Fantasy Baseball Today - Players We Haven't Talked Enough About & Jared Jones' Injury! (3/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Jared Jones is getting a second opinion on his elbow injury (2:50). ... News (8:36): Freddie Freeman was out again for game two. ... Spencer Schwellenbach was amazing against the Yankees (16:13). ... Did we learn anything from the Dodgers-Cubs series (24:43)? ... Let's get into the players we haven't talked enough about, starting with Josh Jung (29:36). ... Rhys Hoskins is having a big spring (33:08). ... Spencer Arrighetti is walking too many (39:16). ... Does Christian Encarnacion-Strand have a role (43:42)? ... Heliot Ramos has legit power metrics (48:24). ... Fade Lane Thomas (53:10)? ... Matt Wallner is a name to target in daily leagues (57:14). ... We wrap up with rapid-fire players to talk about (1:01:26). 🏀 Join our Fantasy Baseball Today Bracket Game: https://shorturl.at/zezZC Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome 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, @CPTowers @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 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today 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

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. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Every offseason, there are certain players that just seem to fall through the cracks. Let's talk about those.

Welcome into fantasy baseball today on Thursday, March 20th. I am Frank Stamfield, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, players we haven't talked enough about. The Cubs Dodgers two-game series is over. We'll take a look at that. But first, it certainly seems like we have another big pitching injury, and let's get right into it. Jared Jones was scratched from his final spring start

as he's dealing with right elbow discomfort. Apparently he felt it in his most recent bullpen session and is already going for a second opinion, which is always ominous. Chris, is he just off our draft boards until we learn more? No. You can select him in the reserve rounds

or with one of your final picks of your draft. And I think he went for two or three dollars in an auction that I'm doing tonight that is somehow still going on. And that's probably a wasted two or three dollars. But if it's the Gavin Wagon. Williams injury from last year and he comes back in June or July and you get three decent months out of Jared Jones. I think it's fine. It's a little worrisome. I mean, just beyond the

fact that his elbows hurt, it's very worrisome. But what I mean is that if you looked at what, at how Jared Jones pitched last year, I looked this up today. No pitcher in baseball had a larger drop off. No starter had a larger drop off between their average first inning velocity. For him, it was 98.7. miles per hour and his fifth inning velocity which was 96.4. His average fastball dropped 2.4 miles per hour from the fifth to the fourth, first to the fifth inning in his starts last year. Only one other starter was even above 1.7 miles per hour. So.

I just won't even find this information. You can do a search on baseball savon and then you got to do a V lookup in Excel and it's a whole goodness. Well, I'm impressed. 30 seconds. But yeah. it would have taken me 30 minutes but I'm that that's that's interesting

what scares me most about it is the second opinion like normally you don't go for a second opinion if the first opinion is exactly what you want to hear that's yeah the first opinion's usually not hey your elbow's great yeah the director of sports medicine for the pirates did say I don't I don't want to be an alarmist which maybe maybe was a hint that it's not a worst case scenario, but that's really all I can cling to right now if I want to be optimistic.

I moved him. I moved Jared Jones behind like Grayson Rodriguez and Sean Mania. But I'd be just because I was trying to find a middle ground, you know, but I'd be much more reluctant to draft him if I was drafting right now than those other two. Yeah. And especially for a pitcher who throws extremely hard, as you pointed out, Chris, and uses his slider as much as he does. And he throws that pitch hard too.

So those two things in conjunction. Doesn't feel great right now for Jared Jones. We'll wait to learn more. But if you're drafting in the next couple days before we find out, yeah, maybe just wait until one of the final picks of your draft before you select Jared Jones. Who is next up for the Pirates? Well, I think the one we would want most for fantasy is Bubba Chandler,

who's one of their top prospects. But Pirates Beatwriter, Noah Hiles, speculated that Thomas Harrington might get the first shot. He's another prospect. He's still in Major League Camp. Bubba Chandler has already been sent down to minor league camp. They could easily change those things, I guess, if they wanted to. But, you know, maybe they want an extra year of control, whatever it might be.

Thomas Harrington, he was good last year in the minors, a 261ER. ERA.96 whip. Known more for a command, kitchen sink type approach. He's 23 years old. Scott, if Jared Jones is out for a lengthy period of time, do you have any interest in Thomas Harrington? or are you just hoping that it's Bubba Chandler who gets to call? I'm hoping it's Bubba Chandler.

Thomas Harrington could be useful, but he is the lower upside higher floor guy who didn't crack my top 100 prospects. Came close. Harrington was in consideration for that. The numbers in the minors last year were really good, but, you know, particularly for a minor leaguer, you want to see the missed bats most of all. and Harrington falls a little short in that regard.

Worth monitoring if he does get a look, but not somebody I'd be rushing out to the waiver wire to pick up outside of really deep leagues. So, I mean, if you're drafting in the next couple of days, Scott, are you looking to use a reserve round pick on Bubba Chandler just in case? I mean, it depends how deep the league is. Would I go for Bubba Chandler over, what's a guy who's been rising lately?

Griffin Canning? Probably over Griffin Canning, but I want to do it over like Richard Fitz. So Chris mentioned in his reserve rounds Michael Soroka or Max Meyer. Would you take Bubba Chandler over both of those? I would not take him over Soroka. I'd consider it over Meyer. Meyer has the Marlins disadvantage. What about Jeffrey Springs?

In a shallow league, I might just gamble on the upside pick Chandler, a shallow league where I think Springs is going to be fringy all year. than I might gamble on Chandler. But standard size leagues, deeper leagues, I'd stick with springs. Chris, did Bubba Chandler get drafted in the auction you're doing? No. Well, take him in the reserve rounds, dude. I do have one more reserve round pick.

Please take him just in case. Let's see what happens. Oh, wait, no, he did get picked. Ah. In the auction or in the reserve rounds? In the reserve. Gotcha. I don't think it'll be Chandler who replaces Jones for what it's worth.

I think Chandler will be up at some point this season, just probably not opening day. even with this injury. So again, Jared Jones, dealing with right elbow discomfort, we'll wait to learn more, but going for a second opinion, it sounds pretty ominous as of now. Freddie Freeman missed both games in Tokyo with that rib injury.

Not overly surprising. Dave Roberts said he expects Freeman to play in their domestic series, their first domestic series against the Angels. Ranger Suarez has been scratched from his next start due to mild back stiffness. Suarez went on the IEL last year with back soreness as well. Yeah, that's, that's concerning. for a guy who was already pretty fringy.

I threw him out there in my auction tonight for $2. It got real close to me ending up with him, and I would not have been happy with that. Somebody did go three, so it worked out. Yeah, and I don't think we have nearly as fun of an option to replace him. It probably would be Taiwan Walker. Swarres. Who got booed in a spring game today.

Jose Al-Tube will indeed open the season as the Astros' primary left fielder, and good luck to them. He has made some bad plays. He dropped another fly ball here on Wednesday. That does. And they don't, it's not like they have some great option ready to go at second base. I don't.

He was bad at second base. Really bad. Third percentile, third percentile outs above average. And they have a lot of ground ball pitchers. But at least he, he's not embarrassing himself on routine plays. Like it's happening in left field. I'm going to, I think he's going to be fine. Okay.

I'm not that worried about this. It's been multiple flubs. Yeah. It'll happen. It means he will gain outfield eligibility, but I imagine most people want to use Altuva at second base for fantasy anyway. DeBax manager, Tori Lavulo, said he won't name a closer before the start of the season and will instead play matchups.

That means Justin Martinez and AJ Puck will both kind of cannibalize each other's fantasy value unless one of them emerges. Do you guys have a preference? Yeah, that's what I got from the report. They just haven't decided yet, and they're going to let it play out. and I have them back to back in my relief pitcher rankings with Martinez ahead, since he's the right-hander and the incumbent. He has those two advantages.

But I think by the end of April, one will clearly pull ahead of the other. I do think both are in play in Saves Plus Holes League. So if you play in that format, you should be drafting Justin Martinez and A.J. Puck. Christian Walker is on track to return to game action this weekend. He's been dealing with a sore oblique since early March, but has been swinging a bat. Zach Geloff left after getting hit by a pitch on his right hand. He'll undergo X-rays to learn more. Manager Marc Conte said he believes Geloff will be fine, hopefully.

Renele Blanco left Wednesday after taking a line drive off his right wrist. He told reporters afterwards that he's fine. Alex Cora reiterated that Tristan Kossis will be an everyday player against both lefties and righties, which is great for his counting stats. Hopefully he's not so bad against lefties that it plummets his batting average. Mason Wynne is aiming to return to spring games on Friday. He's dealing with right wrist soreness. Paul Goldschmidt also aiming to return on Friday.

He's dealing with a back injury. Jurekson ProFar scheduled to return to the lineup on Thursday. He's been out dealing with a bone bruise in his left wrist. We didn't get to this yesterday. I don't think it matters too much. But the Braves signed Craig Kimball to a minorly contract on Tuesday. Don't think there's any fantasy value, right? Something will have to go wrong.

Very wrong. If Craig, like the plan is to bring him up as soon as he's ready to come up. I imagine if he's walking everybody inside at AAA, that plan will change. The minor league deal gives the Braves some flexibility in that regard. But the stated plan is we're going to get him ready to go at AAA and then we'll call him up, which means I presume Kimbril would be the backup plan for saves if something happened to a Glacius. I did my bullpen breakdown for all 30 teams yesterday, and I put him second in the pecking order for saves for the Braves.

So they really not have anybody else they can go to? The leading candidate would probably be Dylan Lee, who's a left-hander. There's also Pierce Johnson. But yeah, their bullpen depth is kind of thinned out with the, oh, I can't think of his name. The guy who got injured, who was their main setup man last year, Jimenez. Yeah, Joe Mase. Joe Jimenez, yeah. The Rangers signed Patrick Corbyn to a one-year

major league contract on Tuesday. Last year, Corbyn posted a 562 ERA and a 150 whip. He is pretty much toast, but when he's ready, I assume he'd take a spot from one of Jack Leiter or Kumar Rocker if they are not performing, only because this is a major league contract. Maybe you guys feel differently, but not that we care about Patrick Corbyn,

but it could take a spot from somebody else. I think that's the likeliest outcome, just because I think the likeliest outcome is by the end of April, one or both of Kumar Rocker or Jack Leiter just doesn't look great. So I think it's entirely possible, maybe even likely that that's the case. It's just, I don't know, if they're good enough, I don't think Patrick Corbyn's going to take the job from them. You know, I do think they have a chance to run away with it.

it's just they may not. All right, before we hit our first break, just a reminder, this is your last chance to get in our FBT bracket challenge. The tournament starts today when you are listening at noon Eastern Time. Enter the bracket challenge for the chance to win a new Nissan Armada

and trips to the 2026 Final Four. You can also play in men's and women's pools with friends and join our FBT pool. If you were in it last year, you're automatically in again, just make your picks. If you want to join the bracket game, go to cbsports.com slash baseball. You can also find the link in the episode description.

The winner of our FBT bracket will get a one-year subscription to Paramount Plus for free. Get the CBS Sports app to start filling out your brackets, no purchase necessary, see terms and rules for details. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this quick commercial break. Welcome back in. Let's quickly run through some standouts from Wednesday's action. Spencer Schwellenbach. six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts

against a mix of Yankees, starters, and backups. He had 21 whiffs on 78 pitches, eight of those on the slider. This dude is a stud. I am so excited for Spencer Schwallembach. Eight of those on the slider and multiple swinging strikes on four other pitches. So, yeah, he's looked great this spring.

We liked him coming in. Of course, there was the fear. Just because he came on so suddenly last year that there would be some regression. Doesn't look like it. Schwellenbach looks like he might just live up to all the hype. This weekend, it will be very interesting to see where those two brave starters go. Schwellenbach and Spencer Strider, I think the helium is going to get crazy this weekend. Jacob de Grom through four innings, two runs three strikeouts.

His fastball averaged 95.5 miles per hour down almost two miles per hour compared to where it was last year. which was already town from a couple of years ago. So I understand he wants to throw with less velocity, but this is a lot less velocity. We're talking like three, four miles per hour less on his fastball. So that would be something to watch. Can I just, you guys don't actually think Spencer Schwabach should be moving up, right? I don't, but people will see this.

No, I'm just making sure because like I get that people might, but I like, we know, like there's nothing new here. He got a lot of whiffs last year. very good. I agree. I moved them up my rankings personally a couple days ago just because I want to give myself an opportunity to get him. And he's going higher than I would like in a lot of draft. So I think I moved them up to 20th at starting pitcher frank. You've got him ahead of Bailey Ober and Bryce Miller. All the way in. And Max Fried. Yep. That's so so he already did move him up, Chris. It seems like. Well, and that before this start. Before the start. Before the start. Before the start. Before you draft him, I think is fine. I'm, I'm talking more

about, oh my goodness, he had 10 strikeouts and six innings against a mixture of Yankees, starters and minor leaguers. Like, that would be not great process. It's just a great start. And I felt like we didn't point it out. It's more the under the hood stats. Right. But we knew.

But like what I'm saying is like this is not an example of us learning something new about Spencer Schwall. No, but I feel like the original ranking had to safeguard against the possibility that he was just too good to be true last year. And I think not just this start, but everything he's shown this spring would suggest. Nope, he's exactly as good as he looks last year. Yeah, so if you needed one extra push to trap Spencer Schwellenbach, maybe that was it. Gavin Williams, four and a third, three runs, five strikeouts, 11 whiffs on 80 pitches,

but a lot of hard contact, 93.2 mile per hour average exit velocity, and his fastball was down a touch from last year after being up earlier in spring. So, Scott, what do you think? is the enthusiasm waning a little bit on Gavin Williams? No, I checked. Actually, Chris and I were conferring about this before the show. The induced vertical break on Gavin Williams, 17 inches, that's the number you want to see.

He got a ton of whiffs on the curveball this time instead of the fastball. The effectiveness of the fastball is what has excited me most about Gavin Williams. But the shape was still there. down a little. We've seen velocity down for a lot of pitchers this last turn. He was stretching to 80 pitches Gavin Williams did in this start, which is a lot. But overall, he was effective. He allowed a two-run Homer. Otherwise, he was very effective. All right. I'm just going to run through the rest of these. And if you want to touch on any of them afterwards, feel free. Jordan Hicks, five and two-thirds, one run, three strikeouts, zero walks. Sinker velocity up 2.9 miles per hour. Splitter

was up almost four miles per hour in this one, maybe feeling a little bit of pressure from Hayden Birdsong and Landon Rupp there. David Peterson, five shutout innings with four strikeouts. He's a name we haven't really talked about, but he's had a great spring. 15 and 2 thirds shutout with 12 strikeouts. That's after ending last season, very strong.

Carlos Carrasco, sorry Chris, just going to bring it up. Five shutout with three strikeouts, only three whiffs on 54 pitches. No stat cast for Shane Smith of the White Side. but he threw four shutout innings with two strikeouts in a revenge game against the Brewers. Cam Smith added again, two for four with his fourth home run. Ben Rice added again, hit another home run.

This one, 110.3 exit velocity. And Victor Scott added again. Third home run of the spring. I'm getting Victor Scott. Yeah, that's surprising. I'm not sure if that's a fake out with the power there for Victor Scott. But I am getting pretty excited about Ben Rice. I have to say, who was a world beater in the minors?

It's worth noting. I'm not sure we talked about that. His numbers there were ridiculous the past two seasons. And look, his expected stats were pretty solid last year. I know he hit like 170, but the expected batting average was closer to 240. The expected slug was like 460. Yeah, I expected was 340, I think, which is a well above average mark. Left-handed hitter who knows how to elevate and pull the ball, playing half his games at Yankee Stadium.

I'm not sure how high to put him in the first base rankings. You got to factor in the likelihood of him sitting against lefties. I have him further down than I want him to, but it's one of those situations where you could make the argument to put him ahead of Andrew Vaughn, for instance. Sure. Or Jamer Candelario. Here's one.

Would you rather have him or Spencer Torkelson or Tyler Soderstrom? Who would you rather have of those three? I would take Rice last of the three. I have Rice right in between the two. We don't actually know that Torkelson has a job, right? No, we don't. He's last of the three for me. I think it seems pretty likely he's going to be their DH to open the season.

I mean, he's played right field, right? Yeah. Yeah, they've been trying to acclimate him to write. So, yeah, I think there's a chance, or a very good chance that he's on the roster. I don't know if he's going to be an everyday player, but I'm not sure any of those guys are going to be everyday players. anyway. I did do my bold predictions for every team yesterday. And my bold prediction for the Yankees,

Ben Rice is second on the team in homers. Wow. Yeah, I'm going to move Torkelson up. Spicy. I'm moving them. They're in the, I'm moving them to 28, 29, and 30 with Soderstrom, Rice and Torkelson in that order at first base.

So like, these are still reserve round picks, but I think they're pretty interesting. It's difficult to juggle. the in a shallow you know the purely deep league options

like Luke Rayley and Josh Bell who obviously we want to go four to 12 team league but anything deeper than that you have to

give them preferential treatment to the guys you really don't know what they're going to do and so that's the difficulty in ranking Rice and Torkelson

yep do you guys have anything on Shane Smith, Carrasco David Peterson Jordan Hicks Smith, Hicks, and Carrasco are all just, uh, or no, sorry, Peterson, Carasco and Hicks, I think are all just streamers.

I have a little bit of hope Shane Smith can be there, but I'll admit it's very much just a, he hasn't proven, he's just a streamer yet. But whatever, if they have good matchups early in the season, they might be worth a reserve round pick, but I would, I would much rather take a chance on. any of the late round guys we've talked about over the course of the last few weeks, you know, Max Meyer, Richard Fitz, any of those guys who are like seeing a velocity jump this season or this spring have a new pitch, something like that, just in case, because there will be David Peterson's available on waivers.

I'm not worried about like missing the boat on David Peterson or Jordan Hicks, right? All right. We got the two game series between the Dodgers and the Cubs. in the books. In game one, Yamamoto against Imanaga, both looked pretty good. Yamamoto, five innings, one run, four strikeouts. Imanaga's control was shaky, four walks,

but he threw four no-hit innings with two strikeouts. Tanner Scott got the save in that first game. In game two, neither Roki Sasaki nor Justin Steele was good. Sasaki three innings, one hit, one run, five walks to three strikeouts. He did average 98 miles per hour on his fastball. He topped out at just over 100. Justin Steele, four innings, five runs, two homers allowed in that one.

Otani homered because, of course, he did. And then it was Alex Vescia who got the save in the ninth inning. I guess they don't want to work Tanner Scott back-to-back days here in just a two-game series. And Kirby Yates pitched in the eighth, facing six, seven, and eight in the Cubs lineup. Alex Vescia faced the top of the lineup. So just thought it was a little bit interesting. Any thoughts on the two-game series? Yeah, that was weird with the bullpen usage for what,

worth Kirby Yates, eight whiffs on 21 pitches. He looked unbelievably good. So he, yeah, he looks like he's going to pick up where he left off last year. And if that happens, he's going to be the number two option for saves despite the weird usage in this one. I don't worry about Tanner Scott not doing it. I think just he's not ready to go back to back days yet. Makes sense.

It's mid-March. And, yeah, don't, don't put too much stock in Alex Vescia. He's a fine middle reliever. but I don't think he's going to get many saves. I wouldn't put too much into the usage in any of these games, right? Like, these are, they count, but I think for all intents and purposes, they're exhibition games, right? Like, we saw Michael Conforto wasn't in the original lineup. Kike Hernandez played first base today.

Like, this is, I don't want to draw too many conclusions. That being said, the last. last two Roki Sasaki starts have been very underwhelming and have highlighted a lot of the concerns that I have with him, which one, I think in this one, the command was so bad that that's probably not going to be a consistent issue for him.

I wonder if he was overthrowing to get it up to 98. And because, I mean, the whole, that's clearly on his mind. When he was marketing himself to teams, he was asking them, how can I get my fastball back? Yeah. And it wasn't there in his,

most recent spring start. It's, you know, it's a big moment. His MLB debut coming in Tokyo in front of a Japanese crowd. Like that's a big moment.

So like him being amped up, that would make sense. I don't want to hold it against him too much. But he threw one splitter in the strike zone. And I know splitters are generally chase pitches that you're trying to throw out of the strike zone. But like I looked at Kevin Gosman, Shodimunaga,

and who's another guy who throws a splitter a lot. I looked at three of them, like the three highest, oh, Yamamoto. And their splitter usage, their splitter zone rates last year were between 30 and 40%. So like a 7% zone rate is especially poor, even though you're generally throwing it.

And like his splitter is so weird with like 500 RPMs of spin. It kind of is a knuckleball in some ways for him. But, you know, half the. time it goes glove side half the time it goes arm side i just think command might be a problem i i've been down on him but i kind of like just kept him around 35 in the rankings and his seasons already started and it might seem like me overreacting to one poor start i kind of wish i had just put him at like 50 at starting pitcher because i just don't really think the upside's going to be there the adp is still very high over the past week at the nfbc 92 point

for Sasaki, that's ahead of Bailey Ober, Max Freed, Aranola, Hunter Green, Tanner Bybee, Logan Webb. All of those guys have, well, not all of them, but a bunch of those guys either have really high per inning upside, but questions about their workload. Like Tyler Glass now is going in that range or a little ahead of him, Hunter Green, like you mentioned, or they're really safe, projectable arms

who are going to get 80, 70 more innings, than Roki Sasaki. So yeah, I wish I had to have... None of us rank up that high. No, I wish I had had the courage to rank him lower. All right, anything else on two-game series, or good to move on. Let's go.

Got a lot of players to talk about here. That's right. Players, we haven't talked enough about, and I surveyed the good people of Twitter X, and I asked which players you want to hear about, and I got so many responses. Thank you. And I think I wrote, I don't know, 30 names on this rundown.

We're not going to get to all of them, but we'll try our best. Let's start with Josh Young, who had the strong 2023, continuously deals with injuries to his right wrist. He had surgery in April of last year, and then he had another surgery on that same wrist in October. Not really having the best spring, 15 strikeouts in 45 at bats. Chris, I feel like in the past, this is someone that you have liked. This is an undervalued target. what do you think about right now on Josh Young? I think the ADP is right around 200.

This is someone throughout the process, there's just been a nagging thing in the back of my mind. Like, shouldn't you be higher on him? Because when he was healthy in 2023, he was on a 30-homer 100 RBI, like 95-run pace. He was having a really good year. And then at the end of the year, two years ago, 2023. He got hit by a pitch.

I think it fractured his wrist. he's just dealt with a ton of injuries but it's been a lot of like broken bones at least two of the most serious injuries and possibly a third one in the minors he had a torn laborman his shoulder a couple years ago yeah that was the one that derailed the start of his major league career

and he is 27 so he's not like super young so I no he's Josh young no he is well he's the better young so relatively speaking is super young But yeah, I do still think there's 30 homer upside here in a really good lineup. And the cost is so cheap that there have been times including tonight where I was down to my corner infield spot. And the only problem tonight was Michael Toglio was available.

And you guys know I'd love him. I rank him a lot higher. So that was why I went with Toglia. But if not, I would have taken Young. If Toglia had gone earlier, I would have taken Young. I'm on the opposite side with you on Young. I think he raised questions about performance for the first time last year in addition to not being able to stay healthy. And he's a really bad plate discipline guy, which always makes for a much lower floor than a good plate discipline guy.

And I just find if I need a corner infielder at that point, I'm just waiting for somebody else to take him. so I can look at some of the options that come later. In fairness, he was three for eight with a home run. Or no, sorry, he had two home runs in his first three games last year, or first four games last year. And then he got hurt. He had a wrist injury and didn't play against until July. So if you're going to have performance issues,

if I'm waiting for you to prove it over and over again, and it keeps getting worse. But he did prove it. Like, he was really good in 20. It was two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I just, it's two surgeries later.

Yeah, no, I get it. I just think if you're ever going to give someone a pass for performance concerns, a bunch of fractures in your hand and wrist

over the course of, what, eight month span would be a pretty good explanation. Well, we got another corner infielder coming up here that goes later and that I like more and that I think is much more proven.

Can I just say the name, Frank? Yes, you certainly can. Reese Hoskins. Talk about it. is somebody that I've moved way up this spring. Agreed, yeah. Yeah, and this is a guy who prior to last year, really for his entire career in Philadelphia,

he was a mid-round target, even in shallower leagues. He was somebody you'd, you know, he wasn't a top-tier first baseman, but he was somebody you'd always be satisfied as your starter at first base, safe bet for 30 homers, and a not-so-bad batting average in points leagues he gave you walks.

and very consistent in that regard. First year in Milwaukee didn't go so well. And he wasn't even an everyday player by the end. And so my initial ranking for Rees Hoskins, not knowing what the next stage of his career looked like, I had him buried. But then he's come back to the spring. He's looked amazing.

Six home runs in 11 games. The plate discipline's been great. And it gets you thinking, okay, remember Ronald de Cunia's first year back from a torn ACL. His power kind of suffered. too. It's not something that players just return from seamlessly. Maybe Hoskins just needed more time to feel 100%. And he looks 100% now. Certainly has a clear path to playing time with the Brewers. Why couldn't he resume who he was in Philadelphia? So he goes over the weekend, he was going about 235 in NFBC drafts. I think it's great value. He is a, Like, if I get burned at first base, I wouldn't feel so terrible about having him as my starter there. Let's let me put it this way, I guess.

Ryan Mountcastle's kind of been my go-to-in-field option in Roto leagues. But I find more in drafts as time goes on, I'm willing to pass up Mountcastle where he goes because I know Reese Hoskins and also Max Muncie, for that matter. I'll lump him in there too, are available later. both of them are another reason why I just can't get excited about Josh Young for what it's worth. That's exactly the point I was going to make. Josh Young is going around 200 and you've got Reese Hoskins and Ryan Malkassel go in 30, 40 picks after that. And even some other serviceable corner infielers that are going even later.

So I just don't ever really feel the need to go in and take Josh Young. I can see how it works out. He's 27 years old. He's in the middle of a really good Rangers lineup. But there is injury risk and it just doesn't feel worth it where Josh. Young is going right now. Garrett Mitchell is a name that I would like to talk about. He is a former

top 100 prospect who's dealt with some injuries, a left shoulder subluxation in 2023, a fractured finger last year, but in 69 games he hit 255 with eight home runs, 11 steals in 812 OPS. He definitely has his warts. He strikes out a lot. I get that.

I'm intrigued here, Scott. Expect the back cleanup, play every day, 95th percentile sprint speed, and I'll let you in on a little secret. Garrett Mitchell visited Drive Line this offseason. Zach Moraine is a listener of this podcast who works at Drive Line, and he sent me an email this offseason, and he told me Mitchell went there to work on his bat speed and launch angle.

I'm intrigued. I am intrigued by Gary Mitchell. Yeah, I mean, I wish the results of that work showed a little more in his spring stats. He's homered once in 41 plate appearances. It's a small sample. It doesn't necessarily mean. He hasn't learned to tap into his power more. But the exit velocities are middling for Garrett Mitchell.

You said the strikeout rate is high. The strikeout rate is horrendous. Really high. Like 32% last year. That was his career best as a major leaguer. And you've got to be like massive power hitter to overcome a strikeout rate that high. It doesn't look any better this spring for what it's worth. 16 strikeouts and 41.

Blade appearances. Same old. Same old there. for for gara mitchell he's fast but he gets hurt a lot and i think that that stolen base category i mean even for as fast as he is he hasn't always been i guess 11 steals and you know he's on kind of like a 30 steel pace last year so yeah i guess i guess you could draft him expecting steals i don't know what else you can expect though and i don't know how long he'll stay healthy and if he hits as poorly as I think he might,

I don't know how long he'll stay in the lineup. I also just like he went to drive line to work on his bat speed. And it might be true, but that doesn't mean it's going to work. Like we see this every off season. Ty France went to drive line and worked on his bat speed last year. And it's true. Austin Hayes we were talking about recently.

Someone like reworked their swing and they had to go back. Brandon Drury went to. went to one of the like Ty Francis he's reverting this year yeah like it didn't work last year

and not to like pull that one specific because there are a bunch of offseason places wherever like these are professionals making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year with hundreds of millions of dollars

at stake in potential future earnings of course they're working out in the offseason it would be newsworthy if a player didn't spend some time in some kind of garage or warehouse working with high tech equipment. So it's just, I'm just not going to like give the benefit of the doubt for that kind of thing. You've got to see the results of that work for it to mean anything.

Yeah. I do think there is a little bit more playing time upside here because the brewers just don't really have much depth. Even if you look at their farm system, they don't, their bench is bad. Their farm system, they don't really have outfielder. So I think there's a pretty long leash here for Garrett Mitchell. I totally understand. the strikeouts and but he's going like the ADP is 270 he's a 68th out there's a fine dice

roll I think it's yeah I think there's a chance he goes 20 20 this year and he's hitting in the middle of a an okay brewer's lineup yeah I got a lot of requests for Spencer argetty who we spoke about a lot earlier in the off season and then we just kind of stopped so I guess yeah let's talk about him again because he was a breakout for each of us he's also walking everybody this spring so yeah that's the last thing you want to see it it is spring so I don't I don't want to pay much attention to it, but because that is the single biggest thing that could sink Arogati, it's hard not to notice it.

And maybe it'll be gone by the time the regular season starts. I mean, spring trainees for getting ready. So I don't, I think mainly what's happened, why he's gone from being an industry darling to kind of this afterthought is just other pitchers have taken. taking our attention away from him. They've dazzled this spring and forced us to look into them more and forced us to talk about them more.

Well, Arroghetti's just, you know, he's walked some guys and he's kind of just plotted along. So he's been overshadowed this spring and has kind of gotten pushed down in terms of of hype because of it. But to renew the hype, final 10 appearances last year, Spencer Erigetti had a 272-ERA-1-17,

whip 11.4k per nine. His secondary arsenal gets a lot of whiffs. If he doesn't lean on the fastball too much, and if he throws enough strikes, there's a potential for him to be an impact pitcher this year. And I haven't lowered him in my rankings based on the walks. Yeah, I haven't seen much stack has stayed on him this spring. But yeah, I'm not moving him down because he has,

what is it, nine walks in 14 innings. It's too small of a sample size. And what we don't know is, is he working on something? Maybe. And that could just explain it. And if that's the case, then it really wouldn't be anything to be concerned about at all. So like, he's not fighting for a rotation spot. So I'm not going to put too much of an onus on results here.

What he should be working on, Chris, is throwing strikes. It's 12 walks and 12 and a third. It's bad. Yeah, that's bad. That's a lot. The ADP for Spencer Arrogati is 200.5. He's the SP 58. Would you guys rather have Arrogatee or Spring riser, Gavin Williams?

Erickety. Well, Gavin Williams is like my favorite spring riser, so I'm going to say Gavin Williams. What about Arrogati or Scott's second favorite riser? Clay Holmes. Arrogati for me, but probably Holmes for Scott. I have moved Clay Holmes into the good glob. So, yeah, Holmes. All right, let's take a quick break, and we will talk about more players right after this commercial break.

Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Players, we haven't talked enough about Christian Encarnacion Strand. His ADP entering last year was 132. Many had him pegged as a breakout, and then he suffered a fracture in his wrist. He underwent surgery in June. I had some pretty big questions about playing time entering spring training, but with the Spencer Steer injury, it looks like CES, we'll have in a pretty fair opportunity early on in the season. But maybe not, right? Like if Stier is able to play, he's almost certainly not going to be able to play the outfield. And so that probably means he's just a first baseman or DH,

which, well, those are Christian and Carnaccio and Strand's two positions. And there could still be enough opportunities for both of them. It could just be one plays DH and one plays first base. And that's just the everyday configuration. Both are playable at third base, too, Incarnausian Strand and Candelaria. I mean, probably not steward. But Encarnacian Strand really hasn't played very much first base in the majors, has he? Third base, you mean?

Third base, yeah. No, but that was his primary position in the minors, and they've said this spring in some fashion that they still consider them an option there. Here's the problem, though. Isn't that Gavin Lux's primary position? Yeah, I don't know that I believe in Gavin Lux. Maybe they do. I mean, they traded for him.

Yeah. So. But they've called him a utility player. Right. But it just, if Spencer Steer is limited, if he's on the IL, then yeah. CS, I think he's a viable late round pick. It's just if Spencer Steer is able to play, but only able to play first base, it gets really tricky. So I do have CS.

I think he was in my original sleepers column. I like him. I think there is an opportunity there. It's just even a best case scenario may just be a part-time player. The biggest issue within Carnacios Strand for me is remember how we were just talking about Reese Hoskins and I'll put Max Muncie in there too. While they're going more in the 230 range in Carnacian Strand is like 210 and it's, I don't have nearly as much confidence in him as those going behind him.

All right, let's move on to Shea Langaleers, who last season approved across the board, and he did so with his plate discipline, batting average, home runs, RBI, OPS. Kind of feels like 80th, 80% of Cal Raleigh. Maybe some untapped potential because his career numbers on the road outside of Oakland Coliseum are much better than they were at home and now playing in Sacramento. The ADP is 154 is the eighth catcher off the board. I don't typically target him or Raleigh just because of the batting average. What about you guys on Shay Langaleeers?

I got him for five bucks in the auction I did tonight. And I think that was the first time I've drafted him. So I'm with you on usually not drafting him. But there's plenty of power and the underlying numbers are quite good. If I was going for this version of a catcher, the low batting average, hoping for 25 homers. I'd rather have him than Logan O'Hoppy, who goes in a very similar range of the draft.

And I'll note has looked terrible this spring. Again, I don't want to make too much of spring stats, but the way he's looked terrible is 15 strikeouts and 33 played appearances. Even over a small sample, that's alarming. That's Logan O'Hoppy, right? Yeah, Logan O'Hoppy. And in his case, they're starting over the last week, Logan and Hoppe does seem to be getting pushed down a little bit.

They're about 20 spots in ADP apart. But yeah, I just think Lang Lears tends to go in a part of the draft that I'm just not really looking. Like, it's 106 over the past week at NFBC. He probably goes a little later in most other drafts, but it's still like, I kind of don't want to be in the middle at catcher. I either want to go early or late. And so he just, he tends to just. just get kind of pushed down. Plus, I'd just rather have J.T. Romuto than him, and he goes about two rounds later.

I think it's slightly more likely Langaleers is better than last year than worse. But I don't think there's enormous ups. I don't think we're talking about him as the top five catcher next year. Yeah. I mean, it's probably approaching 30 home runs and like a 230 to 240 batting averages, you know, him continuing to improve this season. Elliot Ramos of the Giants. Another former top 100 prospect

finally got a chance last year and he took advantage of it. Hit 269. 22 homers, six deals, 792 OPS, legit power metrics, but he took a step back in the second half, huge left right splits. 1189 OPS against lefties,

673 OPS against righties. Scott, any chance that we are sleeping on Elliot Ramos right now, 80P right around 200. I mean, that's not my view on him. And I feel like when we have, because we have talked about it before, but when we have, I got the impression you were both more optimistic about Elliot Ramos than I am. Yeah, the velocities are good.

Plate discipline is pretty bad. And the fact he sank in the second half, the fact he has troubles against Ritees, which are what he's going to be facing more, the fact he plays in a bad park, I'll make him underwhelming to me and it's sort of like I've been saying a corner infield there's outfielders I like more

that are going later I mean somebody who was just part of the Giants outfield last year Michael Conforto even with hints of him maybe sometimes sitting against lefties for the Dodgers I like that situation a lot more than I like Ramos's

So part of the reason we haven't talked about him much, I guess, is because I have at cost virtually no interest in drafting him. I will just point out regarding the struggles against Ritey's, they were real, the underlying numbers back it up. But he did have a 180 expected ISO, which is expected slug minus expected average. And so the problem is it was a 229 expected average. And if that's his true talent level, that's a problem.

But if it was more like 250 and you could push that slugging percentage to like 40 to 450 against Ritees, I think the whole profile plays up really nicely. So I don't, I do think he's not far from being a pretty good hitter. I just agree with Scott on there being more players I like in that range. 80 spots later for Conforto over the weekend. Yeah. Yeah. I always, I would rather take Solair straight up over him

and I think Solair goes later as well. He goes about a round later than than Romo's on average. Nate Lowe, the question I received, why are there 100 picks between him and Vinnie P? Baby! I think Lowe is underrated. I think the Rangers just straight up downgraded

in effectively trading him for Josh, Jake Berger. I know Jake Berger has, the one loud standout skill, but I think Nathaniel Lowe's just a much better baseball player than Jake Berger. And I think it's weird that they didn't think that. The problem with Nate Lowe is he's a first baseman who's just not very interesting. Like he's just kind of average at everything. Like he's an average source of average.

He's an average source of power. I think he could drive in 85 to 90 runs if that Nationals lineup, especially at the top is good because he makes a lot of contact. He's got a little bit of pull. pop. But there's no real upside there. I think that's why he gets forgotten about and why we don't talk about him. I think there is something to be said for, is Vinny Pasquantino worth all the hype?

I'm not sure I agree that he's not worth the hype, but this is definitely like we got to see a low 800s OPS bat from Vinny P this year. or I think we just write him off as a Nate Lothite player. Yeah, at some point it's going to get there and he's already 27. If he played anywhere other than Kansas City, just looking at his expected home runs by ballpark, he'd have more everywhere. And he hasn't walked as much the past couple years past Guantino. So that's like that's supposed to be a big part of his skill set.

It just feels like it hasn't all come together for him yet. And there are some external factors contributing to that. So it's an upside. It's an upside thing. Like Vinie Pasquantino's baseline scenario feels kind of like Nate Lowe's best case scenario. But I do think Nate Lowe is like a prime NL only target. I mean, there's really deep leagues. That's the kind of player I want to target one who's not going to cost much,

but who I trust is going to play a lot and just fill out categories in a boring way. All right. Let's try and do a little rabbit fire, see how much. many names we can get to because there are just so many here lane thomas productive season for fantasy much worse after joining the guardians big left right splits in his career favoring the uh left-handed pitcher so maybe there's like a small chance he falls into a short side platoon lane thomas anybody he's just not very good i mean he had 32 steals last yeah he'll steal some bases but i i i think he gets drafted way higher than guys like cedric malle's

and I just don't really think he's better than them. 40 picks ahead of Cedric Mullins. Is he as good as Cedric Mullins? 237-15 homers, 32 steals for Lane Thomas last year. That's not far from what Cedric Mullins did. Yeah. It is basically in line with what Cedric Mullins did. But is Lane Thomas at least that good, is what I'm saying?

So the problem is he stopped stealing when he got to Cleveland. And the only thing that kept him afloat was seven home runs in 53 games. I don't think he's a 20 plus homer guy. I know he hit 28 and 223. But yeah, I think there's a downside risk for Lane Thomas just not being useful. If he loses the steals. And he only has one steal this spring. How much would a veteran try to steal in spring training?

That's a fair question. But I'd feel better if he had like four steals this spring, you know? Well, next up is Cedric Mullins, who we were just talking about. He has 30 plus steals in three of the past four years. got off to a slow start, much better in the second half. He was awful against lefties, and they brought in Ramon Luriano. I think there's a good chance that Mullins is just a strong side platoon player.

But even with that, I think he's still going to give you 25 to 30 steals. And he'll probably give you a much better batting average if he's a strong side platoon player. I love getting Cedric Mullins as if I need stolen bases and I need steals and a 5L. I'm sorry, that's the same thing. If I need stolen bases and I need outfielders,

which is often the case in a standard roto league. Mullen's is the guy I'm looking at. He goes after pick 200 on average. I find that that never happens in my drafts. I would like it to because I would like to be able to take Mullins with that. His batting average was also impacted by a horrendous start last year. Over his final 87 games, he hit 277 with an 834 OPS. And maybe you can't expect something closer to that.

he's not playing against left-handers as much. 15 homers, 30 steals. Yeah, I'll take that outside of pick 200. And again, that was Cedric Mullins. Next up, Luis Renhifo. Who is the real Renhifo? In 2022 and 2023, he was virtually the same player. 260-ish, 16-17 homers,

handful of steals. Then last year, under Ron Washington, completely changed a profile, opting for more line drives and ground balls. 24 steals in 78 games. that is a 50 steel pace. Chris, who is the real Luis Renhifo? I think he's probably a 265 hitter with very little power,

especially after the changes he made last season. But I do think the speed might be legitimate. Maybe not. He was on nearly a 50 steel pace. And even at his best, I don't think he had that kind of foot speed. But Ron Washington is super aggressive on the base path. So I do think there's a chance, Luis Renhifo,

is a 30 steel guy. And if he hits 10 homers and hits 265 and probably hits near the top of the lineup, I think you're talking about a very good fantasy option. So if he wasn't dealing with this, it's a hamstring injury this spring, right? Yes, but he's been back playing. Yeah. Yeah. I think he'd be going even higher.

And I think, you know, originally I think I had him in like the 150-ish range of the rankings. And I moved in down since then. But I think there's a decent chance that he, He's a must-star player in Categories leagues. Again, that was Luis Renhifo. Next up is Matt Walner, who hits the ball as hard as anybody. 92.8 average exit velocity, 17.5% barrel rate. He also had a 36% strikeout rate and will not play against lefties.

The ADP is around 275. Scott, any interest in Matt Walner? I remain skeptical of Walner. and I admit if you just look at the top line numbers, 2024, 2023, both years he hit between 250 and 260, OPS in the high 800s because he walks a lot too, but that strike rate is so high. And I feel like when you actually dig into the game logs

each of those years, you'll find that if, like, the season kind of ended with him at his hottest. You know? Like he didn't have a chance to cool down. And I don't think we've gotten a proper accounting for what his numbers, again, 36% strikeout rate. You've got to be a killer, an absolute killer to navigate that.

So I don't know. I may be over-complicating it, I'll admit. We don't have a huge sample. Basically, we have between three years in the majors a single season's worth of of stats for Walner. The fact he's not going to play against lefties. Yeah, as a cheap enough source of power, I'm fine with it.

He's going about 250th over the last weekend, which is beyond the Reese Hoskins and Max Muncie's of the world. So it's fine. It's just not something I'm... It's not something I'm building my draft around. Oh, I got to get Matt Walner late

as my sneaky power source. Can I give you one reason to be excited in daily lineups leagues? Sure. It sounds like, thank you for answering. It was a rhetorical question. It sounds like he's the leadoff hitter

for the twins against right hand to pitching. Yeah. Yeah. I totally see it in daily lines. Yeah. I think it's probably just daily lineups and leagues where you have that option

to bench someone on Friday just because then you can manipulate his playing time a little more. but in just a weekly category or weekly category or roto league and especially points, he's probably pretty French. He didn't end last year at his absolute hottest, I'll point out, but he also didn't get a ton of time in the majors to kind of let those stats normalize. That's the main thing with Walner for me.

I don't think we've seen the stats normalized just because his seasons have been chopped up so much. Again, that was Matt Walner. Renel Blanco out of nowhere breakout at 31 years old, 280 ERA 109 whip. That came with a 415 FIP and a 397 XERA. Also lots of walks. Chris, you were skeptical all of last year.

Do you remain skeptical? Yeah. I think he's a 4 ERA pitcher with a bad whip who isn't going to give you a lot of strikeouts. He can be useful, but I don't, I just don't see much reason to be excited about him at all. Like, where does he go relative? Like, he goes around Tanner Hauk.

That's probably fine. But nobody's, we haven't talked about Tanner Hauk this year either. You know, we did just talk about him yesterday, but we haven't talked about a bunch of other. You know what I meant. But like, it's just in that, like, we haven't talked very much about Jose Burrios. We haven't talked very much about like there are just more interesting pitchers in the same range or later that I'm always going to take the flyer on. Like, there was a point in, in my auction tonight where I had one. hit your spot left. He was sitting there for $2 and like, I could have done it for $2.

I think he's worth $2 or $3. But Jackson Job was still available. And Nick La Dolo was still available. And so it's just, it's really easy for that guy to get lost in the mix because I just don't think there's much upside. All right. I'm going to go really rapid fire here. 15 seconds a player. Let's go. All right. Well, we've got some higher end players. Logan Webb, Scott. Any thoughts on Logan Webb. Love the way the cutters look this spring. It might make them a better strikeout pitcher. And I'm getting excited to take them as my number two. All right. Pablo Lopez, we kind of talked about him a little bit yesterday, but haven't talked about him too much this offseason. You're going to get a lot of strikeouts. You're going to get an ERA that is useful, but not great.

Ride the roller coaster. And you know that there are highs and lows with Pablo Lopez. If you can't do that, if you're going to come on here after he has like a five ERA after four starts and say Pablo Lopez is terrible I'm going to drop him, just don't draft him because it's probably going to happen at some point. I got to interject because he was in the article I wrote the 12 players I'm looking to avoid.

He kind of lost his sweeper last year that made him such a big strikeout guy two years ago and I don't feel like it's looked better this spring. Tanner Bybee, can he take another step? Maybe, but I'm not counting on it. I think if you just take his numbers at face value, he's perfectly fine where he's going, 325, ERA 114 whip for his career.

I think he's a fine rotation stabilizer with maybe a slight amount of untapped upside. Danesby Swanson, kind of feels like an undervalued target, at least for me, do any of you guys agree? Yeah, he was playing through a core muscle injury. He finally had surgery on it at the end of last season. Hopefully, that explains why he was so overwhelming

for most of the last season. it's weird that as he was playing through the injury, he had this really good second half, and he was running more. But yeah, I think he's a perfectly fine middle infielder out of value. Tyler O'Neill, 31 homers in 113 games last season, signed with the Orioles this offseason. Lots of power, lots of injuries, lots of strikeouts. Yeah, move on to the next player. Well, no, it's the Tyler O'Neill experience.

It's more complicated than that because he did strikeout 34. percent of the time last year and was great. Normally, he strikes out like 25, 26 percent of the time. And it doesn't always go great. So I don't know how to reconcile all of that. It's not like he's always a 30 plus percent strikeout guy. But we know there's a lot of raw power there if he can stay healthy. He's not going to suffer from the left field fence thing in Baltimore because they moved him in.

Baltimore, a team that knows a lot about hitting went out and got him. I think he's kind of undervalued. I do worry about the strikeout rate, but obviously he managed to succeed in spite of it last year, and it's not always a thing for O'Neill. Michael Bush, I like what he did last year, 335 on base percentage, 21 home runs, and then they signed Justin Turner.

Yeah, it just seems like it's probably going to be 550 plate appearances rather than 650 played appearances, which means that there are going to be times when he gets cold and isn't playing every day, and you're really frustrated with him, but he goes late enough, where as a power-oriented corner infielder, I think he's fine.

The problem is he had like, what, eight homers in the first 30 games or something last year, and I only ended up with 21. But his strikeout rate got better, Michael Bush. He is a low-key breakout for me. Like, I don't have a good enough justification to really trumpet Michael Bush loudly as a breakout,

but he... Just because you've loved him forever, Scott. I've loved him forever. He killed it this spring. I noticed throughout his minor league career when he first got to a level. It was kind of underwhelming for a while and then he'd take off and look like the best player in the league.

So I just wonder if we're going to see a lesser version of that in his second major league season. Ryan Pepio, very solid first season with the race, 360 ERA, 115 whip 9.8K per 9. Strong skills, good whiffs. But he's now pitching in George Steinbrenner Field. He's a fly ball pitcher who ranked 22nd percentile in barrel rate last season.

Well, I'm surprised somebody thought we don't talk enough about Ryan Pepeo because every time we talk about busts, I bring him up. I think he is one of the clearest bus candidates is a fly ball Homer-prone pitcher in what should be a terrible place for that kind of pitcher this year. I will just point out, if he can sustain the giant whiff rate on his foreseamer last year, it was 31%.

And the change-up gets better. That was supposed to be his best pitch coming up as a prospect. I do still think there is some breakout potential here. The problem is how much of the elite whiff rate on the foreseamer came from pitching at Tropicana Field. I don't know.

He was better on the road last year for what it's worth. But yeah, that's the main thing. I was ready to call Papio a breakout this year, if not for the change in venue. You take this next one, Chris. I know this is one of your guys. Zach Gafflin.

Zach Gufflin. Any thoughts, Chris? Is he one of your guys? Because you looked confused. I don't know if Eflin's, I draft him a lot. I'm putting together. You twisted our arm to get him in our shared venture. Well, because we were worried about WIP and he's consistently a very good whip pitcher.

And even when he's not pitching like an ace like he did in 2023, he tends to be pretty bad source of strikeouts, but a very good source of whip. Last year, it was 1.15. And it was specifically, what usually happens is if I'm at the point in the draft where Zach Eflin's near the top of the queue and I need whip, I take Zach Ethlin. And I think I've drafted him four or five times already on the 10 teams that I've drafted that I'm playing out. It's never like a huge priority, but his skill set works. Why is Eflin going ahead of Avaldi? I don't really understand that. To me, they are the same pitcher.

Avaldi gets more strike. though. That's true. A huge strikeout guy, but better than Eflin with the exception of 2023. Yeah, last year. I guess they both have injury risk. I think of all these probably higher, though. Eflin doesn't have a ton of like arm injury risk, right? His issues. Yeah, it was his knees. I think arm injuries are scarier for pitchers than knees. I could be wrong, but that would be the primary thing. But yeah, I think Of all the, we also don't talk very much about, but I think he's also totally fine there. Yeah.

Yeah. And we can put Jose Barrios in there too, mid three ZRA with a really solid whip and not terrible number of strikeouts. Berrios I might like most of the three because he's the most durable. Breos whip can be pretty bad, though. His whip's not here. If you only 115 range? It was 115 last year, 119 the year before, 142 the year before. for. Yeah, that one year was obviously the outlier for his whole career, though. Yeah.

Ray Solson is kind of like Arrogatti. I think we all had him as a sleeper and we spoke about him earlier in the offseason and then we just kind of stopped. Do you guys still like Reese Olson? Yeah, he's seen a little bit of a velocity jump this spring. It's been about a half a mile per hour, but you hope that that can carry over into the regular games. He's throwing his sinker a little bit more in his starts. And that seems to be the key with Reese Olson. If once he gets to two, strikes. His slideer and change up, if I'm remembering which two types of pitches he uses are really good with pitches. I think they both had whiff rates over 40% last year. It's just that his four seamer gets absolutely destroyed at a 360 ex-woba last year. His sinker was 289.

I would rather him just go sinker, keep the four seamer for the occasional lefty, but just try to get early contact or throw strikes and get to a point where he can get guys to chase with the slider and change it. I think the path is there. It's just putting the right pieces together. I pointed to skip Matt McLean earlier. Frank, did you do that on purpose? I didn't. I was going to start jumping around to make sure that we finished. But if you want to talk about Matt McLean, you can. Because he is one of the 12 players that I'm just basically never interested in drafting. He's a bus for me. I don't, I don't feel like we really have any clue who he is.

I mean, last year was critical to validate what he did the year before. In 2023, huge breakout at AAA, got to the majors and basically followed through on the breakthrough. But we're talking 50th percentile exit velocity is very mid. A strikeout rate approaching 29 percent, it actually got worse the longer he was up. And, you know, it's really just that one year for his whole professional career, which hasn't been very long, granted. But it's really just that one year where McLean looked. like world beater. He's like 230 at double A.

The spring he's been kind of meh. Strikeout rates been high. I just, he's going to, I think over the weekend, 75th on average. He could live up to that. I think the upside is there,

but I don't feel confident enough that we're even getting a startable player. Probably. I think it's crazy. I think his price is, it might work out. I can see the upside. It's a very fantasy friendly skill set

if it works. but if nothing else, is there another player in the top 100 being drafted who's had season ending injuries two years in a row? He's now a top 80 pick in the past. Yeah, like this is, he had an oblique injury that ended his 2023 season. And okay, fine, oblique injuries aren't that serious.

Except he got to spring training in 2024. I remember this and I looked it up recently and was not cleared to play for like the first two weeks of spring because of the oblique injury from the previous September. And then he has a shoulder surgery and a rib injury that ends his next season. And we're just like, cool, he's a top 80 pick. We love him. It'd be one thing if he had like no performance concerns and it was just injury,

then it's like, okay, fine. We're doing that with Christian Yalach, although he's significantly cheaper. We're doing it with Mike Trout. Although, again, he's significantly cheaper. But we're just, I think we're treating Matt McLean like he's just an obvious bet to be a superstar. as long as he's out there, and I just don't think it's obvious. All right, we have seven names left, 15 seconds each. Riley Green, improved last year,

but it feels like maybe the upside is capped. He doesn't run, and he plays in Detroit. What do you guys think? I mean, that's basically it. I think what you see is what you get with him now. He's not going to be a base dealer. His power's capped in that park, and he strikes out too much to be a great source of batting average.

Remember when Nick Hustianos became like an elite fantasy player once he got out of Detroit? That's what I think is Riley Green. All we need is Riley Green to Cincinnati. That would be fantastic. Yeah. Zach Gellaw feels like he has a fantasy-friendly profile, power speed, but he also strikes out 34% of the time.

What if Matt McLean struck out 34% of the time? Instead of 29. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Colton Couser, runner up for the American League rookie of the year. This might just be a blind spot.

I never looked to draft him. I don't know why. I agree. I haven't, I don't think I've like added him to a queue yet. And I might be missing out because there's certainly upside there. There's raw power. There's athleticism. It just, it's never the right point in the draft for him.

Even though I don't rank him like significantly lower than where he's going. There is no way or you can talk. There's no way you could talk about this player in 15 seconds. But whoever wants to give it a try. I'll do it. I'll read what I wrote about him in that article. Luis Robert. I've always, I've always been leery of Louise Robert due to his.

injury risk and poor plate discipline, but I'd go along at times in years past because the upside was so palpable. His failure last year was so complete, though, that it's hard for me to see past the downside right now. A 33% strikeout rate is untenable, and it almost seemed like he was just going through the motions on a bad White Sox team. I have no way to gauge what I'll be getting from nor for how long, and I can't help but feel like it'll be a wasted pick again. I'm willing to wait him out and grab a more bankable, but lower upside, say a Suzuki or Brian Reynolds type instead. All right, J.J. Bladay, former top 50 prospect, got a chance to play last year, and he was okay in a boring way. J.J. Bladay? Chris?

I think he's a perfectly fine, boring number five outfielder. I think there's very little upside there, but if you end up with him as your number five outfielder, he probably just stays there the whole year. Jordan Walker, post-hype prospect has yet to figure it out. He's still 22 years old. I haven't read anything that really inspires me to draft him. He fell a long way in my TGFBI league. And I found that I didn't really want to use a pick on him either. I just have no confidence anymore. He's young enough.

He could put it all together. But I don't have any reason for optimism this year specifically. There was something earlier in the offseason. He said he worked with coaches to get back to his old swing, which he had much more success with in the minors. So maybe that can help. He also dealt with a knee injury here in camp. That was Jordan Walker.

Last name on the list is Tyler Soderstrom. What are you talking about? We talked about him earlier. SodaStream. Soderstrom. Who is? Yeah, we talked about him a little bit earlier in the podcast. Did we?

We compared him to Ben and Bryce and... Yeah, we didn't say anything about him. I think we said his name. That was about it. So I think the most interesting thing about Tyler Soderstrom is the fact that he might play some catcher this year. because I think he's probably stretched as a corner infielder, although I can see a path to him being a useful fantasy option as a corner infielder.

He hits the ball very hard. There could be plus plus power here. It was like 85th percentile barrel rate, close to 80th percentile hard hit, 80th percentile average exit velocity. I like him. Park upgrade for sure. That was going from a very tough part to one that we think will be at least neutral. it's just if he's only first base eligible,

there's a lot of first baseman who can hit 25 homers with a 240 batting average. There are only like six catchers who could do that. So if he gets catcher eligibility relatively early, I think you could be talking about a top 12 player at the position. It's just how long does it take to get there? He does go later than the Reese Hoskins and all those kind of sluggers we were talking about.

279 is the ADP over the past. week for Sotersstrom. But he goes earlier than Jonathan Aranda. I think I have Sotershom just ahead of him, but I do like that. Yeah, I'd rather have Sotrstrom than Aranda. Not me. Well, then we will agree.

That's why I never drag Soderstrom. But yeah, I like some of the plate discipline stuff. He hits the ball really hard. Getting out of Oakland, I could see like a 25 home run season coming for Tyler Sotterstrom. All right, guys, we did it. We are going to wrap there. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in.

to Fantasy Baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.