Fantasy Baseball Today - Mailbag! Strider, Quality Starts, Konnor Griffin & More! (2/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

Happy Kokomo Mailbag Friday! Let's start with your Apple Podcast Review questions (3:15). ... When to use gut instinct vs. ADP (9:30). ... Is Brandon Woodruff a good case for a Spencer Strider bounce back (19:25)? ... Next up, your email questions (27:11)! ... What changes when using OBP and SLG (31:23)? ... Who to target with the fifth pick in the draft (40:40)? ... Who gains or loses value with quality starts as a category (44:44)? ... Any love for Daylen Lile (47:12)? ... How to react to stolen base inflation (50:20). ... We wrap up with a bunch of Konnor Griffin questions (59:02). Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Happy Cocoa Friday and welcome into fantasy baseball today on February 27th. I am Frank Sample joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, we are answering a bunch of your mailbag questions. We have Apple podcast reviews, emails, and a specific section just for Conner Griffin questions because, oh, there are a lot of them, Chris. We are recording this a few days in advance, so hopefully no injuries to the players we talk about. Are you ready? How you doing, Chris?

Have you hit the wall? Have you hit the third wall, the fourth wall yet? No. No. No. I think I've broken through. I think like last week I was feeling the wall. But you know what helps? Having games on TV all day. Yeah.

That's great. Like I was just watching the, the Rays had a couple of prospect pitching against Trevor Rogers. That was fun to watch. I'm catching up on Jonah Tong's start here. It's just great to have baseball on all day. Who wouldn't love that? Oh, I love it. it. I wish it was more of an in-season thing as well. I feel like there's just be baseball all day long.

I guess there should be more day baseball games for sure. If you just move to the West Coast, I guess you have day baseball all the time, but it's not so easy. Let's get into your Apple podcast review questions, and this first one is from Vinny 447. I am in a 10-man category league, and I have the eighth pick. We're doing runs, home runs, RBI steals, and OBP for hitters. And the standard pitching categories, only difference is quality starts instead of wins. insane for wanting to draft Kyle Schwabber and Nick Kurtz with my first two picks. I want to maximize

home runs or should I play it safe and draft Ronald Acuna and one of those first two that I mentioned. So, I mean, I think typically in a vacuum, Chris, we're going to rank Ronald Acuna ahead of those other names, but in a head-to-head categories league, if you wanted

to just punt steals and go all in on OBP and home runs, I think that could be a viable strategy. So what do you think? I don't think that's unreasonable. On the other hand, Ronald Acuna does have seasons of 41, two seasons of 41 homers,

another where he hit 24 and 82 games, another where he hit 14 and 46 games in 2020. And then last year he was on like, I think, a 36 or 37 homer pace. So you might feel comfortable projecting, certainly Schwabre and probably Kurtz for more home runs than Ronald O'Cunia, but we are talking about,

run on a cune here with a 40 homer ceiling for sure and he's like a 400 o bp guy was 417 last year it was 416 and 2023 and we think he's going to steal a bunch of bases so i i get the idea but i just don't know if kurtz and olson or sorry kurtz and schwarber are such obviously better hitters that it makes sense to pass on the cune you like schwarber is a very very good OBP League guy. Ocuna over the past four seasons, it's 417, 351, 416, 351. I'm pretty sure Schwabers best OBP over the past four seasons is like 360, I think last year was his best.

So Ronald Ocunia is actually quite a significantly better OBP guy because he walks about as often as Kyle Schwerber does and he might hit 40 to 50 points better. So it's like if Ronald Acuna has a down year, they're probably pretty similar in OBP. And if Acuna just has a normal year, he's going to be much, much better than Kyle Schwerber. Yeah, Kyle Schrober's best OVP of the last four seasons is 366. You can go back to 2021. He was 374. Acuna clears that pretty easily.

So I actually, I don't think there's much argument for taking Schwerber over Acuna, let alone Kurtz, who I think is worse than Schwerber probably. Yeah, I do think Kyle Schwerber gets a boost in OBP formats. If you plug in ATC projections into the Fangraph's auction calculator and you turn on OBP instead of batting average, it still has Acuna as $2 higher than Kyle Schwerber for this season. And we had one of the Tout Wars drafts in industry expert league take place earlier this week.

That's OBP instead of batting average. and Ronald de Cunia went sixth and Kyle Swarber went ninth in that draft. So if you need a little more reassurance, I agree, I would probably just take Acuna if he's there over Kyle Schwerber. This next one's from John 19-8667.

Keeper question, 8-to-head points. Pick one of these. Two years of Chris Sale in the 11th round, three years of Chase Burns in the 15th round, and three years of Christopher Sanchez in the 15th round, excuse me. I think it's got to be Sanchez. Yeah. As much as we like Burns, I think his ceiling might be a little higher than Sanchez, but I'm not actually sure of that, especially in the very near term because, well, if Burns ever has an overall season as good as Sanchez's last year, that would be a pretty good outcome for him. So I think he's got to be Sanchez at the same price, same amount of time that you're holding on to him. I think I have sale ranked higher than Sanchez for 20206.

but it's very close, and certainly not enough to justify a higher price for sale and having him for less time. Yeah, Sanchez feels like the best blend of in his prime. He's younger than Chris Sale, and he obviously is coming off an ace caliber season. We cannot predict, I think, even a year out from now what starting pitchers are going to look like and who's going to get hurt, let alone three years here. But yeah, again, just the age coupled with the production, I would take Christopher Sanchez there in the 15th ride. And actually, just as a general rule, I kind of think your assumption with any pitcher when you're talking about a three-year timetable is that there's a very good chance they won't have any value in three years. That's just how this works. Like, let's say you get a great year out of Chase Burns in 2025 or 2026.

Might blow out his elbow in 27 and basically lose the next. two years. That's a pretty likely outcome. It's not the likeliest outcome potentially, but go look up the ADP for pitchers three years ago. And I'm sure it will shock you how many names just aren't relevant anymore. Let's see. I could do exactly that. I have ADP pulled up here in 2023. Corbyn Burns, Garrett Cole, Sandy Alcansera, Aaronnola, who's like barely a top 50 pitchers. drafted right now. Jacob de Grom, Spencer Shrider, Justin Verlander, Mac Scherzer, so it's changed

quite a bit. How many of those guys have held their value in the last three years? I guess DeGrom. That's it. But that's only if you're skipping out a large portion

of the last three years. I mean, you have to go all the way down to probably Dylan C's at SP 13 in 2023 as someone. who's like kind of held his value. Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a fair point. This next one is from Sox Fan 147.

I have a question regarding gut instinct. When in drafts, are you always a prisoner to ADP? Or is there ever a point when you say, I don't care about where this player sits in ADP? I like the cut of his jib. And I just want to take him above slot. Do you ever allow your gut to overtake the data? Okay, so I think those are different questions

because I, go against ADP regularly. That's what my rankings are. My rankings are the order in which I would ideally take every player. And they are very different than ADP in a lot of instances. So like Heraldor-Prodomo, I would take 20 spots ahead of his ADP. And that's with me tempering my original ranking. But that's not me saying my gut is overtaking the data.

That's the data telling me that that Herald or Podoma should be worth that. So I think those are two different questions. But regarding the, do you ever allow your gut to overtake your rankings or however else you want to put it? I would say that happens pretty regularly. And it's more true as the draft goes on. The thing you have to think about with ADP is every draft pick represents a path-taking. and a path not taken through the draft, right? If Aaron Judge ends up going number one in your league

when Shohei Otani is the default pick, that changes every pick after, potentially. Because now all of a sudden, Otani's going to go second, presumably. And so that's the one thing you have to think about is early in the draft, the number of possible permutations are lower. You know, the same players are generally. generally going to go in roughly the same order in most leagues early on.

By the time you hit the 10th round, ADP is a mere suggestion. By the time you hit the 15th round, it's kind of just take who you want. Like, that's not entirely the case. There will be instances where, like, I like Justin Crawford a lot as ADP's outside of the top 300. If I think he's the 200th best player, it doesn't really make a ton of sense to take him at 200 because in theory he should be there for at least, you know, on average seven or eight more rounds. In reality, though, that average is made up of occasionally taking him 220 and occasionally taking him 340.

And you put that together and you get, I don't know, 310 probably. I actually have no idea if that's right. But that's the theory, at least, right? Yeah. I think it's a very loose data point too. And maybe. I don't want to say we put too much emphasis on it because our position previews are basically like

we're just talking about ADP the whole time but that's a collection of different sources and I'm just trying to get people an idea of where players are going to go. I mean from one website to the next ADP can be completely different but it's just a very loose guide a loose data point of where you should expect

a player to go in a draft but if you want that player like absolutely take him a round ahead of value. It's just kind of giving you an idea of when you might have to take a player. You don't have to follow it by any means. It's just a very loose data point, in my opinion. And this gets into kind of one of those

kind of philosophical questions about rankings and ADP is we have to give one number for our rankings or ADP because that is the average of, you know, 700 drafts or whatever it is on NFBC right now or you know whatever on other leagues um but it's a range and every way range is pretty wide there are going to be people who take ben rice 40th there are going to be people who wouldn't take ben rice until the 80th pick um that average

is a reflection of that but every player has a fairly wide range of possible outcomes let's move on to the next one here. This one's from Hawks 089. 12-team Dynasty auction picked two starting pitchers to keep from this group. Bubba Chandler for $4, Nick Ladolo for six, Jacob de Grombe for 15, Logan Henderson for one and Nolan McLean for six. Nolan McLean. Got an email. Someone said I was mispronouncing his name. Nolan McLean. I've been trying not to call you and Scott out since he got called up, but it has been McLean the whole time. I didn't want to, I didn't want to undermine your authority or anything. No, I mean, no. I mean, go for it. I just, uh, I went to his baseball reference page and there was no pronunciation guide. So, I mean, I was just going by the phonetic spelling, I guess,

but yeah. Nolan McLean. The one player name I can pronounce right, I guess, is Nolan McLean. Um, I would go Jacob de Grom for 15 and probably McLean for six. I think McLean versus Lodolo is an interesting discussion, but it being a dynasty. League. I mean, McLean is a little older than I think a lot of people think. He does turn 25 early this season, I believe. But he's a couple years younger than Lodolo at least. He's more proven than Bubba Chandler. I think Bubba Chandler versus McLean at six versus four is also interesting because I do rank them in the same tier. I don't know. I guess McLean feels like a little more of a safe sure thing than Bubba Chandler. What do you think on that one? Yeah, this is a tough one too,

especially like if your team is competitive or you want to compete this year Jacob de Grom for 15 is great but I think that's the one that that I'm actually locking that one in because I do think he's it's worth paying that premium when you get still a significant discount like you are on de Grom yeah I mean in most drafts he's probably going to go for 20 plus dollars and when you factor in inflation in this dynasty league he's probably going to he probably would go for even more than that but man like these guys all have huge upside and they're all pretty young outside of Jacob de Grom so I mean

the way I was leaning was actually Bubba Chandler and McLean like not even taking DeGrom and just kind of selling out for long-term value. Yeah I just they're pitchers so I don't actually think there's much long-term value like yes in theory Nolan McLean should be more valuable than Jacob deGrom in five years because Jacob deGrom won't be pitching in five years

presumably but again we could just go back to ADP five years ago I'm sure there are some really interesting young pitchers from five years ago who are no longer pitching or no longer relevant for fantasy. Like, Grayson Rodriguez, he's pitching this year. I actually thought he looked pretty good.

His first spring start was pretty promising. I added him to my sleepers 2.0. But you look back three or four years ago, Grayson Rodriguez was viewed as, you know, probably a top 15 Dynasty SP. And now his ADPs outside of the top 300. There's just a lot of ways things can go wrong for every pitcher every year to the point where I don't really, I just don't think it makes sense to think, uh, DeGrom's much better than McLean, but in three years, it's like, yeah, I, I kind of think three years doesn't matter for Dynasty when it comes to pitchers, especially.

Let's take our first break when you return back into your Apple podcast review questions right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. It's a Kokomo Mailbag Friday, and we are reading off your Apple podcast review questions. This one is from Thai Benbow. During the starting picture preview part two, you expressed concern about a Spencer Strider bounceback. Later, during the Brandon Woodruff analysis,

you mentioned his fastball lost three miles per hour, yet he produced the best numbers of his career. Does the success of Woodruff reveal an opportunity, Shrider could return to form, regardless of fastball velocity. I think it's different, Chris, because they were, I mean, look, very different injuries, but they were kind of in a similar spot last year in terms of we didn't know what they were going to look like when they returned.

And the proof of concept for Woodruff is already there, where it's not for Strider. I mean, we saw the velocity down for both of them. Actually, it was down way more for Woodruff, and he was still amazing. I mean, the best K-minus walk rate of his career. And I think maybe if we put off that it was all about velocity, that that's not exactly what we mean, because obviously shape of the fastball is really, really important as well. And it might even be more important for someone like Spencer Strider than the velocity.

I think what we need to see from Strider, if the brave stack cast allows us to see this throughout the course of spring, is not only velocity, but the shape of that fastball and the fact that he's getting more IVB on that pitch. So what do you think here? Does Woodruff maybe set up a success story here for Spencer Shrider this season? I think part of the problem with this specific comp is while both Strider and Woodruff have always been very fastball dependent. And if anything, Woodruff has been more fastball dependent than Strider.

Shrider's been, you know, more of a 50 to 55, 60% fastball guy, you know, especially since he stopped pitching out of the bullpen in 2020. 22. Woodruff has been like a, you know, if you combine the four seamer and sinker, he's been close to 60% or higher pretty much every year of his career. But it's the sinker and the four seamer. And Woodruff has always had a full arsenal, you know, of a change up, a curveball, a slider or a sweeper. Last year he adds to the cutter, which I think is a big deal because while he loses velocity on the fastball, you know, maybe the cutter serves as a bridge and helps the fastballs play better. Strider has never really had a plan B because his plan A was so good. And we haven't seen the feel for a wider arsenal from Strider that we have from

Woodruff. So that's what I struggle with when it comes to Strider adapting to having lesser stuff and specifically to losing that elite fastball because he just he has never really shown the the tools to overcome missing an elite fastball woodruff always had a wide arsenal even though he's been very fastball dependent it was two very distinct fastballs that serve very different roles in his arsenal um and he's just always been a little more adaptable than we've seen from strider so that that's i think the key distinction between the two of them but I don't want to make it seem like I think there's zero percent chance. Strider can be good, whether it's getting the fastball back or finding a different way.

Pitchers, every pitcher is different. Every pitcher succeeds in different ways. Every pitcher has to be adaptable. But we have one season of Spencer Strider not having an elite four seamer and he was pretty bad. Probably worse than his actual numbers would make him. you think even because there were some stretches where the peripherals were really bad but he found success anyway in a way that probably wasn't sustainable he had a 493 xER a last year spencer strider did he has always struggled with quality of contact he just kind of had to miss a ton of bats to

overcome it and he did woodruff has shown more different ways to succeed in his major league career. This next one is from A.J. King. I have a question about Luis Araze with his switch to second base. Based on our point system and head-to-head points, he would have been the third best second baseman in our league last year. Given that, I'm considering keeping him to give me an edge at second base. When he gains second base eligibility, where would you rank him among Jose Altuve,

Bryce Terang, Jorge Polanco, and Ozzy Albies? Worth mentioning last year, downseason four, seven. second base across the board. I believe Bryce Thrang was the top scoring second baseman. This sounds like a league where it's probably minus one for strikeouts, like minus a full point. And that's why Luis Arise gets a big boost up that. I think he would probably rank as a top 10 second baseman in a format like that, Chris. And just eyeballing some of these names, I would probably put him ahead of Jorge Polanco, but I think behind the other three, Altuvae Tarang and Albies.

Yeah, I mean, I rank Herise way lower than those guys in all the formats that we typically talk about. But in a league where his worst season as a pro was the number three second baseman, he's clearly got to rank a lot higher. You know, it probably sounds like it's an ESPN scoring league. Given that, I think you can make the case for him ahead of any of those guys. But I would take certainly to Rang and Al-Tuvay and Albi's ahead of him as well. but it's one where, you know, his actual value may not be reflected in where he's drafted

anyway. So keeping him just may not be the best idea anyway because you can get him at a cheaper cost than what he'll be worth, potentially. Yeah. Depending on if your league is paying attention to these things as much as you are, right? If everyone sees, hey, he was, you know, would have been a top five second baseman last year, then probably does, does just make sense to keep Luis arise there. Wanted to mention your Apple podcast users Shubi 34 and Who Are We Kidding? Left questions in their review, but I mentioned this the other day. They also left like a two and three star review for the podcast.

So look, if you update that to five stars, we'll answer your question on a future mailbag. Yeah. We're not asking for much, Chris. I mean, this is a pretty fair tradeoff here. Yeah, leave the five star review. It makes our bosses happen. It has to be a mishit, right? like, why would you drop a question and be like, ah, but I don't really like this podcast.

I trust, I trust their opinions, but not that much. Yeah, right? It's a little bit of a weird one. And before we move on to your email questions, big congrats in order here for Chris Towers, Fantasy Sports Writers Association Award winner, Baseball Article of the Year for 2025. Congrats to you, Chris. Thank you. Weird.

What's the article? People want to look it out. my SP Dead Zone piece from last spring talking about historical trends at the starting pitcher position where the best and worst places to draft your pitchers are um it i linked to it on twitter and blue sky for anyone who follows me um yeah it's nice to win an award yeah i don't know makes me feel weird i mean no you should you should feel you know appreciated you should feel happy about your work obviously do good job and if you want to read chris's work subscribe to the newsletter if you haven't already. If you're watching on YouTube, scan that QR code or go to

CBSports.com slash newsletters where you can sign up for free. Let's get into your email questions, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. That's the letter I and this one is from Scott, not Scott White. I would really like to get your take on something I've been thinking about. I have been seeing reports that Francisco Lindor could be ready by opening day or shortly thereafter. If that is the case, do you think he is falling too far in draft on draft boards right now? I'm seeing him behind Jazz Chisholm. Do you agree with this in a 5 by 5 category league with OBS? That's probably supposed to be, well, it could be OPS or OBP.

Yeah. Whatever. It's one of those two instead of batting average. I absolutely love Jazz's second base and third base eligibility. Is that combined with Lindor's injury enough to justify Jazz going over Lindor? I think it's a really close call right now, given the Lindor Hamate bone injury, Chris. Where do you lean there? Jazz versus Lindor. So an OBP league would change it a little bit,

although Jez walks a decent amount, so it's not... I think their OBPs are kind of similar. Could be wrong about that. I would guess Lindor is higher, but that's just off the top of my head. Their walk rates are similar. Similar, but Lindor... Higher batting average, yeah, yeah. Lindor tends to hit about 20 points better in batting average,

so that would be my guess. But no, I do have Chisham ahead of Francisco Lindor. I also have him ahead of Corbyn Carroll coming back from the same injury. I just continue to be confused by the way the Mets and Diamondbacks are talking about their guy's injuries because Jackson Holiday

has already been announced to start on the IL and him and Lindor I think had surgery one day apart and got their stitches removed one day apart. They both had their stitches removed in the last two days. So I remain skeptical that Lindor is going to be ready for opening day personally. And even if he is, it seems extremely unlikely he's going to get a lot of playing time this

spring. And there was a piece from Jeff Zimmerman, I think, on fan graphs, maybe last year or the year before, talking about how many plate appearances players need during spring training to be ready for the season. And his research indicated it's about 50 plate appearances before a player is really up to speed. and you can start to expect them to hit like themselves. And so, you know, if you get those 50 plate appearances in spring training, great.

You should be ready for the start of the season. If those 50 played appearances have to come at the start of the season, that's only like 12 games. So it's not like it's a huge issue. But that is, what, 8% of the season total, where your player might be playing at a subpar level. and then you just never know. Like some guys struggle to ever hit

after missing spring training. So I just think Lindor is better than Jazz Chisholm, all else being equal, but I do think the injury is reason enough to downgrade him just because Jazz Chisholm's awesome. Like he's basically been a 40-40 guy

since getting to the Yankees. He's going 50-50 this year. He said that. He's in a contract year, so he's more likely to play through injuries. That seems to be the biggest, the biggest change for players in contract years tends to be that they just play more. They get more playing time.

And so if jazz stays healthy, that's a big concern, obviously. But if jazz stays healthy, I think there's a decent chance he's a first-rank caliber player. There's a higher chance of a healthy Francisco Lindora Corbyn Carroll getting there. But notably, you may have heard, it's the point of the email. Those guys are not currently healthy. Yeah. So I just, I do think you have to push those guys down to a point where, like, I push Lindor down just ahead of Yorna Averas, Pete Alonzo, Pekker Armstrong in my rankings.

That's because I think there's a clear drop off before those guys. So it's Catelemaire, Vladimir Guerrero, Francisco Lindor, then Yorda on Averis, Ptollonzo, Pekar Armstrong. That feels like a teardrop to me. And so I just stuck Lindor between those two tiers. This next one is from Lori, our year. Yahoo, eight-te-to-head weekly category league uses OBP and slug instead of steals and batting average.

Wow, that's interesting. You're taking away steals and adding slug. Okay. Good. Can you share advice on how to modify your rankings with a focus on those categories? And are there resources that you would suggest using to prep for an auction draft that can be modified

to focus on those categories along with Home Run and RBI? So, look, I bring this up a lot, but if you go to Fangraphs.com, you hover over their fantasy tab, you go to the auction calculator, you can choose whatever projection system you want to use, whether it's ATC, steamer, the bad X, any of them. And you could punch in your specific league category. So I'm going to do that now, and I will try to share with you which hitters get the biggest boost. but you could also do this yourself and figure out I mean look the obvious ones like thinking all the steals guys

Ellie LeCruz gets a huge downgrade in the league like that obviously somebody like Trey Turner gets a huge downgrade because he's a good OBP and slug guy but not great in either category Kyle Swarber and Cal Raleigh get a huge boost

huge boost in that format Nick Kurtz would as well I would just say Pete Alonzo kind of just view this as our head-to-head points rankings. It's not going to be perfect because steals do matter in head-to-head points in a way that they wouldn't in this league.

That's fair. Head-to-head points, you're getting a lot of points for OBP, and Slug is going to capture the value of those extra-based hits that your standard rotos scoring doesn't, but head-to-head points do. So from the work we do,

I think you could just use our head-to-head points, and I think that would get you most of the way there, but it's not going to be perfect, obviously. Yeah. So I'm still looking at these names to see who else stands out But yeah like Brent Rooker and Yoron Alvarez And all those slugging first base when we talk about Devers Harper Matt Olson

Ben Rice Somebody like Shay Lang Lear's Hunter Goodman Some of the catchers Riley Green Eugenio Suarez so those are some of the names But yeah again you can go to the auction calculator on fan graphs And kind of poke around and look into some of that yourself For this one next one is from

Aaron, hey guys. You talk about Yurdan Alvarez like he's D.H only, but ESPN eligibility factors in percent of games at outfield, and since he was injured, he is eligible in the outfield. I play in a 6x-by-6 on ESPN with OPS as the extra category. How much higher would you rank him in this league? I feel like top 20 is reasonable, but obviously he's high risk, high reward. Should just mention, like, this is a podcast on CBS.

So we do typically default to. whatever our positional, like positions are on CBS and Yoron Alvarez is DH only there. We do try to- We're slightly different at every site. We do try to work in, you know, talking about how he's outfield on Yahoo. I didn't know he was outfield on ESPN, so I guess that's good information to have. But yeah, would he be a top 20 player in a league with OPS as an extra category? I mean, he is an elite source of OPS.

Yon Averaz is pretty consistently a 900-plus OPS guy. So I think he does get an extra boost there. you know, in a way that's already counted among his production, like, you know Yard on Alvarez is a great hitter. Adding OPS doesn't really change that except that it gives him one more category.

He now should be very, very good in five out of six categories instead of four out of five. If you do the math, that's 83% instead of 80% of the categories. It's a little valuable. And then having outfield eligibility already is a little bit valuable. I have him 26 in a standard Roto league.

So if, you know, we give him a little boost for the OPS and a little boost for the outfit eligibility, I think 20 would be reasonable. But you guys don't have him 26th and his ADP isn't 26. His ADP is closer to 40. I would guess since you guys hate Yorna-Alvarez and clearly don't respect the analysis of the baseball writer article of the year winner, I'm just going to throw that out there every time we disagree. now. No. No, I think top 20 is probably pushing it for Yardon, even if that's where I might rank him, given these factors. Chris, I have never shared my opinion of Yuron Alvarez. I have him ranked 25th in my ranking. Wow, I'm not even the Yordaun Alvarez guy. Take that. Oh, no. I mean, looking at it, it feels like it's a little bit too high. Like, I don't know that I would actually

draft him there. I would draft him at some point in the third round, but I mean, not sure it would be the early third round. So, I mean, just eyeballing it, I'd probably actually draft him around 30, so middle of the third round. Once again, I just plugged in the auction calculator, the six categories using OPS, and that has Yordon Alvarez come out as a top 20 hitter ahead of Ellie de la Cruz and Jackson Trio. Those guys lose value in a league with OPS, Trey Turner. So top 20 hitter, you figure there will be three starting pitchers taken in the first two rounds. So yeah, he's probably a borderline second round pick,

probably somewhere at the two-three turn, I would think, in a league with OPS. Again, that's Yordon Alvarez. This next one is from Jeff. I've been a big fan of drafting one ace early to build my rotation around. Unfortunately, I often get burned by injuries. I mean, welcome to the club, Jeff.

That is drafting starting pitchers. Who is the most reliable early, quote-unquote, ace pitcher to target? Chris, this is an impossible question to answer. The answer is nobody. But I guess if you had to choose one. Who is the one? Terek Scoobel.

That you feel safest with. Terriks Scoobel's been... Even with the velocity jumps the past couple of years? I mean, you could do that with every single pitcher. Yeah, I mean, Paul Skeens throws a hundred. Yeah, Paul Schenckes are really hard. Garrett Crochet has seen huge increases in innings the past couple of years. Yeah, it's...

Even Max Free, who feels safe has had a ton of forearm injuries and elbow injuries over the course of his career. None of them have proven too serious, but he's in his 30s. You know, but like just Garikol a year ago, Sandy O'Connor two years ago. There's just, there's no such thing as safe at starting pitcher because they're doing an inherently violent motion that leads to injuries at a really high rate. So for me, it's just, well, Terrick's Google's been the best. pitcher in baseball for two and a half years.

That's good enough for me to say he's the most reliable. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think if you want to go expand the definition of an ace, let's say an SP1 or SP2 type, I think the ones that we typically look at as the safest bets for volume, and again, safest in quotation marks. I would say Logan Webb and Frambervaldez are probably somewhere at the top of that list, but they also have their own issues with, you know, whip and things like that.

So if you play in a Categories league, you have to factor that in. If it's a points league and you just really want innings, then yeah, I think Logan Webb and Framber Valdez definitely makes sense in that context. Let's take our final break. When we return back into your email questions right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. It's our Kokomo Mailbag Friday,

and we'll continue on with your email questions, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. That's the letter I. This one is from John. I've been prepping for a standard 5-5 rotodraft, and I have the fifth pick. I'm undecided. and what to do, particularly with who to pair the first rounder with in rounds two and three.

If you were to pick Soto, who would you try to target and pair him with in rounds two and three? What about J-Ram or Acuna? I know Frank always likes thinking of pairing players up, thought it might be interesting to hear who you'd try to pair with these guys and then who you'd be targeting with targeting later in the draft. So I think it's harder the further you go into the draft to think about like player pairings and who makes sense. I typically look at it with the first two picks, Chris, and try to figure out which players complement each other.

You could just go best player available. I know people do that as well. I think fifth pick, whoever falls between Soto and J-Ram, to me, that is very clearly the pick. Do you agree? If it's Ramirez, yes. If it's Soto, I would take Acuna ahead of him personally. I know I'm kind of on an island on that one,

but I do think Acuna is going to run more than Soto. and I'm not sure there's really a gap between them as hitters otherwise. Soto is a more valuable hitter because he walks even more than Acuna, but Acuna pretty consistently has put up about 290 batting averages. I know the two injury plagued years have been lower, but when he's healthy, including last year, Ronald Coonja hits about 290, which tends to be better than Juan Soto. I think he's a safer bet for steals.

RBI will be worse with Acuna than So. but the runs could be a lot better for Acuna. So I give Acuna a very slight edge to Soto, but then when you talk about second and third picks, I don't think it really matters which of the three you take. I don't think that would change my decision making. I think if I took Soto, I'd be a little more inclined to look at like Jackson Churio just for the stolen bases or...

Trey Turner, Trey Turner potentially more like a third round pick, but maybe in the late. second, Jazz Chisholm, perhaps. I think if you think Soto's batting average will bounce back, Jazz makes sense with him. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. But I do think Soto is a, despite stealing almost 40 bases last year, I think he's a less safe bet for steals than Acuna and Ramirez. Yeah, 100% agree with that part of it. I do think Acuna probably gets back to 30 steals. I'm not sure I would project much more than that, although he is capable of doing it. Soto, I probably would expect 15 to 20, but it's just, it's so volatile.

Like, he could go back to 10. He could just be a 30 steel guy now. We just don't know. But I'd probably expect somewhere in the 15 to 20 range. That's one thing I wanted to highlight is there have been multiple quotes this spring about how he wants to be the MVP. And like, you know, watch your back show. Hey, Oetani.

He's going to have to keep getting better, all that stuff. There's been multiple quotes from Cotto. Is Soto pitching this year or? I don't believe so, but maybe. but I say all that just to say that could be a strong motivation for Soto to keep running is to add some high steals totals to his production and give himself a better opportunity to win MVP.

Steels are in large part about speed, but it's also about wanting to do it. And as we saw with Juan Soto last year, he can do it when he wants to despite being pretty slow. Yeah. I mean, you brought this up. There was a chance. You brought this up earlier in spring training that Aaron Judge said, if there's one thing he can improve on his game, it's running a little bit more. And he even referenced, you know, hey, other guys around the league,

not the fastest, but stealing a bunch of bases, maybe a little nod to Juan Soto, Josh Nailor, things like that. And we know that Judge is a savvy player. I mean, he's, you know, he typically gets around 10 to 15 steals. You know, if he gets that up to, you know, 20 plus, 20 with 50 home runs and 300 batting average, Man, that is pretty good. That's why he's a top two pick in every draft. This next one is from Nick.

I am in a head to head categories league that has quality starts instead of wins. Who are some of the pitchers you would move up or down? And could you specifically mention Kyle Bradish? So Braddish is interesting, Chris. I think we all love the skills for him this year. And if he does it over 160 innings,

he very much could perform just like an SP2 this year. But talk about his restriction they're going to space him out a little bit. I think there could be starts where, you know, maybe he gets to five innings and he's at 75 pitches and they're like, all right, you know, let's kind of limit him. We need him for the long haul. And maybe that could devalue him a little bit

in quality starts leagues, but it is kind of unknowable for us from a start-to-start basis with Kyle Braddish. Yeah, you can look at last year and see that he only threw more than 90 pitches once. But that was his first year back from Tommy John's surgery. They were being extra careful with him. I would guess they have a longer leash this year. But yeah, I would guess that the way they're going to try to limit his innings is just being a little more judicious on a per start basis.

So there will be some times, like you said, when five innings, 70 pitches, he's cruising, but the bullpen's well rested. We'll just take him out. Yeah. I think that's reasonable to expect. So I'm not sure Braddish as much as we like him as going to be a great source of quality starts just because of that. factor. Yeah. And some players who gain value, look, the top in quality starts last year,

all the best pitchers in baseball. It's Crochet, Christopher Sanchez, Logan Webb, Brian Woods, Eric Scubel, Hunter Brown. Some names that might surprise you that ranked this high. Nick Povetta, Luis Castillo. Merrill Kelly, who by the way is still dealing with that. Not likely to be ready for the start of the season, yeah. Yeah, he has the back injury going on there. Carlos Rodan was really good for quality starts last year.

Ranger Suarez, Matthew Boyd, Mitch Keller, Kevin Gosman. It's some of these kind of boring inning eater types who gain value in quality starts leagues. Someone who for sure would lose is Freddie Peralta. He's just, he's inefficient at times. And typically, you know, five innings, five and a third a lot of the times. The ratio should be pretty good. You'll get a lot of strikeouts. But he, I think only went six plus innings in 13 out of 30.

or 33 starts last year. So, yeah, I think he's someone who would lose a little bit of value there. This next one is from Owen. Wanted to ask about Dailin Lyle. I haven't heard much about him, but he seems like a great value going around pick 2.30. He should get plenty of at-bats in the middle of the Nats order. And it looks like he'll provide a really good average, 20 plus steals,

and some pop. On top of that, he hits a bunch of triples. How fun is that? So I know we brought him up on one of our outfield previews, Chris, and look, I don't know if everyone listened to every minute of all of our position previews, but I guess remind people why you like Dail and Lyle. Yeah, the thing about Dail and Lyle that I think a lot of people are missing is I think a lot of people, and I made this mistake, just kind of mentally put him in the like came out of nowhere,

but he's an older prospect type of box because I looked at, I actually added him to my sleepers 2.0 that came out on Wednesday on CBS Sports.com. So check that out. I looked up where he ranked for baseball prospectus in their 2025 preseason rankings. He was not even in their top 20 for the nationals. Dan Laugh was very much viewed as kind of a slap hitting platoon corner outfielder. And then he has this huge breakout at AA and AAA where the quality of contact is significantly better. It's legitimately good.

He hits the ball hard. He makes a lot of contact. He's very athletic. And then you realize, oh he was only 22 last year you know this is not a case of like a 28 year old journeyman putting together a good three months or whatever dan lyle is i think turned himself into a legit prospect type player obviously he's not prospect eligible but um he had a 735 oPS in in 2024. It was 890 between AA and AAA last season. And then he hit, uh, it was a

845 OPS at the major league level in 91 games. And the underlying numbers mostly back it up. I don't think he's just a 300 hitter moving forward, but his expected batting average was 302. It was the best in the league, I believe. So I think he's going to be Dan Lyle, a good source of batting average. I think there's a little bit of pop here, maybe 10 to 15 homers. And he was 92% down sprint speed. So you don't have to squint too hard to see him as like a 30 steel guy. So I think it allows someone you can draft expecting something like 285 batting average, 10 to 15 homers, 15 to 20 steals, but the ceiling could be even higher than that.

I think he's a very, very good cheap option this year. And could be a sneaky head to points league player as well. Makes a lot of contact. You have those extra base hits. The one thing I noticed in his profile that I didn't love is that he was bad against lefties last year, and I believe bad against lefties and the minors as well. But this is where playing for a bad team has an advantage because the nationals are just bad. They're just going to let him play and let's see what he could do against left-handed pitching.

So I think he's going to be an everyday player to start and we'll see how Dale and Lyle performs against left-handed pitching. This next one is from Nick. I wanted to bring another perspective to Chris's theory about stolen bases in the outfield ranking episode. He said that with more players stealing bases after rule changes, it will be easier to find steals and he's interested in how that will impact stolen base draft value. With his theory, players that do not steal bases would be less of a burden. From the opposite side of that perspective, if every player is stealing a bit more, wouldn't that just be an inflation of steals across the board? If you needed 30 steals to win two years ago in head to head categories, I think

that's on a per week basis. You might now need 35 to 40 steals to win. The SB value should remain relatively the same. To bring it one step further, after the rule change, players that used to steal 15 bases might be stealing 20 now. Players that used to steal 30 might be stealing 40.

That would make the players that do not steal bases tougher to swallow since you will need more steals to win in head-ed categories. Happy to hear what you guys think about the hypothesis, 40K by opening day. Well, thank you, Nick. Chris, what do you think? So what was the first year that the stolen base rule changed?

I think it's been in effect for three years now? Three seasons? Okay, so 20. I mean, whenever a CUNYA stole 70 bases, that's when it started. Yeah, so I'm looking just at one of my leagues. To finish in third place and steals that year in 2022, you needed 140. Since then, it's been more like 190. So, yeah, there is a significant inflation on stolen bases in fantasy. leagues right now for sure my argument is more that i think we're still seeing people act like steals

are scarce yes you do need more of them but you can find them that that's my point is that pushing a guy like chanler simpson way up draft boards who has obvious limitations and playing time concerns just because of the steals i just don't think it's really worth it because there are more players who steal the guys who steal a lot of bases but don't really do anything else i think think they're just more harmful now. That's my view at least. I think overall it probably comes out in the wash and the valuations will probably reflect that, but I see less, I'm less interested in taking true steel specialists than I am

guys who can still contribute in multiple ways, including with stolen bases. What I've noticed in draft so far is that it is easier to find steals later on in the draft than to find power that doesn't kill you. That's the hardest part is early round hitters, early to mid-round hitters where you can get power that doesn't come with a terrible batting average. To me, that is the most valuable commodity. Obviously just like five category producers, yes,

those are the players that you want most. But once all of those are gone, which is typically by like the third or fourth round, I am looking for guys that could provide power but also a good batting average. Because, I mean, later on you can find power, but it's going to come with a terrible, batting average. And at the same time, when you're looking at those hitters, there are more

steals available later on in drafts. You know, guys like Bryson Stott and Xavier Edwards, and there's just a lot of like Xander Bogart. He's probably going to give you 15 to 20 steals. Yeah. Is going to go outside the top 200 in most leagues. He's stolen, what, 90 bases the last two years? Yeah. So I think he's led the American League, two years in a row, actually. So, yeah, I think that's the better way to say it, actually. the way you put it is just that it's easier to find cheap steals at every point in the draft than it is to find hitters who won't kill you. Yeah. And so that's why I'm less concerned about making sure, I'm less concerned about spending a premium on stolen base sources who will

hurt you elsewhere. And that's why like, I bring up O'Neill Cruz because he's just, he needs to improve a lot to not just be like a one category. One category plus guy. he's a contributor in other categories but last year was pretty much below average everywhere except below replacement level everywhere except steals i just don't see paying the premium for that when i can find a jose caballero later i know ol'neo cruz has more upside than jose caballero and caballero is a true zero in terms of homers although he did increase his bat speed this offseason so maybe there's something there probably not um but yeah that that it's It's just as you go through the draft, finding yourself in need of steals at the 200th pick

feels a lot better than finding yourself at need for batting average, certainly, or power. This next one is from Lance. I am in an NO-only Dynasty League, Roto format, auction draft with a $260 salary cap. I have been offered a $1 Hunter Goodman and a $10 Trevor McGill for a $9 Nicodolo and $6 Emit Sheehan. So you're saving $5 going from Goodman to McGill Yeah you save $4 total in the deal $4 total in the deal yeah But

Like what does $5 buy you In an only league? In an only every dollar counts Yeah yeah I guess that's fair Like in a $5 you can get A starting middle infielder or something you know Yeah I guess Yeah I guess just saving the money is fine

especially since it's, okay, no, no. I think you got to do the Lidolo Shian side. I mean, that's the way that I was leaning. Yeah, because there's just a chance that you're spending $10 on Trevor McGill for really good ratios and five saves. Yeah. If McGill was guaranteed to be the closer, it'd be easier,

but given what we know now on February 25th, I think you've got to go to the Lidolo Shian side, even though it's more expensive and it's investing in two pitchers. which is always risky. Yeah. Hunter Goodman, I mean, you're getting like $20 of savings here. He's probably around a $20 catcher and it only maybe a little bit more than that. But with Lidolo, I think you're probably saving, you know, five to six bucks and she and maybe like, you know, $8 to $10.

I think they're both around $15 pitchers in NL only. So you're getting pretty good value on both. And I do like both pitchers quite a bit this year. I like Goodman, but I would lean the pitching side here. mostly for the just because we don't know exactly what Trevor McGill's role is going to be this season. This next one is from JT

at what point in your draft do you switch from taking the best player regardless of position to taking players based on the positions you still need to fill? I think it changes for the person. Like if Scott were here, I think he would say, I mean, going into the draft, he's already thinking about like,

yeah, I want Jose Ramirez in round one or I want Junior Camerro in round two because I really want a good thing third baseman. I think it changes depending on the person's like I would I think in the first four or five rounds I'm probably just taking the best player available but typically I like Mikel Garcia in round six and that's when I'm starting to think about like all right let me lock in that third baseman because I know it's a bad position yeah I think you know we talked about this on Tuesday night's podcast about the idea that a lot of fantasy drafters will make sure that their

entire starting lineup is filled before their bench spots are. I don't think that's the right way to view it. I do think your starting lineup in week one will not be your starting lineup in week five, let alone week 25. So you should be looking to get as many talented players as possible. Now you can overdo that. You can, you know, draft three outfielders in your first four picks and, you know, in a three outfielder league. And that's probably a mistake. unless those three outfielters are all really good. But I think too many people view it as I can't take a bench, I can't take an extraneous piece before I fill my starting lineup.

But if the best player available is someone at a position you already have, I think it's still fine to take them. So I'm not filling my entire lineup before I fill in my bench spots, I will say. So I'm still generally prioritizing the best player available. that's not always the case. You know, you have to draft a player at every position, but I'm not going to push guys several rounds up where I rank them just because I need that position necessarily.

And let's wrap up with your favorite, Chris, some Connor Griffin questions. And this one is from David, where would you draft Connor Griffin in a 10-team league where you can keep three? Right now, my keepers are Shohei Otani, Ellie Dela-Cruz, and Paul Skeens. I mean, does it even matter at that point?

Your team is so amazing. I'm considering not keeping skeins and hoping to get Griffin in round three? Um, no. What? No, I love Connor Griffin. I think he's super talented. If Connor Griffin is Ellie De La Cruz in 2025, he might be Ellie with a 300 batting average. I mean, he might be, but there are some contact skill concerns there.

He struck out like 24% of the time last year. Yeah. But if he has an Ellie de la Cruz season in 2025, that would be one of the best seasons by a 19 year old ever. If he or a player who starts their season at 19. If he has an Ellie de la Cruz season in 27, that would be one of the best seasons by a 21 year old ever. So I, you've got three first rounders here. Connor Griffin could be a third rounder, but you're not getting such a big value there. like it'd be one thing if you were keeping Connor Griffin

with your 20th round pick. Then it's like, okay, yeah, that's a legitimate argument between him and Paul Skeen's. I don't think there's any way it makes sense to pass on three first round caliber players even if you can't keep them next year. And Griffin, you can just because the, the likeliest outcome with Griffin is that he's just pretty good.

Because being pretty good as a 19-year-old is incredible. Yeah. I am trying to find Bobby Witt's draft value Like the year he was a rookie And look, it's not apples to apples here But just to see how high he went the next season So Bobby Witt's 80P entry 2022 was 82 And then the following season

I think he was like a first round picker Yeah, he had to have been a first rounder Yeah His ADP the next year was 11 The difference is Bobby Wood Jr. we knew was going to play he was going to be up on opening day basically. He played 150 games in 2022.

So I was trying to find a player that a player of similar prospect caliber who I think has a similar skill level and that's Bobby Witt. But it's just, it's very different in terms of the age to level production and when we're going to see Connor Griffin.

We just don't know. I mean, it could be opening day. It could be August. It could be somewhere in the middle. It could be June. And then he comes up and he performs like a top three round pick from June on. It's an impossible question to answer.

I mean, he could come up in June and be terrible. There's just, there's no way to know. And to invest a third round pick in that, that is just such a massive opportunity cost. You basically need to know that he is Bobby, Bobby Witt Jr. right away, basically. And we just don't know that. So this next one is from James again, Connor Griffin.

I am in a 12-team Keeper League and draft picks move up three rounds the following year, what round would you realistically draft Connor Griffin? I want to be aggressive in case he makes a team. I mean, we're getting some form of this question daily right now, Chris, and I don't want to cop out. Like, we'll give you an answer. But it is kind of impossible to answer because every league is completely different, especially when you consider the keeper value aspect of this too,

the fact that this player will move up three rounds for the next season. So the first number that came to mind if you really wanted him was like round 10. But again, even that, it's like the opportunity cost. You're passing up on really, really good players right now, who we know are going to be up on opening day. But if he comes up and hits, like, yeah, you have him as a seventh round keeper for next season. Yeah, so my first thought was 10th round. I could talk myself into like eighth round.

So you're talking about a fifth round keeper for 2020. that feels reasonable. I think it's, I don't know, how bad would Connor Griffin have to be in 2026 to not be worth, to not get drafted as a top 70 pick in 2027. Or 2027 next year? Yeah.

Because like, you look at Wyatt Langford, who is not the same caliber of prospect as Connor Griffin, was older when he made his debut. he had a pretty lousy rookie season. I guess he was fine. I mean, 253, 16 homers, 19 steals. Who is that? Wyatt Langford.

Okay, yeah. And he was a top 50 pick the next year. Right. So if he comes up and holds his own basically and shows some level of power and speed. If Connor Griffin goes 1525 while hitting 250 in 2026, I think that's a top three round pick, right? Just projecting, like doing that as a 20-year-old, projecting,

he's going to put up some really impressive quality of contact metrics, I would bet. He would have to be really disastrous to not be a top 100 pick in 2027, I would think. So I... Eight through 10th round, I think, is where I would go here in a keeper. I don't want to look at it as a... like such a black and white situation, but I think the most likely outcome, Chris, is that

he's either a top three round pick next year or outside the top 200. Outside the top 200. Yeah, like I don't... Jackson Holiday coming off his rookie season was probably, I would guess, outside of the top 200. Yeah. I don't know if that's the right answer, but that's the way that I'm looking at it with Connor Griffith right now. Like if he

comes up and he's amazing, like, all right, he's just a top three top three round pick next year. or, you know, comes up. Or we just don't see him until late in the season and he struggles a little bit, whatever it might be. I think I don't really see a middle ground for Connor Griffin for next year. Even there, like Corby and Carroll came up late

in his rookie season and was productive, but not like overwhelmingly so. And then he was what, like a top 60 or top 75? Yeah, I think he was still like a top 75 pick the next year. Yeah, yeah, it's not impossible. Yeah. I think that's the likeliest outcome as we're talking about Connor Griffin

as like a top 75-ish pick this time next year, but there are definitely first round outcomes there too. This last one is from Paul. First off, You Rock. Been listening to you guys for years and have written in before. My new dilemma is the following. I play in a Keeper League where we pay $5 extra

to keep a player each year, and we can keep them for up to three years. The price goes up $5 each year. The league is a daily head-toed categories league that includes the standard five offensive categories, OBP. I'm trying to decide between keeping Michael Bush for $7 or Connor Griffin for five. I technically picked up Connor Griffin in 2025 so I can keep him in 2026 for five bucks and then $10, so on and so forth. Since it's a daily league, I'll have the option to play Bush against Ritees and start another first baseman when he's facing a lefty.

Who should I keep the up-and-comer, the up-and-comer Bush or the young phenom in Connor Griffin? I'm leaning towards Griffin because of the upside, but we'll love to get your take. Where do you think Connor Griffin ends up being drafted if he's guaranteed a roster spot? Do you think he's a top 100 pick? 1,000%. Michael Bush's ADP is 107 right now.

So if we think Connor Griffin would definitely be a top 100 pick, and I think he probably would be if he made the team. 1,000%, Chris. You're getting a, discount on the price and probably a discount on relative to Michael Bush. So kind of think you have to go Griffin. But saying that on February 25th, it's not guaranteed that he's on the opening day roster. So I lean Griffin, but I know you like Bush more than I do. Yeah, this is where the rubber meets the road because I like Michael Bush a lot this year. Yeah. Obviously, Connor Griffin to home run

game the other day, but I've been pretty solidified in my stance that I don't think he's going to be up on opening day. Just nothing against him. It's really just, I just don't trust the Pirates Organization and the manager already kind of shooting it down a little bit. So I don't know that there's anything he could do to be up on

opening day, and maybe I'm wrong about that. So if you have to choose right now, I would go with Michael Bush, but if you have to choose closer to opening day and you have an idea of like, all right, it's a 80% chance Connor Griffin is on the opening day roster, then yeah, I would go with him. But right now I'd probably just lean

Michael Bush just because I don't think Connor Griffin will be up on opening day. But I hope I'm wrong about that. I just, I don't trust the Pirates organization. And so I want to see the prospects. I want to see the young guys up and I think it's better for baseball. But again, it's I don't trust the Pirates to do the right thing.

We are going to wrap there for 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. Mount Podcasts.