Fantasy Baseball Today - In-Season Management 101; Jesus Luzardo Deep Dive (04/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

Today we're talking in-season management but first we have ANOTHER MLB proposal (1:12). This latest proposal has teams playing in just three divisions and from their own ballparks. Rejoice Rockies owners! ... We're also taking a deeper look at a breakout candidate in Jesus Luzardo (8:30). What's all the hype about? Where does he rank among other popular breakouts? ... In-season management is potentially more important than draft day, starting with the waiver wire (17:17). Should you play with FAAB? How aggressive should you be early in the season? ... Another topic for in-season management includes how to handle prospects (30:00). Should you be stashing them? Also, how do you know when to drop a player early in the season? ... Another important aspect of Fantasy Baseball is streaming hitters and pitchers (40:30). Are two-start pitchers dead? How do you find hitters to stream? ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive, center field, at the wall, grand slam. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Jesus Lazzardo has pitched six in a start just twice in his career. to put that in perspective, Mackenzie Gore has accomplished that eight times in his career, and Casey Mize did that 10 times last season alone. Does this matter? Well, you'll find out when we deep dive Jesus Lazzardo a little bit later on. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today, Wednesday, April 29th. Frank here with Scott and Adam.

Scott, we've got some news items to start to show off with. At nearly 48 years old, Mani Ramirez is hoping to sign with a Chinese professional baseball league team, and we have yet another leaked proposal for the 2020 MLB season. Scott, I'm convinced that they waited until you wrote an article about ballpark factors for Florida and Arizona before they revealed this latest MLB proposal. Yes, it seems like they did that.

And I don't know that it refutes anything I wrote because this latest proposal would have teams playing in their actual ballparks, right? Yes. would obviously be preferred from I think from every standpoint but certainly from the fantasy analysis standpoint because we're not going to have to reshape all of our rankings for for the entire league changing

it's the playing in every player moving and playing in a different environment now so that would be preferred and look it's just another proposal at this point I in some ways it sounds like there may be more obstacles in its way. It doesn't make sense to go crazy,

like rearranging rankings, certainly redoing drafts, until we actually know what's going to happen. But I think this would be preferable just from like an analysis and prediction projection standpoint. Yeah, it's a good point you bring up too because a lot of people have been asking for us to revisit the position preview

podcast, and we're going to do that at some point for sure. But I'm waiting for a definitive plan for the 2020 season, because if we were to redo the position preview podcast based on the league playing out in Arizona and Florida, and then that doesn't happen, then we

would have wasted all of our time doing that. So I'm just kind of waiting for a definitive plan before we revisit those, which we will. Should we get into what it... Because I mentioned they'll all be playing at their home parks, but the way it would work is that it would be just three divisions for all 30 teams, three divisions of 10.

There would be a west, a central, and an east, and ALNL teams would be mixed between the two divisions, which would mean universal DH still. So there would be some changes. Like the Braves I know would happen to know, obviously I was interested in where they'd be. They'd be in the central division with teams like the White Sox and twins.

I guess just to make travel, to cut down on travel to limit the spread a little more because I think it would be all interdivision play, right? So I don't know. I don't know. It would still involve more of the country and that's why I wonder if it's as feasible

as the spring training site plans. But time will tell. Time will tell, Frank. Adam, Azers here, Twitch superstar. Adam, are they just throwing these proposals out every week as just like giving us something to talk about in the baseball world? Maybe, but I'm pretty optimistic that they're going to have a season. It just seems like they're pretty determined to do it.

I don't know what it's going to look like or where it's going to be, but I'm optimistic. Look, you know what? You're like the smartest people all over the world working on this damn virus and finding some type of treatment. We had some good news today about a possible treatment. So I'm just thinking in a month, We're going to know more.

I think somebody's going to figure something. I'm not going to be a cure. Not going to be a vaccine yet. But I'm just optimistic. I really feel like we're going to have a good season. And I'm optimistic that they're going to be able to play it in their own stadiums without fans for at least a little while. I think, you know what?

I think that's going to happen. I think they're going to be able to play in their own stadiums. Adam, with the power of positivity. I appreciate it. How hard is it to come up with a treatment? Right? Like, the three of us could come. together and start a drug trial and make this happen.

Yeah. Now you're going to a weird place. Why don't we just cancel the pod for the next month and we'll just go, you know, lock ourselves in a laboratory somewhere and make it happen at him. It also is all the people who are, I think we all, you know, to all the people who are doing everything they are. I mean, I drove by a hospital yesterday and the sign. Our heroes work here and all that, yes.

And all the doctors, scientists, everybody is doing everything they can to get us back to normalcy and putting their lives on the line, you know. I don't even have to say it. thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Absolutely. Yes. We do thank all of the first responders, people that are, you know, the essential workers that are putting all the work in right now

to try and, you know, get through this tough time, of course. But, you know, I am optimistic that we will have a baseball season as well, Adam. And just to kind of wrap up this latest proposal, this was according to Bob Nightingale, three divisions, teams play in their home parks. Scott referenced that it's east, west central. that teams are staying in their geographic location don't have to move

around all that much. Should we go through each of what the divisions would be, or is that not worth getting into? I don't know that it's worth getting into. Okay. You can obviously look it up if you're that curious, and like I said, it doesn't make sense to dive

too deep into the analysis yet. Especially when we have such another great subject talking point here today, talking about in-season management strategy. It's going to be a good conversation. Absolutely, going to be a great conversation. The one thing I will say is if we could keep Lucas Gialito out of Arizona in the Cactus

League, that would be great. Yes. Music to my ears. So that is what the latest proposal would entail Lucas Gialo staying in his home park. So that would be great. Today on the show, we're going to deep dive Hazus Lazzardo. Scott mentioned in-season management strategy discussion.

and later on your emails, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Speaking of emails, I did want to touch on one email real quickly. This one's from Tony in Indy, and I wanted to mention it because it is regarding yesterday's conversation that we had about the one-hit wonder team. How did we forget R.A. Dickie? Unreal. Won a Siong in 2012, but never finished in the Siong voting in another year, according to baseball reference. that 2012 for R.A. Dickey 273 ERA, 105 WIP.

But the problem is, Scott, he had other productive years. Bad, this is a bad call. I mean, maybe Chris Towers would have put R.A. Dickey on there. He was worth years. He was worth a mention. He was kind of Eric Bidad-like in that. There was one season where he was a no-questions-asked Ace, and then a couple seasons where he was still pretty good.

So he should have come up. I know he came up when Chris and I were bound. names off each other the day before we did the actual podcast. And I guess I forgot to write him down. I don't know. So it's worth mentioning. But yeah, he wouldn't have been in my starting five. A few other people wrote in Brian LeHare. Definitely worth a mention because, I mean, it was really only a month. I looked it up earlier today. His splits was like March and April. He had an OPS over a thousand. He never had an OPS over 800 in any other month. So shout out to Brian LeHare, who was an All-Star in 2012, but it was really just based on one month.

So it wasn't like an entire season, but man, he was a flash in the pan for that, you know, one month in fantasy baseball for sure. Hazers Lizardo, very interesting name for 2020. I wouldn't even, I'm not even going to say polarizing. I'm just going to say awesome because, I mean, that's, you know, the expectation for Lizardo is very high for 2020. And Scott, he is your third ranked prospect, was expected to have a big, impact last season in 2019, but he suffered a lat injury in spring training, if you remember,

that basically derailed his entire season. He didn't even return to the minor leagues until, I think it was like July. So, you know, he had to overcome that at first, managed to pitch 58 innings last season between the minors, the majors, and in the postseason, 109 and a third innings pitched in 2018, 43 and a third endings pitched in 2017, absolutely dominant in his minor league career, 253 ERA, 104 whip, 234 strikeouts to just 43 walks, and 195 and two-thirds in his minor league career. Last season,

through basically four pitches, had a four-team, a two-seem, he has a nasty change-up, he has like this curve, slurve thing that he uses. but, you know, I watched a start earlier today from spring training, and it looked like he was using a slider or a cutter that also looked amazing. So, I mean, this guy potentially has five pitches, and in that start, three and a third innings pitched, he recorded 10 outs, eight of those via the strikeout. Scott, what are your concerns? Do you have a concern level over innings pitched for Lazzardo,

or do you think that because the season is likely to be shorter, that you kind of, you don't worry as much about those innings concerns because it's likely going to be a shorter season. So obviously, I don't know exactly how it's going to play out. I want to preface it with that, but I do think, look, in a shortened season, the cumulative innings advantage that a true ace is going to have over somebody just breaking in like Luzardo, it's, it's lessened, it's lessened. But there seem to be some people who are of the last, mind that because the season is shorter and a team is still going to want its developing pitcher to meet a certain innings threshold that he's going to pitch deeper into games because

of that, like going seven innings with consistency. And that just seems far-fetched to me. I think game to game, they'll still handle Luzardo about the same way they planned to. I mean, that's how they were developing him in the minors. I don't know if you mentioned it yet or if it was just before the show, Frank, but the number of six innings starts Luzardo's had in his minor league careers, how many? He's had just two. Just two.

Okay, so, and I don't think that's abnormal, especially for a guy whose career started, I think he had Tommy John surgery at the start of his minor league career, and he's moved very quickly. I don't think it's weird for somebody who's on the fast track like that to have the innings limited in that way, but it's more of a gradual buildup to being able to go deeper

into games and he's not just going to suddenly plop in and go seven and a third every time just because there's a shorter season and they feel like the innings total will in the end will be fine. I don't see that happening. So that durability is the main concern with Luzardo. But for me it's also kind of the only concern. I can't remember a time I've been this confident and a pitching prospect, how full his arsenal is, how good the command is, dominating at every level. I said I couldn't remember a time I was as confident in a hitting prospect as Vladimir Guerrero last year, so I guess take it with a grain of salt.

But yeah, Luzardo, I'm very confident the way he's going to perform. It's just will he hold up and how deep into games will he pitch? And I guess if they end up playing in Arizona, that's going to change the math on it, too, because I would have some concerns about performance then. Adam, there seems to be a group of breakout pitchers this season that I like to, you know, I group them together. It's Jesus Luzardo, Max Fried, Zach Gallen, Julio Urias, and, you know, how would you rank those four guys?

Because I think we have, you know, some level of concern for each of them, but all have very high upside. So Lazzardo Uriaz, Freed, Galin, how would you rank those four? Zach Allen. I'm going to take the relief pitcher eligibility out of this equation just for starting pitchers. Zach Allen, Puglioreas, Jesus Lazzardo, Max Fried.

And I'm only saying this because we're doing a deep dive because I really don't see how you could look at the numbers and the stuff and the velocity in the arsenal, like Scott said, and have concerns about Lazzardo other than durability, but not just durability, but how is he going to pitch the third time? through the order. When you watch him pitch, it's very, very noticeable with Haisal Soussardo.

He hides the ball in a very strange way. He's got a very unique delivery. And that's obviously good. There's deception there. The ball comes out of his arm funny. It's just an unusual delivery. I'm not saying it's bad. Is he going to turn into Dantra Willis? Like, where people

figure him out. Oh, Adam, don't do that. Don't do that. And I need to see it. But again, when are they going to figure him out? Could be third time through the order. We don't know if he can pitch three times through the order. We don't know what his velocity is going to be like the third time through the order. So that uncertainty has to give you just a little bit of pause. And again, I'm nitpicking here because we're doing a deep dive on Hesel Sozardo, but his deceptive motion, I think, has got to have,

has to have had something to do with his success. And maybe he does pick up on that. Maybe. So that's why I can't put him first. I think Gallen, deserves to be number one there. I really love Julio Arias, and he's got more of a major league track record, obviously. But I'll put him ahead of Freed because I think he has a higher ceiling than Max Free. I do like Max Freed. Yeah, I like all of those quite a bit. I actually have Freed ranked the highest, but I struggle with it, Scott. I think whatever concerns you'd have about Lizarro's durability and pitching deep into games would be shared by Eureas. Right. And so to me, I mean, Lizarro looks like he has the better stuff, the better swing and miss potential.

So I would definitely, between the two, I would go Luzardo and just commenting on, kind of generally speaking, what I look for, what I think best determines whether a pitcher can make it that third time through a lineup. And I agree we don't know until we see him do it. And I don't know that we'll see him do it much this year just because of where he is in his development. But Luzardo with three plus pitches at least, maybe working on a couple more, and with him three. throwing a lot of strikes. Those are the main things I look for. If you're just a two-pitch pitcher or you walk a lot of hitters

so your pitch counts get high, I don't trust that guy to go a third time through the order. But if you're not that and Luzardo isn't that, then I think he's poised to. All right, my last... Did you say how you rank the four of them, Scott?

No. How do you rank this guy? Gallin, Luzardo, freed, and Arias. Okay, so yeah, I have it freed Gallon, Lazzardo, Arias. But, man, you know, I want to be able to put Lazzardo higher. My last point on him is, over the past month at the NFBC,

they still have some drafts going on over there. Lazzardo's ADP is 92, which is ahead of Sunny Gray and Frankie Montas. So, and Mike Soroka. So just to put that in perspective, you know, where some of the rest of the industry kind of falls on Lazzardo. I mean, people are very, very excited about him and based on the way that Scott broke

down his combination of how many pitches he has, the poise that he has, on the mound, the control that he has. You know, it's hard to argue. It's hard to argue with, you know, the upside of Lazardo. So I'll wrap it up there. Before we get into in-season management, our strategy discussion for today, something we'd like to do every Wednesday here on the podcast. I do want to remind everyone to sign up for our fantasy baseball today newsletter.

They get emailed directly to your inbox with our latest articles and draft results. plus Chris works very hard on them. Support Chris Towers and support the FBT newsletter. Head on over to CBSports.com slash newsletters slash fantasy baseball today. And sign up for free. Why not? In-season management, the past couple of weeks we've done trade discussion, we've done auction strategy.

Today I want to do in-season management. And I really kind of just want to jump through a bunch of different topics, ad drops, streaming, how you handle your bench, There's a bunch of different things, but let's start off with ad drops. Do you guys prefer FAB or just kind of like the free-for-all, free-running waiver-wire system? Isn't there door number three? The daily waivers?

Sure. Yeah, you're saying. I play in all three. Yeah. Which one do you prefer? My least favorite is free ad drops. Just whoever gets to the computer first, whenever there's a prospect call-up,

whenever there's a closer change, whoever rushes there first, or I guess the phone, it doesn't have to be a computer. I'm always near a computer. So I think in terms of a computer. But whoever gets their first gets it. Like that to me is not in the spirit of what fantasy baseball is supposed to be, where it's just this who's most, who in their personal life is most available to make the move in the moment the news goes down. It's more about who makes the best decisions. And I think you could keep the decision element of that,

but make it fairer for people who just may have other things going on or may not have happened to hear the news as quick as someone else by either having waivers run every night, or I think even better is weekly. Weekly, fab, where you get a little bit of a bidding war on every player who ends up getting picked up. That's my preferred option. Most of the leagues I play and tend to be daily fab,

which I can live with. But weekly, I think, is even better. And whether it's fab or waivers, I don't care as much. Sometimes I think the fab element gets overhyped because it's not that many players that you get in a real bidding war with. And it seems like most teams end up with a lot of money on the table still when the season comes to a close. But, you know,

I don't have any real objections to FAB either. I just think it's kind of overrated. Please play in FAB leagues. I'll just throw it out there. I mean, look, bottom of the list, you're right, Scott. Free for all, you shouldn't. It just awards whoever is available. Fab, I mean, there's strategy involved in how much money you spend on your players.

There's so many different things to keep in mind. How much FAB do you save for later on in the season? Please, play in FAB. So if you don't, that's what I would recommend people doing here. You know, you mentioned, Scott, you know, that you play in leagues where FAB runs once a week. You have waivers that run every single day. Like, if you do play in a FAB league, free agent acquisition budget, how often should the FAB run? Like, is it once per week is the best, in your opinion?

Should it be twice per week? I think people are going to stress over their bidding most when it's once a week. They know everybody's going to be paying attention at that time the waivers run and they know they're going to have to bid higher when it's easier when it's running every day to just sneak a guy through for zero or $1. That's good.

Well, it's obvious it obviously benefits the people who play closer attention and I would consider myself among them. But Scott, but Scott would have answered differently before he had two kids. But now he has two kids

so he has to wait until Friday night every week or Saturday night to make all his waiver claims and I get to take advantage of that. So I only have one kid right now. No, I said I would consider myself among them. I do think I pay closer attention than the average player. But I know you, I know you don't make as many transit.

I know you mostly do your, in our Roto League, in our Memorial League, you mostly do it one night. Because you were in like 20 leagues. Yeah. Just as a means of survival, I saved the bulk of my waiver claims. I just fit it into like a two, three hour window on a Sunday afternoon or a Saturday afternoon or whatever. And I don't really love the weekly. It's okay. You know, it's interesting.

The league that I'm in that does a weekly is actually twice a week, but it's Tuesday night and then it's Wednesday. And that's a good way to do it because, you know, if you don't get somebody you want it on Tuesday, he still might be available on Wednesday. So I actually like that little double up, little back-to-back nights there. You can sort of prioritize guys.

But I think at least twice a week, it really has to be, in my opinion, especially because that league's daily lineups. Now, if you have weekly lineups, it's, I guess, another story. But if you have daily lineups, you should be able to make a lot of transactions. And I quite frankly think you should be able to make transactions every day. I'll also say if you play in a daily lineup league in a weekly format daily lineups, you have to be able to make roster moves every day. And that's sort of the problem with Fab and with waivers,

because if you need a pitcher on Sunday, you've got to make that move Saturday night. You may not want to. You know, you may want to see how your Saturday night results go, but you might not be up late enough, you know. So I actually think that the whole free-for-all thing is not that bad. I just, you know, the one league I play in,

I think that's a free-for-all has a transaction limit, which helps. So I think all of the formats work, but my least favorite, I think, is actually weekly fab. I like daily fab the best for my week. weekly leagues. And for my daily leagues, I think I prefer the free-for-all. Yes, I think in daily leagues, having a free-for-all makes the most sense. But you also have to put a limit, as you mentioned. I think like three ads per week makes a lot of sense. You know, Scott, we had a discussion about this recently where I think someone wrote in. It was a pod that just you and I

did. And they were asking about, you know, how do you kind of put restrictions on that if you playing a daily lineup league. And we said that, you know, having, having Fab for a daily lineup league is one way to do it. But obviously, you know, putting restrictions on how many ads people can make is another way to do it. Yeah. There's just, there's so much potential for exploitation in a daily lineup league where anytime a category is a counting stat as opposed to a ratio stat, somebody could just swap out

huge portions of their team to make sure their lineup is maximized every single day. And I don't think that's in the spirit of fantasy baseball either. So I'm on the, I think the simplest way actually to counter that is to make leagues with daily lineups have weekly fab. Because if you don't do that,

then you have to start building in all these limitations like number of transactions, maybe innings maximums, at bat maximums. I don't know. It becomes, it becomes, it can get, it can unravel quickly and your league can get to a place where everybody's just frustrated with the guy who's making the most transactions. Adam, you mentioned you like Fab running every day. That means you have to have a lot of money to spend. What size budget do you like, do you normally go with like $100, $0 pickups are allowed, or do you go with $1,000 and no $0 pickups are allowed?

I go with $100, $0, $0 bids are allowed. Okay. And I will be happy spending 80% of my budget in the first three to four months of the season. Because in a Roto league, people will drop out, people stop paying attention. and the guys you pick up earlier are going to have just more of an impact on your team, hopefully.

Yeah. I'd even take it a step further, Adam. I'd go, I usually spend half my budget in the first month to six weeks. Wow. Because that's where you're going to

pick up the most breakouts that nobody saw coming. Like, that's when they're emerging. That's the time to strike. That's when everybody, but he's still paying attention to, as you said, Adam. And it tends to leave me with enough to play out the rest of the season when maybe interest has dropped and win those big breakouts that you have to jump on.

They're fewer and farther between. You know what we should do, Scott, to mix it up? The Memorial League that we talk about a lot, it's our longstanding 12-team Roto League, $100 budget, daily, fab, weekly rosters. I think we should start making it for money, just like a little bit of money, and get so that the top three teams get paid. Because the way we do it, there's no money, and you win the league or you don't. So I think if we had it so the top three teams got paid,

and I think it would incentivize people to stay in it a little bit longer, and maybe just give us a better idea of how long people actually stay in. Because when I bring that up, sometimes I do get pushback from listeners like, hey, well, we have a playoff system in the final weeks, or we have payouts for four people, three people, whatever. I think we should do that, Scott. We already did the auction. So, you know, 20 bucks.

It's something I don't want to commit to in this moment, but we can talk about it. I think the Memorial Magazine League has evolved so that the interest, because before it was just guys around the office, and now it's people throughout the industry who I trust to stick with it more. So that's, you know, I'm pretty happy with the play. place it's in. But yeah, you know, we can have a little money riding on it, maybe. I like the idea of spending your fab early on in the season because not only is it more likely

you'll find impact players, I mean, you'll have those players for longer on your team. You know, if they do break out, then you'll have them for, you know, five months rather than waiting for someone who gets called up in July or August, someone like, you know, Boba Chet last season, for example, who was a huge help. there's no doubt about it, but he only helped you for two months, you know, compared to someone else, like, say you picked up Lucas G. Alito early on in the season and you spent some money on him, and you had him for the entirety of the season. So, you know, I've heard a lot of different takes on FAB and a lot of smart people who have said, you know, they do like to be aggressive

very early on in the season in terms of their free agent acquisition budget. And I tend to lean that way as well. I'm going to go as far as to say, It's the most important thing. It's the single most important thing. And this is... Benning big early? Being aggressive on the waiver wire early. Yes.

And certainly you can take it too far. I think the novice often does take it too far and gives up on great players too early. Obviously, how soon you give up on a player to go with that flavor of the weak type is a judgment call. And the calculation changes depending on how much you have invested in that player.

You know, last five rounds, they're all dispensable. But first 10 rounds, I mean, you've got to wait a long time to give up on those guys. So that's something to keep in mind. But cornering the breakouts is the best way to stockpile your roster. And the time to do it is at the start of the season before they fully revealed themselves. And sometimes that means jumping on a guy one week. and then dropping him the next for the new guy. But one of the things I talk about a lot is just relying on perception and interest level in a player to guide your transactions.

Because if you do go for that guy early on that nobody drafted who gets off to a hot start and then he slows down, you drop him then. probably nobody's going to flock to him. You drop him even if you still have some hope for him. Probably no one else is going to grab him because he's already cooled off. And if he starts to heat up again, maybe you make a play for him then. But you have to kind of rely on that

in order to maximize your roster space. You have to realize that the player who's going to generate the most interest on waivers is the one who's doing something right now. Or a prospect. because I remember last year we had all different kind of names for it.

It was like Fabapalooza, Fabageddon, where it was like six prospects got called up at the same time. It was like Oscar Mercado, Nicky Lopez. I'm forgetting a few names there. But there was a bunch of guys, and it was like everyone was freaking out to spend all that. It was like Willie Calhoun, I think, was net mix. And it was just a ton of prospects came up.

So those are other players that just, you know, garner a ton of fab. And I get it because, I mean, there are guys that could be big impacts. and you haven't seen them at the major league level yet, so you don't know what they're going to do. There's a level of unknown. Dash them. That is so, so important.

I've really taken to that. Be there two weeks before the prospect gets called up. Yeah. You know, look, we do our best to guess. Scott does a really good job with the prospects report every week. But if you can afford it, stash that guy before everybody wants them. Yeah. And you don't have to spend big.

That's much easier to do in a roto league than head-to-head I found for, I guess for obvious reasons because there's more roster space. They tend to go deeper into the player pool, and you make use of your bench players less in that format, so why not go for the upside as opposed to the middling player that you may have to plug in someday because of injury. So yeah, I agree with you. It's been huge for me in tout wars.

I don't know why it doesn't happen more in tout wars where the prospect gets stashed ahead of time. But Bo Bichette, the example you brought up earlier, I had him probably two to four weeks before he got called up in that format, and he was huge for me. Two years ago, it was Juan Soto, who I grabbed mid-April, and then he comes up in early May, or was late May. It was on point May, and the rest was history.

So, yeah, that's a big deal. And just kind of maybe shifting gears just a little bit here to speak more generally. there's the draft obviously, which is influential on your fantasy team's outcome and then there's what we're talking about here, playing the waiver wire. And I think it's, I think the,

just reflexively, it's easy to say, oh, it's a 50-50 thing. One contributes to your success, 50% and the other 50%. But I actually think it's the in-season management that contributes to it,

even more than the draft. It might be more like 75 to 25% in season management versus draft, which isn't to say, like if you just go in like a clutz and make ridiculous draft picks, obviously you're going to blow up your season that way. But if you put together a competent draft, you give yourself something a reasonable base to work with, you can find success just by playing the waiver wire. another caveat it depends on the depth of your league if it's a 24 team league a lno only something like

that where there isn't much of a waiver wire of course it mostly depends on the draft but if it's standard 12 team league certainly anything shallower than that then yeah it doesn't all right on your draft i think actually less than half of it does adam how quick of a trigger should you have when it comes to dropping players early in the season is it a sliding scale where you know, the later you drafted a player, obviously you have more patience for that player, but what does that scale look like? Like, you know,

if it's someone you took in your last couple of rounds, are you willing to drop that player a week into the season, the first day of the season, if they're not performing? And how long do you wait for, like, an early round player before you kind of throw in the towel? Well, first of all, you reminded me I need to buy a scale. I do not have a working scale in my house anymore, although I've lost a lot of weight in this quarantine.

I mean, so you're talking to a guy who, like a lot of people have gained weight. I find myself not eating enough. Well, I'm not going to restaurants. Huh. So help. Some cooking six meals a week. Yeah, all that chef boy or D. Oh, yeah, I'm not doing any of that either.

I'm here talking about making cheese at milkshags on Twitter. And you guys are losing weight. Well, I've put it all back on yesterday for my wife's birthday with just a ton of of a ton of cookie cake, which I continued today. So, but anyway, you're talking to the guy who dropped R.A. Dickey in the first week or second week of his Sanyang season. So you can make mistakes. That is my most infamous.

It does happen. It does happen. But I'm not afraid to do it. I will wait a long time to drop an early round pick, you know, half a season. I don't know. Maybe never. I do have a little bit of a problem where if I am attached to a player and I drop that player and he gets picked up by someone else and is great,

I will basically hate my life. So that's why I always had Greg Byrd. Oh, gosh. I'm just like, not going to let somebody else have good, Greg Byrd. If he's going to be good, it's going to be on my team. Who else is going to pick up Greg Bird? Nobody, but. I have some fun Greg Bird facts for you real quick, Adam.

I share a birthday with Greg Bird, and I was at the game. that he hit his first home run and first career home run, and not only did he hit his first home run, he hit two home runs in that game. I was there for that game. He's so good. But so late round picks, I got no problem dropping him.

No problem. But, you know, look, if it's a late round pitcher that has upside, then I'm not going to really want to drop them if I don't have to. It's a really tough question to answer, Frank. I'm sorry, because it's so case specific. But I shuffle the back end of my roster a lot. Yeah.

And like, it's something you learn to do with experience. Right. And you're going to have some misses along the way. I think, you know, we all remember the big miss as you refer to your R.A. Dickey example. Me and a 24 team dynasty league, my 24 team dynasty later I refer to all the time. I dropped Corey Kluber the year he broke through and became the Cy Young Calibur pitcher, which that stands out to me. is the worst waiver wire move I've ever made.

But, you know, I made so many good moves that have altered my teams, my franchise's outcome for the better by having this more aggressive approach that, like, you can't dwell on the losses like that. No, and I think the best move I made may have been picking up Aaron Sanchez after his first start in his really good season. And people who have listened to this podcast know me. I like to watch baseball. And I like to depend on my eyes.

I don't always feel comfortable recommending to other people, you know, what I notice and what I've seen. But I just feel like I've seen enough baseball or I can watch a pitcher and generally have a good sense of, oh, this guy's got good stuff, or this guy's going to be good, or this guy got lucky. Sometimes you don't see it in the box score, but, man, he hit three balls right at the second basement. It would have been a really bad game. So I think I've done a pretty good job watching baseball and sort of figuring things out. Obviously, I'm not perfect, but there's no perfect system.

I love watching games. I mean, I'll watch two at a time in the early parts of the season just to get a feel for these pitchers. And I'm not really doing it with hitters, but pitchers. And I'm just picking up the guys I like. Aaron Sanchez really impressed me the first time I watched them that year. I picked them up. We had a good run.

And have not really heard much from him since. Well, hey. Almost made it onto, or did he make it, onto the one-hit wonder team? I don't think he did. I won't. Not quite. That pitching staff was tough, and then Chris put Mark Pryor in. Oh, gosh.

Rallied Twitter for support on the idea. He's one of the best spots for Mark Pryor. Well, what's interesting is he tweeted out an article. Somebody wrote for some other site. I'm sorry, he don't have the name. Top of mind. But he happened to come out with a one-hit wonders team the same day we did, although I don't think he required his

to start in 2000. He was going all the way back. And yet even so, he ended up with Mark Pryor on his team. So Chris must have read that article. So Chris isn't totally alone in his thinking. But yeah, we clearly had different ideas of what exactly

a one-hit wonder is. I'm imagining Adam at home as an old school scout like staring at his TV with like a radar gun. No, look, I mean, I think everybody does it. You watch a guy and you come away impressed.

I just quite frankly, watch a lot. Hey man, that's how I feel about Lazzardo. You watch the guy pitch. Good. Looks pretty damn good. I mean, that's good. When you can feel that way about a player, sometimes I'm right,

sometimes I'm wrong. Two guys that kind of came across the same way. I think I've determined that I love a left-hander who throws with good velocity and has a gigantic curveball. a big looping curveball. The one was Tyler Skaggs and, you know, our, obviously, RIP, but I was really hooked on him. Never quite happened, but I think there was, there was a lot of potential there. And the other was Max Fried.

I mean, the first time I watched Max Fried, I really thought he was better than we were giving him credit for on this podcast because I just felt that curveball is going to come around and be a really good pitch. It's how I feel about Chris Paddock, because we talk about him being a two-pitch guy, but I think that curveball, if he starts throwing it more, I think it can be an awesome, awesome pitch, and he can be a three-pitch guy and really take that next step. Last thing here, 2012, I dropped R.I. Dickey for Kyle Seeger. And not long after, Scott White dropped Luke Hoseaver for R.A. Dickey on April 20th,

and you had him the rest of the season. Wow. Wow. And to bring this conversation full circle on the subject of pitchers who kind of pass the eye test for us. The first place my mind went on that was Luke Hoseyver. Really? Who I dropped for Dickie. Yeah. It's crazy.

Symmetry. Yeah. Guys, I wanted to ask you about streaming pitchers. Based on the landscape of how baseball is now, is streaming two-star pitchers off the waiver wire kind of a dead strategy because it seems like the past couple of years more than ever before, you pick up a two-star pitcher. someone gets pushed back, there's a rain out, and boom, your two-star pitcher turns into, you know, it was a jag to begin with, but a guy who'll give you one star and he gave you five fantasy points and now you're just like, well, why did I ever put this two-star pitcher in my lineup? Is the two-star pitcher strategy dead? Streaming two-star pitchers? I think it is, or it should be, having said that there's going to be somebody or multiple somebody's in your league who end up having to have to rely on it.

just because there are so few of those high-end starting pitchers to go around, and that number figures to dwindle as injuries start popping up. And maybe some of them don't live up to expectations performance-wise either. So, I mean, I've obviously emphasized the high-in starting pitchers because I think they're the biggest differentiator in fantasy baseball right now. And so ideally you end up with enough of them that you don't have to resort to the big, big pile of scrubs that comes after them. But if you do, okay, so I guess I overstated it.

If you do, then your best bet probably, it may be even more appropriate than ever to stream two-star pitchers. I'm thinking specifically in a points league. I guess it wouldn't be in a categories league. You wouldn't want to skew those ratios. But in a points league, it would, even though the likelihood of one or both of their starts of being bad is higher than ever. It's kind of your only hope of keeping up with the teams that have a high-end, you know, ace type starting pitch or have a rotation full of them. It's not dead, Frank, but it underrated storyline was the spacing out of the season depleted the two-star pitchers.

Teams are just playing fewer games per week, and you're losing two-star pitchers. And if you lose one good two-star pitcher, like if you have a week where, there are like four two-star pitchers that you really want that are available in, let's say, 70% or 30% of least more, less than 70% owned. If that's a lot. If you get four options that are attractive on waivers, that's a lot. You limit even one of them and everybody's bidding on them, you know, that's a big deal. I don't know what the two-star pitcher lancet is going to look like this season, though. You know, it could be that we have a lot of two-star pitchers.

Yeah. Some teams are playing like nine games with two doubleheaders. I have no idea. So they might come back big time this week. But certainly toward the end of the season, guys get bumped a lot. The rotation is so hard to figure. And you should definitely be looking at the schedule. Are they Monday, Saturday guys or Tuesday, Sunday guys, or even Monday, Sunday guys.

And if their second start comes on Sunday, you don't want to be relying on them because there's a good chance they're getting bumped. You know, Scott, how much do you look at your opponent's number of starts? I feel like, obviously, this is something in a head-to-head points league, maybe even a Categories League. But, you know, how much does that influence you? Because, you know, my dad will text me every week, and he's so, he's like synonymous for two-star pitchers. He just picks up all the two-star pitchers in my home league. And he just hoards them.

And it's like, people going up against him are like, well, your dad has 10 starts this week. I have to pick up two starters to kind of match his start count. Is that something that influences your weekly lineup setting is looking at your opponent's two-star pitchers? I won't say it never has before, but I would take five one-stared aces over five-two-start fringe waiver guys, you know? And that was always true.

How much do you hate it, though, Scott, when you face a team that has like 12 starts? Well, it's hard to get 12 Unless there's a couple Sparps in there But anti-sparps Okay, fine Nine starts

I can't, you know what I mean You see Yeah, I mean He's got three more starts than I have Like you have six or seven And he has like nine or ten It's just, you know, it's tough to look at Yeah, you kind of,

You kind of do the The Kermit the Frog gulp Like that What do you see it? Sure I was thinking of the Heath side Like you look at you go like I figured I had to make the sound because people are going to imagine the meme of Kermit the Frog

throwing back the tea that's hot tea that he's drinking right and he's like throwing it back in the meme he's not sipping it never thought of that before that seems dangerous yeah um but yeah no it's it's not a good feeling when you see it when you see a big difference difference in the start count like that but it's you just got to trust in the process You'd obviously, ideally, if you do have a team full of aces, ideally their two start weeks would be more staggered than that, but it doesn't always work out that way. And I think in the long run,

you're going to be happy just sticking with them rather than trying to chase the extra starts, especially in an environment like this one where home runs can pop up seemingly at random. It's not always, it doesn't always seem to be a matter of, skill or how deserved it the home run is. It just happens. And it's hard to predict. And the pitchers that aren't the super high-end types are going to be most susceptible to that. Adam, when it comes to streaming hitters, you know, what type of things do you look at? Is it just, you know,

all right, who's going to visit Corris Field this week? Is it just trying to pick on the worst pitchers? Is it, you know, who's a left-handed hitter who's going to Yankee Stadium? Because these are all things that I look at because I tend to lean, you know, I tend to go pitching heavy, especially in points leagues. And I trust my ability to either stream hitters or find hitters early that are going to break out. I just think it's easier to find breakout hitters than it is pitchers. What kind of things do you look at when it comes to streaming hitters in season?

Put a pin in, it's easier to find breakout hitters than pitchers. I think that's a topic of discussion for another show. The first thing I look at when I'm streaming hitters, this is not a joke, is Scott's column. Yeah. Streaming hitters. It's really, really useful. Corse Field is obviously always going to be a big part of that.

A guy like Jodd Peterson, if he's facing five righties, Kyle Schwerver, he'll be owned. Actually, I think Kyle Schwerver is going to get dropped in a lot of leagues, but it'll be drafted at least to be owned. Lefty-righty splits things like that. I wouldn't get so specific as like a lefty going to Yankee Stadium, especially since the Yankees have good pitching. You know what I mean?

So Corsefield stands out. And honestly, I would like to pick up a streamer that I think has a chance to stay in my lineup. I'm not so interested in playing that waiver-wire game with hitters. I don't think it's as realistic as doing that with pitchers. The Adam drop-em kind of thing, you know, what do we call it? Pitch them and ditch them, whatever. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't really think I do that so much with hitters. If I do, that is not a good sign for my team. Yeah, it's not. Yeah. I don't want to rely on that. Right. I think you have more faith. in my column than I do, Adam.

Are we talking about streaming hitters, or are we talking about identifying a breakout hitter? I was saying, and streaming hitters, I go to your column, but hopefully I don't have to stream hitters. And if I do pick up a hitter, he's usually on a hot streak, and he's hopefully somebody that I think

can be in my lineup for at least a few weeks, you know? Yeah, so the hit column he is referring to is top 10 sleeper hitters for the upcoming week, and it's guys who are less than 80% owned on CBS, because the guys who are 80% on CBS are like 50% on a lot of other sites. But anyway, yeah, if that's, if you have to, and I always prefaced the column with this, or as often as I can, I refer back to it. if you're having to turn to a waiver wire for a one-week hitter pickup, it means something's gone wrong, somebody's got hurt,

you have a sudden hole to fill, generally you're not going to want to mess around with your, you're hitting, your core of hitters. There's more need, certainly in a roto league with the expanded lineups, and usually there's going to be a hitter or two that you don't have much confidence in, but you're starting them just because you have that many spots. to fill.

So I can understand messing around with it more in that context. But in a head-to-head context with the smaller lineups, you're pretty much

going to stick with the same hitters for as long as they're healthy unless one of them just is totally bearing you with an extended slump.

Yeah, it's definitely more relevant in like a deeper mixed Roto League. I mean, those are the situations where I've actually had to look up, you know,

which hitters to stream, kind of looking a couple of weeks out at which teams are going to be Corres Field. Those are for, you know, more like the Tout Wars where it's a 15 team mixed Roto League. But, you know, my home league, my 12 team points league, we do expand rosters a little bit. And I found myself streaming hitters. But Adam, I did write it down.

Easier to find breakout hitters versus breakout pitchers. And we will have that discussion at some point because I do think it's quite fascinating. And we're just kind of scratching the surface. I think we could do like an in-season management part two at some point because there's still some other things that I want to get to. But let's move on to some emails. Wrap up the show here with some emails. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. First question here from Matthew Erickson.

Love listening to the show. Thanks, Matthew. I'm in a dynasty head-to-head league, and I can keep up to seven players. Of these eight players listed, who should I not keep? So eliminate one of these players. Noah and Aronado, Raphael Devers,

Glaber Torres, Vladimir-Garreiro Jr., Ozzie Albies Bobauchette Walker Bueller Clayton Kershaw Eliminate 1 So 7 Keepers is kind of getting into the range where I do start to

consider longevity If it's less than that There's so much roster turnover from year to year That I don't worry so much about that I just keep my best players But seven's starting to get up there So really it comes down to Clayton Kershaw or not

and I think I think considering the young guys the most dropable of them is Vladimir Guerrero and knowing the huge ceiling he has and the likelihood you'd never get him back in a league with this many keepers I think Kirchall's the one I'd draw

I mean I guess the lowest of the hitters that I have ranked is Bo Bichet that's what I was going to say it's like to me it was between Bichet and and Curseille. but a sneaky one could be Aeronado because there is a decent chance that this is his last season in Coresfield. And quite frankly, there's a chance he never plays in Coresfield again. Yeah, but even so, he's going to be.

He's not going to be. He's going to be like a third round caliber bat, I would think. I don't know, because it's also coinciding with him entering his 30s, right? How old is Aeronado? He's 28, I think. So his profile seems like the sort that would. age well. And I suspect he would have a Matt Holiday-like post

course career, which was obviously still very good. I'm between Bichette and Kershaw, and I'm probably dropping Kershaw. Noah and Aronado is 29. He just turned 29 about two weeks ago. So happy birthday. Nolan Aronado, if you're out there listening. I would

lean with Clayton Kershaw too. I mean, the other question I have is, technically you would have three third basement on this roster. Aronado, Devers, Vladimir Guerrero. Are you going to be able to play all them. Good point. Good point. So that was something else I thought of. Way to go, Frank. Thanks guys. I mean, I would lean Guerrero over Aeronado in that situation. Dropping or keeping? What do you mean by that?

Dropping Guerrero over Aeronado if that third base question comes into play. But it's, you know, it's not a comfortable decision to make. I mean, even with the Kershaw angle, if you drop Kershaw, then you're probably just having one of my top 35 starting pitchers in Walker Bueller, right? And I don't think you're going to be able to compete with just one of them. I'd make a trade.

I think that's a good point. I think you might have to make a trade for pitching. But let me ask you a question, Scott. A year ago, who would you have taken a dynasty? Aeronado or Vlad? I think my dynasty rankings, if we go look them up, we'll show I had Aronado ahead of Vlad,

though not by a ton. Okay. Just curious. Next question is from Darren Sobey, dear catfish, Ricky, and Big Mac. Those are famous A's. That is correct. You know, I looked us up before the show. Did you know Ricky Henderson stole 66 bases as a 39-year-old?

I did not know that. That is insane. Very interesting player. In his 10-te-head categories, 7-by-7 league, add quality starts and K-per-9 for pitching, OPS, and strikeouts for hitters. I give up Marcel O'Zuna and Lance Lynn, I get J.D. Martinez and Hermann Marquez.

Oh, man, I love it. A-minus. Really? Yeah, because it's a 10-team league. Just take the best player. And I don't think Armand-Marquez is... Well, okay, I do kind of think he's going to play in Corse Field. But without any fans there, that's going to change the effect on the ball because when the ball gets hit in the air, you won't have fans yelling as much, and

their breath helps push the ball out into the atmosphere, makes it fly even farther. So I think that'll help Arm-Marquez in Corsefield. But now, forget Hermann-Marquez. He doesn't matter in this equation. I have enough questions about Lance Lynn and Marcelo Zuna. I really like him. I've been drafting him a lot in Mox mostly. They're better than Marquette's.

but 10-team league, you take J.D. Martinez. You do it. I thought this was a little bit closer here, Scott. Because I agree with that, and that because it's the 10-team league, you just go for the best player and not overthink it. If it was a 15-team league, it would be pretty close, I think. But, you know, that also depends on your relative confidence in Lynn versus Marquez. Mine is pretty high. But, you know, this time a year ago, I was pretty confident in Marquez.

So these things change quickly. This next one's from Matt Hayon. Dear Candy. Oh, you skipped one. Well, I was going to save it for the end, Adam. It's like a jamboree end of the show. You want me to read it now, Adam? Cheer you up a little bit.

You're the man now, dog. This one's for Matt. Dear Candy, Citizen Michael and Lorenzo. Cains. Cains. Those are canes. And I'm a cane. Adam?

Wait. Oh, her again. Oh. Miami Hurricanes. Big Daddy Kane. Is that what the username is? Big Kane, too. Big Kane, too.

I was close enough, Big Daddy Kane. Something to think about from a keeper perspective, how do you think fantasy sites will handle player eligibility if there is no 2020 season? Will players retain the same eligibility they had entering 2020? I am thinking of players that may have had a specific eligibility, but likely would have lost it in 2020. For example, on Yahoo, Isaiah Kiner Folefa, I love this example, has catcher eligibility,

but if 2020 is played out, there's a good chance he wouldn't have it entering 2021. Or those sparse. Would they be sparse again next year? Yes. You can't change someone's position eligibility if a season doesn't get played? Yeah, I wouldn't.

If somebody, this ultimately isn't my call, but if somebody whose call it is asked me what I would do, I would just say carry over eligibility. And as much as is humanly possible, I feel like you should leave subjectivity out of position eligibility decisions. Have it just based on games played. Obviously, if it's a situation where nobody plays any games, you can't have everybody be eligible nowhere.

So it makes the most sense just to have them. pick them where it left off. And by the way, this is what I recommend for like dynasty salary situations to, you know, just, just pretend like 2020 didn't exist because it didn't. And start 2021, you know, in whatever, with whatever the same, using whatever the same, what the circumstances would have been if 2020. Here's a better question. That's the most clumsy way possible.

Here's a better question. better version of Matt Hay-on right now. Okay. If we only have like an 80-game season, are we going to change the requirements for position eligibility to carry over into next year? That is a better question. Yeah,

of course it's better. Come on, Matt Hay-on. You should have thought of that. So right now you need 20 games played at a position to carry it over into the next season. You only need five games in season to gain eligibility at a position. This is for position players, not pitchers. But if you play 20 games at first base, you get it next

So are we just going to do it proportionally? What do you think? Yeah, that's what I think. I think if you play 80 games this season, then you just cut it in half. You need 10 games to be eligible the next year. Yeah. Though, it sounds like the number being thrown around most

for how many games are going to be played in 2020 is 100, not 80. So that, like, would it, what would the number, would it be? Five-eighths. I know, but do you want, Do you really want like 17 and a half games to be the eligibility requirement? You round up.

You round up. I don't have a problem with it being 12 games. People are obsessed with round numbers. I suspect CBS wouldn't change, like the default eligibility requirements, but you're free to do whatever you want in your league. All right, Adam, here you go. We can end the show here on a happy note for you from Brandon Craig. Hey, CBS team.

In regards to the diehard debate, I have a question for anyone who watches the MCU. movies that is the Marvel comic universe, is Iron Man 3 considered a Christmas movie? Ho-ho. Well, I would tell you that I've never seen Iron Man 3. I don't like comic book movies. Oh, and I have no idea, but I'd love to know what you guys think. My guess is there's a little bit of Christmas in it,

and people are dumb and think it's a Christmas movie, but it really isn't. See, that's the thing. That's the thing. I've seen Iron Man 3 before. I've seen it once. It was when it came out, so it's been a while. I don't even know what he's talking about. What happens in the movie to prompt this question?

If I don't in any way associate the movie with Christmas, it is not a Christmas movie. Christmas movies, the point of their existence is it's Christmas. You want to watch it at Christmas time. This shouldn't be a difficult question. I always want to watch Die Hard around Christmas time, so. But I want to watch Die Hard today, Frank. I'll watch Die Hard whenever.

I don't want to watch Home Alone right now. I wouldn't give a crap about Home Alone. But if it were December 20th, yeah, fire up McCauley Colgan, who apparently looks like Joe Burrow. That's a thing now. That's actually true. I've seen that before, side by side. I think that makes sense.

Hot take. I'm out on Home Alone. I used to love it as a kid. I tried to watch this past year around Christmas time. What? Didn't do it for me anymore. I'm out. Somebody

Somebody was never left home alone for an entire week Home alone He's great That's a great movie I'm out I'm out I do love the web bandits I'm living alone

I'm living alone That's what's going to happen to you Frank If you continue with this home alone slander All right I'll be sure to let my fiancee know I guess He'll be podcasting alone too I have to have a talk with her All right that'll do it for Adam

and Scott, I was about to call you, Chris, you are not Chris, you are Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening to Fantasy Baseball today. We will see you again tomorrow where you will actually hear our live podcast that we are doing Wednesday night. We will be back again Friday as well for an all-new podcast, which we will do on Friday afternoon. I'm sure I just confused. Well said, Frank. Bye-bye.