Fantasy Baseball Today - Prospect Player Comps! OF Rankings for Dynasty Leagues (06/18 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Today on the show we're handing out MLB player comps for top prospects and looking at Scott's dynasty outfield rankings but first we have another counter-proposal! When it comes to drafts in 2020, we all have our rules (3:02). Scott needs four of his Top-35 SP, Frank needs one of Gallen, Fried, or Montas, and Chris just uses Heath's NIPS. ... Onto the prospect player comps, what do we have for Giants catcher Joey Bart (9:13)? Will he be much better than Salvador Perez? ... What's the ceiling for Andrew Vaughn (13:38)? Are we looking at a first-rounder in Fantasy Baseball? ... There seems to be a wide range of outcomes for the Braves Drew Waters (16:55). ... Everybody talks about Casey Mize but what about Matt Manning (22:52)? Is he bound to be an ace? ... Apparently Luis Patiño might have more upside than anybody (27:48)! ... Taking a look at Scott's dynasty outfield rankings, why is Kyle Tucker outside the Top-20 (35:30)? ... Would you rather have Eloy Jimenez or Luis Robert in dynasty (40:40)? ... Does Scott really have Juan Soto ranked over Mike Trout (44:05)!? ... 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.

Welcome everybody to Fantasy Baseball today on a Thursday, June 18th, Frank Stamphill, alongside Scott White, and Chris Towers. today on this show, we are going to be giving out some player comps to some MLB prospects, some top prospects, and we're going to take a look at Scott's top 75 outfield ranks for Dynasty leagues. But of course, guys, and I'm starting to believe that Jeff Passon and Heyman and all these guys, they know when the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast is recording. Because every day when we're about to get started or right when we get started, they tweet out something new.

So here's the latest from Jeff Passon is that apparently the MLB Players Association is getting ready to counterpropose with 70 games. Of course, yesterday the MLB proposed 60. And Chris, you believe, will wind up somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I mean, Jason Stark, I think is the one who tweeted it. It just makes the most sense for the schedule. You would play each team in your own division 12 times. You would play your inner league rival six times. and then you would play every other team in the opposite division three times.

And so that comes out to 66 games. It's the only way to have a balanced schedule in this situation. I guess you could do 70 games with a balanced schedule, and you just play every team in the other division four times, two teams at each spot. But I'm going to guess Major League Baseball is not going to go for a 70 game season. So 66 is going to be a way. But here's the thing, Chris.

Here's the thing. Get them, Scott. If one side, if the players propose 70 and the owners propose 60, settling at 66 would mean the players win. Can't have that. It's going to be 65. Schedule unbalanced. At some point, you would think Major League Baseball would want to give some kind of perception

that they are not solely concerned with crushing the players and maybe develop a little bit of goodwill. And maybe they'll give them the one game. I predict this is going to go down to the wire. Like we're going to get a counter from 70. It's going to be 64 from the owners. That it's going to be 66 from the players. And then we'll settle at 65.

I mean, the way that everything else has gone, that just seems the most likely route so far. So there you go. The latest in the days of our. or baseball lives. I did want to start off with this question, though. Scott, I know that you generally have a rule that you follow while drafting this year, where you want at least four of your, is it top 35 pitchers now? Scott, is that what it is? Yeah, it's 35. I mean, I've kind of started to include Jesus Lazzardo in there, and, you know, I'm on the fence whether to include like

Shohei Otani in there. But just for simplicity's sake, let's say, four. of the top 35, yeah. Yeah, so I started thinking earlier today. I'm writing my breakouts 2.0. Spoiler alert, Max Fried is on the list. And I came up with the conclusion that I cannot leave a draft this season without one of Max Fried, Zach Gallen, or Frankie Montas on my team. I have to have at least one of them, whether it's my, ideally SP4, but SP3,

maybe you can get away with it. But I need at least one of those guys. and they're all ranked inside my top 30. So that's my rule for this draft season, something I have to do. Scott is trying his best to get four of his top 35 and basically every mock I believe that you've done it. Chris, do you have a rule that you were trying to follow

something that you need to do throughout this draft season? Not really. I tend to be pretty flexible when it comes to my drafts. Well, we're on YouTube, so why don't you show off some of your flexibility. Basically, I wouldn't am particularly flexible. But, you know, mentally, I can do a lot of mental gymnastics, really. And no, for me, it's, you know, remember Heath Snips? Yes. No intentional. I wasn't around for Heath Snips. That is my rule. Remember, always think about Heath Snips. Yeah, no intentional positional strategy, which is basically,

basically, you know, especially when it comes to hitting, like there's no positional scarcity is dead, you know, except for catcher and a little bit second base. But really, it's like nowhere near where it used to be even a second base. So, you know, at this point, I don't, I don't care what positions I'm filling out. If I have three short stops in a roto league, then I have three short stops in a roto league and a shortstop in my utility. Like, that's fine. If those are the best players available, if I get to a point where Corey Seeger is the best player available, and I've got a shortstop and a corner infielder, Corey Seeger's the pick. And so, you know, for me, it's really just reminding myself to stay flexible because I find when I go into a draft saying I want this guy specifically in this draft, that's when I tend to kind of go off the rails because, you know, I'm probably going a little too long than what you wanted here. but, you know, one thing I always like to think about,

and, you know, I talked about it when we were talking about Chris Archer is, like, the name of the player doesn't matter. And so when you go into a league, and I'm not criticizing your strategy because I really like Zach Allen and Hayters-Wilardo and I want them, but when you do, when you say, like, I want that player, you can end up overpaying for that player

when there's another player with a very similar profile who will go later. And so that's always, you know, in any fantasy draft that I do, it's flexibility. That's why I have three players in that group, Chris. I don't want to handcuff myself. I know you're saying you don't want to say, oh, going into a draft, I need to have you on Moncada,

or I have to have Luis Robber or something like that. That's why for me, probably my three biggest breakout starting pitchers are Montas, Gallin, and Max Fried, and that's why they're all ranked inside my top 30s. So I need to come away with one of them. They're being drafted relatively in the same range. Yeah.

you know, what you can do is when the first one goes off the board. Maybe you don't want to, you probably shouldn't be the first person to draft one of those three. But once the first one goes off the board, that's when in your head you say the next pick's going to be one of those two. That way you can kind of hopefully guarantee you'll get at least one of them like you want without having to pay a premium necessarily. news and notes we haven't had a lot recently outside of just a bunch of proposals and counter proposals but i did retweet a video of aaron hicks taking some batting practice today in tampa so just a reminder that he should be ready to go and we talked about him a couple of weeks ago maybe a month ago now at this point any interest just across the board in aran hicks guys that's gonna be

just kind of ruins things doesn't it yeah yeah it's already a very messy situation like that's what's what's odd is all those injuries the yankes Yankees suffered in the first spring training. It really brought clarity to the lineup. And you saw the value of guys like Miguel Anduhar and Luke Voight, Spike. And now both Stanton and presumably Judge are going to be healthy. Hicks, are we sure Hicks is going to be healthy right away? That's still in doubt, right?

But he could be healthy pretty soon. And, yeah, where are they going to fit all those guys? I'm guessing Hicks would get priority in the lineup over Brett Gardner, but I don't know that for sure. Probably is going to be some sort of time share until one distinguishes himself. And timeshare are always bad in fantasy, but especially in a shortened season

where you can't count on much season being left by the time they do figure things out. Reminder, Aaron Hicks averaged 3.3 fantasy points per game in 2018. That was tied for 10th best among outfielders with teammate Aaron Judge, with Michael Brantley, with Whitmerfield. I think that the Yankees could just go full Tampa Bay this year and just completely be so frustrating where

one day it takes, one day it's Gardner, they're resting Stanton here, they're resting judge here, so those guys can be healthy for the postseason, presumably. Clint Frazier could be in the mix, Andrew Hart could be in the mix, just would not surprise me if the Yankees go full Tampa Bay this season. Prospect player comps, I want to jump in here. We've done these for a few of the top prospects already,

and I wanted to start things off with Joey Bart, who is regarded as the number two catching prospect in all of baseball behind Adley Rutchman. He is the number one prospect in the Giants organization. He is 23 years old. He was the second overall pick in 2018. Last year hit 278 with 16 home runs and an 824 OPS across high A and double A.

Chris, what do you think about Joey Bart? And if you had to slap a player comp on him for the future, who would it be? Catcher is definitely the hardest position to do this for. This was tough. There's like two good catchers in the entire league and I guess you could say J.T. Romuto, although I don't think he has that kind of athleticism

so it's not a perfect comp. I don't know. Now, Guzmane Grandin. That's what I was thinking. Worst plate discipline. But Yasmani Grandal, he's not going to be a high on base guy, but there is some sort of, and miss in his game. There's some pop. That seems like the most reasonable

comp. Yeah, Scott, I was thinking Salvador Perez, too, with a few more walks, you know, not a 3 or 4% walk rate, but maybe a 250 to 260 bat with 20 home runs in his prime might be tough to get to 20 playing in San Francisco, but he does lift the ball a decent amount. So I was thinking Salvador Perez with a few more walks. What do you think about Joey Bart, Scott? Yeah, I think those comps are fine. And to me, it kind of seemed, they kind of seem like downside comps, though. You know, I think the upside is best catcher in fantasy. And, you know, it's really hard to find a comp for that because there are so few catchers.

There are a few like archetypes to work with at the position, right? But yeah, I mean, I think he has that kind of upside. I think power is going to be his best tool, a question how much average he's going to hit for. but, you know, he's established so little of what he can be in the miners so far. So a lot of it is pretty wide open. Here's a comp that's not necessarily like a player comp, but it's a situational comp that could kind of hinder him. All right.

I mean, it could be like a Carson Kelly because Buster Posey is under contract for three more years. Brandon Bell is under contract for another year after 2020. So it's not necessarily a sure thing that they can just move Buster Posi to first base all the time. And there's also the possibility that Buster Posi does have a bounce back season now that he's got a full offseason plus to rest when he didn't in 2019 because he was coming off that hip surgery. So, you know, if Buster Posi does have a resurgence, then we could be looking at a situation where Joey Bart. you know, has to wait for a couple of years, which, you know, catchers take a long time to develop anyway, so it's not the worst thing. But there's at least a chance we don't really see much of him in 2020.

Well, he'll probably be on the roster if it's expanded. Yeah, already 23 years old. So I don't know how much longer he is going to be down there. But you're right, they do take longer to develop. Tradeaway Brandon Belt. Come on, man. Get rid of Brandon Belt. Get him out of here. That's like 20 for a non-catching prospect.

you know. Fair enough. I'm not confident Buster Posey's going to be worth playing for, I'm not confident he's worth playing now, but they're not going to rush Bart, obviously. Yeah, and I think they kind of owe it to Posi. It's almost like Joe Mauer with the twins, right?

Like, they can't just dump them because then the fan base will just get, they'll be up in arms. Oh, the fan base is, the fan base was over Joe Mauer by the end. Well, yeah, but that was that was dumb. Like, let's just put, like, Buster Posey won three.

World Series rings. You know, like, true. He's the, he's kind of the face of the franchise post Willie Mays at this point,

because, you know, they kind of sort of pretend Barry Bonds doesn't exist. Yeah, I thought it was a duo in terms of like the faces.

It was like him and Madbum. Obviously, Madbub's not there anymore. So it's all Buster Posey. Let's move on to Andrew Vaughn, the number two prospect

in the White Sox organization, the third overall pick in last year's MLB draft, 2019. Scott, you have him ranked as your 13th prospect in your top 100 prospects on CBSports.com and regarded as the top first base prospect in baseball. Maybe Spencer Torkelson takes that now, but you're looking at a 60 grade hit tool, 60 grade power. Scott, you have Vaughn ranked very high. What do you see for the future of Andrew Vaughn? I think the upside for Vaughn is like first round caliber.

but a more reasonable comp, let's go with like, I don't know, maybe like, he has really good play discipline. Anthony Rizum might be setting the bar a little high there with the strikeouts, maybe like Josh Bell, what Josh Bell was last year.

But, like, I think he has a very high floor and a very high ceiling, Andrew Vaughn. And, you know, anytime you see somebody who's defensive, has clear defensive limitations like that drafted as a first baseman. He goes that early. That's pretty indicative of that. I mean, one, I think he's probably the top. If you had a rookie draft this season or if you haven't done it yet,

you know, like an entry draft based on last year's draft, you know, he's probably the top pick. You know, I think even over Adley Rushman, because there's so much more than can go wrong for a catcher, which that says a lot about what kind of prospect he is. Scott said, going third as a first baseman only, like your best case in area is first base, and you're probably going to end up being a DH, which is what it sounds like for him. You've got to have a really good bat, and he does.

I think Anthony Arrizzo is a fair comp. I mean, you're talking about a guy who had like 12% walk or strikeout rate in college with 33 strikeouts and 60 walks, which is just unbelievable. He struck out 18 times in 256 plate appearances in 2018 as well. That's an absurd hit tool. So, you know, Anthony Ariso is not too optimistic. Paul Goldschmidt, you know, without the stolen bases. You know, peak Paul Goldschman is probably not too optimistic.

And I think a reasonable compass Jose Bray, his future teammate, better walks, but the hit tool and power, you know, could be, it could be that same kind of combination. Yeah, I was thinking Anthony Rizzo, you guys hit it on the head there. Great plate discipline. Doesn't strike out all that much. I think on the high end, you could be talking about Freddie Freeman. Scott, you mentioned, you know, a potential first round fantasy contributor in Andrew Vaughn.

If he turns out to be, you know, a 280 bat, maybe even 300 hitter with 30 home runs, I mean, that's pretty much who Freddie Freeman is. He's not going to give you anything. in terms of steals. And, of course, the play discipline, the walks are going to help a ton for points leagues. I think we're probably looking at a, you know, 360, 370 OBP type of guy here in Andrew Vaughn. So, yeah, lots of like there from a fantasy perspective. Scott, Drew Waters, he's a very interesting name.

And I was digging in today to the profile. Obviously a prospect in the Braves organization. They're number two prospects. Second round pick in 2017. He's 21. years old. He had 309 last year with seven home runs and 16 steals between AA and AAA.

What stands out to me, Scott, 29% strikeout rate. This is not a typo. 435 Babbitt. That is just trying to come up with a player cop for him was a little tough, I will say. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, a player who strikes out that much in the minors

better have serious power potential. and he hasn't, he has a lot of extra base hits. The scouting reports give him a high power, you know, a pretty good power ceiling, better than he's shown so far. But what, you know, he has the sort of batted ball profile that should lend itself to a high babb, kind of like we talk about with Brian Reynolds.

But not 435. I mean, that's obviously not something that's sustainable at the major league level. And he seems to strike out. a lot more than Brian Reynolds does. So Brian Reynolds doesn't seem like a fair comp. I look at Drew Waters, and this is not probably a useful comp to this audience, but I immediately think of Drew Stubbs.

And Drew Stubbs ended up having not such a great outcome, but he was highly regarded. It seemed like the tools were similar. Maybe he didn't have as much profile for the high Babbitt the same way Waters does. And so maybe Drew Stubbs was destined to fail a little more than Waters. is, but I mean, Waters could absolutely bust as much as he strikes out. It's a very difficult prospect to rank. I'm not sure I ranked him

where I'm really comfortable taking him in my top 100. I think I have him in the top 40. You have him 37th. Yeah, I'm not comfortable with that at all. I'm tempted to move him down. You know what could be? I mean, you know, I'm just looking through the strikeout leaderboard or, you know,

loser boards from last year and, you know, looking for a guy who struck out a lot, didn't walk much, didn't hit for a ton of power. There's some good players there. You know, like Javier Baez. He, you know, I don't know if Drew Waters has, he probably doesn't, he certainly doesn't have the raw power potential that Javier Baez does. You know, maybe the game power could get close.

What Yohan Moncada did last season when he talked about a guy who consistently runs incredibly high, batting averages or batting averages on balls and play that's another one i i do think those are like if you're talking best case scenario comps that's probably what you're looking out for waters it seems like a very wide range of outcomes for him oh yeah i'd be on the more pessimistic side of those outcomes because i'm you know strikeout rate is like the number one thing i care about from a minor leagher and his is his is terrible so yeah especially because he just doesn't have the over-the-fence power yet. Here's another comp, actually.

What about Avi Sale Garcia? You know, last couple of years, he's been right around a 25% strikeout rate overall, right around a 5-5% walk rate. I think more speed, though. More speed than Avi. That's always hard to tell with young guys, especially with Braves because they don't really,

you know, outside of that lead-off spot, nobody runs in their lineup, really. And so, Water's best tool is his defense. So he's like very, very athletic. And if, you know, it kind of depends how he develops as a hitter, I think, how much he's actually going to end up stealing bases. But I do think it's, there is more speed there than Avi Sale Garcia. It is, it is funny because that does seem to be true based on the scanning reports.

And also he's probably the future left fielder for the braves. Right. Because Christian Christian Pachet, yeah. And yeah. He might be the best defensive center field prospects since Andrew Jones. I mean, he's clearly the center fielder of the future there. Yeah, a lot of volatility with Drew Waters. So just be careful in a Dynasty League or in a Keeper League

where you want to hold on to prospects. It was tough to find a comp. But he's such an aggressive swinger. I was thinking Ahmed Rosario, but in the outfield. A 260 bat. And a mid Rosario did not strike out nearly that much in the minors. It's true. Ahmed Rosario was like a, like a 65-70 hit tool guy coming up as a prospect.

He kind of fell apart in the majors, but that was his calling card. I just, I thought like 10 homers, 20 steals is something that might be realistic for Waters. I don't know, maybe the power improves. So, I mean, you throw out like Bayez, but that's like a 99th percentile outcome for Drew Waters. If the power is only Ahmed Rosario level, like Drew Waters is going to be a bust. Here's, here's. break that way too much. Here's the player comp for Drew Waters. A player you want to sell before the 2020 season begins. A player who as soon as he gets called up, then you sell him. I mean,

I could just, I could see like, this is a guy who's minor league scouting reports, I guess, would be the best way to put it. Far outstrip what he's actually done as a hitter. And maybe he becomes that Francisco Lindor type of guy. He is very young. We'll give him that. He reached AAA as a 20-year-old. He has a lot of that going for him. I think the second youngest player in his draft. But, yeah, that's just one that I could see the shine rubbing off very quickly.

Let's move over to some pitchers. Matt Manning. Everyone talks about Casey Mize. Matt Manning is the number two prospect in the Tigers organization. First round pick back in 2016. He is 22 years old, 6-6. big righty on the mound, has a plus fastball and a plus curveball. The changeup has become, I would say, an adequate pitch based on everything that I've read about him.

Chris, we'll start off with you this time. What do you think about Matt Manning, what he's done so far? Has he been a little bit overshadowed by Casey Meiss? Yeah, I actually don't really love Casey Meis from what I've read. It seems like the strikeouts should be there and they aren't the, arm troubles are really troubling for Casey Mai. So I think you could make a case for Matt Manning as the best pitching prospect in the Tigers organization. I think you can make a case for Tarek Scouble.

Scouble? I don't know how to pronounce that. Scoobel. All right. I think you can make a case for all of them. If you want a major league comp, which is the thing that we're doing here. Gosh. I mean, it's a good profile. 10 strikeouts per 9 last year, 10.6 walks, 0.5 home runs. He's done a really good job limiting hits and home runs. So what was that? You look great? 2.6 per 9 last year, 3.9 a year before. So big step forward, did sacrifice some strikeouts in the process.

It actually looks a lot like Jose Barrios in the minors. You know, Burrios had more consistent control. But what Manning did last season, in particular, looks a lot like what Jose Barrios did. You would hope that he would be more of a strikeout guy than Burrios, but then when you look at the actual pitches that he throws, you know, it's a good but not elite velocity fastball, a good breaking ball. His is more, I think, of a 12-6 curve than that big slurvy, slurvy thing that Jose Brrios throws.

And then he's got that change-up that's a work in progress. So, you know, in terms of that, you know, limiting hard contact, you know, that could be, it actually, what he did last year is almost a dead ringer for Jose Barrio's entire minor league career. That's not bad. I really like that Barrios call. Scott, you know, what I was thinking was Zach Wheeler, except like if Zach Wheeler were actually good. Like 2018, Zach Wheeler. Yeah, I think that's more along the profile I was thinking, too.

He might have control problems. be a pretty good ground ball pitcher. You know, upside, I think, something like Charlie Morton, fastball, curveball heavy guy who, you know, if he ends up missing a lot of bats. But, you know, the more reasonable comps, yeah, I think I like that Wheeler one. Yeah, Wheeler's a good one.

He's another guy who, you know, he has run pretty low Babbits throughout his career, I'm pretty sure. You know, right around a strikeout per inning. He kind of like one, two. Oh, Babbit, sorry. I was thinking. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, he's kind of like, he's one of those guys who's just kind of like a B and everything.

Like he doesn't have great control, but it's not horrible. He doesn't have great strikeouts. It's not horrible. Although it feels like it should be more. Very different pitch mix than what Manning has. You know, I think he's got a, you know, Wheeler's like a four or five pitch guy. Yeah. And he's more fastball slider heavy.

he mixes in some other pitches like curveballs around 9, 10% the past couple of years for Wheeler. And again, splitter the last couple years, right? The splitter. It might be classified as a change-up. Yeah. throws his change-up with a split grip. Yeah.

But yeah, I was, maybe it's not giving Matt Manning enough praise as he deserves. But yeah, I was thinking somewhere along those lines where, you know, he can turn out to be in SP, maybe low in SP2, high-end SP3 for fantasy. Sunny Gray was another one that potentially came to mind. Well, you say maybe it's not giving Matt Manning enough credit,

and I usually like the upside comps more. I know some prospect evaluators really bristle at that, because of course the upside outcome is not the most likely outcome. I think that's understood any time you're evaluating prospects. But, you know, when Zach Wheeler himself was a prospect, I think he was considered an even better prospect than Matt Manning. So was he a bust becoming what he is? not at all. It's just...

He just earned a lot of money. He just didn't hit his ultimate upside. I mean, Zach Wheeler was the centerpiece of the Carlos Bell trend trade. That was a mega blockbuster. All right, let's talk about our final prospect here for today and might be the pitching version of Drew Waters, who we've already talked about,

where a potential volatile kind of persona here. Persona is not the right word. projection here for Luis Patino, the number three prospect in the Padres organization. He is just 20 years old, big fastball, mid to upper 90s, 60 grade slider, but doesn't really have that third pitch. There's talk that he's working on the change-up, but struggles against left-handed batters. Scott, what do you think about Luis Patino of the San Diego Padres? I'm high on him.

I think higher than than Manning. Yeah, definitely higher than Manning. That sounds a lot like Luis Severino to me when he was first getting called up. Obviously, you can't really aim much higher than Luis Severino when you're talking about comps. But, you know, Petino gets a 65 grade overall

from baseball America. You don't see many pitchers get a grade that high from them. Andy has the elite velocity. The velocity's really gone up the past few years. Andy has that elite secondary pitch. I think his control is good too already. And he did that as a 20-year-old.

He made it to double-A. 19-year-old making it to double A. So he's like already well ahead of the curve. So yeah, I think there's a lot of upside here. Yeah, he didn't turn 20 until the end of last season. So he is extremely young. This is his age 20 season. He already made it to double A.

Control only for a cup of coffee. But, you know, one thing that I'm looking at here, year. On baseball perspective, so I'm looking at their Padres top 10, and Wilson Caraman is the writer of this piece. And, you know, he said that when he watched Luis Petino on a scouting trip earlier in, you know, around mid-season last year, he actually said he had a 60 grade on three of his pitches.

You know, so the change up certainly sounds like it needs work, and he had some split issues. I think last year, you know, left-handed hitters hit him pretty hard. Yep. But, you know, that's normal. Like big fastball, great slider, developing change, and he throws a cutter as well. That's like kind of your, there's like 40 right-handed starting pitching prospects of various quality within any, like, random top 150 you could find.

But he sounds like he's one of the better ones, you know, There's some deception in the delivery. The velocity's great. And he's super young. So, you know, he's someone who could absolutely be in the rotation by 21. And those types of dudes, they don't usually work out at starting pitcher. It's not quite as a sure thing as hitters like we talked about the other day. But, you know, if you're 21 and you're a legitimate rotation option, you're pretty good.

Yeah. You hear the Tigers trio of pitching prospects talked about a lot, Casey Mize, Derekes, Scouble, and Matt Banning. And deservedly,

I mean, they're all great pitching prospects. But the trio the Padres project to have with Chris Paddock, who obviously just graduated, McKenzie Gore, the top pitching prospect of baseball,

and then this guy, Bois Patino, who I would rank at least ahead of two of those three Tigers pitchers. Yeah, I mean, that has the potential to be a scary threesome.

Granted, we've seen a lot of pitching prospect threesome who never panned out. History is full of them. But considering the Padres are already one-third of the way there with Paddock and Gore, I would be stunned if Gore is not at least a good pitcher in the majors. Yeah, they should be in good shape, the Padres. And they're, you know, Patino and Gore are both super young.

That's another key part of it. The last thing I'll add on Patineo was last year, the walk rate, three and a half walks per nine at high A ball. And then it was super small sample size. It was two starts, but it was 4.7 walks per nine at AA. So I was thinking somewhere between like Denelson Lamet and Luis Castillo as potential player comps. Yeah, Castillo seems like a good one too. I mean, Castillo and Severino are similar in that they both really just have two great pitches. and it's struggled to develop the third,

but it's like opposite what their great secondary pitch is. Castillo has the change up, Severino, the slider. If Petino's control doesn't develop, it's probably more like a Luis Castillo outcome than Severino. You know, it's, it is so easy for every other pitching prospect to develop a good breaking ball. Why does Luis Castillo struggle so much?

Like, he is like, if he, he is the, like, the ideal platform from which you would want to build a pitching prospect because he's got the elite velocity which you can't teach, as they say, and he's got the change-up, which you can teach,

but it takes a really long time and most guys never figure it out. It's just like, mind-boggling. And it is a... A nasty change-up. Maybe the best in baseball right now from Luis Castillo.

His slider's not terrible, Chris. It's like adequate, you know? It's... Chris Paddock is kind of, of the actual version of that. Right. Because he's also got that incredible change up.

He doesn't have the elite fastball velocity, but it's a good pitch because it's deceptive. But, yeah, it's like, come on, guys. Come on, guys. Just like that. Make your fingers work. Do this thing. Do this thing.

Something like that. All right. That's for those are you watching. Yeah, if you're watching. That's what you get. You get, apparently you get pitch grips now from Chris Towers here on the Fantasy Baseball today YouTube channel. Something I didn't know.

he was capable of, but you find something new every day. I'm going to take a quick break first. Just want to remind everyone to join our Facebook Fantasy Baseball today. Facebook group, fun conversations. There are leagues that you can join, hopefully, eventually, when we have a baseball season. We interact with you guys. We do a couple of weekly Q&As over there on Facebook. So make sure you join Facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy baseball today.

All right. We'll take a quick break. When we come back, we'll take a look at some of... Scott's dynasty rankings. This time we're looking at outfielders. We'll be right back. All right, we're back here on fantasy baseball today. The top 75 outfield ranks for Scott White in Dynasty Leagues.

This is now live on CBSports.com where you can go and find those. And we had a conversation yesterday about starting pitchers in dynasty leagues and basically how Scott ranked them. He used this system of present value, future values. value and confidence. He ranked them based on a one through five point system. He did the same thing for his outfield ranks. And before I really want to focus on the top 20 and you could see all the top 75 again at CBS Sports.com, I noticed Kyle Tucker is outside the top 20 at 23. So what ultimately went into that decision, Scott, because I know we talk a lot about Kyle Tucker here on the show and

we're excited about him in Dynasty Leagues. Is it just so, is it? Is it? just because you're kind of uncertain about what he's going to provide this season in the present? Yeah, he only gets a two for present value. It couldn't, you know, if I was more confident the playing time, it'd be a three, and that would move him up several spots. There are a lot of, I mean, 23rd, that's compared to where he's going in redraft leagues. It's a pretty nice move up the list, and, you know, the outfielder's ahead of him are pretty, pretty good the one the one if i may take exception to myself the one i'm questioning is joe adele

ahead of kyle tucker uh and i'm not sure i feel great about that and part of it is just because i think i think if you're doing if you're starting a draft right now in a dynasty league it's that whole playing to the result thing that i do um you're probably going to have to draft joe adele ahead of Kyle Tucker so if you want them both. Like this, I feel like this is how I need to rank them. But, you know, if you were to examine my heart, I would probably rather have Kyle Tucker than Joe Adele. Well, you know, you've got this number system. You just got to trust it, Scott.

A four confidence for Joe Adele. That's too high, man. Well, the confidence is, it's easier to get a higher confidence rating when one of the present or future values is, one, right? So I give only Joe Adele only a one for present value. So I can have more confidence in that than I can. A two for Kyle Tucker present value. But yeah, no, I mean, you're right.

I could easily knock Joe Adele confidence level down to three and then he's behind Kyle Tucker. I really like Joe Adel. I'm really excited about him. I think he's going to be very good. There is just a teeny tiny bit of, and more than a teeny tiny bit of Byron Buxton in his minor league track record so far. Statter reports are incredible. They could not be more glowing. Production, a little more in the very good range than the incredible range. Some injury concerns. Obviously, last year was sort of a freak thing, but that was a serious injury that he suffered. I think it was both a hamstring and ankle injury. Suffered while running the bases. Doesn't run as much as you would hope. Strikes out a little bit more than you would hope. That's one where, you know, I do look at Joe Adel and as much as I do like him,

I think I would rather have Kyle Tucker. I hear you. I think I agree. And I don't think, I don't feel good about the four confidence I give him. I don't feel good when we do short stops. I give in Wander Franco a five confidence. I don't feel good about giving any prospect of five.

And I guess that is, that's me cheating. It's me cheating. It's me cheating. Like for the most part, adding these three numbers together and then ranking players according to that works. But for really,

really high-end prospects who aren't contributing this year, having a one in the present value column, which I have to give them. If we're not going to play this year, that lowers their cumulative score, dropping them to a point in the rankings where I think is too low.

So I have to cheat by giving them a higher confidence rating. I'll admit it. That's exactly what I'm doing, but I have to be able to stand by my rankings. You got to pull a pitchfork and just go with the absurdly, I don't know if you guys know, pitchfork is a media, a music criticism site that is famous for its reviews, which are on a 10-point scale with decimals, which is absurdly, like, prissy, I guess. Like, there's no way you could actually ever say, this album's a 9.9, but that one's a 9.7.

It's a totally absurd concept, and that's why they do it. You just got to go with that, man. You just got to go a scale 1 to 10 with decimals. And that way you can just actually just rank them and then retrofit it afterwards. I know. It's imperfect, but I like it. It's fun.

I like it too. Let's look at these top 20 outfielder rank, starting at number 20 and working our way up towards number one. At 20, you have Victor Robles. You mentioned Joe Adele 19, J.D. Martinez, Shohei Otani. Why is Shohei Otani in the outfield? I just realized, Scott?

I put, for the DH-only players, since I'm not going to have like a DH-only column, I put them at the position where they're most likely to gain eligibility. Realistically, Otani's never going to be eligible anywhere but D.H. But, you know, in a pinch, that's where they'd play him is the outfield.

Fair enough. Joey Gallo at 16. Chris Bryant at 15. George Springer, 14. Luis Robert at 13. Eloy Jimenez. And then Catelle Marte at 11. Chris, I want to ask you this. They're back to back.

They play on the same team. Who would you rather have in a dynasty league between Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert? Uh, man. That's a tough one. A struggle. Well, because you're kind of putting two different things that I care a lot about,

which is Eloy Jimenez has actually done it at the major league level to at least a certain extent. Luis Robert never has. He's only really had one season where he's performed at the level where we would think he's a top prospect. But his skill set is so much more interesting for fantasy. So I think I go with Eloy Jimenez over Luis Robert. But.

Begrudgingly. Yeah. Yeah, I really struggle with it. And I also, like, I look at them at 12 and 13. That also feels wrong. But I can't necessarily look at the guys below them and say that it's, super wrong. But then I think like Kyle Tucker versus Luis Robert, it's really close in my head too. So I'm all over the place. I don't know what to do. I'm glad I don't have to do rankings.

That's the best part of my job is I never have to actually rank things. Just nitpick. Yeah, you just get to criticize them. Yeah, that's great. It's the best job. No, it's, it's something that when I did rankings, I really struggled with is like this like transitive property thing where like I might like player one more than player two, but then I like player two more than player three. but then I like player three more than player one. It's just like it shouldn't make sense and it doesn't. But it's really hard to actually like, especially when you're talking about dynasty,

especially when you're talking about young guys who we don't actually know. So overall, Kyle Tucker should be 11th. The mathematician, statistician that Chris Towers is, I don't know what other fantasy baseball podcasts are going to hear the transitive property talked about, but there you go. That's what Chris Towers brings to the table.

Scott, You have Eloy and Robert, both as a three in present value, a five in future value, and a three in confidence. So they have the same rating across the board. Who would you actually prefer if you were on the clock? Aloi Jimenez. Yeah. You know, if we were to chop up that confidence ranking,

you know, Robert would be more, Robert would be more like a 2.5 in Aloi Jimenez like a true three. So that would be, yeah, that would be why I prefer Jimenez. But it's close. It's close in my redraft rankings, too. I know I'm particularly low on Jimenez, which is what makes them close,

but they're only a few spots apart there in my outfield rankings. All right, so let's take a look at the top 10 here. You have Austin Meadows, spoke a lot about him yesterday, Bryce Harper at number nine, Aaron Judge, 8, Yudon Alvarez, for the same reason we mentioned Otani.

He's number seven. Then Mookie Betts, Christian Yellich, Mike Trout, Cody Bellinger, Juan Soto, and Ronald Acuna. And I will point out that 1 through 6 on this list, from Acuna through Betts, everybody has fives across the board. And rightfully so. It's really hard to argue that.

And Scott, I love the fact that you put Juan Soto second. I know some people are going to say, oh, well, you know, Trout's still going to be the best player in baseball for the next, whatever it might be, two, three, maybe five years. Nobody knows for sure. But I mentioned this dynasty startup I did a lot. And I did it recently. I had the second overall pick in a five-by-five LBP. And I took Juan Soto over Mike Trout. So I love the ranking there. Yeah. And this is a recent adjustment I made. The more I thought about it, the more I saw other people doing it. When we've done these dynasty start at mocks.

I just, it felt, uh, I started to feel like I was being dishonest with myself not ranking Soto second. I mean, it's just for being a 21 year old, that profile seems so safe. Like he's already, he's already doing things that like you, you know, it takes some players, some really, really good players like five years to, to reach that level of skill with the bat, uh, making contact that often being that patient.

the plate and he's doing it at 21 so it's it's hard to envision things going wrong there certainly trout you can't really upside wise there's there's you can't put trout behind anyone but how how much longer i think it's a fair question to ask because i mean trout is so good in so many ways that you just expect him to cruise until his mid 30s but he's been banged up a lot in recent years. But there's been zero, like he gets better every year. He just doesn't play the full season, but they've all been kind of random injuries.

I understand, but when you're talking about number two, and your comparison is Juan Soto, I mean, of course, you have to be a little bit nickpicky. And when in Dynasty, you're talking a long-term perspective. I don't know. I could see how, I don't even want to say it because it's such a horrible thought. But the way Ken Griffey Jr.'s career unfolded, where once he got to 30, he just couldn't stay on the field.

And his final career line ended up being just the first half of his career, basically, except for a couple of seasons where he stayed healthy and put up pretty good numbers with the Reds. But I don't know. Trout's been banged up a lot lately. and because he runs so much and he plays a demanding position defensively, I don't know. I can just see how he could have trouble staying healthy

in the latter stages of his career. So this is going to upset people. It always does. Mike Trout's a far better player than Ken Griffey Jr. ever was. Do not at me. I know it's controversial. It shouldn't be.

It's not really relevant to the scut. No, no, but it is. It is. No, no, no, it is in this way. When you compare, you know, the kind of people you're comparing Mike Trout to in terms of both greatness but also skill set. You're talking about not Ken Griffey Jr. You're talking about Barry Bonds. You're talking about Mickey Mantle. You're talking about Willie Mays. You're talking about, you know, Mike Schmidt is another guy who the numbers weren't, they don't value the same way the other guys do, but it's that he's, he's, an A plus at every single thing on a baseball field.

Whereas Ken Grafie Jr. was very good defender, very good contact hitter, great power hitter. Didn't have great plate discipline. Some B pluses with the A pluses. Yeah, that's the thing. And so, you know, Barry Bond's A plus across the board. Even Ricky Henderson and other guy, there were more B pluses in there, but, you know, he was elite at getting on base.

He was elite at, you know, base, running. He had that athleticism. He was a great hitter overall. I just, when I look at what happened to Kangariff Jr., the injuries are a part of it, but it was also a skill set that was less primed to age well compared to what you have from a Mike Trout, a Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. Those are all guys who were just awesome, basically forever. You know, Mickey Mantle dealt with a lot of injuries. He was still really good well into his, you know, mid to late 30s. And so I think we can't predict injuries the last couple of years, you know, the injuries have been frustrating. I don't know if I would call them concerning.

And I have every reason to believe Mike Trout is going to age as well as any player ever. So you would take him over Wonsoto? Yeah, and this is another one, you know, kind of like the DeGrom versus Bueller Flaherty example where I do think there is a pretty sizable gap between the two of them. Mike Trout was a better Roto player. And I don't know if he ranked ahead of him in total head-to-head points. I would guess there was a pretty sizable gap in head-to-head points per game. But in Roto, he was better than him only playing 136 games.

When you do 150 game pace for both of them, you know, he was dramatically better. And so that's where it is where Juan Soto needs to take as good as he is. and Frank, you and I are already Hall of Fame, baby. You and I are already starting to chisel. He needs several steps to reach Mike Trout in present day value. It's not realistic though either

because Mike Trout's going to go down as one of the... Mike Trout might be the best player in the history of the game. Exactly. So we're asking Juan Soto to get to that level and it's just it's not realistic, but I can see you know from a dynasty perspective,

seven years younger. Yeah. the fact that Trout undoubtedly has missed time. It's just a fact. He has missed time the past couple of years. So, I mean, for those reasons, I get it. But if you're just, if you're someone who drafts in a startup dynasty league for the, for that three-year time frame that we talk about a lot, three to five years,

and you want to take Trout, like, I can't knock you for doing that. He actually, he had more fantasy points than Juan Soto last year, playing 16 less games. I think maybe I can sum up the difference between Chris. and I, maybe. I don't know. We were trying to get to the bottom of it on Twitter last night, and it wasn't going very well. But the difference between our philosophies that came up both at starting pitcher and here is, I think we're basically on the same page in terms of prospects being overvalued generally in dynasty leagues. But with prospects, you know, there's a very real

chance they're just bad. They just turn out to be bad players. It's very risky. It's like 50-50 for top 100 prospects. But with players that are more or less proven, I definitely prioritize longevity over the degree to how, the degree to which they're good, I guess. If I can trust that they're great already, you know, it doesn't matter as much to me exactly how great they are.

I'd rather have the longevity. But, you know, there's particularly at pitchers, there's a, you know, a lot of times a lack of longevity also speaks to a higher level of proveness. So I get that too. But at hitter, I think, like, there's no reason to doubt how good Juan Soda is going to be. He may not be Mike Trout, but he may be Albert Poole's, you know? Yeah. So for me, it just, like, I think Mike Trout should probably be a six in present value.

Juan Soto definitely shouldn't be a four. but he shouldn't be the same rating as Mike Trout. That makes sense. I know you're saying. And also I'm about as confident that both will be very good for the next seven years. And like, seven years, you know, the Yellowstone Caldera may have exploded and fantasy baseball, you know, isn't really, you know, it's not as popular after that. So, you know, I just think like with pitchers, I'm very much a. present value is almost all that matters.

For hitters, you know, the window of predictability extends out further, especially with Mike Trout. It's a quibble. It's fair. It's fair. I mean, originally I had him ahead of Soto. You go look at my top 150 dynasty overall, which I originally put together in December, I think, and it'll still show Trout ahead of Soto.

Once I'm done with these positional things, I'll go update that. But yeah, no, it's totally fair. You can find the rest of Scott's rankings again over on CBSSports.com, but I want to get to some emails, fantasy baseball, at cbsi.com. Continue to send us your emails, or leave a five-star Apple podcast review and drop a question in there. That's exactly what Gil Cubs 9 did, and he is in a 12-te-to-head categories league with 80 keepers total

heading into each year's auction. I have one more post-auction contract extension to offer at a $2. $2 annual increase from his 2020 salary for the 2021 and 2022 seasons. So in a headside categories league, Miguel Sinell at $10. Friend Mel Reyes at $8. Ramon Luriano, $6. J.D. Davis, $5. Max Kepler, $3.

Josh James, $3. Scott, who do you want from that group? I'm just reading over the rules again real quick. Yeah, it's a $2 annual increase for the next two seasons after this. I know this is going to be a, I know this is going to be a boring answer coming for me, but J.D. Davis, I do. I do.

I think Miguelson knows the easy answer, but he's already $5 more, and he's been in the news lately. That's the, like, I don't want to, I don't want, I don't want to moralize because like the situation that he's currently in seems very foggy and we just don't know what's going on. So like I'm not like being a scold or anything. Like I sure really don't know what the situation is whether he did anything wrong. He has done stuff in the past. Yeah.

So it's an availability thing. It's not it's not me moralizing it. It's just, you know, I, I. I could see a point. Yeah, I mean, with his history, you can't count on him always being available to play, I guess. And even without the off-the-field stuff, he's been injured the past couple of seasons.

So you've got to factor all of that in. Chris, what do you think here? Oh, man, I missed Kepler. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. You don't have J.D. Davis ahead of Kepler, right? No, I don't. I don't. Kepler's $2 cheaper. I mean, I'm not sure that makes a big difference,

but it's, you know, obviously helps if I already have Kepler ranked ahead. Yeah. And Luriano is in the discussion. I'm, you know, I, Frank, you might actually pick Luriano knowing what you, how you feel about him. Yeah, I do like him quite a bit. I'm a little more iffy on him. I think, you know, he might be more like a 265-15-15 guy, which is okay. But, you know, I can see a word, Ramon Luriano's not an everyday player for the athletics in 2021,

given that his defense rates out actually pretty poorly, despite the incredible highlights. So I would definitely go with Max Kepler. I think they're pretty close in 2020 value, and you get him for $3 less. Yeah, so for me, it's actually between Kepler and friend Mil Reyes, because this is a head-to-head categories league,

and I punt steals in this format. So Ramon Luriano's, whatever, 10 to 15 steals doesn't really matter much to me. I'll take Max Kepler as well at $3. I like Reyes a lot, but that $5 discount between the two puts Max Kepler over the edge for me. This next one's from Marquise. Greetings, Sammy, Dean, and Frank. Oh, and Adam, if he makes an appearance.

Sammy Dean and Frank. I don't remember an Adam in the Rat Pack. Frank, you're from New York. How do you not know this? This is unbelievable. You don't know Sammy, Dean, and Frank? Come on. What is this?

The Rat Pack, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and, uh, oh, got it blanked on the name. Come on, man. I'm not even 30 years old. I'm supposed to know about this stuff. He hasn't seen any, the two most famous New York-based sitcoms. He hasn't seen any of it. Right, but you're talking about, I'm a fake New Yorker, man. But like, I feel like every third restaurant here has like a black and white signed autograph of Frank Sinatra. I would know. All right, well, moving on to the question. Unbelievable.

Since teams like the twins, brewers, Cubs, maybe the Reds start the season in cold conditions outdoors, is there a possibility playing only in the summer months offenses could benefit? I remember Brian Dozier and the twins would crush

during the summertime. If so, what teams or players should we target? P.S., Scott needs to work on more Michael Kane since he's going to be in Tenet. Hmm. Yeah. I saw that. I'm looking forward to ten. I look forward to every

Chris Nolan. Christopher Nolan movie, yeah. Yeah. This definitely wouldn't apply to, right? Because they play indoors. For who? The Brewers. Yeah, that's what I thought of as well. Yeah. I have a roof there.

I mean, you know, you usually do like anecdotally, twins, Indians, maybe the Cubs, the Reds, like you do see a lot of cold weather games early in the season. You could go with Colorado as well. They have famously had several snowouts over the last few seasons, which is always fun. I'm always wary of this kind of factor being put in.

It's just, it's impossible to know who actually does and doesn't benefit versus who had just gotten off to a cold. Like you could get off to a cold start three years in a row, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're fated to be a poor starter to the season. Adam LaRose, I feel like is a great example of someone who, I believe his season splits kind of switched as his career run on. I think he was always like, was he really good early in the season and then switched, or was it the opposite?

I think it was the other way around. Yeah, he was bad early in the season. But if you look at his career, you know, last I checked, which was actually a couple months ago for some reason, it wasn't uh i think his career splits had mostly disappeared and generally speaking when we're talking about any kind of split the longer you go those things tend to disappear which tends to show that they're not real i we brought this up recently and i feel like adam mentioned edwin incarnacion as someone who typically gets off to slow starts and you know could be

helped potentially by some warmer weather jose abray you i've mentioned this before. I mean, he has actually been on record saying that when he first came over, his first couple of seasons, he would struggle early on because of the cold weather playing in Chicago, because he was from Cuba. So those are just a few names that pop out to me, and they're both on the White Sox. Do you have anything to add there, Scott? No, no, not really. Is it just me, or do you guys recall, and I'm sure it would be easy to look up if I cared to invest the time in it, but the Rockies very regularly getting off to really, good starts and then just fading from the playoff picture as the season plays out.

I thought last year a lot of their hitters got off to slow starts because they didn't have a lot of home games in the early months of the season. I remember that happening last year and it being like an exception. It was very frustrating. It probably doesn't. I don't think it means anything to be clear. But it did cross my mind when we're thinking about teams that could overachieve during a short season.

Like, man, how many playoffs were the Rockies have made if the season ended in mid-May? The one addendum that I will add to my, you know, splits generally are meaningless thing is like, course field is such a weird place to play that it could be something where if they do play an inordinate number of games on the road or at home early in the season, it could just generally affect not just like the offensive outcomes, but just the team as a whole because it's such a different offensive environment. You have to get used to it. And if the Rockies play 15 of their first.

24 there, they're really used to it and everybody else is not. So it could, you could derive a benefit that disappears over the course of the full season. Fair enough. All right, I had an update on a Twitter poll that I made regarding the snack combos, but I'm going to save that for tomorrow. Hopefully Adam is back on the show. I'll save that for tomorrow. Wait, no, you can't say it for tomorrow. I'm not on the show. All right, Chris, I'll reveal the results right now. Basically, I just ask people if they like, what are your thoughts on combos, the snack? And the three options were they're awesome. They look gross, but taste good. And, ew. Forty-eight point-nine percent of the vote. Where do you think it went, Chris? They taste awesome. Or they're awesome. They are awesome. That is exactly

right. So take that Adamazer. Combos are awesome. I'm a man of the people. He is a man of the people. I have always been known as a populist. Chris will be here tomorrow. Oh, man. What I was saying about the Rockies has not been true at all in recent years. It was true in 2017, but I'm back to 2014 now, and that's the only time it's been true so far. That seems like a good place to wrap the show for today.

For Scott and Chris, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching on the Fantasy Baseball Today YouTube channel. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye. Don't know.