Fantasy Baseball Today - Lance Lynn Traded To The White Sox; Our First H2H Points Mock Draft for 2021! (12/08 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 8, 2020

🚨 Lance Lynn was traded to the Chicago White Sox for Dane Dunning and another prospect. What's the Fantasy fallout?... We hit on the rest of our news and notes, including Raisel Iglesias being traded to the Angels (8:35). Who's next up to close for the Reds? What's the DH situation looking like for the National League?... What is our general strategy for H2H points leagues (17:16)? ... Who took Gerrit Cole first overall (20:10)!? What else happened in the first round? ... Seven starting pitchers were drafted in the second round (24:33). ... Why does Frank love the third-round hitters (29:55)? ... Seven more starting pitchers were drafted in the fourth round (33:12), including Zac Gallen to Scott. ... Eight more starting pitchers were drafted in the fifth round (40:03)! Is this where Blake Snell should be drafted? ... Where were Corbin Burnes and Zach Plesac selected (44:00)? ... We hit on five topics in five minutes, including an update on Mike Soroka (47:15). ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday '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, @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/ 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

Sound the alarms, fire up the hot stove. We have another trade. True story. I was sitting down to edit fantasy baseball today. We already had it in the books. And then Lance Lynn was traded to the Chicago White Sox, Scott. So in 2020 for Lance Lynn, he was great. Top 10 pitcher in Top 10 starting pitcher in Roto.

17 and a half fantasy points per game. That was SP12 in points leagues. Now moves from Global Life Field over to Chicago. more of a hitter-friendly park that he's going to have to pitch in, but he'll also have better run support. What does this do for Lance Lynn's value heading into 2021? Does he move up? Does he move down? Neutral? What do you think? I don't know that I'm actually adjusting him in my rankings.

I haven't have him 17th among starting pitchers right now. And we talk about him actually quite a bit later in the podcast because we break down a mock draft where I take him. I have some concerns about Lance Lynn just how good is he really? Because, you know, compared to 2019 when he broke out in a big way, obviously a late stage breakout, he's already in his 30s. The swinging strike rate was down.

The X-FIP was pretty high, actually. I want to say it was about 430. 4.34. It was a whole run higher than his 3.32 ERA. Now his XERA, that's the stat-cast method, based on, you know, how likely the batted balls are to become hits, among other things. Now, it gives him a very favorable XERA. So I'm not putting it all on the ex-fip here.

Obviously, a really strong two-year trend for Lance Lennon, more than anything. We just know the workload he's going to deliver on that, going to seven plus with great consistency in a year where we're not really sure what kind of workload anybody's going to get. So I have some concerns about Lynn. That's why I can't really justify ranking him higher than 17th, but I rank them as high as 17th because after you, once you get past that, you run into workload concerns with most everybody. So this can only help because of the supporting cast, I think,

but I'm not, I'm not exactly moving him up. Yeah, the workload is probably the best asset that Lance Lynn provides. He just led all starting pitchers with 84 innings pitched in the shortened 2020 season. and I think at best it's a neutral move because you might want to knock him down a little bit because he's going from Globe Live Field which was 22nd and home run park factors according to ESPN.

He's now moving over to guaranteed Ray Field in Chicago seventh and home run park factors there and he did just allow a career high 42% fly ball rate. So you worry a little bit about that but he also gets Yasmani Grandailles as catcher. So it's pretty damn good. That's good. And really that Rangers lineup was abysmal this past year

and I don't know that it was shaping up to be any better in 2021. So not a bad thing. Now, the guy going back in this deal, and it sounds like it's going to be a couple players, we don't know the second one yet, a prospect, but Dane Dunning is the bigger name going back to the Rangers. And I actually think, I actually think this is a bigger deal for Dane Dunning's fantasy value than it is for Lance Lins.

Because Dane Dunning, if you'll remember when he first got called up here, in 2020, he was looking great in terms of missing a ton of bats. His first three starts, I just hang on a second. I just lost it. Okay. His first three starts, Dane Dunning had a swinging strike rate of about 18%. I mean, it was amazing. But then the last four starts, it dropped to 7%.

He was a different pitcher those last four starts. those last four starts than those first three. And there was a dramatic change in pitch selection for Dane Dunning, those first three starts versus the last four. Basically, he went from leaning most on his best two pitchers, the four seamer, best two pitches

is the four seamer in the slider, to suddenly he was leaning on the sinker and change up, which were not his best two pitches. And so it makes me wonder if the White Sox really knew what they were doing with them, or if this was their effort to, okay, you know, you got to get you got to get contact earlier in the count so you can go deeper into games.

He did go deeper in those four games, by the way, at least the first two of them, but then he started getting hit pretty hard because he wasn't using his most effective pitches as much. So I think there's a lot of reason to be excited about Dane Dunning. I worried he was, I worried maybe he was getting some bad advice with the White Sox, and considering an organization just went out and acquired him with their best asset, I feel like the Rangers probably have a good idea what they're going to do with Dane Dunning

and I might consider moving him up because he's only, he's only 66th for me. Yeah, Dane Dunning, I think we can consider him a legitimate sleeper for fantasy baseball and there were some things that he did early on. You mentioned that we really did like and maybe they did want to limit his innings

and have him pitch more to contact because he was coming off Tommy John surgery which he had back in 2018 as a member of the White Sox minor league system, and then this was really his debut here in the short and season. So again, that is Dane Dunning, who I like as a sleeper. Scott, are you willing to go on record and say you like Dane Dunning as a sleeper, late round flyer? I mean, whatever you want to consider him. Yeah, I mean, I consider more of a sleeper now than I did. Like, when he first got called up, those first three

starts, like I was putting him up there with like Ian Anderson, you know? I'm like, wow, this guy's, this is looking like a big deal. And I just totally soured on him. But it's so clear with the way his pitch selection changed that that you could see how maybe he got on the wrong track. So I like a more as a sleeper now than I did before this trade. Last thing before we wrap up here in

2021, Scott White wants Lance Lynn as his SP blank in your rotation. SP3, SP4. Well, I have him 17th, so for most people that would make him SP2. But for me personally, you know, I want to go heavy on the pitchers at the start. So

probably no less than my SP3. All righty, one of our first big moves of the off season. It's fun. Hopefully more things start to happen. Again, this is the, this is winter meetings all week long, virtual winter meetings. So we could have a very busy week here. And we are about to get to, as you'll hear on the podcast, the Rysel-Eglacius trade as well. So enjoy the rest of that. And enjoy our first look at our head-to-head points mock draft for 2021. Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. field.

This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question. Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. With fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam. You know, I feel like I've been a little neglectful towards our head-to-head points league audience,

so let's get back on track. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, December 8th. Frank Stanfield joined as always by Scott White, and I would like to especially give a warm welcome to everybody who didn't make their fantasy football playoffs. It's fine. it happens.

And Scott, I would argue that if somebody is looking to play fantasy baseball for the first time, a points league is the way to do it. Well, I would agree, especially if you have experience playing fantasy football.

It's kind of fantasy football scoring format that's been adapted to fantasy baseball. It's how I got my start playing fantasy baseball. It was my first love. And it remains my overall love, at least as far as

I mean, I've gotten into some sim leagues. We were just talking about score sheet before we started recording. And I really do enjoy score sheet. But among what we think of as fantasy sports specifically, head-to-head points league, that's still my favorite format. And that is my longest-standing home league. That is your 24-team Dynasty League. So someone emailed recently and said,

you need to talk more about head-to-head points league. So apologies. We'll get back on track. We'll talk about the points leagues. For me, it's just like talking about Roto, there's more strategy involved. So for points, because you really just want to draft the players that give you the most points. And we'll talk about that today. As we look over the results of our first head-to-head points mock draft that we did this offseason,

we did this just last week. And of course, we had a trade go down today. So no more jibber-jabber. Let's jump right in, Scott. Rice-Elegelius traded to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for Noah Ramirez. I think I said that correctly. and a player to be named later. Basically, this was a salary dump

as Iglesias was owed just over $9 million. Scott, your initial takeaways. Does this matter, does this change any type of value for Riceley-Glaesius? I don't think it changes his value at all. It now introduces

a closer opening for the Reds when previously there was one for the Angels. The clubhouse favorite to take the Angels closer gig was Mike Myers, M-A-Y-E-R-S, are many Mike Myers in the world, but this one spells his name M-A-Y-E-R-S.

And, I mean, 29 appearances last year, he looked like a closer, 210 E-R-A, 0.9 whip, 12.9K per 9. But the Angels, it took them a while to even try him in the role when they were struggling to find a closer all year. And apparently they weren't ready to commit to it in 2021 either. Meanwhile, the Reds, I mean, there are a lot of closers out there on the market, so they could go get a guy.

But if this was mainly a cost-cutting measure, it seemed like they'd fill it in-house. And they have a couple of pretty good options there. Lucas Sims, a former starting pitcher prospect for the Braves. Though he's worked the past couple years in the Reds bullpen, and he had a breakthrough year last year, 245 ERA, 0.94WIP, 11.9K per 9.

Numbers about as good as what Mike Myers-P. put up. And then there's also Amir Garrett who throws left-handed so that might make him the less likely of the two to step into the role, but he actually did have a save this past year. Numbers about the same as Lucas Sims actually, 245 ERA.93Wib 12.8K

per 9. And I would say those two are the leading candidates for the Reds and they're probably going to just slot, I mean Sims specifically, probably going to slot right into where I had Mike Myers ranked going into 2021. Yeah, so my initial reaction was,

I was actually on the clock in a 15-team slow draft, a roto draft that we have going on, and I took Amir Garrett ahead of Lucas Sims, and I don't know if that was the right choice, but I guess it was probably just a name that I gravitated to, but Enosaris, of course, from the Athletic, does fantastic work. He was tweeting and advocating for Lucas Sims earlier today

and looking into his numbers, 100th percentile in curveball spin right this year, 99th percentile in fastball spin rate for Lucas Sims. You brought up the numbers. He was pretty impressive, and he was really good in the postseason too. Two and two-thirds, hitless endings with five strikeouts for Lucas Sims. Amir Garrett. These guys nearly had identical numbers, Scott.

It's so weird. Amir Garrett, 245 ERA, 393 whip. Lucas Sims, 245 ERA, 994 whip. This is like so random. But they are both very good. We'll see if they give any kind of indication in the offseason which way they're leaning. but most seems... It's certainly possible

it starts out as like a platoon or a... Yeah, but most teams like to use a right-handed reliever as the closer. Yeah, so... Yeah. And I, you know how I am with the... Or maybe you don't. But my feeling,

when a manager announces a bullpen by committee, a closer by committee that it's just a matter of time before one guy takes the reins there. And that's mostly proven true. I mean, that the race seem pretty committed to their committee. and Gabe Capilar managed teams seem pretty committed to their committees,

but otherwise not so much. For Reisel Iglesias, he was the RP6 in Roto this past season, a 274 ERA-091 whip, eight saves 12.1K per 9. He will slot in as the closer for the Angels and likely remain a top 10 closer moving forward. Scott, MLB teams were told to operate under the assumption of no universal D.H in 2021. My guess is this is just some kind of bargaining chip,

and the only reason why they put it out there is to bargain, obviously, because... Well, I mean, what else are they supposed to say is kind of my takeaway from that? Because if the season were to begin today, there's been no agreement worked out apart from what already existed, which is no DH in the NL. But I still think it's very likely. There ends up being a DH in the NL. the owners

don't need to hand the players that without getting something in return. I know it's been speculated, maybe expanded playoffs would be what's given in return, and I don't know how I feel about that personally. But, you know, it's, it's, I would, you know, I would say 6040.

6040, no DH in the NL, but still very likely that there is. Let's make it happen, man. For all those Dom Smith fans out there, let's make it happen. Of course, if there were no DH, that would mean there are less homes for guys like Nelson Cruz and Marcelo Zuna and Michael Brantley. So something to pay attention here in the offseason.

Gio Orchella underwent surgery on Friday to remove a bone chip from his right elbow. He'll need three months to recover, which puts us at the beginning of March. And I'm just going to get something off my chest here as a Yankee fan in general. this is now two off-seasons in a row where they could have opted to have people have surgery earlier in the off-season right as soon as the season ended and opted to wait for some reason.

So just the medical staff with the Yankees and their decision-making just continues to baffle me. I don't understand why they waited for this for Urchella and now it pushes it closer to the start of the season in spring training, which is just frustrating, but hopefully he'll be okay

because he was awesome this year. I know you liked him, Scott, and he's someone that, assuming he's healthy, I would like heading into next season as well. So see what happens. Yeah, it's, it's amazing how, like, even in this mock draft, we did this head-to-head points league mock draft. I got him.

I waited until very late to take my third baseman. I waited till round 15. I took Cabrion Hayes, who I actually ranked lower than Gior Eurashella, but I was kind of banking on this widespread malaise. That seems to surround Urchella still among fantasy players. And so I took him right. The very next round, round 16, Gior Echella, as my utility play,

are also kind of backing up Hayes at third base in case that doesn't pan out. I mean, Urchella this year averaged 3.17 points per game, head to head points per game, 3.17. That is more than Alex Bregman average, more than Nolan Aeronado average, more than Raphael Devers averaged. it's right around what Kavan Bizio, who we mostly consider we mostly think of him as the second base,

but he is eligible at third base and is right around what he averaged. 3.21 for Bigio, 3.17 for Urchella. More than Matt Chapman, Urchella average, certainly more than Chris Bryan. I mean, I wouldn't be a surprise to anybody. Yeah, he was up there. Georscha, I mean, what he did in 2019,

carried over to 2020, more line drives, hitting the ball hard, all worked out and he's in a really good ballpark and a great lineup to hit in as well. So let's just hope that he's healthy because I don't know why they waited. A few players were posted today when we are recording this. From the Yomiuri Giants of Napan's Nippon professional baseball, they have formerly posted right-handed pitcher Tomo Yuki Sugano for Major League teams. He is 31 years old.

This past season, he had a 197 ERA, 0.880. WIP, 92 to 93 miles per hour on the fastball with strong spin rates, according to scouting reports. And a couple of people projected him as like an SP3, SP4 in the majors. So there could be some fantasy value, the name again to pay attention to Tomoyuki Sugano, and then the Kiwom Heroes of the KBO officially posted shortstop Haas Young Kim. And I brought up his name a couple of weeks ago. I don't think you were on the show, Scott.

I think that was a guest-filled week. But a lot of excitement about Kim, 25 years old, 3.06 batting average in the KBO this past season. 30 homers, 23 seals, 921 OPS, the home runs and the OPS were both career highs. And he's pretty young, so he's entering his prime. Two names to pay attention to Sugano and Ha-Syung Kim. Our first head-to-head points mock draft of the offseason took place last week. 12 teams. And of course, the normal rosters in this format.

one catcher, one of each infield position, first base, second base, third base shortstop, three outfielders, one utility, no middle infield, no corner infield positions. You start five starting pitchers with two relief pitchers, and if you have ever played points league before, you know that there are going to be some starting pitchers

that have relief pitcher eligibility. We like to refer to those as SPARPS. Scott, any general rules or strategies for head-to-head points leagues just to kind of refresh everyone that, you use maybe year in and year out that you use also in this mock draft or were you trying something new that you don't normally do? I well I mean I could I could continue to hammer home the starting pitcher point that I'm going heavier on that than ever and I think it's easier to do in this format because it's only a nine man hitter lineup and when you're so that it means you know

what is that? 108 hitter spots to fill between the 12 teams. You're only going that deep into the hitter pool in terms of who needs to be in somebody's lineup. And hitters generally, that's not what people stockpile their bench with

in this format. They may have one or two hitters on the bench, but normally they're stashing starting pitchers there because they want to take advantage of two-star weeks. Points format is more forgiving for that, more forgiving for the volume there that a two-star pitcher will give you than a Categories league is. So there's a lot of good hitters

throughout the year available off the waiver wire in a 12-team version of this format, which means like you're almost... I feel like in some of these leagues, I'm kind of constructing my lineup on the fly. Like there may be three or four hitters that remain locked in for me all year, but otherwise I'm swapping guys out

pretty often anyway. So why not get more at the more from more examples of the asset that you're going to have the harder time replacing off the waiver wire, which is a high-end starting pitcher?

Yeah, exactly for me. The same thing. For me, just aggressive on starting pitchers always have been in this format. You use less hitters, as you mentioned, Scott. And because of that, it's just shallower and there are more hitters to pop up on the waiver wire.

So yes, be aggressive early on in the season, whether it's you play with Fab or just first come first serve, whatever it might be. Just be aggressive with those hitters on the waiver wire and hopefully your pitching actually pans out. But that's generally been the strategy for me. And it was with the first overall pick as well, Scott, where most people would probably gravitate towards a hitter or a Mike Trout. And I even had Scott text me.

after I made this pick and he said, did you really just make that pick? I got to make sure I had to make sure this was an auto draft. So for most people, the top three,

Garrett Cole, Bieber, DeGrom, CBD, in some order, you are going to rank these three. And for me, I do like DeGrom the most in a Roto League.

But in a points league's got first overall pick, I took Garrett Cole. To me, I think he is the safest in terms of workload of the three. I understand. Bieber goes deep into his starts.

He did this. season, but Cole has done it for longer. Three straight 200 inning pitch seasons before 2020. So that would be 2017 through 2019. Just a tad worried about the injuries with Jacob de Grom.

So for that, I took Garrett Cole. First overall, Scott, would you have done the same thing? Would you have taken a picture? No. Who would you take? Well, if I took a pitcher, it would have been one of the other two, more likely than Cole. But it's certainly possible.

Cole ends up having the best season of the three. You're definitely going against the consensus there, but you're not going out on some crazy limb either. I would say that in this format, those three pitchers are in my top six. So, you know, technically, number one, I have trout. And I may have bets number two, actually. And then the only other hitter I have in that group of six at the top.

this points league format is Juan Soto. So, yeah, I probably would have gone shroud number one if I went pitcher. It wouldn't have been cold, but, like, at least you got one of those six there with the top pick. I was, I actually picked seventh in this draft and wound up with DeGrom.

So somebody else went away. I wouldn't have gone with the first six picks for me to wind up with DeGrom at number seven. So part of the reason why I took Coles because I knew that a good hitter would make it back to me at the two three turn. I knew that everyone else would be aggressive on starting pitchers, as was the case. And I just don't, I wouldn't feel comfortable if my first starting pitcher was Jack Flerty in a points league, which is who I wound up as my SP2 at the two three turn. So it's for that reason, we did one of our podcast leagues.

I had the first overall pick and it was a points league. we did this draft back in July, and I took Christian Eich first overall. And I had to reach on all these pitchers at the two-three turn. I think I took G. Lito and Charlie Morton. And just like all year, my pitching, I was chasing pitching, and it just wasn't great. So I said, you know what?

I'm not doing it again. I'm taking a pitcher first overall. And if I actually had this pick in a real draft, I would use it on a pitcher. After I took Garrett Cole, Scott off the board, when Mike Trout, Mookiee, Mookiee, Juan Soto, Shane Bieber, and then you mentioned you took

Jacob de Grom's seven. So the one that got added in there that I want to include among my top six is a cunia, not in this format. I mean, I have them number one overall in Roto, of course, where you have to pay a premium for steals, where that's a scarcity that you have to buy into.

But, you know, they contribute to a player's point total, but there's not that scarcity element in the points. Like, it doesn't matter if you get any steals at all. So obviously those guys get downgraded some because of that. So, Scott,

if de Grom went in the top six with Beber and Acuna was the best player available at seven, who would you have taken? I think I do have Acuna 7th. Okay. But is that what you actually would have done? Well, let me scan through the names here. Yeah, I think so. Fernando Tatis went just after you, Jose Ramirez, Christian Gelich.

Okay. So it would have been Acuna for you. Okay. Yep. So right after you took to Grom, we mentioned names. Tatis went eighth overall. Jose Ramirez went ninth. Christian Yelich went 10th.

Max Scherzer went 11th. And Freddie Freeman went 12th overall to round out the first round. And then in round two, as I predicted, just a bunch of pitchers fly off the board. So seven starting pitchers go in the second round. And I look back at that draft that we did back in July, head-to-head points league. And there were 11 starting pitchers.

taken in the first two rounds of that draft, there were 11 starting pitchers taken in the first two rounds of this draft. So not really much has changed. People are still being aggressive in terms of that position. The seven starting pitchers drafted in order. Walker Bueller went 13th. U. Darvish went 14th overall. Clayton Kirschildare went 16th.

Trevor Bauer went 17th. Luis Castillo went 20th. Lucas G. Leito went 21st. Aranolo went 22nd. Anything egregious with those starting pitchers in round two, Scott? Well, people who've been listening throughout the offseason know I'm not crazy about Walker Bueller this upcoming season with as careful as the Dodgers have been about managing his workload and like they limited him so hard in this already shortened season where he wasn't going to get many innings anyway. Just wonder how that's going to play out next year. I have him 13th among starting pitchers.

I have him behind Jack Flaherty. I have him behind Kinta Maeda and Luis Castillo who didn't see go. in this second round. So to take him with the first pick of round two, you know, I wouldn't be the guy doing that. Yeah, me neither. I have Walker Buehler outside my top 10 for a lot of the same reasons.

I'm not doubting the talent. The guy is awesome. You watch him in the postseason, he's pumping 99, 100 miles per hour, getting all these strikeouts. The walks were up in the postseason, which was kind of weird for Walker Bueller. But he looked great.

It's just a matter of how are they going to treat him this upcoming season? And the Dodgers just have so much depth. David Price, potentially returning, Gonsolin, Dustin May, Julio Arias,

so they could afford to be cautious with Bueller if they want to. And you took Cody Bellinger at 18th overall in the middle of all those starting pitchers, so your first two picks wind up being

Jacob de Grom and Bellinger. You cool with that pick? I mean, if you could change it now, would you? No, I won it. I was worried when I made it. It took me 58 seconds to make that pick.

It was one of the, I deliberated over that one. up next in my rankings was actually Trey Turner who went with the very next pick 19th overall but shortstop is without question the deepest position right now right and especially in a league like this where you don't have

the middle end field spot you just have two places you can play a shortstop I was I was reluctant to fill it within the second round and and then hate having to pass up value later

at that spot first base not a deep position and with Bellinger there's the flexibility of moving them between first base and outfield anyway I think I ended up moving them to the outfield before the draft was over so it went against my own rankings there um which might be reason to revisit the rankings I don't know it's a close call either way I was worried that come around three my third pick there would be a drop off I would be on the wrong side of the drop off as far as hitters go. And then I'd feel a little worried about making the big investment in Bellinger coming off a bad year and having to trust him as like to be this offensive force for me

without like a second hitter of that same caliber. But then around three I got Corey Seeger, who I probably like just as much as Trey Turner in this format where you don't have to, you don't have to commit so much to steals. So I was happy with the way that turned out. Let's go Dodgers, huh? Scott? You get Bellinger. and Corey Seeger, all they had to do was take your braves out and now you just draft all the Dodgers, huh, Scott? That's it? I guess.

I guess. Yeah, I mean, two Dodgers there. And two hitters in my first three picks, even though, you know, I'm stressing the need for, to go heavy on starting pitcher in this format specifically. If you'll remember the early roto mock draft we did, it was also a 12-teamer. And I went four pitchers with my first five picks.

So here already, I have, have more hitters through three rounds than I did through five rounds in that format. But, you know, I wasn't thrilled with the way it turned out in that format. I think the number of starting pitchers that I would consider high end went deeper than I was giving myself credit for than I was giving them credit for in that draft. And so I tried to adjust for that. I tried to get, you know, I tried to pay attention to where that drop off came in the hitter pool.

I feel like there's probably more than two rounds worth of hitters who could perform like first rounders. And Seeger is on the right side of that, which is why I was thrilled to take him. You know, guys like Alex Bregman, Nolan Aeronado, who we didn't see go till round three. Anthony Rendon, certainly in this format, has the potential to perform like a first rounder. So I was trying to capitalize on getting hitters before that drop off and then going pitcher crazy after that. So, you know, two of my first three picks were hitters, but then I think I had four straight that were pitchers. Yeah, and that's exactly what you did. And it's part of that reason. I mean, the names that you brought up, I love the third round in a 12-team league, the hitters that go in

this range this year, Scott. I mean, Bryce Harper, I got at pick 24, so at the two, three turn. So I'm okay taking Garrett Cole first overall, because if I can get a hitter like Harper or Mani Machado went right after him. Rendon, you brought up, who was a borderline first-round pick and drafts last year and Head to Ed Points Leagues. Bo Bichette, all right, there's an argument to be made there. He might be better in Roto Leagues, but Alex Bregman is great in this format. Noah Narano, assuming he's with Colorado, has been pretty damn steady in this format as well. So the third round for me is just filled with great hitters. So I start off my draft with Garicol, Bryce Harper, Jack Flaherty.

Absolutely love that. I did want to ask, since you took Corey Seeger and he spoke about why you took him, would you be okay if he was your first hitter. So if you started starting pitcher, starting pitcher, would you be cool with Seeger as the first hitter on your team? I wouldn't like it as much as what happened here with him as my second best hitter,

especially since I feel like I ended up with five, certainly four great pitchers anyway. But if we get deeper into draft season and it becomes evident in this format that, you know, people are just selling out for starting pitchers like crazy, I don't want to get left out of that.

I don't want to get left out of the starting pitcher rush. is the position where if you don't, if you don't give yourself enough from the start, I just don't think there's any recovering from it without getting extremely lucky with, you know, some clutch waiver picks early in the season. So, you know, part of what happened in this draft, why it worked out for me is only one starting pitcher went in round three because everybody was focused on those hitters before the big drop-off. So you mentioned, what was it, 11 starting pitchers combined in rounds one and two?

and then only one in round three. I'm not sure that all head-to-head points, drafts are going to play out that way. Some of those hitters that went in round three, there were some reaches there. Like Springer, I don't think, he went with the ninth pick of round three. I don't think he's on the right side of that,

that hitter divide guys who could perform like first rounders. I wouldn't put him in that group. Vladimir Guerrero. I mean, I guess technically he could, but he hasn't shown anything close to that so far yet. Way too, I mean, Scott, let's not buy too much into the the pictures, all right,

best shape of his life. It's December 7. I'm not. I'm not. I still has to make it through Christmas, all right? So, could have a nice little feast there,

put five pounds on there, New Year's, all right, maybe parties a little bit with his pops, get a couple drinks in there, eat some food. I mean, come on.

Like, we have a lot of time before spring training where Vlad can pack on a couple of more LBs, so. And we don't know that. Slow the roll.

losing all that weight is going to stop him from hitting ground balls anyway. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There were some reaches. I think we ran out of first round caliber hitters about through the middle of round three here. And so the back end of round three could have been a lot of pitchers. If I was drafting for everybody, that's probably how I would have done it.

But since it wasn't, I was able to capitalize. And so I'm happy with the way things turned out taking hitters with two of my first three picks. But maybe as we do more of these drafts, I'll see that's not the best. way to go. And the reason why Scott was okay doing that is because he took a starting pitcher in round four, as many people did. Seven more starting pitchers drafted in the fourth round. So that makes 19 starting pitchers drafted in the first 48 picks. I look back at our July draft from last year, well this year, last season. 23 starting pitchers drafted in the first 48 picks of that draft. Okay, so maybe our, once we get into round three and four, people

start to focus on the hitters a little bit more. It's something that I'm noticing in this early mock draft. Players that stood out, Zach Rankie, pick 37, way too early. Charlie Blackman, pick 38, way too early. Jose Barrios, pick 39,

way too early as well. I like Burrios. He goes deep at the starts. He'll give you quality starts. He's fine, but he's just kind of boring. Jose Abraeu, my man. He went 40th.

I think that's an okay range for him. I probably won't pay that price tag, but I think it's okay. Then we saw three starting pitchers go who were not used to see, used to seeing drafted in the fourth round, Scott. And that would be Kenton Maida, you took Zach Gallen at pick 42. Brand new Woodruff went at pick 43.

Zach Allen, many people had him pegged as a breakout out heading into 2020. He had nine quality starts in 12 starts this past season. That was tied for fourth in baseball, including two, where he went into Colorado and into L.A. to face the Dodgers, where he went at least seven innings in both of those. So I think Zach Galen did break out, and I have no problem with him going in the fourth round. Yeah, I like Kenta Maeda and Zach Galen a lot more than I like

Zach Granky and Jose Brerios, who went before them. So, you know, once we got past... Actually, I have Kenta Maeda 11th in my starting pitcher rankings. I have them ahead of both Jack Flaherty and Walker Bueller, mostly because of workload concerns coming off the very limited workload, both of those very young pitchers had. I have Kenton Maeda ahead of them. So it goes Maeda, Flaherty, and then Zach Gowler, and then Zach Gowlin 14th for me.

I was thrilled to get Zach Gowen here. I wasn't... When I made that Corey Seeger pick in the middle of round three, I did not have much hope of Zach Gowler lasting to me in round four. So to get him here, it worked out great for me. But like I said, I'm not sure I can count on that happening every time we draft for this format. At the 4-5 turn where I was at,

I took Whitmerfield and Tyler Glassnow. So at this point, I have three starting pitchers through the first five rounds. I have Garrett Cole. I have Jack Flaredy. I have Tyler Glass now to go along with Bryce Harper and Whitmererfield. Not that Whitmerfield is some kind of elite hitter, but he's fine for

points leagues. He makes a lot of contact. He doesn't strike out. And he has second base eligibility. So if I am going to grab a hitter early-ish in this format. I would like to get one of the more scarce positions, and that is second base. Let's hit a break. I do have a few more rounds I want to get to,

and then I'll have five topics in five minutes with Scott, which new little thing that we're going to try out and see if it actually works. Just want to remind everybody to check out our YouTube page and subscribe. YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. You could see Scott's awesome, awesome Christmas tree has this beautiful.

I turned on the multicolored. lights for you. Beautiful, multi-colored lights. They kind of, like the blue's kind of overshadowing all the other colors. Maybe somebody who knows more about cameras or apertures or something. The blue is strong. Yeah, I don't know. Like, it doesn't look that way in person.

It looks like I just have a Christmas tree full of blue lights. But I promise you, they're multicolored. It doesn't look as good as the white either way. And someone called me out on Twitter, and I deserved this. This was a fair criticism. I posted a picture of my Christmas tree. fake Christmas tree, only four foot tall. I had to put on top of a table, Scott.

I got a new cat, so usually I get a real tree, but we're worried about the cat, you know, knocking the tree down or trying to eat the pines off of it. And so I was worried about all that stuff. Real trees, real trees overrated. Anyway, I'm a bit, this is artificial. I mean, it's, it looks all right.

Seven feet, I think, than four feet. Yeah. And yeah, it's high quality fake needles. They're not the ones that look like paper cut you know, but, but yeah, I mean, you don't, you don't need, you don't need to be, you don't need a dead tree in your house, you know, particularly if you don't go to an actual tree farm, you don't know how long it's been dead since you bought it. Like, it might not make it all the way to Christmas and you're vacuuming up pine needles and, yeah, the cats choking on them.

Right. Like, it's just, you don't need that. Well, agree to disagree there, Scott, because I do like the, the original tree, the smell of it. I like the feel for it. But the reason why I got called out is because I had the multicolored lights on my tree. And I said recently that I prefer the white lights on the tree. And it's classy and it's more Christmas to me. So I deserve that criticism.

Whoever tweeted at me, 100% right. I'm sorry, I apologize. The last thing I remind you is that we have Champions League Soccer on CBS All Access this week. Actually, when you're listening to this on Tuesday, December 8th, you can watch Barcelona at Juventus. And then later on in the week on Wednesday, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Real Madrid,

all in action Wednesday, December 9th. You can watch all of those games only on CBS All Access. Take a break when we return. We'll take a look at a few more rounds, and then we'll hit on those topics and just look at our teams overall how they turned out. Do we like the way our lineups turned out, even with being aggressive with starting pitchers?

You'll find out here, Fantasy Baseball today. So after we saw seven starting pitchers drafted in round four, eight more starting pitchers were drafted in round five. And this is where you start to see everyone, oh, I got to get my pitching. After I took Glass now, which I mentioned, Strasbourg went with the very next pick at Pick 50. Then we saw Junjin Ryu, 53, Lance Lynn at 55 to Scott,

Sonny Gray at 57, Blake Snell at 58, Chris Paddock at 59, and Charlie Morton at 60. Both of those guys were overdrafted. outside of, I just want to hit on Snell real quick, Scott. And I brought this up about points he was with him in the past. Outside of his Scy Young 2018, Snell has struggled in this format, mostly because the raised baby him,

they don't let him go deep into his starts. They usually have him on some kind of pitch count. He's dealt with some shoulder, elbow issues the past couple of seasons. So I understand why they're cautious with him, but it's because of that, that he's not great in this format, Scott. So I don't, this isn't a terrible spot to get him, but I would devalue him. And I don't think he's really worthy of a top 20 starting pitcher or even 25, honestly, being drafted in this format.

Well, I have him 22, but I would feel like I failed if I got Blake Snell as my third starter or higher. I would accept him as my fourth starter. But I, yeah, I don't feel like you can put a lot of confidence in him. in any format. But wins are the most valuable stat that a pitcher produces both in traditional five-by-five leagues and certainly in a points league. And then in a points league, innings count for something on top of that. So it's really, if he follows the usage pattern he has the past two years, he's probably going to disappoint no matter where you draft him. There's tons of upside. Of course, he's a former Cy Young winner. We've seen him overcome

that in the past, which is why I'm not bearing him in my rankings. But like I said, wouldn't I want him as even my number three. So I was pleased here. I actually got Lance Lynn three picks before him. Lance Lynn, I have 17th in my starting pitcher rankings, which means even grabbing hitters with two of my first three picks. I ended up with my number two, my number 14, my number 17. Oh, you know what? This is only my third starting pitcher. isn't it? So three of your top 20, even with taking two hitters

in the first three rounds. It's not bad. Yeah, I ended up with a very Blake Snell-like pitcher as my fourth pitcher in round six, but right now I'm only at three. DeGrom, Gallin, and Lynn.

Last pick that I just wanted to mention in the fifth round, shout out to Daniel Preciado. I don't know if that's how you say your name, but I hope it is. Raphael Devers went 56th overall. I thought that was a pretty good value. reunited with his former manager,

Alex Cora, the manager that he broke out under. I think it's... I liked all four of the hitter picks in this round. You had Marcelo Zuna, who, you know, performed in an MVP level, Kyle Tucker.

JT. Real Muto. I think there's actually a much better case to invest in catcher in this format than there is in a 5-by-5 league, just because you have so few hitter spots that can contribute, and that's obviously a position where you can position your team to stand out from the rest. It's one of the few where you can in an era when there's so much depth across the infield.

Well, Scott, you could just take Salvador Perez like five rounds later, and he averaged more fantasy points than J.C. Real Muto in 2020. I mean, not that I have to remind you, obviously, because you know all that. You know all that about Salvador Perez by now. I took him, yeah. Oh, there you got. I took them in this draft, yeah. I love it.

of them actually, the roto one too. I love it. In the sixth round, I am not an Aaron Judge guy, but he went 63rd overall. So just another, people are aggressive on pitching that's going to push some hitters down the board, mention it with Devers. I think Judge going

in the sixth round, that is a calculated risk, where even with his injury history, that's something that I would be willing to do. And if you're wondering where Zach Plissack and Corbyn Burns are going in 2021 drafts, polarizing players, talked about them a lot down the stretch and already a lot in the offseason. Well, it looks like it might be in the sixth round of 12 team leagues.

Plesack went 64th and Corbyn Burns went 66th to Scott White. I'm guessing you're okay with Corbyn's as your SP4. Yes, I said I would be with Snell. I have Burns actually ranked one spot ahead of Snell. He's my 21st pitcher. Similar concerns there with workload and how deep they're going to be allowed to go into games. but I actually I actually have more concerns with Snell

as far as that goes than Burns. Burns, I mean, the fact that he was converting from relief in the year where no starting pitcher got to handle a starter's workload, really. You wonder how much the brewers are going to limit him. But in the season that was, they let him go six innings

with a fair amount of consistency, which is something the race don't do with Snell. So while there may be shutdown periods for Burns in 2021, I do think start for start he's going to be more valuable than Snell is. Makes sense. And at the 6-7 turn,

I took Kyle Hendricks and A. Eugenio Suarez. And I actually wrote an article recently you can find on CBSports.com about some of my early draft takeaways. I've done two mock drafts. I've done three other leagues where you kind of play them out. They're like draft and hold leagues. But things that I've noticed. and so far I'm aggressively trying to get,

this is how you know, I've been doing shows with Scott for a while now. I'm trying to get four of my top 30 starting pitchers right now. That's kind of the cutoff for me, and then I'll take a few upside shots after that. But to me, Paddock is my SP 30, and that can change in the off season, but he's kind of the cutoff for me.

Kyle Hendricks, I have just a few spots ranked ahead of Paddock. So in this draft, I did wind up with four of those top 30 in Hendricks, Glass Now, Flaherty, and Garrick Cole. And I feel very strong about those four pitchers as my top four. So in this format, it's interesting is I have Paddock as the drop off too, but I have him 33rd.

So I wonder what three pitchers I'm including that you're not. Well, we can very easily figure that out. We just pull up our rings here, which I do have up. So you have... Zach Wheeler? No, I like Wheeler.

I have Wheeler at 24. I'm pretty aggressive on him. And you said Hendricks was inside your 30, right? Yes. you have him as well. So you have Frumber Valdez. You have Framber Valdez. You have Dillon Boundy and you have Jose Berrios.

Those three just ahead of Paddock. Okay. All right. And, you know, looking at this now, I don't have Framber Valdez inside my top 36, which is a problem. He's got to get in there somewhere. He'll probably be, yeah, right around Paddock,

probably just behind him for me. All right, Scott. So five topics in five minutes. You can find the rest of the results, and the topics here are also related to the mock So it's not like I'm just completely ditching the rest of this mock draft. But you could find all of the results over at CBSSports.com. A few picks that sit out to me and players in general.

So I'm going to start the clock right now. I'll read these off one by one. I'll read one. You react and then I'll read another one, so on and so forth. So starting right now. 6-0 Sanchez and Ian Anderson both went in round seven. They broke out in 2020, albeit unlimited volume. they were taken just before you selected Framber Valdez in round seven.

Would you have taken either of Sixto Sanchez or Ian Anderson over Valdez in round seven if they were available? I would... Well, not over Framber Valdez. I mean, Framber Valdez I have on the right side of that divide ahead of Paddock, and actually Ian Anderson and Sixto Sanchez are the first two on the other side of that. So that's where I see the drop-off, and it's mostly because the sample is so... small for them. Of course, I have workload concerns, always for young pitchers, but especially coming after off the season where they weren't able to have much of a workload. I mean,

there are questions about Framber Valdez, the legitimacy of that too, but like Dusty Baker will work that guy. He went seven plus six times. He went six plus two more times than that. I'm sorry, three more times than that. So like, maybe he worked him too hard, Dusty Baker, but regardless, you know, I think that's a better bet for Framber Valdez to make a big contribution in this format. Luis Robert went at pick 83 right after Starling Marte. Is this the right range for Luis Robert in a points league? I would say so. Yeah, I don't have my mixed rankings pulled up, but I think he's probably going in about that range. I remember when he went thinking, maybe I should have been the one taking him.

So I think that's about right. Lots of upside and excitement over Robert, but of course strikes out a lot. So better off in a roto format than he is in a head-to-head points format. Claiboriz went 94th overall, Scott, and something I wrote about in that article was the reason I like being aggressive on starting pitchers early is because you can get a lot of bounce-back hitters in those middle rounds. Claiborne at 94. How do you feel about that?

By the way, I have Luis Roberts 79th, so actually I have him higher than he went. Yeah, I like that for Gregorres. Glaver Torres. That's another reason I was reluctant to fill my shortstop spot early. I would have been fine. You know, I think particularly in this format, Corey Seger in the middle of round three was just too good to pass up because I think he could be an MVP caliber player going forward.

But if that didn't work out, I would have been happy waiting for Carlos Correa, Glaver-Torres, Javier Baez, those three specifically could be a great value this year. because I really haven't lost any confidence in any of them. Randy Orozarena went at pick 101 just ahead of Michael Conforto, who you selected Scott. Is this the right range for Randy a Roserana in a points league?

I have him a little lower than this. I have him 1-22nd, so a couple rounds lower. But he's a difficult player to rank. I am trying to be conservative in my ranking of him because, like, 17 home runs is what he ended up hitting between the regular season and postseason and he has speed too. So I don't know.

You get up to a number that high in the home run column. It's hard to say that's another Shane Spencer, you know, Shane Spencer, that's a really old reference, but you know what I mean? Like just the fluky guy going on a tear at the end of the season. And yet,

Erros Arena wasn't considered much of anything to be valued coming in. to the year. So definitely has more to prove. Last topic, Mike Soroka had surgery on his torn Achilles in early August. Zach Britton and Adam Wainwright previously had this surgery, and they each returned within five to six months. By March, Mike Soroka will be seven months removed from surgery. He went pick 104 in the ninth round. I think we have to start talking about Mike Soroka against Scott. Well, it's easier to talk about him in this format, because strikeouts are only valued half a point for starting pitchers.

So they don't matter as much. I mean, obviously, strikeouts say a lot about how good a pitcher is. And so if you're predicting, that's still a good place to look. But what they're actually worth in this format isn't that impactful. I actually almost took Soroka the very pick before. I took Comforto in round nine, and then the next pick was Soroka. He would have been my sixth starting pitcher in round nine. not even projected to be in my starting lineup.

I ended up taking a pitcher, actually, Sandy Alcantara, the next round. So round 10 instead of round nine. And I think they're similar. I mean, Soroka's more proven than Alcantara, but, you know, probably less than a strikeout per inning, but probably a good workload. Yeah, I don't think I would have taken him. I think I only like him as a spare pitcher if you're going SP-heavy versus somebody you're really going to be counting on. Scott, you failed. You went over five minutes. You held it up with 12 seconds left, but I just had to finish. I had to wrap up my point on Soroka, so I went over by

five seconds, yeah. No, that was fair. Close enough, five topics in five minutes. We'll do that a little bit more here throughout the off-season. Just some quick-hitting analysis. But yeah, Mike Soroka also has a new hairdo. He grew his hair out while he was recovering from- Because that's, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a your cliche at this point, right? I mean, hey, it helped Jacob Grom. Did it? Because I think he's been at his best since he cut his hair. And by the way, long hair Jacob de Grom, that was a hideous look. That guy didn't know what he was doing with his long hair, am I right?

Yeah, probably not. Cindergarde's long hair, it's pretty hot. But anyway, if you want to see Seroca's new hairdo, it does look pretty good. So he's been throwing it out with the Achilles injury. All right, Scott, let's quickly just compare. our teams. First of all, let's just pit our pitchers up against each other and I don't know. We'll see who we think wound up better. I have Gary Cole. I have Jack Flaherty, Tyler Glassnow, and Kyle Hendricks as I mentioned. I wound up with Aaron Savale as my SP5. So I waited too long to jump back in there. But I also did grab Joe Musgrove on

the bench and Jamison Tyone. So I have some upside pitchers that I can hopefully mix in one of those guys' hits and have A little SP5 there. You wound up with DeGrom, Zach Allen, Lance Lynn, Corbyn Burns, Framber Valdez. Yours is probably better. Yeah. Yeah, and I would say,

I feel like my 6 and 7 are better than your 6 and 7 too. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Scott. Sandy Alcantan, all right, he's pretty good. He's pretty good. And Dustin May. Dustin May.

Is it going to be in the rotation? I don't know. Yeah, it's going to be in the rotation. Come on. I mean, Scott, I have two Pirates pitchers. You know that we are the official show of Pirates pitchers. Not that they'll ever amount to anything because...

I am. Especially, I mean, Chris, Chris Towers is the spokesperson for the Pirates Pitcher. I think two years in a row, so... Yeah. So, I don't know how that's gone. I'm just going to keep... We'll just keep passing the baton on year after year, and hopefully it'll happen. Well, you got...

Look, you got the good tune. You got Musgrove. I have some... enthusiasm for Musgrove. You got Tyone. I have some enthusiasm for Tyone coming back from Tommy John's surgery. But, you know, I'd rather have them as my eight and nine than my six and seven, personally. Yeah. All right. It's fine. I mean, of course, right, anybody would rather have them lower. But I, yeah. I'm just saying I invested a little more in my bench pitchers than you did is all I'm really pointing to. In pitchers in general, you invested a little bit more. All right, Scott,

I'll give you this one. I'll give you this one our first head-to-head points, mock draft. But again, everybody, you could find the results over at cbsports.com. We're going to wrap there for Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball today. We'll be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye.