Gonslin, the Catman. Chris, I mean, I thought you were the Catman, but apparently Tony Gonslin kind of stole that one away from you. I don't know that nickname for him, but I'm glad cats are great. He just loves cats. I've seen pictures of him, like, wearing... I mean, who...

Just wearing like cats on his shirts and on his cleats and stuff. And yeah, he just, he loves cats. You love cats, I love cats. We all love cats. So let's support Tony Gonsland and try and find someone in his mold. I mean, he's always been good. He's, you know, he was a great pitcher coming into this season. He just hasn't really been able to stay healthy and put it all together.

And, you know, be given that opportunity to be a starter for the entire season. So, Chris, I feel like this is a perfect category for you because you love these players who are like mislabeled, injury prone. but is there a pitcher that's always kind of been good that you think could stay healthy and put it together in the second half? It's tough because while I think that perception of me is correct in terms of how I view injuries, I think injury prone is probably a better label

for pitchers than it is for hitters. So that is tough, but I'll say like, oh gosh, I just blanked on the name that I was... Oh, Carlos Carrasco would be one. It's a good word. He's had trouble staying healthy. the last few years. It's been a really frustrating season for him, although I didn't realize he has nine wins, which is, you know, that's a nice consolation prize amidst his struggles that's probably

helped you out quite a bit if you've had him in your lineup. But he's one who I just, I really think if he just manages to stay healthy, I think he's going to be better than he has been so far. So yeah, Carlos Carrasco, I feel pretty good about. Chris, I have a homework assignment for you while I talk about who I think will break out in the second half. Can you eliminate his two starts against the Astros and tell me what his ERA would be without them? Because he got blown up in both of those starts.

But outside of that, I'm pretty sure he has like a mid-3s ERA or something close to that. For me, Alex Wood, I feel fits this mold to a T. You look at his entire career, he's got a mid-3s ERA, right around a strikeout per inning. He's been good whenever he has had the opportunity. Now he pitched for the Giants. It's a great venue. I think there's just a lot to like.

general with Alex Wood and it just he fits this mold perfectly just has to stay healthy stay on the field the production has been there and you know I know overall the season he hasn't been great but the underlying numbers are much much better for Alex Wood Chris do we have an answer for Carlos Carrasman 375 375 all right it's not amazing but it's viable he had like a really bad four or five yeah four you could extend it to like a seven-start stretch he's just had like four bad starts basically And, you know, those still count, unfortunately.

He had the 1-8 earned run start back in April against the Cardinals as well. But yeah, it's been frustrating for Carlos Carrasco, but I still think there's a lot to like there. All right. Those are some players you should be looking to buy or add right now for breaking out in the second half. And we're going to wrap there for Chris.

I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching. Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.