Fantasy Baseball Today - Injury Updates with Derek Rhoads! Stay Away from Jacob DeGrom? (3/9 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Join our FBT March Madness Bracket for a chance to join our listener leagues- cbssports.com/FBTbrackets Derek Rhoads joins the pod to break down the biggest injuries in Fantasy Baseball (1:45). How does Derek use data to help with injury analysis (6:40)? ... How risky is Fernando Tatis as the first overall pick (12:20)? ... When should we expect Ronald Acuña back (19:25)? ... How worrisome is Mike Trout's calf (24:06)? ... What about Mookie Betts' hip (31:03)? ... What do we do with Jacob deGrom (35:02)? ... Is Shane Bieber's shoulder okay (41:22)? ... What about the shoulders of Carlos Rodon and Pablo Lopez (45:28)? ... We wrap up with a bunch of rapid-fire injury risks (50:36)! 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. With fantasy! Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, March 9th. I am Frank Stanfield joined by Chris Towers.

No Scott White as he's out-trafting in some league called Tout Wars. I don't know. I've never heard of it. We'll get a full breakdown on tomorrow's podcast. I will reveal just one player he's drafted, Chris. Are you ready? Okay. Are you following the draft yourself?

Yes. Oh, darn it. Well, anyway, the player that I will reveal is Bartolo Colon. That was a big pick. 10th round Bartolo Colon. No, it was earlier than the 10th round, right? It was a... No, 10th round.

It's a big pick. 10th round are Bartolo Cologne. Anytime you can get a value like that, you know, in a pitching starved landscape like this, I think you've got to be pretty happy with it. Yeah, people are probably... freaking out right now. What is going on? Did Scott really draft Bartolo Colon? No, that is a placeholder for Shohei Otani, the pitcher. So he is two different players in this league. He is a hitter. He is a pitcher.

So Scott wound up with Shohei Otani, the pitcher in round 10 as his SP5. Very interested to talk about Scott's draft on tomorrow's podcast. But today, it finally hit me. We talk about all these injured players all the time, basically. There's a lot of them going in the early rounds of drafts. They might not be injured right now. They might have been injured last year, but still, we have a lot of question marks early in our drafts. Why not get an actual expert on the topic in here to help us out? And that's exactly what we are going to do today as Derek Rhodes is joining the podcast to talk about all of these injuries. What's going on, Derek? Hey, man, I am. Thanks, Frank. I'm pumped to be here. This is like kind of, you know, been listening

to podcasts for a really long time, so it's fun to get to do this. I was geeking out with my wife who was very tolerant of my geekiness. So I'm pumped. I'm excited. I really appreciate you guys reaching out and looking forward to talk injuries, which can sometimes be depressing. It doesn't have to be. Yeah, hopefully some good news in there as well. I've been following your work for

a long time. I encourage everybody to follow Derek on Twitter as well at DRHOA3. And he provides injury data for baseball perspectives and of course best ball content at Jag Fantasy. So a nice little some nice niche content.

there. Injuries and best ball together, which, you know, I think that's probably advice I would give to anyone who's trying to get into the fantasy space now is, man, try to find your niche and master that. But Derek, talk to me more about the injury data that you do provide to baseball perspectives. Yeah, absolutely. So a couple years ago, well, I guess it was really before last season. They kind of reached out. They had had somebody who's kind of maintaining injury data for them, had needed to move on to another stop. And I had kind of been doing. some injury analysis and had some injury tools out there just kind of on my own for, you know, to share because it was something I felt like there was kind of a need to for easier access to, you know, historical injury data and stuff like that. And I use it, you know, personally, my own, you know, fantasy plane. So they just reached out and said, hey, we like that. Would you do that for us? And I was like, you mean for money? And they said yes. And I said, yes, I would definitely do that for you. So what I do is all the IL injuries. I'm tracking.

I'm categorizing, trying to get as much detail as we can. And we track that internally and then use that for articles, for research. You know, subscribers can see it on the player pages, things like that. So we try and make it as available as we can so that, you know, lots of different reasons people use it. I like that you point out in your Twitter bioderic that you are not a doctor, but do you consider yourself a Twitter doctor? Because I've noticed there are lots of those. Yes, yes.

No, unfortunately, I have fallen into the Twitter doctor trap. every time it's a mistake. But no, I am not a doctor. I am actually an accountant by trade. I came at this because of the data side. I'm interested in data and data visualization. So that's actually kind of how I fell into the injury stuff. So I try and just rely on the data as opposed to any medical background. I try and pick up, there's lots of guys who are doctors who speak in this space and I try and learn from them. But no, very much not a doctor. So I always think that's important to clarify, especially because my Twitter handle kind of makes it look like I'm a doctor. Yeah, it's like Dr. H-O-A-3. Who is that guy? He's the doctor. He's the Homeowners Association

Doctor. The third one. Community, yeah. Yeah, yeah, the first two. The first two. Yeah, but something bad happened. It's a dark story. Before we get into the actual players, I've got a bunch of players written down. I do this thing where I really jam pack every single rundown and most of the time we don't get to everything. But anyway, we'll get to the players. It's worth mentioning we're recording. We're recording this around 10, 15 p.m. Eastern time right now. So if any kind of breaking news happens regarding the MLB and the Players Association as they're currently meeting and, well, not face to face anymore, I think they're just like calling each other up. Anyway, they're negotiating. There's lots of stuff going on. Lots of proposals being thrown out there right now. So it seems like we're

getting closer. I'm trying not to get too optimistic because I've already been crushed once before. I don't want it to happen again. But any breaking news, of course, we will get to you here on the podcast. I think the best way to think about it is like Schrodinger's cat where like whether it's close or not, we won't know until it happens. Like there either is or is not a deal. And until Rob Manfred opens the box, we can't, we won't know if there's actually one. So that's the, that's the way I'm thinking. It's just there's no probabilities at play here. We'll just find out when we find out. What's in the box? Do you know the movie, Chris? That's a rare movie that you have seen. It is. That I have also, I have also seen that. It's not an Adam Sandler movie, by the way,

either. So I will point that out. We got a tweet about it. It was eight crazy nights, right? Yes, yes. Actually, I really do enjoy that movie. Anyway, let's get on to the play. Let's get on to the players. We're going to discuss them in order of ADP. I guess, you know, that's basically order of importance. So anyway, we'll start with the very top. I do. Can I just want to ask, like, some general questions, I guess, before we do get into it. Do it. This is, you know, a data-centric approach. And that's something that I think is missing in a lot of the ways we talk about injuries

just because it's really hard to do. There's a lot of data. There isn't like it isn't like we can just look at someone's player reference or baseball reference page and say he had 37 home runs and, you know, this kind of injury information. It is available, but it's generally a little hard to find. often go to a site called Prisports Transactions.com

which is just this really like very basic like I feel like it's like almost web one like web one point no kind of site where you can just search for like a player or an injury type and I'll just give you everything to a certain I don't know exactly when but

that's been a super useful resource but then you have to like climb you know get through all that data and one thing for me that you know I kind of think about and this is a thing that has influenced a lot of the way I write and analyze that, like, to a certain degree, injuries are kind of like the last black box in fantasy analysis.

Like, we're so, the industry as a whole is so sharp that it's really hard to find, like, like when we're talking about busts or breakouts, it's really hard to find, like, man, this guy's just obviously valued incorrectly. Like, I think we all view Charlie Morton that way on FBT.

But I think injuries. are kind of like the last place where there's maybe inefficiency in the market a little bit. So I don't know how like as far as the data you have, I don't know how much, how do you feel like how does that help you in your, in your analysis or your, or your play? Yeah. And I would say that I think that in baseball in general, it is one of the still one of the big black boxes. Like there, there is still a ton. People I've talked to have had the fortune to just meet a couple people who basically have said like, like baseball is behind. Like we like there is a huge wealth of information that is still to be learned about how to keep players healthy, you know,

best practices for returning and not having re-injuring things like and that we're just like that it's behind. And so then we're behind. And some of that's because it's a data problem, right? Like we find out, okay, player X has a strange shoulder. But that could mean a lot of different things. And teams,

teams will stay strange shoulder and they don't always mean the same thing. And so you you operate in this. this issue where we're, you know, even when we do have the data, which we try to have, you know, it's maybe not as clear as it could be. And so much of what I'm trying to do is use the data to create range of outcomes. So understanding that I'm working with imperfect data, and some of that's because it's limited to like my capacity. And some of that's because it's limited to what the teams give us.

So whenever I try and do things, I try and say, okay, give my samples as big as I can, you know, and try and create kind of ranges of reasonable outcomes that that might occur. and then use that to kind of inform the way I think about things. I wish, you know, there's some guys who have done some good work. Jeff Zimmerman over at Fangrass has done a lot of good work in this space. And even he would say, like, it is very challenging to try and nail down. Like predicting injuries in the fantasy space, like we can say, I feel it's risky. We can say I think it's, but like, it is very hard to create models.

Like, like, it's just an evaluate. It's the kind of thing, you know, we've seen a lot of guys go from the fantasy space or the baseball writing space in general to work for teams. And, like, you know, if there was someone who was really, really good at predicting injuries, they probably wouldn't be doing it in the fantasy space publicly. They would probably be working for the Yankees. Yes. Or something like that. So it's a- I love how you pointed out the Yankees, Chris, because they got Johncolo Stanton and Aaron Judge.

It's a lot of money, you know, I feel like. But, you know, maybe the Rays or the Padres seem to like hiring writers. But yeah, that's Yeah, I think that's And then one of the other things I notice a lot with like the data side of it That can like complicate things It's just like

Sometimes the same injury gets called multiple different things Depending on the team You'll have like one team call it a groin strain And one team call an adductor strain And it's like Technically they're in the same area And so they could both be right Or like you said with like a sprain

Or a strain you know like a strain is technically a tear. Right. And so you'll hear like, oh, he only strained his elbow. And it's like, well, that could mean a lot of different things. So it's a difficult thing. Yeah. It's very hard.

And that's, you know, I always, I always just try and keep in mind that I, I'm working within perfect data. And so I try and create, like I said, it's why I'm, I struggle sometimes people are like, well, give me an exact. I can't give you an exact because, number one, you know, my data is not good. of. But number two, like these, like the same injury can lead to completely different recovery times. It can read to different, you know, different outcomes. All these teams have different approaches to recovery, you know, a lot of similarities, but like certain teams are

going to have different approaches. Some are more aggressive, some are not. So, so I always try and try and think, okay, how can I make this kind of more of a probabilistic thought process? It's more of a, it's a thought process as opposed to like, I can't give you like percentages on a player likelihood. But I try and think of range of outcomes because, like you said, Chris, teams aren't great with data. And I try and go back. You know, we get more clarity later. But, you know, there's so much information. Sometimes you just can't do it. You know, there's going to be players we talk about tonight that we were told one thing. And then we find out months later, it's something completely different. Yep. And let's start with the, the player at the

very top. Fernando Tatis, he's the first overall player being drafted. His ADP is 1.2. And we know by now he had multiple shoulder subluxations last season, and he opted against surgery this offseason. And Derek, I mean, I feel like I've heard this from other sources already. Like, apparently this is something that can keep happening for Fernando Tatis. So is that something that you believe can happen? Like, is that very likely to happen this season? And if so, how worried are you about selecting him first overall in your fantasy baseball drafts?

Well, I think we can say with certainty that it's more likely for, him than someone who doesn't have a history of shoulder instability, right? So, um, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's guaranteed or even likely, um, for him to have another issue this season. Um, I would say it's likely for him to have another issue at some point in his career because what happens every time that happens, it, it basically kind of loosens things up and it's more likely to happen again. Um, the surgery is supposed to help is supposed to design to kind of like reset and restabilize and hopefully can kind of like, um, cut off the chain where it's kind of repetitively happening. But you can also do that through other

methods. You know, and we don't have a ton of details from Tatis. Like we don't know. Like, you know, maybe he's getting some injections that, you know, to help, you know, foster some some strengthening. Maybe he's doing a lot of, I'm sure he's doing a lot of work this off season to strengthen the shoulder and to try and just create some stability there. Like that is a, that is a method of treatment. In fact, it's, it's more common for like non-athletes, but because, you know, people can take longer if they're normal folks. So I think you just have to have a, the right mindset with Tatis, which is, I think he does have a higher risk than, you know, Trey Turner for having a shoulder subluxation, right? Like, but it doesn't mean it's destined to happen. And I think

you just need to kind of put that into your risk profile. So if you're going to take Tassiz in the first round. I think you'd just be thoughtful as you move throughout the rounds and say, look, I want to kind of create a little more security or at least the perception of security with the understanding that even when Tatis was injured, played really well when he was on the field. And that's a benefit compared to maybe some other. Yeah, and I think you could expect that, assuming he's able to get back on the field. I mean, he's shown an incredible toughness. Yeah. Look, last season, even though he played 130 games, he finishes the fifth overall player in Roto League's last season. And so it didn't affect his stackass data.

He still crossed the ball. Obviously, he's still incredibly fast. So that power speed combination, a batting average that is going to help you, of course, when it comes to Fernando Tatis, all reasons why he's still going first of all. And Chris, I believe that you are one of the people selecting him first overall. You did it in your Tao Wars draft.

Yeah, I'm willing to do it. Obviously, there is some risk, but, you know, it's the kind of thing where if he wasn't, if he didn't have any injury at risk, would there be any question about Fernando Tatis going to going number one or at least if he didn't have any the way we talk about this is always a little fuzzy yeah exactly everybody has a reception right yeah yeah if he didn't have more perceived injury risk than your average player right um would there be any question about him going number one i don't think so i just given what he's done over the course of

his major league career i mean we're talking about three seasons but really kind of two full seasons worth of games right around 300 games or so, maybe 280. And he's been like remarkably consistent across those games, even though there's been some like changes in the skill set, the strikeout rate has gone up and down. The BABIP has gone up and down. But we're talking about a guy who over the first 273 games of his career has 162 game pace is 48 homers, 31 steals, 292 average, 116 RBI, 125 runs. Like there's there's no question.

that a guy doing that at the age of 23 would be the number one. I mean, we're talking about, like, I think that's better than what Trout was doing at the same point in his career, at least in terms of fantasy production, which is, I mean,

Trout's one of the best fantasy players ever. He's one of the best players ever. So that's the kind of place for Natta Tati's occupies in baseball right now. So I just think, like, even if you are discounting him for injury risk, I just still think he's so good. that he kind of has to be up there.

And, you know, this, this does remind me one thing that I wanted to ask, um, Derek before I, you know, before we moved on was what kind of like, what are the kind of baseline? Like if you have this data, what are kind of the baselines for like, how often does a, a position player? Because I've seen like starters, it's like 20% of them go on the aisle in any given year for starting pitchers, relievers, I would assume is probably around the same. Because I, I think.

a lot of the ways we tend to talk about this as, you know, sports people in general is more like, like I said earlier, a player without injury risk. Well, every player has injury risk, and that depends on things that we don't know and things that we do know. And, you know, every player has a chance of getting hurt in any given game, any given pitch, et cetera. And so it's like, you know, to try to calibrate the way we think about those things is like, does everybody have a 15% chance of going on the IL? And Fernando Tatis is 30%. that kind of thing is the way I think it helps to think about it. Yeah, I don't have that at fingertips.

I know that Jeff has done some of that works against Zimmerman, but mostly more for defining pitchers, the easier to define pitchers. What I would say, when I'm looking specifically at hitters, what I'm concerned about, like, any hitter could get a hamstring strain, just at a drop of a hat, right? But I'm not worried about those types of injuries as much as I am the injury that puts a guy out for the year.

And there are very few injuries that are going to put a hitter out for the season. That's one of the good thing about hitters is, you know, they're generally, you know, injuries, even a two-month injury would be a pretty serious injury for a hitter, you know, maybe an oblique strain or something like that. And so that's where Tatis has a kind of a range of outcome that I don't think the average player has. Because if he has shoulder surgery, we're not going to see him. Yeah. Versus the typical player, like, you know, like we're going to talk about a Kunya in a minute.

Like an ACL tear is actually pretty uncommon for, it's a pretty uncommon baseball. injury. And that's something you might see somebody out for you. But most other hitter injuries, you're not expecting to lose a full season. So that's where I kind of go, that is a unique risk to him, I think, where it goes like, hey, the range of outcomes isn't just a month on the IL. It's the season. And that, you know, maybe I don't think the next guy has a very high risk of losing a season.

So that's for hitters, that's kind of my calculus. It's like, oh, anybody could miss, you know, two, three weeks. but how many guys could miss six months or how many guys consistently miss multiple months or something like that. Let's talk about Ronald O'Cuna, who you just mentioned, and he tore his ACL on July 10th last year.

He underwent surgery on July 22nd, and during the World Series, he said his timetable was May. He was having a conversation with Alex Bregman, someone picked it up, and as a result, it was reported May was the target date for Ronald de Cunia. Over the past month,

Coonia's ADP is up to 9.2. he just went fourth overall in Scott's Tout Wars draft that he is doing tonight. So, Derek, I mean, what is your expected timeline if you have one for Ronald Lucuna? And when would you actually select him? I mean, just knowing the risk factors involved with him. I've always kind of been like a late April. I thought he would just get a slow start to the season. I think if the lockout weren't happening, this is the kind of thing like this would be known.

Like, we would know. Like, we'd see what he's doing in spring training. and, you know, this is the kind of thing that the lockout is killing this type of player, the player who's recovering from injury and you can't, you know, yeah, we can see him doing stuff and he's showing his videos, which we would only expect him to show good videos. We wouldn't expect him to show videos where, like, he's struggling or if something's gone wrong. You know, but my guess is Akunia is not going to be the one who's like pulling back. It'll be the team who sets his recovery pace.

Like, you know, it's going to be their comfortability. As I mentioned before, ACL injury is not super, you know, tears are not super common in baseball. I was looking through kind of like the last few guys that had it. Andrew McCutcheon is a recent guy. Royce Lewis is recovering and is going to come back. He was out a really long time. The twins have been really cautious with him.

When I looked in 2018, Akuna had a, he bruised his knee and he had a mild in ACL strain. And it was very mild. He was back in like a month. When he came back, he came back at the end of June and he stole four. 14 bases for the rest of the season, which is like a season-long pace of like 2325. I think that is a reasonable expectation for 2021. Now, he doesn't, you know, he's not the same player as he was in 2019 or 2018. The Braves know who he is.

I think they kind of let him do more of what he wants to do now. I mean, we saw him, you know, steal a ton of bases, right? But I think that we probably see a slightly slower pace of stolen bases, maybe a little less aggressive and kind of easing into it. But like, I think there's. a chance he's back. I mean, I wouldn't be shocked, to be honest, if he's back by opening day. Like, I could see it. I don't know that I would predict it, but like, I could see it. You know, the difference between April, you know, 10th or whatever opening day ends up being

and May 1st just isn't that, it's just not that big. I have taken him a few times lately, because as the, as the, and I think you noted this, Frank, as the opening day gets pushed back, like, you're, you know, you're kind of compressing the season. I think you, you know, a couple weeks. And maybe that makes a difference. So I've kind of taken him right around the turn, but obviously he started to go higher than that. If it weren't for the stolen bases, I think you probably still see him in the second round. You know, so I get it, though. I think it makes sense.

I think it's a logical way to approach it. But I would be a little surprised if he's as aggressive as he was in 20, the last full season in 2019. And I remembered that previous knee injury that he suffered too. I believe that was his rookie season. It looked dark, right? Yeah, yeah, like his foot like slid across the base or something, and then it looked like, you know, he kind of like jammed his leg into the ground. And I was like, oh, man, because I drafted him everywhere as a rookie. I'm like, I was all over Ronald Acuna, waiting for him to get called up. And then he got called up and eventually got hurt like a month later. And I was so worried, but then he came back and he was amazing. So I think that's, you know, great, which you mentioned, you know, 14 steals were the final couple of months. And obviously he's a better player now than he was then. So I think it's a good point there on Acuna. Chris, before we get into the next two, outfielders here, Mike Trout and Mooky Betts.

I know that you've been the Acuna guy, but where does he rank among that group? Acuna Trout Betts. Oh, I think I have him ranked last of that group. But that is also

kind of contact specific and team build specific and what you want to do. But let me just make sure in Roto, yeah, he's just behind those guys. He's right around the one two turn for me. All right. Yeah, I've got, I've got it, I've got a Trout Acuna Betts as of now. And I've got Betts Trout Acuna. That's, yeah, I think you can ask a few different people and get different answers, obviously,

depending on the expectation. But let's talk about Mike Trout, who the ADP is 11.6. So, you know, over the past month, he's moved behind Ronald Acuna. And Trout suffered a calf strain in mid-May last year, he said he actually heard something pop in his calf and was expected to miss six to eight weeks. He never returned last season. I found an article on the athletic from late September where Trout said he was quote close to 100% if not 100% in late September. And he also went on to say, quote, once I talked to the trainers and talked to the front office and made the decision to shut it down, I kind of took a little bit of time off and then I started doing things again. I started running. I started working out. I'm feeling great. I don't feel it at all.

And that was in late September. However, Derek, it seems like Trout is still being pushed down, either with the concern over the calf injury or the fact that he just doesn't really steal bases anymore. So what is your concern level year over year when it comes to a calf injury, which seems pretty severe in hindsight? Yeah, no, it definitely was severe.

And it sounds like part of the issue was he was having some scar tissue after recovering that just wasn't healing the way they wanted to. and so that he was still having some discomfort, and they just, they weren't happy with that. So that's why you could like, because there was this point where it's like, oh, yeah, he's almost back.

He's almost back. He's almost back. It felt like that was like six to eight weeks of that. You know, there's not a long list of calf strains that have led to that much mistime. It's a pretty short list. Troi-Louiski is on that list. That's not a list you want to be on.

You know, now the flip side to that is, you know, it's not a long list. So it's not like we have a ton of, you know, guys we can just point to and say, well, look, look what happened the next. year. I think he would probably be a little more susceptible, maybe to some lower leg injury. But my guess is they'll be also more cautious and more aware. And that maybe it just leads to like, you know, a little rest here or something like that. I think the part of the concern with Trout,

though, is kind of a pattern now. We've got a couple years now where we've seen some, some injuries and some mistime. And then you couple that with the fact that he's changing kind of his player profile. And then I think that's what people are just not really sure what to do with him. Chris, was he on the points league you guys drafted the other night? Was he on your team?

Yes, I believe so. Yeah. I think that's the type of team. Like, I think that's the type of context where, like, I am much more happily taking trout. Twelve teams, whether it be points or short rosters, like, with replacement. Like, I think that makes a ton of sense.

I get it in draft and hold or 15 team deep leagues with, like, really shallow replacement level. Like, I think, you know, you might let that slip a little bit more. But I think there's no reason not to be aggressive in a format that is that has a nice replacement pool. Yeah. And that was the thought process there. My outfield was Trout, Yelich, and I can't remember who the other one was, but it was a similar type of player. Some that there are injury concerns about. And, you know, I think one thing that I, I tend to not be as concerned about injuries just because I, like we talked about earlier, the fact that we

don't know as much about them. It makes me think that it's an opportunity for market inefficiencies. But in that format especially, you know, Scott was saying on yesterday's podcast, you can, in a 12 team head-to-head points league with three outfield starting spots, you're going to find viable starters on waivers at any time. I mean, it's really like the pull of available guys in that format makes it like, you're not going to get a zero if Mike Trout misses time. And that's true in a Roto League, but in a 15-team league, especially,

where you might have to replace him with, you know. A negative player, quite frankly. Like a player- Yeah, someone who might hurt you. Yeah. That's where it starts to get a little iffier. But in a head-to-head points league where you're going from, I don't know, maybe a projected 22 points a week from Mike Trout to 14 from the guy that you might pick up on waivers, like that's not nothing.

Right. but it's not a huge, huge loss if it's only a couple weeks. Trout is the kind of, trout's an interesting one because, and there are a couple other players like this, and I think Byron Buxton has kind of become the poster child for this for me, where it's like, Trout does have this calf injury,

which was serious. But before that, it was a lot of, like, miscellaneous kind of nagging, smaller things where it's like, how much does that, like,

how much should, that those kind of things happening to the same player multiple times when it's not the same injury, I always struggle with how to assess that risk. My sense is that that type of risk is overblown, but I honestly don't know. I think when it's disparate body parts, I am much less likely to be concerned. When I see sort of like a pattern of like lower leg injuries, or a pattern of like a guy who constantly is getting hit, you know, hit by pitches and has like, you know, hand issues, stuff like that. Like those to me are much more actionable, right?

Like then like, oh, we had a finger issue one year and then a heel issue another year. And then he had a hamstring strain the next year. It's like those don't, I don't know. Those don't mean that much to me, especially for hitters. Or like with Buxton, a big issue for him in his career was just he couldn't stop running into the outfield wall. And that he's had concussion issues as a result of that. And something that the twins have. Well, yeah.

And then he moves really fast. And so something that the twins started doing. last season in 2020 actually was he's playing shallower than before. And so they're basically saying you're such a good defensive player that we're going to play you shallower to take away some of that risk. We're going to tell you know, he's he's actively making a decision to play less aggressively near the wall. And so my hope is that it will help him to stay healthy. Last season, obviously he then had a hip injury and got hit by a pitch. Yeah. It's so unfortunate too because you'll have people that say,

oh, well, look at Buxston and Corey Seeger. They were hurt again last year. They're injury prone. It's like, dude, they broke their hands because they got hit by pitches, right? Yeah, that's the thing that's tough. You can't predict it. Byron Buxon's been hit by a pitch

17 times in 493 games. We're not talking about Derek Dietrich here, you know, a guy who's like leaning over the plate or something. You know, that's not a part of his game. There are some guys who, Anthony Rizzo gets hit by a lot of pitches. That's part of his game. Yeah, sure does.

That's not Byron Buxton. And so it's frustrating. It's frustrating. I don't know what to do. Yep. He's like the extreme. To me, to me, I don't, I don't think I would ever, like, anybody holds Buxden up as an example one way or the other. I just go like, like, I don't think we should make rules based off of like this guy who is clearly an outlier one way or the other.

He's either the most unlucky guy ever or he's the most injury prone guy ever. But either way, it's hard to make a rule, you know, some kind of rule for drafting based off of him. Yeah. Yep. Let's wrap up this trio of outfielders. Mookie Betts has an 80P of 13. He dealt with a hip injury for a large portion of last season. He wound up getting a cortisone shot in July.

Ultimately, it was a, quote, down year for Mookie Betts, where he hit 264 with 23 homers and 10 steals. Betts opted not to have hip surgery in the offseason and apparently is feeling much better. Derek, how worried are you about this hip injury lingering for bets as he moves closer to 30 years old? Yeah, I'm not overly worried. So the issue was a bone spur.

And from what I understand and, you know, having, you know, listen to other folks and done some reading, the issue that can come up is they, is it gets irritated. And then when it gets irritated, it gets inflamed. And that's when you have to do something. You can actually go a long time with a bone spur. And if it doesn't bother you, great, everything's hunky dory. And a lot of times, as long as there's not that inflammation, things might be hunky dory, which is why probably why he didn't elect surgery, because once they got the inflammation under control,

he's feeling comfortable. As long as we don't see that irritation again, which it could happen. You know, I think we could probably see, you know, a healthy bet season. If it does happen again, I think we'd probably see what we saw last year, which was kind of managing it. That's not a bad worst case scenario. It's certainly not what you want, but I think we kind of saw what his work, what playing through that injury looks like.

And if that's kind of your floor, I don't think that's a bad place to live, knowing that there's a ceiling beyond that. Yeah, I mean, he did what he did last year. You know, look up how many games he played, but overall, I mean... It was 122 games. Yeah. Pace for 162 was like 30 homers, 115 runs, 80 RBI, 75 RBI, 15 steals. Like, it was still a pretty awesome season by...

And the thing with Betts is we've seen something very similar from him before in 2017, very similar overall production. And he came out and had a historically great season the next year. And that's not to say that will happen, but it is to say that I'm not personally all that concerned about Mokey Betts. Derek, you're on the clock at Pick 10. All three of these outfielers are available. Ronald Acuna, Mike Trout, Mookie Betts.

Who are you selecting? Roto League, I'm taking Acuna points. I'm taking Trout. Betts is probably pretty, like I'd rather take the other two over bets, especially at 10. Like I'll just, I'll just, if bets fall. to the second round, give me that. But that's where I'm at with the other two. All right. Before we get to some pitchers, Jacob de Krom, most notably, I want to remind

everyone to join our Fantasy Baseball Today Facebook group. It's a fun community asking a bunch of different questions. Every single day, there's player analysis, there's Dynasty, there's Keeper questions, you name it, they ask it. People looking for leagues, people offering leagues, joining new leagues. So it's really fun and make sure to check it out. And feel free to join Facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy baseball today. We're going to take a break when we return Jacob de Grom here on fantasy baseball today. All right, so let's talk about DeGrom. His ADP is 21.2 and he is a freak.

He's far and away the best pitcher on the planet on a per inning basis. The problem is he's missed time due to neck, lat, back, shoulder, forearm, and elbow issues over the past two seasons. He was eventually shut down last year with UCL inflammation. And Derek, I have Jacob deGrom ranked as my SP7, but the truth is, I'm I really don't even give much thought to drafting him when he's the top pitcher available. I tend to be risk-averse, at least in the early rounds, and as a result, I'm just not winding up with any Jacob de Grom. What say you?

This is a guy who's impossible, because, like, if he's healthy, he's not pitching, he's pitching 200 and he's the number one pitcher in baseball, and, you know, it looks silly to have not drafted him. if he has a season beyond just nagging, if he misses the season, then it's like, well, you idiots, you shouldn't have drafted him. And I think to pretend that we know which one of those outcomes is going to happen is silly.

I don't even know if we can really predict which one's more likely. I think the problem is what we'll do is we'll project for like 140 innings, which is like the middle. But the reality is I don't think that's likely. I think we either see all the innings or very few of the innings. but you know so so so frank my thing is i'm the same way i've not drafted him unless i auto drafted him on accident um and you know i've got a couple of those shares and i will brag about those if he pitches 200 innings but um generally speaking i just don't like that that's my range of outcomes that i

see a world where maybe it's a 25 to 30 percent chance that i get less than 100 innings and that that's not an outcome i want from a guy i'm drafting in the third round or you know depending on your league yeah it was a 92 innings pitched for jacob de grom last year Chris, I know that, you know, we're obviously still waiting for more information to come out. We need to bring training to find out more information. This is another one of those players where if pitchers and catchers reported in the middle of February, we would have a lot more information on Jacob de Gromman, and it would be a lot easier to analyze him. But where have you settled?

I know that early in the all season, you really kind of liked the idea of drafting him, and then you kind of soured. So where are you at now? a very soft SP3 but I you know it's kind of like

there's like a band where he's you know actually SP3 to SP7 or something and I don't know if in any given draft I would actually have the courage to take him there and it ultimately comes down to like

your personal level of risk tolerance and some people are more willing to take on risk or more willing to build their team in a way that can overcome some of that risk. And in DeGrom's case, I think you can look at it one of two ways. You can look at it and say, well, the baseline level of injury risk for every pitcher is super high, relative to hitters especially. You said it was like what, 20% just give or take something like that?

I believe historically, yeah, 20% of starting pitchers end up on the IL. It could be higher than that, actually. But he certainly has risk. But you look at last season, Shane Bieber was this guy who we were like, oh, he's a rock. He's going to throw 200 innings. He's one of the best bets for 200 innings. And then he gets a shoulder injury and he barely pitches. And so it's always tough.

Like, Garrett Cole in 2016 had right elbow inflammation. There were concerns that he was going to need Tommy John surgery. He was someone people weren't touching for a year or two after that. and then he pitched 200 innings pretty much every season after that. So it's always so tough when it comes to pitchers because anytime you're investing in pitchers at a high level like this, anytime you're taking a pitcher in the second round or third round, you're inviting a significant amount of risk onto your team.

More than any hitter you could probably get in grab. Maybe that's not true of like Garrett Cole versus, I don't know, Fernando Tatis or someone. But even then, I would say probably, Garrett Cole has a similar chance of suffering a serious injury. That's just the nature of pitching and the way the the elbow joint works when you're putting that kind of strain on them. And so it's really hard. I think I'm out on Jacob de Grom at the place where I have him ranked, which is a weird thing to say and probably means I need to move him down. But I also, I can't

bring myself to move Jacob to Graham down below Zach Wheeler. Like that's, seem stupid. I think Zach Wheeler's good, but like, Jacob de Grom is putting together one of the best stretches by a pitcher ever in the history of baseball. We're talking like not Pedro Martinez in the late 90s, early 2000s, but Greg Maddox in the mid-90s, Sandy Kofax in the late 60s. Like this, this is the level that he's pitching at. And so it is, I was it. I was just a sick, Chris, like that, like, the one, if you were going to make the argument for, for Jacob de Gromman, I'm not sure I have the intestinal fortitude for it.

But like there is no skills risk. Like if he is the safest skills player in the draft, I think we can say with confidence. Like even Garrett Cole, we'd look and go, what if the home runs go crazy? Like there's this like Jacob de Grom does not have that. So if he's healthy, you know, like I think we can speak with a level of certainty about him that probably we can't with any other player. Yeah. There's something he said for that.

I haven't had the guts to go like go into that. but I think there is something to be said for that. Yeah, look, he is the ultimate, I would say, in the first two rounds, risk-war player, because if he even gives you 160-plus endings, he's likely the number one player in fantasy baseball. Not just pitcher. We're talking player, the best player in fantasy baseball. So if you can stomach that risk, then Jacob deGrom is the player for you.

I'll point out that someone left a comment on YouTube recently, and they said if you just put Tyler McGill's production with Jacob deGrom, based on the 92 endings that you got from Jacob to Grom. If you just combine those, it was the number one pitcher in fantasy baseball. That's not surprising, yeah. It's kind of crazy to think about, but yeah, that's just how good he is.

Let's talk about a multitude of shoulder injuries here, Derek. And you kind of mentioned at the top, like, shoulder injuries are not created equal. Obviously, it depends on the pitcher, and there's like a bunch of different things going on in the shoulder. But we'll start with Shane Bieber, and he's got an ADP of 25.8. He's going just after Jacob

Grom. He was limited to just 16 starts last season. He missed over three months from June to September with a shoulder strain. Don't know exactly what kind. You could tell us more about that. But he returned for his final two starts. Velocity was down. He typically sits 92, 93 with the fastball. He averaged around 91 miles per hour with the fastball. Are you willing to invest an early third round pick on Shane Bieber knowing what we know right now? Yeah, I don't have a huge issue. with it. Just to speak to his injury a little bit. And I would, this is a great example of a time when you should seek out the medical folks, because they can give you a level of granularity about these injuries that I can't as far as like which part of the shoulder. And Nick Savali on Twitter did a good deep dive on Shane Bieber. We talked about the type of strain it was. It's a subscapularis. I'm going to mispronounce that. And you guys, you know, internet, you can have fun with that. But it's a type of strain that isn't. you don't worry about it as much as like, say, a rotator injury. My bigger concern is not that his VLO didn't come back, because I think you could say,

well, they didn't ramp him up, you know, whatever. His VILO was down before he got hurt, and that concerns me. He was down a mile per hour from where he was in 2020. So 2019, we have the good season. 2020, we have the insane season. And then 2021, we step back down to the 2019 velocity. I think that the 2019 season is where he's. your expectation should be, which is still a very good player.

And I think would be worthy of a third round pick. And so like I don't have an issue. I've got a few shares, not a ton. But I don't have a huge issue with that. And I'm not overly concerned about a re, you know, recurrence of the injury. His team's not very good. I don't feel like, I feel like there's, there's some concern about what he'll have around him, which is why I think the third round, why people aren't like in, maybe in love or thrilled.

But I don't think the injury should be what's holding you back. All right. So just to give people an idea of what he did in 2019, Shane Bieber, 328 ERA, a 105 whip. He had 259 strikeouts over 214 and a third innings pitched. Obviously, I don't know that we're expecting, you know, more than a handful of pitchers to go 200 plus innings, obviously. But yeah, the ratios and the strikeouts were fantastic for Bieber. The thing that I struggle with Bieber and, you know, Derek, you brought up with Jacob, on there's no skills risk.

With Bieber, I do think there is some because, and I've talked about this a lot, but I just feel like he is, he's kind of, it's not like a super razor thin knife. It's not like the like Japanese knives. It's maybe more like, I think the German knives aren't quite as sharp. They're cut at a different angle. But it's like, because he gets hit so hard, so consistently, I just, I always feel like if there's just like a minor diminishment in terms of his skill set. Things could go really wrong really quickly for him.

And I don't mean really wrong in like a five-year-A or anything. But it's like I could easily see Shane Bieber having a pretty normal season where he has like a four-yard just because he's on the wrong side of variance on home runs and doubles. And just, you know, that's that's the concern for me is that we're chasing a lot of ups. side with him and I do think there's the production and injury risk there. Although the way you talk about it, the shoulder injury being not so much of a rotator cuff, but I was looking at up, it's more like in the back of the shoulder. You know, maybe that is reason for less pessimism than I was thinking. So that's, that's an interesting thing to bring up. Derek, I'm going to throw two more names your way here. Carlos Rodon has an ADP of 106.4. He has a history of shoulder trouble. He missed some time

last year because of it. He averaged around 96 miles per hour with his fastball. His first 20 starts, and then he was down around 93 over his final four starts. The other name here is Pablo Lopez has an ADP of 121.2.

He hit the IL last season with that dreaded right rotator cuff stream, and it's now the third serious shoulder issue he's dealt with in the last four years. So I think two guys that when they're on the mound, they're both really good. There's a lot of talent there.

but both have pretty significant, significant injury risk. What do you think about Rodon and Pablo Lopez? Yeah, this comes to a tolerant standpoint and a team building standpoint for me. You should expect both of these players to miss time. Like not like they might miss time. Like you should,

you should plan that they miss a chunk of the season. With Rodan, I think it's harder to know how much of the season because we just, he's a player who's kind of changed a little bit over time. He threw harder in 21 than he had in previous seasons. He threw really hard for a good chunk of the season. But you kind of just see the straight line at a certain point.

Like he peaks and then his velocity just declines as a season goes on. His injuries, it's like shoulder fatigues, shoulder soreness, shoulder inflammation. So like there's obviously shoulder issues. The team didn't just jump on him after that season, which to me tells me, hey, you know, not that they may not, you know, they may still do it after, you know, lock up. but they weren't right on it. And so there's risk there, and you need to understand that. And, you know, I think there's a risk that he pitches like 50 innings

or there's a risk that he does what he does last year, which he pitches most of the season great and then wears down. And you just have to be ready to kind of accept that, you know, that range of outcomes. Paulo Lopez, I think the range of outcomes is a little more set in that, you know, as much as he has had injuries that have derailed every season, he's also kind of stayed in a range of innings, he's been between like 100 and 130 innings for like all of the last four you know if you combine across the miners for the last three full seasons he's like 120 125 108 so if you run your projections you need to set you know a pablo lopez uh projection like most likely outcome at like 125 130 or something like that and then anything you get above that great wonderful maybe the shoulder stays healthy for a season but you probably shouldn't expect it to um

So I don't, the style of leagues because I play best ball and you can't replace guys, I don't draft these kind of guys. Now we're getting into the season where you're playing, you have replacement level, you have maybe IL slots. I think it's a very different calculus and I think they're much more taller in those type of leagues. All right. Chris, I personally have Pablo Lopez ranked ahead of Carlos Rodon's here. I understand how amazing Rodon was last season.

I'm just a little bit more worried about the injury risk, which, you know, Derek obviously touched on there. even though he's going 15 spots later in ADP, give me Pablo Lopez over Rodon. I do think Rodon's the better pitcher. I think Pablo Lopez is good, but the good version of Carlos Rodon, the version that we saw last season,

is, I mean, I don't think it was like a fluke that he was one of the best pitchers in baseball when he was healthy. I think he legitimately was that good. The problem is, you know, I'm looking at his four-seem fastball for his career, and it was the highest of his career, 95.4 miles per hour at average Velocis.

it was even higher than that before the last four starts. His whiff rate against his fastball was 29.7%. His ex-Wobo loud was 280. Those are absurdly dominant numbers. Those are, like Brandon Woodruff has one of the best swinging strike rates on his fastball. He's usually in that range. And so that was a big part of what made Carlos Rohn so effective last season was. He had always been someone who the slider was really good,

and he just needed to figure out what the second pitch was. and it was like, well, if he gets a change up, last season it was just his fastball was so dominant that he didn't need, you know, a good change up. If his fastball's not that effective, I don't think the overall package is anywhere near as impressive. And he just,

he basically hasn't been healthy at all the last like four or five seasons. And so I think he, you know, like Derek said, he's someone you're expecting to miss time. You're not like, well, there's a risk. gets, he's going to miss time. I, you know, that's the issue. Yeah, I wouldn't argue that. I think, you know, Carl Swardan, his best is, is better than Pablo Lopez.

I guess depends what you want at that point in your draft. If it's upside, think Carl Swardon, if you want, you know, a higher floor type pitcher, Pablo Lopez is probably the one that you want to chase there. But I think the total package, the injury risk, the high floor, I prefer Pablo Lopez over Carl Swardon myself. We've got about 10, 15 minutes left here, Derek. so I'm going to try and like rattle off and go through as many of these players as we could possibly get to. Sixthos Sanchez, you know, obviously there's a bunch going on here.

He had shoulder surgery last July to repair a capsular tear. He's expected to return sometime midseason. Is he somebody worth stashing in an IL spot this year? Or would you just stay away? No, I think you just got to stay away. And that sucks because Sixtho Sanchez is an exciting player. But I don't think you can wait this one out because they're already sane like middle of the season. And all it takes is one little thing

and then he shut down for the year. Yeah. Sticking with the shoulders here, Jack Flaherty, Logan Webb, and John Means, they all dealt with shoulder injuries in season last year. Again, not all shoulder injuries created equal. Anything especially worrisome with this group, Flaherty, Webb, John Means?

Probably Logan Webb of the two I'm more concerned about not necessarily the injury, but the fact that he had the injury and then he also had his highest innings pitched by a pretty significant margin. last year he pitched 150 innings. I think his previous high was like maybe 100 innings. So that doesn't mean he's guaranteed

to be hurt next year, but we could have been seen somewhere, you know, maybe he was a middle of the season injury. So it wasn't like the end of the year where he kind of just crapped out, you know, like just hey, my... He was better than ever. Right, exactly. So, but you know, he's the guy of the two where I go or of the three, maybe this is the one I worry about a little bit more.

But I'm not overly worried about any of those guys. And Flaherty, he had an oblique that then he gets injured the shoulder and the shoulder came like right after the obelique. He never really seemed like he was healthy. I think it's very reasonable to think that there was related when he came back. His Velo was down and then he goes on the, you know, I have the shoulder injury. I'm not worried about him. John Means, you know, he's got a few different things in his injury history, you know, little things here and there. He's had some shoulder stuff.

Nothing that's kept him out for a long time. But he's also never pitched like 200 innings. And some of that's because of his skills, not his health. But I don't, I'm not overly worried about his health. All right. Let's get to a few more of these. Charlie Morton. Now, Derek, this will determine whether or not you're allowed back on the podcast ever again. The ADP for Charlie Morton is 88.2. He broke his fibrillow on a comebacker in the World Series, expected to be ready for spring training. And he recently told David O'Brien of the Athletic

that he's, quote, mostly caught up to where he would normally be at this point in the off season. If he's healthy, he seems criminally undervalued. What do you think, Derek? When I was reading around that, I was like, oh, this is the one I'm out on more than I think you guys are. It's not because I think he's bad because I do think he's very good. And it's incredible.

Like I think, you know, I think he still has this stigma from like years ago, which is nuts because he's been throwing like 95 miles an hour for a while now, right? Like, and he's been extremely talented the last few years. I am a little nervous the fact that he is still talking about being mostly red. Like he's being very cautious with his words. And I can think he went on to say in the interview like, well, we'll see what the team says when the team sees me. Like things like that make me go, it could just be an older guy who just knows the game. and it's just like, look, I'm not going to hype things up. Or it could be a guy who goes, I know that I'm going to have to ease into this season.

And it may be a late start for him. That's the way I read it. It is a pretty big surgery. I mean, like, or a pretty big injury that he's coming off of. And I think sometimes we can be like, oh, it's a bone issue. Maybe let's not worry about that. But, like, Bellinger had, you know, a fracture that, like, lasted a super long time longer than we expect it. Like, things can still happen even when it's not muscle related.

So I'm a little more cautious. I think that I think where he's going is a reasonable place considering the injury plus the age. I mean, he's not a young man. And so, like, I think that's a pretty good spot. And if you like Morton, just take the value and walk on down the road. All right, Derek. Well, it was nice knowing you. We will wrap the podcast.

I knew it. I wanted to wait until the end of the podcast, you know, to really get that in, you know, trying to get as much as I can much every time. I knew we should have led with Charlie Morton. Chris, I think that's the reason, right? Like we've talked about this recently. Why are we so much higher than everybody else on Charlie Morton in the industry? And I think that's probably a reasonable explanation.

Yeah, maybe it's just because we've, I've never broken a bone. Maybe that's it. Me neither. I don't know what goes into it. Maybe that's just where we're those outliers where we just don't know how hard it is. Yeah, perhaps. Let's talk about some Tommy John recoveries here. Obviously, Justin Verlander, another not so young man, ADP 107.6.

He's kind of in a category of his own when it comes to these Tommy John recoveries. He had TJ back in October of 2020. He is now 17 months removed from the surgery. Derek, the last time we saw Verlander in a full season, he finished as the number one overall player in 2019. What are your expectations? And do you find yourself investing at this cost? I have not drafted much Verlander.

I'm not really opposed, but just seems like there's always been somebody in the room who's a little more interested in him than I am. Here's an example of the type of risk I don't like taking, though, is with the guy who has both health and skills. When you talk about, you know, we saw like what he made like he pitched six in 2020. Like we haven't seen him pitch since the 2019 season and two years at his age. Like that's not nothing. Now, Houston re-signed him after seeing him come back.

So to me, that's an encouraging sign. They saw enough there. They go, look, this is a guy we will gladly bring back into the organization. So I think that he will probably be pretty good. I think that, you know, again, you have some concern at his age. You know, are we, how many innings are we going to see, you know, will we 100, you know, will we see that same quality? Especially because coming off the 2019 season, he was talking about changing his mechanics and like, he was just doing tweaking. And you don't like to hear that off a guy coming off one of his best seasons.

So again, I think he would be another example of a dude. If we saw spring training, I think you would either be super in on him or super. out on him because we would we would know so much more. Yeah, like one 998 mile per hour fastball. Right. Right. No, no, exactly. Yep. You're exactly right. Whereas like it's not that. That's not the case for like Jacob de Grom

for me. Right. Because for me, it's not really a question of what does Jacob de Grom look like right now. It's a question of can he stay healthy? Which it's a question of both for Justin Verlander, but specifically, you know, he has to get past that first barrier. And I think his value would jump

if we saw him look like him. Derek. It's just different for those other guys that you're about to mention. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about those guys. There's a trio in Luis Severino, Clevenger, Mike Clevenger, and Noah Cinderg, going between picks 160 and 200.

Do you find yourself gravitating towards any of this group, Derek? Not one, not one. And I think that it's not that you can't. I just think that I just don't like that there. There's other guys who I think have a profile that may not be as high as Steelers. but certainly is higher floored. And, you know, you don't necessarily always want to draft for floor. If I had to be, if I was forced to pick between those three guys, it's probably Clevenger for me.

Maybe just above Severino. Sindegarde I'm out on. There's just so much. There's just so much. The concern with Clevenger to me is we saw the big Velo jump and then we saw injuries happen. So maybe he goes back down to the Velo. see a dip in skills. You know, so that's wishy-washy.

Yeah. Chris, I know that you typically target this group. You drafted Severino the other day. But how do you rank that group? Severino, Clevenger, or Cindergarde? I think it's actually that order. And, you know, like Severino, I like more in where I drafted him the other day, which was in that points league, just because he's got that spark eligibility. It's a shallower format.

so you can replace him if need be, especially at an RP spot, because there's going to be a closer available in that format. So that's where I like Severino best. I do have them Severino, Clevenger, Cinderguard. Yeah, Severino, it's just a shoulder and an elbow that he's missed time with now. He hasn't pitched really since 2018. He was indisputably an ace for two full seasons before that. So it's, I think the upside's significant.

but yeah, if I, when I do draft these guys, it tends to be after this, uh, this range, when they fall, except for with Severino in that points league, just because prices were out of control now that being anyway. Yeah, right. All right. So, Derek, I'm going to just rattle off a bunch of names here and, uh, you can give me like you're either in or out and like whatever 10, 15 second analysis on each of them. Christian Yellich with the back injury last year and Cody Bellinger, uh, one year further removed from the, shoulder surgery. What do you think about these two in or out? In Beliger, out, Yelich, more skills than health. All right. Clayton Kershaw. Clayton Kershaw has the forearm and the

elbow. He's obviously spent a bunch of time on the IL the past six seasons. He's now 34 years old. Did not receive the qualifying offer from the Dodgers. In or out, Clayton Kershow. Way out. Way out. Well, that's perfect because I just spent $42 on him in the Scott White Dynasty League. This is like a really unique format, Derek, where it's a 24 team head to points league and all but like 10 viable starting pitchers were available, like were kept in this league. So it's like, Kerchall and like like, yeah, it's not real money. Frankton and rebuild.

So it's probably like if he gets three healthy weeks out of Clayton, Kirchall, it's time to trade him. Yeah. Trade him. Yeah, that makes sense. 100%. Alex Breggman is coming off for wrist surgery in November. Anthony Rendon had hip impingement surgery in mid-August in or out in the

those two. In Bregman, but I would like to make sure that he's, you know, healthy for spring training. Rendon, I don't like the fact that they're still uncertain, like the language they're talking about Rendon is like, he should be ready or will probably be ready for spring training. I don't like the way that they're talking about that. I would, like, I'd like to see what they said with Trout is 100% healthy, we'll be ready. I don't like that they're couching that with Rendon. All right, Max Muncie, partially torn UCL, and he revealed earlier this week that rehab has been going well. He's swinging a bat. Planis to be ready for opening day, but he won't know for sure how his body reacts until he plays in actual games. Max Muncie in or out. I am out, but I understand

why people are in and I don't think they're crazy. I'm just not. Music to Chris's ears. They're just the thing like we just don't have very much like this is one of those injuries that we just don't have much to go on. It's a it's a hitter Tommy John's or hitter torn UCL that's not having Tommy John surgery in his non-throwing arm. So it's like, is it likely to impact his swing? Barry possibly? I don't know. Shoha Otani was really good playing through the same thing in his rookie season.

But it's also what's the re-injury risk? I don't know because it's not his throwing arm. So was it a fully torn UCL? I don't know. I mean, there's not. He injured it in the first place, though, right? So like the fact that it's not as a throwing arm doesn't mean that he will, you know, but they definitely can't re-injured.

My thing with Muncie, this is going to just longer in 15 seconds, but is that, again, the range of outcomes is zero and a full season. And there aren't very many hitters that have that. I would have felt better had he gotten the procedure that we saw Reese Hoskins get a few years ago, which is a new procedure to treat torn UCLs for, and it's an internal brace procedure

and in really quick recovery times, relatively speaking. But I understand. if doctors aren't recommending it, you shouldn't get it. But I would have felt better had we seen that. And we saw Reese Hoskins get that one in the offseason and then come back at the beginning of year. I'd have a little, I'd feel a little bit better. So I just don't like that uncertainty. Well, let's talk about Reese Hoskins, who had surgery to repair a tear in his lower abdomen in late August.

The recovery time was six to eight weeks, in or out, Reese Hoskins. I'm in. There was a million guys who had lower abdomen, spore ternia, like core surgery. issues. I think there's literally like what's like I don't know, seven or eight guys that had that sort of, you know, that type of surgery at the off season. I'm mostly in on those guys. Well, Hoskins

being one. I think that means you might be in on DJ LaMayhew who had a sports hernia surgery right after the season. What do you think? Yep, I'm in on him. All right. Zach Gallin and Lance McCullors. I wrote on the rundown elbow slash forearm stuff. So that that usually sounds bad. What do you think about those soon?

In on Gallin, out on McCullors. I think if you're in on Gowan, you do need to recognize that like it's not like super clear that it's 100% no problem. But he did come back from his forum issues was throwing the same. His velocity was there. His pitch mix was was mostly there. So tons of pitches. Yeah.

So like they moved him. So I feel pretty good about Gowan. I will not draft McCullors at all. All right. Matt Chapman had surgery on his right hit hip labrum late in 2020. He was quite bad last year. Do you think a further year removed from the surgery can help match him? I hope so.

I was kind of in last year. Coming off the hip surgery, I thought he was going to be all right. And so I took the L there on that one. I think that if he's bad this year, it's not because of the hip. All right. Yeah, I mean, lots of strikeout risk, obviously, and just overall talent risks there. One concern for me with the hip was that his defense was worse last season by most measures. So that that's the one place where it's like,

okay, maybe he wasn't 100%. But that doesn't make me, that doesn't necessarily tell me whether he'll be 100% this season or whether this is kind of a new baseline. Alex Kierloff, someone who Scotty Dubs does like quite a bit himself, had wrist surgery late last season. The recovery

timeline was eight weeks, and I believe this is something he's dealt with dating back to his days in the minors, in or out on Alex Kierloff. I have no idea. My opinion, the injury is not what I'm worried about. I don't know how feel about him as a player. He's a guy who I just, I don't know what to think. So I'm not out because

of the injury, but I don't have a real strong opinion on him as a player. All right. I've got a bunch of late round options here. So I'll just throw them all your way. And if there's one or two that you particularly like, either stashing or to start the season, feel free. Let me know. Carlos Carrasco had surgery to remove a bone fragment in his elbow, James and Tyone coming back from ankle surgery. Steven Strassberg had thoracic outlet. Zach Eflin had knee surgery in September. Nate Pearson had a sports hernia, Mike Soroka coming back again from the Achilles. Seth Beer, he's the only hitter of this bunch, had shoulder surgery because of a dislocation. Do you like anyone from that group? I like Carrasco. I think that he's

finally fallen late enough that it reflects kind of his year-in, year-out injury issues, and that particular surgery doesn't bother me. I don't like Straussberg. Coming off Thoracic outlet at his age, that's a really challenging recovery. I work. a ton about the velocity. I don't understand why people are, I feel like people are more positive on Zach Eflin than I am. I think he could miss multiple months of the season. Like I haven't really heard much. We haven't heard much. The surgery, like they were talking, I thought I had some in my notes that they mentioned after the surgery that he would, they would be a pretty long recovery. So, and he's out, he dealt with knee issues before. So I'm, I'm not feeling about

Eflin. All right. Chris, is there anyone that you find yourself targeting from this group? I've drafted a bunch of Carrasco already, so. Oh, and don't draft Mike Soroka. That's the one that makes me good. That's the one that makes me the most sad just because Achilles injuries are so tough for professional athletes. And we've seen some success stories around other sports. We've seen, you know, Cam Acres came back in five months. Kevin Durant has basically looked like himself.

That's something that Achilles injuries used to, if they didn't end your career, you came back generally as a much diminished version of yourself torn Achilles. There really were not very many success stories. I want to say Dominic Hawkins was one of the few success stories before like the last five or so years. And Akila, Syroca is going through it twice. Now I think it's much worse the second recovery rates are much lower the second time. Adam Wainwright did tear his Achilles, right? I think it was a different injury.

I know, yeah, I don't want to say, I can look it up if you guys want to vamp, but if not, it's okay. Yeah, it was a horn Achilles in 2015 out nine to 12 months. So I don't know exactly what the distinction would be, but, you know, obviously I think the second time. Yeah. Because from what I understand about the Achilles injuries, the ruptures, the really bad thing is that you just can't do anything

while you're recovering. And so one of the big risks is like muscle atrophy. If you look up pictures of like Elton Brand after he ruptured his Achilles, you can see noticeably. And there obviously aren't a lot of baseball examples of this. Ryan Howard's another one. Right. But Elton Brands, whichever calf he ruptured his Achilles on is noticeably smaller than the right one. It's just because you can't do anything for like six months, it's really, really tough to recover from.

So I would expect coming off of it twice in, you know, a 16-month span is probably, going to make it even tougher for Sorro. And a shoulder injury in between those two things. So, yeah. It's just not great. It's so tough for Soroka, too. I love them coming up, too. He was awesome to watch. He's so crafty and too, and he put together that breakout season. So I would say for those in Dynasty or Keeper League as Soroka's getting closer to

returning and, you know, there's optimism building and people getting excited. Yes, we could see Mike Soroka pitch again. Try and shop them. See if you can just kind of trade them away for, I would say, not anything, but like if you can get value for Mike Soroka, then yeah, I would definitely. I would say something similar about Nate Pearson. It's just, it's been so many different things. He's pitched so little as a professional since getting drafted that it just, it feels like it's so hard for to see how it comes together for him. Yeah. You want to know why I spend $42 on Clayton Kirschall in the Scott White Dynasty League? It's, it's because I have Nate Pearson on my team. So, so there's that. He is Derek Rhodes.

Make sure you follow them on Twitter at DRHOA3 provides injury data for baseball perspectives and of course best ball content at JAG Fantasy. Derek, we appreciate you so much, man. Hey, thanks for inviting me. Love coming on, guys. Appreciate it. All right, we're going to wrap there for Derek and Chris.

I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow with Scotty. Bye-bye.