Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Max Scherzer to the Blue Jays! Carlos Estevez to the Royals! - Emergency Podcast (1/30 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Max Scherzer is signing a one-year deal with the Blue Jays (2:24)! Does he have anything left? ... Carlos Estevez signed a two-year deal with the Royals (9:43)! Who will be the closer in Kansas City? ... Ha-seong Kim signed a two-year deal with the Rays (16:29)! ... We wrap up with smaller bullpen moves (20:22). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. An emergency podcast for Max Scherzer? Welcome in to a bonus edition of fantasy baseball today. On Thursday, January 30th, I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers. Lots of news to update you on. We just got Max Scher one-year deal to the Toronto Blue Jays. Plus, yesterday we saw Carlos Estevez to the Royals, Hassan Kim to the Rays. And you might be wondering, why are they doing an emergency podcast for the?

these players. Well, tonight we are doing sleepers breakouts and busts 1.0 on our full length podcast, our normal live stream that we do here on YouTube. But I don't really want to take any time away from those players. I want to give that podcast the time that it deserves. And the time that these players deserve too, because there's a lot of fantasy stuff going on here, especially with Carlos Sestavis. But let's just start things off with Max Scherzer-Kris, the Future Hall of Famer to the Blue Jays on a one-year $15.5 million deal. Scherzer was limited to just nine starts last season, but when he pitched, he was still solid. 395 ERA 115 whip 14.6% swinging strike rate.

That is still an elite mark. He did miss a ton of time, recovering from back surgery, then he had a sore right shoulder, a strained hamstring. So, Chris, at 40 years old, does Scherzer have anything left in fantasy? I think he definitely has something left. I think the chances of us getting like a huge Max Scherzer season are extremely unlikely because it just it does seem like his body is letting him down at this point that he just can't handle being a major league starting pitcher anymore. That's reflected in the fact that he had to settle for a one year, $15 million deal.

But when he was on the mound last year, it wasn't dominant Max Scherzer of old. And there's certainly been slippage in the skill set. But it was a 395 ERA backed up by a 386XERA. It's a decent lineup. He's still got a bunch of swinging strikes. The slider still looks like an elite swing and miss pitch. The curveball got a lot of whiffs last year as well. So I think if you're in the last round of your league and you're looking for a starting to pitcher to throw a dart at, I suppose I'd rather have Max Scherzer than, I don't know, Merrill Kelly.

but if you're in a situation where like Brandon Woodrow for Reese Olson are available, I'd rather take the chance on those guys. Yeah, I didn't realize this, but I have Max Scherzer much higher in my rankings than you guys do. And that wasn't really on purpose. I have him like around SP 75. He's inside my top 250. I just think when he pitches, and again, it's like if he gets hurt, whatever, you take him in the last round, you could drop Max Scherzer.

But when he pitches, I mean, if he could still provide a mid-to-high-3-Z or, Over a strikeout per inning, all those whiffs. You know, if he's on the mound, he's probably going to go six plus innings, give you a good chance of getting a win as well. It's just how many starts is he actually going to make? I agree with you. I think the body here is very clearly starting to break down for Scherzer. We've actually seen that really the past five, ten years for Scherzer,

where he does miss these extended period of time for shoulder and back and weird things like that in Max Scherzer's career. The NFBC ADP in January for Scher, non-existent. 52. So again, it's, you know, he's going just after Ryan Weathers and Justin Verlander and Lucas Gielito. You said like you would. I'd rather have Weathers. You would take Scher's ahead. I mean, you would take Olson and and Weathers, who I like to, I wrote him up as a sleeper, but, you know, Scherzer versus Verlander, another wily vet, one year deal with the Giants or I think Scherzer has more left. It's the landing spot for Verlander's better. Like he could, you know, he's always been good. even the past couple years where things haven't quite gone his way,

he's still always been good at preventing damage on contact. But I think Scherzer has looked better the last couple of seasons. So I'm willing to take that risk just because the bigger risk here is that he just doesn't hold up. And I'm not worried about that at all when you're talking about the 350th pick. You know, like the last or second to last piece on your bench, I don't really care if there's risk. From a Blue Jays perspective, obviously they missed out on Juan Soto. They were in the mix for that. Roki Sasaki as well.

They have pivoted since missing out on those players by signing Jeff Hoffman to be their closer. They brought in Anthony Santander and now Max Scherzer. You know, do they still have enough room left to get a Pete Alonzo or make another move? I'm not so sure that will happen if they can resign or extend Vladimir Guerrero Jr. I think that would really kind of put a stamp on this offseason for the Blue Jays. So that's, you know, I think number one with a bullet on their task list. The updated rotation, Kevin Gosman, Jose Burrios, Chris Basset, Max Scherzer, Bowden, Francis. It feels okay, solid.

Yeah, I mean, Bowden Francis kind of stands out there. The rest of them are like elder millennials, and Bowden Francis is the one Gen Z guy in the rotation. And he's not even that young. He's like 28 years old. Yeah, so, you know, the, the, conversations there have to be interesting. But yeah, it's not a great rotation. It's not a great team.

But it's a team that should compete for a playoff spot. You know, I think Jeff Hoffman, I wrote up in my breakouts column, I believe, maybe he was a sleeper, one of those two. But I really like the skill set. I love what we've seen. And, you know, I think this just makes the, the Blue Jays a little more competitive. And now, you know, they're able to push everyone one more spot down in the depth chart. So I think the Blue Jays are okay for 2025.

Yeah, I mean, looking at their lineup, they probably still need to get something else done if they can. Yeah. I'm interested in Will Wagner, but, you know, he's your starting DH and you have, Ernie Clemente at third and Nathan Luke's in Centerfield, according to Ross de resource. So I think another bad.

The whole thing looks a lot better if Pete Alonzo's there. Yeah. You know, and I still think they would like to sign him. I'm assuming Alonzo's preference is to go back to New York if you can get the five or six million dollars that they're reportedly haggling over. Yeah. All right, let's take a quick break when we return. We'll talk about Carlos Estevez to the Royals. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. Let's talk about Carlos Estevez signing a two-year $20.2 million deal with the Royals. Not really the landing spot we were expecting here for Carlos Estevez. It does

include a $13 million club option for 2027 with a $2 million buyout. Estevez is coming off a strong season. It was a little bit shaky after getting traded over to the Phillies. We saw the walks go up once he was in Philadelphia, but he has 26 or more saves two years in a row. With all of that being said, Lucas Erseg, after joining the Royals last season, was awesome. He had 11 saves.

You know, he pitched for them in the postseason, and I think most people were kind of drafting him this offseason hoping and expecting that he would be the closer for the Royals. So Chris, another kind of messy bullpen here. How do you think the Royals divvy things up between Carlos Estevez and Lucas Ursaig? I think at the start of the season, it's significantly less messy than like the Dodgers bullpen that we talked about the other day. Because I do think if the Royals are going to go out and give Carlos Estevez, what was it, two years, 24 million? I think it was like just over 20 million. That feels like

they are signing him to be the closer. Now, it's Carlos Estevez and he is famously pretty rocky. I don't know if he, did he end up losing his job at the end of the 2023 season? Was that a pun intended, Chris? Because he used to pitch for the Rock.

Yeah, a little bit. The end of 2023 with the Angels. Yeah. I know he was definitely, he was really bad in the second half of the season. I don't remember if he lost it, but he was bad. And then to his credit, he did bounce back last year. Some stuff that

how sustainable is it, his control was amazing with the Angels. And then when he went over to the Phillies, again, we kind of saw the walks, started to creep back up. The strikeout rate wasn't as impressive as previous years as well. So there are questions here with the skills. The problem is that

he is a more established than someone like Lucas Ersig. So how much does that matter to the Royals? I would guess matters. You know, like the way they used Urseg in the second half, especially before Hunter Harvey broke down. They viewed him, I think, more as like a multi-inning guy, a little more flexible with the usage in the playoffs. I think he was pitched in the eighth inning twice and was used like as a fireman a couple

of times. So even when he was clearly the best reliever and even when he was quote unquote the closer, they liked to be a little more flexible with him. And I think that probably would make sense. you know, if Carlos Estabez can hold on to that job, that's a fairly sizable if. And so if I'm ranking these guys for fantasy and it is my job to do so, so I will. Carlos Estabas will be about 180 overall. And that's a useful number two closer.

And I think Arseg is still like a viable bench piece because I do think he's a really good pitcher. I think he's a better pitcher than Estabez. And so if Estavis gets out to a really bad start to the season, you know, struggles in spring training, struggles in the first week of the season, I could see a scenario where he just loses the job early. And in which case, Lucas Erick said could be a really, really valuable piece. It's probably one where you just draft him. If that happens, great. If not, you let him go. But I think it's worth keeping him in mind in the same way that I think you should with like Kirby 8s, even if he doesn't open the season as the Dodgers.

closer. Yeah, I feel similarly, I think Carlos Estavis probably the closer to start. He feels like a boom or bust RP2 for fantasy, where, you know, if Estevez gets off to a great start like he did last year, he could just hold the closer's job all season for what we expect to be a pretty good Kansas City Royals team. He could wind up with 30 saves. Like, would not surprise me. It also wouldn't surprise me if he kind of picks up where he left off.

We've seen him have rough stretches with command before. before, you know, by May or June, he doesn't have a job anymore. And Lucas Erseg kind of gets inserted, re-inserted back into that closer role. So, again, it's, as your second closer, it's probably okay, but just realize there is risk involved with Carlos Estevez. And, you know, look, in standard mixed leagues with saves as a category, if I can get Erseg in the later rounds, you know, one of the last rounds and just kind of, let's see how this plays out early in the season, I think I'd be interested in doing something like that,

because I think Ersig is the more talented reliever of the two. All right, Chris, now your job will be to rank a bunch of relievers that we've talked about all offseason and ones that maybe are in a questionable situation. So I will give you the Cubs guys, the Dodgers guys, and the Royals. So Ryan Presley, Porter Hodge, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Carlos Estevez, and Lucas Ersig. How are you ranking those six for fantasy leagues, Just saves, no holds in mind.

Presley, I think I would go Scott ahead of Estevez, then Yates, Ursa, and Hodge way down. I feel most confident about Ryan Presley being the closer. Speaking of Ryan Presley, by the way, the Cubs told him he would close some games out. He had a kind of Q&A answering some questions from the Cubs media, and he said this of Porter Hodge. This is Ryan Presley's quote.

I think we're going to be a dynamic duo in the back end of the bullpen. I'm going to go into camp competing for that ninth inning role. Whatever happens is going to happen. So he clearly wants to be the closer. I think we realized that when he was in Houston. He wasn't overly excited about it. Oh, there's been, that's been reported that he was not happy at all about the signing of Josh Hater. Yeah.

Yeah, it's tough because he is, you know, Presley's kind of declining to, but probably. Oh, I don't, I'm not sure Ryan Presley's the, he might be the sixth best of those. six right now. But it's closer, you know, it's, but it's the role matters a lot more and I still think Presley's good enough to hold on to that job. Yeah, I think it might be like a stay away for all of the, you know, favorites in the bullpen for me. I just think I'm probably going to go in other directions and I haven't updated the rankings yet, but I plan to do it in the

next day or two. I think I would put probably Tanner Scott still at the top and then probably would go Presley, Estabez, Yates, Erseg, and then Hodge on the bottom. But, you know, again, let's see how these guys play in spring and what we get in terms of reports from managers for their respective teams. The Rays have also been busy. They signed Hassan Kim to a two-year $29 million deal.

That includes an opt-out after the first year, which could allow Kim to get back on the market next off-season if he returns healthy from that shoulder surgery and maybe he has a big second half, something like that. That could allow him to get back on the market. but Kim did have that right shoulder surgery this offseason is not expected to return until around May. And once he does return, is expected to be the starting shortstop for the Tampa Bay raise. Chris, any interest using one of your last round picks on Kim as an injury stash for the Tampa Bay Rays?

I mean, look, when you talk about Hassan Kim versus some of the minor leaguers that we're going to stash, one advantage that he has is one, he's proven as a, you know, solid, unspearl. spectacular fantasy option, but two, you can put him in an IL spot. You're not going to be able to do that with most of the minor leaguers that we're talking about stashing. So I do think, yeah, if you play in any league with an IL spot and you need some speed, he's absolutely worth stashing. I think he's not a great player, you know, better in real life than fantasy. And the fact that he only got the two year 29 with essentially a pillow contract, you know, with an opt out after this year tells me the teams are pretty worried. You know,

I looked up the the fan graphs crowdsourced projection for his contract. It was like 470 or four, yeah, something like that. So like this is a pretty steep discount. So my expectations are not super high. I, you know, is it late May that he returns? That's also a question. But yeah, as a late round flyer, sure. I do wonder, does this make it more likely they trade Brandon Lau or Yandi Diaz?

I think that's possible. I looked it up. This is, if the raise entered the season with their current roster, this would be the first time ever that the raise had three players making $10 million on the roster at the same time or that the raise were paying $10 million at the same time. So a trade seems possible, if not necessarily the most likely outcome right now.

And we have heard those rumors in recent years with Brandon Lau and Yandy Diaz, I think that would make some sense. And especially when you consider the race farm system, they have a top shortstop prospect in Carson Williams, who is expected to debut some point in 2025. And maybe his biggest tool, from a real-life perspective, is his defense.

He's a phenomenal defender by, you know, all reports. So once Carson Williams is ready, he'll get called up, he'll play shortstop. Kim is also a great defender, so they can probably play him at second or third base, although they have Junior Cabinero too. So yeah, there could be a logjam or a trade at some point. My guess is, you know, they probably play it pretty slow with Carson Williams.

That's what the race typically do with their prospects, maybe second half of the season, something like that for Carson Williams. Just on Kim, last point that I will mention, if you are looking to draft him in the NFBC, the ADP in January is 398 as the 27 shortstop off the board. No IL spots in the NFL. We'll go higher in most leagues. If you play in a standard league with seven bench spots in the NFBC, one of those would have to go to Kim.

You don't have an IL spot. But if you play in a draft and hold league where you have 27 bench spots, then yeah, you can obviously take Hassan Kim and wait for him to return. That position eligibility obviously does help. Actually, does he have multi-position eligibility, or is the only second base to start? Let's look that up. It feels like something I should have done before.

He's just shortstop. Just shortstop. All right, so, yeah, forget what I just said about positional eligibility for Hassan Kim, shortstop eligible only. A few other small reliever signings that I did, well, I guess moves, not necessarily signings, but the Reds acquired lefty Taylor Rogers from the Giants in exchange for minor league reliever Braxton Roxby. Fun name there.

Rogers will likely be the setup man to Alexis Diaz. He does have closer experience, you know, as two say. two seasons with 30 plus saves, does Taylor Rogers. Alexis Diaz has been shaky. So I still think it's Diaz to start, Chris. But if he struggles early on, maybe they do make that move to Taylor Rogers.

Yeah, Rogers is a viable backup option. I think there's a chance he's just better than Alexis Diaz, who I've never been a huge fan of. But yeah, I would guess Alexis Diaz because he has the incumbency advantage, will open the season as the closer for the Reds, but if he falters, this is a very competent option to back him up, who does have experience in the role.

So, you know, being a lefty, I think teams would prefer to keep him out of that role, but if push comes to shove, he's good enough for it. And lastly, the Tigers signed reliever Tommy Canley to a one year $7.75 million deal.

And Canley has been pretty good. You know, for my Yankees the past couple of years, he's actually a pretty, fiery dude. He's not the most important reliever on the team, but yeah, I'm kind of sad to see Tommy Canley go. Hopefully he does well with the Tigers. Last season, a 211

1-15 whip over a strikeout per inning. Will he get any saves for the Tigers? It's kind of a wide open bullpen. Here's what Tigers president of baseball operations Scott something. I'm supposed to write I'm going to be honest. That is not one I've got off the

top of my head. Tigers President of Baseball Operations. That would be Scott Harris. Scott Harris is quote here on Tom McCannley. He, Canley, has demonstrated in his career that he can get outs anywhere. I think we demonstrated as a team last year that we can get to the finish line in a number of different ways. And I think that does give us an edge. How it all shakes out, I'm not quite sure yet. We're not done building our team yet. So, Chris, do you have any idea the way saves will be distributed for the Tigers as of now? No, I think like you said, it's wide open.

Like Jason Foley does some things well. He was okay in the role last year, but, you know, they, I don't even know if they lost confidence in him in the second half. They just went to a more wide open approach as the season went on. He did end up with 28 saves last year, but Tyler Holton got eight towards the end. You know, if you're looking for more of like a traditional high strikeout guy, bro, Briskey probably fits that bill better than Holton Foley. Canley is a weirdo in his own right. You know, Jason Foley's like nothing but sinkers. Tommy Canley's nothing but changeups.

Didn't he only throw 601 in a row at one point in the playoffs? Crazy. His fastball is actually his change up. He throws his fastball 19% of the time. He throws his change up 73% of the time. So interesting. That's something to watch with Devin Williams, by the way. Devin Williams might throw his change up like 60%

percent of the time when he gets to the Yankees. Yeah. Well, now that he's with the Yankees. But yeah, I can't, can't be in the mix, but I, I don't think any of these guys need to be priorities. And he would be relatively low down the list. So if you're talking late round flyers, I'm not even sure in a 12 team league. Canley gets into the mix.

Yeah, I don't think 12 teamers. It makes sense. I think 15 team mixed roto leagues where. Maybe. Says are scarce as your third reliever option or a, a bench, you know, just speculative pickup to see where things go with the Tigers. I think that's fine. AL only, obviously, anybody with a pulse, he'll be drafting there.

We just don't know how it's going to shake out as of now. Canley, you know, he's got some good skills. He can get lefties and righties out. So maybe he factors in, but also just doesn't really have closer experience. So my guess is it's probably like Foley the de facto to start. But yeah, I think they're likely to play matchups there with the Tigers. Bullpen. All right, we are going to wrap there. Before we wrap up, I did just want to mention, if you want to get more Chris Towers content, you can do so by watching Nick Pollock's Pitchcon,

which is coming up, well, it's actually live right now. If you want to go watch, I believe it's pitchrelist.com slash pitchcon, but Chris will be on at 7 o'clock, so about 30 minutes from now if you're watching. Scott's on right after at 8. So there you go. You can get double feature. An entire night of FBT. You watch this emergency podcast, then you get Chris on pitchcon, You get Scott on PitchCon, then we'll be exhausted. Live again at 10.30 later on tonight. So there you have it. We're 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 later on tonight. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.