Fantasy Baseball Today - Latest 60-Game Season Updates; Winners and Losers (06/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

We're here to answer all of your questions regarding the 60-game MLB season, which seems pretty much set! But first, what's the latest news from Jon Heyman and Jim Bowden? If you drafted your Fantasy team back in March, should you redo your draft (5:06)? Sure seems like it considering how much has changed. ... Everybody assumes Jesus Luzardo and Julio Urias have more value in a shortened season but is that true (10:05)? How should we be valuing those pitchers? ... The latest reports have the universal DH in the NL so who are the biggest winners (16:32)? Will J.D. Davis play enough? Is it time to move Wil Myers up the board? ... Who are the National League pitchers that lose the most now that the DH will be implemented (25:47)? How much should we devalue guys like Madison Bumgarner and Zack Wheeler? ... Moving over to injured players, who was injured again (36:18)? What's the expectation for Shohei Ohtani? Why are Rich Hill and James Paxton such big winners? ... Even with all this time to recover, Scott still thinks Aaron Judge and Blake Snell are risky this season (44:36) ... Lastly, who are some winners because of the divisions and proposed scheduling (49:50)? ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCfkdUcqL9UnNpGfkF039Q 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

I'm not sure what it is, guys, but the sun is shining a little bit more today, and the birds are chirping a little louder. Welcome back to fantasy baseball today. Frank Stamphill here with Scott White and Chris Towers, and it's starting to feel a little more real. Now that baseball is set to return, and I am pumped, fellows. We had an emergency podcast last night.

We still kind of approached it with a level of skepticism, but I will say, as of now, Tuesday, June 23rd, when we're recording this, things are looking pretty good, guys. I'm feeling pretty optimistic here. It won't be officially official until roughly 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, June 23rd. We should keep that in mind, that given the way this whole thing is gone and given the

level of acrimony between the two sides, let's not discount the possibility. Let's not. Someone just decides to ruin this whole thing for us. But like you, I am operating under the assumption with 99% confidence that baseball will be returning in 32 days. I know Scott's ready. This guy looks like he just got signed to a market. minor league deal by the Atlanta Braves.

Scott, will you be part of the expanded roster? Is that what we're looking at here? I mean, probably. I'm wearing a major league uniform. I'm not wearing the Gwinnett Striper's uniform. So, yeah, no, I'm very excited. This is a celebratory day. There are still a lot of dooms and gloomers and boomers

and boomers out there on the internet. But, you know, they'll warm up. They'll warm up in time. They'll listen to us. They'll see our enthusiasm. They'll, you know, see photos of players working out. And they'll get excited all over again. So let's not let's not let them dampen our spirits.

Absolutely. First of all, I want to welcome back any listeners and viewers to our fantasy baseball today YouTube page. If you haven't noticed, we have a fantasy baseball today YouTube page where you can actually see Scott White in his Atlanta Braves gear. And you can see, I assume, David Bowie, who is Chris Towers's cat, Probably going to attack him at some point. But if you left during the pandemic,

we want to welcome you back to fantasy baseball today and also want to thank everybody who stuck around over the past few months with us. Here's the upcoming plan, basically here on the show. We're going to get you caught up on all the latest news, all the rumors, everything that I'm reading on the internet, and we're going to try and answer as many of your questions as we possibly can.

We're going to give you the biggest winners and losers, basically, heading into this shortened season. We're going to try and compact. everything we've talked about over these past couple of months in today's episode, from the Universal DH to injuries, players who are returning from injury and therefore have more value. And also from a scheduling perspective, although we don't know for sure what the divisions are going to look like. I think we have a good idea. And then once we get clarity later on today, Chris mentioned 5 p.m. That's when the player's response is expected. And

everything seems good to go as of now. We will start our position previews later on. this week, and that'll take us into the next couple of weeks. Then we'll get into our sleepers, breakouts, and bust. The usual deal, we'll do some mock draft review, but just keeping you in the loop as to where we are here, fantasy baseball today. All right, the latest news, catching people up, guys. What I've seen from John Heyman is that extra inning games will use the runner on second base rule to expedite extra inning games in this condensed schedule.

I also saw, according to John Heyman, that the Universal DH is expected. to be part of this season in 2020, but will not be in 2021. This is to help preserve player health, specifically pitchers in a shortened season, so that they don't have to deal with trying to bet as a pitcher, of course, in the National League. And then Jim Bowden on our CBS Sports HQ said earlier today that he's just seeing positive reports that, you know, the players, everything that there is supposed to respond to by 5 p.m. is accomplished by them. They will report by July 1st,

which is eight days from today, and opening day would be Friday, July 24th. So that's the latest, guys. That's where we're at. It's a good place to be. Yeah, basically every national beat writer I've seen has expressed that same sentiment that this is going to get done.

So, yeah, I think it's time to renew draft prep season here and get ready for a fan. baseball season. Speaking of draft prep season, Scott, I mentioned that we're going to try and answer as many questions as possible. I want to ask you this question,

first and foremost. If you drafted back in March, should your league be redrafting today? Should they? Maybe not today, but in the next coming weeks. Yeah, no, I hear you. You should draft. If you're going to redraft draft later, yes.

After managers have had a chance to weigh in and whatever. I mean, I'm kind of of the opinion that, like, in terms of how individual player values have changed, it's not widespread. And, you know, I've been pretty consistent about this where Scott, what? Yes. The draft is the best part of the season. You're going to get this weird short season.

that you didn't get to plan for. Players values are changing. Not that many, though. No, you've said yourself not that many are changing. This is, no, this is my official position on this, because I didn't explain it well enough last night on Twitter, which is, that's what Twitter is. You should not look at Christian Yelich versus Ronald Ocuna

and say, well, I think Christian Yelich is a more consistent player, or I think Ronald Acuna has higher highs and lower lows, so I'm going to play, take Christian Yelich over Ronald Acuna in a short and season. That shouldn't be part of your calculus. There may be players for whom that is true. I have no confidence in my ability to accurately predict which ones it will be and won't be true for. However, you should be adjusting players potentially quite a bit based on population groups. And what I mean by that is like something as big as all pitchers.

all pitchers basically move down, but also then you kind of get little subgroups. You should move pitchers who were likely to have innings limits up. You should move NL pitchers down. You should move, you know, those designated hitters in the NL up, or just NL hitters in general up, just because the addition of the DH might mean that everybody has more of an opportunity to play more games or a higher percentage of the game. So that's what I mean. I think the player pool should look quite different.

I mean, I think the overall shape should look most of the same. But I do think, you know, when you're talking about a 275, you know, player pull in a regular 12-team league, you know, you start talking about some pretty significant changes that I do think you want to account for. And just it's a completely different landscape. You know, we didn't know we were drafting for 60 games. Yeah, but how good players actually are hasn't. changed. And we've done a lot of mock drafts throughout this process and anticipating a season with this sort of shape. And they don't look that different. They really don't. I mean, I kept,

I kept going lighter on pitchers because I expected everyone else to. And they didn't. Scott, can't you argue, though, that, and some people are not going to want to redraft for this reason, that you might have gotten Justin Verlander at a discount at the time back in March or Mike Clevenger at a discount. Isn't that, you know, for the integrity of the league, so everyone is on equal playing fields? Shouldn't we redraft for that purpose as well? I mean, the thing that makes the draft the best part of fantasy for those who believe it is, is that there are stakes attached. So if you, if you remove the stakes, you already had. You had stakes attached at the time. No. And now you did. You were drafting as if. But now you have to, now you have to try to live up to

that earlier standard and that's just that's not fun that's misery that's misery that's that's that's regret that's that's all the worst things a person can feel rolled up into one that does not sound like my idea of a good time you are i think you're in the wild minority here i just nonetheless it's how i feel i think having to do a draft again does not take away from the joy you felt in that moment you know, it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. You still had that draft. You still enjoyed it in the process. And then you get another draft.

No. I see, I executed my strategy the way I wanted to. And now there's a risk that other people have caught up to my strategy. And like, no, I don't want to do it again, especially in Dynasty leagues.

I think Dynasty League, you're asking for people to quit the league if you try and make them make them do there. No, yeah. No, we're talking about just 2020. Right. Yeah, you can't redress. Dynasty Leagues. I agree with that. I mean, there's so many factors I go into play drafting for Dynasty anyway, where you're focused more on the future more so than this season anyway.

So I would agree with that. But redraft, I think the argument is there. And Chris, you brought something up that I was going to say for later on, but since you brought it up, let's talk about it now. You talked about boosting up those pitchers who were expected to be on innings limits, who maybe are not going to go deep into games, but they will be really good on a per-ending basis. Obviously, Hazes-Losardo. Julio Arias come to mind there. But I've seen some pushback to this idea on Twitter. And the main reason is that we know that the most important

and the most unpredictable stat in fantasy baseball is wins. And wins are most closely correlated with innings pitched per start. Sure. And if these pitchers are not expected to go deep into games, should we really be moving them up the board? Shouldn't we, I mean, I'm looking at the top 10 in innings pitch per game. start last season, Verlander, Mike Minor, Shane Bieber, Garrett Cole, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Steven Schrosberg, Clayton Kershaw, Zach Cranke, Lance Lynn.

Jesus Lazzardo and Arias are not going to go more than five innings pitched all that often. At least I don't think so. So I think you're going to have to take it. That's when you start to have to take things on a case-by-case basis. And you look at someone like Jesus Lazzardo who we think is going to be really good. But we don't know. Like we're pretty confident he's going to be very good, but we don't know how he's going to do against Major League pitching.

We don't know against Major League hitting. We don't know how he's going to hold up to pitching every five days regularly. And he's only thrown six innings and I start twice as a professional. That's one where I do think you can say, okay, maybe He's a Lizardo won't throw the innings you need. But he's sort of a special case. You know, there aren't that many pitchers who reach the Major League level, even in today's era, with the kind of.

of workload limitations that Hazos Lozardo would seemingly have. You know, Luis Erius is kind of, he's a tough case to figure out because. Julio, Julio. Julio, no, yes, Julio Urius. I started typing Luis Urius as well. Julio Reis is a 23-year-old who made his major league debut in 2016 as a 19-year-old. So he was very much being treated with kid gloves back then. And then he's had a bunch of injuries over the last two seasons that are the last three seasons before last year that have made it really hard to say one way or the other what his ultimate workload would be.

We've seen him throw 90 pitches in a major league game once last season, high 80s once, but is it because he couldn't? Is it because of the role the Dodgers wanted him to be in? These are really tough questions to answer. However, we should be more confident that Julio Reyes can pitch at the major league level than Hazerz Ozzarro. Whether you think Hazel Zazardo has a higher upside, Julio Reis has proven that he can for, I think it's like 180 innings now. So he doesn't have that question mark. The question mark for him is that workload one. It's a fair one.

But I would be more inclined to move Lazzardo down, especially because Lazzardo was relative, I would be less inclined to. to move Lazzardo up than Erez, but I still am inclined to move both of them up because they're more likely to throw a higher percentage of team innings than they were before. However, that all being said, you know, the differences that we're talking about in likelihood of wins between someone who might average 6.2,

like the best pitchers win about half their games, you know, maybe two or three more, at this point in Major League Baseball, 20-game winners are pretty rare. You're talking about, you know, guys who win 17 games out of 33 starts being among the league leaders. Well, you shrink that to 12 starts. All of a sudden, you know, you're going to see these huge differences in value between a guy who wins four and a guy who wins six games.

But actually predicting who might win that fourth, that extra marginal game, I think it's going to be really difficult to do. So as much as we ignore wins generally when looking at fantasy value, I think even in a short season that becomes more relevant just because it's so prone to randomness and the sample size is so much smaller. I do want to bring out something specific for Julio Arias. I do, you know, I moved them up a long time ago anticipating a short season, obviously. but a unique concern for him,

just given the Dodgers surplus of Major League ready starting pitchers. They were going to go with Arias and Alex Wood as their fourth and fifth starters heading into the season, but we were planning on usual Dodgers shenanigans, phantom IL stints, maybe pitchers moving back and forth from the rotation to bullpen, getting called up, sent down, that sort of thing. to incorporate Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin,

at some point, maybe even Ross Stripling, being part of a rotation. They're all going to be on the Major League roster now. I mean, stripling was probably going to be anyway. You've got to assume May and Gonsolin with expanded rosters will be too. I think Kershaw is going to be fine. Bueller's going to be fine.

Probably David Price is going to be fine, but Wood and Arias, I worry they're going to see like a piggyback situation with those other three with May. Gonselin and Stripling where like two of them are basically linked together and they both go four innings. That sort of thing. It's possible.

The thing I will say is this is why you don't draft today. Like Scott said earlier, if you are going to redraft, you should wait until, you know, maybe Dave Roberts gets to summer training and... But I don't think we'll know that. We want a five-man rotation. Yeah, but will he actually reveal that? Do you think he would actually reveal, hey, we plan to, you know,

marry these two? pitchers together like we'll let Arias go three or four innings and then we'll let Dustin May go three or four innings. It's worth waiting and seeing if he does. He might. He might. We definitely don't know right now. We may not know

in three weeks, but you know, it's more likely we will know something one way or the other. The Universal DH. I want to talk about some of the winners and losers with the Universal DH now in the National League and I tweeted this out last night that

in my opinion, the biggest winners here were J.D. Davis, Dylan Carlson, Garrett Hampson, Austin Riley, Will Myers, J. Bruce, Justin Smoke, and Ryan Braun, as well as Garrett Cooper and John Birdie of the Miami Marlins. Now, as much as I do like J.D. Davis and Scott, I know you love him too. There was some pushback because the Mets have a surplus. They still have Dom Smith. They have Cespittus if they want to try and find a way to get him involved.

I just think J.D. Davis's bat is going to be so good that the Mets can't really afford to leave him out of the lineup. But then again, the Mets have done baffling things in the past, Scott. No, I mean, I read it much the same way you do. I think of those three Davis Smith and Sespitt as Davis was in line to play the most anyway, even without the DH. But now it's a virtual guarantee, I think he'll be in the lineup every day. It doesn't mean, I mean, all three of them are winners. But I'm, I'm, I'm more curious how they dispense playing time between Smith and Cespita's, than, than Davis, who I think is just, just probably going to play every day.

I mean, he's, he's their best hitter, right? Who's better? Who am I missing? Like, I, I, I see the things about J.D. Davis that we like. And I, I agree that they are things to like about him. But, like, oh, I'm forgetting Alonzo and McNeil. Okay. I just forgot people.

And Michael can for like, Jamie had a really good 453 plate appearances last season. Let's not like overstate the case. He was a 27 or 26 year old making his debut. Brandon Nimmo was the Mets best hitter two years ago. And we saw what happened in 2019. He couldn't stay healthy, but he also couldn't hit. So yeah, lower confidence level.

I think he's, two years ago. But no, that's fine. Honestly, I just was trying to picture the Mets lineup. I was blanking on who was in it. So that's why I said either best winner. I think the case, the case is basically when it comes to a guy like that or a guy like Austin Riley is, if you believe he's going to hit, the potential rewards are now even

greater for that bet. You're, you know, especially with those late round guys, your Austin Riley's, your J.D. Davis's, your Justin smokes. They're low risk bets that now carry even more. reward potential because there's that opportunity that if J.D. Davis does hit like you think he does, or even if he's just a 280, you know, a 280 hitter with a 25 homer pace, that's still a starting caliber player who's probably going to play every day for the Mets, Justin Smoke. You know, I think he can be a 35 homer hitter with a 260 average. Those are guys who will be worth playing in fantasy

and that reward is now higher because if they do hit, they're going to play every day. The, you know, those situations will work themselves out. Yeah, it reminds me of, and I think he's just like a great example for the past couple of years, is Jesus Aguilar, right? Where you just kind of trust the skills and take a player who you think is a very strong offensive player, but maybe you have some

concerns over the playing time. Once he started hitting, he got himself into the Brewers lineup every single day. A couple of years ago, obviously last year did not work out for Aguilar. I thought you were going in the negative. No, no, no. But that also works. If Hazus Eggler went into last

season with no concerns about playing time, but he couldn't hit. You know, ultimately, like, life tends to find a way. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's just the Mets and sometimes teams just have too many guys and there's a log jam anyway. But more often than not, the guy who hits is going to, or the guy who performs is going to be the guy who plays. And there are key places in the National League where I think you can, one we haven't

mentioned, who I think is kind of interesting, is. Stephen Souser for the Cubs. He was their basically only significant addition this season, this offseason, which, you know, last year's only significant addition was Daniel DeSalza, so it kind of tells you what the Cubs have been doing

the last two off seasons. If he proves healthy, he was a viable fantasy option, and now he has the opportunity to play D.H. So he's another guy. I am looking at, that's much more in a 15-team league. Yeah.

I want to touch on one point you mentioned there about life finding away because one of the curious things about this season is there's not going to be time for life to find a way. And so that's why it's kind of even more critical what managers are saying to the extent you can believe it. Yeah. Heading into the season. And so that's why I'm torn.

I think it's obvious somebody like Dominic Smith's value goes up in this scenario, I think it's obvious somebody like Aristides Aquino's value goes up. You could make the argument, Hampson and Sam Hilliard, their value goes up. But there are still, in those situations, there are still, you know, it's not clear still how consistent their playing time is going to be. And at how soon will we find out enough to act on it? Yeah. I mean, the fact that you mentioned two guys for the Rockies as winners is probably a pretty good indication that they're certainly not big winners.

That's just so Colorado. It's so Colorado, too, because they have Ian Desmond on the bench, which wouldn't surprise me if they try to get him in. And they're always hesitant to give their younger players consistent playing time. We've seen that consistently throughout the past couple of years with the Rockies. And, you know, Hilliard is not necessarily young, but he's 26 years old, and Garrett Hanson is not even 26 years old. So we're hoping that they earn playing time. And obviously in Corr's field, that'll help us a ton in fantasy. Yeah.

And I'm hopeful because at the end of last season, once Hilliard got called up, he was, it was basically a strict lefty,y, righty platoon with him and Desmond, with Desmond playing less often. So, yeah, I'm hopeful that they'll just continue with that going forward. for it. I mean, you'd still rather see every day at Bats from Hilliard, but in a five outfielder scenario, particularly these stealing bases, he'll have value. Who is your guy's personal favorite in terms of winners because of the Universal D.H? I think the player who I probably would move up the most, because obviously I was already really excited about J.D. Davis, it's probably Will Myers. I'm with you, man. Yeah, I just don't have any questions about his playing time anymore. I don't have much interested. I don't have much

interested in him in like a points leave because he strikes out a lot. But he also walks a lot, which helps. Yeah, but I mean, strikes out. The strikeout rate is pretty exorbitant, right? But yeah, I mean, the fact that even the last two years when his playing time was questionable, he continued to be a power speed threat. And so if he's doing that every day, I mean, he could, in a 60 game season, he could he could maybe be approached like 10 and 10.

which we're going to have to get used to saying numbers like that, I guess. But that's really good. That's like a double double. A 27-27 pace, you know? Yeah, and that's the thing with Well Myers is even when he's been a disappointment over the last couple of seasons, you know, you look at that pace over the last two seasons and you stretch it out to 600 plate appearances, it still comes out to like high 20s and steals, high 20s and home runs.

So that skill hasn't deteriorated. There have been other deteriorations. and I think there's probably still a risk that the Padres find a way to dump his contract. Well, that kind of stuff, you know, I guess depends on each individual team's financial situation. But yeah, I think there's still a chance he's not on the Padres on opening day. But if he is, I do agree. He wins a lot. Justin Smoke is someone I've talked a lot about.

I think he was one of the most unlucky players in baseball. season, his stack-cast data was overwhelmingly excellent and the results were very not. So I think if he gets a little better luck, playing half his games in Miller Park especially should help. And then Howie Kendrick, you know, he's, I still don't know if he's an everyday player with the DH. He might actually be the Nationals best hitter, though. Justin Smoke, you mentioned it 208 batting average and a 406 slug. Last year, his expected batting average was 250, his expected slug was 495. Don't sleep on Ryan Braun either. I would say the trio of

Avicayel Garcia, Ryan Braun, and Justin Smoke all pretty much gain value across the board here for the Milwaukee Brewers. Let's talk about some of the losers here because of the Universal DH and Chris, you touched on this a little bit at the top when you just mentioned, you know, player valuation in this short and season. And Madison Bumgarner, Zach Wheeler, Aaron Nola are three that stand out to me, and I know that you did some research on this, but they lose a decent amount of their strikeout percentage because they are not facing the opposing pitcher anymore.

So Madison Bumgarner loses 11.6% of his strikeout rate from last year. That came against pitchers. He loses that. Zach Wheeler lost 8.4% and Aaronola will lose 8%. So those are three names that pop out to me that lose a decent amount because they're not going to be facing the opposing pitcher, Chris. Yeah, I actually, I'm trying to find the research now because I did look at what they did overall.

And then once you take out pitchers, once you take out versus pitchers. And yeah, I think that the, so the biggest loser in raw strikeout percentage last year, Merrill Kelly lost 15% of his strikeouts. Well, that doesn't really help us all that much. But then you do get to an interesting, a couple interesting names in, you know, the fourth largest percentage of his strikeouts came against pitchers, Matt some Bumgarner, fifth Stephen Strasbourg, six, or sorry, fifth Stephen Mats, excuse me, Stephen Mats, not Steven Strasbourg, and seventh Mike Siroca.

So those were all guys who lost right around 10 to 12 percent of their total strikeouts. You know, obviously that creates a different number for each player because Madison Bumgarner has a higher strikeout rate than Mike Siroka. But generally speaking, those were among the biggest losers when you do. take out pitchers. That being said, we don't know whether that's going to continue to be the case moving forward. This is the kind of thing that, you know, you're dealing with 50 plate apparent sample sizes for the most part. Yeah, about 50 to 60 for every five day starter. So you're talking about a very, very small sample size where, you know, if Madison Bumgarner gets three extra

strikeouts against a pitcher, it can skew the numbers pretty dramatically. And it might not necessarily be meaningful. So what I would suggest you take away from that isn't that you need to discount Madison and Baumgartner X percent or Mike Soroka X percent, but is to keep in mind that what he did last season did feature that as well. And so, you know, it might have been a little bit inflated. That's one of the ways in which their performance might have been inflated. And in Bumgarner and Siroca's case, I think there's pretty universal agreement that their production was inflated already. And so this might already be baked in to their expected production in 2020. I don't ever want to completely just cross a player off my draft board and say I won't draft him because everybody has a price.

But I'm pretty close to that point with Madison Bumgarner. Moves away from AT&T, Oracle Park. his career there, 272 ERA, last year, a 293 ERA at home in San Francisco, and a 5.2929 ERA on the road. Of course, moves over to the Arizona Diamondbacks now, so we'll not have the same ballpark that he's pitched in for so many years. Scott, are you factoring this into your rankings or how you're valuing pitchers much, if at all? Not really. I basically agree with what Chris said. and I mean for the specific pitchers we're talking about there there are just other factors I think that outweigh that outweigh the amount of strikeouts they had against pitchers last year like for example I'm moving bumgarner and wheeler down a little bit or I already have because like they were guys who earned their ranking largely on just accumulation the fact that they were going to out accumulate other pitchers or

ranked in the same range over 162 game season. And obviously that that is off the table. I mean, they might still pitch deeper than like a Jesus Luzardo on average. But they're going to make the same number of starts now. And I think it's pretty clear to me. I mean, to the extent you can say this about a rookie, that Luzardo is going to have better ratios. So it's easy to move guys like Bumgarner wheeler down.

I mean, Trevor Bauer moved him down kind of for the same reason. So I'm not even like that happens before you even get into any thought process about strikeouts against pitchers and you know just because of the way the starting pitcher position breaks down there's only so much you can move them down.

Here's the oh sorry well I was going to comment on a few of the others but go ahead if you're playing off that point. Well I just wanted to throw out another data point that I just discovered that might it's definitely worth discussing. 1995, the last time we had a player strike,

from the numbers that I was able to find, pitchers averaged 4.8 innings per start in the month of April. Now, that was only six days. I think it was April 25th was opening day. So it was only six or seven days worth of numbers. But, you know, it was 6.1 in April of 1994 and 5.8 in April of 1996. And I think even in May of 19,

it was still like 5.8, so it was still significantly lower than you would expect. So there's also a possibility that we're talking about all pitchers averaging four innings per start in the month of July or for the first few weeks of the season, which, you know, at that point, maybe I'm not even being optimistic or pessimistic enough in moving pitchers down. Maybe it's a situation where it's time to start thinking about relievers as, you know, a significant part of your plan as well. It's hard to say. Like we don't, because it's not, it's not a perfect analog in 1995. Players had no contact with their teams up until like April 3rd. And then the season started April 25th. So they basically had three weeks to rush through a spring

training, whereas in this scenario, we had a week and a half of a spring training. Then we had you know, four months, I guess, of nothing, but players still working out and they've been able to work out in team facilities for the last month, and then we'll have a training. So it's not a perfect analog, but that number did stand out to me

when I just looked it up. Yeah, I think, I think it's safe to assume the average league-wide will be lower for that first month. But I think the level, how established the pitcher is. I mean, specifically somebody like Madison Baumgartner.

Like, he's not going to allow himself to be pulled after four innings if he's going well, you know? I mean, maybe his first start, but not his third start, you know? Like, that's going, the ramp up is going to happen much quicker for pitchers like that who have, who have some say over their own workload, I think. So, yeah, I mean, I guess that's a point in Madison, bumgarner's favor. I mean, obviously, I think more of guys on the high end like Verlander and Scherzer. You know, maybe they could distance themselves even more from the pack in that way. But, you know, that's obviously it's all just speculation because we've never seen anything like this before.

Yeah, the Greg Maggs only threw five innings in each of his first. three starts in 1995, 63, 87, and 66, 67 pitches in his first three starts. That's, that's interesting. That's sort of interesting. Yeah, I mean, you take his, you know, this is actually kind of working out perfectly in the 1995 analogy, because this season's probably going to start July 24th through 26th, something around there. They started April 25th. This season is going to end at the end of September. There's ended at the end of June. Now, Greg Maddox made 12th, starts through 87 innings, so less than six innings per start. And he was the historically great version of Greg Maddox that he's always been. Had a, yeah, yeah, that was that was prime Greg

Maddox. Yeah, it was weird for him to go less than seven innings. Yeah, had no PSS below 500 allowed in those 12s in those 12 starts in in 1995. And even he, uh, or I guess my math is kind of wrong on that. He was just above six innings per start in that stretch. Uh, eight, 12 times six is 82. 72? Oh, God. 72. All right. So, yeah. Don't, yeah, I was wrong. He was around sevenings per start,

but he was above that the rest of the season. I guess would be the way to phrase that. Just go away from me. I need some time to reset my birthday. So he did win five in each of his first three starts. That part was... Yes. Okay. Our resident mathematician,

Chris Towers, is having a little bit of a brain flub. We'll take a break there. come back. We'll look at the winners and losers regarding injuries and scheduling and divisions. We'll do that when we come back here on fantasy baseball today. All right, we're back here on fantasy baseball today. I want to take a look at some of the winners regarding injuries. Some of the players you might have forgotten about seems like forever ago. But Mike Clevenger did have a knee injury this year in 2020 and was expected to miss maybe the first month of the season. That is not going to be the case anymore. Justin Verlander, once the season was delayed,

opted to have groin surgery. He's expected to be ready. Once, I guess, summer training gets ramp back up. James Paxton is expected to be ready. Shohei Otani originally wasn't going to pitch until May. He's coming back from Tommy John's surgery. It seems like he'll be ready to pitch. That's an interesting one, though. Talk to me, Chris. Do they just throw him back into game action without that rehab assignment? I mean, there's not going to be any rehab assignment. So I guess if they want him to face live batters, this is it. That's an interesting one, I guess, that I hadn't thought about. I kind of just had assumed that that Shohatani was going to

start the season as a starter. But would they really go 22 months without him seeing a live batter in a game? I think they'll let him pitch, but it's I think it's probably, if it's likely for

anybody that they have potentially a piggyback reliever behind them, it is probably Shoheyotani. Especially the first couple of times through the order. I understand it's a short season. You only have so much time, but Otani is obviously a large investment for their future. It wouldn't surprise

me if the first three or four starts. He really doesn't pitch more than three or four innings. I could see something like that happening for O'Ton. Especially if canning is healthy because that would give them seven viable starters. Continuing on with some of the winners, players who might have forgotten about who were

injured. Cole Hamels is coming back from a shoulder injury. Rich Hill. I remember we did sleepers for each category. And Rich Hill was basically a sleeper for every one of the pitching categories. ERA, whip, strikeouts.

It's just a matter of the guy staying on the field. 60 game season probably has a pretty good chance. Some relievers here, Corey Canable and Jordan Hicks, both coming back from Tommy John's surgery, and some hitters that stand out as winners. Willie Calhoun had a fracture in his jaw. Got hit with like a 95-mile-per-hour fastball during spring training.

Andrew McCutcheon was expected to be delayed. start the season. And then Aaron Hicks is also going back from Tommy John's surgery. So, Scott, which one do you think of all these injuries is the biggest winner with the time off here? It's probably Rich Hill, right? Rich Hill is the single biggest winner.

No matter what category you put him in, injured players, you know, if you're counting him with the new DHS, like no matter what way you're looking at this return, risers and fallers, Rich Hill is number one on the risers list because I mean back in March a June return I mean that seems so far off like you can't even it's it's it's it's a timetable that's too far out to

even take seriously especially for a guy coming off elbow surgery but we've since he received word he's going to be ready to go whenever the season restarts so now he's um in terms of you know, he's not looking at any timeline and far less uncertainty too. And yeah, I mean, you look at his numbers the past three years with the Dodgers. It's, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, elite ratios. The only thing keeping people from drafting him on that level is because they couldn't count on and making more than 15 starts or so in his season.

Well, nobody's going to make 15 starts this season. So that's not so much of a concern either. he's a 40-year-old coming back from an elbow procedure that, you know, should have required Tommy John. Yeah, he kind of took a work around since he's 40 years old and obviously doesn't have time to go through the whole Tommy John rehabilitation process. So it's not full proof. You can't, I don't think it makes sense to draft him like a top 50 starting pitcher.

But a little outside of that, given the upside relative to the pitchers after that steep drop off at the position, I think, I think he's an easy call. You've got to take him there. I'm going to try and get him in as many leagues as I can. The thing about Rich Hill is if you just took his performance at face value, he's a top 20 pitcher. Like you would be drafting him in the Charlie Morton range.

Top 10. He just took what he did over the last handful of seasons when he was on the mound. So, you know, it's sort of like what I was tying about with John Carlos Stanton earlier in the offseason where, you know, if he's healthy, I'm very confident he's going to be very good. and in Rich Hill's case, you know, he's being discounted for the injuries fairly, but he's being really, really discounted.

And we'll see where it ends up settling because there hasn't been that many drafts since this news broke, but, you know, he's someone who should get drafted in every single league, every single format, except for NL only. So, yeah. I said top 10, Chris, because among starting pitchers with at least 400

endings pitched since 2016, his 3.00 ERA ranked 6th, his 10.6K per 9th, and his 1.08 whip ranked 8th. So when he's on the mound, he performs like a top 10 starting pitcher. Another pitcher who we do have some worry about whether or not he's going to be on the mound and how consistently he will is James Paxton. Chris, last year James Paxton's ADP was inside the top 60.

Right now his ADP is 137. I wish Adam were here so we could talk about Tapap AMC, But do you think James Paxon is undervalued? At 137, yes. I don't think if you do a draft today, James Paxon's going to go 137th. I would guess he starts to go in the top 100 over these next five weeks or so. Is that warranted? I can tell you, let's see, I put this together early June.

So, you know, we were anticipating a short season. We may have been hoping for more like 80 games than 60 games. but I looked at between April 1st so April 1st think back that was that was when it was clear the season was going to be delayed be delayed a certain amount

between April 1st and June 3rd there were 149 drafts that took place on NFBC so a significant number let me see who are we talking about Paxton Paxton had moved up from 135 to 119.

So he was definitely moving up, but he was still not getting what he deserved, I feel like. So we did a roto mock draft, Scott, for a 50-game season. I want to say it was early June, and he went pick 107. It's about the same range, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's... Even at that point, he's probably still of value. you. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree, especially if you, you know, what, what's hurting his value, too, is just look at how he performed last year, and it was less than ace-like, but there, that's two years in a row, to be fair. You know, we are talking about someone who, as much as I love the potential, you know, the ERA last three seasons, 2.98, 3.76, 3.82.

Yeah, but you're only looking at ERA. Sure. Last year, he was kind of bad across the board. Yeah. Yeah, and his strikeout numbers are still, I mean, elite. They're amongst the best in the leagues over the past two seasons. His 11.4K per 9 is fifth best. I know something Adam talks about a lot is his final 11 starts. He started using his curveball more.

The curve usage went up, and during that span, he had a 2.51 ERA. So hopefully he goes back to using the curve more here since he had success with it last year. I would say last year, he more resembled exactly. Wheeler, and so that's where he's getting, that's the same range where he's getting drafted when... There's much more upside. Yeah, his strikeout upside is so much better. Yeah, I think that's fair. Scott, I know you wrote an article regarding the biggest winners and losers in this short and season,

and you had some players who are returning from injury, so typically I think people's minds might gravitate towards, all right, they're winners, Aaron Judge, he's had so much time, Blake Snell, Yordaun Alvarez, all these guys have had time, but yet you still have them as losers. Why is that? Yeah, so Aaron Judge, at last report, he hasn't even swung a bat yet. And that's going to be a test because the stress fracture in his rib, it just, he needs to be immobile for it to

heal. And he's had a lot of extra time, sure, but once he begins baseball activities, he could be right back to square one. And at that point, does he have enough time to recover to contribute at all in a 60 game season, probably not. And in fact, they may even be looking at surgery. So it's very high risk there, just given the nature of that injury. And Blake Snell is kind of the same way.

Like, we don't know exactly what's going on with his elbow. He had loose bodies removed at the end of last season, but then needed a cortisone shot in the initial spring training on the opposite side of the elbow where the UCL is. So, you know, I guess that's a little reassuring. but why didn't he need a cortisol shop? That's not exactly normal. And it's another situation where even if it's,

even if it's kind of a minor thing that he just, you know, needs to shut down and ramp back up, like that's how short the season is. You're not going to have time to go through that kind of stuff the way you wouldn't in normal season. Like it concerns me even more in a short season than it wouldn't a full-length season. So it's, yeah, it's worth noting,

Jim Bowden did say that the Yankees expect to have Aaron Judge and Aaron Hicks available for opening day. They're optimistic that they will. I don't know as of yet whether we can say that that's something we should put a ton of stock into, but that's at least what they're thinking. The thing with Snell and Canning, you know, I think Snell is more likely to just pitch right now, like start spring training or whatever we're calling it. be out there on the mound. Spring training, you know, that's halfway through March of February through basically

the end of April is kind of the injury nexus for pitchers. Like if you can get through there, your chances of actually making through the season go up a lot. The next five weeks are going to be kind of like that. Like if Blake Snell does make it through ramping back up, pitches in three or four games and whatever the short in spring training, I don't even know if we're probably not I'm going to have games, I guess, in spring training. So intrasquod, scrimmages, whatever we see. Like, this is going to be really complicated.

We may not even have, like, full box scores on MLB.com. So I don't expect to now. The whole thing is going to be very odd. But if Blake Snow does make it through there, and let's say he gets to his last start in that spring training and throws 65 pitches and has no issues from now, his stock should go up quite a bit from where it is now. That doesn't mean he's going to get through the season,

but it doesn't mean he's gotten through part of the most dangerous part of that period. I think that's probably true for all four of these guys. And I do, since we're lumping them together under the same concern category, which I think is fair. It's also worth noting a very different extensive concern here for me.

If I was ranking them by level of concern, it would be canning one, judge two, decent size gap, then Snell, substantial gap, than Jordan Alvarez. Like, I'm not really downgrading

Jordan Alvarez for sore knees. Although, man, he might not be ready at the start of the season, but I think he'll probably be okay. If they report July 1st and we get like a July 6th, like, oh, Jordan Alvarez's knees are kind of crud,

then it's just all bets are off. Then it's just like, this dude's knees are ruined. Yeah, yeah, fair point. I personally think Blake Snell is a ticking time bomb, like cortisone shot in your pitching elbow, but I will say that what you said,

regarding him, Chris, is correct. If he gets through spring training, that is the biggest obstacle for him because he couldn't even get through the first spring training. Yeah. Because he had these concerns. The thing that's so tough about it, though, is, you know, we're going on basically a calendar year of him having elbow concerns. You know, it was right around last July. And none of them have actually been serious concerns. Like last year, he had loose bodies removed from his elbow. It wasn't structural. This year, he did have a course. in shot, but like Scott said, it was on the opposite side of the elbow from the UCL, which is typically the big concern. And so it's like, and we didn't really get like a

dieting. It wasn't like he had a flex or straining. Or was it? It can't be good. It wasn't. Chris, it can't be good though. No, no, no. That's the thing is it's not good, but it's all these little things that on their own aren't necessarily a significant concern. Like Blake's, no, there was a decent chance he was ready for opening day, even with all that stuff going on in spring training. Fair enough. Let's, um, quickly mentioned some of the winners and losers regarding scheduling and divisions. The latest that I've seen and all along, I think what we were anticipating was that the teams will stay in their geographic location, which means they will play most of their games in

division, and they will also play the opposing division in the opposite league. So the AL East will face all the AL East teams, and then they will also face the NLE East teams. And because of this, Scott, all along, I have said, I want to focus on Twins pitchers. I want Twins pitchers because, A, they don't have to face the Twins lineup. That's already a great thing. But between Jose Berrios, Kenta Maeda, Jake Oteresee, who originally I was not in on Jake Oteresee, but because of this, I am more apt to draft him now. And Rich Hill, they get to face the Tigers consistently, the Royals consistently. If they face the opposite division, they'll get to face the pirates.

That's all good news for Twins pitchers, Scott. It is. Yeah, they're used something of nice. That division, the AL Central, is the only division with two teams in the early stage of a rebuild that should just be dreadful. Those two teams, of course, being the Royals and the Tigers. Every other division has just one. It's kind of amazing how balanced the divisions actually are. I was kind of underwhelmed at the distinctions between them in terms of hitters parks versus pitcher parks and just the state of rebuild for a team.

But the AL Central stands out in that way, having two rebuilding clubs. And like you said, the Twins lineup is the only, like, first division lineup in that division. White Sox and Indians, they could be, you know, they could be pretty good lineups. Let's go White Sox. They're not world beaters. And by the way, like, hitters who don't, like, like Indians hitters, because the Indians probably have the best pitching staff in that division, right, by a pretty good margin. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Framiel Reyes. he's going to be facing a bunch of bad pitchers in his own division and I think that's the more significant aspect in this schedule. That's what I was going to say. Own division versus opposing division because they might,

you know, they might play each team from the opposing division just once. But if you want to factor that in. Yeah. If you want to factor that in, look at the NL Central. There's the Reds and there's the Cardinals.

And then basically every other pitching staff in the NL Central is pretty junkie. So, you know, that's just another slight reason to upgrade AL Central hitters and I think specifically Indians hitters. Yeah, I do think, like Scott said, the own division is the much bigger factor. Given a 60 game season, I think they probably shouldn't do any interleague play. I mean, it's just why do the travel you're going to play each, you're going to travel to all these different cities to play each team once. Like, it seems kind of stupid. Just play your whole division, but either way.

in a typical season you play 47% of your schedule against your divisional opponents. Now you're going to be playing probably two thirds at least, maybe more. And so all of a sudden what that does is you're seeing those pitchers more, which should give the hitters an advantage, although it's given the short season,

it may not be that much of an advantage. But the bigger thing is you're seeing like the NLS teams, all of a sudden you're going from what, nine out of 162 games, which is 6% or something of your games at course field to probably seven or eight out of 60? You're probably looking at a situation where at least 10% of your schedule and probably more as an NLS team is going to come at course field. So you're going to get much more of that bump. So, you know, I think all of these things are relatively small. And there

are other ways that they balance out. You know, you'll play more games in San Francisco, which is, but, you know, ultimately these things all balance out. But when you're looking at these scheduling things, we don't know those details yet, but once we do, that's another place where you can kind of make those adjustments at a population level. You know, maybe you move all NLS teams up or whatever, whatever the case may be. So yeah, I think that's where you start to get those tweaks, but we need a little more information. Yeah, the last couple of winners I'll mention, just based on this, I hear what you're saying, Chris, Lucas Gielito. He actually performed well against the twins last year, 3.24 ERA in four

starts against him, small sample size, but we'll get to face the Tigers and the Royals. And Scott, you mentioned Fran Milraeus as someone who you would want to move up the board because he doesn't have to face his own pitching staff. But I think you can kind of lump the twins and white socks in there just because facing the Tigers and Royals as much as they do will be a higher percentage of those games. And the Tigers and Royals just have terrible pitching staff. outside of Matthew Boyd, of course, who is, you know, everyone's breakout, darling. I want to get into some emails quickly here.

Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. We've got to get to this one because Michael emailed us yesterday and he said, guys, my draft is tomorrow night, which is tonight. It's Tuesday, June 23rd, so hopefully, Michael, you have a chance to listen to this before your draft. Any last-minute sleepers, breakouts, impactful rookies I need to know about in a 12-te-to-head categories league

Let's give Scott the rookies, Chris the sleepers, and I'll take the breakouts. Scott, head-to-head categories, impactful rookies, go. Nate Pearson is somebody I moved up almost as much as I've moved up, Rich Hill, and that applies regardless of the format. For a Categories League specifically, I think it's very likely Nick Madrigal just starts out as the White Sucks second baseman now, and he could be a great source of both batting average and stolen bases, which are two categories that are hard to fill. for cheap.

Dylan Carlson could be a five-category player and we expect him to play a lot. That basically tops the list. McKenzie Gore, I'm interested in hearing how legitimate his chances are of making the Padre's rotation because if he's in, I'm going to rank him about where I do,

Jesus Luzardo. I think the impact could be similar there from McKinsey Gore. Chris, you've got the sleepers. Yeah, a lot of the guys that we talked about earlier in that DH conversation, and Justin Smoke, and especially, I think,

Howie Kendrick in a head-to-head categories league. He could be a legitimate four-category stud in that format. And then I'll throw out, you know, guys we talked a lot about Mitch Keller, going 256 overall. That's one that makes a ton of sense. Oh, I just forgot the name I was going to say. Will Myers, another guy we talked about earlier, Hunter Harvey, if you're looking for a closer candidate with some upside.

And then, that's it. There are a lot. I'll piggyback off you with Mitch Keller. Spoiler alert, he is in my breakout's 2.0 column, and I found this little nugget last night. He threw 157 sliders in 2019, which posted a 26.8% swinging strike rate

and a 50.5% chase rate. To put that in perspective, Verlander had a 24% swinging strike rate on his slider, and he had the best slider in baseball. according to Fangraph's pitch values and a 53% chase rate. So Mitch Keller swinging strike rate on his slider, small sample,

was better than Justin Verlanders. So with Oscar Marin there, I think focusing more on those secondary pitchers, the slider and the curveball for both Mitch Keller and Joe Musgrove, two pitchers I really like. Zach Gallen, we talk a lot about as a breakout.

Fran Mill Reyes, we just spoke about him. In a head-to-head categories league, I typically fade steals. So Willie Calhoun, Eloy Jimenez, Alex Verdugo are all names that I think could be breakouts this season. So there you go, Michael. Good luck tonight in your draft, although you should not be drafting this early. You should just kind of delay it two or three more weeks.

This text was from Tony. Listening to yesterday's podcast, you guys were having a conversation about position eligibility. And Adam was talking about a league where players were only eligible at their primary position. My league is somewhat in that vein. We've had this league going back to 2003, and we have a rule that a player needs to appear at the position played during the current scoring period or the previous scoring period in order to be eligible. That means guys that are traditionally multi-eligible might not be depending on where they are playing. A guy like Whitmerfield might still have eligibility at both second base

and outfield if he is actually playing at both positions over the course of the week. So he just wanted us to touch on position eligibility. And we've received some other questions about this as well. You know, how is this going to change in a shortened season? Do you guys have any ideas? Those are decisions that are made by people other than us. And have you heard anything, Chris? I haven't heard anything.

I'll ask about that today. Yeah. I'm trying to go to definitive answer. Yeah, I mean, if they ask for input, I would, I would, I don't think I would suggest changing it in season because five is already such a low threshold. you don't want the threshold to be too low and like a fluke appearance set

a position where a guy has no business actually playing he becomes eligible there but what's going to be I think the bigger discussion is heading into next year how many games how many appearances at a position does it take to retain eligibility and I you know 20s the CBS standard

I think maybe it should change to 10 so you know if you're looking into that your own league where you don't have to go with the CBS standard that's that's what I'd recommend is maybe keeping it five for in season but changing it to 10 for next season if not five I mean you could lower more than 10 but five is like the the minimum I think I'd do yeah I think I'd be okay with going three in season 10 next season basically you know this season is three-fifths of you know roughly three-fifths of a full major league season or two-fifths of a full major league season. So you're not quite cutting it down to that. You still have to get more than half

of the pace. But it's still gettable, I think. Yeah. I guess three is probably fair. A fluke appearance, one, I mean, that would not be good. Two, just to give you some buffer. Three, if a guy plays a position three times, his manager probably trusts him on some level there. I guess I could be talked into three instead of five, but absolutely no lower than that. Doing some quick math, normally you need the 20 games for the next season's position eligibility. 20 out of 162 is roughly 12%. And seven or eight games in a 60 game season is right around 12, 13%. So you could lower it to seven or eight games for the following season's position eligibility.

If you have the ability to do that in your league. but that'll do it for today. Hopefully by the time we return tomorrow, everything is set, and our baseball season is good to go. Again, 5 p.m. today. By the time we're recording this, it is still before 5 p.m.

So you should know, and if you do, we'll be back with some position previews tomorrow for Scott. Chris, I am Frank. Thank you all for watching and listening, watching on the Fantasy Baseball today YouTube channel.

Make sure to subscribe to the FBT YouTube channel. Bye-bye!