Fantasy Baseball Today - Player Profile: Is Jazz Chisholm Overvalued? (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. Jazz Chisholm was awesome last season but he only played 60 games. What should we expect with him moving to the outfield? Take Chisholm or Ozzie Albies in drafts? 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.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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 get you another player profile this time, Jazz Chisholm on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5. Today is Saturday, February 25th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White and a listener named Anthony. Wanted to hear more about jazz chisholm. So let's talk about the jazzy boy. He is awesome. When he's healthy, of course. Last year, 14 home runs, 12 steals while hitting 254, over just 60 games. That is a 35 home run, 30.

steel pace over 150 games. The problem, Scott, he only played those 60. Last year, it was a stress fracture in his back and a torn meniscus in his knee. He has yet to play more than 124 games. And now he's being shifted to the outfield. What are your overall thoughts on Jazz Chisholm this season? So others seem to be higher on him than I am. And the main reason I'm not high on him is because the durability issues are pretty

pretty much a bummer for me and I don't think he's being heavily discounted for them. So, you know, normally normally you see like Jose Altuvae and Marcus Simeon go in the round three range and I'd love to take him there

because there are so few high in second baseman. And then you might see Ozzy Albiz go in the round four range but you don't see Jazz Chisholm that far behind. So you have three highly durable and proven players going for what seems like a reasonable price tag at the position.

And then you have Jazz Chisholm, who's never even, you know, never played even 125 games in a season before. There will probably come a year where he does. Just because he started out injury prone doesn't mean he's going to be that way forever. But it just seems like you're whistling past the graveyard to take him presuming,

oh, there's going to be no health issues at all, based on the track record. So that's my own personal approach with Jazz Chisholm this year. If you felt around five, I might think about it, but he rarely does in my drafts, 12 team leagues. And as much as I like him, Scott, Jazz Chisholm, were you done with your thought? I don't even know if you were. No, I was about to pivot to a new thought, but go ahead. No, no, go ahead.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. So what makes Jazz Chisholm exciting now? I think the best way to put it, because I, okay, so 14 home runs and 12 steals and 60 games. Like just paste that out. You're talking potentially a 30, 30 player, 30 homer, 25, steel player, something like that. You understand the counting stats how that works and that he's providing that power speed

combo that's especially rare up the middle and even rarer at second base. And so I think the best way to sum it up is to look at points per game, had to head points per game, which is interesting because you wouldn't even think that's Chad's Chisholm's format. He's a big strikeout guy. So much of his game is speed. Those players tend to see their value suppressed in points leagues. But this will put it in perspective. So Jose Al-Tuvae had the most head-to-head points per game at second base last year, 3.61.

And if you eliminate anybody who had fewer than 300 at bats, the gap between Jose Al-Tuvae and number two at the position in head-to-head points per game, which would have been Marcus Simeon. It's the biggest gap at any position other than outfield where Aaron Judge was, of course, on a different planet from everybody else. But if you insert Jad's Chisholm back in, because you allow guys who have fewer than 300 of bats, suddenly becomes 3.61 for L2 of A versus 3.47 for Chisholm, much, much closer, and the clear number two at that, even in the format where maybe he's not... the format that doesn't seem to be optimized for a skill set.

And you might wonder, how is that possible? Well, it's all those home runs and steals. He's made some slight improvements to the strikeout rate down a little bit last year. The walk rate was up, and he crushes the ball. I mean, we don't really see this from second baseman. As hard as he hits the ball, the barrel rate for Jazz Chism, it is great. A decision you'll have to make, Scott, and I'm pretty sure you already answered this question, but if anyone's wondering, Ozzy Albee's versus Jazz Chisholm, which way are you going?

Yeah, I'm going Albiz for some to. But I know Albies had his health issues last year, a couple of broken bones. So kind of fluke occurrences, not the kind of things you worry about recurring. And prior to that, he was Teflon and fantasy. Very durable, very consistently high-end production. You do worry a little bit, and I know this is not, we're not breaking down Ozzy Albies here. You do worry a little bit about whether his. relatively low quality of contact will play as well in this environment,

since we didn't see a full season of the bats from him last year. It's still an open question. But what we did see from him came early when it was cold and nobody was hitting. So I just kind of throw out the numbers out, throw those numbers out and start all over with Ozzy Albies. And what I see there is a very strong, durable track record. And I like both of these guys, too. I'd be fine with either one of them.

I think I prefer the upside of jazz. And you can get them in the fourth round. So if you start your draft with two hits, hitters and then maybe a starting pitcher, you can get Jazz as your third hitter on your team. You already have that pretty safe floor built in with the two hitters before him. So I do like to attack it that way if you want Jazz Chisholm on your teams. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify. Apple Podcasts the Odyssey app or anywhere else podcasts are found.

Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today and Five. And we'll be back again on Monday. Bye-bye.