Fantasy Baseball Today - Lessons Learned! Fading Rookies, Being Aggressive & More! (10/8 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

We're revealing our lessons learned, starting with rookies (2:30)! ... Know your league and format (12:58). ... Get your guys (16:50)! ... What's going on in the playoffs (25:55)? ... News (35:25): Jo...e Musgrove needs Tommy John surgery. ... Don't pay for saves (43:07). ... Don't draft your busts (47:05)! ... Value skills over innings (51:13). ... What does it mean to draft a timeless team (54:25)? ... How can you be a more aggressive Fantasy player (59:00)? ... We wrap up with the rest of our lessons learned (1:04:46). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Hello, and welcome into fantasy baseball today on Tuesday, October 8th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White and Chris Towers.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Today on the show, we have lessons learned from this past. season. How can we apply those to 2025? A decent amount of news from this past weekend. We'll hit some playoff updates later on. This entire week will continue to just be a recap of the 2024 season. There's still lots to dissect before turning towards 2025. But let's jump right in. Let's start with a lesson learned from this past season from Scott. You're up. Starting with me, huh? Okay. Well, this is one. This is maybe my. biggest lesson learned this season and I'm not sure I I already doubt whether it's a lesson that needs to be learned or or whether there's some different lesson I need to learn but okay this is this is how I'm going to put it let someone else pay the premium for young bats I think it's okay to word it that way as long as it's not as long as we're not talking about a deep league or a league without trade so as long as we're not talking about an FPC league because what I'm noticing with young bats for multiple years in a row now is they're terrible at the start of the year, generally speaking.
Starting point is 00:01:45 And then they kind of hit their stride around June, July, and they live up to expectations from that point forward. Of course, this isn't a universal rule, but it seems to be the general trend, whether you're talking about Jackson Chorio and Jackson Merrill this year. And I know Jackson Merrill, he was kind of good at the start, but it was really just hollow batting average. He wasn't making much of an impact in fantasy. So you got the Jackson's this year. Last year you got Gunner Henderson. The year before that, Bobby Witt, Julio Rodriguez, that's the way their rookie seasons played out. Huge prospects that were among the most coveted on draft day.
Starting point is 00:02:30 And by the time they actually delivered on that, if you're in a shallow league, they may have been outright dropped. And if they weren't dropped, then people felt like their season was already over because they invested so much high expectations in these young players. And it didn't work out. So let somebody else pay the premium. If the price tag is too high, don't be the one to pay that price tag. Instead, let them struggle those first two months, then maybe come in with the buy low offer or wait for them to be dropped if it's a shabre. The Valley.
Starting point is 00:03:04 And then you get all the benefit without the cost. That's what I'm thinking here with this lesson learned. And like you're always going to have like there are always those significant, significant outliers who are so good as rookies that it's like it doesn't matter how many of them struggle. right if you took five chances on rookies in 2022 and you only hit on hulio rodriguez but he was like the 180th pick or whatever hollia rodriguez was being drafted at that point huge win congratulations you made up for the other ones that you missed and so that that's always the problem with these discussions is you're going to be able to point and say hilly rodriguez in 2022 corbin carroll in 2023 uh governor n bern bern bern bern borghumans Pete Alonzo.
Starting point is 00:04:00 Pete Alonzo in 2019, nobody wanted to draft them, even though the Mets made it pretty clear from the start. He was likely to make the opening day roster. And I was getting him in round 15 in some really deep leagues. He goes on to hit, what was it, 53 homers or 52, something like that as a rookie. So I finish your thought. No, my point is just that there are always going to be those examples
Starting point is 00:04:27 that people will cling to and say, this is why you need to trade chase rookies. And, you know, one thing that, you know, I did a lot of research on last offseason, just looking at like, you know, we had Jackson Churrio and Wyatt Langford, Nevin Carter were all, those were pretty much the three top 100 guys, right?
Starting point is 00:04:47 I guess Holiday might have gotten pushed up in that range. Jackson Merrill actually never did. Yeah. Jackson Merrill's price was never prohibitive. And that's the point. Langford got a lot of healing. but even Churray. Langford was the most widely drafted
Starting point is 00:04:59 and he didn't turn it on until September. Yeah. And it was 80P I didn't get, I don't think got inside the top 100. No, probably not. Maybe, maybe if you did like the final two weeks,
Starting point is 00:05:11 he might have. But yeah, he was getting drafted top 75 in most of our leagues by the end. The first of our league was guys who do, rookies who end up getting drafted in the top 180p, tend to be very good bets. You know, they tend to have a high,
Starting point is 00:05:27 hit rate, you know, finishing as a top 50 or top 100 player, then the general population in their draft rate, which I thought was interesting. But, you know, when you look at like the best, like I'm sorting by best Wobah by rookies from 2021 to 2024. And it's actually an extremely funny list because like the top five is basically no guys who had any height when they made, when they were rookies. Franks now, remember that one. Oh, gosh. Joey Maness. 395 Wobah his rookie season. Nolan Jones in 2023. Remember?
Starting point is 00:06:03 Royce Lewis and Matt Walner. Those are the top five in Wobah were rookies over the past five seasons. That's funny because it's not like, with the exception of Nolan Jones, it's not like any of us, it's not like there was a lot of buy-in to what they did as rookies.
Starting point is 00:06:20 Obviously, there wasn't a lot of buy-in before. They were relative no names, but even after, it's not like, this guy's going to be huge. And then, you have like Matt McLean had some hype but not Ellie Dela Cruz hype. Michael Harris had zero hype coming in his rookie season. He was ninth. Big prospect, but yeah, nobody expected them to get called up so soon. Yeah. And so it's it's not to say that you shouldn't chase rookies because there
Starting point is 00:06:47 are clear benefits when you hit on some of those guys. But it's just there's an awful lot of sure, why not take Spencer Steer with one of your last picks in 2023 and see what happens? Or Jonathan India in 2021 had no hype. It's probably not the best idea to be the first person to take a rookie hitter in your league. And if you're going to take those flyers, it's probably best to just to do it at a point where like, Wyatt Langford needed to hit at like his 70th percentile in the projections to even come close to justifying where he's being drafted. Like he was being drafted at a point where like you were passing on legitimate proven star players. And so that's where I think you run into trouble.
Starting point is 00:07:40 It's not that you shouldn't or can't draft rookies high. It just it's probably not going to work out. if you're the first one to do. Well, but this is why I'm kind of torn on the matter. Even though mid-season, this seemed like, okay, clearly I need to stop doing this. Look at my Tout Wars team where I drafted Jackson Churio and Jackson Holiday and Jackson Merrill. And those were all- Name diversification.
Starting point is 00:08:08 Those were all bad picks, clearly. And that's why I'm not where I want to be in the standings. But then two of those guys, two of the Jacksons, came around so completely that they actually ended up outperforming my very aggressive ranking for them coming into the year. And so was I right to draft them? Was I not? That's why I'm stipulating for shallower leagues. And I think part of it, too, is not investing in so many.
Starting point is 00:08:37 Because I also, I invested in Jackson Unit Payoff. I invested in White, not White, not White, I invested in Evan Carter in that league. And that was a totally botched pick. And, you know, there are other reasons why. picks could fail, of course. But I think you, I think I want to go going forward, I want to assume that rookie bats will not pay off. And recognize the upside, appreciate the upside, but only shoot for the upside when
Starting point is 00:09:08 the value is so obviously there that the downside can't really hurt. Which was like with Pete Alonzo in 20-Marris. Or Jackson-Marrell this year, yes. Yeah. And, you know, part of why I'm saying, okay, well, the really high-end ones that everybody pays for, wait to trade for them when they're struggling. Well, that becomes a no-risk proposition because they're struggling. And the guy probably seems like you're throwing the owner a lifeline who drafted them early. Let's take our first break.
Starting point is 00:09:37 When we return, we will get into more lessons. We have some news and notes from the weekend. It was a pretty eventful one. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. Lessons Learned from this past season. Chris, you're up. Let's go back to basics because this is when we talk about every single year and I kind of screwed myself up in a couple of leagues.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Know your league and know your format and know your league size and understand what that means for the player pool because specifically I'm thinking of two leagues where I just got kind of twisted around. And one was my AL only Labor League where I finished six. so it wasn't a disaster, but it was my first only league in five years, I think. And I struggled in the two places that are probably the easiest place to struggle, stolen bases and saves. Because those are the two things that stand on their own. And usually in a mixed league, especially a 12 team league, you can find your way to competing in stolen bases and saves on the waiver wire. you know, Xavier Edwards, if you added him, you know, a ton of closers come up. It's much more difficult in a mono league and especially this is a weird league where like,
Starting point is 00:10:56 the season ended nine days ago and I'm already forgetting. You can't start a player unless you drop or IL the player you're replacing them with, right? You can't just like bench a player and replace them in your starting lineup. They have to, like, there has to be a roster move associated with it. And I knew that going in. But the actual ramifications of what that meant, which probably don't apply to most of you, but that it's just one of those things where it's like, okay, now I have a little experience. I will probably handle that a little better.
Starting point is 00:11:30 Similar thing in my Tao Wars League, which switched from 12 to 15 teams. And that is the innings pitched instead of wins, saves plus holds instead of saves. and OBP instead of batting average. And I had always approached it that I just don't care about relievers, right? Because you can get saves plus holds. But what I realized is in a 15 team league, saves are scarcer. Like the number of players who get saves are scarcer than the number of players who gets hold. The guys who get saves get more saves than the guys who get holds.
Starting point is 00:12:08 And so, in order to compete in saves plus holds, you either got to go four guys who get holds or three guys who get saves. And that really can screw you up innings. I ended up 13th out of 15 teams innings, 15th in strikeouts. So that was one where that changed from 12 to 15.
Starting point is 00:12:28 It didn't seem like a lot, and I didn't really adjust my preparation. It really ended up completely screwing me over on the pitching side. And I think it's a good point that you bring up because I feel like more people are playing in either Roto or Head-Ted categories leagues where they aren't using traditional categories, right? More people are playing with saves plus holds or innings pitch, as you mentioned,
Starting point is 00:12:51 or OBP instead of batting average, or OPS instead of batting average, whatever it might be. Net, say, net steals, anything. But I think you have to figure out how does that affect the draft player pool as well? Because most sites that you play on, I mean, they're just kind of set to like, all right, default standard category rankings, right? Or head to head points rankings, whatever it might be. So you need to figure out how does that change your set of rankings for your league specifically?
Starting point is 00:13:17 And there are ways to do that. I mean, you can come up with your own rankings and just kind of whatever, draft off of an Excel sheet or something like that. Or there are auction calculators where you can like change the scoring settings and they'll kind of spit out like an order of which players should be drafted in. But yeah, I think that's a really good one because, again, I think more fantasy players are starting to kind of experiment and change which. categories they play in. Scott,
Starting point is 00:13:40 anything on this topic or keep it moving? I have one that's sort of related, so we'll get to it later. Okay. For me, this is like one that I struggle with every single year. I didn't check back on last year's rundown, but I'm sure if I do, then this one will be on it. And it's, I don't know why it happens. But a lesson is to have conviction and get your guys. And I, I'm going to ask you guys to please remind me of this come March because It just seems to happen every single year.
Starting point is 00:14:10 I have some ideas for why it does happen for me specifically. Well, I know one of your players like, Jaron Duran, that's just because he was on all my teams. That was my guy. That might be it. But some players that I had his sleepers and breakouts, you mentioned Jaron Duran. I obviously was very excited about him.
Starting point is 00:14:27 Zero. I had 16 teams. I had zero, Jaron Duran. Tyler O'Neill was a player I was excited about. Teoska Hernandez, Jackson Trio, Bailey Ober. These were five players. I was decently excited about.
Starting point is 00:14:39 I had one share of Teasca Hernandez, one share of Jacksonichiro, one share of Bailey Ober. Again, on 16 teams, I had zero Duran, I had zero Tyler O'Neal. Now I was aggressive on Shoda Imanaga. That one worked out.
Starting point is 00:14:53 I think I had them on like three or four different teams, so obviously that was great. And obviously you're not going to get every sleeper or a breakout call, right? There were plenty that I got wrong. We'll have a podcast on that later this week. One thing I think that's unique to us is that we do so many,
Starting point is 00:15:08 mock drafts in the off season that I feel like I get a lot of these players early on and then when it gets to actual drafting in March and closer to the start of the season, I just feel like, oh no, I already have that player a bunch, but it was in like mock drafts. Yeah, it was in the, it was in the two slash 12 roto auction mock. Yeah. Like, well, no, we're not playing that one out. Or you get, you know, you got the player for such a good value early on because just the people you were drafting with. They may not be as far along in their research and these may not have been talked out as much yet throughout the industry.
Starting point is 00:15:46 And so you get complacent thinking complacent. That's the pronunciation. Thinking you can always get this guy in round eight when really you have to go round six now. Or in Bailey Ober's case, he just shot up. Yeah, right? Like there's always a couple of guys, Drew Rasmussen, I think the year before was another one that just like in Jeffrey Springs just like they went from you could wait you could get them in the 12th,
Starting point is 00:16:13 13th round whatever it was over probably a little earlier. And then by the time the draft started mattering, it was like Bailey Ober was like a top 60, 70 pick. Yeah. But I kind of have like, sorry, go ahead, Scott. I was kind of changing the subject. Go on finish your point. Oh, I kind of have the opposite one. Oh, I don't know my way for it.
Starting point is 00:16:34 I was going to get into that too. I had a couple things I wanted to get in. Okay, one, my player like that this year was Cole Regens. Me and Nick Pollock, nobody liked Cole Regens more than us in the industry. And I only ended up with Cole Regens on one team, if you can believe it. I helped a lot of other people draft them, I'm sure, but I didn't get much of it myself. And then the second thing I wanted to bring up is sort of where Chris, I think, was going, is I, and, and, it's possible, Frank, you may be better at player evaluation than me.
Starting point is 00:17:08 I've never considered player evaluation to be my biggest strength as an analyst. Sure, I have plenty of hits over the years. I have plenty of misses over the years, too. And I feel like when I'm consistently going out on a limb for a player, it's probably close to 50-50, whether I get it right or wrong. So I find that, and this is certainly true of both of my championship teams this year, I do better when I don't go for my guys, when I just take what's given to me. As long as, even to the point sometimes where it's a bust of mine, if like the value is so obvious that I have to take them,
Starting point is 00:17:46 I'm wrong enough about calling a player a bust that I'm just going to take that and hope for the best. And that's kind of the whole thing with the tiers approach, which I've been pushing my whole career, is to not focus on the individual, but instead a group of players. players, a tier of players who can more or less give you similar value and just accept the best value among them. And that seems to work out better for me. So I've, I've had, it wasn't necessarily this year, but I've had other years where it's like, okay, I paid up too much for this guy I was enthusiastic about. And I sacrificed too much value in doing that. So I have a similar point, but I want to get more into it. So we'll take the next turnaround. One thing that you mentioned
Starting point is 00:18:32 throughout your commentary, Scott, was the point about when we're either drafting too early or players just start to rise, I think that kind of causes me to back off. I mean, in previous years, I'm a madman. I'll start drafting like November, December, doing way too early NFBC drafts. And I'll see, oh, I got this player at pick 150.
Starting point is 00:18:55 And then by the time we get to March, he's like a top 100 pick. And I say, well, all the value has been taken out of this player. There's no way I can draft. him now and then that guy returns like top 50 value and it's like yeah maybe i should have just stuck with him and drafted him anyway uh but yeah that has definitely factored into some of me missing out on players throughout the years is that exact thing it's just like values change throughout the season and i don't know maybe i should just do less early draft or just kind of accept that uh if everyone's kind of
Starting point is 00:19:24 excited about a player it might be for good reason and maybe that's a player you should draft like even if he's on the rise, like just draft him anyway. Yeah, I would guess, I would guess the times when you, maybe not you personally, but general you, when you as a fantasy player do that, think, okay, well, I like to this guy before all the rest of you, but now you've gotten the cost so high that I'm going to pass. You remember the times when that backfires and the player turns out to be awesome. You remember those more than the majority of times when it's, it does turn out to be an overpay.
Starting point is 00:20:02 I mean, I obviously can't prove that, but I think that's probably true, um, where yeah, the hype does get too high and, um, you're better off backing off. This is something that I wish I had data for.
Starting point is 00:20:15 Yeah. I wish because like my hunch is that like, January ADP might actually be more predictive than March 80P. If you take out, That's obviously not true because there's a bunch of injuries that will happen that will screw up. But like it probably just look into that. I haven't been able to find a source for it. I don't want to do it.
Starting point is 00:20:40 It probably can. But I just, I feel my hunch is that the guys who move up the most in the last month aren't usually moving up for good reasons. It's like Jackson Turo, Jackson Meryl moving up, they made the team. That's a good reason for them to move up and draft. Wyatt Langford hitting seven home runs in spring training, we probably didn't need to draft that guy as high as we did. And like, I said, a lot of enthusiasm before spring and then it just got moved up.
Starting point is 00:21:14 And I say this as someone who's probably going to draft a lot of Wyatt Langford in 2024 or 2025. Geez, I'm, I'm struggling with 2025. I don't know why specifically 2025 is such a mental hurdle for me. But like the other day I wrote 22 when I meant. to write like 2024 and I was like wait a minute that was three years ago 2025 sounds way too futuristic I know um where are my flying skateboards or whatever exactly well I can think of exception if that is the rule you know Chris sale rose because of spring training and it turned out to be a good thing jack flarity though he was still a pretty late pick yeah
Starting point is 00:21:54 yeah and maybe that he went from like undrafted to 230 and I can think of a big examples over the years. But, but yeah, I mean, maybe the majority of the time, it does turn out to be a fake out. Here's a good one, though. O'Neill Cruz this year. I have him in the notes. Went up in price right at the end of the season, of draft season solely because he hit, what, five homers and six games in spring training?
Starting point is 00:22:20 Like, it was partially, hey, he's healthy. But we knew he was healthy. He was playing in games. Let's do this. Well, if I can find the article. because I have my spring training risers and fallers article that I write every year. I mean, we could just look at it. All right.
Starting point is 00:22:37 Well, while you're looking for that, Frank, take us to the playoff updates because it looks like you want to strangle us both. No, no, no. I mean, I think it's good. It's healthy conversation, but we do have a lot of other lessons that we wanted to talk about. We'll just quickly run through some of these because I realize the playoffs are constantly evolving. And so people might be listening to these podcasts a little bit later on.
Starting point is 00:22:55 But things are happening. I mean, the playoffs have been awesome so far. every DS is currently tied at one to one. The National League side, I mean, every Mets game is a roller coaster, just amazing drama in like every game that they've played in. Bad blood between the Padres and Dodgers in that series as well. Kodi Senga, surprise, he's starting game one.
Starting point is 00:23:16 He was back, he only through two innings. Velocity was down in that one. But I think it's encouraging that A, he made it back and B, he looked terrible in his- He might pitch game five as well. Yeah, I think they've already come out and said that if they do make it to a game five, he would be the starting pitcher,
Starting point is 00:23:30 maybe only like three, four innings, something like that. But yeah, I think it's encouraging to see him back. Zach Wheeler in that game one was amazing. Seven shutout innings with nine strikeouts. 30 whiffs on 111 pitches.
Starting point is 00:23:43 And his velocity was up around two miles per hour across the board. Genuinely think that might be the best sack wheelers ever looked. Yeah. He was, and it was like a day game. So there were shadows all over the infield. So it was just like, I'm going to just.
Starting point is 00:23:57 keep referring to Brent Rooker's Twitter account because he's phenomenal. He had a really good tweet about Terrick Scoobble, but he was like, yeah, Zach Wheeler throwing 99 with those shadows is just unhittable. Yeah, that's, yeah. Sticking in that series, Mark Vientos, it looks like he is just developing into a star on the biggest stage right now. Game two, two for four with a double dong, including a game tying home run in the ninth inning of that game.
Starting point is 00:24:21 And he feels like a player where if the Mets make a deep run and he just continues to show out, that can be reflected in 2020. 25 ADP. Yeah, I've already decided having put out my third base rankings for next year that I am probably going to be on the lower end for Vientos. So, and that'll be true even if, I mean, maybe I'm maybe I'll, I'll be thrilled if he has a good postseason performance because that's someone who'll be, it'll be even easier to fade next year. Lots of power for Mark Viantos. We've known that since his time in the minors, but he went from having a 24.6. 6% strikeout rate in the first half.
Starting point is 00:25:00 That's a big part of the reason he was able to seize the job. It was so much better than we seen from Viantos in the past. 24.6% to 33.7% in the second half. Scary, scary stuff. And he's still produced with the strikeout rate that high, but it's really hard to produce with the strikeout rate that high. And that is more in line with the strikeout rates we had seen from Viantos before. So, look, maybe he'll have 40 homers next year.
Starting point is 00:25:27 But maybe he'll be batting 180 in May and they'll try Brett Beatty again. I think I think either of those scenarios is possible for Viantos. Yeah, he went from a 72% zone contact rate in 2023, which is like, I don't know, a 30 on the 80 grade scouting scale to a 75% zone contact rate, which is like a 40. And that might be enough. Like league average is 82%. He was a 75%. it might be enough with how hard he hits the ball that he's just plain old bad
Starting point is 00:26:02 at making contact, right? Like that might like, it might just be that like, if he just had like, he could be an Aohanias Suarez type where he's just like, he never has even an average hit tool, but it's enough with the power that he has. But it is as we've seen with Aohannia Suarez,
Starting point is 00:26:20 an extremely, extremely volatile skill set that I would rather pay for floor than ceiling. And I think a lot of people are going to pay for sealing with Mark Viantos, especially with how bad third base looks. Yeah. In the Padres Dodgers series, Dylan Cis and Yamamoto, both pretty bad in game one.
Starting point is 00:26:39 Padres crushed the Dodgers in game two. ProFar, one of the coolest, sneakiest home run robberies. I kept watching Replace to see if there was one of him throwing the ball back into the infield. And I never saw it. I mean, for like half the inning, the scoreboard said one to one.
Starting point is 00:26:57 It was just, no one believed that he caught the ball. It was, there was one dude, there's one angle where there's one guy in a Dodgers hat who like looks around
Starting point is 00:27:06 and doesn't see anybody has the ball and then kind of like looks and points at jerks and pro far and gives him like a, oh, good one, good one. And yeah, that was, that was phenomenal.
Starting point is 00:27:17 Yeah, Fernando Tatis looks like he's back. He had two home runs in that game. Jackson Merrill hit his first postseason home run. Youngest Padre to home run to Homer in the postseason. in their history.
Starting point is 00:27:27 U Darvish was great. On the American League side, big bounce back from both the tigers and royals here on Monday night when we are recording this. Terrick Scoobel, awesome again, seven shutout innings
Starting point is 00:27:37 with eight strikeouts. Carrie Carpenter hit a go-ahead three-run homer off a manual class A in the ninth inning. One 10.8 exit velocity is a new max exit velocity
Starting point is 00:27:47 for Carrie Carpenter. It's also the hardest hit that a manual class A has ever allowed in his career. Wow. Yeah. I mean, he only allowed,
Starting point is 00:27:55 what, six runs all year? Yeah. Pretty good. At least against Rayhan to pitching. Yeah, I'd like to see him play every day. I don't know why that would not be possible on the Tigers. And maybe I shouldn't snicker at the Tigers when they're in the postseason, but not because of their lineup so much. I think Carpenter should should get that chance.
Starting point is 00:28:19 I hope he does. I'm going with a way too early sleepers for Tuesdays. Fantasy Baseball Today newsletter, subscribe, CBSSports.com, so newsletters. And I decided not to go with Carrie Carpenter, only because I think the price is probably going to be prohibitive. Like enough people bought in that I don't know if he's going to count as a sleeper. I went with Parker Meadows instead, who ended up starting, I think, 46 of the final 52 games,
Starting point is 00:28:46 which was more than I thought it was. I'm going to guess, at least in, I'm going to guess Meadows will go higher than Carpenter next year. I don't know. That's my... It's a better skill set for Roto, but Meadows roster rate was higher at the end of the season on CBS, but that's obviously the better format for... Carpenters was. Carpenters was.
Starting point is 00:29:12 Yeah, Meadows, I don't think ever got like... Yeah. It was so late in the year. But I just among fantasy baseball influencers, maybe that's the best word for them because we don't like experts or whatever. Like, I don't think Meadows is a big secret, so I think he's going to, I don't, like, he may still be someone you can call a sleeper. I just, I suspect he'll be drafted ahead of Carpenter, unless Carrie Carpenter has like an amazing postseason or something. I would love for Scott to develop a fantasy baseball influencer persona and create like a TikTok where he does like fantasy baseball dance moves.
Starting point is 00:29:48 I mean, did you see Paul Skeen's doing, trying to do gym. on I don't know who he's dating Liv Dunn Livy Dunn is that her name? Okay he was he was
Starting point is 00:30:04 trying to do gymnastics on her TikTok today it was very funny very endearing he looked like a big clutz Yeah the people who exert The most influence on fantasy baseball Yeah that's That's an influencer
Starting point is 00:30:19 Scott White is a fantasy baseball influencer Yeah I want you to change your Twitter bio I would say fantasy baseball in. And of course, as the pessimistic Yankee fan on this podcast, I think they're pretty lucky to be tied one-to-one.
Starting point is 00:30:34 Game one was about as sloppy as a game you'll see. And frankly, I think jazz chasm was probably out on that stolen base. But it's one-to-one. We're headed to game three. We'll see what happens. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll quickly run through the news and notes, and we'll wrap up with some more lessons learned right after this.
Starting point is 00:30:52 Welcome back in news and notes. The biggest and most unfortunate news from this past weekend, Joe Musgrove will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss all of 2025. And it's crazy to think now how good he was after returning from the IL in the second half. But in the end, it's Tommy John surgery for Musgrove. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this and how part of the reason he didn't want to have surgery to repair the bone spurs is that can, sometimes lead to or coincide with Tommy John surgery. But I don't want to say this always felt inevitable because in my first round of starting
Starting point is 00:31:31 pitcher rankings for 2025, I think I had him as a top 36 starting pitcher. It stinks because now the next time we see him, he'll be 33 years old coming back from Tommy John surgery. And that doesn't mean he can't be good. He'll be under contract. And he still has two or three years left on that deal. But won't have thrown 200 or won't have thrown more than 100 innings, I think, since 2021 either.
Starting point is 00:31:51 And we'll see him in 2020. So sorry, 2022. Yeah. But it'll be four years since he lasts through. We'll see him in 2022. I don't know because you were talking about how you thought next year was 2022. We'll see him in 2026. Okay.
Starting point is 00:32:09 He will have not thrown a hundred plus innings, I believe, since 2022. Gotcha. Clayton Kershaw's injured toe has not improved and he won't be available to pitch again in 2024, regardless of how far the Dodgers make it. in the postseason. Brent Rooker underwent right forearm extensor surgery on Tuesday. Apparently, I guess that would be Tuesday of last week at this point. Apparently, he dealt with discomfort in his elbow slash forearm for the majority of the season,
Starting point is 00:32:35 which might explain why he did not play the outfield and does not have outfield eligibility next year. Well, here's Mark Katsay. With Rook, it definitely is an option for us to utilize them in the outfield next year. Our biggest thing is we talk about lengthening the lineup. If we can do that with utilizing the deep. D.H position to add another bat and Rook can go out and play the outfield. That's going to make us better. So, yeah, Rooker's going to begin next year with D.H. only eligibility, but it doesn't
Starting point is 00:33:03 sound like it'll be, it sounds like it won't be D.H. only for long. And it's all the more impressive what he did considering his forearm required surgery right after the season. And just for some context, he played 58 games in the outfield in 2023. He played 14 to 2024, none after May. 30th. So he was well on his way to having outfield eligibility before this injury just presumably became too much. So I think just on the merits of what he did this year, even baking in a ton of regression, I think you can make the case for Brent Ricker as a top 50
Starting point is 00:33:42 pick. He's not going to go anywhere near that. I think this maybe locks him in as a top 100 pick for me, though, at the very least. Yeah, I would agree. A top 12 player with a four-arm injury. Maybe it should be locks him in as a top 75 pick. Gosh, just tremendous season here for Brent Rooker. Some Braves news.
Starting point is 00:34:07 Alex Anthopoulos said Ronald de Cunia isn't a given to be ready for opening day. He stated the team will be cautious as Acuna rehabs from left ACL surgery. Anthopolis also added that the Braves will proceed deliberately with Spencer Strider's rehab and are
Starting point is 00:34:24 not setting a timetable for for Spencer Shrider. He added that it's possible Acuna and Shrider could both be back by opening day. He also said they could be back as late as June. So it's just away from April. There's no reason to put
Starting point is 00:34:41 a timetable on them. Yeah, that's basically the takeaway. And it is worth noting that one of the main braised beat writers, David O'Brien, even following this interview, has said that he expects, he, as the Be-Wrider, expects Spencer Strider to be available. If not on opening day, then soon after, we'll know a lot more by the time we're drafting.
Starting point is 00:35:04 But, yeah, yeah, that theoretically, it's a wide timetable for both. The Braves also exercised three options, Marcel O'Suna, Travis Darno, and reliever Aaron Bummer. Orioles GM, Mike Elias said Felix Battista and Grayson Rodriguez are both expected to, be ready for spring training without any restrictions. Batista is returning from Tommy John surgery, which he had in September of 2023. So by the time we get to spring training, it's like 16 months removed,
Starting point is 00:35:31 he should be ready to go, hopefully still as effective as the last time we saw him. And Grayson Rodriguez suffered a right latch train in early August, and he missed the rest of the season. We got some good Andrew Painter news. It turns out the Phillies are sending him to the Arizona Fall League after all, which, assuming he makes it out of their okay
Starting point is 00:35:51 Velocity looks alright maybe get some results I think we should be pretty encouraged for Andrew Painter heading into 2025 somewhat of a surprise here the Reds hired Terry Francona as their next manager and during his Guardian's tenure
Starting point is 00:36:06 just pulled a few things I wanted to see all right what was his reliever usage like what was you know they always ran that was one thing I know for sure the guardians and Indians at the time from 2013 through 2023 under Terry Francona, they ranked third as a team in steals.
Starting point is 00:36:23 So routinely aggressive on the base pass, which bodes well for someone like L.E. Dela Cruz and the rest of the Reds roster. And he pretty much always had a set closer. Terry Francona was Cody Allen, Brad Hand, Emmanuel Class A. So I think that bodes well for whoever the closer is. I still have my doubts about Alexis Diaz personally.
Starting point is 00:36:44 But if they settle on him again or someone else, I think that pitcher will probably just be the closer. My biggest takeaway from this wasn't even so much fantasy related. It's just, well, if he's accepting a new job, hopefully that means Terry Francona's feeling really good because he had a lot of health issues this final years in Cleveland. I think that's ultimately led to him leaving. Yeah. Also just I have to assume it means the Reds are going to go for it. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:15 kind of no, like last offseason was kind of like a little dip your toe in the water with a little Jamer Candelario. But I think, you know, this I hope means that their roster is going to start to make a little more sense because they're in there. They're out of the talent acquisition phase and into the let's make a ball, a baseball team phase of the team building exercise. And we do have some international news. Japanese pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano intends to pitch in MLB next season. He will be 35 years old and coming off an incredible year. 167 ERA.95 whip over 156 and two-thirds innings. The problem is he had just 111 strikeouts.
Starting point is 00:37:56 So 6.4K per 9, 0.9 walks per 9. A control pitcher doesn't get many strikeouts. We'll have more time to evaluate him. I would also just point out because I was doing some research on this the other day. There's no hitting in Japan anymore. It's not allowed in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. the league-wide OPS last season was 646. The average hitter in Japan last year was John Birdie, basically.
Starting point is 00:38:24 Wee. Yeah. The league-wide ERA, like 167 is still very good. The average was 304. Let's get back into it. Scott, another lesson learned. Okay. Saves still aren't worth paying for.
Starting point is 00:38:40 Of course, the deeper the league you're in, they become more worth paying poor. Chris, you were talking about monol leagues, ALNL only earlier. You're not getting saves off the waiver wire very easily. Even 15, even the difference between a 12-team roto and a 15-team road. A 15-team, anytime a new save source emerges, you're going to have to pay out of your ear for it.
Starting point is 00:39:02 But if it's 12 teams or fewer, even in a roto context, it's pretty easy to compete in saves still. Like, so much a fantasy baseball commentary these days is focused on the 15 team leagues that I think it could skew the general impression towards saves makes a big difference the depth of the league so in the memorial magazine league which I won if you'll think back to the auction episode I paid two dollars for robert Suarez I paid two dollars for Jose leclerc and those are the only saves I bought
Starting point is 00:39:38 swars worked out uh leclerc obviously didn't it So I had one saves guy basically that I bought. I finished second in saves. And I very easily could have finished first. I was leading in saves for most of the year. But I had to shift my attention towards starting pitcher categories late. So I ended up finishing second. My roster at the end had Sir Anthony Dominguez, Lucas Erseg, Jason Foley, Chad Green, Robert Suarez, of course.
Starting point is 00:40:08 Jason Foley, top 10 in saves. And there were others who... I dropped because I didn't need them anymore. And it's like, it's not like I was, I, I wasn't trying to get that many closers on my roster. It's just I was there investing a very small amount of fab dollars in them every week. And nobody else was investing more. Like, there just wasn't a great demand for them in a 12 team league. And so even though I made a microscopic investment in them on draft day that looked like it could have ruined me in a 15 team or it might have, like I said, I more or less dominated.
Starting point is 00:40:43 it saves in this league. And one thing that I would add on top of that is this is not, because it's not 2004 anymore, the number of guys who just remain their teams closer but aren't good is much lower. Teams cycle through their closers a lot more. And this is a source of much angst and frustration for our purposes. But among the top 25 and saves, there were only like four or five. guys who were truly detrimental in ERA like Craig Kimbril 533 a lot of that came after he was already the out of the closer David Bednar was a drag all year I can speak to that from experience Camillo Doval kind of the same thing but he was removed from the closer's role eventually and James MacArthur another one who kind of fell apart right before he lost the job but
Starting point is 00:41:38 it's to say that like you don't have to hang on to bad pitchers just for saves the way you once did. Yeah. And I think it's a really good point that you make, Scott, about the, the depth of the league. That matters a lot. In a 15 teamer, I think you need to be a little bit more deliberate about getting maybe at least one lockdown guy, one like top 10, top 12 type closer just to kind of lock that in. Or if you have conviction about late round guys, just make sure you get those guys. Or if you play in a mono league, really making sure you get at least one guy. But yeah, and I think in a 10 or 12 team,
Starting point is 00:42:13 it's still, it's possible to find a decent amount of saves throughout the course of the season on the waiver wire. Chris, let's go over to you. Another lesson learned. So yeah, we talked about like having your convictions and then Scott brought up. Yeah, but sometimes I'll draft guys that I like that I don't like just because the price is so good. And that was kind of one of my lessons. Just because I had a couple of guys that I had as no doubt about it, bus, I didn't want them on my team and I ended up with an awful lot of Nolan Jones and Josh Lowe on my teams and I had them both as bus. I didn't particularly like them. I thought there was a lot of risk in their profiles. And it ended up being the case that they just fell quote unquote too far in a lot of the drafts
Starting point is 00:43:01 that I was doing. And no, as it turned out, they didn't fall far enough because I was the dummy who drafted them. And in Jones's case, I just kind of talked myself into my concerns not being as big of a deal as they should have been because of course field. And look, he was never healthy, right? Like, he wasn't hurt going into the season,
Starting point is 00:43:24 but he just never got right once he did get hurt. Lo, I didn't like, I thought there was playing time risk. I didn't like the skill set, everything. And then he got hurt in spring training. And I was like, now's the time. to draft Josh Lowe, everybody. And that was one that I just, I wish I had stuck with my, with my concerns about those guys.
Starting point is 00:43:48 And look, I'm looking at my bust list now and like, those were decent calls. Some of them were pretty bad calls. Ellie Dela Cruz is a bus. That was dumb. But like, I'm not mad that I skipped out on the Lane Thomas experience overall. I'm not like Matt McLean that was another one that just like
Starting point is 00:44:10 we just did not take the lesson from his lingering offseason injuries that we should have yeah I don't know that that was one for me as I went through a lot of my teams was like there is so much Nolan Jones and Josh Lowe on these teams yeah I think specifically with Josh Lowe it just felt like his whole season was derailed
Starting point is 00:44:31 by injuries which started back in spring training and I think maybe an overall lesson just kind of tied to that. We shouldn't be too optimistic about guys that get hurt in spring training and we get them as a value as a result, right? I mean, names that instantly come to mind is like, Max Scherzer and Garikol and Gavin Williams and Kodai Senga. I had them on a bunch of teams too. Almost all those guys had not worked out.
Starting point is 00:44:57 Like, Garikol was, you know, he was solid when he came back, but he wasn't Garikol. You know, he was never, you know, when you probably thought, all right, I'm getting him at a discount. If I can get him, you know, from July on and he's Garrett Cole, then it's worth it. Yeah. He wasn't Garrett Cole, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've had a lot of occasions over the years where it's gone the other way when I got him in an extreme discount and it was a huge pick for me.
Starting point is 00:45:24 But I think you don't, kind of like with the drafting rookie hitters, okay, you can take one swing. You don't want to take four or five swings. Yeah. Yeah. And one thing, you know, I'm kind of the guy who doesn't care about injuries, right? Like that's, you know, like I'm the Byron Buxton guy, right? But the one thing that I've always said, and I didn't really listen to it this year, was past injuries are overrated, present injuries are underrated. Like present injuries mess up your ability to get ready for the season.
Starting point is 00:45:56 They can linger and lead to more injuries. we should care less that a guy got hurt last June relative to the guy who's hurt in March, you know? As we've seen in the past couple of years, there's more injuries than ever, right? Like it felt like so many star players got hurt this year and in previous years, it just feel like it's happening more
Starting point is 00:46:17 and the hand injuries, how many of those did we see people getting hit the hand and the wrist? And it just feels like those things are on the rise. So you almost like don't want to start in a hole because you're going to get so many players who are hurt throughout the season. Yeah. And again, if you drafted Corey Seeger in round five.
Starting point is 00:46:34 Yeah. Yeah. He ended up not missing any time. Until the end. Yeah. All right. One lesson for me was I think I made innings pitch too much of our priority. And I really wanted an innings anchor on any of my teams if I could get them.
Starting point is 00:46:51 And if you remember, I drafted a bunch of Logan Webb this year. And that was kind of my plan was take Logan Webb and then maybe surround him with some more riskier pitchers. that have strikeout upside, but maybe an injury riddled pass, whatever it might be. And he was my most drafted player. He finished as SP 26, so he wasn't awful,
Starting point is 00:47:10 but he wasn't impactful. I think specifically pitchers like a Logan Webb that pitch to contact. They're open to more variance. Obviously, like things could go wrong, the more balls that are put in play versus just the old adage, right?
Starting point is 00:47:25 Draft skills. Like draft skillful pitchers that get lots of wins, K-minus walk rate. I mean, look at three of the best pitchers in fantasy this year. At least I had some level of concern on each of them in terms of just workload and injury history. Terrick Scubel, Chris Sale, and Cole Regens.
Starting point is 00:47:44 And all three turned out to be like, what, top 15? But I think there's one key distinction to be made with these guys. And I'll bring up Tyler Glass now as an example. Yeah. Where you were drafting Scobel, Regens, and obviously especially Sale, you didn't need everything to go right for them. If you got 130 innings out of Terrick's Glebel this year, he was still a pretty good pick as the 15th starting pitcher off the board
Starting point is 00:48:09 or whatever you got him as. Tyler Glass now was often a top five pitcher, and I think his ADP was like eight or nine. And like as, you know, he made it through 130 innings, and it was an okay pick. Like you didn't, it didn't kill you necessarily, but like there was no upside to where, And so I think that's the thing.
Starting point is 00:48:30 When you're talking about guys with severe innings risk, you got to get a discount on them. And we didn't with Glass Now and that was tough. I think you did enough with Scoobel, Regens, and especially sale. Yeah, I'm not sure about Scoobel. I mean, he was being drafted top 10 by the end. Obviously outperform that. But it's not like he'd ever been top 10 before. So I'm not sure anybody going into this season said, I'm getting scubal at a discount.
Starting point is 00:48:59 But I, but that lesson, Frank, I feel like that's one I've learned. It may have been one I learned last season because remember I was really back into emphasizing skills for pitchers this season. In a way, I haven't done a long time. Yeah. Because I'd gotten burned by the boring innings eater types. Like you said, it's a different kind of variance. There's variance with the innings, but there's variance just in how those batted balls turn out for the guys who aren't missing a lot of bats. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's something, just going back to emphasizing just, you know, the ones that we obviously can see are, we think are going to be breakouts, right?
Starting point is 00:49:38 Like Spencer Schwellenbach, we're going to talk about a lot this offseason, big swinging strike rate, K minus walk rate looks good. So maybe emphasizing more of those types in 2025 as well. Scott, back to you with another lesson learned. All right. This is a real heady one. So, okay, draft a timeless team is one of the first. my lessons learned. And what I mean by that is not to tailor it for what you think the current league environment is. And I feel like maybe this has been one of my biggest problems the last few years. Because for most of my fantasy writing career, I had the same approach to the draft every year. And it was pretty heavy on hitting early. But it was basically the same every year. And then the juice ball era arrived and home runs were crazy and pitchers were getting clobbered.
Starting point is 00:50:34 And I decided that, okay, I'm going to go really heavy on high-end pitching early in drafts, totally opposite from the rest of my career. And you know what? It worked out really well. 2020, I had my best season playing fantasy ever. And it was still during the juice ball era. But since then, I've tried to tailor my approach for what I think the league environment is. and the league environment keeps changing every year.
Starting point is 00:51:01 And so maybe I'll, maybe I, next year, the environment will be exactly the same as this year. And if you treat it like it's going to be pitching heavy, you'll be rewarded for it. But maybe not. You know, even within this year, it's like there were hitter friendly months and there were pitcher friendly months. And I feel like if you just play it down the middle, you just structure your team. the way you would in any random year in history and just hope for the best,
Starting point is 00:51:34 okay, even if you kind of, it turns out to be suboptimal for the league environment that year, the league environment turns out to be hitter friendlier than you're expecting or whatever, you're at least not in such a deep hole building it for another type of league
Starting point is 00:51:48 that you can't climb out of it, you know? Yeah, the old adage is don't get caught fighting the last war, right? Like that is, you know, I remember like, to use a fantasy football analogy, there was the one year Devante Freeman was the number one running back. And he averaged like 16 points per game.
Starting point is 00:52:05 It was just a horror. I think Danny Woodhead was number three that year as well. It was just a horrible like all time bad year for running back. And for like the next three years, everybody decided you can never draft early running backs. There will always be good run. And it doesn't always work out that way. And this is, you know,
Starting point is 00:52:24 it's fine to look at historical data and draw conclusions from it, when you just look at the most recent year, you're only looking at a sample of one. And like, if, you know, in any given, in one given year, a bunch of players at one position happen to get hurt or have bad seasons, it can skew your whole perspective. And, you know, like, I feel like we've gone through this a couple of times with third base over the last few years where it's like, oh, third base is the deepest position.
Starting point is 00:52:53 Whoa, third base is terrible. And like right now, third base is pretty terrible. There will probably be some guys that probably just Josh Young has a bounce back season or or whatever that makes third base look better than it currently does. I mean, third base looks better than first and second. Sure. I'll say that much. But it's just third base is the one that I think has fluctuated the most over the past five or so years. And at the end of the day, you can, yeah, I think that's a good point.
Starting point is 00:53:24 you can get, you can get yourself caught up overdoing last year's results. Yeah. And something you mentioned in there, Chris, is something I thought about and kind of wanted to make one of my lessons from today too, from this past season is don't worry too much about position scarcity, right? Because we think we have it all figured out in March, right? Like, oh, this position looks terrible. And I understand, like right now, second base looks terrible for 2025.
Starting point is 00:53:50 But players emerge, things happen. players gain eligibility. Last year we were so worried about outfield. Outfield's now one of the deepest positions in fantasy, right? So there's just so so vast of a player pool. Like these things can change really, really fast.
Starting point is 00:54:07 So I just don't want to overemphasize position scarcity personally where, especially in the early rounds where I'm like passing on a much better player just to make sure, oh, I got to get a second basement or something like that. I just, yeah, I don't want to kind of get caught my hand in the cookie jar doing that.
Starting point is 00:54:22 because I've done it before in years past and sometimes got burned by it. Chris, one more lesson learned. I think the way I'm going to phrase this is I just want to be a more aggressive player, especially in season. I think my biggest, and I've talked about this a lot, I think one of my biggest strengths as an analyst is I tend to stay pretty even keeled. I don't react to the new hot thing, possibly until it's too late. And especially as a player, there are a lot of times where I'm either,
Starting point is 00:54:52 to I give guys too much latitude who probably don't deserve it, like a 15th round pick. I should be able to just get rid of, but I'm like, ah, but I still see something in there. And then like I get anchored too much to my preseason. Or I'm too late to pick up on a breakout in my leagues.
Starting point is 00:55:12 And like, that's always the thing is when you're talking about waiver wires especially, you don't really need evidence to believe in someone. You just need or I guess you don't need proof. you just can't you're not going to get it right yeah that's the thing you need evidence but not proof yeah and i think that's the thing and it's it should be backwards when you're talking about drafts because draft picks are finite they are all you have to build your team at the start so you should have proof that the players you are drafting can do the things you want them to do when you're talking about
Starting point is 00:55:44 the waiver wire where you're going to miss out on a guy if you don't pick them up the minute they do something interesting i think i just want to be a more aggressive player and that also going to goes for trading. I just, I might have made one trade across all of my leagues this year. And like, we've talked a lot about how trades just don't happen as much in fantasy. And that's a problem in, I think in fantasy football as well. I'm noticing in a lot of my leagues now. People just, everyone's working from the same information. And so there's not really any deficits one way or the other. Nobody really disagrees on how to analyze players. And so I wrote a whole article. about that last year.
Starting point is 00:56:24 You got a whole like award for it. Yeah. But that's something I want to like just be less scared about losing a trade in season because you do reach a point where you just you're treading water otherwise. And sometimes you do just need to be willing to say this might not be the most likely outcome, but unlikely things happen sometimes. And I think that's something that I just need to. to anchor my analysis in the way I do,
Starting point is 00:56:57 which is a long-term view, not overreacting small sample sizes, not giving up on players when they struggle for a month, like things that I think I do well and I think are valuable in my analysis. But as a player, there are fantasy analysis and fantasy gaming are different skills.
Starting point is 00:57:17 They overlap, but they are not the same. And that is one thing that I just want to become better fantasy player. I noticed, I've noticed particularly, well, a little bit over the years, but maybe a little more this year. I've made,
Starting point is 00:57:32 I'm making trades more to kind of like free up the log jam. And I don't even mean that so much in the most obvious sense, like I have too many players at a position and I need to get rid of one. I just mean,
Starting point is 00:57:47 with this current set of players I have, I clearly, can't find a way to better my roster. So if I just swap out some players, then maybe that'll create new avenues for me. And it has, I want to look at the trades I made
Starting point is 00:58:05 and say with as much consistency, oh, I clearly won that trade, oh, I clearly won that trade. But it took me from point A to point D when there was no other path otherwise. If you play in a 12-team league, your chances of winning that league are roughly 1 in 12, maybe 1 in 11 for some people,
Starting point is 00:58:30 maybe 1 in 13 for some other people. But generally speaking, you're a long shot to win your league. And that means that like when teams are underdogs in sports, sometimes they have to do things unconventionally and sometimes they have to take risks to increase their chances of winning when they're underdogs. And that becomes true.
Starting point is 00:58:52 truer and true in the season where if you're in seventh place in a rotel league, yeah, you might just go on a run. Your team just might get hot and it's fine. But like you also might just need to do something that might make you finish in 10th place, but also might give you a chance to get to first. And I think I play a bit too much for what I think is the most likely outcome moving forward and not what necessarily gives me the chance to the best chance to win every league.
Starting point is 00:59:24 I agree with a lot of what you just threw out there, Chris. I mean, obviously coming off a season where I play in 16 leagues and I only win one of them like, yes, I want to be a better fantasy player. I think part of that is playing in less leagues because it becomes harder. It becomes harder to like be aggressive on the waiver wire or find that gem on the waiver wire before others do when you're setting waivers for like eight, nine, ten different leagues. So it's spreading yourself too thin. And I realize most people are probably not.
Starting point is 00:59:52 playing in anywhere near that many leagues. But just keep that in mind. You know, obviously drafting is the most fun part and we get so excited about, yeah, I want to do a draft. I want to do a draft. But also remember the ramifications in season, setting lineups, fab and all that stuff, it adds up.
Starting point is 01:00:07 And it becomes a lot. So I say the same thing every year. Hopefully 2025 will be the one where I actually do play in less leagues. I'm going to bring us home here and just mention a few different things, a few different lessons here. and if you guys want to hit on any or all of them, feel free. Don't overreact to spring training stats or news, which we've kind of talked about. Wyatt Langford.
Starting point is 01:00:30 Can I mention some of those? Oh, you're about to mention some. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, specifically, I had Wyatt Langford on this list. O'Neill Cruz, who led spring training with seven home runs. I was in an NFBC auction league the weekend before the season started, where O'Neill Cruz went for more money than Ellie Dela Cruz.
Starting point is 01:00:47 Like, that's how crazy the hype got on O'Neill Cruz. at the end of spring training. Zach Gelloff was someone who had a really good spring and I kind of talked myself into someone I wasn't even really on but then I wound up drafting him in like three different leagues just because he looked good in spring. And then obviously the Otani news is kind of mess with everybody. I mean, that's kind of a unique thing where we didn't really know
Starting point is 01:01:10 how it was going to play out. And then Aaron Judge, like he was dealing with an injury. I remember moving him into the second round of my rankings. And he was the second best player in fantasy, right? So it's like maybe we just shouldn't overreact. Okay. So some of the, my spring training winners here include some of the good ones we've talked about,
Starting point is 01:01:33 Jackson Merrill, not that he moved with the rankings that much, but he went from being not drafted to drafted. Chris Sale was a big one. Jack Clarity. We mentioned him. Garrett Crochet, we didn't mention, but huge payoff as a spring riser there. But then also on the list, was O'Neill Cruz, Henry Davis, Christian incarnacion Strand.
Starting point is 01:01:55 Yep. Michael Kopeck, I think that was mostly a role thing, but still, it wasn't great. A.J. Puck. Remember that? Good old A.J. Anthony Rizzo, Luis Severino, Gavin Stone, Anthony Volpe. Yeah. Let's see. Who else here? Max Meyer
Starting point is 01:02:20 I think it's okay to react but again not to overreact which you know moving Wyatt Langford up like a hundred spots in ADP like yeah that that's over yeah you know it's funny Bowden Francis is on this list it didn't it didn't start out well but yeah yeah there's some Alec Berlusons on this list
Starting point is 01:02:43 that actually yeah he had a good spring I was looking up some spring stats earlier so yeah um Lawrence Butler had a good spring. More misses than hits. More misses than hits. I don't know that it tells us anything because some of these, even though they were spring training risers,
Starting point is 01:02:56 it's not like they moved way up the rankings. So I think it's just a matter of degrees, as I was saying, for drafting rookie hitters. Okay, it's fine to do it. Just not pay too much and not do it too often. Yeah. And who else were we saying that for?
Starting point is 01:03:11 Something you brought up, Chris. It was, I can't remember, but some other type of player we were saying that for. Yeah, like injured, injured players. Injured players who get injuries. Wyatt Langford ended up outfield 20 over the final two weeks of spring. Just behind Christian Yelich, who obviously got hurt, but Yelich was clearly better. And, yeah, that didn't work out great.
Starting point is 01:03:37 All right. Lessons learned. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. and we will be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye.
Starting point is 01:03:52 Paramount Podcasts.

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