Fantasy Baseball Today - MLB Rule Changes; Devalue Mike Trout!? (06/24 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Today on the show we're taking a closer look at the rule changes that were announced for the 2020 MLB season but first, Adam gets us started with his love for the Yankees! Once again, we address the question as to whether or not you should be redrafting the teams you drafted back in March (1:40). In our email of the day, we're asked whether we should be devaluing Mike Trout at all since he has a baby due in August (7:55). Should he fall out of the first round? ... It's time to address the elephant in the room regarding COVID-19 (15:30). Charlie Blackmon and two other Rockies have already tested positive. How does that affect drafting? ... We have other news items regarding Kyle Gibson potentially sitting out the season, Yasiel Puig suitors, and Michael Fulmer's return (20:05). ... Based on reports, what type of usage should we expect for Shohei Ohtani this season (27:35)? ... Onto scheduling and divisions, each team will face their division opponents 10 times this season as well as their opposing interleague division (30:35). Who does that favor? ... There will be 60-man rosters, with about half of those on a taxi squad (37:22). How will that affect pitching and prospects? ... Finally, how should you play your H2H season in 2020 (44:45)? In Roto, what should the innings pitched minimum be? ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCfkdUcqL9UnNpGfkF039Q 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam.

We are officially one month away from opening day. That is so surreal. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today. Frank Stample here with the entire crew, Adam Azer, Scott White, Chris Towers. Guys, we are officially a month away. This is crazy. It all came together so quickly. Hashtag whole squad is here. Yeah, it's weird.

I just had a meeting. Adam was in it where we were talking about our plans for the football preseason. And it was like, all right, so training camp opens on, I think the first team reports on July 25th, which is opening day of Major League Baseball. That is weird. Oh my God. It's going to be such a hectic couple of months, but I guess it makes for fun.

It makes for fun podcasts as well. And this is why you need to be watching our fantasy baseball to the YouTube channel because I've got the fresh cut. Chris has got the fresh cut. Scott's got the swaggy comb over. And then Adam looks like trash. I do look terrible.

I look terrible. Oh, my gosh. Shout out to Phase 2 in New York City. Barbershops are now open. Not happening for me. But yeah, I got, I will cut my hair. My wife and I will combine to cut my hair very soon. I have a couple of things I'd like to mention, Frank, if I could have the floor.

Go ahead. It's all yours. I'm having trouble getting excited. I was having trouble getting excited about baseball, but I was thinking about it last night. And my God, the Yankees are so good. They are incredible. So I can't. Now I'm ready for baseball.

Like, just they have a little bit of weakness. to the back end of their rotation, but they are amazing. This could be one of the best Yankees teams ever. They're just so good. Okay, that's number one. Number two, I am the commissioner of a 14 team league that is drafting right now. We've been drafting for months.

We haven't finished yet. You just drafted a couple of picks ago. Okay. That's like a week and a half ago. You drafted a week and a half ago. Will obeyed a pick today because I reminded if he was on the clock. It was like a fun league. You know, someone accused me of taking as long,

as Will Brinson to draft. And I added up the time between picks and his was like double mine. So he's awful. He's probably up to almost the month of just his picks. I'm not even kidding. Because he's gone weeks at a time. But anyway,

Will and one other person, one other CBS or it's in office league, Tom Fornelly, have brought up that they wanted redraft. And I don't know if Tom was being serious, but Will was being serious. He's like, so we have to redraft now, right?

I'm like, no. And then he said, 60 games is vastly different than 162 games. Will you change your tune if your first round picks, first round pick opts out of playing for safety reasons? And then I said if a number of players drop out, then it's a discussion worth having. As of right now, I can't see how a draft would be much different than it was a few months ago.

Like, come on, we're not redoing the draft. We got enough going on. We don't have much time to cram in our drafts to begin with. We're not redoing it. I will believe that. What's so different now than, a few months ago when we knew the season was going to be delayed at least a little bit. I will say.

Just everything. The strategic reasons for redoing drafts, I think, are less compelling than the simple fact that the draft is the best part of playing fantasy sports. And you get another opportunity to draft. And that's why you want the results to stand because you put in the legwork and you put in the heart and the energy. And you like if it can just be erased that easily, then the draft to lose is a lot of it's uh,

I mean, like if we set, you know, slippery slope arguments, I don't have time for. All right. If we set the standard that if there is a, the worst pandemic in a century,

that shuts down society for several months, uh, and causes baseball to be, be delayed by four months, then you can redo the draft. That is the standard we will set. And it seems like a pretty high one that we're not going to have to like worry about. again. It's not like a, well, if we can just throw out these results for this. It's like, no.

I agree with that. Just for this. But we knew that we knew the season was going to be late. We didn't know what would end up happening. And we just said, okay, we're going to keep drafting. And there's no difference. Now, if a bunch of players start opting out, then okay, we'll reconsider. But that hasn't happened. So for me, it's, it's slow drafts aren't as fun as live drafts. And so I don't mind it for that league. But if you are playing in your home, I couldn't believe the results of that poll. What did they end up being on that poll, Frank? It was like 55-45-45 last time I saw asking if people should redraft. Yeah, so I tweeted this poll last night.

Did not think it was going to be as controversial as it wound up being. But 53% vote, yes, that if you drafted back in March for a 162 game season, you should be allowed to redraft, and 46.9% voted no. So close to 50-50, it seems like where 50-50 split on this show, I agree with Chris. I think if you drafted early March or even late February for a 166,000, 62 game season and you didn't know all of this was going to happen at the time, then you should be allowed to redraft.

I mean, you essentially drafted for a completely different league in a completely different galaxy that will not exist the season. It really wasn't completely different, though. There are some small differences. Oh, Adam. It's not like we're playing with replacement players now. It's not like the league is taking place in Arizona in Cactus League venues.

Like, I can understand more in that scenario. Some players, you have to tweak their ranking a little bit of spotter. two. And maybe like Rich Hill, you move up 40 spots. But, you know, it's not a completely different league. Yeah. And not to mention with this slow draft, we've known for weeks that Rich Hill should have been moved up. In fact, I think I drafted Rich Hill. So I don't buy it at all. I don't buy it. I will say your poll too. Like, obviously, you know, people, most people were just clicking yes or no, I got thousands of votes or whatever. But the actual comments of people explaining their vote, like, on both sides, they were adamant. It wasn't like, I'd rather not do it

again. It just seems impractical. Like, nobody just took a casual approach to it. Like, why would anybody think of redrafting or why would anybody think of not redraft? Yeah, for me. And like, if it's, if it's that divisive, I feel like you have to err on the side of not drafting. You can't take away somebody's team that they worked so hard for. If, like, if your whole league wants to draft, fine, I don't care. It's your league. Have a ball. But like, if it's that divided, like, I would be afraid of just making it a majority vote thing. Like, it would have to be pretty much unanimous that people want to redraft. I agree with that point. I think if, if everyone in your league votes for a redraft, then it should go through. But if anyone is, you know, against

it, which there are going to be some people, because someone, whoever got Verlander at a discount or Clevenger at a discount because of injury, of course they're not going to want to redraft, especially if there's money on the line. So I do agree it has to be a unanimous vote, but that's just personally how I feel. Today on the show, we're going to do basically a bunch of this. We're going to talk about what you should expect for the season. Sorry I lied yesterday.

Position previews are not starting today. They will start either tomorrow or Friday. But we will address everything that came out last night, from rules, rosters, scheduling, how you should play head-to-head-in-roto, because a lot of people still have questions regarding this. And speaking of questions, we will answer those. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.

also grabbed a few of our Facebook group questions as well email the day speaking of which from Trenton dear Tim David Avery Mario and Sean that's five people we only have four here on the show does anyone know who those guys are they sound like

San Antonio Spurs from the 90s yeah well actually I shouldn't be saying it like that because the 1999 spurs they beat the Knicks of course you know Adam and myself painful memories but everything with the Knicks is a painful memory. Is that just the starting lineup from that?

Yeah. Mario Manningham? Is that who that is? No, no, that was a giant. Sorry. Mario Elliot and Sean Elliott. Mario Manningham is a good memory for me. With Mike Trout and his wife expecting a baby,

it's a decent possibility he misses a little or a lot of time. There is a possibility he doesn't even play at all. I would not feel comfortable taking him in the first round. Where do you all see him dropping to? I believe Garrett Cole is also in the same position. I would probably drop both to round three or four, considering the length of the upcoming season. Missing two to three weeks would be disastrous.

And I researched this before the show. Garrett Cole's baby is due in June, but I have not seen anything regarding that the baby has been born yet. So that should happen in the next week or so, hopefully. But Mike Trout is a little bit different because his baby is due in August. fellas what happens here so the question i have i guess is um it was initially reported that players with high risk family members could opt out and still get service time and pay yeah that was what bob nightingale reported last night however it does not seem to be true right ken rosenthal

corrected that players who are who are considered high risk themselves can opt to sit out without pay and there's a panel of doctors and whatever else who can, you know, if it's at all undecided whether they're high risk or not, there's a panel to determine that. Yeah, but players who have high risk people living in their homes or pregnant spouses, they can opt to sit out, but they can't opt to sit out and still get full pay. Now, Ken Rosenthal pointed out, you know, teams might choose on their own to make special exceptions for players. That's a possibility. But that, you know, the official stance is that they would not get paid for that.

Paternity leave is still in effect, the three-day paternity leave. And Ken Rosenthal also pointed out that teams might be willing to extend it seven days, so for a total of 10 days under the family emergency provision. but a player would have to want to do like I obviously don't know Mike Trout personally but I would be surprised if you know presuming the baby is born healthy and everybody's okay I would be surprised if he took longer than the three day parental leave which you know is three days in a 60 game season is still more a lot more than a 162 game season but not enough that you should be dropping them significantly in your rankings So I think it's, I think it's a little too much concern. So are you dropping him at all, Scott?

Because I believe both you and I have him number one overall in head-to-point leagues. I mean, the only one I would consider dropping him behind in, I already have him behind Acuna Roeo League. The only other one I could consider dropping him behind is Yelich in both formats. And I'm not inclined to do that as of now. I'm hoping I'm hoping we'll get words

sooner than later if certain players are choosing to opt out and you know who knows Yelich may have something going on that makes him opt out so it's kind of difficult to make that determination right now

but provided Yelich is fine I don't see that I don't think I would I don't think I mean he's talking about dropping them down to round three or four I mean yeah yeah I mean we're not even I think well I talked to him

I emailed the I emailed Trenton who said... Oh, I thought you aren't like Trout. Yeah, no. That would be cool. He specifically mentioned the language and the agreement between MLPA and MLB about being allowed to miss time due to residing with a spouse who is high risk. And you guys just said that that's not true.

So, you know, Trent, so that should clarify things for the guy who wrote the email, Trenton, who, by the way, is a service member. So thank you for your service. And I'm sorry. I just, I like, he's not going to miss 10 days in a 60 game season. I just, I'd be shocked. Do I know? No.

But the way I have to draft is I'm thinking that's just not going to happen. And also as someone whose wife just gave birth during the pandemic, I don't know how high risk it is. I mean, we played it extremely cautiously. And we were told that it's just like flu season where a pregnant woman, his, her immunity is lower. but all the studies have not shown the babies having issues, the ones who have COVID, you know, all that stuff.

It doesn't seem like that's the category that's really high risk. So we didn't approach it that way. We approached it like, let's just pretend we are high risk. But in reality, I feel like everything would have been fine even if we did get the virus. But, yeah, I don't think this is an issue personally, and I will not be drafting as if it is an issue. Now, if you're sorry, if the other is just like, he's just going to take 10 days off for paternity leave. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's going to happen.

You can't draft as if it will happen if we don't know. Like if he says something about it, then you can act. But it's just, it's too much of an unknown. There's too many other ways that, you know, a player can miss time. Like, I'm starting to get actually pretty nervous about, like, how many players are going to have to miss time because they're not, I don't know, man. Like, they're not, I don't want to say they're not taking it seriously.

But we're already having players coming down with illnesses and we're already having team staff coming down with illnesses. And that's not a good sign when they're not even, like we're not even at the point where there are 50 people in each team facility every day having to coexist. Like there will be in a week or 10 days. So, look, players are going to miss time with this. It's just an inevitability.

Hopefully it won't be a situation where it, you know, shuts things down. But we're just going to have to deal with that. And it's another thing where we just don't know, you know, who it will be. Hopefully, you know, it all ends up being relatively minor and everybody gets through it. Okay. But this is going to be an ongoing issue throughout the season. and I just, I don't know if, like, Mike Trout's wife being expected to give birth in August is the kind of thing you should really factor in.

Please push your drafts as far back as close to July 24th as you possibly can. If you can draft Wednesday, July 22nd, the weekend before. I mean, even that's probably, I mean, seriously, draft as close to opening day as you possibly can. News and notes. We've already talked a lot about COVID. MLB will have a COVID-19 specific inactive list that players will be placed on if and when they test positive or show symptoms.

Chris, you've already alluded to this. Players and staff members are already testing positive. Yesterday we found out that three Rockies players had tested positive, one of which is Charlie Blackman. So, sorry, Adam. I know you're a big Charlie Blackman fan. I'm just kidding. I mean, he should be perfectly fine.

But this is a weird question, and I don't want it to come off as insensitive. But if a player is, going to get it at some point. Wouldn't you rather them get it now than in season? Yes, and I'll take the awkwardness away because we had to talk about this on the football podcast with Ezekiel Elliott, and it was awkward to bring up.

As of now, I have not seen evidence that you can get it twice, right? People are like, well, you probably can't get it twice. They don't know one way or the other, but it seems like you can't get it. twice so far. It's not. What is the point of asking this question?

Are we just saying? Because Charlie Blackman has COVID. So that means he's probably not going to get it again. Is the question, should we downgrade him because he has COVID? No. Upgrade him because he's not going to get it again. Yes, that's exactly right. It's not that simple, though.

No, it is that simple. It's not that simple. It's not that simple because it's not just, we don't know how his body is going to react. You know, most people who are young, and relatively healthy, you know, have relatively minor symptoms from what we understand. However, there are, we have seen evidence of potential long-term effects beyond just the illness and beyond, like, it impacts your, you know, shortness of breath is one of the key factors. And, you know, obviously I don't have experience with this specific disease and I'm not a doctor,

but I've definitely had like respiratory infections that even once I was healthy, it's still, lingered. And so I don't like we can't. This is another thing that we just can't know. We're not qualified to know. But I don't want to just say across the board, it would be a like beyond just like the awkwardness of it. Like we just don't know what the what the impact of that is going to be. It's going to be different for every. Right. But and I'm not going to say that across the board. It's a good. I don't think anybody should get COVID just so they don't get it during the season. I don't think baseball players should be like, well, give it to me. me now. But he did get it if he's fine and we know that he's probably not going to get it again

based on what Dr. Fauci has said. I do think that's fantasy relevant. I do think that's fantasy significant. To the extent you move him up though, like that seems to be assuming every other player is going to get it at some point, which, you know, if I had assurances. Fewer of them will get it than will get it than won't. Look, again, I don't want to, it's a sensitive subject. I'll just, you know what? I said my piece. I'll leave it at that.

I think that a lot of players are going to get it. And if you absolutely knew for a fact that someone couldn't get it twice, then this would be, in my opinion, a big deal. But, you know, health is safety is first and foremost here. And hopefully everybody's okay. And odds are Charlie Blackman is going to be just fine and won't have, the symptoms won't be that bad. And I do want to point out, like, this is uncharted territory for all of us.

And we may have some awkward or uncomfortable situations while talking about it. You know, let's allow each other. Let's allow ourselves the grace to talk about this. You know, just it's going to be, it's a weird, it's a weird subject that we're trying to take on in real time. We don't exactly know what the results of this are going to be. It's a, to a certain extent where, you know, the sports world is having an experiment right now, as weird as that is to say.

Yeah, thank you, Chris. I appreciate you saying that. And I just want to say if anybody's sitting there thinking that I'm not taking this virus seriously, that couldn't be further from the truth. Adam hasn't left his house. I really barely have. But that's pretty normal, though.

I'm doing my part for the community. And so I think everybody should do that as much as they can. But we do have baseball to talk about. Levi Weaver of the athletic notes that Kyle Gibson has ulcerative colitis and is not required to participate in MLB's planned 60 games season. And this is kind of what we were talking about, where if you have underlying conditions, you can opt out potentially.

And it just makes me wonder if the same thing is going to happen for Carlos Carrasco, who is recovered from leukemia, or people who have previously recovered from cancer, you know? Yeah. David, David, is one I've seen before because he has spleenectomy. And spleen is important for fighting off infections.

So, you know, if they're getting paid anyway, the easy answer would be just to stay home. So it's, you know, it's going to kind of, I don't think they'll all stay home. I think genuinely most of these guys want to play baseball. So I suspect more of them will play or not. I don't think they should be judged either way. I definitely don't think they should be judged if they choose to not play.

And like nobody should be bullied into playing. Like that's obviously not something I want to see or anybody wants to see. Anybody should want to see. But I suspect until we hear otherwise, I'm operating under the presumption that these guys will play. because I think most of them will. There will, there have already been a few baseball players

who have opted out, Avery Bradley for the Lakers. Davis Bertains. Yeah, Trevor Risa. Trevor Risen. Trevor Risen. So,

like, we're going to see, it's just, it's inevitable. We're going to see there's 700 players on an MLB roster or something like that.

Yeah, 750 on an active roster. We're going to see guys, uh, opt out. And it's just, right now, Right now, we can't really speculate on who will or won't because it's ultimately it's, it's an entirely personal decision for each player to make.

And we have a handful of examples we could say, well, this might be a reason this guy would sit out. But like, we don't have anybody's entire medical history. Right. We don't know who all is diabetic. I'm sure lots of players are. We'll know before law. Yeah. That's why push your draft back as close to the opening day as you possibly can.

Players are free to sign as of Friday. at noon Eastern time. According to Jim Bowden, who was a contributor for CBS Sports H.Q, the Giants are still interested in Yassie L. Pueg. Yassie L. Pueg was a top 30 outfielder in both formats last season. Very polarizing player.

Obviously, the Giants would not be a great venue to play in, but in terms of playing time, I would suspect he would play every day and potentially be moved at the trade deadline, which we found out will be August 31st. So, yeah, Giants would be just about a worst case scenario for Yassel Pueig, but what did it though? Well, he would definitely have the spot.

Right. Like that's, so the worst case scenario is we don't get to watch Yassie L. Puig play baseball in 2020, which would just be a problem for everyone. I guess some people would like it, but we don't have to listen to those people. Like, we want Yassie Lueig in a major league uniform. We want him in an everyday lineup. The Giants would give him an opportunity. to do both of those.

So in that sense, that's good. In the other sense, it's, there aren't many offensive environments that are worse. In the other other sense, though, I guess he would be playing more of his games at Coors Field relative to the total schedule by playing in Giant at,

with the Giants. So that would be a good thing. You know, it's going from, we still don't actually know what the schedule breakdown is beyond the 40, 20, right? 40 games in division 20 against your... Yeah, and we'll get to that a little bit later on. Yeah, 20...

Sorry, 40 in division, 20 in the opposing division, you know, the sister division and the opposite league. And the breakdown would be six games against the natural rival and then... Natural rival. Three or two against the other four teams. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a bad break for the Mets

because they have to face the Yankees six times because of the natural rival rule. And the nationals get to face the Orioles six times. I don't even like, who's the Red Sox natural rival? I don't know. We're about to find out, I guess. I think it's the Braves, I think. That makes sense.

They both wear blue and red. They're rivals. They should have just scrapped Interleague play for this year. I know it would have created unbalanced schedules, but the schedules are going to be unbalanced anyway. And like, I think we could live with one 60-game season of unbalanced schedules. Well, it would mean two teams would have to be off every night if they scrap dinner league play. I guess that's fair.

Let's quickly hit these final two news items. Michael Fulmer announces that he is ready for the season. The last time we saw him was in 2018. He had a 4.69 ERA and a 131 whip. Scott, quickly, any interest? Yeah, I mean, not in terms of drafting him, but I mean, I think he could be a Marcus Stroman type if he bounces back strong from this. So somebody to keep an eye on early in the season

if he's going well and you need an extra arm You know, he was fantasy relevant before he got hurt Maybe not right before he got hurt But you know, he was he was somebody people cared about in fantasy I was a huge huge Michael former fan An apologist if you will Domingo Hermann has 63 games left on his suspension So he will not pitch at all this season

And Michael Pineda speaking of suspensions still has 39 games left on his. So it doesn't really leave much time for him to have a lot of value for fantasy this year. Let's take a quick break. We'll take an early break today. When we come back, we will look at the schedule, divisions, rosters, how that's going to break down. The 60 player pool, apparently, what the taxi squads are going to look like. And then get into how we're handling head-to-head points, Roto, heads-ed categories, leagues.

We'll do all that here, fantasy baseball today. Already, we're back here on fantasy baseball today. I thought we got all the news and notes out of the way, but Chris, you found another news item while we were in a quick break. It looks like Joe Madden's talking to reporters right now, and there have been a couple of news, noteworthy newsworthy notes, noteworthy news items.

He's got no indication that any angels are considering opting out so far. Obviously, that doesn't mean they won't be. He also was quoted, asked whether they would consider using otis. differently in this shortened season, which from what I gather is asking whether he would hit on days that he pitches. I don't think it'll happen right now, but it is something I would love to see happen at some point. So that probably means Otani pitching once a week and DH in between with the day off before and after he starts. So you figure 10 weeks, 60 games, right, average of six games per week with a couple of seven game weeks, you're probably looking at a start every week,

no two start weeks, maybe one, and then four starts as a hitter. So we're basically back where we were in 2018. That's what he was doing then, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. So nine to ten starts as a starter. And even more so than most pitchers, I would expect he will be treated with very short leash early on,

given that he will not have any game action since having Tommy John surgery as a pitcher. I think if you play in a league where you have to choose between a pitcher or a hitter version of Otani, I think the pitcher version, I won't say he's undraftable. But I would be shocked

if you got 50 innings out of him this season. Those last five, four or five starts, though, should be pretty... Yeah, but... He should be good for a solid workload by now. but I would just, I would be shocked if you got 50 innings from. Well, I would be shocked if you got 55. I would be surprised if you got 50.

And so given that most starters, you're hoping for 70 to 80. Right. It might be a situation where you draft him and just stash him for, I mean, until he shows he's going to go 5 plus with consistency. But like, I would definitely rather have Rich Hill than show Hey, Otani. Is he sort of, is he sort of a glorified middle reliever in a roto league? maybe, but like he'll get more innings than your relievers, obviously, but there's no guarantee they're going to be good.

I mean, he's coming back from Tommy John surgery. He may be just fine. Last time we saw him, he was a really good pitcher. But there's also a chance that it takes him a little while to get going. Maybe. You know, we saw that with Denelson Lemette last year, where, you know, he was the first guy who came to mind, but he wasn't particularly good immediately upon coming back. it took him a little while.

And the whole season is a little while right now. But in theory, though, if he comes back and he pitches like Otani just in shorter spurts, he's going to give you probably a higher ERA and a higher whip than the middle reliever you'd be using. But it'd still be good compared to other starting pitchers. And the strikeouts will be better than the middle reliever, I would think. I think he's still useful in Roto. Yeah, I just, I don't think I would take him as a top 60 starter. Scheduling in divisions, we've already talked about this a little bit.

But basically for this season, you're going to face your in-division opponent 10 times. So times four division opponents that amounts to 40 games. So basically 66% of the games that a team plays this year are going to come against their division opponents. Normally it's you face your division opponent 19 times. 47% just a little under half. Yeah. So, I mean, playing in your division counts much more and is much, much more importance than it usually is.

And that's basically what we've been saying all along. And each club will play a total of 20 games against a corresponding interleague division. The ALEs will verse the NLE East, and six of those games will come against the interleague rival, Yankees versus Mets, Cubs versus White Sox. And again, I mentioned this, but Nationals versus Orioles, you know,

the natural rivalry that that is. This just like, it seems like a dumb way to have done the schedule. Right. Like it should have been 42 games against your division, which comes out to 13 per opponent, I believe. No. I don't know what it comes out to. You'd have had to play two teams twice, one extra time, which whatever, who cares. And then you could have played six against your natural rival and then three each against every other division. That would make sense. This is, they should have just gotten rid of- I'm fine with it. They should have gotten rid of Interleague play. Like, it's just, you're adding extra traffic. travel, you're adding three or four extra cities that every team needs to travel to. Like, it's just, that was the problem with Astros moving to the AL as you made two odd number leagues instead of two even number leagues.

So it meant interleague play was here to stay. And that includes during a pandemic. But it's not really extra travel. It's just going to different cities. But you still have to travel to cities. Right, but you're still going from, but like there are still certain cities that have more or fewer outbreaks at a given time. There are certain cities that are worse, riskier to be in. And so, you know, right now, like every AL East team, which are mostly in places that are not

currently experiencing hotspots except for Tampa, have to travel to Miami and Georgia or Atlanta, which is currently having, I think that's like the fourth highest growth rate. But how about the Phillies? The Phillies now have to take fewer trips to Georgia and to South Florida. and instead they get to go to New York. No, they don't. Well, not really. Toronto. Actually, it doesn't sound like Toronto's going to be an option, right?

I think the Braves' natural rival might be Toronto. I think maybe Philly and Red Sox are linked. The Phillies and the Red Sox are linked. It used to be the Red Sox and the Braves were linked. It would make more sense. That's when the Expos were still around. I've got no beef with the schedule, Frank. It doesn't really change anything for fantasy, right?

Because this is kind of what we suspected it was going to be all along anyway. Yeah. The primary thing is how much you're playing your own division and the parks that are there. But even then, it's all relatively small. You guys mentioned travel, and I saw on the athletic per Jason Stark's article. The easiest travel is for the 10 NL East and ALE East teams. They will never leave their time zone. And the hardest travel is for the 10 NL West and AEL clubs,

who will be forced to cover three different time zones, West, Mountain, and Central throughout the course of the season. Does this change anything at all? No. Like, these are all marginal things that we can't quantify. Like, we know in the NFL that a team traveling east and playing a one o'clock game from the West Coast tends to struggle a little more. But baseball, like, you're still, you have more time to get used to it. I don't think it's, it just does highlight just how, like, the Western divisions in baseball are just kind of a, That's west. That's just over there. That's the whole west. Everything from Texas on,

well, just, that's the west. It's kind of silly. Scott, from your article that is live on cbsports.com, you pointed out that MLB can relocate teams for health and safety reasons as needed. And this still might happen for the Toronto Blue Jays. So, you know, once we figure that out, whether it's going to be in their spring training complex or somewhere completely different, you do have to take that into account because normally Rogers Center is a hitter's venue. If it is in,

is it Dunedin, Florida? Dunedin, Florida. I'm not sure how you pronounce it. And you wrote about this earlier too a couple of months ago about how it would help like Cabin Vizio. It's still a hitter's park. It's especially good for

left-handed hitters. That right center field fence is like 350 feet away. So, you know, I don't want to get too deep into it we don't exactly know if that's where they're playing or if they're even going to be, or how long they'd be playing there. But yeah, it, uh, it, uh, it, I don't think it would drastically change the Blue Jays value.

I believe it is pronounced Dunedin. Mm-hmm. Because the name comes from the Scottish Gaelic name for Eden, Edinburgh, Dune Aden. There you go. Edinburgh? That's how you just said. I don't know. How would I know?

Uh, the strength of schedule, I saw this on Twitter. last night based on 2019 records per Jeremy Frank at MLB Random Stats on Twitter. Sorry, Chris, but the Miami Marlins have the toughest schedule this year based on 2019. They don't get to play the Marlins. Yeah, that's exactly the point. The Mariners have a tough schedule, the Angels, the Orioles. Of course, I mean, a lot of these teams are not great teams, so that makes sense. They don't get to face themselves.

But I thought it was interesting that, as we've said all along, you know, I am targeting Minnesota Twins starting pitchers. They have the easiest strength of schedule in the entire league based on last year's win-loss record. The Indians are second. The White Sox are third. The Yankees are tied for fourth in baseball with the Cardinals in terms of the easiest schedule of the season.

So I think it's good to see the validation that what we've said all along regarding the AL-Central team, specifically pitchers in the AL-Central, makes sense based on win percentage from 2019. Anything else said that matters? Are you just, I mean, we're not really targeting too many Seattle Mariners anyway. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest takeaway is most of the teams with the easiest schedules based on last year's records are the teams who had the best schedules or the best records last year

because they didn't have to play themselves. Yeah, exactly. Usually how it goes. In terms of rosters, we are going to have a, and we've kind of speculated about this for a while too, but we are going to have a 60 player pool with no minor league season. All teams will carry a pool of 60 players about half, that will be part of a taxi squad that is assigned to an alternate site, not located at the team's home park.

Teams will need to submit the names of those 60 players by this Sunday. At 3 p.m. Eastern Time, clubs can invite as many as all 60 of those players to their Major League spring training camp, but players not on the 40-man roster also can be assigned to an alternate spring training site. Speaking of the roster size, the active roster, The teams will be allowed to carry 30 players on their big league roster for the first two weeks of the season, then get down to 28 on the 15th day of the season,

and then down to 26 two weeks after that. So about a month into the season, we will be back to a 26-man active roster with 34 players on the said taxi squad. The new rule was supposed to limit the number of pitchers on a roster that has been waived because of the unusual circumstances. This season, Scott, you wrote about this as well, How does this affect what we were thinking in terms of prospects?

Why did they have that two-week kind of decrease every couple of weeks? Yeah, this was a want-w for me because for most of the season, rosters won't be expanded at all. 26 was the expectation going into, you know, back in March. So for most of the season, they won't be expanded. It'll only be as many as 30 for two weeks, which is also the period, you know, at the start of the season coming off an abbreviated spring training when

starters aren't going to be pitching that deep at the games. Those spots are going to have to be used on bullpen depth, basically. And I think that'll even be true two weeks in when it goes down from 30 to 28. So those spots, maybe a team here or there will be able to sneak an extra prospect on, but

like it's only going to be if they're absolutely sure that prospect is ready to contribute. They're not going to take any big swings on a guy just to get them experience or whatever. Rosters won't be expanded enough for long enough for that. So your wildest ideas about prospects making the major league roster, I think you're going to have to curb those.

Now, there's still incentive to call prospects that they are sure are ready up earlier because obviously they need to get their best team on the field as soon as possible since they only have 60 games to work with. So I think there's a good chance that the biggest two I've been talking about are Dylan Carlson of the Cardinals and Nate Pearson of the Blue Jays. I still feel pretty good about those. maybe Spencer Howard of the Phillies, who I probably should have brought up more.

Nick Madrigal of the White Sox because you could argue maybe he's already their best second base option. Michael Copac. He's maybe a prospect. But they have a full rotation without him. So like it would be... Do they know?

Well, I mean, can't disrespect. People like Gio Gonzalez. It's a White Sox rotation. Yeah. There's a chance he's up just to give bullpen depth early on and maybe they sort out the rotation later.

That's what I'm thinking with Kopeck. I could imagine him being either a long reliever, pitch multiple innings, maybe a fireman reliever type role for Michael Kopeck. And I do appreciate that players already are acknowledging that every game will matter more than it usually does. I saw there were comments from Tucker Barnhart earlier today talking about how they realize how much significance is on every game. And because of that, look, any team has a chance. There is more incentive for the Padres to start the same.

season with a McKenzie Gore than normally in a season. I understand it'll start as service time clock, but if you actually want to compete, which I guess is different for every owner in baseball, then I think some teams are going to be more aggressive than others, and they should be, because every game counts. Yeah, that's true. And for more teams, more teams have to feel like they have a chance of competing. So I'm not saying we won't see more prospects than normal. four more teams what are you talking about they're not expanding the playoffs this year are they

I now did I misspeak they're not expanding the playoffs no but I think four more teams F-O-R for I forget how I was playing off what Frank just said okay okay but yeah more teams are going to feel that urgency

just because more teams have a chance yeah so I do think we will see more prospects called up and it'll happen early if not from the outset. I mean, if you're going to do it, it makes sense to just do it from the beginning, especially when you have extra roster space to work with. But because of the existence of taxi squads, it doesn't necessarily have to be right away either. That's kind of the point of the taxi squad.

If, you know, there won't be obviously minor league games happening. We won't really have data. I don't suspect on how players are performing in inter-squad scrimmages or whatever that are happening there with the taxi squad. But I'm sure teams will have ways of evaluating how their top prospects are doing. And they feel like they need a boost mid-season from a guy who's made a big leap down there. That it could absolutely still happen. We could still see mid-season call-ups. The trade deadline, as I mentioned earlier, is August 31st, which means you might only get one month of a closer on a bad team.

So keep that in mind Keone Kele Whoever the Giants closer is once that emerges Just keep those things in mind I will just say If a team is out of it I don't know like how realistic it is for a team To be out of it by August 31st

It's literally just a month into the season Can you see one of those teams just resting Their best players Because They're not really competing for anything anymore I don't think so. But it's, you know, the thing is, it's more than a month. It's a month and a week, which is not nothing.

Why would they rest their players? I think, you know, it's not like they're going to have 130 games in which to evaluate their players, right? They probably want to see as much as they can of these guys. So I don't think so. I hate playing fantasy the last two weeks of the season. I ideally end my leagues before that crap. And honestly, I wouldn't mind ending my leagues in a regular.

season, regular, like, baseball season, before September. You know, basically getting rid of the whole month. I know I'm a little aggressive with that. But this year, I feel like the quality is going to be a little bit better. I feel like there are going to be more teams that are within striking distance of the playoffs. There's no expanded rosters. Right.

And they're not going 40-man roster. Right. And like the star players, if they're sitting, they're like, what am I even doing here? What am I risking this for if I'm not even going to play? Right. And it's 60 games. It's like, it's not like they're going to be like, all right, well, I played my full season.

I'll just sit it out. So I'm more enthusiastic about playing it. And obviously, you have to play it to the end. There just aren't enough games. But I think I'm fine with it this year, whereas I really don't like doing it in normal years. Yeah, you don't have a choice. You got to play all the way to the end of the season this year, Adam.

And speaking of which, I basically have mapped out what your schedule should look like in a head-to-head points league. And I think period one, you are going to start on that either Thursday or Friday, I believe it's going to be that Friday, July 24th. So I think your first period, your first scoring week should be that 10-day week through August 2nd, then periods 2 through 7, which is the regular season, will be August 3rd through September 13th.

Those are normal Monday through Sunday weeks from a head-to-head scoring perspective. That'll be the end of the regular season. And, you know, if you play with double-headers, that'll give you 14 wins or lost decisions. if you play with triple headers, that will give you 21 wins and lost decisions. Period 8, which will be the semifinals in the playoffs, will be September 14 through the 20th, and then period 9, which will be the championship week,

will be September 21st through September 27. Does that make the most sense? I love it. All right. Here's what I might do. I think I pretty much feel like, you know, four teams making the playoffs instead of six is just something you have to do in a 12-team league.

what if though instead of doing a semifinals week and a championship week if you're in a points league the four teams get in they set their line up you get a two week championship and whoever scores the most points wins I like that I don't like a one week semi final and a one week championship I think two weeks we always try to have each round of the playoffs be two weeks or at least the championship round so you can't do that really under this schedule I think I would like to do that and I have to make that decision as the commissioner in a couple leagues.

Most points scored in those last two weeks wins, or maybe you put it up to a league vote, but it's just... Yeah, I don't know why you'd lose the head-to-head aspect in the playoffs specifically. Yeah, I don't like one week. I mean, it's the norm, first of all. Most head-to-head playoff leagues use only one week. I don't use it in my leagues. I agree with you, Adam.

I like to decrease the luck element during that by making the scoring periods longer, essentially. one thing I thought of a potential way of doing that is it's kind of a waste to have that first scoring period be 10 days when we have so few days to work with if your league was willing to adjust their habits for one very short season and make their scoring periods start on Friday because that's when the season starts

instead of starting on Monday then you'll have more days to work into a playoff scenario at the end of the season. And what you could do with that is make still just two rounds of playoffs, but have them extended over three and a half weeks because you got that extra half week. And then just divide those three and a half weeks into two scoring periods that are extra long. They'd come out to like 10, 11 days, something like that. And obviously the lineup lock would be a different day. for the start of each period.

But, I mean, people are obviously invested because they're playing. They'll be paying attention to when they're supposed to set their lineup. You can remind them as a commissioner and you can make, I think that's the way to squeeze the most out of this schedule, but of course it means changing people's habits and you may get some pushback. You guys are, you're overthinking it. Six weeks, double header schedule, one by week for each team throughout those six weeks. And then you do a.

four-week 12-team tournament with the top four seeds getting a buy and you play out that this seems like the simplest and most right we were overthinking uh and i don't know how you guys didn't come to that conclusion already you're welcome uh and uh you're where you're working in a bye weeks in a nine and a half week long season i think well because you want to play everyone in your 12 team league one time. And so you need 11 matchups through those six weeks. Everybody gets one where they're not

facing anyone. I think that's perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable, perfectly straightforward. And yeah, let's move on. Wait a second. I don't think it's one by week. I think it's one week where everyone's doing a where you're doing a single header instead of a double header, right? No, no. It's six weeks. I mean, I guess you could do five weeks

and then one week where you just play one, but that should be different for everyone. And then you have 12 teams in the playoffs. Everybody makes it. But it's seated. So the top four teams through those 11 games get a buy. So it's eight teams, then eight, then four, and two. Boom. I don't see what the confusion is. All right, my brain hurts. Let's attack Roto. The biggest question I've seen regarding Roto is the ennings pitched minimum. What are we going to do this season? Normally, it's either a 900 innings pitch minimum or a 1,000 inning minimum. if you pro rate that to 60 games, you get either 33 based on 900

or you get 370 based on 1,000. What makes sense... What's the problem here? You just solve the problem. What makes sense is to set it at 350, but pitchers are not going to go as deep into games as they normally do. So should we set it to 300? I play in a 15-team league where it's already been set to 300. I might round down to the nearest 50,

but I don't think I'd... I don't think I'd go that far down. So you think 350 is a fair minimum for the season in Roto? Yeah, I do. I mean, if it means people have to chase innings a little more toward the end of the season, I don't think that's necessarily a problem. It adds an element of strategy, but I wouldn't want to go too far the other way and have somebody just win on,

win with a bunch of relievers. By the way, I had this thought yesterday, last night, actually, based on somebody responding to your poll, Frank, about whether or not we should redraft. And he was talking about how, I think he was using Kyle Hendricks as the example, but a pitcher, a pitcher has one bad start

in a 60 game season where he's only making 12, let's say. And it can, it could mean he was a waste of a pick in a Roto League because he won't have time to correct. his ERA and whip from that one bad start. And that got me thinking, are we sure that Roto is really the better format to play in this scenario? Because in a head-to-head league, one bad start, okay, it messes you up that one week. But that doesn't mean it was a waste of pick.

It doesn't mean Hendricks' numbers or whoever's numbers are ruined for the whole season. Like if he gives you 11 of 12 more or less Kyle Hendricks-Lake start, even if his ERA and whip ends up higher than it used to. because it was limited to that one start. I mean, you don't feel that a poisonous ratio that can happen over a small sample if it's because of just one or two bad starts. You know, it's not going to have the same impact on the standings in a head-to-head league that it would in a roto league.

I just don't agree with this, though, because Kyle Hendricks is a great example. His first two starts, he gave up six earn runs in eight and a third, and then in his fifth start, he gave up seven earn runs in five innings through 12, starts he had a 316 ERA. 12 starts has plenty of time, I think, to recover from one horrible start. That's fair. Maybe it's, yeah. Yeah, I think it's a little more than he was giving credit for.

Yeah. I still think there's something there. I agree with you. There is something there. Yeah, I mean, if you make 12 starts at six innings per start, you're looking at 72 innings. A 3ERA over 72 innings would be 27 runs allowed,

I think. And so if you give up six earned runs, you basically you're looking at two and a half runs per start then. If you give up six runs and one, that does throw you off. And, you know, three runs over 72 innings would come out to a third of a run, I think. Well, we didn't overcomplicate this, did we? Let's just play baseball. I mean, this is my biggest takeaway, everybody. Just draft and watch baseball and play fantasy.

Yeah, let's not get too. Like there's going to be, there is going to be less time for things to regress. There's going to be more outlier performances as a result. But like, that's going to be true no matter what format you play in. Yeah. Remember why he played fantasy baseball in the first place?

Because I'm seeing a lot of takes out there like, this season stinks. Why are we even doing this? Well, you're doing it because you like baseball and you like fantasy baseball, right? Like, if you don't want to put as much money on it, because things are going to be wacky. I get that.

Don't put as much money on it. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. It's just a game. I mean, some people play fantasy baseball just because they need to scratch that competitive itch. But look,

but I think it'll still allow you to do that. There is a higher luck element this season than in past season. I mean, look, if you don't want to play fantasy baseball, don't play fantasy baseball. But if you're listening to this podcast on June 24th,

four months after the season, what's supposed to start? chances are you want to play baseball. So let's play some fantasy baseball. And make the most out of the opportunity. Make some lemonade out of some lemons. Make some, you know, fray pie pie out of frays.

I was wondering what your next lemonade analogy was going to be. Not going to surprise anyone, but I absolutely hate lemonade. Bottom five drink. I don't even know what to do. Adam, you hurt my head. Even from Chick-fil-A? It's too sweet. It's just awful.

Put some ice tea in it, making Arnold Palmer. Oh, my goodness. I really like ice tea that much. Words fail. All right, Adam, you got to go. Let's at least get to these rapid fire questions from our FBT Facebook group. The first one, and we will throw it to,

we'll just rotate everyone here. Scott, you're up first. Do middle relievers get a bump this year? If so, who should you target? I think they probably. would get a small bump and it's you know it's still going to be the guys who are

most likely to get saved so the guys who had dominant ratios last year. I'm not, I don't think there's any need to over complicate that. A few names that came to mind for me, Tyler Duffy, Emilio Pagan, Seth Lugo. All those names sound helpful? Yeah, I have a column of 16 of them, so go Google it.

Go Google it. Adam, you're up. Should we avoid players who end up getting hurt during spring training 2.0? If they suffer a setback, they could wind up missing half the season? I would not say avoid them. It's going to be case by case, but I think it's fair to downgrade a little bit. Yeah. Chris, do you roster more bench bats in case of COVID outbreak? Also, do you deactivate Fab now that it's unclear how many transactions you may need to make?

I think you definitely have to make changes to how your league handles IL spots and bench spots. I think you should probably just expand your bench spots. I think you should probably just expand your bench spots. I think you should probably add at least one I.L spot. As far as Fab, it's such a short season that I could see the point, the argument for just getting rid of Fab, because the marketplace is going to be so different. But I don't know if getting rid of Fab versus just going to waivers, like it depends on your league.

I tend to think just open free agency is a competitive balance issue and more so in a year like this. I would still try to have some kind of waiver or FAB. Just allow zero dollar bids. Yeah, I don't know why people would disband FAB, just put in more backup bids. I mean, based on the needs of your team. Scott, this one's coming back your way.

It isn't a question, but we spoke about this before the show started, actually. Closers will probably blow more saves with a player at second base in extra inning games. How do you suspect this is going to work, Scott? Yeah. So I'm curious what percentage of MLB games go into extra inning. 8.7%.

And then how many of those does the road team go up in the first inning and force the close and then have the closer? Like you're probably talking about maybe I don't know one or two of those events on average per year.

Plus you've got to talk about would the would the reliever have blown the save anyway? Is the closer even the one pitching in that scenario? Is he going to get out of it without allowing run. Like you're just chopping up these micro fractions to the point that it's, it's probably not worth worrying about, especially since so few formats even factor in losses for a pitcher. Scott, you told me that the player who starts on second base is going to basically act as an error, right? That's how Ken Rosenthal put it. It's like the runner reached as an error, so it won't count

against the pitcher's ERA was what was his, the point he was making. Nobody's credited with an the team isn't credited with an error. An error didn't actually happen, of course, but that's how the base runner is treated. So if we're projecting that out, then presumably if the pitcher who allows that runner in, if it ends up deciding the game, would take the decision, would take the loss.

But that, I haven't explicitly heard that, that just logically follows. Adam, you're next up. What is a good replacement category for quality starts this year? I don't know why we're so convinced that, like pitchers are going to go so much shorter in a game, especially the ones that are fantasy relevant.

I think the crappy pitchers that we don't roster anyway are going to definitely have their innings cut. But I use quality starts. It's still a skill and it forces you to draft better pitchers. So I guess you could use innings. That's what I was thinking. But I think just stick with quality starts. I do think pitchers won't go quite as deep into games,

but already pitchers don't go that deep into games. So I think in terms of the ones that we roster in most fantasy leagues, not going to be as different as maybe people are making it out to be. Stick with Quality Starts, in my opinion. All right, Chris. There were 74 save opportunities in extra innings last season across baseball. It's hard to know if that's a lot. But that's over the course of a 162 game season.

Yeah, two per team. So on average, you'd probably expect maybe one per team over the course of a 60 game season, probably a little bit less. So it's not something you should think about. All right, Chris, are you ready? You're going to take us home. Country Road. I actually hate that song. Great song. Love that. Hate that song. That's my Adam Azer take for the day. How come I am not hearing more hype for long

relievers? For leagues that plays value on wins, which are most points in Roto, and most SPs, at least in the first month, will barely go four to five innings. Wouldn't players like Brad Peacock, Freddie Peralta, and Ross Stripling have more value as long relievers? No, probably not. Like, maybe, but that's so random. Like we do occasionally, every year, like, we'll see one or two relievers win, like, eight to ten games. And I think Will Harris had a really high win total recently. But for the most part, these are incredibly rare events.

And there's no guarantee that your Brad Peacock is going to come into the game with a lead or, you know, in a tie situation. And so I just think you're, you're kind of chasing impossible odds there. If you're, if you're looking for wins, that does not mean how. however, that a Freddie Peralta pitching five innings a week as a middle reliever wouldn't have plenty of value on his own if he's good. For Scott, Chris and Adam, thank you all for listening and watching on the Fantasy Baseball Today YouTube channel. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.