Fantasy Baseball Today - Forgotten First Halves of 2019; Jeff McNeil Deep Dive (04/06 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

Ever wonder why Fantasy owners tend to look at the second half of the previous season but forget about the first? We'll try to answer that question but first an update on the MLB timeline (6:00). According to a report from Ken Rosenthal, the MLB might try and play games in Arizona spring training ballparks ... Before we look at first-half outliers, we take a deeper look at Jeff McNeil (12:22). Are we buying what McNeil did in 2019? Should he be drafted ahead of Michael Brantley? ... Why do people typically ignore first-half performances (21:00)? Is Rhys Hoskins being undervalued based on the numbers he posted early in 2019? ... Domingo Santana and Hunter Renfroe are a pair of outfielders that are also being overlooked (35:25). Who is more likely to bounce-back between the two? ... Finally, we address two starting pitchers in Cole Hamels and Caleb Smith (50:21) ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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. One, one pitch, basketball pulled and cast, Alvarez, and twilight. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Welcome everybody to Fantasy Baseball today.

Frank here, joined by Scott and Chris. It's Monday, April 6th. And, you know, this quarantine brings out a. different side in people. I haven't shaved my face in a few weeks now. I'm watching wrestling again. And I also made my first TikTok this weekend. Scott is here without a bucket hat. Scott, what's something you're doing differently because of the quarantine, if anything? Well, I can tell you I shaved my face this morning. I have yet to watch any wrestling professional ever. And I've never made a TikTok video either. So the very opposite of what you're doing,

What am I doing differently? Hmm. Not driving. We actually, there's a problem because leaves are piling up on our car. And we're afraid. My wife removed some from one of them today and noticed the paint was being damaged because of that. So that's an unexpected issue to deal with.

For those? I have to figure out a different car situation, parking wise. Scott dealing with the leaves on top of the car. So we'll figure that out. TikTok for anyone out there who's trying to figure out what it is. I didn't even know until like a couple of weeks ago, to be honest. It's like Instagram, but just for videos with an emphasis on video editing. They have like these crazy filters and you can add music to your videos.

So that's something that I dove into this weekend. With quarantine, just trying to figure out things to do to keep myself from going crazy. Chris Stone Cold Chris Towers is here. Chris, did you watch any of WrestleMania? Did you make any TikToks this weekend? I did not watch any of WrestleMania. I did not make any TikToks. I've been playing a lot of video games. I've been watching Game of Thrones. And I've been eating breakfast every day. Those are the three things that I'm doing differently than before the isolation. True story. Before we came on the podcast today, Chris forgot how to put his socks on. So that might be the opposite of what we're dealing with in the quarantine. You know how it's foot shaped, right? You know, like a, it's a small sock, like an ankle sock. So you know how it's like vaguely foot shaped. Right. Yeah. I pulled it up and realized that the back part wasn't going all the way up. And then I realized that I had just flipped it over somehow. And I, when I put the sock on, I looked at. at it and I said, this is right. This is the correct way to do a sock. And it turns out that I have, yeah, I've just forgotten how to do that, apparently. Chris, I also have to apologize. Last week I called you out on the podcast on Friday. I said that I asked you for an infielder.

When I did indeed ask you for an outfielder, I listened to it back. I 100% got that wrong. So I owe you an apology, sir. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Watch yourself, Frank. I'm sorry, buddy. I'm going to pull rank next time you do that. on the show. We're going to go over some news and notes. We haven't really been doing news and notes lately because there's just not a lot of news and notes to talk about. But there is an update on the state of baseball. There was a report that was thrown out this weekend that we'll talk a little bit about. I want to do a deep dive on Jeff McNeil that came from one of our Apple podcast reviews. And then we'll get into some first half performances from 2019 that we might be forgetting about.

This is something that kind of spurred in my mind. The first podcast I joined you for last week, I'm losing track of time. Was it two weeks ago now? Yeah. Two weeks ago, we spoke about Matt Boyd, and I brought up the fact that if what he did in the first half was done in the second half, his ADP would be completely different.

So we're going to put that to test later on, and we're going to talk about some players that had really strong first half performances, but fell off in the second half, and we'll try and figure out why that happened. We'll have some listener questions via Apple podcast, and email fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. later on in the show as well.

But I did want to start off with this update on baseball. I mean, we're talking about the quarantine here, and we hope that everyone is staying safe and, you know, living by the guidelines that you've been giving so that we can honestly just get past this sooner rather than later. But there was a report that was thrown out by Ken Rosenthal. He wrote an article on the athletic. Teams are toying with the idea of playing in empty spring parks in Arizona.

There was also a tweet from at White Sondel. Dave on Twitter, for what it's worth. He's a radio host for Barstool Sports. He tweeted, hearing confirmation that MLB is zeroing in on using spring training sites in Arizona for the season. No fans. The hope is July 1st target date. So, you know, this is tough because the idea is all 30 teams would be quarantined in Arizona, including umpires, TV production crews.

The margin for error would be extremely small. And I think this would also eliminate the possibility of double-headers because in Arizona in July, it's consistently like over 110 degrees. I can't see any way that they play during the day. They likely only play at night. So what do you think of this report, if anything? I mean, just trying to get people caught up on, you know, a potential timeline. Not that I want to get people kind of prematurely excited about baseball returning, but this was a report this past weekend, Scott. Yeah, the timeline, I've been thinking that. That's probably the most optimistic one at this point, start of July.

And, you know, that does seem like if they're counting on just having everybody sequestered and nobody across the whole league, anybody who's affiliated with the teams, you know, anybody else who might be coming and going from those facilities, I mean, we obviously don't know all the details of how that would work and maybe they'd have it locked down tighter than that. But if that's the idea, I don't know. It makes me kind of pessimistic. But, you know, it's one of those situations where, like, that's, it's not just baseball that's having to kind of account for all that.

It's the world at large. And, you know, we don't really know what's going to happen between now and then in terms of testing, in terms of treatment. I mean, there may be more optimistic scenarios depending on how we advance in those areas. But if this is the idea right now and it's the one that ultimately comes to pass, it doesn't make me terribly. I don't feel terribly positive about it, I would say. Realistically, we probably don't see any baseball until there's some sort of vaccine cure. You mentioned it, Scott.

Well, vaccine wouldn't be. We know vaccine wouldn't be for until next year, right? That's the best case scenario for that. But I'm thinking more in terms of treatment and testing, specifically an antibody test. Chris, anything from this report? I mean, we might be able to confidently draft Hermann Marquez, if anything. Yeah, I think it would actually, you know, if this did come to pass and we played, you know, I don't know if it would be most of the season, all of the season.

just the start of the season, but it would certainly have an impact on offense in particular because you're playing in an incredibly dry, incredibly hot part of the country during the peak summer months. And so you're going to be looking at a ball that features very little drag against it. It's going to fly out of the park. That's something that we've seen in a ballpark at Darlington that it was going to be interesting to see how it would affect the Rangers this year was, you know, a big part of why that was such a good hitter's park and a hitter's environment was because it was so hot that you kind of, you had to, you had to account for more home runs than you would typically expect. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one thing that's been consistent every year is spring training statistics in Arizona. for hitters. You have to take those.

Obviously, we're not, we shouldn't pay much attention to spring training statistics at all, but you would get these outlandish home run totals over one month's time from pretty fringy players. So that would be, that would be a hitter's haven

if we're just going to address this specifically from a baseball, fantasy baseball standpoint. And so if that, if that, what was that? We probably should. That's why we're here. Yeah.

Yeah, sure. It might, whatever ground pitchers were losing because of the shortened season, that might tip the scales back in their favor, the high-end ones specifically, who can survive a home run onslaught better than the lesser ones. So maybe this wouldn't actually help someone like Hermann Arquez, because I just figured getting away from Colorado, but you guys make good points about how the ball would carry, obviously,

with the dry heat in Arizona, if that were the case. But just something to think about. This was, again, a report that came out over the weekend from Ken Rosenthal. I want to remind people that we currently have 2,951 members on our Fantasy Baseball Today page over on Facebook. When we get to 3,000, I'll do something like a live video stream, a Q&A. Maybe if Chris and I can figure out how to do it together, that's something that we'll try and do. I think I've got an answer to it. I've been doing some research.

I think I found something that might work. Ooh, all right, Chris. So we're stepping up the tech here. Literally millions of people do this. There's no reason why we couldn't figure it out. We're smart guys. We'll figure it out. So maybe we'll even have a live stream of Chris and myself on video before then.

But as, you know, just trying to grow the page, the Facebook page, we do have close to 3,000 right now. So once we get to 3,000, we'll come up with some kind of fun exercise. that we'll do for everyone, but it's a really great community of fantasy baseball today fans over on Facebook. So if you do have a Facebook, make sure to like our fantasy baseball today page as well. Jeff McNeil, I wanted to deep dive. I kind of proposed, you know, people leaving their reviews on Apple Podcasts and dropping in a player for us to deep dive. And we did this with Jose Orkidi last week. And Jeff McNeil is, I think, another interesting one. Last year, hit 318, 23 home run.

83 runs scored 75 RBI and five stolen bases. He was tied for fourth in fantasy points per game among second baseman with Max Muncie, Eduardo Escobar, Ozzie Albiz, and he had average more than Glaber Torres, Kestin-Hira, and Jonathan V.R. He was the 10th second baseman in Roto. He was a top 70 player in Roto last season. His ADP right now is 86, which makes him a late 7th, early 8th round pick, makes a lot of contact, makes a lot of solid contact.

I mean, he had the fifth lowest soft hit percentage last year, so it makes a lot of medium and hard contact, can hit both sides of the plate. You know, what do you make of the second half for Jeff McNeil, Scott? I'll start this off with you, because we saw the batting average come down. It seems like he tried to sell out a little bit for power. The slugging percentage went up. He upped his fly ball percentage.

You know, what do you make of that second half for Jeff McNeil? And was he someone that you were targeting coming into draft season? I seem to like him more than the consensus. I seem to be a little more willing to buy into the second half power surge than the average person seems to be, as is my MO, or what it has become. And the reason in Jeff McNeil's case, why I'm more willing to do this is because just look at his last year in the minors before he got called up. This was just last year.

This was just 2018, I mean. Last year, of course, his first full season in the majors, but in 2018, when he came up in the second half and impressed with his contact skills, what he was doing in the minors before then was just all big time production all around. His minor league stats in 88 games, 342 batting average, 19 home runs,

and 1028 OPS. That's again in 88 games. he had 19 home runs. Now, part of that season was at AAA in Las Vegas, the PCL. It was before the introduction of the MLB baseballs last year, so the hitting environment wasn't quite as exaggerated, but PCL, Las Vegas, always been a good place to hit. But 14 of the 19 home runs came at AA Binghamton,

which is not some kind of hittershaven. So, I mean, Jeff McNeill had showed this power very recently and that he was finally tapping into in the second half, I'm not so quick to dismiss that. Of course, we know he has excellent contact skills and is going to be a fantasy asset regardless of what happens in the home run column, probably. It's just how high end is he going to be?

That's the question for me. I'm more willing to put him on the higher end than it seems like most people are. career 311 hitter in the minors, 822 OPS, but Scott mentioned that as his minor league career progressed, he started hitting for more power. Earlier on in his minor league career, he actually stole some bases.

He had a season with 17 steals. He had a season with 16 steals. So there is some stolen base potential here. There is some power. We saw it in the second half. Chris, I'll throw this one your way. In a head-to-head points league, you are a huge fan of Keston Hiyero.

Would you rather have Jeff McNeil or Kesson Hero? Probably McNeil in that format. I do think Kestin Hero has a lot higher upside. But, you know, one of the things that I'm looking at right now is, you know, in Fantasy Pro's ADP right now, his ADP is 33 spots of Michael Blountains. I'm not so sure I would rather have McNeil straight up than Brantley. let alone at a three-round discount, or a three-round premium, I guess, in this case. So that's one of the things I just, I'm not sure how much better Jeff McNeil can get than he was last year. He outperformed his ex-slug by about 60 points, which is a really significant margin.

Outperformed his ex-WOBA by 30 points. Outperforms his XBA by nearly 30 points. I think it's more likely, he's going to be very helpful in batting average. I think he's going to be a solid all-around player. I think it's more likely he's more like a $2.90 here. And I think we probably saw something close to his home run upside. Like in the best case scenario, I think he could get to 25 home run, but I don't think there's that much room for more than that.

City Field is a pretty tough place to hit for power as well. So I think he's probably being drafted a little closer to his ceiling than I'm comfortable with. Chris, is it potentially the second base position eligibility for McNeil that gives him that ADP difference between him and Brantley? McNeil has second, third base, and outfield eligibility. Obviously, Michael Brantley only has the outfield eligibility. But I see what you're saying, but there probably shouldn't be that big of a difference just based on position scarcity. Or should there? Second base certainly helps.

Position scarcity certainly helps. second base is the scarcest non-catcher position among the hitting positions, but I don't think that explains the difference. I think, like, Brantley's 33, so I think people are projecting, you know, some downside for him. But I also think Brantley just kind of gets dinged too much for the two years that he missed due to injury. Other than that, he's been pretty consistently healthy. I just This is a rare skill set

in fantasy baseball today, a guy who can hit for average without being a drain on power runs and RBI. I just think Michael Brantley is as good or better and is going cheaper. So that sort of lessens my desire to take Jeff McGee. It's close, but if we're saying points league

is the best format for both of these guys, I think that's, that's clearer in Brantley's case than McNeil, but let's just assess them in that format. Brantley had 3.40 fantasy points per game last year. I'm sorry, McNeil had 3.40 fantasy points per game last year and Brantley had 3.35. So McNeil was a little bit better. Sure. That's a, that's like eight points over the course of the season, if I'm doing my math correctly. So it's, it's a really, really slim margin.

and the one thing Brantley has that McNeil doesn't is, I mean, really a six-year track record of being pretty much the same guy with the exception of 2016 when he didn't play. He's been a 29 or better, 299 or better hitter in his last five full seasons. I'm counting on 2017 as a full season. He played 90 games. He's been a 15 to 20 homer guy every season, or at least pace that way. I just think Brantley's more of a sure thing, and I think McNeil played closer to his ceiling. Michael Brantley, again, reminder, he's played 143 or more games in back-to-back seasons.

So I think it's a good point by Chris that you bring up there. I think people probably look at the position scarcity. Again, that's something I would point to for the difference in ADP. It might not explain all of it. I also think people might expect some stolen bases out of McKearcy out of McNeil. Maybe it's just 10 or whatever it might be, but that's just trying to explain the difference. But you raise good points. So I'm just kind of trying to play devil's advocate and figure out why. It might just be an ages thing too when it comes to Michael Brantley.

But I do think it's good points. I think the main thing is the position scarcity, the one you brought up. I mean, and the fact that McNeil is triple eligible, even if you, you know, even if, even if you wind up drafting a high-in second basement or a pretty good second basement later. But you want him at second base, right, Scott? Probably. I mean, that's when you're drafting him, if you're drafting him, what is ADP shows? You're drafting him to play second base, probably. But I'm saying if, like, Kevin Vigio falls to you or something like that later,

then obviously it gives you the option of shifting McNeil around. So I wanted to get into some of these first half performances from 2019 that we might be forgetting about. And there's actually an article I wrote on CBSports.com with eight players. that we are forgetting about their first halves. And we're going to talk about a few of those players here today. I mentioned a little bit earlier. This kind of sparked because of the discussion we had regarding Matthew Boyd.

And every season we see players have big second halves and their ADP is inflated. U. Darvish comes to mind this season. Jack Flaherty comes to mind as well. So look, whether it's due to injuries, mechanics, just perform, you know, something that changes in the second half of seasons that forces a player to get worse.

I mean, maybe it's just an extended streak of bad luck, whatever it might be. I think we should look into some of these players and, you know, figure out potentially what went wrong. I mean, this exercise might be the bane of Chris's existence. I realize that for every, for every superhero, Chris, there is a villain. Batman, there is Joker. Superman, there is Lex Luther. I think for you, it is half-season statistics.

So is this something that you will hate to do that? talk about? No, no, because one other thing that I love, I do, you know, obviously I don't see a ton of value in using splits when we have a full season to go from. But that being said, I do think there's value in exploring the cognitive biases that go into how people view sports. And I think this is a key one. This is recency bias. In its clearest, we saw Jack Flaherty look like an absolute dominant ace most recently that we saw him. So we're going to view him that way, or at least it's going to color our perception of him. And I think the opposite is true. We didn't see Matt. I think you're 100% correct. If Matthew Boyd had been awful in the first half and had been great in the

second half and had won people fantasy championships, he'd probably be going 50 spots higher because we'd be looking at it and saying, well, he figured something out. But progress doesn't all work. Is that bias? I mean, players do make changes and they do get better. And sometimes they change for the better. Sometimes they change for the worse. Well, I guess then the onus is, like you'll always say,

when I say my full season statistics are more predictive than half season statistics. You always say, well, there are X, Y, and Z examples of guys who did break out in the second half and then sustained it. Now, part of that is, we remember the guys who sustain it and we kind of just disregard the guys who don't. But it's also, given that the overall evidence does suggest the full season statistics are more predictive. I think the onus is on figuring out what that player changed in the second half. And in some cases, it's obvious. In Matthew Boyd's, he made an obvious change for the whole season, but it only benefited him in the first half. And in the second half it kind of got away from it.

Was he really a different pitcher in the first half or the second half? I don't really think so. No, but the scouting report could have gotten out to the changes he made in the first half. I mean, he clearly became much, much, much more hitable. It was really over the final four months, not distinctly a first half, second half thing. I mean, I guess it technically is a bias, but it's a bias I'm comfortable with. It's a bias that. And I would add also the bias of assuming that a player making an adjustment in the first,

in the second half, is more sustainable than making an adjustment in the first half that doesn't carry over. I just, I know it didn't sustain. Then it's not as sustainable. But that doesn't mean that the adjustment in the second half will sustain as well. No, not necessarily. But there's a better chance than the first half one sustaining,

because we already know the first half one didn't. I actually don't. I would need to look it up. I've seen it for in the past. I haven't seen anything recently, but I don't think second half statistics tend to be more predictive than first half even. Well, that's what you always say,

but you're talking on a macro level. Right. That's why I think the onus is on proving that theory wrong in the individual case. Okay. I mean, I don't disagree. If we're just, if we're just literally looking at number,

and nothing else, then it's probably not a good way to go about it. But I don't think any of us does that. Reese Hoskins was one of those players who last year had the big first half. And, you know, there are things that you could point to in the second half where he struggled mightily. He had a 180 batting average. That was among the lowest among qualified batters last year in the second half. So I would look at what Reese Hoskins did in the first half.

and you see a 263, 401, 530 triple slash, with 20 home runs and 59 RBI. His 931 OPS and 140 weighted runs created plus, both ranked 14th among qualified hitters in the first half last season. I know that in a second half he was dealing with, I believe it was like a hand injury where he was day to day and that might have hampered his production. But if you look at the numbers, he started to lift the ball too much. And there is such a thing as too much launch angle. I feel like for years, at least I was, I'm not going to kind of speak for you guys, but I feel like for years,

we were kind of advocating for players to lift their launch angle, most players. But someone like Reese Hoskins, who led baseball in launch angle last year, it seems like he got a little bit too home run happy, started hitting fly balls, infield fly balls, and it affected his batting average. And maybe that was affected by his hand injury,

you know, if that was actually a thing. But, you know, if you actually combine his 2018 second half and his 2019 first half, he hit 252 with 40 home runs and 99 RBI over a 156 game span. So if he can get back to that player he was in the second half of 2018 and the first half of 2019, his ADP right now is 108. That's the end of round 9. I got him at pick 141 in round 12 of our mock draft that we did last week. So, Scott, Hoskins was a top 50 player heading into last season.

He was drafted as a top 50 player in 2019. He's now going outside the top 100. This seems like an easy profit if he can get back to the player he was in the first half. How much faith do you have in that happening? Yeah, so I think the way you're breaking it down there, second half of 2018 combined with first half of 2019, and that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when you're having to slice and dice it up that much.

much. And other than that amazing start in August of 2017, right, where he came up and was hitting home run every other day, it seemed like. Rees Hoskins has been a pretty ordinary player. What saves him is that he walks a ton. But his ex-BA last year, 21, obviously terrible. In 2018, for the full season, it was 235, not much better. He seems like the sort of player who relies on a big home run total to be an impact player, obviously, but he doesn't hit the ball hard enough to not lean into that, to not hit the fly balls at the exaggerated rate you were talking about. And that, of course, lowers his batting average potential.

So I'm not, I'm not seeing a lot of home room. I'm not seeing a lot of room to profit there like you were referring to, just looking at the full season statistics from the last two years. And if we're going to say full season statistics count for more in one year, then they certainly do for two years. Well, his 2018 would represent a profit based on what you're paying right now, right? 246, 34-Homers, 96 RBI, 89 runs. He was a top five.

He was top five in both formats, a top five first baseman in both Roto and head-to-head points in 2018. So it's not inconceivable. I think the issue for Reese Hoskins, like Scott said, he's not actually an elite batted ball guy. You know, his average exit velocity was above average, but not great. His max exit velocity again, you know, a little bit above average, but not great. I think the bigger issue for him, however, is he just, his swing was broken last year. And I don't know if he can fix it, but he was hitting.

way too many infield fly balls, way too many pop-ups. And, you know, when we talk about average launch angle, the thing we have to keep in mind, and we talked about this with Wilson Ramos last week, an average is taking a bunch of numbers and dividing them by the number of events. That is, we all learned that in fifth grade, whatever it is. Maybe I don't remember when we learned that. But we all learned it. And that is helpful, especially when you have large numbers. However, it's not everything. You know, you could have a zero degree launch angle and a 50 degree launch angle, and those will be a ground ball and a pop fly.

And you will have a 25 degree average launch angle. Or you could have two 25 degree launch angles, which are both probably line drives. And so that's where it gets into the difference between average and kind of median, or you know, you start taking into account stuff like standard deviation, where you talk about how much, the average difference was between each individual event. And in Reese Hoskins case,

he had one of the most inconsistent launch angles in baseball last season. And so what you had there was, God, I hope somebody who actually knows about math isn't listening to this because I probably sound really stupid trying to explain it all because I'm not actually that good at math. But what you have there is an instance where he doesn't actually hit the ball at his ideal launch angle all that often. But when it averages out, it does look like.

like a launch angle that could be useful. And I think it's something similar with like Fran Mill Reyes, who's less extreme, but has similar issues with consistency. And that's what limits a player's ability to really maximize their potential. You know, Mike Trout doesn't hit the ball harder than everyone. Yeah. Nobody hits the ball as consistently as he does. That's why I still prefer in terms of, as opposed to just launch angle and launch angle is kind of

the trendy thing and it works well with the stat cast math better obviously so people like to cite it more but i i still prefer the breakdown of line drives versus ground balls versus fly balls that you see on on uh on fan graphs because i think it it makes for a better a better way to kind of guesstimate batting average potential based on that full breakdown than just looking at launch angle and he has a 20% line drive rate. That's not, it's not a bad line drive rate, but he had the highest fly ball rate among qualifiers. And a high fly ball rate is bad for batting average, especially if you're not hitting the ball, especially hard. The biggest issue there is that 15% infield fly ball rate.

Like, you just, that's way too high when you hit that many of your pot, your, your, your batted ball. Like, he had 31 infields that balls last season. Those are, that's third one of that. Yeah, that's five percent of his batted balls that are just, there's no chance. There's like a 0.1% chance that those turn into hits. And so then you look at, well, he's pretty slow, so he's not going to be down in grounders that are hit, you know, near someone. And so all of a sudden, it's a pretty bad combination. But ultimately, it comes down to Reese Hoskins needs to be better. And he did identify that in the offseason. And he did rework his swing. We didn't get to see much of it in spring training. I think he had like 35 plate appearances. And he struck out a bunch. But it's 35.

that's one of the one of the problems with the truncated spring training we got is we didn't get to see guys who made changes and reese hoskins pretty dramatically changed his uh set up at the plate he looked you know his setup looked a lot like cody belliger's and obviously he's not cody ballinger and i'm not saying he will be but that's what it looked like from the opposite side of the plate it was dramatically different than last year and so you know it's possible that that helps him get to the ball quicker, helps him drive the ball more rather than just kind of flailing, which it seemed like he was doing a lot last season. Chris, when you brought up standard deviation, my brain shut off. I felt like I was back in like college statistics class. I don't know. This should be a

new segment we do. Statistics 101 with your professor, Chris Towers. So the problem with that, you know, we actually used to have on the podcast a professor who taught statistics, Al Malkyore. He would have been much better for that because in my case, I did take statistics in college and I dropped out of that class because it was a night class and the midterm exam was on Halloween. Al Malkyore would be so disappointed. I was just like, well, guess I'm just going to drop that class because I'm not going to that exam on Halloween. Wow. That was the kind of student I was. That was the kind of student. I haven't, you see, AP classes seem like a great idea back in high school. I get college credit. But what that means as somebody who majored in journalism

is I did not take a single math class in college, not a single one. So the last math class I took, and specifically I took AP statistics as a junior in high school. So that's so far, that's more than half my life ago at this point. And yeah, standard deviation. I know basically what it means, but if you ask me to calculate standard deviations for something, I just have no chance. You can do it in Excel. There's a function, it's equals, and then STD.EV, I believe.

It's fine. Yeah, my brain hurt. So thanks for that, Chris. I want to move on to Domingo Santana. Domingo Santana's left for dead right now. I mean, this guy's ADP is 327, and maybe it's rightfully so. But I'll just point out,

through his first 90 games, Santana was betting. 286 last year with 18 home runs, 63 RBI, and six stolen bases. That's a 155 game pace of 31 home runs, 108 RBI, and 10 stolen bases. His 2.6 fantasy points per game, even with his dreadful second half, was higher than Fran Mulraeus and Lorenzo Kane last year. So, Scott, I mean, the second half, like, the strikeouts went way up. his OPS went from 850 to 468.

He was clearly dealing, there was an elbow injury that kind of hampered him in July, and I think it probably just affected his production the rest of the season. But, Scott, I mean, are we just forgetting about him? Like, has it gone too far the other way? 327 ADP? He's free. I mean, you can take him with your last pick in your draft,

and this is someone people were excited about last year throughout spring training, and he paid off in the first half. But I think that injury struck and really affected him in the second half. Unless you just think he's done, Scott. Where do you kind of land on Domingo Santana? What makes this difficult is how did the league approach him in the offseason?

He was a free agent, right? And he couldn't... It took him forever to find a team that was even willing to give him a halfway decent shot of winning a starting job. My understanding is he's not penciled into that starting job for Cleveland. He actually has to perform the spring or the second spring, beat out some others.

From what I've seen, he is the DH right now. Yeah, that's what I've seen as well, with Fran Milraeus in the outfield. Oh, okay. That's not how Rostor Resource has it. But let's just assume that he is a starter for Cleveland. I do definitely think there's sleeper appeal there. We kind of went through this once with Domingo Santana already. Had that big breakout year for the Brewers, fell off pretty.

drastically the next year. Nobody wanted him when he signed with the Mariners. And, you know, for the first half of last year, he was great again. I could not find a taker for him in my 24-team Dynasty League when he was performing well with the Mariners. And then, like I said, enthusiasm for him was lukewarm at best across baseball this off-season. He's a high-strikeout guy. He's a low-fly ball guy. He does impact the ball really hard, but those are two natural deficiencies that we've seen a couple times now have really wrecked him over time. Look, he's free, like you said. I could probably find other outfielders going in that same range that I'm more enthusiastic about somebody like Sam Hilliard,

but I definitely think you could make a sleeper case for Santana. It's just not, I'm not the one who's going to be making it. And I'll point out that part of why this is a example of where it's not just arbitrary to say first and second half. The All-Star Break, it's four days off. It's not really that big of the deal. But he had an elbow injury. He only played, I think, six games after the All-Star Break or something like that. It limited his ability to hit and it limited his availability. And availability has been a bit of an issue for Domingo Santana, but he is someone who, despite the strikeouts, despite the you know, kind of not ideal batted ball profile for hitting for power.

He hits the ball exceptionally hard and he hits a ton of line drive. So he's actually been a consistently high bad at player. I think there's a lot to like in Domingo Santana's profile. Yeah, I'm with you too, Chris. I just think he was affected by the injury last year. And yeah, look, I think there's a lot of players going in that range that do have upside. So he's going around 327, like the 90th outfielder off the board right now.

but other outfielders in that range, Trent Grisham, Ian Hap. I think those are players that have upside. Austin Hayes going a little bit ahead of him, and then just behind him, Brendan Nimmo, Mike Tauchman, Kevin Pilar. So there are some other players that have upside as well going in that range, but I just think we shouldn't forget what Domingo Santana did and the pace that he was on before he wound up hurting that elbow last year. So I just kind of wanted to bring that to everyone's attention.

He's free, just based on ADP. so if you want to take him with the last pick in your draft, even in a points league, because while he does strike out a lot, he also walks a decent amount as well. So he's consistently around like a 9, 10% walk rate, which does help mitigate the strikeouts in a head-to-head points league. Hunter Renfro, another one.

He had 27 home runs with a 921 OPS in 81st half games. That's a 52 home run pace over 155 games. And in the second half, he wound up hitting 161, 36% strikeout rate. His hard contact rate fell about 15%. Now, I couldn't find an injury to speak of. So was this just a streak of bad luck? Was this, you know, he's playing with the Padres.

He's worrying about his playing time because they had so many different people in the outfield or is just kind of just the player Hunter Renfro is he's going to always be incredibly streaky. Because that first half, if he kept that up, we'd probably be talking about Hunter Renfro being drafted in the same range as guys like Fran Mill Reyes and Kyle Swarber this season. I think it was more good luck in the first half.

I think he got hot. I've never been a big believer in Hunter Renfro. I just, I don't know, he's old. He hasn't proven it for a full season. Like the best season he's had is an 806 OPS. And we're talking about a now 28-year-old who is not guaranteed an everyday role. he'll play he might be in the opening day lineup but the raise might only have what one everyday player uh yeah austin meadows right like that's just they they they could especially if we have

larger rosters to start the season like you you could see the rays having 15 hitters on their team 16 hitters on their team in which case you're going to have different guys in the lineup every day I'm doing a mailbag column today and someone asked me about Brandon Lowe and Nate Lowe and Nate Lowe. Did I get that right? Yeah, that's correct. Yes. And they asked me like, are they going to be everyday players?

They asked a bunch of people, but those were two of them. I said like, the race probably aren't going to have an everyday player. So you have an already streaky Hunter Renfro who has a pretty mediocre track record. He basically is a one-tool player. in fantasy, he can hit for power, but other than that, he's not going to help you. And he's probably not an everyday player.

I just, I don't see much reason to buy into him at all. Sorry. Chris, you said Hunter Renfro is old. He's 28 years old. I'm 28 years old. I wonder what you say behind my back, Chris. Old for a player who hasn't proven himself.

Like, he's old for it. Yeah, from a developmental standpoint. Yeah, I think people might view Hunter Renfro as like, oh, he's like 25. He's kind of still, and it's like, no, man, if he's not, if he's not it by now, I mean, it's not to say it never will be, but it seems pretty unlikely. And the rays are not going to have a long leash with a guy like that. But Scott, the raise gave up Tommy Pham in a trade to get Hunter Renfro. Doesn't that kind of speak to the situation as well and what they kind of expect from him? That's just how I look at it. And I think if he can lower his strikeout rate

closer to where he was at in 2018, if he hits 250 with 30 home runs, he's a good value where he's going. So I'm trying to remind myself of the full trade there. The rays have been as good at trading as any team the past few years. You would think teams would just stop trading with them. Xavier Edwards, right, was the key. And that was, like, let's not forget what Blake'snell's reaction to that trade was.

That's true. It was, he was pretty distraught about the return. Now, the rays are smart. It might be a good return, but, yeah. Yeah, I don't. It surprised me. It surprised me. And I think the only thing that justified it in my eyes is, is them thinking long-term, okay, how much does FAM really have left, particularly for us?

You know, and FAM's pretty old and has a bad elbow. So it makes sense. And then you get a legitimate top prospect in return Xavier Edwards. And Renfro, I saw, as kind of a throw-in just to soften the blow in the immediacy. So that's not, that doesn't really persuade me that they're going to unlock anything new for Renfro. But we'll know after this year, right?

Or whatever we see regular season action happen again. You know what I'm learning is that Scott and Chris have done shows for so long together that they kind of have similar mindsets on things. And I'm the new guy and I'm coming in and I'm kind of serving myself up on a platter to get like handicapped here. Is that true? Scott has to agree about plenty. And in your column on CBS Sports with like first half players, first half performance

is not to forget, like I actually really like Hunter Dozier this year. I agree with that one. I think that's a good example. of someone, he got hurt. You know, he was dealing with an oblique strain, but before that, he was really, really good. I did notice that happened, like, when, when, uh, before Al and I worked together,

when I just started first, when I first started working with Al, our ratio, our, not speaking very well, our rankings looked like they were on completely different worlds, right? And then over time, unknowingly, they got a little bit closer. It happened gradually enough that you couldn't really tell, but then you inject Nando dafino in there. Our rankings look pretty similar. His look like they're from a completely different world.

Wild card. And then the same thing happened when Heath started. Same thing. And I think over time, you do kind of develop this, this, you hear other people's points enough that you do develop these similar thought patterns. And you're the new one now, Frank. So you may look like they're on a completely different world. I don't know.

But that does seem to happen as people work together. And yet, still, distinctions remain. Spoiler alert, when my rankings do come out, when they're published, they are very different than Scott. So I'm looking forward to that. We'll have some more rankings debates as the fantasy draft season goes along here. I say fantasy draft season. Like the rest of, you know, the next three months is fantasy draft season.

So I guess that's where we're at right now in the world of fantasy baseball. Cole Hamels, another one. Stellar first half last year, 298 ERA, 1-2-0 whip, 97 strikeouts in 99 and 2 3rds innings pitched. His 12.3% swinging strike rate ranked 21st among qualified starting pitchers in the first half last season, and then he was kind of derailed by oblique, shoulder injuries, and in the second half he made 10 starts. His ERA was 5.79, and his whip was 1.83 in those 10 second half starts. His ADP has plummeted big time because of the shoulder injury he suffered in spring. His ADP right now is at 303. He's SP 93 off the board.

But Scott, I feel like before the shoulder injury, Cole Hamils was actually a pretty popular late-round target in early drafts, like in February per se. With the season being delayed, he should be good to go by the time things get started back up. So, you know, why hasn't the ADP kind of reflected him moving back up draft boards? Maybe it should. I suppose there's an argument to be made that if he came back and tweaked his mechanics, developed some bad habits.

I can't remember if it was intentional or if the argument was that his mechanics changed because he was pitching through discomfort in the second half last year. I want to say it was intentional, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find it because all the recent news is about, of course, the injury he suffered this spring. But yeah, there was a strong. case to be made for his second half struggles being connected to injury and him just making the mistake

of not being back to 100% when he returned, whether it was health-wise or mechanics-wise. And I guess maybe you could make the case that if he did that once, maybe he'll do it again this year. But I think realistically, it's just because

Cole Hamill's isn't somebody people are talking about much. So we're not seeing this drastic swing in his draft value. You know, maybe partly too, because just not that many drafts are happening right now. And so we're not seeing it reflected in ADP. Like, he's so far down that it's going to take more drafts to move him back up to a place where comfortable.

But yeah, I think just like we talk about with Justin Verlander, Mike Clevenger, James Paxton, Goal Hamels, you need to throw him in there as somebody who looked like he was going to be injured at the start of the year. And now she should probably not be. Chris, I want to do a little lightning round of Hamels or Blank. Are you ready? Yeah. Cole Hamels or Nate Avaldi?

Avaldi. Cole Hamels or Garrett Richards. Richards. Cole Hamels or Griffin Canning. Canning. Cole Hamels or Julio Tehran? Hamels. There you go.

Hamels or Matt? Matt. Hamels or Fires? Hamels for sure. Hamils or John Lester? Hamels. Hamels or Jose Cantana? Hamels.

All of those starting pitchers I just named are going ahead of Cole Hamels right now, according to ADP. So there's about four or five there that Chris actually would rather have Cole Hamels ahead of those players. So it seems like, again, there might just not be enough drafts going on right now.

I think that's a good point by Scott, but it seems like people are forgetting that Cole Hamels was kind of a popular-ish late-round pick before he suffered the shoulder injury. The last player I wanted to get to here was Caleb Smith, and to me he's Matthew Boyd Light. His first 11 starts last year, 3.41 ERA, 102 whip, a 31% strikeout rate, 15% swinging strike rate, both ranked top five among starting pitchers at the time. He suffered a hip injury in June, which forced him to miss about a month of the season, and then his final 16 starts, he pitched to an ERA over five, a one-three-nine whip,

his fastball velocity dropped a tick, his walks went way up, allowed a ton of home runs. Chris, you are Marlins man here on the show. If you remember those first two months last season, Smith was being valued as a borderline SP2, SP3 for fantasy purposes. How much of that poor second half do you attribute to the injury that he suffered? I think a decent amount. There seems to be a pretty clear causation there.

He was probably performing over his head in the first half, but the underlying numbers actually largely backed it up. He had really good peripherals, good swinging strike rates. He looked really good. And then, you know, that injury came. He stopped throwing his hard. And, you know, I think he's a guy who has, you know, even for a left-handed pitcher, has below average fastball velocity.

And so, you know, he gets a lot out of, you know, a high spin rate, good secondary is change up and slider. But the margin for error for guys who throw that slow is really slim. And if you lose some velocity, if you lose some command, all of a sudden things can go really bad really quickly. And he's a fly ball pitcher too. So that only exacerbates the issue. Yeah, that's the problem I have with Caleb Smith. Like the actual results in May, you talk about the first two months. We're basically talking April and May.

the overall results in May were pretty good, really good K rate especially. But what changed from April to May is the walk rate went way up, the fly ball rate went way up. And it was actually, those two were actually closer in May to the rest of the season when he was awful

than they were to April when he had his best month. So I look at his, just the base skills for Caleb Smith. Only one of the three fifth areas, does he look like he's good? And that's with missing bats. And that's the most important one, probably.

But I feel like to be a real standout in fantasy, particularly in this environment where there's so little margin for error, you really need to be good at at least two of the three fit measurements. So I'm not big on Caleb Smith myself. The one thing I will say is who's the Blue Jays pitcher from like three or four years? ago who always had really mediocre peripherals, but Marco Estrada. Marco Estrada.

Caleb Smith reminds me a little bit of Marco Estrada. He's not quite as extreme. Marco Estrada, I think, had like one of the highest release points in baseball, if not the highest relative to his size. He basically threw straight overhead. I think he was like a really good control pitcher too, right, Estrada? Probably. I'll double check that.

But, and I think you're trading off strike because he was, wasn't a strikeout pitcher. Kalos Smith is a strikeout pitcher. He reminds me of that and that he's going to give up a lot of home runs, but he actually should have a relatively low babbip because he gives up, you know, he can generate infield fly balls

on weak contact. He rates out relatively well in terms of limiting hard contacts. So, you know, it's not, I don't think he's an ace. I think he can be helpful in like a high 3s. kind of mediocre

but a lot of strikeouts kind of way. Yeah. And I would imagine there'd be some, a lot of like five and two third inning starts in there which going to hurt his win potential on a team where he already isn't expected to win much. I did look it up. Marco Estrada

he started out as a good control pitcher with the Brewers, but by the time he got to the Blue Jays, not so much. His walk rates and strikeout rates were kind of all over the place for his entire career as a matter of fact. But he did lead the league in hits per nine twice, which you wouldn't expect for somebody who threw soft like he did.

And that was because he consistently put up like 250 Babbibs, right? I'm looking on baseball reference, so Babbit isn't immediately available. His bad bit with the Blue Jays was 216, 234, 295, 284. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And so he kind of befuddled people,

but, you know, Babbip, like we talked about, with hitters recently. It's not just luck. You can control it. Hitters have more control over that than pitchers do, but pitchers can still control it. And Smith is one guy who I would expect to have a lower Babbitt than most, but I don't know if that's enough to make up for the walks and the home runs.

It's particular. Yeah, probably better in a roto format because the strikeouts will help you, but I do agree because of the high-pitch count, he's going to walk a decent amount. He's probably not going to go deep into games. So a better Roto pitcher for me where maybe he'll help you with strikeouts, you know, sub-4 ERA, but wanted to point out how great he was in those first 12 stars before he started dealing with the injury.

Questions? Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com or leave us an Apple podcast review. We still have some questions coming in there. This one comes from Mark and Laura, and they ask, I am in a 10-team, NL-only auction, 5-5-Roto, where we can keep five players for a maximum of three years. The best keepers I have this year include Tommy. Edmund for $10.

Danes B. Swanson, $4. Amed Rosario, $16. $1. Paul DeYoung, $11, and Brandon Woodruff for $1. My question is, does it make more sense to continue to spread the risk strategy during the auction,

especially on the hitting side, or should I plan on going after stars with the majority of my available dollars and consider my keepers as scrubs? So continue to kind of spread it out or go with a stars and scrubs type approach. Well, what you have to consider is that while you have some discounted keepers here for an in-l-only format, so does everybody

else in all likelihood. So there's going to be a great deal of inflation happening, and it's going to especially happen at the star's end in all likelihood, based on my experience playing in these sort of situations. So because it's an NL-only league, because you don't have the luxury of banking on mid-season pickups to help you weather the storm, I would still be more inclined to spread the dollars as opposed to going all out for the studs. Chris, anything? Nope. I agree 100% with Scott.

Yay! From Luke B in Philly. This is an Apple podcast review. First, wanted to give you a bold take, Fran Mill Reyes and John Carlos Stanton, both favorites of mine, combined for 90 homers. That wasn't me saying that. That was the podcast review saying that.

I do love Fran Mill Reyes, but do not love John Carlos Stanton. Sorry, Chris. Also, as a huge Phillies fan, I was wondering your thoughts on a few players. A few players' fantasy relevance, namely Zach Wheeler, Spencer Howard, and Alec Baum. Thanks for providing entertainment in these tough times. If you've listened to the podcast before, you've probably heard Scott's takes on Alec Baum at some point. So I wanted to focus a little bit more on Spencer Howard here, who is regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the Phillies organization.

maybe the top pitching prospect in their organization in 15 starts last year between rookie high A and double A ball, 203 ERA, 0.83 whip, 94 strikeouts in 71 innings pitched. And before the season was delayed, there was talk of him potentially being in the rotation to start the season. So any takes on Spencer Howard? I actually think it started, well, maybe there was some whispers before then, but the clearest talk of that was actually.

after the delay. You might be right, actually. The GM went on record saying, well, because of how this is going to affect the timeline and how we're going to manage his innings, there's a good chance. We'll have them as our fifth starter to open the season. Now, we haven't been hearing much from the baseball world while this has been going on. It's been mostly silence. But occasionally, you get these little tidbits like that from GMs that are really enlightening.

And I had to move Spencer Howard way up in my rankings because of that. And he's a top pitching prospect, 203 ERA and 15 starts last year, between Class A and double A. So it's not like he even reached AAA. It's aggressive, that move, but huge strikeout potential, great fastball, and pretty good control, I think. I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but my memory suggests a really good strikeout to walk ratio.

And that's somebody who needs to be targeted late in a mix. league now, I would say. So last year in rookie ball, three walks per nine, in high A, 1.29 walks per nine, and in AA, 2.6 walks per nine. So yeah, pretty good command there, Scott, and he was consistently over 11 Ks per nine at each one of those levels. So a solid strikeout to walk ratio. You are correct about Spencer Howard. I agree. Someone you do have to target later in your mixed leagues as well. This one comes from Colin. And Dear Walker, Jones, and Bird.

Oh, wait, we don't, we're not going to talk about, I did want to talk about Zach Wheeler real quick. Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead. Zach Wheeler. So since returning to full strength from Tommy John surgery, Wheeler has thrown 377.2 innings with a 365 ERA, 1.194 whip, and 8.9K per 9 over the last two seasons. Jose Barrios over that same span has a 376 ERA,

1.184 whip in 392. point two innings. So a 15 inning difference over two years. Brrios does have a 9.1K per 9 so it's a little higher, but their statistics actually look almost identical. So at this point in their careers, I don't necessarily love Zach Wheeler, but I don't see much reason why, like, Jose Brillo should be going this far ahead of him. I think Wheeler might be a little undervalued. Zach Wheeler was someone I was all in on last year. I had him, I think, ranked as like a top 20 starting pitcher. I was very bullish on him. And I know that we tell fantasy owners to kind of have

short memories, but maybe it's just because I was burned by him last year that I just don't really buy into him as much this season and changing the environment. I mean, if he does pitch in Citizens Bank Park, it probably will hurt him more than it did pitching in city field, or at least that's my take on it. So I don't know, Scott. What do you think about Zach Wheeler? I think I'm more with Chris on this. He was somebody we talked about a lot as the season was playing out last year. He was kind of the exhibit A

for how we need to change our expectations of what's good from a starting pitcher. And he obviously came out on the good side of that in the long run. If you're not expecting him to be an ace, if you're expecting him to be just somebody you can plug in your lineup and it's going to be a lot better

than messing around with streaming pitchers off the waiver wire. I think you have the right idea. But he's always kind of had that reputation of unfulfilled expectations and maybe some people are still holding out for more

as long as you don't set your expectations too high. I think you'll be pretty happy with them at his going rate and feel like there's a lot less chance of them letting you down than like a Jose Berrios who may fall into the same category, but at a much higher cost.

All right, that'll do it for today. Tomorrow, guys, we're projecting the 2020s all-decade team. Last week's show was a ton of fun when we kind of look back on the 2010's all-decade team. So tomorrow will kind of be projecting forward, which I think can be helpful for those playing in Dynasty leagues. I know you've had a ton of Dynasty content recently come out, Scott. So we'll have that tomorrow. I'm sure there will be some debate across the board between,

Cody Bellinger, outfielders, Ronald LeCunia, prospects versus players who are still in the big leagues right now. So excited to do that tomorrow on the show, projecting the 2020s all-decade team for Chris and Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening. We will see you again tomorrow. This was Fantasy Baseball today.