Fantasy Baseball Today - H2H Points, H2H Categories and Daily Lineup Strategy w/ Joe Orrico! (2/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Welp, Sean Manaea has an oblique injury and will start the season on the IL (2:30). ... Cole Ragans' velo was up while Zac Gallen's velo was down on Monday (9:37). ... What is our general strategy in H2H points leagues (16:10)? ... Which players gain the most value in H2H points (22:50)? ... How much does consistency matter in H2H leagues (25:34)? ... How important are SPARPs in H2H points (31:03)? ... Welcome to the show, Joe Orrico (35:50)! ... What is our draft strategy in H2H categories (38:50)? ... Should you punt in H2H categories (44:52)? ... What is our pitching strategy in this format (49:44)? ... How do things change in daily lineup leagues (54:55)? ... Should there be weekly transaction limits in daily lineup leagues (59:35)? ... Should we be drafting injured pitchers to use in the H2H playoffs (104:08)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What's up and welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday. February 25th.

I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, Strategy Week continues. We are talking head-to-head points and head-to-head categories. We will be joined by a special guest later on. Joe Orico from Fangraphs and Fantasy Pros to get his thoughts on the Head-Tead Categories slash daily lineup setting format. I know a lot of people play that.

They want more talk on Head-to-Head Categories, so we are going to give it to you. But first, let's get the news out of the way. And, Scott, your wandering eye might be cursed because Sean Maniah has an oblique injury and he will start the season on the injured list. He is shut down for a couple of weeks before being re-evaluated once again. His ADP before this injury, 169 as the SP 52. I'm sorry to break your heart, Scott, but how much

did you lower him in the rankings? So I had him 43 before the injury, so I was notably higher on him than the consensus, 43 versus 52. This is obviously concerning. I mean, they're saying it's bad enough that he's already going to, like they can confirm he's going to begin the year on the IEL and you never want to hear that. We were just talking about obliques yesterday with Wyatt Langford and how so many baseball movements pitching or hitting involve rotation. And so if you come back too early from that,

you can keep reaggravating it and it could go on forever. But I am comforted by the fact that he this wasn't something he just suffered like throwing in the bullpen the other day he's been feeling it this whole time and just hoping it would go away and it didn't it so they finally did an examination they determined there's a strain in there they said okay let's give it two to three weeks and then we'll we'll start your your spring ramp up process over again so it's theoretically going to delay him because he's ramping up as opposed to when opening day gets here he will still be injured everything we said with the oblique still applies that, okay, maybe two to three weeks won't be enough time and he could reaggravate it. It sounds like a low-grade oblique injury, though. So my point is the Mets seem like they're being careful with it. And it doesn't sound like it would sideline him long into April. So I think there is the potential because there are so many risk-averse draft

out there that this could turn Sean Mani into an even better discount. So I have him 43rd. I'm going to drop them to about 65th in my starting pitcher rankings. That's going to put him behind upside types that I like, like McKinsey Gore and Nick Ladolo, but it's going to put him ahead of upside types that I don't really like, like Walker Bueller and Taj Bradley and Gavin Williams. And I think that's going to ensure that I don't reach for him

ahead of pitchers that I actually like, but also that I'll still get him late, which is what I want to do. And Chris, I know you moved him down a little bit lower than that, right? Yeah, he's $2.90 for me. It's the 82nd SP. And just to add some context to what we're talking about,

I looked at the baseball prospectus recovery dashboard, I believe is the name of the tool, which is a super useful tool. And the average for pitchers with an oblique strain. This is all grades. It's just the average is 47 days missed. So that would be right around the second week of April. So it seems like that's the timetable that we're looking at anyway. So that makes sense that the one thing I would point to is there were two high profile pitchers to suffered oblique strains last April or last March. They happened later in the spring,

but both of them missed about 45 days. It was Yon-Duran. And, Paul Seewald and both of them came back with diminished velocity. Both of them were significantly less effective than they had been the year before. Paul Seawald is 34. Yon Duran is 24. They're both relievers. I don't know how much we can take from that. But Shamanai is 33 or 34 himself, I believe.

He's no spring chicken either way. And I, oblique injuries have been around for a long. time though. No, no. They've been a prevalent injured in baseball for a long time.

The thought process for me in being a little more pessimistic here is one, I'm just more pessimistic on Shamaniah in general. I think you're starting from a lower spot and probably dropping relatively similar in Scott and I's rankings.

I love the changes that he made in lowering his arm slot last year. I thought it was all super impressive. I wasn't sure how sustainable it was. So, yeah, that that was the concern for me that I don't know how how wide the margin for error with shamanai is we've seen stretches where he looks really good and then fools us so for me it it's more I want to make sure like I'm not saying I won't draft him but it needs to

be at a point where if it goes wrong early I'm not on the hook for anything and in leagues where you have IL spots I mean this makes for a pretty good late round throw on your injury on your injured list early on in the season and then you can use that spot to pick up someone else early on in the season or whatever the first week whatever it might be the met's by the way they wanted to use a six-man rotation entering spring training it does not look like that will happen because both sean mania and frankie montas are hurt so their updated rotation includes kodai senka david peterson clay homes paul blackburn and griffon canning yuck i do wonder if prospect Brandon Sprote has a big spring. Any chance he could be in the rotation? I don't know why they don't

just bring back Jose Cantana. They might. They still might. Or Lance Lynn or any number of aging veterans out to remain unsigned. Yeah. But no hope for Sprote, right? They probably still play it with him. He was pretty terrible in AAA. Like he dominated Class A and Double A, not Emmanuel Class A or Jonathan Class A, but the level. And then he struggled mightily at AAA. So I would guess they want him to to prove it there first, given how kind of out of nowhere his rise was last season. Yeah, Frank.

You said you wanted us through news and notes in 10 minutes. We're seven minutes in already. There's nothing else to talk about. So we should be fine. My wandering eye has wandered to Zach Veen, okay? Oh, that was the next news item. I did it someplace to project all my feelings and they're on Zach Vine now. I am like straightened to my vines.

That guy has been killing it so far this spring. Three steals already. All Scott needed was three spring training games to be. I've always been a Zach Veen apologist. It's five games, okay? Rightfield's open. I don't know. I've always liked him.

He's looking good. They have an opening for him. I'm just saying, you want an early deep sleeper. Zach Veen is, is my early nominee. Hey, you know what? To Chris's dismay, I'm currently working on my NL labor plan.

Maybe Zach Veen will be a part of it. Who knows? We'll see. I do want to just quickly bring up some stack cast stuff from Monday that I noticed some velocity for pitchers. Cole Reagan's fastball was up 1.5 miles per hour. I think that's a really good sign after his velocity was down later in the season last year. He was still really effective throughout the course of the season,

but nice to see the velocity up so far in spring. and Zach Gallen, the other side of the spectrum, velocity was way down. Fastball and change up down three miles per hour. His curve down two miles per hour. Do either of those things matter? Well, if it continues, it matters. I'm not going to freak out in his first spring start about it.

Yeah, Gallin's velocity was down. His mechanics were also a little different today. His arm slot and release point were higher. So I don't know if that tells us. anything except that he's just working on stuff but he's a a veteran who absolutely absolutely deserves more than one short spring start before and you know what i've made the the grinky comp with zach gallon in the past and maybe he's just the new got zach grinky and he just doesn't care about spring training maybe that's all of this there is there is no new zach granky is an

american original okay there will never be exactly i i do want to mention because it definitely stood out to me. Ryan Helsley's fastball was down four miles per hour in his spring debut. Again, too early for that to mean anything, but let's keep an eye on Halsley going forward because he relies largely on velocity. I will say his velocity last season was down

in season, I think, like a mile per hour or two from his peak. I feel like in spring it was down a lot last year too. I remember being slightly alarmed about it being down in spring last year too. So that might be, I'm not saying it's definitely nothing, but I'm not worried yet. All right. Quick reminder that tomorrow we will be doing a live head to head points mock draft

at 9.30 p.m. Eastern Time right here on YouTube. That will be turned into a two-part podcast on the audio side. So if you want to come watch along live, feel free to join us. And make sure to subscribe to the FBT newsletter. If you haven't already, scan the QR code if you're watching on YouTube or head to CBSports.com slash newsletters. Let's take a break. be back right after this.

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. It is strategy week here on the podcast, and today we are talking head-to-head points and head-to-head categories. And beforehand, I noticed Scott looking at the rundown, he said, ah, head-to-head points, my first love. And that is where we will start. If you are looking to get into fantasy baseball

for the first time and or you enjoy playing fantasy football, this is the format for you. One thing, I wish that there was in the fantasy baseball industry was just a standard scoring system just across the entire industry because like fantasy football, at least, you know, it's pretty standard. You know what to expect

when you join a fantasy football league. You know, on CBS we have a scoring system. I think ESPN has their own scoring system and NFBC has their own scoring system. But speaking of that scoring system, I will reveal. For hitters, you get one point for a single, two for a double, three for a triple,

four for a homer, one point for each of a walk, hit by pitch, run RBI, two for a stolen base and negative half a point for a hitter strikeout. And for pitchers, three points per inning, three points for a quality start, seven for a win, seven for a save, half a point for a pitcher strikeout, and then minus one for each of a walk, earned run, hit a loud, hit by pitch, and minus five for a loss.

And I would say the biggest variations you see with that scoring, those are pretty score common numbers to devote to each of those stats. But some of the biggest adjustments you see are one point for stolen bases instead of R2. one point for strikeouts for pitchers instead of half, and also minus one point for strikeouts for hitters instead of half. Also, you might see one point for an inning for pitchers instead of three. And all of those changes make a big difference in terms of player value. Like even just to use one example, because I'm in a league like this, minus a full point for every hitter strikeout cuts the spectrum of usable hitters like in half.

I mean, you just look at like L.A. Dela Cruz, that's a hundred fewer points over the course of the season. For a guy who last year probably got to around 500. Yeah, no, that's a good point. There's a lot of valuable players and fantasy that still strike out over 25% of the time. So just keep that in mind when playing in head to head points and just know your format, know what your scoring format is in particular. I just mentioned what CBS is. But in the past, Head to Ed Points Leagues have favored starting. pitchers. You'd see more pitchers go early in the early rounds compared to category

league drafts. But with innings trending down and injuries piling up for starting pitchers, elite hitters have actually been consistently outscoring elite pitchers in this format over the past really three years. Scott, what is your general strategy in this format? Has it changed at all now that we see there's kind of a changing of the guard from elite pitchers over to elite hitters now? It hasn't changed much. It's, it's, I've been pretty, consistent, more consistent in this format than any other, I want stud bats everywhere. I can get them. True difference makers, because usually in a head-to-head points league, you're talking

about smaller lineups too, typically just a nine-man hitter lineup, all the usual nine spots that fill out a major league lineup. And so you want differentiators everywhere you can get them. And you get clearer distinctions within the hitter ranks than you do within a in the pitcher ranks, particularly in this format where the scoring system kind of levels the playing field at pitcher because you don't have to worry about pitcher ratios. It's really just about accumulation. There are a lot more usable pitchers. And you can easily plug in a pitcher off the waiver wire and not miss a beat more than you could in a categories format,

particularly if he happens to line up for two starts. I think this format is the best for taking advantage of two-star pitchers. So I am more inclined to draft, say, a stud catcher in a head-dead points league than I am in certainly in a roto league. But that's, I mean, that's basically true for every lineup spot. And of course, the kind of hitter I'm targeting matters to some extent. It matters more in leagues where the scoring is more extreme, like a minus one point per strike. breakout that like I said, you've got to really focus on that particular stat for hitters if you playing a league like that.

Thankfully, I feel like the CBS scoring system is balanced enough that player value, hitter values don't differ as drastically between points and categories, leagues in the CBS scoring format, but it still makes something of a difference. You get the big doubles hitters. You get the big walk guys that count for more in points, leagues in. then in Roto. So I'm paying attention to what kind of hitters make a difference in the format,

and I'm trying to get ones that will make an actual weekly difference for me, depending on who I'm playing in a given week. Yeah, and I want to add some statistics to what we're talking about here as far as the way the player pool works out. I just pulled 2024. I also did three-year averages.

The problem is there are like no pay. pitchers who have good three-year averages. Like, there's just so much turnover at the position that, like, there are only 17 pitchers who have averaged even 400 points over the past three seasons. And, like, that's a crazy low number. So I looked at last year and we had two with 700 points, which is you don't expect that. 600 plus as an elite, we had five with 600 plus last year. we had 11 with 550.

We had 16 with 500 plus. 500, I think is like the true difference making tier. And then you had 16 more with 450. So as many players between 450 and 500 as 500 plus. Then you had 26 with 400 to 450, 39 with 350 to 400. So you can see how it flattens out really quickly where the replacement level in a head-to-head points league. You have 97 starters last year, 97 hitters who had at least 350 points.

I think 300 to 350 is kind of where you look at and say, that is not difference-making production. That is just a guy. And so what you're looking for, I think, is that 450 plus mark among your hitters where as many of those guys as you can have in your lineup, that's what's going to give you the real edge. On the hit on the pitching side, only 20 had 450 plus. So that's 12 fewer than on the hitting side.

50 had at least 350 points. Again, that was 97 on the hitting side. So that kind of tells you where that goes. And then 25 more had between 300 and 350. So the replacement level at pitcher, probably a similar spot that 300 to 350, But because you can do two-start pitchers, because there are so many guys who can get that 300, 250 to 350 over the course of a season, you probably can live with more pitchers who aren't obvious difference makers because you'll have two-start options. You'll have the potential to throw some sparks in your lineup. So I do think I agree with Scott, getting as many difference-making hitters as possible in that 450-plus point range is pretty.

probably what you should be looking for. Now, the reliever side is hilarious. There were only two pitchers last year with more than 450 points. It was Emmanuel Class A and Ryan Halsley. Emmanuel Class A is the only pitcher averaging more than 400 points over the past three seasons. He's averaging 481. So the Ryan, Emmanuel Class A has been far and away the best reliever. But like that, you know, there were only 15 relievers last.

season. A head-to-head points. Like, this is all CBS scoring, who had at least 300 points. So that's where you start to see, like, Mike Soroka probably doesn't matter in a 12-team Roto League. Very well could matter in a head-to-head points league with that spark eligibility. Of course, a lot of that with the relief pitchers is people changing roles. And because head-to-head points leagues tend to be smaller because, like, the standard, the standard

league size on CBS. 21 man rosters, 12 teams, that's 252 players rostered, not including injured players. So small, small leagues. When a team makes a change

at closer, it's pretty easy to swap him out for yourself. It's not like you're, it's not like in a deep roto league where you're, you're dropping a card or your fab budget. Yeah.

Facing save sources. So, yeah, this is, this is also the format where I go cheapest when investing in relieving. unless it's a spark I really believe in. But for just a closer, give me whoever.

I can swap him out if he's not good enough. When thinking about which players gain the most value in this format, you touch on this a little bit, but just wanted to give people some specific names, right? We're looking for strong plate discipline, low strikeouts for hitters, and then for pitchers, we want a lot of innings, we want quality starts. And some names that came to mind for on the hitter side, Kyle Schwerber, Alex Bregman, Stephen Kwan, Louisa Rice, Ian Hap, Nathaniel Lowe, Jonathan, of Brandon Nimmo.

And then for pitchers that gain value, Seth Lugo, Aaronnola, George Kirby, Framber Valdez, Logan Webb, Jose Barrios. Anybody else come to mind that fits that mold? You mentioned Brandon Nemo. That was the first one that came to mind for me. Christian Yellich,

he's kind of closed the gap. He kind of closed the gap last year by getting that batting average up in the last couple years he's been more of a base dealer. So that's helped to close the gap between points and Roto. But he was on a per game basis last year, he was better than mooky bets in the points format. So that's definitely one.

You mentioned Bregman. And I would just say, you know, think OBP not batting average is the best frame of reference when thinking about who's better in a points versus a row. Though a lack of strikeouts can make a difference too. Vinnie passed Quantino. That's a perfect example, much more valuable in points. than Roto, and that's because he gets the walk, and he avoids the strikeouts.

So kind of a double whammy there. He's also probably not going to put up a... His batting average might be kind of middling, and his home run total might be kind of middling. But that matters less in a points format, particularly if he's hitting doubles in place of his lack of home runs. And Max Muncie is another great example of a good points league hitter. For sure.

Jonathan Indy is actually a decent... better in points than Roto at least. Because he hits a lot of doubles and he usually walks a lot. That hasn't always been consistent with him. But 80 times last year, yeah. Yeah. I think another underrated aspect, too, of points league hitters is finding hitters that are going to hit in the top half of a really good lineup,

just because that lineup is going to turn over more. And as a result, more plate appearances equals more opportunity to earn fantasy points. So it's just, you know, it's a pretty easy way to think about it. But yeah, do like to target good hitters in the top of. of good lineups, obviously. Part-time players, less valuable in this. Volume matters a lot more. So, like, a Kerry Carpenter

who might put up terrific rate stats. Jack Peters. Accounting stat, yeah. Those guys are, unless you're playing in the daily lineups league, which some head to head points leagues will be, platoon guys become extremely fringe, even when they're good.

I think an underrated aspect of head-to-head leagues is also finding consistency, which is kind of, it's hard to measure, it's hard to project, right? I mean, we do know some players that get off to slow starts and guys that go through these kind of weekly or monthly streaks where they're almost not usable for fantasy. But some names that came to mind,

Ellie Dealer Cruz, and of course he could just get better and not become as shrieky. I think that's a possibility. Julio Rodriguez has been pretty shrieky in his career. Randy Rose Arena, Rocky's hitters, you know, those are guys where, you know, when they're on the road, a lot of those guys are pretty much unusable

in a head-to-points league as well. So I don't know if there's anyone else. that comes to mind, but I know that people have emailed in and pointed this out to us like, hey, Ellie De LaCruz in a head-to-end format is killing me because, yes, he'll win me some weeks, but he'll also go through like weeks or month-long

stretches where he's just not that good. Yeah, consistency is really hard because you can track it retroactively predicting who's going to be consistent and who isn't. Like, there are some guys who are consistently inconsistent, like Justin Upton for

was always super streaky, but he is like the goal standard of inconsistency. I think people think about it the wrong way, though, because like, okay, Ellie De La Cruz will kill you some weeks. Okay, well, he was like the number nine hitter in this format last year. So if he killed you a few weeks, that also means he helped you win weeks. And you can't just think of the downside when it comes to these things. You're still trying to win weeks. And, And everyone's going to have some bad weeks. But if you have a guy who is capable of being a top 10 hitter, I'm not going to downgrade him because he's less consistent than a guy who's not as good.

Maybe it's like Ellie De La Cruz versus Yordon Alvarez. Okay, maybe you give Yorda on Alvarez an edge because he might be more consistent. But I don't really think you should really downgrade that. Yeah. And if you have a presumably Ellie de la Cruz isn't your only study. hitter. Yes. And it's not always going to be the case that Ellie de la Cruz's bad weeks are going to

line up with Julio Rodriguez's bad weeks. And so maybe one of your hitters isn't carrying you. But another one is. Like that's just part of having a team, a roster full of players. Not everybody's going to be on at the same time. You don't necessarily want everybody on at the same time because everybody's going to have down weeks. I've tried playing the streaky non-streaky game in head-to-head before

and I just find it's not particularly helpful to think in those terms because a lot of times it's just going to lead you down some rabbit holes that don't end up being true and maybe you're passing up a better player in pursuit of it. As a general rule,

if the hitter is geared more toward contact than power, he's probably going to slump less. Like I think back to like my early years playing fantasy with Johnny Damon and Shane Victorino. You know, those guys would be very steady from week to week. But that's also kind of a less common phenotype of hitter now too. So I don't know, maybe Xavier Edwards turns into that.

Maybe not. But I think it's probably not worth thinking too much along those lines. I will also just point out that in this format, and it's also true of head-to-head categories as we transition to that. You can be more willing to take a chance on the injured superstars who we expect to be healthy in the second half. I don't know if there's any specific examples right now, but someone will get hurt in the next couple of weeks and we'll have to figure out how to handle them.

And because what your goal is is not to be in first place all year or to, you know, win the whole thing at the end, you know, to be the best team at the end of the year. Your goal is to just win, to be one of the top six teams usually when the playoffs start and then beat your opponent every week. And so if you're the sixth best team for the whole season, but you get into the playoffs and you've got a great lineup that is better than your record, that's fine. That's better than in Roto, if you're in sixth place at the beginning of August, I'm not saying your season's done, but you need a lot to go right in a way that's not necessarily true in a

head-to-head points league. Yeah, I do have a question on that a little bit coming a little bit later on, but, Sky, anything else there? Yeah, no, I was going to say basically every move you make in a head-to-head points league is rest-of-season minded. Like, you want to improve your team's bottom line with every move you make. Now, it's as possible as the playoffs are approaching, you know, you're fighting for that last spot and you have to make a more immediate. move. It never happens. But ideally, you're competitive from the start and you just keep getting better and better

by trading for higher impact players or stashing away in long-term injury cases like Chris was saying that have bigger upside overall and then reincorporating them into your lineup when they get healthy. That is, yeah, that's a big part of the strategy. Yeah. Last point I want to bring up in Head Ted Points League. You guys mentioned it already a little bit. We've talked about it all offseason.

but Sparps, obviously very popular in this format, starting pitchers who have relief pitcher eligibility. It is a bit of a cheat code because obviously starting pitchers will get more innings than your traditional relievers and a chance at a quality start and a win, obviously. And the top names this season, Bouten Francis, Clay Holmes, Jackson Job, I think for sure to be drafted in all Head to Depoits' Points Leagues

and then other Sparps that could be drafted, Nick Martinez, Drew Rasmussen, Grant Holmes, Chris Bubich, Michael Soroka, Luis Ortiz with the Guardians, and Hayden Wisniewski, who is now on the Astros. How important is it for you to get one or even two of these? I'd love to have like four. Just give myself as many potential to start options as possible. Most of these guys, you're just going to drop, right?

Like most of these guys, there's a reason they weren't starting pitchers all year last year. Jackson Joe being the main exception, but these are not the most talented pitchers. in the world. So that's fine. But I want as many guys I can churn through for two-star matchups as possible. And if they don't work out, they don't work out. And I dropped them and I figure it out.

There will be viable replacement relievers on the waiver. And he had to headpoints league. I'm not as dead set on it as some people are. I think sometimes the sparks can get pushed up in a way that makes them not worth drafting anymore. It's one thing when it's like last year and Cole Reagan's was relief pitcher eligible and everybody thought he had true ace potential and that you were drafting him for a relief pitcher spot

with the expectation you just plug them into your relief pitcher spot all year but there isn't a spark that's like can't miss like that this year. I think there are only three guys who should be drafted in the top 200 in any points league. And if you can get them, if you could get them late enough, then sure, I'm all for it. but there's always that person or two in a head-to-head points draft that like climbs over everybody four rounds to make sure they get the spark. And I don't know.

I don't have that much confidence in Bowden Francis that I feel like I have to do it. And, you know, the main point I want to make is that these are the spars that look like they could be helpful now. but throughout the year, new ones are constantly emerging. So it's not like the draft as your only chance to get a relief pitcher eligible starting pitcher. Yeah, and to be clear,

again, only Francis, Holmes, and Job should be drafted in the top 200. The rest of these guys, if I'm taking three or four of them, it's my last three or four picks. Yeah. And a reminder that we'll be doing a live head to head points mock draft tomorrow night. So you can see where all the sparks go in that.

that draft. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll talk a little head-to-head category strategy with our special guest, Joe O'Riko. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball. Today, we are talking head-to-categories strategy, and we're doing that with a special guest. Welcome to the show. First time ever, by the way, Joe O'Riko. What's going on, Joe? Guys, I really appreciate the invite. I'm a regular listener on the show. I listen to every episode. I won't listen to this one because I can't listen to my own podcast, but I really appreciate the invite. It's a great pleasure to be here with you guys. Yep, and we're happy to have you.

I met Joe a couple of years ago. We've hung out at First Pitch, Arizona a few times. Great guy, rising star in the industry. Happy to have him on. Host, producer, and writer over at Fangraphs and Fantasy Pros, so make sure to check out his work. You can follow him on X at Joe Orico 99, and on Blue Sky at Joearico 99.b-B-Sky.com.

We were talking beforehand. There's also another fantasy football, Joe Arrico. You have to be aware of this, right, Joe? Is that annoying for you? Yeah. It caused quite a bit of confusion when we did a show at Fantasy Pros that I was producing, that the other Joe O'Rico was appearing on as a guest. And so they had no idea what was going on. I had no idea.

I was like, am I supposed to be a football analyst for this show? And no, no, it definitely is confusing in those off-season questions when I get tagged in a football question. He gets tagged in a baseball question. But, yeah, it's kind of bizarre. It's not like my name is like John Smith or something. You wouldn't think there be too Joe O'Rigo. You know, there is another Chris Towers, who's also a sports. writer, but he's like a Liverpool soccer writer in the UK.

But the weird thing is he's also born in the same year as me. Oh. So like I see people tag like Chris Towers 88. And I'm like, wait, how'd they know? A different guy. I think the ultimate example is when our friend Chris Welsh gets confused with the Reds pitcher from the 1980s, Chris Welsh, who I think is pushing 70 years old. He looks great.

Oh, bad. I think he was on. CBS Sports HQ one time and they had his lower third as former reliever Red Sox. I wasn't going to say who made that mistake, but all right. He was on some network, definitely not this one. All right, let's talk head-to-category strategy. I know this format is very popular. People are clamoring for more head-to-head categories content.

It actually is the most popular format on Yahoo. And just to break down the standard Yahoo Head-Ted Categories League, daily lineups, 20 innings pitched is the per-week minimum. There are 27 man rosters, one of each in-field position, plus three outfielders and two utility spots instead of the one that we use on CBS. No corner infield, no middle infield, two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, four pitcher spots.

So you can divvy up those four pitcher spots whoever you want. It could be all relievers. You can mix and match some starting pitchers in there. There's five bench spots, four AL spots, and they use the standard five-by-five categories, batting average runs, home run, RBI, and steals. And then for the pitching side,

win, strikeouts, ERA whip, and saves. Scoring, head-to-ed categories that keeps adding each weekly matchup to your record, not just one win. There are some people who play that, but that's not the standard. And I feel like most people play where it just keeps adding up every single week. So first up is draft strategy, Joe. I'll throw this one your way. How does your strategy change in head-ed categories versus other formats?

Let's say Roto or even like a points league if you play in any of those. So I predominantly play in Roto leagues. My two home leagues are head-to-head categories. But honestly, the draft strategy, this is kind of a boring answer, but it doesn't change that much for me. The players that I value from a category league standpoint, it's generally about the same if we're talking Roto or if we're talking head-to-head categories.

I know that some people will really want to nail down those players that are consistent week-to-week. But, Chris, it might have been you. Somebody wrote an article over the last couple of years, trying to break down week-to-week consistency. and it's very hard. You guys were mentioning it in the first segment to really predict that. So I do my category rankings essentially as one.

It's roto and head-to-head categories. There might be some very small differences, but not really, to be honest. I know it's a boring answer. But from that standpoint, there are a lot of things that are different in the strategy and everything. But in terms of just straight drafting, it's not that different for me. Does the head-to-head categories you play in, is it a different size lineup than the standard roto? Because I think it, I would think it would change the draft approach just.

by the fact that there's no middle end field spot, corner infield spot, let's say. Or do you play in head-to-head categories leagues where there is? No, my home leagues are no middle infield, no corner. So I guess from that standpoint, you don't need to reach, I guess, if you're missing out on one of those kind of shaller positions and you need to fill a corner or middle spot.

But I don't find it that really changes the strategy that much. Maybe if it's three outfielders versus five outfielders, you don't need to go for outfielders as early as you normally would in Roto or even points leagues, but I just find over the last several years I've been playing, when I try and make differences between the category rankings and the roto rankings, I just tend to overcomplicate it,

and it doesn't really end up working out in the end for me. It's something that in both football and baseball, I think people have like kind of tried to chase the consistency thing, and it's not very predictable, and I think just intuitive. I'm not sure consistency is actually a valuable skill, even if it did exist. Because think about it this way, right? Let's say you've got a guy who hits 27 homers and 98 RBI per year.

If he's truly consistent, what you're getting is one home run every week and what, four RBI or three and a half RBI, which like, okay, it would be nice to know that I'm getting those things, I suppose, but what you're actually getting is non-impactful production every single week, where the way baseball players actually work is you're getting impactful week, less impactful week, impactful week, impactful week. and that is more, on the whole, that's just going to be more valuable. The reason I bring it up is less because of the consistency factor than what we were talking about the other day, where I used to approach head-to-head categories league like it was a Roto League.

I'm not going to say it was never successful, but it wasn't successful often enough for me. and what led to more success in the head-to-head categories format, one where there are smaller lineup sizes than the standard Rotel League is really singling out category dominators, like not the Jack of All Trades, Masters of None, who are going to give you 20 homers, 20 steals, that's going to average out to less than one a week. Alexander Bogart, I think, is a good example of this type of player

where the end result if it's 18 and 18 is valuable in a points later, or a Roto league, on a weekly basis, it can leave you want to. Guys who are going to deliver so many that you can count on like two home runs or two steals from them in a given week. And not worry about overkill because it's a week-to-week competition. So if you end up with way more home runs than the rest of the league, like, who cares? it's not like that's wasted output necessarily. And focusing less on batting average because in one week samples, that's going to be pretty arbitrary.

Yeah, I've heard people point out trying to like draft for extreme players. Ellie Dela Cruz and Corbyn Carroll, Ellie who could steal 70 plus bases and Corbyn Carroll, who we've seen steal 50 plus bases before, or even big home run outputs like Matt Olson or Pete Alonzo, Kyle Schwerber guys like that. And I mean, I guess even further down the draft like Xavier Edwards, if you really think he's going to,

steal of 40 plus bases this season. I'm not sure how much he's going to do outside of that, but maybe some kind of category specialists like that in that format. I just wanted to get Joe's reaction to it because I don't, you know, I feel like since doing that, even if I'm sometimes reaching for those players, it still seems to go better. I'm more competitive overall, I feel like with that. But I don't know.

What do you think? Joe. I generally just like to go for the balanced build still, and that just might be a personal preference thing. If we're talking about the alleys of the world, the Kyle Schwerber's of the world, they do have a lot of value. But then I'm also talking,

and you guys did allude to this in the first segment as well, players of that type, like there could be several weeks where Schwerber gives me zero home runs throughout the season. And that's just something I'm going to have to deal with. There will be weeks where he gives me six home runs, potentially, and we know that every June,

Kyle Schorber just lights the world on fire. But I don't alter the dream. draft strategy necessarily to really pinpoint those guys who are the one category specialists. They're still valuable, of course, but I don't think that Ellie is more valuable in head-to-head categories because he can have those spike weeks. I think it does kind of balance itself out. Joe, do you ever draft with the intention to punt categories? I think it's much harder to punt a category and win in a roto league, let's say, but in a head-to-head categories league where you only need to win a majority of the categories,

to keep a record above 500, it's something that's more doable. And I think it's actually a pretty popular strategy. Is it something that you find yourself doing? I rarely go into the draft saying, I'm going to just punt this category. I like to see how the draft flows. And if I am at the end of the first round that I end up with Vlad Guerrero and Jordan Alvarez and then those type of players just keep making sense, then I might say, okay, maybe stolen bases, I can just kind of live off of the waiver wire or do a soft punt.

But a lot of the time, if I am going to do it, it ends up being batting average. just the way that it dries up in the first couple of rounds. If I am going to go for an Ellie or somebody of that ilk in the first, then I'm a lot more likely to want to do that going forward. But to say that I'm going to go into a draft with that plan, it does kind of limit you. If the player falls and they're not within your certain build, and you say, well, I can't take this guy because I'm punting steals,

then you might just be taking a worse player to try and live up to that strategy. So if it happens throughout the course of the draft naturally, then I'm totally on board, but it's not something that I plan out in advance. What do you guys think are the most easy, the easiest categories to punt? Because I used to say steals, but obviously the way the game has changed and steals are much more readily available for fantasy now. I kind of feel like batting average, like Joe said, makes a lot of sense, especially because it's so variable from week to week, which just, it's hard to predict. But also like win, strikeouts and saves on the pitching side, I feel like, you know, you could take a heavy relief pitcher approach and you could punt, punt wins and strikeouts. or you could go the opposite way and maybe you just start a bunch of starters,

your ratios might be in trouble, but then you could punt saves. So what do you guys think? Yeah, I mean, the truest punts are going to be saves and steals because you can draft guys who you can be sure will give you zero of those. I mean, you can try to punt strikeouts and still maybe win strikeouts some weeks. Not that you should, not that that would be a bad thing, right? So I just don't know. Yeah, batting average.

I could see it. just if you end up with Ellie De La Cruz in round one and then in round two you draft who's another low batting average guy relative to everyone else in the round two round two yeah like if it just starts out that way and you're like whatever I'm not going to be batting average that's what I was thinking Austin Riley it I don't necessarily advise it but I could see how it might work by default saves and steals are the easiest to punt because you can't punt home runs because you're also punting runs an RBI, right? Just by the nature, literally every home run is also a run and an RBI.

And I suppose you can punt wins, but that's more than you're talking not a punt strategy, but kind of a separate strategy where you're going for a Mar-Mole, basically, where you're relying more on relievers, trying to dominate ratios, which is punting to a certain extent, but it's more, it's less, I think, class punting and more just a different team building strategy in general. So the problem is a lot of guys are stealing bases and, you know, if Kyle Tucker is your first round pick, are you really punting steals? You know, it's it's kind of hard to actually do. But the thought process is if you can punt, truly punt a category and give yourself an edge on the other four in the hitting side.

You just need to win those four, right? Or three of them every week. Now, it doesn't actually work like that and you can't guarantee you're going to win those four weeks every week. Plus, what you can put, what you might end up with is, especially in, I think, the default Yahoo is you don't win a game every week. You win one, you win X number of 10 categories every week. And so your final record is the sum of the categories you've won

rather than the sum of the weeks that you've won. Now, I personally think it should just be you win the week. You win by an interim mile. It doesn't matter winning. That format. I think it makes more sense to pun if it's just you get a win or you get a loss regardless of how many categories you want lost. You get five and a half category points out of 10.

You won the week. It doesn't matter. It's a binary. But if you win five and a half, 70% of the time and lose four out of six every week, you're a 500 team and you're going nowhere. So it's harder to do. You do have to build, I think,

more of a traditional rototype lineup in what is the Yahoo default where you get, you know, six wins or eight wins or three wins every week, whatever it might be. Joe, how do you usually draft pitching in this format? Because again, it's kind of a unique construction with the two starters, two relievers,

and then just four pitcher spots. 20 innings weekly minimum. So really you only need two starts and then you could just go relievers the rest of the way if you want to load up on relievers and go that strategy, maybe punt, you know, some of the punt wins if you want to do something like that.

But how do you normally draft pitching in this format? So starting pitching, it wouldn't be really too different from the other formats. I'm not typically a first round guy for pitchers. I'm not really on. I think I have one Tarek Scouble share through, I mean, maybe 16 or 17. drafts. I know that's a crazy thing to say, but I did a lot of gladiators. But yeah, I'm not,

I'm not really somebody who drafts first round pitchers. I like to live in that two through four round range for my SP1, if it's a crochet, if it's a sale, if it's a Reagan's. And then, you know, kind of periodically take a pitcher throughout, like pretty standard for starting pitchers. If it's talking relief pitchers in a daily lineup league, the last couple of years, I've done something a little bit different from the rest of my league, and I tend to do very well in saves. And that's employing four relief pitchers a lot of the time in a daily lineup league. And that's not to say you have to reach on them. You take who comes to you, but a lot of people have it in their brain that it's two or three as the default. And in those daily lineup leagues, you don't have to worry about

losing out on the volume like you would in a weekly league. You can't start four or five relievers in a weekly league without really losing out on strikeouts. But in a daily format, a lot of those starting pitchers are just deadweight for five or six days of the week. And if you have relievers that can go on those slots, give you win potential, potential for a save. They don't usually blow your ratios, a couple extra strikeouts. That tends to be what I like to do. Four relievers, it might sound kind of extreme to some people, but I think that's a really good way to secure saves

because not a lot of people are going to do it. And if it's a daily league, I think it really does make sense. But for starters, it's pretty standard cross-roto and head-to-head for me. Yeah, I think that relief pitcher strategy does make sense in a daily league. I'm curious, is that saying you're going to have four? Is that something you, like, do you draft four? Do you alter your draft strategy to make you sure you get four true closeers? Or do you kind of trust yourself to wind up with four by playing the waiver wire over the course of the season?

Generally, I want at least two lockdown guys in the draft. If it's a Yahoo League specifically, like I talk a lot about NFBC, play a lot of NFBC. They get pushed up there. But if you're talking about a Yahoo League, they do fall quite a bit more. So I'm looking for one of those lockdown guys, if it's a Miller, a Diaz, a Williams, whoever, or somebody may be in that middle to later tier of Duran, Munoz, Ryan Walker, whoever. And then I can kind of speculate on a Justin Martinez.

I can take maybe Carlos Estevez later on and then have three. And then maybe if there's a fourth one at the very end of the draft or through the waiver wire, drafting four is maybe a little bit extreme, but I think drafting at least three and then seeing what you can pick up in the early going. If there's an injury, I mean, we saw it on opening day last year. Alex Lang lost his job. So you just never know what's going to happen in terms of reliever.

So there will be guys available. And I do think that four strategy and heck, maybe even five, if you're feeling bold, can really pay dividends and head to head. What about a high-end setup man who you could see stealing the occasional save? Like Griffin Jacks, I think is the perfect example. Is that? Kirby Yates. Yeah, Curry Yates, sure. Well, Kirby Yates is probably going to go a little higher.

I can imagine Griffin Jax could potentially be overlooked in some of these things. Is that somebody you want to grab as one of your four? it definitely can be I wouldn't want it to be one of the top two or three if it's like the if it's the third or fourth guy specifically the fourth guy I like it a lot Cade Smith or Ryan Kirkering

I think those guys are really fantastic help for the ratios and also they're probably the best handcuffs I mean Jordan Romano I'm very worried about Jordan Romano considering that they didn't bring him back the hometown guy and everything Orion Kirkering could be the closer by mid-April if something doesn't go well with Romano's back

and the litany of injuries he had so I like him a lot. Even if he's not as a closer, even if you get five or six wins spread out throughout the season with seven or eight saves and like a two low two ZRA with potentially a hundred strikeouts, that can really be valuable as well. Yeah, it's better than just a blank space from a starting pitcher because he's not starting that particular day. Yeah. And that's the thing that I think people forget about in daily leagues. Like you have those spots, even if it's a superstar, even if it's, you know, Garrett Crochet is a two-star week. There's still five days where he is just a zero in your lineup. And a lot of people will just leave it in the lineup. But,

If it's a daily league, you can really take advantage of that. Yeah, and I think it's a good point. And the names that we wouldn't typically use in just whatever, a 12-team Roto League, those high-end setup guys, even someone like a Luke Weaver who almost never is going to get a save. But if you can leave him in and get really great ratios and strikeouts over the course of the season, and he's just in your lineup every day anyway, like why not? Or like a Brian a Brave. These are some names that come to mind that really high-end relievers who are going to give you good ratios,

strikeouts, maybe the occasional saver win, and you just kind of leave them in your lineup all the time, because why not? Like, you're not going to start all your starting pitchers all the time anyway. We mentioned a few times again, like the daily lineup format, and Joe, how does that at all affect your strategy

within the draft? Like, do you like to target platoon bats at all? We talked a little bit from the pitching side, but what about from the hitter side, do you find yourself maybe towards the end of the draft looking at more platoon bats? If you're going to be diligent, you're going to be like paying it to your lineup every single day.

Whenever they're in their lineup, you could throw them in. Yeah, absolutely. I think they're a little bit more valuable in the same vein of like the Kerry Carpenter, who you have on the outline is a great example for me because in a weekly league, I still love him. I still think that he's going to be a valuable asset in Roto leagues, but there will be days where he's not playing. He's not going to play a lot.

If at all against lefties, he'll get the odd day off. And if he does, sit against lefties in a daily league, you will have one or two guys on your bench so you can slot in there. So we're in a Roto League or in a weekly league, you would have to take those periodic like zeros. You don't have to at all in a daily league. And I think that makes guys like Carpenter, Jock Peterson, in particular, those two that I really like. And I think that makes them a lot more valuable this season. And every season, those guys are a lot more valuable in daily leagues. Yeah. Let's like where the rubber meets the road, though, because

this is something I don't get enough exposure to this format to really feel like I've tested it thoroughly myself. But you have how many bench spots typically in a daily head-to-head categories league? On Yahoo, it's five, Scott. Yeah, five. not that many. You're saying you want relievers. You can slot in for starters. You're saying you want to be able to take advantage of platoon matchups for hitters. So how do you make use of those very few bench spots to do both of those things?

For me, it's either four pitchers in one hitter or three and two. You know, if you have those relievers that are just in your lineup every day, you don't have to worry about taking them out. Maybe periodically you will if you have just a ton of starters. But those guys stay in your lineup pretty much every day. So you have five or six starting pitchers that you can cycle through. And then one or two guys on the bench. Typically for me, I like to have some multi-position eligibility there,

if it's a second base outfield type or a corner infield type. But I do think that the four and one is usually what I'd like to do. And then hopefully I do have somebody that's reliable. That's like if I have a Willie Castro, it would be perfect. Somebody like can just slot in whenever somebody else has a day off. That's kind of the way I like to do it. But three and two, I think also works very well. if you have a spare outfielder and a spare infielder for those days off,

I think that works. So the platoon bat like the Jock Peterson type, that's just like one hitter spot you have to play with, basically. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't want to have a ton of these guys. Don't get me wrong. You can't have five or six of them. But if you do have Jock Peterson, heck, you could probably even get away with two of them.

If you're going to go with two guys on the bench, you might have the odd day in a daily lineup where you take a zero or you have to bench a guy, which is my least favorite thing about daily lineup league is having to bench a position play. player, which is why I don't like to fill up the bench with them. There's some guys in leagues I play in that have five or six position players on the bench depending on the different formats.

I like to just have one or two. So also just take away some of those decisions of am I sitting Jordan Walker today or am I sitting whoever? Because I know the guy that I sit is going to hit a home run. It's just the way it works. Also worth noting that it is different depending on what your league, not just your lineup policies, but what your transaction policies are because some leagues are going to have an ad limit for the week.

or some leagues are going to be daily lineups but weekly transactions or daily transactions, but it's a fab every day, in which case, if there are no zero dollar bids, then you have to be really careful about how aggressive you are. So that's the other thing when you're thinking about all these juggling your lineup approaches is what are the actual transaction policies for your league? Because it's much harder if you only get the one chance every week to. to make your lineups. Daily lineup changes with daily transactions.

Yeah, no, that's crazy. That's crazy. I know people play that way. I think more people than you know play that way. If that's going to be your only league. If that's going to be your only league, and you are just saying, I love fantasy baseball,

but I'm only committing to this one league. So I want a lot of activity every day. And I don't mind that I'm putting this much time into one league. I get that. We play in a dozen leagues or more. So, like, we're not going to play in that kind of league. That just seems like insane. That's tough.

I mean, if you're Joe, you might be playing in, like, 25 leagues this year. He's already got 16 drafts done. A lot of gladiators. I don't have to look at those again, to be fair. That's fair. Just look at them at the end of the year. You get a notification at the end of the year. Joe, in daily lineup leagues, there absolutely has to be a weekly transaction limit, right?

I don't know what that number is. Is it three, four, five, six? But if you make it unlimited, then people are just spamming starting pitcher ads all week long and they're just streaming the best matchups. And I think at some point there has to be a cap. Is there a number that comes to mind? Should there be four or five? Is that the kind of sweet spot for weekly transaction limits?

I think five is the good number to have. You can stream in a couple of pitchers. If you have a hitter, get hurt, you can pick somebody up. If somebody is just flailing and you need to replace them, you can. I think fewer than that, then you run the risk of having injured guys that you can't replace just the nature of the beast. And if you have more than that, like this has been a point of contention in my home league for a long time. There are players who like to have unlimited transactions. They want to be able to essentially churn their whole roster over every day and try and maximize the output.

And I understand that, but, you know, for a lot of us, it's just not feasible. You're working full time. you're doing a lot of stuff. I can't be staring at the Yahoo app every single second of the day. You know, it's just a game design thing, right? Like, if you think about like, there needs to be a downside in every move that you can allow people to make in a game. And the problem with unlimited daily transactions and lineups is seven of the 10 categories are counting stats. So there is just really no downside to churning your roster.

that way. I mean, obviously you might lose really valuable players, but generally speaking, that is just a viable, that is the, that's the meta in to continue the game analogy. And so you reach a point where you're not actually rewarding

roster construction or baseball knowledge or luck, even, which are all things that you want to reward at various points in game design. You're just rewarding the who's most anal retentive about updating their lineup. And that, I suppose, can be one thing that we can look for.

But I think it takes the skill out of the game. Absolutely. Like there's a guy in my home league. Maybe he's listening right now. Will, if you're tuning in, this is directed at you for the last couple of years. But the last couple of years, we've had it so there's no waiver wire system. So that 3 a.m. hits on the East Coast, you can pick up whoever you want. And every day for the last two years, I got a notification from Will that he's picked up

two best streamers for the day. So it also feeds into that point of like, what do we want to be playing here? Do we want to just be playing a game where the guy who's up at three o'clock gets the best players and guess who won the league last year? Will won the league last year. So we're going to be transitioning into more of a waiver wire system like we had before. But then people would complain that, well, my pitcher got scratched today. And I want a last second replacement on a Sunday, but I have to wait two days with the

waiver wire system. So there is a happy medium somewhere there. Yeah, I think I probably just set up weekly transactions to go with your daily lineup. That's probably the happy meeting. You can do first come, first serve, but if you have a weekly limit on how many you could do, I think it makes sense to save at least two of those for the weekend, just so you know, okay, I'm trailing in a certain category. Let me try to pick up someone that can hit a home run,

or just in case my pitcher gets scratched on Sunday, I could pick up that player and kind of plug them in right away. So that was kind of like the last thing I wanted to ask you about, Joe, is, you know, streaming is such a big thing in this format. You know, how often do you stream pitchers in a daily lineup league? And how much are you paying attention to? Let me make sure I save two or three of my final pickups for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday when I might need more streamers to catch up in a category.

So my standard, like with the five pickups, I tend to try and target two-star pitchers off the the wire. Take a look at the article that Scott puts out and take a look at the different two-stared options for the week and try and maximize the value there. But then I do want to save a couple throughout the week. You are going to have a guy get hurt. You're going to have a pitcher gets scratched over the course of the weekend that you're going to want to replace.

You never really know what's going to happen in those final couple days of the weekend. So I do want to leave at least at the very minimum two ads open for the weekend. If I can help it, if you get a barrage of injuries, you can only do so much. But I try and have at least two of those streaming spots available. And then if there's a nice matchup on Sunday, somebody's facing the White Sox or you just really need a home run, you can stream in whoever. I do like to save a couple for the weekend just to try and mitigate that damage. Yeah, I do want to wrap up with this final question because we received multiple different

forms of this question, but, and Chris, you brought up earlier, this is what I was alluding to. And it's not just head-to-head categories or daily lineup leagues. It's all head-to-head roster construction. To what extent should your starting pitcher strategy change if you play in a head-to-head league with playoffs, with the goal of building rotation? depth and upside for August and September specifically. For example, targeting guys like Spencer Strider,

who you know won't be there for the first month, but in theory, hopefully, if he's healthy, from May on could be an ace. And then maybe you have like a top 15, top 12 starting pitcher when it really matters in the playoffs. Or on the opposite side of that, someone like Tyler Glass now, who typically gets off to good starts,

but hasn't really been able to finish season. So maybe fading guys that we know have gotten hurt throughout the course of seasons and maybe targeting some of those guys we expect to come back throughout the course of the year. Does that change your strategy at all in this format? I think it's something you can consider, but I also think if you're trying to look too far out ahead, then you are going to end up getting burned. If you're looking at playoff schedules and trying to plan out, this guy's facing that guy, this guy might be like look at what happened. It's a different sport, but like the thing in fantasy basketball this year was Luca Donch,

which has only two games in the fantasy playoffs this year. Oh my God. And we all know how that happened. So it's obviously a different sport, different example, but you just don't know what's going to happen over the course of six months. There are guys that we perceive as being big injury risks that will stay healthy, guys that are the safest thing going that will get hurt. So if you're trying to plan it out six months in advance, I feel like that's a way to just overcomplicate it, and then you end up just making things a lot harder for yourself, honestly.

To borrow, to repurpose a point I've been making a lot about real-life baseball and the pirates this off-season because I think the pirates have approached this off-season, And like, well, we're not done building yet. We still have a window. And it's like, no, you have a healthy Paul Skeen's right now. Your window is right now. Your window is as long as Paul Skeen's elbow is okay. And that is what I think of when you ask this question.

Because like, you can't, you can't think about pitching in August and September right now. We get the question a lot, Chris. No, I get it. And like, in theory, it makes sense, right? Spencer Strider, in theory, should have more value. you in a head-to-head points or categories league because he will be limited early in the season, but in theory, he will be a full go six innings per start guy by August and September, except he made it through two starts last year.

And Garrett Cole was the safest pitcher you could draft last year until the moment he wasn't. So it just, I think when it comes to your pitching staff, you can think about now and you can maybe think about next week. And that's about it because the attrition rate is way too high to ever think about the future when it comes to starting pitching.

And I'm only slightly exaggerating in that regard. I was trying to look for, I don't know if there's any other injury stashes that come to mind, but I think Shane Bieber and Yuri Perez are probably the two prime examples. But even Yuri Perez, he's going to be

handled with kids gloves when he returned. turns, right? Even if it's post all-star break, he's going to go four innings at a time, five, like almost never going to give you a quality start. And think about Paul Skeens last year. He made one start in the final week of the season. Yeah. And it was a two-inning start. You know, like that stuff, you just, you have no idea how that's going to work out when it comes to six months from now. Yeah. Like literally 40% of the pitchers we're starting right now, will be on the IAL at some point in the next six months, at least. Yeah.

And I keep hearing about how deep the starting pitcher pool is. It's like, just give it a few weeks. Yeah, it's only deep when they're not pitching. You know, that's how it works. Tell Metz fans how deep the pitching pool is right now. Oh, I had to get it in there. Sorry. He is Joe Orico.

Joe, thank you so much for joining us. Remind people where they can find your work. Guys, I really appreciate the invite. It's been a thrill to be on here. You guys can find me mostly at Fantasy Pros. I'm one of the host of the Fantasy Pros. We're hoping to take home some FSWA hardware on Thursday. Chris, congrats on the nomination.

I'm rooting for you as well, my friend. That's mainly what I got going on to a lot of production behind the scenes there. But as of the last week, I'm also the fourth voice on the Sleeper in the Bus podcast over at Fangraphs. So you're going to be hearing me either on Mondays or Thursdays. It's going to mix around. Maybe I'll fill in for Jason Collette on the weekend sometimes. But yeah, those are the two main places you can keep up with me. And then, as you can see on the screen here, Joe Rico 99 on the Twitter and the blue sky.

I don't post a ton on Blue Sky. but if there's a big show, I will share it out over there. But thank you guys so much for having me. Yep. Thanks for coming on. We are going to wrap there for Joe, Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in some fantasy baseball today.

Please make sure to follow and leave a high star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.