Fantasy Baseball Today - 🚨Ranger Suarez to the Boston Red Sox! - Emergency Podcast (1/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)
Episode Date: January 14, 2026Ranger Suarez is headed to the Red Sox on a five-year, $130 million deal. What's his early ADP and how will he fit in Boston? Red Sox pitching prospects are on the outside looking in. Andrew Painter l...ooks like he has an opportunity with the Phillies early on. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CPTowers @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Now here's Frank Scott and Chris.
The Red Sox lost Alex Bregman, but now they've responded.
Welcome into an emergency edition of Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, January 14th.
I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers.
The Red Sox are signing Ranger Suarez to a five-year, $130 million deal.
It looks like they are just leaning all the way into pitching this offseason.
They still have enough moves where they can make trades and things could still happen.
But the way that the team is currently constructed,
seems like they are going to lean on their pitching staff and hopefully just score enough
runs throughout the course of the season. Ranger Suarez is 30 years old, has dealt with some
recurring back injuries. He's still thrown 150 plus innings two years in a row, and he has
been really good over the past two years, a 333 ERA, 121 whip, a little bit on the high end,
8.7K per 9, all the ERA estimators below 3.7 during that time period. He is a quality
pitcher. Chris, do you think his value changes at all?
in Boston up or down.
Maybe slight downgrade because it's, I don't know, no, probably not, right?
Because it's a, it's a worse home park, although Philadelphia is not a great place to pitch.
It's not a terrible one.
Fenway is probably the second most hitter-friendly park in baseball.
But it's a much better offense or defense behind him, right?
Like the Red Sox, especially in the outfield, have a fantastic defense.
They should be pretty good in the infield.
We'll see.
I think the infield is not quite settled yet.
but I think value holds steady.
We likely see his price increase from these early drafts just because now he's signed and there's no uncertainty.
His early ADP is 180.8.
That's great. I love that.
I'll take him as the 180th player off the board every single time.
But I would guess he moves up a little bit into like the 165, 170 range of drafts where you've got like,
Shodi Minaga's right around 170
Robbie Ray
Gavin Williams
very different types of pitchers
but I think that 160 to 170 range
is probably where Ranger Suarez floats up to
yeah I agree with that
the ADP in January you mentioned it it's right
around 180 he was going behind
Shane Bieber and Trevor Rogers
Luis Castillo all three of
Scott you and me
have Suarez at SP 49
we did not talk about this
Yeah, what are the chances?
It's just, we all landed on SP 49.
And right now, I think he has been a really good value.
I think that will probably tick up a little bit.
But even with that, I think I would still be in on a Ranger Suarez.
I don't think he has a ton of upside, but I think he's someone that should give pretty good ratios.
And he goes deep into starts.
So he should give you a chance at wins too.
The thing that's frustrating about Ranger Suarez is typically when we think of volatility among starting pitchers,
it's a Gavin Williams type or an Edward Cabrera type,
a fireballer with big strikeout upside,
but big control and command questions.
So you don't quite know what you're going to get out of them.
And Ranger Shores is like the opposite of that as a pitcher,
but he's been pretty volatile throughout his career anyway.
And I think like it's not like injury prone,
but it's brittle, I think would be the word I'd use that he just,
there tends to be something every year.
You know, you said the back issues a couple times.
I want to say he had like a hamstring injury one year that also derailed him.
But it's always like there's these like 17 start stretches every year where Ranger Suarez looks amazing.
And people want him to be ranked as a top 25 starting pitcher.
And he pitches like that for a couple months at the time.
He never quite sustains it.
I think 2025 is the closest he's ever come where you didn't really have the big drop off.
But I do want to say that like while his price should rise, there's probably a hard ceiling on it where.
if you get him outside of the top 150, you probably feel pretty good.
If for some reason he ended up getting pushed up to like 130,
that's where it's like, I think I'd rather take the gamble on other pitchers with more upside here.
Yeah, I think one of the low-key takeaways here is that Phillies fans won't be yelling at us about our rankings anymore, Chris,
because there's always a stretch where Ranger Suarez looks amazing to start the season,
or he just goes on a super dominant stretch, and then,
Phileas fans are yelling at us, why don't you have him ranked as your SP1?
And, you know, I feel like we finally come around.
Like, we are ranking him higher than where his ADP is.
So, uh, he's really solid.
We are collectively in on Ranger Suarez.
You mentioned the change in the venue.
I think maybe it could be a good one for him.
He's been better on the road in his career outside of Citizens Bank Park.
So a 309 career ERA on the road, 368 at home.
Fenway could be a tough place for left-handed pitchers.
Obviously, you got the green monster there,
but he's a ground ball pitcher,
so I don't know that that will matter too much for him.
I would bring up the division.
You know, AL East, obviously very tough.
You got the Orioles who are improving,
the Blue Jays, obviously the Yankees.
Had that L.S.'s is pretty tough, too, though.
But yeah, he's leaving the NL East where, you know,
he was facing the Mets and the Braves lineup.
So, you know, it's, I think it's kind of a...
I don't know that his value really changes all that much.
Slight.
I think you can make a case for a slight upgrade,
but probably not a big change in value here for Ranger Suarez.
And, you know, he's one of those pitchers where when he's on, it doesn't really matter.
You know, when he's commanding well, he is really, really hard to hit.
He has, I want to say the lowest hard hit rate among all pitchers over the past two seasons.
He just does not give up a lot of hard contact.
A lot of it's on the ground.
And when he's on, he's really, really good.
He's just not quite on as often as you'd like.
But it's a 325 ERA over the past five seasons, I believe.
It's hard to argue too much with the results that you get from Ranger Swarres at the end of the day,
even if the process by which you get there is often a little frustrating.
All right, let's take a quick break, and we will discuss some of the fallout for this right after this quick break.
Welcome back in fantasy baseball today.
Again, the big news, Ranger Swares to the Reds.
on a five-year, $130 million deal.
And that updated Red Sox rotation, you have Garrett Crochet and Suarez up at the top, followed
by Sunny Gray and Brian Beow.
Now we are left with just one spot left in the rotation for one of Cutter Crawford, Patrick
Sandoval, Johan Oviedo, Connolly, Connolly, Ely, Peyton Toley.
Doesn't seem great for the pitching prospects here that we were hoping would get an opportunity
in the Red Sox rotation.
It still could happen,
but I think they'll probably try the veterans first,
and then if that doesn't work,
maybe we get early in May, June, something like that.
Early?
I would guess...
It needs to happen earlier.
Yes, I would guess early and totally are back in the line now.
And like you said, it's...
I don't know, maybe they go with a six-man rotation.
Lots of teams roll out six-man rotations pretty regularly anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised with the Red Sox were among them,
especially with, you know,
Juarez has very rarely, has he ever gone 160 innings in a season?
I don't know.
Last year was a career high 157.1.
So there's always something with him.
Sunny Gray is older.
Brian Beyo missed some time last year, I think with a shoulder injury.
Johano Vieto had recovered from Tommy John.
So there are ways for things to go wrong for the Red Sox.
There are ways for every pitching staff to go wrong.
And I would guess we see Connolly early and
Peyton Toley at some point in 2026, and I would guess some point in the first half.
Now, in Toley's case, specifically, I think the likeliest outcome might be he is in someone
else's rotation on opening day, rather than in Boston's just because that's a lot of pitching
depth. And they invested, you know, $17 million in Patrick Sandoval over the past two seasons. And
Cutter Crawford was really good two years ago, and I don't think they want to give up on him.
And Brian Bayo signed to a long-term extension, and Oviedo has some upside.
So I just think one of those pitchers seems likely to get traded.
The Red Sox have been rumored to be in on Nico Horner, on Brendan Donovan as well.
So I would guess we see one of these pitchers moved in a deal by the Red Sox between now and opening day.
It always felt like it makes so much sense for Catele-Marté to wind up with the Red Sox.
That doesn't sound like it's going to happen now.
The debacks seemingly have pulled Cotel-Marté off the trade market.
And we know the Red Sox were talking to them, but it was such a clear match, right?
It was the debacks were looking for pitching.
You know, maybe the Red Sox didn't want to give up an earlier,
Atollian that deal for Marte or any of their young outfielders.
But, yeah, it's just, it's gone now, but it feels like it would have made a lot of sense for the Red Sox.
What about the Phillies fallout here?
We pretty much figured that Suarez would not be back with the team.
They have their top three locked in, Christopher Sanchez, Jesus Lazardo, and Aaron Nola.
Rasta Resource has Taiwan Walker and Andrew Painter in the rotation until Zach Wheeler is back.
Assuming he returns, we don't know when that's going to be.
Chris, Painter is still young and a top prospect, he had a horrible 2025 coming back from Tommy John surgery.
But it looks like he will have an opportunity with the Phillies to open.
this season, assuming that they don't actually bring in another starting pitcher.
So Andrew Painter, let's see what he does in spring training, but could wind up being a decent
sleeper this year.
I think Andrew Painter needs to be on any sleeper's list.
And now, I say that having put out a sleeper's list earlier this week that did not have
Andrew Painter on it.
How could you?
He's giving me some Jackson Job vibes a year ago where people are weirdly cold on him and
in Jackson Job's case there was a reason for it and in Painter's case there are real issues with what he was doing last season he changed his mechanics in his return from Tommy John's surgery and it took a lot of the bite out of his fastball the velocity was still good but the movement profile and release point were much more normal and it just did not play well he struggled with his command he struggled with missing bats in the way that we've seen from him in the past only a 24% strike
breakout rate last season across both levels. It was 39% in 2022 the last time we saw him.
So I remain hopeful about Andrew Painter and I'm glad he'll get the opportunity. And I hope
even if Zach Wheeler is ready relatively early on in the season, possibly by opening day,
it's not a complete non-zero chance. I would hope Andrew Painter gets priority ahead of Taiwan
Walker who is in the last year of that $60, $70 million deal.
gave him so there's not any long-term implications there for Taiwan Walker.
I think in an ideal world, that's your swing man and Andrew Painter is your number five starter.
But if Painter goes out this spring and pitches like he did last season,
I'm not sure Andrew Painter is at all guaranteed of a rotation spot.
Because remember, we all thought Andrew Painter was going to be in this rotation by July of last season.
And he was just never good enough to justify it.
and it's entirely possible that happens again.
He's still getting a lot of benefit of the doubt from prospect rankers.
I think he's still viewed as a generally top 10-ish starting pitcher,
but there's some distance from that between where he is now
and where he was when he got hurt in 2023,
when he was viewed as the consensus top pitching prospect in baseball.
So Andrew Painter, like I said, cautiously hopeful,
but certainly not optimistic.
optimistic at this point, I would say.
Yeah, very clearly a post-hype sleeper
and just like the clearest definition of that phrase,
but it's a little bit more complicated than that
when you kind of peel back the layers on Andrew Painter.
Again, the big news, Ranger Suarez to the Red Sox
on a five-year, $130 million deal.
We are going to wrap there for Chris. I am Frank.
Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today.
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