Fantasy Baseball Today - H2H Categories Mock Draft Recap! Hitter-Heavy vs. Pitcher-Heavy Strategies (2/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

Link to the mock draft results- https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/2022-fantasy-baseball-mock-draft-h2h-categories-mock-using-yahoo-head-to-head-scoring/ H2H categories! What are our thoughts on the format (1:30)? ... What are the usual strategies we use in this format (4:30)? ... How does a team look with a hitter-heavy approach (13:10)? ... How does a team look with a pitcher-heavy approach (17:46)? ... Why are older pitchers so undervalued this year (23:27)? ... How should you attack drafting from the first overall pick in this format (30:37)? ... What is the Marmol strategy (36:23)? ... Should Shohei Ohtani go first overall in a daily lineup league (40:25)? ... We wrap up with round-by-round analysis (43:20). ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @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. Serafeas is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. With fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Time to recap another mock draft where each of us tried a different strategy. You'll be surprised to find out who did what. Welcome into fantasy baseball today on Thursday, February 3rd. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers, recapping our 12-team head-to-head category draft that we did just yesterday. What's going on, Scotty? How do you think it went? Pretty well.

I mean, there's a couple of picks I'd like to do over, but yeah, I took a pretty aggressive strategy and not one, not the sort of aggression that I'm known for. But I think it made sense given the format and given the context of some of the players available. A little sneak peek. All right. We'll find out what Scottie did. What's going on, Chris? What do you typically think about the head-to-head categories format? I feel like maybe at times we kind of gloss over it a little bit too much. Anytime we talk about a player from a rhodo or category's perspective, you should think about that from a head-to-categories perspective in

general. But I feel like openly, Scott and I have said, like, it's not our preferred format. What do you think? Maybe this is sacrilegious, but I think it's the ideal way to play fantasy baseball. No. I think it's more fun than head-to-head points. I think it's a lot more fun than Roto, uh, classic Roto.

Because you need that, you need that thing where you're competing against someone every week. I think that's a key thing for it helps. And I think there's more fun in trying to balance the five cat, the five categories in hitting and pitching than just, well, I have the most points, you know?

Oh, come on. That's what it sounds like when you have the most points. Come on. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it can be. fun to balance the categories, but when it's a week-long sample at a time, especially with those ratio stats, ERA, whip, and batting, it just feels so random. Just feels so random. In a way that, you know, there's always a degree of randomness when you have a sample

that small, but it feels way more random to me than a points league does. I was going to say, Chris, if you like balancing stats, Roto is probably the league for you, but I hear you. I like the head to hedge to spend. The season's too dang long. That's the issue. Look, I know that makes people mad. If you say it, there are a lot of purists out there.

But look, man, for a person with ADHD, remembering to set your line up for 26 weeks in a row is really hard. It just, it's a long, see, that's like, that's almost half a year, guys. Yeah, you're not wrong. I mean, legitimately, the baseball season is six months long. I would be perfectly fine if it ended at the end of August, but I mean, it seems like that's not going to happen. So it's fine. Like the head-to-head element, I agree with Chris.

Like, that's, that is definitely superior in that, you know, come to all-star break, if you're on seventh place in a Roto League, you're just done. If you're in fifth place in a Roto League, you're probably done. But in a head-to-head league, you're very much in it still. So that's that's definitely that makes for a better experience A better playing experience Keeping everybody engaged that's definitely a good thing I just I just don't know that applying rotissory scoring to that is optimal I disagree Scott that if you are in fifth or sixth or seventh place at the all-star break in a roto league that you're out of it

I still think that you have a chance I've made some you're not out of it There are out of it you're usually out of it. I've seen some epic comebacks before, but you're usually at it. It's hard. It's very difficult to come back because, I mean, just the nature of the game.

You're talking about 10 different categories over four months by the All-Star Break, basically, or three and a half months by the All-Star Break. And so that's a big sample size to try to overcome whatever deficiencies you've got. But, like, there are pros and cons for each one. And, you know, I think everybody can enjoy whatever they like. That's right.

And let's talk specifically about this format and more about this exact draft that we did. A 12-team league has-to-head categories using the standard Yahoo lineup, which is one of each infield position, three outfielders, two utility bats, and then the pitching is interesting. This is where you can kind of get weird

with strategy in this format. Two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and then just four pitcher spots. Those could be either starting pitchers or relief pitchers, however you want to play it out. And five bench spots. The category is standard, five-by-five. average. Home runs, run scored, RBI, and steals, ERA, strikeouts, saves, wins, and whip on the pitching

side. And we were drafting as if this is a daily lineup league where you need 25 innings minimum per week in your matchup. I had the first overall pick. Scottie finally hooked it up. I appreciate that. Scott had the fourth overall pick and then Chris had the seventh overall pick. Before we actually talk more about the players that we selected and we'll go round by round a little bit later on. This is a really unique format where you hear different strategies being implemented. You can go in a lot of different directions. Chris, we'll start with you. What is your general strategy in this format, head to head categories? Is it normally the same thing? Do you have an idea going in? Did you accomplish that in this very mock draft that we did yesterday?

Yeah, I, in regards to this draft, it was less about the specific style of the league and more about how the draft went that influenced my strategy. And we'll get to that. a little later, but I think generally speaking, you want to approach it mostly like a roto league where you need to balance those categories, but there's less of a need to balance the categories in this format, especially if you're playing in a one win per week or one matchup per week as opposed to a, you know, 10 categories per week kind of thing. Because if you win five and a half categories every week, you win every week. And so you can afford to punt, I think ideally only one category. Two, you start to put yourself a little bit of a disadvantage, but you have the opportunity

to not worry so much about specifically saves and stolen bases. Those would be the two that are the hardest to, the hardest to come by and the two that are hardest to, that are most unique, I guess, or least connected to the other categories. And so mutually. Yeah, they're mutually exclusive to a certain extent. And so, you know, that is definitely like, I'm more willing to sacrifice speed in this format. I'm more willing to sacrifice saves. I think I did a little bit of both, but more so on the stolen base part in this draft. Yeah, I think if you're going to punt any category, steals makes perfect sense because it is independent of any other offensive category in this format. At least with saves, if you draft a strong closer, they're going to help you, hopefully, in the

rate statistics, ERA whip, and give you good strikeouts. So they can help you. They're probably not going to give you wins very often, but they can still do some things, at least from that perspective. If you're drafting, let's say, a mile straw, it'll give you some speed, maybe some run score,

probably not going to give you much else. But we'll talk about that a little bit later on. Same question to you, Scottie. When it comes to this format, do you have a specific strategy that you like to follow? And is that something that you did in yesterday's draft? So this format has been a tough nut. for me to crack.

It's of the three biggest formats, traditional roto head-to-head points, head-to-head categories. This is the one I've played the least. I did finally have a breakthrough last year in the podcast for the People League, which is a 16-team version of this league. Some of the categories are a little different,

but basically the same scoring format as this. And I won. And, you know, things I've tried to emphasize, I do agree that, you know, it makes more sense to punt stolen bases in saves in this format than it does in Roto. Because really what you have to think about is winning what kinds of players and what kinds of stats give you the best chance of winning on a week-to-week basis as opposed to, you know, over the course of the season. So in a roto league, it might make sense to get five, 15 to 20 steel guys. But if you're going week to week with the scoring the way you do in a head-to-head categories format, what is that distribution of steel is going to look like?

There are going to be some weeks where those guys might combine for one steel, you know? And like you're going to end up losing a lot in the category because it's just you just can't count on any consistency over for a relatively small sum. You know? So if a guy like Adalberto Mondesi, who sure, he's likely to miss half the season, if not more, but when he's in the lineup, single-handedly going to win that category for you every week because the volume that he contributes is so high, you never have to worry about him disappearing in a given week. So, you know, broadening that to the other categories, what I've decided I like to do is just, really load up on home run hitters

because if your lineup is full of guys who hit tons of home runs, not only are you likely to win the home run category, but you'll very likely win the RBI category. It's a good chance you'll win the runs category too. And that's not to say those guys will never have combined for a bad week, but it'll be pretty infrequent that they do. And then, you know, if you can build a strong staff to go with, that that'd be fine.

I didn't happen to do that in this draft. I don't know that that necessarily has to go along with it, but I want to maximize the impact with every hitter slot in a way that goes beyond what I do in Roto, both because you need to make every hitter spot count every week, and you have fewer hitter spots to work with. It's, you know, not every head-to-head categories league has to be set up this way, of course, but there are only 18 starter spots versus 23 in Roto. So, yeah, I mean, when you're trying to juggle those categories,

you can't afford too many detours in pursuit of, oh, I can get a steel specialist here to help me in that category. You know, you just kind of need to get, you kind of need to make sure every lineup spot is as helpful as it can be. Yeah, unless, of course, again, you're punting steals, which we'll talk more about, you know, who did that. here and who didn't. I kind of wish that I did. Normally that's the strategy that I go with, but I had the first overall pick. So I kind of felt like it would be a disservice if I didn't take

Fernando Tatis, who is my number one ranked player. I believe the number one ranked player for each of us. So I wind up going with him and then, you know, once you take Tatis, it doesn't really make sense to punt steals after that because that's part of his value, the fact that he can contribute 20 to 25 steals on a given basis. Pitching for me, usually in this format, I like to have two aces. I will say, go ahead, Chris. If Fernando Tatis didn't steal any bases, he might still be, you know, the best player in fantasy. Like, it's not a guarantee because his batting average may not be, you know, what Juan Soto or Vladimir Guerrero could do. But like, based on what he's done so far in his major league career, he could absolutely be the number one player in fantasy if he doesn't steal a base, which is wild.

282 batting average last year, 42 homers, 99 runs, 97 RBI, and 130 games. in 130 games. So project that over 150. You're talking more about like 45 homers, 200 plus runs in RBI. Yeah, I mean, you're right about that. But I just think part of the reason you draft Otis is the fact that he gives you

this five category production. And if you punt steals after you take him, it kind of defeats the purpose of taking him first overall anyway. So that was part of my thinking there. For pitching, I usually like to have two aces, four relievers in the lineup so that on any given day

I'm getting pitching statistics, and usually three of those guys are closers, and then one of them could be a setup guy who just gives you good ratios and strikeouts. There's a lot of them later on in this draft that typically, I mean, you can get for free, so I like to grab one of those guys later on. And then you just stream.

You stream the rest of your pitcher matchups, that's what I like to do in the right matchups. Ultimately, I don't think it worked out to fruition, but we'll talk more about that. Scott, you were the one here who went hitter heavy early on. You took six hitters with the first seven picks, and that, for those people who listened to it, was last year, you're like, what is going on? This is like, Bizarro World Scott. This is weird.

What happened? So you take, with six of your first seven picks, Vladimir Guerrero, Luis Robert, Mollens, Salvador Perez, Jose Altuve, and Adelberto Monise, who you get a pick 76, his ADP is 69. So you get him at a bit of a discount there. We'll talk more about your pitching in just a little bit. But what do you think about the way that this turned out overall, Scott, using six of your first seven picks on hitters. So I went in I went into the draft making

not intending to prioritize steals in any intentional way, which is my approach in Roto leagues this year too, but as we talk Scott's Nifts. I think it makes even more sense in this format. It just so happened, Louise Robert was available to me

late in round two. And I could have gone with my first pitcher there I could have gone with Shane Bieber or Zach Wheeler. And if it was for keeps, I may have. I may have played it more conservatively. But I just wanted to kind of see how this went. Grabbing Louise Robert, it would seem like a discount considering the format. And since Bieber and Wheeler were gone, by the time it came back to me in round three,

I figured I'd keep going down that past. Cedric Mullins was still available, the only 30-30 guy last year. And so, okay, I'll get two pretty good big. Steelers right away, guys who, you know, unlike a Starling Marte, in theory, these guys shouldn't, I shouldn't be sacrificing in any other categories, in the power categories, specifically, by investing in them. So, you know, and then going on from there, I just didn't like the value at starting pitcher. I thought there were clear standouts.

For example, round four, Salvador Perez. I mean, that might be the single biggest advantage. you can get at any position this year. So I felt like I had to go for him in round four. Then Jose Altuvae was there in round five. I kind of feel like he's being underappreciated for how much of a standout he could be at that position. And then I finally took Charlie Morton in round six, right?

Yep. And then Mondesie in round seven, I was talking about how he's kind of like a cheat code in this format. I'm anticipating and missing a lot of time. But he's going to be so valuable for me for however many weeks he is healthy that I liked getting him in round seven. So it wasn't like I had this grand design

and followed through on it. It was just as the picks came up, those choices made the most sense to me. I think if I could have any of those picks back, you know, maybe, at least in theory, I might have taken another starting pitcher with that Altovae pick. but the pitcher I probably would have taken was Charlie Morton,

and I ended up getting him in round six anyway. So that was part of the thinking, too, is like, no, I could probably get Charlie Morton on the way back because nobody seems to value him like I do. So, yeah, I was just, you know, I just kind of went with the flow and, again, was aiming for maximum impact with each of my hitter spots.

And so that's why my draft turned out the way that it did. And I do think this is the ideal. format for Mon to see as you mentioned Scott. I mean a head-to-head categories league with daily moves, even if he only plays 100 games, if you can, if you're diligent and you're setting your line up every single day, you can just plug him in whenever he's healthy, whenever he's actually in the lineup. You know, even if he's not part of their plans as being an everyday player, when he plays, he's going to steal bases and he's going to make an impact in that specific category. So I do think this is his best format. I will say if I had known in round three that I could that I would

get Mondesie in round seven, I probably don't invest in Cedric Mullins at that point. So, you know, maybe that's a pick where I could have gone starting pitcher instead and then have a better number one to go with Charlie Moore does a number two, Justin Verlander's a three. I like that pitching staff more, obviously. But you don't know what's going to happen in round seven when you're picking in round three. Yeah, and look, maybe there's a week where Mondesie doesn't steal bases and that's the week that Cedric Mullins can pick him up a little bit. even if the power falls off a little bit for Mullins, I still feel pretty good about him delivering 25 plus steals this upcoming season. Chris, you went the complete opposite way.

What is going on? That's what I'm asking myself throughout the course of this draft. I'm like, is Chris all right? I don't, like maybe something's going on with him that I don't know about. But anyway, you select four starting pitchers with your first seven picks. Max Scherzer in the second. Robbie Ray in the fourth round. Kevin Galsman in the sixth. And then your boy, Luis Castillo, in the seventh. So talk about this pitching. Obviously,

it projects very well, but do you think that you came away with enough offense to make this work overall? I think so. I'm not going to be a standout necessarily in too many offensive categories, although I do really like the power base that I have with Giancarlo Stan,

Nekestiano, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez. That's a pretty awesome core of, I mean, really pretty good all-around hitters all the way around, but especially power. I did end up punting speed. definitely light on stolen bases. And, you know, that's, no matter what approach you take to building a team, you're going to have some kind of weakness.

And one thing that I do think is valuable is in a league like this where having a weakness isn't necessarily as big of a detriment, knowing what your weakness is. You know, it's, I don't want to make the football analogy, but it's like the zero-r-b strategy where you go into the season knowing the thing I need to focus on is finding running backs. You might need to focus on finding steals with a team like this, but I don't necessarily think that's necessary because, you know, it's a...

I think it's foolhardy, actually. You're not... Okay, last year you can point to the example of Cedric Mullins, a guy who you picked up off the waiver wire and he made a significant impact in steals and also across the board. But like that's just... you can't reasonably expect to find that on a waiver wire, even in a 12-team league where the waiver wire is theoretically, you know, abundant.

It's just that specific kind of player is just so rare in the game anyway. People are reaching for all the theoretical versions of that player. It's just not reasonable to think you're going to find it. Yeah, the one thing here would be, I feel really good about the run production numbers, home runs, RBI runs, but batting average could be an issue. with Dalton Varsho, Jose Ramirez for an elite player, not necessarily the greatest batting average, Giancarlo-Lestean, Michael Conforto, obviously.

But there's also some upside there with guys like, you know, Thai France and Willie Adamas was a pretty good batting average contributor after the trade. And even Louisa Rias, I think, has some batting average upside. So I do, I look at my roster and I don't really see in the lineup any weak spots, any spots where I'm obviously deficient with the exception of stolen bases, but in terms of the lineup spots themselves. And that is combined with what I think is a very good pitching staff. You know, full of guys who in the last few years have gone,

who have given us big innings, big strikeout totals, great ratios when they're at their best. There's some risk with a core built around Luis Castillo, Robbie Ray, and Kevin Gosman, and even Max Scherzerer to an extent because of his age. but I'm pretty happy with that and the idea behind it I didn't go into the draft thinking I'm going to get a bunch of starting pitchers early I never really go into a draft thinking

I'm going to do one specific thing because I think you can kind of get in your own head and you say well I need to get this guy and then all of a sudden that guy's not there and you spiral a little bit and so I try to be pretty fluid when I'm drafting and in this draft I just noticed that starting pitchers were falling

you know Kevin Godfrey. Osmond in the sixth, Louis Castillo in the seventh, I really like where those guys ended up. And so it didn't feel like I was putting too much weight on starting pitcher. It was just that those guys happened to be the best values. And I found when we got into the middle rounds, there were a lot of times when, you know, kind of the best players on the board were hitters. And I didn't have to go after pitchers, you know, in the starting, in the middle rounds and force guys up.

I felt pretty good about it. Chris, I do want to quickly follow up here because you drafted Jose Ramirez seventh overall, which felt like a gift at that point in the middle of the first round, and then you draft Dalton Varsho a little bit later on. My question is, those guys provide steals from,

they provide out-of-positioned steals, basically. So do you think that you almost diminish their value by just drafting those two guys as your steals contributors and then not addressing steals really anywhere else? Does it kind of defeat the purpose of getting those out of position steals with those two guys? Not really, because the biggest thing with Dalton Varsho especially is it's not just about the stolen

bases, it's about the potential for a lot of volume. And he could be someone who plays every day is catcher eligible, but isn't catching. And so, you know, he's not going to be Salvador Perez. He's not going to be J.T. or Romuto, but those guys provide extra value because of the volume that they bring. And so, you know, if we get something of a repeat of last season for Dalton Varshow, but he gets 600 at bats, you could be looking at 22 homers, 80 runs, 80 RBI for a catcher. That's really good, even without the 12 to 15 stolen bases that he could provide. So I think at that point,

it was more just about the potential to get a potential real edge at the catcher position, which there aren't many of those. That is for sure. You got one of them. Scott got one of them. Me, I'm not so sure. I got Kbert Ruiz. Like, I think it'll be fine, but not really a standout at the position. Well, what did Scott do at pitching? You ask. You got Charlie Morton in the sixth round, Justin Verlander in the eighth, Ranger Suarez in the 11th, Chris Bassett in the 12th. Now, this is probably the part of the podcast where you want to take your headphones off or maybe you want to stop listening for a little bit because the rest of Scott's pitching staff, Adam Wainwright, Luis Garcia, Aaron Savali, Zach Granky, and Kyle Hendricks. It's not sexy, but if you're looking for volume,

Scotty, that's what you wound up with. Look, we Getting into last year, I think the idea of my bottom three pitchers being Aaron Savale, Zach Grinky, and Kyle Hendrix. That sounds very sexy. Kind of sexy. We'll go with kind of sexy. I don't know about very sexy. Grinky and Hendricks were considered high-end options. Yeah, they were top one.

For years, Savali was very trendy. I actually didn't like him as much as the community at large. But, you know, he was a hype guy. He was a hype guy. And I thought he pitched pretty well. I think he's being kind of undervalued because maybe he didn't quite live up to people's expectations. But he was an innings eater when he was healthy. And, you know, had a low whip, good control guy.

And, you know, what I tried to do here, it wasn't intentionally going after old guys, but it just so happens. You don't see a lot of young guys fit this description anymore, just the way the game is of and pitching usage, pitcher usage has evolved. I wanted guys who I knew I could count on for volume. I knew the team wasn't going to play games with their workload. They were going to go out there every fifth day and give you as many innings as they could. And that removes a very big variable from the equation of becoming a reliable fantasy contributor at pitchers.

So I got guys who did that. Most of them, you know, should be pretty good in whip. So it really just comes down to are they going to keep runs off the board? Granky didn't do a very good job of that last year. Hendrik certainly didn't. But they both have a good track record of doing that. And neither suffered from this obviously diminished stuff last year. I mean, they're not flame throwers to begin with.

How would we know? Yeah, exactly. But I think, I think, look, I don't rank them very high either, so I have my doubts. But I think there's a case to be made. There's a strong bounceback case to be made for both. Just I think Hendricks suffered from, you know, he relies on impeccable command with that suspect stuff. And maybe his command was a little off last year. And the same could be said for Grinky to some degree.

and the possibility of a bounce back for either or both, I think is better than their ADP is giving them credit for. You know, Bassett's been great the last two years. Adam Wainwright's been great the last two years. Sure, they could drop off this year. I mean, Wainwright's 40, right? But age is obviously a well-known risk factor in fantasy. I don't think it's anywhere close to the top of the risk factors

for pitchers specifically. Well, it's like we had a discussion about Max Scherzer maybe two weeks ago. And the point that I brought up was, you know, you always see this like, only, you know, two players have ever had X ERA and X innings at the age of 38 or whatever season Max Scherzer is going into. And it's always like, well, that's why it's risky to trust Max Scherzer. But it's like the list of guys who have done that at age 38 or age 40 or. or 36, whatever number you want to pick, it's usually mostly a list of guys who have done it the year before as well.

You know, like the falloff is going to happen at some point, but if the falloff hasn't happened yet, you know, a Max Scherzer and Adam Wainwright or, you know, Justin Verlander, if he's healthy, like I don't think they carry, they're viewed as risky, but I don't think they carry dramatically more risk than someone like Carlos Rodon or Trevor Rogers, these trendy guys who,

have done it once and really, you know, partial seasons for both of them. And I want to add, too, the volume aspect. It's not just about removing a risk factor, removing a hurdle that a younger, potentially more dominant pitcher would have to clear to make the sort of impact I wanted to make. It's also strikeouts. I mean, we tend to focus on strikeout rate or K per 9. when assessing a pitcher's strikeout potential. But that's only half of the equation.

They have to give you the innings too. If a guy is not going five innings consistently, he could have an incredible strikeout rate and be getting seven, eight strikeouts a start, which is likely what Adam Wainwright's going to do for me. Anyway, right? Adam Wainwright had 11 fewer strikeouts than Carlos Rydon last season.

Exactly. Yeah. In probably, what, like 40 or 50 more innings, I would imagine. Oh, it was almost 70. Yeah, so. Actually, 75. I don't win right.

Points or categories. He was the top 10 pitcher last year. Yeah. No, that's true. I mean, my rhetorical question, and it's not to you guys, it's just, I guess, for anybody listening, is why would an older pitcher

be more risky than a younger pitcher at this point, which is basically what you guys are talking about, right? Admittedly, I like guys like Trevor Rogers and Shane McClanahan, but if we're being honest, are we projecting these guys for much more than 150 innings, if that? So those guys also flame out all the time.

You know, this is the kind of pitcher who tends to get, who tend to be bad values in fantasy are the guys who, you know, that kind of second class where you have to talk yourself into, like here's why they're going to be this good. And they end up getting pushed up the board. And that's not to say that those guys aren't very talented or that they aren't good. I'd be happy to draft Shane McLeanhan or Trevor Rogers.

But it's to say that there are red flags for, both of them. And those red flags tend to get ignored when the player is young and interesting and has potential than when they're old and boring. So long story short, I'm probably going to be drafting a lot of these pitchers in the mid and especially late rounds. I mean, Savale, Granky, Hendricks, those are late round picks this year. Regardless of the format, regardless of how my draft has played out to that point, those are just going to be continual targets of mine. but I think it especially made sense with me going light on pitching early in this draft. That was my best path for making up for some of those deficiencies that, you know, those early round deficiencies.

All right. Well, what did I actually do in this draft? I'll quickly touch on it. And then we'll take a break here. I only took two starting pitchers with my first six picks. I got Zach Wheeler in the second. I got Logan Webb in the sixth, which is, again, Logan Webb is like another. one of these pitchers where, admittedly, I'm probably propping them up more than I should. And then three of Edwin Diaz, Trevor Rogers, and Will Smith, the closer, from rounds 8 through 10. And when I look back at the team after the draft, it just seems middling, right? I have some nice pieces. I have Fernando Tatis, obviously. Got Stalling Marte at the 2-3 turn. Got Pete Alonzo in a Rose Arena at the 4-5. I got Bregman to start the seventh round.

Maybe reach on them a little bit, but when you're drafting at the turn, you have to do that to ensure you get the players that you want. The pitching is solid, not spectacular. I waited too long at second base. I wound up with Colton Wong in round 16. It's just, this is part of the reason that I just, I like to punt steals because if it's just out of my mind, I could just focus on the other four categories. And admittedly, hosting the live stream while trying to drive, this is not the easiest thing.

But I just feel like... No excuses. If I don't have to worry about steals, then I could just grab all these like power hitters and batting average contributors and then just don't have to worry about it. So I think in hindsight, like, do I take Vlad first overall or Soto first overall and then just load up on a bunch of four category contributors? I think so. Like, if we do another one of these mock drafts, that that's probably what I'm going to try

and do moving forward. But I think that kind of goes back to Chris's point. Like, Tatea alone will probably give you a chance in stolen bases some weeks. And, you know, even if you're just discarding his stolen base output in time, you're just ignoring it. Is he that different from Vladimir Guerrero in terms of projected output? He's played 273 games in his career, Fernando Tatiz, has. His 162 game average, 292 average, 125 runs, 48 home runs, 116 RBI.

If he straight at five bases, that would be a first round pick and potentially a candidate for the number one overall pick. That's not to say he's definitely going to do that, but, you know, You don't hate his chances. Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's all he's done. He's been actually remarkably consistent so far in his major league career, which is wild because he's 22 years old. And his first season was a 969 OPS. But, I mean, we're talking about a generational, like, we're talking about a kind of player in Fernando Tatis who, based on only what he's done right now, he probably has like a 40% chance of getting into the Hall of Fame.

you're you're talking about a a Mike Trout a Juan Soto that kind of player like he is more proven than Vladimir Guerrero just as just a hitter he has been better in his career than Vladimir Guerrero I guess what I'm saying Frank is I don't agree with the logic that I don't you're saying I don't want to box myself into pursuing stolen bases

by taking a base dealer in round one and I'm saying I the round one base dealers are all amazing hitters. And because every opponent only has 10 hitter spots to work with, it only takes one really good base dealer for you to have a chance. I'm not saying you're going to win even half the time, the stolen base category, but you'll win it sometimes. Yeah, it could be a flaw in my analysis.

No doubt about it. Everything that you guys just said is true of Fernando Tatis. I just feel dirty. I feel dirty if I have this base stealer and then I just ignore steals after that. It just feels like I'm kind of defeating the purpose. What's up? I do think that's where you went sideways in this one.

You kept going after steel. Yeah, you seem to have too many stolen bases. Yeah. I'm H.O. I've been doing a lot of these like roto draft and hold stuff. I got to get my mind out of it, man. I've been so focused on just like complete balance overall that maybe I just got to shake it off a little bit.

Before we hit the break, I want to remind everyone to join our fantasy baseball, fantasy baseball, say, Facebook group if you haven't already. Facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy baseball today. It's a fun community. Lots of people asking questions, conversations going on. So if you want to join the fun again, fantasy baseball today over on Facebook, there's people joining different leagues, posting leagues every day, trying to find dynasty leagues and a whole bunch of fun stuff going on there. So if you haven't already, make sure to join up on our Facebook. group. We're going to take a quick break. And when we return, a few other strategy questions, and then we'll go round by round here on fantasy baseball today. All right, so I feel like we can't talk about head-to-head categories without at least mentioning the Mar-Mor-Mull strategy. So what is the Mar-Mull strategy? You've probably heard it at some point if you play in head-to-head categories.

You use your first 10 or so picks on hitters. That's right, all 10 of them. Hitters. You don't draft a single starting pitcher unless your league requires you to do so. If you must draft a starting pitcher target ones late that have innings concerns, but good ratios. From rounds 11 on, you focus on remaining closers and high-end set-up relievers with strong ratios. You punt wins and strikeouts,

but your offense is theoretically good enough where you should win those categories. And on top of that, you should win ERA whip saves because you have these strong relievers and hopefully closers as well. Chris, my question... In the daily categories and in daily league,

you can compete in K's. wins are probably going to be tougher because they're so random for relievers, but maybe you get it like twice a year. But you can compete in K's if you're just filling your lineup up every single day in a week where your opponent only has six starts or something like that. Chris, I was going to ask you, the problem with this strategy is you can only really implement it in a league where you have no earnings minimum or a low ending's minimum, maybe like 10 or 15 innings throughout the course of the week. In this specific league, we have 25 innings minimum per week, which means you probably can't pull that strategy off here, right? Yeah, I mean, you'd be cutting it close. You probably need at least two starters

so that you have that like 10 inning baseline and then for the other four spots you need to get, you know, 15. But even then, that's four innings per person. You probably need at least three starters. Yeah, I wouldn't feel comfortable going into a week without four starts. You know, maybe a guy lines up to two. But yeah, to feel comfortable, I'm going to hit that 25-inning limit. I think that's the bare minimum.

I think one of the other issues with this type of strategy is, especially when you're doing it with a group of people like we were who are fantasy analysts or diehard fantasy players, is you're not going to, those high-end setup guys aren't going to be there. You know, like they're going to go off the board too, where like in a regular Roto League, maybe Paul Sewell doesn't get drafted. But in this league, you know, he was like 225th overall or something. So that's the other.

And then the other thing is who was Paul Seawald at this time last year. Right, yes. Like there's, I don't know that it ever makes sense to invest heavily in impact middle relievers because they, they, they, who that is changes so much from year to year. I mean, we're talking about tiny sample size. It's, um... Plus he went... Even closers.

He went in around 19, right? So, I mean, it's not a huge investment, obviously. If you want to wait until the season starts and kind of see who emerges, your rights got every single year. There are these middle relievers that come out of nowhere. Paul Seawalt is one of them from last season. So there's no shortage. You're going to be able to find these guys.

Just don't spend too high of a draft pick on a Devin Williams. Or last year, for example, James Carincheck, right? Like, we thought he was... If nothing else, he was going to give us ratio. and strikeouts, and then look how that turned out. I will say this about Devin Williams. He ended up being really good last season. 2.50 ERA, a bunch of strikeouts.

He got off to a slow start. He got off to a slow start. You might have dropped him. Yeah. Because he had a 419 ERA through the end of May. And so there's a decent chance that, like, he had a 4-2 ERA and a pretty bad whip at that point. So that's the concern.

Like, he was coming off a 20-inning season, where he was really, really good for 20-innings. So that's just, the general issue with closers and relievers in general is it's really hard to know who's actually good. Like the guys who are good are the guys who've done it for three years. Definitely fair. Everyone else is just kind of, you're just kind of guessing. A few other strategy questions here. Scott, on CBS, Shohay Otani is one player, but this is a daily format. That means you can reap nearly all, nearly all, because obviously on the days where he pitches, you're not going to get his hitting production. Does that mean that he should have been the first

overall pick in this format? Like, I probably should have taken him first overall. There's an argument to be made. Yeah, I don't think he should have gone as late in round one as he did. Of course, even in Roto, I have him as, like, I think my sixth overall player, so I'm ahead of the consensus there. But for this format, I think him ahead of like a Juan Soto makes sense. I think Fernando Tatis, I still take over him.

Probably Vladimir Guerrero as well. But then after that, I think you can seriously start thinking about Otani, hoping to get that dual advantage. But, you know, he has to come through as a pitcher again and as a hitter again, for that matter, to make it for it to pay off. All right. The other strategy question I have here is, Scott, Chris, rather, you wound up with C.J. Crone.

And in a daily format, is this maybe a better format to draft Rockies hitters later on in the draft and just stream them whenever they're at home? or maybe targeting hitters who have strong splits like in Akil Badu, where even if he sits against lefties, you can get all of his right-handed production. And if you look at the splits from last year, I mean, against righties, he was amazing. So is this maybe the format that you should try something like that?

Yeah, I think part of the issue there is relatively short benches. You know, still only six bench spots, so it's really hard to do that if you're also like, you can't do a relief pitcher-heavy strategy and that. And you're going to have to sacrifice potential streaming starters. for that strategy. And so there are tradeoffs there and you're really committing to

I'm going to do this every single day and I'm not going to miss a lot. But it does potentially make a C.J. Crone or a Charlie Blackman an even better player because let's say you just get an average bat to go along with their home stats.

You could potentially get top six first baseman production from C.J. a crone if he hits 20 homers and hits 310 at home and then you just get you know like a luke void later who just you know produces i mean i think luke voits can be very good but you know a hazus agelar like a true replacement level first baseman who had like a 750 or 70 ops last year you know you could get really really good production from those spots and i also i hadn't looked it up before so i just wanted to if you always only got Shohei Otani's games when he didn't pitch as a hitter.

43 home runs and 25 stolen bases. All right, that's pretty good. That'll definitely play. That's pretty nuts. It's pretty nuts indeed. All right, let's go round by round. And now let's see how many of these we can go through. I am going to put the link to the draft in the podcast in the YouTube description if you'd

like to follow along. In the first round, I've already mentioned. I took Fernando Tatis overall, first overall, and then Ronald Acuna went second. Trey Turner, Vladimir Guerrero went to Scott, Juan Soto, and Bo Bichette goes sixth overall. Scott, even with the encouraging videos that have been making the rounds on the internet regarding Ronald de Cunia, he's been high stepping through ladders and we get all these videos of him hitting so on and so forth. Second overall is still too high, right? Yeah, I mean, I need to see him play a spring game before I can even invest a first round pick

in him. I don't care how. positive the reports are, the reports are probably going to be positive. But, you know, until he's actually gearing up to playing games, we don't know, we don't know how it's going to respond. And we've seen, I mean, just look at Mike Trout last year, how much he was set back for a much lesser injury. I would be very careful of that. So, yeah, second overall, I can see moving up up that high if he starts playing in

spring games and looks fine, but I also don't really think that's going to happen. All right. Chris goes with Jose Ramirez, seventh overall, and then Bryce Harper, Corbyn Burns, Shohey Otani to our buddy baseball pods, Mike Trout, and Mookie Betts to end round one. Only one starting pitcher in the first round, and it wasn't Garrett Cole. It was Corbyn Burns. I thought that was pretty interesting as well. To start the second round, we saw Kyle Tucker, and then Garrett Cole finally goes there, Walker Bueller, Freddie Freeman, Raphael Devers, and then Max Scherzer goes to Chris. And Chris, I know you spoke about this a little bit yesterday during the live stream,

but you go with Max Scherzer over Jacob de Grom. Why don't we remind anybody who might just be listening to this for the first time why you did that? It's, yeah, when I first did my rankings, I had DeGrom as the number two starting pitcher, and it just,

I'm assuming he's healthy right now, but I'm not certain, and that uncertainty is enough for me to drop him. And it's also, even if he is 100% healthy right now, or even if he is, there's very little chance he's actually

100% healthy right now because we know he's dealing with elbow damage, but maybe he makes it through the season. But even if he's 100% cleared right now, that doesn't mean, like even if he makes it through spring training, he's throwing 103 mile per hour fastballs and 95 mile per hour sliders, that tells me nothing about what his chances of making it through April, May, June. And so it's a situation where as much as I do like to, you know, remain injury agnostic when it comes to risk, the risk is pretty glaring with Jacob de Grom right now. So it's not dropping him way down. I think he's probably still a second round pick,

but he's more like SP4. Yes, join me, Chris. Join me, Chris, on lowering Jacob de Grom. Well, and it's also like Max Scherzer's pretty good too. Yeah, he's pretty damn good. He may not be Jacob de Grom, but it's not, there's not much you can argue against Max Scher for. 100%.

Don't get an argument from me. After Scherzer, we see Brandon Woodruff go, then Jacob de Grom, Luis Robert goes to Scott, Ozzie Albiz, Mani Machado, and Zach Wheeler to me.

And for those watching the live stream yesterday, I did a nice little like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, fist pump kind of thing because I was thrilled to get Zach Wheeler that late in the second round right there at the 2-3th turn.

To start the third round, I went with Starling Marte, and you're right guys, I probably leaned too hard into steals. Did I need another steals? Not specialist. does some other good things as well, but did I need that with Fernando Tatis? Probably not.

I mean, Starling Marte is just probably not a player I'm going to draft, except maybe in points leagues if he happens to slide, because I don't want to forfeit power that early in the draft. But I think if you were going to go this route, Tatis and Marte with two of your first three picks, you just cut it off there for the stolen

bases. You really don't need any more. You're going to compete every week in that category. The one thing about Marte, though, is he does afford you the opportunity. to buy some low batting average sluggers without getting penalized too much for it because it's not just that he, you know,

has hit 298 over the past three seasons after, you know, a little bit of a slide in his late 20s. But it's also, this is not often considered a positive for players, but he doesn't walk much. And when you're talking about batting average, guys who don't walk much and hit for a good average, that's really, really valuable because you're getting more at bad.

bats per week per season from them. Yep. And I love every time you bring that up, Chris, because I feel like it's something that just everybody overlooks when it comes to fantasy baseball. So guys like Starling Marte and Tim Anderson, the batting average means more for them because they're doing it over the course of more at bats.

With Merrifield as well. Yep. After I took Starling Marte, we see Shane Bieber go, Marcus Semyon, Cedric Mullins, Scott, Julio Arias, and then Austin Riley. And let's talk about Cedric Mullins for a second because there was a story that came out. We're recording this on Tuesday night.

And apparently, Wednesday night, rather, apparently Cedric Mullen's diagnosed with Crohn's disease back in 2020, and basically he didn't know how his body was going to hold up last season. He was the only hitter that went 30-30. I mean, that's just a tremendous accomplishment. So overall, I don't know if there's a huge takeaway from this, but I just thought it was worth mentioning that, you know, there was doubt in his mind.

mind and he still went out there and performed to this level. The degree of difficulty was even higher. I mean, you're telling you, it's a, it's an inflammatory issue with your like intestines, I believe. And so when you're not necessarily not like being able to eat the way you normally would, like the fact that he played 159 games in spite of that, it is pretty incredible. Yeah. And look, he was in my bus 1.0 and I don't know if he could get better, but it kind of makes me

think that there's a higher probability of him, not repeating, but, you know, at least coming somewhere close, like 75, 80% of what he did last year, and that would still be a damn good player. So shout out to, Cedric Mullins there. Judge went to Chris to start, no, in the middle of the third round, and then Whitmeryfield, Yerdon Alvarez, Zander Bogartz, Matt Olson, and Corey Seeger. Seems mostly fine, Scott. Even the biggest Corey Seeger optimist, Do you think this is a little bit early for him? 36 overall. The ADP is 70.3 for Corey Seeger.

Yeah, I love Corey Seeger. There's no way I'm going to take him in round three just because I think it's so rare that somebody's going to reach in it. Based on where he's going, he's going around, what, 75th on average? 70.3 is the ADP. So you have to be sure that Corey Seeger is going to produce, like, one of the truly elite hitters. And as much as I like him,

I'm not that confident that I'm willing to pay up that much for him. And knowing if somebody else is, obviously there's a lot of great alternatives that shortstop still. This doesn't explain all of it, but it's worth pointing out that the lower price for pitchers

and closers, you know, in an NSDraft, you've probably already seen, I don't know, 15 pitchers, starting pitchers and maybe three relievers go off the board, by the 40th pick or something like that. So that could be part of it. Yeah.

Again, it's worth mentioning, if you look at NFBC ADP, a lot of those drafts that are going on right now, they are draft and hold format. So that's why closers, you might see draft boards on Twitter. That's why closers are going so early in those drafts because there is no waiver wire.

There's no fad throughout the course of the season. You draft the team that you have and that's it. So that's why these closers who have the job now, or at least we think have the job now, That's why they're getting pushed up in that format. So keep that in mind when looking at NFBC ADP. In the fourth round, we see George Springer go, then Byron Buckson, Tey Oscar Hernandez,

Sandy Alcancra, who, you know I'm going to say, great value on Sandy there. Lucas Gilito, and then Robbie Ray to Chris. Ray, you take over Tim Anderson, Salvador Perez, Paul Gulchmidt, Pete Alonzo, who you gasped at when I selected him. I really was hoping he was going to be there the next time around. That was a heartbreak.

for me. If you could do it over, Chris, I was going to ask, would you take one of those hitters over Robbie Ray? So I guess it would be like Pete Alonzo and Jack Flaherty was the next starting pitcher taken or Robbie Ray and Nick Castellanos. I think I'd rather go the way that I did, but it's a little bit of, you know, I didn't get to get my guy in Pete Alonzo. He's one of my guys this year, so that was disappointing. All right. After you took Robbie Ray, we see Wanda Franco go, Tim Anderson, Salvador Perez goes to Scott,

Aranola, Paul Goldschmidt, and then Pete Alonzo to me. Scott, we spoke about this yesterday, and you mentioned it earlier. Salvador Perez potentially being the biggest advantage at any single position this season. The fact that he played 161 games as a catcher eligible player last year,

48 home runs, leading the league in RBI. I just feel like, well, you tell me, if you see him in the fourth round. Is it just a lock? Is it like a lock button pick? Yes. Yes. I think I think I can confidently say that. If Salvador, if it's round four and my pick comes up and Salvador Perez is there, regardless of the format, regardless of what I already have, I'm going to take him. It wasn't even close who the biggest advantage at any position was last year. It was him by a mile. And I think even at two-thirds of last year's production, it would probably still be him. So yeah, yeah.

I think it becomes even doubly so in one catcher league. You know, you tend to see this when people talk about two catcher leagues versus one catcher leagues. Oh, you've got to pay up for catchers in a two catcher league. I don't think that's true because if you're playing in a two catcher league, there are so many more hitter spots because you're not going to have a two catcher league that doesn't have a middle infield spot that doesn't have a corner infield spot, right? there. The fewer hitter spots there are, the more you need to make every hitter spot count. And so, yeah, yeah, for the truly elite guys at catcher or otherwise, I'm willing to go a little,

a little harder for them. Not that you need me to prove your point, Scott. I think you did a fine job yourself, but Salvador Perez was the ninth overall player in this format last year, not like ninth catcher, ninth overall, the next closest catcher was Will Smith 100 second. Think about that. So, Robert Perez, ninth overall, Will Smith, 100 second. Yes. I hadn't seen that particular stat, but yeah, that really drives home the point, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. And it's, he didn't have a good season for a catcher. Who? He had a great season for any player. Oh, right. Yeah, absolutely. That's the thing is if he does anything like this again, he's obviously one of the best players in fantasy.

You never see a catcher. the majors in home runs. You never see a catcher leave the majors in RBI and he did both. Like literally only Johnny Bench. This was the record for home runs by a catcher by like five or six, right? Yeah, I know a lot of them came as a designated hitter, so it's like

still counts. Yeah, but it's as a player who played most of his games at catcher, yes. This is the record. He said it last year with 48 home runs. Let's try to get through. The record was 43 before that. Let's try to get through a round per minute here. We'll go a little rapid fire. The fifth round,

Randy Rosarena goes to me. Nothing I really loved here at this pick. Francisco Lindor, Chris Sale, Jose Altuvae goes to Scott, Nolan Aronado here in the fifth round, and then Max Fried. Nick Casiano goes to Chris. Then we see Josh Hayter, the first closer off the board. The very next pick, Liam Hendricks,

the second closer off the board. Will Smith, the catcher goes. And then Trevor Story and Eloy Jimenez, which both seem like pretty good values. Even if Trevor Story leaves Colorado, the end of the fifth round, I like that. Obviously, Iloi Jimenez in my breakouts 1.0. I do like that quite a bit as well.

Chris, do you think that this is an appropriate time for those top tier closures to go off the board at the end of round five? Yeah, that's fine. That's where we are right now. And it's actually cheaper than you see a lot right now. So I think fifth round is perfectly fine for the top closers. I want to mention real quick,

Aeronado went early in round five here. Typically, we've been seeing them go in round six, even in other categories leagues. Maybe like Chris was pointing out, some of the starting pitchers falling pushed him up. But it's an example of you not necessarily being able to count on him in round six. Still, two rounds later than Austin Riley, Scott, which is what we always talk about. Do you want to take Riley in the third or do you want to take Nolan Aronado in the fifth? It's a question that remains even in this draft.

Sixth round, we see Jack Flourty go, then Cotel Marte, Chris Bryant, J.D. Martinez, Lance Lynn, and Kevin Gausman goes to Chris. Real quick here, Chris. would you have taken Catele Marte if he felt to you? Yeah, he was at the top of my queue. That's another one of my guys, obviously. And, you know, with the team that I ended up with, his batting average floor would have been really, really nice to have.

But I'm fine with Kevin Gosman too. We see J.T. Real Mutzo go in the middle of the sixth round. Then Tyler O'Neill. Charlie Morton goes to Scott. That was his SP1. Jose Barrios, Brandon Lau. And then Logan Webb goes to me. Scott, I mean, you mentioned.

the possibility of taking Charlie Morton in the fifth round. You thought that you would get him in the sixth. That's exactly what happened. And much like we spoke about earlier, you are getting Charlie Morton at a discount. Why? Because he's old. There's no other reason. Well, I mean, he did break his leg in the last time we saw on pitch. But it doesn't seem like the sort of injury that should have any kind of carryover effect. All right. Let's go into the seventh round here. I started off with Alex Breggman. Maybe a touch too early. But when you're on the turn, you might have to reach for the players that you want because they're not going to make it back

and obviously I wanted a solid third basement so that's why I went with Alex Breggman here. Freddie Peralta, who I felt was a good value as well. Blake's now, Adelberto Monisee goes to Scott, Jose Ibrahimbrayu, and then Frankie Montas. We spoke a lot about Adelberto Montessie earlier on as well. This is likely his ideal format.

Then Luis Castillo goes to Chris, Javier Baez, Carlos Correa, Jazz Chishol, Joe Musgrove, and Jonathan India. Chris, would you would you rather have taken a shortstop here in one of Baez or Correa in round seven versus taking Willi Adamas when you got him? I believe it was round 11.

You're either muted or frozen or both. I am muted. I'm not 100% sure that Willie Adamas is that much of a downgrade from Carlos Correa. That may be a hot take, but based on what we've seen from William Adama, I mean, first of all, you know, to borrow a phrase, people forget that Willie Adomas was himself a top prospect.

I think he was like, was he the number 11 prospect at one point in baseball from baseball America? He was 10. He was up there for sure. Yeah, he was a top 20 prospect his last two years, gets called up to the raise and doesn't hit well. But what we saw consistently was he hit really well away from Tropicana. He got away from Tropicana. Guess what? He hit really well last season.

285 average, 30 homer pace. you know, what, 180 combined runs in RBI pace, maybe 190? Like, that may not be that different from what you get from Carlos Correa. So I'm perfectly fine ending up with Willie Adomas as my starting shortstop. I'm happy to do it. Plus, we have absolutely no idea where Carlos Correa is going to play. Back to the Astros, the Dodgers get involved, the Yankees, the Chicago Cubs. Who knows?

The eighth round, Alec Manoa, then Brian Reynolds, U. Darvish, Emmanuel Class A, the third closer off the board, followed by Reiselrysely Glacius. One pick later, the fourth closer off the board. And then John Carlos Stanton goes to Chris. The next picks after that, Jorge Polanco, Ryan Presley. So a lot of closers going here in the eighth round. Justin Verlander goes to Scott, Cody Bellinger, Shane McClannahan, and then I take Edwin Diaz. So that would make it four closers in the eighth round.

That's quite a bit. That's a good amount. Scott, you wind up with Justin Furlander here in the 8th. as your SP2. What do you think? I prefer him as an SP3. I prefer him as an SP4. So, yeah, I mean, I had hoped for maybe like a Blake Snell

or Joe Musgrove or Frankie Montas to pair with Charlie Morton. You know, then at Alberto Mondesie was there in Route 7, and I felt like I had to take him. Still almost was possible for me to get one of those guys if my round eight picked didn't quite happen. Even if I had taken one in round eight, I probably would have then targeted Verlander on the way back in round nine.

Because I really, like, I love the value of Verlander this year. Tommy John surgery, as much time as he's had to recover, his track record. Up there with Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, that trifecta,

the best pitchers of their generation. And it's very likely he comes back with another ace caliber season. All right. In the ninth round here, I take Trevor Rogers to start it off. Max Muncie goes, Kyle Schwerber, Jesse Winker goes to Scott,

Christian Yelich, and then Jordan Romano. Dalton Varsho goes to Chris, the fourth catcher off the board. Is that right? The fourth catcher? Yeah, that would make sense. The fourth catcher off the board. Carlos Rodon, Antity Rendon, Dylan Sees, Joey Votto,

and Reese Hoskins. Scott, I know you expressed some dismay about taking Jesse Winker in this round. Why is that? I don't think this is the format for him, really. It's, you know, he's so bad against left-handed pitchers. I worry about him platooning. I worry about his home run output.

And I really want sluggers in this format. It was the moment in this draft where I got caught flat-footed. And when you only have a minute to pick to begin with and you're trying to analyze as you're going, those flat-footed moments are you don't always make the best decisions if I had it to do over again I don't know I mean part of the problem was I got sniped I was going for Kyle Schwerber a big power bat right and he got taken right before my pick I mean I could have gone for a starting pitcher I guess I may have gone for a closer but there was just a closer run and so the best left looks like

Jordan was Jordan Romano, so it's not a closer you're going to be super confident in. I don't love the winker pick, but I think I could have done better. Oh, Willie Adamas doesn't go to the next round until Chris. I probably should have taken Willie Adomas because I had to settle for Danesby Swanson as my short stuff. So maybe that's what I should have done. Or was Bobby Witt still available at this point? Yeah. I took Bobby Witt in the 11th round, so yeah.

One of those two. That's what I should have done. At this point in the draft where I took Tolten Varsho, I had kind of a similar situation where my cue just got destroyed because I was planning on taking either Jesse Winker or Christian Eilich. They both got taken the last two picks

or two of the last three picks before my pick. And then the next round, my cue also got destroyed. So it was a bit of a hazardous time of the draft for me. And I don't know if Dalton Varsha was necessarily the best or even the right pick there. So, you know, I do like this. value. It's not just about stolen bases. I think it's fine, but I would feel bad. I think my team has more upside if I have Christian Yelich there. Catcher preview coming next week. I'm going to have a bit of a

take on Dalton Varsho, but I'll save it for then. The 10th round, I'll roll the Chapman, then Clayton Kirschaw, Kenley Jansson, Yasmani Granda, Wilson Contreras, and then Willie Adams goes to Chris. So by the 9th, 10th round, this is where you start to see the end of that tier for me, where it's like, you want one of those catchers. So just keep that in mind. in your drafts. 9th, 10th round. That's where Varsho went. Grandal,

Wilson Contreras. I wound up taking Kbert Ruiz a little bit later on, which is fine again, but I do prefer to have one of those, you know, top five or six catchers if I can help it.

After that, we see Mitch Hanager goes, Pablo Lopez, Nelson Cruz to Scott in the 10th round, still getting it done. You sniped me, Scotty. How dare you? Well, you, well, I was getting greedy there because I was hoping to get Bobby Whit on the way back,

and then you took Bobby Whit. That's right. knowing that my greed didn't pay off, I would be happy to swap Cruz for Witt now that the draft is over. All right, well, we'll talk trades. We'll make something happen here. After you took Nelson Cruz,

we see Joey Gallo, Giovanni Gallegos, and then I took Will Smith, the closer as one of my picks, and then to start round 11, we've referenced it multiple times already. I took Bobby Witt, and I feel like this is a perfect time. I think it's pick 121, and his ADP right now is, I believe,

a little bit higher than that. Yeah, 103 is the ADP for Bobby Witt. So top prospect in the game, you know, I think it'll be up early, some power, some speed. Again, I probably lean too far into the speed in this draft, but that's where we're going to wrap it up. You can check out the rest of the draft results on the site, cbsports.com slash fantasy slash baseball for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow with Ariel Cohen.

Bye-bye.