Fantasy Baseball Today - Player Profile: Sean Manaea Rebound with the Giants (2/18 Fantasy Baseball Today in 5)

Episode Date: February 18, 2023

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What went wrong with Sean Mania last year? We'll discuss on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5. Today is Saturday, February 18th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White, and we had a request for Sean Mania. That's exactly who we're going to talk about. Last year, Scott, I was all in on Mania,

and it did not work. He's now 31 years old. He signed a two-year deal with the Giants this off-season. Back in the Bay Area, came up with the Oakland A, so perhaps that helps him. with that familiarity, although he was in San Diego, so not that far. 158 innings with the Padres last year, 4.96 ERA, 1.30 whip. The underlying numbers, Scott, were a little bit better.

The walks went up. The velocity went down. Still gets a good amount of swinging strikes, but I'm out, Scott. Even with the ADP, you know, I think he's like around 400. He's free in drafts, even in late, you know, deeper, deeper leagues. But just someone who throws a 90s. one mile per hour sinker 60% of the time, I just don't really see how it's going to work out very well.

Yeah, it's hard for me to muster much enthusiasm for Sean Minaya. And while I wasn't as high as you on him last year, he was the player responsible for my tantrum when we did the live salary cap draft slash auction on the podcast, the full-length podcast last year. and I thought I was nominating. I thought I was bidding on Sean Monaya.

I was actually bidding on Sean Murphy, and I got mad because you guys want to let me redo it. I would have been better off with Sean Murphy in retrospect. Anyway, yeah, it's just like, you look at Sean Manaya's career track record here. 2021 looks like the outlier. It was the outlier in terms of how hard he threw,

and it was the outlier in terms of the results he got. Certainly the outlier in terms of how many strikeouts he got. The fact that the hitting environment became so much worse last year, the pitching environment so much more favorable across the league, and Sean Mania averaged allowed 1.7 home runs per nine innings. That's the worst he's ever done, and it was the year when home runs tanked. So it's just like, what does this guy have left?

The fact that his velocity declined. You know, the giants have worked some magic with these kind of cast-offs, these pitchers who at one point were thought to have upside, but it never really materialized. Guys like, I mean, Kevin Gosman, most notably, but Anthony Descliffeani, Alex Wood, Drew Smiley, even, Alex Cobb. They've had some success investing in pictures like this. So I can't rule out a return to form, a return to relevance for Sean Minaya,

but I'm not seeing concrete reason to speculate on that. I agree, Scott. I mean, there is a, you could paint a picture where it works out for Manaya. The Giants have done a good job increasing velocity for their pitchers too. So if we can get Manaya back up to 92, 93 miles per hour with the sinker, then it could work out. He still had a 12% swinging strike rate. And I think that's what people are looking at.

Scott still gets the whiffs, a good amount of whiffs, and he's going to a team that has typically had, that has done good work with their pitchers with the San Francisco Giants. So that's the case for, but I'm more so on the side of the case against Sean Mania this season. The ADP is actually much higher than I even thought, Scott. 256 for Sean Mania. What is going on?

Some names that are going after him. Hunter Brown is a younger pitcher who has upside. I've never seen. that in a draft. I've never seen Sean Mania go before Hunter Brown. Yeah. He's going around names like Tyler Malley, Sunny Gray. Nathan

Ovaldi, I still think, has some upside if he could stay healthy with the Texas Rangers. Trevor Rogers is going after him according to ADP. I think we'd pretty much have all rather have all those pictures, right, Scott? Yeah. All of those pitchers I would take over Sean Mania.

Gosh, who else? Like, let me see. Somebody going way after him. We just did an FBT and 5 on Hayden Wisniewski, right? So him and all those young pitchers are also going after Mania. Drey Jameson, Rwanzi Contreras, Brian Beyo is going after him.

Mackenzie Gore is going really late in drafts too. Kenta Maeda is coming back from Tommy John surgery. Like, I think I'd rather have all those names. I agree. I'd rather shoot for the upside than. Like, I mean, we're talking about, oh, maybe Sean Mania can return to 2021 form.

He had a 391 ERA in 2021. It was his best season. It wasn't the lowest ERA he's ever had, but if what was overall his best season was still nearly a 4 ERA, we're not talking about a particularly high ceiling, even if things go really right for

Sean Minia. So it's I see him as I see him more as a deep league's inning eater who could end up becoming a a serviceable 12-team option again. But I'm not counting on it. All right, that is Sean Mania.

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