Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Kevin Gausman to the Blue Jays! Max Scherzer close to deal with the Mets! - Emergency Podcast (11/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Kevin Gausman is headed to the Toronto Blue Jays (1:00)! Should we downgrade him in Fantasy? ... Max Scherzer is reportedly close to finalizing a deal with the New York Mets (9:05)! Does it matter where he pitches at this point? ... Jon Gray also signed a four-year deal with the Texas Rangers (11:46). How excited should Fantasy managers be about Gray leaving Colorado? '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

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam. This is like the NLB trade deadline all over again. Madness. I love it. Welcome into another emergency edition of Fantasy Baseball today. Late Sunday night, November 28, Frank Stamphle, joined by Scott White. Here to talk Kevin Gosman, Max Scherzer, and John Gray. Let's start with Kevin Gosman, who is headed to the Toronto Blue Jays on a five-year $110 million deal. Apparently was offered more money by the New York Mets, but turned it down.

More on them in just a little bit. Since the start of 2020, Kevin Gosman, this is where he ranks among qualified starting pitchers. Seventh in ERA with a 3.00 ERA. Sixth in K-minus Walk rate, 23.5%. Fourth in swinging strike rate, 15.3%.

The problem now is that he made half of those starts in San Francisco. Obviously, that's a very favorable place to pitch, and he's headed to Toronto, the American League East. Scott, you initially had Kevin Gosman at SP 13, in your rankings? What are you thinking now? I'm thinking,

I'm not so interested in downgrading him that much. It seems like there is a certain amount of freak out going on among fantasy baseballers because of that venue shift. And it's reminiscent of Jose Barrios going from a less extreme pitchers park in Minnesota to Toronto at the trade deadline last year. I was kind of freaking out over that because, you know, it's not like Barrios and,

Minnesota was even what Gosman had been in San Francisco. I think the most encouraging stat here is X-FIP. Always, right? I'm always citing X-FIP. One thing that we don't talk about often with X-FIP

is that it neutralizes for venue because it basically replaces home run rate and FIP with fly-ball rate. So fly-balls, you know, it's not measure whether or not they go out of the part. It's just measuring whether or not it's hit in the air. And that's

independent of venue. So Kevin Gosman's ex-fit with the Giants, the past two seasons, is just as impressive as his ERA. It's it's let's see, I had the number here. I lost. I think it's 32. 322

versus that even three ERA. So very good, regardless of which metric you're measuring him by. So I really I think really I think the big question for Kevin Gosman isn't so much

can he adapt to this new environment I think he'll be fine his ERA you know there's a good chance it goes up some but to the point that he's not going to be a front line pitcher anymore well if he's legitimately the guy he's been for his past 43 starts I don't think it's I don't think it's enough to worry about the question is is he legitimately the guy he's been for his past 43 starts and the second half numbers

give you a reason to wonder. He had a 4, an ERA over 4-4 in the second half. So the last 15 of those 43 starts. Now, the ERA was pretty high. Now, everything else was great. Swinging strike rate was awesome.

Strike rate great. You know, all the peripherals pretty much during that second half slump for Gossmann still pointed to a pitcher who had broken through as a high end hurler. He just had an ERA during that 15-start stretch. So do you take the 43 starts at face value.

Do you fixate on those 15 starts for a guy who has a spotty, not so much a spotty track record, but just was a mediocre pitcher prior to 2020? You know, obviously one of those sample sizes is bigger than the other. Also, I don't know that Oracle Park from 2020 on, basically the exact same period during which Gosman pitched I don't know that you can assess that as the same way, the same way as you assess pre-2020 Oracle Park,

because beginning in 2020, the time Gosman arrived there, it's played much fairer than it has historically. I was actually just looking at Park Effects earlier today, and it was close to neutral. It was still slanted toward pitchers, but not in the extreme way it's been for the majority of its history. So, you know,

it may be less extreme. park shift than we're even giving it credit for. That I do agree with, but I think you would still say in comparison to Rogers Center and Toronto, it's a decent change. Like, it's not nothing, right? So it's something, it's not nothing. Like it doesn't help. Just like I said on to the previous emergency pod, you never like to see a hitter signed

with the Marlins as Avi Sal Garcia did. You'd never like to see a pitcher leave the Giants. Yeah. Right. But he's going to a contender, stacked lineup. we'll present him with a lot of opportunities to win games. Will his ERA go up some? You know, probably.

But like, if he's legitimate, if Kevin Gossman is legit, then he's still, it'll still probably be better than a 3-5 ERA. He'll still get him, and miss a ton of bats. He'll still go deep into games. He'll win a bunch of games.

I could see dropping him two spots from 13th to 15th that would put him behind Arandola and Charlie Morton in my personal rankings. But I'm not willing to go any further than that. You're right. If he just continues what he's been, he's going to come as a seal once again because he finishes SP8 in 5x5 Roto this past season,

and he's currently SP16 in early ADP. So things could change. I think if anything happens, he's probably going to move down in ADP a little bit after this signing. We'll see what happens ultimately. But let's talk about that ADP, 54.14.

He's going within five picks of three other starting pitchers. So a couple of names here that are really bunched up. Yeah. Gosman, Freddie Peralta, Logan Webb, Jack Flaherty. Who do you prefer from that group?

So I noticed you asked this on Twitter in poll form. I did. Four pitchers. And I was shocked by the result. Should we go ahead and reveal the result? Let's do that. The result was,

Gosman was fourth. Yeah, he was last of that group. Only 15% of the vote. Jack Flaherty was first with 33 and a half percent. So what I find amazing about that is the three pitchers he's being compared to. Because by my own rankings, by my own sensibilities, Gosman isn't even in the same tier as Flaherty, Freddie Peralta, and who's the third one? Logan Webb.

Yeah, he's not even in the same tier then. I mean, the only one of them that's ever had a season like Gossman just had is Flaherty, and it was a couple years ago, and he's now coming off the season where he was injured most of the time. So, like, they all have, I think, big questions to answer themselves, bigger than Gosman does.

So I don't even have them in the same tier as Gosman. So I'm surprised, first of all, that Gosman's going around that group in NFBC. But you know what? NFBC, it's obviously a small sample of drafts. It's a competition that makes for exaggerated drafting tendencies anyway, so I don't really feel like you can take NFC, FBC ADP at face value to begin with.

So I'm less surprised by that than the fact that the voters not only put Gosman among that group, but put him last in that group, which to me just seems like knee-jerk, doom and gloom reaction to where he signed. And I think the passage of time will sober everybody up and they'll look at his numbers again and see just how dominant Gosman was this past season. I think when drafting time actually comes, they'll make a different decision. So it sounds like you're in.

You're in on Gosman. I mean, if that's actually what it ends up being, I guess I'll have a lot of Gosman. Yeah, I don't want to have a lot of Gosman necessarily, but if everybody else is going to be that much lower than me, which I doubt, again, but if that happens, then yeah, sure. I think it just comes down to, and you spoke on this, is your confidence in the pitcher Kevin Gosman,

who he's been the past two seasons, Well, you know, season and a half, right? Because whatever, 2020 was the short in season. But, yeah, like, if you trust that, then, you should be drafting Kevin Gossman. Me, I'm a little bit more wary. Just given his track record, I understand all the numbers.

He's been really, really good. He still is just a two-pitch pitcher at this point, basically. The fastball and Splitter accounted for 88% of his pitches thrown last season. So I still worry. I just have concerns myself about Kevin Cosman. So I don't know that I'm going to be in on this price. I'll see if he starts to slide a little bit, maybe I'll jump in there.

But let's move on. Nothing is done yet, but John Marosi is reporting the Mets are close to finalizing a multi-year deal with Max Scherzer. Now, this is awesome news for Mets fans, obviously, like, already brought in Starling Marte. Like, you should be very excited about this if it happens. Sounds like it's going to be either three or four years. Max Scherzer already 37 years old. So, I mean, you know, you're committing a decent amount of time. to someone who's pretty old.

And an average annual value of like 40-ish is what's been thrown out there, right? Over three, like, this is going to be a crazy. It's going to be- Big a contract as a 37-year-old can hope for, for sure. Right, yeah, I was going to say, like, this is going to be an unprecedented contract for the player, his skill level, and like where he's at just in his career at this point. But he was still amazing this past season. 2.46.

Yeah, 246 ERA, 0.86 whip, 236 strikeouts over 179. and a third innings pitched, finishes the SP1 in 5x5 Roto. He was the SP2 in fantasy points per game. You have some of these concerns. Obviously, getting up there in age, wasn't able to pitch in the NLCS due to dead arms, said that it was, quote, overcooked.

So, I don't know, what would you think if this actually does happen, Scott? Max Scherzer to the New York Mets. How would you feel about that? I mean, Max Scherzer was one of Sy Young in Detroit. Right. Or two. He either won two in Detroit or Washington.

He won one. at least one in each of those locations. And then pitched a half the season with the Dodgers was just as dominant as he's always been. I don't think going to the Mets changes anything. I don't think going to, you know, the moon would change anything for Max Scherz. We know who he is until he gets too old to be that. And he is verging on that potentially. But there hasn't been enough let up in his production to really worry about that, I think,

going into 2022. He did he did see his workload cut back just slightly to he was more that six, seven inning guy than a seven eight inning guy that we've always known him to be.

But that's nitpicking. I mean, he's going to be one of the five pitchers, first five pitchers off the board in all likelihood, whether he's with the Mets or not. Yeah, I think that's the biggest takeaway, right? It's like, he's going to be fine, no matter where he pitches.

You know, maybe Coorsfield wouldn't be great, we know that's not going to happen. His ADP right now is 17.8 as the fifth starting pitcher off the board going behind Garrett Cole, Corbyn, Bernds, Walker Bueller, and Brandon Woodruff. If anything changes from now and the next time that we podcast, we will update you on the situation, but it sounds like Max Scherz are once again close to a deal with the New York Mets. Let's wrap up here, Scott, with John Gray to the Texas Rangers on a four-year, $56 million deal.

one of those pitchers that was actually a little bit better at Coors Field than he was on the road in his career, and we're talking like it's very minuscule. It's like a 4.56 ERA versus a 4.65, something like that. With that being said, his 4.59 career ERA is much higher than his underlying numbers. So, you know, maybe pitching in Colorado has led to some unluckiness for John Gray. But a 3.80 X-FIP, a 4.00 Sierra with over a strikeout per inning for, John Gray, and for what it's worth, Enosaris tweeted this about Gray. Plus slider, the curb balls above average outside of cores, and the team that gets him will believe that they can make some changes on the fastball profile, which fit cores. Either way, the floor is super high for John Gray. The

ADP right now, 298.32, I have to imagine that's going to jump at least 50 picks. Yeah, so, you know, Saris offered the specifics that I was lacking there, but I think what could easily give lost in the John Gray analysis is the effect that pitching at Coorsfield has on an entire pitcher's profile. John Gray coming out of college was about as high end as a pitching prospect gets.

And it's to his credit that he's navigated Coors Field as well as he has, but he's obviously had to change some things to do that. He's had to to, you know, neuter part of what made him so effective in college. cutting back on certain pitches and just developing different habits altogether.

And it'll be interesting to see if he can unlearn those habits after seven years at Cores Field. That's a long time, obviously. And is he set in his ways now? Hopefully not, because we see the road numbers being what they are. Not anything to get excited about in fantasy, especially with the ranger supporting cast to back him up. But if he can recapture part of what was lost just to survive Coors Field, then he could be a pretty exciting pickup late in fantasy.

There may be a ceiling. He may be able to achieve a ceiling that people had forgotten he had. Who would you rather draft right now, Scott, John Gray or Corey Kluber, who just signed with Tampa Bay? I believe John Gray. I believe so as well. You know, I don't want to overreact too much to this, but I'm a little excited. I'm a little excited to see what John Gray could do outside of Coorsfield.

So we'll see. I mean, obviously, I think he made some really good points, some things that he has to change up now regarding the arsenal and just some habits that he's had in the past. So we'll see if John Gray can do that. And if he can, then he could be pretty damn good here with the Texas Rangers. All right, that's going to do it for this emergency edition. of fantasy baseball today. If anything else happens,

I'm sure that we'll go live at some point tomorrow. If not, then we'll just record our normal podcast Monday night and that will come out for you on Tuesday. For Scott, I am Frank, thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball today.

We will see you again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.