Fantasy Baseball Today - Lessons Learned PART 2; Masahiro Tanaka Deep Dive (04/10 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

We're taking another look at our biggest misses from 2019 and explaining the lessons we learned as a result but first we have a fun giveaway (7:20)! Have you ever wanted to try a baseball simulator? Now's your chance. ... Let's get things started with another deep dive, this time it's Masahiro Tanaka (12:12). How much did the juiced ball affect Tanaka in 2019? Also, how many wins makes a pitcher useful in that category? Frank reveals Zack Wheeler was one of his biggest misses in 2019 and cautions you on Jack Flaherty (25:00). Is Flaherty overvalued at his current cost? ... Scott was in on Jurickson Profar in 2019 but after taking a look at some advanced metrics, he started to back off (35:42). ... Adam was burnt by Yu Darvish last year but apparently he's going back to the well (42:20). ... Can we learn anything from Jesus Aguilar's disappointing 2019 (51:51)? ... 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 in to a Kokomo Friday here on fantasy baseball today, April 10th. And for the first time, we have the unique combination of Adam, Scott, and myself on the show with No Chris. Team Fax had a good run. And now it's over. That's interesting. Now we're just team. It's just the three. This can't be the first time. It's just the three of us. Really? It is. It is. It's the safe combination.

What about the audition pods? Do those count? No, not really, but we have done shows just the three of us before Frank was hired. If a podcast happens and nobody's there to hear it, doesn't really happen. I don't know. I got to get it started with an oddly personal question. So, I mean, feel free to not answer it if you don't want to. But do either of your wives have an unhealthy obsession with pimple popping and trying to pop anything on your face or back that resembles a pimple?

Definitely not I don't know where the safe podcast is going It feels very unsafe now No I thought he was going to say An obsession with the TV chat with Bravo TV And I was going to be like yeah She watches a lot of Bravo But that's not where he went with it Scott

And no she does not have that obsession My My wife prefers to avoid my skin When possible I think That's tough Just like the do Dr. Pimple Popper kind of obsession has become more of a thing recently. Like people watching Pimples popped on Instagram.

All right, I'm probably going too far into it. But all right, I thought that, you know, we can find some kind of common ground here. But I live on a lot. So that's that's your life is weird to start the show. Yeah. But today on the show, we're going to deep dive Masahiro Tanaka. Get back into some of our player deep dives. We're going to continue to look at some of our biggest misses and lessons learned

part two from 2019, and we will get into your listener questions later on in the show, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. But first, over the next week, we're going to be doing a fun giveaway. We have three codes for out-of-the-park baseball, 21. You might be very familiar with O-O-T-P, or you might not have a clue what it is. Honestly, I'm still learning myself. Basically, it's a baseball simulation. The easiest way I can describe it is imagine playing your favorite baseball video.

game, starting a new franchise mode, taking over a team, but instead of actually playing the games, you're just simulating them. Scott, I know that you have some experience with OOTP. Did I describe that accurately? Yeah, I've described it that way before. And it's just, I got to a point eventually with baseball video games where I, that's all I was doing anyway. I was more interested in the instant gratification of seeing a team play out of full season. Though I'd, I'd, I'd, I don't know that that's exactly how this is going to play out, right? This is going to be probably a more day-to-day thing. But anyway, yeah, I mean, I used to spend, back in my bachelor days, my wild bachelor days,

I would log on to OOTP in the morning and start simulating a season, going through all the off-season stuff, making trades, reconfiguring my minor league system, moving players up and down. and then before I knew it, it'd be dark outside, and I wouldn't have eaten anything. I wouldn't have left my chair at all. Like, it just happened without me knowing I'd passed the whole day playing OOTP. So I eventually had to stop because it was unhealthy. But that tells you how enjoyable it can be.

Wow. Adam, I imagine you're not a big simulation baseball player. No, I'm intimidated by them. Scott, I mean, that was back in when we, when we used to pop our own pimples before we got married, you know? No, I, they don't seem,

they don't seem fun to me. First of all, you know, it's, I always, I think I've made this comparison before, is like, the first time I watched the Matrix, I know I just watched it a few months ago or whatever, but I actually saw it,

when it, you know, around when it came out the first time, I half paid attention. And there's a scene where they're like, this is exactly what the Matrix is. And I never under, I was like, what? And that's how I feel about sim leagues.

Every time somebody explains it to me, I'm like, what? That did not make any sense. I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, this sounds like a little, this sounds a little less complex than some of these sim leagues that Scott plays in. Yeah, so what is the actual thing you're talking about, Frank? So the codes that we're going to be giving away, we have three of them. It's basically just for the, I guess for the game, because it's a $40.

value. It's, you know, normally you have to, I guess, pay for the year's subscription of OOTP. And this is what you get in that package. So we're going to be giving away three codes here on the show. I actually just joined a league called the MLB remix league with 29 other owners. Each of us took over a franchise and we're redrafting the MLB from scratch. And then I think we're like importing the data into OOTP. But I have the Diamondbacks. I have the 23rd overall pick. So I'm interested to see who's there. I'm coming up. I think there's like six picks before me right now on the clock. Shout out to Matt Williams and the Turn 2 podcast and everybody over at OOTP for providing us with those codes. I'll create a little competition of sorts in the fantasy baseball today.

Group page on Facebook starting Monday. So if you're interested, join the Facebook group and be on the lookout for that. We'll be giving away three codes. So if you want to get your baseball fix, a way to do so is with simulation baseball. Yeah. So it'll get a little. So you're saying this is to download the actual game, which would be, it's not like a year-long subscription. It's, you would be able to play this game until you got bored of it, I guess. And you wouldn't necessarily need other people to do it. The way I played it that I was describing was, you know, me just running a team and all the other teams were AI controlled and, you know, playing it that way. So it's a good, it's a really good way to learn, like, transaction rules.

in baseball because you have to, it forces you to follow them all yourself. So that's, that's something else I got out of it. It's just a good way to see him, uh, sim simulate the GM experience. That's cool. And Frank, thanks for doing this. That's good that Frank's doing this for the listeners. Way to go, Frank. Yay me.

Yeah. And just given all the time that people have right now, it just seems like an easy way to help time pass. So if you want to be like Scott and, you know, wake up and before you know it, uh, the sun is going down and it's dark outside and you haven't eaten anything that this might be something that you're interested in doing. Masahiro Tanaka. Let's jump in here. We've got this, we got a deep dive request on our Apple podcast reviews. Continue to send those in, by the way. I have a bunch of them. So we'll continue to kind

dive into some of these players at the top of each show. Masahiro Tanaka, the interesting case of Tanaka from last year. First 11 starts, 2.94 ERA, 112 whip, 24% splitter usage, but his splitter was not good. According to Fangraph's pitch values in his first 11 starts, it was a negative pitch. Next 12 starts, a 6.89-ERA, 152 whip. That included allowing 12 earned runs over three in a third innings pitched

on July 25th against the Boston Red Sox. It was after that start with the Red Sox that he developed a new splitter grip. And at the time, Tanaka complained that the juice ball was too slick, the seams were too low to grip the pitch properly. And then, so he made a new splitter grip. And over the final eight starts, he got back on track, 327 ERA, 105 whip.

He upped the splitter usage to nearly 32%. And the pitch actually, you know, for the first extended period of time last season, was a positive pitch again, according to Fangraff's pitch values. So what I'll say about Tanaka is that I think if you take away any pitchers best pitch, Corbyn slider. If you take Luis Cascio's change-up away, that pitcher is not going to pitch as effectively.

And I think that was the case last year for Masahiro Tanaka. Just the year before, 2018, he had a 375 ERA, a 11-3 whip, and he was SP 30 in fantasy points per game and head-to-head points league. So Scott, with Tanaka's ADP right now at SP 51, have I talked to you into him? well i hadn't heard about him changing his grip part of the way through last year so before leading into the last eight starts you're saying where he had a 327 era and 105 whip that that coincided with the change in his the grip on a splitter yes okay that's interesting because i was mostly approaching tanaka this year like like it would like

Like a boomer bus guy, basically, where if he got his old splitter back, he would be a nice value. If he didn't, he'd be pretty close to useless. And, you know, a lot of that probably depended on the seam height of the baseball if they were going to stick with what they had last year, if they were going to introduce a new one. His splitter was getting good reports in spring training for whatever that's worth. But it wasn't enough for me to make, for me to make him a higher priority. on draft day. This is encouraging what you brought up.

It's encouraging. He still seems pretty risky. Even when he had his splitter, he was never quite as good as I think people drafted him to be. But, yeah, I mean, there's a chance he's a pretty good value there, and I might need to,

I might need to think about drafting him a little more. I really like Tanaka, because I think he won't be worse than he was last year. I like him at his ADP. You know, he had a 445 ERA, and if you just take out the starts against the Red Sox, he had a 352 ERA. Now, I made that point about David Price two seasons ago, where if you took his starts against the Yankees away, he actually was good. And then he went out and had a pretty good year in 2019.

Tanaka had two just absolutely horrible starts against the Boston Red Sox. One of them was in London, six innings, and two thirds. One of them was in Boston, six runs in two-thirds of an inning. Six runs in two-thirds of an inning. That game was crazy, 17 to 13 in London. In Boston, three-and-a-third, 12 run runs. So you take away the Red Sox starts, and he's a pretty good pitcher, 352 area. Now, he's confusing.

His strikeout rate's been all over the place. But the three things you can rely on from Tanaka are a lot of ground balls, very few walks. So far so good. And a lot of home runs. a lot of home runs and it's not a home road thing either. So I think the fact that he's going so late, he can be, I think he's a great guy to be your fifth starter. If you take four starting pitchers in Scott's top 35

and then you focus on hitting for the next few rounds and you get your relievers or whatever and then you wait and you take Tanaka, what do you say? It was 71st starting pitcher, Frank, off the board? 50 first. But still, even at 173, you can easily pull off that strategy you just mentioned.

I think he's great because there is potential for him to have like a high 3 ZRA. We've seen him strike out more than a batter per inning. As recently as 2017 and 18, the splitter is the key for him. He can't be great because his fastball is terrible. And he gives up too many home runs. But he can be really solid as a number five starter in your rotation, number six starter. I mean, that's the kind of guy he is. You just don't want to be like, well, I love Tanaka.

He's like going to break out. But, you know, he does, I don't think he has the upside of, let's say, Luke Weaver, but I think he's safer. And I think last year was bad because of the seams on the splitter. My last thing I want to say about him is that, you know, you play the matchups with him. But that's actually pretty tough because Tanaka's the kind of guy who can throw seven innings of one run ball against the Astros and then give up five runs in four innings against the Orioles. It just doesn't, it seems to be sort of random. He's not predictable. year to year he's not predictable, start to start.

But I do like him at his ADP quite a bit. Yeah, he's one of those pitchers. You just leaving your lineup. You take the good with the bad. It's worth mentioning he has not been good in two of the last three seasons. Last year, 445 ERA in 2017, a 474 ERA. That was sandwiched between the, in 2018, 375. He has been really good in four of six seasons,

but I think the days of, you know, He's 277 ERA when he was a rookie when he first came over. You're not getting that. 2016 307 ERA, like, you shouldn't expect anything like that. But I do agree with Adam that where he's going. If you can get him as your SP5, maybe even a bench-starting pitch, I don't think that's crazy to imagine. I think you can pull that off. Adam ranked these in a head-to-head points league.

Hermann Marquez, Jake Oterese, Masahiro Tanaka. I like Marquez more in Roto than I do in points. So, Oderizi, you said? I would take, I think I would take Tanaka O'Darizzi Marquez. Oteresee is interesting to me because in the years where he has had velocity similar to what he had last year, he's been usable. He's been high three, like, 375-ish ERA, I think. He might be underrated.

If his velocity goes down, he's probably going to be horrible, though. But I'll slightly go with Tanaka. Odaresi and then Marquez. My thing with Marquez is I'm only starting him on the road. And in a points league, you know, it's just like a guy that I know I'm only starting half the time. I'm just not going to value that. But in Roto, I feel like it could be more valuable. Adam, I feel like you heard it in Scott's voice earlier.

He was kind of waffling a little bit. I feel like this might be the first opportunity that I can actually, that I can bully him into changing his rankings. Do you think I can pull that off? No, but let's give it a shot. All right, come on, Scott. What are we going to do? How far are we going to move up Masahiro Tanaka right now? Would you rather have him or Hermann Marquez in a head-to-head points league? And a head-to-head points league. I'm not sure it matters what the format is in this particular case. I would rather have Marquez. Right now I have Marquez, 44th. I have Tanaka

52nd. But that's where they stand right now. Not a huge gap between the two. Once you get that far down in the rankings, eight spots isn't a major difference. They're probably tiered the same. All right. You have Dallas Keikl just ahead of him? Marcus Stroman.

This guy seemed like pretty safe points league pitchers, so I can't really knock you there. Lance McCullors, I mean, you don't know how deep he's going to go into every start. Huh? How about Lance McCullors? Yeah. We move to knock ahead of McCullors?

That's more of an upside play, which I guess you're making the case to knock as an upside play too. I don't think he is. I don't think Tanaka is a big upside play. I think he's like I think his upside is like SP 30. I think Frank, you have it in your notes that he was 30th in points leagues on a per on a per game basis two years ago. You know, I don't think he can be great, which bothers me a little bit, but I do think he can be solid. Yeah. Yeah. I just think the upside from my colors is higher, like you're saying. Tanaka, well, one of the, things I pointed out just a minute ago is that even when the splitter's on, it always seems

like he's not quite living up to everybody's best hopes for him. He's home run prone. That puts the ERA probably between 375 and 425, even if he's right. He's probably going to win a lot of games pitching for the Yankees. But, you know, even that, it's a big difference, whether it's like 12 or it's 16. He's never been above 14 and only once above 13. He's almost always around 12 or 13. He doesn't always pitch a full season,

but three of the last four years, around 180 innings or so. But yeah, what is, you know what, what is a good win total? What is a, at what point are you like, oh, he's good for wins? I would say 14 or more. I feel like that's,

like once you get into the mid-teens, you're like, that's a serious contributor in the wins category. But again, it's almost impossible to predict because you would think Tanaka would be a good win pitcher based on the run support he's always had in his career. But as you mentioned, never been higher than 14 wins. I don't think it's, I think it's an overstatement to say it's almost impossible to predict.

I think pitchers who go deep into games, pitchers and pitch for good teams are much more likely to get double-digit wins. I think 14 might be too high. There was only 26 pitchers with 14 or more last year. There was 41 with 12 or more, which is still a pretty low number. Double-digit wins, there was 74 pitchers with double-digit wins, and it looks like at least one of them was a reliever, Brandon Workman.

So you might, yeah, more, more. Yeah, so about 70 starting pitchers had double-digit wins last year. So that's probably like mid-grade, right? So how many had 14 or more? 14 or more was only 26. So that means almost 50 had 10 to 13, right? Yes. So that means 14 is really good.

Right. Yeah. So if you can get to 14, and for Tanaka to be around 13 every year, that's pretty good. He's going to be top 40, maybe top 30, and wins most seasons. Which is nothing to sneeze at.

I would say a dozen gets to be a good win total. That was about 40 pitchers last year. And then double digits, that's kind of, like if you have below double digit, that's a bad win total. I think we just had a wins conversation like this for the first time in over a decade on this podcast. I don't think I've ever looked that. The standards probably changed a lot in a decade. Probably.

Probably. But it's good to put that perspective. He has had 12 or more wins in five of his six seasons. And that's while missing time. I mean, he has not thrown 200 in any of those seasons. So I guess if you think about his ability to win games in the amount of starts that he makes, that's actually a pretty good ratio. So I think that we've come to the conclusion that he actually can be a solid contributor

in the wins category based on where he's going. And I think if he gets back to where he was in years past, 2018 and before that, he's also a contributor in WIP. So it's pretty hard to find contributors in WIP that far in the draft. So I would consider Tanaka part of that crew. I want to go back to our conversation from yesterday regarding some of our biggest misses, lessons learned from 2019. This is part two of our conversation because we actually had a few more players and

situations to talk about and hopefully things that we can learn from the mistakes that we made last year. and I wanted to start things off with one of the players that I was very high on and kind of my mindset and what I think I've learned from that. And I mentioned this earlier in the week that I was very high on Zach Wheeler last year. I didn't realize how high until I looked back in my rankings. Last year I had him SP 14. I had him as a top 15 starting pitcher. So I was all in on Zach Wheeler.

I basically drafted him everywhere. And the reason being is I bought into the 2018 second half where he had a, He had a 168 ERA, it a 0.81 whip. While doing that, it was a very strong second half. His exfip during that time was 3.47. Fast forward to 2019, and somebody who I think is kind of similar is Jack Flaherty. Jack Flaherty just had a ridiculous sub 1 ERA, 0.71 whip, but he also had a 3.19 XFIP. So while he was very good in the second half last year, he still overperforming.

his expected stats, his peripheral numbers here. And I don't, I just feel like he's being overvalued. That's the lesson that I learned is like you buy too much into a second half. And we saw it even a little bit last year with Zach Wheeler in the second half. And that's why I'm kind of off on me. He moves over to Citizens Bank Park. I don't love that ballpark for Zach Wheeler specifically. He struggled with home runs allowed in the past.

I feel like Jack Flaherty going where he is at ADP 24, ATC projection. have him for a 3.33 ERA and a 111 whip. I don't really think that's dissimilar from like Kershaw, Charlie Morton, Patrick Corbyn, and you're getting those guys like a round or two later. So to me, I mean, that's kind of, I'm just kind of comparing the situation. And I think Jack Flerty to me is someone I can see being similar to Zach Wheeler last year in terms of how I valued Zach Wheeler. Well, I mean, you could be right.

Obviously, none of us can predict. future and so we're all just we're all just doing the best we can with the evidence we have but it's worth pointing out Zach Wheeler was at a much later stage of his development when he had his big second half than Jack Flaherty was I mean we're talking about five years difference in age right and Wheeler got sidetracked for a while by an especially lengthy recovery from Tommy John surgery but he had uh heading into that 2018 season he had 66 career starts, which was quite a bit more than Flaherty had,

even with that time missed. So, yeah, I was, I was a lot more skeptical of Wheeler heading into last season than I am of Flaherty heading into this season. But at the same time, I acknowledge it's no slam dunk. Flaherty just, uh, Flaherty just ends up, you know,

having a repeat performance in 2020. And by the way, like, Nobody should be assessing Flaherty just on his second half with a sub 1 ERA. I don't think anybody is, but you look at the full season line for Flaherty, and that's what people are hoping for. And that's still a sub 3 ERA, and he whipped just above one, almost 11Ks per 9, right?

Yeah, and the worst, the most unlucky record, 11 and 8 with a 275 ERA. But he was pretty bad his first 17 starts, though we didn't think it was, we thought it was kind of bad luck. 17 starts, Flaherty had a 490 ERA. I think that maybe Frank, the difference is the strikeouts, because Wheeler's second half of 2018, I liked him a lot too, by the way.

But he had a 10% swinging strike rate in that second half, and I'm assuming Flaherty's is much higher than that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, let me look up exactly what it is, but that's not a particularly good swinging strike rate. Right. And I think Wheeler was unlucky last year, too. I mean, the Babbib was way up. 22 home runs in 195 and a third.

That's not bad. I think he gave up a lot of hits. But this guy had, Wheeler had 15 starts of seven or more innings. So I think he really deserved a better fate. And I am kind of interested in a rebound from Wheeler this year. But I love Flaherty. And let me just give you one more stat on Flaherty, why I think he's pretty legit. Because 2017 he didn't do much, whatever.

But 2018, his end of season numbers were not great. You have the ERA pulled up? I'm sorry. I got it. Oh, 334 is the end of 2018. They were good. But his last three starts, he had an 853 ERA. His first 25 starts, he had 286 ERA.

And 168 strikeouts in 138 and a third. So this guy has three terrible starts at the end of 2018, before that a 286 ERA. Last year, a 275 ERA. I think he's a sub-3 ERA. guy with a great strikeout rate, and I totally believe in Jack Flaherty. 13.7 was his strikeout rate, or actually 13.8, it was a strikeout rate last year, 10th best in baseball. That's versus Wheeler during his second half.

You said Adam was just above 10. Yeah. But that's a big difference. So, Jack Flaherty, Adam, you said that you expect a sub three ERA. All of the projection systems on fan graphs have him for, around a mid-3 ERA, and his ex-fib last year was 3-6-4 for the entirety of the season. Yes, look at Tanaka's ex-fip. I don't care about it.

Tanaka's X-Fip is like in the 340s or 350s every year. Look, he has basically, for two straight seasons, Jack Plarity has had a 3-34 and a 275 ERA, and I just told you why I think the 334 ERA in 2018 was really a lot better than that, because just bad three starts at the end. So, like, why should I pay attention to those projections? I'm sorry. I'm going to go with the proof on the baseball field of what this guy has done. And, yeah, look, that's what you're getting with me.

I'm sorry, you know, for those of you who believe in those things. I'm not saying I don't believe in them as a blanket statement. But it's not like Flaherty has had an up and down career and last year was an outlier. Like, he's been amazing for his first two full seasons. So I don't buy that ex-fip. Let me speak to those who do believe in those things. I feel like ex-fip has a way of kind of pulling everybody to the center and omitting the extremes. A 364 X-FIP, which is what Flaherty had last year, it was still 16th best among qualifiers.

He was just behind Patrick Corbyn, and the three pitchers after him with an even higher expip were Sunny Gray, Lucas Golito, and Zach Granky. So that's still like a high-end ex-fib, even though a 364 ERA, which is what X-FIP is estimating, doesn't sound that great. Yeah, take that, Frank. You can take your X-FIP. The point is, I really like Jack Flaherty the pitcher. I think he's a good pitcher. I just don't like the price. I think where he's going in the second round is just, I think you're paying too much of it. I think it's too high of a cost to pay for Flaherty because I don't think that, you know, Corbin's numbers or Charlie Morton or, Kershaw's numbers, as long as those guys stay healthy,

are going to be that dissimilar from Jack Flaherty. And you can get those guys a round or two later. I mean, that was my biggest point. If Flaherty was going around where those guys were going in a vacuum, no doubt. I'd much rather have Jack Flaherty. In fact, I have him ranked higher than those guys. But the cost of you have to pay to get him in the second round,

that's the biggest issue that I have. But I don't... I'm not choosing between those pitchers. I'm not choosing Flaherty or those guys. I'm ideally taking both. You know? Like passing up on really good hitters in that race. Look at Adam.

Look at Adam. The way I see it... The way I see it is if I have an early pick, top five pick or something like that, I'm going hitter. And then I'm looking at Bueller or Flaherty. And I'm going to throw one other pitcher in that. I have a top seven now,

now that the season's being delayed, and it's Mike Clevenger. I'm going to look at one of those pitchers because you're not getting one of the big four. and then I'm going to take a hitter in round three and then I'm going to hope, and it's usually Charlie Morton. Corbyn is typically not there.

I don't go for Kirshaw, but I'm a big Charlie Morton guy. I drafts him a lot. So, you know, if I had Cody Bellinger, Jack Flaherty, Charlie Blackman and Charlie Morton to start my team, maybe position scarcity would be a problem, but I'd be very happy with that start. Did we just hear Adam developing rankings on the fly?

I got a tweet today asking winner Adam's rankings going to be up now that he's an analyst. Never. Adam Azers rankings coming soon. Do you buy that though that Clevenger should be in that group of the elites basically? Before he got hurt, he was

fifth for me, I think. And I haven't quite moved him all the way back up there, but he's back in my top 10. Yeah, I have him sixth. I moved him basically all the way back up. He had a, Mike Clevenger had a strength. stretch last year of 16 starts from July 3rd to September 24th where he had a 176 ERA, a 102 whip, almost 12 case per nine. And it's, I mean, you just watch the guy pitch. I worry a

little bit about his durability just because like his delivery, it's kind of like a herky, jerky delivery. But I mean, the stuff is there. There's no doubt. Mid-90s fastball, nasty breaking stuff. I have faith in Clevenger as long as he's on the mountain. I think that's what, that's the biggest key for him is just managing to stay on the field. And I think the biggest difference between Adam, what you brought up with drafting Flaherty in the second round is, and I did this in the Roto draft, kind of like to your guy's surprise, is I took Jacob de Grom fourth overall. I just, the safety of taking a de Grom or Cole in those top five or even top seven picks, I just, I think the hitters that you can get in round two or three are, you know, first round caliber hitters. And I think that those

hitters are better than the Jack Flaherty's that are going in that range. So I think it just comes down to draft philosophy and that's currently where I'm at. Scott, do you have another, you know, one of your misses from last year or a lesson learned? I know yesterday you spoke a lot about, you know, drafting starting pitchers early on your Tout Wars team last year. Do you have another potential miss or lesson learned from 2019? Yes, and this doesn't have to do with starting pitchers for whoever, whomever out there is tired of me hearing of hearing me talk about that. Okay, sorry, my brain is working faster than my mouth today.

Anyway, yes, Jurekson Profar is a player who taught me a lesson last year and fortunately I didn't suffer the consequences of him too much but Adam can, as Adam will probably remember, I was very high on Jurekson Profar early, in the draft prep season last year. I loved his plate discipline. I liked that obviously he came with the top prospect pedigree

and it looked like he was finally making good on it now that injuries were behind him, now that he was getting more consistent playing time. I think he may have even been the player I loved on the Valentine's Day episode last year. But Chris and Heath were both very down on him, very down on him. They could not share my enthusiasm for him. And it caused me to question why.

Like literally, I think I asked them why. And they pointed out how weak as contact is. And that's, that wasn't as evident looking at like the fan graphs breakdown of hard contact, which is what I had always relied on in the past. I mean, it wasn't great, but it wasn't as evident. than if you looked at the stat-cast data. And so Jerks and ProFar, and the way everyone else reacted to him, was what really caused me to dig into the stat-cast data for the first time

because it was, you know, it was still fairly new, just a few years old. I was kind of waiting until we had a better idea what it all meant, because when the data first went out there, nobody really quite knew what to do with it, you know? so I was waiting for I was waiting for the ability to use it confidently and it kind of started to steer me away from Jerksa Profar when I looked at like what his XBA was during the 2018 season

his ex-slug all of those numbers that I suddenly began citing last year on the podcast that I had never cited before and sure enough he was a pretty weak hitter last year So the lesson learned there was just You got to keep learning, right? You got to keep learning about new forms of data You got to keep learning about how to apply them To your fantasy analysis

Because the more you learn, the smarter your takes are going to be And while I don't think there's any magical Stat or data source that is going to cause you to be right all the time Uh Yeah, contact is important I've learned that lesson too Yeah, and not just hard contact, but well, specifically the way stat cast measures it, which I think is more reliable than the way fan graphs measures it.

So who's like Victor Robes comes to mind as somebody that I haven't been taking because his contact was so bad last year. I know he's young, 23 years old, but 28 steals is great, but gosh, the guy just couldn't hit, 255 last 17 home runs is not bad, but that contact rate was so bad for Victor Robles. So I think he's being overdrafted. One thing I'll say about Victor Robles, and someone pointed this out to me, his average exit velocity last year was 81 miles per hour, which is among the worst in baseball. His exit velocity, it was actually the worst. It was in the 0th percentile.

I don't even know if that's a word, but that's what it was. It was 0th percentile, and his expected batting average was 233. But someone pointed out to me that the stat cast data also takes into account buntz, and apparently Victor Robles buntz a lot. And that's why his average exit velocity is much lower than anybody else's. So I will just throw that point out there. And look, he's basically a stay away for me in a head-to-head points league. Because he doesn't offer much in terms of plate discipline and stolen bases don't matter all that much.

But in a roto league, I'm still pretty bold. on Victor Robles, and I don't think you can ignore the 300 batting average he posted in the minor leagues. I don't think he'll ever get there. But if he had 260 with 30 to 35 steals, that's a really, really valuable player in a Roto league. So I'll just throw that out for Victor Robles. And Scott, your point on jerks and pro far, isn't he kind of a value this year now? Not in a 12-team league, but if you play in a deeper league for a middle infielder, his expected the batting average last year was 21, and he hit 2.18. So we should see him positively regress, right? I don't know if the upside's high enough, frankly. It probably won't,

he probably won't be as bad as he was last year. I also don't know how locked in he is as the Padre's second baseman. He was pretty bad defensively last year. I think he had some throwing issues, and they have some alternatives, some guys they're going to want to mix in from time to time there. And it's another really tough part to hit it. I think part of what went wrong for him last year was going from Texas

to Oakland. And you could make some pretty weak contact on average and still get some over the fence in Texas probably, less so in Oakland. And I think it's going to be just as difficult, if not more so, playing in San Diego.

So I hear you, but I don't, I think even if things go really right for ProFAR this year, it's probably not, he's probably not going to be a player you're really going to miss. Yeah, you're right. It's solely a deeper league target. In some 15 team leagues, I've wound up with him as my middle infielder. 20 home runs, at least nine stolen bases each of the past two years. If he gets the batting average back up to 250, that's probably a serviceable middle infielder in a deeper league. Adam, do you have another player or lesson that you learned,

something that you missed out on in 2019. I know yesterday you provided us with A.J. Pollock. Do you have another name you wanted to bring up? Yeah, the reason I put in A.J. Pollock is because I said that I like to make excuses for players and I try to be an optimist. And I say, well, he was this good before his injury and this and that. And I did the same thing last year with U. Darvish. Scott and I already disagree on whether or not this was actually a miss.

He ended up as the number 36 pitcher in points league's number 30 in Roto. So obviously he was really bad until his last 13 starts. First 18 starts, 501 ERA. Last 13 starts, 276 ERA. It was pretty good. But very good. And he added a splitter. So the question is, you know, with Darvish, like, who's the comp this year?

If I made excuses for Darvish going into last year, but it turns out that the guy is just, the thing about him is that it doesn't take much for things to go wrong for you, Darvish. When he's right, he's really good. But I guess in a sense, he's like a better version of Tanaka. There are a lot of outcomes. And I don't want to make excuses. So I think that this year's U. Darvish is probably U.S. It's the same, right?

Get out of my head. Get out of my head, Adam. It's the same thing. It's like, how do you want to parse the data so you can feel good or bad about you Darvish? He starts throwing a splitter because he's had issues against lefties. in the last three seasons. He starts throwing a splitter. He didn't want to throw it because he said lefties never swung at it.

But he changed the grip on his splitter. He started throwing it to lefties. And it became an effective pitch for him, perhaps more so mentally than in the stats, but just having another way, based on what I read, by the way. It's not like my opinion. But in 2018, he was playing hurt, like the whole year. He had a stress reaction in his elbow.

He had a tricep strain, and the Cubs thought the stress reaction was bugging him all the way back to the end of May. That's a quote. 2017, he was solid. He had a 386 ERA. He had 209 strikeouts. But if you dig even deeper into 2017,

Darvish had one bad month with a 720 ERA. And in that bad month, he had two terrible starts. If you just take those two terrible starts out, Darvish had a great 2017. So I was willing to throw out 2018. Now how much am I willing to throw out 2019? and the overall numbers. 390-80-R-A, 229 strikeouts is great.

110 whip. Good enough to be 36th and points, 30th and roto. You obviously have to draft him a lot earlier than that. I think I'm going to make the same mistake again, Frank. I'm buying into you, Darvish. I'm buying into the splitter. One more time, you Darvish, I will let you. You know, here's the last thing.

Pollock and Darvish have something in common. Pollock, I think, was 32 last year. Darvish is 33 this year. when you start making excuses for players and they're in their 30s, you're playing with fire and I understand that. And yet I'm going to do it anyway. I have no idea where you wound up there. You didn't learn anything is what you're saying.

I learned a lesson, but I'm ignoring the lesson and I'm going to make the same mistake twice. I think, I know we have different standards for what we think a good season is from a starting pitcher. I think, you know, obviously what hurts Darvish's final line from last year is that he only had six wins in 31 starts, which is kind of incredible, especially when you consider his second half. But otherwise, pretty happy with where his numbers wound up. Now, obviously, the first half was pretty dreadful, but I was a U. Darvish truther at the time pointing out how, you know, actually, by the waves we measure stuff, the stuff looks pretty good and he needs to stop walking so many guys but it seems like he's close

to getting back and I was even able to swing a trade for him in Tout Wars as I mentioned yesterday to bring this full circle and then obviously it exceeded even my wildest hopes and dreams how much he could turn things around but like

you got a you got a factor around rust right like he was he was struggling to find his delivery in 2018 and then he got hurt and missed the majority of the season and then he comes back and he's not quite right for the first

three months or so. But then he gets back to being the perennial si young guy contender, pitching like a perennial sion young contender we knew him to be in his Rangers days. I don't know. I think he's back. I hope so. The home runs

bother me a little bit and yeah I just feel like he's kind of finicky. You know just doesn't take much to derail you Darvish, whether it's tipping pitches in the World Series or, you know, they're stealing his signs in the World Series, whatever it is. Don't forget about how bad he was that postseason with the Dodgers. It's just part of his profile, it seems, and he's 33. But for whatever reason, on draft day, I seem to be willing to toss it all aside, and I seem to want you Darvish. Because, you know why? Because who are the pitchers going in the same range as you Darvish?

Trevor Bauer, Sonny Gray, they all have question marks. So I go Darvish. According to ADP, he is SP 19 off the board at pick 63. Going just ahead of him, you have Zach Granky, Lucas Gialito, Chris Paddock. Just behind him, you have Tyler Glassnow, Jose Berrios, and Trevor Bauer. But I've seen drafts where Darvish actually goes higher than this ADP. I've seen drafts where he goes ahead of names like Aranola, Charlie Morton. I don't think that that's necessarily.

the case for every draft, but I have seen, you know, people who are very bullish on him and will pull him up the board. But questions still remain for me. There's just, there was so much that happened in that second half. And it was a ridiculous second half. I can't argue that 118 strikeouts, just seven walks in the second half last year. I mean, he like changed up his mechanics. He started like using this cutter. He threw the cutter like 34% of the time last year. It was way more than he ever used the cutter. But, But I still have questions. There was talk about how he changed his mechanics last year.

Is that something that's going to carry over this season? Apparently, he pitched the final two months with a forearm injury. It seems like he's always kind of pitching through some kind of injury. So I'm a little bit more skeptical of you, Darvish. And I'm just kind of laughing to myself the whole time while you're going through your analysis at him, because you're like painting a great picture for like why you don't want anything to do with you, Darvish. And then you're like, what I'm going to draft it?

Yeah, I am going to do it. You know? Live and die by you Darvish. I had so much you Darvish last year. So it's like Greg Byrd. I don't want to, I don't want you Darvish to have an amazing season and him not be on my team.

I will feel like a failure. I'd rather just, I'd rather just take the risk that Darvish is going to be bad. But if he's good and I don't have a lot of shares of him, I'm going to feel like I jump the gun on someone that I really liked, and I can't live with that. By the way, I do agree with you that he was a, I guess you call it a bust, or at least,

it's someone that you can learn a lesson from. Because early on in the season, I remember this start so vividly. It was May 9th against the Marlins. Four innings pitched, one hit, one earned run, six walks, seven strikeouts. And I remember watching the game, and I owned Darvish on a few teams.

And it was so frustrating. And I wouldn't have been surprised if anybody in a 10-team league, 12-team league dropped you, Darvish at that point. So if you gave up on him or you traded him away or you dropped him, then yeah. Like if you were someone who drafted you Darvish,

it probably didn't work out for you. Because I would imagine a large majority of people either dropped him or traded him before he became really good. I mean, Scott just mentioned that he traded for him. Trust me. Every time, every day on the podcast when I talked about you Darvish

and how I think he's still good or if I was to tweet anything out about it, yeah, I got some intense negative reaction to that every time. So people were definitely over-earned. you Darvish. And look, I agree with what you're saying, Frank, where if he's, if somebody's reaching for him inside the top 15, I mean, they're clearly not accounting for any risk there. There's a risk-reward spectrum for every pitcher. And Darvish is not nearly as high as some of the other guys in that 35 I keep referring to. But I also don't think it, with the high-end

pitchers, it pays to be especially picky because your chances to go. get a certain number of them are going to be over so quick that if you're like, eh, I don't really want Darvish here. I'm going to wait for the next round to take the top guy. Then that's, you're just going to end up not getting, giving yourself enough of a chance at starting pitcher. So that's why I'm, I'm more likely to emphasize the positive for all of those guys. I agree that for Darvish, he should be inside your top 20.

I think once you start pushing him up towards top 15, I've seen some people push him towards top 12. I think that's when you start going a little bit off the rails when it comes to Darvish. The last player I wanted to bring up, who was one of my bigger misses from last year, was Jesus Aguilar. I don't know if any of you guys were in on Aguilar

or drafted him anywhere, but, man, he sunk a few of my seasons. And to me, he really represented, it was like the drop-off in the first base tier, and he was like the last player in that tier. that I considered like a serviceable starter. So I kind of emphasized him as like the last one that I trusted. And it just, it was, it just didn't work out.

I mean, after hitting 35 home runs with 108 RBI and an 890 OPS in 2018, he hit just 12 home runs last year with a 714 OPS in 2019. And this is why it's worth looking into, you know, first half versus second half numbers and things that change because something that changed for him. 2018 first half versus 2018 second half was his battered ball data just completely changed. His fly ball rate dropped like 10% from first half to second half in 2018, started hitting way more ground balls, which is not something you want to see out of a slugger type in Jesus Aguilar.

So that's why it's worth paying attention to those changes from, you know, month to month from half to half season in terms of batted ball data and something that you should look at for players from last year. and one that stood out to me, Scott, why I'm a little bit more down on him, it sounds like if Chris were here, he would be able to defend him a little bit more. But Eduardo Escobar,

I mean, you look at the first half or second half last year, just 896 OPS to 752, started hitting less line drives. It seemed like he got a little bit fly ball happy, a little bit more ground balls than line drives, and it really just affected his performance. So Eduardo Escobar is one of those players

that I can see potentially sinking you, if you depend on him as either your starting second basement or in a deeper league third basement or corner or middle infielder. So I'm a little bit more skeptical of Eduardo Escobar for the reasons that Jesus Aguilar burned me last year. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot I could potentially unpack here. Just on the subject of Eduardo Escobar, he is one of the mid-career breakthroughs last year that I'm not so heavily invested in because I don't think. the underlying stats back it up as well as it does for some of the others. Yes, Scott. Having said that, Jesus Aguilar is the perfect example of a player whose breakthrough

season appeared to be backed up by data, and yet he couldn't follow up on it. He's probably Exhibit A for that a year ago. But it's still instructive because there was enough skepticism surrounding that breakthrough season that you didn't have to invest in him that heavily. I think he was going like in the round 9, 10 range of a 12-team league, which is not a make-or-break point in the draft. And he sank early enough in the year that you had time to pivot to a Tray Mancini or like a Luke Voie Pita-Lonzo.

Hopefully you targeted one of them late. There was ways you could go at first base still, and it didn't just have to be a lost season because of Hesu's Aguilar. And obviously that variable changes depending on how deep your league is. If you play in something 15 teams plus where there's just not much of a waiver wire, then it's riskier and then you have to be more careful about backing up your riskier picks in the draft itself. But for most of the people listening who play in shallower leagues of 12 teams are deeper, you can certainly survive that.

And that's part of the reason why I'm investing in those guys so aggressively. Another reason why is because, I mean, Eugenio Suarez would be on the opposite end of that spectrum, right? A guy who had a breakthrough season in 2018 that a lot of people were skeptical of. Turns around it hasn't even better 2019. So that's, it can go both ways. You guys want to hear a fun stat about Eduardo Escobar that I don't know if it's true because I just did it right now with my calculator on my phone, but maybe somebody can confirm to make sure it's true? Sure.

He has had exactly 74 extra base hits in two straight seasons. And that's why I like him in points leagues as a last resort at certain positions. I don't love him in Roto, but I think the home runs could come down. He had 35 last year, but he had 48 doubles in 2018, and he had 10 triples in 2019. So I think Escobar might not be a category stand out in any category, especially OBP. but I think he can get you a good amount of doubles and triples if the home runs come down because 74 extra base hits is pretty good. He's done that two years in a row.

It's a really good point on head-to-to-a-head points versus Roto for Escobar because I actually don't mind him in a points league. If you do have a middle infield or corner infield spot or utility, whatever it might be, he does get a lot of extra base hits. I just think if you're banking on him coming close to 30 home runs again, I just don't think it's going to happen. I think he's probably more of a 25, maybe 27 home run bat at best. While hitting 260 makes a lot of contact, he's going to hit a decent amount of doubles.

So better points league player for sure, but just somebody I'm not completely buying in on what he did last season. Emails. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. This one comes from John. Do you hear? Yadi, Mike, Ted, and Daryl. Yaddy, Mike, Ted, and Daryl? Hmm.

Sounds like one of them's a catcher. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, it's Yaddy or Molina. Okay.

Mike Piazza. Ted Danson. You don't know. You don't know anything. Ed Mosby. Whatever. I'm in a 12-team Roto Daily lineup league. A couple of years ago, I employed the strategy of rostering both

Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Flowers with the Braves as my catchers with quite good success. Are there any catcher pairings this season that could be used in the same manner that could both be had in the later rounds of drafts? I feel like whoever Kurt Suzuki is sharing time with, at least the past few years, it's been pretty true of him. So this year, it'd be Jan Gomez. I have them ranked pretty close to back-to-back, actually, because of how the distribution of playing time is going to work there.

I think also, I mean, really cheap, like scraping the bottom of the barrel, I could absolutely see this working pretty well for the Orioles tandem. Exactly. Scott. Yeah. I can't even think of the guy's first name, but Severino. Pedro Severino. Yeah.

Yeah. Pedro Severino and Chancesco. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so those two. if you buy into well that's not even a catching tandem

never mind I'm not going to go there maybe maybe the Padres tandem of Francisco Mejia and Austin Hedges Hedges has had some pretty good power has shown some pretty good power before but he's obviously going to hurt batting average that's about as far as I think I'm willing to go with that the one that also came to mind for me

not that it's like a platoon situation or anything but the Mariners because we saw a report late in spring training that said Tom Murphy was going to play around 55 to 60% of the time. So we saw Osceola was fine for stretches last year. So in a deeper league, I think, you know, maybe the two Mariners as well. But yeah, I would agree the nationals, the Oreos, and then maybe the Mariners were the ones that stood out most to me. This next one's from Ryan. Dear Stanful, Sussman and Florio.

Oh, three of the worst. Well, two great podcasters are the first guy, though. Now, these are the BFFs, man. Yeah, that's right. Can you please have Scott White ranked these from least depressing to most? 28 to 3, Larritz home run, Alabama-Georgia title game, Falcons lost the Super Bowl in the 90s. That was a crusher, too. That was a really good Super Bowl, wasn't it?

The Broncos Falcons game? I mean, what's interesting is he includes two Falcons examples here, and Georgia and the Braves both have a lot more. examples than the Falcons. So, you know, the Falcons going to the Super Bowl against the Broncos in the 1998 season, it was just such a thrill to be there, which is how the players approached it to, it seemed like. So that wasn't depressing. It was, it was disappointing, but like there's no way you could chalk that whole season up as a disappointment. They had upset the 15 and 1 Vikings in the conference championship game. They went 14 and 2 overall.

and the Falcons had been a laughing stock before that. Frank, do you know who Gary Anderson is? Do you know about the Gary Anderson kick? Gary Anderson. Oh, you're asking Frank. Yeah. I don't know. Wait, that was the first kick he missed all year?

Is that right, Scott? Yes. Yeah, Gary Anderson was the Vikings kicker. And the Falcons had Morton Anderson. And Gary Anderson missed a huge kick in the NFC championship game, sent the Falcons to the Super Bowl. And I don't think he had missed the entire year. Yeah, I don't think so either.

So that's least depressing for me, Falcons losing to the Broncos that year. Second least is probably the Alabama, Georgia title game, but it's a big gap between that and that first Super Bowl loss. Like, you're really hurting my heart here with that Alabama, Georgia title game, but I still have to put Layrit's home run and 28 to 3 ahead of it. I don't think it gets worse as a sports fan than 28 to 3. because that, like there was basically a quarter left and they were up 28 to 3.

Even as somebody who has gotten burned as a sports fan enough, plenty of times in the past. Like it was still over. It was over. They just didn't have enough time to come back. And you go look at the way the Patriots came back and just any one of a million miraculous things goes differently, the Patriots lose.

Like it was such an improbable comeback. And I don't think we'll ever see anything like it. I don't think I'll ever experience anything that bad as a sports fan again. It kind of numbs me to everything else bad that's happened. It's pretty bad. I still contend that was not a good game. You know, a lot of people think it's one of the best games ever played. I think it was two bad halves of football, basically, two non-competitive halves. I thought the Falcons wilting was just kind of pathetic, and I thought the overtime was even more pathetic. The Patriots won the toss, and you knew there was no chance in hell. They weren't marching down the field and scoring a

touchdown. So, like, I thought the Patriots Seahawks game was a great game, a freaking classic. But I thought the Patriots Falcons game was like, oh, a bad game. It's just, just because it was close and dramatic, it wasn't a good game. I think the most exciting play was a pick six. Like, there wasn't, wasn't like a great moment. I think Edelman had a great catch thing. But anyway, I caught a lot of flack for that, of course, because I have opinions that nobody else has. But that was one of my either takes. This next one from Andy. Hello, Paul, Gurney, and Duncan. Oh, sorry. What is it?

Paul, Gurney, and Duncan. Oh, that's Paul Simon, Gurney McGillicuddy, and Duncan Sheek. Who are those? I have no. Paul Simon is a singer. Duncan Sheik is a singer, and I don't know anyone named Gurney, so I said Gurney McGillicuddy. I had my fantasy draft yesterday. I would imagine that was a couple of days ago now. And even though I like my team overall, I didn't focus as much on pitching as I intended. I ended up with a rotation of Bieber, Clevenger, Nola, Kluber, and Sunny Gray.

For contact, my first two picks were Trout and Jose Ramirez. Is this enough pitching? It's a 10-team standard 5-5. I understand it's only a 10-team league, and we usually focus on 12 team leagues here. But you've got 5 of the 35 instead of 4. I think you're going to be fine. Yeah, that's a damn good staff, man. Bieber, Clevenger, Nola, Kluber, Gray.

Nothing to worry about there. This last one from Ryan, does anybody have interest in Corey Dickerson anymore? Still a consistent 300 hitter. No one's talking about Corey Dickerson, Scott. Maybe we should ring Chris Towers. Our resident Marlins fan, yeah. Cory Dickerson is going to be a fine fifth outfielder.

His best category is going to be batting average. Is he going to hit for enough power in that park? I have my doubts. Is he going to play all the time, even against lefties? I have my doubts about that too. I don't see a lot of upside beyond being a fifth outfielder. And probably, if, you know, you're a team competing for the title,

you're going to be looking to upgrade from him as a fifth outfielder at some point. So that's kind of where he falls for me. He's not useless, but he's not particularly interesting either. Dickerson's solid against lefties. He's not great, but his OPS against lefties, Lefties last three seasons, 820, 735, 782. Perfectly acceptable. Yeah, no power, no speed, not a good OBP,

considering the batting average. So that's, yeah, he's basically a batting average specialist. Yeah, he's okay. God, he's just so boring. Just batting average, nothing else. I don't want anything. I just think where you're drafting him, if you're drafting someone that late,

just go for someone with upside, unless you desperately need batting average. But that'll do it today here. Kokomo Friday. We're going to wrap. Have a great weekend, everybody, for Adam, Scott. And I was going to say, Chris, he's not here. I am Frank.

Thanks for listening. And we will see you again on Monday.