Fantasy Baseball Today - Mailbag! Answering Your Questions Plus ADP Breakdown (03/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

We break down the latest reports about what a shortened season might look like, then reveal our favorite picks from Rounds 19-21. Then, we run through a bunch of listener questions about BABIP luck, Nick Senzel’s chances, a long-term look at Fernando Tatis and Keston Hiura and more. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, everybody, and welcome into fantasy baseball today. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers and Scott White. No Adam Azer today, true story. He emailed us about an hour before we were going to start recording and said that he was not going to be on the show today. So thanks, Adam. It's amazing. The listeners trusted me because just yesterday.

Telling them. Adam is not going anywhere. Yeah. We just spent a whole show. telling everyone that Adam was not going anywhere. And the very next show, Adam is gone. So thank you, Adam, trying to sabotage me on my third day here on the job. But we do have Scott White.

We do have Chris Towers as well. Scott, how is everything holding up with you? Because I did see you post a video the other day on Twitter of what I presume is your children just kind of like screaming and playing around the house. And you looked very distressed. So I just wanted to check in and make sure. Playing. You're doing a little like playing to you. There was definitely screaming.

I think it was my two-year-old ordering my five-year-old to stop crying if I could make out what they're saying in the video. But yeah, it's, it's, it's, I miss them going to preschool for part of the morning, mostly because now they're together all the time. And like they're both angels individually. Like I have no, no completely. with them when I have them one at a time. But when they are together, they're just out to destroy

each other. So it's a lot of refereeing happening here at the White Households the past couple weeks. Obviously, many people are quarantined with everything that's going on right now. But Chris Towers has offered us some uplifting stories recently involving his cat. He talked about that yesterday on the show. And now, he doesn't have hair. He's bald. He's bald. He's bribling. So he continues to lift the spirits everywhere around because I'm enjoying the haircut. I love it. And with that, we will now introduce the new Stone Cold Chris Towers. Oh my God.

It's Chris Towers. Chris, what's going on, man? Nice haircut. It's an interesting, it's an interesting feeling not having hair. And also, like, you look at Stone Cold Steve Austin and every time you see him, his head is so shiny. And, like, I shaved last night and it's already starting to lose some of its love. So I like I don't know if he has to just keep like a bottle of shaving cream and a razor with him everywhere he goes. That sounds like a lot of work, but you know, it's mostly just look, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to be bald eventually.

I'm working against genetics here. You know, you see my family. It's, it's my dad lost his hair when he was 21. So I knew this was coming. I've started to notice it. So I'm just taking it for a test drive. You know, I can't leave the house. Nobody can really see me.

So this is the time to figure out what. my head looks like. And it's an okay head. If you want the shiny effect, don't you have to actually wax it? Isn't that something that's done with bald heads? Maybe, but the bigger problem right now is just that, like, it's just stark white at my hairline. So I'm like, the back of my head is just, it's ghastly. So I'm going to have to maybe set up my desk on the roof and, you know, do the podcast from there next week just so I can, you know, start to get a little color on the head. Yeah. So if you live in Brooklyn, just keep a look out on your roof for a bald Chris Tower.

He's going to be lurking around there doing the podcast from his roof of his Brooklyn apartment. All right, today on the show, we have some news and notes that I want to go over. We're also going to review ADP rounds 19th or 21. And we mentioned yesterday, apologies, everybody, that we didn't get to our email questions, but you can send those over fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. And we're basically going to do an entire mailbag show today as well. So I'll try and get into as many of those as possible. I have 10 questions.

Hopefully we can get through all of those. And if we have any time, we'll do a little bit of a flashback Friday as well later on in the show. But news and notes, start things off here yesterday. This one kind of surprised me. And I don't know how much we should read into players being sent down now because obviously we don't even know if there's going to be a season. and by the time the season comes around, players being sent down now might not even matter.

But Aaron Savale, Zach Plissack, and James Corrinczak of the Cleveland Indians were sent down. And as of now, Rasta Resource has their starting rotation as Shane Bieber, Mike Clevenger, Carlos Carrasco, Adam Plutko, and Jeffrey Rodriguez. So, Scott, is there anything to see here? Or is this just, why are teams sending players down like this right now? Because I thought all along that Savali and Plissac were probably going to be in their rotation.

definitely Savale. Yeah, I don't I don't see a scenario where Savale isn't at the start. I'm not sure what this is about, to be honest. Yeah, I haven't seen anything from like Beat Riders explaining it.

I don't know. I mean, Twitter's kind of a, Twitter's kind of one note right now. Not a lot of people commenting on baseball transactions. So, yeah, I'm kind of in the dark on that one. But I'm not, say I'm worried that Savale doesn't have a rotation spot based on this. Chris, do you have anything when it comes to these players being sent down? I mean, does it mean anything to you right now? Like, would you, if you had rankings, would you be downgrading like Savale or Police Act right now?

No, no, I wouldn't. The only thing I can think is maybe, you know, the, the owners and the players came to an agreement last night, and we'll talk about that shortly and kind of what it means. but one of the things that it means is that the MLB is giving an advance of $170 million to the players right now, and it's kind of being tiered based on like service time and where you are. So maybe it's something that like certain guys, you know, when they're in the minors, will get less. I don't quite know or maybe they just, you know, it's probably just a bookkeeping thing, I would imagine. And, you know, one thing to keep in mind with this is when the season does start, you know, right now they're hoping for June 1st, it sounds like, with July 1st as kind of the last possible date, I think, was what was reported that they could start. We're probably going to see 29-man rosters or possibly even 30-man rosters for at least the first month.

And so there's going to be a lot more room for guys like that who might be on the fringe to get a chance, establish themselves. And I would bet we're going to see a lot of six-man rotation. early on. Yeah, I think that's fair. And go head on over to cbsports.com. And I put out my sleepers, breakouts, and bust 1.0 when I joined the team the other day. And Aaron Savale was one of my breakouts. I see a lot of Mike Soroka in his minor league numbers, someone who gets a lot of ground balls,

someone who has good command. It doesn't get a ton of strikeouts, but I think that he has Mike Soroka type upsides. So you go check out why I like Aaron Savale this upcoming season. But Chris, you mentioned that. There was a report that we are expected to see, you know, 29 or 30-man rosters for the first month of the season. That was a report from Bob Nightingale of USA Today. And we do have a few questions coming later on in the show, some emails regarding, you know, roster expansion and how that can kind of change things early on in the season. Scott, is there anything to take away from this at this point?

I mean, the fact that we're going to see expanded rosters. I mean, they're talking about playing a ton of double-headers early on in the season. So I think something like this just kind of falls in line with that as well. Yeah, and so it would be partly because of them having to condense the schedule and partly because of them having to shorten the second spring training. So pitchers would be most affected, like Chris said, especially if there's a doubleheader, a weak scenario, you're talking six-man rotations, basically. And even if the doubleheaders are more spread out than that, likely six-man rotations till, pitchers get fully stretched out. And that'll vary to some degree, pitcher to pitcher, I'm sure.

I'm like some of those established veterans who could roll out of bed and throw seven innings. Maybe they'll be doing it from the get-go. I don't know. But the pitchers that are handled more cautiously might struggle to go five innings at first. So that would be probably the biggest impact. But, you know, there's going to be more days off for everybody.

They're, the rosters, teams are going to be making full use of those expanded rosters would be the easiest way to sum it up. And one other thing that they've talked about is currently there's a rule in the CBA that you cannot play more than 20 games, 20 days in a row without a day off. They are talking about waiving that rule. So that's something else to keep in mind is not only will they, you know, obviously be more double-headers, but there could just be fewer days off. in general. So it's going to have a significant impact whenever the season does start. Yeah, I mean, that can impact injuries, right? I mean, guys that are injury prone. I mean, we spoke about the Yankees just the other day. We talk about the Yankees every day, unfortunately. I'm sorry, I keep bringing up the Yankees. But look, I watched them very closely.

Aaron Judge, John Carlos Stanton, these are guys that, you know, have been injury prone in the past couple of years. So again, if they're waiving something like that, and we're playing that many games in a row that we could see, you know, potentially more injury risk as well, or the other side of that is we'll just see them, you know, more days off. We'll see teams that have depth like that with the Yankees, Miguel And Duhar potentially getting more in the lineup, and Clint Frazier and Mike Talkman and a bunch of names like that as well. The last news I want to.

Like the Yankees, a team like the Ray's. They're especially well equipped to handle this. And, you know, that what we think of as a detriment in fantasy might actually be a benefit for that stretch of the season when it seems like players do need more days off because the players that are playing instead are actually good in those cases. So it's going to be different. It's probably going to be less different than it sounds right now. When you're in the moment, it's probably going to feel pretty natural and normal.

But yeah, it's going to be different. Hey, doubleheaders, that means we have more day baseball, which I am all for because I love day baseball. I think most people would agree on that. We normally don't get it outside of a random Monday, a lot of Wednesdays, obviously weekends as well. But if we get more day baseball out of it, I'm in favor of that. The last news item I wanted to mention was Willie Calhoun was cleared for baseball activities after fracturing his jaw. We all remember the 95 mile per hour fastball he took off the face from Julio Urius. And obviously that was very unfortunate.

But it seems like, you know, there are a few players that benefited from the season being delayed. and Willie Calhoun is one of those. So he's someone that I like a ton this year as well. So shout out to Willie Calhoun. It seems like he's going to be good to go. I wanted to jump into ADP rounds 19 through 21. Kind of put a bow on this. I know that you guys have been talking about this for weeks now.

And Chris Towers has a great article over at CBSports.com where he kind of highlights his favorite picks from each round in fantasy baseball this season. So I wanted to do rounds 19 through 21. So we'll start things off with round 19. and those are picks 217 through 228, according to Fantasy Pro's ADP. The players you're looking at there. Aristides Sikino, Colton Wong, Avicayel Garcia, Joey Lucchese, Eryl, Erychella, Eric Hosmer, Yadier Molina, Nick Senzel, Alex Verdugo, Jock, Jock Peterson, Andrew McCutcheon, and Hunter Renfro. Chris, who are your favorite and least favorite picks from round 19?

I, you know, when I wrote this column, the ADP has changed since then, but I really like Alex Verdugo. And shockingly, and I've talked about it a few times on the podcast, I like Eric Hosmer this year. It feels weird, but he is someone who I've never doubted has the ability to be a very good hitter and has even shown from time to time that he is a very good hitter. He's always really good with runners on base. makes a lot of contact, hits the ball hard, but as he said in a piece to the Atlantic, I hit the ball hard and I hit it into the ground, and that's not where production comes from. So he's actually talking about trying to hit the ball in the air for the first time ever. You know, he had been stubborn about, you know, why would I change what's made me successful?

Well, you haven't been very successful the last couple of years, Eric. And if he starts trying to hit the ball in the air, I think there really is potential for him to become a very, very good fantasy option. And then Alex Verdugo, I just think, I don't think he's swung a bat yet. Maybe he has by now. But I just think his skill set, if he's healthy, is so perfectly tailored to Fenway Park.

It's tough for left-handed hitters to hit for power there. And he doesn't have a ton of natural power to begin with. But what he is is just a grade A great hitter. And Fenway Park boosts Babbip as much as any park in baseball except for course field. And I think he could be a consistent batting title contender playing half his games in Fenway Park.

I think you're looking at if he's ready to go for this season and has an everyday job, you're looking at, I think, one of the best bets to hit 300 in baseball. I can't believe going back to Eric Cosmer,

Chris Towers just said he always hits well with runners on base. He does. It's a thing. What is this? He has, you know, most hitters actually do hit better with runners on base. That's just, it's harder to pitch with runners on base.

Most pitchers aren't as comfortable pitching out of the stretch. But he has more than most hitters, even, a sustained track record of success. And that's why despite, you know, what do you have, 16 home runs last year? 22. He had 99 rubies. Yeah, that's the thing. He drives in a lot of runs, even when the rest of the production. doesn't look that good.

In his case, and this is kind of the case for Jose Abraeu, too. I think he could look a lot like Jose Abraeu if he hits the ball in the air more. I think he's a better hitter in terms of the skill set. Chris Towers, believer in the clutch gene. Exactly. Come full circle here.

Chris can develop like the new stat, the clutch stat for baseball players. I mean, there might even be a thing already. I'm not even sure. There definitely are different versions of clutch, but usually it's not super predictive and it fluctuates year to year. That's why I'm looking to just his career. I think it's like a 70 point OPS gap or something.

It's well outside the realm of the just normal variance. Scott, did you have something on round 19? Oh, yeah. There are a couple players here I love. The biggest is probably the player I draft most consistently of all. including in our draft just last night, which was the Dynasty startup mock. So a little different.

That one's a little different. But certainly in redraft leagues, Gio Orchella is my, it's got to be my most drafted player. I can only think of all the mock drafts we've done. I can only, and all the real drafts I've done, for that matter. I can only think of one league where I didn't take Gior Shella.

He looks like a great A hitter. And look, he always made contact at a great rate. It's just he had no power. But he adjusted his swing last year. He got his lower body involved more. And obviously the power production shot way, way up. He seems like a very safe bet for a plus batting average. I'm not going quite as far as to say a 300 average,

but I am kind of expecting him to hit 300. he's such a like it doesn't even seem like with Miguel and Ejahar coming back it doesn't even seem like a question who's the starter there it's Urchella he's so much better as a defender he

is because he makes such contact and is going to bat behind a lot of high on base guys I expect a lot of RBI production I'm hopeful that he hits like 300 with 25 homers and 100 RBI and that lineup I don't think that's I don't think that's far-fetched at all.

And the cost is basically nothing. Yeah, and there was a report recently that he's definitely entrenched as a starting third basement going into the season whenever it does begin. It seems like they've really kind of moved on from Miguel Anduhar in that role. They're going to try and get Andahar in the outfield, potentially some days at D.H. First base as well as an option if they want to give Luke Voigt a day off here and there. So you're going to have to defend Gio or Shell a little bit later on in the show as well, Scott, because we have an email regarding some Yankees players this upcoming season.

But we'll get into that later on. My favorite pick in this range is, and I didn't expect this to turn us like the Nick Senzel show, but we have a lot of questions about Nick Senzel. And he just to me represents a ton of upside. Where kind of similar to, I guess, the point that you've made about Garrett Hampson, Scott, is that you don't really know about the playing time right now, but I think in terms of the prospect pedigree and what we saw him do last year, just in the ballpark in that lineup that he does have big upside,

especially where he's going right now. So Nick Senzel is one that I do like in this range and someone who I will be staying away from, his teammate, Aristides Aquino, I just, I worry more about him. He just has the options. And we saw kind of the holes in the swing later in the season in September as well, lots of strikeouts there as well. Round 20, I want to move on to round 20 here.

Picks 229 through 240. You're looking at Luis Arias, Ryan Yarbrote, Joe Adele. Starling Castro, Josh James, Michael Chavis, AJ Puck, Horheil Farrow, Nomar Mazzara, Dakota Hudson, Rugnett Odore, and John Gray. I'm sure if Adam was here, he'd talk all about Nomar Mizarra. I've heard him mention his name a ton here. But Chris, your favorite and least favorite picks potentially in round 20. Can we say the favorite at the same time, Chris?

Yeah, yeah, I think we're on the same page. Three, two, one. Horny L. Fart. Josh James. No, it's Josh James. It's Josh James and AJ Puck for me. Two incredibly high-end pitchers, pitching talents, at least. You know, both have very similar concerns about their ability to limit the walks, but, you know, you could be looking at two of the best strikeout pitchers in baseball on a perning basis between Josh James and AJ Puck. So I just, I love the potential there. This is a, this is a range where I pick a lot of pitchers. There's a lot of guys after 200. with huge potential who I like drafting and Josh James and AJ Pucker at or near the top of that list. Though they're not Mitch Keller. Is that the same for you?

Oh yeah. I like Puck too, but I like James even more because I feel like I feel like he has a plan for dialing back the walks and I trust the Astros

development system. I understand They had some changes made at the top, but, you know, obviously it goes much deeper than just the manager and the general manager, and it's not like they cleaned house. You know, they got a lot of the same people there running things. So he made it a mechanical adjustment that has him more in line to the plate. His K-per-9 last year, I mean, he's already semi-proven at the major league level, right, with 14.7K per 9. puck has a ton of upside especially with those strikeouts but he's kind of a step down on the sleeper a rung lower on the sleeper ladder for me than Josh James who yeah man he could be he could be

outrageous with those strikeouts and of course tons of win potential to pitching for the astros yeah there was a story the past couple years that he was dealing with sleep apnea and he figured that out and it's kind of helped his ability to, you know, reach back and increase the velocity and potentially increases stamina and go deeper into games if he were used as a starting pitcher. And it looks like that's going to be the case here with the Houston Astros. But yeah, last year, 16% swinging strike rate. So I agree with that when it comes to Josh James. I think he has a ton of upside in this range. I'll throw the name out there. I feel like everyone's probably been burned by him at some point. And, you know, feel free to boo me if you guys have been

burned by him at some point. But Rognette O'Dore, last year had 30 plus homers and double-digit stolen bases. There were only 12 players in baseball that did that. Ronald Acuna, Christian Yellich, Trevor Story, Francisco Lindor, Cody Bellinger, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Mike Trout, Austin Meadows, Marcus Semyon, Kettle Marte, and Rugnette Odore. So he was in that group. And I know that the batting average fluctuates, and he could be a real drain on that. But if you look at his yearly production, it's an even year. In even years, he actually performs better in batting average. I don't know how predictive that is.

Oh, man. Frank is an even odd guy. But his batting average has fluctuated, and I think if he can just get it up around, you know, 240, if he gets it to 250 and comes anywhere close to that, you know, 30 home runs and double-digit steals, at this point in round 20, I think that there's massive upside there. And my least favorite pick is probably Luis Horatius.

He's just empty batting average, which if that's what you need, at this point in a roto draft, it's fine, but he's just not really going to give you anything else, in my opinion. Round 21, picks 241 through 252. You're looking at Aaron Savale, C.J. Cron, Joey Votto, Anthony DiScliffeani, Daniel Murphy, David Peralta, Adrian Houser, Seth Lugo, Mitch Keller, Buster Posey, Ryan Braun, and Michael Kopeck. Chris, who is your favorite pick going in round 21? I mean, you guys know what it is. Oh, it's Mitch Keller. Of course, it's Mitch Keller. I also like Michael Copac a lot. And I find myself drafting Buster Posey quite a bit this year. And I've talked a ton about Mitch Keller and Michael Copac there. Top prospects or in Mitch Keller's case, a recent top prospect who exhausted his prospect eligibility last season. I believe in the stuff for both of them in Keller's case, especially. The slider and curveball were just exceptional at the major league level and his fastball got crushed. And he's already talked about how the you know, let's call it the Yvonne Nova approach that the pirates had him on, just didn't work.

He was too predictable. He relied too much on his fastball. You know, Tyler Glass now has also talked a lot about how the Pirates approach. You know, he put it a little nicer than this, but basically the Pirates approach to pitching held him back. That was why he couldn't figure it out until he got to the raise. The Pirates have a new more analytically inclined pitching coach, and I think they're going to have a plan for Kenler and it's going to get the most out of his stuff, it wouldn't shock me if we're talking about him as a top 20 pick next year at starting pitcher. Top 20 pick, I was about to say.

I mean, that'd be like a top 40 pick. I could see a top 20 starting pitcher. Yeah, I think the upside is if that's possible. I could see, you know, he's not going to be as good as Tyler Glass now was last year, but I could see that kind of leap. I think there's a similar talent level there. Scott White, who do you like going in this range in round 21? well i do have Mitch Keller as a sleeper also but the one i find myself drafting even more is

Adrian hauser of the brewers who just in his he spent part of last year in relief right the numbers were pretty good but a lot of it was in relief he did make 18 starts his final 12 appearances were all starts and in them he had a 328 ERA a 109 whip 9.9 K for nine. Pretty good, right? They were short starts by and large, not the kind that are going to make for a lot of fantasy impact,

but he was transitioning from the bullpen. I trust that'll be better this time around. And I trust in the skill sets, in the skill set underneath those numbers, specifically how good he is, inducing ground balls? And when you're able to induce ground balls at the rate of like a Marcus Stroman,

and you're striking out more than a batter per inning. Like that is, that gives you a chance to go places when the name of the game for those on the mound is keeping the ball in the park. I mean, those are, those are the best two ways of doing it, missing bats outright, and then putting the ball on the ground when they do make contact. Yeah, I actually love this range as well.

I'm all in on Mitch Keller. I like Adrian Houser as well. I've drafted a few shares of him already. Aaron Savala, I mentioned somebody that I like. CJ Crone was someone I had as a sleeper in my sleeper's article as well, but someone who I do not like going in this range is Ryan Braun. I know that typically he just outperforms his draft value every single year. We're kind of waiting for Ryan Braun to fall off.

But I think with the signing of Ivisail Garcia and with Justin Smoke coming in as well, they've talked about Ryan Braun seeing less playing time, not playing as much in the outfield, potentially sometimes. time at first base, but I just don't think that he's going to get the type of that bats that we've seen in years past. So I'm going to be skipping on Ryan Braun this upcoming season. I don't know in what world you think it makes sense to tell the good people listening to the fantasy baseball today podcast that they should draft Ruegnett-Odor instead of Ryan Braun. Ridiculous, I say. Ridiculous.

Have you been burned by Rugnett-Odor before, Chris? Is that why? No, I just think Ryan Brons better. like Rune-Edador is actively going to hurt your batting average. Ryan Braun has been 20 homers or more and 11 stolen bases each of the last two seasons. He had 17 homers and 104 games in 2017. Has been a helpful batting average with 2.85 last year. Rune-Hedador hit 205. Rune-A-Dadador could single, and part of the problem is he does play every day.

Rune-edador could single-handedly, and he never walks. Actually, he did walk a little more last year. And he nearly lost his job last year. And there's certainly a scenario where that happens again, for real this year. Braun over Odor. He keeps hitting 200. But, I mean, look, the batting average has fluctuated. You're right.

Look, it's 205. I can't defend it. It was god off last year. It was bad. And the year before that, it was 253, 2017 for Odor, 204. And then in 2016, 271. So again, like the batting average has fluctuated all over the place. His Babbib has also fluctuated.

He's been trying to lift the ball a little bit too much. I think that's been a huge issue for Routonet Odor. But again, it's just someone that can give you that type of pop with stolen bases. I understand Ryan Braun, he's been around 20 and 10. I just see the playing time really dipping down this year. And maybe I'm wrong about that. But I think bringing in at Vissail Garcia and having Justin Smoke at first base, I tend to lean on Ryan Braun.

be the year that we start to see him play significantly less than we have seen in the past. No, I'm with you on Braun with the playing time, just because, like, we know they want Avi Sal Garcia to play. Avicayle Garcia to play. And so it means Ryan Braun is going to have to be comfortable at first base when they also sign Justin Smoke, just in case he's not. So, yeah, that could be an issue. It's, he's talked about it maybe being his last season, heading, heading into retirement possibly so he might i could see him having more of a ceremonial role just because of that like playing out the string not really in it to win it so much anymore uh but yeah i can't so yeah i i i have no love left for rubnetodore i don't he's just i don't i don't want it to sound like a sour

grapes thing where he's burned me too many times i just think he's not good he's had ample opportunity to show whether he is or not. He can hit a lot of home runs, I guess, by second base standards. But at what cost? Yeah, at what cost. And even if you want to point to, oh, look how strong he finished last year, 261 batting, average nine home runs in September. Boy, he hit 264 with eight home runs in July.

You know what, he hit the month in between September and July? 144 with three home runs. He'll fake you out with these hot stretches where you think, oh, he's figured it out. But no, he hasn't. Rognetto door. Come on. He's Rognetto door and Scott is out on him. Scott, it sounds like, is also out on Ryan Braun as well. But I did mention that we want to do a mailback today.

We want to get into as many emails as possible. And before we start to answer the fantasy-related questions, I got this one from Jason Lawrence. He sent in a special request yesterday. Dear Terrence, postage, time, and food. What's going on there? Stamps. Right.

I think. Yeah. That would make sense. Can you make a drop of Chris's line? You guys are going to make fun of me for one word I mispronunciate from today's pod. This came in yesterday. Comedy gold. So I figured out how to use this program that I'm currently working with. And here you go, Chris. Please don't hate me. Mispronunciate. Miss pronunciate. I don't think that's a real word, Chris. That's my, that's, of course, it was intentional. I was trying to be funny. And it was my homage. to the great Homer Simpson line. What, me fail English? That's unpopular.

It's exactly what I was going for. Wait, was that a joke? You saying it was a Homer Simpson line? Yes, Scott. Your joke? You don't land the joke. It doesn't sound like a joke because you say it with the same tone as a non-joke.

We need a drop for the Simpsons guy saying that's the joke. Because that's the joke, Scott. The joke is that there isn't a joke. If nobody gets your jokes, then they're not really jokes. I think they're funny. They're Chris Towers inside jokes. He's laughing inside of his head.

Yeah, I love inside jokes. I'd like to be a part of my one day. He's laughing at all of us is the thing. Like, nobody gets it, but, you know. Look, you got to keep yourself entertained. You got to look out for number one. I'm not trying to make Scott White laugh. Trying to make Chris Towers laugh.

As long as Chris, towers can make himself laugh. We will always have... Mispronciate. And why did he say that? Because D.D. Gregorius is a Deadpool hitter. So there you go. That's what we have here on fantasy baseball today. Did you mean to call him a Deadpool hitter?

Reveal yourself, Chris. Do you like envisioning him in red and black spandex? That's just how I say the word. Okay. Are we going to put everyone... Okay, I have to ask. Are we going to put everyone on trial here? Are we going to talk? Are we going to, are we going to, we're going to spend a whole segment of the show?

talking about Scott White, talking slow, and Frank, having hair and Adam Azer, you know, not being here, having bad takes, which, yeah, we talk about that probably more than any other topic, even including fantasy baseball. So maybe, maybe that's not the best argument. Yeah, I'm happy you brought up the hair today because I did not put the product in because I knew that Adam Azer wasn't going to be here. So I didn't need to impress Adam Azer. I mean, I should probably try to still impress you guys. But yeah, send in some sound bites. If you want some more stuff, I'll try to find a way to make those work. But I do want to get into some of the emails that we have here as well. Fantasy Baseball at

CBSI.com. This one comes from the Belfast Cowboy in America. This one was from Apple Podcast. Reminder to subscribe and leave a five-star review. And if you ask a question there, we will read it on air. And he mentioned during the episode with Ariel Cohen that Ariel said something that forced me to finally ask this question. Does a high babbib always mean the batterer? got lucky? Or can that also indicate that the batter follows the advice of we, Willie Keller, who I 100% had to look up as a result of this email from this review, rather, and is able to hit him where they ain't. In retrospect, Rod Carew's high babbip seems to indicate that he was just a superior hitter for average, and isn't it possible that Tim Anderson is just a great hitter and

not necessarily lucky? Thanks for helping me win my league, the last. last two years. We will, Willie Keller played from 1892 to 1910. He was a 341 hitter and he hit 424 back in 1897. So, Scott, allow me.

That Tim Anderson is just a great hitter and not just lucky. Before I get into Tim Anderson specifically, allow me just to say this right now. I believe the sun is setting on BABIP analysis. I think we

know a lot more now than during Babib's heyday when the presumption was that everyone defaults to around a 300 Babib. That's obviously not true. It depends on the quality of the contact, the angle of the contact. There's a lot of, there's a lot more information at our disposal now that can tell us more precisely about what a hitter should be hitting than just what is batting averages on balls and play. So I rarely use it anymore.

occasionally I'll bring it up but that's that's hardly the go-to that it used to be for me and I think that's going to be true for for more or less everybody pretty soon. In terms of Tim Anderson, he You know, you don't even really need to look that closely at the stats to tell you He didn't profile as a 336 hitter or whatever it was just because nobody does, right? He did profiles about a $290-ish hitter. And maybe he could be that good again. Obviously, he doesn't have a great track record of that,

but I know he made some adjustments, particularly with how he handles off-speed pitches, I think. New timing mechanism that really helped him out in that regard. So I'm cautiously optimistic he can maintain it. I'm not drafting him as if he's going to maintain it. I would rather just get him at a discount. especially since it seems like nobody's drafting him and near the level he performed last year. So I don't think I'm as high on Tim Anderson as like Chris is.

I think Chris is close to being a full-fledged believer. I'm skeptical, but I'm not, I'm open-minded to the possibility this is more or less who he is now. Again, not the 330 hitter, but maybe about a 300 hitter. Yeah, and I'll just add that, you know, the batted ball data that we have from baseball Balsavant and from Stacast and then the stuff that you find on fan graphs, you know, from sports info solutions, line drive percentage, hard hit, all that stuff. It's really valuable. It is.

I just, I will say that I think sometimes they can overcomplicate things. And when it comes to BABIP specifically, I think we have a really good way to figure out if a player was quote unquote lucky or unlucky. And really lucky and unlucky, it's variance. Nobody's ever going to play to their true talent level every single year except for Mike Trapp. He has a 345 career Babbat. Yohan Mankata has a 369 career Babbat, I believe. So both of them were at or above 400 in Babbitt last season.

So you know that's not going to work. They're not going to be that again. But the, you know, regress them towards 300, regress them to the league average, that doesn't work either. There are a lot of factors that go into Babbitt. most specifically, the ability of a hitter to hit the ball hard, the ability of a hitter to not be susceptible to shifts. That's something that can consistently cause players to underperform their Babbat. Speed really helps because you're going to beat out.

You know, when we're talking about a 400 Babbat versus like a 370 Babbup, you're looking at, what is it, two hits over the course, three hits over the course of a season. It's probably a little bit higher than that. I'm trying to do the math in my head and it's not working because I'm also trying to speak. Yeah, your head's different now, too. That's true. The top of my head is, it's much lower. Yeah.

But that is to say, and your park, the park that you play in also plays a significant factor in that. Course Field dramatically boosts Babbitt. Fenway Park does as well. Those are just immutable facts about the way those parks play unless they change something. And so you have to look at a variety of factors, but you usually won't go wrong. looking at what a hitter has done in his career, especially if they have over 1,500 plate appearances, let's say, and regressing towards that. So, Tim Anderson has a 345 Babbup in 2,200 plate appearances. You should probably expect he'll be at 245, a 345 with a range of maybe 20 points on each side.

That's the most likely outcome. Yeah, and I think my main point here is that not every Babbup is created equally. You need context, right? So you have to look at the batted ball data and see if a player has changed something than what they've done before. And that was the case with Tim Anderson. Like his BAB spiked last year, but it was a result of a career high, 23.8% line drive rate. His previous high was 20.8%. He also changed his hit distribution.

His first three seasons. He pulled the ball around 43% of the time. Last year, his pull rate dropped to 33%. He opted to hit the ball up the middle more and to the opposite field. that kind of, you know, that's similar to what we heard in the original question, where he was basically just hitting it where the defenders weren't. So, you know, improving his bat control and the ability to kind of spray the ball where he wanted it to go.

And Stackcast really supports the gains that he made. His expected batting average was 294. His previous high was 262. So if you look at his previous Babbitt, something you mentioned, Chris, and in the minor leagues, Tim Anderson is someone who typically has had a higher Babbitt. We know that he's fast. So when he hits the ball on the ground, sometimes he can, you know, beat those out. And we usually see higher bad bips from guys that are fast that make solid contact,

similar to his teammate in Yohan Moncada. So I thought that was a really good example that you brought up. And I actually like both of these guys a lot. So I'm probably just going to change my fandom. I think I'm just a White Sox fan now because I like Tim Anderson. I like Y'amankata. It's obvious I like Jose Abraeu. So I'm a White Sox fan now, guys.

Thank you. That's what I did last year with the Padres. I think it'll help the impression you make on our audience if you're a White Sox fan instead of a Yankees fan I think that'll play better. All right, so I've just officially changed that. I'm now a White Sox fan. So let's go White Sox.

All right. Next question we have here, hi, Ricky, Dave, and Harry and the dot, dot, dot. Does anyone know what this is? Ricky Dave and Harry? Henderson's. Harry and the Henderson's. Yeah, I'm going to have to do a better job of this research. because, yeah, you guys have years of experience, and I'm a little bit far behind here.

He asked about, this is from Teter, he asks about Nick Senzel, any indication that Senzel improves on his 24.4% K rate, Scott had him ranked 200 overall in the draft kit. What's the upside? My lead counts hitter K's. Would you bump him down? If so, is there someone with similar upside who might be a better bet? Again, that is Nick Senzel. So Nick Senzel is kind of the blind faith pick, I feel like right now, because, oh, by and large, he was disappointing as a rookie. He disappointed in a number of areas. Strikeout rate was one of them in terms of how much he elevated the ball.

You know, didn't look like he had much of a power profile there. And yet, he was this super-hyped prospect who was drafted very high overall and compared to Scott Rowland from the first day. he joined the organization. So, like, you're trusting in the pedigree if you're taking Senzel and you're almost not even paying attention to what he did last year, which is, it works out a lot of times.

I mean, that's kind of the approach you were supposed to take with Raphael Devers heading into last year and look how that went. I mean, players get better when the talent is there. Oftentimes, they don't always, of course. One key distinction there.

It's too early to judge. One key distinction between Nick Senzal and Raphael Devers, of course. is Devers was much less of a finished product than Senzel should be at least. He's 24 or 25 this year. So, you know, that's a key distinction. This will be his age 25 season. He turns age 25, June 29th.

The thing that gives me pause is the strikeout rate in AAA was 22.5%. Yeah, that's obviously you would expect someone to get a little bit worse as they move through the minor league system. But, you know, that's probably... That AAA was what? 22.5% overall. Oh, between 2018 and 29. It was crazy high.

He got 38 played appearances in 2019. It was 34.2. The year before, it was 20.2. So I don't know what was going on that little bit of time he saw at AAA last year where it was just crazy high. He's also just a hard player to look at the numbers and try to figure out who he is. He's never played more than 60. The 104 games he played in the majors last year are the most he's ever played at

any level in professional baseball. So it's really hard to know, uh, what to make of that. A lot of health issues. He's had bouts with vertigo. So he's, he, he's old, but he has, he doesn't actually have a lot of professional experience yet. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's all fair. He's dealt with a ton of injuries. He's actually coming off, I believe, a torn labrum. So the delay in the season here actually helps him because he, you know, he could still rest up and, uh, ramp up his rehab as we get closer to the start of the season. So this is something that helps him. But to answer the question about the strikeouts,

I mean, his career strikeout rate in the minors was 24.5%. His strikeout rate in the majors last year was 24.4%. So you don't normally see it kind of translate that equally from the minors to the majors, but that was no way his minor league career minor league strikeout rate is 24%. I'm looking at the breakdown year by year. He's usually been at under 20%. No, 24% in AAA. Over the course of his minor career, it's a little under 20%.

Okay. Yeah, that looks more right. I'm not sure why I can't find that quickly. But he was a low strikeout guy. I'm just doing the math in my head, Scott. Once I'm not talking, it's real easy to do 203 divided by 1028. I know that's less than 20%. All right, so I just got schooled in math by Chris Towers.

But yeah, I don't think that the strikeout rate is going to approve all that much when it comes to Senzel. but he is someone that I think if you just kind of take that approach of the blind faith again and a prospect, it wouldn't surprise me that in a full season, if he got to 2020, 20 home runs, 20 stolen bases, it certainly would not surprise me. He ranked in the, I believe it was 96 percentile last season in sprint speed as well, good ballpark, the pedigree. It just comes down to whether or not he could stay healthy and he could stay on the field. I think if he does those things for where he's going, he's someone that does have pretty high upside in that range in terms of his ADP.

But I want to move on to another question here. This one comes from Matt. How would you rank the following players from a keeper perspective in a league that also includes walks, Fernando Tatis, Jr., Bobachette, and Kestin Heera. Just like I would rank them for 2020, Fernando Tatis, Kestanhira, Boba Chet. I agree. Yeah, I agree with that as well. They're all between like a 7 and 8% walk rate, so I don't think that that really changes things all that much. And even in a keeper league, obviously Fernando Tatis is still super young.

so I have a Tatez, Heera, and Bo Bichet as well. This next one comes from John from Minneapolis, and he's in a 12-team NL-only 5-5-Roto League, and he's going deep here. Any thoughts on Rymel Tapia, Yonathan Diaz, those are two outfielders for the Colorado Rockies, and then Lane Thomas, who is an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. He has them each for $10.

Should I keep any at that price, or potentially Daza or Thomas over Joey Bowdo. Bart in a rookie spot. He keeps 13 players with two rookies. He could keep all the players above and still not have 13 keepers. His other rookie is McKenzie Gore. So Tapia, Dazza, and Lane Thomas, and would you keep any of those over Joey Bart as well? For $10?

Is this a 24 team in L-only league? My gosh. Now, those sound like $1 players, even in NL only, don't they? And you're not keeping any of them over Joey Bart. No, you're not. Right. I agree with that. I think what it comes down to is some of the,

some of the prices are probably going to be inflated, Scott, because it's a keeper league, because you probably have some players that are being kept for less, so other players are going to be inflated. But, yeah, even at $10, it does seem like a lot, Scott. You're talking about low-impact players with questionable, like playing time situations, not expected to get consistent playing time either.

So, no, no, these are, this is not where. your $10 should go. Yeah, I'm all right with that. I agree. I mean, look, Tapia, I think, has some upside. We've seen that in the past nine home runs, nine stolen bases last year. Daza, 318 hitter in the minors.

He has a 60 grade speed, which is his highest ranked tool. And then Lane Thomas, I mean, there's just a lot of names in the mix there in the Cardinals outfield, Dylan Carlson, Dexter Fowler, Harrison Bader still there, Tyler O'Neill.

So there are a lot of names there. So I'm in agreement here. $10 just seems like too much. for any of these guys. Next question comes from Matt and Milwaukee. Hey, Adam, Adam, Adam, and Adam. All right, so that seems appropriate, considering Adam has skipped out on today's show.

In reference to the Yankees, and this is where you need to defend your boy, Gio Orshella here, Scott. Why isn't there concern over the Carlos Beltron effect? Now, this wouldn't stop me from drafting Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, or Glaver Torres, but I'm totally out on Gio Orchella and Mike Talkman because last year with all the injuries, they seem to have a ton of these guys come out of nowhere,

and he's not ready to believe that these guys are the real deal. He thinks that they're kind of closer to like the Marwin Gonzalez's, and they were affected by Carlos Beltron being with the Yankees last year. He was a special advisor, and I don't know if you guys remember this quote, but it came from Alex Cora after the London series. Their attention to detail is phenomenal. I was joking with somebody that their biggest free agent act acquisition is Carlos Beltron. Wink. I know I know how it works. He's helping a lot. So obviously

there's implication that potentially Carlos Beltron was helping some of the Yankees hitters with some kind of, I don't know, scandal last year and helping players kind of do things that they've never done before. To that, you say what, Scott? I guess when push comes to shove, even if something was going on to the extent it was with the Astros in 2017 and maybe beyond. I'm just not confident it makes that big of a difference. I think pitch for pitch, maybe even game for game, it could. It could.

You could get a signal that lines up with the pitch just right and the batterer's able to put the right swing on it and it changes the outcome of a game. I don't think it would influence a season-long batting line that much. I don't. That's that's the biggest thing for me. But the other thing is these guys didn't quite come out of nowhere. Giorshella really came out of nowhere. Certainly heard of Urshella and Tockeman before. They were prospects on some level.

But Gio Orchella had like a 705 minor league OPS. Okay. So do you disagree? Is that what you're saying? Are you just playing devil's advocate? I don't know why Gio Orchella got so much better last season. Have you not listened to me? I told you he changed his whole swing.

I, yeah. I will just say guys don't usually go from not being good at basically any level. I think he had one year in double A and AAA as like a 24 year old where he hit 18 homers. But like he was not just better than he had ever been, but like astronomically better.

Pun intended. Okay, Catel Marte. Like, this happens all the time. What do you mean guys never do this? But Catel Marte, like he had done it in the second half of 2018 to at least a certain extent. And he was a top 100. Where did it come before then?

He was a top 100 prospect. Jose Urchella was not. Josh Donaldson. Mitch Hanaker. He happens all the time. What are you talking about? Yeah, not to this extent. Okay.

All right. I don't know. Maybe. Urchella was good enough to be named the Indian starting third baseman as a rookie. Like, it's not like he was. some super scrub. He was a prospect. He wasn't like a Nixenzel level prospect,

but he was a somebody. All right. So look, I tend to lean closer with Scott. It has nothing to do with the Yankees. I'm a White Sox fan now, by the way. He did improve his average exit velocity last year. His previous high was 87. Last year was 90.5 miles per hour.

I know that we kind of have seen the average exit velocity kind of spike all the way across baseball, but that is a massive improvement. So whatever he was doing, seeing the ball better, changing his swing, he was barreling up the ball more consistently and hitting the ball harder than ever before. His expected batting average was 294 compared to his average, which was 314. So the expected 294, it's still pretty good. That's in the top 8% of baseball last season.

So I tend to lean closer to Scott here in terms of Gio Orchella. And obviously, the lineup context helps a ton. I mean, he's going to have so many RBI opportunities. But let's move on here. Samarja left and baby Anything Samarja left and baby Jeff left? I don't know what Jeff left is

but there's a puppet called baby Jeff that that guy does I can't remember his name The puppet guy? Yeah the puppet guy You know the puppet guy. Jeff Dunham. Jeff Dunham. He has a baby Jeff. I don't know what Jeff left is or left Jeff. All right. Well this one comes from CJ and Canada and it's a two

partner. He's in an A.O only Roto League with only seven pitcher spots. Three RPs, three relief pitchers, four starting pitchers. What are your thoughts on using three spots on the raised bullpen? Nick Anderson, Diego Castillo, and Jose Alvarado to ensure saves and decent K numbers. Would you recommend this for another team? Or would you just do it with the Tampa Bay race? Or would you not do it at all? I think the Yankees are probably a better option. I guess a roll of Chapman costs more. But they have more really good pitchers, I think. I doubt in an AL-only context, Chapman's going to cost that much more just because there's like a range that All-Closer seemed to go for like 15 to 22.

I don't know. I'm obviously not talking about a keeper context there, but Anderson's going to go for a lot in an AL-only league. I'm not sure that, I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess I'm fine with it. You'd be fine with it. Yeah, Nick Anderson was ridiculous last year.

41.7% strikeout rate, 19% swinging strike rate. Those were second among relievers behind only Josh Hader. Diego Castillo's been very solid two years in a row. His major league career 3.30 ERA, 111-11 whip, 146 strikeouts, and 125 in a third-endings pitch. Jose Alvarado seems to be the wild card here. He has filthy stuff. We've all seen the gifts of the movement on his pitches. But over eight walks per nine last year, he really kind of bottomed out.

I know that he was dealing with some stuff with his family off the field where he was trying to help them get to the United States so that it might have affected his performance on the field. But yeah, I think that this is something that you could do in an ale only. I think it's viable. I'll throw, not that they're going to be great, but I'll throw the mariners out there just for cheap. I mean, if you get McGill and Yoshihirano and lock up their saves, I think that's a possibility. I don't know how great the ratios are going to be. But if you just wanted to say it.

Well, I'm not sure there's a great chance you're going to get a single good reliever there, even if you happen to corner saves. I mean, part of the calculus here is that, A, it's AL only. So there's an understanding that you're probably going to start some middle relievers where in a mixed league you probably won it. You're probably going to have to do that anyway. So if you're having those guys to help your ratios anyway, maybe you can get ones who can contribute to a save total as well,

especially if when there's no clear frontrunner, that closer comes for cheaper. I guess what I was trying to say originally is just maybe that one particular point is flawed. That just because Anderson isn't a for sure closer doesn't mean he's going to go cheaper than a true closer would. Jeff to the left is a poker game. Yeah, I just, I just Googled that as well. that's what it is. All right.

So potentially Jeff's there. The second part of CJ's question, assuming that there are more double-heder days, could this not lower the value of starting catchers? Almost no catcher plays both games of a double-heder unless they DH in the American League or pinch hit in game two. And I think that you can kind of say Gary Sanchez, Salvador Perez, Gizmani-Garndal might see some opportunities at designated hitter,

especially in the American League. but does that, will that affect how you view catchers if you play in an AL-only league? I don't know that it makes a big difference AL versus mixed. Correct me if you think otherwise, but I don't,

catchers sit so often anyway. There's just a handful who don't, and I think probably the handful who don't are going to be affected proportionally to the many who already do. Like I imagine it'll be a proportional thing we're kind of everybody's being equally affected by this, so I'm not really inclined to, to overthink it.

I think you could make an argument that, like, J.T. Mout Reaumoto might be impacted more just because so much of his, not so much of his value, he's very good anyway, but a portion of his value does come from, as he argued in his arbitration case, that he unsuccessfully managed, but that he plays. arbitration case. Well, this was like one of the rare, I think he actually publicly commented on it. And what he said was, I think he played like 145 games last year. And he routinely is among or at the league lead in games caught and games played for catchers.

That definitely impacts his value. It definitely improves his value. That edge is less likely to be here this year. All right, let's move into a little bit of a lightning round here where we'll only go through one answer for each of these questions. I'm still new to this. This one comes from Wilbert Matthews. I'm still new to much of this. In choosing starting pitchers, the quality start is really at the mercy of the manager. Is there currently a stat that measures a manager's propensity for the hook, say, an average inning, he removes his starter. Now, I haven't seen anything like this, Scott White. Is there any way to kind of measure this or do you just kind of look at which managers, I guess, let their pitchers go deepest into games? Well, Chris is kind of my go-to for newfangled stats. So I may not be the one to ask here, but I can say that Gabe Kapler is quite frustratingly on the record

for not liking his pitchers facing a lineup for the third time. And took it, in his earliest days with the Phillies, took it so far as to not even let Aaronola do that, which was especially frustrating. So he's one that I would watch out for with that. But I'd see it more as a state of development issue than a manager issue and that you can probably get a clearer sense of that from just where a pitcher is on his developmental curve.

Like until he gets to a point where he can do that, you can go that third time through the line. If you shouldn't trust him to do that. Yeah, you have to earn the trust. It ultimately, I think nearly all managers and even Gabe Kapler last year softened his stance as the year went off. You know, once a pitcher has proved. that he can do it. You know, the raise famously, you know, revolutionized, quote-unquote,

baseball by implementing the opener two years ago. And then last year, you know, they basically let Charlie Morton, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glass-Nall go as long as they could. Now, in the case of, you know, Glass-Now and Snell, that ended up not being all that long too often, but, you know, they're willing to do it. Even the Rays are willing to do it. So I, I, I think, you know, think it's more about the pitcher and the demonstrated ability to go deep into games and remain effective. Yeah, I think it just comes down to, you know, a team's roster construction. Like, you can look at managers, but, you know, Davy Martinez had been able to do it with the nationals, but that's also because he has Strasbourg and he has Scherzer and he has Patrick Corbyn.

Terry Francona, the Indians, they rank very highly in endings pitch every year, but that's because they had Kluber and Carrasco for so long. And now they have Clevenger and they have Shane Bieber as well. So I think it comes down to just who do they have on their team. So that's probably the easiest way to answer that. But watch out for teams that are more analytically driven, like Gabe Kepler with the San Francisco Giants now, probably not going to let his starting pitchers go all that deep into games.

Next up we have this one from Matt. Hey, David, Johnny, Roland, and Ted, I was, and that's a show. I don't know if you guys. Do you guys know who this is? No. It's the best show, guys. It's a show on Netflix. I don't, I'm not, it's so good.

Shitt's Creek. It is a phenomenal show. It's so good. But it's spelled S-C-H. On his third day. It's spelled S-C-H-I-G-P-E. Yeah, no, it's the family name. That's the town.

Yeah, no, I understand, but it's, uh... Yeah, just, just an eye position to be in here, but... The question is, I was thinking that because the season will be shortened, the team will have to go to expanded rotations. If that happens, starters would see less possible games because of five days rest, whereas hitters will probably still only see a game or two off a week. Would hitters values increase and close the gap on starters evaluation? There's a lot of thinking along these lines.

Part of it is, you know, pitchers already have a smaller number of chances to contribute. and any time you're making a sample smaller, there's more room for variation therein. And, you know, part of it's also, will the high-end pitchers have a big enough innings advantage over the low-end ones anymore, so maybe you should value hitters more because of that. I just, like, that kind of stuff just, I don't know.

It's a little too much for me to process. Maybe I'm just a little slower like that. I don't know. But I am. I think that makes it so. I am reluctant to make drastic changes along my pitcher versus hitter, how I value them relative to each other. Yeah, I just think it's hard to quantify to answer a question like this.

And I could see some veteran bats being affected. Someone like Edwin and Carnacione, who we spoke about yesterday, it wouldn't surprise me if they played doubleheaders. He's probably not going to be in the second game of that double header. You might even see the same thing out of Nelson Cruz. So I think that you could kind of, you know, pick both sides of the fence here. Like you can you can kind of see issues with starting pitchers, but you can see issues with some veteran hitters as well.

Sure. So I'll just throw that in there. This next one comes from Sam in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Dear Sean, Carlos, Roger, and Pat. Hmm. Anything? Sean, Carlos, Roger, and Pat. Those are Toronto Blue Jays.

Yeah. Pat Borders, Carlos Dogue. Sean Green and Roger Clemens. Very nice. Who is this year's draft? Damn, I nailed that. Is it Pat Henkin, though,

as opposed to Pat Borders? I don't know. One of those paths. Who in this year's draft could we pick up in the later rounds that could be a top three round pick next year and who in the earlier

rounds has the potential to be a first round selection? If you guys just have just a couple of names that you can throw out there. Senzel to me is someone who it wouldn't surprise me if we're talking about this guy as you know a top 40 player next year if he manages to go 20 20 and kind of hits his prospect pedigree. I'll also throw the name Ian Hap out there wouldn't surprise me if he kind of goes like 25 15 something like that with the Chicago Cubs if we were playing full season. Scott, you have any names there? Those were bolder picks than than I was thinking.

But okay. I'm kind of I'm kind of looking through the ADP right now to see if I can pick out anybody real quick. I mean, obviously, if Gavin Lux maximizes his potential, I don't even know if we're considering him late rounds. He's going outside the top 150 now. JD Davis is a guy, I think, has big upside if he just maintains what he did last year over a full season. I could see him becoming an early round type. What's the range we're talking about here, first three rounds? Yeah, I don't know.

It still seems like a stretch even for somebody like him. Garrett Hampson, we've talked about. If they're still going to be the same priority placed on stolen bases next year, I think his best case scenario makes him somebody we might consider in that range. Boo. Yeah. I'm sorry. There's not somebody who, I mean, obviously any prospect,

like Joe Adele could come up and pull a, who's the guy Jordan Alvarez next year and maybe we're talking about him in that level so Dylan Carlson maybe but yeah I don't know that's a that's a tough one it obviously

it's a tough thing to predict a breakout that big and if you could with any consistency you'd obviously be winning all the time as someone who's winning all the time I will just say Austin Riley Sam Hilliard and Luis Arias

outside of the top 300 Hilliard's a good one like obviously he could just turn out to be a nobody he could be sent to the minors a month that did the season and we never hear from him again considering these 26 already but

he could be what Ellis Berks was for the right probably not that good but he could be really good Ellis Berks had one of the best fantasy seasons of all times got calm down His batting average would never be as high as birds was that's best, but we don't need to get too deep into Ellisburg stats. I mean, we could. Yeah, I mean, look, we went into Tuffy Roads yesterday, so anything is possible.

Last question here comes from Pete with Cindergard out. Who has the most upside to pick up? We answered a question similar to this the other day, but maybe there's a player in this group that wasn't in the other group the other day. So Joe Musgrove, A.J. Puck, Mitch Keller, Miles Mikolas, Dallas Keikul, Jose Orchiti, and Josh James. If you guys just want to, who's your favorite of that group? Joe Mosgrove, Puck, Keller, Michaelis, Kekyll, Arkiti, and Josh James. Josh James. Mitch Kelly.

Chris? Mitch Keller over Joe Musgrove? I like both a lot. I think Mitch Keller has more upside. Chris, I'll just call you out. We did a draft last night. And I think you took Joe Musgrove over Mitch Keller. And then I took Mitch Keller and you got mad.

I was hoping that I was hoping that I could get both. And I wasn't sure. which one I could take first and who I would have to wait on. And you sniped me like four times because you were right after me coming back on the turn. And it were right before me coming back on the turn. And it was really frustrating and I hated it. I'm sorry. But either one you took, I was going to take the other one.

Yeah, there was no right answer there. We both loved the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation this year. All right, guys. So that was our mailbag show here for today. No Adam. Once again, he is already helping lose the trust of the listeners in me. Don't worry, he will be back. I promise you that.

I wish he was here today so that I could tell him that diehard is 100% a Christmas movie. So we will get into that at some point again as well. So for Chris Towers, for Scott White, I am Frank Stamphill. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great weekend. We will see you again on Monday.