Fantasy Baseball Today - Ohtani's Value, Player Debates, Best and Worst Picks of Rounds 7-9 (03/19 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

How do you feel about Chef Boyardee? One of us has never had it! After that discussion we get into a bold prediction about Bo Bichette (3:45). What do we like about Bichette and what could be an issue for him? And we talk a little more about the value of closers in a shortened season (7:30) ... News and notes (12:30)! Chris Sale and Shohei Ohtani could both be available for Opening Day, so who do we like better? Is Ohtani once again a Top 40 pick in a daily lineups league? And follow along as Chris makes a draft pick on the air (18:00)! ... Player Debate: Zac Gallen (22:04). Can we bully Scott into moving him up in the rankings? Then we give you the best and worst picks of Round 7 (32:30), Round 8 (39:40) and Round 9 (47:15) in FantasyPros ADP ... Your emails at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite 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. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Thursday, March 19th. Welcome to the show, Fantasy Baseball today. I want to thank Chris for hosting yesterday.

I want to thank Ariel Cohen for coming on and doing an awesome job. Very good show, guys. Much appreciated. I'm Adam Azer with Chris and Scott. How's Thursday going for you guys? It's going good. Going fine. Yeah.

Just dandy. Nice Thursday. It's a nice Thursday, right? Chris, good Thursday. What's that? What are you doing? You didn't listen to me like two minutes ago for the mic check. You're not listening to me now.

I said it's a nice Thursday. Are you having a nice Thursday? I'm sorry? I heard a sound that sounded like cellophane. I imagine he's even. smarties over there. I don't know why that came to mine. That's what I, that's what I picture Chris doing right now. Are you eating

smarties? I did have some sweet tarts yesterday. I'm a big sweet tarts fan. Close, close. I don't know. I don't roll his eyes at that. It's so strange. It was like a normal Thursday, you know, maybe a weird Thursday.

I had chef boyardee for lunch. So, your judgment of my Thursday may differ. Let me tell you about Chef Boyardy. I have a stockpile of canned food that I bought about three weeks ago. Did I tell this story? I hope I didn't.

I don't think it. Some of it is Chef Boyardee. Because when I first bought all this canned food, the virus was just starting to break out a little bit, but it was still a pretty small thing, I guess. So I bought this stuff and I was like, I'm probably not going to need any of this. So I bought the cheapest stuff. And then as it became more obvious that my shopping and movement was going to be restricted, I bought some better canned food to stash. So basically, if I have to eat Chef Boyardee, that means we are in Code Red in America. It is the way back of the stock for me.

I eat every now and then I eat Chef Boyardee. It's a nice little nostalgia trip. I'm not repulsed by it. I think it was just, I think it's probably the first time I've eaten it since, like, college, at least. And it wasn't bad. You know, it was fine. You can eat it cold, too, which is kind of, it's good hurricane prep food. In case the power, you lose power, you don't have any heating element. Yeah, yeah. All right, well, I don't think I've ever had it.

So hopefully, hopefully it will come to that. You know what? You never had chef boy, or did he? Sheltered life. I probably have. I ate so much velviet. Hey, real quick, real quick. Velvita or craft?

Velvita is like a different thing. I don't really think of like Velvita singles. Velvita mac and cheese. I just think of like the block of coagulated cheese. Craft doesn't have. Well, Velvita's the answer.

Okay, so I asked people on Twitter for a bold prediction. We're going to start the show. We might do this for the next week or so. Who knows? But I have a bunch of answers. I'm going to pick one a day. that's the plan anyway.

I'm not going to be on the show tomorrow, so Chris, you need to start tomorrow's show with a bold prediction. A listener bold prediction, not yours. So this one comes from Danny Perez. Bold prediction. Bo Bichette will be better than Vlad and Cotel Marte this season.

Bo Bichette, better than Vlad and Cotel Marte. Scott, what do you think about that bold prediction? It's not a crazy prediction. I'm almost not sure it's bold enough, to be honest. No, I'll take it. It's fine. Everybody ranks him lower than those two. It's fine.

He certainly has the upside to be better than them. If you want to brand yourself as the Bobauchet guy, go right ahead. He was so good, Bo Bichet. He's going to be 22. Well, he's 22 years old now in the month of March, so I don't know the specific date. But he's 22. He batted 3-11 with 11 home runs with four steals and eight attempts in 46 games.

And he's expected to bat lead off this year, which is nice. his career minor league numbers, 321, 380, 515 slash line with 73 steals in 323 games. And yeah, he just had a great 46 game season last year. What concerns you about Bo Bichette? To me, there's only one thing that really jumped out, and that was first 26 games, he had a 1073 OPS. Last 20 games, he hit a 733 OPS. So maybe they figured him out, although the plate does. was a little bit better in those last 20 games.

But Chris, what concerns you about Bobbyshev? The only real concern is just that he hasn't done it. Anytime you're spending a top 100, top 75, in this case, pick on a guy who doesn't have this kind of track record. There's a lot of risk. We get really excited about young guys, but he played 46 games. Maybe the league hadn't caught up to him. He played a lot in September against, you know, lesser caliber of opponents.

So it's possible that he just, he gets a little over exposed in his first full season. But, no, there aren't many, many holes you can poke in his profile. Struck out much less than once per game. Power, if you have to, if you have to look for something, he may not hit for a ton of power. How would you guys rank Bo Bichette, Marcus Simeon, Carlos Correa? You just ranked him for me. Congratulations. Thank you.

All right, Boba Chet, Simeon, Correa. I think Chris is going to go Correa Bichet Simeon. I think so. I know Chris. I know Chris very well. That's chef boyardy's sweet tart eating dude. All right. Thank you for the bold prediction, Danny Perez.

Make sure you sign up for our newsletters. CBSports.com slash newsletter. We've got a bunch of different ones so you can pick the ones you like, but there's a fantasy baseball today newsletter. Make sure you're in our Facebook group and make sure you're leaving us a nice review on Apple Podcasts with your questions.

By the way, it is newsletters, sorry, CBSports.com slash newsletters with an S at the end. But, yeah, and Apple. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and there are four. There's the HQ Daily, the PICS6, the Fantasy Football Today, and Fantasy Baseball today. And another announcement, if you're going to leave us a nice review,

Make sure you do it in the fantasy baseball today feed, not the fantasy football today feed, because I appreciated it, but the most recent comment in the fantasy football today feed on Apple podcast is about Ariel Cohen's guest appearance yesterday. So, you know, I understand the logos look exactly the same, but just try to pick the right one. Ariel did a great job on yesterday's show.

It was very insightful stuff. One of the things he said was that he felt like closers would lose value in a shortened season. And because he thought that, one of the reasons, he thought that managers would have a quicker hook if the season is shortened, they don't have the patience

to wait out somebody's struggles. And another thing that came to mind is something that I first in my head applied it to closers, but maybe it just applies to everything. But if you play 162 games, the best closers are going to run up the saves. and their lead in saves,

okay, not necessarily the best closers, but the ones who get the most saves are going to have more and more saves compared to the competition over time. If you shorten the season, there's obviously going to be less of a gap between the saves leader and the middle of the pack guys

or even the low-end guys. That's going to be the case for every stat, obviously. But I do wonder if it makes the, biggest difference from a fantasy standpoint with saves since, you know, it's not like RBIs, there are fewer of them, and you've only got

two or three on your team. You know what I'm saying? See, I feel like the opposite point came up on the show yesterday, where if you're dealing with a smaller sample of games, there's less time for the guys who pull way ahead or fall behind really quickly. There's less time for those stats to

normalize. I mean, a guy can A guy can rack up 20 saves in two months time. That's certainly happened before. Shane Green last year. Yeah. Yeah. But there's just going to be a smaller gap. It might be harder to win your category, you know, by a convincing margin anyway, and saves because every stat, if you play a short in season, every stat, there's going to be a smaller gap between the leaders and everyone else, right?

It just makes sense. If you played out 162 games, the gap would widen. I would think anyway. It comes to a short in season. There's a lot of factors to take into account, a lot of in and out, a lot of what have used. But, you know, it's... Wait, can I finish my thought?

What's that? Let me finish my thought, then you can respond. Since saves as a roto category probably has the... Well, actually, I guess wins. This would apply to wins, too. Anything that has a low total. Yeah. Right?

you know, the shorter season, I guess, brings a little more parity. It kind of makes it bunchier and hard. And maybe more unpredictable in terms of who's going to win the category. It's definitely that, yeah. I mean, it's going to make every category harder to predict because there's going to be more outlier performance on the good and bad ends. But I think one key thing that we're going to find out eventually that we can't really account for right now is what the shape of a potentially shortened season looks like.

I talked about it yesterday, but when the NBA had their shortened season because of the lockout, they had a lot fewer days off during the season. They played a lot of back to back to back to backs, more back to backs. And if that's the case in baseball, if we see more double headers, if we see, which seems likely, you know, maybe they try to keep a relatively normal amount of days off, but they go to more double headers, maybe you're looking at a situation where the saves are also distributed a lot differently. Yeah. Because closers aren't going to have as many opportunities to pitch in every game,

or in every save situation at least. Totally agree. I'm having trouble figuring out how the TAPAP AMC or whatever you want to call it, how Mar-Mole strategy works in a shortened season. Maybe it's not worth speculating because we don't know what the season. is going to look like. We don't even know if there's going to be a season. We don't, unfortunately.

We don't. I don't like to think about that scenario now. So, let's just, for my peace of mind, let's not. If there's no baseball season, that means that Chef Boyardee definitely happens. All right, so. You should just open it up and try it. I can't, Scott, I cannot touch that stash. I will not touch that stash of food until I'm.

With a silver spoon in your mouth if you've never had Chef Boyardee. No, it's not that. It's just like I can't, I have a set of food that is emergency only. Maybe I'll go buy another can of Chef Boyardty just to have it. Does it though I can talk about it on the show. But that can't, those three or four cans that I have, beefaroni and beef relian. Ooh, should I? We should all grab a can of Chef Boyerty from our pantry and eat it together.

Well, we'll call it the indigestion episode. What does that sound like? All right, news and notes. I was thinking to myself like, well, we really talked about Shohei Otani. I wonder how he's affected by all this, but apparently he could be ready to pitch when the regular season starts.

Yeah, that would change his value a lot. From what to what? I mean, he would be among the 37, which he was originally, and then he moved out as it dwindled down to a 33. he would be back among the 37. What kind of makes me sad about his situation is they had this, what sounded like a great plan,

because they have him take every sixth turn in the rotation instead of every fifth. That's what he's used to in Japan. That seems to be how they can get the most out of his bat. Remember, when he was, that first partial year when he was pitching before he got hurt, he was going every Sunday, which was annoying.

because if ever a start got pushed back, it would mean he'd miss, he'd go a whole week without making a start. So that was frustrating to deal with. But anyway, Joe Madden's plan was to have him pitch every Wednesday. They had a lot of off days lined up on Thursday so that he wouldn't really have to miss a game as a hitter

to take that day off from the day he started. But, you know, now obviously if they rework the season and some of those off days get swallowed up, it's not going to be that straightforward. forward and who knows what day of the week he ends up pitching. But one benefit from that planet fantasy was that Wednesday's right in the middle of the week. So you didn't have to worry about him if something got pushed back, him going a whole week without making a start like we did two years ago. Okay, cool. And would you take Otani or Chris Sale? Because the other news

is that Sale began a throwing program. What do you think in there? I think everyone's a little too down on Chris Sale. The flexor strain doesn't usually require surgery. I'm kind of amazed at how late he's going. It seems like once you get in that ninth, tenth, round range, there's not a lot of risk to taking him there. You haven't answered the question. Well, I guess I'm saying, so you're saying, O'Tani or Sale?

That's what I'm saying. I think I'd be more inclined to take sale, but I probably rank them similar. Is my microphone muted right now? I can't tell. No. It's perched on my laptop. Your cat is... And I can't see the screen.

Yeah, he's positioned well if you're Wilson from Home Improvement. They're trying to come up with how to hide your mouth. There's like a cat back in front of it. So, uh, no, I don't know. Chris out 94th overall in the editorial CBS Sports editorial draft that we're doing the slow draft and here's my number three starting

pitcher and it was basically like at that point in the draft because I'm playing if I was only playing one league I think I'd still try to avoid it but because I'm playing so many leagues out at that point in that draft it felt like the right time to make that gamble Chris sale and let's go back to Otani real quick. Let's, oh, Chris, you're on the clock.

Oh, this will be fun. Everybody, let's make a pick with Chris. But if Shoyotani is ready for opening day, and let's say it's sometime in June, and you're in a daily lineup league, you can use him as a hitter every day or a pitcher whenever he pitches. What round are you taking him in, Scott?

Daily lineup league. And we're assuming he's ready to pitch from the get-go. Yeah. I think someone would probably take him before I do. There'd be like a Heath Cummings in the league who is just so gung-ho about this, about being able to get credit for all his pitching and all his pitching and all his hitting statistics because it's a daily lineup situation. They're liable to take him in like round three or four.

I think six. is where enough of the obvious studs have gone off the board that I'm willing to enjoy that perk. You ain't getting them. I was thinking more like three, four. Yeah.

So, okay, we'll see. If you really buy into him, if you think he's going to be great, then probably would be worth of, great and consistent and in the lineup enough. It's partially, it's just the headache factor that I'd rather avoid. Because, like,

if you're a one league person, this is your league and you're able to obsess about it to that level. Okay. Oh, you're saying setting a lineup? Do you really want to handcuff yourself to having to check the lineups every single day? It's not hard. It's not hard. You're in so many leagues.

I can't even check my email with that consistently. I'm bad at checking my email. I agree. But you're in too many leagues. So, you know, most people, it's really, it's not that hard. Are most people one league people? No, I don't think so anymore. to three, maybe?

That's not hard. All right, so listen, Chris is on the clock. He's working on a nice little team here. He's, this is a 14-team points league with five starting pitcher, two relief pitcher spots. He has the 10th pick of the draft. We're in round 9. So far, Chris has Alex Bregman and Anthony Rendon.

That's pretty sexy in a points league. Geez, you got Bregman 10th? Yeah, that's really good. Rendon in the second round, that's really good. your other hitters are Jeff McNeil in the outfield and Kestin Hira at second base. And you are now for as a utility. Oh, and you're now of a utility. You have Lucas Gialito, Sunny Gray, and Chris Sale.

I'm a little afraid of this team. This is a really, really good team. Luckily, Chris won't make any transactions and he'll forget about the league, so I know he won't win it. But maybe not with a shortened season. Maybe that's one of the benefits will actually keep Chris engaged. But this is a really good team. Once football starts gear it up again. Look at him.

You don't live too far from me. All right. We might have to scrap. That is not social distancing. No, it's not. So, all right, Chris has, again, Sale, Gialito, and Gray. He has Bregman, Rendon, Heira, McNeil, and Alvarez.

He could use a first baseman, but he missed the first base run, so you probably don't want to take one here. Just miss Grandals. You're not going to take a catcher. I'm thinking, you're going to go with a star. I think I know who I would take if I were you, but

what are you thinking right now? So it is a league where Sparks Matter and Julio Reyes is near the top of Scott's ranks. So I'm thinking about him. I'm thinking about Matthew Boyd, who I'm really starting to talk myself into. This is a little

bit ahead of his ADP right now, but I just wrote about him and I'm really starting to talk myself into it. And this is a situation where I wish... I know Miguel Sinoe will have first base eligibility very early on in the season, but I would have to

draft him as a reserve player right now. And so I don't know if I can do that. That's not a big deal. You just use your last pick on Yandy Diaz, make him your first baseman for one week, and then you move Sinoa. I think Miguel Sano is the best player on the board. I mean, it's a points league, so, you know, walk to strike.

The strike got hurt, but he was still close to a 500 fantasy point pace last season, if he had played the full season. Marcus Simeon's there, but I don't have a shortstop spot or utility spot, so I can't take him. This is the problem with filling up your infield early, which is what I did. I like all my players, but you start to lose that flexibility. So I am going to go with Julio Rurias as a spark. And not only did you fill up your infield early, you filled up your utility spot too. So you really limited your flexibility.

But I was actually going to take Sano a few picks ago. I took Mustakis instead because I needed a second baseman. Yeah, I was going to say you should take a Rias or Maeda. Yeah, and I actually putting up my column on my favorite picks in each round should be going up. And it just kind of reminded me that the draft all the starting pitchers for the Dodger's strategy is still well and alive. I really don't like... In a Categories league, though, you're saying.

Yeah, I think in either. I still don't. Oh, God. Get this strategy? Is there cat mowing, yelling back there? Could you guys hear that? I thought that was Scott's kid. I thought one of Scott's kids was yelling in the background.

It is Matt's in this house right now. One of them broke free. I don't like that. Chris has like a... noticeably better team than I do. He's really starting to bother me. All right, well, that was Chris makes a draft pick, a potentially recurring segment.

Let's have a player debate, definitely a recurring segment. Chris thinks Scott is too low on Zach Gowan. Scott has Zach Gowan 36 overall. Chris thinks that, I said, well, who is the head of Gowan that you want to move me ahead of? And Chris said, he needs to be in the top 25. So there are at least 11 pitchers that Scott has ahead of Zach Gowan, that Chris does not agree with.

And Scott, what do you have to say about that, tough guy? Okay, so let me look at some of the pictures I have ahead of him, I guess. The early, I could not, I couldn't justify 25. No, I mean, I could justify maybe ahead of Bumgarner, Rue, Wheeler. Maybe ahead of Bumgarner? Are you kidding me? You hate Bumgarner. You think he stinks.

Okay. I do like Allen more than Bumgarner, yeah. But move him up. That's what spot? No, I don't do this gut reaction thing with rankings. I mean, there's, there has to be a certain amount of, uh, uh, I can't think of the word, but, you know, kind of like the way projections can't be too far to one end or the other. They have to take this kind of middle ground.

That's, that's kind of what I try to do with my rankings. I have a lot more shares of Gallin than Bumgarner. You should probably rank him ahead. You should probably rank him ahead. Why? Because you like him better. You just said you like him better than Bumgarner, and you draft him more. I don't particularly like Noah Cinderguard, but am I going to drop him behind that

Zach Gallen? I mean, kind of the reason I don't like him is because I don't like the point in the draft where I have to get him. Right, but do you think Madison Bumgarner right now is better? than Zach Gallen? Well, he was last year. He certainly has more of a track record. He was in the majors longer last year.

Wait, but wait, no, but he was better because of the home park. We know that. And also, I reject your Cinderguard comparison because Bumgarner and Gallen have nearly identical ADPs. So it's not like you even have to factor in draft value there. All right. Do it. Maybe I should.

Yeah. But I will tell you this. It's not like I'm passing up. It's not like, it's not, it's not like, I can't recall a draft where bum garner was still on the board, and I took Zach Gowan. Like, by the time I'm taking Zach Gowland, bumgarner's gone.

So I don't feel like this ranking is, helped me back in anyway. Oh, man, I just got sniped in round 41 of the draft. Really? All right, whatever. I'll move Gowan ahead. Good. That's a peer pressure.

Listen, kids, succumb to peer pressure is the way to make the most logical decisions as we just found. We're going to go just player by player until you've got it in the top 25. I'm just going to talk. Adam and I are just going to bully you into it. Judge Riu. He was going to throw four innings per start. Oh, come on. Ryu, he doesn't strike anybody out.

He's going to the ALE East. He's in a terrible ballpark. But for real, Zach Allen came up to the majors last season, had a 281 ERA, 96 strikeouts and 80 innings. his defense independent pitching stats were a little bit worse. However, that was mostly the result of an inflated walk rate. He was at 10.8%. I think something like 25% of his walks came in two starts.

I think he had a six-walk start and a five-walk start. This was a guy who never had issues with walks in the minors. He's got four pitches that he can command and throw in any count. He gets swings and misses with multiple pitches. And there are no injury concerns or any concerns. concerned with him. He's the rare pitcher who in 2020 if we have a full season

could throw 200 innings. He threw 171.1 innings in 2019 with a 227 ERA and 208 strikeouts. Yes most of those came in the minor but it's not like he wasn't really

really good it was absurd. He had a 170 ERA and a league with like an at the average like a 570 ERA you know that was the most impressive pitching performance and professional baseball last season yeah don't you wish there was a little more velocity there because that you know that was kind of a knock on him I thought coming up was he didn't have a heater he had I think it was roughly average fastball velocity and it's

not like he's a soft tosser he's not Kyle Hendricks like it wasn't getting the the whiffs you know yeah I'm I'm very high on Gowan. Well, clearly not. I'm, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, if you're trying to argue, if you're just, if your argument's just, you think that's that I agree. I think he's good. I think he's good. And I think he's better than Mike Siroka. I think he's better than Madison Bumgarner. I think he could be than a lot of the guys you're ranking ahead of him. I'll, I'll, I'll move him ahead of Bumgarner. I'm, I'm not going, like, Junjin Riu is is, is, is, is also good. I think Galin has more upside, but, Like, I've certainly gotten burned over playing the guy with a dozen career starts.

Right. Just assuming he's going to, like, just assuming everything he did was legit. And there's no sophomore slump or anything like that. I've gotten burned several times over doing that. So I don't, I don't want to abandon the tries and trues taking the next big thing. And Junj and Ryu, fair. He's, let's not. 10 last year came out of nowhere.

He was even better in 2018. In fact, in 44 starts between the two seasons, he has a 221 ERA. All of that is fair. Maybe Hinginj and Ryu should move up. But to go back to the thing you were saying about

not wanting to get fooled by 12 starts, you have Frankie Montas eight spots higher. Okay. You love Frankie Montas, Chris. I do. Who do you like better, Gowan or Montas? I think I like Gallen more. I think Gallen is more likely to throw

180 in a full season than Frankie. That's, I am, I am more excited about drafting Zach Gallin than I am about drafting Frankie Montas. But that's, that's where you have to consider. I was actually looking to see where they're going.

They're actually not going that far apart on average either. Yeah, I'll think about that one some more. I'll think about that one some more. Okay. That was a nice player debate. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There's something I feel like I'm on the verge of,

I feel like I'm on the verge of a point, but it's not quite coming together fast enough, so let's just move on. It's like I won the player debate. Whenever you get there, Scott, you just let us know. I'm going to put in the notes, Scott makes a point. We'll just see when it comes.

Email of the day is from Jay in St. Louis. Since the baseball season is nowhere in sight, I've decided to play the season for now on Stratomatic. Have you guys ever played Stratomatic? It's awesome. The Cardinals are my team. Yeah, that's Stratomatic is a little before my time, I feel like, which would make it a little before all of our time. I mean, when there's out of the park, you know, when there's these...

really sophisticated computer simulators. I don't see the need to play a probability dice game anymore, unless you just enjoy it. That's perfectly fine, but that wouldn't be my go-to. Is it anything like RBI baseball in 93 on Sega Genesis? That would be my go-to-com. No, it's a dice.

It's a dice, right? It's, every player has a card with probabilities for certain outcomes that have been configured based on the season they just had. Yes. And then you roll dice and simulate games that way. Yeah, I'll play RBI baseball instead. Second part of the question from Jay, I was wondering with the hype surrounding Dylan Carlson for St. Louis,

who would you think is a good player comp if I use their card for him from last season? Oh, interesting. I mean, if you're talking about the upside, it's probably like Tommy Fam or something, right? I mean, I would imagine he has even more upside than that. but it's, you know, you don't want to get crazy with it. I would, I would aim lower than Tommy fam just because I feel like the midground for a rookie is going to be less than that.

You know who it could be. Yossiel Pueg. At 270, 24 homers, 19 steals. That seems... Yeah. Yeah, that seems pretty good. Let's go with that. Great stuff.

Thank you for the email, Jay. More emails in a bit, fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Yesterday, they did rounds four through six, the best and worst picks, according to the average draft position. Today we'll tackle rounds seven through nine. Okay, Chris, start us off with round seven. What were your favorite and least favorite picks of round seven? But wait, actually, I'm just hearing in my ear, we have breaking news. From the breaking news desk, Scott White makes a point.

Scott. I actually was just joking because I thought we were still recording. Oh, no. Scott White does not make a point. Never mind. We went off the air for a second, and Scott said that he had a point to make about Zach Gallin and Frankie Motas,

but he was just kidding. You know what? You know what it is? Frankie Montas is an excellent groundball pitcher, too. With, if you're believing the splitter's going to help him miss bats, like that extra skill, I just have more confidence in him delivering a high-end outcome than I do gallon, even though Gallen's upside is probably higher.

There, my point was making. Back to Chris. Chris, your favorite and least favorite pick of round seven. I just want to say, you know how when you take the SAT and they tell you times up and you got to drop your pens. Or in the Great British Baking Show, when they tell you times up and you can't continue messing with your bake? Scott, that doesn't count. I won the debate. Moving on to round seven, favorite picks. Giancarlo Stanton, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Bell. These guys are a big reason why I don't see much reason to pay up for a person.

Pete Alonso or Matt Olson guys who are going to be relatively not entirely one-dimensional power hitters but the bulk of their value is going to come from home runs runs and RBI I don't really believe Pete Alonzo's a better hitter than John Carlos Stanton. John Carlos Stanton's going

to be healthy by opening day assuming he doesn't suffer another injury I know that's not necessarily the safest assumption back on the IL by the All Star Breed which won't really exist. Right now, John Carlos Stanton figures to be healthy by opening day.

I don't see any reason to pay for Pete Alonzo in the third round when you can get John Carlos Stanton in the seventh. I don't see any reason. I mean, really, even your Nalbress, who I like and who I've drafted, you know, you take him in the third, fourth round. Nelson Cruz is there 40 picks later. Okay, Nelson. Okay.

I thought you were going to go with Stanton. But even then, I don't. Stan, I would hope for a better batting average for Alvarez than Cruz even. Definitely Stan. I mean, Stanton is a 260-ish hitter if he's healthy. Yeah. I will, like, he was the number two hitter three years ago. I know, but we've already established that that was an outlier that wasn't going to happen again.

And the whole reason you're excusing the big jump in strikeouts is first year with the Yankees, the strikeout rate spiking again is just, okay, that MVP season wasn't out. MVP season was an outlier. That's fine. We'll just proceed with him as this 30% strikeout guy. It's not a sign of decline or anything. It was just a return to normalcy. So let's not, let's not evaluate the guy. But like he's done that. It is on his record.

We know he is capable of that. We're kind of hoping your Navarez or Pete Alonzo. Wait a second. They just did that. Not that good. neither of them had a season as good as Stanton's 2018 or 2017. Well, wow. Staten had 58 homers and hit like 29. What was Alvarez?

He hit 281 with 59 homers. Alvarez hit 50 homers last year. Alvarez was really good. Stanton in 2018 was the number 22 hitter and points number 16 in Roto. Here's the thing. You keep saying all this. You draft Jordan Alvarez more than any. one in the world. You keep drafting.

I've drafted him twice. Well, we've only done like two leagues. So you keep drafting him. Jordan Alvarez's OPS and OPS plus, if we're adjusting for ERA, we're both higher than Stanton's in 2017. That's pretty impressive. But, you know, if you can save four rounds.

In your OPS Plus league, Scott, in the real world, John Carlos Stan, 281 with 59 homers, 123 runs, and 132 RBI. Now, we can say that didn't happen, but we don't do that any other player. We don't look at Matt Olson last year and say, well, it was his best season.

We can't count it. But you're basically not counting Pete Alonzo. I mean, you're saying with Pete Alonzo, he's never going to have a season that good again, which is probably true. But you have to say the same exact thing for John Carlos Stan, that he's never going to have that season. Even if we say that,

we know Pete Alonzo's up. side is not as high as John Carlos Stanton unless you believe he's going to be better than he was last season. And I don't, I don't need John Carlos Stanton to be better in 2020 than he was in 2017. If he's as good as he was in 2018, he's a massive value at this cost. That is true. That's, not the same argument, though, I guess. I agree. If you get a, if you get a top, if you get like the number 20 hitter in round seven, that's a huge value. And that's what he was in 2000. when he hit 266 with 38 home runs, 100 runs, 100 RBIs, and 102 runs. And he did that with a dreadful September because he was playing hurt.

It was 700 OPS in his last 31 games. And you mentioned Nelson Cruz in there and Josh Bell. So you like, bottom line is you can get some serious sluggers. Joey Gallo also goes in that range. Who's your least favorite pick of round seven? Least favorite pick of round seven. The guy I'm least likely to draft here is probably Jose Ibrahim. I don't think it's a bad pick.

I think he's a relatively safe pick, but it just, when I can get guys with 45, 50 homer potential, Joseaubraeus 34, 35 homers just don't excite me all that much. I think we all sort of feel that way about Josea Brea, right? Scott? Yeah, I don't think I'm ever going to feel urgency. to take him the way I might a Victor Robles or a Trevor Bauer

or even a It's probably a little early for Chris Sayle who's ADP is in this range Or Tommy Fam who'll give you the steals Even like Suarez is in this range Another potential 50 homer guy I don't feel like Is this where the tier is starting to run out at first base

And maybe that's why there was urgency to take a Brayu Next first basement off the board or It's a while, yeah Reese Hoskins. That's why I like Incarnacion. Well, no, that's why I like Josh Bell and Matt Olson. But then if I don't get them, I don't really want to settle for Jose Abrae. I'd rather wait on Incarnacion or even Voit.

Carlos Santana is still out there. A good 50 picks later. I mean, there's going to be a batting average difference between those two, but it might only be 20 points. I don't know that's 50 picks. That's worth the difference of 50 picks. Well, but Santana, based on his history, could also hit like 23 home runs and it wouldn't be surprised.

You don't know what to make of the power from last year with Santan. I know he elevated the ball more. It's not like a bray who's a lock for 30 every year either. Yeah. Okay. And then I just need to make one last point about Stanton. I'm sorry. Adam makes a point.

Scott, you call them a 260 hitter. His batting average has been so unpredictable. It's over 280. 280 or better in three of the last six seasons, but one of those six seasons was last year where he didn't play. Yeah, that doesn't count. But even two of the last five seasons batting 280 or better, he's, I guess, 260 seems like a good guess.

He's a 268 career hitter. Won't be a plus in batting average, but you just never know with him. He's unpredictable there. Okay, Chris, round eight, best and worst. Yeah, my favorite picks in round eight are Cory Kluber and Sunny Gray. We've talked a lot about Sunny Gray and how, you know, his stuff took a real step forward last season.

I think he kind of took some of the lessons he learned from the Yankees and applied it to the pitcher he already was. And I think it made him a much better pitcher. You talk about the second round, the second half runs that U.Darvish and Jack Flaherty have gone on last season. Well, Sonny Gray didn't have a lot of wins, but the Reds should be better. It seems like he's not getting credit for putting up a $290 ERA with,

he went over to $2. 200 strikeouts. It was like 220 strikeouts in 170-something innings. He was really good last season. And he's going in the same range as Mike Soroka, who is fine, but who, you know, profiles best as like a 160 strikeout guy in probably something like a best case scenario. I just think Sunny Gray is much more likely to be helpful than someone like Soroka. 205 strikeouts for Gray. Overall, how do you feel about the pitchers in this round? You just mentioned your two favorite picks are Klobler and Gray. Also, we have Woodruff and Soroka in this round.

This is a major skip for me. I do not like this range. And I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't like this range. I truly believe that everybody can evaluate all of these pitchers, look at the same exact data, and find guys you like. I might like one and you might dislike one. It is a personal preference.

I don't know what to make of Sunny Gray. I don't trust Sunny Gray. I didn't like Cory Kluber last year going into the draft, and I just think there's a chance that he's done being a good pitcher. Soroka, I don't believe in guys with low strikeout rates. I didn't like Miles Michaelis last year. So, you know, I don't, Stroke to me compares to Marcus Stroman.

He's not a guy that's ever going to go this high in drafts. And Woodruff is one-pitch pitcher, basically. So this to me is a skip round in terms of starting pitchers, but I totally understand if you love these guys. Scott, where do you land on these pitchers? Well, they're in the 37, so there's a very good chance. One of these pitchers is my number four. There have been leagues where Sunny Gray is my number three

because they feel that good about him in particular. Sunny Gray and Mike Soroka both got Syung attention last year. Corey Kluber has been a perennial Siongantantor. it's hard to say exactly how things are going to look for him this year but if you're talking about your number four starter it seems like a worthy gamble there

I just want to say I understand it doesn't make sense to expect strikeouts from Mike Soroka it's a bad idea to expect them but the guy's 22 years old He has four pitches. He impeccable control. He just never did.

He's never done it before. Right. He's 22 years old. Like, he's already so far ahead of pace for his age. Yeah, but he's still 500. He's always been one of the youngest guys at every level all the way up the minor league ladder. And he's dominated without the need to miss bats. So, like, I definitely think.

think he has the pitching acumen to figure out how to miss bats if he if the need to ever develops or maybe just even if the need doesn't develop like it's an aaronola situation where he's he could become a strikeout pitcher after not profiling as that originally i think it's possible i don't think aaroni's strikeout rate was as low in the minors i could be wrong chris but i just what's your least favorite pick of the round uh uh and I mean, it's getting kind of boring for me to pick the reliever, but in this case, I really don't like Liam Hendrix as a top 100 pick. I just buying into one great season for a reliever just seems like an easy way to get burned.

And I'm not going to do that. I think what I don't really understand is why people are buying into one great season from Liam Hendricks and not buying into the same extent to two great seasons from Taylor Rogers. Rogers' strikeout rate has not been great two seasons in a row. It was good, then it was great last year. But 263 ERA, 261 ERA. I think, if I remember off the top of my head, I think the whip was around one, both years.

And he goes after Hendricks, and he's like three closers later. Well, here's an even better one. Ken Giles was nearly as good as Liam Hendricks was pretty much in every possible way last season. He did deal with injuries. He's had four, like, stone cold elite seasons. He's had four seasons with an ERA of 230 or better. He's had four seasons with 11K per nine.

Yes, he's been inconsistent. Yeah. But, like, that's the reason why I don't see much value in drafts. leaving Liam Hendricks. We're a calendar year removed from him being a complete fantasy non-entity, and the athletics have had a different saves leader six years in a row now. Scott, who do you like better, Liam Hendricks or Taylor Rogers? I like Hendricks better. I mean, he showed last year the ceiling is higher, and while I understand And the risks, I think those are inherent to basically all closers.

And I don't feel like it's a situation like Blake Trine in a year ago where we're paying for him like the number two closer, even though that's what Hendricks performance probably merits. I mean, I know he was number two among full-time relievers in strikeout total behind only Josh Hader. So I'll go for Hendricks over Rogers. I find that I wind up with Rogers more often. but that's just because I don't like to pay for closers. By the way, comparison here. Mike Soroka's minor league career, 80 strikeouts per nine innings, Aeronola's 7.6 per nine innings.

Oh, Scott makes a point and a damn good one. Scott did finally make a point. I think it's just, yes, it's possible, but we're 571 innings into his career, It's not like it's a small sample size. And basically outside of 30 innings last season, or in 2018, 27 innings at AAA, he has never had a strikeout rate better than eight per nine since he was in rookie ball for 34 years. It's a bold prediction kind of thing.

Like I said, you can't draft him expecting that you're setting yourself up for disappointment if you do. but just as his career plays out, I'm saying don't be surprised if he figures out how to miss bats eventually. And Chris, round nine, I know Chris has to bounce in a few minutes, so quickly give us the best and worse of round nine. I love this round. It has so many guys that I like, but I'll start off with Nick Castellanos. I think, you know, he underperformed his expected stats basically every single season, and I think a lot of that was the result of playing in Comerica Park. which just has really deep power alleys and a really deep center field. Given his badded ball profile, I think he was especially harmed by that.

And I think playing in Cincinnati is going to be an absolute boon for his value. I could see something like a 300 average 35 homers and a ton of runs in RBI. He's been a big time doubles and triples hitter. Last two years, 46 doubles, five triples, 58 doubles, three triples, 58 doubles. So hopefully those doubles become home runs. What's the worst pick of round nine? I don't know. There's not really any picks that I don't like. The player that I've drafted the least, probably Ramon Luriano, actually. I'm not a big fan of him around the 100th pick. A lot of picks I don't like. There are several picks I don't like. I mean, yeah, I feel like there's a drop-off here.

in terms of upside. Let me read the round, actually. So we got Castiano's, Kenley Janssen, Mike Mustakis. I'm sorry, I should have been doing this from the start, so people weren't just guessing who was in the round. I apologize. It's on fantasy pros out there ADP.

Castianos, Kenley Jansen, Mustakis, Luis Robert, Marcello Zuna, Carlos Correa. Holy cow. Love that one. Ramon Luriano, Brad Hand, Taylor Rogers, and Zach Wheeler.

So, Scott, you think there's a drop-off in this round? And Eduardo Escobar and Tim Anderson. Oh, I stopped there. I'm sorry, yeah. Eduardo Escobar and Tim Anderson. And those are not, those are not picks I love either in this round, round nine. See, I really like Tim Anderson. I think there are five hitters going in this round who I could easily see finishing his top 25 hiters next season.

And Anderson's one of them? And Anderson's one of them, yeah, because there just aren't a lot of guys who are going to hit, who can hit 20 homers and steal 20 base. and I buy the improvements that he made as a hitter last season. I think obviously he's not going to sustain whatever it was a 390 something Babbitt, but I think he probably, based on what he did last season, at least probably profiles is more of like a 280, 290 hitter. I think the power gains were real.

And, you know, if he can hit 20 homers and steal 25 bases, which he pretty much did last season, even in less than a full season. Well, no, 2018, he did it. Last year he had 18 homers and 17 steals. Okay. But it was fully on the steel especially. Yeah, it was 123 games, yeah. He was on pretty close to that pace.

So I feel like most likely outcome, he and Ramon Luriano are similar. Most likely outcome is about 20 homers, 15 to 20 steals and a good bet. Good but not great batting average. Is that fair? Doesn't sound like a bad player. Sounds like a pretty good player. Maybe I should be open-minded there. Yeah, maybe I should be more open-minded there.

There are some really good hitters. I mean, Correa, I have never seen him go 100 in second. So we'll see about that. I think you have. Some of our mocks, he's fallen beyond like round 10. Or at least into round 10. Okay. I don't remember that, but that's too late for me for Correa.

What's my favorite Correa staff? Go ahead. I'll give a good Correa stat. Make your point. I agree. If you look at his per game production last year, he was an elite shortstop. He actually bounced back from a rough 2018. It's just, I guess people are frustrated by the injuries. And a back injury, especially that can be, that can be especially ruinous. I mean, it's really impacted the back end of Clayton Kershaw's career here.

Oh, yeah, Kershaw sucks. No, but you know what I mean. He's had D.L. Stens four of the past five years for his back. Yeah, yeah. So, Correa, this is the stat. In the last five seasons, I did minimum 280 of bats because that's what he had last year. He has ranked among short stops in OPS. He's been first, sixth, first, 18th, and third.

So he's been top three, three times. He's been top six, four times out of five years. And he just had a bad year in 2018. But that's not who he is. when healthy, when he's right, he's one of the best hitting short stops in baseball. And that's saying something because there are a lot of really good short stops. Bye, Chris. Bye, guys.

All right, Chris has the bounds. Eat some chef boyardee. Eat some smarties. Eat some sweet tarts. Something. I think I have a couple sweet tarts left. I'm going to have to go dig in the pocket of the pants I was wearing last night. Thank you.

Oh, wait. Real quick. You know how I love raisins so much? I found in my washing machine a loose raisin. That must have been How did you know it was a raisin? I saw it. It was actually a grape.

It was a raisin. It was definitely. You hydrated in the wash. A dime and a raisin fell out of one of my pockets. It just ended up being in the washing machine. That's gross. And it was delicious after I ate it. Okay, bye, Chris.

Scott, let's read some emails. That's not a lens cap in the washing machine yesterday. That's always fun. This is a fun game. What do we find in the washing machine? Yeah. All right. This is from Hugo.

Cool name, by the way, Hugo. Can you talk a little bit about Indians reliever James Carincha? I wish I know how to pronounce his name. I got to look that up. Corinchak, Karen Chack. He shot through the minors really fast. Had 80 strikeouts and 30 innings last year before getting a brief stint with the Indians.

Those strikeout numbers, even in the upper levels of the miners, seem legit. Even if he doesn't get the closer roll from hand, can he have a legitimate roto value with ratios and strikeouts similar to Josh Hater? This is James Karenchak for the Indians. And if not, who are some guys you think? could be the next hater. Yeah, I feel like I may have slept on James Karen chat, because I've seen him go in some of these larger rotissory leagues and thought,

huh, I need to look to that guy more. But, yeah, I mean, the strikeout rate was off the charts. And now that the guy they got in the Cory Kluber trade, whose name is escaping me, now that he's out for the year with an injury, they don't have a next in line, an obvious next in line. an obvious next in line to close. So I could definitely see Karen Chack becoming that.

So yeah, among middle relievers he seems like a viable target if you're in the sort of league that values middle relievers. I'm going to try to get his pronunciation. Manuel Clayce was the name I was thinking of. Okay. I'm going to read the next email here.

And then I'm going to listen to how his name is pronounced. It's very important thing for me. This is from Brandon. Or class A. Emmanuel Class A. Class A. Right. I was offered Trevor Story and Liam Hendricks giving up Story and Hendricks getting Garrett Cole and Eduardo Escobar. It's a 12-team points league. Should I do it? I also have Verlander, Kershaw, Morton, Montas, Yates, and Taylor Rogers. So that's a pretty good pitching staff. Would you give up Story and Hendrix for Cole and Eduardo Escobar?

Liam Harris. Well, he already has four of my 37. Is this a categories or a points league? Points league, yeah. I think you have to do it. Okay. I can't find this guy's stinking. Get cold while you can.

And next email. Scott and Rochester. I've got Grandal in my one-catcher league. Daily moves, 12-team Roto League with daily moves. 160 innings limit. We have eight bench spots, six IL spots. Would you take James McCann with your last pick in the draft and just slot him in on Grandals off days.

I don't like that strategy personally. It's, I don't feel like it's a rewarding enough use of a bench spot. I feel like you're going to need those bench spots or for other things. I mean, if this is a daily moves league, maybe there will be certain days when you could just pick up McCann and do it that day. Like if you have, if you feel like you have a roster spot, to play with, but I don't feel like that's a good long-term use of that

spot. I'm on MLB.com looking for videos. This is how I typically get pronunciations or I go to YouTube and I try to find interviews with guys. They have almost every pitch. They have a video of every pitch that this guy is making.

This is insane. They usually come up with a compilation video of his outing or a bunch of strikeouts or something. James Karenchak, ball to Bryce Harper. James Karenchak, foul to Bryce Harper. James Carrey Jack. Ball to Reese Hoppins. I don't want to see this. What are you doing? Who's going to look at that? One-pitched, eight-second video?

I don't know. How many views does it have? I don't know if I can find that out. Let's see the foul ball to Reese Hoskins video. How many views does this have? From September 21st, 2019. It's not telling me. Oh, yeah, he threw a pitch and it was fouled away. It was 98 miles per hour. What a video. What an experience. Daniel from Los Angeles. Would you trade? a $23 U. Darvish for a $1 Mike Soroka and a $2 $2. Max Kepler to be kept in a 12-team 6x Roto League with a 360 budget. Each team can keep up the 12 players. You're giving up a $23 Darvish. You're getting a $1 Soroka and a $2 Kepler.

360 budget. So that's a nice discount for Darvish, given how big the budget is. Usually we work with 260 and 23 would be about right, a little high, but about right in that scenario. But 360, that's a nice discount. Still, I don't, unless you're specifically worried about strikeouts, because the gap there could be pretty big between Darvish and Soroka, I don't feel like just in terms of overall expectations they're that far apart. So I would get the bigger discount there from Soroka and Kepler and deal Darvish.

Last question here comes from Dan, from somewhere near the Field of Dreams? Is that Borington, Iowa? I think that's where Field of Dreams was filmed. The most boring movie of all time. I thought you were actually naming a place. That's wherever Field of Dreams is Borington. Okay.

Dear Nando Al Heathen Hirk, the CBS Podcast Hall of Fame. Fellas, my league is a 12-team points league with an emphasis on innings and run prevention. Can you think of some mid-to-late-round pitch to target for the superior inning potential and run prevention, even if they don't have much K potential. Can you also talk about John Means and was his season for real? He was very useful in my league last year.

Well, part of the problem with this is that if you're, like, the pitchers who happen to prevent runs over a high number of innings without getting the strikeouts, they typically had good luck. It's not something you can bet on them doing again. And John Means, I feel like, would fall into that category. I feel like the best way a pitcher can overcome a low strikeout rate and still be effective is getting a lot of ground balls. And somebody like Brad Keller immediately stands out there. I'm not sure what the win potential is pitching for the Royals,

but he's pretty good in that regard. Well, Scott, I think there are two pitchers that immediately come to mind to me. I imagine they go too high in this league, though. I'm not sure. It would be Dallas Kiko and Marcus Stroman. Yep. In terms of innings. Both of those fit.

I mean, Dallas Kikles had trouble staying healthy, but start to start, he gives you a good seven innings with pretty good consistency. Miles Michaelis, maybe somebody to look into. He's going, he was falling because of an injury, but obviously he's going to be ready for the start of the year too. So, but just as a general rule, I would lock in on ground ball rate,

go look at the league leaders in that on fan graphs and maybe pick out some sleepers based on that. What about Merrill Kelly? He fit this? He's probably not going to have a rotation spot. Yeah. Well, he's he competing with Mike Leak. And he's not really a ground ball pitcher like the kind I'm talking about.

Okay. All right. Well, start there. Good advice. Good show. Thank you to Scott. Thank you to Chris. Thank you to all of you for listening.

I'm off tomorrow. Got to do a lot of stuff for CBS Sports HQ, which you should be watching. So please check CBS Sports HQ out. Download the CBS Sports. HQ app. And it's 24-7 streaming sports coverage the way you like it.

None of that ridiculous talk and loud mouths talking about stuff they don't know about. It's very smart coverage of sports. CBS Sports HQ. app. For Scott, for Chris, I'm Adam.

I'll see you Friday. Have a good one.