Fantasy Baseball Today - First Pitch Arizona Recap! Statistical Trends & Ranking Pitchers (11/5 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

The World Series is over and we're officially into the offseason (2:50). ... What did Chris learn out at First Pitch Arizona (9:15)? ... Bryce Miller's season really took off once he started using a knuckle curve (18:15). ... Where is the industry ranking Jacob deGrom, pitcher Shohei Ohtani and Shane McClanahan (23:53)? ... Paul Skenes and Garrett Crochet were big risers in Stuff+ (30:20). ... Cole Ragans didn't face the White Sox at all this year (39:47). ... News (46:35): Michael Wacha is back with the Royals. ... Which big names had their option picked up (52:25)? ... Which options were declined (1:01:00)? ... 13 players received the qualifying offer but will any accept (1:05:52)?  Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome 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 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 league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. The 2020, 2020, 2020, baseball season is officially over.

Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, November 5th, And welcome to the off season. I am Frank Staple, joined by Chris Towers, no Scott White this week, getting some well-deserved time off. Today on the show, we're taking a break from our position recaps because a lot has happened since we last recorded, which was last Tuesday night. So the World Series has ended.

The Dodgers are World Series champs, which means the Yankees are losers, of course. Chris went out to first pitch, Arizona, and the off season is up and running. We had some options, exercise, and declined. We have qualifying offers. A trade was made, and we will take a look at some of the big name free agents this offseason, kind of a, I don't know, mini offseason primer, if you will. But let's just start with the World Series, Chris, because I would assume baseball fans everywhere

are rejoicing because the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in five games. Congrats to the Dodgers and their fans. I mean, this series was a microcosm of the Yankee season. I mean, how many times did I tweet it out or come into our stream yard room angry because the Yankees are kicking the ball around or running the bases terribly? And that's exactly what we saw in the World Series. I tweeted something. I think it was after Anthony Volpe's ridiculous base running blunder in game four, which he made up for.

He actually had a very good series and a very good postseason overall. And I think there's a lot of interesting things to talk about with him if we want to at some point. But it was after that one where I think he was on second and he didn't score on a double off the wall. And I just tweeted, the Yankees are not a serious team. And then they went on to win that game and very comfortably. And I was like, uh-oh, am I going to look like now. They went on to prove me right in pretty dramatic fashion in game five. And I don't know, they're one of the two or three best teams in baseball.

And I think a lot of people are acting like the Yankees were never good. And that's clearly not true. But yeah, there's just there's some, there's some dumbness on that team. There's just like they do dumb things with alarming regularity. And by the way, I want to go back to one thing real quick. You're a little blunder at the beginning of the show where you said 20, 2020. I wanted to make a joke about how we, that's, that's a Jimmy Rollins. the 2020 season.

Only half right. You know, there were two guys in the 2007 season to have 20 home runs, 20 stolen bases, and 20 triples. I was going to ask what the other 20 was. Triples. Triples. Triples is best. Who else did it?

And Curtis Granderson. The Gradyman came. The only two guys since Willie Mays in 1957 to have 20 home runs, 20 steals and 20 triples in a season. and they both did it in 2007. That's weird. All right, that's all. We can go back to the Yankees.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny how, like, we come away from the World Series and we're just talking about how bad the Yankees were, and they were. I mean, but the Dodgers took advantage. Obviously, they are a season team. They've kind of been there, done that, and I don't know. It just kind of felt that way all around. I don't know if maybe the moment was a little bit too big for the Yankees. It felt like Aaron Boone had some questionable managerial decisions.

and again, like, that fifth inning of game five was just a comedy of errors. It's just Aaron Judge, who hadn't made an error all season long, drops a routine fly ball. It's right in, yeah, just right in his glove. A bad throw from Volpe to third base. He's a gold glove shortstop. And then obviously, like the Rizzo, like,

Garrett Cole, not covering. Although I saw some, like, you know, people trying to defend that. Either way. Yeah, like, it would have been close, but, like, there was spin on the ball. So, I don't know. I think you could defend that one a little bit more.

I think it was more. It was more a Garrett Cole play than an Anthony Rizzo play, I think. Yeah. But I don't think they were particularly likely to get the out either way. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, as a fan, one of the most frustrating series I've ever watched in my life. And yeah, I mean, it almost feels like the Yankees didn't, like the Dodgers didn't win the series. The Yankees lost it, although that kind of feels like I'm not giving the Dodgers credit.

It's just like I wanted to see more games. And it just felt like we were kind of robbed of seeing more baseball. But ultimately, you know, talent over fundamentals, I guess, is kind of this Yankee season mantra. But shout out to the Dodgers, they took advantage. And congrats to their fans. You guys are World Series champions and can't take that away. So here we are. We're into the offseason, Chris.

You went out to first pitch, Arizona. Your first time there? Yeah. How was it? It was super fun, man. That big thanks to Brent and Ray and all the guys at Baseball H. H.Q for putting together. It's a super fun event.

very, very fantasy focused. And yeah, if you want to meet a bunch of very cool people and talk fantasy baseball for a weekend and go see a game and order Waterburger for breakfast two days in a row like I did when I was out there, you can do that. Did you get out to Henhouse at all? They went, everyone went like the Sunday morning and I did not fall asleep until about four.

And I did not wake up in time to get out there, unfortunately. So I, and then my flight got delayed on Sunday. Then traveling west to east just ruins your whole day because you lose the hours going back. So yeah, that, that's the leaving was the worst part. Let me tell you. Look, I didn't get out there this year and obviously, you know, super bummed and obviously FOMO just seeing all like the videos and the pictures and people playing with a ball and everyone's out at the games and all this stuff and panels and live podcasts. So I cannot.

I met Welsh in person for the first time ever. He's tall, right? Very tight. I knew he was tall. He gives off tall guy vibes. But we only hung out for a couple of minutes, unfortunately. So that's another reason I have to get back out there next year. Look, just highly, highly recommend. If anyone's ever been on the fence about going to this event, just go. Just make a weekend out of it. It's, yeah, it is. just a tremendous time from, you know, just everyone is there for like the same reasons, tight-knit fantasy baseball industry, you know, everyone's catching up, having drinks, eating good food, and then obviously the panels and the live podcast, as I mentioned,

and getting out to games. It's just, it's a really cool, just kind of like culmination of like the end of the fantasy baseball season and then kind of the start of the offseason. And everyone's just kind of starting to think about the next year as well. So it's just a really cool event. Kind of. There were like a dozen draft. during it as well.

Yeah, and I had so much FOMO that I jumped in an early draft myself because I just couldn't help myself. Anyway, we're going to talk about some of the things you learned while you were out there, and then we'll get into some of this off-season stuff. Again, all those options happening, and there was a trade between the Braves and the Angels.

But let's start off with this first thing that you learn from a panel between Jason Colette and Joe O'Rico. We're going to reference lots of analysts today and what you learn from those guys. Anyone that I mentioned, feel free to follow them because they're obviously great people here. They were doing a panel on 2024 statistical trends, and they noted that you can usually tell

what direction the offensive environment will be for the entire season based on trends from the first 10 to 15 games. So I went back, and I just kind of back tested this just the past three years to kind of measure the accuracy. And so I looked through April 15th. I looked at batting average OPS, ISO, So home run to fly ball rate.

And then I also looked what it was by season's end. And it's pretty accurate. The differences are like negligible. Obviously home run to fly ball rate does jump up a little bit throughout the course of the season because the weather heats up and the ball flies out and all that. But it would jump for maybe, for example, like 11% in the first 15 days to 11.6% by the end of the season.

So it's a little bit of a jump, but nothing crazy. And that's the key. We're talking about, because we talk about, lot how offense is down in April. And it always has been the addition of the humidor seems to have exacerbated that trend over the past couple of seasons to where there's even more of a distinction between the cold weather month and the warm weather months of the season. But it's the trend. Right. If offense is down 10 days into the season, that probably means offense is going to be down that year. Yeah. And that's exactly what I was going to get at. Just how do we kind of

bring this into the fantasy baseball scope, right? And it kind of sucks because it doesn't really help us before the season when trying to figure out our draft strategy and, okay, do I need more offense this year? Do I need more pitching? But if you really pay attention to those first couple of weeks and you notice that offense is up in general, then that should tell you that, A, you're going to need more offense to compete and, B, high-end pitching is going to be more scarce. It's going to be harder to come by.

And the inverse of that, obviously, if offense looks down the first couple weeks of the season. So I would say just remember this and maybe take advantage early on. Like if you really think it's going to be a better offensive environment, just try and buy super low on Francisco Lindor when he has a bad first month. Or again, the inverse, if you think you're going to need more pitching, just go out and maybe trade for like a struggling ace early on in the season. So that was my biggest takeaway for that. Yeah.

And hopefully people listen to this podcast specifically know by now that Francisco Lindor having a bad April means nothing. Except that he's not going to put up the numbers you want in April, but the numbers will be there at the end. Don't be the person trading Francis Gillendor. But yeah, I think it's an early indicator of what kind of environment we're going to be looking at. And it's an opportunity to not we're not saying like, oh, just buy guys who get off to bad start or good starts or, you know, whatever. Like it's your your opinion of players shouldn't change 10 to 15 days into this. season. But if you went into 2024 expecting offense to look like it did in

2023, the first 10 to 15 days of the season told us, no, this is a down year for offense. This is going to be a year where pitching is easier to find and power specifically is not. And that is the way that you can use that early on and, you know, try to try to take advantage of those early trends before people really notice them. So I thought that was an interesting point that they brought up. Yeah, 100%. It's, I feel like whenever we talk about April offense, we kind of almost exaggerate how bad it is.

But I think kind of the way the season works out is April is pretty bad for offense. And then May picks up a little bit. And then maybe you kind of see things June, July, kind of like balloon. And then August, September, it comes back down. So like everything kind of evens out, you know, by the end of the season. But yeah, just, I thought it stood out to me as well. One thing that was a real point of discussion throughout that I don't think we were going to get to in this show is the, and you asked me about whether Derek Cardi was there because he's one of the, one of the smartest and most scientifically founded analysts in baseball. And specifically one thing that he's been really good at the last few years is identifying and projecting changes in offensive environment based on the environment that the environment that the game.

games are going to be played in. So when the humidor was introduced, he had some really good stuff about how that was likely to impact based on environment. And we're going to have two of the 30 major league teams in 2025 playing in different parks in completely different environments. And specifically, you know, we don't know where Tampa is going to play and what that's going to mean. But Oakland is going from what has been a pretty extreme pitching environment to Sacramento, which is a a minorly park. It's hot in Sacramento, much, much warmer than it is in Oakland generally. And that could, you know, when we talk about changes, the A's, I think, play like nine of their first 15 at home. So we should be able to learn at least, maybe a little something then.

We should, yeah, we should get a pretty good. And I'm hopeful that, you know, there's a lot of things that are changing about that park from when it's been a and will continue to be a AAA park. I think there's going to be a AAA team playing there, right? That I'm actually not sure. They're taking out the artificial turf and installing grass and they're doing some construction to the park that could change things, but we should know how that's going to play. But also just those are confounding variables when comparing 2025 to 2024 that we'll have to keep in mind is it's only one park out of 30 or,

two parks out of 30 with Tampa, but that will make the one-to-one comparisons a little different. I think, yeah, we could see more offense out of the Oakland A's, and I know steamer projections just came out. Lawrence Butler to the moon, baby. Lawrence Butler, top 20 outfielder projected by steamer right now, which is just tremendous. Get in drafts now while you can before that price tag gets out of control on Lawrence Butler. A bunch of other things to talk about from your trip out to first pitch Arizona. Just want to quickly mention that we got to interview Ryan Howard last week, like former Philly Great, and I didn't really get a chance to promote it

because it was just like kind of sprung on us, like, you know, out of nowhere. Not out of nowhere, but like, you know, I just didn't really have enough time to promote it. But it was a great interview. Ryan Howard was awesome. He talked about clutch hitting in the World Series. What happened with the Phillies this year? Juan Soto landing spots this offseason, MLB rule changes that he would like to see and more. So make sure to go back and check that out.

You can listen, you could watch on demand as well. And speaking of watching, if you are watching right now on YouTube, you'll notice my background looks a little bit different. Yeah, experimenting here, trying some different things out. I got these colorful lights behind me, so, you know, you show up every day and it looks a little bit different. That's the reason why. Let's take our first break when we return.

What else did Chris learn out at first pitch, Arizona? We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. What did Chris learn out at first pitch, Arizona? Well, next up, Bryce Miller introduced a knuckle curve mid-season that helped propel propel his breakout. He also had a 30% strikeout rate at home compared to 18% on the road. And that was from a pitcher panel that you did with

Nick Pollack, Alex Chamberlain, and Paul Spoor, which that's quite the quartet you think. It was a good group. It was a little intimidating, you know. Those guys are, hey, you too. Some smart dudes and me. No, no, no, no. So the first start that I noticed Bryce Miller started during his knuckle curve, at least to according to Fangraphs game logs was June 29th.

And over his final 15 starts a 194 ERA, a 0.91 whip, right around a strikeout per inning, a 25% strikeout rate, 113 stuff plus. And that note about his home road splits, I don't think it's really surprising either, although it is drastic. Team Mobile Park in Seattle has the highest strikeout park factor of any park in baseball.

And I guess that was just exaggerated here for Bryce Miller. Yeah, that was another big topic of conversation at first Percergone is just, how extreme Seattle's pitching environment seems to have become. And, you know, I know, um, you know, Saras is pretty excited. Did Jorge Polanco, is he a free agent? Did they pick up that option? No, yeah, that, that was declined.

He's a free agent. Okay. So, yeah, that, that's one that I know he's really excited about Jorge Polanco, getting out of Seattle and, and hopefully being able to take advantage of a much better offensive environment. And, yeah, Seattle, it's a big park, obviously. think we've always known that, but there are environmental factors that makes Seattle a better pitching park. But also, I think we're starting to understand a little better that park factors aren't just how the ball travels or how big the fences are.

It's how do guys see the ball? And there are some parks where hitters seem to see the ball really. Kansas City is an example of a park that we talked a lot about it this year. It is a really big park, but it plays well for offense because hitters just seem to see the ball really well and strikeout rates go down there. And Seattle has the opposite. It's one of the most extreme parks and baseball for strikeout rate. And certainly the Mariners rotation takes advantage of it. Miller, I struggle with him because, look, if he's back in Seattle, I think he's probably going to remain really good.

but the the cop I made on him during the panel was you know the X-Men character Darwin I do he's a somewhat low he was in first class I think he's the he's the guy who like his his power is just he evolves to whatever the situation requires of him to survive okay right like he you know he goes underwater and he grows gills that kind of thing and that's kind of been Bryce Miller's thing in the majors. Like remember he had that amazing, I think six starts with an ERA below one to open his career. And he was starting like 85% fastballs.

And he talked about like, I don't need anything but the fastball. So why would I throw it? And as the season went on, he got hit harder. He starts introducing a change up and a sweeper and a slider. And he's talked about how he just hasn't figured out how to throw those pitches out of the same arm slot as his fastball. So like the slider and sweeper especially, look good. Like the stuff metrics love them.

And batters just don't swing. They just spit on them. And so he introduces the splitter at the beginning of last season. Has a great month to start. May and June, he's really bad. If you remember, I think early on, I was like, I think Bryce Miller might be a top 40 pitcher. And then he stunk as the summer started. And we're like, well, we're back to that.

Bryce Miller's just a guy. And then the second half of the season, he's awesome. It's one of the best pitchers in baseball. I think that the curveball helps because it's, it gives him something that moves left to right that he can throw for strikes, throw out of the zone. And it, at least so far, doesn't seem to have the same issue as the slider and sweeper where hitters just don't care.

Like they can identify them too quickly and know what they're coming. So that, I think is a pretty good sign for, Bryce Miller, but then you have the home road splits that make it. Like, I think the Mariners seem almost certain to, like, this is not reporting yet, but the way their season went and the makeup of the team, it seems all but certain. They're going to trade one of the pitchers. And I think it would be borderline irresponsible if they didn't. Yeah.

And I think the preference would be Luis Castillo. He's the most expensive of them. He's the oldest. he, I would say, is pretty clearly in decline. There's some really worrying trends there, but the rest of the teams are Major League Baseball also have access to baseball savant. It's not just me.

And they can see that, yeah, that might not make a lot of sense. So, you know, if you want to go get an impact player, like you and I have talked about Jared Duran to Seattle and how that would seem to be a good fit of team needs, I don't think Luis Castillo is getting that done. It might be someone like Bryce. Miller and given the home road splits, it's concerning. Yeah, no, that's fair.

That's a really good point. On to the next thing that you learned here in first pitch Arizona, Nick Pollack and Eric Simulski both have Jacob deGrom, Shane McClanahan, Shane O'Mack, and Shohay Otani in their top eight starting pitchers from their rankings podcast recording. So for reference, Scott has Otani at SP27, Scott White. Jacob de Grom at SP 28 and Shane McClanahan at SP 42 so

wildly different rankings here early in the off season for what it's worth again I mentioned Seamer projections are out they have each of McClanahan, O'Tani and DeGrom as top 11 starting pitchers for next year and Chris you brought up a good point to me

is that all three of these guys are coming off of a second elbow surgery for McClan and DeGrom it's confirmed the second Tommy John remember O'Ton they asked him last offseason, he's like, it wasn't a Tommy John. It was something different, although. They've been cagey about it.

Yeah. I mean, maybe it was the internal bracing, but I don't think that they ever actually revealed what it was. And if you look at the history, I mean, obviously, I think Walker Bueller is fresh in our his, in our minds for coming back from a second Tommy John surgery. And I thought, yeah, he's just going to be Walker Bueller. And he wasn't. I think it's fair to say.

And though he did not did look much better in the postseason looked really good in the postseason. The stuff models were were significantly significantly better over the final two starts, especially got a ton more break on basically all of his pitches. And I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast, but he said something about how before then he was like not sure about, you know, going all out with the elbow because he was trying to make. make it to the postseason. He knew that they needed him and he knew that they needed innings.

Once he got to the World Series and I guess the NLCS, it was like, well, this is it. You know, like if I get hurt, I get hurt and we got a whole off season. So it did sound like he let go a little bit at the end.

And I don't know how sustainable that will be. But it's, I do want to point out it's not all bad news, right? Like Nathan of Aldi is an example of a guy who had a second Tommy John surgery. I post 2017, I think is when the second one was, if I'm remembering correctly. And I'll look it up. He is not only still a very effective pitcher.

I think inarguably the best stretch of his career has been post second Tommy John surgery. There have still been a lot of injury issues over the course of that time. He has made more than 25 starts twice in that stretch. in that stretch and it always feels like he's really good until he's not. But it's not all terrible news for guys coming back from second Tommy John surgeries. But yeah, like I said, if you were getting a top 10 season out of Otani, McClanahan and DeGrom and DeGrom and McClanahan especially, those would be the biggest extent.

Like those would probably be the three best seasons ever by a pitcher coming back from a second Tommy John surgery. So that that is tough. And look, I think the logic that they're going with for the most part is reasonable. Just ranked by talent. Pitchers get hurt. And trying to predict pitcher injuries or trying to predict what pitchers won't get injured is kind of a fool's errand. right. Sandy Alcantra was the model of health and consistency

right up until the point where he ruptured his ligament. So was Garikol before spring training, yeah. And so I think there's something to that. I just don't necessarily know if you can expect guys coming back

from a second Tommy John surgery to just be themselves. That's the struggle. And I think specifically more so with like with de Grom, if he's good, he's just going out there. Right? Like I, I, DeGrom is the only one of those three. If he threw 190 innings this season, I would be surprised. I would be shocked if McClanahan got there. I will go on the record and say there is zero point zero percent chance. Shohei Otani throws even

180 in a regular season. That's just like mathematically not going. to happen. I would be shocked, Chris, if any of these three got it to 180. Shocked. DeGrom has not had more than 92. I would be shocked. Yeah, I would be shocked if Jacob DeGrom stayed healthy. Yeah. So I guess I'll rephrase. Granting the caveat that Shane McClain and Jacob DeGrom and Shohei Otani stay healthy all year. I don't think that is likely to happen for any of them. If it did happen, I think Jacob deGrom could get to 180 innings pretty easily. I think it's really unlikely McClanahan does. And I, again, there's

no way even a healthy show Hayotani gets to 180 innings next season. That's my point. It's the DeGrom, I think won't. When he pitches, he'll go like six or seven consistently. Yeah, he'll go six, seven consistently and they'll, they're not going to, like there's no reason to baby him, right?

Like this is a team that they're paying him. They're paying him. They're already paying him. Like that money's locked in. So I think that's the one. But I, I had him, I think, 40th when I first did my rankings or 38th or something. So, like, clearly I need to move him. Clearly any draft I'm doing with Nick and Eric, and they do the On the Corner podcast, clearly any podcast, any draft I do with those guys, I'm not getting him.

But I understand the thought process and the logic behind it. And if you're going to just rank by talent, yeah, those guys are just about as talented as, as, anyone. And so it was interesting to see, you know, some really smart people be really, really bullish on those guys in particular. And are we talking about Garrett Crochet later? He is next up, him and Paul. Okay. There we go. So yeah, that's the next item that we have here. Eno Saris, who obviously is fantastic. He's from the Rates and Barrels podcast and the athletic. He updated his stuff plus model and Garry crochet and Paul Skeens had the biggest jumps. And arguably the two, best pitchers in baseball based on that model.

And you have in parentheses here that Nick Pollack also has Garrett Crochet as his SP3 heading into 2025. So in that mock draft we did last week, Paul Skeens went 18th overall. He was drafted as the SP2 in that draft. Overall pitching just kind of went later than I thought that it should and later than I think it will once we get to actual like 2025 drafts. And Crochet went 78th overall. the SP20.

That's wild. Yeah, and I think he lasted entirely too long. He also went 65th in that early NFBC draft that I'm doing as well. I think if you want Eric Kirchay, now is the time to be drafting him. Jumping some drafts now. Because once he gets traded,

once people realize, okay, once they dive in and they look at projections and they see this stuff plus, and they realize, all right, he's not going to be as limited as he was last year with the White Sox, like, it's just going to be like all systems. go, you know, I just think it's going to be like a rocket ship hub ADP for for Gare Crochet.

And that's another one. I think Nick brought up that crochet in September, all of a sudden started throwing a sinker that was super effective and gave him another look. And so you look at like that pretty narrow 90s velocity band that he works in for the most part. You've got the four seamer. Then you got the cutter playing off of that. And then you got the sinker playing off of that. opposite direction, all like what, 92 to 99 between those three pitches. And it's just that feels that feels like a pain to try to hit against,

especially when he's a gigantic dude who I think is 99th or 100th percentile extension and has really good shape on all of his pitches. I think, and again, you know, we mentioned Nick and the way he was approaching it and just ranking talent. I think if you're just ranking talent, you can legitimately make a. case that Garrett Crochet is right there with Terrick Scooblin and Paul Skeens as the best pitcher in baseball on a per inning basis. He was, I think, number one in K minus walk rate by like a pretty substantial margin among pitchers who threw at least 140 innings. I'm going to

pull that up right now. Yeah, he was 29.6 percent K minus walk rate. Just for some context, Dylan Seaths had the sixth highest K rate at 29.4%. Garretcher, that was his K-minus walk rate. So he led baseball on K-rate at 35.1% among pitchers with at at least 140 innings. And had an elite walk rate. He had the 15th lowest walk rate in baseball. So I think I had Garer Crochet 14. in my first round of pitcher rankings.

And I think it would be really easy to move him up into, frankly, like the top, him versus Chris Sale. I think I'd probably just give the edge to Chris Sale. Yeah. Certainly currently on a better team. I would love to hear the Braves come out tomorrow and say, oh, his back is fine, by the way. That was just like a two-week thing.

and it was just really bad timing. I would love to hear them say that because I'd feel a little better about it. But I think you can make a case for Gare Crochet in that range, absolutely. Yeah. Now, I thought you were going the other way, Chris. The weird thing about his back

is that it's located on his elbow. It was his back, right? It was his back, but just the way my brain works and how many arm injuries he's had in his career, my first thought is like, why do they keep pushing him back? this is so weird. Like they're not pitching him in,

you know, a potential must-win game. And, yeah, it just all felt so weird to me. But again, that's just me being, like,

skeptical. And maybe Chris Hale will be fine. And he'll throw 180 plus innings again next year, and he'll be fantastic. For what it's worth. Chris A and Gary Crochet might have been like the two most controversial pitchers

discussed at first pitch of Arizona. I think Nick had him outside of his top 20. Sale? Or in like the, yeah, or in the 15 to 20 range. And there was a lot of discussion about crochet. I think his ADP and like the, there's only been like 15 drafts completed on NFBC so far. But his ADP there is like 53.

And there were some people who like, I would smash that every single time I'm drafting. And there were some who would say, I wouldn't take him within 50 picks of that. And so it was interesting to see how wide the range of opinions on crochet was. But the stuff plus model, obviously, you know, to get back to that point, they made some adjustments. There was a panel on the adjustments they made to Stuff Plus. Specifically, I think that the biggest thing was to try to account for the quality and effectiveness of sinkers and changeups better because those are really hard pitches to account for.

And when they made those changes, you know, crochet out of the sinker. Skeens has the the splinker and a sinker and a changeup. Remember that one? Did Paul Skeens have a start where he just threw his changeup a ton and got like 11 whiffs with it like randomly in the middle of the season? He's yeah, he might just be a freak who just can do whatever he wants with a baseball. Yeah. But yeah, if you are bullish on those two guys, that's a reason to be so.

And I will say in NFBC drafts, which it's worth noting are. predominantly high stakes leagues, predominantly like bigger tournament style leagues where you kind of need big wins in order to get, you know, real money in them. I think Paul Skeens will be SP2 and ADP. I think he will be taken as the SP1 more than any other pitcher besides Scoobel, certainly.

I think there's a chance he goes in the top five more than Scoobble. even though scoobel gets drafted ahead of him more often, if that makes sense. Yeah, this early draft that I'm in, Skeens went fourth overall. And I think scoble went like early second round. It's hard for me to, like, Paul Skeens is incredible. It is hard for me to conceive of a realistic outcome in which he's significantly better than Terrick Scuba was in 2024.

It's hard to be much better. And like, scuba was also much better in 2023. than he was in 2024. Remember, he had the the best XERA among all pitchers who threw at least 80 innings. And I think even if you lowered it to 60,

it was like him and Felix Baltista. It was like only relievers who were anywhere close to him. So I get the Skeens hype. I will probably have to make a conscious decision in one league exactly to say I'm going to take Paul Skeen. And that's probably the only one

I'm going to draft him in. Yeah. you do it in an auction or something like that where you can kind of build your plan around getting Paul Skeens. Let's take our final break when we return. A few other things you learned out at first pitch to Arizona and we'll wrap up with some news and notes after that. Again, we're renting the offseason so there's a lot happening already. We'll get to that right after this. Welcome back in. A couple of the things that you learned out of first pitch of Arizona. And this one's just like interesting. How do we not notice as the season was going on?

Cole Reagan's did not face the White Sox once in 2024. You can't remember where that came from, which panel, unfortunately. I'm sorry to whoever pointed that out, but I didn't write the name down. I have a little, I had a little notepad because I was having computer issues. Let me tell you, I haven't really like handwritten since 2006 when I stopped being in school and high school. And I had bad handwriting then. I can't read my own handwriting now. I have no idea what I was trying to say.

So I may have written the name down and I just can't tell what it is. Well, maybe Cole Reagan's didn't face the White Sox because Seth Lugo had like 10 of those starts this past season. Regens was still awesome. 314 ERA, a 114-13 whip, 223 strikeouts over 186 in a third innings. 14.4% swinging strike rate. He finished as the SP 13 in Roto, the SP 11 in head-to-head points. and I was a little surprised, Chris, to see early on in the steamer projections,

they have Reagan's down at SP19. That feels a little low for Cole Regens. Yeah, that feels like a projection system that is just not equipped to handle the arc of Cole Reagan's career. And like, look, I don't know, maybe what he did with Texas matters. Like maybe he just regresses back to that point,

but I don't know, he's got a 532 career ERA in 16, 84 innings with Texas and a 3ERA and 258 innings since getting to the Royals. His skill set clearly changed in that time. We've talked a ton about it. But his fastball velocity went way up. He added that splitter in the second half of 2023. He's just a much different and much better pitcher than he was earlier in his career.

So I don't really think there's much reason to be skeptical. And if you're looking for a reason to think, hey, maybe Cole Reagan's can be even better in 2025. the Royals as a whole had a 178 ERA in 13 starts against the White Sox. They went 12 and 1 against the White Sox. If you're wondering how the Royals made the playoffs, that explains a lot of it. They were basically, I think they were a game under 500 against everybody,

but the Chicago White Sox in 2024. I'm not saying they're frauds. They'll get to play the White Sox again. It's fine. Don't get mad. But like, yeah. Colergan's probably going to get two or three starts against the White Sox next year. He's probably going to dominate them because they're probably going to be overmatched again.

And that's a reason if you're worried about a little regression to think the landing could be really soft there. I think it would be pretty hard for the White Soxie worse than they were this past season. I'm going to go ahead and say they will be at least 18 games better than they were. They will still probably be the worst team in baseball by that. If they trade Crochet and Luis Robert Chris. Yeah. I don't know if they're going to be 18 games better than they were this year, man. I really don't know.

The Tigers in, what was it, 2004, whatever year, what year was it? Where they set the record before that. I think they won like 23 games more than next year and still only won like 64 games. Like, I think they can be a normal bad team. still be better than they were last year. Training Louise Robert and Garrett crochet is going to make that incredibly difficult though.

This current draft that I'm doing, we're going to keep referencing the mock draft we did, you know, different drafts that were kind of hopping in and things that we're noticing. But this draft that I'm in, Cole Regens, I got him 57th overall. As my SP2, so I started three hitters in a row, Tucker, Lindor, Machado, and then

Corbin Burns and Cole Regans. Honestly, if you told me I could have got Regens in the 5th, I probably don't even take Corbyn Burns in the fourth. I do have some question marks about Burns myself, but I think I'd be totally fine. If I could get like four great hitters and then get Regens as my SP1,

yes, sign me up for that. Every single time. He's my number six SP. I'm very excited about him moving forward. I wanted to take, I was debating Corey Seeger versus Corbyn Burns. Like really, it was a really tough call for me. Yeah. Yeah.

I will say, you know, like Burns was top five for both Nick and Eric in their discussion. They did like a whole thing where they did a Q&A about like their top 50 or so for the On the Corner podcast. And Burns was I think four for both of them. And I think he's kind of just the default number four this year. But I feel like there's a lot of lack of excitement about Corbyn Burns. And I do want to point out if if you tuned out in September and are for some reason tuning back in in November, which would be a weird listening pattern.

but back if you did. We talked about this at the time how Corbyn Burns talked openly about how he lost his cutter for a long time. You know, going back to 2023,

really. And it was only, I think the quote was, maybe you remember, I think the quote was something like my cutter just became a bleepy foreseamer. Something like that, yeah.

And it impacted his numbers. Strikeout rate went way down. Whiff rate on the cutter went way down. found it again in September was really awesome in September had a really good postseason I think it was two starts with like 12 strikeouts in two starts

I I don't Corbin Burns is the default SP4 I think he's kind of in a tier of one because I do think there's a like I would take him a little bit ahead of Chris Sale and then Cole Regans who are five and six for me

but getting both of them and only spending two of your first, what, five picks or six picks? Yeah, two of my first five, yeah. Pretty good too, because I just wouldn't worry about pitcher again for like six or seven rounds. And I would feel really good about how that looks. I actually took Spencer Schwellenbach in the ninth, and then I just took Sunny Gray in the 12th. So maybe I'm overdoing it with pitching right now. I don't know.

I feel like there's going to be a lot of drafts where like you have to be really conscious of it because I feel like pitchers might just get pushed down the board in a big way this year. And it might be hard not to go pitcher heavy if you're not conscious about it. No, no, it's a good point. And I kind of felt like pitching has gone a little bit later in this draft overall than I would have expected. All right, let's get into some news and notes offseason edition. As I mentioned, lots happening already. First up, Michael Waka agreed to a three-year, $51 million deal with the Royals,

which includes a $14 million option for 2028. And Waka has really revitalized his career last three years, a 330 ERA, a 116 whip. It's well below a strikeout printing. It's like 7.8K per 9, something like that. But he's a viable streamer and a legitimate back-end starter in deeper leagues. Yeah, the Royals seem to just be going with Cole Reagan's

and then what if we make the entire rotation out of Chris Bassett? and it might work, you know, given the defense that they're able to put behind them, given, you know, what we think is a pretty good offense. So I think it's a perfectly reasonable deal. Michael Waka's not the type of pitcher I would ever want to guarantee multiple years to. Just feels like there are ways it can go wrong. But when he's out there, he has been very, very effective for three years now, like you said. So I don't really have any problem with it.

David Frye underwent surgery to repair a ligament in his elbow and his timeline to return as a DH is six to eight months. And then it'll take 12 months for him to get back to throwing the ball regularly. So that means an estimated return as the team's DH sometime between May and July, which obviously is not great. Like, this is not someone we're going to be drafting. Like maybe when he's returning, we'll pick him up and stream him in the right matchups for deeper league, something like that.

but well yeah he will have catcher eligibility next year so I guess that can help in some two catcher leagues but at least to start the season for the guardians it'll be bow nailer is a team's primary catcher with Kyle mansardo likely at DH and I think takes him completely out of the draftable range in 2025 I'm not sure I would have drafted him as even a number two catcher anyway I didn't really buy it but I know Scott had him as a I think top 20 guy at catcher when we talked about it earlier. So he'll have to revise that. And hopefully maybe we'll see David Frye in June. And he can give us some of that weird out of position speed. Yeah. Clayton Kershaw said last Friday that he will undergo surgery on his toe and left knee this upcoming week.

And he also declined his player option, but said that he will be back with the Dodgers in 2025, whether or not he's ready for opening day that we do not know. So we will wait for a timeline on Clayton Kershaw. We had a trade. The Angels acquired Jorge Soler from the Braves in exchange for Griffin Canning, and Saler turns 33 in February.

He had a down season. He hit 241, 21 home runs, 780 OPS. Sounds like he'll likely be in the mix between outfield and DH, although it seems like Mike Trout should probably be D-Hing a lot more than he has in years past. And Griffin Canning is just kind of one of those classic by-lows for the Atlanta Braves.

Alex Anthopoulos has made a lot of these moves since he's taken over in that organization. So I don't know, maybe Cannon kind of works his way into like stream in the right matchups. But for now, I don't know that this matters too much for fantasy on either side. Look,

November 5th of 2020, none of us are saying, hey, Ronaldo Lopez to the Braves. That's, he's a must start player. So like, maybe they figure something out and unlock, unlock something there, but there's not a lot I can affirm.

affirmatively say about Griffin Canning to be excited about. Like he's got decent change up in sliders, but a really bad fastball. And I'm not sure the other pitches, well, the other pitches have not been good enough. Certainly in 2024. So I think that's one. Maybe we get to spring training. We hear good things. And the fastball looks a little livelier because it was down about a mile and a half per hour this year.

And maybe we can start. to move him into a late round discussion, but I don't think I would draft him even in a 15 team. Yeah, again, that is Griffin Canning and Saler. You know, if he stays healthy, can he pop 25 home runs with a bad batting average? Yeah, absolutely.

We talked, we're going to talk a lot on Thursday's podcast about how hard it was to find power after the first like six or so rounds of our first mock draft. So it's the one thing Solair does. That is true. The Oakland A's have officially dropped Oakland from their brand and they will now

just be referred to as the athletics. For some reason, they're not adding Sacramento to their team name despite planning to play there for, I don't know, at least the next like two to four years, maybe longer. At least three, yeah. Yeah. So.

I think like the earliest opening date for their new ballpark, which has not been approved or anything, was like 2028. Like that's only going to keep getting push back. So yeah, it's at least the next three years. Yeah. Pretty sad news.

As Alex Kirloff announced his retirement last week, he's about to turn 27, but obviously has had a lot of trouble staying healthy and, you know, even performing when he's on the field, it hasn't been great for him. He's, you know,

he decided like, it's taken a mental, physical toll on him. So obviously it's sad, but hopefully works out in his next chapter of life. Daniel Hudson also announced his retirement following the Dodgers World Series win last week. And, you know, he's actually, he pitched really well with the Dodgers the past couple of years.

So, shout out to him. One of the rare double Tommy John success stories. There you go. There's one. Let's get into the options. The first up, the ones that were exercise. We'll, you know, spend a little bit of time on some of the bigger names, but, you know, I don't think there's anything overly shocking here from this list. The Braves exercised Marcel O'Suna's $16 million option and he just had a ridiculous season. He hit 302, 39 home runs, 104 RBI, and he finished as the 11th overall player in Rodo the 13th best hitter in Head Ted points.

He went 58th overall in our first mock last week that went to you, Chris, and I mentioned this early draft that I'm doing. I got Ozuna 81st overall. 81st. There is either going to need to be a market correction once everybody realizes how many util-only players there are. or these guys are just going to remain huge discounts all year long because,

look, OZuna is almost certainly not going to be anything but D.H. eligible in 2025. At least Brent Rooker, like we hope fairly early on he can get outfield eligibility. But OZuna was a top 15 hitter last year and would not have been far off in 2023 either. Like we're going on multiple years of him being an impact.

bat and just getting pushed down because he's DH or UTIL only. But the thing is, Shohei Otani is going to be the number one pick in most drafts or a plurality of drafts maybe. Brent Rucker is going to get drafted a lot. Marcelo Zuna. Kyle Swarber. Kyle Schwabor is the other one,

the really big one. That's already a third of your 12 team leagues are going to be every single week starting someone at Util who is Util only. That's not including, Jock Peterson and J.D. Martinez and Masataka Yoshida and St. You know, like John Carlos Stanton. Yeah. Like I'm not saying those guys are must starts. But I think there's a pretty good chance that even in a

15 team league, half the teams most weeks are starting a U-Till only player at U-Til. And at that point, I don't think it really matters that they're only U-Til. Like, yeah, you'd rather have some flexibility. And if you're, you know, like, if you're stuck between Corey Seeger and Brent Rooker, okay, Corey Seeger, you know, he's a shortstop. That helps. But like, I do think these guys are in almost every draft I've seen usually really, really strong values. And 80 first overall, for the numbers you're going to get from Marcelo Zuna, that is, that's a, you're getting a third round caliber player in what? the sixth or seventh, that's a seventh round pick.

Seventh round pick, yeah. In a 15, in a 15 team league. No, it is a 12 teamer. It is a 12 teamer. Oh, 12th. Okay. So like, that's, that's awesome. So yeah, I,

I think we're going to have to stop dinging the DH only guys for being DH only. I think one of my early draft strategies is I'm going to go into every draft. And if I can get any of Rooker, Schwerber, or Ozuna, outside of the top 50 picks, I'm going to do it every time. Yeah. Yeah, that's just, that's what,

yeah, like we said, after you get outside the first, you know, four, five, six rounds, power's kind of hard to come by. And all three of those guys

should, on paper, provide pretty good power. They were all top 20 at worst. Yeah. In 2024. Obviously, they're not going to,

they're not all going to have the same seasons they did. But there are almost no, worrisome underlying trends for any of them either. Like Rooker's quality of contact was elite. He almost entirely lived up to his ex-Woba. Ozuna has been actually underperformed his ex-Woba most of his career. And then Schwerber obviously, you know, traded some power for some contact last year,

hit for a better batting average. But he's rock solid. We know that. So I'm going to, I'm going to have one of those three guys as might. the age in a lot of leagues, I think. The Brewers exercised Freddie Peralta's $8 million option. He had a solid season, 368, ERA,

122 whip, 200 strikeouts on the nose. Cody Bellinger exercised his $27.5 million option for 2025 and will remain with the Cubs. He was solid this year, 266 with 18 home runs, nine steals. Obviously, we do want more speed

from Cody Bellinger. The D-Benzor exercised a. Eugenio Suarez is $15 million option, a bounce-back year, for him, where he hit 30 home runs with 101 RBI. The D-backs also exercised Merrill Kelly's $7 million option. Missed a lot of time with a shoulder injury, but was awesome in 2023, so hoping to recapture some of that magic. The Yankees exercised Luke Weaver's $2.5 million club option.

No-brainer, obviously. Strong season, strong playoffs. My guess is he's the favorite for the closer role if they don't make a move. And, I mean, they might because, you know, they're losing out on a couple of relievers. Clay Holmes is a free agent as well. Could they be in the mix for like a Devin Williams trade? Could they try and bring in a veteran guy like a Kirby Yates? I don't think it's crazy.

So we'll see obviously what the Yankees do this offseason. The raise exercise, Brandon Lows, $10 million club option. They also have an $11.5 million option for 2026. Reese Hoskins exercised his $18 million player option. This is a pretty rough one for the Brewers because Hoskins only hit 214, $2,600. runs. 722 OPS was a career low. He's a really bad fielder, so, you know, they took a chance and... I wouldn't be surprised

if there was a bounce back, but yeah, I think they were probably secretly hoping that he would not do that, but of course, $18 million, a ton of money. Yeah. Another one here, Jordan Montgomery, exercise, his player option worth $22.5 million dollars disaster season for Montgomery, 623 ERA 165 whip, well below a strikeout per inning. he's turning 32 in December. You know, Chris, I refuse to believe that Jordan Montgomery is just done.

Like, he just forgot how to pitch. It was just a weird offseason. He didn't sign until like right before opening day. So it's just a weird season all around. And I'm not saying he's going to be great, but can he, yeah, can he turn it to like a Michael Walker type? I don't think it's crazy. I like to think that even if it made financial sense

for Montgomery to turn this option down and it absolutely would not have, once the Diamondbacks owner made that statement about what a bad signing it was he was guaranteed to take that option yeah that was pretty messed up too

but I guess you can't blame them for being honest right? Look in hindsight it was a pretty bad signing hold on I have to open the door so that my fatter cat doesn't eat all of the food but continue I'll keep my headphones on

Don't worry. Yeah, I'll keep going. Lucas Gilito exercises $19 million player option. He underwent an internal brace procedure way back in March of this year. Of March of this year? Yeah, this year. And it's confident he'll be ready for the start of the 2025 season. Obviously, it's been a while since we've seen the good version of Gellito.

And this is another second elbow reconstruction or I don't know how we categorize it. But yeah, he had Tommy John's surgery once before. Major elbow surgery. I think that's fair to say. The Orioles exercised Ryan O'Hern's $8 million club option. And as of now, O'Hern looks like the Strongside DH with Ryan Mouncastle at first base. Anthony Santander is a free agent. And the Orioles also exercise Sir Anthony Dominguez,

who he'll likely serve as a setup man to Felix Bautista. And Hunter Renfro exercise his $7.6 million player option. looks like he's penciled into right field for now. Obviously, the Royals can still make some moves. Trade Ryan Mountcastle. Please, please. I mean, I don't think this would happen, same division, but I think the Yankees are going to be in the market for first baseman.

That'd be a good fit. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, what kind of odds am I getting for DJ LaMayhew being their starting first basement on opening day? I just feel like it's a lock for the Yankees. That's gross. Three more years left on that deal for T.J. LeMayhew. Who could have seen it coming?

Options decline. in recent days. This was an interesting one. This was a fun, fun little... Garrett Cole opted out of his contract with the Yankees on Saturday. Everyone is freaking out losing their minds. The Yankees could have voided the opt-out

by adding an extra year worth $36 million to his current contract, which I believe is four years, $144 million. That's what's left on the deal. Then on Monday, Jeff Passon reported that Cole will remain with the Yankees on his remaining deal. Essentially, it's as if Cole did not

opt out. So, I don't know. Cole was like, dare me to do it, dare me to do it. And the Yankees called his bluff and he's like, eh, I'm not going to do it. And then I'm, if you guys will take me back, then I'll be back. They're like, yeah, sure, we like you, Gary Cole. And that's how it went down. As expected, Blake Snell declined his $30 million player option and will be a very

sought after free agent. The Brewers declined Devin Williams' $10 million club option, but he remains with the Brewers as he's entering his final year of arbitration. GM Matt Arnold said they will stay, quote, open-minded regarding a potential trade. I don't want to say it's a lot, Chris, but it kind of feels like this is going to happen. For sure, and that this was a little scummy.

Like, yeah, they're going to save like a million dollars in arbitration by doing this. And it's like, all right, get your million dollars, I guess. But yeah. Yep. The Rangers declined. Nathan of all these $20 million option, but have great interest in bringing him back.

and of all the turns 35 in February, but was still solid. Once again, 380 ERA, a 111-1-1-1-1-Wip, 166 strikeouts over 170 and two-thirds innings. Sean Bonaya declined his $13.5 million player option and is now a free agent. He obviously had that resurgent season after dropping his arm slot,

trying to follow that Chris Sale mold and worked out very well for him. Hassan Kim declined his $8 million mutual option and will enter free agency. He's also recovering from, shoulder surgery and could miss the start of the season. The Braves declined Travis Darno's $8 million club option. And, you know, he gets...

It's almost surprising because it had been reported that they were picking up him, Marcelo Zuna, and one of the relievers. I can't remember that this was reported a couple weeks ago. And I was kind of bummed because Travis Darno is the only like even moderately decent free agent catcher. So now he'll hopefully. signed somewhere else and he's a solid number two. He hit 15 home runs this year in 99 games and he still graded out pretty,

you know, not great, but he's a starter. It's like a round average defensively. So yeah, I mean, look, some team can use Travis Tarnow as a starter. And so, you know, that can help us out. We get another second catch run there. I think, you know, obviously on the brave side of things, they're looking for a big bounce back from Sean Murphy. They're kind of re-handing him the keys as their everyday catcher.

I think the fact that they have a prospect in their system that's coming kind of gave them more confidence that they can let Travis Darno go. And that prospect is Drake Baldwin, who he's 23 years old, had a strong season in the minors, playing well in the Arizona Fall League. And I think as of now, he's probably the backup. Yeah, no, I think that's a name to keep an eye on, certainly an animal-only leagues.

I think the problem with Murphy is he played so much at the beginning of 2023 and just completely burned out. He talked about it, just caught up with him. He was awesome in the first half, really bad in the second half, and hasn't really had the oblique injury this year that I think explains why he wasn't great this year. But I have to think they'll be fairly careful with his playing time, but not as careful as they were when Darnot was there.

So in a best case scenario, I think Baldwin maybe plays like 40 games. but he's an interesting player to keep an eye on if something happens to Murphy. Reliever, David Robertson declined his $7 million mutual option and is now a free agent. He still is pitching well despite being, I believe, 40 years old now at this point and should earn a high leverage role somewhere around the majors. Jack Peterson declined his $14 million mutual option and will become a free agent. He's coming off a great year, hit 275 with 23 home runs and a 908 OPS, certainly could be a strong side platoon for some team.

Frankie Montas declined his mutual option. The Mariners declined Jorge Polanco's optioned. The White Sox declined Yohan Moncada's $25 million option. Maybe the easiest call of the off-season so far. The Cardinals declined both Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. The Orioles declined Elo Jimenez and the Yankees declined Anthony Rizzo. 13 players received the qualifying offer, which is now up to a one-year 21-1.

$105 million deal. Christian Walker, Max Fried, Corbyn, Burns, Anthony Santander, Nick Povetta, Nick Martinez, Alex Bregman, Teasca Hernandez,

Willie Adamas, Pete Alonzo, Sean Mania, Luis Severino, and Juan Soto. Of those names, I think maybe Severino, Pavetta, and Martinez

would consider it, but I don't know that it's a lock that any of those guys will actually accept it, so. Yeah, I think I could see Martinez or Manaya getting like 45 million over three years on free agency.

So I'd be surprised if they accepted it. Severino almost feels like it'd be a best case scenario for both sides if he accepted it. Just like he gets another year to try to continue to rebuild his value, maybe get one more four or five year deal if he has a good year. And the Mets could use a not cheap pitcher, but they're not overflowing with arms. So they could probably use Severino on another one year deal. I think they'd like to remain as flexible as possible moving forward

based on what we've seen in the last couple of years. So that's the one Severino. I could see him accepting it. And as expected, the Cardinals did not extend the qualifying offer to Paul Gulchmidt, who will enter free agency. And actually, by everything that I've read, it sounds like the Cardinals are going to be actually cutting payroll this offseason.

Yeah. Aronado seems like a trade. candidate. Sonny Gray, I think Wilson Contreras. I would love to see Wilson

Contreras trade it somewhere. This is a team that has between Pahas and I'm Blan,

Yvon Herrera. Yvon Herrera. I think those two can clearly hold their own at least at the major league level.

And like a Wilson Contreras return to Chicago would make a lot of sense. Yeah. It's a decent amount of money

remaining. I think it's like three or 60 $70 million so that that's a hurdle for a 34 year old catcher. He's still really good when he's on the field though. As a hitter, he's like top three in OPS and ISO among catchers over the past two or three. He's good enough to just be a DH. Like if someone just didn't want him to play catcher, like I think it could be an 800 OPS as a

DH bat. You know what? That's what I thought of before I read that they were going to cut payroll. I figured they're not bringing back Goldschmidt. They might just play Contreras at first base. Yeah. Although I guess they have Alec Berlisten too, so. But he could DH.

Well, we'll see. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Contreras, maybe at this point in his career, kind of heading towards that Salvador Perez path. A little bit of first, a little bit of DH. Maybe he's kind of your backup catcher at this point, something like that. But yeah, if he's on the field, I still think Wilson Contreras can play. So I agree with you there. I did want to get to some of the offseason, like just the top names that are free agents,

blah, blah, blah, but we're kind of up against it, Chris. So we'll see if we have some time a little bit later on in the week. most people kind of know the big name free agents at this point anyway though but yeah that'll do it we're gonna wrap there for chris i am frank thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on apple or spotify and we will be back again on thursday bye-bye paramount podcasts