Fantasy Baseball Today - Player Profile: How Much Will Alek Manoah Regress? (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 Podcast)

Episode Date: March 19, 2023

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Audacy App and wherever else podcasts are found. Alek Manoah was amazing last season but can he keep his ERA that low again? How much are we expecting him to regress? Is he overrated in terms of average draft position? Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Fantasy Baseball Today is a finalist in the Baseball Category for the Sports Podcast Awards! Quickly create an account and vote here: https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-baseball-podcast/ Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's do another player profile this time, Alec Manoa on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5. Today is Saturday, March 18th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White. And let's talk about Alec Manoa. This time, this one came in from actually one of our hosts. Scott chose Alec Manoa to talk about today on the show. And let's talk about him last year.

He was amazing. 2.24 ERA, 0.99 whip, tied for second in quality. He starts with 25 of them. He averaged the fifth most fantasy points per game. Scott, with all that being said, the ERA peripherals don't necessarily trust what we saw from Alec Manoa last season. What do you think about him this year?

And how much will he regress? So I like Alec Manoa more than the consensus. By the way, I chose him because you told me to name the first player who popped into my head. And that was it. So there wasn't an actual reason why we're talking about Alkmanoa. But I do like him more than the consensus. He is the 17th starting pitcher drafted on average. But for me personally, he is my 13th starting pitcher. I am willing to go with him

as my ace this upcoming season. Certainly he performed like that last year. However, the skepticism for him performing like that again is, as you point out, the ERA estimators were much higher than the actual 224 ERA. But Alec Manoa has a particular set of skills that I think is well suited for the direction the game is trending. So the juice ball is gone.

Fly balls are not as dangerous anymore. They're not as likely to result in home runs anymore. Being a fly ball pitcher is now more of a good thing, I think, than a bad thing because fly balls that aren't home runs, are almost always outs, or very often outs. And Alec Manoa is a flyball pitcher. He's a flyball pitcher who induces weak contact.

It's a very good combination. And I think a similar pitcher who profiles similar to lead to this is Nestor Cortez of the Yankees, who also had a sub-250 ERA last year, and also there's a lot of skepticism whether he can do it again. Given the skill set of these two, particular pitchers.

I think there's at least a path for them to come close to that ERA again. Maybe it doesn't happen. Maybe they end up performing more in line with their XERA, their X-Fit. That's still going to be a good ERA. Like if Alec Manoa's ERA was so low last year that if it rises

a full run, he's still going to be a really good pitcher. Is he going to be quite an ace? I don't know, but like it's not all hinging on the ERA for him. Because remember, as a rookie two years ago, Alec Manoa had 10.2K per 9

versus the 8.2K per 9 he had last year. Now, why did he drop 2K per 9? The stuff still looks about the same. I kind of think it may have just been a situation where he recognized he could afford to get

outs earlier in the count. He didn't have to go so deep into account because the damage on contact wasn't so bad anymore. So he just kind of leaned into it. So I think it's the sort of thing where the rising of the ERA, he'll have to

help control with rising of K's. I think he has some control over that. And wherever he winds up with his K rate and his ERA, it'll be a good place not knowing exactly where either of those specifically is going to be.

He has good control, 2.3 walks per 9 last year. he is durable. He is built to take on innings. He's a big guy. And in his 31 starts last year, only counted up beforehand. I think it was only four of the 31 were less than six innings. Is that right?

Or was it six? It wasn't very many. And he didn't have a single start of less than five innings last year. That's hard for anyone to do. And Alec Manoa did it last year. So that is certainly an ace-like quality he has. It's just a question of, you know, where will the final ERA be? Where will the final K-per-9 rate be?

And as I said, there's a lot of upside in both areas, even if it doesn't play out exactly like it did last year. This is going to sound like I think Alec Manoa is a bad pitcher, and it's far from that. I just think he is overvalued for fantasy this season, and there's a few reasons why. If the ERA jumps to over three this year, I think he'll still have a really good whip, right?

So low-whip, low-3s ERA, maybe eight and a half, nine strikeouts per nine. That sounds a lot like Joe Musgrove. Why is Alec Manoa going off the board at SP17 at pick 56.2? It's just like he should not be going ahead of Max Fried. Darvish has more strikeout potential. Luis Castillo has more strikeout potential.

I just think he's going to regress a little bit and as a result he might just be a touch overvalued. But he is a workhorse. I agree with that. He pitches for a good team. So there are things to like. Just think he's a touch overvalued. That is Alec Manoa.

Well, I think I think the, My answer to that would be, it feels like you're comparing Alec Munoa's downside to Joe Musgrove's upside. Yeah, there is a scenario where they have similar numbers, but that's what I say to that. I think it's Joe Musgrove's just normal season. That's like his expectation, right, is that he pitches to a low 3 ZRA, good whip. I think his upside is, you know, Joe Musgrove could be even better. I mean, we saw that in the, whatever, first half of 2021, I guess that would be. So I just think they're comparable pitchers at the end of the day.

As a result, Manoa's a little bit overvalued. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five, and we'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.