Fantasy Baseball Today - Mailbag! Quality Starts, Life Before Statcast & More! (3/8 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 8, 2025

** HEADS UP THAT WE RECORDED THIS BEFORE THE GERRIT COLE NEWS ** Let's kick off this mailbag with Apple podcast review questions (2:32). ... Does strategy change in deeper H2H points leagues (8:25)? ... Is Tobias Myers worth a look (14:41)? ... Who are some RPaSPs in H2H leagues (17:08)? ... Are we fading pitching too much (20:13)? ... Is Alec Bohm undervalued in H2H points leagues (23:40)? ... Who are some targets in quality starts leagues (26:27)? ... What was Fantasy Baseball like before Statcast (29:20)? ... How balance floor and upside players (42:41)? ... Use SPaRPs over closers (50:16)? ... How to use high-end relievers in deeper Roto leagues (54:40)? ... We wrap up with NFBC bench construction (58:05). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Happy Saturday. Welcome into fantasy baseball today on March 8th.

I am Frank Stamphil, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we are answering your mailbag question. and let's get right into it. Do want to warn people that there's some kind of construction going on in my building right now. So if you hear some noise in the background, it might be a little bit annoying, but I'm going to try and... It sounds like machine gun fire. Sounds like, you know, you're coming to us from a war zone or something. But that is not the case.

I can assure all the listeners, he is safely in the room he normally broadcasts from. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into your mailbag questions. And we will start with Apple Podcast Review Questions. This one is from Nick Belcher, Dear Doug, Dave, and Orlando. The first place I went to was Orlando Hudson. And I don't know why.

That's probably not it, right? There are more prominent Orlando's in MLB history. I think he wrote in the question, at the bottom of the question, that these were Red Sox trade deadline acquisitions in 2004. Doug Mankavitch, Orlando Cabrera, and Dave Roberts. Yeah. Boom. Goes to down.

There you go. That's a good one. Yeah. Standard 5 by 5 category 10 team league. Keep Terrick Scoobel in round three. Keep Chris Sale in round 9. Keep Garrett Cole in round 13. You are keeping sale for sure.

It's just one. It's just one. Oh, just one? Okay. Sale in round nine. That's easy then. Scoobin 3 and Cole in 13 would have been more difficult. But I probably would have leaned Cole, but it would have been a tough one.

I agree. I think you're going with sale here. I'm in a similar boat in one of my leagues where I've got I think sale will be like $14 and I've got that doesn't matter but I'm trying to figure out like is sale for 14 enough of a discount given the concerns I have it probably is but I'm not 100% sure about how I feel about him I didn't want to just quickly if we have a little time to vamp I don't know if that okay Have you guys been paying attention to Garrickoll this spring? Yeah.

I mean, I'm interested in what's going on here. Okay. Because he's not throwing his slider, hardly at all. And today's Thursday's start, he threw it twice, through his cutter twice as well, has been leaning more on the change up. The velocity's been more or less fine. He averaged 95.7 today, which is right around where he was last season. But he's throwing the changeup a lot.

It's been really good for him. He got a ton of whiffs with it in his first spring start. And I, and the movement profile on the changeups a little different as well. He's getting more spin, getting a little more fade. So I just, I wonder if we're seeing a conscious decision

to be a different Garrett Cole after the elbow injury last spring. And how we feel about that. The change up, he's, I haven't seen the data from Thursday start yet. but his previous start, I noticed, he threw the change up a lot more,

and he threw it harder. Yeah. And he got a lot of whiffs, so it seems like it could work for him. Yeah, I mean, he's, I've said all along, Garrett Cole might be the most difficult player to rank, certainly the most difficult pitcher to rank, because I just,

the range of outcomes seems so wide, and we're not exactly sure if he's even going, to follow the same process that we're used to seeing from him. Yeah, that's, I'm just, I'm unsure, like, I think it's probably more of a contact suppression profile than a WIF profile, but it was in 2023 and he was, you know, the ALSai Young winner. So. When I say the range of outcomes is wide, that's because I'm including in that range of outcomes, his elbow's still not right and he's going to miss a lot of time.

If he's healthy, I imagine, Gary, at Cole is going to be some degree of good. Yeah. It's just a question of can he get back to like ace of ace level good or just Bailey Ober good. And I think we've all kind of just by default ranked him like as a low end SP1, high end SP2. But I really feel very little confidence in that.

This next Apple Apple podcast review question is from username Scott Greater Sign Frank. You know, Scott, you didn't have to leave an Apple podcast review question. You could have just asked me. I don't think we're pitted against each other. I don't know why you have to choose. Yeah. Yeah, why can you just like all of us? Why not?

I am in a 12-team head to head categories, and we are starting a three-keeper league this year. Pretty standard, five ads per week, and a 16-inning weekly minimum. I want your advice on this draft strategy that I'm considering. Get four of these six pitchers to fill at least 16 innings, and they are oddly specific. Zach Eflin, Brian Wu, Jameson-Tayone,

Luis Ortiz, Seth Lugo, and Bowden, Francis. After that, get some injury-prone high-ceiling players like Mike Trout, Royce Lewis, Jazz Tism. With so many bench spots, all I'd need to win would be three to five hitting categories and one to two pitching categories per week to be 500. In other words, I am punting strikeouts, win, saves, but we'll certainly have the best offense in the league. Have either of you tried this and do you think I will be over 500? You are a crazy person and you should rethink this strategy, punting three categories every week.

you're not going to, no matter how dominant your offense seems on paper, it's not going to win every category, every hitting category every week. That's just, that's asking too much of it. I don't think, I don't think,

I think there's a lot more downside to trying this extreme of a strategy than there is upside. I do think there is a world where something like this can work, but I think it involves having more relievers on your team and maybe one or two good pitchers just so you can meet that innings pitch minimum per week and then maybe streaming some good starts in there as well.

But having a lot of relievers on your team and loading up on offense early on in your draft. I think that is a way that this could work, but this one seems oddly specific. So I do agree, Scott. I think I would move away from a strategy like that. Now we move into your emails, Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com.

This one's from JT in PA. Hey, Roy, Cliff, and Cole. those are Phillies pitchers. Yep. They show probably from that 09 World Series team. I would imagine so. You got Halliday, Lee, and Oswald. No, no, they won in, 08.

Cole Hamels, Col 11? Hamils, Hamill, sorry. Holiday was the Roy. Oswald wasn't there yet, I don't think. Yeah, they lost the Yankees in 09. Didn't they win the year before or the year after? I think it was the year before. Something like that, yeah.

I am prepping to pick second in my 12-team head to point. We start all standard positions plus corner infield, middle infield, and a fourth outfielder plus two utility hitters. So what kind of draft plan would you have, if any, would you wait on catcher because that's the only position I need one of? Lastly, of the top three hitters, would you target anyone specific based on the format at pick two? So out of Otani, Judge Bobby Witt, who are you taking second? And does your strategy change in a points league that adds, that has almost a roto style lineup, basically? So my first thought would just be that the addition of the second utility means that your margin for error with Shohei Otani is even wider

because you do have that added flexibility. The fact that it's, what would that be 13 starting spots rather than the typical nine in a typical head-to-head points league opens you up to potentially drafting Brett Rooker, Marcelo Zuna, or Kyle Schwerber if they fall. in addition to Otani. So if you're scared off of Otani because it fills your utility spot, that's no longer really a consideration here. It gives you added flexibility.

The other concerns about Otani are still there. I don't think this change in format changes how you approach the top three necessarily. I do think you're going to judge your Otani. Yeah. I do think there is, I don't know, it's a deeper head-to-head points league. And we usually talk about wanting as many difference makers as possible in your head-to-head lineup because it's a shallow format, because the replacement level's higher. And it's going to be a little lower because of this, but not that much lower. So I don't know.

I still think I mostly approach this the same way I would any head-to-head points league. I think it gives more value to players that theoretically would be better in a points league format but we don't typically target them because we want difference makers in a shallower lineup setting. So guys like Alec Bohm come to mind, Louisa Rise, Jonathan India, you know, kind of those 175 to 25080 P hitters

where maybe they don't have the biggest ceiling but a higher floor in a deeper head dead points league. Yeah, I think that's fair. I wondered because a lot of my rationale for drafting hitters early, especially in a points league, it's not the full rationale, but part of it is just because there are so few hitter spots that it's more important to get impact from each of them.

So now if there are more hitter spots, is it less important to get impact from each of them, in which case is it more important to get impact from your pitcher spots relative to the typical head-to-head points league? there's still the other rationale for taking hitters early, which is that points leagues are more forgiving for pitchers. And I think that trumps that other consideration I just had. And so I don't think it would change how I draft so much,

just like you guys said, the caliber of hitter I would be open to. Now, it is worth pointing out that it doesn't seem to be any difference in, I don't know, maybe there's some difference in the pitcher lineup spots, but if you're going from 9 to 14 hitter lineup spots and not changing the number of pitcher spots, I think that just makes waiting on pitcher even easier, right? You could put it that way, yeah.

Yeah, they didn't include that in the email, but it is fair to wonder if the pitching lineup construction does change at all in this league. But, yeah, I think all fair points in a deeper points league format there. Let's hit our first break before we do that. reminder to sign up for our shorter podcast, FBT Express. Make sure to download and listen wherever you listen to podcast. That comes out basically every day now, including a bonus episode on Saturdays.

So be sure to check that out. And if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit the like button and subscribe if you haven't already. We're on the road to 30K. 30K by opening day. Let's make it happen. Let's take a break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today.

We're answering your mailbag questions. This one is from Bob. Quick question. I listen to every episode and have never heard you speak about Tobias Myers. I'm debating keeping him in my keeper league, but I'm not sure how I feel about him.

It's a head to head points league. Keep up the great work. So Tobias Myers, the ADP is 307.5. He's the SP 88 off the board. This listener is right. I don't know that we've talked about Tobias Myers at all. And last year, he had a very successful rookie season, a 3.0 ERA, a 117 whip,

8.3K per 9. Do you guys have any thoughts here on Tobias Myers? I mean, the reason we haven't talked about him, I think, is because we're not convinced he's actually as good as he showed last year. He had a swinging strike rate of less than 10%. His ERA estimators are all nearly a full run higher than his actual ERA. He could be usable. He could be streamable in the same sort of way Eric Fetty is.

We're not talking a lot about Eric Fetty either. it's just kind of a low upside and not particularly safe profile. And in this pitching landscape, that is, that's waiver fodder in most leagues. So that's, that's my take on Tobias Myers. I think he is the most just a guy guy out there. Like there's just, that's not to say he's not useful. It just, he's a guy that you. pick up once the season starts and those early those late round flyers that you took don't work

out you know like if if uh chris boobitch or a mike syroca flames out okay fine tobias meyers is available on my wire and he should be present he'll make his starts and hopefully like probably won't be bad i just think there's very little reason to believe that he's anything close to the three r a guy he was as a rookie feels mostly like a streamer in the right matchups i will point out on his pitch level data, the changeup looks pretty filthy. That's the one thing that looks like a standout pitch. 44% wiff rate, but he only threw it 11% of the time last year. His slider doesn't get a lot of whiffs, but was really good in terms of quality of

contact and balls in play. But, you know, his fastball cutter, not great. So, yeah, I don't love the profile overall. I think Tobias Meyer is mostly a streamer entering 2025. Let's continue on. this next one's from Matt dear Lenny, John, Darren, and Mickey. Hmm. So there's a couple, like, Phillies.

It's Phillies. It's Lenny Dykstra. It's John Frundt. It's Darren Galton and it's Mickey Moore and Dini. The early 90s, Phil. Okay. For some reason, the only Lenny I could think of was Marlins' legend Lenny Harris. But Lenny Dykstra is probably the correct answer.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I'm in a 12-team fantasy baseball league where, there is a relief pitcher spot. The rest of the pitcher spots are starting pitchers. There is NRP spot. Just one? Okay.

Just one. Yeah. All right. We are only allowed 10 pitchers starts per week. One of the benefits of the league is getting relief pitchers with starting pitcher eligibility. Last year, I was able to use Mason Miller and Michael Kopeck as starting pitchers to get extra points for their saves. Are there any relief pitchers slash closers who have SP eligibility this year?

This is different than Sparps because they're starting. starting the game, because starting the game would count against the 10 allotted pitcher starts per week. So this is the complete opposite. These are our passps. I don't know if we actually ever came up with like a term for them, but it's, I guess, RPs as starting pitchers. I think Tyler Holton is probably the most relevant one because he might be the closer for the Tigers and he is SP eligible. He'll at least be like a 30% of the time closer. And actually one of the other closer. or candidates for the Tigers is also SP eligible. Bo Briskey. I don't know if he's actually likely to get close saves,

but I think he did get a few down the stretch last year. And he is also SP eligible. So there's two on the same team who could be able to contribute saves. I don't know, Scott, if you have any others, I've got some. Holton's the only one I know of, the only one, the only relief pitcher who happened to have starting pitcher eligibility that I bothered to put even in my AL or. or NL only rankings.

Okay. Jared Kahnig is a reliever for the Brewers. He's pretty good. Look, if he's just looking for relievers who are SP eligible, there's not going to be a lot of guys who are going to get saves, but there are going to be some who can help. And yeah, I think it in a reason. Yeah, okay.

I doubt. Okay, yeah, it's a name. It doesn't hurt to know other names. I doubt a non-saves guy. in his 12-team league is going to be, he does specify saves. Yeah, I think it's Holton and Briskey have the best chance. I don't think any of these other guys are, like Josh Winkowski has no chance to get saved for the Red Sox.

Yeah. There are three starting pitcher eligible players on CBS that are projected for 60 plus appearances this season. Tyler Holton is one, Eric Miller of the Giants. I don't know anything about him. and Sean Armstrong of the Rangers. So, there you go. Next up from Michael,

listening to the episode so far, it's clear the strategy from Scott is fade pitching to the extreme, except in Tout Wars, of course. Given we have no idea what baseball we are getting, doesn't this strategy set you up to be completely dead on arrival if we get even a marginally bouncer ball?

We've seen that changes in the ball can completely take out the mid-tier starters. Scott is counting on for the strategy to work. With that uncertainty in how the ball will play, do you think you're being a bit too extreme in fading pitching? Well, if I am, then a lot of other people are too, because I don't think I'm alone in my approach to starting pitching this year.

So that's what I'll say at first. What I'll also say is part of what makes the depth at starting pitcher this year so feel unprecedented in all my time doing this is it's not just that these are the guys who happen to be in the middle tier and they're good enough. It's that these are middle tier guys that we normally consider high tier guys because they actually excel at the things like missing bats, for instance, that it's more of a, it's more that the mid tier is especially high end than that,

than that the mid tier is just less damaging than it is in normal years. And I think the way, I think the clearest demonstration of this is look where Max Fried, look where Logan Webb look where Aaron Nola are going they're basically the same pitchers they've always been maybe Logan Webb and

Aaronola were a little worse than usual last year but they're basically the same pitchers and they're going 10, 15 spots lower than we're used to seeing them go I would also just oh go ahead go ahead I would also just point out that I don't think it's necessarily the case that

mid and later round pitchers are inherently more likely to be negatively impacted by this because there are quite a few high-end starting pitchers who do not get, or at least did not get elite strikeout rates last year and who would, in theory, be more prone to blow-ups with a bouncer ball as a result. I'm thinking of George Kirby, who is a top-10 starting pitcher with basically an average strikeout rate.

he does a lot right to overcome that. But if we're talking about a world where home runs are up 20% or whatever, that's probably going to hurt George Kirby more than it's going to hurt Garrett Crochet, let's say. I think you can also throw Shodemaga. I was not for Amber Valdez just because he has pitched effectively. I think his best season was actually one of the bounciest years. But Shodimanauga.

Yeah. Bryce Miller. Bailey Ober gives up a lot of fly balls. Like there are Hunter Green, there are plenty of high end starting pitch. Hunter Green gets a lot of strikeouts, but he's also gets hit very hard. There's a lot of risk with the high end pitchers

if that happens. So I think the strategy has its risks. And I have my own SP strategy that I think has managed to weather some changes in the landscape, but I don't think it's especially likely to hurt you relative to any other SP strategy here. All right, this next one's from Ryan in Jupiter. It seems like Alec Bohm is the type of guy Scott would normally like for points leagues. Good plate discipline and lack of home run power is compensated by a lot of doubles.

Relatively speaking, he feels like he is ranked pretty low and his ADP is shockingly low to me. What am I missing? So, Alec Bohm, I will just bring up the... The ADP, according to fantasy pros, is currently 155. And last year he averaged 2.9 fantasy points per game, Scott. What are your thoughts on Boehm and a points league? Yeah, he's a good points league player. 2.9 isn't like a stud.

And I think that's about the limits of Boe's potential. But it is his better format, I would say. You say good plate discipline. It's really just he doesn't strike out. He doesn't walk much at all. and that keeps him from being more like Alex Breggman, for instance. It puts him in a lower category than that. But I would rather have in a points league,

I'd rather have Alec Boehm than Mark Vientos, for instance. He's kind of a B starter in a points league when he's more like a C starter in a roto league, I guess. For what it's worth, his ADP in CBS Fantasy Points League is 130.8 as the number 13 third baseman off the board. And there's one third baseman going ahead of him. I would definitely rather have Bohm then. And that's Nolan Arnato.

I would rather have Esauk Paredes than Alec Bome as well. But those are good points league players too, though, in theory. Aronado and Paredes. Their skill set is better suited for points leads like Bome is too. And I agree with the order you put them there. Perretta's Bome, Aronado. but but yeah Boma is

good for points leagues so I think his points league ADP is fine I think part of the problem is he's just he's a decent starter not a great

like we were talking about earlier with those those guys who are their skill set is more well suited to a points league but they're not such difference makers

that it really pushes them up boards because like in a league where you have a corner infielder in a points league like Boma is an awesome corner infielder. When he's only third base eligible,

he should be one of the last third base starters. Yeah, it's more of a high floor than a high ceiling profile there for Alec Bohm. You mentioned the ADP on CBS. If anyone ever wants to look this up, by the way, CBSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball, there's a little tab on the top that says average draft positions, and you can sort it by category drafts versus head-to-head points drafts on CBS. So if you play in a points league,

that might be helpful for you to check out. This one is from Gabe, any recommendations slash sleepers slash breakouts to draft for my quality start instead of wins league? And names that immediately come to mind, Seth Lugo, Jose Barrios, Tanner Halk. He doesn't specify whether it's points or categories.

If it's points, Mitch Keller. Yeah. I want to go near him in categories, but he's going to pile up quality starts. Nathan Valdi had a bunch of quality starts last year. Jameson-Tayone actually had 16 quality starts and 28 attempts. The thing about quality starts versus wins is there's a lot of overlap. Yes.

Between those two categories, like you need to go at least six innings to get a quality start. And while you technically need to go just five innings to get a win, it's hard to get a win just going five. innings because the lead's going to change so much in those final four. I think you're more like Sandy Alcantra should be the first name. Yeah. That we mentioned.

He's going to be good on bad teams. Yeah, he's going to be good. Eventually he's going to go deep. He's not going to win very many games, at least until the Marlins trade him. So that's one that stands out. Honestly, any of the Mariners guys, I think you can bump up a little bit in a quality starts league. but for all the like teeth gnashing that the kill the win people do,

it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really change. Like the best pitchers tend to get the most wins. It's not always. But there are not very many guys who had 16 plus quality starts last year and didn't have at least 10 wins. In fact, there were only two. Logan Gilbert and Tanner Howker,

the only guys last year who had at least 16 quality starts and only nine or fewer wins. So on the whole, quality starts are a little easier to navigate or at least a little easier to predict just because the best pitchers will more consistently get quality starts than they will wins. But it doesn't really change how we value players. That Logan Gilbert stat, by the way, as good as he was last year, winning less than. 10 games. Shout out to Justin Turner for calling out the Mariners this offseason because great quotes by him. I didn't see anything wrong in what he said. The fact that they have the best pitching staff in baseball and did not add an impact bat this offseason is crazy. Whoa, whoa, Donovan Solano. Respect to Jorge Polanco, man. Yeah, no, it's, um, it's, it's stupid.

Yep. Two other pitchers that I wanted to bring up that get boosts in quality start leagues. I think Christopher Sanchez and Kevin Gosman would fit in that category as well. This next one's from Peter, high C, B, and S. Oh, yeah? Yep. I don't know. He wrote Chris Brank and Scott, I guess. Yeah, I got it. Trying to make it work. Longtime baseball fan, but only started playing fantasy baseball in 2021.

So my entire fantasy baseball experience has had the luxury of statcast data. What was it like as an analyst before statcast? And what was it like when it was introduced? Did you guys just start crushing your home leagues? Were there any holdouts in the industry who didn't believe in it? I'd love some stories. So, so it's not like we were back. Take me back to the dinosaur days.

It's not like we were completely in the dark pre-Stackast. It was introduced in 2015. We still had sports info solutions and pitch effects data. Now, pitch effects data, very similar to a lot of what we have from stack cast, but a lot less granular. We had less spin data and all the horizontal induced break and all that stuff. We didn't have. But on the hitting side, we did have stuff like hard hit rate and, you know, pull rate and stuff. So like we weren't completely guessing. But we have, it's a lot more, you know, like what we knew back then was like a high hard hit rate, better than.

than a high medium hit rate, you know, all that. And there was a correlation between hard hit rate and home runs. But it was weaker. It was less predictive. It was less. We didn't have expected batting average, at least not to the level that we currently do, all that stuff. So it was just a little harder to get at talent than it is now.

And I would say it was more fun. I would say I miss those days because there was more room for interpretation. There was more opportunity to create daylight between you and other experts on players. And sleepers felt more personal to you. Not everybody was glomming on to the same ones. It's just we know so much collectively now. And all that information is so accessible and well understood that we kind of know as much there is as there is to know about the future. And although new developments are happening in player evaluation every year,

it feels like it's sort of plateaued. It's kind of just alternate explanations for the same things. I will make a point I've made a few times, which is like on the pitching side specifically, we are so much smarter than we were back in, I don't know, the late 90s or early 2000s when Vorus McCracken came up. with the concept of defense independent pitching stats, which is where FIP and Sierra and XERA all,

it's all from that. And FIP was kind of the first one. And the thing I'm always amazed at is every time we cross a new boundary, you know, tunneling data and arsenal data and induce vertical break and all this stuff, it's like we can get a little bit better at predicting ERA than FIP did 25 years ago. Yeah, that's true. Like that's that's kind of what I mean by its plateaued.

And I think it mostly plateaued with Stackcast. I know you're referring more to like Sabermetric stuff. Saber metrics. That was the sea change. I was one of the earliest fantasy analysts to, to implement that heavily in my fantasy analysis back in the nascent days of fantasy analysis. And I feel like it gave me a real advantage over the, competition.

But then Stackcast came along. It took that groundwork, Saber Metrics laid, and it pretty much filled in all the gaps. And so now there's not, I don't think, I'm to the point now where if you're playing with people who are plugged in, who know what they're talking about, there's not much of an advantage to be gained in player evaluation. And I'm starting to come around to the idea that I have to, I have to. I have to figure out other ways. And it's kind of the most simple way.

The way I'm trying to lean on what's kind of been the theme for my drafting this year is maybe the simplest way of all is just target the players who fall in drafts. When there's when the consensus is so often right because the analysis, because the information available to us is, as reliable as it can be. And we all interpret it basically the same way. When the consensus is right as often as it is, it doesn't pay much to depart from the consensus.

So rather than singling out my personal favorite players and departing from the consensus that way, I'm trying to, whenever my league departs from the consensus on the player, I'm trying to take advantage of that and build teams more on the fly rather than going in with, oh, I got to get this player, I got to get that player. That's kind of the theme. That's how I'm trying to gain an advantage this year

because I just don't think the whole concept of sleepers even really works anymore. And I, this is something that I have made the point about with injuries in the past because we are so plugged in to everything. Like we are, we are quantifying how fast guys run. the extra two inches of break that Sandy Alcantra's new slider grip can give him and what that might mean and all these things.

And then injuries, it's just like, well, I don't know, he got her last year. So he's going to get hurt this year. Like we're still, that's one place where fantasy analysis is still very, very similar to what it was in 2011 when I started. Like, yeah, that's true across on. It's just, it's hard. Yeah. And there are people who are doing good work on trying to quantify injury risk and like that that stuff matters. But at the end of the day, it's it really does feel like that is still the one place where it's 2011.

And where you can find daylight. Well, not even just not even like I'm not saying that like I know better than anyone else. Right. But there's room to different like some people might look at Ozzy Albies and say he's. an injury risk. I feel like he's the opposite of an injury risk. I feel like he's very durable. He just happened to break two bones last year. And three years ago, he happened to break two bones that year too. Yeah. And so. Those are just kind of freak occurrences. We can quantify and know so much. And even like projecting improvements where we're on the pitching side, especially. That's where I think the,

the real ground is being broken is like baseball prospectus introduced like an arsenal. stat that like tries to quantify like how valuable it is to introduce new pitches or to mix your pitches up in certain parts of the and this is stuff that teams are doing like you look we've talked a lot about the Mets this offseason and and what they've done over the past couple of years with like getting the most out of Luis Severino and Shamanai and these pretty marginal talents that we you know kind of had just considered guys and the smart teams are not looking at FIPP they're They're not looking at XERA even. What they're looking at is what does this pitcher look like if he raises his arm

slot three degrees or what does this picture look like if he adds a sweeper with 13 inches of break? And so that's where I think a lot of the stuff as far as projecting really matters. I don't know that that even matters so much in our role though. Well, because because we have no power. So we can say, oh, this guy should add it. This guy should add a sweeper and he'd be great. and so well, what if his arm slot doesn't allow for it?

Or what if he can't command it the way? Or what if he just doesn't think he needs it? Like all these things are, we can say this might happen if this happens, but there's still multiple ifs built in. So what I would say with the injury thing is that in a world where everything is quantifiable, being agnostic on what isn't quantifiable, being less certain about what isn't quantifiable, is probably still a potential edge. There are going to be times it messes you up.

Byron Buxton still seems to get hurt every six weeks, but that's one place where I think there is still some value in differing from the consensus, but on the whole, yeah, it's everybody's working from basically the same information. It's why trading is harder in fantasy sports now. It's why, frankly, In real life sports, we're never going to see a team do what the New Orleans Saints did in the late 90s and give up, you know, what, two full draft round, two full drafts worth of picks to get a running back. I just nobody does weird things anymore in sports. It's much more of a monoculture in sports.

And I think you can argue like Scott said, it's a little less interesting as a result. If I could address one more aspect of this question that we didn't really address, kind of were there people slow to buy into Statcast? I'll admit that I was because this was 2015 when it was introduced. You know what happened the second half of 2016? The juice ball era. And so I would look at exit velocities. I would look at home runs being hit at a time when home runs were very easy to hit.

I wasn't seeing much of a correlation because you didn't have to hit it that hard to hit it out. But in more recent years, it's become apparent how valuable it is. And obviously, I make a lot of use of it now. And we just had to figure out what matters and what didn't. You know, that that's just always true. Anytime you introduce a new stat is how do we communicate with the audience in a way that they can understand new information? That's a big factor in whether or not you use a new stat and also just what matters you know like we got bat speed data last year for the first time we think it matters but i think what it really will tell us is when guys lose or gain bat speed the just having the number doesn't tell us much new like you swing the ball just bat harder you

might hit the ball harder but there are going to be other things involved what i think it will really tell us is what we saw with Rafael Devers last year. When that bat speed started to collapse in the second half and the rest of his production did, or Gavin Lux, his bat speed got way higher in the second half. I think he was the biggest gainer in the second half and his production got much better. That's what we're going to be looking for now with that data is how do we apply this? The number itself doesn't tell us a whole lot. The variations on the number, that might tell us a lot. Well, great question, Peter, because that was a really, really, really. about 20 minutes of discussion.

But it was pretty good conversation to have there. All right, let's take our final break. When we return, we'll do some rapid fire questions right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today, answering your mailbag questions. This one is from Jeff in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Love the show, as always. I've made note of your sleepers breakouts and have moved a lot of them up my draft board. Because of this, I end up taking an entire team of players with upside.

I've made this mistake before. Yes, I know Luis Robert or Boba Chet or Ruffet or Ruffey. Robbie Ray could have monster seasons, but we've seen their floors, and they can be pretty low. When you're constructing a roster, how many sleepers slash busts do you have? Are you sleepers and breakouts do you have?

Who are some good, boring, but high floor guys to balance out with the, quote, swing and miss sleepers and breakouts? And this is very much so a feel thing, I think within the draft. It's just, you have to know when constructing the roster, If you take risks early on in the draft,

you probably want to back that up with higher floor players later on or in the middle rounds, whatever it might be, just to kind of supplement that floor there. And vice versa, if you kind of play it safe early on, you know that as the draft goes deeper, you can take more shots. But to your point, I don't think you want your entire team

just to be filled with high, upside, low floor type players. I don't mind it in a shallow league. like a head to head points league on CBS, 252 players rostered. You know the waiver wire is going to be full of players that are plenty startable. If you can fall back on decent, just shoot for the stars, you know?

So a lot of it has to do with the depth of the league. The shallower it is, the less I want anything to do with boring players. And then you go opposite end of the spectrum, like an AL or NL only league, I pretty much only want safe and boring players because a lot of people are not going to be able to have a full lineup

because of the risks they take. So that's, those are kind of the two extremes. And let's say a 12-team Roto League kind of middle of the road in terms of depth. I generally like to play it safe early and take bigger risks later because you lose a lot more

if that early round pick doesn't pan out. I guess you could argue you gain a lot more, but you're getting a stud either way. So I like to take my risks later. I found that in recent years, maybe I was taking too many risks. And so I've been making a conscious effort in those mid-depth leagues to not be so dismissive of the Alec-Bome types, you know? Yeah. As, and I don't know if Chris wants to play off that point, but I do just want to say on Bo Bichette because he put him as like a floor ceiling guy. Part of the reason it's amazing to me that Bo Bichette is going as late as he is,

is because he was so consistent prior to last year. He never hit less than $2.90 prior to last year. So I don't know that he fits that description. That's kind of a tangent. Yeah, I think ultimately there are players like Alec Bome who, will probably finish higher than they were drafted. And that happens all the time. But it's also the kind of thing where as the season is going on,

Alec Bome seems pretty likely to finish as like, I don't know, the number nine third baseman in fantasy, as long as he doesn't miss time just because like, there is very little chance that he just crashes out, right? Like he's going to drive in a bunch of runs. He's going to hit for a pretty good batting average. and as long as he stays healthy

by the end of the year attrition's going to take a bunch of other guys out and Mark Vantos might hit 220 and Royce Lewis might get hurt and all those guys going ahead of him he might finish ahead of him when you're actually playing the season out Alec Bowman is still probably going to be

in like the 12 to 15 range of the rankings even while he finishes eighth just because there is value in being there there is value in consistency but there's only so much value in that, right? You do still need difference makers. You do still need guys who can carry your team for a couple weeks in a way Alec Bohm can't. So that's the one thing I would say is you do need both, especially the deeper your league is the more certainty you need.

But a whole lineup full of projectable safe guys is going to finish six plays at best, you know? Yeah, not in an ALE and in a lonely league. But in, yeah, in like a standard-sized league, yeah. I wrote down a few players going in the mid-rounds that I think have pretty high floors, if you want some examples. Aaron Nola, Logan Webb, Ryan Reynolds, Ian Hap, Nick Casiano. It's just guys that have a track record, guys we've seen do it for two, three-plus years in a row. You know what to expect, but again, they might not have the highest ceiling,

but they do help you out with that floor. One thing I will say about this year's player pool in particular is those pitchers, and Scott mentioned this earlier, the boring safe pitchers are really being disvalued. Disvalue? That's not a word. Undervalued. Undervalued.

Whatever. I don't know where did that. Just disrespect. We knew what you meant. Like, Max Fried is actually like a really, like he's not even like a boring low upside pitcher. He's had like multiple years of a sub three ERA. Yeah.

But he's being sued. super undervalued. And Aaronola and Zach Allen and like guys who we've seen high upside from are being really downplayed because of the more interesting low inning high volatility types. And I'm happy to draft multiple of the boring pitchers this year. Yeah. Remember the Mount Rushmore of boring pitchers last year? It was like Merrill Kelly.

That was last year? It feels like it was two years ago. Geez. Maybe it was two years ago. years ago, yeah. Now it's like Logan Webb, which everyone considered an ace at this time. Yeah, he was a top 10 pitcher in 2020. Right. Right. Yeah. It's Max Freed is especially confounding to me because you know he's going to be good for ERA and he's probably going to be good for wins. I think it's just the injury risk. And maybe if you guys think that he's just past it, then maybe you will gain any from that.

He's only missed more than five starts once in the last like six seasons. I'm pretty. sure. The thing I keep coming back to on injury risk, because I was scared of the injury risk going into the offseason. He just got a physical before signing the biggest free agent contract for a left-hander in history. You don't think the Yankees put him through his paces. And this is my point, because when it comes to Jeff Hoffman, he failed a physical and we are downgrading him. Okay, that's fine. Max Fried did not. Max Fried passed a physical. The Yankees also had a pretty robust physical. The Yankees also had Frankie Montas do a physical a couple years ago and then his arm

pulled off immediately after. They backed out, but they backed out on Jack Flaherty last year. I'm just saying they don't have... But it could be that Montas wasn't injured when he had the physical and then he got injured right away. I've just seen more things play out injury-wise with the Yankees than other

teams. And maybe it's because I'm like too close to them as a team. But it feels like it feels like things have worked out pretty poorly for them on the injury front at least over the past, I don't know, decade or so. But like, Max Fried has had some injury scares. Most specifically, I think it was 2023 when he missed time with a forearm strain. Otherwise, he had a forearm last year too. Uh, yeah, okay, early, but he only missed what two day, two, two, two, two, two, two, two start,

something like that. Yeah. I mean, that was still, and that was two years in a row for a four on. I believe that was a nerve issue. It wasn't like a ligament issue. Um, so yeah, I, I don't know. Like, At some point, like I said, he's missed more than five starts once, I think, in the last six years. At some point, being on the mound is what matters. All right. I was just like, I'm presenting the case for why he's going late, and I think it's solely due to injury risk. Garrow Crochet has thrown more than 65 innings, like once in his entire life. And he's a top 30 pick now.

I don't disagree with your take, by the way. That's why I say, he might be able to value too. I don't know. Yeah. Yep. This next one's from Shane. Dear Pisa, Eiffel and Chris. Well, that's two famous towers. Come on. Chris and Eiffel.

I play in a daily head-to-head points league, standard ESPN format for points. I am thinking of punting the RP position and filling with sparse. Have any of you fully committed to this kind of strategy before? Does it work? And with how unsure the sparse are this year, is it worth trying now? there is a bonus question for Chris, but we'll answer that one. This one first. Well, I think Chris tries to do this every year. And he goes deeper into the spark pool than I usually do.

And if it doesn't work out, you can usually fall back on a waiver wire closer. They don't all get drafted in the typical head-to-head points league. So I think it's totally worth doing. And I think there are enough interesting spartes this year that it's an especially good year to do it. I don't know that I agree with the take. the spark pool is shallow this year. There isn't like a Cole Reagan's, who you know is going to be an ace, but there are a lot of pitchers who could be,

who I think have legitimate sleeper appeal, even if they didn't have the RP eligibility, which includes Jackson Job, of course, Clay Holmes, Grant Holmes, Chris, Pritch, Mike Soroka. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's... Nick Martinez, even.

None of the, like, it's a worse spark pool in terms of like projecting a must start player than I think it's been in a long time. But it's kind of like second base this year where the lack of impact players sort of hides the fact that there's actually a lot of really interesting depth. And there are, what I like to do is get three or four of those sparts just as dart throws. and I'm treating them like, hey, if you have two bad starts to open the season, you're gone. And I'm picking up, you know, I don't know, if Lucas Ursaac may get undrafted or Jeff Hoffman might get undrafted in some head to head points leagues given his ADP. And I'm just hoping that one or two of them work out and are useful, especially in two-star weeks. And I have a lot of confidence in there being waiver-wire relief pitchers to target.

Chris, you want me to read this bonus question? I don't know if we should have that. This guy has been asking me to go on a Bachelor party trip. I appreciate it. I can't go on an overnight trip with people I don't know. I just can't like I have met up with people who listen to this podcast. I'm in a league with one of them. I've been in a softball league with another.

I'm not opposed to it. It's just I can't like, I'm going to go stay at a home. hotel, an Airbnb with people I've never met. I can't. I'm sorry. I can't do that. Nobody invited me to their bachelor. I don't think my wife would be okay with it. I think that's the biggest turtle. If I told my wife, hey, I'm going on a on a trip with who. That's always the biggest turtle. Yeah. I think that would be if you if you're if you're in New York and you want to buy me a beer, hit me up. I'll drink a beer. But I can't. I'm sorry. It's nothing personal. I just don't. I don't know you.

I think that's totally fair. This one is from Jake Holland, who I believe participates in some leagues with us. Scott, is he in your A-L-only? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, Hey, Schwindell, Ferder, and Gore.

Famous Franks. There you go. I was curious about your thoughts on stacking a few high-end setup relievers in a deep roto, 15-plus teams or AL-slash-N-L-only if you decide to punt saves during the draft or only invest in one questionable save source.

My main thought behind this is that these pitchers could help stabilize your ratios, but could also potentially pick up a few saves and wins throughout the season and help chip away at strikeouts. Guys like Cade Smith, Brian Abraeu, Griffin Jacks are just a few names that come to mind. What are your thoughts on this strategy? I mean, I kind of have to do this in the 15 teamers because I know I'm not going to pay the premium for saves. And I think given the amount of closer turnover, given the amount of situations where I'm not sure the most talented reliever is currently the favor for saves.

I think it's, I think it's going to pay off. I don't know that Kate Smith and Brian Abraeu are the ones I want to do. Like that might be going a little further down the relief pitcher rankings than I prefer to go. But I am like in my, my Tau Wars draft, I drafted Jeff Hoffman, not Jeff Hoffman, excuse me, Jordan Romano. I drafted Jordan Romano in round 12. not the safest closer, but, you know, a closer. I drafted Calvin Foshe, who appears to be in line for saves. But then I also drafted Lucas Erseg and Edwin Usetta, who don't appear the frontrunners for saves, but they have their, they have a foothold in saves already.

And I think it's increasingly likely Erseg could just be the guy for the Royals since Estabez, Carlos Estevez, Carlos Estevez isn't healthy at the moment. I do think Griffin Jacks meets that description because he's... He'll get eight either way. Yeah, Rocco Baldelli just with his bullpen usage, he doesn't always leave Joan Duran for the ninth. And then, of course, if anything happens to Duran, Jacks is perfectly capable of stepping in. But I think those two I mentioned,

Lucas Erseg and Edwin Nuseda, Porter Hodge, maybe even Ben Joyce, though I'm not as confident he'll be useful for ratios in the meantime. but I do think he's a good kind of someone who I could see pretty easily stepping in and claiming saves for his team. I like to think I inspired Scott's Taut Wars relievers with my A.L. Labor relievers because it was Lucas Urseg and Edwin Useda are also my number two and number three there. And my thought process was, I know Erseg's going to be good. I know Usada is going to be good. I know they're going to get some saved. If it's five to ten, okay, well, I also got Josh Jash Hader in that league. But I think there's a chance it's 25 for both, in which case I'm going to be in great shape.

And I didn't have to, I don't have a bad reliever in my starting lineup. I've got Bo Briskey on the bench. He might not be great, but he might be decent. He might be the closer. But yeah, that was my thought process. I don't want to have to rely on a bad closer. just to try to get saves. This next one's from Mike.

In a 15-team NFBC Roto League, what do you recommend about putting together the seven-player bench? Would you go for possible May call-ups and shoot for high-upside? If so, how many of the seven or just go with what is out there? At least five of seven starters.

So I think the NFBC is unique because their lineup setting is you could set your lineups on both Monday and Friday. So I like to... For hitters. Yeah, for hitters. For pitchers, it's just on Monday. day, it's once weekly. I like to have at least one outfielder, corner, and middle on my bench,

just because injuries can happen midweek, and you want to be able to cover yourself when setting lineups on Fridays. Those other four spots, I think I typically would dedicate them to pitchers, whether that be starting pitchers with upside or reliever specs. I think you can use one of your bench spots on a kind of stash, but I don't think it could be more than more. It's really hard. It gets really hard because those injuries pile up real quick and there's no idea. All spots. That's, NECC is the one where I'm most likely to have three or more hitters,

like Frank mentioned in, in leagues with IL spots or shallower rosters. I'll go one bench hitter sometimes. But in these leagues, I find that it's just, it's, it's legitimately hard to fill out a lineup two months into the season. I used to have a saying,

the bench is no place for backups, meaning the bench isn't a place to store backups for your starting lineup. The bench is a place to store players who could overtake your starters. And that was a fantasy philosophy I lived by. And this is part of the reason I don't find the NFBC to be particularly fun because you can't do that. You will not be able to stash them long enough to stash them ahead of time because players are going to get injured and you don't have IL spots.

You can put them in. You just have to stash them on your bench. Sometimes you see them get dropped just because there's so little, like a high-end player who's out for two months. Not even the whole season, but two months. He just gets dropped because it's too hard to hold them on your bench for that long. Yeah, it is really tough. So keep that in mind. If you're coming away from a draft, you really only want to use one of those bench spots on a stash player.

But realize, players are going to get hurt and you're going to need more of those bench spots available. Let's wrap up with this one from Jake and Casey. It cracks me up that Scott gets himself on tilt in every single draft. It will be one pick in or not even, and he will already have himself worked into a tizzy. Scott, you do 18,000 of these drafts every single year and 18,000 more mock drafts leading up to it. Just go with the flow, baby.

Stop overthinking it. I've been trying to tell him this for literally like 10 years. I am, you know, I kind of laid out my theme for drafting this year, and it is sort of go with the flow. just take what comes to you. And I kind of wish we had a camera on me for the NL only auction, the CBS NL only auction we did because I did it in that draft. And I mean, auctions are another level in terms of stressing me out.

I have never been more calm and confident during an auction than that because I just took the values early on, just the best values I could find. And so it wasn't like, oh my gosh, the hitters are running out. What am I going to do? There was none of that. There wasn't like, oh, should I have gone the extra dollar for that guy? No, because I'm just looking for valleys. I was so calm and the team turned out great, I think.

Obviously, I drafted in Tout War since then, and that wasn't the case because I was tilting from the very first pick. I wanted to see a camera on Scott in that draft. That's what I'm going to. I mean, my heart, I was tilting to the point of despondence after I took Terrick Scoobel. I'm not going to lie. Like, I can't believe I just did that. And, you know, in retrospect, the rationale makes sense, but it was not what I wanted to do. It was not what I imagined doing.

And it was, it was, I was stressed to be sure. You know, some people are just higher strung than others. You know, I don't, I don't emote very well generally. so I may give off this impression on the typical podcast as calm and collected. But I am pretty high strong. And I think it especially comes out in competition of any kind, but, you know, fantasy baseball most visibly. Some people are just like that.

You know, our friend Ellen Adair, remember when she was in the Scott White Dynasty League, she was so funny to watch in the chat room because the sky was falling the whole time. So she took it to another level. Imagine that and an actor being dramatic. But yeah, that's that's just the way I am. Sorry. It doesn't mean I'm going to have a bad team just because I'm stressed. It just means I care that much about having a good team.

That's what I always try to tell you because it's always the same thing. it's always like a third of the way through. You're like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone. And then two thirds of the way through, you're like, oh, oh, I kind of like it. And then by the end, you're like, yeah, I like my team. Because you always like your, I don't think we've ever done a draft where we got to the end. And you're like, this sucks. I always like your teams.

I have. Oh, I definitely have. Scott, never. Yeah. No, I sometime. My AL only team where I wasn't just going with. the flow. I can squint and see how it would work, but I don't feel comfortable with it at all. I do appreciate that you just did that whole monologue, Scott, while what appears to be a

stress ball is in your hand. It is a fidget toy. It's one of those little soccer balls that you spin on an axis. Oh, all right. I thought it was a legit a stress ball and you were just using it while talking about being stressed and grass. I've seen people ask sometimes what this is that I'm holding because I just pick it up and start fidgeting with it during the podcast. I got these little magnetic rings too. Yeah. I like the fidget toys. It can be a little fidgety.

Yeah. All right. We'll break them out during the draft. Scott, you might need them. We're going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again next week.

Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.