Fantasy Baseball Today - Players We Love! 8 Must Draft Targets! (2/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

We all know Scott loves him some Cole Ragans this year (4:00). ... But he also has the wandering eye for Erick Fedde (12:25)! ... Eury Perez has nasty stuff but how many innings will we get (22:15)? ... What will Michael King do with the Padres (32:33)? ... Bryan Woo has an interesting arsenal and the Mariners have great development (42:32). ... Chris has Riley Greene ranked as a top-24 outfielder (47:18). ... Who's Scott's beefcake this year (51:03)? ... We're back in on Oneil Cruz (54:52)! ... We wrap up with love for an early-round hitter (59:40). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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, @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 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 lead. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Can you feel it? Love is in the air. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. And happy Valentine's Day.

The whole gang is here. Frank Scott, Chris, and Chris the Welsh. Today on the show, taking a little break from our position previews for our annual tradition players we love. One hitter and one pitcher from each of us. We've got the latest news. Jorge Saler signed a three-year deal with the Giants. Plus, the Welsh was out at Dodgers camp last Friday.

We'll find out what he learned while he was out there. Chris Towers in full costume. You love it. Love to see it. What's going on? I mean, yeah, I had to break out the heart sunglasses for those of you who are listening and not watching. You should be watching on YouTube.com

slash fantasy baseball today so you can see my lovely glasses and Scott's really Scott's wearing like a burgundy shirt I guess so he's kind of on brand disappointed in the other right need more red I had a I had the burgundy I wore it last week

this is this is considered cardling it's like bulldog red maybe is that a thing when I ordered it it said cardinal by by the way you should go to YouTube dot com slash fantasy baseball today it's just so you can see the incredible thumbnail image of Scott for this podcast because it is, it is incredible.

It was well worth your effort, Frank, whatever you put into it. I would like to point out that I'm wearing a Hillsboro Hops hat, and I think hops brings a lot of love to everybody, and I think it is a unifier. So you may disagree with my vision of love towers, but I am bringing the hops out to everybody. So that's my interpretation. I thought you were going to say I'm wearing a hops hat, And I love beer, so that's what makes sense. I mean, well, that's what I was in line. I do love beer, yeah. So I'm with you on that one.

Well, as the Welsh pointed out beforehand, I didn't plan this, but I am wearing a Philly's jersey, and they are the city of Brotherly Love. So right on brand. Let's get into it. We've got all four of us here today, and I'm sure we've got a lot to say about the players we love, which takes us to the first man up. And we will hear from Scotty Dubbs, starting with the pitcher that we love. Who you got, Scottie?

Well, you know, I have a tendency to get a little flushed when we do this every year. As for the pitcher I love, I don't know how there could be any other choice but Cole Reagan's, or, as I like to say, Ray and his great big guns. specifically, it's the left one I'm attracted to, an arm so exquisite that it fired a ball in at 101 miles per hour during his stay in the Royals rotation. A mind so cunning that he devised the perfect pitch to round everything out once he moved into the rotation.

Woodbees take one whiff at that slider. and are headed back the other way. But for me, it's like pheromones. I'm drawn to the five swing and miss pitches, one for each of my clawing fingers. Is it any wonder then how Regans could put together a 270 ERA, 106 whip, an 11.6k per 9 across those 11 starts. His point per game average during that stretch,

trailing only Garrett Cole and Spencer Strider among full season marks. He's my ace in the hole filling the hole in my heart. And I'm not whole without Cole

in his magnificent Ray Guns. I really appreciate that it's Scott doing that because anyone else would have taken that blast bid in a very different direction. But Scott is very pure and innocent.

I was. There were a lot of holes going on at the... We were aware of the holes and we were worried about them. Is it getting hot in here? You know, Scott, it is hot. Scott, I just, like, you are, you are such a weirdo. And I say this with all love. Because, like, your, you're like normal,

your normal thing is very straight-laced and by the book and very, like, very tense. And then you let your hair down. loosen your tie and you just like this other really bizarre side of you comes out and I always love when it does. My cheeks hurt. We're just getting started here. You know,

you know how this goes with my wandering eye on Valentine's Day. I have players I love, but I get a little distracted sometimes, start checking out other peeps. I don't know if you guys have things you want to say about Cole Reagan's. Oh, you said at all, I think. I think he said it all. Let's wrap up Cole Regans

and then we will get to the wandering eye. Truly, one of my favorite things that happens every year. Scott's poems on Valentine's Day. Let's talk about Cole Regans. The fantasy pros ADP is 102. He's the SP 31 off the board. How much does Scott really love Cole Regens? He has him as his XP16.

So there is no contest. I think in most drafts, if we're following anything close to ADP, you're going to wind up with Cole Regents on your team, Scott. an added bonus if you play on CBS, he has RP eligibility and is very clearly the top spark in fantasy baseball

this season as well. I will point out I had to artificially lower him to 16th because I think originally I had him like 11th and I saw I was on such a different planet from everybody else except for maybe Nick Pollock a pitcher list. He likes him a lot too. That

I had to bump him down some just so I wouldn't constantly undercut myself by taking Cole Reagan's too early. But yeah, I think huge strikeout potentially. Here's a thought that I have. Every time I think about Cole Reagan's and I compare him to another pitcher that I think everybody loves and then that's Terrick Scoopal, who also had a big velocity jump last

season coming back from that flexor strain surgery. And their sample sizes for success are very similar. I think Reagan's was 71 and two-thirds innings after getting traded to the Royals, Terrick Scoobble through 80.1 innings last season. And there's a gigantic gap between where they're being drafted. Terrick Scubal is SP 15 and Fantasy Pro's ADP. Colregans, 32nd, that's starting pitcher. And that feels like a big gap for eight and a third innings or eight and two-thirds

innings. Well, obviously, part of it is, part of it is, I mean, I think most of it just comes down to Reagan's wasn't good

as a reliever with the Rangers before. Like, the pedigree is similar-ish. I think Terrick's Gubel was a better prospect or was

considered a better prospect and had shown signs of being a good major league pitcher before last season the way that Cole Regans hadn't, but we're not

drafting Terrick Scouble because he was decent in 2022. We're drafting Terik Scouble as a top 15 or top 12 starting pitcher because he was amazing for those 80 Anthony and he was a little better than Cole Reagan's and Reagan's you know had a little bit of a control issue towards the end of the season but that seems like a big gap for

what otherwise seemed like fairly similar profiles can I add it you know the thing and sorry Scott I just want to add this before you going because maybe you're going to agree with me on this I think there is like it's a walk discrepancy. Like, people see the walks and they immediately fall off. And it's, Blake Snell, like, Blake Snell is getting that type of treatment. I'm not thinking of the right word I'm trying to say here, but it's like a bias. It's a bias he against as soon as those walks come in. What's so great about Tarek's scuba. Pitch is great. Vila's been great. Strikeouts are great walks. Low. Blake Snell, Syung, insane K numbers, improved that made this change up that everybody

made a huge deal about for years and years. He turned. it into like this elite pitch. He found who he was. He utilized high-end walks. It scares the crap out of people. And that is, I actually think I'm with you, Scott, that I think it's like, I think it's just this fallacy that we're all kind of fooling ourselves. We're just like, oh, we'll just be comfortable with ADP. You see, you're not, but you see a lot of people in the fantasy pros ADP. It's like 110, 115. And it is built around that he doesn't check all the boxes that everybody is looking for for the safety. When in reality, I'm not sure he's that far off from a guy like Tariq Scoobel.

So I do think that one is kind of a goofy thing. And I immediately associate him with what Blake Snell's treatment is getting right. Plus, in this environment, in this pitching environment right now, no one is safe. That's kind of the key to all of my pitching rankings and why I'm selling out so hard for strikeouts. Except George Kirby. But yes, no one else is, everyone else is not safe. I might dispute that.

And that's, you know, Reagan's is such a good source for. strikeouts. Yes, there are control questions. I mean, those control issues for Reagan's really started to pop up over his last four starts he had, one of them, six walks, a couple others with four walks. So that is the biggest concern. I mean, that and durability are obviously the big concerns. But what I want to stress in my serious voice so that it doesn't get lost in all the fanning of myself is that, okay, so the two things that change for Reagan's last. last year. At the start of the year, his velocity was up four miles per hour. So at that point, throw out any prior scouting reports when you see that kind of velocity jump.

And then once he joined the rotation for the Royals for good in August, that 11-start stretch I was talking about, that's when he introduced the slider, which immediately came his best swing and miss pitch. And you look at all five of his pitches, they all have good swing and miss race. It's really a, it's really an impressive, that slider, the way it brought everything together is really impressive. for Reagan's. Scott, you want to hit us with the wandering eye? I do love Regens. I do.

But sometimes, rascal that I am, I get the wandering eye, and someone else captures my gaze. Relative to Regens, many folks crasser than myself, would say I'm slumming it with this one. But others don't see what I see when they look at Eric.

Don't call me Freddy, Fetti. He brings with him a certain quality world traveler that he is, new insights from a distant land. Among them, a new sweeper appropriately named for the effect it has on me. He's also ensnared me in his web with a split change that's been compared to Logan Webb. Fetty actually learned those two pitches stateside at a place called Push Performance Facility. and no, I'm not going to touch that one. In Korea last year, after the stint at push performance, Fetty went 20 and 6 with a 2-0-E-R-A. It might as well have been X-O-O, so straight it was shot into my heart.

The whip was low, the strikeout rate high, the performance so epic that it earned him the league's equivalent of Sy Young and MVP, but The biggest attraction of all. You remember that mention of Logan Webb split change. Well, with it, Webb led the majors with a 62.1% ground ball rate. Eric Fettys in Korea was 70%. We'll round down to 69. How my heart beats the way those batters all beat the ball into the ground. And as much as I love Ray.

I myself in drafts. I find myself in drafts indulging more often in Eric Fetty. Mike drops. I mean, how do we follow that? Where do we go from here? It's messed up that you let him go first. What was I thinking? I mean, you got to go like, let him get the rest of this out of a system, go to a break, come back.

We've got to reset the tone here. Also, Scott completely moving into this like 1950s crooner type of, like, like, you're like setting this tone here. I don't know how I want to take everything serious, but I don't know how we can consume all of it. Are you worried about over inflated number? I mean, like how serious are you taking it? Because you say 70% ground ball rate. 70%?

70% ground ball rate that is inflated probably quite a bit more based on like how those leagues work and a lot of like crossbody contact where you're going to probably have more. I'm not, I don't have the science in front of me, but I'm going to imagine there are a lot more ground balls in that league. It still leads to a guy that's going to be a heavy ground ball pitcher who has revamped his stuff. And we've seen Merrill Merrill Kelly come over and find great success. I'm excited for that.

But like to what level does your Eric Fetty love flutter your heart? Like I said, I find myself in drafts indulging more in Eric. Feddy than anybody else. I have to get him at the end of every draft. I got beaten to him in a mock draft earlier today, and I was like, no, in the chat room. And it's Eric Fetty. Like, you'd think nobody would care. But I care. This is my, this is my wandering eye pick, Eric Fetty. And I care great. I care deeply, you might even say. And I, okay, so somebody was actually asking me on Twitter earlier today. why is nobody talking about Eric Fetty? And I'm like, I won't shut up about Eric Fetty. What are you talking about? You went on a whole different podcast to rate about Eric Fetty. Nobody else.

And what my theory is, okay, you mentioned the Merrill Kelly comparison. So Merrill Kelly had like a mid-3 ZRA in Korea, came over, had mid-3 ZRA in the U.S. So it's not like he went over and dominated to the extent Fetty did. But the two reasons that I think people aren't talking about Fetty, one is his track record in the majors, obviously, mediocre fifth starter type for the nationals, if that. But as I mentioned in my little monologue, completely remade his arsenal before going to Korea. The split change, the sweeper, they weren't there before the sweeper gets with, split change gets ground balls to the extent Logan Webb's does, hopefully. So that's one thing, is they're just, they're comparing apples to oranges.

FETI's a completely different picture now. All track record gets thrown out as far as I'm concerned. Two is so much analysis is geared toward like specific metrics. There's a lot of group think. And particularly there's a fixation on stuff plus. And we just don't have that data for Fetty. So I think everybody's just kind of, eh, I don't know what to make of it. So I'm going to write him off until I have that data.

Well, you know, by that point it may be too late. I don't know. Are we going to get that kind of data in spring training? Maybe everybody will see what's going on then and Fetty will fly up draft boards. But I'm obviously already willing to pay the price because I think the returns could be huge. You're giddy for Fetty.

I'm going to the White Sox camp in this weekend, I'm hoping. So I will look for you. Make sure you send some pick Scott's way. So, yeah, you can indulge in those. There are a few things that I'll point out about just the offensive environment in Korea because it's weird if you're used to major league baseball

where so much of the offense comes from home runs, that's not the case in Korea. I think the team that hit the most home runs last season led the league with 125 and 144 games. So the average is 0.6 home runs per 9. Feddy was at, I think, 0.4 last season. So a little better than the average, but average ERA was 4.14.

His was 2.0. Now you compare that to Miles Michaelis, who was, like Scott said, in the mid-threes, came back to the United States. He's more like a four-ish ERA pitcher. Well, that was, he was putting up a mid-threes ERA in a league

where the average ERA was around five. So relative to the league, Fetty was still much better. But, you know, I think Merrill Kelly's success in the majors does serve as a point in Fettie's favor. He's probably not going to be an ace like he was in Korea, but I do think there is room for him to return a lot of profit at his current price,

even if it's not a top 40 pitcher. And I don't, Scott, I'm sure you don't rank him that way, certainly, although you think probably he has that upside. Wait for it. No. I don't rank him in the top 40. I may have him around 50th. I may have them around 50th.

SP 63 is what I have, Scott. Oh, man. That's disappointing. Yeah, I'm moving. I'm too low on him. Compared to ADP, he's the SP 129. I don't ever want to lose Eric Fetty, though. I don't scream no very often.

I haven't screamed no for Cole Reagan's once. I have, yeah, no, I haven't. It looked like you were. But I have some Fetty in that mock draft we did earlier. It looked like you were contemplated going down like a, Pretty scary route, and I don't know if we want to do that. Let's take a break. Let's collect ourselves.

And when we get back, we'll find out the pitchers that the Chris's, and I love the season. We'll do that right after this. All right. Welcome back into fantasy baseball today here on Valentine's Day. The players we love, specifically the pitchers. And let's move over to Chris Towers, a pitcher you love. Yeah, I'm going to go with a Homer pick,

because, you know, I love my Marlins. well, I have a love-hate relationship or, you know, I don't know if it's the healthiest relationship in my life, my relationship with the Marlins. But I love Yuri Perez, who last year was, you know, I've talked a lot about like the degree of difficulty for Royce Lewis and C.J. Abrams and a bunch of those guys who are still developing. And Yuri Perez is kind of in that boat. was part of the class of players who missed the entire 2020 season, didn't get that development in real games. And also just what he did last season, where the Marlins had to shut him down mid-season,

send him back down to the minors. These guys are human. That's a really difficult thing to have to go through. I know we were all frustrated by it. Marlins fans were all frustrated by it. I am certain Yuri Perez was more frustrated than anybody about that. And so the fact that he went out, struck out 108 batters, 91 and a third innings in the majors,

through a 315 ERA, 113 whip, that would be impressive enough. If that was all you could say about Yuri Perez making that impact as a rookie, that would be impressive enough. Also, he did it while navigating that incredibly difficult situation where he got sent down to manage his innings. Also, he doesn't turn 21 years old. until two weeks into the upcoming season. Think about all of the prospects that we love.

And we're like, oh, my God, they're so young. They're 20, 21 years old. This guy did this at 21 at double. Well, Yuri Perez just did that as a 20-year-old in the majors in a playoff race while getting sent down. So just the degree of difficulty alone. and the fact that he made it to the majors and pitched as well as he did as a 20-year-old, we are talking about a profile that probably wins a Siyang.

Like, that is just, if you're that good as a 20-year-old, you are probably a Sanyang caliber pitcher at some point in your career. Maybe in 2024, because Uri Perez, 6 foot 9, tall drink of water, 97.5 mile per hour average fastball velocity. He had a curve ball that had the second highest whiff rate among all pitchers. His slider had the ninth highest whiff rate among all pitchers. His curve ball or his change up had the eighth highest width rate. So that is three different secondary pitches that were in the top 10, not top 10 percent,

top 10 among all pitchers in major league baseball. And again, he does not turn 21 years old until two weeks into the upcoming season. I think it's pretty much impossible to overstate how high the ceiling is for Yuri Perez. He's almost certainly not going to be the number one starting pitcher in fantasy this season because he probably won't throw more than 170 innings or so. he could be top 10. You can get there throwing 170 innings because he might get 200 strikeouts

if he throws 170 innings. And he might have a 2-5 ERA and a one whip. It's, I love Yuri Perez. The Marlins have had some really, really exciting young pitchers throughout their time. I did the, I saw that thread that was going around of like, pick a player from every year of the last 25 years for your team.

And that's your 26. and it was fun, go through. Martin's had some good pitchers. I think Yuri Perez is the most promising young pitcher the Marlins have had, certainly since Jose Fernandez. I think he's right there with Jose Fernandez in terms of how excited you should be

about a young pitcher. And that's saying a lot because I think Jose Fernandez was one of the best pitchers I've ever seen in my life. Incredibly dominant rookie season for Yuri Perez. You went through all the stats, Chris. On top of the secondary pitches, there was average as 97.5 miles per hour.

with the fastball as well. And his season was kind of derailed when he got sent down to the minors. And you see that in his first 11 starts before being sent down, he was amazing. His final eight starts after returning to the majors just did not look like the same pitcher. Two follow-up questions on Yuri Perez.

Where do you rank him among Grayson Rodriguez and Bobby Miller? It kind of feels like those guys are a trio, maybe unfairly, but it's Grayson, it's Bobby Miller, it's Yuri. How do you rank that group? and what do you think the endings get up to? You kind of threw the number 170 out there,

but is that what you're actually expecting? I think 170. I mean, look, he's a pitcher. He's a young pitcher. He's a pitcher who throws 98 miles an hour. Like, a lot of things can go wrong on the way there. So if I was projecting, I think I'd probably project 140 or 150.

But I think the ceiling is 175. I think he got to around 125. Last year, maybe 130. 128. Between the majors in my. So 175 is well within the range. You could push it to 180. And I think that it would probably be okay.

But I doubt the Marlins will do that, certainly if they're not competing for a playoff spot. They just signed Kirk Casali. So playoffs here we come. But yeah, I think there might be a shutdown at the end, which is a little frustrating. But I think 170 is a reasonable ceiling. Yeah, in this environment.

That's a small number. Yeah, in this environment, That doesn't make him a standout in a bad way anymore. That's the new second tier of innings, by the way. Yeah. So I do have them a little lower than Grayson. I think Grayson's a better bet for innings. I think Yuri's the better pitcher.

So it's very close. But Grayson's obviously on a much better team. Like Yuri Perez might do all those things I said and win 11 games. You know, like that's also part of the problem from a fantasy perspective. So I was actually when I was writing my 27. biggest questions for the new season. One of them had to do with those standout sophomore pitchers, which of the four standout sophomore hurlers would take the next step.

Four, I was including Tanner Bybee in that group with Yuri Perez, Grayson Rodriguez, and Bobby Miller. And as I was writing it up, I was like, yeah, you know, they're probably all going to be limited with innings, just because they haven't built up to an ace workload yet. And as I was saying that, I was looking up to innings totals for each of them, and I was surprised how many innings they all got to. You mentioned Yuri Perez surpassed 120.

That was the lowest of the four. It was still higher than I thought, but it was the lowest of the four. Bobby Miller has surpassed – Bobby Miller surpassed 130 innings last year. Tanner Bybee surpassed 150 innings. Grayson Rodriguez surpassed 160 innings, minors, majors, and playoffs. And so I'm not sure that's such a concern even when you're drafting these guys. I mean, you can't trust that a pitcher. I think what's different about this era for projecting pitchers

versus like the Jose Fernandez era of projecting pitchers is you could always kind of assume they'd get up to an ACE workload eventually, and you can't assume that about anybody anymore. But if it's going to happen, it's very likely to happen as soon as this year for all of them. If we're treating an ACE workload as like 170 plus innings. And the new, I also just throw out the new approach, or at least one of my new approaches with pitching is having, a balance of some of those safety net guys.

I feel like we have a lot more safety net guys that obviously George Kirby, but the Logan Webb's, the Zach Eflins. You can balance these out with what might be perceived as question marks that are surrounded it. But I would rather take those question mark pictures. And there's a gazillion question mark pitchers because it could be surrounded around injuries or it could be small sample sizes. It can be rookies. And I want to bet on talent.

And Yuri Perez is the talent. I mean, you rattled off a lot. elite, swing and miss stuff that's in his game, a great fastball. And not to mention, you want to talk about pitchers that have ability to grow.

Like a lot of young pitchers from rookies to sophomores were just like, okay, I hope this guy just like re-does it again. But you can also think about the organizations and the spots they're in where can they take the next step?

The Marlins do a great job of development. And this guy spent last, I think it was spring training or off-season with Sandy Al-Contra. So let's not take it away that we also might see, a newer Yuri Perez. We might see a guy that decides to throw the change up more as he was learning that change up from Alcantra and this team loves changeups. We might see him alter a few things,

which also might be something about the team being able to maintain some more innings. So I worry a little bit less about those. If the guy gets me 150 or above, I'm feeling a lot better nowadays and I'm betting on talent. And you can do a good enough job to completely get any of that whatever risk out by just getting a couple guys and some of those boring guys later and drop, the Shane Bieber's of the world, the guys that are going to, Merrill Kelly, that are going to just chalk up 180 or 90 innings and at least maintain a decent ERA, you can take your shots, and Yuri Perez is absolutely worth that shot. All right, before we get to the Welsh's pitcher that he loves, let's quickly promote a few things.

Make sure to sign up for the FBT newsletter if you haven't already at cbsports.com slash newsletters. You click on that FBT logo, punch in your email address, and it's easy as that. Chris does a great job with these and has recently been sending out written position previews to accompany the position preview podcast that we've been putting out the past couple of weeks. So make sure to sign up. It's free. Again, go to cbsports.com slash newsletters or scan the QR code in the top rights corner of

the screen. That'll take you right to the website. Also, we have another mailbag coming up this Friday, which means we'll have another prospect spotlight as well. If there is a specific prospect you want to hear about, leave us a five-star rating on Apple podcast and drop a name in the review for the first two prospect spotlights. did Tyler Black of the Brewers and Jet Williams of the Mets. Lots of fun.

Keep them coming. Pitchers we love. Let's continue on. Welsh, you are up. Okay. So I am going to also take a picture that has some inning questions. So I was able to properly set myself up here so I don't have to do it again, that I'm obviously going to play on the side of talent.

And I have a lot of pictures that I love. I love George Kirby. I've talked about him a bunch. Obviously, for anybody that's listened to me on here over the last year or so, Brandon Fott would be one of those guys that I absolutely have a love for, especially for his bounce back. But this one is not any Homer type of pick. And someone I haven't mentioned yet, it's Michael King going to the San Diego Padres. Now, I'm going to probably repeat a few things that have been said a whole lot,

but obviously 100 innings, and we know a lot of it was in relief. He was stretched out as a starting pitcher, and that's where things got super exciting. He ended up in his seven like starts where he was getting more than a couple innings, only gave up one, only one start had more than one earned run given up in that period of time. He became a better pitcher as a starter. The K rate was phenomenal. K minus walk percentage went from 19.8% when he was a reliever to over 25% K minus walk percentage, which is ridiculous as a starter.

His ERA went down to 2, 2, 3. All those things are great. But one of the things I got locked into too was trying to figure out like where do we go. with him. And this became completely ironic because then I was able to confirm it. We started to try to find some comps. And I settled on a guy like Pablo Lopez. And these guys actually have a really similar paths and just kind of similar repertoires. They both go fastball. They've got sweepers. Paulo Lopez leans more on the fast on the four seam with a sinker where Michael King does more of the sinker in the fastball. But they both go change up. They both go sweeper. Similar fastballs,

higher whiffs with Pablo Lopez. But the secondary with Michael King, those get higher whiff numbers. He had a better sweeper whiff rate, which was a little bit lower and a change-up rate. And funny enough, when you end up going into player similarities, which is kind of a janky type of thing you can do on baseball savant, like how much you want to believe it, the number one righty comp was Pablo Lopez,

was actually the guy that was the comp on Michael King. All of that aside, an almost 30% K percentage last year, walks that are under guys like we've talked about like Cole Regans, a great ERA and an expected ERA that went into the mid threes. The innings aren't there. Projections love him. ATC absolutely love him, has him as a sub three five guy. Strikeouts are going to be there. But everybody projects him around 135 innings. I think we can be more aggressive, especially in an instance like this. This isn't a younger arm that we're babying. This is a guy that has stacked some innings,

yes, in relief, but we are stretching out to a bigger degree to a team that is deserable. for starting pitching in the San Diego Padres. I think Michael King is setting himself up. Hopefully the stinker can induce more ground balls. The secondaries get whiffs. There's going to be some strikeouts are going to happen in this division as well. And they're going to be competing all the way through. And guess what?

On my place, fantasy pros, I have the world's highest rank of Michael King on the ECR. Nobody has a higher rank than me, but maybe we need to get some more of you on there, you guys on there. But I got the highest rank of him because I want them on every single team. because his average rank across all the websites is just inside the top 200. That's ridiculous. That's true. I think Michael King can be this year's Pablo Lopez, maybe Sands a few innings,

and he legit can be a top 30 pitcher. So I've really fallen in love with Michael King from a this year perspective. So this is kind of a new relationship I'm having over my oldies of the Zach Allen's and the Kirby's and even Brandon Fought, who was a nice little fling we had last year. But he. You mentioned he's, you know, obviously there are innings concerns, but one thing I like to look at when we're talking about an older guy is, has he reached those inning thresholds before?

Michael King has, you know, say what you want about the fact that he ended up getting moved to relief. He had that really bad elbow injury, I think, two years ago. But in 26. Right? Yeah, elbow fracture between 2016, between college and his pro debut, 134 and two-thirds innings following season 149, following season, 161 in a third. So obviously, I don't think he's going to go out and throw 180 innings this season.

But I think 160, given that he's done it before, obviously he has to stay healthy. And that's a big concern. But I think that's doable if he manages to stay healthy. And the thing that I don't think many people would argue, whatever you feel about projections, two things projections do horrifically. is project ERA, it's laughable because every projection system is just, you know, the X-FIP or whatever. I did the RA from the last year, so it's LOL. The other one is innings. I mean, a lot, I think a lot of these guys have to go in and hand change what the models are out there.

I don't think they do a great job of innings. And what is fascinating, you got to really pay attention to it. Like when you type in and you do like auction calculators and, you know, you take this projection system and you build it, a lot of the dollar amounts are based off of their projected innings. I don't think that's something. I mean, obviously, like, you're going to respect it, but you have to find the situations where you can't adjust. And I personally believe you, in a lot of these instances now, I will go above.

And I would want to adjust those projections. Yuri Perez, they're not going to give the innings. Bump it up. Give me the bumped up number. If they can supersede 20% of what is projected, I think that's how I want to look at some of these guys. And from every other marker, Michael King is an absolute standout. the innings that bring him down.

So I think he's a very undervalued player. I love him for 2024. And to that last point, the Padres are relying on him. If you look at the back half of their rotation, it's Michael King, Pedro Oveila, Randy Vasquez, maybe Johnny Brito works in there. Drew Thorpe gets called up at some point.

They need innings. I mean, Joe Musgrove, Udivish, they have had injury concerns as well. They kind of need Michael King to go out there and give them at least 140, 150 innings. It feels like the Padres have like 82% of a major league roster right now. It's such a weird team. And if Michael King was a Dodger, everyone would be like, oh, he's the perfect guy for a six-man

rotation. They're running a four-man rotation right now. So they can't, you can't get into the situation where they're going to limit a lot of this unless they got hyper-aggressive. I actually talked to Robbie Snelling, one of the top pitching prospect, whether you drew Thorpe or Robbie Stelling, how do you agree? I talked to him like two weeks ago, and I asked him, were they going to give you a shot in the rotation? And he was like, due to age, no, but I do have a major league invite to camp. So that was like his. positive thing, but they're not, that's the other thing. They're not being hyper-aggressive with some of these top pitching prospects. So they have to rely on Darvish, Musgrove, and King

to give them innings. And that's what I'm banking on here. Am I allowed to speak ill of the one you love, or is that asking? I mean, it's very rude, but you can if you want to be a hater. We, we, I understand we don't get to choose whom we love. But, you know, I thought I'd be higher on Michael King than it, that it turns out I've been, because I was obviously, I'm selling out for the strikeouts. I'm selling out for upside. I like that his stuff seemed to translate to his eight-star stretch to end the season.

And his K-per-9 in those eight starts was 11.3, which is great, obviously. But there are two things, I think, that are holding me back from King. One, we've covered the durability question. He kept getting hurt and relief. And specifically, the reason I mentioned fractured elbow is because that's, like, when your bones can't hold up to your delivery, That to me is the most concerning thing for a pitcher in terms of his longevity. Like your body literally buckles under the torque of your delivery.

And so I worry that are we even going to get a half a season's worth of starts from King? It's not that the Padres will limit him. It's just that he won't be available. That's what I worry about. And then the other thing for having 11.3K per 9 in those eight starts, only a 10% swinging strike rate, which is low. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know if in over the long haul, I mean, we're putting a lot on an eight-start span here.

If over the long haul, he is going to be a good source of strikeouts as opposed to just being an average one. I think it will work out because when I looked at the individual pitches, his sweeper had a 16% swinging strike rate. He's changed up 22.5%. Welsh mentioned that he uses that sinker quite a bit. So maybe using that early in counts, the sinker to get ground balls and maybe not always relying on getting strikeouts, Obviously, that could affect the upstayouts, though. Yeah. But, I mean, it was, he had 48 strikeouts over his final eight starts, 38 in the third inning. So he was well over a strikeout per inning.

Do with that what you will. I'm in agreement with you, Welsh. I have Michael King as a breakout this year, whether that's over 120, 30, 40, 50 innings. That remains to be seen. But I do like just the package that Michael King offers with all of his pitches there now out in San Diego. I will just say, Scott, it's a little uncouth. All right. You're kind of out of pocket here.

Yeah. I mean, hey, I bring my love to this. Yeah. Like, nobody here measures up to mine. Like,

yeah, like, oh, my, mine is better. You don't know what I'm experiencing today. That's a bad look. It's a bad look.

I also was going to say like, Cole Reagan's is not really the model of health either. So I was going to throw it out there. Maybe. Look, anytime you can, anytime you can fall in love with someone who's had Tommy John's surgery twice, you have to do it.

One point, one point, check that over a broken elbow. Any day. Any day. All right, well, I had all this stuff I wanted to do today. We've talked about like four pitchers in 40 minutes. I will quickly reveal the pitcher that I love.

And then we'll get to the hitters we love. And I guess we'll save Jorge Saler and all that other stuff for another day. The pitcher I love is a name that I mentioned on last week, two weeks ago. I don't know. Sleepers, breakouts, and busts 1.0. There were lots of options for this one. And pitchers that I really liked all throughout the draft, different rounds, parts of the draft. but there's one that I keep going back to.

And his name is Brian. Woo! That's right. Brian Wu with the Seattle Mariners, solid rookie season last year. He gets a good amount of WIFs, 12.5% swinging strike rate, tied for second among rookies

with at least 80 innings pitched. In fact, it was the same swinging strike rate as Codaisanga, who obviously was awesome with the New York Mets. Brian Wu did a great job limiting hard contact. It's expected ERA, according to Stackast, was 3.45. kind of has this Lance Lynn impression going on

where he relies on three different types of fastballs, a four seam, a sinker, and a cutter. That four seam fastball is really good. 208 batting average against 14.6% swinging strike rate was higher than Spencer Strider's swinging strike rate on his four seam fastball last year. In a limited sample, I also think Brian Wu has a slider

that looks like a really strong pitch. How much more will he use it? I'm not entirely sure. but look me into the metrics on that pitch. I like what I saw from the slider as well. And I just trust the Mariners pitching development. What they've done the past couple of years with Kirby and Logan Gilbert, Castillo has been really consistent since joining that team as well.

Brian Wu got up to 131 and two-thirds innings last year. I think he could push 150, 160, back end of that rotation there, a team that's built on pitching. The ADP is 219.6 as the SP 61 off the board. I have him as my SP 48, usually looking to wind up with him as my SP4 or 5. Any quick comments or questions on Brian Wu? I just want to point out,

we all have pitchers that might not project over 150 innings. I didn't realize we all did that, but we all love what might get away from us. You know, if you love Brian Wu so much, what do you have to do to win his affections? You have to woo him. It was right there for me. It was so easy, Frank.

Right there for me. The difference in excitement about Brian Wu versus, you know, Bryce Miller to name one, but just all of the Mariners prospects. It seems like the last like four years, every time a Mariners prospect gets called up, the fantasy community immediately falls in love with them and like stays in love with them. And it, things seem kind of tepid with Brian Wu. And I understand that when you go to his baseball reference page, you don't see the little boxes that say baseball America number 36 or whatever. Like he's a year and a half younger than Bryce Miller. He was comparable, arguably better as a rookie. He's got that great fastball that we all love for Bryce Miller.

And we're all kind of hoping Bryce Miller develops the rest of the arsenal. I don't know. I think there's a lack of. enthusiasm around Brian Wu that I don't quite get. He goes around 35 picks later than Bryce Miller right now. And it just feels like one of them gets talked about a lot more than the other one. And I'm not sure the difference there is justified. I think Brian Wu and Bryce Miller are very, very similar. And there should probably be less of a gap between them. Let's take our final break when we return. We've got a, I don't know, 15 minutes left to talk about the hitters we love here.

on fantasy baseball today. All right, welcome back in the hitters we love on Valentine's Day. Chris Towers, who you got? I've talked a lot about Riley Green over the last month or so, and I'll continue to talk a lot about Riley Green because I think he's just an incredibly, incredibly talented hitter. What we saw last season was a player who recognized the limitations in his game as a rookie. Hit the ball on the ground too much, wasn't maximizing his,

his raw power. Well, last season, average eggs of velocity jumps to 91.6 miles per hour. Max ex of Velos in the top 10% of the league, hard hit rate up to 47.3%. Groundball rate down to 48.9% from 57% as a rookie. And all of a sudden, it looks like a much more viable profile. And I think the thing people have to keep in mind is it's been a disappointing couple of early seasons for Riley Green. This was a consensus top five prospect in baseball before the 2022 season.

And if you remember, he fouled a ball off his foot, missed the first couple of months of his rookie season, never seemed to be right after that. He has struggled with injuries. That's the biggest case against Riley Green, I think, is that he's coming back from Tommy John surgery in his non-throwing arm. He missed time. What was the other injury? Oblique? No, it wasn't oblique. I can't remember what the other injury was.

Well, it doesn't matter. Stress fracture in his left fibula. Stress fracture. his left fibia exactly. So there are definite concerns here. But what we've got with Riley Green is we've got plus raw power. We've got a plus athlete 71st percent on sprint speed. There is room for 10 to 15 stolen bases. There is room for 25 to 30 home runs. Even in that ballpark because he did also increase the pull rate last season. That's what we want to see. Even with a 27.4 percent strikeout rate, his expected batting average was 289, right in line with the 288

mark he had last season. That tells you how well he strikes the ball. Line drive rate, 29 percent, according to baseball savant, expected Wobon contact was in the top five percentile of the league. I just think Riley Green is an incredibly, incredibly talented young hitter who has had a really tough time at the beginning of his career and has still, I think, looked pretty good last season. So I want to bet on him figuring it out, I think, even in a very tough park, you know, we always I saw Nick Castellanis is kind of disappointing in Detroit. But it's worth keeping in mind that that's also a guy who consistently hit 275, 285 in Detroit, was consistently in the 25 homer range, was consistently driving in a lot of runs.

I think that's what Riley Green can be. And he could also steal 12 to 15 bases. Yeah. And I was just looking up the splits too, just to make sure because he's a left-handed hitter. He's actually hit better against lefties so far in his career, just in terms of batting average. OPS, he is better at driving the ball and slugging the ball better against right-handed pitching. Obviously, coming back from Tommy John surgery, which he had on his non-throwing arm, expected to be ready for spring training and obviously for opening day. So he's a name that I

really just wanted to see him in spring first. And then if everything kind of checks out, I'm going to move him up the rankings. But speaking of those rankings, the ADP for Riley Green is the 41st outfielder off the board, 169.2. Chris, you are way ahead. The 23rd. outfielder in your rankings. And as we spoke about on our outfield preview part one, that's the part of the outfield rankings where things kind of go a little haywire

and you don't really have a lot of trust in those players from like outfield 20 and beyond or outfield 25 and beyond. So if you're really like Riley Green, you rank them that highly and you'll wind up getting a lot of him this season. Scott, let's go over to you, the hitter you love in 2024. Well, if you've listened to

our Valentine's Day, specials in the past, you know that I want my hitter to be a real beefcake. And if you think about it, beefcake, that's just a synonym for burger. Or as Jimmy Buffett would have described it, a big, warm bun and a huge hunk of meat. That's what I see when I say Jim burgers. He's starting to realize. I don't think Jimmy Buffett was talking about burgers. He is my paradise, strong like an ox, with only five players having a harder hit ball than him. Clever like a fox, actually making an effort to tone down his swing in his 53 games with the Marlins, taking his strikeout rate from 31.6 to 21.7 percent and his batting average from 2114 to 303.

You might think the softer touch would relegate his true animal nature. But no, of his 17 hardest hit balls all year, 11 came with the Marlins. His time with them was the perfect marriage of force and feelings. And so I propose my own perfect marriage, me and him in round 13. Wait for me, Jake Berger. And we shall be won. Amazing. The ADP is 170.4 as the 17th third baseman off the board.

We did our third base preview last week. And I think all of us came to the conclusion that we would love to draft Jake Berger. So we're going to be fighting over that one. Takes a little bit of a hit and a head to add points league because the plate is a plan. It's questionable. But, man, I mean, if he blends the two different sides of Jake Berger

that we saw last year, the Marlins version and the White Sox version, the sky is the limit. 270 plus, 35 plus home runs. I mean, there is a lot to like with Jake Berger. And he feels like the perfect fallback option. If you don't want to spend up on a third basement early in your draft, just knowing that he's going to be there in round, whatever, 11, 12, 13, whatever it's going to be.

I'm reading the lyrics to Cheeseburger in Paradise by now. And I just want to, it's just about cheeseburgers. There's no innuendo there. That song is just what it says. I want to apologize to that. There could be. Ms. No, it's just, I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz, 57, and French fried potatoes. He's just talking about how much he likes burgers.

I love the idea. Great song. As I was listening to Scott, I was just sitting there thinking about like him sitting over the table with his pen. Like every like 10 seconds just smiling going, and then just writing it. And just like writing this all day. Like I am getting a lot of enjoyment out of all of the things that I can see as you are coming up with the, oh, that's good. You know, you joke, the time I spent writing it is going to force me to go to bed later and actually compromise my actual Valentine's Day with my wife.

I believe it. We appreciate the sacrifice. And you know, earlier in the week, I said, Scott, are you going to write anything up this year for players we love? He's like, nah, I don't think I have the time. And then he spent probably all day writing these poems. So it's great. You never know when inspiration hits you, friend. Love is inspiring.

There you go. Oh man, let's continue on. Welsh, a hitter we love. I think one of us had this player as the hitter we love last year, so we're going back to the way. I did, yeah. Yeah, look, last year was a wash. This will be the year.

This player in our shortstop preview, spoiler alert, was, I believe, the player we all wanted to draft the most, if I'm remembering correctly. Well, apparently my love runs the deepest with O'Neill Cruz. And by the way, thanks so much for having me follow. that, Frank. Could have maybe save that for the end of the show. But I'm not, I have no big, uh, poem or any innuendo that I'm going to throw into it. I just will tell you, I love O'Neill Cruz. I think we've gotten to the like, we roll our eyes at this point of being like,

oh, but I can have. We get it. We all know those type of things. But the understanding of O'Neill Cruz is the value of the return you're going to get, regardless if you compare him against somebody else. I mean, in ECR short stops, and this also it's a little bit dicey because you get a few other players at Qualified Shortstop. Yahoo leagues will have a couple other players. One of New Cruz is like the 12th shortstop

right now, which is crazy to me. Yes, if you are playing this game of comparison to L.A. De La Cruz, like, you have both batting average problems, but we saw the improvement come back from Oneo Cruz. We saw him lower the strikeout rate. We saw him make better contact, hit against fastballs better.

I believe we will get more power, a bigger power output out of O'Neill Cruz while you'll get a little less stolen bases if we're continuing with that comp. Every projection system still loves him in a shorter amount of games around 25-25. I don't need the projection systems to tell me that I'm going to take the shot on him. I am very comfortable taking two short stops this year, one drop in the middle infield. I think that's the position to double up if you're going to this year. And O'Neil Cruz, whether he is the middle infielder, the starting shortstop, it doesn't

matter. If you're chasing speed, you want power. He qualifies that every marker with that. The only big question we're really sitting with is where will that batting average lie? And unlike what we did deal with with the comp of the Lade of the Cruz, we saw some of those early improvements happen with O'Neill Cruz before he got hurt. I don't care about the injury. I've moved past that. I'm banking 2525 plus. Yes, it's a pirates team. So the run in RBI numbers could be a little bit mitigated. But that all feels okay when his ADP is barely inside the top 100. and he's sitting somewhere between 60 and 100. He's one of my highest ranked players.

Love him this year, even though I was such a two year ago anti-O'Neil Cruz. We all love them, but hopefully I get the red rose at the end. You know, the other day I read a comment on YouTube on one of our videos, which you should never do. If you host a podcast or anything, just don't do that.

And I did it, of course. And somebody said, stop with the lazy comps between Ellie De La Cruz and O'Neil Cruz. And normally, I don't like lazy comps, either. And on the surface, it might seem, oh, all right, well, a hulking human being, they both have the same last name, Cruz, blah, blah, this is a lazy comp. It's really not a lazy comp. If you look at everything between the two, higher strikeout rate, struggles against lefties, there's volatility in the profile. There's also massive upside for both of these players in terms

of how hard they hit the ball and how fast they are too. So I really don't think it's a lazy comp. And one of them is going 50 picks later than the other one. I think we would all agree that Ellie does have higher upside, but does it require a 50 pick difference in ADP? My answer would be no. They also have Mason Wynn might complicate this, but they also both have arguably the two strongest throwing arms among short stops. So like the comps are,

the cops exist for a reason. It's not a lazy comp in this case. So what would be like a rigorous comp? If that's a lazy comp, what is like? I think you have to like, oh, this guy's two standard deviations about that. I think you'd have to do something like that. I mean, because I could compare O'Neill Cruz and Dave and what's the other guy's name? L.A. Dela Cruz on like a dozen different, a dozen critical factors.

Yeah, I mean, they are the most comparable player to each other. You couldn't find a more comparable player for either of them than they are for each other. And the problem is, is like, literally you kind of ask the question. and none of us jumped in and we were like, oh, this guy. And it's like, there's not. Like, maybe Fernando Tatis Jr. at some point there was something in that. But like it loses the physicality factor. Noelvi Marquet.

Eric, he's another gigantic shortstop. He's gigantic in a different way. Yeah, I guess he doesn't have the same. Yeah, I don't know if he has the same quality of context. It's a comp that you have to go out of position. That's the only other way that I can think about it. You can't play in person. position to properly do the comp. So I make fun of it because we all do it, but we kind of have to.

So sorry, comment guy. We did it again. Oops, we did it again. But it's just what it is. But O'Neill Cruz, my love. Lesson Learn. Don't read the comments. Agreed. The best for last. And by best I mean, I don't have a poem. So yes, I should have saved Scott for last. What I do mean by best for last is among all the players we talked about today, this player is being drafted the highest. So I'm not exactly sure how useful it is. It actually is the best player. He is, yes, he is objectively the best player. Most deserving of any of our love. And you know what? I wore the jersey for a reason. I was going to go with Jake Berger. I was in a text chat with Chris and Scott. And I was like,

oh, I think I want to do Jake Burger. And Scott's like, no. I saw him first. I saw him first. He called Dibbs. But you know what? I made a really compelling case. I thought for this player on our first base preview on why I would take him over Matt Olson and that might sound bold to some people. It's Bryce Harper. He is the hitter that I love. He is the hitter I've always loved. You always go back to the ones you love.

And Bryce Harper last year, we know what happened. He got off to a slow start. He had elbow surgery. He was the fastest player ever to come back from Tommy John surgery. It took him some time to get going. He flipped a power switch in August. Over the final two months, he hit $2.99 with 16 home runs,

a 1067 OPS. 93.3 average exit velocity, a near 21% barrel rate, which was the second best in baseball during that time. And then what do you do in the playoffs? He just did more of the same. He hit 286, 5 homers, 3 steals, an OPS approaching 1100. Bryce Harper is still awesome.

And I think he proved that over the final, if you consider the playoffs, the final three months of the season last year. He needs to stay healthy. That has been a problem for Bryce Harper. I cannot dispute that. but it's not easy to find players that can earn a profit in the early rounds.

But I think if Bryce Harper hits his ceiling, he's being drafted as like a mid-first round pick next year. And he's currently being drafted in the middle of the second round. So he is a player I think you could profit on. I would take him ahead of Matt Olson just because I think what he offers is how I like to build my team out better. It's a, you know, jack-of-all-trades, master of none, better batting average,

more seals than what Matt Olson's going to give you. And I think the Phillies lineup is, going to be awesome. So the counting stat should be there as well. Bryce Harper's my guy. He's great in every format too. Headded points, roto, whatever you want to do. He is the hitter I love. He's the hitter I've always loved. So there are a couple of like ironies here that I feel are worth pointing out because I originally came to you. You were asking, you know, pitcher and hitter you love. And I said, you know, I am having a hard time finding a hitter I love this year. I kind of love Matt Olson.

It's true. But I think that's lame. I think that's basically like some some rando simping over Taylor Swift, you know, like, like, not going to happen. What are you doing, guy? Just actually aim for somebody you can attain. And then I said, I guess I'm going to go with Jake Berger. And you're like, oh, I wanted Burger.

And I was, he's so much hotter now that you're. said that. You cannot have Jake Berger. And I ended up forcing you into the... I ended up forcing you to play the Semp for Bryce Harper. Not only is Scott here with the poems and the voice, he's also just out here dunking on everybody today.

And just a reminder in case you forget, Scott is a millennial. He knows... He knows... The words. Words like Simp. Mm-hmm. I wasn't... He might have had to look it up on Urban Dictionary, but he knows I felt uncomfortable coming out of my mouth.

I had to say it twice in a row. I don't know. I will say Bryce Harper plus 1,200 seems to be the market for NLMVP. I'm going to put a little bit on that. I think that's a good one. His over under for home runs this year is 30 and a half. You know, I'm smashing the over. He just has to stay healthy.

I think that's really what it comes down to for Bryce Harper. And we're just getting a truly massive. And I appreciate it, Frank. I did avoid, I won't say the name, but I did avoid talking about my one true love. You can watch on the video. Everybody would have expected it. There's only one true love that I could mention,

but I didn't today. So go on the video if you'd like to see. But I appreciate the high-end player because we can always have love for the best. Play in an auction or a salary cap league, and then you can get any player you want. That would be my advice to you. We're going to wrap there for Scott and the Chris's.

Towers and the Welsh. 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'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.