Fantasy Baseball Today - Mailbag Questions! Butler vs. Chourio, Prospects to Stash & More! (3/22 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

Let's get things started with Apple Podcast Review questions (3:46). ... When do the stud hitters end (7:44)? ... Should we be tracking pitches thrown instead of innings (9:52)? ... Let's move over to your email questions (17:27). ... How do we rank these sleeper pitchers (20:52)? ... Who are some Royce Lewis replacements in deeper leagues (25:06)? ... How to draft starting pitchers in daily H2H points leagues (30:02)? ... Drop Michael Wacha for upside pitchers (34:56)? ... What's the difference between Jackson Chourio and Lawrence Butler (38:22)? ... Do we ever draft players just to trade them (42:54)? ... We wrap up with top prospect stashes and SPARP rankings (49:27). 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, @CPTowers @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 lead. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. We made it. The biggest draft weekend of the year.

Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Saturday, March 22. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. Chris, today on the show, we've got a mailbag. Final mailbag of the offseason answering your emails and Apple podcast questions. Chris, we made it to the biggest draft weekend. How are you feeling still alive? How's the elbow? How's the forearm?

I'm not hurt physically. Emotionally, I'm pretty spent, man. Draft season is tough. Like, I'm going out of town this weekend, and I'm going to try to unplug and just like, I think I have two or three drafts left. And then it's just a six-month sprint to the end of the season, you know? Yeah, six-month sprint. That's what they all call it.

We are recording this on Thursday, by the way. So if we talk about any players and things happen to them over the next couple of days, you know why. We just got news of Ryan Weathers dealing with a forearm injury. So I'm sure we talked about that on our Friday podcast. So make sure to listen to that. It's weird, the timing, talking about like the future of the past. I don't know what's going on.

Anyway, let's get into your questions. Apple Podcasts review questions first up. As always, if you ever want to drop a five-star rating and leave a question or just a nice review, feel free. We do appreciate those. This one is from Upside Potential. Dear Babe, Lou and Tony. That's the Murderer's Row.

Is what they called them. Question, we just finished our head-to-head weekly category draft, and there are some potential breakouts left. Our categories are ERA, whip, and FAC. Thip, that's fun. Do you recommend holding on to draft picks for a certain length of time to see how they're doing, or is there an advantage to jump out early on potential breakouts like Shane Smith of the White Sox, Baba Chandler, Quinn Matthews, Chase Burns, who was the Reds first round pick last year.

We play eight pitchers weekly with a 25-inning minimum to score. Would you recommend swapping out any of the following from my team? Araggetty, Gavin Williams, Clay Holmes, Robbie Ray, Zebby Matthews. those first four definitely not but zebby matthews starting in the minors chris would you maybe drop him for Shane smith who i think will be in the white socks rotation or maybe a higher upside chance on like a Bubba chandler or Quinn matthews

i will almost all because pitchers are such a crap shoot i will almost always prefer cycling through the interesting guys now rather than having a stash, right? So in this case, Shane Smith is the only one of these guys who's going to be on the roster. Maybe Bubba Chandler and Quinn Matthews will move quickly, although in both cases, I believe they're not on the 40-man roster. So it might require some juggling. There are probably at least one, maybe two other guys ahead of them in the pecking order if an opportunity opens up in each spot. So I would prefer Shane Smith.

And if you wanted to drop Zabby Matthews for him, that's fine. That being said, Shane Smith has made the White Sox roster. He has not been confirmed to be in the rotation. We're still, I'm assuming he will be just because like, why not see what he can do over? And never was like Bryce Wilson or something. But it's not clear that that's what they're going to do. So there might be some other low end upside arms. that you can look at.

But I do think Shane Smith is interesting. That being said, if you're going to drop as Ebby Matthews for Shane Smith, if Smith isn't in the rotation, I think you drop him for whoever the next guy who looks interesting is. And you just cycle through them. If he makes one or two starts and looks bad, get him out of there. Pick someone who looks good up. I think that's the ideal way to approach the early season streaming.

I never really want to focus on the like, Michael Waka's of the world just because Miles Michaelis will always be there. You know, I'm going to try to focus on younger guys with some upside just to see if they can turn into anything. But yes, you should be trying to churn. It's funny you bring up Michael Walker. I think we have a question specifically about him later on. Look, I actually think Michael Walker is like underrated and there's this whole discussion on social media. happening as of as we're recording about like oh you can't draft ryan weather you couldn't have shouldn't have drafted ryan we was throwing too hard and it's like well we can't pick

pick guys who throw too hard we can't pick guys who are throwing harder we also can't pick guys who are throwing less hard who do we take but we all don't want erin nola or Pablo lopez or any of those boring guys that everybody's just decided aren't any good anymore we don't like Michael Walker. Like it's just like I guess there there's just no pitchers to draft. I don't know. It's it's I'm sorry for taking shots at Michael Waka. It's all good. This next one's from Millie in Dallas. I've heard Scott mention that he likes to not draft pitchers until all the impact hitters are off the board in a points league who are the last group of hitters that should be drafted before you start considering pitchers. Now this is hard to answer because Scott is not here. But I think

we've drafted with Scott enough to have an idea of when that range is. And it kind of feels to me, Chris, like the second basement in that like round four or five range, like a Jose Al-Tuvae or Ozzy Albies. And maybe once we get past that group, it's now's the time to start looking at pitchers. I could be wrong. I mean, we've seen drafts where Scott waits into like round seven or eight to take a starting pitcher. But where do you personally feel like the impact bats might start to end and it's time to look of pitchers. I think, look, I, I'm willing to take a starting pitcher in the second round. So it's

not necessarily the same for everyone. But I do think around 50th overall is when you start to see the hitter, the quality of hitter drop. And especially in a points league where, you know, in a roto league, you can still talk yourself into guys throughout the draft, really, based on team need or team context, but in Points League where it's just straight, how many points are you going to score? It feels like it's like 50 to 70 is where the hitters tend to level off

and the pitchers become relatively better values. Yeah, I think mentioning the Util OnlyBats too in this conversation, they usually go in a points league, maybe the fourth round in I think other leagues, probably the fifth round. So I would still be looking to take those UTill Onlybts. guys, the Brent Rookers, Marcelo Zuna, Kyle Schwerber's of the world in round five, and then maybe

it's pitching in round six. But you also have to adjust to the draft, because if everyone's taking pitching, you also have to jump in at some point. But I agree with you. I think probably the top four-ish rounds is where I start to see the drop-off in the hitter pool. From Clay in Oklahoma, in a previous life, I was a high school baseball coach. I monitored the workload of my pitchers very closely. However, I was not concerned about about innings, but with pitches thrown. The fantasy baseball world is obsessed with innings, but I am far more interested in pitch's throne,

which is never considered. Clearly one is far more impactful than the other, and every game keeps track of pitches, so why is pitch count not considered? I will just quickly add that in season, I think we do make mention of pitch counts, and we talk about it a lot, and maybe not a lot, but we do look at younger pitchers

and how many pitches they're throwing, start and if they're being given that lease to go deeper into starts. And obviously if there's someone who throws a complete game and it takes 120, 130 pitches, like, we'll talk about that. Generally, if, you know, your run-of-the-mill starter is throwing anywhere from 90 to 110 pitches, we're probably not going to mention it because that's just the expectation. As for draft prep, Chris, it's a fair question. It's just, for me, it's, I don't see like pitch counts, like total pitches as just a

regular thing on like fan grass or baseball reference. I'm sure you could find it somewhere. It's just innings are just there and they're, they're easier to cite. That's my answer, but what do you think? Yeah, no, that's the answer is that because, look, if, if you or I knew the answer for how many pitches or how many innings or how many innings per pitches per inning or how many high pitch innings led to a marked increase in injury risk, we wouldn't be doing this job. We'd be making $250,000 trying to help the Dodgers stay healthy. Wait, you don't make $250,000, Chris?

Not yet, you know. But that's all to say that, like, injury analysis for pitchers and trying to predict who will stay healthy and who won't is very, very difficult. and when we're discussing like innings jumps or maybe the team is more worried about the number of pitches or the number of high stress innings. I would bet that's what teams are looking at when they have, you know, how many innings is Sandy Alcounter are going to throw this season? Well, it's not really how many innings of Sandy Alcantra are going to throw. It's in this given start, he had a 30 pitch first inning. So he's probably coming out in the fifth after the fifth, even if he's at 85 pitches,

just because those high pitch count innings are much more stressful on the arm. You don't get as much time to recover. You're throwing them in rapid succession. So that stuff is probably more important. It's mostly just that innings are a over the course of a season, those high stress and low stress endings are probably going to even out for most pitchers. And innings are just going to be a better. an easier proxy for workload

that is just easier to keep track of. Second question from Clay, our league head to head points. Our head to head points league scores four points for a hold, five points for a save, minus nine for a blown save. My goodness. A manager can go safe with a middle reliever

with no threat of a huge blown save penalty or roster a higher risk, high reward true closer. How would your analysis of closers change, if at all, under this scoring system? and well four points for a hold versus five for a save yeah the like it's not that much higher reward for the risk so to me it's yeah let me just gobble up the best setup relievers in the game but i will point out they can still get blown saves like if they come in in the eighth and it's a three run

leader less that's my question and they blow the game they still get a blown save yeah that's my question are they only counting a blown save for the last guy who had a save opportunity because if you have a hold opportunity in the eighth inning and you blow it, that can count as a blown save. I just don't know if your specific scoring system counts it that way, or if it's only counting the last guy as having a blown save. I don't know. But yeah, this makes me think that it just closers aren't really worth it.

Yeah. Relevers aren't really worth it. We already devalue relievers tremendously in points leagues. To me, this is, if your league doesn't play with Sparps, obviously if they do, just try to draft Sparps and kind of avoid this headache. But if you can't do that, I would just wait to the final two rounds

and just let me take the two best high-end setup men that I can. And because, like, blown saves are totally unpredictable. Emmanuel Class A, I believe, led the majors in Blown Saves in 2023. He had like 10 or 12. He led the league in saves and blown saves. Yeah, like that.

And in this instance, you're talking about five points for the 40-something saves he got. Okay, that's 200. That's also negative 90 for the 10 blown saves. That's a, I don't like the scoring format. Yeah, it's a little crazy. That's tough. Yeah. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder to sign up for the FBT newsletter.

If you haven't already, Chris puts a lot of work into this. It's free. You can head to CBSports.com slash newsletters. or take a picture of the QR code in the top right corner that will take you right to the website where again sign up for the FBT newsletter for free. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this commercial break. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today,

answering your mailback questions. We move over to your email questions. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com is the email. To send that in. And thank you so much to everybody who's sending in emails. There are so many. There's a lot to get to. It's just this time of year.

It's so, so crazy. There's a lot going on. So I wish I could answer all of them, but it's nearly impossible. But we do appreciate it. Thank you so much. This one is from Christopher. How much value does Acuna gain

in a shallow 10-te-to-head categories league? I'm thinking that since there's good outfielers on the waiver wire and Acuna should be available in the playoffs, six out of 10 teams make the playoffs in this league, his value goes up considerably in this league. Where would you rank him against Trey Turner, Jackson Chorio, Jazz Chisholm, and Freddie Freeman.

I do think that the general thought process here is right, that the replacement level is going to be so high. You know, even in a 12-team points league, there are usually viable starting options in the outfield. That's usually not true even in a 12-team roto league on the waiver wire. Here, you're going to have legitimately good outfielders available on the wire. So I think it's perfectly fine to bump him up. relative to this group, I would still take

Trey Turner, Jackson Churio, and Jazz Chisholm ahead of Ronald Acuna, but I might be willing to take Acuna ahead of Freddie Freeman. Yeah, the first thing that came to mind is, I think I would take Acuna over Jazz, too, who... Maybe because Jazz is worse in a points league, yeah. And he's, well, this is head to head categories. So, I mean, Jazz should be good in that format,

but I've just kind of been fading jazz because there's injury risk. Obviously, Acuna is coming back from an injury itself, and you don't know exactly what player he's going to be, but I mean, I think there's a non-zero chance that Jazz is hurt at some point this year, and maybe you don't have him in your head-to-head playoffs either. And just shooting for the upside, I could see doing it with a cunea there. I wouldn't take him over Trayterner or Jackson Trio, that's for sure. This one is from Frank. After my draft, I'm moving a player to the IL,

so I have an open spot, what? Sorry, I just looked at the next email. Yeah, I didn't do it on purpose, I swear. After my draft, I'm moving a player to the IL, so I have an open spot to add an outfielder. The two I'm debating between are Jean-Kenzie Noelle and Jorge Soler. What are your thoughts between the two? Solair is definitely more proven but I really like the potential of Noel. I do too.

I just don't know if the Guardians do because they were never really willing to use him as an everyday player last season or really anything close to an everyday player. And it's not like he has

so much more upside than Jorge Saler, who had 34 homers two years ago. I think 37. Yeah, so you had a bunch of homers in, in 2023. So, yeah, I would stick with Soler who has, we were both wrong. It was 36. Yeah. In, I would stick with Soler who has the playing time and, I think, similar upside.

Yeah. To me, the hope is that John Kenzie Noel turns into a player like Jorge Soler. But Saler already has that playing time and looking at the Guardian's current depth chart, I mean, roster resource has Will Brennan starting in right field at least against right-handed pitching and John Kenzie on the bench as a short side platoon. So obviously things can change if he plays well,

like he can earn more of an opportunity, but it doesn't seem like he is a full-time player at least to start the season. This one is from Scott. So your first three emails, Chris Franken Scott. I did not plan that out. It's just the first three that caught my eye, and here we are.

Yeah, didn't do it on purpose, but it's funny. I am getting super excited for my big draft on Monday. Well, now I hope your draft hasn't happened already, but just in case it hasn't. You've talked a lot about pitching sleepers throughout the offseason, and I find I'm having a difficult time ranking slash tiering them. Who would you prioritize out of the following group for upside?

and that we can know if they hit pretty quickly, so I don't feel I have to hang on to them as I chum the back end of, churn the back end of my roster. So Clay Holmes, Gavin Williams, McKenzie Gore, Dustin May, Ryan Weathers, forearms, sadness,

Jackson Job, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker, Richard Fitz, Tomoyuki Sugano, Max Meyer, Chris Bubbage, Grant Holmes. There's a lot of fun names here. I think the easiest answer for me is Sugano's at the bottom. I just don't think there's a lot.

a lot of upside there. I think you're, you're hoping for a Chris Bassett or Michael Waka or on the high end Seth Lugo type outcome, but that's really unlikely. So I think he's comfortably at the bottom. After that, I think it's all very, very similar. I'd probably put Dustin May closer to the bottom. If I'm shooting for upside, I would go the two Holmeses, Grant and Clay and Gavin Williams at the top. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I'm not as excited about Grant Holmes as you guys are. I would put Jackson Job in the top tier ahead of him. I think he's more talented.

Obviously, right now we don't know if he's in the rotation, but we're assuming he is. So I would say Job Holmes and Williams for the upside. Although, if you do have an IL spot, I think still drive. drafting Ryan Weathers, adding him to the aisle spot, and then adding whichever one of these guys isn't drafted, makes a ton of sense too, because you're getting multiple bites at the apple there. Weather's for all the concern about,

hey, velocity jump followed by forearm strain, he's being shut down for two weeks. And then the hope is he can be back in four to six weeks on the map, like in the Marlins rotation. I would say it's unlikely that this works. out, but it's not, his season's not over. Yeah. He could be back mid-May, I guess, if everything works out, right?

I think there's a chance he's back in April. Yeah, I guess that would be the shorter, like, four end of that timeline. This one is from Jeff. I play in a 12-team Head-Tead Categories League, had to play Sean Minia on the IL. Who should I pick up in his place? Dustin May, Eduardo Cabrera. Either Edward Cabrera or Eduardo Rodriguez. count both. Yeah, let's do. I don't think either's going to be the answer. So it's fine. Yeah. And then

Max Meyer and Grant Holmes. I'm pretty sure we're going to have two different answers here, but it's Grant Holmes for me. Yeah, um, I think it's Meyer or Holmes. I'm fine with going with Holmes because of the team context. That's okay to me. All right. This next one's from Aaron. Hey, Tim Saxon and Victoria. Uh, is this, uh, Frank, you're not going to know. but I think this is White Lotus. Right, yes. I think I saw the email, and I think he included the answers on the...

I believe these are the weird southerners from White Lotus. I don't watch the show, but I saw a clip going around on social media recently. That was absolutely wild. Was it the Sam Rockwell? I don't know who that is. You know who Sam Rockwell. I know who Sam Rockwell.

But it was crazy. It's a fun show. I think it's Patricia Arquette. Is that her name? No. I can't remember the actress's name. This is the guy. That scene with Sam Rockwell was bonkers.

Incredible stuff. I was not expecting that. I am in a deep roto league and stupidly drafted Royce Lewis. How would you rank these free agent options for early season production? Brian Hayes, Matt Veerlin. Jose Miranda, Brooks Lee, Ernie Clement. I believe Matt Reeling is starting the season on the IL, so scratch that. Brooks Lee might be as well. He left Thursday's game with some back soreness.

I like Jose Miranda. He was hitting really well before he had a back injury last summer. Sounds like he's going to play a decent amount with the twins. So I would probably go with him or Hayes, although Hayes is at this point, a pretty long shot to actually figure it out. Yeah, I mean, Hayes feels like he's going to play, but even he dealt with some back stuff earlier in camp, and he kind of has a history with that. So the answer might just be whoever's healthy

and whoever's playing out of this group. I think Ernie Clement is going to start at third base for the Blue Jays, so he has a role. But if Miranda does with the injuries that they have, then, yeah, I'd probably lean his way as well. This one is from Andrea. Hello, Vinnie P and Baby. Wait, no, that's Vinnie, comma, P, and Baby.

So Vinny, P, and Baby. Okay, got that. Andrea, writing you from Italy, listening to every episode every single day. Very nice. Appreciate it. Thank you. You're the reason I am passionate myself in fantasy baseball,

and the reason I can have a chance every year to win something. Started with one league in 2022. Now I run nine and count down. My goodness. Fantasy baseball in Italy, let's go. Here's my question. How much do you? consider fan tracks and other platforms projections reliable. I'm talking specifically about

points leagues with a specific scoring system which can alternate player rankings. And then there's a suggestion I'll get to that next. This is tough and I'm not saying this to disparage any draft room's rankings because frankly, CVS sports's projections are not very good either. But I would, and I tell people this all the time, I would take your specific scoring system, go to Fangraphs.com, hover over their projections tab, and go to their auction calculator. There you can punch in

all of your specific scoring settings into a points league, and they will spit out a ranking system. Here is what the players, you have to choose a projection. There's different kinds, steamer, the bad X, ATC. I would recommend ATC,

mostly of all those, and it'll spit out the players based on your scoring system. That's what I would do, but also just kind of, of tinkering those projections as well to moving up the players that you like more or the players that you like less and just kind of having your own ranking system in mind. I don't know that I would ever go into a draft, Chris, and just look at the projections in a draft room or on a specific

website. The one thing I will say, though, is you do have to keep in mind how the built-in projections and rankings in any given draft room impact where players go. So we talked about this the other day, but I did my first draft on Yahoo in a long time, and catchers go way lower on Yahoo than anywhere else. I mean, we're talking like Yiner Diaz went 130th in a head-to-head categories league. So I think you still want to know what the default for any given draft is just because that's going to impact the way the draft plays out.

And you can look at it and identify where pockets of value, might be what specific players are going later or earlier and adjust based on that. So I don't think you want to ignore them altogether. But yeah, I agree you don't want to base your draft on the in-room rankings. Agreed. But that is a great point. And this is, again, the biggest draft weekend of the year. Go into your draft room before the draft just to familiarize yourself and figure out where players are ranked, how they're ranked,

how the draft room works, and maybe just knowing which players are ranked lower on a specific website or higher and where you can kind of take advantage of that. So really just get in that draft room and really know it in and out before your draft starts, obviously. And then a suggestion from Andrea,

why don't you dedicate an episode at the end of the season to discuss the top 10 most and least valuable players based on ADP, of course limiting players who had severe injuries who conditioned the season? I think it could be fun to find out who are players whom, investment has allowed you to win or lose your league.

At the end of the season, we do typically kind of just recap each position and see who finished top 10. We don't really mention ADP. So I think that's fair. Just taking a look at, you know, who were the league winners who jumped up the most and maybe, you know, who was the most valuable players. Who was drafted in early rounds. It just completely sank people.

So, yeah, that is a fair suggestion. Thank you. This one is from Felix in Denver. In your head-to-head daily points draft. I believe, Chris, that was the one you did on ESP. during our mock draft megastream. I noticed a high number of pitchers were going in the first three rounds.

What about this particular format is causing the pitchers to rise that high? In daily heads head points, should I look to draft pitching earlier or what is your strategy? So I think specifically with that, the ESPN default points system is just very different

than the other ones. So what you have there is not so much that pitchers get pushed up, but that a lot of hitters get dragged down because you have a full minus point for strikeouts. You have fewer points for stolen bases than the CBS scoring format. And I don't do you get points for walks in ESPN? I think you do. I'm trying to pull it up now to see exactly. But it's mostly I think the strikeouts and the stolen bases just drag a ton of of hitters down. Yeah.

The obvious ones would be like Julio Rodriguez and, you know, he goes like 70th in a lot of those leagues. But I think what you have is just the, the higher end pitchers are closer in value to the higher end hitters, wherein CBS points leagues, it's kind of the opposite. You're looking at 500 plus points for, you know, actually 600 plus points for the really high hitters, 500 plus for like the second and third round guys. At pitcher, you really only have a handful who get to 500 in any given season because volume matters so much on CBS and in a way that they just can't overcome.

It's really about knowing your scoring system in and out because Felix here is asking about a daily headset points league. Yeah. Doesn't say if it's ESPN or CBS. And that changes things dramatically. Like if you play on CBS even in a daily head-to-heads-points league, you know that innings count for so much, and you could still find a lot of innings-eaters later on in drafts,

and you can load up on those guys and just stream them whenever they're pitching. On ESPN, three points per inning pitched, minus one for a hit, minus two for an earned run, minus one for a walk, you get one point for a strikeout, two points for a win, minus two for a loss. no extra points for a quality start. So the minus two for an earned run, you really need reliable pitching here.

Like a bad, bad start can sink you. And it feels like, at least based on the system, like you're only getting two points for a win. You're not getting massive points. So the really good pitchers are going to be difference makers in that format because they're not allowing as many earned runs as ones going in like the middle or later round. So I would imagine in this specific,

specific ESPN daily lineups, you really do want reliable pitching because, you know, if you get guys that are given up, I mean, even three are in runs, it's minus six points. Like, that's, that's kind of a big deal. So you just, you want as much reliable pitching as you can get, I believe, in that format. Let's take our final break and we will talk about more of your questions right after this commercial break. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today, answering your email questions. And this next one is from Isaiah. I'm in a 12 team head to head points League and had a panic pick of Michael Waka, who we talked about earlier at Pick 212 a few weeks ago.

I seen he's been struggling. Should I think about dropping him for some of the sleepers that you guys talk about, such as Mark Lighter, Hayden Birdsong, Tomoyuki Sugano, Dustin May, etc. In a points league, I don't think I would, Chris. I think I would just stick with Michael Waka. I just don't know how deep into starts guys like Lighter, Birdsong, May, are going to go. two points I think one Michael Waka is 33 years old he does not care about his spring training results that's not to say that there isn't something wrong here it's just to say that Michael Waka is not staying up at night because he has an 831 in ERA this spring he he is working on stuff he's just trying to get ready for the season so he's not going to care about his performance in spring I'm not either that being said, I think Michael Waka tends to be fringy enough that you probably won't regret dropping him.

I would guess, like he won 13 games last year, which is a pretty high number these days. I would guess he didn't get to 400 points in a standard CBS format just because it was only 160-something innings. it's not very many strikeouts. Let's see how many he got. 399.5 nailed it. He has not been a 400 point pitcher since 2015. So I think that is replaceable enough. I think you also bring up a good point about Jack Lighter,

Hayden Birdsong, and Dustin May being unlikely to be contributors in a points league. But I, just as a general rule, I think dropping Waka is not like, necessary, but it's probably not going to ruin your season. Yeah, I think the hope for someone like Sagano is that he can do what Michael Walker has done the past three years, which is a 330 ERA with a 116 whip 7.8K per 9. It's not exciting, but the ratios have been there. He typically goes deeper into his starts. So I don't really see a huge difference between a Michael Waka and a Tomoyuki Sugano.

Maybe one of these other pitchers can emerge, like a lighter or bird song. But the problem is that they're very inefficient. And they have walked a lot of batters so far in their career. Now, maybe they just take a huge turn in terms of their control, and that'll make them more efficient. But we haven't seen that yet. And I think it kind of limits the upside in this format,

in a head-to-head points league format. This one is from Brian. Hey, David, Justin, Max, Annable, and Rick. This is like the 20... What year did the Tigers make the world series? is like 2011. I'm pretty sure that's what this is. David Price,

Justin Verlander, Max Scherzor, Annable Sanchez, and Rick Porcelo. I just don't know specifically what year they made the World Series. When did the Tigers go to the World Series?

Most recently in 2012. Yeah, that's got to be the 2012 Tigers lineup then. Pitching staff. That would make sense. One of the rankings that I don't quite understand is the love for Jackson Trio and a little down

on Lawrence Butler. I have heard that Butler only did it for half a season, but the same can be said for Truro. From July 1st on, Truroo hit 12 home runs, 46 runs, 47 RBI, 14 steals with a 300 batting average. Lawrence Butler from July 1st, 20 homers, 53 runs, 49 RBI, 14 steals, and a 302 batting average.

Is it just the prospect pedigree? Doing it at 20 is a lot different than doing it at 24, I think, is what Butler was for the most part last season. Yeah. So a big part of it is that. A big part of it is the prospect pedigree. A big part of it is Churio did his his June was pretty good. I don't think it's necessarily.

Like with Butler, it was July and August were bonkers. September was okay. With Churio, he had at least an 831 OPS in June. July, August, and September. He had an 897 in June. So I think you're undercounting with Churio. He probably had four really good months, and Butler had two really good months.

So I think Churio was just a little more sustainable. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe Butler will be better than Churio. I think that's possible. And the ADP difference between those two, Churio at 19 overall. and Butler at 69.8. So, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there is a pretty big difference, but I think all the reasons you laid out, and I do think prospect pedigree matters, because that's something that's factored into long-term upside and just also the floor. Like, we don't know what Lawrence Butler's floor is. Maybe it's, he just is terrible the first month, and he's back in the minors.

He got set back to the minors last year. Yeah, yeah. You know? So I think that's all fair. This one is from Scott. I am in a 12-team Roto League in a standard Yahoo form. Matt, one catcher, three outfielders, no middle or corner, two utility spots.

Richard Fitz clearly has made some drastic changes to his approach and gained three miles per hour in velocity. It's also looking like he's secured a rotation spot. I've got Shane, Baz, Dustin May, and Jesus Lizardo on my bench, and I'm wondering if Richard Fitz is worth a speculative ad over any of these guys who each have their own upside. I would add him over Dustin May. I think that's fine. I think both are similar as late round sleepers. Being on the Dodgers, I don't know if that's a better thing, at least for win potential it probably is.

Yeah, if you have Dustin May already, I'd probably just stick with that. I'd just view both as similar and, you know, maybe Fitz gets more of a chance, but I mean, the expectation is that Lucas Gilito is not going to be out long and Brian Bale will be back at some point. Carter Crawford's throwing again. If Richard Fitz is just awesome, then they're not going to take him out of the rotation. But if he's bad, then, you know,

he might only be in there for like a couple of weeks. So keep that in mind. This one is from Jay in St. Louis. Maybe you guys have said this on the pod, and I missed it. But why is Ellie De LaCruz ranked fourth on Yahoo? And you guys have him somewhere in the second round. Can you explain that?

Thank you. Head-to-head categories versus head-to-head points. Yeah. If you're looking at our, and I understand why it's a little confusing, if you look at our rankings on the website on CBS Sports.com, head-to-head is for head-to-point leagues. And we do have in the parentheses there, head-to-points. And in Roto, those are for category leagues.

So it is a little confusing. But if you play in any type of categories league, whether it's Roto or head-to-head, you should use the Roto rankings. If you play in Head-Head-H-Po Points, use the head-to-head points rankings. And yeah, on Yahoo Daily lineup had said Categories League, Ellie Dela-Crues could be a standout.

He could win you the Steel's category almost every week. So it makes sense why he would be ranked fourth in that format. I think we have him in Roto like six, seven, eight, nine, probably somewhere in like a mid-first round pick. In points leagues, he takes a little bit of a hit because of his plate discipline and striking out. So that's why he's more of like a maybe one-two turn or early second round pick, something like that.

that's the explanation this one is from Sean dear John Jeff and Bruce John Lennon Jeff Tweedy and Bruce Springsteen are just songwriters that I like personally

I don't know why my mind instantly went to like random Royals pitchers Bruce Chen I think Bruce Chen was Jeff Francis there for a little bit that sounds right John I don't know who the John

would be Bruce maybe Bruce Sutter he was a guy I have no it yeah then I started thinking about Bruce Wayne John Wayne and is there a pop is there a Jeff Wayne I don't know there is an American composer who is most well known for Jeff Wayne's musical version of the war of the world a musical adaptation of H.UL science fiction novel from the 1970s. So that's got to be it. It's Wayne's, obviously. Now I have to, yeah,

Jeff Francis pitched one year for the Royals. I had to know if I got that right or not. Do you guys ever draft a player primarily thinking of trading them? And if so, when in the draft would you do it? Case in point. Lawrence Butler fell to around 120th in my right field, center field, left field, specific head to head points league. And I couldn't let him slide continue,

let the slide continue even though I had Kyle Tucker. Obviously, the rest of my league might not love him as much as I did if he made it there, and the outfield rule hurts, but still felt like that was the way to go. Good move. And is this the right follow-up to trade him for pitching help or just keep the best right-field insurance for Tucker in case another leg thing happens? I don't generally like having insurance on my team in terms of a legit starter who's not going to say. start. I just, I think that's generally a waste of resources and you'd be better off trading it. I think, I think in terms of like salary cap sports where people will say like, oh, we might have overpaid for this guy in free agency, but you can always trade him. And if that's like the second or third thing you say about a player after you sign them, you made a bad sign. And I'm not going to say you made a bad pick because I think Lawrence Butler can be a great player. But if you already have

Kyle Tucker, it's going to be hard to find a spot in the lineup for him. I think you should be trying to trade him. Yes. Will I ever draft a player specifically thinking of trading them? Probably not, but I can't say it's never happened. And what are the chances that if everyone else passed on Lawrence Butler, you can trade him for a pitcher that went inside of the top 120 picks. And then if you're trading him for someone who went after, you could have just drafted that pitcher anyway, you know? Yeah, that's the concern here is you already know how your league feels about Lawrence Butler. But he's having a huge spring.

If he gets off to a hot start, he gets off to a great start, then there's definitely a selling opportunity there. So I think you should be looking to trade him. It's just you know the people in your league don't value him that much. So it's going to be tough. I've never played in a league that uses specific. outfield spots, right field, center field, left field. I always have won into play in one, though.

It's been a long, I want to say like early 2000s when I first started playing fantasy. I played in a couple leagues like that, but yeah, it's been a, it's been a long time. This next one is from Nick. I hear you talk about plate discipline importance when referring points league specifically. The league I play in does not account for negative plate appearances, strikeouts, standard out recorded, etc. for hitters. Does this change your stance

both positively or negatively on guys like Ellie de la Cruz, Ryan Moucassel, Vinnie Pasquantino, et cetera. Of course, yeah.

That's massive. Yeah, if, like, Ellie struck out 200 times last year. And if those, if you're not getting negative points for them, it's a huge deal.

And it's, you know, it does probably, I don't know if it hurts the value of a guy like Vini Pasquantino just because he's still not being

I don't know I guess it hurts him relative to other players because a high strikeout guy may leapfrog him in the rankings but it's more good for players like Ellie Dela Cruz than it is bad for guys like Vinni Pasquantino I would say. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Looking at the top strikeout hitters from last year, at least based on strikeout rate, Colton Couser, O'Neill Cruz, Teascah Hernandez, he's one that would see a big boost in this format. Brent Rooker, Reese Hoskins,

Ezekiel Tovar, Michael Bush, Kyle Swarber. I mean, Swarber, if you get points for walks too, he says... Yeah, if you get points

for walks and you don't lose for strikeouts? I mean, Schwarber, he's like a second round pick, probably. Yeah, I mean, we talked about that

in, that's how the sleeper draft that we did at the end of the mock draft, they're not an underdog. Yeah. When at the, where you do get points

for walks, you don't lose points for strikeouts. And he was the second round pick, yeah. Yeah, Kyle Schwerber was a second round pick there. So yeah. Yeah.

This one is from Ross, 12 team head to head points keeper league. Oh, great to trade. Give up a hurt George Kirby, get Lawrence Butler. This is kind of the Lawrence Butler episode. How about that? I think this would have been a fair trade before Kirby's injury. So I think it's fine. Now, it sounds like Kirby may be back in April.

That's, he was quoted in the Seattle Times saying that's his goal. It's to get back to the team by mid-April. He's going to stay at extended spring training for the next three weeks and then hopefully be back in the rotation by mid-April. There's obviously risk that he's not going to be right, but it all points to this being a bump in the road for now. There's risk that it ends up being like Kevin Gosman where he pitches but isn't the same, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. That being said, I think it's a good trade either way. Yeah. If you have a grade, was it like a A, A minus? I would say B plus because Kirby's hurt. If Kirby wasn't hurt, it'd be a C. So it's, yeah, it'd be fair if Kirby wasn't hurt.

All right, this next one is from Jake. I play in a league that has one N-A spot where you can stash away a minor leaguer without using an active roster spot. Can you rank some guys that would be on your radar to use this spot on? They would need to start the season in the minors with a likelihood of getting called up at some point in 20. wondering who some of your favorites would be in that context. So Roman Anthony. Roman Anthony came to mind immediately. Bubba Chandler with the Pirates. Bubba Chandler. Andrew Painter is someone we know will be up at some point. It's hard to draft him in most leagues because he's not going to be in a NNA spot.

But for you, you know, he could be a Paul Skeen's type difference maker in the second and half. Quinn Matthews, Cardinals. Quinn Matthews is very good. Jordan Lawler figures to be up pretty soon. Kobe Mayo, Marcella Meyer could be up relatively early. Then there's some other top prospects like Travis Bazana and Walker Jenkins and J.J. Weatherholt, Samuel Basio, Emmanuel Rodriguez, where it's less likely they make an impact this year.

so I would focus on Anthony if Christian Campbell doesn't make the team then Christian Campbell for sure Andrew Painer if Jackson Job

doesn't make the team Jackson Job Jordan Lawler Kobe Mayo and Quinn Matthews was the other guy you mentioned

yeah Bubba Chandler too I think I would put near the top of that list as well this next one is from Leonard I would like to see a segment on ranking Sparts this year haven't heard much

talk about the topic. I couldn't tell if he was trolling us with this question because I feel like we talk about Sparks all the time, but it might just be the timing. Maybe you miss an episode where we talk about it. So, Chris, we know the top Sparps are projected to be like Bauden Francis, Jackson, Job, Clay Holmes. Clay Holmes is probably near the top of that list now. I would say Clay Holmes is at the top of the list now. Yeah. So how do you, just talking through, there's like Nick Martinez and Chris Bubage, Hayden was Nesky a little bit later. on Grant Holmes. How are you ranking that's

marvelous? Clay Holmes, Bowden, Francis, Jackson, Job. Job would leap Francis if we knew he was in the rotation. Nick Martinez. Drew Rasmussen has looked really good this spring. It's just not clear what his role is going to be. Mike Soroka

has had his moments this spring. Chris Bubich, I think Scott would argue Chris Bubich is ahead of Soroka and Rasmussen. I think that's fine. He's looked very good as well. I think you and Scott both might put Grant Holmes way ahead of a bunch of those guys too. Oh, yeah. Then Hayden Wisniewski and Luis Ortiz.

I think that's all of these sparks that are in rotations. Mitch Spence did not make the rotation for the A's. Oh, maybe Shane Smith. We still don't know if he's in a rotation, but if he's in the White Sox rotation, he is also a spark. All right. We're going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank.

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