Fantasy Baseball Today - Projecting Hitters vs. Pitchers; Fantasy Superlatives (06/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 16, 2020

Today on the show we're revealing the findings of a homework assignment plus giving out Fantasy superlatives but first, we get Adam's take on those cheating Yankees! Just six days after Rob Manfred said we would unequivocally, 100% have a baseball season, he's going back on his word (5:32). What are the latest conspiracy theories? ... Onto our homework assignment, what did Frank find in terms of predicting hitters vs. pitchers over the first 50 games of a season (12:47)? ... Chris' research is much smarter and (likely) accurate so what did he find (15:58)? How do early-round hitters return value compare to early-round pitchers? ... How does ADP correlate to return on investment based on certain time intervals in a season (20:10)? ... What does Frank mean by "embracing luck" in a shortened season (25:35)? Why is Scott opposed to that? ... Onto our Fantasy superlatives, who is most likely to win MVP outside the first three rounds of ADP (36:12)? ... Why are the Tampa Bay Rays SP most likely to win the Cy Young outside the first three rounds of ADP (39:30)? ... Which Top-10 SP is most likely to be a bust (42:32)? ... Which MLB pitchers is most likely to give up a hit to Adam Aizer (53:48)!? Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our new YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyCfkdUcqL9UnNpGfkF039Q 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Back in high school, who had the best hair? Who was best dressed? What about most athletic? Ah, who doesn't love the yearbook? superlatives. Welcome to fantasy baseball today on a Tuesday. On a Tuesday, that's for you, Adam. June 16th, Frank Stamphal alongside Chris Tower, Scott White, and making his trium return, we've already said his name. Adam Azer, Adam. A lot has changed since you were last here on Friday. How's it going? Would you like to address the cheating Yankees here at the top?

Well, first of all, I just thought it was funny that you threw out the three superlatives that you obviously won in high school. Best hair, best dressed, and most athletic. Congratulations. Not me, man. Well, best hair you should have won. That I can say. You're always wearing a hat. I don't know why. Let the people see the goods.

Do you want to see this right now? Let's see what we got. Let's see the hat hair. Come on. You got to have good hair to have hat hair. It's pretty good even with the hat. Terrible. Being taken off, yeah.

The Yankees, the Yankees cheating thing is just so, I just always found it funny how baseball players were like, well, you're allowed to cheat, but not Astros cheat. That was like basically the way that's the whole, like, that's the whole baseball thing is like, Barry Bonds is persona non grata for Hall of, for at least a significant portion of Hall of Fame voters who will then like wax poetically about the the showmanship and gamesmanship of Gaylord Perry, like scuffing balls and using spitballs. And it's like, how are these, like, if anything, the guy who's actually literally

changing the baseball should draw more higher. I feel like people are kind of anti-Gaylord Perry. I don't think, I very much think he's always been viewed as like a one of baseball's wacky characters, Gay Lord Perry. And there's an appearance by the cat

already. It's pretty early for David Bowie to be out and about here. But this was actually something this was something Will Middlebrooks spoke about when we had him on. That it's like the gamesmanship within the game, right? It's like, you're allowed to try and figure out signs if you're a hitter on second base. Like, that's part of the gamesmanship, but it's, you know, using anything else,

the technology side of things where it kind of becomes a little crazy. So it's, I mean, it's all part of the game, I would say. But no, but this is, this is the difference. This is the, like, basically, my opinion is based on a column in the New York Post by Ken Davidoff. Yankees cheating allegations are total sham. Basically, the premise is, The reason why what the Yankees was doing wasn't as bad was because they weren't doing it in real time. They were using the video room to look at signs. And then later in the game, they would use those advantageously. Or according to Marks to Shera, not really that advantageously because teams were changing the signs.

Whereas the Astros were looking at signs and then using the trash can to immediately give hitters the signal of what was coming. So it's just funny. It's like I always felt like people were criticizing the Astros so much. much, you better not have any skeletons because it's going to come out. Don't throw stones. The Astros did, but. Cheating, it's cheating. Like, cheating is either wrong or it isn't.

And if you're going to say, like, because like, you look at Barry Bond's Hall of Fame case. Barry Bond started taking Starries in 1998. Do not ask me, oh, we don't know that. Like, there is a really exhaustively researched book that tells us Barry Bond started using 1999 versus no evidence that he used before. If you end Barry Bond's career in 1998, he's one of the 15 best players in baseball history. He's the only member of the 400-400 club. So the only argument for keeping Barry Bond's out of the Hall of Fame is cheating is a moral wrong that we must punish.

It's not, well, he shouldn't have been in the Hall of Fame because he didn't deserve it based on you. Like, the only argument is it's the moral point. In which case, you don't get to have sliding scales of, well, some cheats. is immoral, but some is, like, it's, that is not how it works. That is not how, but, like, logically that does not follow. Like, no, come on, you know, it is either morally wrong or it isn't. Some things are worse than others, Chris. You know that. But that's like the fabric of baseball, too, right? That goes back to the gamesmanship that I was

talking about, where trying to steal signs within the game is like a part of the game. It's like kind of morally not right, but it's always been there anyway. But obviously using, cameras and trash cans is a little bit more advanced. Yeah, I just want to know how long we can go without letting Scott give an opinion, because we're doing really, like, crazy well, right? That's bizarre. Scott White is here. Scott, how are you doing? I am. Yeah, I don't have, I don't have as strong opinions on this matter, I guess. So I'm just happy to let you guys run with it. That's fine with me.

I have something you might have an opinion on, and we're going to get into it right now. Today on the show, we're going to update you on, a homework assignment that Adam gave me over the weekend. We have fantasy superlatives, and of course, we got some more news yesterday, Scott, which why not kick the show off with this every day? We've basically become conspiracy theorists trying to figure out what is going on between the MLB,

the MLB Players Association, Rob Manfred, every single day. We are six days removed from the MLB draft, the first round of the MLB draft, where Rob Manfred was on ESPN, quoted as saying we will unequivocally 100% have a baseball season and then Scott

yesterday came out with Mike Greenberg of all people on ESPN that he's not so sure anymore he's not so confident that we're going to have a baseball season what is happening is this a stall tactic so that we can get to like the 50 game mark and it makes more sense to start it up then

what do you got it's not a good look no matter how you slice it it's uh you know i've i've been very consciously disinterested in not taking sides throughout this whole ordeal but rob robber manfred looked like a total scally wag yesterday like it was that's the all like that's the only thing it could that's the only way if you're hoping for a baseball season still this year that's the only way you could view it positively is it's a start all tactics. So, you know, either they want the players to waive their right to file a grievance against the league that they didn't negotiate in good faith, or else they're not going to start

the season, or they're just going to let enough time pass that before they start the season, there will only be time to fit the 50 or so games they want in. Because if they started the season in early July, you know, it would be, it would be difficult to argue that that's, that that's all there was time for. And the language of the March agreement says that has to be, you know, they have to make every reasonable effort to play as many games as possible or something like that.

So it's either they're sincerely thinking about not having the season because there's just not enough benefit to the owners to go through with it, or it's just a stall tactic. And neither one. You know, both look very yucky. And it's worth noting a couple things. One, I believe Joel Sherman just tweeted that he has six owners that don't want to start the season. Ken Rosenthal apparently has eight or more who don't want to start the season.

And the owners kind of gave the game away when they made first like an 86 game offer and then a 76. and then a 72 game, if they come back tomorrow and say, okay, we're going to play a 55 game season, that means that they're not doing what Scott said, making a reasonable effort to play. They've already acknowledged that they could play more games. So they kind of either have to run out the clock, like Scott said, until, I mean, really like mid-July or like early July,

to the point where they can say, okay, well, now we can have a three-week spring training, and then we can have a 50-game season. Starting in August, yeah. It's pretty transparent what they're doing. Like, it's, it sucks. What are they doing? In a situation filled with no transparency.

They want, what do you think they're doing? They want as few games as possible. So they're stalling, Adam. Yeah, I think they're, they are now stalling. They want, as long as they have to pay the fully prorated salaries, they want as few games as possible. Yes. which sucks.

Like if you're a baseball fan, that really sucks. If you're a fantasy baseball player, it sucks. You want, I mean, a 72 game season wouldn't be ideal, but it would be better than a 55 game season or a 50 game season or a 48 game season. It's just, the whole thing is, it's just super distressing and super disappointing.

And even for someone like me who is very much cynical about the business machinations of sports, the whole thing has been just, it's been a real bad, bad time. It has not helped improve my mood. And especially so for head-to-head points league players and head-to-head categories leagues, right? We spoke about this yesterday,

and Adam, you weren't here. I don't know if you have an opinion on the matter, but we said if it's a 48 or 54-game season, if it averages out to six games per week for MLB teams, you're looking at an eight or nine week head-to-head season, which at that point, you have six or seven regular season weeks, and then you have two weeks for the playoffs. And if you play in a 12-teen league, only four teams are making the playoffs.

And in the regular season, you're probably playing double-headers or even triple-headers so that there's a little bit more parity so that the records reflect something that looks kind of like a normal season, but ultimately that's where we're at. It affects real-life baseball, it affects fantasy baseball. Anything to add at him? Honestly, oh, sorry. Or Chris. No, no, no, it's okay.

Not really. I don't have anything to add. You could just do kind of a total points thing and get rid of matchups if you want. It's disappointing for sure. And also there's coronavirus. So, you know, the football news that came yesterday with the Texans and the Cowboys

just kind of goes to show you that no matter what happens when sports returns for fantasy, it's going to be the wackiest year. Guys are going to test positive. It's going to hold out. Guys are just going to not play. Some, yeah, some won't. But most of these guys know that they're going to be fine if they test positive, thank God.

But they are going to test positive. They're going to be out for two weeks at least. And it's just going to be a wacky, wacky year. And it's going to be one of those situations where if you do really poorly in fantasy this year, you can just, you have such, so many built-in excuses. It's not win-win situation. This is not the year for high-stakes play. No way.

I would say. You know what I would prefer, actually, to like, an eight or nine game or a nine-week season? Let's just go full college baseball style. Start in mid-July, play like, what would that be, 12, 13 weeks, four games a week. You have like a Tuesday or a Wednesday game. You got your weekend series. Let's just go all out. Teams will only need three starting pitchers.

Let's just do it. Let's do it. And just piggybacking off the point that Adam made, I mean, there's going to be players that don't want to play because they have health complications. Like Carlos Carrasco, we don't even know if Carlos Carasco is going to be able to play in a season like this

because, I mean, he is, he is recovered from leukemia, right? And coronavirus is still a thing. So, you know, if that is where the owners wanted to point things, like say, hey, look, the pandemic is still, like, there's whatever the stats are. I think it's 21 states

are still seeing numbers increasing in coronavirus. Like, yeah, that's probably more of a reason than anything, you know, money related for not starting. up a season. But alas, let's jump into the homework assignment. We do want to get to some fantasy superlatives as well. Admittedly, I was given the homework assignment. Chris basically took it and made it look way better and way smarter. So he will give his take on the research. But here is ultimately what I found. On Friday, we got into a little debate on whether or not it's easier to

project early round hitters than it is early round pitchers in a 50 game season. Here's what I did. I used NFBC ADP over the past five years, dating back to 2015. I looked at all starting pitchers and all hitters ranked inside the top 70 picks. Not sure why I chose 70, but I considered that to cut off to be an early round player. I then looked at the league leaders in ERA for starting pitchers and offensive war for hitters over the first 50 games of each of those seasons. I considered ranking top 30 in either ERA or offensive war meant you were a positive contributor at that point in the season.

For example, if you're 3.68 ERA among starting pitchers through 50 games ranked 30th, then you qualify. Same thing for hitters with offensive war. For all intents and purposes, again, this was just an exercise to see how many of the top 70 players drafted each season are living up to expectations through the first 50 games. So what I found was that 50% of hitters drafted inside the top 70 picks over the past five years ranked top 30 in offensive war after the first 50 games. For starting pitchers, however, that percentage was just 26%. Therefore, based on what I did, and I'm not sure how accurate it is or whatever it might be. But this is what I found,

was that projecting hitter performance for early round hitters in the first 50 games of a season is easier to predict than projecting starting pitcher performance during that same span. It's open up to the world. Okay. So you said 50%? of hitters, 26% of pitchers, right?

Yes. Does that factor in, how did you come to that number? Does that factor in the fact that there are a lot more hitters than pitchers being drafted in those 70 picks? Like you look at ADP this year, it's almost 50 hitters to 20 pitchers. So you're going to get a lot more hitters that show up, well, am I doing, am I thinking of this? Yeah, he was talking about rates already, right?

right? It was like 50% to 26% was what you said. Yes. But no, your question is valid, Adam. I didn't just like parse through the top 35 hitters in ADP and the top 35 pitchers. I literally just used the top 70 picks in ADP. So in any given season, if there were 50 hitters drafted in the top 70 picks

and there were only 20 pitchers, then yeah, that obviously puts pitchers at a disadvantage. That's why it's not like, a foolproof system by any means. And again, this was using NFBC ADP. And I didn't calculate for each year how many hitters were in the top 70 and how many pitchers.

But these are all things that I should have, realistically. Chris, I know that you also did some research and had some findings of your own. Yeah, yeah. And so basically I did a, I wanted to look at a couple of things based on recent discussions that we've had. I wanted to look at how, All pitcher starting pitchers versus hitters return value on your investment.

And then I wanted to look at that conversation we had last week about whether, you know, you can, you can't rely on or the lower end guys might have more value in a in April through May situation before they get figured out, that kind of, that whole discussion that we had. So first off, I looked at the last three years ADP, just like you did. I took roto values and basically split them up by draft range. So I split up the top 12, 13 through 24. So the first round, second round, and then two rounds each over the next, over the rest of the draft.

And what I found was over the last three seasons, the average hitter has produced a full season Roto score in the first round of about 14.6. That is the equivalent to what Jorge St. Salaire or J.D. Martinez did. So, you know, you usually get a pretty good return on your investment. On the pitching side, it was a 12.2 row of score. So a little bit lower, you get a little worse return on your investment among those first rounders. It makes sense. Reflects how we draft. We take hitters early more than pitchers. Second round, pitchers actually have a slightly better return on investment, then hitters. And then after that, it weighs pretty heavily towards

the hitting side in the early rounds, especially. That's third through fourth range. Hitters return way better value. Fifth through sixth, kind of close, but then eight through 12th or 11th round, yeah, that'd be the way to go. Eight through 11th round, hitters were way more value. So basically within the top 120 picks, the first 10 rounds. hitters generally provide a better return on average at every draft range. And this fits in with some other research that I've seen. Ariel Cohen on Fangraphs last year did a kind of breakdown of which tiers of starting pitcher provide the best return on investment.

I think I can't remember the other guy's name. Adamator. No. Mike Giannella. Mike Junella did a similar one on baseball reference. or baseball perspectives. And what he, what both found was basically like that top tier of starting pitchers,

however you define it, you know, top 10, top 15, tend to return the best, the most value on their investment that you make on them. After that, it gets really,

really shaky for starting pitchers. You know, after basically that first 15, maybe first 24 to 25, pitchers, basically you're just kind of guessing. Like you would have about as much luck if you were just flipping a coin or doing a random number generator.

So, you know, for me, that tells me, you know, in a normal season, you probably do want to make sure you take multiple of those top tier pitchers and then try as best you can to avoid, you know, that kind of, you know, on the fancy football today podcast, Ben Grutch talks about the running back dead zone, which is like the fifth through ninth round. You know, maybe that starting pitch or dead zone is kind of the same thing. Maybe that, you know, fifth through 10th round or something. So that's the season long results.

And then I did some kind of, I'm very much an amateur stats person, by the way. I dropped the only stats class I took in college because I had a midterm on Halloween. Chris, if you're an amateur, then what am I? I don't know, man. but basically I know how to do functions. I know how to do functions on Excel. You're an intern. And so basically what I found was I looked at ADP

and how it correlated to the return on investment through various points in the season. So I looked at two month spans throughout the season, April through May, May through June, et cetera. And 2019 was an unusually predictable year overall for hitters and pitchers. Strongest correlation between value and ADP for any of the last three seasons.

There was basically no statistically significant difference between the relationship between ADP and production for any period of the season. ADP explained about as much of a pitcher's performance in April and May as it did in August and September, which is worth noting not very much. Pitching, you know, hitting, it's also true for. Hitting is only slight,

ADP is only slightly more predictive of a player's value both through the season and overall than pitching, although it is more consistent throughout. So, yeah, I think that kind of proves for me that at least when it comes to how we deal with a 50 game season, it shouldn't necessarily change how you value pitchers, all that much. I think how you value pitchers relative to hitters, I would go more hitter heavy early on in a shortened season, but how you value pitchers relative to each other shouldn't change. You shouldn't downgrade the aces.

You shouldn't upgrade the lower end guys. The pitcher ranking should generally look how they always do. At least that's my take. My research showed at least, like I said, amateur statistician, it's possible I made a copy and paste error somewhere because I don't have any way to automate all of this. I feel confident in my results, but specifically you're saying that just because a pitcher hasn't seen the league a lot, we shouldn't expect him to perform better because of that over a two-month span. Yeah, yeah.

So hitters actually do have, there is actually a higher correlation. between ADP and value in April and May and May and June for hitters, which is actually interesting. What that tells me is the injuries, as the injuries start to pile up, that's when things get harder to predict for pitchers. Where for pitchers, April and May are actually slightly more heavily correlated to ADP, the higher you're drafted, the higher you tend, the better you tend to perform. but that disappears by May.

Like that May to June stretch, ADP has basically no correlation to production. And that holds pretty steady for the full season. So, you know, that I think also makes sense because you're looking at injuries and pitchers, the attrition rate for pitchers is a lot higher. Your pitcher is more likely to get hurt in April than you're hit it. All right, Scott, I see a lot of head nodding down there.

So break this down in English. I mean, gross broke it down pretty well. Yeah, I basically decided I'm not really going to change my approach that much. I am moving up certain pitchers based on, for workload reasons, guys who workload was going to be restricted over a longer season and isn't so much anymore. And specifically, that's like, Jesus Luson. Rizardo, Rich Hill, you know, maybe Julio Reyes, but I'm not super confident he's going to go deep into games, so not even that much for him. But just in terms of even hitters versus pitchers, I do understand that hitters, I mean, hitters were always going to be more predictable than pitchers, but especially over a shorter season when you're talking about 10 or so starts from a pitcher.

what a hitter is going to provide over that same period of time is going to be much more predictable, but it doesn't really change the drop-off that I've been talking about all year where, you know, it's a nice slow slope in terms of expected hitting outcome, and then it's just a cliff at starting pitcher, and I don't want to be on the other side of the cliff no matter how long the season is. So I'm still going to be trying to get at least four of my time. top 35 because that's where I see the cliff at least, at least threatening to appear. And yeah, I wish I could move hitters up compared to pitchers,

but I don't think it's feasible just because the way the starting pitcher position breaks down right now. Like, I don't, all you're really doing if you downgrade pitchers and accept more on the wrong side of the clip is just, Cliff is just asking to get lucky, asking that the pitchers you do pick up are the ones who do things they're not necessarily expected to do

over a shorter period of time. And that's not really a winning strategy as far as I'm concerned. I hear what you're saying, Scott. But I guess my whole point, which how all this started was that I'm willing to embrace more of that,

I guess, luck factor in a shortened season, which isn't completely helpful. I understand what you're saying. Like it's not entirely a winning strategy, but I am in a 50-game season, I just think that there is going to be more luck involved and I'm willing to embrace that luck more so than I would be over the course of a 162 game season, because, I mean, the reason why fantasy baseball is what it is, is because it's a grind and that you can almost change your fortune throughout the course of the season by

being diligent and making trade and buy low and sell high and making waiver-wire additions, whereas in a shortened season, you just don't have that grind on your side. So I'm almost willing to embrace the luck more so this season than I would ever before. Let me present a hypothetical, if you don't mind. Let's say your fourth starter is Zach Wheeler. Zach Wheeler goes out and gets Schallacked his first time out.

You're sticking with Zach Wheeler. And you're probably going to be fine based on what we know about Zach Wheeler. Let's say her fourth starter is somebody who has some sleeper appeal, but we don't really know what to expect from him. Mitch Keller, or I was going to say, Jose or Kiti, somebody like that,

and they get shellacked first time out. And they get shellacked second time out. What are you doing? Are you just going to stick with him? Are you going to pick up the flavor of the weak type off waivers who isn't going to be somebody, that, you know, we had higher hopes for going on the season than Arkiti or Kalori or somebody like that. I mean, but you can't afford, you can't afford to stick with somebody who may never turn it around when, you, you know, you can afford the patience in a longer season.

You could, you could wait to see how it plays out and maybe wait to see till something emerges on waiver wire that is, would legitimately be more trustworthy. You're just caught in this endless spiral of guessing and chasing the hot hand in a short season if you don't go with something you feel like you can actually rely on. Well, my retort to that would, sorry, Chris, would be, you mentioned, Chris, keep trying to get in here. We'll get you in there, Chris. Well, I just, I have one point that I wanted to get out. Go ahead, go, Chris, go. You kept saying luck.

And this is sort of nitpicking and it's sort of botanic, but I do think it helps communicate the point better. the shortened season, it's not necessarily, like luck has certain connotations, and I think it's better to say uncertainty. Because when you, when you're talking about, like, let's use the, like, 538, you know, they're like election model. The thing they talk about a lot is like there's an average, let's say one candidate's up by five points, and the average polling error is four points or the margin of error is three points and the average polling error is three points, let's say. So, the error could swing to the point where the person who's down ends up winning. There's that six point margin that could swing.

But it's just as likely that it could be an 11 point margin. So I think it's worth talking about it more as uncertainty rather than just luck, which is to say that when we're talking about uncertainty for pitcher, it means that Mitch Keller could get rocked in his first two starts. It also means he could go out and throw 17 innings in his first two starts with 20 strikeouts. And both are relatively as likely to occur, you know, the extreme good and extreme bad. And so that's the amateur statistician talking at you. The gamer in me wants to call it luck because I'm purposely trying to denigrate the strategy and gamers don't look luck.

So that's the reason I chose that term. but I do hear what you're saying. Yeah, it's just, I think it communicates the idea of what we're dealing with. It's, yeah, it's this uncertainty. That's what the shortened season is really going to heighten, is we have this very high level of uncertainty to begin with in fantasy baseball. And this just ratchets it up to, you know, 20. Adam, I have one thing to add.

What are your thoughts here? Well, you know, we have a sense of urgency as fantasy. baseball players with a short season, less than 60 games, but MLB teams are also going to have that. If you have too many guys in your fantasy rotation that are not mainstays in their rotation, they're going to get skipped. You're going to say, especially if we have enough days off,

you're going to see, I think, not necessarily a four-man rotation, but think about it. Like, you don't have to save bullets from your starting pitchers. You don't have to give them six days rest and go with a five-man rotation if you have an off day. So if your team, if an MLB team doesn't like its fifth starter, They're going to skip them.

So that's something you have to keep in mind. You want more players in your fantasy rotation that are definitely not going to get skipped, are not number five starting pitchers. I wouldn't want to have like Alex Wood and maybe it's who they are raised, whoever their fifth starters is going to end up being. I wouldn't want to have too many guys that are back end of the rotation guys with upside because they're going to get skipped. And if they don't, especially they don't do well.

But even if they do do well, you know, these teams have to win every time out. they're going to approach it like the postseason and they're going to shorten their rotation and they're going to shorten the leash on these guys too. Sure. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. Anything else to add on this homework assignment that we had here? I just think that

since there are so many more hitters that get drafted in the top 70 than pitchers that it was probably a very difficult homework assignment for me to give you. And I don't know what we can take away. I'm like, yeah, you would expect more hitters to finish top 10, top. top 20, top 30.

I know you gave rates and all that, but there's just not that many pitchers. So I don't know. I'm not going to change my strategy that much. If I change it, it might be something like, I go from four pitchers with my first eight picks to four pitchers with my first nine or ten,

something like that. A mild downgrade for pitchers, since they are a little bit flaky. But I think I'm going to just stick with what I usually do because the other reason why we draft pitchers early it's not just because pitching shallow, it's because hitting is so deep. And you're not getting that much of an advantage

by taking a short stop in round seven compared to round 10. You know what I mean? That's the other part of it. It's the depth of the positions as well. I'm not going to change anything all that much. All right, I want to get into some of our fantasy superlatives, but before we do that,

I do want to remind everybody that the fantasy football product is now available. And Adam, I know that you could talk more about this. I know that you guys have a Twitch mock draft, which is tonight, Tuesday, June 16th. So just talk about everything FFT related. I know you got a lot going on over there, Adam. Yes. So we have sleepers breakouts and busts on the podcast this week,

plus a breakdown of each of the top 30 in our consensus rankings. That came out Monday. Sleepers came out this morning. Breakouts will be Wednesday morning and Friday morning busts. Chris can probably tell you what's going on on the website, but tons of great content. And Twitch tonight, Twitch. Twitch.com slash FF today.

If you're not familiar with Twitch, I wasn't. It's live streaming. We're going to be doing a mock draft. You can follow along. You can see us mock. You can watch us as we mock. You can ask us questions and we'll answer them live. You can mock us perfectly.

But you can't draft us. But yeah, you can ask us fantasy questions live. And we have a good time. We do it every Tuesday, most Tuesday nights now. So Twitch.com slash FF today. Cool. Chris, did you want to quickly mention any of those fantasy football products that are now available?

Well, it's the fantasy commissioner product. You know, we, this, it relaunched this week. And, you know, that kind of coincides with our launch of our fantasy draft prep content. We've been doing it for, you know, the whole offseason. We've done more fantasy football offseason content than ever this offseason. But now we're, you know, this is the start of us. You know, we did the top 100 breakdowns, case four and case against yesterday, sleepers today, breakouts bus the next two days and then Dave's tears on Friday. So, you know, we're really,

this is kind of the point where we're getting back to focusing on football to get you ready for, you know, your drafts in August. I think it's crazy. I think it's ridiculous, Chris, that you're focusing on football before the baseball season even starts. I mean. How dare you, Chris? CBS, always always focusing on football before baseball. Ridiculous. Well, it's going to be more deserved than ever this year. If we're starting in August, I can't wait until opening day.

I just hope we're starting it all at this point. This is the most pessimistic I've been throughout the whole ordeal, if I'm being honest. I just can't wait for opening day to get overshadowed on SportsCenter by like the Cardinals' training camp opening. Opening day, September 1st,

it's going to be a ton of fun. Support our FFT brethren. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will take a look at some fantasy superlatives. We'll do that right here on fantasy baseball today. All right, we're back here on fantasy baseball today. Fantasy superlatives. I dug into some of your old fantasy, your old, because I wasn't a part of it,

your old fantasy baseball today podcast, to try and find some inspiration. And I found a fantasy superlative podcast, and this is where I landed. So let's start off right here. Most likely to win MVP outside of the first three rounds of 80s. Adam, why don't you get us started? Aaron Judge. You got to be on a good team to win MVP. He's a great fielder.

He's a good base runner. He's a hell of a guy. And he's, yeah, and he's close enough to the top 30 picks, I guess. So, you know, I was going to say Jose Altuvae, but he doesn't make it out of the first three rounds. I was, I was going to go with an Astro and then I realized that there's no way they're giving an Astra and MVP this year. Like, George Springer could have a 1400 OPS and the Astros could win 90% of their games.

They'd still give it to someone else. I actually go the other way, Chris, I think the way that the baseball season is going, like Rob Manfred and all baseball, just as like a final stick it to you, we'll give the MVP award to a Houston Astro. Just would not surprise me. Scott, what do you think here? Man, did you guys look all, did you guys have a chance to look this up beforehand? I'm just doing off the top of the dome.

Yeah, okay, good for you. It's not hard. Oh, you know who I think it is? Who do you got? Nick Castianos. Ooh, bold. I like that one. He's going to win the MVP.

The Reds have to make the playoffs first. I think he could perform. I think the Reds will. I think the Reds will win their division. And I think Nick Castianos will be their best hitter and perform like a, well, I guess I can't say, I think he will. will perform like a second rounder or I probably need to move him up my rankings, but I think he could perform like a second rounder. It's not crazy. Chris, what do you think? MVP outside the top three rounds

of ADP? I'm waffling between a few teams. I think I'm going to go with J.T. Rao Muto. He is, I think the Phillies are going to be a lot better this season than they were last year. I think he's going to be better than he was last season. I think the Phillies absolutely could win that division. and he'll be doing it as a catcher who will, he might just play every single day this season. He might play every single game. And so I'm going to go with J.T. Romuto, the first catcher of the pitch framing era to win MVP.

Fair enough. I think, is he in a contract year too? Contract year. So that might be, might play a little bit of a factor for him. I'm going to go with Matt Chapman. I think, you know, defense can factor in. here. Obviously, the offense could be there. His first 50 games last season, 897 OPS, 13 homers,

16% strikeout, right? Second half, strikeouts went up. It seemed like he kind of started pulling for home runs more than ever before. Like, he was, you know, got a little bit home run happy. So I think the Oakland A's can obviously be competitive in that division. Marcus Semyon almost did it last year. So I think Matt Chapman, another Oakland A, can come close to doing so and compete for it. All right, most likely to win the Sai Young outside the first three rounds of ADP. Both Jacob de Grom and Blake Snell did this in 2018. Scott, you get us started here.

Yeah, this is more likely to happen than... Oh, there's only 11. Yeah, there's only 11 pitchers in the first three rounds. Sunny Gray, right? I would say my choice for most likely to win Sai Young outside of the first three rounds. I'm going to go with I'm going to go with

Aranola Interesting Going to be a good year for the Phillies According to this show Apparently JT Rio Muto MVP Aranola

Sayyung I almost pick Bryce Harper For MVP So Is he outside the top The first three rounds I don't think he's quite there Bryce Harper

Is 22.8 So he's actually Inside the top two rounds Yeah Brank I got to get going here. I'm sorry. It's all good.

Charlie Morton is going to win. Oh, come on. That's the answer, baby. That's the answer. I have it written down right here. I'm also going to steal Chris's bus. I'm going to say, Steven Strasbourg is the pitcher most likely to,

the top 10 pitcher most likely to be a bust. Man. I'm going to leave too. The pitcher who's most likely to give up a hit to Adam Azer is Jordan Hicks. And here's why. I just want the fastest pitch possible. I am going to swing as soon as you. goes into his motion.

I'm going to close my eyes and just hope that the velocity from the pitch does enough to give me like a screaming line drive right back up the box. And I make contact and that's basically the only way I'm getting a hit off of a major league pitcher. Adam's going to shatter every bone

in your hands. If I'm at first base, I won't care, Chris. Adam's going to be wearing two pairs of batting gloves. Adam, uh... Underwear. Are you a right-handed batter or a left-handed batter? I am a right-handed batter. Oh, come on, man. You get a hit off Marco Gonzalez.

You got the righty-lefty splits right there. I have faith, man. You can make it happen. All right. I like it. We appreciate it. All right, guys. We'll see you. Go do your thing. All right. Chris, where did we end off here? Did you have Charlie Morton as your... Tray Morton was going to be mine. I'll pivot off of that and say Tyler Glass now. I have both of those names written down as my two answers as well. Blake Snell did it two years ago. Let's keep it all with Tampa Bay Rays, Charlie Morton and

Tyler Glassnow. We've talked a lot about Glass Now. Are you laughing at the way I say Morton? I can't not laugh when you say Charlie Morton. You're sowing your head with that. I really am. Tyler Glassnow, we talk about it a lot. I mean, if you get to stay healthy for a 50 game season and performs anywhere close to what he did last year, it would not surprise me or really anybody if he were to compete for the Syung this season. All right. Top 10 pitcher in ADP most likely to bust this season. Basically this year's wait for it, Trevor Bauer.

Womp, Womp, Scott, you're up. Top 10 in ADP, I will say the most likely to bust is, it's probably Shane Bieber, even though I like Bieber. It's probably Shane Bieber. Why is that? because he gets hit so hard. Yeah. That, that to me seems like it could lead to a ton of variance in a shortened season.

The one thing I'll say about that is he just misses so many bats. You know, like in terms of his swinging strike rate and his ability to just rack up strikeouts, like there aren't many balls that are being put in play. But yes, he does allow a lot of hard contact. Yeah, I mean, that's true of all the top 10. And most of them give up weak contact. So true. Like I said, I like Shane Bieber.

I think I rank him higher than the consensus does. And I'm often taking him in the second round. But, you know, if you're choosing me to pick a bust, one who's most likely a bust, he'd be the one. I don't think it's, I don't think it's greatly higher than any of the others, I guess, or else I wouldn't rank him as high as I do. But it's probably a teeny bit higher. It's going to happen, though. This would be another exercise we can do.

but I'm sure consistently, out of the top 10 starting pitchers that are drafted, you're going to see at least three to five of them not live up to expectations. So, Chris, what do you think? Who's the top 10 pitcher, most likely to bust? I like the Beaver call. Adam was right that I think Stephen Strasberg

is very likely to bust based on his ADP. I'm actually going to go with the guy who couldn't stay healthy last year, has already had knee surgery this year, Mike Levinter. I commend you for remaining consistent because we have had many a Clevenger debate here on the show, mostly between you and Adam. But I appreciate the consistency. I'm going to go with Max Scherzer, and it's really not performance-based.

It's just based on injury. I think, you know, you can throw Kershaw in that mix, Strasbourg in that mix. Strasberg managed to stay healthy. Verlander. Another one, I saw a video of him throwing off of a mound yesterday for the first time. So it seems like he's good to go. but again, once these pitchers get as old as they are, guys like Scherzer and Verlander,

your risk for injury and specifically re-injury for, you know, I think in Scherzer's case, a chronic neck back injury, it affected him in the World Series, especially in a shortened season, that's something that could definitely come into play. All right. And I almost picked Kershaw.

Yeah. So, I mean, you could make a good argument for most of them. You could make an argument for Cole. You couldn't really make a great argument for de Grom, I don't think, which I guess is why somebody like you, Frank, tends to take DeGrom first over all at the position. Yeah, I thought about Garicol, too. He had some, like, elbow bities a couple years ago, remember?

Yeah. He had, like, loose bodies, I guess that. That could be. And then I think he went on to win Sy Young. Yeah, it was three years ago. He'd been dominant sense. All right, Chris, get us started here. A reliever who is currently not on our radar.

who is most likely to become closer. This is an interesting one. So basically Liam Hendricks from last year, nobody was drafting Liam Hendricks, and nobody expected him to become the closer. And it became quite good. What do you think, Chris? So the way you phrase the question is kind of tough,

most likely to become closer? Well, I mean, I guess I could just go with whoever the setup man for the Marlins is. Who is that? I don't know. But that's not what I'm going to do. It would be Brad Boxburger, I think. Is it a Ryan Stannock?

Yeah, it doesn't matter. Okay, fair enough. I'm going to go with Blake Trinan, the guy who lost his job to Liam Hendricks last season. I don't know if he's the most likely to become the closer, but I think he has the best chance of anyone not on our radar to be a lights out closer if he gets the chance. Scott, who's your pick?

So by on our radar, are you including like Scott Oberg and Will Smith? Yeah, I think a lot of those guys are pretty obvious. Just a reliever we don't really talk about ever. I'm going to go with Raphael Montero of the Rangers. Right team, wrong reliever. Oh, really? Yes. I'm a big DeMarcus Evans fan.

Although he does have issues with walks as well in their minor league system. his strikeout ability is just insane. 100 strikeouts across 60 innings pitched between two different minor league seasons last year. He had a 17% swinging strike rate and 30 appearances at AA. But I like where your heads at, Scott, in terms of the Texas Rangers,

because LeClerc, I mean, on a yearly basis, trying to figure out if he's going to be able to throw strikes and which Jose LeClerc is going to show up, it would not surprise me if he loses that role rather quickly. it would be helpful to know who his backup is and just based on the way Montero was being used down the stretch

and he had in 29 innings 2480 or a 0.97 whip 10.6K per 9. I mean he had closer caliber numbers so I think former Mets starting pitcher prospect Rafael Montero is somebody who you know in those AL only roto leagues probably needs to be drafted. Is that the same Raphael Montero

who was like suspended was like banned for life for steroids? No, that was not Raphael Monter. That was Henry Mejia. Yeah. Ah, okay. You've got your former top Mets pitching prospects. Yeah.

All right, let's stick with the reliever, the bullpen theme here, Scott. And it could be the same answer, I guess, based on Jose LeClerc, but who is the first closer to lose their job this season? No, it's not the same answer. It's Wade Davis. That's my answer. Scott O'Ber replaces him. That's the answer.

Yeah. That is a very fair answer, and I will not argue with that. And I don't even know if this guy is going to be named the closer because they were kind of non-committal on it anyway. But I could see him starting as the closer and in just completely falling off. And for me, that's Ian Kennedy with the Kansas City Royals.

And they were talking up Trevor Rosenthal and Mike Mathini has a rapport with Rosenthal and their friends, and they have that commercial. Rotary and whatever. There's just a trust factor there. And Rosenthal looked very good in the spring for what it's worth. Not sure how much, but I'll just throw that out there. Ian Kennedy. Yeah. Ian Kennedy for me, first closer lose their job. All right, this is a little bit more interesting and I'm going to hold you to it over the next three to five years. The prospect most

likely to become the next Ronald Acuna in the next three to five years. So a player who has not debuted yet, still has prospect status, and you can see becoming a first round player in redraft leagues within the next three to five years. Scott? So that's the only criteria. He just can't have debuted yet. We could see him having, becoming a top five pick. Whatever prospect you could see. I mean, if you want to take, like, Ronald LeCunia's skill set into account, that's something I did, but you don't have to do that. Someone who could become a 30-30 player, for example, or 40-40, I guess.

I mean, I think no matter what criteria you use, it's probably the same answer, right? Who is it, Robert? No, Wander Franco. Oh, okay. The 18-year-old who is the consensus top prospect in baseball, who had 19 more walks than strikeouts last season, nine homers and 18 stolen bases,

as an 18-year-old playing in A-ball. Like, he could be the guy who, if we had a normal 2020 season, we were screaming about not getting called up in, you know, May. I see it. I think I comp him more like a Juan Soto, which I guess is not really dissimilar. Like he could become a first round pick with really good play discipline regardless. He's got the speed, though.

I mean, he was not an effective base dealer last year, but he was certainly an enthusiastic one. 32 stolen bases in 114 games. And, you know, I think the scouting reports generally do indicate that he, you know, is a plus runner. I don't envision him being a big base dealer either like Frank. And it's hard to tell, of course, for minor league numbers. So I was thinking more skill set and just the necessity of getting stolen bases from a top three pick in Roto right now. Maybe that'll change by the, you know, in three to five years.

Maybe everybody will be running more and home runs will be less frequent. I don't know. It's possible. Look how much has changed in the last three to five years. But yeah, now that's interesting because I would absolutely call Franco the best prospect in baseball. But a lot of that's how I weigh the probability of him reaching his ceiling versus somebody like Robert, who I give a lower chance of doing this. Matt, but I think it'll be, if he does, it'll be more likely five category production.

And I want to give an honorable mention to someone who's a little bit further away, hasn't I even played a minor league game yet, but the Martian. Jason Dominguez, just some of the things that they've said about this kid already, and he's like, what, 16, 17 years old, has not played a minor league game yet. His ETA is like 2024, so it does fit the three to five year timetable, but he is someone that I could see very quickly rising up the ranks of, it'll be prospect rankings. If you don't mind me being a jerk here,

there's no way you can say a 16-year-old is the most likely to be anything at age 16. Wow, you're such a jerk, Scott. No. I'm just holding you to the language you've said here. I mean, that's like me and Chris projecting Juan Soto to be in the Hall of Fame, you know. Yeah. I would say, you know, if you do want to go off the board from the guys we've mentioned so far, Joe Adelaus probably the best pick. The minor league numbers, he's another guy who the minor league numbers kind of trail the scouting reports.

But if he hits what the scouting reports say he could, you know, you're talking about probably the peak Justin Upton years but with more stolen base potential. Yeah, I definitely think that's fair. Shout out to Joe Adele. All right, last question here. Last fantasy superlative. Not really fantasy related. I guess it's real life related. And we've already talked about it.

Most likely to give up a hit to Adam Azer. I mentioned my answer. Marco Gonzalez. He allowed 210 hits, a soft-tossing left-hander. I have faith in Adam Azer's ability against Marco Gonzalez. What do you guys think? I'm going to go Mike Leak. Mike Leak allowed the most hits in baseball last year.

Yeah. 227. Do they have to technically be on a roster? What are you going to do, Bartolo Colon? No, Jason Vargas was on He's quite bad. Last season, the Phillies did turn down his option, I just noticed, but he had the second lowest average fastball velocity in baseball last season.

He is a lefty as well. So I think Adam could hit one of those 82 mile an hour Jason Vargas fastballs. He's the only like normal thrower who averages like below 85 miles per hour. Everyone else is like submarine or sidearm guys and there's no way Adam's getting a hit on any of those guys.

Definitely not happening. Do you guys remember that photo from, I think it was last year where Jason Vargas and the reporter looked like they were from like the 18th century? Oh yes. That was wild. All right, some emails. Let's quickly answer some. some emails here. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. This one comes from Brian. I know it's not really

super fantasy relevant, but I found it really odd that so many reactions to Spencer Torkelson being drafted as a third baseman and some of the other positional announcements drew as much reaction as they did. Can you or someone at CBS cover why this matters? I found that confusing and tried researching on the Google, but didn't see anything of substance. So I know why there was a reaction or why he was drafted as a third basement. I think my interpretation here is why is there such a reaction to announcing players out of position on draft night? And what I remember RJ Anderson said last week, Scott, when we interviewed him, was that the Tigers can use this as an excuse to keep Spencer Torkelson down for longer

because they can say that he's working on a new position. And it's just another way for them to manipulate him. late service time. So I could see why people would be up in arms about something like this, if that's the motivation, which we'll never know until it actually happens. I hadn't heard that from anyone other than RJ Anderson. And, you know, that may be true. But I suspect most people who were doing the reacting weren't thinking that way. I think it's just, like, I'm assuming he's talking about on the actual broadcasts, them reacting to it. And I would say it's just because they need something to react to. There's not a lot of information out there about those guys, in particular the people

assigned to cover the event. I imagine it's really hard to find things to talk about, and that made for an easy talking point. The second part of his question, I was wondering if you could talk about Colton Wong versus Tommy Edmund for a minute. I know you are all down on the Cardinals this year. I don't know if we all are. I am. And as a Cubs fan, I would love for them to be But Scott and the general consensus seems to favor Tommy Edmund as the better option, despite the stats being somewhat similar. Wong was supposed to be the leadoff hitter in early spring, right? What am I missing? Also, I feel like I want to drop both for Nick Madrigal.

As soon as I hear anything positive, should I just pull the trigger now? So Tommy Edmund versus Colton Wong, and would you rather own Nick Madrigal over either of those? given that you probably I mean I guess it's sort of an opportunity cost thing with Tommy Edmund I do think if Nick Magigal plays every day I'd probably rather have him than Tommy Edmund just because I do believe he's going to be you know despite not playing I think his skill set is going to translate really well especially for fantasy he makes so much contact he's so fast that I feel like at the very least you're going to get a good batting average and stolen bases from him where I actually do kind of have more questions about what kind of player Tommy Edmund is,

despite the fact that he played in the majors last season. But that only works in his advantage for me. Like, Edmund, not being sure what kind of player he is. I hold out the most hope of him providing some power. I hold out the most hope of him being like a 30 steals pace guy. I have more hope for Nick Magigal being a 30 steals guy than. I could see that, but I... But Madrigal could also be like sub-five home runs and just completely sink you in power.

Whereas if Edmund gives you over a full season 10 to 12 homers, it's obviously not nothing compared to what Nick Madrigal will give you. Yeah, I see clear limits on Wong's and Madrigal's ceilings. And I'm not saying there's no limit on Edmund's ceiling there is. But I give him the best chance of hitting for power of the three. I give him at least a tie with Madrigal for being. having the best chance of being a big base dealer of the three. Wong, if he's good,

it means he's basically given up on hitting for power, which is kind of what he did in the second half last year. And as possible, he ends up being the best of these three next year. But, you know, I'm weighing an upside there, and I think he has the least of it. Plus, we have such a larger sample size for Colton Wong, where I feel like we kind of know who he is at this point. I don't know if he's ever going to put it all together.

It's possible. But based on what we've seen, I wouldn't say that it's likely. The last one we'll get to today is from Tim. Hey, Carl, Mo, Barney, and Lenny. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Simpsons guys.

Simpsons guys, that's right. Specifically at Mo's Bar. Yeah. Apparently, they're known as the guys. I have not watched a lot of Simpsons in my life, so. Just another one. I've known. Nor friends, right?

I mean, you got some catching up to do, son. I do. I do indeed. Scott, if you want to just make a list of like, things Frank needs to watch over the next month or so because we're probably not going to have baseball in that time, feel free to send it over. You know what, Frank, it's okay to not have watched these cultural touchstones.

Don't let people shame you for it. I mean, I don't mind being shamed. If something's good, then I don't want to miss out on it. And Chris, don't, I know that you're trying to use this as a reason to back your way out of not watching Breaking Bad, but it's not going to happen. I'm never going to watch breaking back. What?

It's just not going to happen. You hurt my heart. I used to say that about Game of Thrones and then I very suddenly changed my mind. And I'm glad I did despite, you know, despite it ending on kind of a down note. All right, Tim's question. Thank you for helping out with my Yelich question.

This is a follow-up from last week. I asked about Christian Yelich and Shane Bieber for Garrett Cole and Freddie Freeman. This was a trade question. we got last week. I managed to do Christian Yelich and Miguel Sineau instead for Cole and Freeman and then he flipped Garrett

Cole and Freddie Freeman for Mike Trout and Jose Ramirez. What do you guys think? Cole and Freeman for Trout and Ramirez. It's pretty good. Yeah, I guess probably any time you're giving

up Trout, you're getting Trout back in a deal without giving up, you know, a koon. and you're still getting like a second round. Somebody gave up their first and second rounder, you gave up your first and second rounder, and you're getting a first and second rounder back, and it just so happens that the first rounder in this case is Trout.

I don't see how you don't win that deal. I can't say it's an A plus. I mean, it's pretty even, but I'll give it a, I'll give it a B. I mean, for being a first and second rounder for a first and second rounder, it's about as well as you probably can do. 10 team Roto, by the way, Chris. If you think about it in terms of like the draft capital involved,

you probably traded like the third or fourth pick plus the 20th pick for the first pick and the 15th pick or the second pick in the 15th pick. So, you know, I think each one of these is sort of just like shuffling very similar amounts of value. And if you would rather have, you know, I think Trout obviously makes it a win. But if you would have rather had the elite starting pitcher and the big bat, then I think Colin Freeman probably would have made more sense. But look, I mean, you didn't lose the trade, certainly. Yeah, and I hope that your pitching is all right enough to withstand the loss of Garrett Cole.

But anytime you're getting my trout, I'm going to give it an A-minus, just because Trout's the man. All right, that'll do it for Scott and Chris and Adam. We appreciate you all for listening and watching on the Fantasy Baseball today YouTube channel. Make sure to subscribe. have the link in the description of the podcast. Thank you all again. Bye-bye.