Fantasy Baseball Today - Impact of the Universal DH & Roto Category Targets! (2/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 11, 2022

Happy Kokomo Friday! What did we learn from Rob Manfred's press conference (2:00)? ... The Universal DH has been confirmed (3:10)! What does it mean for pitchers in the National League? ... Who are the projected designated hitters for the Dbacks, Braves, Cubs, Reds and Rockies (12:45)? ... Who are the projected designated hitters for the Dodgers, Marlins, Brewers, Mets, and Phillies (21:25)? ... Who are the projected designated hitters for the Pirates, Padres, Giants, Cardinals and Nationals (30:56)? ... What do you need to finish in first place in each Roto category (37:33)? ... What did you need in batting average and home runs (39:36)? ... Why are runs scored so hard to come by later in drafts (44:28)? ... What do we do with steals (49:32)? ... Why are wins and saves so tough (53:17)? ... We wrap up with strikeouts, ERA and WHIP (1:03:05). '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 on Friday and welcome in to fantasy baseball today on February 11th. I am Frank Stample joined by Chris Towers. No Scotty today. And if you watched our live mock draft yesterday or if you listen to the mailbag, you know that Scotty is struggling right now. So not on tonight's podcast. We had to call a bit of an audible here. We were going to do our shortstop preview, but we're going to change it up.

We're going to talk about the impact of the DH in the National League that has been confirmed. We have some rhodo category targets. and that late round category contributors. How's it going, Chris? Happy Friday, buddy. Good, I have to ask, one, I can't be the only person who sings along into the Kokomo song

every time I hear it. And two, can you hear my dog playing with a squeaky toy in the background? Not right before. I just want to make sure. I might have to, like, you know, go shush him.

No, I think if it was really bad, I probably would have mentioned something beforehand. Okay, yeah. No, I appreciate it. Look, every time I hear Kokama, I might not be singing it, but I'm bobbing along. I'm bobbing along.

And speaking of which... Oh, they're going to help you get into first place. Jack, bad at all day to the swinging Shrek rates. It's so good. We may or may not have an updated Kokomo Friday coming soon. We're actually going to hang out with our buddy Doc Crozer this weekend. So I'll get an update and we'll find out when that's coming. Obviously, no rush because we've got a whole lot of fantasy baseball left to prep.

Star of our softball team. Doc Crozier can play, man. He can play. Chris, did you catch any of Rob Manfred's press conference earlier on Thursday? I caught the highlights. I saw the tweets and the stories. So I'm hip. I'm up to what he said.

Yeah, it was interesting to say the least. You know, look, every time Rob Manfred speaks, you know, take everything with a grain of salt. Obviously, they're going to meet with the players on Saturday. And as of now, Rob Manfred says that they do not expect to miss any regular season games. games and he said they also need about four weeks of spring training to get everyone up to speed so that kind of puts a hard deadline at some time around the end of February so they've got about you know two two and a half more weeks to figure this thing out but if they don't have a deal done by that point then we're

talking about realistically missing spring training games and then obviously regular season games as well and unfortunately February is the shortest month of the year so that's true that is that is a factual statement all right Chris, let's jump into this universal DH because upon Rob Manfred speaking, one of the things that he confirmed is that there will be a universal DH, which we all pretty much

suspected that was going to happen this upcoming season anyway, but maybe it's something we hadn't factored into our actual rankings yet or projections for this upcoming season. So let's first start with the National League pitchers and kind of figure out who might be

affected by this if anybody. I think, you know, as a general rule, We should probably expect ERA to rise a tad in the National League for those pitchers and strikeouts to maybe fall a little bit because obviously they're not facing opposing pitchers anymore and they'll face designated hitters. Not that there's a ton of amazing designated hitters to go around in the National League. We'll go team by team and talk it out to see who might gain fantasy value as a result of this. But overall, I mean, they will be facing more talented hitters. So I looked into this, Chris. And 2020, there was a Universal DH for the first time, the shortened season,

and the National League ERA was 4.48. It was actually higher than the American League. And it was the highest that it was for the National League in any season since 2006. And routinely, the National League ERA is lower than the American League. So this is maybe a sign of things to come. Obviously, 2020 was like a weird season, and they started it right in the middle of July, so, you know, balls are flying out. It also was just weird in terms of circumstances and other things.

But I think if nothing else, you have to expect a little bit of regression for National League pitchers. Yeah, I think you certainly have to factor that in. The one thing to keep in mind, however, is historically the American League, and historically, I mean like 25 years, which is basically the era of interleague play. I guess it's been exactly 25 seasons now. historically, the American League has dominated interleague play. And I think that's because the American League teams are built to have an extra hitter. That's factored into the way teams are going about building their teams.

And so the strength of the American League DH tends to be a lot stronger than the National League DH. maybe that won't be true in 20, 22 and beyond because now teams know it's coming. It was a last minute thing in 2020 and, yeah, 2020 and all the players were already signed and all that stuff. But my assumption is National League pitchers on the whole will have a somewhat easier, you know, strength of competition or however you want to put it relative to the American League.

Yeah, that gap is going to shrink, you would imagine. And I don't know, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. It's going to be interesting because there are multiple ways you can look at. You can also look at it and say that nationally pitchers might be more likely to pitch deeper into games. That's a good point. You know, they don't have to get pulled out, pulled from the game in the fifth inning with, you know, a runner on second and one out when they're up to bat. But the loss of pitchers is a big deal. Pitchers are, I feel like we all know pitchers or poor hitters, but I don't know if that's like,

if we, you can like really psychologically understand it until you actually like see it laid out in front of you. But pitchers are just collectively a disaster. Last season, they hit 108 with a 147 on base percentage on 137 slug. They struck out 45% of the time. So, even though. they only represent something like probably 4% of all played appearances over the course of

a season, that is a pretty significant drop. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. Pitchers are awful hitters. There's no doubt about that. We get the occasional Madison Bumgarner home run. I know I think it was Logan Webb who hit the last home run in the National

League last year. So it's fun to see now and then. But most of the time, a lot of these pitchers, they go up there, Chris, bat on the shoulder, not looking to swing and I get it. Why would you swing and put yourself at risk of injury? I believe that's how Zach Gallen actually hurt his forearm or his wrist last year for the first time. It was swinging a bat. So yeah, why? Why even put yourself at harm in harm's way? And even like Madison Baumgartner, he's this great hitter for a pitcher. He's had two seasons in his

entire career where he was better than a league average hitter. Last season, he had a 408 OPS. So like, it's, it's, they're bad. Even the ones that are like, oh, he's not that bad. Why won't you want to see Madison and Bunger hit? He's bad. He has a 524 career OPS. And I'm happy you brought up the possibility of National League pitchers going deeper into starts.

And I think it's a good one because we see a lot of pinch hitting and double switches, so on and so forth. And sometimes that can limit not the high end pitchers because those guys are going to go deep regardless. But I think if anything, it can help that middle class of start. starting pitcher, you know, the SP 30 through SP 50 range, guys like maybe Trevor Rogers, maybe he's given a longer leash to go deeper into his starts now. Just National League pitchers like that who maybe have some upside,

who can maybe be rewarded with going deeper into their start. So I think it's a good point that you bring up with that as well. What pitchers could be affected in the National League? Obviously, I think all of them you expect maybe a little bit of regression, but which ones in particular? What might we see even more regression? And I'm thinking, Chris, you know, pitchers who routinely outperform their underlying metrics, they maybe pitch to contact more than others.

Obviously, you pitch to contact if, you know, let's just say Nelson Cruz winds up in the National League, or Eddie Rosario or Jorge Soler, all those guys are still out there. Kyle Schorber, another one. Obviously, you know, those guys are going to do some damage. So the first one, and hear me out, like, Walker Bueller is awesome. he routinely outperforms his underlying numbers. So with the DH in there, I'm not saying he's going to be bad,

but maybe you take up the ERA like 0.20 or whatever it might be. So just something to think about. Marcus Stroman came to mind, Adam Wainwright, Anthony Descalvani, and maybe Kyle Hendrix just stays bad now, Chris. Maybe. I don't know. It's still, it's hard to say because it really does make up such a small percentage

of the overall in ink. plate appearances against pitchers. You'll give me like four seconds to scroll down and I can try to find it. Gosh. It's all right. Take your time. We're hanging out. I should just keep talking.

Yeah. But I feel like I might have scrolled past it and now I'm like starting to, you know, overthink it. So if you want to fill some air. Okay. Yeah. Chris went to a concert earlier today. We were talking about that.

it's a very interesting band name that you went to go see. What was the name of the band, Chris? Waxahatchee. Waxahatchee. They're named after Waxahatchee Creek. Okay, I know nothing about them, but when you told me the name, I was a little interested. What kind of genre of music do they play? You know, man, I cannot find it here.

Like a little country inspired. You know, okay. Pitchers made up 4,480 plate appearances. National League pitchers last season. Non-pitchers were 86,301. So that is right around 5%. If I'm doing the math in my head correctly. Yeah, that sounds right.

Because it's... Right around 5%. Yeah. So we're talking about a very, a little under 5%, actually. So we're talking about a very, very small number of plate appearances or total innings. That number is probably,

the ratio is probably higher among starting pitchers because relievers very rarely ever face a pitcher. But yeah, it hurts, you know, to not have a guy who's hitting, you know, who has a 289 OPS in the lineup that you get to face maybe once or twice. But I don't want to overstate the impact of this. You know, it's, it's marginal. It's the kind of thing that, one, we don't really, like, it's, it's hard to predict that because it's such a small sample size anyway for every pitcher.

And two, you know, maybe, maybe it makes a certain type of pitcher worse. And that's something that I'd be interested in researching. But my gut is you're not going to really notice it all that much. So, you know. How does this affect National League hitters? Our buddy, R.L. Cohen, follow him on Twitter at ATC. And why we had them on recently to talk about it is very famous. I guess you could say at this point, ATC projections.

And he had a nice thread that he put out on Twitter. And the main things he mentioned were more plate appearances, obviously, for National League hitters. And lead-off hitters could add a few more RBI, because obviously they don't have the pitcher batting just ahead of them anymore to turn the lineup over. So, you know, things are going to be a little bit deeper. We'll see more plate appearances overall for National League hitters.

Who are the leading DH candidates for each National League team? Chris, I don't want to spend too much time on any one play. player or team, but I figured, you know, we run through and we see if there's anyone that stands out, anyone that's interesting. And we will go in alphabetical order. We'll start with the Arizona Diamondbacks. And according to Rosser Resource, they have Seth Beer as their projected DH, A plus name, no doubt about it. The ADP 487 right now, a solid prospect who hit 287 with a 9-09 OPS 16 home runs in 100 minor league games last season. He hit 26 homers in the minors back in 2019. However, he is coming off of a dislocated shoulder. He had surgery for that in the

off season. And looking very deep leagues, Chris, you know, 15 team roto, NL only. I'm kind of interested because I think that there's a solid offensive player here in Seth Beer. Yeah, he is a, you know, a somewhat notable prospect, not necessarily a top 100 guy every year, but, you know, a top 15 organizational guy in a pretty good prospect system. So yeah, I think there things to be interested in with him. The health does seem to be a concern. It looks like he hasn't looked like he hasn't topped

100 games in a season since 2018. I don't know, 2019 he did. Sorry. So yeah, it's a low stakes kind of thing. But yeah, there's definitely upside here. For the Atlanta Braves,

Marcel Ozuna, someone that, you know, we've talked about a few times already this off season. He last year was out for of the season as he dealt with a domestic violence situation. And he's been given a retroactive 20 game suspension that, you know, obviously that he served last year. And as of now, it seems like he is going to be on the Atlanta Braves.

Like things could still change. We'll see what happens. You know, as my bringing. Their manager did say he expects them. He expects Marcel Azuna to be with them this season. Yeah. Scott's mentioned it already too. So it's expected as of now.

Though it remains to be seen whether or not they'll bring back Eddie Rosario or Jorge Soler. Those guys are free agents as of now. Either way, if you've watched Marcelo Zuna play the field, I think D.H is probably what he's best suited for. And look, just from a pure fantasy perspective, Chris, I mean, he's an interesting player because we've seen the highs are very high. He was the number one overall outfielder in 2020.

And then last year, he played 48 games with a 645 OPS. So it's a lot of up and down. But if you catch Marcelo Zuna at the right time, he could be a big profit. Yeah, he's a stack house to stand out. He's hitting 281 with an 840 OPS over the past five seasons, averaging 89 runs, 34 homers, 115 RBI per 162 games over those four, five seasons. So if you're just talking about the fantasy value and you, you know, don't mind having a guy with, you know, his background on your team, there's not really, there's no question he's a value right now. You know, he's, it seems like, like, 2202.6, it seems like there's some concern that he's not going to play.

And based on everything that we know right now, that's unlikely. Indeed. Or it's unlikely that he's not going to play. It's likely that he's going to play. Yep, that's the way that it looks right now for Marcel Ozuna. How about for the Chicago Cubs, Clint Frazier, who they signed to a low risk, potentially high reward, signing this offseason. ADP is 414, so much like Seth Beer, we're talking about very deep leagues, NO only. He's shown flashes, 108 games between 2019 and 2020. Clint Frazier hit 267, 20 homers,

in 844 OPS. That's a 27 home run pace over 150 games. And I'm rooting for the guy. Honestly, like, he's dealt with some stuff last year, very serious concussion issues with the Yankees. He was actually quoted saying that he was fighting for his life. So it was very serious, but I'm hoping that he can get an opportunity here, bounce back, get back on his feet because I do think that there is a talented offensive player in there, Chris, in Clint Frazier. Yeah, I wonder what I'm trying to look up right now

is how much of that was a result of splits. You know, was he primarily, so 120 plate appearances against lefties and he had, he only had a 67 OPS. So, yeah, I don't know. we'll see he's had trouble staying healthy I've never been a huge believer in him you know when he was

how would he have you a top 100 pick last year or pretty close to that no no I don't I don't think he was even I don't remember there being a lot of hype around him based on his 2020 and there was hype for sure I wrote him up as a breakout last season and it you know it failed miserably but I believe the ADP was like post 150 for him Okay, yeah. But yeah, I think there's potential there. He's, he's certainly talented. I'm just not sure. It's a pretty long shot, I would say.

For the Reds, as of now, it looks like Mike Mustakis will be their DH. The ADP 343.5, though. Joey Votto and Tyler Stevenson, I think, could see some run as the DH as well. It feels like Mike Mastakis is a forgotten man. I don't know that we've mentioned his name a single time this offseason. I'll be honest. During the third base preview, I actually did have to check to make sure that he hadn't retired. That's where we're at on Mike. That's just because it feels like nobody, I haven't seen him mentioned

in relation to baseball since the end of last season. Well, there's multiple reasons for that. He's, A, been awful from a fantasy perspective and he hasn't been able to stay healthy. So since the start of 2020, he's betting 217.17 with a 717 OPS, an 18% infield fly ball rate.

So it seems like he might be trying too hard for the launch angle, trying to put the ball in the air. Maybe he was someone that, you know, in his prime was helped out by the juice ball as well. Either way, he's going super late now. He's 33 years old. He still plays in Cincinnati. So another one of these just deeper league options

where there's not really any risk involved. Yeah, the underlying numbers, the last two seasons, especially in 2021, are really, really bad. He went from a 350X Woba in 2019, the highest of his career, second highest of his career, to 335 in 2020 to 276. 276 expected Woba is very, very, very, very bad. Very bad indeed. For the Rockies, it appears that Charlie Blackman will be their Universal DH, but though they could shuffle some things around. They have Rymel Tapia, Connor Joe, and Sam Hilliard projected for the outfield right now.

The ADP for Blackman is 217.5. The power came way down. Batting average was still solid last year for Charlie Blackman. He hit a lot of ground balls. So if he can regress that back to where he's been, I think he could still be a 270, 280 hitter with 20 plus home runs, which I realize is not sexy. It's not exciting.

But, you know, as a fourth or fifth outfielder, I think he's someone that can help stabilize your team, Chris. Yeah, I mean, he only had an 814 OPS at home last season. His road OPS was 713. I think you could probably expect that home OPS to be a little higher. 300 Babbat B at home. That's really weird. Even for a guy, you know, who you assume is having, you know, a dip in his underlying skill sets

or potentially a collapse of his underlying skill sets. But he was better in the second half, 66 games, 9 homers. 281 average. So, you know, that's a potential reason to be optimistic. I think he's a perfectly fine value at his cost of 217. And maybe, you know, Sam Hilliard's one of those guys who's got tools. So maybe the opportunity to play more consistently. Maybe he can do something with it.

He's fast. He's got power. If he can cut his strikeout rate a lot, maybe there's something there. He's got a 37% strikeout. rate over the last two seasons. Yikes. I feel like you had five different ifs for Sam Hilliard. Well, I was thinking like, I was looking at the number and I was like, well, like 10%.

And I'd like, now that would still be like a 33% strike out rate. So he probably has to cut it like 20% to really be passable. Yeah. And that probably won't happen. But it's an intriguing skill set. Scott really liked him as a sleeper going into the 2021 season. So we'll see. We shall see indeed.

For the Dodgers, Gavin Lux. We spoke about him just the other day on our second base position preview. They do have some other options as well. Edwin Rios, people have wanted him to be a thing for a while, had big power in the minor leagues. Edwin Rios did. They have some prospects coming in Michael Bush and Miguel Vargas as well. Max Muncie probably should DH,

but he's penciled in at first base as of now. So how do you think this shakes out, Chris? Gavin Lux, Muncie in the mix. and then some prospects as well for the Dodgers. One thing I think Max Monsey is a great value. I think he's worth the risk. Until we hear worse news, at least, I think that's the case. Gavin Lux, another guy I've just never been a believer in.

I've been lower on him in the consensus since he was a prospect, and the biggest problem is he just can't hit lefties. I mean, in the majors, he can't really hit anyone so far. His OPS against Wrighties is like 700, but he's been pretty bad for most of his professional career against lefties, and I'm just not sure he's going to fix that. All right. Let's move over to your hour Miami Marlins.

That's the National League team here, Chris. If you will allow me, again, allow me to jump on the bandwagon because I seemingly just love all of their players. Sandy Alcancera, Pablo Lopez. I'm about it, man. Trevor Rogers. Jesus Lozardo, we're buying back in on the bounce back. By we, I mean, probably just me.

Anyway, for the Marlins here, we have Brian Anderson. I think Avisaa L. Garcia could see some time. at DH and Garrett Cooper. Garrett Cooper is actually a very solid offensive player when he plays. 284 batting average last year, nine homers, a 12% walk rate in 845 OPS.

The problem, you know, he hasn't really been able to stay on the field. So Brian Anderson, Garcia, Garrett Cooper, who do you think benefits the most out of that group? One, the Marlins should probably sign a DH-only player, Jorge Salare, and Nelson Cruz. Like, if they want to be serious

and get their offense improved, that needs to be a big priority. However, Gary Cooper freaking crushes the ball. Sure does. In 2020, he was in the top 10% in the league in expected Wobah on contact. For his career, he has a 350 expected Woba. Last season, it was 362. That's really good.

That's probably top 50, at least in the league. If he can stay healthy and there's a lot. DH. I mean, he's not really any good in the field at all, but the underlying numbers love him. And if he gets 500 plate appearances, I think he could have a surprising impact. You know, he could be a 25 homer pace kind of guy with a 285 batting average. Even in a points league, if he finds consistent playing time with that walk rate and that OPS, I think he can be pretty valuable. I'll point out the splits last year. He was much better against lefties, 344 batting average, 971 OPS versus a 258 batting average, and a 793 OPS against right-handed pitching.

But, I mean, even if he's an 800 OPS bat against Ritey's, that's fine. I mean, that's actually pretty good. So, yeah, if he stays healthy, I think, I think Gary Cooper is pretty interesting as well. For the Milwaukee Brewers, as of now, they have Tyrone Taylor penciled in. But Lorenzo Keynes getting up there in age, Christian Yellich with the back injury, I think, could use some time at DH. your boy, Chris Kesson Hiura, maybe gets another shot here

for the Milwaukee Brewers. But Tyrone Taylor is the one, I think he's kind of interesting. 247 batting average last year. 12 homers, 6 deals in just 93 games. So a little bit of power, a little bit of speed.

Yeah, he, his underlying numbers are okay. He hits the ball hard enough. He doesn't strike out much. I don't think there's really much case for him to be a star,

but he's a guy who, if he got 500 plate appearances, 20 homers and 10 steals isn't out of the question. So, yeah, I think he's pretty interesting. Kesson Hero, by the way, just what a fall from grace. It is sad. Honestly, I get sad whenever top prospects fail. And I know it happens often, but, you know, if it were up to me, everybody would succeed.

But obviously, it's a tough game. Tough game we're talking about. Yeah, and, you know, there's been some talk I saw recently. he's been working on his swing this offseason trying to get rid of or at least make the giant exaggerated leg kick, you know, a little less ridiculous. So maybe that'll help him with his pitch recognition and contact rate. But yeah, he's a mess. I mean, he struck out 39% of the time last season. He needs to really overhaul his swing.

When he makes contact for his career, he's got a 457. haven't expected Wobon contact. And even last season, it was 14, 413. He had a 15.2% barrel rate. This dude hits the ball really, really well. He just doesn't do it nearly often enough. Yeah, those big leg kicks say no more. I've watched Gary Sanchez's entire career and it just completely throws off the timing, man. It turned Josh Donaldson's career around. You know, it's the kind of thing that like there was a period like four years ago probably where like everyone was obsessed with like, oh, he's got a leg kick or he's getting rid of a leg kick. And it's like, there's no, there's nothing predictable about any of that.

Like, it's just whatever works for a guy. Yeah, you can generate a lot of power with a big leg kick. And in some cases with Josh Donaldson, clearly that helped unlock it and made him an MVP caliber player. You know, for other guys, not so much. Yeah, I believe Justin Turner adopted the same thing, right, when he went over to the Dodgers. so, you know, it works for some players, doesn't work for everyone. How about the Mets? Perhaps no team benefits more from the Universal D.H than those Metsies.

Robertson, Cineau, but they also have J.D. Davis and Dominic Smith. All three have had their moments the last two to three years. Canoe in 2020, he hit 316, 10 homers in 866 OPS, excuse me. And last year he missed the entire season because of a PED suspension. And I will not give up on Dom Smith, whether they trade him, they play him, I still think there's something there, what he showed from 2019 to 2020. He hit 299 with a 937 OPS during that stretch.

I just think he's a lot better than what he showed last year. Chris, who do you think benefits most here on the Mets? I would think it's the Canoe. Yeah. And I think he might have something left. I mean, the last time we saw him in the majors, he was quite good.

And I know people will say, well, he was taking performance enhancing drugs back then, but we've seen a lot of guys. get popped for performance enhancing drugs come back and still be good. Not many of them were 40. But I mean, Nelson Cruz hasn't been suspended for performance

enhancing enhancing drugs in a while and he still are one of the best players in baseball or at least one of the best hitters in baseball deep into his 30s. So I think there's a chance we got a bounce back season from Robinson Canoe. I'm much less optimistic about Dom Smith.

We've got basically one year. And it was, what, 40 games, something like that, where he hit like a, you know, like the, where the underlying numbers suggested that he was a good hitter. Everything else is pretty bad. He's got a career 325 X Woba. Just crush my soul, Chris, while you're at it, right? Like, just let me have Dom Smith. Just let me have it. Yeah.

Look, I'm like you. I hope every player's good. I actually have Dom Smith in the Scott White Dynasty League. And I was actually offered some solid trades for him. I had him on a good salary. And now that's not looking so good. Matt Veerling is the projected Universal DH for the Philadelphia Affiliates. Who?

I'm not exactly sure. But I picked him up last year in the Scott White Dynasty League as well. 79 minor league games in 2021. He had 276, 11 homers, 10 steals, showed some solid plate discipline in the minor league, solid walk rates, makes a good amount of contact. I think he's kind of interesting. A name to watch, you know, the Phillies lineup, I think they're solid.

I think they bring another outfielder in, whether it's Conforto or Nick Cassiano, somebody like that, Kyle Schwerver, maybe even. But I think that they're going to give this kid a shot to be the Universal D.H. Chris, do you have anything on Matt Veerling? It's totally fine if you don't. Weird career.

He's 25 years old. He's been in the pro ranks since 2018. and he's played 293 games total over what four years, one of them was 20-20, so obviously, but,

you know, a very limited track record for a guy his age. When he got up to the majors, you know, there were some interesting things about his profile. 91.5 average exit velocity,

80th percent on max exit velocity, 93rd percent down, 95th percent on average sprint speed. There are, there are seemingly tools there, but it's just there is nothing to go on, really. You know, in terms of like his minor league numbers are fine, but they're, you know,

he's played like 80 games total between double A and AAA. For the Pirates, they have Michael Chavis. They acquired him later in the season from the Boston Red Sox last year. They have Hoy Park, who they got from the New York Yankees. And they have a prospect named Mason Martin, lots of strikeouts.

does have a good amount of power, very low batting average as well. So you're probably looking at a three true outcome player in Mason Martin, and overall just not someone I'm very excited about. Michael Chavis showed a little bit when he went over to the Pirates last year, kind of like how Yoshisu Tugo did.

But overall, I'm not very excited about the Pirates, Chris. No, no, I don't think anybody is. I'm sorry, Pirates fans. Specifically, you know, also about their designated hitters. You know, I don't know. We saw a bit of Hoy Park in the majors last season. He did not do anything with it. And really, he's just got the one 66th game sample at AAA,

or between AAA and double A last season where he's hit well. So I think being skeptical of him is fair. And yeah, Michael Chavez can't make contact. Yeah, I remember. Last year, every Yankee game where, you know, Everyone just comes up, strikes out, hits into a double play. I'm like, call up Hoy Park. Let's see what the kid can do.

And then he got a chance to play with the Pirates. And he wasn't very good. Unfortunately, for the Padres, they have Jerks in Profar penciled in as the Universal DH right now. But I think Will Myers is a pretty natural fit there as well. I think Jorge Alfaro could see some time. They'll probably rotate Alfaro between the outfield. Maybe he'll catch like once or twice a week and DH here or there.

And I don't want to forget about Hassan Kim. I know he did not play well last year, but he was a standout in Korea, especially offensively. So one year under his belt, not saying you have to draft him, but maybe someone just to watch early on in the season and see what the playing time is there.

The Giants, I wanted to bring up Darren Ruff, because he actually had an awesome offensive year, 271 batting average, 16 homers, a 904 OPS, crushed the ball, Chris. Everyone on the Giants, whatever their coaching staff, their front office is doing,

keep doing it, because they figure something, and out. 14% bow rate and a lot of it did come against lefties, but he was adequate against right-handed pitching

as well. Any interest very late in Darren Ruff? I'm just not sure he's gonna play every day even with a DH, but if he did, I mean,

his numbers were the last season, the last two seasons are really, really good. He was better in 2021 than he was in 2020. In 2020, and the underlying numbers

support that as well. But yeah, certainly the way he's played the last two seasons, if he gets a chance to play something like every day, he's definitely going to be you know, at least having on your radar. Man, Darren Ruff is 35 years old. I, I mean, it's amazing that Darren Ruff is still around. Yeah. Like, what a turnaround. This guy has like, I remember him being a prospect of like moderate renown a decade, you know, plus ago. Yeah, he went to KBO and

reinvented himself. Yeah. No, he's been, He's been really good the past two seasons. Shout out to Darren Ruff for making it back to the majors and making the best of his opportunity. I'm getting some Luke Voigt vibes from Darren Ruff. Just obviously like a lesser version of Luke Voight, but I'm kind of interested to see what he can do here. For the Cardinals, they have Paul DeYoung Penciled in right now,

but I do like Wanya Pez and Lars Neupar quite a bit. They both crushed it in the Arizona Fall League. Wanya Pez in the minors last year, 286 batting average, 27 homers, a 969 OPS. Lars Newport, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed. He makes some contacts. He was solid in the minors last year. And again, he crushed it in the Arizona Fall League.

We had the Welsh on earlier in the offseason. And when I asked him about Juan Yippez, he said, don't forget about Lars Newbar. So he likes Newbar quite a bit as well. And for the nationals, Yadiel Hernandez had a solid season last year. He's a little bit older. He's 34 years old. He came over as an older player from Cuba, but has put up some pretty big numbers in the minor league. So, Chris, between these two teams, the Cardinals,

Wanya Pez, Lars Nupar, Yadiel Hernandez, does anyone stand out for you? I mean, Lars Nupar stands out just because it's an 80-grade name. It's one of the best baseball names in history. And yeah, the minor league numbers are, he's another guy who's only played 192 games. This is a weird thing about where we are with guys like,

you know, the middling, like, organizational-type prospects where we just, just they've barely played. He's played a hundred, 250 games total as a professional since being drafted in 2019. So we just don't have a big track record here to go on. So I don't know.

There's the possibility that he could be a, I don't know, 15 homer guy, but not terribly exciting. I think, you pass is probably a little more interesting. All right. Before we hit the break,

if you're watching us live, now. Thank you. We appreciate it. Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. For anyone who's just listening to the podcast on demand, if you want to watch any of our content, again, it's YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. Subscribe and hit the notification bell. You'll get notified every time we go live or when we drop a video on demand. We're going to take a quick break. And when we return, we'll talk about roto category targets and a late round category contributors here on fantasy baseball today. All right. So shout out to Chris. The other day he emailed Scotty and myself, and he sent us the category targets for Roto

Leagues from last year. So we have the averages of each, well, really, we have place 1 through 12, but I'm going to focus on the first place, obviously, for each of these categories, and this is in a 12-team Roto League played on CBS last season. So if you've ever drafted in a Roto League and you wonder, man, what are my targets? What am I trying to get to by the end of this draft? This is it. This is exactly what you should be trying to, get to, you know, it's not realistic because it's first place in each category. Really, you want to strive for like top three in each category.

Yeah, top three for sure. Yeah, because one thing that that I also looked up today is what every first place team did overall. The team that won each league, what their overall results were. And the average first place team, the worst that they, their average finish was was just a little bit worse than third in basketball. batting average, everything else, the average first place team finished at least third place or higher on average last season. Although, you know, worth noting that the, you really, to win, you need to aim for one more than second place. And the interesting thing is you see this every year in these results. The gap between first and second place is always much bigger than between every other,

you know, finish. and the gap between last place and second to last place is always, you know, about that wide, which is always interesting. So yeah, the gap between first place and second place and stolen bases is 17, 149 to 132. Wow. So that just, you know, that's to highlight it, you know. Yeah, so look, it would be nice to get to 149 steals, as you said, Chris, but you only need one more than the second place team.

Yeah, you need 133. So you really need 133. so I should have calculated it that way. But nonetheless, let's start with batting average and the first place team needed a 272 batting average overall. That means you really only could afford one, maybe two hitters under a 250 batting average in your lineup because they're really going to drag that down.

Keep in mind, you know, if it's your catcher, those guys typically are going to give you less plate appearances so it doesn't damage your batting average as much as, you know, a high-volume player. So, you know, just keep that in mind. If you want to punt a position, maybe catcher does make some sense in that regard. Some late round category contributors, Chris, that I found.

And this is using the ATC projections from our buddy, Ariel Cohen. These players are all projected for a 280-plus batting average, and they're going around 80p 200 or later. Yulee Gurriel at pick 198. He's projected for 280. Gene Seguera projected 281. His ADP is 202.9. and Michael Brantley projected 2.91, the ADP for him, 250.3.

Do you like any, all of those names, if you're looking for batting average late? Yeah, I mean, the knock against Michael Brantley would obviously be that he's just not going to play a full season. And so, like you mentioned with catchers, lower plate appearance total or lower at bat totals is really the meaningful denominator there is, you know, he only only, had 4169 last season. I think that's probably close to, you know, 500 at batts is probably close to a ceiling for him. So Michael Brantley, there's only so much help he can give you. But yeah, a dude hasn't hit worse than 299 since 2016 when he only played 11 games. He hasn't hit worse than 299 in a full season since 2013, 2013 when he hit 284. He's been one of the most reliable batting average contributors in baseball for a decade.

Yeah. So, and we haven't really seen a big skills decline for him. The problem is it's kind of empty batting average at this point, right? So eight homers last year, only 47 RBI. And that was over 121 games. So, you know, it's, you get what you pay for, right? He's going as late in the draft as he is for a reason. For home runs, you needed 345 homers total to finish.

first place in a 12 team Roto League last year. That's 24.6 homers per lineup spot. Obviously, you have 14 lineup spots in a Roto league, two catchers, one of each other infield position, five outfielders, a corner, a middle, and a utility bat. So again, you need 24.6 home runs per offensive player. Say you get 45 from Pita-Lonzo, you'd still need 23 per player for your other 13 spots. Home run hitters who are projected for 30 plus and going around ADP 200 or later. Jorge Soler, Bobby Dalbeck, Ehuyaheos Juanae,

Miguel Seno, and Adam Duval. Obviously, Chris, you know, you're getting these guys later. They're giving you power, but they're also hurting your batting average quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, they're going, all of these guys are going late for a reason. And, you know, you said the 23 home runs per lineup spot,

you know, even if you have Pellanza, it's probably going to be more than that because chances are, I mean, how many catchers hit 23 home runs every season. It's probably not more than four or five, I would guess. So that, that you really have to make sure that if you're going with a non-catcher who is a zero in power or even, you know, is a 10 home run guy that you really need to make up for. And the thing that's difficult with that is a lot of the guys who hit for a lot of power don't tend to hit for batting average.

The ones that do are really, really expensive. However, that being said, like I said earlier, batting average was the category that first place teams last season were worst in. So that is one place that you can at least somewhat survive when you're, if you have to sacrifice something. And the reason is obvious. There are four hitting categories that are counting stats. There's one that's a rate stat. So if you're going to be bad in the rate stat, at least make sure you got a lot of guys who play every day. day. You don't, you don't have any part-time players. Because that's, that's the only way you're

going to make up for it. And something that Scott has talked a lot about and why he's not intentionally trying to draft steals early is because that category is just so independent of anything else. Obviously, when you hit a home run, you help in batting average because you're getting a hit. You get a run. You get an RBI. You could get multiple RBIs at a time depending on how many players are on base. So those things are all kind of correlated. The only thing that isn't is, steals. And frankly, that's why they're so tough to come by. And speaking of tough, the run scored category, it is a struggle out here. There's really not a lot of players being drafted late that are expected to contribute in this category. So you really want to make sure you get as many of those

four or five category contributors early in your draft as you can, Chris. And here's a really, really interesting stat. Among teams that won their league last season, 49.3% of them finished first in runs. Wow. And you know what? Amazing. I bet that they wound up with at least one Toronto Blue Jail on their team,

maybe even multiple. Yeah, that's probably, but yeah, I found that fascinating. That's by far the highest. That has the highest correlation with winning your league, at least in 2021 CBS 12 Team Rod. leagues than any other category. The second highest was RBI. And I think that makes intuitive sense because the three lowest saves.

Only 21.9% of first place teams were first in saves. Only 23.8% were first in stolen bases. And only 23.1% were first in average. Those are basically the three categories that impact the other ones least. You know, there isn't much correlation between batting average and overall roto production. You can be a good batting average source and not a good player. Whereas runs in RBI, if you're going to lead those, it probably means you've got a lot of really good players who are playing a lot.

But I thought that was fascinating that if you were first place in runs in 2021, you basically had a coin flips chance to win your league is how it worked out. That is unbelievable. That really is. But again, you know, Chris, I think that if your team came in, first place in runs, they probably also performed really well in RBI and in home runs. So again, those things are all correlated highly. So that's, if you're going to target any three categories, you know, home runs, runs,

and RBI would be the three to go for because they, they have the highest correlation with winning in fantasy. For the run scored category to win it, to come in first place, you needed 1,117. that's 79.8 runs per offensive player. So nearly 80 runs per player. That is a lot. And I mentioned it's tough to find this late in your drafts. Joey Gallo is projected for 86 runs.

He's got right around a 180. Alex Verdugo projected for 85. He's a little bit higher. 164 ADP. Matt Chapman projected for 79. His ADP is 185. Max Kepler, if he can bounce back, he's projected for 78.

His ADP is actually close to 300. And then Enrique Hernandez, he's projected for 77. He let off a large majority of the season last year for the Red Sox. His ADP is 216.9. Chris, anyone here that you like more than the rest? Joey Gallo, Verdugo, Chapman, Max Kepler, Enrique Hernandez, specifically for runs. I mean, Gallo, I think, obviously stands out because he's a high on base percentage guy who drives himself in quite a bit as well. So, yeah, I like him at a 180, ADP. Alex Verdugo, you know, I'm not sure how good he's ever going to be. And I think he is one of those

guys that if you draft him, you're going to have to make up ground somewhere else. He'll be a very good source of batting average. That and runs are probably it. He scored 88 runs last season. He was on something like a, something close to 100 run pace in 2020. So I think he will, you know, hit 290, probably score 90 runs. I think he's a pretty good value where he's going. You just have to understand you're going to need to find power

and RBI. Yeah, I don't think he's ever going to come close to the player we thought he was going to be or based on his prospect status coming up, but he's a perfect glue guy. You know, if you take power early on and maybe you even sacrifice some batting average, he gives you the categories

that are pretty hard to find at this point in the draft. So batting average, and run scored together, just really not going to give you much power. And he'll chip in like six to eight steals. For RBI, it's basically the same players that are going to give you home runs late. It's Jorge Soler, Bobby Dalbeck, Miguel Sino, A. Eugenio Suarez, and Adam Duval. I did want to quickly mention on A. E. E. E. Hennio Suarez. I'm a little bit interested just at the ADPs, going around Pick 200.

And he had a monster September last year. It was a weird season for him. They tried to play him at shortstop. I think he's still kind of getting over the shoulder surgery. had a couple of years ago, but in September he hit 370 with a 1268 OPS. No one is expecting that, but if he can just hit, if he could hit 240 plus with 30 plus homers and 90 plus RBI, he's worth this draft pick at pick 200. So just thought I would mention that on A. E. E. E. Hennio-Swaris. Steals. Steals are fun. Not really. 149 is what you needed last year, but actually 133,

based on our conversation earlier. 10.6 steals per offensive player. And for those who want to put less of an emphasis on steals, maybe you just want to finish the middle of the pack. You needed 102 to finish six place in the category. That's 7.3 steals per offensive player. Who can you target late in your drafts? Okay.

Hold your nose. Cover your eyes, cover your ears. It's going to be pretty hard to do. You won't be able to hear the podcast. But Tyler Wade is projected for 20. 21 steals, his ADP is 453. He's projected to be the angel starting shortstop as of now. They're probably going to bring somebody in.

I don't know who that somebody's going to be. Andres Jimenez projected for 18. Rai Mel Tapia projected for 17. Nikki Lopez projected for 16. And Garrett Hampson also projected for 16. And it's tough to admit, Chris. But I recently drafted Garrett Hampson in a 15-teampton in a 15-team-Roto League. It's a draft and hold format.

As my fifth outfielder, I really, needed speed. I think he's probably going to give 15 to 20 and probably not much else. So you really don't want to be looking for speed at this point of your draft. You know, the nice thing about it in a draft and hold league in particular is, you know, in a best ball format, I guess, would be you're probably only going to get the stolen base games from him because he's going to do so little otherwise. Right. That like the game where he get to stolen base, well, he probably had one hit at least. So you've got that going for you. Not necessarily someone you want in a league where you actually have to like put him in your lineup

and deal with the ups and downs because he's pretty bad. But that's the case with all these players. And it does highlight how if you want to compete in stolen bases, you do need to, you need to get them early. Because if you try to make them. make up for a stolen base deficiency late, you're going to end up having guys in your lineup who just aren't worth playing. I mean, Tyler Wade, Tyler Wade is not going to be worth playing, even if he steals 21 bases.

Like that is, it's just going to be really, really hard to live with what you're getting from him or what you're not getting from him elsewhere. That's not to say that, you know, I don't disagree with Scott in that, you know,

I don't think you should just be pushing stolen bases up your draft board and making it a huge priority, but you can't necessarily just ignore it. And this is why, you know, this exercise actually highlights why I think what Merrifield is probably underrated, because he's probably a very good source of batting average in a lot of at-bats. He's led the majors in at-bats three years in a row. He's going to steal a bunch of bases.

And because he gets so much volume, he's going to score a decent amount of runs. You know, he's going to help you in three of those categories. And so I do think getting someone like him who's not a zero. in multiple categories is more helpful than it seems. Yeah, he's really not a zero anywhere. He doesn't contribute in power, but he doesn't hurt you either.

He'll give you 10 to 15 home runs. He'll leave you behind the pace in home runs and RBI. But when you compare that to Riemel Tapia, who's going to leave you behind the pace in everything but stolen bases, that's what the batting average can be okay. of these guys are. Like, Nikki Lopez might help you a batting average in addition to steals. But yeah, it's really, really hard to find stolen bases that are from productive players.

For sure. Let's move over to the pitching side. For wins, you needed 99 to finish in first place last year in a 12 team Rotel League. That means you needed 11 wins per nine pitchers. So obviously, you have nine pitcher spots, but you'll need even more of those from your starters because obviously you can't really expect relievers to get you 11 wins per spot. So, I mean, you really shouldn't expect it from any of your relievers. So you probably need something more like 12 or 13 wins per each of your, you know, if you start six starting pitchers or seven starting pitchers, that's what you should be aiming for.

The problem, wins are pretty much impossible to predict. Look at this nonsense. Like Sandy Alcantra last year, I get it, the Marlins are bad. But this guy was one of four pitchers to throw 200 plus innings. and I think he had nine wins and 16 losses. He was amazing and he just didn't get run support. You know, pitchers only have so much control over this. You want to find pitchers that go deep into their starts, obviously,

who are on good teams, who have expected to have solid run support, and who have a pretty good bullpen. But, you know, good luck finding those pitchers because they are few and far between. It's a pretty fluky stat, but the ones that I found projected for at least 11 wins next year, Chris, going late in drafts. Hermann Marquez, Heungin Ryu, and Marco Gonzalez. Yeah, Marquez and Ryu especially, I think, are nice players to target because, I mean, Ryu, he's had one bad season. Like, basically one bad season ever.

He's been one of the more consistent players and pitchers in baseball. And maybe he just lost it last season. He can't be good again. And it's entirely possible, I guess. But betting on a bounce back at 200 overall is a very good idea. Ramon Marquez, we know what he is. He's a very good pitcher who's stuck in a bad situation. If he gets traded,

man, gosh, he might be a top 25 starting pitcher, top 30 starting pitcher. And so I do like the idea of drafting him. It's just if you have a week where he's a two-star pitcher and both are at cores, probably want to avoid him. Marco Gonzalez, you're hoping you get the, you know, the good side of variance and he gets a decent amount of wins. decent ERA and WIP, but he's not going to have as much control over those things as, you know, better pitchers will. The thing about wins that's really, really difficult is you need a lot of wins to win your fantasy league.

It's just, it's just true. I had somebody respond when I tweeted out the chart with all the player, the categories, and he finished 15th in the main event last season. I can't remember this person's name. But he responded to me posting. that with, I finished 15th in the NFBC main event with as many wins as I think it was the average eighth place team in a 12 team league, which was like 76. And that's heartbreaking because that means his team was awesome everywhere else. And if he had gotten even somewhat good variance on the wind side, he would have probably won a bunch of money. Jeez.

That's tough. But yeah, your average team that won their league in 2021, finished on average, third in wins. That's the fourth highest for any of the categories. 35.3% of teams that won their league in 2021, won wins as well. That was the fourth highest, fifth highest. So you need a lot of wins,

but there's no way to chase wins. You get wins with a lot of strikeouts and you get wins with a good ERA. and Goodwhip. Like, that's, wins are a result of those things,

and it's not that pitchers don't have control over them. Obviously, they do wins correlate with good pitchers, but it's, think about it more like this.

The best pitcher in baseball probably has, I mean, when it's not Jacob de Grom, the best pitcher in baseball probably has a range of wins from like 15 to 22, or 14 to 22. And what,

what outcome you're going to get is impossible to, predict because it's based on so many factors. And so yeah, like wins, you can't kind, you can't really target wins. It's like pitchers who go deep on good teams and are good. But, you know, those guys tend to be pretty expensive. Saves are equally as frustrating. Honestly, even more frustrating. They are the stolen bases of the pitching side. They are an independent statistic. Well, not necessarily. If you have a good reliever, obviously, they're going to help you in ERA and WIP and strikeouts. But,

They're also pretty hard to predict as well. You needed 92 to finish in first place last year. That's 10.2, assuming that you have three closers on your team. What do you need to finish just sixth in the category? Again, maybe you don't want to completely tank it, but you want to just kind of compete somewhere in the middle. 61 saves last year, so you needed 20.3 saves per three relievers in your starting lineup.

And some save options later on in drafts right now. Taylor Rogers with the twins Lucas Sims with the Reds Dylan Flores with the Marlins I do think the Marlins will bring somebody in whether it's Kenley Jansen or an Ian Kennedy or like a Brad Boxburger someone like that

I think it's very likely Lutrovino with the Oakland A's he could be traded we don't know and then Gregory Soto with the Detroit Tigers I know at the end of last season other people have brought this up that AJ Hinch named Gregory

Soto their closer but if you read more about it he was kind of joking with the media because it was something that they would ask him all the time. Like, why won't you name your closer? So the season ended and then he just, you know, to mess with them, he was like, well, Gregory Soto is our closer. I don't know that that actually means that Gregory Soto will be the closer, you know, entering this season. You know, can Michael Fulmer still be worked in there? I think that's certainly possible. Chris, anyone on this list

stand out to you. I believe you were a fan of Taylor Rogers last year. I mean, Taylor Rogers Rogers is just a good pitcher. He's very good. You know, that's just, just kind of the thing is that if you're going to target one of these late guys, whichever late round reliever ends up being a good contributor for fantasy is going to come entirely down, basically, to which one of the late round relievers becomes their team's closer and stays there. And that's going to be impossible to predict. But Taylor Rogers has closing experience, and we know he's a good pitcher.

So I think he's definitely a target there. The rest of them, like, what are the chances that any of these guys get sturdy? saves? What are the chances that any of the other guys on their teams get 30 saves? Like, that's all it's going to come down to. And this is why if you have to punt the category or avoid a category in drafts especially, I think, not necessarily punt, but avoid a category in drafts. Saves have to be the one because they are the least predictable. And, you know, they don't have a huge impact on winning. In fact, your average first place team last season, only 21.9% of first place teams last season led their league in saves.

The average finished fourth. So, you know, fourth place in saves was 87. So basically that's one, I don't know, 70, sorry, 70 saves. That's basically one elite closer who remains the closer for the full season. And then what? a save every week and a half from some other source. That's basically the way it is. So I think you can either go the draft Liam Hendricks and that's it.

But I think if you draft Liam Hendricks, like I don't think there's any reason to draft another closer. Chris, I know that we've mentioned this multiple times and we've made the fantasy football reference, right? HeroRB. It was a big strategy this year, drafting one running back in your first two rounds and then waiting on the position. statistically the optimal way

to, based on the research that I've done. And I think we're kind of trending that way in terms of the closer category as well.

I think that you should if you want to be somewhat competitive in the category, even try to finish in the middle of the pack, I think trying to get one of the top

six, seven, eight at the position just because those are the guys that have the safest role, they are the safest in their respective closer role.

And they are, also help you in ERA and WIP and strikeouts and obviously saves. I think that is the route that I want to go down this year. And it's typically what I like to do. I'm probably not going to wind up with Hendricks or Hader. Those guys just go too early for me. But Ryssela Iglesias, Ryan Presley, Edwin Diaz, Emmanuel Class A, that second tier group, even like a Jordan Romano or a Will Smith, I really want to get one of those guys. And then maybe I'll attack the position later on in the drafts as well. Yeah, the problem, the one thing I was. would say is they don't help you as much an ERA and WIP as you probably think because their

inning totals are so low. So like a closer with a 27 ERA over 70 innings has roughly the same impact on your average fantasy team's ERA as a starter with like a 36 ERA over 180. So that's that's the thing to remember is that, you know, just because you have a couple of really good closers doesn't necessarily mean that you're still going to have work to do in strikeouts, wins, ERA, and WIP. All right, we're up against it here. So let's just quickly run through strikeouts, ERA, and WIP. What did you need to win those categories?

For strikeouts, you needed 1,546 last year. That's right around 172 strikeouts per your nine position pitcher spots. ERA, you needed a 3.28. and WIP, you needed a 1.1.0. And some pictures that you can find later on in drafts that can help in strikeouts. Hermann Marquez is up there. Terrick Scubel with the Detroit Tigers.

John Gray, now out of course field. He's always been good at strikeouts. ERA and WIP, a little bit more questionable. Nick Povetta, another one. Strikeouts are solid. ERA and WIP. Probably don't want to get involved there. Jordan Montgomery, he's always been over a strikeout

for ending, but the ratios are just kind of what they are. They've been mediocre, high three Z-R-A. Low volume. Yeah, 1.25 whip, you know, so keep those things in mind. I think he'll give you strikeouts. I just, there's some people that think that he's ready to take that next step. And like, he's always been a high-swinging strike rate guy. It's just, it's never come to fruition.

He's, in terms of his pitch max, he's also like a Jack of All Trade's Master of None where he just like, he's got like four decent pitches. He's got really good secondary stuff, Chris. The fastball gets crushed. That's what I've like looking into the numbers. I know last year, I think he either started throwing, I think he started throwing his four-seamer more than his sinker, and it's typically his sinker, surprise, which gets crushed.

So maybe that's something he does more this year. Use the four-seamer up in the zone and, you know, throw the breaking stuff down, and maybe that'll help him. But he hasn't really shown the ability to do that consistently yet. In terms of ERA, Eduardo Rodriguez is someone stands out now with the Detroit Tigers. And then really for just ERA and Whip, It's these late round pitchers that we know have good stuff.

Maybe we question the role, but obviously, you know, we like them for a reason. It's guys like Aaron Ashby and Christian Javier, Luis Patino, Michael Kopeck, Tanner Hauke, for specifically WIP, I noticed Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, Josiah Gray, and I can see Tristan McKenzie. He allows so many fly balls and a low batting average against that, you know, the ERA will probably be a little bit higher. up some home runs, but he really does not give up a lot of hits. And as a result, usually the whip is really, really strong for Tristan McKenzie. Any of these late round targets that you maybe like more than the consensus, Chris? You got to trust the process. And Eduardo, Rodriguez is a, you know, maybe the poster boy for trust the prospect with pitchers this year

because he was so much better than his numbers. You know, his underlying numbers were so much better than what he actually earned last season. He actually, I think was top. 15 in FIP, if I'm remembering correctly. He was very, very good in terms of those underlying numbers. XERA, Sierra, all of those. And so I think he can actually be quite helpful in ERA if he gets a little better luck. And that was coming back from a very scary heart condition caused by his COVID diagnosis in 2020. so I will be drafting a significant number of Eduardo Rodriguez shares this season.

I like Eduardo Rodriguez quite a bit myself. I think I have him ranked inside of my top 140, 140, 45 starting pictures. I would hope he's inside of my top 145 starting pictures. If he wasn't, I mean, something was terribly wrong. Just squeaks in. Yeah, but he's inside of my top 45. I like the move to Detroit quite a bit. All right, we're going to wrap there for Chris.

I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching. to see baseball today. We'll be back again on Monday. Bye-bye.