Fantasy Baseball Today - Mets-Braves Doubleheader, 2024 Season Recap & Playoff Predictions! (10/1 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

The Mets-Braves doubleheader on Monday was insane (2:42)! ... Chris Sale was scratched with back spasms (6:40). ... Spencer Schwellenbach shined on the biggest stage (10:15). ... Ozzie Albies had a huge doubleheader, batting only right-handed (14:06). ... News (20:55): Yordan Alvarez was hitting and running on Monday. ... We got some big front office moves (28:40). ... How did we all do in our Fantasy Baseball leagues (33:15)? ... Who were the league leaders from this season (48:07)? ... What did the league-wide trends look like (58:40)? ... We wrap up with our World Series predictions (1:02:05). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Pencils down, 2024 is in the books. Welcome in Tough Fantasy Baseball today. Welcome to October and welcome to the offseason.

I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. And shout out to everybody who made it through the season. Whether you won your league or not, it's an absolute grind. Let's just be honest about the baseball season. Six straight months of nonstop box scores and especially this season injuries. And it was a very tough season to navigate all around. And of course, shout out to those who did wind up winning their leagues. But give yourself a pat on the back because it's a grind.

It's a grind for sure. Today on the show, it's our 2024 season recap. league leaders, we have league-wide trends, how do we do in our leagues, and playoff predictions, but can we just start with this double header on Monday, which of course, like we knew it was going to be chaos, just pure chaos. And it was insane. It was a lot of fun too. Yeah, oh my God, indeed. Because these teams wound up splitting the doubleheader, which means they are both in the playoffs, the Mets and the Braves. The D-Backs are out.

Sorry, D-Bex fans. Sorry to our buddy, the Welsh there. Game one of this double-header might be one of the best baseball games ever. Is that like an overstatement? I just, an emotional roller coaster back and forth. The Braves were up for most of this game. They had a three-run lead going into the eighth inning. The Mets score six.

They take a six-three lead. The Brays score four in the bottom of the eighth. The Mets retake the lead in the ninth inning, and they wind up winning the game eight to seven. dramatic go-ahead home run from Francisco Lindor. Crazy. Just crazy. Immediate reaction, I guess. That's crazy.

If it wasn't for Shohei Otani, Francisco Lindor absolutely would have won MVP today. That was about as dramatic a home run as you can hit in a regular. I mean, is there a more dramatic home run you can hit in a regular season? I guess it wasn't a do-or-die situation. Like, as we saw in game two, the team that won was pretty willing to run.

roll over and I would guess that it would have been the same had the the table's been turned. But still, it was a an incredible moment for, for Lindor. His reaction after the game. I don't know if you guys saw the picture of him after the last out. Clearly in a ton of pain, clearly very emotional at second base. What, what a season for Francisco Lindor. Yeah, yep. We'll not win the MVP.

We know Shohei Otani will win the NL MVP, but an MVP caliber season nonetheless, for Francisco Indoor, who towards the end of the season, we just mentioned what he did on Monday, but also on Sunday, I mean, these were a must-win games for the Mets. Two for four with a sock and two shoes on Sunday. Awesome season for Francisco Indoor. Scott, your Braves managed to win game too. They're in the playoffs, so congrats to you, I guess, kind of. How do you feel about it? I don't know.

I feel like obviously you're happy, but it's kind of a weird situation, right? Like now Chris Sails hurt. I don't know. Well, first let me set the scene of that first game, where it started before I picked up my kids from school. They're very invested. I told them it was 2-0. We got home.

It was 3-0. Everybody was in a pretty good mood. And then came the 6th run 8th inning, at which point I sent. There was a lot of screaming and crying, and also Scott's kids were very upset. My youngest, the 7-year-old upstairs, to take a shower because I told him,

I didn't think this was going to end well. Oh, no. He went upstairs crying. Meanwhile, my oldest, my 10-year-old, almost 10-year-old, was trying to learn long multiplication. And I had forgotten how to do long multiplication, like standard algorithm. I totally forgot how to do that.

So I'm trying to watch YouTube videos trying to figure it out because he doesn't know what he's doing with it. And so he's trying to get his homework done. And meanwhile, they come surging back the next inning. My youngest is out of the shower. at that point. So we're all jumping up and down because the Braves retook the lead.

And then we were devastated all over again the next inning. So that was disappointing. They had to go do something later. So they didn't see Game 2. But Game 2 felt very business-like. It was really anti-climactic. Yeah, the Mets had already accomplished

what they needed to. And so they seemed like they were phoning it in. And so the Braves pulled it out. it was kind of scary there because all in game one, the expectation is, okay, if they lose this one, Chris Sale's going to start game two.

And then he didn't it. And we learned he wasn't going to. It's like, who's going to start? Because everybody's tired. Everybody pitched too recently. He's not going to pitch in the Wild Cards series, it sounds like.

No. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. So this is. It's weird. Like every quote that they, they've put out is like, it's really not that big of a deal. He's barely hurt.

And yet he's not going to pay. It's so weird. Yep. And he was scratch from this start. Chris Sale was game two of the doubleheader due to back spasms. That's the injury that was reported here. And we've talked a lot about in September, the velocity being down for Chris Sale.

His most recent start was back on September 19th. His fastball velocity, a season low 92.7 miles per hour. So it sounds like he could have been pitching through this. injury for quite a minute. I think they said as much, right? They said he, during that last start.

They said he felt the back spasms in the second inning of that September 19th start. It's just, why did this only come out in between games one and two when all the while they were saying, they're going to use them when they're facing elimination. That's what they're saving them for. And that was the official line and it made sense. But then they were facing elimination. And it's like, no, actually, he's been dealing with backs.

for two weeks. So at the very least, they were lying by omission. A little game 162 news dump, which, funny enough, I feel like the ultimate news dump on Monday was the Giants announcing that they effectively fired their GM and hired Buster Posey. Buster Posey announcing it like 12 seconds before the first pitch of the first game. I don't know if you guys caught that timing, but that was, that fell for. very intentional to me. Yeah. If I could get around to answering the question you actually ask me, though, Frank, before we move on to that, I feel like as the Braves have been to the playoffs a lot in my lifetime, as everybody knows.

I don't feel like there's ever been less pressure on a Braves playoff team than this one. Expectations are so low. Like it feels the playoffs feel like a finish line for this team. Like, okay, we at least do not have to suffer the indignity of missing the playoffs. We made it. It was a tough grind. So, like, to me, it's like, this feels very low stress at this point. And maybe that'll take the pressure off and they'll end up being a surprise team.

I don't know. I'm not counting on it. I don't want to count on it. But that's how I'm feeling. Like, okay, we did pretty well. Of course, they won the World Series three years ago and I feel like that takes a lot of pressure off itself because that's still in the grand scheme of things pretty recent. It's not like you have a whole generation of people feeling like they can never win again.

So yeah, that's how I feel about it. Yeah, especially when one of Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder or A.J. Smith-Shawver will be starting game one of the wild card round here for the Braves, which does start on Tuesday when you are listening to this. So the Mets and Braves will both be in action for the NAA wildcard round. The Mets taking on the Brewers, the Braves taking on the Padres. We'll give you our playoff slash World Series predictions later on in the podcast. We'll kind of wrap up with that. Just wanted to quickly touch on a few other things.

Just from a fantasy perspective, putting a bow on this double header before we kind of just move on to wrapping up the season. Spencer Schwellenbach in game one of that double header shoved once again. I mean, biggest game of the year, seven innings, one run, five strikeouts. He finishes his season with a 335 ERA 104 whip, 127 strikeouts, over 123, and two-thirds innings. I don't know if I am supposed to reveal this, but we were talking beforehand. And Chris, you're way too early starting pitcher ranks.

Yeah. You have Schwellenbach at SP26, which sounds good to me. Yeah, I mean, look, that there is a lot of fluidity between, honestly, like, starting at six, I feel like I have no strong opinions about starting pitchers. Like, I feel pretty good about the rankings.

I feel like I've got, some strong takes, but it's pretty wide open. So like, if you wanted to say it is crazy to rank Spencer Swellenbach ahead of Sunny Gray, I wouldn't really argue with you. I have Swellenbach ahead of Sunny Gray, but I wouldn't really argue. But yeah, I have him as a high end SP3. I'm not sure I'm going to be the highest person on this podcast on him. I think the problem is the upside's clear, right? We've talked all about it. The K-minus walk rate, I think, is 12th in baseball,

or it was entering its final start. Peripherals are all outstanding. He has thrown about 80 more pitches than he ever has in his entire, like at any level. He was a, if you watch the game, they talked a lot about it. He was a shortstop in college. He was a reliever when he did pitch. I think he's one of the biggest boomer bus pitchers in fantasy for 2025.

I have no idea if the Braves are going to try to limit his innings. They surprisingly didn't really here. So I don't know, man. I don't really, like, I feel good about him at 26. I don't think I could really move him all that much higher and feel good about it. But I'm also not sure how I'm going to feel hitting that click button. That's one that we could get to the end of the 2025 season and look back and think, what were we thinking, Spencer Schwalobach is a top 30 pitcher?

Like that feels really, really possible. I feel like you could say it either way, which is crazy to me. I feel like you could say, you know, just, oh, who is the Schwellenbach guy? He was a flash in the pan last year, winds up doing nothing in 2025. Or I think he could be like a top 10 starting pitcher in fantasy next year. So it's, he could be George Kirby. Well, I think more than correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but I think more than anything, what your ranking indicates, your ranking of Schwellenbach is that is the point in the starting

pitcher rankings. where you don't feel great about anyone, so you might as well just go for as much upside as you can get. Yeah, no, I mean, it's Hunter Brown at 25. I mean, even Blake Snell at 24, again, don't feel strongly about Blake of Snell at 24. Wouldn't feel strongly about him anywhere. But it's Snell, Hunter Brown, Shwell and Pock,

Carlos Rodan, who I really talked myself into over the last week or so, Tanner Bybee, Grayson Rodriguez, again, who knows. Bryce Miller, like, is kind of already a little bit of what we want Spencer Schwellenbach to be, right? Like, we hope for him will strikeout upside for Schmellembach, but like Bryce Miller just finished a top 10 fantasy season. I don't know how. I feel like he was like never a top 10 pitcher. But, yeah, it's, yeah. I mean, you could definitely see ranking those guys in a different order.

but it's not like there's a sure thing among them except maybe Bryce Miller I don't know that that's the one that stands out to me is maybe a little low. Last thing from the double header, Ozzy Albies huge two games, three for seven with a home run 5 RBI and we spoke about this last week. All of that came as a right-handed batter

against, I don't know if every pitcher he faced was right-handed pitcher, but the first game where he did most of that damage came against Tyler McGill who was a right-handed pitcher and Ozzy Albies has typically been switch hitter in his career. He's batting only from the right-hand side because he has that wrist injury right now.

But throughout his career, he's been much, much better as a right-handed batter. So, Scott, I just wonder if maybe this can, I don't know, nudge him a little bit, like, why don't you just be a right-handed batter full-time? Yeah, I hope for it.

The basis clearing double was off Ed Wooden Diaz. Yeah. And it was, there was nothing fake about it. He clobbered that ball. So I'm hoping it opens the Braves organization, Albies himself, to that possibility. The problem is that entering this doubleheader, he had gone four for 31. So I'm not sure it's quite enough.

We'll see how the postseason goes. Maybe the postseason makes it more, makes it clearer. But my point is I think it has to be abundantly clear for him to make that kind of a change. I think part of the problem is using this period, as any kind of test for all bees is kind of impossible, right? Because he missed two months with a fractured wrist. Clearly didn't let it heal properly

because he's not batting left-handed because the wrist hasn't healed properly. It was a wrist, right? Not a hand? I believe a wrist, yeah. A wrist. He got two rehab games in and then stepped right into a pennant race.

And so it's like, even if he was, you know, like even if he wasn't trying something that he's never done, which is hitting righty full time, he might have struggled in this situation. Like those sound like a pretty good reason for a player to struggle. Sure. And so I think Ozzy Albi should at least experiment with it because I just think he's a better hitter as a right. Yeah. Like obviously he doesn't have experience seeing the ball from that angle and that could just trip him up entirely.

but there are relatively few hitters who have extreme right-handed platoon splits. There are a lot of lefties who struggle against lefties. There are very few righties who can't hit righties because you don't make the majors if you're a right-handed batter who can't hit righties. Because most of the hit at pitchers you're seeing are right-handed pitchers. You get a ton of reps against them. And so I believe Ozzy Albies would be a better player. if he hit right-handed full-time.

That is my belief. I believe that too, but that's just a separate argument. I think if he committed to it, he would be better off. But this isn't a guy whose career is on the rocks. This is a three-time All-Star. It's like we used to have the arguments about Eric Hosmer. Oh, he should hit the ball in the air more. And it's like, buddy, he just got a $150 million contract.

Why is he going to change? Yeah. You know, it's one of those things where it's like there might be some marginal gains to be made. Maybe Ozzyolubes could squeak out 30 to 40 points of OPS over the course of a full season if he hit right-handed full-time. Even that might be stretching it. That's a lot.

And so it might just be like not worth the discomfort. All right, a few things to promote here before we hit the break. If we helped you win a championship this season, A, let us know in the YouTube or Spotify comments. Yeah, there's a new function on Spotify. If you listen to the podcast on the app, there's a comment function.

So let us know in the comments if we helped you win your league. B, drop us a five-star rating and review on Apple or Spotify, even if we didn't help you in, feel free to leave us a five-star rating. If you enjoy the podcast, we really do appreciate it. And just some programming updates to podcasts per week from now through December. Would obviously love for you to stick with us throughout the off-season. We're going to have a bunch of fun things that we'll do. Season awards coming up later this week. First two rounds of next season, we'll do way too early

rankings at each position. We have early mock drafts that are going to come out between now and December. Pods will be on audio and YouTube first thing Tuesday and Thursday mornings and we'll also go live whenever we get some kind of breaking news, big signings, trades, injuries, et cetera. Last thing to promote our very own, Chris Towers is going to first pitch Arizona. So if you are out there, be sure to go say hi to Chris, hang out with them. I'm super, I'm super gregarious and outgoing in person. I love when strangers come say hi to me. So definitely. Look, Chris, I am telling you right now, and there's no way that I can overhite this, you are going to have a blast. It is so, so much fun.

So you'll get to watch Arizona Fall League games, obviously, and you'll be there at First Beach, Arizona. Hopefully get on some panels or something like that. Maybe do some drafting. They've got early drafts going on out there. I usually jump in one, so yeah, I highly recommend anybody go out there if you haven't looked into it already. Again, that's First Pitch, Arizona. You can find out more information at Baseballhq.com. Let's take our first break. When we return, we'll hit some news and notes, and we'll do that right after this.

Welcome back in, some news and notes heading into the playoffs. Yordon Alvarez did some hitting and running on Monday to test out his knee for the wildcard series. They are going up against the Tigers, so it's the AJ Hinch Revenge series there. And something I thought about earlier, it doesn't matter at all to Yordaun Alvarez or the Astros, but neither team in the World Series last year is in the playoffs this season. Just something that dawned on me. I also like there's there's been a lot of talk of like how did the Mariners miss the playoffs with the pitching staff that they have? And like that's a fair point. They're often stinks. They had the second best ERA in baseball.

And I'm going to assume they had the best starting pitching in baseball, at the very least the healthiest. I mean, we know they're one through five is going to rank very high in fantasy. The Diamondbacks miss the playoffs as the highest scoring team in baseball. Wow. So on the other side that the best pitching team in the American League. and the best offense in baseball, both miss the playoffs this year. That's kind of wild. Sounds like maybe they should make a trade with each other.

The Debacks and the Mariners this offseason. Eugenio Suarez to the Mariners. Ah, the return. Let's see. Vinnie Pee. Maybe, I don't know, trade in a new batting eye in Seattle, see if you can't fix that. I did see something, and I didn't look into it that deeply,

but something about Jerry DiPoto saying they're going to have to change the way they approach hitting development or something like that because it's clearly not working. Well, there was also a hilarious quote about how they're not going to go into the free agent market because they're burned by the Robinson Canoe trade. One, the Robinson Canoe contract.

One, the Robinson Canoe contract was awesome for the Mariners. Objectively, one of the most successful long-term contracts that any team has signed. Robinson Canoe was awesome the entire time he was there. Then they traded him and got, Edwin Diaz and Jared Kellanick, right? I wouldn't say he was awesome while he was there. No, the Mets got Edwin Diaz with Robinson Cano in that deal.

So the Mariners got Jared Kulnick. They were able to successfully dump his salary. Robinson Kanoe was pretty awesome in Seattle. He had one amazing season in 2016, 39 homers with an 882 OPS. 2014 is first season, 314, 14 homers. Next season, 287, 21 homers, 779 OPS. we know it's a tough place to play. He had one really, really good season.

I'm just saying like that's a dumb reason to say, yeah, we're not interested in Juan Soto, which is effectively. And then there was another part where they were like, oh, yeah, we're going to, we're going to raise payroll. We're just not going to jump into the deep end of the free agent market. It's like, they're liars. Yeah. Well, no, no, no. They're definitely going to raise payroll. Huli Rodriguez's salary jumps up $8 million this year.

Logan Gilbert, Randy, a Roserena, George Kirby, and, uh, uh, Carl Raleigh are all arbitrated. Like, yeah, their salaries going up in 2024 or 2025, it doesn't mean they're going to be a significantly more talented team. They should be. Yeah. There's no reason that team shouldn't be going all in right now, but it doesn't seem like they have a ton of interest in it.

They clearly need to trade for hitting if they're not going to spend in free agency, which I think very clearly they are not going to spend, at least not big in free agency. That is the Mariners, Vinnie Pee. Baby! Vinnie Pass Quantino hit in the cage on Monday. The team will see how he feels Tuesday before deciding on his wild card availability.

He had surgery to repair a fractured right thumb back in early September, so this is pretty aggressive if he was to be out there and playing right away. Terrick Scouble became the first pitcher to win the Triple Crown in a full season since 2011. 18 wins, 239 ERA, and 228 try counts. He was not alone in that. Didn't Chris Sale also win Triple Crown?

I feel. I feel like that's the case. What makes sense? I believe they both. Yeah. There were two triple crowners in the league this year. Yep. Scouble almost won the MLB Triple Crown.

Right. Yeah, because Cressale had a 238 ERA, so. Yeah. That's just beat him by, he, scubble beat Sail by three strikeouts. Sail beat Scouble by one one hundredth of a run. That's great. Like, they were just so clearly the best pitchers in their leagues. Oh yeah.

Wow. Yeah. real strong at the end. He certainly did. Louisa Rise is the first player in MLB history to win a batting title with three different teams. Three straight years. The Cardinals are not expected to resign Paul Gulchmidt this offseason according to Katie Wu who covers the Cardinals for the athletic and Goldschmidt ended his season 245, 22 homers, 11 steals 716 OPS. He did get better in the second half but at 37 years old it kind of looks like the decline is officially here for Gold's though he has bounced back in the past.

And I will note because I noted at times during the year that it wasn't the case, his strikeout rate did improve the last, what was it, the last two months. Yeah, it was around 22% when it was up around more like 27, 28% prior to that. So look, I think Paul Goldschmidt's best days are definitely behind him. I don't think he's going to get a lucrative deal at age 38 next year. But first base isn't looking great. And he may still have some use. We may still be able to ring a little something out of Paul Goldschl.

Let him sign a two-year, like $21 million deal with the Rock. Get those counting stats up for his Hall of Fame run. Yes. Yes, I agree. The first team that came to mind was the Astros. I just keep linking them to First Basement. I did it with Pete Alonzo last week. I have no idea if they want to do that.

And also, they just got burned by Jose Abraeu. So they probably don't want to do that. But it would be nice for his value, I think, for Paul Goldschmidt. Yeah, I think he could still potentially be a corner infielder in like a 12-team Roto League, something like that. He's going to have to be because somebody has to be. And it certainly looks like the Cardinals are handing the keys to Alec Berluson as their first baseman moving forward.

And that makes sense because he just had a breakout season. Dave Roberts said he fully expects Freddie Freeman to be in the lineup for game one of the NLDS, which starts this Saturday, October 5th. Freeman has been out with an ankle injury. Anthony Rizzo suffered two fractured fingers on a hit by pitch. Saturday, he was not placed in the IL because there's an outside chance. He could return for the ALDS though. I doubt it, and it sounds like some kind of crazy Yankees, injury optimism like they always have.

22 games since returning, Rizzo hit 247 with zero homers and a 660 OPS. They were called Ben Rice, who I think is probably the most likely to play first base in the postseason. and he was really good since getting sent down. He had 269, 9 home runs, and an 11-07 OPS in 19 games at AAA. Masataka Yoshita may have right shoulder surgery this offseason. He also expressed frustration about not getting enough at bats this year. He was mostly a strong side DH for the Red Sox. And, you know, he's okay.

I think he's probably a better real-life hitter just based on like WRC Plus. 1-15 this year. Like he's 15% above league out. average. Okay, he also hit 280 with 10 home runs and a 765 OPS. So how much does that help us in fantasy? It's a bad mixture of skill set and park, I think, especially. Like, Fenway helps his Babbat, but I think that's part of why he's such a strong source of batting average, but it's arguably the hardest park in baseball for left hand is left handers to hit for power. And he has middling power as it is. Some front office moves. Farhan's ID, as we mentioned, is out as

the Giants General Manager, Buster Posey, is taking over, who retired back in 2021. And yeah, now now taking over as the head of the Giants. He'll be overseeing. That's a shocker. Yeah. Maybe it'll go great. Like, it is, it is fascinating how the game is trending toward, back toward former players being hired to lead front offices, which was common, you know, prior to the money ball era when,

when a bunch of Ivy League guys came in and took over front offices. And I think it went really well for just like in terms of making the game maxing out team building potential. Let's put it that way. And, you know, some of the former players like Chris Young have Ivy League pedigrees themselves. And being from the Ivy League isn't everything. But you got Buster Posey who just retired a couple of years. years ago and doesn't have that Ivy League pedigree. I don't know. Well, it just feels like there, I have no clue what to expect from him at all. I, I had forgotten that Chris Young also had

no front office experience in baseball before, well, with a team before becoming the Rangers GM. He again, no recollection of him replacing. He wasn't an assistant before. He replaced Joe Torrey as the senior vice president. in charge of disciplinary actions and whatnot. And then went from that to replacing the John Daniels as the GM. But also an Ivy Leaguer. He went to Princeton. Yeah, that's an Ivy League, right?

They got nice fences and stuff, right? I mentioned it, yeah. I always kind of felt like if the Yankees move on from Brian Cashman, I just feel like it will inevitably be Derek Jeter. I don't know if that's true, but he's been more involved with the Yankees the past couple of years, and obviously he has some level of experience

running the Marlins. I mean, say what you will about that experience, but he did do it, so I don't know. Just maybe some hopeless wishing on my part, I guess. Although I don't know if I actually want that to happen or not. Cardinals announced that Heim Bloom will take over as president of baseball operations following next season.

John Mosellak will get one more year to run the team, which on paper feels kind of weird for me Like the guy knows he only has one year left, unless it was something that he also kind of signed off on. Like, yeah, I'll leave. I haven't done a good job lately. But it just kind of feels weird that he's going to stick around even though he knows he's losing his job.

Say what you will about Heinbloom's tenure in Boston. Obviously, there are many polarizing moves that he did make there. They also now have the best farm system in all of baseball. So maybe he can help Cardinals development. I think that's the hope. Yeah. No, I mean, he drafted the big four down at AAA. So if nothing else, you know, like, I think there were a lot of moves he didn't make that were worthy of criticism.

And the players really seem to dislike their unwillingness to go for it the past couple of years when he was there. But yeah, the development and drafting went really, really well. It seems like he ran the Red Sox as if they were a small market team, which they most certainly are not. It's unclear if that was his choice or... It kind of feels like that was kind of the owner's mandate. I think John Henry's penny pinching on the Bruins goalie right now, too. I don't know what's going on with John Henry's bags, but he doesn't seem to be wanting to put it into his sports teams.

Yeah. Speaking of the Red Sox, Chief Baseball officer, Craig Breslo said that, quote, everything has to be on the table in regards to off-season trades. We've talked a lot about, again, that big four. lots of young talent coming for the Red Sox. So it seems like they do have a surplus of positional talent here and perhaps can look to move some of those names for pitching, bullpen help in the off season.

I don't know. No surprise. Another former player who's now leading a front office there. No surprise, but Skip Schumacher won't be back as the Marlins manager next season. Sounds like he will be a pretty sought-after candidate for other teams this off-season. He will not have a job for about 20 seconds this off-season.

That sounds right. And some sad news came down on Monday as MLB's all-time hit leader Pete Rose has passed away at the age of 83. How do we do in our fantasy baseball leagues this season? And I know we shouldn't pay attention to people that do things like this, so I will just quickly mention

some dingus left us a bad review on Apple saying that we always talk about industry leagues, but we don't talk about how bad we do in them. Well, first off, it's like public information so anybody can go seek it out and find. We also do the same exact segment at the end of every season where we reveal how we do in leagues. So take that, I guess. We'll just talk generally about how we did.

I do have a podcast lined up for next week where we'll go more in depth on lessons learned and maybe some 20-25 philosophies and things like that. But I'll just start off generally, Scott, like how many leagues did you play in? How many did you win? How did you do in those expert leagues? All that fun stuff. Okay. I played in 12 leagues. I won two.

leagues. I won my home league. And I won Memorial Magazine League, which we that's the one where we do the auction live on the air and I had my usual freak out during it. But I feel like I finished strong

and it turns out I finished strong in the league too. So I won that one. That was a 12 team, Roto League. And I'd say to me winning two of 12 leagues is pretty typical two to four, I would say is pretty typical.

And so I don't, I don't feel bad about that. What I feel bad about is that for the past few years now, I think since 2020, when I had the best year playing fantasy that I've ever had, in the four years since then, it's become much more common. While I'm still winning my usual number of leagues, it's become much more common for me to finish in the lower half of the league. When prior to that, it was almost unheard of. And so I don't like that.

And I, I, both of the, both of the industry leagues that I would say are widely followed. That was the case this year. The TGFBI, which is the great fantasy baseball invitational, run by Justin Mason, and Tout Wars. And in fact, Tout Wars, it's been, so I won Toul Wars in 2020. And I've, that was my third year in Tao Wars. The first year I finished second, the second year I finished third, the third year I finished first. Every year since then I finished in the lower half. And it's getting to me.

I think the issue is the 15 team roto format. I think it's just, it just, I'm just not handling it very well. And so that's going to be a big focus for me this offseason, figuring out how I can improve in that. my suspicion being that I need to play it safer overall, treat it more like the deepest of formats I play in the ALNNL only leagues, which I generally do well at. And I just go very, very, very, very safe in that. And okay, 15 team mixed isn't as deep as 12 team AL or NL only.

It's not even close to as deep, but it's pretty deep. It's deep enough that the waiver wire is kind of a wasteland. still. There will be players emerging throughout the season, but they will always demand a huge number of five dollars, and you're just not going to get that many of them because of that. And so I need to put more stock in having a stable roster that can run the course of the season rather than taking so many big swings. Taking some big swings, but late.

Yeah. And few. I say that. I will remind you of this again in March, Scott, because you said the same. same thing on this podcast last year. And I feel like your TGFBI team was a dynasty team again. I say that and I decided that about halfway through this year, what I just went into, when it seemed like Jackson Chorio and Jackson Merrill, who I drafted both in TGFBI and TOW

Wars, they both seemed like busts at the time. They ended up not being busts. They ended up outperforming where I had them ranked actually. So I was right to go for them when I did. And yet they still finished in the bottom half. of the league. So I don't know. I don't know. That's, that just makes it more baffling. Yeah. I think on our lessons learned podcast next week, we all bring a few things and see if we can kind of figure this out because I've had trouble in those formats as well, Scott. So it could be

more of, you know, again, just kind of playing it safe, getting those plate appearances, getting those innings. And, you know, again, not really taking those swings. For me, like. And the people, the people I'm playing against in those leagues is people I play against. in leagues all the time. You know, there are only, there are only so many, there are more and more every year, but there are only so many fantasy baseball experts

who play in these industry leagues. And I'm used to playing against them, but it's that 15-team rhodo format where it just does me in, seems like. All right, Chris, over to you. How many leagues did you play in? How many did you win?

How did you do in your industry leagues? 11 leagues didn't win a single one. Ooh. I had a couple of head-to-head leagues where I made a run but didn't quite come away with it. Had a couple of roto leagues that I was in it right until the very end. It just couldn't get over the hump. So, you know, that's not great. Finished in the top half of most of my leagues, I think, and especially in my quote-unquote experts leagues.

I always feel weird about the term expert. I'm not an expert. I said, I said industry. I like to go with industry. I'm just some guy. Yeah, industry leagues. I was third. That kind of makes it sound like we're working at a factory, though.

Yeah. There's no good term. I was third in my TGFBI league. I actually was in the same league as the overall champion. Really? I can't. Brent Franey or Tanner Bell. They have two different names listed.

Gotcha. But I believe they won the overall. I finished Tanner Bell, who co-authors the process. Yeah, him and Jeff Zimmerman, I think, run that team together is what I saw Jeff say on Twitter. And they won overall. I finished 70th overall at 420 teams. I was third in my league. Made up some ground right at the end.

So that was pretty cool. I also, my first year, I had not. I think I stopped doing mono leagues before the pandemic. I just went in an AL or L only. A L only. I just with when I was doing football analysis, there was just no way to keep up with it. So I did A, L only labor. I was in like the top five most of the season.

I dropped to sixth right at the end. Not great, but not terrible. I just, I had no saves or stolen bases. And those seem like really easy things to miss when you're not playing, when you're not used to playing a mono league. So, you know, top half the league, but not great. I am in the FSGA Fantasy Sports Gaming Association, one of their leagues with industry people.

I finished second to Brent Hershey. We're going back and forth, the final like three weeks of the season. He took a lead about 10 days ago and never quite gave it up. Unfortunately, that would have been nice. That was another one that I actually, that's like the one league where my hitting was dominant, 14 team league.

I finished second. Hitting was dominant. It was top four. in all the hitting categories. ERA was just a problem for me in that one, and that sunk me. So didn't love that. Tout Wars, seventh out of 18.

Again, hitting was better than pitching, which is not always how it works for me. I've actually done quite well putting pitching staffs together over the past few years, and my hitting has let me down, but I had a couple leagues where my hitting was actually a little better, so that was nice. And then my home league,

league, which has a decent amount of money going, just couldn't get out of third place for like the last month. It was like the last month of the season, just nobody budged at the top. That was very frustrating. So that's the one where I lost Ronald Acuna. And boy, it feels like that league could have gone different if Ronald Acuna hadn't gotten hurt

and hadn't been pretty bad for two months before getting hurt. You know what? You bring that up. In TGFBI, my first round, was Ronald de Cunia and in Tau Wars my first round pick was Garrett Cole. So maybe I'm being a little hard on myself. I've lost my first round pick in both for most of the year. I don't know.

I wound up playing in 16 total leagues, which is just way too many leagues. Now, nine of those are weekly fab with line-up setting. The other seven are draft and hold and or best balls. So there's not as much in there, you know, not as much work that goes into those. you know they are still I think a few of them are like you know draft in hold like draft champions leagues from NFBC

so I do care about them quite a bit there's money on the line in those leagues so yeah 16 total I only won one league this season my 12 team had 10 points homekeeper league and yeah Scott like you like it kind of stinks you know it's just like you guys know I'm super

competitive I get legitimately upset when I don't do better in these leagues than I do I like this is our job we put so much working in the off season And it, you know, just, it sucks sometimes when, you know, when the payoff isn't there. But fantasy baseball is tough, man. No excuses, but it's tough. And, you know, people have gotten, I feel like smarter and just like the competition has been even better.

So, yeah, no excuses, but it's tough, man. This job, like, this is our job. But the job is different than playing fantasy baseball. And I genuinely think that, like, one of my strengths as an analyst is that I keep a pretty even keel. Like I don't like, oh, this guy's been awesome for three weeks. He's awesome forever now. This guy stinks for three weeks. I'm going to, like I don't do that as analysts.

And I think that's a thing that helps me as an analyst, keeps him grounded, helps me give good analysis. I stick with guys for way too long. Like, I shouldn't still have, I'm looking at my TGFBI team. I shouldn't still have Nolan Jones on that team. I should have dropped him a long time ago. Right. I probably shouldn't have kept Jose Caballero around as long as I did once he stopped doing anything in the second half. 44 steals.

It's pretty crazy. Yeah, that that helped. But yeah, it was, it's just like, that's the thing that I'm still trying to find the right balance for. Yeah. No, I totally get it in industry leagues for me. I finished fourth out of 12 in NL only labor. 11th out of 15 in Tout Wars. It was my first year going from the head to head format to 15 team Roto, a live auction.

and I won two of the previous three years and head to head, Roto, not as good. You never left. My talent war's league switched from 12 to 15 teams. And I feel like it totally threw me off on the pitching set. We talked about it at the time. But it just really, because that has, I'm in the alternate categories league too,

where we have innings pitch instead of wins and saves plus holds instead of saves. Yeah. And I think I was like first in saves plus holds. and dead last and strikeouts innings pitched. I just like could not get my brain around it. It's a big difference. Yeah.

Because the Memorial Magazine League, which I won, that's a 12-team, Roto versus these 15 team leagues. And I look at some of the players on that roster at the end and I picked up some key contributors off waivers over the court, like guys who made a real impact on my team over the course of the year, several of them. Then I look at my 15 team and some of my pickups there. and they were like, I need somebody to fill this spot.

Oh, look, here's somebody who's actually playing. They were like desperation pickups and not, like, you can't really find impact players unless you throw a third of your fab budget at them in the 15 team league. And it's just, even then, you might be thrown away a third of your battle because you might just pick wrong, you know? You might be throwing 30% of your fab budget at Victor Scott, which I'm pretty sure I didn't teach you. Right. Last but not least, the great fantasy baseball invitational, which we did mention, I put up 129 points at a 15-team Myrtle League, and I came in second.

I did not win my league because someone put up 131. I think it was Todd Whitestone, so shout out to him. The overall prize, there's 420 teams. I finished 9th out of 420, but yeah, I didn't win my own league. So what does it matter for? Shout out to our podcast league champions, Nathan McCullough in the Headhead Points Listener League, and Dave Coffee in the For the People, For the People, 16. team head-to-ed-ed categories, listener league there.

Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll quickly run through some league leaders, some league-wide trends. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in, 2024 league leaders. Before we get into, well, we're going to mention a lot of them because I just wanted to point out what the two likely MVP winners wound up doing. Aaron Judge, 322-58 homers,

122 runs, 144 RBI, 10 steals, 1159 OPE. across a career high 158 games. Shohay Otani, magical season. What else can you say? 310 batting average. 54 runs, 130 RBI, 59 steals, 1036 OPS, also across a career high 159 games.

And according to the Razball Player Rader, Otani earned $73.8 in a 12-team roto auction league, $260 budget, which is more than what a CUNY earned last year $71.4. And I genuinely didn't think I would see a better season than what Acuna did last year. Yep. Yeah, we talked about this a while ago

when Acuna still had a big lead over Atani. Obviously, O'Tani added on to his number since then. It looks like he added about 20 points of batting average to finish 3.10. Yeah, he went bonkers. He had like a four-game series in Coresfield to, like, He just, yeah, that final month was insane for him. From that, the game where he went 50-50 in Miami when he went six for six, he went 27 for 43 with six homers, 20 RBI, 15 runs in his final 10 games of the season.

Crazy. He hit six homers, six doubles in 10 games, and stole 10 bases. That is. It's stupid. It's un-fathomable. Yeah. League leaders, for this season. Run scored. Just mention the name.

Shohei Otani, 134. There were five players who had 120 plus run scored. Otani, Soto, Bobby Witt, Aaron Judge and Corbyn Carroll, actually, even despite that bad first half. The five with 120 plus runs, same number as 2023.

So not much of a difference there. For home runs, it was Aaron Judge who had 58. Otani was next up with 54. There were four players with 40 plus homers, Judge Otani, Santander, and Soto. there were 23 who had 30 plus homers. Last year, there were 29. And you will see a common theme

while talking about league leaders and league-wide trends is that overall offense was down quite a bit this season compared to last year. It was actually much closer to 2022 when we had that, quote-unquote, dead in baseball. Kind of surprised Kyle Schwerver didn't get to 40.

Well, he lowered his launch ankle, which helped his batting average by like 40, 50 points. Frank and I talked about it last week. I think when you run on, we considered it a net gain for sure. Yeah, I just want to stress something you said here, Frank. So Judge hit 58, O'Tonni hit 54,

and only two other players hit even 40. That's notable. I mean, it just shows how much better those guys were versus the field, too, right? And this is something we can get. Every season we can, there's a list to find out the players that were on the most championship winning teams on CBS.

I would venture to say Otani and Judge are going to be on a lot of those teams for this season. I was just looking at that team that won the TGFBI, Aaron Judge was on it. That means Aaron Judge had more than twice as many home runs than basically all but like what, 30 players.

Because if only 23 had 30 plus, that that's... No, I guess more, at least twice as many as all, but 23 players in baseball. Basically. Yeah. That's bonkers. The RBI leader was Aaron Judge as well, who had 144 the most since Ryan Howard had 146 RBI back in 2008.

The Steele's leader was L.E. De La Cruz, who had 67. There were three players with 50 plus. There were six players with 40 plus, and there were 24 with 30 plus steals this season. Last year, there were only 18 with 30 plus steals. And guess what? There were actually more steals in baseball this season than there were last year with those new rules

that encourage base stealers. And it was actually the most steals in a baseball season since 1915. So, yeah. Yeah, and that's not necessarily unexpected. You know, we saw something similar. I think in the minors where it probably took about three years to really level off. Yep. On the pitching side of things, the wins leaders, we mentioned Chris Sale and Terrick Scuba.

They both had 18 each. Last year it was Spencer Strider with 20. The strikeouts leaders, same two names, Scubal with 228, Sail with 225. We had 11 pitchers with 200 plus strikeouts this season. Last year, there were 17 with 200 plus strikeouts, which is interesting because ERA and whip were much better this year, but high-end strikeouts were down. That's one thing that I've noticed going through it when you look at a lot of the guys who had really good ERA and whip seasons.

They weren't high strikeout guys. Corbyn Burns 292, Seth Lugo, three ERA, both only had 181 strikeouts. I don't think any, a Logan Gilbert got to 220, but none of the other Mariners guys got to 200. They all obviously had very good ratios. Imanaga had 174. It was a weird season. I don't think there's anything to take away from that.

Like, I think just a lot of the high strikeout guy, like, injuries hit high strikeout guys a little more this season. Strider, Cole. I think that's part of it. I wonder if any pitchers this season were consciously pitching to contact because they saw that the environment wasn't as bad on balls and play. Yeah, I think there's a good chance of that. Obviously, it requires more pitches to get strikeouts normally, and if less damage is happening on contact, you're not going to try for those strikeouts as much.

I know Schwellenbach consciously stopped trying for strikeouts as much, and you'll notice the strikeout rate was lower in September than it was in August, and it's not like he became more susceptible to damage when he cut back on the strikeouts. But, you know, that's just one example, but it stands to reason that there would be multiple examples of that across the league. Also, you said 2024, the offensive environment ended up pretty similar to 2022.

2022 was the year that reversed the very steady upward trend of strikeout rate across the league. Strikeout rate fell in 2022. And it's basically been the same since then. Yeah. 2023 was about the same. 2024, it was about the same. But it's kind of leveled off in this 22% range when it had over the course of decades climbed from like 16% to 23%.

And now it's dropped to 22%. The one thing I do want to say is like you said, the strikeout rate compared to last year basically identical, 22.6% to 22.7% in 2020. 23 K per 9 down 8.74 per 8.74 for 9 to 8.6 this year. So I actually think like the overall drop in raw strikeouts that we saw is probably less a conscious decision and more innings were shorter because there were fewer hits. I think that's probably like you know what? because the chances of any given plate appearance ending in a strikeout

were basically the same as last year. And I think it's just that there were fewer plate appearances because there were more outs. For the ERA leaders, Chris Sale just barely beat out Terrick Scouble, 238 to 239, and we had nine qualified starters under a three ERA. There was only five in 2023. So again, ratios much better this season, despite high-end strikeouts not being there.

And you see the same thing in whip. Logan Gilbert led baseball with a 0.89 whip. We had four pitchers with a whip under one. Last year, there was only one who did that, Garikol, at 0.98. So just a pretty constant theme here. And it seemed like fly ball pitchers in general were having more success,

and that would translate to fewer hits. Yeah. And I wonder if it's just, did flyball pitchers in general figure something out? Did they do a better job at throwing pitches at the top of the zone and just getting pop-ups or lazy fly balls? Or is it just related to the baseball? Or the baseball was just different early in the season. And that's what's annoying because like we can never quantify that.

Like we don't know what it's going to be heading into 2025. We just kind of have to. All right. Is the environment going to be more like 2022 and 2024 or is it going to be more like 2023? And we don't know. We can quantify it after the fact. Right. Yeah.

You can't, uh, you can't project it for. which is the more frustrating thing, if anything. And I almost wonder, sorry, we can move on. What I had to say wasn't that interesting. It's fine. All right. And the saves leader was Ryan Helsie who had 49, the most in a season since Edwin Diaz had 57 back in 2018. Emmanuel Class A was a close second with 47 saves. And we had eight pitchers with 30 plus saves this year.

There were 12 last year. 2023 kind of feels like an outlier just in terms of like everything broke right with bullpens and just having more reliable closures not that it was bad this year i just felt like 2023 everything broke right yeah maybe but i do feel like we're still kind of past the peak of of um bullpen committees closer committees we didn't see a lot of that this year we saw the dodgers do it we saw the rays do it once Fairbanks got hurt, but overall we didn't see a lot of it. Yeah.

Season long trends and either just league-wide trends across baseball. We've talked about a good amount of them already so far. The league-wide batting average was 243 with a 7-11 OPS. The BABIP was 291. Last year, it was 248, so five points higher. The OPS was 734, so 23 points higher, and the BABIP was 297, so 6 points higher. I wonder if teams either became more efficient at

shifting within those shift restrictions over or overall offense was just down or maybe a combination of both. I think it's almost entirely home runs, I would guess. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. Home run to fly ball ratio 11.6% this season. It's the second lowest since 2019. 2019 obviously was the peak at 15.3%.

Oh, my gosh. Down more than a full percentage point. Home run to fly ball ratio from 2024 to 204 to. 2023 and a 6 point drop in Babbitt, but, you know, that... Yeah, I don't know. And that might not sound like a lot one percentage point from 12.7% home runs a flyball rate last year to 11.6% this year. That accounted for 450 home runs.

That is a massive difference year over year. So, yeah, it's just pretty big change again in the offensive environment here in 2024. So on base, as I mentioned, they were up this year. season the most steals, 3,617, the most since 1915 when there were 4,106. I kept going by decade and I just couldn't find anything. I'm like, all right, let me just go back to when baseball started, right? Like, whenever things were documented, at least on Fangraphs, and yeah, it was 1915 was the last time there were that many steals.

On the pitching side, the league-wide ERA was 408. The league-wide whip was 127. Last year, it was 433 and 131. league-wide ERA dropping from 433 to 408 that's huge that is just that is massive yes it is

yeah and that's why I could never get on board the idea that the that the glob was back because it just didn't seem like pitchers were sinking toward the middle as much sinking toward the mediocre middle as much I think it was it was a different kind of blob

Yeah, glob, I guess. I think the next step is probably looking at this month by month because it felt much more globby or blobby in the second half when it felt like offense got better. Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was, like, was it a glob? I don't know. Who knows? Who can say what a glob is these days?

But it was that it just felt like they were very, very, few pitchers I trusted from one start to the next. Like it just and maybe it was just my perception and I was just I was focusing on the wrong pitchers

and if I had pitching staffs were just bad Chris. Yeah if I had Seth Lugo on all my teams maybe I wouldn't have felt that way because he was pretty good. But it just felt like there was so little start to start

consistency more than anything else. Yep. All right. Let's wrap up here, a little bit of fun, some playoff predictions. If you guys want to go round by round, we certainly can, or we can just throw out a World Series prediction. I will remind people our preseason World Series predictions. Scott and I, we're both still alive, actually. I had Phillies over Astros in the preseason. Scott had Braves over Orioles. Chris, I couldn't find your predictions for some reason. I don't know why. Do you remember

what your World Series prediction was before the season? Let me see if I can find it. I was trying to find that article that you put out, and I couldn't find it for some reason. I don't know why. But yeah. It's not it. No, that's not it. That's Scott's from like two weeks ago. You guys want to give round by, I'll find it, I'll find it. You want to do round by round predictions or you just want to give out a World Series prediction? Let's just, let's just do the World Series. Scott's like, I want to go to sleep. It's been a long season, you know.

All right. Are you sticking with your preseason prediction, Scott? No, I don't think I could stick with Braves over Orioles. All right, what do you got? As much as I'd like it to happen. I am going to go, I'm going to say the Astros advance to the World Series again, but I am going to say that they lose to the Padres. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I already bet the Padres, by the way. I think they are so obviously, well, I guess if they're obviously a dark horse candidate that doesn't make them a dark horse candidate.

I just made them less of a dark horse. but at least based on the betting odds, it's like you're getting pretty good odds on the Padres. Yes, they have to go through an extra round. They have to go through the wild card round. But both of the teams that made the World Series last year came from the Wild Card round. And the Padres have everything you can ask for in a champion,

in the best baseball team, you know, around. They have great starting pitching. They have a lights out bullpen. Their offense is clicking at the right time. Machado got hot. Tatis returned and he looks like Tatis. I think they absolutely could make a deep run here. their rotation for me is rounded into form at just the right time.

Yep. So, and with that offense and with the bullpen. Yeah, I think they have a real chance. What else was I going to say? I guess that's it. Yep. I'm sticking with my preseason prediction just because I made it this far and they're both a really good team. So who's to say they can't do it?

Philly is over Astros, but I was going to say one other sneaky would be the Padres. I could see them getting it done. Chris, did you find your preseason prediction? and what is your current prediction? I'm going to stick with it because I'm not a coward. Dodgers over Orioles was my preseason prediction. They're both still alive. It could happen.

Let's not talk about the division winners. Actually, I got half of them right. So about as good as like that octopus that guesses thing. It is, I'm looking at the bold prediction. now. It's very funny. No. I'll only throw some of mine out there because I don't want to make fun of anyone else, but I had a hilariously

terrible year of bold tradition. Isn't this a future podcast? Do we want to spoil now or no? I don't know. I'm asking Frank. Oh, looking back on bold predictions from before the season, I don't have that. I mean, we can do it if you want. I got one right.

We probably should. I guess we can look back and hold ourselves accountable if you want to. Haze Luz-Lisardo was not a top. three Marlins' SP and fantasy. So I nailed that one. There you go. That seemed like a rather tame prediction, too. Whoa.

A top three starting pitcher for the Marlins, you said? Yeah. I mean, he was. Frank, you got one of yours. Michael Harris probably outperformed Ronald Acuna this season. All right. Well, good job all around. By the way, the Braves are facing the Padres in round one.

I could care less about my new world series prediction, okay? All right. I'm not like there, there's no mixed loyalty here. Braves over Padres is what I want to see happen. And if it upends my World Series prediction, who freaking cares. All right. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.