Fantasy Baseball Today - Live from Arizona! Tough Players to Rank in 2024 & James Triantos Joins the Show! (11/6 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

We're podcasting LIVE from First Pitch Arizona! The Rangers are World Series champs (2:10)! ... Ariel Cohen, creator of the ATC projections, joins the show (6:10)! ... Let's talk about tough players to rank in 2024, starting with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (10:25). ... Where might Cody Bellinger wind up (18:41)? ... Elly De La Cruz is a freak athlete but has some flaws (23:47). ... Blake Snell led the league in ERA but also led the league in walks (28:20)! ... Tarik Skubal as a top-10 pitcher (34:45)?? ... Cubs prospect James Triantos joins the show (36:50)! ... We wrap up with one more tough player to rank: Michael King (55:00). 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.  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. What's up and welcome in to a special edition of Fantasy Baseball today live from first pitch, Arizona, presented by Baseball H.Q. How's everybody doing out there?

Yeah, we got a live crowd here. Awesome. Great people in attendance so far. I'm your host, Frank Stanful, and you know that if I'm podcasting out in Arizona, there's only one way to do it. And that's with my good buddy, Chris V. Welsh. What's going on, Welsh? Hey.

This is pretty awesome. This is pretty exciting. We got some amazing stuff. We've got some amazing people here. We've talked to some players. We're going to talk to a player here in a little bit. Talk about some fun stuff, and you guys are my neck of the woods. So I got home field advantage today, feeling pretty good.

Yeah, the Wells can attest. I've just been complaining about, like, the changes in temperature and heat and like, my lips are super chapped. I'm like, what's going on out here in Arizona? But overall, it's been an awesome experience so far. We have a great show lined up for you guys today. We're going to be talking about what makes players tough to rank for fantasy baseball purposes. We've got six players that we're going to focus on and where they're going in early drafts,

based on we have like five drafts worth of NFBC ADP. later on we think we're going to have Cubs prospect James Trianto's coming in joining us arguably the Arizona Fall League MVP so far and we do have two amazing trivia giveaways here. You've got a signed Kyle Manzardo baseball and this fantastic piece of work. Who's that? Who is that?

That's Corbyn Carroll. That's Corbyn Carroll. That is a signed Corbyn Carroll photo so we're going to be... What's up? That's Fr rookie of the year. That's maybe even more than that. We'll see. But it should be tons of fun. I hate to start things off on a negative here, Welsh, and I'm kind of throwing you a curb ball right away from the start. What are we doing? But how are you actually doing, man? How are you actually doing? Great. We haven't talked about it yet. This is the first time we've... I'm fine. This is the first time we've podcasted since the Texas Rangers took down your Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series.

Talk it out, man. Let us know. I did get to go to both games, which was incredible. That was the best part of the experience. My son consoled me during the game and he was like, you know, Dad, it's all right. Like, we get to have a really cool experience and I'm like, yeah, it's great. It's really good. It's so awesome. We got to spend it together.

You were one of the first people that actually consoled me after the game. Big hug. No actual tears. But team played great. Just not here and not in the World Series. And Scott gets the last laugh. Scott White. Oh, he's not here.

Go Ranger, Scott. Where is Scott White? Yeah. Where in the world is Scott? With the Diamondbacks, not here. Yeah, I was at Game 5, the clincher. I mean, obviously it's cool to see history with the Texas Rangers, but really not cool for my buddy, the Welsh here.

But fantastic season by the Diamondbacks, and obviously, congrats to the Texas Rangers. Great season for them. But let's get into it. What we actually came here to do today, and we'll start off what makes a player tough to rank in fantasy. And usually it's extenuating circumstances, right? It's data doesn't support the production,

small sample size, or a lack of track. record, injuries in the past, how much can we depend on that player to be on the field this upcoming season? You know, inconsistent production. This could be over a larger sample, inconsistent from year to year. It could be inconsistent from month to month, depending on which player you look at. So Welsh, I just threw a bunch of different options your way, but anything else that might come into your mind, because I know you rank players, obviously, we're all kind of starting up here in the offseason. What makes players tough to rank in fantasy for you? Yeah, one of the things for me is I don't think I'm quite as black and white.

is everybody gets. Like, we've had a lot here. This conference has been fantastic, and there are players that you will walk out of here, and it's like, oh, we all collectively hate said player, like, from different conversations. I'm not quite like that, but like what you're talking about, it's the, it's anomalies to me. And the anomaly, and I'm just saying a different word for kind of what might be three or four different parts of these, a small sample size, a specific piece of inconsistency. When you have had a, let's say, a track record of multiple years, of this player doing this and then something happens. Or there's a talent level of a player that's this and this is going.

It's the anomalies that tell a different story from something that we know. I think that makes it the most difficult. That's then attached to relative draft position, which either everyone will tell you, ah, I don't listen to ADP, ADP's stupid, but we have to pay attention to ADP. The websites are telling us, these are the players, people are going through, this might be their focal point.

and that relative range of player that is around a guy you might like or dislike sometimes can push this player into, like, I might like, we're going to talk about a player actually coming up here. I actually don't mind, and I actually be a buyback on, but where they're going makes it more difficult. Paying for last year's stats positively or negatively is really, really tough. And I don't think there's definitive answers that we're going to come out of this on. We can all have our opinions on it, but having a definitive answer, there's a reason

we're doing this topic. This is tough. These guys are tough, and I'm probably going to go swaying back and forth the majority of the offseason trying to figure this out. And I love hearing that from you too, right? Because again, these are divisive players. Like you just mentioned there's a player that you like, everyone else in the room might hate, right? So it's just like so interesting. I think these are players we're going to talk about a lot in the off season. And honestly, we could have come up with a list of 20, 30, 40 guys, but we narrowed it down to just six players here today. I think you could also see this in projections too. And perhaps that's when projection systems differ. I did not prep this gentleman for what I'm about to do.

But Ariel Cohen is here in the audience. Come on down, Ariel. Come on down, Ariel. I want to ask you a little something. Come on down. We're just kind of throwing this his way. But I know that I've heard Ariel talk about this a lot. And I don't know if it's the intra-standard deviation, but you've talked about it plenty of times about you can see within projection systems the players that have wildly different projections. and I think those might be some of the players that we're looking at that are tough to rank or even project in the offseason. Yeah, so, I mean, the ATC has the inter-standard deviation, intrastew. So when I look at projections in the off-season, when I look before the season,

and I look at all the different kinds of projections that come out, some players are very similarly projected, like, oh, there's 25 homers, 25 homers, 26 homers, and some projections go all over the place. You can see just from that statistic, the higher the standard deviation, the more wider projections are, and the less certainly are. And I found that when there's more of a discrepancy, the resulting, at the end of the year, the player does not do as well as we think. Like, if there's more uncertainty between the projections, and it's usually in terms of playing time. Like, if this guy can get 400 bats and he has 600 bats, the player doesn't do well on average.

I also find that with inter-Skew from that ATC projects. Skew is where, hey, all the projections say he's at this level, but there's one projection that say he's lower, you can almost ignore that projection. So I look at whether something's skewed, and if it's skewed and there's only one projection lower, you can ignore that. Everybody, the player will be better than the consensus thing.

The one thing I'm going to add to that, I think is really interesting, is projections will be the catalyst to making these things the most difficult, because you have a player that has this incredible, maybe it's an outlier year, and we look and we're like, oh my gosh, and then there are some factors that are telling maybe a different story, and then the projection comes out,

and it's a 30% production decrease across the board, and we're like, what happened? Like, what are we doing? So your projections, the projections that you end up putting together, and they end up being the catalyst to why this can be so difficult, and then the ADPs put us in this, The thing I've always loved talking about you too is you will not just, you know, see your projections and see everybody's projections come out and just be like, well, this is what it is.

The projections that you have defied your own projections before and you have the conversations because, you know, you are one big piece of creating this puzzle of what makes it difficult. We still have to ask the question, not just take, well, projection says this ADP doesn't make sense, so we're done. We have to continue to ask the question and try to build deeper. Like you said with the skew as well. Yeah, so what I do with projections are, you know, it's hard for me to go through everybody and spend time doing a deep dive on every single person. But I think projections bubble up to the top, players that you can take a deeper dive on. If I see the projections are way above the market, I say, hmm, that looks like it could be. So, for example, Diaz on the raise, right?

Yandi Diaz. Yandi Diaz, forgot anything for a second. ATC had him as like a $10 bargain. He's worth $12 and he's going for $3. You go in there and you say, hmm, now let's take a deep dive. Let's see if we truly think he's there. And, oh, you know, hard hit rate, you know, and it bubbles up to the top. You might go in and take a look at another player and say, yeah, project and say that,

but, you know, they missed the fact that, you know, his innings, total order is declining. His, you know, Sierra was so much higher. Me, R.A., maybe his Babb was so much better last year. don't go by projections totally, but I think projections are a great way to bubble up who we can focus on as the cream of the crop. Yeah, and I think it's a great point. Look, projections are not going to catch everything,

but I think obviously it's like a good baseline and it's a good place to start as well. Professional broadcaster, Ariel Cohen, I really did not tell him that we were doing that. We're just like, hey, yeah, let's call him up. Ariel, thank you so much, Cody. Appreciate it, brother. All right, so let's actually get back into it here.

The players that are tough to rank, at least what the Welsh and I think, are going to be tough to rank entering 2024. We'll start with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Who finishes the 62nd overall player in Roto this season, according to the CBS 5x5-alorithm. He's obviously in the prime of his career.

He's 25 years old, turning 25 in March, hit 26 home runs this year, 94 RBI, hit 264, 788 OPS. And it's like, you don't want to write off a soon-to-be-25-year-old. We just saw he was the best player in fantasy two years ago. but we have this very clear outlier season where he played in two minor league ballparks that were so incredibly hitter-friendly.

If you look at the OPS by year for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 7-72, 791, 1002, 818, 78. One of those things is not like the other, and that was the season that he played in those incredibly hitter-friendly minor-league ballpark. So, Welsh, I'll throw it to you, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. what are you thinking here early in the offseason? So this is one of the guys that are saying,

I think I might kind of still like, and I think a lot of people don't like Vladimir Grover Jr. anymore. The ADP, I think it's doable. I mean, we're in the, I think it's 36 and NFBC early drafts. That's okay. But there's so much of the expected stuff that's still there for him, even though, you know, the batting average dip, there were some ballpark factors.

He's closer this past year to that 20-21 year When you're looking at average XIVA's velocities, his XBA was 291 this past year, which it was the second highest of his career. The really interesting thing, which is countered to another player, was the biggest dip he had this year was against four seam fastballs. And it looked like his strikeout rate ended up getting cut. And it looked like he was trying to work on breaking off-speed pitch hitting just a little bit more, just being an overall better contact hitter. and it suffered from the power department, yet expected stats across the board still tell not only a positive story, but better than last year and closer to the 2021 where that's what we've been paying for. And that's a tough thing because then in 2023, you're paying for what happened in 2022.

And now this coming year, our expectations have been brought down by quite a decent margin that, I don't know, like we're not in the first round conversation anymore. And I still think there's 30 plus. I actually, I'll be fascinated to see what Ariel's ATC has. I think he's going to beat projections when we end up seeing. I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong about it. But I think we're going to see higher projected numbers in 2024 than this past year.

And then he's going to end up being an early round ADP value. So of all these guys that we're talking about, not to ruin what I like and don't like, this is the one where I was like, well, exactly what you mentioned at the top, there's so much of the story that is positive here. Yet we are getting a pretty big discount. So I don't know if you feel the same way. I mean, 26 homers at first base doesn't get anybody excited, but I just think there's still a lot there.

Yeah, the expected number is definitely stood out. As you mentioned, 291XBA this year, 494 X-slug. That's compared to an actual 444 slugging percentage this year. The dimension change in Toronto, too. I think maybe it had something to do with it. He was so bad at home this year. Vlad hit 238 with a 716 OPS. They changed the dimensions.

We know it was a little bit harder to hit it out. to right center field. His pull rate at home, Vlad Jr., 38%. On the road, it was 46%. So I don't know if that was some kind of like conscious change or was just like random variance this past season, but I think he's got to get back to pulling the ball at home. And generally, I agree with you, man. I think I could be in as a third round. Like in the third round, you're kind of looking for someone like who can pay off first round value. And I think Vlad could be one of those guys that puts up a similar season to like a Corey Seeger type or Yorda Alvarez, that kind of like four categories. stud production. We've seen him do it in the past, right? I don't think he's going to get back there,

but why can he hit like 280 with 35 plus runs? And that's where I'm a sucker. Like, I'm a sucker for it's like, this guy's incredibly talented. He does hit the ball really hard and we have seen the production there before and he's super young. And we've also seen him here in the AFL make changes since the AFL. I remember when we were hearing the AFL, everybody was making this big thing about like, oh, it hits 1, 12, but it's like a 4 degree launch angle because he was just line drives at the wall. It starts getting out. I mean, he has adjusted his career as we've gone. And I don't know, something I, one of the first focal points I start to look at in the offseason two is just looking at the pitch mix and you're looking at the fastballs, like I mentioned,

he had 50 points lower against four-seem fastballs this past year. And that's the number one pitch you're going to see. Like, he was a 300 hitter, the prior season against forcing fastballs. That's going to have a dramatic effect on what you're going to be able to do, especially when you're able to lift the ball. His whiff rate went up by like 6% as well against four seams. So, you know, if you can get back to that, I think it's going to be a huge positive, and we actually are going to be coming up here shortly on a player that destroyed four-seem fastballs this coming year and had a good season. All right. So real quick, before we get to that next player, the ADP, there's only been five drafts done over at the NFBC so far. Vladimir Guerrero is going

at 36.4. By a show of hands, people in the room, how many of you would be willing to invest in Vlad Jr. at that ADP? 36.4 is the early ADP. Look at this. Yeah, that's, That's probably more than half, I would say. It's beautiful. So I see Vlad said that. Look at that hand right there. Oh, yeah. I like it. It is interesting when you look at all of these guys.

When you look at what people are investing in around these players, especially in the NFBC stuff, it is incredible how many players are like, oh, this is the interesting name we focused on. And then it's like, pitcher, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. There's all these pitches around. So there might be a philosophical thing that happens where people are like, well, you know, I do like that guy. But that's not what I'm drafting around this range. And that's one of the things that could affect him because there's a lot of those other guys. Yep, we have a question.

So, Vlad's fun-loving. If you watch him in the dugout, he's having a good time. He's overweight. He hasn't always, you think that's been too seriously. He's gone to Florida, hired a professional trader. It's not so much that he's going to get more fit, which would be nice. It's because he's obviously taking his role more seriously. So that's what I'm up.

Yeah, we've seen that. Yeah, and we've seen him do that in the past when he kind of like whipped himself into shape a couple of years ago. Obviously, I had that monster season. So hopefully we can see that again here from Vlad Jr. in 2024. Let's do one of these trivia giveaways.

So what we're going to do here is we've got a Kyle Manzardo signed baseball. And one of the top prospects out here in the Arizona Fall League. Thanks again to your buddy, Sid's Graff for hooking it up. If anyone wants to check them out, it's at Sid's Gras on Twitter. that's S-I-D-S-G-R-A-P-H-S on Twitter. SIDSGras.com, make sure to check it out.

So what we're going to do is I'm just going to list off some clues. You guys could just throw out guesses. Like, as we go along, whichever player you might think it is, just go ahead and, hey, whoever gets it right, you're getting a Kyle Manzardo baseball. First clue number one, this player. Who is that? Cal Raleigh.

Not the answer from the Mariners fan. This past season, this player finished 12th overall in Roto, despite playing just 130 games. Any guesses? That's silence. Ooh, they are thinking. All right, here we go. Next one.

One of 19 players to go 20-20 this past season, 20-plus homers, 20-plus steals. Not Nolan Jones, but a good guess. What do we got? Not Tatis. Matt McLean. Royce Lewis. No.

Not Hassam Kim. Adelaise Garcia. Not Lane Thomas. Not Adolice Garcia. I was telling Frank. I'm like, these questions. might be too easy. These guys are going to get it right away.

Luis Robert, not Luis Robert. Here's the next clue. OPS by season, starting with 2019, 1035, 789, 542. Who said it? Yep, there you go. Come on, damn. Get yourself a Kyle Manzardo. Baseball.

Cody Bellinger is the correct answer. Here you go, sir. Great job. You got it, buddy. Cody Bellinger, I heard there was a couple of their podcasts going on already this weekend, and people are talking about Cody Bellinger, and you can just tell he's going to be so divisive this offseason, right? It's like had that 2019 MVP season, and then it's just been a up and down roller coaster,

mostly down, if we're being honest, since then. And then this huge bounceback season, one year with the Chicago Cubs, truly was. Frank secretly sleeps with a Mr. Met Stuffie. Yes. The Wells is my top prospect. All right, we've got some hecklers in the best. back. Awesome. Justin Mason and his wife Danielle with the signs. Appreciate it. That is great stuff. We're talking about Cody Bellinger here again. One of the tougher players to rank this

offseason. 26 homers, 95 runs, 97 RBI, 20 steals, hit over 300. One of the true league winners this past year. His preseason 80p was 187.8. I mentioned he finished as a 12th overall player this past season. How did he do it? Well, he cut the strikeout rate down to his MVP level. 15.6 percent. Obviously, that's fantastic. And then what? What else do we look at when it comes to Cody Bellinger? He's one of the hardest players to figure out. Outside of the strikeout rate, his average exit velocity, 22nd percentile this year, hard hit rate, 10th percentile this year. He is one of the most polarizing players this offseason. He's also a free agent. We don't know where he's going to play yet. Well, some early thoughts here on Cody Bellinger.

Let me ask you, does anybody have a more polarizing player than Cody Belanger? Bellinger this year. Right off the top of head. Christian Javier? Okay, maybe. But there was a code of silence there. Like that's where Bellinger is at because I'm not going to give you guys a definitive answer. I don't have a definitive answer for it because I think he is wildly crazy.

It's wildly crazy to me because the strikeout, like what are we looking for? Especially for a power hitter. Like these are two completely different things that are happening. We want strikeout rates to cut down. We're like, yes, this is awesome. But then the hard hit rate, it plummets. It absolutely plummets. That's totally counter to what we would want to invest in

and what we could, like, really feel comfortable with. He was a guy I was telling you about, though, that when you go back to looking at success into seasons and you're looking at hitting four seams, it's the number one pitch that he went against. 2002, he hit 209 against four seams, 293 this past year. So he absolutely destroyed fastballs while not hitting them hard.

But that higher-in fastball, success led to incredible results, even though it was counter to everything that we hold dear. How can this guy be so good with bad, hard hit numbers, worst barrel percentage of his entire career, yet this guy is going to get a massive contract. So I completely agree. I think he's wildly polarizing and a lot of hate on him this year, probably relatively justified because I think it's to be impossible for him to recoup, especially for what we know and we have to put brains into and like how can this player bounce back I think projections are going to hate him especially when you're getting into like hardcore stuff and they're going to uh I think it'll be a

funny balance between the strikeouts and the hard hit numbers like what are those going to do to projections which one which one will win ariel strikeouts are hard hit yeah yeah and that's and he's at a level that feels a little bit uncomfortable he is specifically also the one I went to look look at you look at the players around it is pitcher pitcher pitcher picture picture picture picture picture picture pitcher pitcher. So I think it's going to be easy to say, I'm not interested because we know he is going to regress. It is just so easy to look and know he's going to regress. But my kind of like gray area goes to what level? Like what like this was a great season. And he was like a league winner at the cost. It's just you don't have that cost this year. So I don't have a good answer to it. I love

what he was able to do. He maximized, he maximized his hitting ability counter to what like, Every analytical thing would tell us is a good thing to do. So I think that tells us a bigger story that maybe he's going to be able to defy. Maybe he'll be a projections defier and an analytics defier. But like top 50 is really tough. Top 50. I don't think I will probably invest in him in the top 50. Yeah.

So he's going just outside of that so far. The ADP for Cody Bellinger through five drafts is 57.6. Let's do it again by show of hands. How many of you are willing to invest in Cody Bellinger? inside the top 60 next season. We got a couple. We got a few hands. We got a few like,

maybe I'm not sure yet, kind of things going on. Yeah, I think that's a great question too. Where does Cody Bellinger wind up? Yeah, Yankee Stadium could be an option. To me, that's kind of like a good news, bad news. Obviously, the short porch would be great in right field, but I think maybe the added pressure of playing in a New York kind of environment

maybe might not be the best thing for Cody Bellinger who, you know, seems like he's kind of been in his own head. over the past couple of years. So I think that's going to be a big question this off season because you go back to Chicago. I think San Fran is going to be looking for some offense. Sorry, Justin. I don't know if you want Bellinger.

But we'll see what happens with him this offseason. Let's be on to another player here. I think one, again, pretty tough to rank such a fun player this past season. He finished 113th overall in Roto. Just 388 played appearances called up mid-season. Took the league by storm. 235 batting average. 13 homers, 35 steals in 98 games.

Ellie Dela Cruz. In case you're wondering what the 150 game paces, 19 homers, 53 steals. I mean, there's just not a lot of players that kind of have that skill set. It's just where does the batting average kind of wind up for Ellie Dela Cruz? He's a pure freak.

We know that 100th percent high in both max exit velocity and sprint speed this year. Some of the negatives, Welsh. 34% strikeout rate. 54% ground ball rate. He hit 184 with a 495 OPS against lefties. this past season. He struggled in the second

half. He struggled against non-fastball. So as fun as he is to watch, I hate talking negatively about L.A. D.A. LaCruz. He's just so awesome. We have to be honest about the flaws in his game as well. 35 maybe percent strikeout rate at any time.

Did you mention his ADP? I did not mention his ADP. Does anybody know where his ADLAQ is? Anyone have a guess? L.A.D. LaCruz? It's like 25. 19.2 right now, which is just like, You're dreaming on the potential. I get it, but I love dreaming on the potential.

But it is so wildly dramatic on both sides. If we're talking about, I know these aren't the same, but if we're talking about, like, well, Cody Bellinger's really risky at 56 or, you know, Vladimir Guerrero is really risky at 36. I think we're paying for the exciting stolen base upside that has power. And I think stolen bases are kind of driving this. There are so many flaws that are in our face. It's not a one-to-one.

And I know a lot of us have kind of cheaply done this. But you guys know what O'Neill Cruz's ADP is in NPC right now? 69. 50. Yeah, nice. We have a 50 plus spot difference on O'Neill Cruz. And the only reason I bring it up, obviously, is because what we did see. We dreamed that L.A. D.A. D.C.C. Cruz does what O'Neill Cruz did? Because we saw O'Neill Cruz strikeout numbers be ballistic.

He couldn't hit under over 200. And then it was that last part of the season, he completely turned himself around. The strikeout rates dropped. We've seen Ellie do that in the minor leagues. that at AAA where he was able to drop the strikeout percentage. So you want to bet on big, huge talent. I want to bet on that. I just, I'm a risk taker, but I don't want to risk top 20. It's just too much for me, especially when I can have perspective of, like, I do think O'Neill Cruz is a relatively decent comp to power speed. He's going to be back this year. You're

getting a discount. And even as a prospect guy, I don't really invest in, like, young prospects and rookies to a crazy degree. There's a few that I put my hat into. I'm looking for playing time. That investment, whether it pays off or not, it's kind of, it comes back to return value. What does he have to do to return that value? Is he capable of it? Absolutely. He is capable of it.

But how, what is the percentile that it's going to take for him to get to the return of a top 20 pick? How low can the batting average be where he still pays off a second round? That's a great way to say it. Right. That's a great way to say it. Can he do it with a 240 batting average? I mean, if he goes 20-50, maybe. See, unfortunately.

see, this is where I go counter to myself. When you said that, I'm like, yeah, he probably could actually. He's probably the guy that could return top 20 with the 240 batting average. You just, there's also that little thing of like, you could go three months with having a sub-200 batting average and then all of a sudden. We saw it in the second half. He literally does that. So I don't, I kind of hate those swings, but I understand the upside.

And there might be formats that make a little bit more sense for a guy like L.E.2. Yeah, so the ADP 19.2, same thing we've been doing for every player by a show of hands. How many people willing to invest at an ADP of 19.2 and L. in L.A. de la Cruz. Wow, there's not... We got a so-so from Justin Mason. I'll point out, again, we've got some great fantasy players in here, and we've got like a half of a yes on L.A. D.A. LaCruz.

May I ask this, if you had to pick, L.A. Dela Cruz at 19, so early second round, or Cody Bellinger in, what, the fourth round? You can't say neither. You cannot. You have to. Your life is on the line. Who is taking Cody Bellinger over L. in that scenario.

Wow, we got a lot of Bellinger. So then what's it? Where are the Ellies? So we got six. So when you do at cost, it's about 50-50. Yeah, maybe a little bit more Bellinger. Maybe a little bit more Bellinger skewed there. Let's talk about a few pitchers real quick, who are, who I think are going to be tough

to rank in 2024. We've already heard a lot of talk about this pitcher this weekend as well. You know, shout out to Nick Pollock. I know they did their podcast the other day, and he was a hot topic. Blake's now. You're likely N.L. Syung Award winner. He finished as a SP3 in Roto this past season, SP7 and head-to-head points. He led Major League Baseball with a 225 ERA.

Did that with a 119 whip. 234 strikeouts were tied for third in all of baseball. We know he's got the mid-90s fastball. He has three secondary pitches with a whiff rate over 46%. I mean, this is elite level stuff. His curve ball had a 56% whiff rate, Blake Snow. To put that in perspective, Spencer Shrider's slider has a 50% 55% whiff rate.

So Blake Snell's curveball was better than Spencer Shrider this past season. But Blake Snow also led baseball with 99 walks. Some cool stats from MLB.com. Snell became the first AL slash NL pitcher since 1913 when Earned runs became official in both leagues to lead the majors in both ERA and walks. So again, something that hasn't been done since 1913. We're talking about clear outlier production here. I know you've got the Blake Snell impersonation.

I know you love Blake Snell, but will you love Blake Snell coming off a Siong season where you might have to invest, you know, a top 15 SP pick in him? Right, it's funny in doing that. If you guys have ever heard me tell the story on the backfields like two years. Blake Snell is like a great character. Like I kind of make fun and stuff like that. But he had this moment on the backfields like two years ago where he was coming off of pitching and everyone was like, oh, Blake, Blake, Blake, you know, they wanted him to come over.

And Blake was like, man, I got to get hydrated. I got to get out of here. just walked off and the drinking made me think of that. That was the impetus of the impression of just, man, I don't know what you're talking about. He is tough. I just wanted to point something out on your sheet as far as ADP, there's a kind of unreasonable number, but the new number that I pulled out, I don't know if you saw this. What do we get? Right here.

That's quite a bit different from what you had on the sheet on the NFBC drafts. It was in the 60s. but I mean unless I'm seeing this wrong, maybe this is like outdated for this a tiny bit. Do you have it on 2023? You might have it on 2023. Oh, you know what? That's even possible.

But I'm glad he knows not here as well to go through the Blake's Nell conversation. I don't know. I think he belongs along the lines of the Cody Bellinger to Ellie De La Cruz of a leader in strikeouts, a leader in walks, which direction is it going to go? I think he was able to defy, the huge negatives, and I kind of like players that defy their absolute negative.

So in the 70s where I'm not investing in high-end pitchers, I probably actually will, even though I know there's, did you mention the discrepancy between Scott and... No, I haven't mentioned that yet, but I think you could see it. Like my co-hosts on the podcast, Scott White, he has Blake Snell ranked as his SP10 so far in the offseason, and Nick Pollock, who spoke about Blake'snell the other day, has him as his SP-33. So I think that's just like an early indication of just like the wildly different rankings for Blake Snell already. And say that again, it was. SP 10 for Scott, SP 33 for Nick Pollock.

And 19 on... And 19 and ADP. So split the difference, basically. Well, I tend to be the person that like, I think the middle ground of extremes usually tell the story of like what makes the most sense. And the most sense is somewhere in that like 18 to 22 range. And it's probably just going to be dependent on your own team. He's a whip killer. He's an absolute whip killer.

but last year he was a league winner due to the cost. It's just ironic that the cost is that far off. It's less than 100% different. I mean, it's not like this guy using Win the Sai Young. He was drafted in 110, whatever it was last year, and now he's going to be going in the 30s, kind of like the 70s. And all the negative talk here is going to push him down even more. Ballpark factors would be super important.

I think there might be something there worth investment because there's so much negative stuff surrounded him that it's going to be cost efficient. Yeah. I think you might be able to get him at a suppressed cost because everyone has the same information, right? Like, okay, we see the 225 ERA. He had a 406 Sierra, he had a 377 XERA.

So we all see the same things, right? Like we're expecting regression, also a free agent like Cody Bellinger. So we'll see where Blake Snow winds up this offseason. I don't know, we've heard some, I guess you could say troubling things about the Padres' payroll already this off season. So I don't know that Blake Snow will be back with the Padres.

My guess as of now is he probably won't, but we'll find out where he will. winds up. Yeah, where he took a step back, right? Yeah, no, it's a good point, right? Like, we saw Blake's now win a Cy Young before and then the next year. And that's what I talked about earlier with the difficulties with ranking players is just inconsistent production, right, year over year. And Blake's now, I guess, a lot like Cody Bellinger, the pitcher version, is we've seen these wild swings from amazing production, Syung level production, and being borderline unusable in fantasy. I remember his April this year? Like, we saw it within this

season. He was not good in April. And then basically from like mid-May on, the guy was like one of the best pitchers in baseball. Before we get to our next picture that we're going to talk about here, let's do it. Huh? You want to fresh off a world series appearance? We're giving away a

signed Corbyn Carol photo again, once again, thanks to SIDS Gras here. Awesome piece of memorabilia. I think anyone here would love to have it. Same thing we're going to do. I'm just going to give out some clues, some hints, some stats, and you guys could just kind of shout out answers, whoever you think it is.

Again, I guess the first hinted. This is a pitcher. We're talking about pitchers at this point. It is not Blake Snell, but that is a great kiss. Among starting pitchers with 80 innings pitch this past season, this pitcher ranked first in Sierra, second in K-minus walk-rate, fourth in CSW, sixth in swinging strike rate. Who's at it? Scoobel! Come on down, the D-Vex fan! Let's go! Big Willie G. Going home with a sign, Corby and Carol. There he goes.

The other, there he goes. Good stuff, man. Some of the other hints that I had here, some of the clues that I had for Terrick Scouble, a fantasy analyst has already tweeted this, this offseason. He said this about this pitcher, quote, blank, Terik Scubal,

is my SP 9 for next year. Daddy ain't playing. Who was? Any guesses? Who that might have been? Any guesses? Who might have said that? Yeah, Scott White. I've never heard Scott refer to himself as daddy in the third person before,

but, you know, Terrick School makes people do interesting things and say interesting things. He's awesome. I mean, there is no doubt about what we saw from Terrick School Bowl this season. 15 starts. He had a 280 ERA, a 0.90 whip. I mentioned a lot of the underlying factors. Sierra, K-minus Walker, how amazing he was. I think he has the pitches, too, 96-mile-per-hour fastball. maybe the nastiest changeup in the game right now. 167 batting average against with a 51% whiff rate and uses the slider to get out same-handed hitters. So let's quickly get your thoughts on Terek Scoobel

and then obviously we have a great guess here in attendance. Yeah, one of the more exciting things I just say anytime you see a guy that has a 20% plus usage of a pitch that has like a 50% whiff rate or more, which Scoobel does on the change-up, you're going to target. The low amount of innings we saw last year to the production completely stands out to us. I think there's a million things to be excited about with a mid-90s fastball and multiple secondaries.

I don't know if it's a 10, if it's top 10, but... Top 10 SP is a big price of that. But Tariq Scouble is definitely... And he's pushed himself out of the rest of the guys. You know, we had the Casey Myers and the Matt Mannings. He established himself high-end strikeout pitcher. The whiffs are there. He pitches of 20 plus percent usage.

You gotta love him. One might say that he is a, he's ahead of the glob, isn't he? Shout out to Justin Mason and the glob. The ADP for Terrick Scoobal, in case we're wondering, he's 51.8, the SP11 off the board. We'll get your thoughts a little bit later on on Terrick Scubal. But we have one of the more exciting prospects out here in the Arizona Fall League. One of the Cubs top prospects, the current leader in hits, triples, and OPS in the Arizona Fall League. He's batting 425, three homers.

three doubles, five triples, 15 RBI, nine steals, 12.05 OPS. James Triantos, welcome to the showman. James Triangos. How's it going, guys? I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on here. Look, obviously, you're crushing it out here. There's no doubt about it.

What has this AFL experience been for you so far? Not only what you're doing, but the opportunity to play with and against other great talent. No, I mean, it's an amazing experience so far. I'm having so much fun. you know all these different guys just being able to learn from everybody goes about their work differently just you know seeing seeing what they do learning from it taking little pieces

it's just been so much fun everybody's cool yeah no it's been a great experience we have this really uh this would be an interesting thing so we've talked to a couple players and you've had multiple guys that we've kind of gone through that I don't want to say like struggling or whatever but obviously you come to the AFL and you know put it like a a ton of focus on what's going on here. And we talked to multiple guys where maybe strikeouts rates are higher average and we're like,

don't worry about it. You know, AFL, they're not worried about. And then I'm focused on it, but you're killing it. I mean, humbly front-runner for the MVP, you know, you're set up for. How much do you put into the performance? Because we got guys that are obviously working on things and there's some negatives out there that don't focus on it, but there have been just nothing but positive. So how much do you want to put stock and focus on what you've done here?

No, I mean, I feel like I'm still doing just, you know, doing my thing, really. It's just staying day to day, staying in the present, focusing on what I'm doing now, getting really good at it. But, yeah, just staying locked in on what I'm doing right now is the most important thing. And if I keep doing it, I feel like good things will happen. Yeah, are there any of those numbers too? Because, again, on the negative side, we were talking with Carson Williams the other day. and Carson had a really good head about him, knowing like, yeah, the strikeout numbers are there,

but, like, I'm just not worried about that. I'm not focused on that. Is there something that you're doing from a statistical standpoint that you're looking at and you're like, this is pretty sweet. Like, you know, the power's coming up, the doubles are there. I mean, you're doing everything,

so I feel like I wish I could pinpoint one thing and be like, isn't this cool, but you're doing all of them? I mean, I really think it comes down to just going up there and executing my plan, and that's how I'm trying to judge my bats, and I feel like I'm doing a good job of executing it consistently over and over again. So, and, you know, the results will come from that.

So that's what I'm happy with right now. It's doing a pretty good job. Yeah, well, let's talk about that plan. I mean, I don't want to give away the secrets here, but is there anything that you've changed during your approach while you're out here, something specific that you wanted to work on that's kind of helped bring the success? No, it's really just keeping it simple. I just start a little bit earlier, start my move, and then that's it.

I don't think about anything my body does. I just go up there and if it looks good, I swing. And if it doesn't, I take it and walk. Yeah. Something I noticed about just your improvements this season in the minors is that you improved your chase rate dramatically, but while maintaining big exit velocities, being more selective, is that something that kind of helped you improve on the power metrics this past season? Is it something that you were consciously working on?

I think that this year going through rehab, I had a really good chance to track. We have one of those trajectory machines, and I was on it every single day, just facing best pitchers in major leagues. So, you know, just going through it, seeing pitches and, you know, visualizing, do I like it, do I not like it? What am I going to do with it?

And having a chance to do that over and over again consistently was really good for me going into a season. One of those things when you're talking about when you're up to the plate, you're just thinking about nothing. It's all natural. That has to be trained beforehand. And everything you're doing is training to that moment where you're like, okay, this just naturally happens. After a game, I heard you mentioned this on foul territory. You talked about like a, there's like a checklist.

You know, there's this checklist that goes on. I'm curious if maybe you could identify maybe what that checklist might look like. You're at an adept bat. It's all clear brain. You're doing the things. When you look back is that checklist for a game like, I, okay, great, I didn't strike out, or I didn't swing at pitches outside the zone, I barreled the ball, I stole a base, I got a good lead on a run, like. What is a few of those checklist things that maybe you come back to look like? Really, again, it's about executing my plan was I, if I hit a ball, you know, based on the way the ball comes off my bat or the way I swung at it, I'll be able to tell if I was, if I started early enough. And that's really the only thing that I'm looking for right now.

because if I'm not on time, I'm not going to hit anything well. The ball's not going to spin well off my bat. So that's probably the biggest thing. I should go back, did I execute my plan? And that's basically what was I on time. What James said was kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. Just keep it simple.

Get it going. It's the kiss method. I like the kiss method. We've talked a lot so far about offense, but defensively noticed that you're playing a bunch of different positions out here in the AFL, second base, center field, third base. Is there one that you're more comfortable than the others? what do you think about kind of playing all over the diamond?

I enjoy it, you know, just being able to contribute from everywhere. But I'm still more comfortable on the infield, for sure. This off-season, I'm definitely going to be working, you know, everywhere to make sure I'm comfortable everywhere. I can go out there and play. But I think I'm definitely more comfortable on the infield right now, just moving around there, still learning in the outfield. Nice having Kevin next to me sometimes. He'll talk me through some stuff.

Now, that's cool, though, too, because I remember last year we were here, and we saw Jordan Walker working in the outfield, right? And, like, this is the perfect opportunity to, like, come out and try and get more comfortable playing a new position. Obviously, you're getting that opportunity to play in the outfield. Yeah, you know, that also happened a couple years ago, I cite him a lot, but Royce Lewis was out here, and Royce was actually told, he told me,

so I'm not, like, giving away a secret. I feel wouldn't want to give away his stuff, but he told me, he said, they came to him, and they said, we don't actually have a spot for you to play shortstop. here but we'd love for you to come here and Royce was like let's do it let's go and he had missed a lot of time and he came out here and he played every position but the position that he is now you know locking down or I mean obviously with Korea moving around but that was an opportunity for him that he just was like completely

open to to come out here get the at-bats get that rhythm back going and then it just created this extra flexibility for him as a player and I was curious obviously you did it a little bit in the minor leagues but was there any of that pre-talk about like, hey, we really want, because I could see a scenario where you could come here to the AFL and just like play one position, but did, was there anything with the Cubs or even yourself where you're just like, I want to play multiple to be more versatile? I mean, yeah, some of the Cubs guys came and talked to me in the season before I went and played the outfield and they were like, you know, help your versatility and get into the big

leagues, make you give you different, you know, more skills as a player. And I was like, I'm fine with that. You know, go out there, catching balls. As long as it ends up in my glove, I'm fine. So, but since then it's really just, you know, about getting better, learning more about the position, just studying it, understanding it more. Yeah. There was something really cool if you guys, I'm citing this again. There's an interview you did with Fowel Territory, which you did a great job, by the way.

That's like a big show. It was a big thing you were doing. And you probably saw a lot of the clips that went out there was you mentioned, they asked you about a couple of players, like who you grew up loving. You mentioned Kyle Schwerber. And if you guys haven't listened to this, this would be funny hearing the. comp come back where they said, who do you like? You said, Calshwarver, who do you model yourself after? You said, Luis Arise.

And it's like, pull up. If you could mold those two players, you might have the greatest baseball player of all time if you could put those two players together. So I love that answer. And you caught them off guard, which is really cool. But I'd be curious if maybe you could expand a little bit more, like, what does that look like to you when you mold yourself after? I think we could all probably contextualize that you probably mean his ability to make

contact. He's always hitting the ball. and the counting stats are not important. That's kind of the knock that anybody would focus on a rise. But what does that mean to you when you think about modeling your game after a rise? I mean, you know, when I stick to my approach, there's nothing. I feel like there isn't anything a pitcher can get by me. That's just, you know, how I go about it in the box.

And I feel like when I'm doing my thing the right way, I'm on the barrel a lot. So I feel like, and he was on the barrel a lot in the past couple of years. So, I mean, just watching him hit, he's pretty. pretty unbelievable. And your AFL performance probably is giving like a little bit more confidence to exactly what you're hoping for. You're like, hey, I want to be a little bit more like Luis Rice. By the way, he's sitting over 400 and he's doing everything you could possibly do. So, like, you're taking, you know, what your, what the mindset is and you're literally manifesting it, which is pretty cool. Yeah, just got to keep going.

Yeah, you got to keep going. One more week. Yeah, we know, we know analytics are so important and prevalent in today's game. And it could be overwhelming for us. I mean, look, we're playing fantasy baseball. So I can only imagine how hard it is for a baseball player to actually implement these things in your game. But is it something that you pay attention a lot to? Do you pay attention to launch angle and exit velocities? Or are they coming to you and giving you that information? Or how do you approach it? You know, we have access to like look at all that different type of stuff. But I really just, I keep it, I keep it simple again because too much. Yeah. Too much is too much. I like keeping, you know, one or two things in my head when I'm going up there and swinging and when I'm

looking at my bat stuff like that and that's kind of how I evaluate myself because when you know I start thinking about more things it's harder to hit because there's more things going on in my head. Yeah you know that's it's a that's something I've actually experienced in talking to a lot of players. I remember I chatted with you familiar Taylor Tremel. I talked to Taylor Tremel many years ago when he was at the Mariners and he was out here in the AFL and I was just like hey man isn't it analytics I was just doing all this stuff and he was just like no he's like I got to keep it like the amount of like having to keep these things simple where us, we're nerds, like, we're like, look, at the, though, they're expected. And, like, we get very hyper-focused, all of that. But then at the same time, like, your brain can just fry. You have to, you have to be clear-minded to do this stuff. Yeah, I feel like I can't be thinking about what I'm doing when I'm competing with that guy on the mound. That's just the way that I think about it.

Yeah, especially when they're not. Especially when he's got, you know, like a 91-mile-hour slider. I can't be thinking about where my hands are. Like, when I'm going to hit the ball. I'm just going to swing. Yeah, exactly. Just a couple last of things, some easy ones here. We want to be very focused on you, but I just want to ask you this.

You have two very fascinating players, if you guys haven't seen that you're playing with. They're like polar opposites. You have Kevin O'Contra, six foot five. This is a Dottis-looking player. And then you have Chad Durbin, who is like five, you know, five-foot-six, maybe, five-foot-six. But I think everybody would think maybe I want to talk about Kevin O'Contra. You are more than welcome to a spouse about him. But I have been very fascinated with Chad Durbin because he's always going to be focused on,

it's always going to be focused on his contact rate, or his size, but the way he's hit the ball, the way he's been stealing the base, the way that he has approached this game, he's phenomenal. I'd just be really curious at your thoughts on him. No, he's a really good player. I got a chance to play against him in Myrtle last year. Chad, Caleb. Sorry, Caleb, yeah.

Yeah, I got a chance to play. against him in Myrtle last year. He was with the Braves in Augusta, and he raked against us every week we played him, and he's done that. You know, watching him go about his business in the cage, it's really fun. Everything's crisp, everything's clean, low effort level. You know, he goes about his business like a pro. It's fun to watch and goes out in the game and he bangs every day. And these guys are mean, by the way. Mace's mean. Yesterday it was like nine, stolen bases in the first six innings if you watch it. Caleb was a monster.

Boom, boom, boom. You guys were mean. I mean, I don't know if there has been some uptick and maybe with the new rules wanting to steal more. If you feel you have the extra advantage. I don't know what that's been. I've seen a couple instances of that,

but you guys really had it go on the other day. Yeah, I mean, you know, some of the pitchers were a little bit slower the plate, so we just take advantage of it if they're going to give it to us. He's fast. months he's fast. I think he had three packs yesterday, too. So, like, if they're going to,

if they're going to give it to us, then might as well take it. Did you have one? Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah. Were they like, what's wrong? They're like, why you only have one? Why you only have one steel, man?

We got three. Yeah, I mean. We mentioned earlier there's, like, so much talent here in the Arizona Fall League. It's kind of putting you on the spot here, but pitchers, any pitchers that stand out as, like, the toughest guy you've faced while you've been out here?

There were, I mean, Tiedman was good. There was a, reliever from the Red Sox that I can't remember his name. He was like 96, 98 with the slider at 91. Troy? Troy? No, he was like. We're going through all of them. Yeah, I'm trying to remember his name. Zach Penrod? Not Penrod. He's a righty. Felix Apeda. Dang it. White Olds. Olds. Yeah, him. Him. Okay. He was good. And then there was a there was a lever from the Padres that was pretty good too. He was a Latin guy. I can't remember. He was like 95, 98 with a good yeah. He was good too. Maybe just giving these guys more. Is there anyone else that stands out like

maybe throughout the minor league season like not just here at the AFL like just pitcher wise like someone that like really really had great stuff? You know there's always like a couple guys now and then that come out of the pen that are just gross like yeah like 98 to 100 with sync sync but like I can't I don't think I can name a starter that I felt really overwhelmed me this year you know one I was just thinking of was I don't know if you faced him ameliana teoto who I've talked a lot about he's like he just got uncomfortable I got uncomfortable I said that I faced him in the ACL too and Loe he the first time I faced him he was throwing 102 again two years ago and he went right on my head first pitch I was terrified oh god so I mean I never again I mean I mean

Yeah, after that I was like, oh, all right. It's not fair for a guy to throw. He throws one or two, and then this slider, I think it's a slider, that just, it's in the zone. And now he throws sinkers. Like, that was last year and the year before it was four seamers. Sometimes baseball's not fair. Then that's even more reason why you want to be more like Louisa Rice when baseball's not fair like that. This last one for you, you know, this I think has been a great year.

You've been able to come back from, like you said, with the injury, very successful. will AFL, we're all excited for you. We're super excited here. What are your goals for 2020? And that's a big question and it can be, hey, you want to stay healthy. Obviously, you're going to want to stay healthy, but I'm even talking it could be a statistical goal. It could be, I've talked to many players. Jared Kalnick telling me, like, I want to be 2020. Like you work at the same. So sometimes you have that statistical goal, obviously the majors, but what goals, if any, have you set for yourself yet? If you've even had time to process that for 2024? I mean, I'm definitely, I haven't had a lot of time to think about it just because we're still going right now.

But I know that I want 30 bags in 2024. That's, that's it. There we go. At least 30, and I can do that, I'm sure. You can absolutely do that. Hey, the way we're seeing you run out here, you've already got the nine bags. And as fantasy players, we love to hear. Speed is great for fantasy baseball.

So, yeah, happy to hear you working on that. And yeah, hopefully we see you in 2024 and beyond with the Chicago Cubs again. One of the top prospects out here, I would say arguably, the AFL MVP. Give it up for James Prianto's coming by today. Thank you, guys. Thank you, absolutely. Let's do a real quick photo. Like with the- James, we'll do a photo like with the crowd here.

We'll do a quick photo here. James, you want to come in? Yeah, Frank. Yeah, let's do it. We'll do a big photo right there. Bam. All right. Hey, thanks so much.

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Tarantos, everybody. Give it up for James Triantos, one of the top prospects out here. Appreciate you coming by. Thanks again, man. Good luck. Awesome stuff.

How cool is that, man? Awesome stuff. 30 bags. Let's get 30 bags. We got a number. I gotta tell you. We got a number out of the guy. That's the best thing ever.

We got to give him a number. You gotta love that guy. That was fantastic. My gosh, when you mentioned Teoto, his face. Did you see? He got a number of real. I told me about real quick. Oh my gosh.

When you can hit on that, when you can hit on the right player, that's fantastic. And by the way, Caleb, I'm so sorry. I called you, Chad, Caleb Durbin. I'm trying to give him all the love, and I kept calling him. Yeah, a Yankees prospect. Give him the respect. Very disrespectful. Very disrespectful.

Anything. Should we go back to the players or I don't know? Should we just like wrap it up at this point? What do you want to do? We could, I got an idea. We have one more player, right? We have, yeah, one more player. let's list off the notes you have and let's see if people can get it.

All right, let's do it. We don't have any more giveaways. I'll buy someone a drink if you want to drink if you get it right. So let's see. Frank a autograph of Pokemon if anyone has to be. People are asking me about the stickers on my laptop. I got a whole bunch of crazy stuff going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, so let's see. This pitcher made nine starts this season. He had a 223 ERA, a 114 whip, 51 strike, over 40 in a third innings. Who's that? Not Mason Miller. Good guess, though. Michael King.

There you go. We got to end with a New York Yankee. Cross, you just earned yourself a drink, my friend. Yeah, Michael King was the last player we wanted to talk about. That's tough to rank, I think, heading into 2024. Really, more so the lack of track record. We haven't really seen him start over the course of an entire season before. But the guy was a league winner down the stretch.

I mean, anyone who had them on their team, you remember that 13 strikeout effort, had against the Toronto Blue Jays seven innings. One run, he's got the four pitch mix, two iterations of a fastball with a four seam and a sinker. He's got the nasty sweep. I was looking at the numbers against left-handed batters, and he throws his change of 27% of the time.

That change-up had a 37% whiff rate against lefties this year. So, I mean, in Yankee Stadium, I wanted to see Ken Michael King actually effectively get left-handed batters out. And the answer looks like a resounding yes. So I think everything is there, Welsh. We've got the sweeper. You've got to change up. Two different fastballs.

Average is 94 miles per hour. What makes him tough to rank is just track record. And the fact that we have not seen him do it over the course of a full season yet. Yeah, I mean, I'll just be really simplistic about this. We've talked about so many players that are going really high that have had these good performances. We're talking about Ellie in the 20s where, you know, Tariq Scoopal is the ninth overall pitcher. The investment in the performance of what we saw just makes all the sense. Was it 150?

The ADP for Michael King through five drafts. 154.4. So in my mind, when you get outside the top 100, you're just really not living in a difficult to rank or draft world. I think you can take more shots, especially with how you've constructed your team. I'm going to be a little bit later on some pitching. That means I'm going to be devoid of it, but now through eight rounds, maybe I'm going to have taken two or three. You get outside the top 100. I think you should take some more shots because what is there plethora of outside the top 150. Boring players. There's lots of boring players that just get you some numbers. They're not sexy. There's not maybe huge, huge upside, but there's lots of those

ratio-based players that we can find. So why not take your shot? So, you know, from a rank perspective, sure, like 150, what type of SP? From an investment standpoint, this is, I'm all in on this one. I'm all in on everything that he's shown as a starter. They look like they were committed to him as a starter, and this is a guy that's putting up numbers like these players that we're getting really excited about in the Tarek Scoubles of the world. So this one might be my most, if I had to pick from everything that we've done today, how hard are these to rank? They're hard to rank. Vlad and Michael King are probably going to be 2024 targets for me based on where we've been and where we're going. So I talked about the lack of track record and the fact we haven't seen him

pitch as a starter over the course of a full season yet. There's already rumors, reports. He will be in the opening day rotation for the New York Yankees. Looks like he's aiming for 150 plus innings. So I think, you know, if we could get that with good ratios over a strikeout branding, he absolutely is a breakout candidate in 2024. We mentioned the ADP 154.4 for Michael King. That's one spot after Sunny Gray and one spot ahead of your boy Merrill Kelly. Does that sound like...

Let's see. Does that sound like a good range for Michael King? No, I think Michael King should be higher. But, you know, what's so funny is Merrill is... Merrill is exactly what I'm talking about the player you can get late. You can't now because he was so good, but Merrill probably wasn't drafted in a ton of leagues last year. What he was a hot 300 AP? He's old.

Everyone's like, oh, it's a Diamondbacks. Like, he's that boring ratio type of player that I'm talking about. Yes, we can't say it's him next year, but there'll be another. There'll be another type of Merrill. What's the difference between those? I mean, I guess I'm being a little dismissal of Sunny Gray, but like, you know, if you're looking at... Sunny Gray was pretty awesome. He was pretty good.

It was pretty good. But, you know, there is that pretty good. but, you know, there is that young, that young, high, crazy high upside that exists with Michael King. I think he's just a little bit of a separator from that group. All right, Welsh. We did it, man. Live here from First Pitch, Arizona.

Once again, I want to thank James Triantos for coming by. I want to thank our producer here, James Gale, for the Welsh. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. Thank you for coming out to watch us live, some awesome trivia giveaways that we had. And we will be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Peace.