Fantasy Baseball Today - MLB Team Word Association! (05/18 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

Today on the show we're trying word association for random baseball teams but first, which shows made you happy or sad when they ended? ... Frank has some St. Louis Cardinals updates (3:37). What's the latest on Miles Mikolas and Matt Carpenter? ... Here's how MLB team word association is going to work. We spin a virtual wheel and whatever team it lands on, Scott or Chris have to think of a player for us to talk about! First up, we have the Oakland A's (9:23). Chris wanted to talk about Ricky Henderson but we opted for somebody a little more recent. Can said player bounce-back in 2020? ... Second, we have the Boston Red Sox (14:28)! Chris thinks this player is a decent breakout option. ... Third it's the Seattle Mariners (20:15)! No, we're not talking about Franklin Gutierrez. Instead, we have a deep sleeper at starting pitcher! ... Fourth, the Milwaukee Brewers are up (26:25). Is it starting to end for this veteran? ... Fifth, we're talking New York Mets baseball (32:16). This player was dreadful in 2019 but Chris and Frank are optimistic about a bounce-back. ... Lastly, we have the Pittsburgh Pirates (40:15). Are we really doing this again? ... We end with your emails, including one about Anti-SPARP leagues. ... Email us at [e-mail]. '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, at the wall, grand slam. 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.

Hey there, everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on May 18th, Frank Stanful, A.k.a. Postage, A.k.a. The Trampstamp. Whatever you want to call me. Here with Scottie Dubbs, Scott White, and the returning. C.P.T. Chris, it's been a while. How's it going, man? Hey, guys. Yeah. Sorry for missing most of last week's podcast. We had our deadline for our fantasy football magazine, but I literally, seconds before logging on to the call, sent the last proof to the printer. So now I'm good. I'm focusing on baseball for the next probably two months, really. Just all baseball.

So you guys got me. All baseball all the time. I'll be, you know, I'll still be, you know, worried about baseball after that. Yeah, and hopefully there's baseball to talk about. We're still waiting here back again. It is Monday, May 18th. So there's going to be some back and forth. This is going to take some time, obviously.

but, you know, once a season is announced, we will have an emergency podcast there for you. So make sure again that you're subscribing here. Leave a little five-star Apple podcast review. Why not for your guys here? Fantasy baseball today. Scott, I'm a little sad today, not going to lie. The last dance is over. I enjoyed it thoroughly because I was too young to watch Michael Jordan live, obviously.

Has there been a show that has genuinely made you sad when it ended? Oh, yeah. Every show. Every show? Every single show. Yeah. I've never finished a show and been like, well, I'm relieved that's over. Gosh, don't have to do that anymore.

I mean, I definitely have. I definitely, there are some shows that you kind of watch out of a sense of obligation. And then by the time you get through it, you're just like, like, season two of true detective. Season one was so good that I gave season two the benefit of doubt through the entire thing. all the way to the end. And at the end of every episode of my wife, it was the only show we watched live. And at the end of every episode,

my wife and I would turn to each other and be like, why are we spending our time doing this? And we did it every week. And it never paid itself off. I think maybe, I don't know, it's a CBS show. So maybe I shouldn't say this.

But I think maybe it was kind of that way with how I met your mother. Because it just went on so long, probably about three seasons too long. and then the ending is notoriously bad. And it's just like, well, at least that's something I don't have to make time to do anymore. So I do remember having kind of an experience like that with that one. I do. I love that show and all CBS programming.

Look at that. Model employee, Chris Hauer's back on the show. Today on the show, speaking of which we were going to do MLB team Word Association, as many teams as we could possibly get to, so that's going to be a lot of fun. We have some news and notes, basically just Cardinals' news and notes, and then some of your emails later on, Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com.

But some of those news and notes, St. Louis Cardinals, according to Mark Saxon of the athletic, Miles Michaelis should be ready when, if play resumes. Michaelis had this to say, everything's going well. If you look at June 10th-ish for spring training and early to mid-July,

which has been reported, but we don't know if that's actually going to happen. As the point of return, from what I understand for a season, I think I should be ready to go. Michaelis was recovering from a strained flexor tendon in his right forearm, which is usually a precursor for something much worse, but he's opted to just rehab and not have any type of surgery. So it seems like that's going well. Something that also went well was his 2018, a 283 ERA.

The pendulum swung all the way the other way, Scott, with a 4.16 ERA last season. Are you going to, I mean, I guess we haven't really talked about Michaelis, but he is one of these names, one of these other names, that does benefit from the long layoff. Do you plan to move him back up the ranks at all? He seems like more of a head-to-head points starting pitcher than a Roto guy for me.

You know, I was doing a lot of massaging on my starting pitcher rankings on Friday, and Miles Michaelis was somebody who just kept getting moved down, for other pitchers. I have no enthusiasm for Miles Michaelis this year. I feel like last year was closer to what he probably should have been, even in his first year. You know, the main thing he brings to the table is a great ground ball rate. Good control, too.

So he's like really good on two of those three fit measurements. But actually, he took kind of a step back as a ground ball pitcher last year, so the home runs were kind of a problem for him. And the strikeout rate is so low. He's kind of like a poor man's Marcus Stroman, I feel like. And Stroman himself, it's hard to get enthusiastic about him. A little easier on a points league. But then the poor man's version of him, not so much.

That is definitely fair. I can't argue with you. Moving Miles Michael is down the rankings. Some other news from the St. Louis Cardinals, prospects Nolan, Gorman, and Matthew Liberator, are not expected to make the expanded roster for the car. Cardinals, I think that's pretty much expected. I mean, Liberator is still a few years away.

And Gorman, someone that people are very excited about, another one where, you know, maybe he'll start in AA, but might not make sense for him to make it at least this season. And lastly, Will Laws of SI.com reports that Matt Carpenter is a natural candidate for the Cardinals' DH job. I think that makes a lot of sense, which means Tommy Edmund could be their everyday third baseman, helps all parties involved.

Edmund, Carpenter, Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, hopefully in the outfield. So there's your dose of St. Louis Cardinals updates here on fantasy baseball today. I mentioned we were going to do MLB team Word Association. I just want to jump right in.

I want to try and get to as many teams as we possibly can. Good. You got the two longest winded on with you, so this will go well. Word Association, if you haven't played, it's pretty simple.

It's somebody says a word. What's the first thing that pops into your head? For example, I say red. Chris Tower says, blue. All right. Did I get it right? Not necessarily what I was expecting, but I will throw out a random team. I actually created this Wheel of Fortune type thing on a website,

and it'll rotate around. An actual spinning wheel? It is an actual spinning wheel. I guess I can turn the volume up, and maybe you guys will hear it in the background. I don't know how well that will play out on the podcast, but it does make some noises, but there is a wheel,

and every time I'll spin the wheel, I will present the team, and then either Chris or Scott, I guess we'll go back and forth, we'll throw out a player, and we'll talk about said player for a few minutes, and we'll try and get to as many teams as we possibly can. I had this idea because recently on Twitter,

people have been posting old-school team logos, like basketball teams, and I saw the Florida Marlins was trending, their logo was trending, Chris, there's another one for you. I think it started with the Expos. The Expos. Yeah, I think that was the first one.

And there's only one answer for the Expos. Bartolo Colone. What? I think of Vladimir Guerrero. The first one who comes to mind with that logo for me is Mike Lansing. I don't know why. He just seems like the embodiment of Expo's baseball. Mark Grudzalonic.

Yeah, I think of him pretty high too, yeah. So Chris. Chris, when you see the old Florida Marlins logo, who do you think of? Oh, probably Hanley or Amirez. That's fair. Yeah, I thought of Miguel Cabrera, who's just the first name that popped into my head. I think of Jeff Conine. Yeah, for me it would be like Hanley, Gary Sheffield,

who only played there for like two and a half years, or Dodd-Trow Willis. But that's just because those are my three favorite players, probably. Well, Jose Fernandez, but he didn't wear the old logo. That makes sense. He did for a little while. Nope. No? No.

Nope. He was only on Miami, Marlon. I'll take your word for it. But anyway, Anthony, someone who is a longtime supporter of FPT, he responded to one of my tweets and said, you guys should do this on the show. And I'm sure, why not? So here we are. This is how we have arrived at this destination.

All right, I'm going to turn my volume up, see if you guys can hear the wheel spinning or not. Are you guys ready? My expectations for the audio portion of this are not very high. Probably not. Let's go with Chris first. Welcome him back to the show. Let's see what we got.

Do you guys hear this? Nope. Not even a little bit. All right, Chris, are you ready? Yes. Your team is the Oakland A's. Ricky Henderson. Are we supposed to do active players? Active players. Active players. So we can talk about them. I mean, we can talk about Ricky Henderson if you want to, but. I mean, I always want to talk about Ricky Henderson. Okay, let's go with K. Risk Davis. Oof, Kris Davis. One of my favorite values in fantasy baseball. baseball this season. Somebody who I wound up with on my Tout Wars team, ADP for Kris Davis right now, 169.2. Seems like he's a little bit left for dead here in fantasy baseball this season. Maybe there's a chance he's starting to fall off 32 years old. I think last year was a

product of him running into that wall in Safeco. I don't know what the, it might be like T-Mobile Park now in Seattle. But he ran into the wall there trying to to make a catch. He hurt his hip on May 5th, Cinco de Mayo, actually, last season. And he was never the same after that. So, Scott, Chris Davis, someone who I love to target if you need home runs late in a roto draft. Even in a points league, he's not ideal because he strikes out a lot. But if he can get back to hitting 35 home runs at that point in the draft, he's a great value. Yeah, he's kind of a no-risk pick. And I think you guys have had an influence on me because I took him for the first time in our 10-team roto mock draft that we recently did.

That was the first time I've taken him the entire draft prep season. You know, I'm not exactly an optimist. I feel like the drop-off doesn't clearly coincide with the injury, which makes me a little skeptical that you could pin in all on that. I mean, he didn't miss that much time with the injury, but of course it's possible it caused him to change his mechanics suddenly. It subtly and fall apart from there. You know, it's a profile that depends on him hitting a crap load of home run.

So anything less than a crap load, he's going to be pretty useless in fantasy, and that's what we discovered last year. And that's a tightrope walk, trying to produce that many year after year, especially as he's now entering his mid-30s here. So I'm not a Chris Davis optimist, but I get the lack of downside with where he's going. And it could potentially pay big dividends. So one thing I would say and maybe take issue with is he was on pace for 46 home runs on May 5th. The overall slash line was a little low.

It was just a 784 OPS. However, that was because he was hitting 229 with a 238. Babbitt. That was mostly the issue. From that point on, he played 98 games. He basically played through the injury. From that point on, he was on a 21 homer pace with a 270-17 batting average with a 274 Babbitt. So I do think a little bit of bad Babbitt luck explains most of why he wasn't off to a resounding start. you know, he hit basically two home runs in his third game back from that injury. And then I don't think he hit another one, another home run for like 15 games.

But the thing is he went before May 5th, he had gone three weeks without hitting a home run. It had been. And maybe he just happened to be cold. And then he got hurt. Or maybe the decline had nothing to do with the hip injury. Yeah, I just, I don't know. he's been so consistent that it's really it's it's hard for me to to look at it and say when he suffered that injury especially if he hadn't suffered the injury and yes he was he hadn't

homered for three weeks however that happens sometimes like i would i would i would guess that's one of the longer homerless streaks he's had in recent years um but that just yeah sometimes that happens so i i don't know how much to put on that he didn't He homered once in the first 12 games of the 2018 season. So that doesn't concern me as much. I really do think the hip is the issue. Yeah, maybe at 32 years old, he is starting to decline a little bit, but I think the change in batted ball data is something that you can draw to the hip injury,

the fact that he couldn't elevate the ball as much as he usually does. Last season, a 37% fly ball rate, whereas the previous four seasons before that, he was up over 40% and in 2018 he had a near 49% fly ball rate. So I think that hip injury kind of affected his ability to lift the ball and do what he normally does. So Chris Davis is somebody that I do like a decent amount and I actually do trust as a bounce back. Scott, are you ready to spin the wheel?

Let's spin the wheel. Spin that wheel. Spin that wheel. And... Big money, big money. The Red Sox. Oh, the Red Sox. I'm going to go, do I really have to go with the first name that came to mind because it was J.D. Martinez.

Is that how we're going to do this? Yeah, probably, they're probably more interesting. Yeah, that's not the game, though. We don't have to talk about J.D. Martinez for long, do we? All right, Alex Verdugo, fine. All right, Alex Verdugo, ADP 229.8 came over in the Mookie Betts trade. And we did have some update recently from Alex Verdugo. And it sounds like, things are trending in the right direction, another player who should benefit from the long layoff here if things get started back up. Yeah, actually two weeks ago, I missed this completely,

but two weeks ago, Alex Verdugo said he's 100% ready to play baseball. Yeah, Chris, Chris, I know that you're very excited about Alex Verdugo, and I think there's a chance he can, maybe not his first season as a full-time player, but I think what his peak could look like is something similar to Michael Brantley, high line drive rate, lots of contact, perform very well. against left-handed pitching last year, just didn't get the opportunity to play every day because he was with the Dodgers. Yeah, I think he could be someone playing in Fenway Park,

especially half his games, a park that boosts Babbip more than any park in baseball besides course field. I think he could be someone who challenges for batting titles playing there. And I think, you know, obviously the back injury tempers my 2020 hopes a little bit because you never want to see that with a young player

and those are the kind of injuries that can tend to linger and have knock-on effects. But if he had been fully healthy coming into the 2020 season, I think he would have been a top 150 pick. I think he's that kind of talent in that kind of situation. Red Sox won't be the number four offense in baseball, but they won't be that bad. They're losing Mookie Betts hurts,

but he's not their best hitter. you know, he's been that once or twice, but, you know, I think it's fair to say J.D. Martinez is probably their best hitter. And if what we saw from Raphael Devers Live, like, this is still a team that has a handful of really, really high-profile bats, especially at the top of the lineup. So I think it's a perfect landing spot for his fantasy value. And I think something like 295, 320 homers and 10 steals over the course of a full seat. season is entirely within the wrong of possibility.

That sounds a lot like Michael Brantley. It does. I think that's a good comp. I'm most excited to draft him in deeper points leagues for Dugo, that is, which isn't to say Brantley isn't more exciting in points leagues either, but specifically deeper points leagues because I worry that Park isn't going to be good for a left-handed hitter who already has a questionable power profile. And with, you know, if you can't pencil him in for 20 homers in today's environment, I think his fantasy value is going to be largely a matter of where he hits in the lineup.

And I suspect it'll be pretty low in the lineup to start out. Maybe he moves up as the season plays out. But I suspect it'll be pretty low at the start. So I do think it's a good batting average. It's going to be a low strikeout rate, of course. And that helps in those points leagues. But is he going to be a, top 40-ish type outfielder.

Unless he gets a lot of the batts, a lot of run-scoring opportunities, I'm not sure the power is going to be there. It'll take some improved elevation on the ball. And again, the odds are long in that park for a left-handed hitter. Well, it should help, Scott, that he plays in the American League East overall, because he'll get Yankee Stadium, he'll get Camden, he'll get Roger's Center, and obviously just much better ballparks to hit. We said that last week regarding the American League East,

probably the best division in terms of ballparks, four hitters to hit in. And as of now, Rosser Resource has him projected to bat seventh. But it really wouldn't surprise me that if he got off to a good start, if they move him up to fifth, because as of now, they have Mitch Morland penciled into bat fifth. So that wouldn't surprise me. I think at this point, I think Verdugo versus Benintendi. Like, who would I rather have batting?

at the top of the lineup. It'd be for me. Yeah, exactly. That's fair. And then you can move Ben and Tendi down and try and create some run scoring opportunities for him. So I definitely see a path to him being a lead-off type hitter for the Red Sox. But are they going, just because I see it doesn't mean they will.

Yeah, one thing, you know, and Ben and Tendi seems like a natural comp for Verdugo, left-handed, strong contact profiles, playing in. a bad part for power that has held Benintendi back somewhat, but Verdugo did hit the ball harder than Benintendi last season. He's just a bigger guy in general. And so, you know, I don't think raw power is really the issue for him. It's, he doesn't elevate the ball a ton, which that'll hold him back somewhat. But he also does hit a decent amount of his fly balls out to left field, which is a little better for when you're trying, when, you're talking about home runs.

Doubles, he could, another reason why he might be a points league stud because the doubles could be, you know, a guy on a 50 plus pace, potentially. All right, Chris, are you ready for team number three? No. Okay, spin that wheel. I'm not good at this game. Spin that wheel. The Mariners.

Oh, my. Okay, I just, I need to explain what this happened. I just, well, I need to explain what happened. a name came to mind. It looked like your brain kind of shut off for... Was it Dave Henderson? I was so offended at the name that my brain came up with because it was Franklin Gutierrez.

What? And I have no idea why that's the answer, but the actual answer would be you say Kikuchi. Oh, so you say. Really talked about. I don't know if his name has been mentioned at all on this podcast since like May of last season. Oh, I'm sure we talked about him during spring training

because he was he was he was getting. It was a rhetorical flourish, Scott. Okay, sorry, I took you literally. Sorry. Yeah, no, he was he was a guy who was getting some hype this spring. Forget last spring, this spring, because he showed up throwing like three miles per hour harder with his fastball.

And a lot of it had to do with, you know, obviously they're on a very different schedule in Japan. They only start once a week. And they throw more in between starts. And, you know, he wanted to adapt more of a routine that he was used to from over there. And he convinced the Mariners coaching staff to let him do that. And I don't know if that entirely explains it. But, yeah, he was throwing harder. You gained that much velocity on your fastball.

I mean, that has the potential to be transformative, certainly. And he's supposed to have a good slider. It didn't really play up last year. Nothing really played up for last year. It was a total disaster. But there's a reason why he was so hyped coming over from Japan and got a multi-year deal and all of that. And, you know, what do you have to lose at starting pitcher is the thing.

You get to a point in those starting pitcher rankings where, like, more likely than not everybody you'd do. draft, you're probably going to drop for somebody else down the line anyway. So Kikuchi doesn't seem like any worse of a gamble than than anyone else once you reach that stage of the draft. Yeah. And the issue for him last year really was just, you know, he started off averaging about 94 miles per hour with his fastball on his first handful of starts. But, you know, from that point on, it dropped to really the 92 range. And, you know, he worked with driveline baseball this offseason, which is, you know, generally considered to be one of the better places if you want to simplify your mechanics and

develop a new pitch. And yeah, it doesn't sound like it really increased his maximum velocity. You know, last year he hit 97 a few times for this fastball. I think the thing we're looking for is more of that consistency. And the reports out of spring were that he was regularly hitting 95 rather than maxing out. And the slider has been, you know, in the high. 90s and even hitting as high as 91 at times. So, you know, that's where I think the advantage and the key to any kind of breakout would be for Kikuchi. Yeah, Kukuchi was terrible last season, his first season in Major League Baseball, a 5.46 ERA, 152 whip, the strikeouts per 9, 6.46. So really did not do a whole bunch of anything last season.

But somebody that, you know, in deeper leagues, deeper sleeper, Cacucci, you know, ADP 396.3. Friday, I highlighted some starting pitchers who made adjustments last season. And I also highlighted Justice Sheffield as someone who made an adjustment this spring. I easily could have included, you say, Kikuchi in that mix. And I do like both of those guys, both Kukuchi and Justice Sheffield, just as late round targets as guys who have upside. The reasons you mentioned.

improve velocity for Kukuchi this spring and he changed his mechanics and everything. So I think there is a little bit something there, especially at his ADP. Priorities among sleeper pitchers. Like we're talking behind like Mitch Keller, Dylan C's behind the Astros duo for Kiki and James. But you know, you get below that. You start getting into like the J-Hap type sleepers. I think you could think about Kukuchi at that point. I do think the upside for Kukuchi is probably not dissimilar.

to Arkiti. You know, it's not the huge strikeout potential of Mitch Keller and Dylan Seas and Nate Pearson will throw in there now. Yeah, but, you know, Arcidi seems safer, but in terms of the upside, I think that's a fair comp.

All right, we have more team word association. We're going to get to right after this quick break. All right, we're back. We just talked about the Seattle Mariners and you say Kukuchi, and that means, Scott, you are ready to spin that week. Are you ready?

I'm ready. Spin it. We are spinning the wheel, and it lands on the Milwaukee Brewers. Ah, the Milwaukee Brewers. And, of course, that player that's so fun to talk about, Lorenzo Kane. That's somewhere we don't talk about much. Lorenzo Kane, ADP 181.6.

Getting up there a little bit in age is Lorenzo Kane. missed some time last year. He's 34 years old now at this point. Played 148 games, 11 home runs, 18 steals with a 260 batting average. Just a 697 OPS. That was his lowest since 2013. So, Scott, I mean, was this the beginning of the end for Lorenzo Kane, or do you think he just got nicked up a little bit too much and that affected his production last year? Because there's a lot of people that like Lorenzo Kane as a bounce back candidate it because he's going as late as he is entering this season.

When a guy who's 34 years old turns in the worst season in recent memory, I assume it's probably the beginning of the end. But his defensive, he still graded very high defensively. So it wasn't a clear loss of athleticism there. His strikeout rate was still low. it looks like just by the traditional way we measure these things that he had bad luck on balls and play he ran a lot less um you know so i i can definitely see the case that he bounces back just because you know it seems like he had bad luck on balls and play the issues for me the biggest

issues for me and why I'm not totally going crazy for him in drafts is because of that decline and stolen basis. He went from 30 to 18 and it was only 18 out of 26. It was not a good rate. How much is he going to run from this point forward? A guy in his mid-30s, not super optimistic about that, but of course it's possible. And in the range he's going, you're not going to find many bankable steals threats anyway. The other thing I'm worried about with him is there was some talk of because he's at an age that he is now, giving him more frequent time off, and using Avislav Garcia in center field in his place.

Now, how much of that was just, here's a way to get Garcia, Braun, and smoke in the lineup at the same time, which isn't going to be an issue anymore with the introduction of the DH, and how much of it was genuinely, this guy is getting older, he needs more rest. I'm not sure. But if Kane isn't playing as regularly and he's not running as much, it almost doesn't matter what happens to the batting average. I don't think he's going to make a big enough impact in fantasy.

Man, obviously a Garcia playing center field would be really rough. But the Brewers don't care about defense. They've proved that the past couple of years. Travis Shaw at second base. Mike Musacus at second base, they basically sacrifice defense and just try and get the best lineup they possibly can. At second base, I think that's something we see more around baseball as teams are willing to sacrifice second base defense

because with better shifting approaches and then more effective predictive analytics, you can kind of cover for a lot of that. You can't do that quite as much in center field. But the raise gave him 10 starts in center field last. year for what it's worth. Yeah, I don't know. It seems like it won't work out, but, you know, the big thing for Kane is it really hinges on whether he can stay healthy, I think. And that's not just, you know, can he stay in the lineup? It's, you know, last year he got 620-something

plate appearances. He played quite a lot. It was just he was playing through a wrist injury, which I think explains most of the dip in his batting stats, but he also played through ankle and knee injuries throughout the season. And so that seems like a sign of a guy who's just kind of breaking down, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be the case in 2020. And so I do like him a lot as a bounce back candidate. The fact that he didn't decline all that much defensively, if at all, you know, that does seem to indicate that there is some athleticism still there. Yeah, for Lorenzo Kane last year, the outs above average, still 99th percentile, his outfield jump, 79th percentile, expected batting average, 80th percentile.

So he was still up there in some stat-cast metrics, which proved there might be something left in the tank for Lorenzo Kane. I think he's somebody who, if we're talking about a 162 game season could get to 12 home runs, 20 steals. I think that's still doable for him with a 280 plus batting average. I think that's all fair. For what, for how long of the season?

If it were a full season. Oh yeah. Yeah, 10 to 12 home runs. He could do that. 20 steals, 280 plus. I mean, I think he could do more than that. It's just you have to be nervous when a guy this old has a season that underwhelming. That takes that big of a step

back. All right, Chris, Mr. Franklin Gutierrez. What do you have left in the tank? Are you ready? Yeah, let's do it. Spin that wheel. We are spinning. What do we got? Where are we landing? We are going with the, let's go, Matt Steiner-N-N-Ur. Chris is in deep thought. Man, I just like, because the first one that came to mind was J.D. Davis. And I don't want to talk about J.D. Davis. We can't do that. I'm sure Scott does. The second one who came to mind was Noah Cindergarde. That, that, one we can't talk about. That's no bearing on the 2020 season. So we're going to talk about the third one was Edwin Diaz. Ah, of course, a Chris favorite. Edwin Diaz, indeed a Chris favorite. ADP at 120.6. And Edwin Diaz was somebody who I was completely off of two years ago and he made me look

silly, absolutely silly. And then last year was more of what I was worried about for Diaz entering 2018. But you basically were given in the past two seasons. His floor and his ceiling. His ceiling, 196 ERA, 079 whip, 57 saves in 2018. Then last season, 559 ERA, 138 whip, 26 saves. Struggled to throw a slider. Talked about the change in baseball. Chris, as much as you want to like him,

the Mets do have some great options behind him should he falter. So there is a level of concern when it comes. Edwin Diaz. In theory, they have some great options. They've got Del and Batances coming back from partially torn Achilles. They've got Seth Lugo who is good, but like I don't think using him as your closer is getting the best value from him. I, I don't know, maybe last year revealed some unforeseen flaw in Edwin Diaz that will you know carry him through the rest of his career and derail

it looked like a very promising career. But this wasn't like he lost five miles per hour on his fastball. You know, this was just he couldn't grip his slider. And the slider still got a ton of swing and misses. It was still one of the best swings and miss pitches. in baseball, the problem with it was that he gave up like nine home runs with his slider. And that's really bad.

You don't want to give up nine home runs with your slider. But it's also nine pitches over the course of 67 appearances or something. Like we're not talking about, you know, a fundamental issue. You know, we know at this point, it's 2020. We know how flukey home run totals can be when you're talking about. about 200 innings, let alone 60-ish innings. And the issue for him really was the home runs.

You know, there was an increase in walk rate as well, but for the most part, it was just he couldn't keep the ball in the yard. I'm pretty much willing to write off last year. I'm not expecting 2018 again, but I wasn't expecting 2018 in 2019. And I was fading him hard. Well, not this time last year, but, you know. Yeah, before the. season in the before times 15 months ago because you don't want to pay for last year's best reliever

especially if it was a breakout that's just that's why I'm not drafting Liam Hendricks this year but that doesn't mean I don't think he was very talented I still think he's very talented and I think he's being discounted too much yes he may lose the job yes he may have that issue again I think the most likely outcome is you're getting a very, very good reliever for a huge discount. I wonder, okay, so he threw his slider about a third of the time. And of course, the home runs did the most damage. He also had a 297 batting average against on the slider. It was up from 121 the year before, 121 to 297.

I mean, $297 on an off speed pitch is awful, no matter who you are. Yeah. But the thing there is he only had 22 hits allowed on the pitch. Nine of them were home runs. Nine of them were. Okay. Yeah, that's what I was curious about. Okay.

Yeah, I think we'll know pretty early on with Edwin Diaz, whether he's going to bounce back or not. It was six home runs, sorry. So, okay. 22 hits, 16 of them were not home runs. If he blows a couple saves the first week of the season, particularly if its home runs allowed on the slider, it's probably done, probably done, right?

If he makes it through those first couple weeks, you know, gets four saves, four or five saves. You know, certainly if he makes it through that whole first month, you know, he probably has his leash, back at that point and can afford a blown safe here there. So it's just, I don't know if that's a good sign, if that's good news or bad news, the fact that we'll find out pretty early

whether or not we can count on him to be the Mets safe source this year. You know, it just depends on the way you look at it. I think since the investment in him is still fairly high, it's bad news. But, you know, I think, that's ultimately going to be the way it plays out. And I think it's worth saying that my expectation, at least, is that every closer, besides maybe three or four of them,

is going to have a much shorter leash than they would in the past. Because every game lost in 2020, you know, assuming we get that 82 game season, counts for more than a game lost in previous years. Your margin for error is going to be much slimmer. And so this is something where when you're talking about the 2020 season, like the shorter schedules bad news for the better teams because it introduces more variance. It introduces less predictability. And you're not going to be able to say, well, we'll give him a month because a month is a third of the season now.

Whereas in the past, you know, a month is a sixth of a season and maybe 10 appearances for a reliever. So I think all relievers are more risky, which to me sort of flattens the curve a little bit. Maybe not the best. Interesting choice of words. Yeah. But flattens the distribution, sorry, of expectations in terms of who might lose their job, which I think helps Edwin Diaz, if that makes sense, relative to the rest of the closures. Yeah, it seems as though I've done a 180 on Edwin Diaz, at least comparing our

ranking, Scott, because in our roto relief pitcher rankings, I have Edwin Diaz ninth, and you have him 14th. So I guess I'm a little bit more optimistic about him, but it's, you know, once you get outside the top 10, I mean, there's all these relievers, you kind of have some kind of concern about Craig Kimbril, Reisseligl. For me, I have Liam Hendricks outside my top 10, so I feel like you can- Yeah, I got a glacius, bear. I got him 25th. Oh, gosh. Nothing to do with that guy anymore.

Oh, man. I think we have a little bit of a rankings debate on Ryseliglacy is coming up soon, so we got to make that happen. But Scott, are you ready to spin that wheel? Yeah, let's spin it. Let's spin it. Let's see where we land, and it is on the most fun team in baseball this year, the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Ah, the Pittsburgh Pirates. First name that came to mind was Colin Moran. man, is that good enough? No, I probably need a different one. For our only players out there. Oh, yes. All right, Chris Archer. Oof, Chris Archer, man.

This is another one. I feel like you can just let Chris go and he could just, you know, do a whole podcast on Chris Archer alone. The ADP is at 270.8 when it comes to Chris Archer and it feels like years now that we've been waiting for Archer to bounce back.

Oh, but he's been working on his change up in the spring. Well, we've heard that. You've heard it a million times. The ERA. The change up doesn't matter. The change up didn't matter when he was good. The change up won't matter now. It's all about the slider.

It just comes down to the slider for Chris Archer. It's his best pitch by far. The fastball is not a good pitch while he throws it decently hard. He can't really command it. It gets hit hard. The ERA for Archer has been over four for four straight seasons. Last year was the season I finally bought in because it was the first time that he was,

barely a top 30 starting pitcher. So I was like, all right, I'll take the crack on Chris Archer in 2019 because he wasn't, you know, the fourth, fifth round pick that he had been basically every other year leading up to last season. It did not work out, Chris. It was quite bad for Chris Archer, but I have a feeling you think that there's an opportunity

for a bounce back here. So he, the pirates got rid of Ray Searge, and I think that's where it starts. Because one of the things, the Ray Searge had a lot of success with in his time when he was successful as the Pirates Pitching Coach was in simplifying a lot of pitchers approaches and in specifically getting them to throw a lot of sinkers low in the zone. And what that does is creates more contact and preferably more weak contact.

I think the prime example for this would be Yvonne Nova, who totally turned his career. I mean, I don't even think there was a turn his career around before that. He was not fantasy viable and he had a couple of really solid years with the Pirates. Chris Archer is not a sinker-thrower. He has experimented within the past and it just has never worked out for him. He is a guy who was probably ahead of the curve in terms of where baseball has gone in pitcher approaches. He was high fastballs, sliders out of the zone.

And about halfway through last season, he ditched the sinker and saw much better results. Over his last 12 starts in specific, he had a 465 ERA. Yes, that's bad. But get a 383 FIP, a more manageable 1.35 home run per 9, and was an elite strikeout pitcher.

You know, it was around 30% strikeout rate. I think with Ray Searage gone, with a more analytically driven approach to the Pirates pitching staff as a whole, I think he's going to really be a useful player. And he's not going to be an ace. Don't expect that. And I know a lot of you guys probably listening just groan

when you hear Chris Archer's name because he's burned so many people. I've said that many times, you should have, be like the guy from Memento. You need to just not have a memory, especially when it comes to players' names. Chris Archer has burned you so you hate the name Chris Archer.

Well, don't care about this. name. This is a guy who has a ton of strikeout ability. Will not be super helpful in ERA or WIP, but hopefully will be manageable and should be, in my opinion, a viable fantasy starting pitcher as a result. Yeah, I just feel like the upside might be just viability at this point. I think the K-per-9 will be very high. It was very high when he ditched the sinker last year. It was 12.3 per 9 over his last 9 starts.

Very high. They were short starts with a lot of walks, with an ERA well over 4, and he's on one of the worst teams in baseball. So what is he going to give you? I don't think very many wins. I don't think a good ERA or whip. The strikeout total should be decent,

but if he's so inefficient that he's rarely going more than six innings, even the strikeout total might be kind of underwhelming compared to the rate. It might be like a Joey Lucasey situation, I feel like, for Chris Archer next year. And that has its uses. It's not somebody I'm going to be excited to draft this upcoming season. Yeah, I still feel like, Chris, what's the best case? scenario for Chris Archer. I still feel like it's probably an ERA around four, a one, two, five whip. I definitely disagree with the best case scenario is an ERA around four. It's just that he

hasn't been better than that for so long. Sure. But I think the biggest part of that was a really bad approach. And I think he's going to have a better approach this year. And I, I mean, you're talking about best case scenario. I think best case scenario is probably a 3-5 ER. It would require things going right. But it's not at all out of the realm of possibility. Doesn't it give you pause? Doesn't it give you pause that the Rays couldn't even figure him out? Who are regarded as one of those organizations who can normally figure these types of things out? It was a pretty good fantasy option with the race. He was, but his ERA even then. I remember, his ERA wasn't great.

It was every year we would look at the X-FIP, And the peripherals. He was pretty good in the way Trevor Bauer was pretty good last year. Oh, gosh. You know, top 30, top 40 type starting pitcher. That was, that's unfair. How was it unfair? Trevor Bauer was pretty awful last year.

Where did he finish in the rankings? I don't know. He threw a ton of innings, but he had like a four-six ERA. Trevor Bauer was, I can't figure this out because I'm not going to try and count down the list. but Chris Archer in 2016 and 2017 had a 4-0 ERA. That was in a league where the league ERA was about four. So it was about average. The whip probably again about average.

He wasn't helping you in those, but he wasn't hurting you a ton. It wasn't great for a fantasy starting pitcher. But given the amount of strikeouts he had, it was fine. I think that's what I expect this year. I expect a return to that, which is a very useful. fantasy picture. Chris, do you have access to my rankings? Because I think that you moved Chris Archer up my rankings without me knowing. No, no, that's not something I probably could do it, but it would require, I don't remember even how I would. Scott has, Scott has Archer SP 87. I have

him SP 65. I don't remember being excited about Chris Archer. So speaking of massaging the rankings, Scott, I think I've got to go in there and massage my own rankings a little bit as well. And you do that? Yeah, so I've got to move Chris Archer down a little bit there because I'm not the biggest fan. I think he should probably be closer to that 80 range. I like guys. I like Avaldi and Matt Shoemaker more than Chris Archer at this point. I don't understand that is the way I would put that because like Matt Schu-Met

Heemaker had like five good starts last year. And his career has better than Chris Archer. A lot worse than Chris. I mean, Chris Archer probably had a good five start stretch last year too. Chris Archer's career has been a lot better than Matt Shoemakers. Nate Avaldi is just another one. I just can't quit him. It's the two years ago.

I like a, I saw, I think Avaldi could get back to what he was doing two years ago. And that would make him very viable. I like Nathan Avaldi, but I think it's a similar case to Chris Archer. You look at his career. outside of one season, he was always a disappointment. He was always someone who had high ERAs, low strikeouts. Like, Chris Archer's track record is much stronger than Nathan Evaldi's.

Fair, but he's also been worse for longer, I feel like. ERA over five last year, Chris. Yeah, we're kind of giving Nate Avaldi credit for not pitching much the last two years, I feel like, in that. Is that wrong? Yeah. Okay. I mean, he had a $590.90 last year. I think the longer you go off in the wrong direction, the less confidence I have in you turning it around. I mean, Nate Devaldi had a 426 ERA in 2018 and 10 starts with the raise, had a 333 ERA in 12 starts with the Red Sox. That's really good.

He was very good with the Red Sox. It's basically been 12 good starts in his career. though. Like 2013 he had a low-ish ERA, but the peripherals were really bad. Yeah, no, give me Chris Archer over Nathan Avaldi. That's not to say I don't like Nathan Avaldi, but yeah. No, I mean, I have Chris Archer over Avaldi too. I don't think I like Avaldi, apparently. All right, agree to disagree. MLB, team word association. We got to a whopping six teams. So maybe we can revisit this again at some point, but I do have a few things that I want to promote and we'll get to some of your questions. First, a reminder to everybody that golf is back. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady,

and Peyton Manning are battling it out on the links this weekend. Join the first cut podcast all week long as they preview the match. Champions for charity, prop bets, course breakdown, plenty of goat talk and more. The guys are hitting that record button for their instant reaction pod as soon as the final put drops on Sunday. So how about you join them by downloading and subscribing to the First Cut Golf Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen again. That's the first cut golf podcast, part of the CBS Sports Podcast Network.

Also, I want to remind everybody that we have a podcast intro competition currently taking place here on Fantasy Baseball today. You have until Friday, May 29th, to submit an intro for the pod. Keep it between 30 and 60 seconds, no copyrighted music or drops. I'll choose the three best and we'll vote right here on the podcast. The winner will earn an entry into one of our podcast leagues. And last but not least, I've been slacking with a team name Tuesday, admittedly. So send some of those bad boys in.

We'll chat about them on tomorrow's show, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. Our first question, this one comes from Angel Vasquez. Hey guys, do you think that teams will go to a four, man rotation, considering the schedule is shortened, and there will be more of an emphasis to win as many games as possible. Chris, this is kind of what you were talking about earlier with the leash for relievers being shorter. Do you think that we could potentially see a four-man rotation as well? No, I don't think there's any chance we'll see a four-man rotation. I don't, I actually don't hate the idea if it was like four-man rotation, have them throw 80 pitches every time, but

I don't think that's what we're going to see. I think we're going to see. reduced workloads for starting pitchers overall, not increased ones. I think we'll see, especially the first month, we're going to see a lot of guys not even getting to 80 pitches. Because one thing we're seeing in KBO right now has been a rash of early season injuries.

And that's going to be a real, real concern with guys starting up their training, stopping it, and then starting it back up again with a brief, spring training. So no, I'm expecting less work overall from starters, maybe not from your elite pitchers, but certainly from everyone else. Yeah, that was something we mentioned last week, too, where if an injury strikes once spring training starts back up, I mean, it's magnified because it's a shorter season. So something that would normally be, you know, a two week in, I-L stint,

that, you know, two weeks out of 162 game season, all right, that's fine, we can live with that. But in an 81 game season or 82 games, whatever it might be, there's going to be much more emphasis on those injuries, and they're going to hurt a lot more in fantasy this season. So just something to keep in mind. This next one comes from Ryan in Omaha. This is a question mostly for Frank, but also kind of for Scott, because apparently you have outlawed Sparps or R-Paps

in one of your 10-team leagues as well, Scott. So Frank, you mentioned a few times that you've outlawed the Sparps and R-passed in your home league, my daily lineup 14-te-to-head points league has done the same. You've also mentioned that you allow only closers in the RP spots. Does this truly mean you only allow closers, or is it any type of RP? He goes on to ask about bulk relievers being allowed in our RP spots.

And at least in my league, I can't speak for everybody, but in mine, we do not allow followers, bulk relievers. It's just closers and setup men. I believe you get two points for a hold in my points league, and it's five points for a save. So you can have setup guys. You can have closers in there, but you can't have bulk relievers,

something like what the race have used recently. We have outlawed them. Scott, I don't know about how your league handles the bulk relievers. Well, so you're talking about like Ryan Yarbrough, right? Yeah. That gets into a sticky situation because how do you know going into the appearance, whether he's technically going to start or relieve, and are the points removed if he starts?

I'm not exactly sure how that would work. No, that's a fair question. You know, actually, it hasn't become an issue because we limit team, every team is limited to seven starts in a given scoring period. There's a weekly start limit. But I just realized we actually did away with that rule that you could only start. true relievers in the relief pitchers by you can you can start sparks there now just there's rarely incentive to do it because you can get seven starts just from your five starting pitcher

spots one thing you'd rather have the potential for a guy to get saves there one thing that you can do um in a cbs commissioner league is uh adjust the scoring based on the position that player is played in. I'm pretty sure, at least. You can, like, subtract points for game started. You could do things like that. Right, but I think you could make it so that it's just for relief pitchers. Let's get those sparks out of here. Anti-Spark life. Yeah, what you could do was, like, yeah, lower points for game start or boost the value of a save or a hold and do like negative points for in it.

so that way the overall effect could be the same. So that's something just to keep in mind. Fair enough. This next one's from RBS, CBY, 2321. That was fun. Hey guys, I play in a 16-team 30-man roster, Dynasty, head-to-head points league with salaries. $260 budget and every player goes up $1 each year.

Would you make this trade? Give up a $16-Migelson. to get a $7. Dustin May. What do you think, Scott? I don't think I would make that trade. 16 team league, $16 seems like a pretty good price for Sineau. And I'm not sure May is going to get good enough, fast enough to justify the price tag he's already at.

I think there would need to be a bigger gap in the salary is there for me to be tempted to do that. You know, Scott, I just looked up our top 300 rankings in head-to-head points leagues. We have Miguel Snowe in exactly the same spot. Wow. Player number 112 worth $9 in an auction. Interesting. Wow, I can't believe you guys are copying each other's rankings. I guess Scott has a better claim that I copied his rather than he copied mine,

considering his were published first. Chris, how about you? Would you rather have Miguel Snowe? $16 or Dustin May $7? know there. So no, yeah, I would agree with that. It's a little bit higher than you want, but he's more of a difference maker than Dustin May. Yeah,

that's the thing I struggle with Dustin May is I'm not sure if he's really got fantasy ace potential. And I mean, obviously, there's no thing as a pitching prospect. Every single pitcher technically has fantasy ace potential, but, you know, I don't know if the most

likely or, you know, third most likely outcome for him is he's a top 12 perennial starting pitcher for fantasy. Plus, how long is it going to take the Dodgers to give him an opportunity? I mean, we've waited this long, and it seems like we're finally getting Julio Urias. I don't know if I'm saying. I keep messing up Uriass.

And the thing about it is he might not be in line for 150 plus innings until 2022 now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because, I mean, obviously not this year. And, I mean, he did throw like 160 last year, or maybe 140 last year. But still, it's the Dodgers. They'll be safe with everyone.

Keep Miguel Seno. This final one comes from Max in Chicago. So Martin, Pryor, Molaney, and Casher. Hmm. That sounds like comedians, right? That is correct. That was...

I just assumed it was Mark Pryor. Steve Martin, Richard, Richard, Richard, Richard, John Mulaney, and I have no idea who Casher is. I don't know who Casher is either. So I looked this up and apparently it's Moshe Casher. Okay. I don't know anything about that, but they are all comedians.

Speaking of comedians, Chris might consider himself one based on this email. Whoa. After the 2020 MLB season, is Chris going to give all season results half weight and change his slogan to 162 game samples are more predictive than 81 game samples? I mean, yeah. It's basically what you say now. It is a joke, but also, yeah, man, throw 20-20 stats away for the most part. This is going to be a weird season.

We've talked about it a lot. You're not going to be able to take very much out of this season at all. And if you want to argue with me, go back and look at who was leading things through 81 games last season. And it'll tell you that weird things can happen in weird things can happen. in weird things can happen in a full season, uh, let alone a half season. Half season is going to be,

and it's going to be nuts. We're going to have like, I don't know, you know, Luis Arias is going to hit 394 like Tony Gwyn did in 1994. It's going to be weird stuff. Yeah, this whole season, the 2020 season should just be sponsored by Stranger Things. It should be like the official season of the show Stranger Things. And that'll be what's going to happen here in 2020.

but that'll wrap it up for today here on a Monday fantasy baseball today for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.