Fantasy Baseball Today - H2H Categories & H2H Points Strategy! DeGrom Makes His Rangers Debut (3/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Jacob deGrom finally made his Rangers debut in a minor-league game (2:55). ... What should you know about H2H categories leagues (8:50)? ... What's our general H2H categories strategy (13:05)? ... Is punting categories a viable strategy (17:12)? ... How can you take advantage of daily lineups (26:40)? ... News (29:00): Juan Soto will not play consecutive days in the WBC. ... Jarred Kelenic or Michael Conforto (39:20)? ... What do we need to know about H2H points leagues (41:40)? ... What is our strategy in this format (43:30)? ... What is a SPARP (50:41)? How should you draft pitching in this format? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Make sure to join our Fantasy Baseball Today March Madness bracket challenge here: cbssports.com/baseball Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question, email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Let's continue on with Strategy Week. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, March 14th. Frank Stamphill joined by Scott White and Chris Towers.

Today on the show, all of the strategy. all of the formats, head-to-head points, head-to-head categories, classic 5-5-Roto. We'll get to all of them, as well as the latest news, including Jacob de Grom's spring debut, minor league games. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt for now. If you missed any of our recent shows, remember that you can always go back and listen on demand.

Yesterday we did Snake Draft Strategy. Tomorrow we'll be doing a live head-to-head categories mock draft at 9 p.m. Eastern Time right here on YouTube. So if you want to come watch along, we'll have the draft board up and running so you can follow along with the draft picks. And speaking of which, please like this video and subscribe if you haven't already. If you're listening on the podcast side, make sure to download, follow, and leave a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you very much. Chris, congrats, buddy.

Perfect game by Jose. Yeah. Big bounce back performance from my guys. I'm rocking the PR hat. Yesterday was tough. we're a divided household here, the Tower's household in Brooklyn, because my wife is Venezuelan.

My mom's from Puerto Rico. So the spanking that Venezuela put on Puerto Rico yesterday, that one hurt. That one stung a little bit. But big bounceback game today, first perfect game of World Baseball Classic history. You love to see it. I will say, one,

World Baseball Classic's amazing. I love it. I'm all about it. I can't get enough of the crowd shots. Just give me as many pictures. of people in Miami holding up flags and screaming. I'm all about it. And two, Venezuela's got to feel.

Like that, that feels like a little bit of like a team of destiny right there in that tournament. If you're looking for a dark horse, that line up, man, like, that's one, you look at them before the tournament starts. And you're like, yeah, Venezuela's pretty good. And then you look at the actual team that they're putting out there. And it's like, you know, that team's good.

They're really good. I mean, Venezuela is ridiculous. So, I mean, I don't even know if we can call them a dark horse, but just last point on Puerto Rico somewhere, I'm sure our buddy Nando Defino is smiling about Jose de Leon. Scott, I would ask you about your thoughts on Team USA, but I know you don't really care.

So instead, I'm going to ask you about Jacob de Grom and his debut. I don't think that this really changes anything for us because we're not really drafting Jacob de Grom, but somebody out there might want to draft Jacob deGrom. And he made his spring debut in a double A game on Monday, racking up five strikeouts in two innings of one-run ball. He allowed an inside-the-park home run and then struck out five straight. And our buddy Chris Welsh was there.

He had some video. We were texting back and forth talking about it. He said to Grom looked solid. And then once he left his start, he threw some more pitches on a side field right after that game. The ADP is 29.2. Again, I don't think this really changes anything, Scott. But I guess it's a step in the right direction for those who do want Jacob de Grom. Yeah.

I mean, when he's available to pitch, he'll be amazing. It's just how much is he going to be available to pitch? And I think the last few years, corresponding with a big velocity jump, I think it shows he's not going to be available that much. I just don't think his body can withstand the torque he's putting on it now, all the different muscles and ligaments and even bones we've seen. we've seen give in under the pressure, several of them already and more to go still.

So I, yeah, I, most of that I was just writing up bus 2.0 before coming on here. And Jacob de Grom is among those I'm adding to it. And I've talked before about how, you know, any one of my bus picks I could see, I could still see myself drafting at the right value with the right team builds. I could see things coming together for me to say, okay, well, it's worth the risk. But Jacob de Grom might be the one who I really can't see myself saying that about. I was thinking maybe like if it was an extremely shallow league

where I just was selling out for upside like crazy. That might be a scenario where I draft DeGrom, but probably not. I could probably come up with other pitchers in that same range who are upsidey enough that, because we're talking, What, top 30 pick? I mean, geez. Yeah, I don't see myself drafting any of DeGrom this year.

Jacob DeGrom has not thrown more than 92 innings since 2019, but since the start of 2018, he is first in ERA at 2.05, second in whip, 0.87. First, by far in swinging strike rate at 7.3%. I mean, that's the thing. Like, you look at the last, just combine the last two seasons. And look, he's thrown 156. over the past two seasons, that's not very much.

If he just throws 156 innings, he has a 190 ERA, a 0.633 whip, and 248 strikeouts in his last 156 innings. The thing that makes Jacob de Grom so enticing is if he throws 156 innings, that probably means he missed like two months, because that's 26 starts over the last two seasons, 156 innings. He might be the number one pitcher if he does that.

I was just going to ask you, how many innings do you think DeGrom needs to be the number one starting pitcher? I think 170 innings. He's a stone cold lock for the number one pitcher. I think 150 probably gets it done. I think 150 puts him in the discussion, yeah. And with all that being said, I would take, I would definitely take the under for those.

He has not thrown 150 innings since 2019. Yeah. Yeah. He hasn't even thrown 100 since 2019. So, I mean, I agree with you, Scott. I'm on the under. But again, it's just to remind people of the talent and the upside, if he throws 150, I think he's likely the favorite to be.

There's no question he's the best pitcher in baseball in my eyes. I don't think there's even another player who comes into the discussion. And that's no knock on Corbyn Burns or Garrett Cole or Sandy Alcantor or anybody. Those guys are amazing. But Jacob de Grom is on his late 90s, Pedro-ish. And I hope we see him for a full season. But yeah, it's almost impossible to think of a team context.

And like if he fell to the fifth round, I think that's like, if he fell to the fifth round and I took Aaron Nola or something, I could see pairing Aaron Nola and Jacob de Grom and like, I'm going to get like 320 amazing. innings from those two guys and they're probably going to be really, really good. And I could see that, but he's not falling to the fifth round. So it's kind of a moot point. Seeing him, like, if he makes it through the entire spring without injury, it's not going to change my view. This is what we talked about last year. It's not a question of, like, currently it's a question of, is Jacob deGrom healthy?

Well, by all accounts, made it through this game. He's healthy currently. whether he's healthy right now or not doesn't really change my view of whether he's going to stay healthy. And that's the only question is whether he's healthy right now or not, can he be healthy in late April, May, June, July, August, September. If he makes it to August without another injury, congratulations, because you're probably going to have the best pitching staff in your league. That's just really, really hard to say, even if he gets through the rest of the spring. and looks like the best pitcher in baseball, as I expect he would if he avoids injury.

There's always going to be one person in a league that likes to grow up more than I am, too. So someone's willing to take on the risk. It's just not going to be me. We'll save the rest of the news and notes for a little bit later on in the show. But let's talk about strategy for each different type of major format, I would say. And we'll start off with head-ted categories, because I feel like we don't give this format enough love. And frankly, a lot of the emails that we get are about people who play.

It's the most fun one. Arguably. I mean, I could see the argument for that. It's the least fun one. I typically don't love it. I like hedge head points and roto more, honestly. That's just my opinion. But anywho, this is kind of like the Wild West in terms of strategy

because you could do a few different things in this format in head to head categories. If you've never played, just imagine combining head to head points and roto together. The standard is the usual five by five categories. Batting average, home runs, runs. RBI, stolen bases for hitting, and then ERA whip wins, strikeouts, and saves for pitching. But people usually customize the categories, and we wind up with 7 by 7, with K-per-9 and quality stars and all this kind of crazy stuff, which, sure, why not? I'm, you know, customize it to however you want it.

And I'm willing to wager that these are most of the leagues that are played on Yahoo as well, because I just feel like that's their standard format, though. If you want it to, you can't play head to categories on C.E. BBS as well. They're typically daily lineup leagues as well, which adds just like a whole another element of strategy. And we'll get into that in just a little bit. The starting lineups in a head to head categories league, 10 hitters, one of each infield position, three outfielders, two utility, no corner or middle. You've got eight pitchers, two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and then four pitcher spots, which could either be a starting pitcher or a relief

pitcher. And the scoring is pretty much what it sounds like. You go, go up against an opponent. If your team hits more home runs that week, you win that category. Chris, while we're on that topic, I know that you're the one that I have to go to when we talk about how to track standings in a head-tech categories league. There's two different major, like, main ways that you could play. There's one win where as long as you win more categories, you win nine to one or you win six to four, you get one win.

Your record becomes one and O. The other way to play is if you win nine to one in week one and 10 zip in one, you win six in week two, that adds up. Your record is now 19 and 1 by the end of week 2. And if you lose the next week, you know, zero to 10, then you'd be 19 and 11. So it just keeps adding up when the season goes along. Which is the one that you prefer?

I always forget. To quote Dom Torretto in the film franchise Fast and Furious, doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning's winning. You never had me. You never had your fantasy baseball team. Yeah, I think if you win, you win. I don't care like, oh, you won five and a half to four point five.

That's not as impressive as winning 10 to nothing. It doesn't matter. All right, run differential doesn't count in the standings, all right, except in the world baseball classic. But, you know, that's a special thing. A win's a win. If you win 20 to nothing, congratulations. Just wasted a bunch of runs.

You want to win one nothing every time out because that's all that matters. One run games are still wins. that's my preferred way to play. I prefer to play that. Partially, it's just like, I think one of the benefits of head-to-head points is like you have that weekly matchup. No, no, head-to-head points.

One of the thing is your head-to-head matchup really matters because you get 18 or 20 of them to get to the playoffs. And so it's really hard to build like a huge lead. It's really hard to fall completely out of it. Most teams are going to generally be in the same range. once you start like having, you know, you're 10 weeks into the season and you've got a hundred wins or 100 category wins available,

it just, it gets harder to like make up ground. I prefer you could say the randomness of a head-to-head points league or, or whatever. I think that's part of what makes fantasy sports great, is the competitiveness between your teams, the, yes, the randomness,

the fact that the best team isn't always going to run away with it. So I prefer that. I think it creates a more competitive environment overall. All right. And before we get further down the rabbit hole, let's just talk about general strategy. Scott, coming your way. Head-to-head categories. How do you usually attack it? Well, usually is a difficult word to use with as much as the baseball environment has changed over the past few years. but to put it in the most general terms, I would say that I approach it closer to a Roto League than I do to a points league.

I think the evaluation of players obviously is comparable because you're talking about category scoring. And I think we're generally talking about five-by-five category scoring. I know a lot of people who write in with questions about their head-to-head categories league, they have like the seven-by-seven, eight-by-eight monstrosity. where things are being counted two and three times over. And all player evaluations are just out the window at that point.

But if we're speaking to the five-by-five player out there, then, you know, I think generally the way we approach players in Roto League applies. Of course, you laid out the standard Yahoo lineup, which would not have five outfielders that have three and would not have the extra middle infielder and quarter-infielder in the two catcher spots. So, like, those obviously you have to, you have, mileage may vary depending on exactly how you set up your league. But just in terms of how to evaluate players and how to gauge their contributions, you know, obviously it's similar to a roto league.

And I think like an erode league, I mean, for me even in a head-to-head points league this year, I'm, emphasizing hitters over pitchers. I think the big category contributors are going to run out within the hitter ranks sooner than they run out within the pitcher ranks. And I think they'll be harder to find over the course of the season, just given the environment that we're in. Also, in head-to-head categories leagues, and this may be even more so than roto leagues.

I think you can get away with not investing so much in either starters or relievers. Like you can kind of tailor your pitching staff more toward one or the other, particularly if it's set up like Chris laid out where just a wins-win, regardless of how many individual categories you win in a week. You can punt saves easier in this format than you can in a roto league, provided that you're pretty loaded in the starting pitcher categories. And conversely, you know,

You can, I don't know that, I don't know that I want to say you could punt strikeouts, but you could punt wins if you have, if you have big enough K-per-9 guys among your reliever ranks that you still have a chance in strikeouts every week. Because, of course, the smaller, the thing that I think distinguishes head-to-head categories from Roto leagues mainly is that you're talking about one little sliver of a season at a time, right? And that introduces a lot more randomness looking at it a week at a time. So it's really hard to say, even if you have this amazing pitching staff, oh, I'm going to win ERA every week. Oh, I'm going to win WIP every week. Because all it takes is one ugly start to kind of blow that up, right? So that takes a lot of the predictability out of that. And you can kind of lean into that with your team build, where if you're emphasizing counting stats more like a big strikeout artist,

or like a bunch of saves guys, or like, I don't know if you want to go for wins instead. It's hard to say wins are predictable. But generally speaking, counting stats are going to be more predictable from week to week, more stickier from week to week

than the ratio stats will be. And that goes for like batting average among hitters too. Chris, do you ever punt categories in a head-to-categories league because I've punted steals in the past. They're just such an independent statistic where I'd rather focus on mashers or batting average guys

because those guys will typically contribute in multiple categories at one time. So I've punted seals in the past and I like to load up on relievers to maybe get two to three closers and then just have two more

strong ratioed strikeout type relievers just to kind of fill in the gaps throughout the week. Do you have a typical strategy and do you punt categories? Yeah, I think this is the nice thing about the head-to-head categories format is you do have a bit more flexibility

in the type of team you want to build because you can, especially in those one win per week game or leagues, you can punt steals and, you know, potentially dominate the four hitting categories and not suffer too much from it because there's a wide array of possible steal amounts that your opponent's going to have. And so let's say you've got a team that might only steal two or three bases per week. That's going to be pretty bad in a Roto League. you're probably going to be close to last place.

But in a head-to-head categories league, you're going to have some weeks where you're going at someone else who's projected for the same amount of steals and you're going to be competitive. You're going to have some weeks where you're going up against a team that loaded up on steals. They're relatively weak at the rest of the positions. And they just don't get many steals that week.

So punting is a more viable strategy in your head-to-head categories. Now, it's also a kind of risky strategy because you're going to be playing in the playoffs. And you're going to be in a situation, where you lose one week and your season's done. Everything you've done to that point. That's not how it works in a Roto League. You're competing the whole way through.

But in your head-to-head categories and points leagues, one week could end your season and one bad week or one week where you run into a team that has great offense and steals bases and all of a sudden you're at a major disadvantage. So it's a risk-reward strategy, I think, generally speaking, in your head-to-head categories leagues, especially the ones where you play, five and a half point category points in a week is a win.

I think it's a really viable strategy because the upside is greater. Just think about like if you win five and a half categories, let's say you know you can dominate three hitting categories and you're going to be competitive in pitching and you win 5.5 categories every week. You're going to go 5. You're going to go a thousand in the leagues where you win one category or one game per week. whereas if you win, if you're in the win five and a half categories,

you win five and a half categories, your win percentage is going to be 550. If you're in a roto league, that team's probably not very good, frankly. So it's kind of, it's a format where it introduces more flexibility and more variability in how you build your team.

And on the subject of punting steals, because like in that typical Yahoo line up you laid out, Frank where you just have the three outfielders spots, no middle infielder, no corner infielder. You know, kind of what like we talk about head to head and head to head to head leagues in general, that leaves fewer hitter spots to get impact from. And what that means in a head-to-head categories league specifically is that I don't see a lot of value. And this is a realization I just came to a couple years ago.

and I think it's improved my performance in these leagues. I don't see a lot of value in Steel specialists because you're just sacrificing too much in other categories with fewer lineup spots than in a Roto League to make it up. So unless I get stolen bases from my early round picks that are going to help in all those other categories, specifically home runs, then I probably am more or less punting stolen bases.

And obviously, between like when you're looking for individual qualities and certain hitters, I think power is the biggest one. Like you don't want to sacrifice batting average for it, the batting average is going to be less sticky from week to week. So there's going to be,

even with a bad batting average team, there are going to be weeks where you win batting average probably. But home runs, of course, come with an RBI. and a run every time one of them is hit. And I think if you overdo it with home runs so that you're basically ensuring yourself a win in that category every week,

you're going to consistently do really well in runs in RBI as well. So you're going to do consistently well in 60% of the hitting categories, probably when batting average, you know, a fair amount as well, unless you just really neglect that one. And then steals, you know,

if you happen to get them great, if you don't, it's not a big deal. So I've really tried. try to, like normally in Roto leagues you try for this really careful balance. Oh, what if I finish first place in homelons with 30 more than any other team? What a waste that would be?

I think that's less of a concern and a head-to-head categories league because if you can bank that win every single week, that's a big advantage. If we're talking headshead categories, you know that we're talking the infamous Mar-MORMOL strategy named after relief pitcher extraordinaire.

Carlos Marmull, of course. What is it in leagues with either a low weekly innings minimum or no weekly innings minimum. That's a big point here because you're basically just starting relievers. You punt starting pitcher. You take hitters with your first eight to ten picks, then you draft closers and other relievers with strong ratios and strikeouts. You punt wins and strikeouts. Yeah, I mean, I guess maybe you could compete in strikeouts. Probably not if other teams have like starting pitchers going. You dominate ERA whip saves and the hitting categories. That's basically the point. I have never tried this, but I know other people that

have had success with it, have either of you guys ever tried or successfully use the Marble strategy in this format? Yeah, I've tried it. It's part of the problem is, relievers who aren't closers, knowing who's good among that group, kind of tricky, because really good relievers tend to, but are not always closers. And so you're going to be either paying for closers or building a team out of pitchers who you think are good, but may not be because we're dealing with inherently small sample sizes for relievers. And if you think about it, over the last three seasons, I mean, the further we get away from that 2020 season,

the easier it is to say for sure because the sample sizes are bigger. But like, even relievers who haven't missed a single day over the past three seasons have thrown 150 innings. I mean, that that's, that's not very much. So it's really hard to know, like, it's hard to know quality of pitchers just in general, just the, the inherent nature of pitching, how much changes, how much seemingly tiny changes in a player's arsenal or velocity can manifest themselves in huge ways in how they pitch.

That's difficult. but then also just 150 innings over three seasons just isn't very much. Yes. Skill sets can change skillsets skill sets and vary. We know luck and randomness play a huge part in pitching results. So the problem with the Marmol strategy is it's an inherently volatile strategy. That said, ideally it's a volatile strategy where you're leaning into the volatility and you're not paying very much for the players that you acquire.

or you're paying a lot for the guys you know are bankable. Those couple of aces that you get if you go that way, or the high-end hitters that you're going to be building your team around. Yeah, and I think it's viable. Again, the Marmal strategy. Part of what happened during the juice ball era was there became to be so much depth among all hitter positions that it was hard to get a clear advantage by investing early in hitting.

And I think, you know, as I just laid out, I want a draught hitting early in every format again. So I think that advantage to loading up on hitter early is back. And that's really the big advantage of the Marmal strategies. You just kind of neglect pitching with the idea that high-end middle relievers are available everywhere. Like the most dominant middle relievers, you know, maybe not like the two or three most dominant. But if you're talking about the 25 most dominant middle relievers in a given season, 20 of them probably aren't even that high on our radar right now just because of the volatility Chris was speaking to. So if that's a valuable asset in your league, that's going to be the easiest one to find on the waiver wire.

And the Marmal strategy kind of leans into that. It's personally not something I've ever been attracted to personally. I said personally twice there. It's not something I've been attracted to personally, but I've known other people who've had success with it. Lastly, how can you take advantage of the daily lineup factor? Splits, I think if you want to play Rockies hitters at home, it's something that you could look into doing the CJ Crohn's of the world.

Chris Bryant, you're probably playing everywhere, but some of those fringe Rockies, streaming hitters like Jock Peterson against right-handed pitching and Mike Brasso against left-handed pitching. I don't think anyone's streaming Mike Brasso, but I just wanted to say his name. It's worth note. This is something that Derek Hardy talks about a lot. Left-handed splits for hitters versus left-handed pitching.

There's a ton of noise in them. There are very few hitters who genuinely cannot hit righties, but are good lefty hitters. And the problem is you're dealing with very small sample sizes. For everyday players, you're talking about maybe 220 plate appearances of season against lefties. for the kind of guys that you're likely to be drafting who might be platoon specialists,

you're talking about much smaller samples. So I think targeting lefties who can't hit lefties is a viable strategy in your daily head-to-head categories, leagues, and any daily league, really. Righty is one, you're talking about just a smaller amount of played appearances ending in a given season and also just a noisier data set. All right.

And then you're likely streaming lots of starting pitchers. to play in a daily format as well. But I think that pretty much covers it. Did I miss anything? You guys good? Oh, you probably missed a lot, but we're trying to get to three different scores. I know.

It's going to be a two-hour show. All right. So with that being said, let's take our first break here. And then we'll get to some news and notes on fantasy baseball today. Welcome back to fantasy baseball today. It's bracket time and the Ion College Basketball podcast

is your destination for top-notch March Bandis coverage for the next three weeks. join Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander as they offer four region-by-region previews, plus a mega bracket preview with all the advice you need to win that office pool. Download and follow eye on college basketball wherever podcasts are found, and just a reminder that you can join our FBT bracket at cbsports.com slash baseball. The winner will receive a Paramount Plus gift card and then make your own bracket. CBSports.com slash play is the link for that.

Let's talk some news and notes. Juan Soto will not be allowed to play consecutive games in the World Baseball Classic. He said that his left calf feels excellent, but I suppose that they're just playing it safe for now. He reached base three times and Homer against Nicaragua. So I think he's fine. He looks pretty good. I can't recall because I know when it first started the world in this, you know, it first started what, almost 20 years ago at this point?

When it first started the World Baseball Classic, there was a lot of concern about it bringing on injuries in a way spring training doesn't but has there been a major like season altering injury there were a couple I want to say Johnny Quato got hurt during one of them I was doing some research about this

but generally speaking the research that I found led me to believe that there's not much to be concerned about there yeah injuries happen at this time of the year this is the worst time of the year for injuries that's just generally

really true of, it's also true of training camp in football. That's the time when injuries are most common. And it makes sense. Soft tissue injuries especially are, are a big risk at this time of year. And so if guys are trying harder in the world baseball classic, I think there's more risk, but also like, yeah, that was the argument.

It just hasn't happened. I think they've done a really good job of protecting them, like with Soto here. And, you know, they're playing like three games in four days or, you know, eight, in 11 days or whatever it is. So it's not an exactly, a totally grueling schedule.

And also like, I think there's also just some risk of like being in a spring training game against minor league players. I think there's probably as much or more injury risk just from like pitchers who don't have as good of control or clumsier base runners and defenders. Like I think there's more risk of you running into someone inadvertently in a spring training game when you're talking about guys who are 19 and 18 and aren't just playing at us high level. So I think it probably comes out in the wash overall. To be fair, Chris, some of these teams that are out playing WDG are not great either. But yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

Vladimir Garo Jr. is expected to be ready to return to spring training games in a few days. He's been dealing with right knee inflammation. Felix Bautista will make his spring debut Tuesday against Pirates. He's been slowed by shoulder and knee issues, assuming he makes it through this appearance and likely a couple more. I think he should be good to go. Let's see if there's any velocity readings in that game tomorrow. Well, today, if you're listening on the podcast side, Starly Marte could return as soon as Tuesday he was hit on the helmet by a pitch on Sunday, but thankfully avoided a concussion. Kodiysenga threw off flat ground from about 90 feet Monday. he's nursing tendinitis at the base of his right index finger.

Are you guys concerned about this at all? I mean, you know, pitch are coming over from Japan. I think inherently there's a good amount of risk there anyway. You know, just transition to a new country, a new game, a different baseball, pitching, you know, more frequency. That's what caused this injury is my understanding. So this exemplifies that concerned. It's a slicker baseball that's used in America. And the Mets GM said this is something that often happens.

When pitchers come over from Japan, they grip it tighter. You know, on a subconscious level, they're gripping it tighter because it's slicker. And so then they develop these finger issues. So that's just one little example of the kinds of changes they're having to adapt to. I also think the ball's a little bigger in America. It's a little bigger, yeah. Yeah. And it's not as the Japanese balls are manufactured to be tacky.

They don't like rub them down with Delaware River mud and all that. And so they generally are easier to grip. So it's there are a lot of variables that make, make analyzing how this is going to work difficult, including durability and, you know, how easily. There are questions on that regard. Anyway. Because he hasn't, I don't think he's thrown 150 innings in any of the last two or three seasons.

Senga already has those concerns. And now with these new variables, they're even amplified. So that's, I haven't had a lot of, I haven't been especially zealous about drafting Senga this year. If I can get him at a good value, I think the strikeout upside especially is interesting. But I'm expecting a high whip and a lot of, a lot of volatility and a lot of, and a lot of, maybe not a lot of IL stints, but at least one. I will say he's shockingly cheap this year. That's the one thing is that there's very little hype around him.

Even having seen him look pretty good in springturing, or at least have very good stuff in spring training games. So I find him to be an interesting later round pick just because he's in that low risk rate. I agree there are things that can go wrong for him, but is he outside the top 200 still? He's 175. Okay. So, you know, I, like going in the same range,

a little after like the Charlie Morton group and maybe around like Drew Rasmuss and a little before, Grayson Rodriguez, and I just, you know, there's a lot more upside available in that range that I feel. There are other upside targets that I feel of him better about than saying. He's 190 in NFC drafts. That's, I guess, what I was thinking of.

of and like he is right ahead of Grayson Rodriguez. I think I'd rather have Grayson Rodriguez, but kind of similar cases where don't know if you're going to get a ton of innings, but there's big upside. He's going after Drew Matt Rasmussen, Tony Gonsland, Brady Singer. I might like him more than those three.

Yeah. You mentioned you said Rasmussen as part of that group. Yeah, Rasmussen, there was, was he throwing like a couple miles an hour harder in his most recent spring start or there was something in his pitch data that was really interesting. I can't remember. It might have been a new slider there was something that that was going on with him.

I don't think the Vilo was up, but he's just someone who has pitched really well over the past year. So I do like Raspus in quite a bit myself. Let's move on. Trevor Bauer is signing a one year $4 million deal with the Yokohama Dina DNA Bay Stars in Japan. So. Peace.

All right. Christian Walker is left Monday's game after being hit in the left leg by a fastball. The debacks say it was precaution. there was a report that Jose Cantana would be shut down from throwing for three months, but then Mets GM Billy Epler shut that down, saying that they don't have all the information yet. I think either way, Kentana's going to miss some time here.

We just don't know how much yet. And it looks like one of Tyler McGill or David Peterson will be the Mets fifth starter. And it seems like McGill is the favorite for that job as of now. David Peterson is dealing with a what contusion. And Tyler McGill is like, I don't know if he's consciously going for it, but he seems to be aiming for some kind of like stack cast darling status because he already had, you know, the big velocity jump last season that we got pretty excited about.

And then I saw he's added like 10 inches of drop to his curveball this off season, which would put him in like the 92nd percentile, I think was what I saw in terms of curveball drop. So he remains interesting. Not sure how good he is. We've seen flashes, but remains very interesting. interesting. Yeah, so Tyler McGill made a start on Monday. His fastball velocity was down two miles per hour. The slider was down 2.6. The curb bowl was down four miles per hour compared to last year. So he's probably consciously throwing a slower, loopier type curveball. And I still think there's some upside there. So, you know, we'll see between those two Tyler McGill and David Peterson. I do like both in deeper leagues. Garrett Mitchell resumed running, but is not expected to return to games until this weekend. He's dealing with right hamstring tightness. David VR has been diagnosed. with a mild left hip flexor strain. If he misses any time,

J.D. Davis would likely play third base with Lamont Wade at first. Brandon Crawford is dealing with left knee discomfort and will be shut down for a week. If he misses time during the season, Tyro Esrata likely slides over to shortstop with Wilmer Flores at second base. Nixon Zell is unlikely to be cleared for opening day

as he recovers from a fractured toe in his left foot. And here's a very deep name for you. Will Benson. He came over in a trade with the guardian. and he's having a really good spring. He's 11 for 27 with one home run and five steals. Former first round pick as well. He's struggled with trikeouts in the minors,

but he made some improvements last year. So I'm kind of interested if he's a semi-regular player in Great American Ballpark, in deeper leagues, of course. That is Will Benson. Aaron Ashby will throw all flat ground Wednesday. It's the first time he'll throw since being diagnosed with a shoulder impingement and a slight laboral tear. Scott, are you looking to,

draft Ashby late in any leagues and stash him on the IL? I have not made that a high priority yet. I do think there's still upside there. He has a lot of swing and miss potential to go with a high ground ball rate. High ground ball rate is becoming less interesting than it did during the scary time

of fly balls. I don't want to keep... I don't want to have to keep saying juice ball you're over and over again. So I'm trying to come up with ways to vary references to that. and he was such a letdown last year, and the Brewers don't have an opening for him in the rotation at present. They probably will at some point,

but I don't know how high of a priority it is even for them to get him in there. Blue Jay's pitching prospect, Ricky Teeteman, is dealing with a left shoulder, with left shoulder soreness and will be shut down for a few days. He is one of the top pitching prospects in all baseball, and if he performs well, we are likely going to see him at. some point this season. A few spring training performances worth mentioning, Jared Kelmick, another strong game on Monday.

He went two for three with his second steel. He's batting 462 with just a 21% strikeout rate. Of course, in a very small sample size, only 28 plate appearances. The ADP is 236 in the month of March. It was 295 before that. So we're up about 60 picks for Jared Kelnick. And Michael Conforto hit his fourth home run of the spring. Okay, it's coming back from the shoulder surgery.

it came off of Julio Tehran, so not the most impressive. But are we sleeping on Confordo? I feel like we haven't talked about him at all. As ADP is 246.8. Yes. The thing I keep coming back to is he was pretty bad the last year he was healthy. Didn't provide much of anything offensively. And try to remember exactly what the timeline was for the shoulder injury if it may have contributed to it.

he has talked about making a mechanical adjustment this spring, just kind of sinking up his lower half with his upper half better. And I don't know what he's like it wasn't clear what he was adjusting from. If he was saying I was doing this wrong in what was the last season we saw in 2021. And now I fixed it or if just I was doing this wrong early in camp and now I fixed it. I don't know. But he's he's obviously been a productive fantasy player in the past. I was concerned that during that 2021 season,

he revealed himself to be somebody who doesn't translate as well to a post-juice ball league. Maybe these four home runs this spring are suggesting otherwise, but it is the Cactus League where it's very easy to hit home runs. So hard to say. All right. Would you guys rather have Michael Conforto or Jared Kelnick, if you're just choosing between the two?

I'd rather shoot for the upside of Kelnick, Unless it's like a 15-team league and, you know, you have to go for the boring pick sometimes. I think it probably depends on what my team need is, just because Kellanick is likely to give you more speed. But I think I'd probably go with Kellanick. But if I did need cheap power, Michael Conforter is someone who is worth keeping an eye on for sure. All right. Let's get into head-to-head point strategy, perhaps the most popular format on CBS. And the most similar to fantasy football.

So if you or your friends are thinking about playing fantasy baseball for the first time, if you listen to this, you probably already play fantasy baseball. But, you know, if you're just trying to spread the word, I would say to start with the head-to-head points format. It is a shallower league in terms of starting lineups, nine hitter spots, one of each infield position, three outfielers, and then one utility, no corner, no middle, and then five starting pitchers, and two relief pitcher spots. You only start 16 players total, and there are many different iterations of head-to-head points leagues and different types of scoring. But here's the standard on CBS.

This is how I've always played, and Scott, I would assume this is close to how you've always played, or at least what you've started with. One point for each of a single walk, hit-by-pitch run and RBI. Two points for a double, three points for a triple. Four points for a home run, though it's actually six points because you get the run and the RBI on top of it. Two points for a stolen base, and hitters lose half a point for strikeouts. So that's why we're always talking about strong plate discipline when it comes to this format for the hitters. And then on the pitching side, you get three points per inning pitched, half a point for a strikeout, seven points for a win, seven points for a save, three points for a quality start. You lose one point for each of a hit walk, a hit by pitch or earned run aloud.

You lose five points for a loss. and how much do the elite starting pitchers usually wind up within this format? Last season, Justin Verlander led all starting pitchers with 21 and a half fantasy points per game. Sandy Alcantzor and Max Herzer were the only other two starting pitchers over 19 fantasy points per game. Scott will start with you. General strategy in this format, head-to-head points league. Well, again, we're coming out of a time that forced me to change my strategy. So I'm kind of dusting off my playbook from prior to 2016 and emphasizing hitting and position scarcity more.

I'll admit I have a points league bias because it is the format I played in the longest. It's the format I like the most. and it's the format probably where I've had the most success. I've had a fair amount of success in all of them, but I think I'd perform most consistently in the points leagues. So a lot of times

when I express preferences on this podcast, it is kind of with a head-to-head points bend. For instance, the tiers approach where you're trying to make, make sure you have a quality player at each position by targeting the position closest to a drop in a tier. And then my emphasis on position scarcity in the early rounds especially, like I gotta get a third basement in round three. I'd love to get a second basement in round two. I'm sorry, if I have to get a third basement in round two, I'd love to get a second basement around three.

I think those translate best to points leagues, to head-dead points leagues, because there are so few hitter spots to fill. and the differentiation is the way to differentiate your team is clearest going position by position like that, as opposed to in a Roto League or Categories League where you can create differentiation beyond just positions. You could do it by targeting certain categories at a certain time. In head-to-head points leagues, of course, all production goes into the same bucket, so you don't need to diversify statistical contributions. If a player does something

and there's a lot more something that are some things that are rewarded and it had to have points, leagues, doubles, triples, etc. If a player does something, it's something good, it earns in points that goes into this big bucket of points. And so you just want the players who do the most good things.

And I think, I think in a way it creates like I think it may be it more fairly assesses players because

it takes into account a wider variety of contributions so I think a player's head-to-head points value is probably closer to his real life value so that's one of the things I like about the format And it also creates these market inefficiencies where just certain contributions go overlooked because they're not the sort of things

we're used to evaluating in players, particularly if you're playing with people who aren't as experienced in this format, they might not recognize for instance. Well, I mean, the point I brought up just the other day, how good Anthony Rizzo was in this format last year, fifth best first baseman on a point per game basis. And of course,

he's valued nowhere close to that and pretty much any fantasy rankings you're going to look up. And I'm not saying he should be drafted as the fifth best first basement in this format either. But that's the example of, that's an example of how kind of those under-the-radar contributions can create these, these opportunities to just kind of find sneaky value, I guess.

Let's talk about some of those hitters because you mentioned Anthony Rizzo. And again, plate discipline matters a ton. For example, Alex Bregman averaged more fantasy points per game than Austin Riley last year in the CBS sports head-to-head scoring format. So which hitters see a boost? Adley Ruchman, Anthony Rizzo, Max Muncie, Alex Bregman, Wander Franco, Juan Soto, George Springer, Stephen Kwan, which hitters lose value and thus are better in Roto, or I guess even Head to Head Categories League if you're building a balanced roster.

Dalton Varshot, Nate Lowe, Tommy Edmund, Bobby Witt Jr., Tim Anderson, Michael Harris, Cedric Mullins, and Adolice Garcia. Chris, something I've always tried to do in a head to head points league is, and it sounds so obvious, right? Like get hitters on good teams who bat in the top half of the lineup, lineups, of these said good teams, because it gives you more opportunities at plate appearances,

and thus more opportunities for fantasy points. It's very much so a DFS-type thinking where obviously I want more opportunities to earn fantasy points, so I want more played appearances on good teams, obviously. Yeah, I mean, that's where you think about, you know, it's especially true of like catchers, but even a player like Kyle Tucker,

who has a lot of upside on his own, but he's kind of been held back a little, bit by the fact that he mostly bats fifth and sixth in that lineup. There is a path to Kyle Tucker playing exactly as well as he did last season and being a much more valuable player solely from batting second in the lineup. And that will obviously be true in a roto league as well. But I think the more direct correlation is to head to head points value because all that matters ultimately and head to head points is volume.

Now, yes, you have to be a good player. but a good player who plays every day at the top of the lineup, they're going to be really, really valuable in head-to-head points, even if, you know, in Roto, their specific mix of skills doesn't necessarily make them super valuable.

So it is a thing where, you know, you can kind of get like exponential values, not the right way to put it, because that has a specific mathematical definition, but like players can dramatically increase their value, from seemingly minor changes in their circumstances or their performance, but mostly in this instance, their circumstances.

You know, the way you put it, good players on good teams who are going to hit high or good players who aren't currently hitting high on good teams, but could move up in the lineup, you know, those guys have a chance to really outperform their value. And, you know, I think a team that I think of a lot in this regard would be the 2021 Blue Jays, where we thought this was going to be a really good offense. turned out to be an incredible offense that just created a ton of volume. I think Boba Shett led to league and plate appearances that year.

Vladimir Guerrero was in the discussion for league leaders and played appearances. That matters more in head-to-head points. And if you listen to this podcast, you've probably heard the term SPARP at some point. What is a SPARP? And why do we want them? It stands for starting pitcher as relief pitcher. And who are the best SPARPs? Spencer Strider, Hunter Brown, and then it pretty much stops there.

you Boyd, Nick Martinez. Kind of stops after Spencer Strider, frankly. Yeah, basically. Garrett Whitlock, Usay Kikuchi, Trevor Williams, Clark Schmidt, and Ryan Yarbrough. And the reason we want them is because you can use them in a relief pitcher spot and they're giving you more volume. So typically they're probably going to be better than a reliever and they have a chance at a two-start week.

They at least have more upside than a reliever, though I've seen people go for the low-end types and I don't know that that necessarily pays off when there are closers out there that you could choose from instead. It's more of those guys in two start weeks. Like this year, Spencer Strider, I think, is the only guy. And I guess Hunter Brown, but even then I'm not sure he's going to be that viable.

Got to get Matthew Boyd up your list, folks. Matthew Boyd might be the third one. I've been burned by that one. But just to put some context to it, Merrill Kelly was the number 20 starting pitcher in head-to-head points leagues in CBS scoring formats last season with 489.5 points. He was also the number 20 pitcher in CBS head-to-head points leagues. Merrill Kelly outperformed Emmanuel Class A, who was the number one relief pitcher. Among the top 50 overall pitchers, let me see if I'm doing this math, right, six of them were relief pitchers last year.

So it can be easy to overstate. the impact of a spark. If you get an especially good one, you know, Spencer Strider last year was pretty good, especially, you know, he finished 42nd in points, but remember he was only in the rotation for about two-thirds of the season, maybe a little less. So, you know, he was as valuable as Jordan Romano

over the course of the full season. When he was actually in the rotation, he was quite a bit more valuable. So that's the upside for a spark is very, very high. And we'd be remiss not to be. point out that when we talk when you talk about head-to-head points leagues, I think most people's minds immediately go to starting pitchers, who we barely mentioned here. Starting pitchers tend to get drafted earlier, starting pitchers. I think usually the best starting pitchers outscore the

best hitters. And so there's this belief that this is this is the format where it makes the most sense to load up on high-end pitchers and just take whatever comes to you at hitter. And people have had a lot of success with that. Certainly coming off the six-year period we're coming off of, not going to mention it by name again. Juice ball. That was kind of the only way to go. Like, it kind of ruined the appeal of the points league to me because it just meant loading up on high-end starting pitchers because there were just, the hitter ranks were

so deep that it only made sense to differentiate yourself. with starting pitchers, and then once they were gone, you could start drafting hitters. So I'm glad that's over with, and we don't have to do that anymore. I would say, and this is probably worth pointing out again, since it has been so long since we've played under these conditions, that you can make up for a lack of quality at starting pitcher with quantity. In this format, easier than the others. And that's part of the reason why I like to emphasize hitting early.

I like to make sure I get. the most impactful player I can in each of those nine hitter spots. And I'm not saying totally neglect pitching early, but the middle ranks are deep at starting pitcher this year, and you're more likely to find quality pitchers off the waiver wire than hitters. And if you are consistently playing matchups at starting pitcher, if you are looking at two start streamers every week, and, you know, make it so you have a lot of,

like nine starts in your lineup where your opponent might have seven starts in your lineup, then you can make up for a shortage of talent. And what drafting too many high-end pitchers can do in the head-to-head points format is actually kind of box you out of that strategy, you know, because your pitchers are so good, you want them in the lineup, and you're going to pass up two-start opportunities as a result. And that might actually end up holding you back. So while I think traditionally people think, okay, pitching early is the way to go and head-to-head points.

I would disagree. And I think that's especially true now that the juice ball era is over. One thing I will say, I know we want to move on, but one, I do want to kind of just emphasize the shape of the pitcher versus hitter pools in a head to head points league. So last year, 15 hitters had 500 plus fantasy points in this scoring format. 17 pitchers had 500 plus. They were all starting pitchers. So, you know, those high-end pitchers, it was relatively close.

Pitchers had a slight edge. 400 plus points, 55 hitters reached 400 plus points. Only 45 pitchers did. So between 400 and 500 points, there were 40 hitters and only 28 pitchers. So I do think like the shape of the pools are worth keeping in mind there where I think the a aces are still super, super valuable. but this era that we're in where it's easier to find pitching, I do think it's deeper in roto than in head-to-head points,

at least when you're taking a season-long view. Maybe when you're talking about two starts and streamers and stuff like that, it gets a little more skewed towards pitchers. But on a season-long view, because so many of the guys that we like as depth options, probably aren't going to throw more than 150 innings, it does, you know, volume really, really matters in a season-long context and head-to-head points.

Yeah, so the Mount Rushmore, they're even better in a format like this. The Merrill Kelly, Tyler. If they hit, yeah. Yeah, you know, if they're anything close to what they are last year. Right. I know that's what you meant by if they hit. Yeah, sorry, if they hit as pitchers. Yeah.

Yeah, like Tyler Anderson was SP 17 last season. He was two and a half points behind Shohei Otani. Merrill Kelly was SP 20. He was a half point behind Shane McClainahan, Miles Michaelis and Martin Perez, all four of those guys were top 25 starting pitch. 13 Perez might be Martin Perez might be the pitcher with the single biggest difference in value

between rotissory and head-to-head points leagues. Yeah. Mediocre whip doesn't get a lot of strikeouts, but should be pretty good at preventing runs. Last couple points here, we're not going to get to Roto today. I'll just save it for another day. I mean, we talk about Roto a lot, you know?

Yeah, it's true we do. But, you know, I think we could still, on our mailbag, we'll lead that off, which is like some Roto strategy, and then we'll get into your questions there. Last couple points, Scott, the streaming two-star pitchers, my dad's strategy.

He does it every year. Like, as soon as our first waiver period runs, that guy picks up every single two-star pitcher that you can imagine, like even the scrubbiest dudes, and he's just like, why do I lose? Well, you know,

you're starting Trevor Williams in your lineup. Why are you doing that? It's probably good. Yeah. And with the juice ball era, Scott, let's just go with JBE. You know, let's just shorten it up. be I look forward to the day when I can stop talking about it because it's far enough in the rearview mirror.

But like it is, you know, it's that weird sort of thing where you lose the longer you do something, the more you lose a concept of time. And it was it was so long that I do think referring to the way things were before the juice ball era is just not something anybody has a concept for anymore. And so, you know, it's it's kind of easy for me because, like, you know, that for most of my career covering fantasy baseball, it was pre-juiceball era. Although it's pretty close to half now. Go back to that. But it's, I think it's worth reminding the people who aren't as, you know, not aren't as immersed in fantasy baseball and haven't been for the last 15 years the way I have that. The good news is, we can. can definitely count on Major League Baseball to make no more unexpected or unannounced changes to the baseball.

I mean, if there's one thing we can be sure of is that there's no way they might use different baseballs for different teams next season or anything like that. Right. It's always on the up and up. It's, it's, uh, I wonder what we're going to call this next era of baseball. I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we should just refer to every era where there's a lot of home runs as the juice ball era.

That's what I'm starting to think. Scott's favorite. Anywho. The point about your dad and starting every two-star pitcher he can get his hands on, there is a point where there's diminishing returns with that strategy, just like I was saying with the Sparps. And, you know, I released two-star pitcher rankings every week during the season, and it's kind of a tiered ranking.

where I basically say every pitcher below this point, just don't even bother. And that's usually like one third to one half of the two start pitchers. But if you have a deep pitching staff already, like you use most of your bench spots on starting pitchers, so you draft eight or nine, let's say, without playing the waiver wire. Yeah, you should.

Even without playing the waiver wire, you're going to have two start pitchers. Now, just given the shallow nature of the league, the nine you draft won't necessarily be the nine worth rostering all season long. So it's still worth consulting the two-start sleepers,

two-start streamers every week to find maybe ones that you end up being more than streamers, the highest-end ones. But the idea is you want to have a deep pitching roster in head-to-head points

and that if you combine that with a high-end hitting roster, I think that's where I've generally had the most success in this format because, you know, by season's end, even if you don't target especially high-ins pitchers, there'll probably be a few on your roster who are pretty high-end, you know, just because it's such a deep position and there's so much turnover from year to year at it. All right.

going to wrap there. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank, thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. We'll be back again tomorrow with a live mock draft. Bye-bye.