Fantasy Baseball Today - Gerrit Cole Concerns, What You Missed in September & Season Awards! (10/7 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Gerrit Cole face planted in the Wild Card game against the Red Sox (2:40). Is there any reason to be concerned? ... News and notes (13:53): C.J. Cron re-signed with the Rockies, A.J. Hinch named Gregory Soto the Tigers 2022 closer and more. ... We have some quick prospect updates including who is playing in the Arizona Fall League and what's next for Nate Pearson (20:43). ... What did you miss in September (21:46)? Just how good was Tyler O'Neill? ... We have a bunch of awards to give out for the 2021 season (33:51)! Who were the most improved hitters? What about 'The Gonzo'!? '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: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive. Center Field. What is magnificent? Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality.

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris and Adam. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today, presented by Lion & Cougals. More on there, great variety of beverages later on in the podcast. Frank Stample joined as. As always, by Scott White here on Thursday, October 7th. One of us still has a rooting interest in the postseason, and it isn't me. To the delight of many, the Yankees have been eliminated by the Red Sox losing 6 to 2.

Scott, I know that you watch this entire game. First pitch to the last pitch. It was a great game to watch, assuming you're Red Sox fan. Yeah, yeah. It seems like it was an exciting game for the Red Sox. It was a highly viewed game. I was seeing the ratings on it were among the best in years. And, you know, Yankees Red Sox, that's always a lot of interest.

I feel like the interest was kind of outsized, and, you know, there are a lot of Yankees fans very upset, a lot of Red Sox fans very excited. And that's fine, I guess, but does anybody expect that game to, mean anything to what ultimately happens in the playoffs. I understand if it's your team, you're excited, and, you know,

obviously there's always a chance if you're alive, and so it's better to be alive than dead, but nobody without a rooting interest should be that invested in the outcome because neither of those teams is going anywhere. I understand what you're saying, but, Scott, I mean, they are two very polarizing teams and teams that I think other fan bases enjoy hating and seeing the demise of.

So either way, someone had to lose yesterday and well, two days ago now. We're recording us on Wednesday. It's going to be released on Thursday, of course. But yes, to the delight of many, the Yankees are eliminated. And I've got to talk a little bit about Garicol, so we'll do that here up at the top. I have a few Rockies extensions I want to talk about. And things you might have missed in September. And we do have some season awards later on in the podcast. So, let's start with this. Oh, my goodness gracious! Oh, my goodness gracious.

Garrett Cole, getting paid a lot of money to not pitch very well in this single game elimination wildcard game. He goes two plus, he gives up four hits, two walks, three earned runs, including two home runs, one to Zander Bogart's, one to Kyle Schwerber. And you watch this game, I mean, look, he had really nothing. He had no command of his fastball, his pitch sequence. was super weird. He threw a 2-0 change-up to Zander Bogart's right down the middle, which wound up being crushed after he threw him a few sliders off the plate.

I don't know. He just looked off, man. He looked scared, not ready for this game. Whatever you want to say, whatever kind of storyline you want to come up with. But maybe he's still pitching through the hamstring injury, whatever it might be. In the back of my mind,

which I feel like, you know, people, the broadcaster, just kind of like, they walk around what they actually want to say here. Let's be honest. Garacol has not been the same since the sticky substance situation, right? Like there was a stretch. There were some really great starts in there. There's no doubt about it.

But his final 19 starts, not including the wild card game. So final 19 regular season starts from June 3rd on. A 4.15 ERA, 1.20 whip. 11.9K per 9. Still very good. 2.6 walks per 9. a 14% swinging strike rate. The underlying number is much better.

You know, 3.66 FIP, 3.31X FIP, a 3.26 Sierra. I did way too much research on this today. It's nowhere near the pitcher that he was with the Astros from 2018 to 2019. And it's nowhere near the pitcher that he was for 23 starts with the Yankees before June of this year. So if you take 2020 and the first two months of the season, combined 23 starts. He was, like, even the underlying numbers are,

they're not really close to where he was in these other stints with the Astros and with the Yankees. So I say all of this, Scott, because if I'm investing a late first or even an early second round pick in Garrick Cole next year, I want to be sure. I want to feel safe about the pitcher, the player that I am taking that early in the draft.

And unless something happens in the offseason where they give the green light to some kind of, substance that everyone uses some universal substance, something. I just don't know that I'm going to feel that way about Gary Cole, that I'm going to feel safe about him as a first or second round pick. What say you? Well, which pitcher would you feel safe about? Is it wouldn't be Jacob de Grom?

It wouldn't be Shane Bieber. Would it be Max Scherzer? I don't know. He's going to be 38, right? He's getting up there in age. That's definitely fair. I put out a poll on Twitter earlier on Wednesday when we're recording this. And I asked, who would the SP1 be right now? And let's exclude Jacob de Grom because we don't know what's going to happen yet, right?

So I put Scherzer, Cole, Walker Bueller, and Corbin Burns in this poll. Corbin Burns is the leader at 36.5%. Walker Bueller is actually second on this list, 33.2%. And yes, I realized that Brandon Woodruff should be on this list. Twitter only allows you to put five people on a Twitter poll. So. Well, I think, I think Corbin Burns probably has the biggest red flag of all of them in that you know the one of the must for an ace is the ability to log a lot of of innings and until a pitcher shows the ability to do that year after year you can't

trust him to do it maybe burns will but he's done it once now and even that I mean we're I'm kind of giving I'm kind of elevating him beyond the the innings total that he actually delivered it was a huge increase from whatever what he had ever thrown before. It's a big assumption to say he's going to come right back and do it again. So that's part of it.

Honestly, I'm not that worried about Garrett Cole. I thought the reaction to his start was one of the most unfair things, one of the most unfair takes after yesterday's game for a lot of reasons. But for the reasons

that matter to our audience, the fantasy baseball audience. I think it's pretty clear his hamstring isn't right. You did the breakdown of when the spin rates began falling across the league because of the foreign substance crackdown, which began basically at the start of June is when you saw the spin rates dropping. But as we've talked about, after that initial stretch that basically ran the entire month of June where spin rates were down everywhere dramatically for some pitchers, Garrett Cole among them, it kind of normalized and the spin rates got back to normal, including for Garrett Cole.

And we don't know why. It's not really worth getting into for our purposes. But he hurt his hamstring in the middle of September. Garrett Cole did. In the six starts preceding that hamstring injury, he had a 135 ERA, striking out 48 batters and 33 in a third innings. I mean, he was as awesome as he's ever been. And then the last three starts of the regular season,

right after the hamstring injury, he had a 764 ERA, and then obviously a fourth start in the postseason that was not so great either. So, like, he had gotten back on track. And the reason I limit it to only that six-start stretch

is, you know, it was really more like a 10-start stretch, a 10-start stretch with a 245 VRA, but I didn't go, I didn't count all 10 of those starts because there was one like just randomly awful start in the middle. of that, but even including that randomly awful start. It was a 245 ERA and 10 starts, 89 strikeouts

in 58 and 2 thirds innings. So I'm really not that worried about it. I think the hamstring injury that he never really even missed a start for was impacting his delivery and clearly throwing him off. And, you know, I don't think he's an

early or even mid-first rounder. You know what? I don't think he's a first rounder at all. I think only Jacob de Grom if we get assurances about his health. I think he's the only pitcher who would be a first rounder. But Garrett Cole will be the first pitcher I take not named Jacob de Grom. Early in the second. Yeah, I mean, no, no, that's fair.

That was, you know, it's a good breakdown. And I know that there was a long stretch where he was good. So, again, like, there's a chance that it was the hamstring that was affecting him. And maybe he needed some time to adjust to pitching without the substances, assuming that he was using them. but it seems like there was a good chance that he was. And we saw a lot of pitchers kind of have that adjustment period and then get back on track. So, you know, he's very much followed the league-wide trend in terms of spin rate way down.

Oh, suddenly the spin rate seems normal again. And his production, more than the average pitcher, his production corresponded to that. And then came the hamstring injury. And I think that's kind of skewing the numbers that you gave, the numbers that you gave, the numbers last 19 starts. If you look at his second half numbers also in the area before, it's really skewed by those last three regular season starts after the hamstring injury.

Right. Yeah, I mean, he suffered the hamstring injury on September 7th. Even if you go up to September 1st, which was another great star for him, that was seven innings, one run, 15 strikeouts. He had a 3.52 ERA from June up until that start.

So it's still very good. It's just not the Garicol that we are used to, So I don't know that we will see that pitcher again. Does that mean that he still can't be a top five pitcher? No, I think that's definitely possible. But there's just like a few, I don't know, I want some answers. I want some answers in the offseason. And certainly he's not the only one that we need answers for.

Yeah, we have a long offseason to figure that out. Before we lay the Yankees season to rest here, Scott, did you have the great fortune of hearing John Sterling's radio call of John Carlo Stanton's first inning single, which many people, myself included, thought was a home run. Did you have a chance to hear this? I didn't hear it now. All right. Well, get ready for this. The pitch to Stanton. There goes. Deep left. It is high. It is far. That is God out of the ballpark. A Stantonian home run. Now, what did I do wrong? What did I see wrong? He's at first base. So he's saying, and he's at the ballpark too.

So normally, you know, radio broadcasters have been calling games from their home parks while games are on the road. They allowed both him and Susan Waldman to go to Fenway to watch the game live and call the game on the radio. And that came courtesy of WFant. But he's like there's a ball bouncing off the green monster and back into the field of play and they're throwing it. And he's still saying, that ball is gone. It is out of the stadium. like so definitively, and it's just like, look, I'm not going to sit here and just like bash an 83-year-old guy,

but like, I don't know, man. I think it might be time to hang him up. That is getting really far into the call to not catch yourself, you know. I noticed people were giving Matt Vasgirchen a hard time on Twitter for the same thing. Like, oh gosh, I mean. For reacting off the bat like it was a home run. And then obviously it is an home run. I think that's kind of a stupid criticism.

for the most part because like sometimes you're fooled the camera work was awful they did the zoom like it was a home run like everyone off the bat I said

all that's gone I started hopping around and stuff and I'm like wait what it's back in play you're a play by play man you're supposed to be living in the moment and part of living in the moment is oh that looked like

it was hit much further higher harder than it was you know that just happens sometimes, but to complete the home run call, you know, as opposed to just having an oversized reaction off the bat. Like, you don't know exactly off the bat what's going to happen to it. It looked good off the bat. What can you say? Oh, man, what did I do wrong? It's just like, imagine you're listening to that game on the radio. If like, I don't know, you have some kind of job where you're driving around. You're trying to listen to the Yankees and you think that ball's gone.

You think you're up one zip and just to find out that nope, that is not the case. Before we hit the news and notes this Sunday, the NFL on CBS welcomes in week five with some fantastic matchups, including Tom Brady and the Bucks hosting the Dolphins, the Saints taking on the Washington football team, and a battle between two of the best young quarterbacks when Baker Mayfield's Browns meet Justin Herbert's Chargers. Coverage begins at noon Eastern with the NFL today. It's week five of the NFL coming up this Sunday on CBS. Some news and notes already. I mean, things are flying in here.

The season just ended on Sunday, and we've already got stuff happening. The Rockies, in particular, are making some moves here. CJ Crone, they signed him to a two-year, $14.5 million contract. He finished the season as the third best first baseman, 13th best, excuse me, in Roto, and he averaged 3.0 fantasy points per game.

That was the 16th best first baseman in that format. 281 batting average, 28 homers, 9.05 OPS, stark splits, obviously, between Coorsfield and on the road. But you were looking for a top 12 first basement, Scotty. You might have gained one. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the reason I didn't feel like I could include C.J. Cron, really, what we're basing this on is how high do we put Frank Schwendell

and how quickly the talent at first base tapers off. C.J. C.J. Cron coming off the year he had in Colorado, he's somebody I could put ahead of Frank Schwendell. I could feel good about that, except he was a free agent. If he wasn't going back to Colorado, obviously we couldn't expect him to deliver those high-end numbers again.

I mean, just look at the home way splits, look at his career track record. But yeah, him coming back to Colorado's a pretty big deal for his fantasy value, and that's one guy I'm going to be ranking ahead of Frank Schwendell as a result. Yeah, no, that's, it's good for us. We gained another fantasy viable first basement, definitely welcoming C.J. Crone back to Colorado. The other extension that they gave out was Antonio Sinsatella.

They signed to a five-year, $50 million contract. He ended his season with a 4.42 ERA, a 1.34 whip overall. But he did have a quality start in eight of his last 10 starts. And those 10 starts, he was actually pretty solid for the most part. His final start, he got absolutely destroyed and less than an inning. one inning of work. So that inflated those final 10 starts. But he was pretty good.

Ultimately, it's a Rockies pitcher. It's worth mentioning because it's a five-year contract. But I don't know how fantasy viable Antonio Sinsatella is going to be. Yeah, I don't anticipate ranking him high or drafting him much. But there was something to his strong finish to the season. I know his very last start wasn't good. But he rates high in both, ground ball rate and in

walk rate he throws a lot of strikes. So the two of the three the two of the three legs of the X-FIP triangle, the two that get the least attention, Senzatella was very good, but the third one, the strikeouts,

not so much. And then he's a Rocky's pitcher, which kind of messes up everything. Yeah, I mean, if you're depending on, look, ground balls are a little bit better, obviously, but, you know, there's always going to be a bab-up inflated pitchers out there in

Corse field. So, and only super deep 15-team Mixed Roto, maybe he has some relevance at some point in the season, but that is Antonio Sintelah back with the Rockies. And the Nationals re-signed Alcidas Escobar to a one year, one million dollar deal. He finished his season, batting

288, four homers, three seals. 53 runs scored in 75 games. I actually thought that was pretty surprising. I mean, over 150 game pace, this guy's on You know, he's on pace to score over 100 runs. So a possible cheap run source for next year. Again, N-O-only, much deeper leagues.

I'll see this Escobar. You know what's so interesting, Scott? Helped you win the Tout Wars Championship. That's right. Final week in Corse Field. I appreciate you remembering there, Scottie. But for Escobar, so interesting, I didn't realize he was out of baseball for so long.

Like, he did not play in 2019. He didn't play in the COVID short in 2020. Then just comes back this year. and is like, I don't know, not Prime Alcidas Escobar, but he was pretty damn good. I don't know, it was surprising to see that he was out of baseball for that long.

I mean, it was Prime Alcena's Escobar or something to write home about? Never had double-digit home runs, never had double-digit steals. All right, so maybe he was prime. Yeah, he did. Hold on a second, Scotty. You're selling my guy, Al-Citas Escobar a little bit short here.

No, I'm not. I've got the page, that the stats open. but now. You said he never had double-digit steals. Oh, I'm sorry. I was like, a lot of steeling column.

No, you're right. He did steal a lot of bases. I was like, hey there, man, 35 steals. Never had double-digit home runs. That he definitely did not have. But I'll see this.

That's where we'll be back for the nationals for one more year. I feel like this doesn't happen ever, but Tiger's manager, AJ Hinch said that Gregory Soto will enter the 20-22 season as the team's closer.

So I usually doesn't happen this early, but we'll take it. I mean, that's one team that we don't really have to figure out, I guess. I wonder if his general manager agrees. I don't know. I guess we'll find out. The tigers, I think the tigers are the team that I expect to make, you know, to really push the chips in this offseason and move into contending mode. They weren't that far out of contention this year, and they have a lot of young talent.

already come up and more to come. You know what's interesting? They had the same record as the New York Mets. Wow. Think about that. The Tigers and the Mets had the same record. Very different expectations going into the season. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, apparently they're going to be in the market for a shortstop. They have great prospects on the way. Torkelson and Riley Green and they have young pitchers. So the Tigers, the Tigers are, they're on their way. They're on their way. The Padres have indeed fired. Jace Tingler, we spoke about that as a possibility on our last podcast.

AJ Preller's job is safe, and speaking of the Padres, they are expected to pursue Marcus Stroman in free agency, and that could mean the end of Chris Paddock in the rotation, unless, I don't know, Mike Clevenger has some kind of setback or someone gets hurt, but I assume that the top four would be Joe Musgrove, U. Darvish, Blake Snell, Mike Clevenger coming off of Tommy John's surgery, and we'll see if they can actually reel in someone. like Marcus Stroman in free agency.

Theo Epstein will not be joining the Mets's front office. That was confirmed on Wednesday. Can I interest you in the Yankees? Definitely would take Theo Epstein over. Brian Cashman's done a great job with the Yankees, but it's clear that, it's clear to me that they need to change something. I don't know what that something is.

I'm pretty sure Joey Gallo batting clean up in your wild card game. Batting like 160 in his time with the Yankees is not the answer. So we'll see. Some prospect updates. These are some big names that are playing in the Arizona Fall League during October here. I was about to say during the fall.

It's, you know, Arizona Fall League, I think it speaks for itself. Spencer Torkelson, Marco Luciano, C.J. Abrams, Riley Green, Tristan Kossis, Nolan, Nick Gonzalez, Acea Lacey, and Mackenzie Gore, as well as many others that I don't have listed here. But those are basically, you know, top 60, top 75-ish prospects that will be participating in the Arizona Fall League. might have to have our guy the Welsh here come on on the podcast in the coming week because I know that he'll be out there and following the Arizona Fall League very closely. Last prospect update, Blue Jays GM, Ross Atkins said on Wednesday that Nate Pearson will be assessed this week to determine whether a procedure is required to address a sports hernia that he dealt with this past season. He came back as a reliever. He actually looked pretty good as a reliever for the Blue Jays, but I think long term they still want to try. him out as a starting pitcher. What You Missed in September presented by Lining Coogles,

and Scott wrote a very extensive article which you can find on the site right now. CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball, nearly 4,000 words. So if you picked up football or you just kind of fell off because you weren't participating in your league anymore, definitely go check out that article. Let's start with some notable newcomers. And in particular, we spoke about, this name a lot. It's got Ranger Swares. He was awesome down the stretch here. All in all, he had a 1.36 ERA, 1.51 in 12 starts while he was in the rotation. Dying, an early starting pitcher ranked prediction for Ranger Suarez. What are we thinking here? I know you haven't gotten that far yet, but top 40, top 50. Oh, I would guess top 40. Okay. With 151 ERA and 12

And a lot of the early ones were short, three, four innings, but by the end, he was going six innings with consistency and even through a complete game shutout in a second to last start of the season. So was taking on a normal starter workload and just doesn't give a pits. Now, the thing that would ruin him, and I don't think this is going to happen next year, but I noticed they're experimenting with it in the Arizona Fall League is requiring two infielders on each side of second base, eliminating the shift, basically.

And also requiring that there always has to be four infielders and they have to stand. They can't be standing basically in the shallow outfield. So clearly combating the shift and experimenting with what that would look like. And it would really hurt groundball pitchers like Ranger Suarez, I think. most of all. But that's, you know, that's kind of a wild hypothetical at this point.

I don't really think they're close to introducing that in the majors. One concerning development that we had in September was Clayton Kirshaw, who he missed a couple of months this season already. He was dealing with a forearm elbow injury, and then he aggravated that in the final regular season start for the Dodgers. He's already been ruled out for the entire postseason, where actually right now the Dodgers and Cardinals are playing there in the eighth inning. It's a tie game. It's one to one.

So we'll see how deep the Dodgers actually can make it in this postseason, but they will be without Clayton Kirshaw. And he is 34 years old. And this is looking pretty grim overall at his advanced age, Scotty. Yeah, it's definitely concerning. I know the MRI showed no ligament damage. obviously that's the best news you could hope for right now. However, we've seen instances in the past

where pitcher has a recurring elbow injury, MRI's fine, and then suddenly it's not fine. Jacob DeGrore. I don't know how that happened. Well, it's happened over the years, I've seen it happen several times. Right. It's not an uncommon thing.

and it may be at those times the pitcher starts throwing again feels more pain has another MRI and oh it turns out there is something going on there and maybe just the first MRI didn't show up or maybe it was very close to tearing and didn't it tear i don't know i'm not a medical expert but it doesn't feel to me like clayton kershaw is necessarily out of the woods with the elbow injury and given that he's 34 years old has a pretty extensive injury history already I could see him slipping outside of the top 20 starting pitchers in some drafts next year. I'm not saying for sure

I'm going to rank him outside of the top 20 myself, but I could see it happening in a lot of drafts. How about a player that was even better than you think? We spoke about one Dodger. Let's talk about a Cardinals player, Tyler O'Neill. Massive, massive, massive September, 328 batting average, 13 homers, five steals, and 1108 OPS.

In the month of September alone, finishes the year with 34 homers, 15 steals, finally comes through with that power speed combination, even with the strikeouts, maintain a 286 batting average. He's got any Roto-slash-Had-Tagories League, because I think he takes a bit of a hit in a points league. What round range would you look at drafting him

in a category's format? Yeah, that's going to be a tough question to answer. I'm going to enter with some skepticism just because anybody who strikes out more than 30% of the time. I'm always going to be skeptical of that, especially if you're counting on batting average on any level. And, you know, you mentioned he hit 328 in September. Tyler and he'll hit over 300 in August, too. So, you know, really, 286 was the final batting. So really was a contributor in that category.

I would say in Roto Leagues, you know, factoring in that he's also a modest steel source, it would be tough to let him drop beyond like round six, right? If we're talking 12-team context. Yeah, I was thinking fifth or sixth. Yeah. I was just, you know. Yeah. I wasn't serious.

I basically looked at the first four rounds so far, and I'm going to be saying that for weeks probably. Because now I'm going position by position. But, yeah, I wasn't really thinking about him. round four yet. So, yeah, I'm thinking six. A player who had a partial redemption to his season in the month of September. And that was Jared Kelnick, who, for the most part, he hit 181 in his rookie season here. And it was disappointing for sure. But in the final month, he hits 248, seven homers, three steals,

and 854 OPS, helped Seattle make that late push, just nearly missed playing in the wild card game themselves. But Jared Kelnick, someone I think Scott, who... In home leagues, you know, not in like expert or industry leagues or, you know, bigger money leagues, people are going to know, all right, he still has a ton of prospect pedigree. But I think it's some home leagues where people just see the overall numbers and how bad they are. I think you're going to be able to get Jared Kellanick at a really good discount next year. And definitely someone I would, I'm still in on and I would like to take a shot on in his second season. Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. The shallower of the league, you know, you could potentially get him with your last pick probably in some 10 team leagues.

And, you know, his September wasn't, like, awesome, but it was enough to convince me he's on the right track. Like, he's going to be okay. He's moving the right direction. He's not just being totally overmatched anymore. And there's a lot of, a lot to like about Jared Kalnick still, obviously. So, yeah, the final batting average still being 181, I, I, I think that's going to steer a lot of people away from him next year. Until maybe spring training, if he has a huge spring,

all bets are off, obviously. Yeah, yeah, that would rocket him way up the draft boards there. Last player, I want to talk about a noteworthy debut, and that is Shane Boz with the Tampa Bay raise. He struck out 18 while allowing just nine base runners in 13 and third in third innings pitch. He has a complete arsenal. He throws hard, high spin rate fastball.

People are already excited about it. I understand people are joking. out with me. Like I put out that poll, who's your SP1 for next year? I had like two or three people just respond Shane Boz. I just think people are going to be, like this is the prospect, young stud pitcher that people are

going to be in on next year. And if he shows out in the postseason, I think that we can see it have not the same type of ascension as like a Randy or Rose Arena, but it will have an effect like that on him for fantasy if he performs well in the post season.

Yeah, no, I could see him getting a ton of Buzz going into next year. To the point, he may be overvalue. Like, I'm pretty confident right now just because of the workload limitations I expect to be put placed on Shane Boz next year that, you know, him versus Ranger Suarez. I'll take Suarez, you know. But I could see him getting pushed maybe into the top 30 just because the buzz builds so much.

And a ton of talent, I think, you know, there's, it's likely as soon as, as. 2022 we might consider Shane Boz an ace or somebody who's on the verge of ace status and fantasy but there will be a buildup that needs to happen for him to get to that point. All right, I'm doing some quick math

here. It looks like he finished a year with about 92 innings pitch between the minors and the majors. He's obviously going to throw a little bit in the postseason potentially a lot depending on how far I

go. But I mean, well, he's going to settle in somewhere between 100 and 120 innings pitch basically between the postseason, the regular season, majors and the minors for Shane Boss. So what does that mean for next year? Can he get up to 150? 140, 150? Yeah, I think that's a fair, fair projection for Shane Boss. But we'll see. Let's see what he does in the postseason. So this was one, two, three, four, five, five bullet points. We just went over from that. that article, what you missed in September.

There are 48 bullet points overall. So this is just a small sample of what you can find in that article. And Franco's telling me there were some things in there that he wasn't even aware of. So it's not just... I know we... Because we talk about Ranger Swara, Shane Baas just now. Obviously, we've talked about those guys a lot on this podcast. But there are some guys in those 48 bullet points that we haven't talked about as much.

Be sure to check it out. Well, Scott, I said... that to you in confidence. I didn't think that you were going to bring it up here. No. But Zach Gallen was one where I was actually surprised to see like his final eight starts. He was pretty good. Five quality starts in his in his last eight. So I was actually a pretty surprised to see that from Zach Allen. And so there you have it. That is what you missed in September presented by Lion and Cougals. And I tend to enjoy IPAs more once the weather cools down a little bit, which means it's the perfect time to pick up a line in Cougall's Lemon Hays IPA. It's a well-balanced

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Lina Cougall's has you covered. Just head on over to Liny.com. That's L-E-N-I-E.com or follow Lining Cougals on Instagram or Facebook for more information about all of the delicious beers that they brew. We'll take a quick break when we return. Season awards.

Scott's writing another really long article, I assume. We'll talk about it next year on Fantasy Baseball today. All right, so let's talk about some season awards for the 20-21 season. Scott, we were talking about this beforehand. There's got to be some kind of creative name, right? Like, come on, the office has the Dundees. What are we doing? What are we going with here?

I don't know. Usually you go back and listen to the previous year's podcast and remind yourself, because there was a name we used last year, but I can't think of it either. Yeah, there was. Was it the Scotty's? That would make sense, right? You're putting all the work into this. I guess they should be, right?

I don't know. All right. Well, we'll go with the Scotty's. If anyone has a better name for it, tweet at us. At Roto underscore Frank at CBS. Scott White, email us in Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. We need a name for these season awards. But for now, we'll go with the Scotties.

And we will start with... Let's start with the best. The most impactful player this year was... That's your cue, Scott. Sorry. We didn't rehearse this first. No, we didn't. Show Hey Otani, the most impactful player.

I don't think that's a big shocker to anyone. One of the most prolific home run hitters, one of the most prolific base dealers. And if that's not enough, if you ever needed to use him, if you ever needed to plug in another ace caliber pitcher, he was available for that too. For the endings that he did throw,

which I think was about 130. So, you know, and he was a middle-round pitcher. He was a middle round pick. He was drafted. He was being drafted even at the end of spring training, despite a monster performance where he was hitting home runs over the center field, batter's eye every day. It seemed like he was still going outside the top 120.

Yep. And I very quickly got on board with that. And that was probably probably the best call I made on season was to push him, all season was to push him as hard as I did in the final. final days of draft prep season. And I would say he was the most impactful. You know, that doesn't mean the very best necessarily. Just if you got this guy on your team, the impact was, like, I can't imagine there was

anyone else on your team who made a bigger impact to your end of season where you finished than Shohei Otani. Yeah, look, his overall ADP, according to Fantasy Pro's preseason, was 157.7.7.7. And in case you think, oh, well, no, there's no way you can get him that late, you know, once his spring training happened. I drafted him in my main event league. This is a 15-team roto, five-by-five, with some of the best players in the world. It's a very high price point. We got him in the, with the second pick of the 14th round in a 15-team league.

So, yeah, there was still people sleeping on him, even leading up to, like, days before the season. So I'm with you there, most impactful player. He will be a consensus, Locke, first round pick in 2022, assuming that he shows up healthy and everything goes all right in the offseason for him. Your most valuable hitter, Scotty, goes to. You're not going to do the drum roll?

I can't do it for everyone. I feel like I'll mix it in here and there because I feel like people are just going to get annoyed if I play it too much. Okay. It's Cedric Mullins. Now, the emphasis here is on the value. Again, Cedric Mullins wasn't the single best.

to earn a fantasy this year, but he was pretty close, and that's especially saying something, considering he was widely undrafted coming into the year. I don't think he was on many people's radars even as like a sleeper, and yet he was the only 30-30 guy in the majors this year. I believe that's right. Yeah, I mean, he was a stud. He was a stud after being just kind of a borderline,

fourth outfield type for a very bad team. And while his batting average did slide in the second half a little bit, the home run steals production remains strong and the impact remained high. So I would consider him the most valuable hitter of this past season. Cedric Mullins was the only player to go 30-30 this past season. Trey Turner just missed it. He had 32 steals, but only 28 home run. Shout out to Justin Mason,

who we've had on this podcast before. I know that he was very big on Cedric Mullins coming into the season and he drafted him in a few spots before the year started. Scott, just for fun, would you like to guess Cedric Mullins's preseason ADP? 280.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry than that. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Okay, what was it? 440.7. Wow. So basically on, except for Justin Mason, apparently, on nobody.

he's right. It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. Your most valuable pitcher this season. So this is, this, I, I didn't want to name any player for two awards. I didn't want to give, you know, obviously, because I just want to write about different players. It's an excuse to write about players in the seasons they had. So I'm going to say the most valuable pitcher was Zach Wheeler. I think if I'm going to use the exact same criteria I used for most valuable pitcher, it would actually be Robbie Ray, but we'll get to him. We'll get to him. Zach Wheeler was better than Robbie Ray.

He was one of the biggest innings throughout the season. I think he had finished about 2.14. Had been a fine fantasy option, a decent one must start, but certainly mid-tier. And I don't think anybody

was really anticipating him being capable of more than that. I mean, he's on the wrong side of 30. But he broke through as a legit aides this year. And for a while, it seemed like he might be fading August. I know it wasn't a good month for him.

But he came back strong in September, looked like an ace still, a ton of strikeouts. And I can speak from personal experience. I drafted him as like my number four on a few teams. And clearly he delivered much more than number four results. Yeah. I think he wound up being. if not my most drafted starting pitcher, he was one of my most drafted starting pitchers.

Not really someone that I was overly excited to draft. He just kept falling. Like no one else wanted Zach Wheeler. And look, if you wanted volume and innings, I thought that he was a pretty good bet for that. So he actually... He seemed like the boring choice in the middle rounds. Right.

Just to get, okay. I'm going to get innings from... They're going to be decent. Yeah, like, oh, if you miss out on Kyle Hendricks, you're like, all right, well, you know, Zach Wheeler is a fallback option. And look how good Zach Wheeler was. He actually wound up a leading

baseball with 213 and a third innings pitched and didn't mention his name when we were talking about, you know, possibilities as the SP1 or SP2 being drafted next year. I think he's just behind that tier. You know, I think we have a pretty clear top five or six, but, um, exactly, I still think

top 10 and I think probably a second or maybe early third round pick in 2022. The most improved hitter in 2021 was it's a tie. Whoa. TIE. All right. Really, the answer Cedric Mullins, right? But again, I don't want to use the same player twice. So the tie is between

Tyler O'Neill, tie right there in his name, and Austin Riley. Tyler O'Neill, Austin Riley, two guys who have been, came up with a lot of hype, got buried by strikeouts early on, kind of fell off the radar, but we knew they had big power. We just weren't sure. if they were ever going to really, in O'Neill's case, have a chance to make good on it. And in Riley's case, if he was ever going to

to really tap into it like we thought he could. But they were both, they were both six-win players according to baseball references, war formula, their take-on war. They were both six-win players.

They're both, they both deserve to be in the MVP conversation, frankly. And obviously, they emerged as a high-end, options and fantasy, ones that we'll see drafted fairly early, probably both in like the five, six range of drafts next year. And I think this is a good lesson, Scott, for post-hyped sleepers. You know, I mean, these were names that were regarded as pretty high-end prospects, maybe not

the top of the top, but they were regarded as high-end prospects. And they're still pretty young, relatively speaking, Tyler O'Neill, 26 years old, Austin Riley, 24 years old. So, Look, let's, you know, if we see guys struggle early on, and I think Jared Kellnick's a pretty good example of that, and we spoke about him a little bit earlier, sometimes it takes a while for these players to come into their own, and I think these two are very good examples of that. Your most improved pitcher was...

All right, here's where we're going to go with Robbie Ray. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because the improvement is just... He did start to get hyped a little bit in spring training. I know Chris Towers specifically was... was very much in favor of targeting him late. But, you know, my impression of him was kind of, I'm over it, you know, because he did have a great season way back in 2017, 15 wins, 289 ERA,

12.1K per 9. But just sank like a rock after that, was walked way too many guys, was super inefficient, and in 2020, he had a 662 ERA. So to see him go from a 662 ERA, it's very likely the AL-Sai Young and getting that walk rate under control finally, 2.4 walks per nine innings, I mean,

even at his best, he was like three and a half walks per nine. So, you know, clearly, clearly a different pitcher this year, Robbie Ray. And I don't really see how you could call anyone other than him most improved. You know, Carlos Rodon was an name. you could consider there, but obviously he had his issues late. Freddie Peralta, Trevor Rogers. They all had their innings severely limited. We didn't see a ton of them in the second half. But Robbie Ray obviously was there from start to finish and had the longest tracker

good of futility, I would say. Scott, do you have a best dressed award on here? I don't. I don't. Because... Like the tight pants? Yeah, I mean, look, if we were giving out best dressed on the field. It's got to go to Robbie Ray. I mean, no one wears a tighter uniform than that guy. Really, really tight pants, by the way. For our female listening audience out there, if you want to go back and watch some Robbie Ray highlights,

please do. But, yeah, no, he was absolutely fantastic this year. Robbie Ray finished as the SP6 and roto, the SP4 in points leagues. Scott, are you a skinny pants kind of guy, skinny jeans? Well, what type of fit do you wear jeans was? I don't know that I've ever asked you this. Do you like jeans? Do you wear jeans?

There's some people that just don't wear jeans. Like they only wear like sweats or khakis. I don't know. Well, I live in Florida and I basically work at home now. So I don't wear a lot of jeans anymore. Me neither. I did wear them to the office back when I went to the office regularly. So yeah, I wear a lot of jeans.

I was big into the jinkos in middle school. Now, I'm just kidding. Scotty rocking the look. That was something as a 13-year-old. I'm just like, you don't really think that looks good, do you? Like, what are you doing? You didn't wear the Paco jeans back in the day? No.

Chinko jeans. Oh, my gosh. No, I just, you know. Geez. I've had my own styling issues granted, but that was not one of them. No, I mean, I just go for as middle of the road as possible. relaxed fit, straight leg, just, you know, I'm too old to keep up with the trends. So just keep it timeless, you know?

Well, Scott, don't throw out those Jinko jeans because I guarantee you they're going to come back around, man. Everything, you know, that goes out of style comes back around once again. There's no doubt about that. Jinko jeans, you know, I just Googled them. And it reminded me of a UFO cargo pants back in the day, which were a very big thing when I was growing up, which just in hindsight seems completely ridiculous. Let's talk about some baseball.

Who was the most improved pitcher mid-season edition? Logan Webb. Oh, yeah. Logan Webb, who I was actually really high on in spring training. The Giants were hyping his change-up, comparing it to Luis Castillo's. And, you know, I don't know that that was actually the key to his breakthrough because it was nothing like Luis Castillo's change-up in terms of effectiveness. But it was a solid pitch for him at times. And more than anything, those ground.

ball. That ground ball ability has, elite ground ball ability that would have ranked first among qualifiers. Not quite as good as Rangers

Swarizes, but still, you know, top of the scale ground ball ability for Logan Webb. And was just one of the most reliable pitchers

down the stretch about a strikeout per inning, I think, a little over. Consistently went six plus innings and just

emerged as frankly somebody, even in the leagues where I invested most heavily in pitching. I could not take them out of my lineup over the final two months. Second half of the season for Logan Webb, 2.71 ERA, 1.09 whip, almost 10Ks per 9, 1.5 walks per 9. Awesome. Awesome. I know he fell off a little bit in September, but the underlying numbers are still really strong here. He has 60% ground ball rate. His ex-fib was below 2.5. I think Logan Webb is, I think he's for real.

I think he's here to stay. The biggest collapse this season goes to... Kyle Hendricks. It's got to be Kyle Hendricks. And, you know, that's a guy I don't really know how to evaluate for next year. Because if you had him in August and September, he burned you real bad. And 10 starts a 739.

ERA. He entered the months of August with a 371 ERA and in fact had put together, let me check here. He entered August with 13 quality starts and 15 chances at 278 ERA during that 15 start stretch. So he looked as rock solid as it gets. And then at crunch time, it just all fell apart and rendered him unusable. you know, it's not like he's ever been a big strikeout guy. So when he's missing his spots, it can get pretty ugly. Okay. We're definitely not going to get to all these because you've got a lot of awards here. So we'll see how many people can get to. I can try to go faster. I can try to go faster.

All right. Yeah, if you want to get to all them. Next up we have the Bobby Big Bad Award. What does that mean? And who won it? So it's power. It's rewarding power. you know, kind of at a discount. All right. Power beyond what you expected when you drafted him. And the winner is Salvador Perez, who led the majors in home runs,

led the majors in RBI as a catcher and did it despite being drafted in the middle rounds. So I didn't see how I could give the award to anybody but him. I considered Adam Duvall, who obviously provided huge home run in RBI totals at even a much cheaper price, but the fact Perez did it as a catcher, I think it goes to him.

Adam Duvall, you brought up the name because I just wanted to check real quick here. His ADP preseason was 342.8, and he was a big get, Adam Duvall, this past season, as was Salvador Perez, the Freddie Fleetfoot Award. I assume this is basically just the opposite. So our biggest steals contributors.

Well, I had to give it to Starling Mart. just because there were so few really like prolific base stealers. Starling Marte had 47 steals. The next closest was Whitmeryfield with 40. And then the next after that was 32. And there were only six guys total who stole 30 plus bases. So Starling Marte, a distant first with 47. I understand he didn't exactly come at a discount.

But he made, he clearly was the guy who carried you in that category if you did invest in him. And probably won a lot of his investors, the stolen base category. So, you know, I consider somebody like Nikki Lopez, who would have been the discount guy. But, you know, we thought of him as being a pretty good steals guy. He only finished with 22. So that's a far cry from the 47. darling Marte had. All right, let's marry these next two together, Scotty.

How about your best and worst calls of the season? Best call is Nick Castellanos, who had exactly the kind of season I hoped he would have. Worst call is Teasker Hernandez, who we talked about recently. He was my most confident bust pick, and I didn't hesitate to point it out whenever he came up. And I actually don't feel...

There are calls I made that I feel worse about than that one because, I mean, Hernandez kind of changed his skill set and became, you know, started making contact much more often. So it's, it's hard to anticipate things like that. But because I made such a big deal about how he was going to be a bust, I would say that's the, that's the bad call I made that probably everybody's going to remember the most. I remember. We talked about Nick Cassianos before the season, Scott. And I, I kept saying, I think he has this Freddie Freeman type season in that bad. It just, it hasn't happened yet, but I think it's possible.

And he did his best Freddie Freeman impersonation. 309 batting average, 34 homers, 100 ribbies, 95 runs scored. That will definitely get it done for Cassiano.

As good as he was, two, four. He was the sixth best outfielder in Roto. Teaska Hernandez, the other one you mentioned, the third best outfielder this past season.

How about your best and worst calls mid-season edition? Hang on, I lost my place here. Okay. Best and worst calls mid-season edition. Best is Ranger Suarez.

You'll remember everybody had just bid on him as the Phillies new closer, and then they traded for Ian Kennedy, and suddenly Ranger Suarez wasn't a closer anymore, I said, don't be so quick to drop him. I think he might turn out pretty good in a starting role, and he ended up having a 150 ERA or so in the starting role. So that obviously worked out. Worst call.

Mid-season edition is Jorge Polanco. We talked about it on the latest podcast. I had him as one of my preseason sleepers, drafted him late in a lot of leagues. His first two months were horrible. They were lingering concerns about his ankle. I dropped them basically everywhere. I drafted him. And from that point forward, he was like a top five shortstop.

All right. Let's move on to the fake out of the year. I know Adam Azer used to have the drop with the fooled you. And I would say that both of these players would fit that description. So your fake out of the year pitcher and hitter edition. Yeah, you say Kukuchi, who I almost went with for biggest collapse instead of Kyle Hendricks. But instead I put Kikuchi here, biggest fake out. His season kind of mirrored Hendrix in that through, actually it was just through July 1st.

His numbers were great. 318 ERA, basically a strikeout per inning. we thought he had broken through, you know, elite swinging strike rate, he looked great. But then from July 7th on, his final 14 starts, he said Kukuchi had a 622 ERA,

and by the end of the season, the Mariners had basically removed him from the rotation. For hitters, Jared Walsh, you know, it wasn't as dramatic. I think he remained useful all season long, but remember at the start of the year, he looked like an emerging stud. was one of the few hitters

who gave anybody anything worthwhile in April had a very strong May 2 but then after that the power production really fell off the strikeout rate which was so low early on it normalized and over the final four months he hit 262 with 17 homers and 801 OPS

you know still usable unlike Kukuchi but clearly not high end yeah Kukuchi is going to be an interesting one to kind of dissect this offseason. Not that I think he'll have much value for next year, but just trying to figure out what went wrong because there was a stretch there, a pretty decent sample size,

where everything lined up for him. The swinging strike rate was awesome. The strikeouts were there. The walks were down. He was getting a good amount of ground balls. And he kind of looked like he was, all right, maybe he's one of this year's, like, major breakout pitchers in Yusay Kikuchi.

So I want to go back and kind of figure out what exactly went wrong for him because, yeah, there was a time there where we were all buying it. The best comeback this year, both pitcher and hitter edition, who you got? Yeah, this is like geriatric addition, too,

because my pitcher is Adam Wainwright. My hitter is Joey Votto, both high 30s, you know, on the verge of retirement. It feels like, but, you know, nobody expected them to have,

we basically thought they were done being worthwhile contributors in fantasy, but both of them bounced back with must-start numbers. And Adam Wainwright, depending on your format, he was either a top five or a top-10 starting pitcher.

It was just unimaginable at the start of the year. There was also a, I miss this one, but Best Comeback, mid-season edition. Who won that one? That was Blake Snow.

Blake Snow, who you'll remember right about the time we said, okay, I think he could think about dropping Blake Snow. It's been several years since he went six innings. I think there was like one random start where he did.

And it's not like he's even pitching that well. And then about the time we said that, he turned everything around. His final eight starts at 183, or a 65 strikeouts in 44 and a third innings. And then he got hurt, obviously. He missed most of September. But he made his point.

There's still a lot to like there with Blake's now. He's going to be an interesting one to try and rank for next year because ends the season with the injury. we have that one month basically or a month and a half where he looked amazing again. But there were a bunch of months before that where he looked pretty bad. So I don't know. I think Blake Snow is going to be an interesting one. Your biggest under and overachievers in 2021.

Biggest underachiever is going to be Aeronola. You got that right. You got that one right, Scotty, for sure. And I'm, you know, by biggest underachiever, I mean this is what the numbers say he should have been, the underlying number say he should have been, and this is what they actually were. And the underlying numbers, both X-FIP and X-ERA, both pegged him

for about a 335, 340 ERA. His actual ERA was 463. And, you know, the strikeout rate was about the best he's ever had. Walk rate was the best he's ever had. Too many home runs, but still, it doesn't make sense that his ERA was as high as it was. Biggest overachiever being Marcus Simeon.

I don't know how much I expect under regress next year. obviously, it's a free agent, so that'll factor into it. But expected batting average was 241 versus the 265 mark he actually had. Expected slug, this is even a bigger difference. Expected slug was only 444. Obviously, with his 45 home runs, he slugged 538. So almost a 100 point difference there. I'm telling you, Scotty, the venue will matter for Mark a Semi in this offseason.

Very interested to see where he winds up in free agency. For these final, what do we got? For six awards, I will give you 10 seconds for each of them, Scotty. And starting with the Gonzo Award. The what? Biggest weirdo, Gonso, from the Muppets. He's a weirdo. That's what he's known as.

Calquantral, can't make sense of why he was so good. That's somebody I could call the biggest overachiever, too. He had a 443xfit versus a 289 ERA. The guy fantasy footballers won't see coming. Smile. Bring a smile to my face. Frank Schwendell, oh, Frankie 2 hits. Where did this 30-year-old come from with this 320 batting average?

Got to figure he's going to be drafted in all leagues next year. The one you've already forgotten about. Yeah, Patrick Sandoval. It's been so long since he was in our sights that I think it's very likely you're not even thinking about his 2022 prospects at this point. the big strikeout rate, the big whiff rate on the slider and change up, change up especially. But I like him going into next year. By the way, our buddy, friend of the program, Nick Pollock from pitcher list. We play on a softball team together, no big deal.

He calls Patrick Sandoval the Irish Pandas. I thought that was pretty interesting. The one I wouldn't shut up about is Brendan Rogers. Self-explanatory. Very self-explanatory. Mr. Look who finally decided to show up. At Alberto Mondesie, who you drafted to be a big contributor in steals.

He was absent for most of the season, but when he came back in September, stole 14 bases. If you stayed competitive that long, then you got a huge impact in that category late. I know personally, it's a big reason I won the podcast for the People League, which was a head-to-head categories league,

had him in my lineup for that final week and got me an easy win in that category. Jeez. Yeah, you're not kidding, man. 14 seals. Wow. Did he win the award last year too, Scott? Mr. Luku decided to show up? I don't think I had that award last year. Well, I feel like you could just pencil him in every single year at Alberto Montesee. Last but not least, Mr. Thanks for the Memories. Junjun Ryu.

I think he's done so. Think he's done so. It's been real. It's been real, Mr. Riu. But I don't see much hope for you going forward. I will remember you. That's Jengen Riyu. I also thought you could have put Kyle Hendricks on that one too. Could have.

Because he might be Dunzo as well. Yeah, he might be. I'm less confident in that, though. All right, we did it. A bunch of awards. What You missed in September. A huge Garikol conversation. We'll see if it actually matters.

by the time drafts are happening in 2022. You can read all of Scott's work again on the site, cbsports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. We're going to wrap there for Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball. Today will be back again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.