Fantasy Baseball Today - Latest Proposal, Javier Baez Debate, Random Statcast Stats! (05/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

It seems as though we're getting closer to a baseball season with the latest proposal from Ken Rosenthal (4:08). We're looking at an 80-game season with 45-50 players on a given roster. How does that change your league? Should you play doubleheaders in H2H formats? How do you structure the Fantasy playoffs? ... Last week Javier Baez was left for dead and we need to get to the bottom of it (19:32). Where does he excel? Is he as risky as other shortstops being drafted in his range? ... Moving on to our Statcast stats, C.J. Cron is elite at barrelling up baseballs (32:35). Does it matter? ... Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had the hardest hit ball in 2019 (34:52). How can he reach his full potential? ... Justin Smoak and Danny Jansen seem like they're due for massive positive regression (41:15). Should they be targeted in deeper leagues? ... Lastly, how should keeper leagues handle big trades (56:55)? ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Just two years ago, Javier Byers was a top 10 player in Roto and a top 15 hitter in points leads. Why no love? We'll try and get to the bottom of this today. Happy Monday fantasy baseball today. I am Frank, joined by Adam, Scott, and Chris. Chris, I know that you enjoyed a snowstorm,

much like I did in New York this past weekend. Yeah, yeah, I went out for a bike ride on Saturday. That's something I'm trying to do a little more often, and it started snowing on May 9th, which, I mean, living in South Florida my whole life, any snow would be shocking. But snow in the middle of May, I didn't know that was a thing that happened. So that was delightful, actually. It was a really joyful thing to have happened.

So I'm glad I got to experience that. It doesn't normally happen. I've lived in New York my entire life. Adam's been here past couple of years. years. Adam, I'm going to assume that you weren't out playing in the snow this week. I've been here for like six years now. Okay. But much like Chris, I, you know, he said he wanted to get out and bike more.

I opened my blinds on Saturday or Sunday, whenever that was. That is something that I'd like to start doing more. And I did notice it was snowing. And I was like, Allie, come here. Bring the baby. Check this out. And she didn't care at all. So that was disappointing because it was really fun to see this snow.

probably not fun to be in. I was glad I was inside. Was it the kind that like dissolved on impact? Yeah, it was like the lightest flurry possible. Yeah, it barely counts. It was crazy. It was really windy where I was. So it looked like the apocalypse basically. The weirdest thing is it was just so sunny. It was like the sunniest day ever.

And out of nowhere, it just started snowing. Oh my God. My cat almost knocked down a glass of water next to my laptop. Jesus. Oh, gosh. is a bad start. Are you a first time cat owner? It's a terrible combination. Cat, water, computer.

I pushed her off the desk like four times in a row already. Call animal services. Well, I picked her up and placed her on the floor. So you're into hyperbole now, Chris. Yeah. I'm just trying to paint a picture for the audience. Today on the show, we are going to get into the latest MLB proposal. it seems like we're kind of getting closer to negotiations happening.

I know that they are meeting today. The MLB is on a conference call with owners. They approve the plan just now, actually. John Heyman just reported, as you said that, that they've approved the plan to take to the Players Association. Frank was on the conference call. There you go. So the next step is the MLB players and the MLB just in general, right?

Is that what you're saying, Chris? It's up to the, it's in the players. I mean, I don't want to say it's in the players court because there's no guarantee that the owner's proposal is fair for the players. But now the proposal will be taken to the players union for negotiations and voting. So hopefully we get some movement. I'm less optimistic now than I was a week ago. All right. So we'll get into that proposal.

I want to get into the Javier Baez conundrum. Everyone on this podcast hates Javier Baez except for me. seems like. I have some stat cast stats that are just random things that I found and came across. I want to find out whether or not those things matter. And in your emails, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com a little bit later on in the show. But this latest proposal that we heard is regular season beginning in early July, anywhere from 78 to 82 games. So that's less than what we've heard before. We've heard, you know, in the 100 range, maybe even a little bit more than that. Now it's around 80, so basically half a normal season that we're used to an expanded roster of 45 to 50

players, a universal DH in the National League, teams would face opponents from their division and same geographic division in the opposite league. So the NL East would face the teams within their division inside the National League East and also the American League East, and that's to, you know, keep teams within proximity in their geographic location. The Marlins are just going to get pumped Hill all year. Well, but what about the Orioles? Oh, the Orioles. Why are you picking on the Marlins?

The Orioles were worse last year? Yeah, the Orioles are worse. They're worse now. Imagine watching all those Orioles Marlins games this year. That's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. Scott, we haven't heard from Scotty Dubbs yet today. Scott, how's it going?

How is your weekend? And what do you think of this latest proposal? My weekend was unimportant. As for this proposal. Well, it would be interesting to see if anything that, was in Ken Rosenthal's report from this weekend has changed with this owner agreement that has been approved to present to the players. But, you know, we, since it's happening in real time, we can't say that.

But I think the biggest takeaways for me are that it's now, you know, we were thinking in terms of maybe an 100 game season and now they're saying more like 80, which would mean probably they don't have to lean so heavily on double headers and maybe don't. go as deep into October. You know, some of those ideas that had been floated out there in the past may not, may not come to fruition, if that's the case. The 45 to 50-man rosters through me, though I reread it a couple times, and it's not clear if Ken Rosenthal meant 40-man rosters would expand to 45 or 50,

as opposed to the 26-man active rosters expanded to that many. That would make more sense, because if owners are worried about how much much this is going to cost them. They're not going to want to pay 45 to 50 players like major leaguers, I presume. So, you know, we still got to find out exactly if that's what he meant, but that's my assumption right now. And, you know, it's looking more and more like if this season ever does get off the ground that spring training, the scenario where every team's playing in their spring training parts, that's not going to be the way it happens. Ken Rosenthal did talk that, But, you know, maybe, maybe like Toronto, maybe like the New York teams, there may be a couple teams that do have to play in their spring training venues at least to start out.

But that's not going to be the league-wide plan. So we can, I can breathe a sigh of relief in terms of not having to redo all of my rankings for the scenario where everybody's playing in the Cactus League. Yeah, that would be bad. Yeah, we don't have to move Matt Chapman ahead of Nolan Aronado. for now. What Chris mentioned was, you know, just because the MLB has the, you know, have the approval to bring this proposal to the Players Association, it doesn't mean that anything is happening yet. So I don't want to, you know, jump the gun and get too excited here. Ken Rosenthal also reporting right now, MLB owners have approved a proposal for 2020

season to present to the Players' Union. Sources tell the Athletic, a meeting expected between Union and the League tomorrow. Jeff Passon also adds, now is when it starts to get serious and we'll know soon enough if baseball is coming back in 2020. Email of the day. I want to kind of tie this in together because we got an email from Tyler Fiddler who asked about this latest proposal. And he said, wondering your thoughts on the latest report from Ken Rosenthal about this 78 to 82 game season,

how does this change your draft strategy in a head-to-head league, which I'm sure many people are wondering. Do pitchers or hitters become more valuable, or will you just stick with your usual draft strategy? Do you target more proven safe players versus trying to try and to gamble on someone's upside. Also, with the shortened season, do you think league should add one or two more bench spots

to accommodate the condensed season? Adam, regarding this email, will an 80 game season change how you, your draft strategy in a head-to-head points league? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I still am wrapping my head around this. The biggest difference, I think, is,

you know, you're going to have a very short regular season we have to figure out the best way to set up a league. I mean, I feel like Roto is kind of the way to go in a lot of instances or maybe shorten the amount of teams, reduce the amount of teams that make the playoffs. I don't know. But I don't want like a really short regular season and then an extended postseason, right, in our fantasy leagues.

This is really, really short. So maybe, you know, I would say ordinarily you wouldn't take like injured players, but that's not going to be even a factor here. There aren't going to be any injured players. Well, there will be some new injuries that have. in spring training. Yeah, in the three weeks spring training period. And, you know, whatever kind of injury one of those players suffers,

it's going to be a bigger percentage of the season that they miss. So you're going to downgrade them even more. That's obvious, though. So I would say no. I would say no, this isn't going to change my strategy as of now. Chris, the one thing I would add about if you play in head-to-head points leagues and maybe even head-to-head categories league, any league that hasn't had a head-to-head aspect is that you can run double

headers so that the season being condensed doesn't mean that okay um you know we're gonna instead of however many weeks a season normally is in a head-to-head league i believe it's what's like over 20 25 so instead of having like a 12 or 13 week season for for a head-to-head league if you run double headers where you're facing two different opponents at once you still kind of have that 25 26 game record. This is going to make fantasy baseball traditionalists mad, but

I'm totally fine with a shorter schedule. I'm fine with the implications of a shorter schedule, meaning that there's more randomness and more chaos across the league. I think that all makes for a better and more entertaining league. Every week matters a lot more. You can actually move up and down

the rankings, very quickly because there's not enough time for the really good teams to separate. Okay, but we've got 13 weeks, basically. So how are you even going to do that, like, how many regular season weeks do you want to have because we like to have two-week playoffs, two-week playoffs, two-week playoffs? Yeah, I mean, two-week playoffs, that's a non-starter. Can't happen. But what are you going to have a 10?

We're going to have a nine-week regular season? That's... It's too short. That's why I think you should play double-headers. But even if you play double-headers, I mean, you don't have that much time for your team to improve. I mean, you're not going to make trades that are going to impact your team. I don't know.

You might be playing double-headers. It means you have 18 matchups, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a nine-week regular season. Well, actually, there's really no reason at this point to be like, oh, we're not going to play the last week of the season. Like, you're going to play 13. So 10-week regular season? Well, here's the other thing you can consider.

If you shrink the number of teams that are going to the playoffs for your league, let's say it's normally six, but instead you make it four, that'll buy you some extra weeks. But maybe the better way to go about it is to make the regular season, is to actually make all but the four worst teams, put them all in the playoffs and have more of a tournament. I don't know. That's worth thinking through. but it might make sense to kind of embrace the randomness in that regard. Yeah, I think you could you can even do, there actually, this kind of creates all kinds of opportunities to try something new. Scott, which, is it the Carolina League that has two champions?

Which minor league does that? There's one of them that has a first half champion and a second half champion, or at least they used to. Maybe they don't anymore. I could try looking it up. There was a minor league or maybe a whole level that had first half champion. champion, second half champion, you could do something like that. You could do the team that wins the first five weeks and then the team that wins the next five weeks or six versus six

plays each other on week 13, something like that. I think there's a lot of ways that you can do this that create a lot more fun, create a lot of interest and can keep the entire league interested through the end. I think it's an opportunity to, uh, well, all right, what would you do you're the commish give me your i kind of like the idea i just came up with highest scoring team in the first half goes against the highest scoring team in the second half or the two highest scoring teams in both uh go into a 14 playoff at the end because i like that because it gives you the opportunity uh if you're a low scoring team in the first half you've still got a chance to make a run in the second half there's going to be so many more players this year like this year's going to be

so weird for fantasy because there's going to be these expanded rosters and doubleheaders and all these, like, I think every top prospect who's at least made it to double A is probably going to be on an opening day roster at this point. If you're not going to have minor league games and you're going to have these giant rosters, I don't know. Do you really think the rosters are going to be as big as 45 to 50? No, I was just rereading, Scott. I think you're right. I think it's like the 40-man roster gets expanded, but I think the 25-man roster is probably going to be like 30 people. But they'll have like a taxi squad. I just, I just feel like, the financial downside of activating that many prospects,

who may not even be ready, is too great for a shortened season for teams to be willing to do that. I would be surprised if the active roster is only 30. It was 30, it was only 30 in 1995. I think 30 with the ability to really maneuver it a lot more, but on each particular nights, you're not going to have more than 30 people active. Oh, sure, but that's, functionally the same thing.

These guys aren't going to get used in every game. And if they're playing fewer games in the same amount of time than we were thinking, then they're not, you know, that concern about players having to bounce back quickly enough. Like how much of that roster they're actually going to make use of? Yeah, that's the part that confuses me. The idea of only doing 81 games from July 1st on, because typically we'd see, you know, probably more than that. That would be about the same. Yeah, that's about half of season's time.

Yeah. So it's, it's kind of, I'm kind of confused by this proposal, but I think you should, I think either way, given how weird it's going to be, I think trying some new things out. That's what I would do. I would do top two point scores in the first half of the season, top two point scores in the second half of the season, going to a 14 playoff at the end. That sounds like a lot of fun to me. So you're eliminating the head-to-head aspect during the regular season altogether and just saving that. for the playoffs. You're just doing strict points accumulation. I mean, you could do it either way. You could do the team with the best record and the team with the most points. Yeah, you could do one and one. One best record, first

half, and then one highest scoring points. Most points first half, most points second half, two best records beyond them at the end of the season. Like, there's a lot of ways you can go. I just, I think leaning into how weird this season is going to be, leaning into how unpredictable,

leaning into how tiny the sample sizes are. I think it makes sense to try. I think that gives more people an opportunity to compete in a league where everything's just going to be bizarre. Yeah, everything's going to be weird. Like, across all different sports, across all different fantasy sports,

I mean, these are unforeseen circumstances. So you see leagues like MLB presenting, you know, expanded rosters and more teams making the playoffs. this season. So, I mean, it's an opportunity to try new things for fantasy as well.

I mean, in a shortened season, why not? If you've had an idea that you've wanted to try before. I don't know. But why? I mean,

I just feel like those ideas are good, but why not do them in a full season too? Well, I think it's a trial run. Just like the Universal VH is going to be a trial run for baseball. And by the way,

they should absolutely make that real forever. If I were setting up a league, I would just do, I'm assuming 13 weeks, because regular season is 26 weeks as far as I remember. So it's half of that. I would do either a 10-week league with three rounds of playoffs for six teams or 11 weeks with two rounds of playoffs for four teams. And I would do double-headers like Frank says.

So you're playing two teams, two other opponents each week. That's what I would do. Respect, totally respect. And I'm really interesting. I am. Boring. But the thing is like if you're going to, the total points thing, like, What is the incentive to take a guy that gets injured in spring training?

If you take a great player who gets injured in spring training, or if you have a week one injury, you're screwed. Like, how are you going to score the most points? That's why you have the second half of the season. I should point out that this only sounds like it's going to be a problem that needs to be addressed in weekly leagues, right? If you're in a daily league, you could just run it the same way. There's going to be enough of a pool there.

You should expand your rosters, I think, in every league. But the setup is still the same. I mean, you still have to decide if you're doing a daily league with weekly scoring. You still have to decide how you want to set your playoffs. What is the incentive to expand a roster? I'm not getting that. In fantasy. I get it in real life.

Under the assumption that guys aren't going to play as much. But that doesn't, I'm not sure I'm under that assumption anymore. Yeah, if they're playing less games, they might not try to jam pack as many of them into the schedule. We might not see as many double-headers. we might not, you know, where they were talking about playing 100 or more games in a, however long span from July through October or November, they might have needed to jam-pack the schedule and, you know, put in some double-headers there. Whereas if they're trying to play 80, they're probably trying to minimize some of that.

Yeah. Injury risk and risk in general. I think pitchers aren't going to be used as much. Like I don't think we're going to see, especially maybe your Max Scherzer's are going to go seven innings regularly, but I think especially for the first month or so of the season with the shortest spring training with guys having to ramp up, then ramp down, then ramp back up again. I think teams are going to be very careful with their starting pitchers.

I think we're going to see a lot more relievers used. But even if that's the case, is that what does that mean? Why would that, why would expanded rosters help with that? It would give you more options to, maybe adding lineup spots would help with that. It would give you more options to choose from for your pitchers. All right, guys, I want to move on to Javier Baez, because we teased this a little bit last week

and I didn't really get to say my piece on Javier Baez and it's something that I did want to talk about because it seems like he's getting no respect this guy. Oh, come by, you're too young for that. Yeah, that's true. Name one Rodney Dangerfield movie. Moving on to Javier Baez.

No way. You can't name one? No, I can't. I mean, look, most of them came out before I was born but I still know them. I've got nothing This chair is creaking It's driving me nuts

Wow Did anybody else hear that Sounds like somebody's creeping up on me Wow Whose mouse is clicking is the real question I think it's probably the same person Chris he clicks I wait so honestly Frank

Just if I was going to recommend one Roddy if you consider Caddyshack and Rodney Dangerfield movie Oh it absolutely is I don't know that it's in anyone movie But yeah, that one or back to school is probably my second favorite. All right. Caddyshack, just wrote it down.

I knew the name of the movie. It's just, there's so many movies I haven't seen. It's a conversation for another day. Oh, young think. Javier Baez, I mentioned it at the top. Top 10 player in Roto in 2018, he was the third best shortstop. And he was a top 15 hitter overall in that same season in 2018, where he hit 34 home runs, 101,

run scored 111 RBI with 21 steals in 160 games. Last year was dinged up. He was dealing with some heel leg. He had a thumb issue last year and still managed 29 home runs, 89 run scored, 85 RBI, and 11 steals. I just don't understand all the... Who hates him? Yeah, I like him.

Scott has him very low in his rank. I guess I'm the one who hates him. The podcast hates John Carlos. Javier Baez, like Scott still has him as like a top 50 player, right? Let me check. Well, not in points. I hate Javier Baez. Sure, not in points.

He's not. He takes a hit in points because his plate discipline, and I'm done trying to figure out the, you know, who Javier Baez, like, will the real Javier Baez stand up? Because, I mean, his plate discipline is bad. It's always going to be bad, right? Yeah, the real Javier Baez stands up at the plate and swings at everything. He swings at everything.

But for years, I downed, I discounted him because of that. And I said, look, eventually, you know, this is going to affect him. It hasn't affected him. I mean, from 2015 through 2019, he's had between a 273 and 290 batting average. He's been incredibly consistent in that regard. And since he's become an everyday player, Joe Madden finally gave him that opportunity, he's been great. the past two seasons.

So my question with Javier Baez is what for fantasy is he definitely great at? Like top 10% in the fantasy player pool? I don't think, especially in Roto, it's kind of a jack-of-all-trades master of none profile. He's a good power hitter, but not an elite one.

He's going to give you good RBI and run numbers, but not elite numbers. He'll probably give you a decent batting average, and he's had one season, really, where he was a good steel source. Last season, he did miss some time. He played 141 games, but even if you extrapolate to 150 games, he was only the number 40 hitter in Roto, even at 150 game pace. And that's with a minimum of 400 played appearances. So it's taking out guys like Arise Didis, Akino. who had a couple of good months. This is players who played pretty much every day.

He was the number 40 hitter. That's good. I just think 2018 is more likely to be the outlier for his career. I don't know if he's a 20 stolen base guy ever again. And the raw power certainly exists for him to be a 40 homer guy. And I could conceive of an outcome where he has an outlier. season where he hits 40 home runs, but between the contact issues and a slightly less than ideal batted ball profile, I think you're probably just expecting 30-30-ish home runs. And in today's

major league environment, that's, like, he's definitely not a bad player. I just think he doesn't stand out. So if he hits 280 with 30 home runs, 100 runs, 100 RBI, and 15 steals. that's a good player. That's a very good player in Roto. That's probably his best case scenario, though. Well, why isn't 2018 his best case scenario? He was the number seven hitter in fantasy in Roto, number seven overall. He's not...

And that's pretty close to the stateline Frank just gave. Yeah, you see, Frank, I think you undersold the runs in the RBIs. We have to get out of the 100-100 because, depending on what environment you live in. But based on last year's environment, 200 runs plus RBI's is actually not special. So I think that's an area that for some reason took a big hit last year for him. And I was just looking it up. Like in 2018, the Cubs were 9th in scoring. In 2019, they were 10th in scoring.

They obviously scored more runs because everyone scored more runs. But for some reason, his pace, his 160 game pace, that's how many games he played in 2018. The batting average was similar. Nine points difference. The home runs were exactly the same. The steals were lower, 21 steals to 13 steals. But the runs and RBIs dropped. by like 20 or something like that.

So I don't know what it was, but that is something where he probably has to be great in counting stats, not just good, but if he's going to be a real impact player, because Chris is right, he doesn't excel in anything. He would have to excel, I think,

in runs plus RBIs, and he did that in 2018, and he didn't in 2019. I don't know that we should expect him to be somebody who makes a big contribution. and runs period. I mean, they're talking about batting

Bryant first, Rizzo second, by his third, sure, but you're talking about a guy who had a 316 on base percentage last year, a 326 on base percentage two years ago and who's going to be

hitting behind him now. Not anyone great, a couple pretty good bats, but then the lower third of that lineup's pretty awful. Shouldn't the RBIs go up, though, Scott? Maybe.

To compensate? I mean, maybe you can, maybe you can pencil. limit for 100 plus. The two biggest things that changed for bias for me. And, you know, I think our podcast did hate him relative to the consensus last year. We all expected him to take a step back.

And it wasn't as big as it could have been. It wasn't nearly as big as he could have been. I still think it's a risky profile. And I still think he has to be, he has to remain an outlier. And Babbup and home run to fly ball rate to be a high-end fantasy contributor. And that's just, it's just. risky to bank on that happening year after year. But putting that aside, the biggest things that changed for bias for me are the stolen bases regressed to the barely double digit number we were

used to seeing from him. And with a bad, a really bad success rate that causes me to wonder if we can even count on those double digit steals. And then he's no longer eligible at second base. And shortstop is just so star studded that how does bias stand out from the group? If you see his profile is riskier than some of those others as I do, you're not going to be too enthusiastic about taking it. Would he gain second base eligibility, though? No. He didn't play there everyday short-stop.

He didn't play there at all last year. Yeah, also he jammed his thumb. Something could happen. Sorry, I just want to make two more points real quick, then I'll shut up. He jammed his thumb sliding into second base, missed time in September. That's not good if you're banking on him for steals.

And if he's going to hit third, that's even worse if you're banking on him for steals. And now I'm done. It, yeah, so like, what is the difference between Marcus Simeon and Javier Bias? Well, Javier Bias has done it for two years. So that's part of it. But what Marcus Simeon did last year was basically Javier Bias and he's going a lot cheaper. Even you look at someone like a guy who's going much later is Marcelo Zuna who the banning average was much lower 243, although most of the advanced stats that we typically lean on suggest he was pretty unlucky there. But he had 29 homers in 131 games with 12 steals.

He was only caught stealing twice. And now he's going to be hitting in the heart of a very good lineup. So I just, like, Baez is a good player. He's just not a player that I make a point of reaching for necessarily. And somebody else always does. Unless, yeah, unless he can be a 20-steel guy. I just think he's fallen back to the pack

and he's just very good and not great. The last point I'll add is the other short stops that go in this range and Scott, you have a lot of these guys ranked ahead of him. I think there's some risk as well. I mean, you have question marks with a lot of players in this range. Glaber Torres, is he going to do what he did

against the Orioles again this year? I read the numbers, what he did last season outside of facing Baltimore, and it was very pedestrian. Zander Bogartz loses one of the best bats and baseball from his lineup in Mookie Betts. At Alberto Mondesie coming off a very serious injury, and he has OBP concerns himself for someone that you want to steal bases. Jonathan V.R., is he going to remain with the Marlins the entire season? Is he going to play every single day?

Is he going to, where is he going to play? Is he going to play center field? Is he going to play middle infield? So I do think that there's risk involved with all of the play. all the shortstops that are going in this third, fourth round range. Yeah, I mean, VR and Mondesie, it's a whole different scenario for them. They're hypothetically elite base dealers and stolen bases are by far the scarcest commodity in the five-by-five categories, at least among hitters.

So they get elevated to a level that's frankly ridiculous, but it's just the game you have to play because that's how standard Roto is set up. Stolen bases are that valuable right now. now. So that's why they go ahead of Baez. Rest assured I have them behind Baez in my head-to-head points ranking, even though Points League isn't theoretically Baez's best format. I just wanted to add one thing I was wrong about. I mean, I figured I'd be right about this, but of course I was wrong.

He stole six bases in 22 games batting third two years ago. So that has not mattered for him, historically. All right, I'm the high guy on Baez. It's fine. I'll take it. Much better player in Roto. I admittedly the plate discipline is very bad for head-to-head points leagues, but he is my sixth ranked shortstop, and Scott has him down at 13. So that's someone that we do disagree upon. I'll move him up to 11th.

I can justify moving him ahead of Carlos Correa and Bo Bichette. I was just looking at that as we started this conversation. To me, the three are very close in my eyes, but Bichet and Correa tend to go so much later that I don't think it makes sense to have them ahead of Bias. So I'll move Bias up to 11th at least. Let's go, Scott. I've got some random stat-cast stats that I want to get into and talk about whether or not they matter. We'll do that right after this quick break.

All right, the first stat that I have here, C.J. Crohn's 10.6% barrels per plate appearance ranked sixth best in baseball last season, the only five hitters who ranked ahead of him in this category, Nelson Cruz, Gary Sanchez, Mike Trout, McGill-Sin-O, and Aaron Judge. 55 home runs over the last two seasons for C.J. Crohn. He had 25 last year in just 125 games.

That's a 32 home run pace over 162 games. Scott, does this stat matter? Does it matter? It's... Hmm. No. If you have to think about it for that long, then it probably doesn't. Well, it's not what I've noticed before.

So I was having to come to grips with it on the... spot. Was it unusual for C.J. Crone to do that? No, he was in the top 10% in the league in 2018, and that was 12.2% barrel rate. I think this is per bad. Per plate appearance. Yeah, I'm not sure why the numbers are different from the one you have. But yeah, he's been consistently above average at this over.

over the last three seasons and was very good in 2018 as well. Last year, he had a 469 slug and a 548 expected slug. That 548 expected slug was in the 91st percentile. His 21% strikeout rate was also the lowest. It's been since 2016. So I think in a roto league as your corner infielder makes sense, but Adam, you seem disinterested. I just think it's things that Crohn's on the Tigers now.

It's a bad ballpark. It's a terrible lineup. And I imagine that C.J. Cron is probably going to give you a three-week stretch where he's the man. And he's probably going to be pretty useless for a big... He's streaky, you know? I mean, he is what he is, I think, at this point. Yeah.

And just a moderate home run total is all you're really getting from him. Yeah, right. Not getting much else. Yeah. All right. Number two, Vlad Guerrero Jr. had the hardest hit ball in 2019 at 118. 0.9 miles per hour off the bat. Even with that, his 34% hard contact rate was well below league average.

League average was 38%. His splits were very weird, struggled against left-handed pitching, hit 215 with a 643 OPS. He crushed them in the minors. He hit 293 with an 822 OPS against right-handed pitching. That actually kind of makes me feel better about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. That he hit well against Rite's his first year in the Bigs and struggled against lefties, whereas, you know, he normally did perform well against them in the minor leagues. Chris, this stat about having the hardest hit ball last season, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Does this matter?

I'll do you one better. He didn't only have the hardest hit ball in Major League Baseball last season. He led Major League Baseball and batted balls over 115 miles per hour. He had eight of those. Aaron Judge was seventh. Nobody else had more than five. So, you know, the, the, the, the, kind of, I don't know, I'm trying to think of the way, I think heuristic is the right word, but I'll just use that one. The assumption that I've always had is exit velocity is a proxy for raw power and potential. You can hit the ball really, really hard. If you don't do it consistently, which was the issue for Vladimir Guerrera last season, then it's not really going to matter. but this is a sign of how incredibly high the potential is for him.

Hit more really, really hard hit balls than anyone in baseball. That means he had a lot of really softly hit balls, which is a problem. And he talked about that, and the Blue Jays pitching coach talked about that before the season, how his biggest issue, and we've talked about this as well, was he hit the ball on the ground too much. and he hit too many weak grounders in particular. The key for him is going to be elevating the ball and finding more consistency. And what they talked about there was

he was getting a little fatigued late last season and was having trouble generating power with his legs. He was kind of falling in front of the ball, getting out in front of them and producing weak contact. So the key is going to be, one, that conditioning. And we don't know. it's not something where you can just look at him and say well he's in better shape now because look vladimir guerrero is always going to be a bigger guy i don't think we're going to see a time

when vladimir guerrero uh is the fittest guy on the field but that wasn't an issue for Miguel cabrera in his prime he was winning batting titles and triple crowns while looking like one of the biggest guys on the field so it's a question of whether he can get in shape for himself and find that consistency. And this is why I've been willing to invest in him at his inflated, what I think is his inflated draft cost this year, even if I won't do it in every draft. I want some of Vladimir Guerrero because if he does figure it out, he's going to be one of the best hitters in baseball. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s ADP is currently 58.8. So it is a tad inflated. Oh, it's way inflated.

The most likely outcome this year is Vladimir Guerrero is a giant bust at that price. He went so late. Before he got hurt last year, he was being drafted in like the third round. Yeah. Right. He went so late in the draft that obviously didn't. That obviously didn't turn out so well

him going that early. Right. Like the most likely outcome is he's probably like a low 800s OPS bet because that's what he showed us last year. Yeah. Why would that be the most likely outcome, though? I mean, he was a rookie and why wouldn't you do better? I feel like he would do better.

Well, that would be better. That would be, like, an 820 OPS would be like a 50-point swing for him. That would be an improvement. I guess I misinterpreted what you said. He went super late in the draft we did last week. He went the second to last pick of round seven. I was pretty surprised by that. That was a 10-teamor.

Oh. So that was. Okay, then not 69th pick. Yeah, still a little bit later, but you're right. Not that late. My bad. But, yeah. So, like, this is where it's like the 50th percent.

outcome versus the 90th percentile outcome. His 90th percentile outcome is what Juan Soto did last year, maybe with fewer steals. Like we're talking about... Yeah, he's the man. The most productive minor league season arguably ever in 2018

at the age of 19. So, I'm in. Clearly the upside is huge. It's peak Albert Poole-Hulls. It's the absolute ceiling. It's what I call. a blind faith kind of pick, just having blind faith in the pedigree because

the underlying stats don't really support him taking this big leap in production in his second season. And yet you know based on the pedigree it's probably coming at some point. Will it be a second season? It's impossible to say, but there's reason to have

blind faith in that happening. It's just everybody's paying up as if it will. It's different like Devers was the ultimate blind faith pick last year. It went out swimmingly, but he was going much later than Vladimir Guerrero is now, so it was much easier to justify, I feel like. Where you add on him, Frank Stamps?

What's up? What do you add on him? I like Vlad. I'm with Chris that I want a few shares of him just in case he does take that next step. And I think, you know, the way that Scott also labeled it is, you know, that blind faith pick, like Rafi Devers, just based on the prospect pedigree. So I think what he has to do most, and we heard of report. report of this in February that he was working to improve his launch angle. That's the biggest key for me because

he's shown flashes of being able to hit the ball extremely hard, but 49% ground ball rate, 6.7 degree average launch angle, league average is 11 degrees. I mean, he has to raise that. He's got to hit more line drives. He has to hit more fly balls. That's just, that's the only way that Vlad's going to eventually reach his peak potential is by doing that. And so there's already a report about it. So hopefully he does continue. to take that next step. But I do want a few shares of him here in 2020. Number three, Justin Smoke had the second biggest difference between batting average and expected batting average. He hit 208 with a 250 expected batting average. And he had the

biggest difference between his slug and his expected slug. He had a 406 sluging percentage last year, a 495 expected slug. Scott, does this matter when it comes to Justin Smoke? I think it matters. I mean, he was with the Blue Jays last year, right? I feel like I should know that. So it was a good place to hit already, but Miller Park, even better. And we've seen it turn kind of forgotten players into stars in the past, Jesus Aguilar being a very recent example.

And it wasn't too many years ago. Justin Smoke himself was a must-start player in fantasy with that 33 homer season, I believe it was. Yeah, 2018? 2017. 2017. And his expected stats, they weren't as good as they were then, but they were the best they've been otherwise. So he had, at least as far as underlying stats are concerned, his second best season, and you look at the numbers and, well, they weren't there. It could go a lot better for him this year. The biggest problem is how much is he going to get to play? The Brewers signed Obisail Garcia for a lot more money, so I suspect he's going to play more. because of that. And then you have Ryan Braun bouncing back and forth

between right field and first base as needed. And, you know, he deserves playing time too based on the way he's performed. So I'm not exactly sure how that's going to shake out. I think Smoke's going to be the loser in the end. But the Universal DH solves a lot of those things. That's true.

Because... Whole new world. The idea was Braun and Smoke would kind of split time at first base with maybe Braun playing some corner outfield occasionally, just put Braun at DH every day. And all of a sudden, you've got an open first base job for Justin Smoke. You've got a corner infield spot for Obiselle Garcia and everyone can play.

And that makes Justin Smoke and Obisail Garcia, I think, you know, I wrote about this a couple weeks ago when the Universal DH was first talked about. It makes both of them two of the biggest winners from this. Justin Smoke was one of my favorite sleeper first baseman to begin with. and this stat is a big part of it. And yeah, I really, I really like Justin Smoke a lot as a late-round sleeper. What's interesting, another interesting stack cast stat, he's been better with, he's been better against the shift over the last couple years

than he has with no shift. So it's not even necessarily that the defense is hurting. And he is one of the slowest people in professional baseball and maybe all professional sports. But so that will knock down your expected stats differential a little bit, but it doesn't explain all of this. Yeah. Now, that's good. Smoke does seem like a big winner of that DH, universal DH scenario.

And I probably need to move him up. He'd still be outside my top 20 first basement, but I could see him being in the top 25. And he absolutely has top 12 potential of everything goes right in that part. I probably move him ahead of Aguilar with the Marlins. Yeah, Smokes 2017, where he hit 270, 38 home runs, 90 RBI was really his standout season. It's been downhill since then. He was the 10th best first basement in Roto that year. He was the 11th best first basement in points leagues.

Something to consider in points leagues, he walks a ton. I mean, his plate discipline is not an issue. And last year, 42% hard contact, 42% fly ball rate. So he does hit the ball hard, he puts the ball in the air. I know something we spoke about recently was why aren't switch hitters more prevalent in the game anymore? The past two seasons he cannot hit left-handed pitching. Oh, totally.

And Jed Jerko can. And that's a guy that could take bats from him against lefties. It's interesting. Or even Braun again. And really, I want to... Well, yeah, I would say Braun for sure, but the Universal DH does sort of solve that problem. So you have to go a little bit deeper.

But I'm trying to figure out how I feel about this scheduling thing. Because on one hand, I feel like the players that are in great ballparks win. Because if you play half your games in a great ballpark over a shorter period of time, like a much shorter period of time, I think that's an advantage, I think? No, because the rate is still the same. Yeah, but like, it is, but I'm also trying to wrap my head around like the other parks that they're playing. Like, I don't know. Right. I think the bigger thing is we're going to have to keep in mind that the brewers will be playing under this proposal, half their games at Miller Park, and then all of their games in the rest of the AL and NL Central.

And the AAL Central has bad parks, but they also have bad pitchers. Yeah. It's hard to find. Like, I think the NL East teams are the clear winners from that proposal because they get to take, uh, 3. Fenway, Yankee Stadium, Roger Center and Camden in as part of their parks. So I think they're the winners, but...

And the AOS gets to be in Corse Field. And the NOS probably has even like a bigger share of Corse Field than... We'll see how it is. But I would imagine nobody else getting Corse Field outside of those two divisions. And the NOS will have a higher share of course field games than normal except for the Rockies.

We'll stay at 50%. But I'm trying to, I don't know, I've got a lot of wheels stirring up here. They're kind of going backwards. I see that. Throughout the show, Adam is just like staring off into the distance trying to figure it all out. Yeah, the train of thought is still boarding. The fourth stat that I had here is actually regarding Justin Smoke's former teammate, Danny Janssen, who ranked, who had the third biggest difference between his batting average and expected batting average.

and had the sixth biggest difference between his slug and expected slug. So a 207 batting average, 247 expected, 360 slug 418 expected. Does hit a good amount of fly balls, makes harder contact than the league average. And he was crushing it in the spring too. 20 spring training played appearances. He was hitting 529 with four homers and 13 ribby. So for all you roto players out there, second catcher, Danny Jansen, I think it matters. I've drafted him as my number one catcher if I waited in a points league.

He was awful for the first month. And we've talked about him quite a bit as a sleeper, but he was awful for the first month plus of the season. I think it was like the first 35 games. For him, he had not hit a home run. He had an OPS right around 500. And then from, yeah, okay, so it was May 17th, his first 31 games, he hadn't hit a home run.

and he had a 447 OPS. He homered on two days in a row or two games in a row. And then from that point on, he had like a, I think it was like an 800 OPS or something like that. So yeah, I think there's a lot to like about Danny Jansen as a sleeper. And if I'm waiting at catcher in a one catcher league, I'm fine with him being my option. Yeah, I am too.

I don't even know that I put that much stock in the expected stats for him. I mean, part of it is just his numbers, his raw numbers were so bad as to the point of being unbelievable. I mean, the expected stats still aren't good. It's more about, I think he's just changed his approach so significantly that he might be a completely different hitter when we see him again. At least that's the way the narrative was shaping up and that's the way the production was shaping up in that tiny, what was it, three weeks of spring training that we saw players play. understanding, of course, that we expected him to be good heading into last year, too. So we know the talent is there. And that big of an overhaul could be what allows him to tap into it.

Yeah, before we get into some questions, and I had a few other ones that I wanted to get to. Maybe I'll put these together in an article. What do you think, Chris? Yeah. Yeah, go for it. I think there's still some really interesting ones left to talk about. All right. See what I could do.

See what I can make happen here. I just want to remind everyone fantasy football fans specifically. Remember when you won your league with Ladanyan Tomlinton in 2006 or Randy Moss in 2007? Or were you the one who bought into Peyton Hillis after his big season? Well, this entire week, the Fantasy Football Today podcast is becoming Fantasy Football yesterday. They're looking back at the best and worst seasons of the last 20 plus years in fantasy football. The Mount Rushmore is at each position, the biggest breakouts and bust, and all the best memories from fantasy football since the late 90s.

Relive it this week for five episodes with fantasy football yesterday on the fantasy football today podcast. Available wherever you find this podcast, fantasy baseball today podcast. Adam, did I miss anything? That's, you just basically. Where my criteria for drafting the best fantasy seasons was so much, so much better and more sophisticated than everybody else's, which is why I had. Yeah, that's why you had one of the worst teams.

Yeah, this is why I had the worst team because I was just drafting with a, with some, Something that people just can't understand. They just can't. Like, it was just too advanced. You know, you just go too advanced and people didn't get it. No, I tried to draft not just on whoever scored the most fantasy points, but the players that dominated at their position the most, the players that outperformed their average draft position the most.

And everybody's just like, oh, give me fantasy points. Like, all right, that's hard. Whatever. Yeah, it's fun. We're going, we're doing some nostalgia on, on FFT all week. We're on HQ every day at noon. We've got tons of articles as well. So it's fun times.

Go check it out. Fun times. This question comes from Luke in Anderson Island, Washington. Hey, Mike, Larry, Mani, and Pete. Anything? 1997 MVPs and Cy Young's? Does that make any sense? Maybe, but what I have is Mike Schmidt, Larry Boa,

Mani Trio and Pete Rose. Were they Philadelphia Phillies champions? No, not champions. They were the Phillies at some point. I don't know when. With the discussion of playing with expanded rosters, how would you handle the number of lineup positions in Dynasty Leagues? Would you also expand rosters for the shortened season with the idea of, quote,

going back to normal when there's, God willing, a normal season in 2021? what do you think scott well yeah we kind of talked about this a little earlier right I'm not sure I still not sure I get why that would be necessary um I okay so it gives you more options but why I mean you'll always take you'll always like more options right like what what makes it necessary to have more options this year I guess I'm asking Chris because we were the ones going back and forth earlier

uh you're the guy who says that fantasy baseball should reflect real baseball as much as possible, Scott. I'll flip it back to you. Why shouldn't fantasy baseball reflect real baseball this year, Scott? Why aren't you being consistent? What doesn't Scott want the people of America to know? Well, I mean, obviously the way you're setting a lineup and the moves you can make to account for injuries are far different than what they are in real life. You can just add and drop a player. If you lose a player to injury, you don't have to, you know, go to somebody on your bench or whatever. I don't see why it'd be any different. I don't see the need for it.

And when you're talking a dynasty scenario specifically, that gets really sticky with the way you handle keepers once the season's over, if you're planning on going back and shrinking the rosters. I just don't see... It just seems more like an exploitive thing. Like, ah, I've always wanted to have extra players, and now this is a way I can get away with it.

Well, yeah, but that's what MLB's doing. They've always wanted a universe of DH. No, I'm saying it's... different. It's different. But no, but that's what I'm saying is MLB is using the condensed schedule and all this to

backdoor the universal DH. But I understand why the need for the universal DH, if you're going to have that much league crossover, you don't want to, you want the AL teams to be able to use their DH spot. I actually do agree

that you shouldn't change midstream in a dynasty league. like if you want to include an extra roster spot or an extra lineup spot at pitcher and hitter just to kind of account for the possibility of more players playing and everyone kind of having lower counting stats that's fine but I don't think you should make uh dramatic changes to this for one season in a dynasty league in particular yeah I would agree with that as well uh Mike Larry and Pete were on the 1980 Phillies who did you say manny was Mani Trio?

Well, that team won the World Series. So you might have been right, Chris. There you go. After being incredibly wrong about my first guess. Mani Trio. This next one's from Lucas from the D. I have DJ LaMahue and J. Baez as my middle infield. Shout out to Lucas.

Let's go. Javier Baez. My commission keeps trying to get me to trade him for Francisco Lindor. I think I would be giving up too much. I have Jonathan V.R. and Castro on the bench. I assume that's Starlin Castro. Do I trade up or stick with my roster? So it's a 10-te-to-head league.

If the question is, would you trade LaMayhew and Javier Baez for Lindor? Yes. I would try to do Baez and VR if you can make that happen. Either way, I'd do it. Yeah, especially. a 10 team league. I think Baez and VR, he just says head to head.

He doesn't say whether it's points or categories. Because in categories, giving up VR might be, it might be difficult to replace those steals. But yeah, I mean, this is, particularly in a shallow league, like this is why two-for-one trades are so reviled

because you consistently make trades like that in a shallow league where you can just backfill off the waiver wire, going to put your team in a really good spot. And so people don't often agree to two for one trades like that. It's worth a try. Buy as for VR, unless you need the steals. That was the starting. Buy as NVR for Lundor.

Sorry. Starting infield of the 1980 world champion in Philadelphia, Philly. That's a classic Frank 2 for 1 if you can pull that off. So I support it, Lucas. Let's make it happen. This last one comes from... Classic Frank 2 for 1. I love it. Classic Frank 2 for 1.

you know, ask the people in my home league, not too happy with me. This last one comes from Esteban from the Emerald City. Was listening to your trade etiquette pod and made me think of a controversial trade last year that the league still talks about as veto worthy or not. 10-team Keeper League, you can keep three players for three years at their draft slot plus one the following year. Free agent pickups during the season are allowed to be kept

as your last pick the following year. The trade was involving a team that was pretty much out of it and thinking about the next season and a top three team at our trade deadline. I, the top three team, had Ronald Cunia and Juan Soto as my two keepers for the next year, which would be this season, 2020. And he goes on, but basically he had too many players he could keep. So he decided to shop Fernando Tatis, who was also a keeper. He picked him up before the season started, so it would be a last round pick. And he wound up trading Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Mike Soroka for Francisco Lindor, Matt Chapman, and Jack Flourty. What do you guys

think of the trade? Does it just come down to how each manager values keepers? Was it unfair? It's totally fine. Yeah. This is what a keeper league is like. You have two teams with two competing goals. Both of them were able to achieve their goals in this trade. There's no issue with this. Yeah, assuming Tatis and Soroka were really cheap keep keepers and Lindor Chapman and probably Flaherty were relatively expensive. Is that what we're? Yeah, that's mine.

Yeah. Yeah. These trades happen in my homekeeper league all the time. I looked this up before the show and Vlad Guerrero Jr. was a 17th round keeper in my home league. And he was traded for Charlie Blackman, Clayton Kershaw, and Marcus Stroman last year. And sometimes there's, you know, there is some controversy over it because it's, these fire sales happen every year. I'm trying to figure out a way that we can kind of limit them because it's something like this just seems a little egregious. But overall, I mean, I mean, just imagine the Milwaukee Brewers complaining that the Chicago Cubs traded a prospect for a Roldest Chapman during a playoff race.

Like that, that would be ridiculous. That's, this is how Keeper and Dynasty leagues work. one team isn't trying to win this year. They're looking for future value. The other one has future value. They give up for current day value. There's absolutely nothing offensive about this trade, even a little bit. Should you limit how many players you can get back in a keeper trade, Chris?

No. Oh, I can only get two of your best players in return for my Fernando Tatsis, who's a great keeper. No, the only thing, the only rule I have in one of my leagues where I'm commissioner is if you, and this is really just off-season, if you make a trade in the off-season, you have to keep the players involved, all of them. But beyond that, I have no, like, things, whatever the player, it's better to get something than nothing, right?

For a player you're not going to keep. Right. Yeah, I mean, and you can look at that from a real-life perspective too, right? Like, that's why if a team knows they're not going to re-sign somebody, then try and trade them at the deadline to get. at some kind of prospect or young players. So I guess it makes sense. I've seen some crazy stuff go down and in some of the leagues that I play in.

But that'll do it. We're done here today, boys. Happy Monday to everyone out there. Thank you for listening. We'll be back again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.