Fantasy Baseball Today - NL Pitchers Trending Down? ADP Movers (05/21 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

We're taking a closer look at National League pitchers and ADP but first, what is a Fat Boy? Which NL starting pitchers are affected most by DH (2:49)? Should it drastically affect our rankings? ... Can MacKenzie Gore really start the season with the Padres (10:52)? We've seen them be aggressive with Fernando Tatis and Chris Paddack just last season. ... Our email of the day asks if AL designated hitters like Nelson Cruz and Yordan Alvarez gain value playing in NL ballparks (16:15). ... Which players' ADP has changed the most since the pandemic started (21:39)? Why is Yordan Alvarez trending down? ... Jesus Luzardo is on the rise but should he really be SP24 (25:10)? Pitching prospects like Nate Pearson and Spencer Howard are also big movers (32:21). Can either or both start in the majors? ... Why are middling Fantasy starters like Madison Bumgarner and Zack Wheeler trending down (36:30)? ... We end with a prospect evaluation of Tetsuto Yamada and your emails (41:30)! ... 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, hit 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.

You've heard it once, you've heard it a million times. The designated hitter is coming to the National League. Congrats to Aristidesa Kino. What you haven't heard is how it affects pitchers in the NL. We'll break it down as well as ADP risers and fallers from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship throughout the pandemic. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today, Thursday, May 21st, Frank Stanful alongside Adam Azer, Chris Towers, and Scott White.

How's it going, fellas? I mean, Scott just slammed home a fat boy ice cream bar, which I had to admittedly Google because just another one of the things I didn't know what it was. I know what an ice cream sandwich was. I just never heard it referred to. I'm not. Me either, man. Never heard of it as a fat boy. The premier ice cream sandwich, apart from, I guess, a homemade ice cream sandwich with

homemade chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, no, I just slammed one of those. I can't imagine why anybody listening to the podcast would imagine would think my eating habits are bad. I'm just awed by the fact that you just like ate ice cream right before a podcast. And did you even like drink water afterwards? Because like if I eat ice cream. Yeah, I'm drinking water. Yeah, I got to like rinse out many times before I'm ready to speak to people. You can't tell because the logo is so eroded, but I'm drinking water out of one of the old fantasy baseball 360 cups, which was of course the live internet show we used to put on maybe five, six years ago. Yeah, well, listen, I got two ice cream sandwiches that are better than whatever

you just had, even though I've never had it. One, Chip Witch. Two, the Mickey Mouse shaped Mickey Mouse, like the yeah, it's in the shape of Mickey Mouse's face, basically. It's got the ears. You can only get it at Disney World. That's not the ice cream

bar. There's an ice cream sandwich version. It's the ice cream sandwich, yeah. The bar's iconic. The bar is great. The sandwich is better. I used to work at Dairy Queen. That was my high school job. Dairy Queen ice cream sandwiches are unbelievably good.

I cannot say anything bad about Dairy Queen. Draft Dairy Queen. A first round pick, maybe number one overall. Already derailed and I 100% take the blame because I brought up the ice cream. Last thing I'll say on this is I tried a chaco taco recently. Not a fan. Didn't really enjoy it. Yeah, they're okay.

Let's jump right in. Admittedly, I was first inspired to research this topic of National League pitchers who were affected by who might be affected by the DH this upcoming season. I was inspired by Rob Silver, who is one of the better high-stakes fantasy players. You can follow them on Twitter at Rob Silver. And he tweeted about Madison Bumgarner

how his strikeout rate goes down tremendously without facing opposing pitchers. Same thing with Mike Soroka. And here's what I found when I researched this. NL pitchers undoubtedly have an advantage while facing opposing pitchers instead of the DH, since 1973, when the DH was introduced in the American League, NL pitchers have collectively had a lower ERA than AL pitchers in every season but one.

In 1974, they were tied with a 3.63 ERA. Last season alone, A.L pitchers owned a collective 4.62 ERA, while NL pitchers owned a 4.39 ERA. Chris, I know you gathered up some data here, which illustrates that the starting pitchers who lose the most off their strikeout rate from last season when you eliminate the opposing pitcher as a batter. Who are some of those biggest losers? So some of the biggest losers would be Merrill Kelly,

who doesn't really matter, Jordan Lyles, who doesn't really matter. But Madison Bumgarner had a 2.8% drop, total drop in his strikeout rate. So among all players, he struck out 24.1%. Among once you take out pitchers, it's 21.3. Stephen Matt's the fourth highest drop drops down to 19.8%. Mike Soroka drops down to 18% strikeout rate. And just to give the context, the strikeout rate in Major League Baseball was right around 22% last season and it's been in the 20 to 22% range and inching higher pretty much every season for,

the last five years or so. Some other notable names, Zach Rankie, who we already saw pitching the AAL last season and did see his strikeout rate drop. He dropped from an above-average 24% to just about average at 21.5. And Frankie, I got some bad news.

No, don't do it. I can't handle this. You guys already ganged up on me enough this week with Eloy Jimenez. Joe Musgrove had the 11th largest drop. He had a 50% K rate against opposing pitchers. Overall, he had a 21.9%.

Without pitchers, it's 19.7%. And actually, some more bad news because you're a Chris Paddock guy, right? I am. Kind of. Adam, Adam, I got some bad news for you. Oh, Chris Paddock had the 13th largest. Now, what I do want to say is what this specifically means for individual

pitchers is hard to say. The sample sizes we're dealing with are small to begin with, you know, one season, although strikeout rate, well, overall, strikeout rate. Yeah. For these pitchers facing other starting pitchers. Yeah. And so, you know, three extra strikeouts could swing things one way or another, but, you know, the point is, I think, that one, all nationally,

pitchers will be worse than they would otherwise be in a normal season. You know, there might be situations where a guy's ARA goes down, but generally speaking, your baseline expectations should be lower now that they're going to be facing the DH.

And then the, I can't think of what the other point was. All right, so we'll move on to Scott for now, and if it comes to you, then we'll come back to you, Chris. But Scott, how much should this factor in our rankings of starting pitchers for- Go ahead, Chris, go ahead. Sorry, I remembered what it was. Another thing to keep in mind, when you're talking about these individual pitchers,

when you're talking about a Chris Paddock who went from, you know, a borderline elite or very good 26.9% strikeout rate to 24.3. You know, it doesn't necessarily mean that you should expect him to have a 24.3 strikeout rate, percent strikeout rate, given the small sample sizes involved. But you should downgrade him from where he was. So that's really the biggest thing when you're talking about those guys like Madison Bungarner, Stephen Mads, Mike Siroka, who are among the largest drops, you should specifically take what they did last year and realize that whether it's predictive,

whether Madison Bumgarner would have been able to strike out 61% of pitchers in 2020 again, his baseline from last year should be lowered when it comes to strikeouts. should take that with a grain of salt, specifically for those guys. I think that's a fair point and something I did want to mention quickly. You said that Chris Paddock's strikeout rate dropped 2.6% without pitchers in there. I mean, some of those, he's going to gain some strikeouts against opposing designated hitters, so it's not all completely lost, so keep that in mind. But yes, it is something that you should downgrade a little bit.

And Scott, the question is, how do you figure out how much two downgrade said National League pitchers? this factor in your rankings? Should this matter in your decision making practice, your decision making process on draft day? Like if you're splitting hairs between an AL pitcher and an NL pitcher, would that sway your decision? Yeah, I think splitting hairs is a good way to describe it. It should impact it minimally, but not zero. And, you know, we dealt with this. Usually, it comes up in the context of an AL pitcher going to an NL pitcher and the benefit. he's going to see from that. I think this is the first time I've ever seen actual numbers put to that, put to the impact

it has. And of course, we're mostly focusing on strikeout rate, but that's probably the clearest indicator. If you're going to pick any one stat to show how to measure effectiveness, I think that's probably the one to do. And it seems like the pitchers who would be most impacted are the ones that we already had some strikeout concerns for the ones right on the fringe of being just average with strikeout rate. Paddock is an exception, but, you know, Paddock's getting pretty far down the list, too,

saying the 13th most effective. You know, guys like Mike Soroka, Madison Bumgarner, yeah, we already wonder about their strikeout potential at this stage of their career. It makes me less optimistic, what kind of concrete impact it has on the rankings. I don't know. I think of a situation, you know, further up maybe where I'm already hedging between Charlie Morton and Aaron Nola, because I think Aaron Nola is pretty high on the list of drop and strikeout rate if you take pitchers out. He's 24th, 23rd, rather, on the list. Not as high as I thought, but still, I was having a hard time justifying Nola over Morton anyway

and was kind of on the fence about switching it, I think this will be enough for me to make that switch. So those are the considerations I'm making as opposed to I'm dropping a guy 10 spots in my rankings because of it. For what it's worth, the pitchers who lose the least in terms of their strikeout rate from last season were John Gray, Heungin Ryu, who's in the American League now anyway,

Jose Cantana, Clayton Kirschaw, and Chris Archer, for all you Archer stands out there, aka Chris Towers. Some news and notes. Dennis Lynn covers the Padres for the athletic, said McKenzie Gore could be called up to the Padres, quote, fairly quickly, if not right away, if there is a 2020 season.

Gore has not pitched a single inning in AAA, posted a 169 ERA, a 0-8-3 whip, with 135 strikeouts, and 101 innings pitched across high A and AA in 2019. Remember, the Padres were aggressive with Fernand, Tatease last season. Adam. And Paddock.

Adam, does this make you want to potentially reach on McKenzie Gore a little bit more? Yeah. Third overall pick in the draft in 2017. Obviously, it's been awesome in the minors. I was really aggressive with Chris Paddock last year in drafts. And I ended up with a lot of him and it worked out. Even though he wasn't quite as good in fantasy as, you know, like his ratio, ZRA and his whip, because he didn't, I'm guessing he didn't have a lot of quality starts.

He didn't have a lot of wins, as I recall, Chris Paddock. So I think when you look at the way they've treated Chris Paddock, the other, sorry, the other pitcher that everybody's in on for the Padres in the mid-round's. To Nelson Lemette. The Nelson-Lamette, thank you. I don't know that you're going to see a lot of six-innings starts from McKenzie Gore. Might get a few here or there, but I think it's going to be a lot of five, six. You won't get a lot of sevens, that's for sure.

I think they'll be kind of cautious with him. So in a quality start league, that might hurt you. But I would expect him to have a good chance to pitch well. And yes, I would be quite interested. I think it's generally easier for pitchers to make that jump from double a. You know, obviously there's no guarantees. But, you know, have we ever seen a hitter make the jump from high A to the majors? I don't think I can remember that.

Certainly not in any recent time. Whereas you do see that occasionally with pitchers. You even see pitchers occasionally make the jump from the draft to the majors. I think that was Mike Leek's case. I don't think he threw a single pitch in the minors. Can't remember if David Price did, but he was barely in the minors and similar with Chris Sale. And then Jose Fernandez, the Marlins called him up from high A.

So, you know, it's a little, like, If you have the stuff, you have the stuff. Yeah. And McKenzie Gore, the consensus number one pitching prospect in baseball. He's got the stuff. Yeah, definitely has the stuff. You know, he doesn't give an exact timetable there. If it turns out to be right away,

and obviously the structure of the season encourages that more than it would, more than like the standard 162 game season would. If it turns out to be right away, then Gore probably does. deserves to go on nearly the same level Jesus Luzardo does. I think the, I think that the innings concern how deep he goes into games.

I think it'll be similar for both. And you're talking comparable upside. Luzardo's semi-proven in the majors already. So that gives him a leg up. And then you consider the RP eligibility that McKenzie Gore won't have. But I don't think it'll be a whole degree of difference between the two where they deserve to be drafted.

And to give just a little bit of the scatting reports, and you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, Scott, but McKenzie Gore does have great stuff, according to the scouting reports. But I believe he also has a very funky delivery. Yep. That tends to, yeah, big leg kick that tends to throw hitters off. I don't, I've seen a little bit of video of him.

It's not quite like a Dantrell-Willis leg kick, where we saw that just flummox people for like five years before he kind of fell apart. But it adds, you know, Alex Wood is a guy who has a, hitters have always had trouble picking up the ball of his hands. He's got a weird delivery. Right. And that's basically all of Alex Woods' ability comes from that deceptiveness.

So you're kind of taking the deceptiveness of an Alex Wood and combining it with the stuff of a Walker Bueller. And that's, that's kind of who of McKenzie Gore is. Yeah. And that's exactly why we should be excited about him for fantasy purposes. Red's president of baseball operations, Dick Williams, said Monday he expects Nick Senzel to be a full go when the season resumes. According to Mark Sheldon of MLB.com, Senzel had surgery to repair a torn labrum in late September and was expected to maybe be limited early this season. So he's another one who benefited from this delay.

And Ronaldo Lopez said mental lapses are what caused him to drop to the bottom. of the White Sox rotation. I heard a little buzz throughout draft season on Ronaldo Lopez. He only had one month with an ERA below five last season. He had a 3-4-1 ERA in July. No surprise, July produced his best K-to-walk ratio, 34 strikeouts, and 8 walks in 31 and 2 thirds. Endings pitched, and his lowest hard contact rate at 28.9%.

Never say never. He was paying attention then. for Rinaldo Lopez. Email the day. This one comes from Neil. But Joe and Houston also sent a similar question earlier today. So it's like emails of the day. We've kind of combined these two.

Dear Edgar, Harold, David, and Chile. Edgar Martinez, Chile Davis. Harold Baines. D.Hs from the 90s? David Ortiz. I think so. I think that makes sense. Or just D.Hs, all-time DHS, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, who, Chile Davis isn't going to make a whole thing. fame of not poppy will there has been a lot of talk about the universal DH as we've referenced already today and the hitters it will help on NL teams wouldn't there also be a boost

albeit a small one to some AL DHS such as Nelson Cruz Yurdon Alvarez and Chris Davis etc since they won't be sitting out any games in NL stadiums is this bump enough to move them slightly up the rankings what do you think Scott

I would say no. You know, oftentimes Cruz is at a stage of his career where he doesn't play the field ever anymore. But usually if the DH is that instrumental a part of the lineup, they'll force them into the lineup somehow when they go to the NL

and he's sure to pinch, if they don't, he's sure to pinch hit every game. And it's just, it's too small a number of games, I think, to really impact the way I approach them on draft day. So I would say no. I think there's kind of one interesting thing here. Well, okay, let's figure it out. Are they playing, I think they are playing it, are AL teams playing more games in NL parks per game, basically like per season than they were before?

This year? Yes. So I calculated that. Yeah, they should be. Yeah, I think it'll be a larger percentage. Yeah, you only get not, not by as much as you think. So that is somewhat of a big deal, you know, because if they had to sit in all those games, all of a sudden you're talking about a pretty decent chunk where they have to sit.

And it's all concentrated over a game schedule. Yeah, the hypothetical scenario, sure. Yeah, but here's the problem. I think this is bad for Jordan Alvarez because now they're not going to move him to outfield for any NL games. And he's not going to get eligibility in the season in theory. I really wasn't planning on it for him. There's been way too much talk about the knee this offseason and how they were likely to approach it.

That I really wasn't expecting him to play much outfield at all, especially with Kyle Tucker there. They really don't have, like you can't just push Josh Redick out of the way. You've got to put both Josh Redick and Kyle Tucker out. I'm curious what's changed with the knee in two months, though. Like if it's just all better now? He made nine starts in the outfield last year, and four of them were in NL Parks.

So they used him occasionally in NL Parks as a starting outfielder, but now they don't have to. So even if you weren't planning on it, I mean, I think the chances are even lower now than they were. My understanding was the knee, it wasn't necessarily like a specific thing that was wrong with the knee in February,

as much as it was just knee soreness, generally that hadn't gone away. But I could be wrong. Which, of course, is troublesome for a 22-year-old who's already a DH, who, and I don't, have we ever seen that before? Like, even Frank Thomas played some first base when he first came up, right? Like, Billy Butler was pretty much always a DH. Okay.

But not with the same prospect pedigree as someone like Alvarez. Yeah, I mean, Alvarez, it's sort of a, it's sort of a reflection of the place he's playing, too. Yeah. you know, the Astros definitely have to star outfielders. And he's not, I mean, he's never played first base, has he? He's played it in the minors. Yeah, a little bit in the minors. Yeah.

So it's something they can look into maybe eventually, but Yurdon Alvarez is actually one of the players who, Scott, you wrote about as a faller in your ADP risers and fallers column, and we'll talk about that right after this quick break. All right, we're back here. And some of the names on this list of ADP rises and fallers, you know, some players have moved up because they've had more time to recover from injury. Others have moved down because of, I guess, uncertainty in their role.

And others, I just don't have a clue. But the Yerdon Alvarez is one name that we were just talking about, who has moved down eight spots from 40 to 48 in his NFBC ADP since April 1st on. And Scott, does that make sense to you? Like, why is he dropping at all, unless people are just really worried about those knees? No, so I, the way I laid out this column, I gave a possible, I showed how much they were dropping,

gave a possible explanation as to why, gave kind of the counterpoint for that, and then assessed whether or not I agreed with the change. And most of them I did agree with. Alvarez was one I didn't really. Because if you said, you know, from mid-February to mid-March, when the concern was growing over his knee, that he fell then.

Okay, I could understand it was getting concerning. Dusty Baker was saying, he was getting concerning Dusty Baker was saying he wasn't sure. He couldn't say for sure if he'd be ready for the start of the season. Well, I would think at the very least, that question is off the table now. Will he be ready to go from the start? He will. And, you know, whatever soreness he was feeling then should hopefully be at least a little bit better.

So I don't know why he would have continued to fall as opposed to maybe stay. paying put, if not going back up a little bit. Everybody's like, oh, he's not going to get outfield eligibility now. I don't, yeah. Universal T.H. Maybe you're right, but I don't feel like many people were counting on that anyway. It was such a good, smart point that I'm definitely the first person who made it. So now you're going to see the ADP.

Keep tumbling. One thing that could be happening is there's kind of a vacuum of information around. a lot of guys like Mike Clevenger, I haven't really seen anything on him since early March or mid-March. And Yorna Alvarez kind of the same thing. So it could be something where there was a, the perception of that injury might have calcified. And it might have taken a long time for it to start impacting his value. But then once things shut down and we stopped getting news about him, maybe it just stuck in everyone's head. Hey, Your Honor, Perez, you know, the last we heard, he won't wasn't healthy.

Maybe that could, but on the other hand, Mike Clevenger has risen quite significantly. So someone else who- Not everything can be explained by pop psychology, Chris. Well, and I should point out because we, yesterday we were comparing, when you mentioned Mike Clevenger rising significantly, we were comparing Fantasy Pros composite ADP

to this NFBC ADP, which is the only site we've found where you can segment off a certain portion. I don't know that that's the fairest comparison. I was just comparing NFBC overall ADP to NFBC ADP from April 1st on. And Mike Clevenger doesn't make the list if you do that because he's only risen like two spots. Yeah, it's been a lot of up and down in his ADP overall. You have to imagine the ADP for the NFBC goes all the way back to, I believe it's November 1st. So I mean, a lot of things have changed over the course of average draft position since then. But another riser, basically the opposite here of Yerdon Alvarez, is Jesus Lazzardo.

And we knew that he would rise somewhat. But Adam, I mean, his ADP has moved from 104 to 89. He's now SP 24 off the board. It's worth mentioning that a majority of NFBC leagues are roto leagues, where I think Lazzardo does get a bit of a boost. But Adam, SP 24, he's going just ahead of Sunny Gray, Frankie Montas, Corey Kluber, Mike Soroka. I don't really mind Cluber and Soroka, but it just seems really high for Lozano.

It makes sense. It makes sense that he'd move up because with the shortened season, people are thinking you don't have to worry about him getting shut down. You don't have to worry about them limiting his innings. In fact, maybe they want him to throw as many innings as possible in the regular season so they can build them up for next year. So then it just comes down to what's that going to look like on a start-by-start basis? Are you going to get seven innings, eight innings at all? Or is it just going to be, you know, like six innings every time? but at least you don't have to deal with Lazzardo getting shut down.

And then it comes down to on a per inning per start basis, how does he compare to a guy like Cory Klobber who I think there's plenty of reason to be down on Cory Kluber? I'd still take him ahead of Haisal Sazardo. I think there's too much unprovenness for him to be the 24th starting pitcher off the board. So I understand why he would rise. I think he should not go ahead of Kluber or Gray. I would take him ahead of Soroka because,

I'm the last person to take Soroka probably on this show. But I think anyone who has a level of provenness and is good, I would take over, you know, very good. I would take over Sir, I would take over Lazzardo, but I get the theory of why he's rising. Yeah, I'm not sure how much he deserves to rise. My expectation was more in line with what we saw from Chris Paddock last year, where there were occasions when he was shut down or they skipped a start. But for the most part, he made.

every turn in the rotation. It was just they were incredibly cautious with his pitches especially, not so much to in his. Didn't they have like a six man though a lot? Didn't they pitch him every six times? Am I crazy? I feel like he really didn't pitch

like a normal pitcher. He made 26 starts, I think. He missed six. Or roughly six, which isn't nothing, but it's... Only 10 quality starts. Yeah, and then that's the key with his. is I don't think there's anything that the schedule could do that would make him likely to regularly pitch six innings.

We've said it before. Scott cited it in this piece. Hazel Zez-Zerter has thrown six innings twice in a start in his entire professional career. Now, it's a relatively brief professional career, you know, maybe what, 50, 60 starts, but that's still really low. And I'm not sure he's thrown more than 90 pitches more than a handful of times either. So, you know, he has an extensive injury history, Tommy John surgery right out of high school, shoulder injury that cost to most of last year. I would expect he's going to be in that 85 pitch to 90 pitch range more often than not and probably maybe peaking at 100 once or twice.

And that's going to put a ceiling on his win total. You know, as good as the Oakland A's lineup is and he should get a ton of run support. I know that, Scott, you've cited this at least once this week already, that there's a direct correlation between, you know, pitchers going deep into games and them earning wins. So if we don't expect Lozardo to go much more than five innings, all that consistently, then that's going to, that should affect his win total and obviously his fantasy output. Yeah, and that's the argument I was making originally for not moving him up. that much, but having thought about it more and sometimes thinking it through as I'm writing about it,

this is where I've arrived with Luzardo and why I'm on board with moving him up. It's less about an argument of somebody like his ceiling changing and somebody like Cory Klooper, let's say, his floor dropping. It's less a matter of that than just the need to make sure you're not messing around with inadequate production at the start of of the season, the need to hit the ground running. Yeah, but. And like the thing about pitchers like Corey Klooper, Lance Lynn, Madison Bumgarner, we're not as confident, at least I'm not as confident in how good they're actually going to be.

If they are good, sure, the ceiling's higher than Luzardo. But I'm very confident in how Luzardo is going to be, even if it's in, you know, smaller, smaller pieces. So I need that impact right out of the gate when, you know, usually, and this is how I approach drafts, usually I'm aiming for the most upside I can get, even if it's taking on a little more downside, trusting that over the course of a very long season, I'll be able to make up for any losses that result from that. There is one other factor that I think we do need to talk about before we move on,

and that's the start and stop and stop and start of this whole process. pitchers started getting ready for the season in February. They started really ramping up in March, trying to get into game shape. Then they just had to shut it down immediately. And that's going to affect everyone. But I would think the effect is going to be much more dramatic on the guys who don't have that workload. Because we might see us, we're also going to have a short spring training. Only three weeks is what they're talking about.

So is Hazus-Sazardo going to get three, four starts to warm up for the season? You know, this was a guy who already, we don't expect to throw 100, 100 pitches in games many often, very often. It wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't top 80 innings for the first month, or 80 pitches for the first months of the season. Well, but David Samson also said that he thinks that the younger players will have an easier time adjusting than the guys who are set in their ways and have their routines built up over. different years. So I'm not saying he's right or you're right or, you know, but I just think we don't know could go any number of ways. And I just wanted, like Chris Paddock, by the way, they did go six man. There was, I think, 13 or 14 times where he pitched the sixth time around. Right. But they were also managing his workload. Yeah. And that's a thing. Even though he had a strict innings limit,

they managed to avoid, I think they sent him down once around the All-Star break, but they weren't doing these phantom D. Alston. But you don't want to manage his workload if you're, for Casas Lozardo now. Because, yeah, that's, I know. Right, you got to get his innings built up. You got to, or else you're screwing yourself for 2021, too. Adam, get out of my head, man. Because I was about to bring up the point about David Samson as well that he,

that he made regarding younger players. So get out of there, Adam. Scott, two other names who I found interesting on this list. Well, they're all interesting names, but the names that I wanted to bring up specifically were Nate Pearson and Spencer Howard. we spoke a little bit about McKenzie Gore earlier. Hazers-Lazardo still considered a prospect. Nate Pearson has moved up 40 spots in ADP,

and Spencer Howard has moved up 80 spots. So Pearson from 322 to 282 and Howard from 376 to 295. Does it make sense for these pitching prospects to move up as much as they have? Yeah, they both... I would say they're the odds on favorites to claim the fifth rotation spot

for their respective teams now. I'm more confident in Pearson doing it because Pearson was like the talk of spring training and the only reason he wasn't going to have that job is because there was a need to manage his innings and play the surface time game and all of that. But everybody knew sooner than later we were going to see him in a Blue Jays uniform.

Howard, you know, he hardly pitched this spring. And I think he had a little bit of a health issue, not a major concern, but just he hardly pitched because of that and because they wanted to preserve his innings for, for like mid-season for him taking over then. Their GM Matt Clintock said, said that he anticipated him joining their rotation in season and pitching meaningful innings in September.

So that's basically the argument for him making the Phillies rotation is based on that quote more so than anything we actually saw from, in the spring. We didn't see much of anything from Howard this spring. So, you know, obviously if we're talking only half a season now, the season is basically beginning mid-season when Clintak said he was going to be in the rotation. Now, that quote was with the assumption that there would be some development happening between now and then. So I don't know for sure that the Phillies are going to just turn that spot over to Spencer Howard. But it's at least in the discussion now when before it wasn't.

You know, we've got a shortened season which could lead to something. some fluky standings and more incentive maybe for teams that probably over 162 games aren't going to make the playoffs. And there's more playoff teams. And it's not just a one game playoff. There's going to be seven playoff teams in each league. And it's going to be a three game series in the first round. So there is a ton more incentive to not tank at least.

Something weird could happen. The Blue Jays, you know, a couple. their young guys could click and all of a sudden they're at 40 wins with 20 games to go or that's probably they'd be that's a hell of a year. They'd be in first place of that happens. But you know, 30

35 with 20, 20 games left and you're aiming for really only a little bit over 500 if that to make the playoffs. We're going to see some 500 under teams make the playoffs this year I would bet. At that point there's an incentive. to keep trying and there's an incentive to keep going in a way that if you were 60 games into

the season and the Blue Jays had 35 wins in a normal season, yeah, they're, they still, they probably wouldn't put their foot on the gas yet. I tried to do some, some research on how some young pitchers, and I looked at like the, the rookies of the year in 1995 and how they were handled early in the season. And then I remembered that baseball was basically a different sport 25 years ago when it came to how they handled pitchers. I'm looking at Ismail Valdez's rookie season game logs in 1995. 74 pitches as the first start, 101, 112, 79, 115, 120,

130, 135. Don't think we're going to learn much from the 1995 sample, you guys. Yeah. You know what's crazy is you can look even five years ago and pitching then doesn't look like how it now. Things have just changed so dramatically for real life purposes and for fantasy purposes alike. Some of the fallers quickly, two pitchers I wanted to mention, Madison Bumgarner has dropped almost 10 spots in ADP, and I think it somewhat makes sense just based on him moving over to Arizona. I don't know why it would happen now, but maybe people have realized this little stat about him losing strikeouts, not facing pitchers anymore, and facing the

D.H. Zach Wheeler, though, is kind of an interesting name. These are kind of, you know, SP3s, SP4s for fantasy purposes. Zach Wheeler has dropped 10 spots. Chris, I mean, what would you attribute that to? Is it maybe just him having to face the AL East because, you know, it's the National League's going to face the AL East and, you know, he's going to have to face tougher lineups or because I'm just trying to figure out why Zach Wheeler would be dropping? Yeah, I mean, I guess one of the things with Zach Wheeler is, like, he's he's a fine pitcher but he's certainly not great and you could make an argument that that class of pitcher the like 37 era 1.2 whip maybe a strikeout per inning class you can maybe

make a case that that class in the national league especially is going to be more dramatically impacted. And so maybe we see a separation between, say, the top 25 and the rest. You know, the guys who you can still be confident will be good against tougher competition. I'm not sure how confident you can be that Zach Wheeler will be good against tougher competition. Are there any other NLEs pitchers who have dropped? Because I think the NLEs gets, you know, Wheeler has to face now the Braves a lot. The Mets could have a resists. respectable lineup, the nationals, but then the Yankees, the Red Sox, Raz will be solid, you know, and then the Blue Jays actually might end up being a tough matchup.

Could go either way. Yes, they'll get the Marlins a lot. He'll get the Blue Jail. He'll get the Orioles. But I think Annalise pitchers kind of get the shaft a little bit. They have a tough matchups now. One that came to mind for me was, and I was excited about for the season, was Caleb Smith. I mean, he already struggled with home runs, and now he has to go pitch against the Yankees and the Red Sox. Yeah, that's a good one. Caleb Smith is going to get crushed. He did fall about the same number of spots that Wheeler did. How many series are we talking about for?

Is it three? We haven't seen an official schedule. We haven't seen an official proposal with a broken down schedule. But what Ken Rosenthal, when he reported the likelihood that it would just be same division and sister, same division and sister division in the opposite league. was that it would be two series against the opposite league. So you're talking about one series at each of those parks in the A&E East for the NL East pitchers. So I think you can make an argument that, you know, everything we're talking about is going to be relatively small margins.

You know, not facing the pitcher. That's about 5% of your total batters faced. You know, playing the Yankees twice instead of the white socks once and the Angels one. you know, they're all relatively small things, but especially for those marginal guys, you know, that margin for error between being Zach Wheeler and being Mike Leak, or someone who gets more strikeouts than Mike Leak, but it's generally a pretty average or below average pitcher, is pretty slim.

And that could make the difference. what I attributed the fall for Wheeler and Bumgarner to mainly is it's kind of the opposite of what I was saying for Hesuze Lazzardo. I was contrasting him against guys like Cory Klouber and Lance Lynn, but Madison, Bumgar, Garner, and Zach Wheeler are in that same position of being pitchers who we ranked as high as they did mostly because there was a workload expectation for them that now isn't going to be as valuable as it was. because there's less time to distance themselves from the Luzardos of the world. And, you know, in the immediate future, we can't feel as confident they're going to be as good, inning for inning, nearly as good, as inning for inning as a Luzardo would be.

Those are the ADP risers and followers that Scott wrote about. You can catch the rest of those over at cbsports.com. Frank, can I give 10 seconds of fantasy analysis? Sure. James Paxton has moved up from 135 to 119. That is still too low. He should be a top 80 pick. Rich Hill went up from 367 to 281.

That's probably still too low. He's probably a top 200 pick. Thank you. That is. Those are all fair points. Said from the TappHap AMC strategist himself, Adam Azer. I did want to evaluate a prospect. I'm currently running a little promotion where you leave a five-star Apple

podcast review and drop a prospect in there that you want us to talk about, and we will talk about said prospect. And one of the prospects that came across there was Tetsuto Yamada. Now, I don't know how we normally handle prospects that are still over in Japan for MLB purposes, for dynasty purposes, but I do think he's a name worth talking about because he's considered the Mike Trout of Japan. And if you just scroll through his season log on baseball reference, 27-year-old, second baseman has gone 30-30 in back-to-back seasons and in four of the last five seasons in Japan. He's the only player in NPB history to hit 300 with 30 home runs and 30 steals more than once in his career. His career triple slash in Japan, 297, 401, 533, that's a 934 OPS. Apparently

he'll earn his international free agent option after the 2021 season in Japan, which means he could be here for potentially 2022. I don't really know how they work these things out with players being able to be posted from Japan. There might be a way that he can get here even before that.

Regardless, the point is that this guy is ridiculous and I guess if you play in a dynasty league, he is a name that should be on your radar because he's amazing, Scott. Yeah, put him on the radar. I am going to, I'm not quite going to share in your enthusiasm completely

because it is most of the players in Japan or Korea that talk about coming over. You look at their stats from those leagues and they're ridiculous. That's just they wouldn't be coming over there here if they weren't ridiculous in that environment. And, you know, smaller parks, smaller ball. It's definitely, you definitely see inflated power numbers in those leagues. So, you know, I don't know that he would be like in a dynasty league that didn't require him to be under contract with a major league team. I don't know that he'd be like my first pick or anything. But yeah, definitely somebody to have on the radar.

Personally, the way I handled my dynasty leagues is, yes, they do have to be under contract with a major league team before you take. I don't want people out there scouting high schoolers or whatever hoping to beat the rush to them. That doesn't seem, that's just not the kind of league I want to have. So, so I would, I wouldn't really, I'm not personally going that deep into the analysis until he does actually sign with the club, but Tetsuto Yamada, definitely a name to file away. Yes, regarded as, again, the Mike Trout of Japan. Yeah, like, just a name to remember. It's, it might not even matter.

He'll never come to the MLB, and then, you know, it'll be for naught, but just a name to remember if he ever does get posted and has the opportunity to come over to the major leagues, someone that you should have on your radar. So he's ridiculous. A podcast that is ridiculously good is the first cut golf podcast and a reminder that golf is back, baby. Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady,

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Again, that's the first cut golf podcast, part of the CBS Sports Podcast Network. Questions. It's been a while since we've got to questions. Fantasy baseball. You like that? Nice. I don't like the song at all, but I like that you actually know something

that like the rest of us now. Can I do? I might not know that. Yes. No, not a pop culture thing. Although I thought you were going to do an impression of state. This could go so many different directions. I don't know if you want to talk about Tetsuto, Yamada,

golf. I'm going to do a stained impersonation. We need someone to do a Fred Durst impersonation so we can get that song. I actually don't. I mean, I haven't heard that song like a decade, but I don't remember hating it. I did want to go back to Tetsudo Yamada for just one second.

There is an analyst named Clay Davenport, who in the 1980s came up with the idea of league translations. And basically, the point of it is to try to take what a hitter does in AAA, or the Mexican League, or what have you, and translate it to what they would have done in the major leagues. And it's based on the performance of guys who move one way or the other

and how their performance changes relative to their age, et cetera. And so looking at Yamada, you know, definitely the power would not have translated all that well. But for instance, last season, his translated stats would have been a 270 average, 342 on base,

4, 58 slug, 21 home runs, and 39 stolen bases. his career line 286, 361, 462. Well, you know, it's not a superstar profile necessarily, but that's an above average hitter across the board who, you know, could steal a lot of bases if he gets here. So, you know, I think if you're in a league that's looking at guys in low A and you have the ability to draft someone who's in Japan or add them,

Yamada definitely, I think, needs to be someone you're looking at and possibly adding if you have the opportunity because the skill set does look like it would translate well for fantasy. I did a startup dynasty draft recently, a 15-team slow draft, and we weren't allowed to draft Japanese players, so, well, players that are in Japan. So I... Wow, no Shohia Tani.

We're weak. I messed that up. But, yeah, it was pretty sad, because once I got this question about Yamada, I started looking into him and got pretty excited. So I was sad that we couldn't draft players from Japan. But if you can, it's something you definitely should be looking at. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com.

This question comes from Ray McKinnon, dear Raphael, Will, Jonathan, and Mitch. Those sound like Rangers' first baseman, maybe? And a Ninja Turtle. That's the Devers family. He was Jonathan in this, though. Okay, so Raphael Palmero, Will Clark, Mitch Morland, who's Jonathan? What's the guy they have now?

Shouldn't we know the name of the... No, that's Ronald Guzman. And or Todd Freeman? I will come back to it. I play in a 7-by-7 categories Dynasty League. The offensive categories include offensive strikeouts and OBP instead of average. Please convince my league mates that offensive Ks shouldn't be a real.

category. And I agree with this for the sole reason and for those out there, oh, well, strikeouts count negatively towards you in head-to-head points leagues. They don't count as much as other things. So you lose a half a point for a strikeout, but like a walk or a single is worth one point. In a league like this, you're basically saying that hitter strikeouts count as much as a home run or an RBI or a steal. And to me, that just doesn't make sense. So I don't think it should be And you have a lot more categories in head-to-head points leagues than just seven. This is a seven-by-seven league. I think Frank's right, though, that the key is how they're weighed,

which, I mean, to me, it's ridiculous. Steals are weighted the same as home runs are in a traditional five-by-five league, and it's creating some weird situations regarding value now with steals being so scarce. But taking that aside, I really, like, if you want to reward or penalize hitters, on that level, that many categories out. Like, just make it a points league. I really hate these supersized categories. Well,

where, like, everything under the sun is measured on equal terms like that. I think you could just do strikeout percentage and whoever has the lowest strikeout. Like, making it just raw strikeouts, this is an issue that I've always had with, like, turnovers in fantasy basketball, where all of the counting stats are, you're being rewarded for doing something well.

And then you're adding a category where you're penalized for doing something. But the biggest thing is you're mostly being penalized for being present. Like guys who play every day are going to accumulate more raw strikeouts than guys who do not. And I don't think you should ever have a situation, even if it's one out of seven categories, where you are incentivized, where it would be better if you just didn't play than if you did. So make it a rate stat and then it's fine.

I have no problem with that. But just doing raw strikeouts, I think that that's at odds with how the rest of the game is played. Everything else is about accumulating and rates, accumulating positive stats and having the best ratios. It just changes the game. Yeah, that makes sense. It messes with the game.

While we're on the topic, Chris, you brought up turnovers and fantasy basketball. Don't play with turnovers and fantasy basketball. Yeah, eight category of fantasy basketball. It's a terrible stat. Play eight cat or use double doubles as your ninth category.

That's what I've done and I like it a lot. So there's your fantasy basketball talk. Are there any players that stand out in OBP and have low K rates? My roster currently has Aaron Judge, Trevor Story, and A. E. E. E. Huyaheoswarez, which really puts me in a bind with strikeouts.

I have tried punting the category in the past, but it always seems to come. come back and bite during the playoffs. Some names right off the top that jump out to me. Alex Bregman, Carlos Santana, Mookie Betts, Tommy Famm is someone who makes Anthony Rendon. They're pretty obvious plays, though. Yeah, those guys are going to, those guys are already gone.

One name that immediately sprung to mind for me, Luis Arias. He's not a huge walks guy, but he actually, you know, had a 3.30-something batting average and basically a 400 on base percentage. last season. So he walks a decent amount. He gets on base for sure. And he never strikes out, ever. So I think that's one guy, especially when you have Auhayneos Juarez, Trevor Story, and Aaron Judge. Go get Luis Sorayas. He'll help you out in on-base percentage. You'll have plenty of power to make up for it. And go from there. And there's some other guys who are lower-end.

Like, you could go get, you know, your League Uriel doesn't have a great on-base percentage, but because his average should be so high, he'll probably be in the 340, 335 range. I don't know if David Fletcher is going to play every day, but he only struck out 9.8% of the time last year with an 8.4% walk rate, 350 on base. So maybe him and then Kevin Newman. Again, not a high on base person.

Not a high walk rate guy, but no strikeouts should have a high average, should be an above average on base guy. Somebody who could maybe be both a low strikeout and genuinely high on base guy. base guy is Shogo Akiyama, the new leadoff hitter for the Reds, who goes pretty late and could be available in a shallower league. And I suspect he'll play a lot more with the addition of the DH spot,

not so much that he'll be playing D.H himself, but there will be less of a playing time crunch in the outfield. And go see if you can trade Trevor Story for Anthony Rendon, who, you know, in this format sees a gigantic boost. And maybe, you know, if your league mates, whoever has Marcus Simeon on their team isn't sold on him, Marcus Simeon's another great example. He had an 11.6% walk rate last year. Yeah, I think if you want to offer Trevor's story to the Rendon owner, you might be able to get Rendon Plus for Trevor's Story in return.

This next one comes from Big Red, and it's basically a question towards you, Adam, so perk up and get ready. I have to chime in on this claim that the miners are unnecessary. There are lots of things to say, but this may be the most pertinent. When football or basketball graduate from the university, they often go directly to play in the top leagues. When that happens in baseball, it is so unusual that it will be remarked upon. Baseball is a difficult game to master.

The pod team often discuss how a prospect needs to develop a new pitch, change his launch angle, or learn to play a new position. Where is that going to happen, if not in the minors? The owners want to reduce the number of minor league teams simply to save money. It is another example of the short-sighted approach to the game. All right. Here we go, Big Red. I'm not sure if you listened to our episode with David Samson,

but he said he could deal with just three levels of minor league ball. So I said, all right, I'll back off of one level of minor league ball. Let's go with three levels of minor league baseball. I'll settle on that. In answer in response to your question, players need to change their launch angle, learn a new pitch, learn to play a new position. That happens all the time at the major league level.

So it can happen in an off season. It can happen in spring training, whatever. You don't need the minors for that. And I guess I would just say that three levels would solve that problem. So I think maybe if you heard my amended take on it, maybe you wouldn't be writing this email. But if you made the changes, the cream would rise to the top, and people would adjust.

You don't need all these crutches for players. You don't need all these players. Most of them are never going to make it. And they make a horrible living. They should be freed to actually go pursue life and not be toiling in these minor league levels where they're never, ever, ever going to make it to the show. So I think if you reduce it, they'll adjust,

they'll figure it out. It would be the new normal. It would work. One thing. I'm not surprised. Let's dismiss this concern trolling about how much the players and the minors could make. MLB teams could afford to just pay them a livable wage.

They shouldn't have to. They're used, like, they shouldn't have to, Chris. These people don't need to have these jobs. Just because the MLB should, like, that is a really unpopular take. And please go ahead and hate me for it. Just because MLB can afford to give these people money. Why should they?

They're never going to contribute to their big league team. Consolidate. This has a smart business move. It's a smart business move. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. This may sound weird coming from the, the analytics guy on the podcast.

not everything is about the bottom line, Adam. Not everything is about maximum efficiency at all times. And that's what you're talking about. You're talking about streamlining the minor leagues to make them more efficient for the purposes of creating baseball players who will help major league owners make more money. Ultimately, that is absolutely not what I'm talking about.

Right, but that's ultimately, like to win more games, which will make them more money. But don't make it so cynical about money. It's about winning games. But that's that, fine. That's what MLB wants to do. That's what teams want to do. You think owners care.

Right. That's what I'm saying. You don't think they care about it. When I say, when I mean owners. They want to win games. MLB for the last decade has time after time put the immediate bottom line

ahead of the long term interests of the game. There are blackouts. You can't watch MLB TV if you live in the state of Iowa. This is a different conversation, Chris. Like this has nothing to do with why. I think there should be fewer. This has nothing to do why I think there should be fewer. The reason why I think there should be fewer minor league teams

is because most of the players are doing something that's unfortunately just not going to lead to anything. And I don't think you need that many stages of development for a player. But I was, yeah, but my whole point is that's not the only reason why minor league baseball should exist. Myrleague baseball should exist as an outreach program to get more people involved and into the game. You have all these, you have 30 major leagues,

cities and really it's 26 or 25, whatever it is. And then you have nothing else around the entire swaths of the country where you can go hundreds of miles and not be able to see live baseball unless it's minor league baseball. Baseball is bleeding fan support and they consistently put short-term dollars over the long-term health and viability of the game. You see it everywhere. But 90 teams, 90 extra teams is not enough to get baseball into these communities. Three per major league organization. 90 extra teams is not enough to spread baseball. But here's the thing, Adam.

There are what, five, six minor league teams within a 50 mile radius of New York City, maybe 100 mile radius? Spread them out. I don't care. But you don't need that many teams. They're not going to build new stadiums for them. They're going to consolidate and they're going to make them closer to their home. You know what?

Football doesn't have this problem. Because it's all about, well, because it has. has a de facto minor league. Because baseball is not popular because baseball is boring. I'm sorry to say it. It's nothing to do with a lack of exposure. It's boring. And people don't want to play it.

And people don't want to watch it. Make the game better on the field. Speed up the game. It will be more popular. So nobody likes baseball. Not Adam. I like baseball. It's boring.

And if we don't have an honest conversation about how boring baseball is, not us. I mean, what were we going to do? But yeah, if they're trying to have it, I mean, Rob Manfred knows that baseball is boring. He's trying to speed it up. Basketball knew in the 90s that the Knicks and the Heat, as much as you and I loved it, Chris. Okay, I love Knicks Heat games. That was not good for the game. It was bad for the game. They changed the game. They made a much better product. That's how you're going to get more fans. That's what baseball needs. Yeah, I mean, but it is in keeping with a larger trend. of the things that baseball does, squeezing the free agent markets

so that nobody cares about your offseason so nobody thinks about baseball from October 15th to April 5th. Not having your best players, your best young players get called up when they're ready because it might save the team $400,000 down the line. These are all part of the same thing. Major League Baseball continuously puts the immediate tomorrow bottom line ahead of building interest in the long-term game

and building a fan base. They alienate fans, and it's ridiculous. And mainly baseball is good and fun on its own merits, regardless of whether it creates major league baseball. I changed that. It would still be fun on its own merits. I think it's unfair to compare baseball to any other sport in most areas. Because just the ask, just, it's a 162 game season.

It's unreasonable to expect any fan base to stick with it for that. long or to expect any game to carry that much weight when there's that many like it's it's not it's a game for people who obsess over sports it's not a game for somebody looking for you know cheap thrills on a Saturday night that's just not what it's designed for and yeah you lose some of your audience potential audience because of that but the audience you do have is dedicated and that's so much just kind of its business model the what I think about what I've read about it is that they're dedicated on a local basis. They care so much about their teams.

And that's why Chris brings up the point of the free agent market getting squeezed because players signed these long-term contracts for so long. No, it's not just that. It's also just that like the 2018 and 2017 off seasons were just the big signings got pushed back. Nothing happened. There was no reason if you are at all interested in sports to think about baseball for like a five-month stretch. That's really bad. putting myself in the shoes of a baseball fan,

which baseball fans tend to be more devoted to their own particular team versus just being entertained by the league as a whole. I am so excited anytime my team locks up for a guy for a long-term deal, much more excited than when I look and see that there's a big free agent class coming up this offseason. I feel like as a baseball fan, your team finally develops a superstar player. And then robs them blind like the Braves do. The whole four or five years that he's contributing big numbers for your team,

you're living in fear of the day he leaves. You can't even really enjoy it because you're just scared that he's going to leave you. And when you lock a player up for 10 plus years, that fear doesn't even exist anymore. You can just enjoy the guy's career and everything he's contributing for the team. So I actually think it's healthy for the game because of the way the game breaks down. regionally. That's, I mean, I will just say, I'm glad your fear has been taken away, along with literally hundreds of millions of dollars from Ronald Acuna Cune's family.

It takes two people to sign that contract. And they took advantage of him. He got bad advice from his owners. They took advantage of him from the day he signed. Give me a break. You like, it takes two people to sign that contract. He will never have to worry about money again, ever. What kind of contract is Luis Severino going to get? What, what if Luis Severino didn't sign is what was four-year, $40 million deal. That looks like a great deal now. He hasn't given them anything for two years. That's true.

Ronald O'Cunia should not switch to pitcher. We saw the same thing in the last dance with Scotty Pippen. He has nobody to blame but himself. All right, that'll do it for baseball politics today. Just kidding. For Scott, Adam, and Chris, we'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.