Fantasy Baseball Today - Live 16-Team H2H Categories Draft Part 1! Early-Mid Rounds Picks & Analysis (3/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

We're doing the famous 'For the People' listener league draft, which is a 16-team H2H category draft that uses OBP, net stolen bases, quality starts and saves plus holds. We're breaking down the first nine rounds of picks and strategy. Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Fantasy Baseball Today is a finalist in the Baseball Category for the Sports Podcast Awards! Quickly create an account and vote here: https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ 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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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

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. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. We're up to our final live draft of the offseason. And this one is for the people. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today.

Frank Stamphill joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. today on the show, a 16 team live head-to-head categories draft with all kind of wacky categories. OBP instead of batting average, net stolen bases instead of just regular stolen bases, quality starts instead of wins, saves plus holds instead of saves. And this is a league famously created by Heath Cummings.

And Scott is a huge fan. Scott hates it. Scott is such a grouch right now. I used to call Heath Cummings Master Troll, and I feel like this was his, final act of trollery, kind of his troll legacy to, you know, just everything about this league gets under my nerves. We made it worse last year by changing it from saves to saves plus holds. I'm the one who suggested it because it's already a lost cause anyway. Let's just,

let's just throw all the crappy rules, all you listeners use out there and, and see what it comes out. Everyone's always like, yeah, why don't you ever do this format and this form? All right, well, this is a format devoted to all your. crappy rules all in one. You know, the thing is your favorite format is points. And this most closely replicates points, at least in a

head-to-head category slash roto format. I mean, you don't get doubles for, you don't get points for doubles and triples, but like everything else is pretty pointy. Why didn't Heath make home run the slugging percentage? He could. We could do it right now. Let's do it. You want to change it on the fly? Why not?

I actually don't think we can because the room would crash. Yeah, we could do it. Yeah, let's not do that. Other details you need to know about this one. Weekly head to head categories, shallower lineups, one of each infield position, three outfielers, one utility, no corner or no middle, and then just seven pitcher spots.

You can divvy them up however you want. You can go all relievers. You can go six in one, five and two, four and three. Whatever you want to do, I'll be drafting sixth overall. Scott is 10th. and Chris is 13th. So we're all kind of spread out here. Again, this is OBP instead of batting average.

And this is one of our listener leagues that the ones that we announced a couple of weeks ago. So lots of creative submissions, and we really do appreciate it. I am going to pull up the draft board right now. And I think we're good to go, Scott. You could start it up. All right.

And we're off. It's going to be a fun one. Woo-hoo. I say I hate this league. I did win it two years ago. Oh, hmm. But ironically, like that fit, it was fitting because that was my worst year playing fantasy baseball ever, 2021. And of course, that would be the year I won this year because, like, just it's so against my every instinct.

Shout out to last year's champion, by the way, since we're talking about champions, got back in 2021. Last year, Doug Roe was the winner of this league for the people. Again, famously created by Heath Cummings over on the, now the FFT side. So the first three picks in this draft, the first four picks. Aaron Judge, Ronald de Cunia, Julio Rodriguez, and Jose Ramirez. I am on deck here. And to be totally honest, I have not played in OBP format. I have not drafted OBP this entire offseason.

Unless you want to count head to head points, I guess it's not dissimilar, as you were mentioning Chris. So Well, I think I think it makes Aaron Judge An even clear number one, right? Because he walks a crap load In addition to hitting for a solid batting average I mean, you know,

Aaron Judge isn't normally a clear number one In standard 5 by 5 leagues, But he is to me And in this format, he probably would be to most everybody Okay, just in fact In NFC drafts over the last week, I pulled this. stayed up earlier, Aaron Judge is now the number three player. He is behind Ronald Acuna and

Trey Turner over the last week in NFBC leagues, which I found kind of interesting. Yes, indeed. All right. So I am going to select Juan Soto. I had to read up on the news, catch myself up, said after playing in a B game Monday that he's quote really excited to be healthy to play opening day. Sounds like he's good to go. This is an OBP format. I currently have our buddy Ariel Cohen's ATC projections pulled up with OBP, and they have Juan Soto as the second best player in this format. I hope he's healthy. Let's go.

It's sixth overall. I was hoping he'd make it to me at 10, people being scared off by the oblique soreness. But alas, I think it was a good pick for the format, Frank. Yeah. Good job. I mean, I think Soto's number six in five-by-five leagues anyway. You add that extra OBP perk where he is the best on-base guy.

since Barry Bonds probably. At least he was in 2020 and 2021. So I think it makes sense. I was hoping for Jordan Alvarez too. These guys aren't scared off by the injuries. They didn't come to play scared. They did not. After I took Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker, Yordaun Alvarez,

Mookie Betts, and Scott, you are on the clock. Who boy. Don't like my choices. Oh, come on. There's very good players here. Oh, yeah, there are good players, just players I'm not used to building around. So the best two by my rankings, and these are my standard rankings, would be Shohei Otani and Freddie Freeman. They're obviously, when I say these are my standard rankings, they're not optimized for this format.

They're not factoring in that it's OBP instead of batting average among other things. But I can factor that in as the one drafting. and because of that, I'm going to go a little outside of my norms here, and I'm going to take Freddie Freeman. I like it, Scott. On-based machine. Sure is.

I'm seeing him as the fifth ranked batter. Again, these are based on projections, but yeah, an OBP does see a little bit of a boost there in Freddie Freeman. So you take one of the lockdown first basements, the elite names, and just following Freddie Freeman, Vladimir Guerrero. So another first baseman there. For those watching us live on YouTube, thank you for being here. Please like this video. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. This is what my hair looks like if you haven't seen it before.

Not wearing a hat. We, Scott and I did an interview with Cal Ripkin Jr. earlier. It was amazing. It had some you know issues with technology. Something's happened obviously while we're going live. Oh, come on Frank. Come on. Don't don't lead with the negative. I know. I know. It's so in my nature to do that. But he was amazing, super nice guy, really fun to talk to. We talked to him about Otani and Gunther Henderson and Mount Rushmore of all-time shortstop. So please go back and check it out.

It's on demand. We'll have the audio up in the podcast feed as well by the time that you are listening to this. All right, I don't know if CG is here. I think this is a gentleman named Chris. Yes, he is. And he takes Mike Trout, which is a great pick in OBP. Chris, you are up.

And I hope you weren't planning on taking Mike Trout. I was, I was. Yeah. I was planning on taking my trout. I think you know who you're the best player. So yeah, I will take Fernando Tatis, 13th overall. I think that's a great place to get him. But I would have rather taken Mike Trout, yes.

I was actually, like if I didn't take Freddie Freeman, I know I said my top two players were Freeman and Otani. If I didn't take Freeman, I would have taken Tatis. Tatis over Trout. Yeah. Because I thought you might have. consider Trout as well in the OBP format. Well, the other thing to consider here, and I guess it's parsing a bit since we're talking about the

earliest picks, and they're all good, they're all really good at many things, but it is standard head-to-head lineups. It is only nine hitter spots, so that hole you need to get maximum impact from every spot. I mean, Tatis is, it's hard to say anybody's higher upside than Trout, but at this stage of Trout's career, Tatis, I would say, is. he's going to fill up five categories instead of just for Trot not being a base dealer anymore. Let's talk about this pick that just happened. Boba Shett.

So he goes 14th overall, and that's probably where we would typically see him go in a five-by-five with batting average. Maybe he goes a little bit earlier than that. Power and speed combination normally helps out in batting average. OBP doesn't walk very much in Boba's shit. But, Chris, what about the possibility

of taking Boba's shit, just trying to rack up. up the counting stats, maybe you punt OBP, or is that something you don't want to lock yourself into this early in the draft? I don't think you're punting OBP. The thing there is, it's not like he's Adolese-Carcia. You know, like Boba-Shatt's not going to have a great OBP, but he's probably going to be pretty close to average. And so if you think about it from a traditional five-by-five perspective, you know, like Bobby Witt's not going to help you a ton in batting average most likely,

but he still tends to go in this range because he can still be a super heat. So I think that's something that in when we make the switch to OBP, people can kind of overrate the guys who don't walk, especially if like Boba Shett, they're going to hit for a high batting average, because yeah, he's not going to be a huge help in OBP, but it still counts the same as batting average, right?

It's one category out of five for your hitters. And we're willing to take guys who don't necessarily kill and batting average all the time. So I do think people can tend to overrate or underrate a guy like Boba Chet who will be closer to average in OBP. Yeah, because the batting average is so good. Unlike maybe Bobby Witt who just went at the turn.

Who might just be bad at an OBP? Mani Machado and Bobby Witt, who certainly was bad last year sub 300 OBP. I also wanted to point out in the concept of punting OBP on that subject. these are weekly contests. It's not like a Roto League where if you have a bad OBP lineup, you're going to place bad an OBP.

There are weeks where even teams that aren't built for OBP will be able to win OBP just because that's the nature of a week of baseball at a time. It's a category that's going to feel pretty random over those small chunks of time. So I don't think you have to look at it as punting. I will say, though, that if you want an OBPB, OBP standout, even more so than a batting average standout. They're going to be, they're going to dry up quickly.

I've experienced this from Tao Wars. It's the true OBP standouts are even less than the true batting average standouts because you have to be good, obviously, at both walking and hitting for average to be a standout in that category. All right, well, let's catch people up on some picks after Bobauchette went 14th overall, Shohei Otani at 15, then at the turn. One of you mentioned this, that it was Machado and Bobby Witt, followed by Pete Alonzo, Austin Riley, and Chris, you just selected Paul Gulchmidt, who is, frankly, I mean, he's still really good in any format, but he does walk a lot. So I think he's going to help boost

your OBP as well. You are muted, sir. A little bit better in this format. It's not a huge distinction, but it's, it's there. It exists. So I think it's fine to push him up ahead of someone like Raphael Devers, who I assume Scott would have taken there if he was in my spot, right? Uh, I don't know. I mean, Devers isn't as good for OBP. He's, yeah, he's closer to Boba Shett in that regard. Like he's been at like 355-ish the last two seasons. And boom.

Raphael Devers goes off the board. 21st overall. And I thought it was Scott's pick. So I thought he got a, thought he got snipe there. But maybe, maybe Scott wasn't looking at Raphael Devers. Anyway, as they like to do in these listener leagues, Nolan Aeronado goes off the board. Another one who doesn't walk very much,

but it's going to be a solid batting average and probably closer to an average OBP as well. But no... It would be bad. What's up? Aronado in 2021, his OVP was 312. Now his batting average was 255. You know, most of the difference there is a, you know,

36 point drop in batting average or whatever from 2022 to 2020. but yeah, that's a, you know, he's a little bit of a risk there, but I don't have any problem with it, really. Scott, you're up. There are no elite third baseman, at least by my calculation. Maybe you can make the case for one of them. Who are you drafting? Well, I'm just going to, this is just, it's a total wild card league, so I'm going to go with a total wild card approach here. I'm taking Corbyn Burns. I'm taking the first starting pitcher in this draft. The earliest I've taken a starting pitcher this year. And a lot of it comes down to because there has been this run on high in third basement, because there's been a run on high OBP guys,

I'm just not as, I don't think in this format, the range of hitters stands out here from the pack as much as in like a traditional five-by-five league. Also, you know, fewer hitter spots to fill in general. And I mean, Corbyn Burns just fell. So I don't love it. I mean, starting first base, starting and starting with a first base and a starting pitcher with my first two picks is just like totally antithetical to my approach this year.

But it's weird league and got to do you have to ask. And this might be blowing up your spot. And maybe you'll be mad that I asked this. But did you give any thought to Alex Bregman there? You want 21st overall? Overall in the Points League that we did with our listeners last week. So clearly the people have gotten the message about positional scarcity, and this is the for the people league.

So if anybody's gotten the message. I'm not sure this is the league for him, because as I was saying, only eight hitter spots to fill. Of course, he's better for OBP than a lot of third basement, better than Riley, better than Aeronado. But is he that good at anything else? The counting stats, runs an RBI should be pretty good. But home runs will be, again, week-long content.

test. So you're talking a 20, maybe 25 homer guy in Bregman, how reliable is that power output going to be from week to week? Is he going to be a net benefit there? Are you going to feel the effects of that of investing the early pick in him? That's part of the reason I passed up Marcus Simeon at this point too. I'd much rather have a big category standout, particularly when we're talking about home runs and stolen bases than kind of a jack of all trades type who won't reliably do anything in great numbers from week to week. After Scott took Corbyn Burns,

we see back-to-back elite starting pitchers, Garrett Cole, and then J.T. Rilumuto, and Marcus Samion. I am telling you right now that I am considering a complete OBP wildcard pick here, something you normally would not see this early in a draft. And which one of them do I want to take? I am going to... I already got the outfielder.

So I'm going to go ahead and select Matt Olson here. I know first base is typically still pretty deep, but based on the projections that I'm looking at, Matt Olson gets pushed up the board a lot in an OBP format. You know, he's probably going to hit around, you know, 240, 250 in terms of the batting average. But this is someone that typically walks, you know, double digit percent walk rate, and he's going to have a much better OBP. And two picks later. And having an absolutely bonkers spring.

It's worth pointing out. It may not mean anything. It probably doesn't. But eight home runs in 17 games of 1542 OPS for Matt Olson is just... And Fuego. Yeah, he's been on one for sure. So the two players I was considering were Matt Olson and Kyle Schwerber. And then Schwerber went two picks later.

Yep. Yeah, I mean, those were some of the ones I was thinking if I took Burns here, hopefully I'd be looking at that class of hitters. Right. But no, the hitter ranks are being entirely rearranged here since the categories are different, which is reasonable. Not used to seeing it to happen to quite this extent.

And the player that I wanted to take in the third round, thinking that I could get him, was Corey Seeger. Uh-uh. Not happening, because after I took Matt Olson, Max Scherzer went, mentioned Schwerber, just after that. Corey Seeger, 30th overall. Again, another hitter who,

I mean, he's still going to hit for a good batting average, we think. I know last year it was a lower batting average, but we have the new shift restrictions, the expected batting average was around 280 for Corey Seeger. So if he's hitting 280, he's probably got a 340, 350 OBP, something like that. I will say he's not as great an OBP guys as I think you would think. He's only been above a 10% walk rate twice in a full season out of what six of them now.

OBP for his career 357 with a 287 on base or batting average I think Corey Seeger's a fine player but I don't necessarily think he benefits a ton in this format the way you might think

other than Xander Bogarts and maybe Anthony Volpe in an amazing scenario Seeger was probably the best OBP guy at the position right? I mean once Trey Turner is not a standout for that either yeah I mean Corey Seeger's

probably the best OBP source at shortstop, but I understand what you're saying, where it's for a guy who consistently hits 300, the OBP is more 350, 360 than 380, 390. All right, don't you do it, Justin Finney, because I have someone in mind, and if you snite me, we are not friends. After Corey Seeger went,

Sandy Alcansra and Justin Verlander to finish out round two, starting up round three, Luis Robert, Francisco Lindor, Cedric Mullins, and George Springer. So we are seeing a few players here who typically operate within, you know, mediocre to probably below average OBP and Luis Robert, Lindor, and Cedric Mullins. But if they are the players that we think they could be and have shown to be in the past, and they probably are going to still put up a lot of counting stats in their respective lineups. George Springer went, Randy and Rosa Rana. We could still be friends, Justin, because I am going to take the name that Chris mentioned earlier.

I think this is probably the right time in OBP, and I'm going to go ahead and take Alex Bregman. So I'm leaning all the way into it. I've got Juan Soto, Matt Olson, Alex Bregman. I got probably an elite third baseman in this format. And I'm right with that. You know, it's not the most, I guess, exciting start to a draft, but it's a lot of power and a lot of counting stats,

so I am intrigued. After I took Alex Bregman, Ozzie Albies goes. Scott, you started your draft with Freddie Freeman and Corbyn Burns. What are you thinking about? You are two picks away. I got a couple of players queued up here.

And I'm sure if I mentioned by name, they'll just go pop-pop right away, so I'm not going to do that. What do you think about my Alex Bregman pig? Is this an appropriate range? 38th of all? Was that guy's name in community? Magnitude? He's a one-man party.

There you go. That's what I heard when I said pop-pop-pop, too. Anyway, I can, I feel confident saying I'm not going to draft a pitcher. I think that's fair. You're pretty confident in that. So what was the specific question you asked me? Was that an okay time to take Alex Breggman, 38th overall? Yeah, I would have considered it if he made it to me.

Okay. Speaking of third baseman going earlier in this format, Ozzie Albiz with the next pick and then Max Muncie, who I know is much better in OBP, but 40th overall. I don't know. Yeah, I wrote about the biggest differences in ADP at the various sites, and I think Muncie at, I want to say at ESPN is like way, way more expensive. Let me see if I can find it.

Or maybe it was Yahoo. He's, no, he's way cheaper at ESPN, I guess, because they ding you more for strikeouts. But there was... CBS leagues his ADP is 25 picks higher than consensus, which makes sense because CBS are more points leagues where you get value for OBP.

So that makes sense here. Yeah. And I did read something about Max Muncie that I think should inspire optimism. I'm higher on him than most people. Clearly not the guy who took him 40th overall here. But he kind of cheated to re-exam.

capture his stroke, the final two months of the last season, was kind of taking a step back. For some reason, it worked for him, taking a step back in the box to kind of lock into place. But he worked with drive-line baseball this offseason, as all Dodgers players are want to do. And he's got his bat sped up again. And he's had, he's looked pretty good this spring. So I think Max Muncie is going to be back to having a typical Muncie season. If that's the case, this pick in round three of an OBP league, eligible two-week positions, third and second base. it may not look so bad at the end.

I'm not sure anybody else was thinking of taking Max Muncie this early though. All right. After Max Muncie went, Michael Harris and Scott, you selected Corbyn Carroll, who has done a good job walking so far this spring. And I know that you've talked about how impressed you've been with the plate discipline, but obviously he's been a big hype guy during spring training.

So now 42nd overall is where you select Corbyn Carroll. I'm contributing to the hype. I think the floor is higher than you'd typically expect from a rookie because I think the steals total is going to be significant. I think he is going to be one of those categories standouts that I was talking about wanting earlier. And while also helping me build up a sturdy OBP base between him and Freddie Freeman, fills a weak position, which I haven't done yet. It's a little bit of a reach, but I'm to the point with Corbyn Carroll where I'm okay reaching.

After Corbyn Carroll, a manual class 843rd overall. Again, this is saves plus holds. You're still going to get amazing ratios from Emmanuel Class A. And he led baseball in saves last year. The elite closers typically get more saves than the elite holds relievers. I would assume he led baseball and saves plus holds as well. That sounds like it would be right. I mean, I would have to do calculations.

But yeah, I know, I think the holds leader last year was AJ Minter with 31 or 35. 35. 35? Okay. So, yeah. Typically the saves leader, there are more, the higher saves totals, the higher total normally goes to the saves category,

but there's a lot more in the mid-tier. So the 10 and 20-plus holds guys, there's a lot more of those than there are saves. So just something to think about as we get further into the draft. After Class A, Spencer Strider, Jacob de Grom, Brandon Woodruff, Arandola, so we got a bit of a pitcher run here.

Chris, you selected Jacob de Grom. Yeah, screw it. I don't have him yet. Why not? Let's get Jacob de Grom. He went 45th overall, which is cheaper than he typically goes. Yes, I know all about the downside, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know what?

Sometimes you just have to take a guy who's fun to root for and fun to have on your team and, you know, say to hell with being safe and being smart. I want to take Jacob Begram. And for what it's worth, there are a lot of really smart. people who think Jacob de Grom is worth even more than that. His ADP over the last week in NFC drafts is 26, 28.14. So relative to that, it's a steal. A bunch of nameless, faceless people, but I'm sure they're smart.

Yeah, why not? I would imagine that they are pretty smart. I mean, again, NFBC, these are high-stakes league. So putting their money where their mouth is. And is that itself an indication of, well, never mind. I think it's an application of the stakes involved. It is at least that, yes. I mean, I am someone who drafts in these leagues,

so, I mean, that tells you everything that you need to know right there. The first pick of the fourth round is Shane O. Mack, Shane McClanahan. Here comes the money. Here we go. Money talks. Here comes the money. We are off in round four here. What did you guys think of the Emanuel Class A pick with?

And I don't want to pile on people here, but obviously we have to, you know, analyze the differences between just a saves league and saves plus holds listen you don't want us to criticize you don't sign up for the league that's all i'm saying um yeah no i'm not i'm not taking a closer probably unless it's a really cheap one unless they go really late because i think in a saves plus holds league you can scrap together a decent enough total each week off the waiver wire namely holds i'm talking about of course okay to do win the category often enough to make it worth it I took Class A in my Tout Wars League.

I'm trying to find the results now, but I'm pretty sure it was cheaper than that. So I'm not, and the Tout Wars League I'm in is very similar to this one. It's saves plus holes. It's innings pitched instead of wins, and it's OVP instead of batting average. And yeah, I got him at the eighth pick of the sixth round.

So I don't mind taking one there, but it's more, like Scott said, it has to be a value to take a relief pitcher, and I don't think it was there. Before we get into the rest of the picks in round four, let's take our first break here on Fantasy Baseball Today. Ever dream about buying a Fantasy Baseball Today podcast shirt and then jumping over to get a Yellowstone Whiskey Glass

or Top Gun Maverick Hat? Well, now you can do that with the brand new Paramount Shop, which offers a mountain of merch from the Paramount shows and movies that you love. Shop official apparel, drinkwear, and accessories is inspired by over 150 fan favorite titles. Paul Patrol, Yellowstone, Top Gun, Star Trek, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, and your favorite CBS Sports Podcasts like PICS,

Fantasy Football Today, and of course, fantasy baseball today. Scan the QR code in the top right corner if you're watching on YouTube, or head to paramount shop.com. Paramount Shop, where products are paramount. After Shane McClainahan, we saw Jazz Chisholm, Christian Javier, Chris, you selected Will Smith, and then Shane Bieber goes off the board. Will Smith is someone who routinely has a very good OBP. Though we only start one catcher, this is probably appropriate.

50 second overall, Chris. Yeah, and he should be a good source of OVP. He's not like a huge walk guy, but he's usually in the 10 to 12% range. So he should be very helpful in OVP, especially relative to the other catchers that are out there, most of whom will be pretty bad in OVP. So it's always nice to get, help from the catcher position rather than hope your heads above water, which, you know,

even in an era where I think we all agree that catcher is deeper than it normally is, that's relatively speaking. And if, you know, a guy like Dalton Varsho wasn't catcher eligible, he probably goes 50 picks later than he does. So, you know, I'm happy to get a catcher who I think will help. after Will Smith, Shane Bieber and Kevin Gawson, off the board. Scott, you're up with 15 seconds. It's time for me to draft a player. I haven't been able to invest in yet this year,

despite being pretty high on him. O'Neill Cruz. This is the chance, this is the draft where I got to do all those things I haven't done yet. And it continues with this pick. O'Neill Cruz. In theory, it could be a multi-category standout, right? and I don't have a huge power bat yet

with Freddie Freeman and Corbyn Carroll being my top two hitters drafted. Hopefully he'll be helping speed too. Probably won't be great in OBP, not only because the batting average is suspect with all the strikeouts, though, the strikeout rate has been much better this spring. But also not, at least as a rookie,

just walked at a 7.8, right? Had some higher rates in the minor. So I do think there's a scenario where O'Neill Cruz gives me like a 340 OBP, but I'm not. counting on it. I don't think he needs to based on my construction so far. It's more about getting impact production at shortstop and potentially, hopefully high-end power. Scott, I don't want a name drop, obviously. So apologies. But I'm looking through

this quality starts leaders from last year. The Mount Rushmore, I mean, if there's a format to take those guys, quality start league. I mean, I think they're going to do- You just drove up the cost of all of them, Frank. Thank you very much. I apologize. But yeah, I'm just looking through it now. I don't have a starting picture yet, so I'm just trying to figure out who the quality start leaders were from last year.

And as I draft some of those names, I'll point them out. After Scott took O'Neill Cruz, Tommy Edmund goes off the board, and two more picks, and then I'm up. Probably. And you know, it's worth noting the change from wins to quality starts does lessen the ability to run. roll out a Marmol strategy. Because in a Marmold strategy, you're not going to get a lot of wins, but you have the chance

to vulture a handful in any given week. You can't vulture a quality start as a relief pitcher. Now, a lot of starters in this era aren't getting quality starts very often anyway, but you can't, you're never going to be able to win the quality starts category with a Marmull strategy where you could at least have a chance in a more traditional. wins-based format. All right. After Tommy Edmund,

Xander Bogart goes off the board, and then Alec Manoa, Alec Manoa, tied for second in quality starts last season with 25. And I think I'm going to go ahead and take my first starting pitcher. I'm going to go a little bit further down the list here. And I'm going to take Max Fried, who, frankly,

he's good in both quality starts and wins leagues, because it goes typically pretty deep into his starts. pitches for the Atlanta Braves, so lots of run support there. Max Fried last year, 21 quality starts, and that was in only 30 starts. So he didn't have as much as your typical ace. He didn't get the 32, 33 starts last year. So 21 for 30 in quality starts, go ahead and grab my first starting pitcher, Max Fried, round four of a 16 team league.

Feel pretty good about that. All right, rolling on here. In case you didn't know, probably should have mentioned this earlier. This is going to be a two-part podcast. once again. So, you know, be on the longer side here on the live stream. Only two.

Yeah. Do you want to go three? I mean, 16 team league, buddy. It's going to be a long one. It is. Yeah, we might have two hour and a half parts here.

A little bit of a longer. Longer one. We are creeping along. Oh, look. Gunnar-Hen-Herson just went. Yeah. I was hoping. And then he put, baby.

Vinny P I was Like there aren't many players Like Vinnie Paspeontino We think he's going to be good for batting average to begin with But when you add OPP I mean Guys

So good at drawing walks I'm a little surprised he lasted this long 63rd overall Yeah I would have given serious consideration to taking him over O'Neill Cruz If I hadn't already filled first base with With Freddie Freeman Adley Rushman

Right after him another good OBP source So these, they may be taking a while to pick, but these players seem to know what they're doing with regard to the format change. I thought about going Adley as well. And then I was reminded of last week when we did our head-to-head points listener league and when I took Will Smith earlier

and then those awesome catchers were there later on in the draft. So I didn't want to do it again, but it is a great pick in Adley-Rutchman last year. a 13.8% walk rate, 254 batting average, but 362 OBP for Adley Rushman.

So it plays up very well in OVP, but also in a headset points league, because even if he doesn't hit for home runs, it's going to hit a lot of doubles. That is something that Adley Rushman excelled at last year. And then the next pick was Wander Franco, who went 65th overall. Let's check out Wander Franco's page and see the latest update.

I know that he is dealing with him. He's ready to go for opening day. He did batting practice today, said he's excited for the opener. So he's good to go. It does knock some of the luster off, though, Chris. I wrote about Wanderfranco and breakouts 2.0. And probably need to lower him a little bit, just because there's a little bit more risk now.

Dealing with this right quad entry, it's something that Wanderfranco dealt with last year as well. And frankly, I think it's something that really derailed the season. I think he was kind of dealing with it off and on all season. Yeah. And it's worrying someone, oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to say it's worrisome for Franco. Yeah, and he's someone that we would hope will be a decent contributor in stolen bases.

But if he's dealing with the leg injury that lingers, maybe he won't be quite as much of a contributor. So it's a concern for sure with Wander Franco. I wouldn't take him there. But, you know, in an OBP league, like he's someone who could emerge as a true OBP standout. All right. After Wanda Franco, Brian. Reynolds and Dylan cease followed by Willie Adama is 68th overall taking another peak here at the pitchers no no discounts at shortstop in this draft which is

typically in a league where you're only starting a shortstop and not middle infielders I think we would expect to see short stops get pushed down the board that's what we saw in the points league but it's worth noting this is a six 16 team league. And one thing that I've talked about is shortstop is really deep if you play in a 12 team league. But my 16th ranked shortstop is Nico Horner. Now, you could swap Nico Horner for Anthony Volpe. I think Anthony Volpe is, you know, it's reasonable to put him up there.

But either way, like, there is a drop off. I would say it happens before that, Jeremy Pena, you know, even potentially Tim Anderson in a format like this. So, you know, there might be 16 really good short stops. It depends on how bullish you are on Anthony Volpey, I guess. There's a good chance the shortstopper too is taken to be somebody's utility player, too. He always got to guard against that. I'm happy to have one already in O'Neill Cruz.

But there are some good ones out there still. It's not too late. By the way, I hope everyone drafting is listening. Tristan McKenzie has a strain of his right, Terrace Major muscle back of the shoulder will be shut down for throwing for two weeks sideline for up to eight weeks overall. Wow.

Oh, geez. All right, so some breaking news there on Tristan McKenzie shut down for at least eight weeks. We're at the end of March, so we're looking at, oh, man, he's going to need a ramp up period. It might be the second half of the season, post all. No, no, no. He's shut down from throwing for two weeks.

He's out for eight weeks. Okay, so yeah, maybe maybe it probably comes back in late May, early June. All right. So probably like a later similar timetable to Tyler Glass now, but probably a little later maybe at this point. So I'm dropping him behind Tyler Glass now at least. Okay. Yeah, I was updating my rankings just before, just before we did this draft here. So earlier on Monday and I dropped, I kind of have like an injury tier here. Kyle Wright, maybe it's a little bit unfair to put him, lump him in with these guys, but Kyle Wright at 47, Severino at 48, Tyler Glass now at 49.

Yeah, and I think Tristan McKenzie will probably drop even behind that group. So going to be outside of the top 50. Yeah, I dropped him to 60. Yeah, outside of the top 50 starting pitchers at the least for Tristan McKenzie. All right. Let's catch people up on some picks after Willie Adomis. Salvador Perez. We know much lower OBP than we'd like.

Someone who can lead the position in home runs and RBI. I took Udarvish. Last year was tied for second in baseball with 25 quality starts. So I go back-to-back pitchers. Maybe I'll regret that. We'll see. I've got Max Fried and Udarvish with back-to-back picks. Jose Abrae, Byron Buxton, Starling Marte,

Jordan Walker, and Carlos Correa. Scott, talk to me. Seventy-fourth overall. For Jordan Walker, yep. Oh, yeah. Yep. I did not want another league where I missed out on a third baseman. Obviously, Walker is going to go earlier in this draft, I would expect than any of the ones we've done previously now that he officially does have the job.

Gunner Henderson was already gone. Even Max Muncie was already gone. Yeah, I didn't want to push my luck. I think we'll see how the rest of the team turns out. But I'm pleased with the pick, I think. Jordan Walker. Go on real youth movement. Go on real trendy, buzzy players in this draft.

My last three picks being Corbyn Carol O'Neill Cruz and Jordan Walker. And for those wondering about the OBP, last year in the minors for Jordan Walker, 119 games at AA. He hit 306 with a 388 on base percentage, 10.8% walk rate. So power and speed. And if everything works out, probably a, a pretty good OBP as well for Jordan Walker. After Scott took him, Carlos Correa,

Tay Oscar Hernandez, and Chris, fantastic pick. I was debating him or you Darvish, the player who led all of baseball with quality starts last year. That is Framber Valdez. Yeah, I'm happy to get Framber Valdez. He's my number two starting pitcher. It's the draft is throwing me off a little bit just because it is 16 team leagues.

I'm like, ah, 76th, 78th overall, whatever it was. That's a decent spot to get for Amber Valdez. And it's like, oh, that's my fifth player and my second pitcher. So it is, it is just like a different, you know, maybe it's just because like the only other 15 team league I drafted this year was a slow draft. And so this is the first time I'm really drafting this deep, like live. And so it just,

it does feel a little different. And I love this pick too. I thought I needed to check the news to see if something happened, Dalton Varsho because he owes 79th overall. One pick after Alejandro Kirk, Varsho's walk rate is not great, but still, that seems too late for a catcher eligible player that could go, I don't know, 2515, 2520?

Yeah, I mean, he had 27 and 16 last year with a 302 OBP, and it's like, yeah, you'd rather have a higher OBP from, you know, every lineup spot, but if you have to take a hit at OVP, catchers the spot to do it. where, you know, of the impact bats, very few of them are going to be good OBP sources. You know, that was part of why I took Will Smith when I did. But, you know, it's, you know, Salvador Perez isn't going to be a great, even like,

Rao Muto's a good OBP guy because he's a good hitter, but he's not like a standout in OVP necessarily. So it's, I kind of, you can take a hit there. I mean, I think it's perfectly fine for Varser to go where he went. but when he is a clear detriment in that category beyond what he is in batting average. And then, okay, he's a catcher who steals bases. How many bases did he steal last year? 16, right? 16 divided between 27 weeks.

I mean, you're not real, you can't really count on any steals from Varsho when you're breaking it down week by week. That's not really factoring into the discussion. So I get taking Adley Rushman over him with the high OBP. Salvador Perez over him with the high home run and RBI total. I get it, and obviously I patched up Dalton Varsha with my last pick, too, for Jordan Walker. But if Dalton Varsha had made it back to me in round six, I absolutely would have jumped on that. But Alejandro Kirk probably should not go ahead of him, right, Scott?

Right, no, I'd rather have Varsha than Kirk. Right. Even in this league. At the turn, we saw Josh Hader and Andres Jimenez, so now we are into round six. Adolias Garcia. we know the deal. He's probably going to be 300 OBP, if he's lucky. I don't know.

Sub 300 OBP, but one of, I believe, four players to go 25, 25 last year. So you are getting power and speed. I know it's harder to predict when those seals are going to happen in a head-to-head format, but Adoli-S Garcia should give you a lot of them.

And after that, Devin Williams here in round six, who should give you good ratios, lots of strikeouts. And now the closer for the Brewers, so hopefully lots of saves as well. Chris, you're up. And after you make your pick, explain your team name too.

Yeah, my pick is Chris Bryant, who is sort of like, it's, I mean, obviously not like Scots because Scott's taking the young guys who are exciting, but Brian's someone that I haven't drafted as much as I wanted to, and this is one of my last opportunities. I don't know about you guys.

I have one draft after this. I have a salary cap auction tomorrow, night. And then I'm done. I got one night off before the season starts. I feel like I've done a mock draft or a draft every night over the last like two weeks. And, you know, Chris Bryant is someone that I think is going to have a very good bounce back season.

We've seen some really quality, really impressive quality of contact metrics from him in spring training. 1085 OPS. Yes, we'll, you know, kind of skip over the fact that he's already had a little bit of back soreness in spring training. You know, it's, you know, maybe it's the cold weather, you know, or the altitude. That wouldn't, that wouldn't make me feel better because he plays an altitude. Scratch that one.

Either way, I'm sure he's fine. But I wanted Chris Bryant on my team. As for the team name, we got some great team names in this draft, by the way. I just want to do some shoutouts here. We got, uh, we got, oh, Sandy, baby. Uh, we got Lego my Gallegos. Those are you two. I'm, I'm going with Lavender.

It's a picture of Austin Hayes with a little lavender filter. I don't know. Anybody remembers the Springsteen of her generation, Taylor Swift. It's from her new album, Midnights, out everywhere on Atlantic Records or something like that. I don't know. But we've also got the little buff boys in the draft room. Love that one. What a crop.

We got keeping the legacy of Heath Cummings alive with Yasmani Money, Tomas Problems, in the draft room. So, yeah, loving that. loving the team names. You mentioned my team name. Last year, of course, huge fan of San Diego O'Connor, and now I've turned my back on him,

so I'm a complete fraud. But I've got the giff of Sandy from Greece in there, and a sound bite that we actually haven't heard in a long time. Sandy! After Chris, Chris Bryant, Julio Reyes, Ryan Presley, and it appears we are stuck, or maybe not. Is that the pick you wanted, Scott? I think we're going again.

Yeah, that's who I had queued up. It wasn't letting me pick it, but I think we're going again. All right, Robbie Ray. He is someone who's gained a little bit of helium here in spring. Apparently the velocity has been up and experimenting with a new splitter, as is the entire Seattle Mariners pitching staff. But I find you drafting a lot of Robbie Ray.

Scott. It's been a strikeout machine this spring, and he had 212 strikeouts last season. A little worrisome with the ERA, I guess. But I care more about the counting stats in a head-to-head categories league than the ratio stats because I feel like the ratio stats are so unpredictable from week to week. if I'm investing in pitcher, I want him to be a big strikeout guy. It's part of the reason I took Corbyn Burns in round two, and now Robbie Ray, same thing. Even when he doesn't pitch well, the strikeouts should give me a chance of winning that category.

Julio Arreus going two picks earlier, 85th overall, that's kind of, that's one of those picks where you're like, what in the world is going on? How is Julio Reyes still there at the range we're taking on? Andres Jimenez. I mean, I just took Jordan Walker last round. But remember, it is a quality starts league and 10 of Arias's starts last year, 10 of them, a third of them, less than six innings. So he didn't even give himself a chance at a quality start in those starts. Doesn't mean he's a bad pick at 85th overall.

I was crossing my fingers. He'd make it to me and I'd take him over Robbie Ray. But that explains why he lasted longer in this league than usual. After Robbie Ray, Tim Anderson goes off the board. someone, again, who does not walk very much, but he's going to hit for a higher batting average. That helps the OBP. I mean, we're not talking to 300 OBP here for Tim Anderson.

The guy's probably going to hit 300 or close to it. And even with the lower walk rate, it's probably giving you like a, I don't know, 315, 320 OBP. It's not great. Well, I mean, he's usually between 335 and 355. Oh, all right. So even better than I thought.

Go Tim Anderson, go. Just will he stay healthy? Yes, that is a very fair question. Since the breakout, Tim Anderson's hit, hit 347 OBP over the past four seasons. Now, that's with a 318 unbatting average. So, you know, 61 walks over four seasons is pretty bad, even for a guy who's missed as much time as he has. But yeah, if he's Tim Anderson, he's such an outlier in Babbitt in particular that he's going to give you a decent on-base percentage either way. after Tim Anderson,

Zach Allen and Joe Musgrove. Musgrove will start the season on the IEL, but looking to make his debut either April 11th or April 16th and someone who typically does give us a lot of quality starts as well. His price is basically back to where it was pre-injury. I was looking at this up earlier.

His ADP prior to the injury at NFC was 82-ish. Over the last week, it's 88. So pretty much where it needs to be. Are you guys ready? I'm ready. Hit me. It's Volpe.

Opening day, baby. Oh, I like it. 91st overall makes me feel like less of a sucker for taking Jordan Walker 74th overall or whatever it was. Yeah, I'm just never going to have Anthony Volpe, I guess. Internally, I was so nervous because ever since my last pick,

I told myself I want Fulpey with the next pick. I don't have a shortstop yet. I don't have any steel, like, I don't have many steals. I have Soto. I've got Bregman and I've got Matt Loll And so really no steals there. Volpe, we know everything he's done this spring.

He's got nine walks. He's got an OBP over 400. And he's someone who typically has walked a lot in the miners as well. So it's early. I get it. There's definitely a risk involved. He's a rookie. You could say that about a lot of rookies, all rookies.

But if it works out like we think it will for Volpe, you know, I think 260, 270 batting average. Maybe that's optimistic, but well over 300 OBP and lots of steals. So that's what I'm. And, you know, one comp that I was thinking of for him would be like Jake McCarthy, who I feel like the interest level in him has kind of died down as spring training has gone on. And, you know, the more, you know, we've grown more open to the idea that they're going to be plentiful steals. But like those two players could be pretty similar. And McCarthy's going around here, maybe a little later.

But you can tack on a little upside for Volpe and get him to that spot. Like, I do think Volpe's probably his biggest impact is likely to be steals as a rookie. Just 50 for 57, I think last year, which is just a really, really impressive number, even though he's not necessarily a great athlete. So, yeah, he's, you know, that's the place he's likely to be the biggest out, or biggest contributor this year. And I want to point out, again, there is risk involved with drafting rookies. I tweeted out yesterday that I think if you want Volpe, you've got to take him around 100,

or just inside the top 100 picks. And I was met with a lot of pushback. He only hit 236 last year in 22 games at AAA. Mind you, that's a really small sample size. But the numbers don't lie. Yes, he hit for a low batting average. There's risk involved. I get that.

But I think there's a lot of upside as well. And if you want to get somebody with this much helium at this point in the spring, you've got to pay up. And I know it's a 16-team league, but it is shallower rosters too. So you'd actually be surprised. I think there's going to be some not great, but I think the waiver wire will be okay in a league like this.

Now, not to belabor the point here with Anthony Volpe, but since it is kind of an oddball draft that we're doing here, maybe when we have our biggest audience, bigger audience than any of the other mock drafts, you're talking about Dan Sby Swanson. You wanted to have taken Anthony. Volpey ahead of Danes B Swanson in a

traditional five-by-five league. Would you or would you have? Probably not. I'm not really a Swanson guy this year. I wrote him up and bused 2.0. I probably wouldn't do that. Maybe I would just wait a little bit longer

for someone else to take Swanson. But you can't necessarily count on that happening. As you were saying, somebody is probably going to reach up and take Volpey inside the top 100 is you did. Right.

And, um, you know what? So if you just like them straight up more than Swanson, you may have to do that. I think I would. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I think I'm going to, even without the, the OBP factor. Yeah. Here for Volpey and us thinking that's going to be better for him than batting average. It could be an extremely foolish call, uh, taking Volpe over someone like

Danesby Swanson, but Swanson slowed down in the second half last year. It was a career year, obviously. He's moving to a much worse lineup. So the counting stats I think are gonna take a step back. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've been kind of fading Danes B Swans in this all off-season. We'll see if that works out for me. I am on the clock, so I should probably stop yapping

and figure out who I wanna take here. I will catch people up on picks in just a second, which once I figure out what I need to do. Okay, I need a second basement. There's probably not any of those good for OBP. Uh, uh, uh, uh, Maybe. There's some risk of... Okay.

Maybe. Outfield, how are we looking? It's kind of drying up. Not great. There's an interesting name down there. Oh, geez, what do I want to do? Catcher still looks pretty good. You got 12 seconds to decide, son. Son.

I'm going to go ahead and take my boy. Get your guys. And I'm going to take Jonathan India. Wow. It's a little bit early at 1.02, but... I was really worried you were going to take a second basement, but not that one. No, no, no. I don't probably should figure out how many IL spots we have because that might have determined who I should have taken instead.

But Jonathan India, when he was at his best two years ago, National League Rookie of the year, he walked a lot, leading off for the Cincinnati Reds and a little bit of power, a little bit of speed. And I keep drafting Jonathan India. I got him in the NFBC main event as well, So I guess I'm all in, all in on the bounce back for Jonathan India. By the way, I assume you were referring to Jose Altuve when you were talking about IL spots and shocked to see his value in NFC drafts,

187.4 over the last week. That just, I don't know, maybe I'm too high, but that just, I mean, they don't have, you don't have I L spots in NFBC league, so that's part of it. Injury absences in NFBC are especially punishing. Yeah. A 15 team league, no IL spots. It's really tough to get around, yeah. We have four IL spots in this league. But, I mean, Al Tuve, you know, normally I was thinking, where I pick 104 here, normally I was thinking about this range is where I'd look to take him. There's talk today. They might start him on the 60-day I.L, which would lock him out for sure until June. And if you don't have that hope of him coming back the last couple weeks of May, I don't know.

It becomes a less attractive pick. I don't think I'm going to take him here with my next pick. Somebody might end up doing it before it gets back to me in round eight, and I'll be okay with that if that happens. All right, well, I mentioned I was going to catch people up. Let's do that. There have been a lot of picks. We talked a lot about Volpe that was in the middle of round six.

After that, Kurshaw, Nesser Cortez, Stephen Kwan, Tyler O'Neill, and Carlos Rodan. It's a good pick 96 overall for Rodon through another bullpen session I think he got up to 30 pitches here on Monday and reportedly feels okay all good for now. Carl Sheridan trending the right way

perhaps late April early May for him. We get into round seven and we've got Taylor Ward that's a good pick I think he's going to walk a lot a lot of counting sets too in that Angels lineup. Nate Lowe, Logan Webb Anthony Rizzo does get a little bit of a boost in OBP

John Carlos Stain, I took Jonathan India, perhaps a little early. Masataka Yoshida, Christian Walker, and C.J. Crone. Scott, you are on the clock. Pick 106 in the seventh round. Yeah, I think I'm just going to keep riding the helium train here. Take another guy that normally gets drafted earlier than I get a chance to take him as much as I like him. And another guy whose value is elevated by it being an OPP League, and that's Lars Neupar. Damn you scott. Nope.

Right in the heart. A pick before Christian Yelich, it turns out. I was debating him versus Jonathan India. That one might backfire. You know, it is, it is like, Yelich versus Nupar is kind of an interesting one because like, I feel like if Lars Nupar has the season, Christian Yelich had last year,

we'll all view it as a resounding success. Right. And everyone's kind of like, oh, Christian Yelch, He's so boring. And it's like, I get it. He is. But, you know, he had 14 homers, 19 steals, and a 355 OBP with 99 runs.

Like that would be a pretty good outcome for Lars Neupar. I think in a best case scenario, we might be hoping for better. But there's also, I think, a wider range of potential outcomes there. Well, that's what I was thinking. Because I saw Yellich was out there still. And Yelich himself, a player who's a, uh, a. who's elevated in OBP Leagues because he walks a lot. But I decided that there is a playing time issue for Neupar,

leaving that out of it, presuming Neupar plays close to every day. His most likely scenario is probably a lot like what Christian Yellich's expected scenario is to. But I do think, I guess at this point, I'm saying it's more likely Noopar reaches his ceiling than Yelich does. I could see it. I think it's,

Sort of giving the unproven guy credit for upside because we haven't seen him. But like, I do think Christian Alex still has upside. Like, I don't think it's the likeliest outcome. But if Christian knowledge had a 25 homer season, it wouldn't shock me at all. You know, he still hits the ball really, really hard. He's done some interesting things this spring too, Chris. I believe all three of his home runs have gone to the opposite field this year, which is so interesting for Yelich.

So lifting the ball to left field for Yelich, it's kind of, surprising to me. Like, I don't know. Obviously, I think, you know, pulling the ball and pulling it in the air is ideal for power. But the fact that all three of his home runs have gone to the opposite field makes me feel a little bit more encouraged about the power to the season, frankly. He's also the kind of guy who just, he still has excess raw power. You know, he's not necessarily a guy who I think needs to pull the ball a ton to maximize his power. It's more about getting the ball in the air. If, I think if he gets the ball into the air to center field, it's going to go because he hits the ball so hard.

Yeah, but at the same time, I mean, what have we been saying about Alec Bohm and Kibryan Hayes, two guys who've shown more power this spring, like Yelich have always had that tendency to hit the ball hard, but without the power production to go along with it. And the storyline for both of them with them hitting home runs this spring is they're turning on the ball faster. They're pulling it in the air with their time.

They're timing it up in a way that allows them to pull it in the air. So it wasn't even so much a swing change elevating the ball. They're just turning on the ball better, and that's allowing them to pull it, and that's leading to the sort of contact that's more likely to result in the home run. So I don't know that I see Yelich hitting home runs the opposite way as a good sign, because, I mean, his issue is the same one

that could Brian Hayes and Alec Bohm have had. And if we think their solution is to pull it in the air more, then I'd be more encouraged if Yelich was doing that too. I mean, we've seen him, you know, when he's been a good power hitter in the past, it has typically been more all-fields power. So I really, I don't know, I'm not sure if there could be anything he could show us in spring training that would change how I feel about him, which is that he's a relatively safe. player who I think has latent upside.

And whether he hits that upside or not isn't really why I'm drafting him. If I'm drafting Christian Eilich, it's mostly for like a safe 15, 15 or 15 or 20, type of production with a bunch of runs and, you know, good OVP. Whereas, you know, any upside, I think is sort of, it's baked into the price or it's not baked into the price to the point where I don't really care. there's upside there, you know? After Yellow Twin, Danesby Swanson, Chris took Chris Sale. Is that back-to-back? Chris is for you?

Bryant and Sale? That is back-to-back, but one of them spells it wrong. Yeah, that's correct. After Chris Sale, Bryce Harper, we do have four IL spots in this league. Could turn out to be a fantastic pick. Jordan Romano and Wilson Gutreras to finish out round seven. Let's take our second break here. And when we get back, we'll get you into round eight on Fantasy Baseball today.

Make sure to download and follow our five-minute podcast. see baseball today in five wherever you listen to podcasts round eight andrew vaugh brandon nimmo nickledolo and chris i feel like this might be the first time you've got him in one of these drafts brandon low yeah and it's a guy i might have been able to wait on um you know i know not everybody's as excited about the brandon low experience as i am brandon low right no correct yeah brandon law brandon law uh as i am but I think the bounce back potential is significant. Obviously, we saw him hit 39 homers in 2021 with a good, you know, 340 OBP.

He had a 362 in 2020. So I think he's someone that if he's healthy and if he's right, Brennan Lau can be a big time contributor in this format. All right. Well, after Brandon Lau, Felix Bottista gets auto drafted for the team name Beetle up. Yeah, make sure you turn off your auto. auto pick because you don't want that to mess you up next time it comes around. Scott, you're on deck here. Let's check in on your team. We haven't done that.

The entire podcast so far. And it would be nice if I could find your team name. Right, it is Lego my Gallegos. Actually, Gallegos probably has some value here. And saves plus holds. Remember that for later on. Freddie Freeman at first base. Jordan Walker at third. O'Neill Cruz at shortstop. Lars Neupar in the outfield. Corby Carroll also in the outfield. got two starting pitchers, Corbyn Burns and Robbie Ray, who frankly could combine for 450 strikeouts, maybe more than that. Yeah. Yeah, wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, no, that's what I was trying to do is, okay, so the guy who lost Felix Batista says that was a, a error of

technology and he is asking for William Contreras instead. So that's who he's getting. All right, fair enough. Rather than Felix Batista. Yeah, like I said earlier, I want, if I'm going to pay for a pitcher in this format, I want it to be in the categories that I can rely on more from week to week.

And I think among all the pitcher category, strikeouts is the one. So I wanted a couple high strikeout guys there. Let's see here. And who do you want here? You're on the clock. Yeah, it's a good question. I think I am.

Let me look at the pitcher situation here. I mean, I'm doing pretty well with pitcher so far. I'm going to draft George Kirby. I think he could be a ratio standout. The strikeouts have been there in the spring. He's got the new forkball splitter thing that has looked pretty good for him so far. One thing that we've talked about with both him and Logan Gilbert is like, they're very popular breakout picks,

but it's not actually clear where the breakout comes from from either of them, because it's not clear where the out pitch is with either of them. But if either the splitter becomes an out pitch or more likely helps some of the other pitches play up, you know, I definitely think there's some upside there for sure. Now, they did limit how deep he went to his starts last year. Obviously, he was a rookie. He's really efficient because he throws so many strikes. And so I am taking the chance that he takes a step forward, as many other people are.

I mean, the only reason he's ranked this high is because people are expecting that. So I'm invested in George Kirby now in both of our podcast leagues. Jose Altuvae went right afterward. I thought about taking him here in round eight, but two months is a long wait in the league this deep. And so I opted against it. He goes 120th overall, Altuvei. Scott, I believe you had George Kirby in Busts 1.0.

Is that true? Did I make that up? I did. Yeah. I mean, it's like a lot of breakout picks, right? You could make a bust argument just as easily. And the bust argument for George Kirby is, well, he has a good fastball,

does he have a good enough secondary pitch to go with it to miss the kind of bats he would need to miss to take that step forward? If you look at his hit rate last year, his batting average against very high, higher than you'd expect for somebody with George Kirby's pedigree and just the kind of buzz he's getting in fantasy.

It's the reason why, despite issuing just 1.5 walks per 9, as a rookie last year, an incredible rate. He still had a one-to-one whip. He was giving up so many hits. And so that's the downside argument for Kirby. Is the arsenal well-rounded enough to take advantage of his natural abilities? Chris talked about how he's mixed in a splitter this spring.

And, you know, part of the upside case is just as George Kirby. Look at his, look at that pedigree. Look at the fact he issued only 1.5 walks per nine last year. it's one of those things that could go either way. It's just a question of whether the value is right for me. It's a little Shane Bieber-esque. Except, you know, Bieber got, you know, Bieber's had the slider and curveball as go-to out pitches that, you know,

Kirby still has to develop. And Bieber had them as, you know, go-to pitches at the point before he broke out. So that's one distinction where Kirby wasn't really getting the whiffs when he was, you know, when we're hoping for the breakout. Yeah, and I actually love the comp on Shane Bieber, Chris. It's one that I've always thought about too. If you look at Kirby's numbers last year, he gave up a ton of hits and his whip was really high despite, you know, having one of the best, I think historically, one of the best

walk rates by a rookie starting pitcher in MLB history. And the reason why is because he lives in the zone too much. That was something that hurt Shane Bieber earlier in his career as well. So when you have pinpoint accuracy and command the way that Kirby does, I think you can expand the zone a little bit. And, you know, try and try and get opposing batters to chase pitches a little bit. It's the classic command versus control thing. Control is avoiding walks.

Command is throwing in and out of the strike zone where you need to at the right time. And, you know, I would think Kirby has both. But command is also not just throwing the pitches. where you need command is also related to stuff you know like right you throw us a slider in the strike zone if you don't have a good slider it doesn't really matter that you threw it for a strike it's going to get crushed you know it's that kind of thing last point on george kirby here if mb.com is correct he's thrown 97 pitches this spring 80 of them for strikes which is just i don't think their pitched level data on the box on the game or on their stat pages is accurate okay i'm not sure

but like 92 pitches in what 12 innings, that seems pretty low. Yes, yes, it does. So I don't know if it's accurate, but it just wouldn't surprise me if he threw this many strikes throughout spring. His last outing was against the Dodgers on March 22nd, 5.

No hit innings for George Kirby with nine strikeouts in that game. Let's catch people up on some picks here. Yeah, we left off a while ago. After Jose Altuve at Pick 120, Lance Lynn, Matt Chapman. I selected MJ Melendez, who had a

12.4% walk rate as a rookie last year so even if he hits for a lower batting average I think that he is going to be a little bit more valuable in an OBP format

Routy Tellez love it. Chris Bassett, Sean Murphy, Glaibor Torres, and Andres Andres Munoz. And this is something

I do like about saves plus holds leagues is that you could just draft the most talented relievers. That's one aspect of it that I like. You could just focus on skills

and ERA and strikeouts and all that fun stuff. Munoz, if he clicks, should be one of the most dominant relievers in baseball. We just don't know how many saves he's going to get. But in a league like this, that doesn't matter because he'll just get holds instead. Yeah, I mean, he was, he and Edwin Diaz, who of course is out for the year,

they were in a class of their own in terms of strikeout, swinging strike rate last year among relievers, among pitchers with 50 innings. So I think we can safely say, Andres, And Andres Munoz, if he stays healthy, is for sure a dominant reliever. But the downside of that argument is so we can just focus on skills for a reliever is the samples are so small for every reliever in a given season that you can't confidently predict

who the most talented reliever is going to be coming in. And you can use that to your advantage. That's what I try to do is just as they emerge over the course of the year, you know, kind of pieced together that that. holds stable off the waiver wire. But yeah, in theory, what you're saying is right, where because you don't have to worry about what role they're filling so much, you can focus on skills over roles. All right. But I would say that the reaction to that should be to value them less and to be like the bar gets flatter for them.

There's a lot of really good relievers out there. Every team has three guys who throw 98 miles an hour now. So it's, you know, there's still, I think you still need to lean away from or lean into the depth at relief pitcher that saves and holds creates. I agree for the most part. But if Munoz has the season that we think that he's capable of, he probably shouldn't go almost 100 picks after a manual class A. Yeah, that's fair. I think it's more the class I went too early. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Let's get into round nine here. Jose Miranda, Blake Snell, Logan Gilbert, Charlie Morton, Nick Cassiano, and I took, my guy, had to do it. Jeffrey Springs, he's my SP3, Scott. I hope your report about him wanting to go deeper into starts is actually true, and I could get some quality starts this year out of Jeffrey Springs. Either way, I think we'll get a lot of strikeouts. His ADP over the past week over at the NFBC is 132.3. I just took him at pick 134.

So Springs is someone who has been on the rise, followed by Hunter Green, Nathan Avaldi, and Dustin May. So a bit of a pitcher run here, Scott. And you're up in round nine. I'm going to take Miguel Vargas. Nice. I don't mean to keep taking all the hype guys. Gosh, my team is loaded with rookies.

It's a great dynasty team, Scott. It really is. Scott wipe noted hype beast lining up outside for Supreme Gear It was actually more Not liking the second base situation After Jose Ltuve went

Kattel Marte just went before him Glaber Torres has gone since my last Pick And I know I know second base I've talked about it being bottom heavy so you'd think it'd be a better Place to wait in a deep league like this But

Again only nine line-up spots per team So I don't know that I want to settle for a Jeff McNeil or a Tyro Estrada in a league as one of my nine starting hitters. So obviously Miguel Vargas is only starting with first base eligibility, but he'll pick up second base by the end of the first week. And I'll be able to slot him at that position for the rest of the season. Hopefully he's actually good. I think he will be, but I have a lot of picks like that. After Scott took Miguel Vargas, Felix Bautista, Jake McCarthy,

Ryan Helsley went to Chris, and then Vaughn Grissom at 142. Yes, that is correct. I just saw you right in the chat, Chris. That Von Grissom got sent down, by the way. That is true. I mean, you know, we'll see. Should not go 142nd overall as a result. Okay, yeah, that's what I figured that the person didn't see it.

I don't know if you guys are okay with going back on it. I'm sure Scott is because he's the nicest drafter I've ever drafted. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. So, all right, so we backed out the pick and we'll help out our friend Brendan here. Brendan, Zachary, who...

I mean, look, everybody's busy. I understand. I was disappointed that Jake McCarthy was gone. when I went to pick. He got taken one pick before me. And I was hoping to go McCarthy and then Helsley with my next pick. Helsley ends up being the pick. Just another guy that I haven't drafted this year that obviously could be the best believer in baseball.

He kind of was last year. So, you know, the saves plus holds of it all makes it a little easier to stomach, the uncertainty about, you know, who will actually get the saves there. Absolutely. After Ryan Helsley, the pick. is Whitmerfield instead of Von Grissom. So you get a little speed there. Now, I'm thinking about my roster construction here

and how I took Volpe to help out with Seals because I didn't really have any. This probably would have been a really good punt speed team now that I'm looking at it. I've got M.J. Melendez, Matt Olson, Jonathan, India, Alex Breggman, Volpe, Juan Soto. Outside of Volpe, there's not much. So I don't know that I'm going to compete on a weekly basis.

in speed and I've got two outfield spots left. I got a utility spot. At those specific positions, I don't know. There are a lot of good base dealers left. I feel like at this range of the player pool, I like the speed sources better than I like the power sources. All right. Well, do you want to give me some name, Scott,

so I can draft them or what do you, what do you think? I'd rather not, but I mean, you've seen me draft before, Frank. You know who I target for the next. I know, a few names just came to mind while you were talking about it. I think I'm a man. I've got a few. No, that is not one. Hey.

Although he will provide speed. Hey, when we were talking to Cal Ripkin Jr., we asked him about Gunner Henderson. And immediately he asked about Jorge Mateo. He's like, well, where's Mateo gonna play? So I thought that was interesting. Hey, to Brian Hayes said he wants to steal 30 bases. I think he's probably fast enough to do it. Oh, he's definitely fast enough, yeah.

Yeah, what do you? He had 20 steals last year, and now we're expecting speed to go up across baseball. So yeah, that would not surprise me one bit for, uh, keep Brian Hayes. after Whitmeryfield Who was that, Scott? And I'm not sure we, yeah, I'm not sure we ever addressed Cabrion Hayes' power output

this spring specifically on the podcast this year. I did allude to it earlier in the same vein as Alec Bohm. He's hit four home runs this spring, which is more than half the total he had all of last season. And of course,

Kibrein Hayes has high quality of contact. And, yeah, What I said earlier, just basically, they feel like he's timing up the ball better in a way that's allowing him to get out in front of it and pull it in the air more. And that's allowing those exit velocities to translate his power more than it has in the past. Whether he can sustain that into the regular season over the course of the season, I don't know, but I have renewed enthusiasm, renewed optimism for Kibrian Hayes and moved him up a tier in my rankings earlier today. I know that we have made this comp already. I think it was you, Chris.

But if we're excited about Alec Bohm, we should probably be excited about Key Brian Hayes for the same reasons and potentially has even more upside with that speed element as well. After Whitmeryfield, Tyler Glassnow and Anthony Santander to finish out round 9. Great pick, by the way.

That is way too late for- Yeah, that's great value. For Santander. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to sign off part one here on the podcast side of things. But make sure to join us for part two as well. We will see you there.