Fantasy Baseball Today - Live H2H Points Mock Draft Part 1! Rounds 1-10 Breakdown (2/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

We're doing a live 12-team H2H points mock draft, breaking down picks, players and strategy. In this episode we break down rounds 1-10 of the draft! 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 Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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

Happy Cocoa Friday! Let's do a live mock draft, shall we? Welcome into fantasy baseball today on February 3rd. Frank Stamphill joined by all of the peeps, every single one of them. Scott White, Chris Towers, Chris the Welsh. Scotty, are you ready to draft? I am. Well, you know what? I probably should have told you beforehand that your microphone was not connected.

Oh, we're talking for like... I had like 10 minutes to tell you, and I was just... spaced out. I was working on a bunch of different things. If people are wondering the Kokomo Friday theme, yes, I still do love Connor Joe, even though he's on the Pittsburgh Pirates. Chris, hello there. It looks like you're ready for a hockey draft. I don't know why I decided to throw on my Panthers jersey. I needed to change my shirt right before the show, and this is what I picked out.

So, yeah, that's wearing an old school Florida Panthers jersey. Let's go Panthers. Hey, it's pretty swaggy. Works for me. Welsh, head-to-head points, nice little prep for our Tout Wars League. How you doing? doing very good, my friend. I feel like I should have wore a football jersey in honor of this baseball draft just to like really fix it in and mix it in a little bit. But I'm ready to do a little bit of a drafty draft here on the points.

And by the way, I am not in that one because I can't travel to New York, unfortunately. Oh, wow. I am still in tout. I'm doing a different tout, but I have been replaced because of my lack of ability to leave Arizona to go to New York. I'm very sad to lose to you for a third straight time. Oh, well, thanks, buddy. Are you in the online draft? The 15 team makes online draft.

Yeah, yeah, it's the online auction. I don't know which one it is. I don't even know, but I am. Maybe you and I are in that one, Scott. This is professional podcasting, Scott. Your mic is still not plugged in. Yeah, well, I mean, we should have really done this before we going live because I have no idea what's wrong with it.

Everything looks like it's plugged in fine. Unprofessional, Scott. Yeah, well, no, it's not Scott's fault. It's actually completely my fault. But anyway, I'm going to kind of prep things up, and Scott will figure it out. I have no doubt in him. Before we start, here's what we've got going on today.

A live 12 team head-to-head points mock draft. And we're all spread out throughout the draft. The Welsh is picking first overall. Scott is picking fourth. Towers is eighth and I am last. 12th overall in the draft. Womp, wamp, wamp. Again, this is a head-to-head points league

and we're using the CBS Sports Standard scoring system. One point for a single, two points for a double, three points for a triple, four points for a home run, all that fun stuff. Oh, you don't have to do the whole thing. I thought about going through all of it, but I'm like, it just doesn't make sense. So anyway, it's a head dead points league. Shallower starting lineups.

So we've got one of each infield position, three starting outfielders, one utility bat, no corner infielder, or middle infielder. We've got five starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and then five bench spots. So not as deep of a draft that you might be used to, but nonetheless, it's going to be a fun one. Before we start, heads up, that's starting next week. We'll have five podcasts per week in the month of February. Position previews starting up next week, and we will have a mailbag that comes out every Friday.

So we'll have four position previews, and then the mailbag, that'll basically be our setup for the first three weeks of February. If you have a question, you can email it in at Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com or drop a question with a five-star Apple Podcast review. Scotty, third time's a charm. Let's see.

How's it picking me up? Yes. There we go. Good to go. All right. Plugging and plugging. It's, that always works. All right. So we are good to start it up here for those watching us live on YouTube. You'll be able to follow along with the draft board.

Of course, we'll keep you up to date on all the picks that are happening. We'll talk through some strategies, some maybe, you know, player debates. Why did you take this player over this player? So on and so forth. And then at the end of this thing, we'll kind of recap everyone's team. And it's going to go a little bit longer. So just a heads up there. On the podcast side, this will be a two-part podcast side.

this will be a two-part podcast. So just keep that in mind. Scott, we're going to go, bud. All right. Let's start it up. Start button. And the Welsh is up first with the number one pick. He gets to make the decision that everybody is going to criticize.

Criticize. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's points. I think the obvious play feels like a pitcher. The other obvious play might be take a good contact hitter like Jose Ramirez, who has projected the highest points on CVS. And the probably most openly critical play is what I'm going to do. And I'm going to take Aaron Judge,

the guy that got the most points last year, over 700 points and is still projected, even with a huge windfall of decrease windfall of production this year, is still my guy. And I'm going to go with Aaron Judge with my number one overall picking this points one. The three outfielder's made me question it a little bit, but I'm going to stick with it. Yeah, no criticism from this group.

I know Frank and I have him number one as well. Chris, do you have him number one? for this. Yes, I do. Format. Okay, good. All right. unanimity.

Look at me. Well liked. Perfect. Always what I wanted. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's absolutely a great call there. Over 700 points in Head Ted Points Leagues last year over on CBS.

Sandy Alconter was the next closest player to him. And he was 90 points behind. So just far away better than anybody else. The next two picks after that, Yordan Alvarez. All right. A little bit of surprise there. But I think it could make some sense in this format, given the home runs,

the plate discipline, he's awesome. And then Jose Ramirez goes third overall, and Scott, you are up. Yeah, yeah, by the way, I think Jordan Alvarez would be my third pick. I'd take Jose Ramirez over him, but Alvarez and Judge, like they were one and two in basically all the quality of contact metrics for stack as like every single one. And they were a distant one and two.

So I think Jordan Alvarez is, closer to judge than he gets credit for. I'm going to go on Soto here. Ooh. I have at one point ranked Mookie Betz ahead, and Mookie Betts, of course, a great points player as well, doesn't strike out much,

but Soto was pretty disappointing last year, and yet because he walks 40 times more than he strikes out, he was even with the disappointment. He was the seventh best outfielder in points league. So, yeah, I feel like, obviously, I'm expecting a bounce back from him, but the floor is pretty high for him in this format. It's hard to go wrong. In case anyone saw that Yordan Alvarez pick, and they were like,

whoa, what's going on there? 3.79 fantasy points per game last year. That was second most among outfielder's behind only Aaron Judge. So definitely makes sense in this format. After Scott took Juan Soto, we see Ronald Dukunia, Muki Betz, and Shohei O-Ti O-Ti. Otani off the board. Otani's a little bit tougher in a head to head points league because I don't know that he's

going to play as much. He should. He should. And obviously. Yeah. And you have to make that decision of whether he's going to be a pitcher or a batter at least in this format for CBS. And Chris, you are on the clock with the eighth overall pick. Yeah. And this is a spot where I do have Trey Turner as my top player available and I'm probably going to take him. But like we talked about in the outfield preview, doing that at, with shortstop, especially in this format where you only have one shortstop spot in your lineup, I'm going to reach a point in like the sixth round where like seven of my top eight ranked

players are all going to be short stops. And it's going to be really tough to like manage the draft from that point on. So I may have to rethink ranking Trey Turner as high as I do. It's, it's an interesting conundrum. Could have gone Julio instead. Julio still hasn't gone. Yes. Scott, come on. No name dropping because, you know, I'm picking 12th tier. I'd love to get Julio Rodriguez. He does fall a little bit more in this format because steals don't matter as much. And he struck out a little bit more than you would like to see last year.

It doesn't walk all that much either. So did you think not in the top 10? Isn't that a little bit of a surprise? I think he probably should be around there, you know, somewhere in the 8 to 10 range. I don't know exactly where I have him. Well, there he goes. He just went 10th overall. But yeah, I would love to get him at 12.

I'm kind of at a disadvantage here because for those watching on YouTube, it's my draft board that's showing up. So if I put players in the queue, obviously Scott's going to draft all of them and say, oh, I wasn't looking at your screen, Frank, I swear. I'm not because you're an aunt on my screen, but also B, you can't just like claim a player five picks ahead of time because oh, I put them in my queue. Sure, I can. Why not? You can. I like the idea of that. Like, if you queue them, you own them now. So Frank wins. You're up. So I am on the clock here. One of the picks is going to be Kyle Tucker. I'm going to let it kind of scroll down a little bit here so so I can figure out what I want to do with my second pick.

Interesting. Head to head points. Every year we talk about how important it is to get elite starting pitching, yet no pitchers are going to go in the first round, and it's going to be interesting to see how long they last, specifically in this format. That's because it's no longer that important to get elite starting pitching. I think you still want a good amount of pitching in a head to head points league,

but I agree, Scott. I think you could probably wait until the third or even the fourth round to get your first starting pitcher. I'm getting the little bleep sound in my chat, even though I shut the sound off. So I don't know why that's happening. Me too. I know. So not great there. I took Kyle Tucker at 12 and I think I'm going to take a third baseman here.

It appears I have Austin Riley ranked ahead of Raphael Devers. I think I need to change that. So I'm going to go ahead and take Raphael Devers. But I'm going to have to change up my rankings because I really like Austin Riley, but he strikes out a little bit more. Obviously Devers is a little bit more proven. So I go Kyle Tucker and Devers at the turn. Julio Rodriguez went at 10.

Mani Machado went at 11. And then the second pick of round two was Mike Trout. Frank, I got to tell you, I don't mean to jump in here. But like, I get what you said about pitching. But this is still points. And there are still gaps. I am shocked. Way too big of a playup that I had about, oh, pitching could be first.

We've got 15 picks and there's no pitcher. And there goes the first one at 16. That I am shocked about in this format. There is one pitcher that I think is worth drafting in the first round in this format, and it wasn't the one who just went here, Garrett Cole. I won't reveal who I... Is it this one? It's not Corbin Burns either, Chris.

Interesting. It's Justin Verlander. You're number one pitch. No, no. Justin Verlander is my number one in five-by-five leagues, but it's... Okay, it's Sandy Alcantara, okay? Just because the guy piles on innings unlike any other pitcher. He had half of his starts were more than seven innings.

Not seven innings or more. More than seven innings. Half of them. And innings are huge in this format. We're three points apiece. So that's the only pitcher this year, given the scarcities among the hitter ranks that I'd be willing to invest a late first round pick in.

All right. Let's catch everybody up on what is happening. Again, I took Devers and Trout was the next pick after that. Then Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Garrett Cole. Corbin Burns, Fernando Tatis, and Sandy Alcansiras. So we've got three pitchers now in the second round. And Welsh, I hear you. I know it's a head to head points league,

but something I think you need to consider, as in every draft this year, is that they're just going a little bit later than usual. And it seems to be that there's more quantity, more quantity of close to elite level pitchers, pitchers that are viable, that you can trust. So I don't really mind waiting until the three, four, turn to get my first pitcher because I'm confident I'm still going to get at least one really,

really good pitcher, and maybe I'll choose to double down at that point. I guess just the tried and true has always been, you know, stack starting pitching, get lots of pitching and lots of pitching. And you're right, it has pooled out. That doesn't change the traditional like, I'm just surprised in 15 picks. We didn't get one starting pitcher in there. But you're right, it is following a little bit, it's actually following a little bit more of like a categories platform, not like a roto, but more like a head-to-head categories play, which is, I find it interesting. All right. After Sandy Alcansra went, Nolan Aronado is off the board.

Scott, you have three seconds to make a pick. Two. Yeah, I'm going to pick Austin Riley. I'm going to follow what I always say, and normally we're talking five-by-five least, but what I always say is my plan for this year, ideally outfield, third base, second base, with my first three picks. So I do, like the first few players available in my rankings were pitchers. So I'm kind of disappointed that people aren't plucking those guys out and leaving me all the hitters.

But I'm going to stick to what my plan is and take Austin Riley here with the 21st overall pick. You know, one thing that I will point out is just like it's not a bad idea when the consensus is to push pitchers down. It's not necessarily a bad idea to go the opposite direction. And it's not a, it's nothing more than just if everyone is driving. drafting in one way or nine of the 12 people in your league are drafting with one thought process in mind, that means that you have to draft a better version of a team than nine other people who are doing the same thing as you. Whereas if you zig when everybody else is sagging, you potentially have the opportunity to build a team where you have less competition

for the types of players you're looking for at given points in the draft. So if everyone's looking at hitting early on, you're going to get your choice. of the best pitchers early on. And then later on, when everybody's looking for their pitchers, you're going to have your choice of the best hitters. So there's some value just in that thought process, and that's true in every type of fantasy league. I don't think we're there yet, though, with the pitchers.

Like, you can't reason. I just took Austin Riley in round two ahead of a bunch of pitchers, like I said, but you can't reasonably expect to get Austin Riley in round three. No, no, no. That's not what I mean. It's not you can get Austin Riley. It's you're passing up, yes, the higher level hitters. But when everyone else in round five starts to look for their pitchers,

you're going to have your choice of the best hitters available. But you won't have any hitters, good hitters left to draft. And that's the scarcer position. Like there's more differentiation within the hitter ranks than the pitcher ranks. I think that's probably true. But I still think there's value in just shopping in a different. pool than everyone else. And that's actually what I just did.

I just kind of did. Like I wanted to double tap pitching. I really wanted Paul Goldschmidt and Raymond absolutely tore my heart out, stepped on it and threw it in the garbage. And I was going to go with one pitcher, but I decided to double tap to. There are actually three pitchers I love here, Verlander, McClanahan, and a pitcher that hasn't gone. And I decided to tap two elite pitchers in here because I do think that the gaps positionally

fall off a little bit, but points also pushes up so many. other hitters that are irrelevant. So I kind of push back a little bit like that the hitters start to really stink. They don't. Like I'm going to have an advantage on SPs, I think now. And there's plenty of other depth. I mean, you know, Bobby Witt's still out there. And Bobby Witt is not a two round player.

Like those are the type of guys that are still going to drop in points. So I'm kind of going with exactly what Towers was talking about. But Bobby Witt is less valuable in this format. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. But I'm still saying it's a level at the higher level playing field of the middle. The middle, the higher tiers are still the higher tiers. tiers, but those middle tiers where we talk about like category positional stuff, those kind of

stink and we're like, oh my God, second base falls off. But the middles are deeper and there's a lot more players in them that get pushed up. And the argument for years, why we've, you know, advocated for taking, starting pitching early in this format and head to head points is that it's a shallow league. So the waiver wire is better. So it's easier to find hitters that you can stream and good matchups. And then hopefully, you know, you just find a couple of hitters that break out. It's just easier to find those guys either in the mid to late rounds or on the waiver wire in a league this shallow. To put some numbers on it, there are probably more pitchers. If you look at last year's production in particular, there are more pitchers.

There are 13 players left who scored 500 points last year. Three of them were hitters. So there are probably more hitters who are going to give you 450 points. But there are fewer pitchers or there are fewer hitters who can give you five. 500 plus, I guess would be the way to put it. Apologies for anyone listening or watching. If you hear that little pop sound, it's the chat. Someone's writing in the chat.

And I shut off the volume in the draft. So I don't know what's going on. But so just bear with us. I apologize for that. Let's just catch people of after Scott took Austin Riley in round two. We've had a bunch of picks. Pete Alonzo, Paul Goldschmidt went right before Welsh. I saw his reaction at the time.

So Welsh, feel free to just like yell out and do like you do on the ITL podcast. Just don't curse because that's a little bit tougher. Yeah, I know. And then you double-tap Justin Verlander and Shane O. Mac. Here comes the money. Here we go. Money talks.

Here comes the money. After you took McClanahan, we see Max Scher, Aranola, so quite the pitching run. Scott took Jose Al-Tuvae. Finally, he's done it. An outfielder, a third baseman, a second baseman. Finally, Scott. I had to do it.

I had to. There was kind of a pitcher I wanted there, but it's like this is my chance to get a second baseman in the third round finally. The thing I say is most important to do in draft. So I had to do it. You finally got it. And then after Altuve, we see Jacob de Gromgo, Marcus Semyon, Spencer Strider, who is a, who is SPRP eligible.

He has relief pitcher eligibility as a starting pitcher. And he's basically a cheat code in this format if you play on CBS. So keep that in mind. And then Chris, you get your SP1. And it is. That's my SP2. Oh, your SP2. Yeah, I went Corbyn Burns in the second round, and then Carlos Rodon in the third round.

And this is what I was talking about where my, when I was. I was picking my top three players left were all short stops. And it's either take a shortstop or take that second starting pitcher. And I'd rather take a second starting pitcher than use a utility spot. And I didn't want to go with one of the other positions. So that's kind of where I am. And I am going to have to kind of dig deep in my rankings and make some adjustments to push some short stops down.

I think the way these drafts are going. It's interesting to me that you took Carlos Rodon over Brandon Woodruff and Zach Wheeler, who seem like they, I mean, several of the pitcher picks going, Aranola going ahead of them. Woodruff is not really the innings eater type. That's the one knock on him in this format in particular is, I don't know if he's ever topped 180 innings. In a major league season,

he usually is just under six innings per start. I think the one exception might have been in 2020, the shortened season. So in this format, I think Rodon's ability to rack up strikeouts and wins on what should be a better Yankees team than the Brewers, I think is what differentiates him. I have him ranked higher in both formats. Rodon then Woodruff. But in this format, I think the innings concerns for Woodruff, you know, obviously Rodon has his own innings concerns.

But they were very close last year innings. And so I think Rodon is the better choice. I just think he's the better pitcher. After Chris took Carl Sordaun, we saw Boba Chet, Brandon Woodruff, Zach Wheeler. So again, this round featured 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 8 starting pitchers in round 3, which brings me to my two picks at the turn. I took Julio Arias and Francisco Lindor. I would have wanted to take another starting pitcher.

Kevin Gosman, I had a little bit lower down the rankings. I could have pulled them up just to make sure I get him at the turn. But I think this is a good learning lesson here because I could have, I probably should have taken at least one starting pitcher with my first two picks. Just knowing what I know now, I wish there was better options here at this point. Although, if you had done that, Julio Reus wouldn't have been there at the third. Yeah, that is fair. So I only have one starting pitcher through four rounds in a head-ed-pointe league, and that's not normal for me. So let's see how this team ultimately turns out.

I took Arias and I took Francisco Lindor. some people might be wondering, Lindor over Bobby Witt Jr. It's the fourth round and Bobby Witt hasn't gone. Last year, Lindor 3.21 fantasy points per game. Bobby Witt Jr. 2.91. So even if you think he's going to get better, this really is not his best format, much better in a Categories League. Yeah, what I was going to say earlier was same head to head points per game last year for Bobby Witt as Dan's B. Swanson.

So, you know, sub-300 on-base percentage. just really, really poor plate discipline from him. And that drags them down in this format. After I took Lindor, we see Matt Olson, Shane Bieber, and Kyle Schwarber off the board. And Chris, you are up with three seconds. I hate it. What?

Wow. Got my third starting pitcher. I'm experimenting here, but I took Dylan's cease there. So went with three starting pitchers in my first four picks. I'm just going to see what it looks like. I'm going to see how it makes me feel, because, again, top players on my board, other than the starting pitcher were short stops

or Michael Harris, who I'm not totally in love with. So I'm going to see what it looks like to go this heavy at starting pitch. I mean, frankly, I'm probably not going to take a starting pitcher for a while now. But this approach does give me the flexibility to, you know, avoid what has historically been the worst range for starting pitchers, which is like the round four to, 8 to 10, you typically, I've done a lot of research on this, you typically get the worst return on investment from pitchers in that range. So I think there's a, you know, I'm interested to see how it

turns out. And eventually there's going to be another run, Chris, where pitchers go. And as a result, some hitters are going to fall to you. So you'll have that, uh, that luxury to take them at that point after you took Dylan Cis. We see Corey Seeger go off the board. And Chris, you mentioned, uh, Michael Harris. And I, I think this is a good point, along with Bobby Witt Jr., Michael Harris is going to be likely awesome in a categories or a roto league. The power, the speed combination. But what you need to consider, at least with the CBS scoring format, you lose points for strikeouts and walks matter.

So plate discipline is huge. Someone like Michael Harris does get dinged a little bit in this format. Also names like Randy Roserena, you'll see go a little bit later, maybe around four, around five picks. So in case you're wondering why these guys are lasting so late into the draft, that is the reason why. And with that said, we see Alec Manoa and Framber Valdez.

Scott, you are on the clock and you do not have a starting pitcher yet. Yeah, I think this is the time to take one because we're getting toward the end of the second tier, the near elite. We did starting pitcher tiers

on our most recent podcast. I was hoping Alec Manoa would make it to me. He went two picks before me. So I'm going to take Max Freed. and he is one of one, two, three, four, five pitchers I have left in this tier, but he's the one that I have the most confidence in. I may grab another one on the way back.

We'll just, we'll see who's there. Interestingly enough, Ozzie Albuze is still here. And remember, I took Jose Altuve. Well, I just wanted to say, like, if I had known Ozzy Albies would make it back to me in round four, then I would have taken Spencer Strzsche. writer with that last bit. There's no idea. Everyone be quiet.

Everyone be very, very, don't move. Nobody move. Nobody make a sound. I'm two picks away and you're right. Ozzie home. Bobby Witt just went. I would have considered Bobby Witt on this turn. As much as everybody hates him in points leagues.

There's still a lot of homers. I believe in progression. I believe in, you know, I believe in him actually improving this year and the strikeouts can dip a little bit. This is just a good value if I were to get him in the fourth or fifth. a good pick right there. That would have been one of my backup plans. And I agree with you too. You know, even with the plate discipline, I think that's

probably a little bit too late for Bobby Witt, just considering what his upside is. Scott took Max Fried, as he mentioned. Some people might be listening or watching and they think, wow, that's kind of early for Framber Valdez. I never see him go in the fourth round. This is his preferred format. So you get bonus points for quality starts. Last year, Framber Valdez set the MLB record with 25 straight quality So he is exceptionally exceptional in this format and heads head points. And after Bobby Witt goes, you Darvish off the board and Welsh. Worked out perfectly for you.

You are back up. Yeah, I was, now I will say in categories, I mentioned this on the show before. I like jazz this year. I like him a lot. But with strikeouts and stolen base is not mattering as much. I don't need to go crazy. And I think Ozzy is actually a much better choice here. So at a not deep position, I'm going to swoop in and take Ozzy Albies.

with the 48th pick. And this is one of those guys that bumps up in points leagues. He scored almost 500 points last year. The position absolutely tanks after this, especially if you look at projections. I'm going to go with Alex Bregman. Again, I don't love him, but plate patience is going to be better. I don't need stolen bases.

That's not a thing. He's a shoe in for 450 to 500. I mean, in projections, just to let everybody know on CBS at third base, there are two players left that score four. 400 points. The difference between Alex Bregman and the third player is almost 100 points. Projections, projections, projections, blah, blah. But still, Alex Bragman, pretty consistent here. This position stinks after this. I did want to go pitcher letting everybody know, but I'm going to take my second and my third basement with a fourth and fifth. Here's. Here's the question about Albies. And I think it's a really, really important one in this format in particular.

Where do we think he's going to bat? Because volume is king. a points league. And, you know, Albies, when he's at his best, has been batting high in the lineup. He's been racking up a lot of runs. He's not someone who necessarily gets on base a ton. He's got, like, at his best, he hits for decent power, but I think

he might be one of those guys who the dead and ball hurt. And if he's hitting sixth, like I think roster resource has him, you know, that's a 15% decline in projected plate appearances from batting second. I'm guessing.

he'll bat between two second three he'll bat between second and six and it'll move around a lot. I actually think I think the opportunity for him to bat too because remember before he went through those struggles and Danesby took over hitting in that two spot. That was his that was his own. Michael Harris has got more strikeout questions. Obviously he made an absolute everything he possibly could out of last year in the contact. But if there are struggles, I just don't know that you're going to lock him in. Plus, there's a little bit advantage having like a switch hitter at two in. in how you're batting and lefty righties throughout the game going. So I don't know.

I think Scott's right, but I would lean more to than anything else. I can see. It's a big question for him. Yeah. I know that's why some people have been fading, Ozzy Albies are kind of worried about the lineup. I think it might be related to splits too.

I know he's much better against left-handed pitching. So maybe he bats second against lefties with Harris sliding down and then against righties. He's batting sixth. But then that would mean the majority of his plate appearances are coming, batting six. So that would not be great for his value. At the turn, we mentioned Welsh took Albies and Bregman. Bregman was a fantastic pick in this format. J.C. Real Muto goes, then Luis Castillo. And Scott, you are about to make your fifth pick, which was blank. Kevin Gosman. Nice. So remember when I took free the last round, I said there were five pitchers

left in that tier? Well, with this next pick after the turn, there were two pitchers left in that tier, Gosman and Gallen for me. And, you know, for Amber Veldez was already gone from the next tier. I could argue he belongs in this tier as well, especially in this format. But I wanted to go ahead and take one. And I still feel like freed and Gosman's. It's a really good top of the rotation. I wanted to talk about Bregman just to put numbers on it, to show how big of a

difference plate discipline makes in this format, because Austin Rydes, was my third basement. I took him in round two. He only outscored Bregman by like 10 points last year. And, you know, if you're talking to five by five league, you want to draft Bregman anywhere near the same vicinity as Riley. Like they'd be five, six rounds apart, probably. But, you know, Riley coming off a great near MVP season

and Bregman coming off with one of the worst seasons of his career, only 10 points difference. Yeah, I think that's a great call with Alex Bregman. as we mentioned, awesome plate discipline, and definitely helps his value in this format. After Scott took Kevin Gosman, which that was actually my top ranked pitcher at the time when I took Julio Arias, well, after Arias.

So if I was going to take another pitcher, it was going to be him, but felt a little bit early with the first pick of round four. So that's why I held off on Kevin Gosman. Jazz Chisholm goes, George Springer, and then Zach Gallen. Chris, you are back up in round five. You have three starting pitchers and only one hitter.

Yeah, it's a, it's a weird spot for me to be. And I'm definitely going to take a hitter here. I'm kind of agonizing. I was hoping Jazz Chisholm would fall to me. He did not. So I'm going to go with a little bit of an upside play in Luis Robert. All right. Luis Robert has a ton of upside as you mentioned, Chris.

He just has to stay on the field. It's been a huge issue for him to this point, but he's got some power. He's got a little bit of speed. He makes a lot of contact the past couple of years too. So that's something he needs to play better than he did last year though. Like that's that's I mean it's true across the board. But like if he's not as good as he was two years ago, it doesn't really matter if he stays healthy that much. Cause he's not going to be a particularly useful player in this format.

But you know, obviously the if you just average the last two seasons, he gets you where you need to be. And something. Wow. All right. Well, uh, I don't have a second basement. I was like, oh, you know, I'll get Max Muncie in like five rounds from now. He just went at the end of round five. So I will not be drafting Max Muncie. Uh, after Chris. Took Luis Robert, Edwin Diaz, and of course, Monsi went as well. And it's coming up on my pick. I have three hitters. I have one starting pitcher in Julio Reyes. And I probably need to double tap starting pitchers.

Even though I have a bunch of hitters here ranked over my starting pitchers. And man, there's one hitter here that I really want to take to. But I just can't chance it. I've got to load up on some pitchers here. So I'm going to go ahead and take my top ranked starter right now, which is Christian Javier. I almost took him before, like on that last turn. If Bregman hadn't been there, I probably would have taken Javier and Albies. And the other pick that I'm going to make is Joe Musgrove.

So, you know, waiting a little bit, I don't mind this, actually. Through six rounds, I have three hitters. I've got three starters. I've got Julio Reyes, Christian Javier, and Joe Musgrove. Yeah, I think you'd like it to be a little bit better, but not bad. I think it's all right the way it worked out. Let's see the way that the rest of the team turns out here. After Musgrove went, Logan Gilbert, Robbie Ray, Emmanuel Class A.

Another difference that you'll notice, head-to-points versus categories, is that elite closers, they don't matter as much. They're still useful in this format, but not as useful as they are in a Categories League. So they typically do go a little bit later. And Chris Towers, you are back on the clock. I am back on the clock. And yeah, the elite closers, this is probably around the right time for them. If you look at the points that they scored last year,

or Edwin Diaz was like $450-ish. That's probably what you should expect for most of the players who are being taken now. So this is the right spot for them. Although you only need two of them. It's a 12-team league. There should be, in theory, 30 closers at any given time. There won't be, but there could be.

I'm going to take another outfielder here. And I'm going with, I was down to either Cedric Mullins or Randy Rosarena. I went with Cedric Mullins. And the thought process there is mostly just, I think we all agree last year was a disappointment for Cedric Mullins. I don't know necessarily if you guys all think he's going to bounce back. I think he can be better than he was last season.

And he actually was only outscored by four points by Randy Rosa Ran in this format last season. So I give Mullins a little bit of an edge there. Stolen bases don't matter a ton individually. But you do get two points per stolen base. You lose one for a cot stealing. I think Cedric Mullins a pretty, a pretty good bet to make up whatever he loses as a hitter

to a Rosarena with some steals. So that's where I'm going there. The only thing that worries me a tad bit with Cedric Mullins is he was really bad against left-headed pitching last year to the point where he was getting benched against some lefties. So I hope that won't happen again,

but I think there's a chance at least that it can happen. So obviously that would affect his volume output in terms of plate appearances in this format. After Cedric Mullins, Gunner Henderson, which, as we know, is really that last third baseman before we see that huge drop-off. Vinny Pass Quantino, which it's early, but this probably is his better format in a head-to-head points league. Logan Webb and Scott, you are back up.

I believe you have two starting pitchers at this point. Yes, I do. I think I'm going to take a third because I'm looking at the hitters that are left, and I just feel like it's a lot of redundancies. every position where I have need. This is the advantage of, oh, great. I already have second base filled. I already have third base filled.

Alpha of the week, too, and I already have only have one of those. But, but, yeah, I don't, I don't see a clear stand. Scott. Robo Scott. Yeah, Scott, your connection is kind of lagging a little bit here. So maybe jump out and jump back in, and then we'll get your thoughts on the picks there.

All right. Scott took Trista McKenzie And just before that we saw Logan Webb go and the aforementioned Vinnie Pasquantino We are coming up on the Welsh's 6 and 7 Turn here, 6-7 turn

And let's check in and see what The Welsh has got going on He's got Jose Al Nope, that's Scott's team That would not make sense Chris Welsh, there he is Ozzy Albies, Alex Bregman, Aaron Judge And then you've got the two starting pitchers

Verlander and McClanahan So what are you thinking between starting pitcher versus hitter here at this point. Yeah, I mean, I've got to get a pitcher at least one. I don't like them anymore, which is a major problem that I'm going to have to deal with. That they're not good and there are still some good hitters. But it's one of those things I can't go back and take away any of the picks. Eloy was someone I was looking at.

Tristan McKinsey was someone I was looking at. So this is going to make it pretty tough. And Kyle Wright was someone I was looking at. So I'm up. I don't want to. I've talked about outfield and how bad it gets, but in this format, you know,

there's still some pretty good players, but I have a hard time passing up Randy at Rosarena, who Towers was talking about. So I think I'm going to go pitcher and rain. I'm going to just take Randy just to get that done. So we're going to take a second hitter. And then that is the hitter I would have taken if I took one instead of McKenzie. Yeah,

and he's not the highest projected person on the board. but I think, you know, we all agree. He's, uh, he's earned the spot. The stolen bases will be there. He's going to get lots of hits. There's power runs. Five tools. Uh, the pitcher is a little bit tougher.

I don't, like I said, I don't particularly love any of the names. I'm kind of deciding between two oldies here, Clayton Kershaw and Bassett. I think I'm going to go with Kershaw. Just simply for the win factor here. I might get a few more innings pitched at a Bassett, but I'm going to go with Kershaw here. Yeah. No, I think thinking about wins and a team that a pitcher is, is on. Makes a lot of sense too. Kyle Wright, we just saw go again a little bit earlier. Sixth round. He had 21 wins last year. I think you get

seven points for a win in this format. So they are incredibly important. I think that's something that you should be in the back of your mind when you're just differentiating factors. You know, splitting hairs, you probably want a pitcher on a good team. So Welsh goes there and takes Clayton Kershaw. And then the second pick of round seven is a great points league player as well. Wander Franco. to go at this point. Ah. He doesn't walk all that much, but he doesn't strike out. So he's not losing those points. I was really hopeful.

Somehow, you know, everyone's getting their short stops. There's lots of guys, people worrying about pitching and stuff. He would be able to come swoop back around because he's not super exciting. But hopes were dashed. Hopes were gone. Yep. Bye-bye. Wander Franco, indeed a standout in this format.

All right, Scotty. Let's hope that we don't have Robo Scott anymore. And you're on the clock. we get the thoughts on your previous pick, which was Trista McKenzie and whoever else you're about to take. Yeah, just like I was saying, I felt like there were a lot of redundancies within the hitter ranks, a lot of short stops that are similar value, a lot of outfielders that were similar value. I already have second and third base covered. That's where you're really having to stretch at this point in the draft.

A lot of catchers that are similar value. Like my top three ranked players right now are all catchers. but it's a deep tier. And so I don't want to be one of the first to dip into it, especially since in these one-catcher leagues, sometimes they get passed over for a long time. So because Wander Franco was taken two picks ago, I'm worried a shortstop run is coming up.

I'm worried that, well, it looks like a bunch of redundancies now, I could get left out completely. So I'm going to take the one who I think is best suited for this scoring format, and that's Zander Bogartz, another good, plate discipline guy. And I don't have to worry about a shortstop run now. I really like that pick. That's where I was thinking about going as well with this last one.

Same exact worry that you said to you. You said it really well. The fear of a run happening, especially when you're 10 to 15 picks through and there's about five guys to pick from, it's not good. It's not great. And I'm with Scott there. And I know we have some concerns about Bogart's leaving Fenway,

which is such a great ballpark for right-handed hitters. and specifically for batting average. But something I was thinking about, the top half of this Padres lineup could be ridiculous. If everyone is healthy, Fernando Tatis, Juan Soto, Mani Machado, Zander Bogarts, I mean, that top four is insane.

You could put it up against any top four in baseball and they are awesome. So I was just like thinking about that recently, I'm like, the Padres could be really, really good. So just try and get one of those guys if you can. And I wrote them up in my bus column. I do fear that Bogarts is going to be a third. 12 to 15 homer guy going forward.

But, and if it was a 5 by 5 league, I just would have taken O'Neill Cruz. He's still out there. But, you know, I would have taken Dansby Swanson over Bogarts, probably a couple others, too. It's just this format, like even if he is a 12 to 15 homer guy, he's going to make up for it with a lot of doubles, low strikeout rate, all the usual things. All right. Well, let's catch people up. There's been a lot of picks since Warner Franco went Josh Hater with a third pick of round

seven, Scott took Xander Bogart's, then Jose Abraeu, Dansby Swanson, Tyler Glass now, Chris took Tommy Edmund, and then George Kirby just went. So guess what? Another second basement that won't be on my team because he's on Chris's team. You got Tommy Edmund. Yeah, it was, I was trying to figure out between him and Andres Jimenez in a roto league. I think Jimenez probably a little better, but Edmund, you know, even though he derives a lot of his value from stolen bases, he is someone who, one, he's a really efficient base dealer, so he doesn't give it all that much back on the base paths in this format. He's been right around 440, 450 points in this format over the past couple of seasons. And that's generally what you should be aiming for outside of your star players is like 450-ish points.

And so Edmund seems like a pretty good bet there. So yeah, that's my thought process. Alrighty, after Edmund went, mentioned George Kirby, and then Brian Reynolds, and I am on deck. Probably should start thinking about what I want to do. I've got three hitters. I've got Rafi Devers, Francisco Lindor, and Kyle Tucker. Joe Musgrove, Julio Arreis, and Christian Javier. So three hitters, three starting pitchers. Let's kind of scroll through the position and see how they're doing here. Catcher looks all right. First base, first base isn't bad. Devin Williams just went and I'm on the clock. Third base is a just utter disaster.

Second base, I mean, Jimenez is a better category league play. I'm just going to wait at this position at this point. Yeah, there's a single third baseman left who scored more than 400 points last season. Yuck. There are 12 first baseman left who reached that. Even second base, there are five left who got to 400 last year. So that's just, yeah, third base. If you don't get it early, get it late.

All right. Starting pitcher... You don't get it at all. Also starting to dwindle here a little bit. Hmm. Got some things on my mind. I've been arguing with Scott recently about Adelis Garcia, so I kind of feel like I got to make that pick

and kind of put my money where my mouth is. He's the last pick of round seven. He's my second outfielder joining Kyle Tucker. I'm debating. Do I want to make the fun pick, or do I want to make the smart pick? It's a live mock draft. It's always fun. Fun, smart.

All right, let's make the fun pick. I know I have to Oscar Hernandez ranked ahead of him, but come on. Let's say Corbyn Carroll with the first pick of round eight. I was eyeing him. Get out of here. fills up my outfield now. I've got Tucker. I've got Adolias Garcia. I've got Corby Carroll. Don't have to worry about that. There's a few more first baseman that I like, so I feel like I could wait at that position as well. And starting pitcher, there was no one that I loved either. So just going to go ahead and have some fun and take Corby and Carol and hope that breakout is real. I know Towers wrote about the breakout. I know Welsh loves Corby and Carroll as well. So to get him

as my third outfielder in round 8, I feel pretty good. I like it. After he went, Dalton Varsho goes off the board Will Smith. All right, so, I said catcher look pretty good. They're all starting to go now. And then Stephen Kwan, which he is a standout in this format. Makes a lot

of contact. Likely to lead off. So he's going to get a lot of plate appearances in that Guardians lineup as well. I think this is an appropriate time to take him in round eight. And Chris, you You are back up in round eight. That I am, and I'm really struggling with what to do here, because there's a couple of guys that I want,

but I think I can just wait it out and take them in the next round. Hmm. Kind of thinking about going. Now, I'm not going to get another pitcher. That would be dumb. Let's remind everyone of Chris Towers's team here. I'm going to aim for some upside here. I'm going to take a catcher,

and it's going to be Salvador Perez, who I'm hoping can get back on track after a little bit of a down season. I mean, I struggle with it because last season looked more like his career than 2020 and 2021 did. So it might just be that this is who Salvador Perez is. But the quality of contact metrics were still so good

that I think if you're looking at the remaining catchers, there's plenty of upside left. You know, I had the Ruchman and the contrari and Alejandro Kirk. But I think Salvador Perez is probably the highest upside guy, except for maybe Adley Rushman, if he hits his, you know, 80th percentile. I went right after you.

I do appreciate your plural pronunciation of the... You know, that's the appropriate... The contrari. That would be William and his brother Wilson, of course. All right, so Chris took Salvador Perez. We were in the midst of a catcher run. We've had four catchers going this round. Varsho and Smith earlier.

Chris took Salvador Perez. Adly Ruchman went one pick after, and I mean, Adley could just be tremendous in this format. Even if he doesn't hit for power, he hits a lot of doubles. The plate discipline's really good. He walks a lot. He's going to get on base. And I think you get a plate appearance boost from him because even when he's not catching,

it's probably going to be a DH. So he is just all around really, really good in this format. Tony Gonslin, Byron Buxton went. And Scott, you were up. I heard a bunch of sighs when all these catchers were going. Are you all right? Do you want to talk about? I know.

Like I said, oh, the catcher runs. not going to happen. It's going to be a shortstop running. It was just the opposite. So I should have taken either a catcher or a shortstop. It would have been the opposite of whatever you did, Scott. They're listening. I'm going to take Kirk. He's the last catcher in that tier with Rushman and Perez and, you know, Will Smith, a few others. And I think this is a better format because, like, he walks more than he strikes out, you know?

If it was a categories league, I probably. probably would have passed up catcher here and waited for either one of the Contreras brothers or Sean Murphy. And I still thought about it. But with time winding down, I went ahead and made the move for Kirk the last guy in a tier. Murphy's tough because they really are going to keep Travis Arnau, it looks like. And Murphy on a per game basis was not great last season. And obviously getting away from Oakland should help. But he was really a volume play.

Last, I think he played 148 games or something crazy. Yep. So. Yeah, but he's going to get the volume. I think they love his defense so much. That was the main reason they acquired him with, I mean, Travis Darno not great at throwing out base runners. That's going to be a much bigger issue this year.

I worry about Darno's playing time. I don't worry much about either of their playing time because it's not like they have a dedicated DH. But I worry about Darno's significantly more than Murphy's. Yeah, Chris, I think there's a little push and pull. I agree with you that he's not going to get the same level of, played appearance volume from last year. He had the most played appearances among catchers last season. Sean Murphy did, but he's going to be better on a per game basis. That's the assumption. Yeah, that's what you have to hope for. All right. So after Scott took

Alejandro Kirk, Nick Lidolo, Stalling Marte, Wells, you're on the clock. I know you like Lidolo. So were you, were you eye in him as one of your peers? Yes, I was like, a little bit. I'm going to go first up with, if I can get it going here, Chris Bassett. Again, this is a innings eating, trying to get. It wins. And I almost thought about doing this. I am going to take one because we have to fill this RP spot. And I almost double tapped.

I was going to double tap Presley and Romano 400 projected plus closers. Because also in this format, there's not a lot of sneaky. You know, sometimes we get the sneaky starting pitchers. There's not a lot of these guys. And they're not really projected if they are, regardless of the point. So I'm going to go with, I don't think you really could go wrong either way. But I'm going to go with Ryan Presley just because we have to. to fill those up. Someone in the chat said, you know, starting pitching wins points leagues. I still

kind of go by that motto, but I have to get these spots and there's, there's an advantage on getting some of the top enclosers that we're not afraid of their jobs. So I'll take Ryan Presley for some points here. And I think that's an interesting pick too, because I'm not usually one to take an elite closer in a head to head points league, but the SPARP class this year, starting pitchers that you can use at the relief pitcher spot, it is terrible. There's Spencer Strider. And then Not much else. Hunter Brown is a spark, but we're not even sure that he's going to be in the opening day rotation. And then after that, you just get into pictures that frankly aren't very good. So you say Kikuchi. That's like the best one. The best one is like you say Kikuchi that you can get.

And it's, you know, there's some other formats where there's a few other guys. Jeffrey Springs qualifies in some places. But I just feel compelled if I can get an advantage at this spot this late in the draft, you know, around 100. I think it's okay. If they had both gone. I'd have just moved on and I probably would have double tapped. There's also a player I really want coming back later. But it's not the happiest pick I've ever made because I want to keep stacking pitching. But I've only got one more starting SP spot after Bassett. I've got Kershaw, Bassett, McClanahan, and Verlander, which I'm very happy about.

But I think specifically this year, Welsh, it's a smart idea to get at least one elite closer because, again, those dry up really fast. And then we get into territory of the Mariners guys where we don't know exactly who the closer is. I think you want at least one set closer on your team. Look at the list right now. How many would you say are definitive jobs right now? I mean, even Helsley we love, that's not definitive. Romano, Iglesias, Batista. That's about it.

Like really definitive, you feel good about it. Kinley Janssen, okay, four. There's like four jobs that you know are not going to really be pressed at this point. After the Welsh took Ryan Presley, Andres Jimenez finally goes off the board here in round nine. and then Sea Suzuki, and Scott is back up. Let's take a look at Scotty's team. See how he's doing.

His last pick was Alejandro Kirk. So he's got a catcher. Got Jose Altovae, Austin Riley, Zander Bogarts, Juan Soto. Man, you're stacking up those Padres. Seems like a good idea, Scotty. Kevin Gossman, Max Fried, and Trista McKenzie. What next?

I am struggling. Because there's three guys who I think are really important to take right now. and I can't take all three and two of them probably aren't going to get back to me. I'm going to take the one at the scarcest position, one I've neglected for far too long now. I'm going to take Chris Bryant for my outfield. Over to Oscar Hernandez, huh, Scottie?

Yeah. Wow. The scoring format being the reason why. Hernandez strikes out a lot. Bryant is, you know, same thing I've been saying for most of my picks. A lot of walks keeps the strikeouts low. Yeah.

And, you know, the course field factor. In between injuries, and he spent a lot of time injured last year, obviously. But in between injuries, he did have, he did look very productive in that environment. The only problem, Scott, is that you might need to donate your foot to Chris Bryant at some point throughout the season. So I will say in this is the format. Like, if you're going to be scared of injuries, this is the format to be less scared of injuries. Because, you know, I wanted to point that out when Raymond took Starling Marte at 95. because Starling Marte, I mean, the production on a per game basis continues to be excellent,

like 3.3, 3.4 points per game. That's really good. And it's just, you know, you're probably going to be 30 to 40 games without Starling Marte, but there's going to be someone you can slide into your lineup who's going to be productive at outfield in a in a format where at most 36 or at most, you know, 40-something outfielders are started. Yeah. I agree with you. I mean, again, the shallower of the league, the better the replacement value is. One thing I'll point out, you don't want to load up on too many Rockies players in a head-to-head league

because you need weekly consistency and those weeks were there on the road. If you have multiple Rockies, I mean, you could be getting single-digit points that week from your Rockies hitters. So just keep that in mind. Chris Bryan is a little bit better than like the CJ Crohn's or the Brendan Rogers of the world. But just keep that in mind. I mean, we know he's a good hitter. even away from Coorsfield. Not that there won't be that carryover effect

still now that he's there. Right. Yeah, I mean, there aren't many. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of Rockies hitters worth drafting this year, especially in a format this shallow. That's not that surprising. I think I saw somewhere that they are one of

three or four teams that don't have a player being drafted inside the top 180P. So, who's the other team? Did you say there's another team or they're the only? Yeah, there was multiple. The Reds are one of them. and I apologize. I forgot who sent the tweet out,

but I thought it was pretty interesting. Oh, no, actually, I think it was Derek Van Riper. He mentioned it on a podcast recently. The twins were close. I think Buckson is just inside the top 100, but they were kind of close with Lodolo and Hunter Green too, just throwing that out. Yep, yep.

After Chris Bryant went, we see Dustin May, Jordan Romano, Jordan, Montgomery, Chris to Christian Walker. Teoska Hernandez, I think, a great value at this point. Same thing with Nestor Cortez. I mean, we saw a run where a pitcher were just getting way pushed up the board in round six and seven. And now, you know, some of these guys slipped a little bit further.

So I do like the value on Nestor Cortez. Chris, talk to me about Christian Walker as your starting first baseman. I thought about taking Nestor Cortez like two or three rounds ago. So I was hoping he would make it back to me. It kind of came down to whether I thought Walker or Cortez would get back to me. But, look, Walker hit 470 points in this format. He did play 160 games. You can't exactly expect someone to play 160 games every year.

But I really like that. liked what we saw from him last season, the improvements that he made in his strikeout rate, the quality of contact was still excellent. And, you know, we saw in the second half, especially, the first half he was someone who we kept talking about, things are going to get better for him. Things are going to get better for him. His expected stats were a lot better than what he actually had. And things got a lot better for him in the second half. I think he had 280 something in the second half. I don't think he's going to do that for a full season. But if he manages to hit 260, I think the production could be very good across the board. All right. So I am going to

double tap starting pitching here, which would fill my five star starting pitcher spots, and then we'll see how the rest of the offense turns out. But I feel like because I waited a little bit, I just kind of want to attack it with volume. So now 10 rounds in, 10 picks in, I have Raphael Devers, Lindor, Kyle Tucker, Adolius Garcia, Corbyn, Carol. Those are my five hitters. And then I've got, I just picked Lance Lynn and Luis Severino. So at the 9-10 turn to go along with Joe Musgrove, Julio Reyes, and Christian Javier.

So, I don't know. It's kind of an interesting build, but we'll see how. I knew you were taking Lance Lynn. I knew it from a million miles away. I could see it. And I was looking at him. Eating innings, even if, you know, the production doesn't fully come back to where it was before, him being able to eat up some innings and hopefully get some more wins and stay a little

bit more healthy as a solid pick. As is, Blake Snell, probably not as popular in this format. You need to go deeper. That's what everybody wants. And that's always a crutch on him. But I still like that. that team being able to pick wins against a division with the Rockies and the Diamondbacks and Charlie Martin broke my heart. I'm done. Pitching sucks. Yeah.

So all the pitchers are going. Welles, I just wanted to say, uh, what do you think about Blake's now? Oh man. I don't know. I don't know what y'all gonna do. That's, uh, that's Welch's, uh, Blake's now impression for any. I was told I'm gonna get told on. I was forced that he's gonna tell on me to do it. And, you know, maybe I'll have to do it in front of him. I don't know. All right. Pitching is going. here. I mentioned I took Lance Lennon and Severino at the turn. Then we see Carlos Correa, Blake Snell, Charlie Morton. Chris took Chris Sale, and then Brendan Nimmo and Bryce Harper. Harper is not a bad pick either because it's probably the right spot for him. Shallower format.

You could stash him. The replacement value is better. And then maybe you have a superstar in the second half of the season. So interesting pick there. Towers, Sale wound up as your SP4, I believe, correct? Yes, he is my SP4. I actually, like I mentioned, I would have taken Nestor Cortez the previous round. If he had still been there, I probably should have taken him instead of whoever I took before that. Yeah, I think that's how it worked out. No, Nestor Cortez went after I took Christian Walker. I was hoping he'd make it back here. Yeah, I probably should have taken him. I think he was clearly the best pitcher available in this format, given the wind potential, given how efficient he's been. But, you know, Chris Sale, shoot for upside in this league. Like I mentioned

with Starling Marte, if you're going to take, if you're going to be willing to take risks on injuries, this is the format to do it where the replacement level is much higher than in a 12-team rhodo. After you took Chris Sale, we see Brandon Nimmo, Bryce Harper, Ryssel Iglesias. So another one of those elite closers that we feel pretty good that he is his team's closer for the Atlanta Braves. and then Scotty, you jump in with Hunter Green. Come on, Scotty. What are we doing here? What are we doing here?

Stop it. That pitcher run killed me. Lance Lynn was one of the two players. I remember I was debating three players with my last pick and went with Chris Bryant. Lance Lynn was one of the others who I felt like I had to have. And he made it another half round. And then I was like, oh, I could fall back on Charlie Morton. Oh, I could fall back on Chris Sale.

They all went too. But, you know, Hunter Green normally goes ahead of them. So I'm used to like, okay, you guys can have Hunter Green. I'll take Chris Sale and then this time because of the way it played out. I'm on the other side of that, which is fine. I mean, green obviously. High upside pitcher. Hopefully it works out.

All right. So he joins the pitching staff of Kevin Gosman, Max Fried, Trissa McKenzie, and now Hunter Green. Let's check back in, see what's going on. Only one pick happened. Brady Singer. Welsh, we're coming up on your pick here so we could check in on your team. Hunter Brown goes, I mentioned, you know, He's probably the next best spark.

If you think he could start sooner rather than later for the Astros, then this could be a good pick in round 10. And with that, Welsh, your backup. All right. Well, you know, I put an emphasis on starting pitching, but I do got to tell you, Hunter Green was kind of at the top of my list, not for wins. But just being able to eat up some endings this year, which I think he'll do in big strikeout numbers. 200 projected, I think across the board is a safe bet. But he went to Scott White. and I think the starting pitching market is very similar across the board.

And I have probably four or five guys that I just don't feel the need to pull them here. But what is not is shortstop. It is about done. It's not great at all. I'm going to go with the power over the contact and it's my injury thing. I could take Tim Anderson, but he doesn't stay healthy. I'm taking Willie Adomis with the big power and a bounce back on contact. And then I'm going to fill out my last outfield spot.

with a big power hitter. I am taking on a little injury risk, but boy, I don't really feel like I've got a lot of player risk. I do have some injury risk on this team. And this has always been a, you know, a good points outfielder. I'm going Jean-Carlo Stanton.

Give me big power with the Yankees outfield of Judge and Stanton to fill out my three outfield spots, which is not a great position, as we all know this year. Love it. Absolutely love it. Two Yankees in the outfield. What can go wrong, right?

Just need those guys. Need those guys to stay on the field. That's it. But yeah, Stanton should mash a bunch of home runs. Last point, I'll make on Willie Adamis, 3.01 fantasy points per game last season. That was better than Bo Bichette, Bobby Witt Jr., Zander Bogarts, Danzy Swanson. So was really, really good in this format. All done with a really bad average.

All done with a really bad average. And, you know, any XBA return is going to work in favor here for this offense. And a lot of positive projections on, excuse me, the power numbers as well. And we are now in a fall off at shortstop. So I don't know who here if anyone doesn't have it. But, you know, there's Tim Anderson, and then there's just one big name. I don't want to take it away from you, Frank. But people have to be wondering, as I've been thinking about it, like, who's the guy that's fallen?

Who's the big player across this whole draft that's fallen? O'Neill Cruz. We are at pick 122, and O'Neill Cruz is not even being sniffed around right now. Well, you know what? That 35% strikeout rate, that will do it in a head-to-head points league. That was the end of round 10. We just started up round 11. So here's what we're going to do.

I mentioned this is going to be a two-part podcast. So on the audio side, we're going to wrap up part one, and we're going to come back with part two. So don't go anywhere. Just jump back over to part two in your podcast feed.