Fantasy Baseball Today - Live H2H Points Mock Draft Part 2! Rounds 11-21 Breakdown (2/3 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

We continue on with our live 12-team H2H points mock draft, breaking down picks, players and strategy. In this episode we break down rounds 11-21 and then recap our teams. 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

Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Welcome into part two of our head-to-head points live mock draft that we are doing. We are in round 11. And where we left off, the Welsh took Willie Adamas and John Carlos Stanton. And then we saw Felix Bautista. So again, there's elite closers starting to go. We have at least, at most, 12 seconds left. And then Scotty is back on the clock.

I know Scott just took Hunter Green. He's got four starting pitchers. There goes Glaver Torres. My second baseman is going to be Chris Welsh playing for me this year. So that's going to be great. And Scott, you are on the clock and you're studying. He's in deep thought. Look at that focus.

Yeah, because one of the three players I was talking about two rounds ago is still there. You got to take him. What are you doing? I mean, you said you had to have this player, Scott. You said he was a must. I've reconsidered. Let's bully Scott into taking this pick. Yeah.

What are you doing? No, no. I think I'm going to take O'Neill, Cruz because it's like, I got a shortstop already. I got Zander Bogart's, but it's not like any position is so deep that I obviously have to keep utility spot open for that. And O'Neill Cruz clearly the upside play among the hitter ranks. I mean, yeah, he's going to strike out a lot, but if he hits for the kind of power with the

kind of speed that we think he's capable of, and that we all would draft him in like round six of a roto league to get, if not higher. then strike rate's not really going to matter. I mean, he's still going to be a must-start studly player in this format. So I'm doing it. O'Neill Cruz. They're coming to get Scott. They were coming to get Scott for taking O'Neill Cruz in points.

I want everyone to know that that happened. You took O'Neill Cruz. Cops, get them. We found them. R.J. White probably sent him after me because he has a shortstop spot open still. What are you doing? You know, Scott was in deep thought. He was scouting the rest of the league to see,

all right, who needs a shortstop? Can I afford to take O'Neil Cruz here? You know, I blame the Welsh because he name dropped on O'Neill Cruz. And as a result, Scotty gets the big upside here in round 11. Next two picks after that, Christian Yellich and Freddie Peralta. We haven't talked much about Freddie Peralta this offseason. I think the skills are still really good. But I really worry about the shoulder injury.

It's been recurring now for him. He dealt with it a lot last year. It's something he dealt with years before that as well. So just kind of years of dealing with this over and over again. I think on a per inning basis, Freddie Paralta could still be really good, you know, a top 25, top 30 pitcher on a per inning basis,

but just kind of worry about how much he's going to be on the mound. I was thinking about Freddie Peralta because, of course, we all remember the year he had two years ago, but then I just pulled up the game log, and oh my gosh, it was so gross, so many three and four inning starts that are just worthless in this format. And that doesn't mean it's going to happen exactly that same way again,

but it's not like his inning issues were just because he missed time with injury. Like, he was a glorified long reliever for most of last year. All right. After Freddie Peralta, Grayson Rodriguez goes and Reese Hoskins. We had a report recently on Grace and Rodriguez as well, so I want to get your thoughts on that. But first, Chris, you took Reese Hoskins. Believe you already have Christian Walker.

So doubling down here on first base. Yeah, that's my utility spot. And that was the clear best players remaining, unless I wanted to go fill in my last starting pitcher spot, the clear best players remaining were at first base. or shortstop for me. So it was Hoskins over Tim Anderson. Both of them had down years last year. Neither of them impacts the ball particularly hard.

So I do think there's a chance that they were both adversely affected by the debtor ball in a way that may stick. But I think there's a little more room for a Hoskins bounce back in this format. All right. Well, I consider taking Nate Lowe, I don't know, three, four rounds ago. And he's still here in round 11. So I don't have a first baseman. need a little bit of help on offense.

I'm going to go ahead and snag him up. I got some Nate Lowe. And, you know, Welsh kind of talked me into a relief pitcher early. I want to make sure I get at least one of these guys that I feel good about the job and the role. Kenley Jansen, I know every year we're waiting for him to fall off, but just continues to perform. You know, Red Sox aren't going to be great,

but can we get 25 plus saves? I think so, as long as Kenley Jansen is healthy this season. So that is the 11-12 turn. I took Nate Lowe and Kenley Jansen. Welsh, I mentioned I want to ask you about this recent report that Mike Elias, the GM of the Orioles said Grayson Rodriguez will be in the opening day rotation for the Baltimore Orioles.

We just saw him go in round 11. That was probably around pick 125, 135, 130. And that's higher than we've been seeing him go. So I think we're going to start to see that kind of push up the draft board with a report that Grayson Rodriguez will be in the rotation. I think a lot of these guys. I think a lot of these rookies we're going to start seeing. Grayson's interesting.

I am, oh, man, I struggle with young pitching in their first year. But, you know, how much can they press him? I think 150 has got to be a cap. Maybe they'll tell us something different. You know, maybe they'll go higher. I think it was like 107 the previous year. Last year was kind of a mixture of a mess and everything like that. I just don't know how they would go too, too aggressive.

So even if he's going to make the rotation, which they're saying what happened, I still don't know if I'm taking. taking him at like 125. But, hey, you know, if you, you might get three-fourths of a fantastic season. Hopefully they manage him properly. This is the type of guy you bet on. I'd rather Grayson than I would, um, Andrew Painter. Because Andrew Painter seems even less likely to be able to push if you're looking at

those rookies. After I took Kenley Jansson, Lucas G. Alito, Ryan Helsley, Louise Garcia, the pitcher on the Astros. Chris took Andrew Vaughn, Lars Neupar. It's probably early for him. but man, if he hits his upside, great OBP, great walk rate. So there is a lot to like in this format. And then Anthony Rizzo goes here in around 12.

Towers. Andrew Vaughn finally back at his usual position, what he's used to, first base. That's what he played in college. That's what he played in the minor leagues. So I think, you know, it's anecdotal, but I think playing his primary position could maybe help him focus on the bat

a little bit more moving forward. Yeah, you would hope so. And he does a lot of things really well already. He struck out only like 17% of the time last season. He hits the ball really hard. His average XVe velocity was in the 80th percentile, I believe. And so it's really just a case as with a lot of guys of just hitting the ball in the air a little more. He does most of the things you want already.

So I think it's no guarantee that he makes that tweak and gets where he needs to be. But I like the chances of it, you know, when you're talking about this late in the draft. All right. After Lars Nupar mentioned Anthony Rizzo, Jeremy Pena. So another shortstop off the board. Better in a Categories league. Plate discipline isn't great for Jeremy Pena. And Scott, you are back up. What do we got? Yeah, so Anthony Rizzo was the guy I had kind of latched onto for the last several rounds hoping to get. And he goes two picks before. I'm finally ready to pull the trigger. Because Anthony Rizzo last year, you know, he hit only two.

20 something, but his strikeout rate is so low consistently. He had more head-to-head points per game last year than Matt Olson. You know, he missed time with injury, but when Jose Bray, Reese Hoskins, Christian Walker, just a really good fit for this, especially since I don't think he's going to hit 220 again. I think it's going to be helped by the shift ban and get maybe closer to 240 or 250. So I took CJ Crone, and I actually too have two Rockies hitters in my lineup now. Scotty, come on, man. I told you.

Yeah. He was the last first base in Benefitere. If I didn't take him, then I'm looking at Rowdy Tellez or Josh Bell. And maybe that would have been fine. I knew Welsh was coming up, and he has a first base opening too. So that's part of the reason why I chose now to take CJ Crone.

Yep. And we'll see if Welsh ends up taking it at first base. Maybe it doesn't. I do want to say, the thing I'm kicking myself over the most, and there are several things I'm kicking myself. I'm kicking myself over. But the most is that Alejandro Kirk pick

because how many rounds ago was that? And still the Contreras brothers and Sean Murphy are there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no name dropping, no name dropping. I still, I can talk. I still need a catcher. It's important for breaking down the draft.

It is, absolutely. I, oh, like, in these one catcher leagues, I just have to resist the temptation to go for the catcher, whoever it is, because, yeah. There's just so many quality. Like, if you believe in William Contreras, he might last till the last four rounds of the draft, you know. Scott, you're exactly right.

And I know you regretted taking Rio Muto in our recent Hedgehead Categories mock. It was a one-catcher league. And I think M.J. Melendez was still there in round 18. Welsh, I hopped on the in this league podcast recently. We did a one-catcher mock draft as well. And I took Wilson Gutierrez. And then I think, you know, five, six rounds later, Sean Murphy went. So I regretted it too.

And that's why I'm just kind of waiting on catcher and I'll see whoever falls to me. With that being said, you just took Wilson Contreras. Yeah. No, I've been staring at that for a while. Yeah. The first base thing is it's been on my mind. You guys have covered a lot of it. I understand you till can go.

I just don't think there's a big separation. There's still a couple names. Wilson Contreras, William Contreras and Sean Murphy are kind of what's left. And Wilson Contreras was literally at the top of my board. I wanted Jeff Springs. I was like, where is he on my queue? And he went. And I didn't see that he went in this last.

and I was super disappointed because that was going to be my pick. I am going to do what I said before, and I'm going to go with one more. I'm actually having a little bit of regret on my Ryan Presley because of kind of like what you guys were talking about with the catcher. Like we went multiple rounds and things just hung out and, you know, Frank got whoever you got Kelly Jansen like five rounds later. So that's a little egg on my face, but Clay Holmes is still out there. So I now have two closers on two dominant win teams, which I'm going to do this.

That's going to be my strategy for closers and having a little bit of an advantage there. I got my starting catcher and I have a handful of pitchers that are not Jeffrey Springs now that I have to choose from. And hopefully there's a couple more first baseman. There's still some decent names, but it's going to fall off pretty quick here. But my roster is coming out pretty nice. Yeah. And I think at this point, Welsh, if you don't have a first baseman, there's only one other team in the draft that doesn't have a first baseman either. Yeah.

There's no one that really stands out about the rest. So you can pretty much just wait and see what happens. So outside of what like towers at his point and what's a good point is like we all have util spots. and some of the higher projections are going to be at some of the first basement, though there are still some quality outfielders. So funny how much we've talked about, outfield's not deep, outfield's not deep.

It's not necessarily, but points definitely rises the pool of the outfielers, especially when you're doing a three outfield setup like we've got here. It makes it a little bit better. But outfield and first base is probably what's going to fill most of these utiles spots coming up. All right. So the end of round 12, the Welsh took Wilson Contreras,

the start of round 13, Clay Holmes. And a first basement goes, Routy Tellez, someone I've talked about that I like this year, lost 15 hits to the shift last season. If you give him those hits, it would have been right around a 250 batting average, big pop, 35 home runs. The only thing in a weekly head-to-head league, he's not that consistent.

So he's going to have weeks where he blows up. He's going to have weeks where he gives you a headache. So just keep that in mind with someone like Roddy Tiles. Kodi Senga is the next pick off the board in round 13. And Scott, you are back up. That was my pick. I was looking at him too So there you go

Okay Well I need to go really heavy After starting pitcher right now So is he already gone Did Pablo Lopez go? Did I miss that? No He is

I don't see him in the rankings So he must be gone Oh I just saw him a little He's on the second page Yeah he's gone he went at pick 129 All right Well, I'm run out of time.

So I'm just going to take the top one in my rankings here, which is Lance McCullors. Lance McCullors, who on a per star basis, he's good. He's just how healthy is he going to be? That's always the question for Lance McCullors. Last season, the swinging strike rate was still good for Lance McCullors, lots of strikeouts, but also lots of walks. But on a good team, so that helps as well. After Lance McCullors, Thai France. So another first basement off the board.

I don't know, Welsh. Maybe you should have taken a first base. Routty goes. Jake McCarthy, great. Thanks guys. Jake CoronaWernard is gone. Jose Berrios, we spoke about on yesterday's podcast.

What's the likelihood of Barrios bouncing back? He was always a head to head to point standout. Gives you lots of innings. Quality starts usually, so maybe not the best stuff, but he usually does give you

a lot of volume, and that definitely helps in this format. Chris Towers is back on the clock in round 13. Let's take a look at that team. see what we got, Chris. Yeah, I've got the holes right now in the starting lineup are two relief pitcher spots, starting pitcher and third base, third base.

Yuck. So I'm just going to pass right on by that. I'm thinking about a relief pitcher. I don't love the options here, but I'm going to go with one of the few guys who still has, I think, a very good chance to be his team's primary. Closer. I would probably rather have a better pitcher in a Roto League. But Daniel Bard, who was very good last season, saves matter a lot more than the quality of the pitcher in this format. So yeah. Yeah. Daniel Bard unquestionably, they're closer. They signed them to an extension

last year. So he's going to be the guy as long as he's serviceable, which he was last year. The year before, he wasn't. You know, that's kind of the nature of being a reliever, especially being a reliever in Corres Field. There's a few other, should be closer for their respective teams. Let's see when those guys go as well. And there goes one of them.

Camillo Duval in round 13, two picks later. And yeah, there's only one left by my estimation. A couple other picks, Matt Chapman. So, Chris, if that was your third base target, I'm sorry, because we'll be getting him.

Oh, I'm on the clock. What do you know? All right. So Anthony Santander goes, here we are, round 13 and 14. I think it's about time to I've been playing catcher chicken here Hopefully I don't regret it

And these guys just last until the end of the draft That would suck But M.J. Melendez is my top ranked catcher That might surprise some people Yeah I really like M.J. Melendez Last year he lost a lot of hits To the shift as well

He had a very low bat-up against the shift He's a switch hitter Actually he's a lefty I just made that up He's a lefty He was really good against lefties last year and I think the rules are going to help him. Also, when you look at plate appearances,

I think that he's going to play in the outfield sum for the Royals as well. So the combination of those catchers, played appearances, outfield, D.H. I think he's going to play more than the average catchers. So I do like that for MJ Melendez. Did we... What is that?

Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say he did say in an interview just like a week ago, Melendez did that he spent the entire offseason working on agility drills and planning to play the outfields. This is a lead-off hitter that is going to be one of the primary outfielders on that team. So even more reason to like him.

He's just very low on CBS's projected points. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I definitely, I've talked about Contreras and Murphy. I prefer both of them to Melendez. Like, Melendez has to get better to measure up to them. Unless there's a big playing time disparity, I don't think there will be. I talked about how, you know, Sean Murphy, I think, is going to play close to every day. I think William Contreras is going to, too, too, because, like, how many good bats do the Brewers have in their lineup? He's probably going to DH a lot when he's not catching.

Is he, though? Because they have Jesse Winker. They have Routy Teles. Winker should not put the outfield. I could be wrong. Winker's a bad outfielder. And so maybe they're just willing to lose the bat sometimes for the sake of defense. Maybe.

Yeah. But it could be that, you know, Winker sits against all left-handers and contraris is the DH against left-handers and starts to catch her against right. I don't exactly know. But what I'm saying is playing time like, probably as much as in the history of fantasy baseball, playing time disparities at catcher are less than ever because with the widespread use of the DH,

a lot of NL teams and some AL teams too, including the Royals, have taken to just shifting their good hitting catcher over to DH when he needs a day off. So that's less of a concern than it used to be. The thing for me with Melendez is just what the hell happened? Like, he was so dominant in 2021.

And then he was awful at AAA last season. It was only 21 games, but 581 OPS. And then 706 in the majors, that's not bad for a 23-year-old. But it's not great. It certainly wasn't the kind of impact bat that we were hoping for. And so, you know, you look at his whole minor league career. And you've got 790, 814, 571 OPS in 2019. You have the year off in 2020.

comes out has this massive 2021. And then he, you know, doesn't exactly fall on his face overall, but definitely isn't as good as we hoped he would be last season between two different levels. So it's, you know, you look at the overall track record and the 2021 really stands out. And how repeatable is that? That's the big question here. Yeah, look, I think it's an upside play for me. I think Sean Murphy and William Contreras are potentially safer options.

but given the prospect pedigree with M.J. Melendez, I hear you, Scott, about the National League and the DH being there and helping out catchers. I don't think Sean Murphy's going to DH very much for the Braves. And I don't think that William Contreras is going to DH much either. So I worry about those two things. What's going on? I think I accidentally, because I heard you are on deck,

and so I went and made the pick. Oh, it's peak of the devil that whole time. There you go. Contreras is in the pick, which I agree everything. So what were you saying? You don't think who's going to play much DH? I don't think Sean Murphy's going to DH very much because they have Travis Arnao. So I think they're going to kind of, I don't know, he's going to DH and then be their second catcher.

They still have Marcel Ozu-No. Right. But why want to Sean Murphy DH when he's not catching? Not every day, but like a lot of the time. Chris. I guess it kind of depends on how Marcel Azuna's season is going. Look, it's a busy street down there. What can I say?

Are the cops inside of the room with you? Like, what? is every time he unmutes his mic, it's like, I feel like we're in like a bad boy's music video or something like that. There's going to be a whole other live stream that we're going to be starting to do here in just a minute. Well, I bogged down too long talking about M.J. Melendez.

Whatever. I like him. Everyone else doesn't really like him as much. I do. I'm with you actually. William Contreras was one of those guys. Are you talking about William Contriss or Sean Murphy? I was talking about M.J. Melendez.

I like him too. Let's move on from the catchers. They're all gone now. Let's move on from the catchers. And catch people up. There is a lot of picks. I took Jorge Polanco finally as my second baseman, my starting second baseman.

I think there's a lot of bounce back potential. He was awesome two years ago. I don't know that he'll be that good, but I expect him to be a lot better than last year. Pete Fairbanks went, Catelle Marte, Sean Murphy, Chris took Tyler Anderson, then we've got Miles Michaelis, Patrick Sandoval, so lots of pitcher starting to go.

William Contreras finally. Scott took Jack Flaherty. The funniness with that is that Scott thought he was on the clock. He selected Jack Flaherty, but because he's the commissioner, he actually picked him for someone else. So that's actually pretty hilarious. And then Nick Castiano's and Jose Orkiti. Lots of picks.

Scott, talk to me about Jack Flaherty. Well, like we talked about, I don't remember when, but recently. Like, nobody wants him anymore, so I guess I'm going to be the one who wants him. Like, I was ready to move on as well. But it's just like he's this total afterthought now. And, you know, at the end of the last season, he looked healthy. He had that horrible stint in June when he came back too early and the velocity was down, but then when he came back for good at the end of the year, the velocity was fine.

The starts were pretty good overall. And I think round 14 is a fine time to take him and hope for the best. Like I said, I'm planning to hit pitching pretty hard here for basically the rest of the draft. I still have an outfield spot open. I still have both my relief pitcher spots open, but I don't care about that at all. Like I've, however many dozens of head-to-head points,

least 12 or fewer head-to-head points leagues I've played in over the years, I've never once had an issue where I couldn't fill my relief pitcher spots. It just, like, that's a format where it's pretty easy to find those guys on a waiver wire over the course of the season still. So they might be my last two picks. All right. But yeah, I'm planning a hit starting pitcher pretty hard here for the next several rounds. After Scott took Jack Flaherty, Nick Castiano's, Jose Riccii, and Welsh, you double tap first base,

Josh Bell and Ryan Moutcastle. I'm very happy with what was left, what I could do here. Josh Bell obviously struggled when he got moved over, but, you know, this is a non-big strikeout guy at first base, which you're going to like. This is a guy that's had a, at least the last two years, had a sub 20% K rate. Batting average, Bat X actually has it right around where he was last year. Hopefully I get more homers. Hopefully there's more RBI opportunities, especially hitting in the middle of that

Guardians lineup that's also going to be aggressive at the top. So I'd like a bounce back for him and the double-digit walk rate. Ryan Mountcastle doesn't play as well in this format. Had I believe it was the highest expected home run total taken away from him. Obviously, that has to do with the dimension change, but also there's a lot of good hard hit numbers under him. And I think there was a lot of bad luck that was placed in that as well. So maybe not much you can do if you're going to have a total suppression.

I believe three of the top 10 expected home run losses came from Orioles this past year, Trey Mancini before you got traded, Anthony Santander and Wright Mountcastle. So there's kind of a trend you can see, obviously, the dimensions hurt. But I think Mountcastle's got more power to boot. Bad X is projecting him for more power in even less games and a little bit of better batting average. So, hey, I missed the position, but I filled my U-Till and I got Josh Bell. Josh Bell and Ryan Mountcastle for U. Tilling first, I could have done a lot worse because now it's bad. I mean, there's one or two guys.

Brandon Drury went after me. That's what tells you where we're at. I think Josh Bell is perfectly fine in this format. I wish I wish I had passed up CJ Cron. You know, if I knew Josh Bell was going to be there, how many rounds later? Yeah, a lot. Because like, you know, I put a bigger gap between them and five by five scoring. Yeah, three rounds later.

Three rounds later, you get Josh Bell. So, like, I feel like your draft, Chris, Chris Welsh, you've, like, been able to maximize value with a lot of positions, with second base with Albiz in round four, Bregman at third base, Josh Bell now, Wilson Contreras, when you got him. Like, that is how you win. I've tried to do that. It hasn't worked well for me. I've kept falling a pick or two short of getting. the guy in the ideal spot. And I appreciate the compliment.

One of the things to point out, I think that's pretty apparent, especially in this format, is these wheels and how important these wheels are going to be. Someone said it in the chat before we even started up the show that they thought that Frank or I was going to win this if there's a winning a mock draft. You know, the mock draft champion. It's just because of the advantage we kind of get of maybe not even falling into things falling to us. We can start trends. And yeah, I think the, obviously knowing what you're doing, points leagues and having a strategy coming in is the most important. But the wheels help.

The wheels have definitely helped. And I've benefited from some things happening my way. That's interesting that you say that, because I always felt like for the way I draft, which is try, you know, according to tiers, trying to get, trying to jump on a position before the drop off, which I feel like you've done a better job at in this one than I have. Like, I feel like it helps to pick in the middle where there's less time in between mean picks because when you're picking on the ends, the wheels, as you call them. There's so much time in between that pair of picks that you kind of don't know.

You have to anticipate and you often anticipate wrong. Or at least I do. Also, the only other thing to add in because we had Frank's picks, I know he wants to break those down is like, you know, this world, the points world is is a little bit different than a lot of the consumer stuff that's been out here. Not that you guys have talked about, but just in general that, you know, finding values and stuff to what people know, like, oh my God, Bobby Witts in the third. third or fourth? What's going on? O'Neill Cruz, past 100. Like, things are working out and falling

a little bit easier in this as people are trying to catch up on what we need to do. All right. Well, let's catch people up on what we did in this draft. After you took Ryan Mountcastle, Brandon Drury, Jonathan India, Merrill Kelly went to Scott, sticking to his word, he wants some starting pitchers, Edward Cabrera, Anthony Rendon, Garrett Whitlock is someone who does have RP eligibility. And I believe he's going to start in the Red Sox rotation. That's the point. plan as of now. Chris Towers took Tyler O'Neill and then Jake McCarthy, John Gray, Alex Cobb, and then at the 15-16 turn, I took Taylor Ward as my utility bat, someone I've talked up as a sleeper, someone I think is undervalued. His ADP is usually around 125, 130. I just got

him around 180. So definitely going to take the value there on Taylor Ward. And then I took David Bednar. He was the last one that I felt confident was his team's closer for the Pirate. You know, they're not gonna win that many games, but when they do win, it's likely going to be a save opportunity for David Bednar. After that, Brandon Lau, Mitch Hanager, Vaughn Grissom, and Chris, you took a I don't know this to Trevor Rogers qualifies as a stallion. I don't know. Oh, yeah, he's a style. I think he was part of the now the original stallions group was a Oh, that was that was before I was. Oh, that was before I was. Oh, and yeah, he's he's he's a stallion. You know, he got you know, a little wild last. season, but I think they're, we all like the bounce back potential. I'm actually rewatching Silicon Valley and I got to the Stallions episode this week. That was a nice,

a nice little trip down memory lane for me. After Trevor Rogers, a very fun pick. And shout out to Tim Kahnick. He does a lot of these mock drafts with us. And he's always all over the prospects and the fun players. And Miguel Vargas, it goes in round 16 here. And we had a report recently that Vargas is likely to open as the Dodge starting second baseman. I don't really care where he plays, as long as he plays. And Scott, did you just get auto-drafted?

Yeah, on purpose. It was top of my cue. Okay, cool. I didn't know if that was supposed to happen or not. But Miguel Vargas should make a lot of contact, hit for batting average, and if he's playing, he should be pretty good. So I like it at this point.

Pick 186. Hunter Renfro, Nathan Avaldi, and Scott goes ahead and takes Martine Perez. So back-to-back picks Merrill Kelly and Martin Perez. two of the pitchers that I told people on yesterday's podcast that you should not be drafting this season, Scott. How do you feel? I mean, I'm drafting them at pick 189

and whatever Merrill Kelly was, 172 in a league where we go deeper into the pitcher pool than most because of the scoring format. So, you know, they seem no risk at this point, and they were big producer. last year. So I, and like in a way that traditionally we'd look at the strikeout rates and be like, eh, this seems like kind of a fluke.

But I just don't know the world is changing. The world of baseball is changing. And I don't know that this kind of pitcher, the 8K per 9 pitcher, is one that just, that can't work. Like, like we presume during the juice ball era, like it's easier to get outs on contact than it was before. So I'm not ruling out them having strong follow-up seasons to the unexpected greatness of last year. All right. After Martin Perez, Tyler Stevenson, Eugenio Suarez, and Welsh, you took a starting pitcher. Someone I know you like quite a bit this year.

I do. Yeah, I took Andrew Heaney, who the injuries don't work in the favor. And I loosely say, like, you know, it's like a de Grom type of light. He's obviously not, but, you know, he doesn't play games like him. and he has a higher points per game like him, which works in favor. Yeah, I love the high K-per-9 stuff. I love the opportunity at wins here. It's a good defense offense surrounding him.

So I'm with that. And I was going to take another pitcher. I don't like any of them. One of the hitters I still love, I get a little bit of flexibility. I'm going to put on my bench, though I probably would stack more pitchers on the bench. Jose Miranda.

Jose Miranda does not strike out, makes fantastic contact, 20-plus home-run hitter, going to hit higher in this lineup, most likely, with Minnesota, and he qualifies at first and third. And third base kind of stinks. So having this type of versatility on my team with Alex Breggman, who's banged up a little bit,

though I want more pitchers on my bench, he is like the prime example of a type of guy that I want to have as a reserve here, especially in this format because his skill set works better even in points. All right. That is the beginning of round 17. And actor Jose Miranda, we saw Aaron Ashby and Alexis Diaz. I clicked on Ashby's name here just to see if he was. is a relief pitcher eligible, but he is not. So, all right, just, you know, one guy I thought was a spark, but isn't, unfortunately.

Scott, your backup, are we going with another pitcher? I think so. It might be the last one I take. I'm weighing a couple other options, but we're kind of running. Like, there's one pitcher left. I have them as a breakout this year, one that I can actually get excited about, and it's my second to last bench spot. So yeah, I'm going to say this is my last.

starting pitcher I'll take and it's Reed Detmer's. I like Redetmers and I thought about taking him to Scott. The one hesitation I had was six-man rotation for the Angels. So you're never going to get two start weeks and that matters in this format. So that's the only reason why I didn't take him. Yeah. Fair point. But it's so late that if he's just, if he breaks out the way that we think he could, then he's just going to be really good whenever he makes that one start anyway.

So it doesn't really matter around Pick 200. after Reed Detmer's Luis Arise now with the Marlins J.D. Martinez. Now with the Dodgers. Tristan Casas, which is a fun pick. Good plate discipline should walk a lot, which helps in this format. And Chris Towers is back on the clock.

Chris, do you have a third baseman yet? What are we doing here? I do not have a third baseman yet. I've got a couple in my queue that I will probably take, but I am going to go with a guy who I think is being overlooked and we haven't really talked about him at all. But I think Tyler Malley getting away from Cincinnati,

he's been a, I mean, a 371 ERA guy on the road compared to, what is it, five at home that's, you know, pitching in Great American Ballpark. I think the, you know, we barely got to see him pitch for the twins, but I think the move there could be very good. Remember, he was a pretty trendy pick a year ago. So I think this late, Tyler Miley is someone I like having on my bench. I think Mallee's an interesting pitcher too.

The only thing I worry about is the health. Where are we at? I know he dealt, was it a shoulder or an elbow last year? Shoulder, yeah. Whatever it was, it was significant. So it's something I worry about. We'll have to follow the velocity in spring training to see where Tyler Mallee is at.

But he could be a steal if he's healthy. So I do like that call. After Tyler Mali, Masataka Yoshita, another player who should excel in head-to-head points leagues. Leading off for the Red Sox should get a ton of plate appearances, did not strike out. In Japan, he was actually compared to Luis Arise in terms of how little he struck out. So definitely something that should play up well in this format.

And two more players, you know, similar to that, Jeff McNeil and DJ Lamehue. LeMayhew was really good last year until he suffered that toe injury. That was one of the third basement I was hoping to take. Yeah. All right, I am on the clock. So, all right, got to stop yapping here and figure out what I'm going to do. I think I'm going to take some pitchers as well. Typically in a head-toed points league, I'll load up all five of my reserves on just starting pitchers and just hope I hit on one, two, three of them. That would be awesome. But yeah, why not take a shot and see what happens? So we are in round 17. It's really late. I know he's got the shoulder, Frankie Montas, but I already have my five starters. I'll throw him in an IL spot to start the year. And if he returns to form, I could have a top 30, a top 40 type starting pitcher.

So you've got to wait until May, but I think it's late enough where you can take that risk. And a few other names that I'm looking at here. Ooh, some guys that I like. Wolf, yeah, you tell me, who are you looking at this? Well, I can't tell you that. I'm just going to do it. I don't know who to look at anymore. Go ahead and take Thor, Noah Cindergarde, we spoke about on yesterday's podcast.

Working with Drive line this offseason, trying to get the VLO up. Now with the Dodgers. Last year, if I told you that Tyler Anderson and Andrews, Druchini were going to be great on a per-star basis, you would have laughed at me. But the Dodgers just know how to work this devil magic. And I'm hoping that they could figure it out with Noah's Indergard. So I'm willing to take a shot this late in the draft. And Riley Green was the next pick.

Someone else, I know Chris and I both like as a sleeper this year as well. Carlos Carrasco goes. We've got one more pick and the towers back up. Let's see how many more rounds we have. We have three more rounds here, hour and a half. So if you're still watching us live on YouTube, or on demand on YouTube, thank you. We appreciate it.

Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. We're going to be doing a lot of these throughout the off season after we finish up our position previews. We're going to jump back into likely one live mock draft per week. So the final week of February

and then all of March. So we're going to have a lot of time to do mocks and break them down. It's going to be a lot of fun. Cal Quantrell went and Chris, you're back up. What are we thinking? Time for a third baseman or I don't know.

You might as well just wait to the last pick at this point, right? Why not? So there's two third baseman left who at least for fantasy are very much the Spider-Man meme. They hit the ball very hard. They've got good play to discipline. They just don't hit the ball in the air enough to do anything with it.

I'm going to pass on both of them. I'm going to take kind of a boring pitcher, but one who I think the recent trade to Baltimore could end up helping him and making him quite relevant in this format. That's Cole Irvin. I just, I think Camden Yards is, just a, I believe Scott, you use the term cheesy venue for pitchers now. And I think that this is going to be a situation where Cole Irvin could just like fake his way to a mid-3s ERA this year.

Hey, I'm pretty sure he did something like that last year. I don't have the exact ERA, but I think it was in the mid to high threes. 3-9-8, yeah. Yeah, really good in Oakland Coliseum pitching at home. He was terrible on the road. So going to another park where it should be good for a left-hand. pitcher to pitch. So I think it makes sense for Cole Irvin. After he goes, Brian Beow, if he gets a spot in the rotation, I like it. I think he's sneaky at this point. Marcus Stroman, boring but solid, give you quality starts. Sean Mania, that devil, he burned me last year. But the Giants do good work with pitchers and they find a way to get the most out of their guys. So hopefully they can get Sean Mania back on track. And I've been talking a lot. So I'm going to turn it over to Scott, who's on the clock. And tell us who you're going to take. Well, I wanted to say Marcus Stroman, we think of him as a quality start machine,

but that really wasn't the case last year. He struggled to go beyond five innings. I don't have an exact count for you, but the game logs pretty ugly as far as that goes. So I've lost interest in him. Oh, boo. Pitch it for the Cubs doesn't help either. But I'm going to take a Cubs player. So I still have an open outfield spot, and I think at this point,

it makes sense for me to just totally sell out for upside and hope something miraculous happens. So I'm going to take Cody Belliger. I was going to happen. Yep. It's going to be me. And look, if he's terrible, you know, it probably only take a couple weeks to figure it out and I'll drop him for whatever outfielder is making noise on the waiver wire.

It's a three outfielder league. So there's never going to be more than 50 outfielders rostered probably. I think it's not what I want to do in the outfield, but I do think if you find yourself in this spot where you've kind of missed out, out, just shoot for the upside. Oh, well, she just crushed me, man. I wanted to take Jordan Walker too. That's a sneaky, sneaky pick there, too.

I mean, that would have been a good pick for me based on what I'm saying. Like, I don't think of him as an outfielder because he's third base eligible right now. But if he does come up, it's going to be to play the outfit. When I was going to jump in, that's exactly what I was going to say is it's funny that you mention we're in a space right now where it's like, hey, take a guy, doesn't work out in spring training or a couple weeks, you move on. So what better spot than to start taking some high upside process? prospects jumping all I was talking at Jordan Walker for the last two rounds on my list,

seeing if I could get him. He's going to get outfield. I think there's a decent opportunity that he gets there. And I talked about Andrew Painter earlier. Grayson Rodriguez went 120. I just got Andrew Painter at 217. If he doesn't work, okay, I move on. But if they really do give him a rotation spot, I'm going to get some starts early on.

I cut him later and I get another pitcher in there. But I might get high in stuff. There's a great command pitcher, three plus pitches. I mean, it's one of the highest graded fastballs, according to basically. Small America. Andrew Painter makes a lot of sense here. And Jordan Walker made the... Jordan Walker was my main deal. I needed Jordan Walker here. So thank you everybody. Thank you to the Academy. Thank you for everything. I pass it to you. I didn't name drop him either because I was going to bring up Chris Towers. You don't have a third baseman. And I thought it would be a good strategy to

take Jordan Walker first and then just pick whatever veteran to kind of fill in until Jordan Walker gets called up. And that's something I brought up on a recent podcast too. I think it's a good strategy. If you miss out on everything else at third base, take like Justin Turner and Jordan Walker and just kind of double dip and you got one old guy and you have one big upside pick. So that's something that I was going to suggest, but can't do it now. So good pick by the Welsh. I do like the Jordan Walker there quite a bit. After Scott took Cody Bellinger, Gavin Lux, Rangor, Swares, then Walker and painter at the turn. Cody Morris, who Scott has assured us, will be this year Spencer Strider. So thank you, Scott. We all love you for that.

Raising it a little strong. And then Justin Turner goes, the aforementioned. Scott, you're back on the clock. So this is what happens in these 21-man roster leagues is you just run out of roster space. And that's where I find myself. So I want another upside outfield option. Jesse Winker makes the most sense for the scoring format. I do have him as a Leaper, a bounce back candidate going to Milwaukee anyway. So I'm going to take him, but it would have been nice to take Joey Meneses, considering he's also first base eligible, and I have C.J. Cron there, who I can't trust on

the road. Would have been nice if I could have found a way to roster both. But, Say LaVie. Hi, look at us. What I really won't. Do we both say Say, Say, Levy? We did. It was at the exact same time.

We both said Say Lovie. Okay. Big fans of the 90s pop group. bewitched, clearly. Clearly, that is exactly where I got it from. Now I forgot what I was going to say. Jesse Winker is the man, that's

why you took him. Yeah. Hopefully he keeps his head on a Tristan Kossis. I wanted Tristan Kossis or Miguel Vargas to back up C.J. Crone. That was my plan. Yep. But it just didn't work out. Somebody went for them a little earlier than I was ready to. And I think that's going to start to happen more and more.

This is kind of the point in draft prep season where it feels like, you know, a lot of people split their time between baseball and football. And so I start ranking players in October when everybody's focused on football. So the early mock drafts, they feel like I have a research advantage and, like, I'm dominating all the mock drafts. And this is the point where everybody starts to catch up in their research. And it's like all the things I could get away with doing before I can't now.

Nobody in the history of live mock draft podcast has gotten upset over not getting Ross Tripling, but that was me. That just happened. He was on my cue too. That I did not get Ross Tripling. Ross Stripling was good last year, man. He started throwing this change up more. I wrote him up as a sleeper.

Again, good ballpark in San Francisco now, Oracle Park. I like it. I think it's, I like it with Ross Stripling. A couple other picks here. Well, so I get your thoughts on Brandon Fott in just a little bit. Stripling went, Dre Jameson, Josh Young, Braxton Garrett. All right, Chris, you made up for it because you didn't get Jordan Walker. That was the thought.

It was the same kind of thought process. But yeah, Josh Young, and then I'll tap a boring third baseman, who I still think has some upside at some point. But yeah, the idea was to, once it became apparent that I was going to just have to settle at third base, target one of the upside young guys and then get a, not an old guy, I don't think. I think the two guys that I'm looking at are not old. So, you know, there's still some room for, you know, one of the two guys who I'm going to take to break out, hopefully. And we'll see who they are.

All right. Specifically, Josh Young, I think that's probably the way to go if you miss out on the, really the last signs of life at third base for me are the Gunner Henderson Max Muncie tier, which is still pretty early in the draft. And if you don't do that, like, I'm probably just going to wait around for Josh Young and hope that prospect pedigree breaks through in his second chance in the majors. He struggled in 26 games in the majors, but that was having played, what, 110 games? at the minor league level overall and coming back from a, what was it, shoulder surgery last year? Yes.

Yes. So like him struggling his first taste of the majors and still like hitting the ball hard and hitting the ball well, just striking out a ton. Like I think there were definite reasons to be optimistic about him, you know, in that cup of coffee. It's either going to be him or as long as Anthony Rendon tends to last,

like taking a chance on a Rendon bounce back. I mean, look, maybe he needs just to start hitting left-handed. He's got like a 5,000 OPS as a lefty. That was awesome. That was one of the coolest moments last year. I think that was my single favorite moment last year. Like Anthony Rendon wasn't around for long, but he gave us that moment batted left-handed.

That's the kind of thing that should happen against position players. Yeah. Yeah. So you know what I'd love to see? We have up for the All-Star game. We just have all the players hit the opposite way. And pitchers throw the opposite way. Instead of having to watch that game and then making it counts this time.

You Darvish would definitely dominate that one. Yeah, that would be great. That dude throws like 85 lefty. Really? Amazing. I've never seen you Darvish throw lefty? No, I just assume that any pitcher who threw it their offhand would look like 50 cent thrown out the first pitch. No, he looks.

He throws left handed on his off days to keep getting work in. And he actually throws pretty hard. That is insane, but good to know. Let's see what else happened here. Some other picks. Braxton Garrett, Joey Menesis, Whitmerifield. At the turn, I took two pitchers, Aaron Savali. I know a lot of people are done with him.

Changed up the pitch mix last year. He was good down the stretch, so I'm buying one more time on Aaron Savali. Zach Eflin, the raise don't give out money. They gave him the biggest contract in team history. So just kind of blind faith, hoping the raise do something fun with Zach Eflin. After I took him, Kenta Maeda, Sonny Gray, Josh Rojas. Chris took Alec Bohm, so he's got that combination, Alec Bohm and Josh Young. I like it. I think it worked out well, actually.

Rwanzi Contreras, somebody I was considering another pitcher who came up late last season and also changed the pitch mix. He threw his slider over 40% of the time over his final eight starts. So I'd like to see that for Rwanzi Contreras. Paul Seawald, Trevor's story, which you could stash on your IL spot. And Scotty, you get one of your relief pitchers in Yohan Duran. I got nothing left to take but relief pitchers now. So I'm going to, I'm going to figure it out. And this is what I always do in this format.

And like I said, it's never like I've gone a whole year where I can't figure out how to film my two relief pitcher spots. Like, Duran could be somebody who holds it from start to finish. He's really good. He was getting the majority of the save chances at the end of last year when Jorge Lopez was stinking it up. And, you know, hopefully he can just claim that role. And if he doesn't, I'll swap him out for somebody else.

I mean, before two weeks is done, there's going to be a new save source emerging on the waiver wire. And a lot of these teams are already going to have the relief pitcher spots locked up. All righty. I did want to bring up Brandon Fott and ask you about him. Welshie, he went at pick 221 in round 19. But let's just see very quickly who you took here at the turn. Your last two picks, you took Justin Steele. And you say Kukuchi, who has spark eligibility.

Let's see if he could do anything to do. season. Anything positive about all that it was. Like Justin Steele, I love. I love the strikeout potential, him being back in the rotation for more innings. He's been on my cue for a while. Cacucci's a weird pick, but I did it because if he can return some form, I can put him at reliever. And I can, he might be more valuable than relievers I have. And he's also an SP. So it's like a dual eligible player I wanted to play around with at the end, because there's not many of them. And I love Justin Steele. Brennan fought, I also would have taken, even though I took Andrew Painter. I think it's a great pick.

It's a good speculative pick, just like the Andrew Painter one. For all the many reasons we've talked about, led the minor leagues and strikeouts this past year, he's going to be vying for one of those rotation spots. I still don't believe Kyle Davies is really going to get it. So they say one spot open. I think Dre and Brandon Fott could potentially both take those rotation spots. So he was one of the few options that I had on the list, so I liked it. All right.

I actually just saw another spark that's kind of interesting. I'll reveal him at the end of the draft here. Not so that. Chris can't take him. I'm not going to allow Chris Towers to take the Sparps. I'm not going to name drop him. Other picks. Mike Soroka, Scott took Scott Barlow,

Travis Darno, Jake Fraley, and Chris Towers, you're back on the clock. What do we got? Last pick. Now I'm trying to figure out what interesting spark you're referring to. Is it? I'll say a name.

No. I see it. It's not TL. Hall. Nope. Okay. Someone who's currently projected for a starting rotation.

You can say it after. Chris makes his draft. I'm going to say it after. Is it the guy who hasn't actually been a starter in like eight years? Nope. Maybe? I don't know.

I don't think so. Who are you talking about? I can't say. So Seth Lugo is presently, I believe, projected to be in the Padrejard rotation. So that's one, but... What if I told to you that they play on the same team, Chris? Nick Martinez?

Yeah, Nick Martinez. You look at Rasta Resource. He's their fourth projected starter. They don't have anyone else. Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo, are the fourth and fifth projected starters for the Padres this year. You look at their non-raster invites,

their minor league system. They've got like Julio Tehran. Yuck. I don't think that's going to work out. So yeah, I think that there's a chance that Nick Martinez could be kind of interesting as a spark this season. So just throw the name out there.

Possibly. And Chris, you didn't take him. You took a Roldus Chapman. Yeah, I went with a Roldest Chapman. I figure if he signed with the Royals, he's probably going to be the Royals closer. I know that's not the unanimous position, but I have a hard time seeing a roll as chat.

signing anywhere where he's not going to be given a chance to close. So we'll take the chance there. All righty. After Aroldus Chapman, Ken Waldochuk, I like it. As an upside starting pitcher, Brett Beatty also like it. Maybe he can win a job here in spring training. I know Eduardo Escobar, terrible defender. Liam Hendricks, all right, second or last pick in the draft.

You know, obviously we're rooting for Hendricks. Don't know when he's going to be back, but that would be awesome. And I am up. Last pick of the draft. Mr. Irrelevant. He's actually going to be quite relevant at some point this season. Brock Purdy. It is Brock.

No, it's not. It is Matt Mervis. So, falling way too late. Last pick of the draft. I'll hold on for a couple of weeks. See when he could be up. I still think there's a lot of upside. And he is sliding in draft.

So gobble up the value on Matt Mervis while you can. All right, the draft is in the books. Got like 10 minutes. Whatever. We're almost two hours in at this point. Why not? Let's just recap our teams real quick. And we'll start off with the,

Welsh because he was picking first. We'll go in order here. And Scott White says, thanks everyone. Thank you Scott. Appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. And let's run through to the Wells's team. We'll start off with the offense here. Wilson Contreras, Josh Bell, Ozzie Albies, Alex Bregman, Willie Adomas. And then in the outfield, we've got John Carlis Stanton, Aaron Judge, Randy Rosarina, and Ryan Mountcastle at Utility. The pitchers. Justin Verlander, Shane McClain Clayton Kirshaw, Chris Bassett, and Andrew Heaney, your closers, Ryan Presley, and Clay Holmes. Welsh, what do you think about your team? Anything you would do differently?

I mean, I'm pretty happy with the construction. You could maybe look at some strikeout issues. You go to Adamas, Stanton, you know, judge throughout there, Rosarana, Mount Castle. That might hold me back. But I got a lot of power. I got some on-base guys. I don't feel like I have a lot of weaknesses as far as my hitting goes. I got some great values like we talked about like Scott said earlier. Pitching, again, I feel really strong about it. I'm very big on Shane McClanahan. I know some other people aren't and being able to double tap those guys.

I was a little weary about the relief pitching and the investment that I did, but I think it came out great. I got two high-in team closers that are going to get a lot of opportunities. I took a lot of risks on a bench. So if we were running a projection system, it might, ding me for Walker and Painter, but this is the type of risk, you know, who cares about projections?

This is the type of risk you want on the bench. And if this works out, I could have a frontline type of prospect rotation starting pitcher out of Andrew Painter. And Jordan Walker is great for this format. He's not a big power bat that's a big strikeout guy. So I'm pretty happy. I could probably go back and find a few things

that I were rather done and not to be all, ooh, love my team, but I really like this construction. I would like to go down with it. you should like if like you should like your team that's that's how I feel about it um I am a little surprised how bipolar your pitching staff is because Verlander McClannahan at the top great like obviously there's nothing to complain about there but then it like the next three Kershaw Bassett Heaney filling out your starting five

I got a little too confident in the top end and let it slip a little bit and I agree with you and that that's where like I could have maybe not taken Presley and taking another starting pitcher. I kind of think I would rather do. That's the best one. Take out Presley, give me a closer later and put in another SP. And I think the like, I don't know if you want to call a hero SP or pocket aces, whatever, I think that probably works a little better in Roto where you have those two anchors to anchor your ratios to anchor your, your ERA and whip and give you a bunch of strikeouts. And then it's easier to take some chances, I feel like, whereas in this, I mean, one, just the the smaller rotation means that every piece is so much more important.

But also just like because it's a volume thing, you know, it's harder for those, you know, 130 inning great ratio, great strikeout guys to be like as impactful. Like I'd rather, I'd rather have nine number three guys in a points league, I think, than two number ones and seven number five. And I guess you could argue Haney and, because, I was going to say, I mean, Bassett's not that. McLeanhan's not that.

But you could argue Kershon Heaney are those theoretical like 130 to 150 inning pitch guys that I might stack some wins. But yeah, it's a good point. All righty. Let's slide over to Scott's team. He was drafting fourth overall in this draft. And he finally pulled it off. He got an outfielder with his first pick. He got a third baseman in the second round.

And then a second baseman in the third round. That wasn't confusing at all. At catcher, we've got Alejandro Kirk. Then we've got C.J. Crone, Jose Altuve, Austin Riley, Xander Bogartz, and in the outfield, Chris Bryant, Cody Bellinger, Juan Soto, O'Neill Cruz at Utility, the pitchers, Kevin Gossman, Max Fried, Lance McCullors, Trista McKenzie, Hunter Green, and the relievers,

Scott Barlow, and Yohan Duran. Scott, I've got to say, it's just very different to see your team like this compared to years past, all the other mock drafts we've ever done because now you just got a bunch of like these upside, volatile starting pitchers, and I'm not used to it. Yeah, I mean, Frieden-Gosman, I feel like

are still able to. And my bench, pitchers on my bench are Merrill Kelly, Martin Perez, Jack Flaherty, Reed Detmer's. So like that, that's nine pitchers who I feel like either last year or at some point in the not too distant past,

we considered, or at least performed like high-end arms. So I like, I like, like, I feel good about the pitching staff. I wasn't sure how good I'd feel as, as it was unfolding, but, you know, after seeing the Welsh's pitching staff,

and I'm not picking on the Welsh, I just like, I feel like I, I feel fine with this pitching staff. If anything, I look at my hitters, and I think those should be stronger because I filled the weak positions early.

And, And I didn't invest heavily in starting pitching not as heavily as some other people did. But I see a weakness there at first base with C.J. Cron. I certainly see a weakness in the outfield with Chris Brian and Bellinger, 2 and 3. I mean, that's a weak position that maybe I should have hit a little harder early. Maybe I should have taken an outfielder instead of Alejandro Kirk. Like I said, during the draft, that felt like my biggest mistake when the Contreras brothers and Sean Murphy hung around for so long after that. If I'd taken, I don't remember if it was like Brian Renner.

and they'll still there when Alejandro Kirk went, somebody like that, I'd feel a lot better about my team. And so I just wish that lineup was a little better. Now, first base in a 12-team league with no corner infield spot to fill, that's a position, like, if CJ Crone doesn't work out, I feel like something's going to happen, somebody's going to emerge,

and as long as I'm playing the waiver wire hard, I'll end up okay at first base. Like, that's the position where I feel like it's particularly in a shableness, Fallow League like this, it's okay to kind of punt on. But outfield, outfield might be a struggle. And I wish I had gone heavier there. So the round you took Alejandro Kirk,

Starling Marte was there. The next round about him, yeah. You took Chris Bryant around there. Say, Suzuki went. Okay, so that was after Brian. So Brian Reynolds, who did I take instead? Brian Reynolds won a couple rounds before that, I'm pretty sure.

Was it, who did I take instead? It may have been Zander Bogart. That was the other one where I was anticipating a shortstop run, remember it. It didn't happen. And I would go by with like Willie Adamas as my shortstop. It didn't have to be Xander Bogarts. So I probably should have taken maybe an outfield in both of those spots. And then had like Brian Reynolds and Starling Marte to go with Juan Soto and still would have had a contraris brother at catcher.

Still would have had like a Willie Adamas at shortstop. And that I would have felt great about that. Yeah. You could have done Reynolds. And then there actually wasn't another shortstop taken for like two and a half rounds. it was Carlos Correa. It was not that different from Zander Boggart. I guess there's a durability thing there.

Scott, you took O'Neill Cruz as your utility bat. So you could have just taken Brian Reynolds and then O'Neill Cruz as your starting shortstop. I mean, Cruz might not work out. He was only 2.64 points per game in this format last year because of all the strikeouts and because it took him a while to really get going. But, yeah, if he does live up to his upside,

then, of course, he could have been my starting shortstop, sure. And if you did that, you would have had two starting pirates in your lineup. I don't think you want that. That's probably not the best way to go. Let's take a look at Towers' team. By the way, I think I heard that automatic cat feeder, right? So it's a new automatic cat feeder,

and this one dispenses vertically. So it's a whole different. It sounded like Sonic rings. We can record a message. So, you know, we have that to look forward to. Yes. If we want to come up with a jingle for my cat feeder. So when it drops, it'll just be like,

hello, my baby, hello. Yeah, you can record whatever you want. You can just have your, you can just, you know, come up with like a, hey, cats, it's time to eat. We should just have a Scott saying, ah, soldier boy. And that could be for your cat. Any hoodles, let's take a look at Towers' team here. Salvador Perez at Catcher. Then we've got Krisha Walker, Tommy Edmund, Josh Young, Trey Turner, in the outfield.

Cedric Mullins, Luis Robert, Andrew Vaughn, Reese Hoskins, at Utility. Chris Sale, Tyler Anderson, Carlos Ordone, Dylan Sees, Corbyn, Stack Pitching Staff, Daniel Bard at Reliever, also along with Aroldis Chapman. And you have Alec Bohm on the bench so you can kind of rotate Boehm and Josh Young as your starting third baseman. All right, what do you think about your team, Chris? And what would you do differently, if anything? The offense feels particularly weak pretty much across the board. I think that's part of the issue. I did go with three starting pitchers in my first four picks.

It's not a terrible situation to be in. And given the way the shallowness of this league is, you might be able to make it work. Yeah, it looks better than I thought it would. It looks better than I thought it would with how you started pitching. It's not like it's definitely lacking that like stud bat, you know, and then third base is a gaping hole that you may never fill because I had that happen in a couple of these head-to-head leagues last year.

But it could have been worse, definitely. Yeah. Keep going. I didn't mean to interrupt. Yeah, no. And, you know, the bats, you know, I think specifically in the outfield with Robert and Vaughn, I think there's upside worth chasing there. So, you know, if one or two of those guys hits, you know, I think it starts to look a lot better.

And technically, I haven't heard this before, but you kind of went with like a hero hitter strategy, Chris, where you took Trey Turner at the first. And then the three starting pitchers after that, Maybe this is the format to do it. He's head to head points. I don't know. I just, I feel like if it had been, if I had been picking fifth and I had been able to take Ronald Acuna

or Muky Betts as my hero hitter, I probably feel a little better about it. Trey Turner's still very good in this format, but, you know, it's, it's not ideal to end up with Trey Turner. You know, like, is the team better if I take Freddie Freeman there? It might be. And there's also the shortstop thing,

which is something we spoke about, where if you take a shortstop early, just kind of feel like you're chasing third base, for example, like you were in this draft or outfield, whatever it might be. If it's Freddie Freeman and Carlos Correa instead of Christian Walker and Trey Turner, it's probably a little better. All right, well, let's take a look at my team here in the infield. I've got M.J. Melendez, Nate Lowe, Jorge Polanco, Raphael Devers, and Francisco Lindor.

In the outfield, Kyle Tucker, Adoles Garcia, Corbyn Carroll, and Taylor Ward as my utility bat, the starting pitchers, Lance Lynn, Joe Musgrove, Julio Arreis, Luis Severino, and Christian Javier, the relievers, Kenley Jansen, and David Bednar, and I'm not going to read off my bench

because I didn't read off anyone else's bench, so that would be fair. You know, it actually kind of came together pretty well. I went through these extremes where I started off with three hitters and then I took one pitcher, Julio Reyes, and then I just kind of hammered starting pitcher after that, and then I went back to hitter.

I feel like the offense, probably could be better, but I have standouts. I have Tucker. I have Devers. I have Lindorre. I feel good about that. I think this team is all right. I think it's the strongest of our teams on paper.

Yeah. It's pretty. It's, you know what? It's one thing, though, it's, it definitely has a feel of like, man, this is the best roto team here. But at the same time, it still really works. So you have some volatility. You know, Adolus and Corbyn Carroll, I think are a kind of glaring hole looking at you as

well as maybe even Polanco. But you just, you set yourself up in every spot. Taylor Ward can fill in. if Corman Carroll doesn't work out. You have a really solid. You might have the least sexy rotation, but I think you have the most lockdown rotation of all of us. Some guys I wanted, I wanted Musgrove, I wanted Christian Javier. So I like the balance of this team. So I waited to take my first pitcher until round four, Julio Reyes, and I wound up with five of my top 35 starting pitchers. So just attacking it with volume. And that's kind of what you were saying earlier, Scott, where, you know,

maybe I don't have that standout guy. I don't have that one or two, that ace, but I have a lot of just solid pitchers, which I feel pretty good about it. And this is kind of going back to advice I'd give like eight, 10 years ago. But I find that sometimes the real high-end aces can be a hindrance in this format

because you always have to keep them in your lineup. And sometimes you're like, and I got all these two-star pitchers, but I can't kick out Justin Verlander or whatever. As much as I'd like, As much as I like playing matchups in this format in particular, it kind of helps when it's more like a bunch of number three guys than the hero SP thing.

All right, well, that'll do it. Our first live mock draft, lots of fun. Two hours in, thank you for everyone who is still watching live or watching On Demand. We do appreciate it. Let us know in the comments. Who won the draft? We went through everyone's team.

Let us know what you think. Or hit us up on Twitter, tweet at us, and let us know who you think won this draft. We're going to wrap there for Chris. And Chris. And Scott, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again next week.

Bye-bye.