Fantasy Baseball Today - Roto Mock Draft Review! How to Draft Pitching in 2021 (1/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

FOLLOW ALONG WITH THE DRAFT- https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/2021-fantasy-baseball-draft-prep-12-team-rotisserie-mock-draft-shows-personal-preference-coming-into-play/ When it comes to pitching in 2021, you need to STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, NO MERCY. But should you take Jacob deGrom second overall (1:13)?... Before we get into the rest of the draft, we have news and notes, starting with a Corey Kluber update (3:56). How did he look at his bullpen? Also we have an update on Yoan Moncada and two teams that plan to use a six-man rotation this season. ... On to the rotisserie mock (13:39)! Should Mike Trout fall to fifth overall in this format? ... What do you do if you have the 10th pick (19:23)? Christian Yelich vs. Trevor Story vs. Jose Ramirez. ... In the second round we noticed Cody Bellinger is starting to slip a bit (24:45). Should he? ... The third round started with Bryce Harper and Yu Darvish, which were both great picks (29:20). How many starting pitchers should you have by round three? ... How does your team turn out when you go pocket aces (34:37)? ... In the fourth round we start three shortstops go back-to-back-to-back (38:56). Whom do you prefer between Mondesi, Bichette, and Bogaerts? ... Why did Tim Anderson fall to the fifth round (43:48)? Are we higher than consensus on Carlos Carrasco? ... Will Smith first catcher off the board (47:25)? ... Which hitters are slipping due to recency bias (49:48)? ... We finish up recapping each of our pitching staffs (57:48). ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday '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: @FBTPod, @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/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Domingo Santana Fugas for Cockta a jig like Michael Walker Polanco and from Mock draft season is upon us Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday January 14th Frank Sample joined by Scott White and Chris Towers

We did a 12-team 5x 5-by-5 Rotiss free mock a few nights ago and I love pitching Scott loves pitching But I think our buddy Mike Gianella From Baseball Perspectus Might like it just a little bit more than we do

Jacob de Grom went second overall in this draft right after Ronald Cunia, and I'm starting to think the theme for drafting starting pitchers this season should be, strike first, strike hard, no mercy. Shout out to Cobra Kai. Watch it if you haven't done so yet.

Anyway, back to DeGrom. Second overall, Scott, what is the earliest you would be willing to take either DeGrom or whoever your SP1 overall is? I think it might be Shane Bieber, but what is the earliest you would be willing to take a starting pitcher in a roto draft this year?

Well, in a roto draft specifically, I would say the answer to that question is fifth. Not second, but fifth. And I actually pick sixth in this draft and got my top starting pitcher, Shane Bieber. The only one who pushed Bieber down from fifth to sixth for me was DeGrom going ahead of him. The four hitters, the top four hitters in who I

would take if I had a top four pick in a roto league are Acuna, Fernando Tatis, Mookie Betts, and Mike Trout. Actually, I have Mike Trout second, but that's the group of four hitters. And I don't think it's crazy to take a picture inside the top three. I've heard other people around the industry talk about it. Chris, is that something you would pull off? Probably not. You had the third pick and you didn't take a pitcher. No, no. I think that that top four group of hitters. It just a bit more surety. If that's a word.

Let's Google it right now. Assurity. Probably not. Well, no A. But yeah, I just think there's more ways for things to go wrong for a 32, 34 year old Jacob de Grom. 34. 33? Up there.

Or for, I mean, Shane Bieber's 26. So there's no age concern, but he's still a starting pitcher and there's still ways for things to go wrong for him. But like, it's not like I have them too far beyond that. I have DeGrom 7th and Bieber 10th in my rankings. DeGrom turns 33 in June. I will point out that with DeGrom, he's not really like other 32, 33 year olds pitchers that have been around because, and I've seen other people talk about this point as well, is that if you compare him to other pitchers in this age, group. I think it's like the past five years.

He has not thrown as many innings or pitches as those pitchers that are, I think it was like Clayton Kirchall who's a similar age. So he doesn't have as much wear and tear. I still do really like DeGrom. He's my SP1. Would I be willing to take him over the top, I would say the top

three hitters for me are Acuna Betts and Tatis. And I don't think that I would take a pitcher ahead of those guys. But I think it's an interesting talking point. And we will talk about this mock for the rest of today's podcast. But I do want to hit on some news and notes that we had a few things that I just want to get

to quickly so that we can get to everything else. Around 25 teams went to Corey Klubber's showcase on Wednesday. He was sitting 88 to 90 miles per hour with his fastball and also through his off-speed pitches. Kluber has thrown 36 and two-thirds innings over the last two seasons. Was shut down with a muscle strain in his throwing shoulder this past season in 2020. And he dealt with an oblique strain and a fractured. arm in 2019. The ADP is 232.

Scott, any interest or do you need to see more from Corey Klooper? Well, I'm sure I have them higher than 232, but it's because there's not a lot of upside to be found once you reach a certain point in the starting pitcher rankings. And we don't have, we just haven't seen much of Cory Klooper the past two years. I mean, the last time we saw a significant sample from him, he was still really good. So I think we might be bearing him a little too soon here.

Obviously, if his velocity remains down two miles per hour in March, you know, assuming he signs and has a rotation spot at that point, then I might not be so eager to draft him. And I'm not saying I'm eager to draft him now either. But if the price is right, it certainly seems like an upside play. Yeah, Corey Klober, the last time we saw him really at his best was in 2018. He averaged 92 miles per hour

on the nose on his fastball that season. So he is a little bit lower here but Jeff Passon pointed out obviously he has the next couple of months to build up his arm strength and get the velocity to where it needs to be.

Chris, I did look up the word assuredy and it is a do you say Caribbean or Caribbean? Caribbean. Caribbean? I've heard it both ways. No, I said surety. Surety.

Surety. Oh, okay. And surety is a word. Okay. A person who takes, oh, no, that's not what I'm... It's a noun,

a person who takes responsibility for another person, another's performance of an undertaking. So it's like an underwriter, I guess. It was not the context in which I used it. I used it as a verb, maybe? I can't even remember the context.

No, you said it certainly not as a noun. You talked about it, something de Grom is not an assurity. I thought you said, usherty. Anyway, surety is a Caribbean dialect word meaning firm promise. All right. There you go.

There you go. That's actually what I meant. Other news, Yuan Moncada felt the effects of COVID into November, had this to say. Quote, the symptoms, the tiredness, the weakness I was feeling throughout the season, lasted for a few weeks after the season ended. Moncada said, thank God I feel very good right now. I feel like I normally feel. I'm doing all my stuff right now.

I feel like I'm in very good. condition. I'm feeling strong. The ADP on Yuan Moncada is 88.3. Chris, you took him 76th overall in the mock draft in the seventh round. So I guess you're feeling pretty good. You actually took both COVID guys. You took Yuan Monkata and who was it, Austin Meadows. Yeah. And the thing that's going to be really tough about this is you did have guys like Freddie Freeman or AJ Pollock actually was one of the guys who test positive for COVID. DJ LaMay. Hugh, Salvador Perez, some guys who had arguably the best seasons of their careers, or in AJ Pollock's case, at least a nice bounceback season. And that kind of works against the

hypothesis, that this explains some of the bad seasons that we saw from, you know, maybe a guy like Moncada or a guy like Charlie Blackman or, I mean, Scott Kingery is another one who talked about the fatigue that he dealt with. But it's not going to be the same for everyone. And I think that's going to be important to remember is that like all illness is it impacted everyone differently. And just because Freddie Freeman, you know, who did have who was dealing with, you know, apparently pretty significant symptoms when he had the illness in the

preseason, you know, just because, you know, he seemed to not have any issues, doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't impact others in a way that we can, you know, kind of discount their struggles. And so for Moncada, because he has talked about it, you know, he's talking about it now, but he talked about it in season as well, that does make me, you know, give him a little benefit of the doubt. And I appreciate the consistency because I know that you were in on him last year as well. So if you're willing to throw out 2020 because of COVID, then it does make sense for you to be back on him here in 2021. And lots of talk about starting pitcher workload on this podcast, previous podcast.

We're going to continue to talk about it leading up to the season. But I recently saw that the Tigers and Mariners are two teams that plan to use a six-man rotation in 2021. And the Red Sox are at least considering it, though, I mean, Boston barely has five usable starting pitchers unless they plan to sign, you know, Chris Towers, Scott White to be their sixth starting pitcher. I can get it up there in like the mid-60s probably.

You think so? Got a nice knuckle curve though. The knuckle ball is so hard to throw. My dad tried to teach it to me when I was younger. It is so hard. Actually my change-up. Probably the best pitch

in the arsenal is the change-up. Yeah, that's basically... A little circle change. That's basically your fastball, right? Yeah. So this could help keep guys healthy the six-man rotation for the Tigers and Mariners specifically.

But Scott, I guess it probably means less volume. and we won't get to start weeks from those starting pitchers. I don't know if it's going to last all season, but it sounds like something that they're going to try and do for at least the beginning of the season. It didn't get a lot of attention,

maybe just because there was so much else going on or because the pitchers weren't very good, but the Mariners stuck with this pretty much all last season too. They were consistent about, they were as consistent as they've ever seen a team B with the six-man rotation. So it doesn't surprise me that they're planning to do that again.

The Mariners, I'm sorry, just talked about the Tigers. Obviously, they have some interesting young guys coming up. Terrick Scoobel in particular looks like he could be a contributor in fantasy this year. I expect to see Matt Manning at some

point this season. He's the third guy, the one we didn't see in the majors last year. And of course, Casey Mize, who still has a lot to prove. Yeah, I don't know either if they would really stick with it all year. eventually some of those pitchers are going to go down because some pitchers always go down. Yeah, they definitely wouldn't stick with it.

Yeah, they definitely wouldn't stick with it for the whole season just because you're not going to keep six pitchers healthy all season. But it wouldn't surprise me if we saw more of this. I just, you know, this is something I said in the last podcast, but I'll reiterate it. You know, a good 150 innings has never been more. valuable in fantasy baseball than this era.

And that'll probably be more true than ever in 2020. Yep. And that led me to, we were talking about Trista McKenzie is, you know, I want to load up my bench with just a bunch of high upside starting pitchers that maybe we have concerns over their workload, but when they're on the mound, they're going to be really good. So those are some of the names that I would be looking at. And I don't know if I mentioned this the other day. I probably should have. But I saw a report that the Brewers plan to increase their starting pitchers workload by 100 innings tacked on to whatever they did in 2020.

So based on that, someone like Corbyn Burns, pitch 59 and two thirds in 2020, that means we should expect around 160 innings for 2021, which seems optimistic, but if Burns gives you 160, he could potentially be really good in those 160. So keep that in mind as well. Yeah, part of the problem with Burns is he hasn't thrown,

because he's been in, you know, that bullpen roll the last couple of years, he hasn't thrown more than 116 innings since 2017. And that's what he was... It's not necessarily because he can't. You know, he threw 38 innings in 2018, but all of them as a reliever after starting in the minor. So, you know, it's kind of tough to, to know what to make of that.

The Astros signed Pedro Baez reliever to a two-year deal. I assume Ryan Presley's job as the closer is still safe, but I will just note, apparently they were in on Liam Hendricks. So I don't know how safe Ryan Presley's job is because they signed another reliever, they were looking into other potential closers,

and there's still a chance to get signed someone. The off-season's not over yet. So we'll pay attention to that, but I assume Presley is the guy for now. Promote a few things. The divisional round of the NFL playoffs is here. Watch the defending Super Bowl champion

Kansas City Chiefs host the Cleveland Browns this Sunday, January 17th, on CBS, and CBS, all. access at 3 p.m. Eastern time should be an awesome game with Patrick Mahomes going up against Baker Mayfield and that awesome running attack for the Cleveland Browns. If you want all of our fantasy baseball content at CBS delivered right to your inbox for free, make sure you sign up for our fantasy baseball today newsletter. Head over to cbsports.com slash newsletters. You can find all of the CBS newsletters there. There's one for HQ where they send out betting picks every day for

free. And Chris, of course, writes the fantasy football today newsletter, which you can sign up for there as well. Roto mock draft. This is what we did the other night. Five by five, traditional batting average, 12 teams, two catchers, middle infielder, corner infielder, five outfielers, and nine pitcher spots. Participants included, George Kurtz, Mike Gianella, mentioned him earlier, Zach Steinhorn,

Micah Henry, Chris Mitchell, Dan Gilbert, Matt Williams from Roto Fanatic. we had him on this podcast as well. Tim McLeod, buddy Al Melchior. And then of course, who? Yeah, I never heard of him. No, I don't know that guy. And then Chris Scott and myself, of course. The link to the draft, by the way,

is in our podcast and YouTube description. So if you're watching, if you're following along, if you're listening, you can look at the results. You can pull those up while we're talking about them here on the podcast. The first round, mention what happened with Jacob de Grom. He went second overall. Now, when I was making the rundown for this,

I think that there is a very clear top nine players in Roto. And of course, right before we started, Chris was like, nah, I have Jose Ramirez and yell at this high. So this is going to be interesting to talk about. But the top nine that I consider a consensus top nine, those were the ones drafted in the top nine in this draft. In order, Ronald de Cunia, Jacob de Grombe, Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatez Jr. went to Chris.

Mike Trout went fifth overall. Shane Bieber went to Scott. Then Garrett Cole, Juan Soto, Trey Turner. I think that's a very clear top nine, in my opinion. Before we can say, it was weird to see Mike Trout go fifth overall. The steals, the past couple seasons, have gone from 24 to 11 to 1 this past year. And also from 2017 to 2019, he missed an average of 32.7 games. So it's not like he's the model of health.

Scott, is it weird to see Trout go fifth overall? Well, of course, it's weird because we've never seen it. I don't even think going into a sophomore season, he was going as late as fifth. overall. Is it okay? Is it okay for that to happen in a draft this year? In a roto draft? Well, apparently so. I'm a little surprised so many people are so comfortable with it, especially since we've seen his steals totals kind of go up and down over the course of his career. There was a stretch earlier in his career where it looked like he was done running and then he came surging back with stolen bases. Given the demand for steals and the need to fill that category

fairly early, I understand. But as I'm mentioned earlier, he's, he's second in my personal roto rankings, uh, because Buckey bets, you know, his steals have kind of been up and down two and Fernando Tatis just doesn't have, uh, he has yet to put together a full season of stud numbers. So he's not nearly as proven as it, these other guys. Um, and is deserving of skepticism because of that. So,

it's, I get it, but I'm not doing it myself, I guess. Yeah, I guess it comes down to the, the statistical scarcity argument. If you want to reach on steals and pull some of those guys up to board, I do think Betz is going to steal more bases than Trout.

I think the same thing for Akunia, but I mean, we just have such a firm track record for Trout. And I still think the batting average is going to be really good for him. And he's going to be a premier power hitter. Like, he's going to give you 40 homers,

really good runs in RBI when he's on the field. And I think, at minimum, I think the floor is probably eight to ten steals. And he's the best hitter in baseball. Yeah. The ceiling is still like 20. There's only so far, you can go.

And there's no doubt in my mind that if he wants to, he could steal 20 bases in 2020. He could probably steal 30 if he wanted to, honestly. And so, you know, it's a question of whether he'll want to, but,

you know, like Juan Soto, on average is going like fourth or fifth right now. I think Mike Trout is going to be a better hitter than Wantsota. In addition to, you know, the potential, I think he definitely has a higher ceiling for stolen bases than Wantsota for

sure. Um, so it's just, there's only so far he can fall, uh, in, in my eyes. And if it's five, that seems fine. Yeah, the Soto one is a little tough for me because you said you think Trout is going to be a better hitter than Soto. I think there's a chance that we get a better batting average from Soto this season. He just hit 350. And I'm not overreacting to that, but I think that we see a 300 plus batting average out of Soto. I mean, what, what, I was looking this up?

other day or yesterday actually because there was some quote from Josh Bell I think saying that Juan So is the best hitter in baseball and a bunch of people were like yes he is and it's like well depending on whether you use either OPS plus or way to run to creative plus Mike Trout is like further away from the number two hitter over the last three seasons than the number two hitter is from the number nine hitter in those metrics so like he's the best hitter in baseball and I I don't know I just he is yeah

like you just can't go wrong with trout is the thing that's what that's what we say every year when somebody tries to make the argument for someone over him yeah maybe maybe trout won't be the number one guy

and I think it's more likely this year than than ever but like it's just it's just bust proof not that Soto like I really worry about his bust potential but you know what I'm saying like Trout

Trout is always going to be among the studliest of the studs and you just to have nothing to worry about by taking him. He's never going to be worse than like the ninth best player on a per game basis. I would agree with that. I think they both have safe floors. I might prefer Soto over him.

And I will just point out in 47 games this past season, Soto had a 200 WRC plus Chris. And Mike Trout had it 164. Right, but Trout's at 181 over the last like five seasons combined. That is correct. All right. So let's move on or else we're going to get to nothing else throughout this podcast. So if you have the 10th pick, I mentioned I, I hate, this pick. You know, I want to feel warm and fuzzy about

my first round pick. Like, I want to feel safe. I want safety. And when it comes to Yelich, Jose Ramirez, and Trevor Story, who are the three that I was considering, I just think each of those players kind of have enough to worry about. And maybe I'm just overthinking

things, but with Yelich, the strikeouts, the plate discipline this past season, he blamed it on in-game video, more on that a little bit later. His lineup protection, I think, is very bad. Same thing for, for Jose Ramirez, I mean, his lineup context is just awful. Trevor's story's in a contract year. There's a chance he can be traded. There's a chance no one Aronado can be traded. Either way,

if one of those things happens, it's going to directly affect Trevor's story. So, Scott, if you had the 10th overall pick and you were in this position, who would you take? Or is it someone else? Or is it Freddie Freeman or maybe a starting pitcher? Well, stories who I have ranked there. I'm not, yeah, I mean, I don't, like a first round caliber bat, I really don't care. much about supporting cast. I mean, these guys are so so studly and have been proven so many times over that I just, I just don't think it matters that much. And Story is somebody who's going to fill all five categories. I mean, he's done it enough years in a row now that there really shouldn't be any doubts about it at this point, regardless of what happens with Aaron. I mean,

Nolan Aronado wasn't that good in 2020 and he wasn't around for the whole season. And Story still, I mean, he had arguably his best season, right? At least on a per game basis. So a story would have been who I went with, get some five-category production there. But, like, you know, it's just probably fine, right? Like, apart from that bloated strikeout raid, there was nothing that seemed that off with them.

And if that was a case of him not having access to video or just a weird buildup to the start of the season, I mean, it's more likely, you got the best player of 2021 by drafting Yelich than if you had taken story. And I will say, Yelich's batted ball data,

according to Stackast, was actually better in 2020 than it was in 2019. The weird part of his season was just that his strikeout rate was nearly 31%. It had never been higher than 20.9% in any season that he's played. So the strikeouts were really weird for him. The play discipline in general, Chris,

it was just, it was not, what we're used to seeing from yellow. He was very passive. His swing rate was down. He wasn't making as much contact in the zone. I don't know if it was just like the quick ramp up where like, you know, he just couldn't get up to speed. He could have been one of these guys that, you know, over the next 100 games, if this was a full season, completely turned it around. But we'll never know. Yeah, I mean, I was just looking at like his rolling 50 game averages over the last three seasons on on fan graphs. And one thing that stood out was he had a stretch in 2017 where he struck out 27% of the time. And, over a 50 game stretch.

So like, that's a little lower than 31%, which is what he had last season, but it's not so far out of line that it necessarily raises alarm bells. I mostly expect him to be himself again. And I have him actually inside that top nine. My top nine is different from, you know, that purported consensus.

Consensus according to Frank Stample, which honestly just, Doesn't really mean very much. So, Chris, who would you take if you were on the clock there? Between Ramirez, Yelich, and Story? Yep. I have Ramirez is the number six overall player. So it would be Ramirez for me.

Okay. So not worried about lineup context or anything? No. The hitter owns most of his run in RBI production. And then, you know, the lineup can impact. Alex Chamberlain did a story for what, you know, he was writing for sports line. two years ago, I think, and he did a story about this. And hitters generally own about 93 to 95% of their runs in RBI production

when you take into account a lineup spot as well. And so he's still going to be hitting in a good spot of the lineup. He's still going to get a lot of opportunities. And he's still a five-category guy. And basically over the last four seasons, we've had that one stretch from like the end of 20, 2018 to like the all-star break-ish of 2019, where he wasn't one of the five best hitters in fantasy.

And his agent actually came out and talked about, you know, he was trying to hit the ball the other way during that stretch. He was trying to beat the shift. And he went back to not trying to beat the shift in the second half of 2019. And I think he was the best hitter in fantasy from August 1st on. And so I,

I just, I really don't have any worries about Jose Ramirez. Yep. And the pull rate for Jose Ramirez in 2020 was back up over 52%. That was a career high for him. So not trying to beat the shift anymore. The best way to beat the shift is, of course, you know, hit it over their heads, hit home runs, which is what Jose Ramirez did very often in 2020. All right, so to make matters worse with this awful 10th pick, I wanted one of Freddie Freeman or Francisco Lindor in the second round. At pick 15, both of them went at the turn. So thanks to Tim McLeod. and Al Melchior for that.

I went with Aaron Nola and I actually don't regret it. I liked how my team turned out in general. I gave Bryce Harper a real, real hard look there. And I did not consider Cody Bellinger at all. Shoulder shoulder surgery, had the batting stand change. I need to see it in spring before I invest in Cody Bellinger that early. Scott, you also passed on Cody Bellinger in the second round.

You took Trevor Bauer ahead of him. So is that just you sticking to wanting pitching? or is that you fading Cody Bellinger as well in the second round? A little of both maybe. Mostly I was testing to see what it would be like to start a roto draft pitcher pitcher, especially since Bauer. To me, he's pretty clearly the number four guy

after the obvious top three of Bieber de Grom and Cole in some order. And so the fact I got him as the sixth starting pitcher, I just felt like that made it especially a good time to do it. I actually do rank Bellinger ahead of Bauer if we're just going strictly off rankings. But based on how I was trying to construct my team, I decided to start with Bieber Bauer here. And like you, I really like the way this team turned out.

Now, it was kind of one of the easiest drafts I've ever done because there were so many departures from my own rankings. I don't know how in line my rankings are with consensus right now. I don't know how in line this draft was with consensus, but it seemed like there were enough kind of, to me, what stuck out as oddball picks that with virtually every pick I made, it seemed like, okay, this is obviously the guy to take. And it's just so rare to have a draft like that,

then it's hard not to come away feeling good when it's over. So I started pitcher pitcher, and then I didn't take another pitcher until round seven. But I still ended up with like five of my top 40, maybe even five of my top 35. So yeah, I really like the way my pitching turned out here. And I think, you know, even if Bauer turns back into a pumpkin, I think I have the depth to account for that. But, you know, I'm not really expecting them to either. Yeah, they'll still have Pine Tar.

Yeah, like, if he, because, you know, the reports of that practice being so widespread, and unless there's going to come down on these pitchers for doing that, I don't see why Bauer would change his approach, if that is the reason why he picked up so much spin on his pitches. And I think it's reasonable to think that. You know, Sarah, sort of great article on The Athletic about how 99% of pitchers in Bay,

baseball are using some kind of substance on their hands to get a better grip, affect their spin rate, whatever it might be. So I guess for a long time for Bauer, it was, if you can't beat him, join them. And I don't see why. It should just be legal. I eventually they're probably, like, there's no way to enforce checking a pitcher between every inning, every pitch, whatever it might be. So that's what Enosar's brought up is that eventually they might just have to make some kind of substance legal in MLB. All right. So I mentioned I took Aranola at 15. After that in the second round, we saw Luis Kessis Theo, Alex Bregman, which is a little bit earlier than ADP. And I will just say, Scott, I think the point you made about how confident you were in every pick and that there were some picks that you noticed were just kind of like out of whack and, you know, maybe not expected. I think that while we will have consensus, fantasy pros, NFC, whatever you want to use, I think that this year more than ever, you're just going to see people do what they want. Maybe not follow ADP because everyone's going to have a different process for how they're

evaluating the season, whether they're looking at just 2020 and they're overrating that, combining with 2019. I know you just wrote an article about this on CBS. So everyone should go and check that out. But I think this year more than ever before, you might see people just kind of like go off the cuff and just do whatever they want and not really follow ADP. Where was I? After Alex Breggman went in the middle of second round, Walker Bueller, Trevor Bauer, Cody Bellinger went, Max Scherzer to Chris, Nolan Aronado, Mani Machado, and Jack Flaherty to close out the second round. Third round starts with. Bryce Harper and I which I thought was a fantastic value because I was considering him at 15

Scott we spoke about this towards the end of the season I think right afterwards as well his batted ball date of Bryce Harper was better in 2020 than it was in his MVP season so yeah I think he was a little bit unlucky and I'm a really big fan even if he doesn't give you a great batting average you know 260 270-ish I think we can get close to 40 homers 10 to 15 steals guy. He doesn't hurt you that much in batting average. He's absolutely awesome. He got the plate discipline back in line in a pretty dramatic way in 2020 and I think he's shown like he the Phillies like him running and he's happy to do it. So like he feels like a safer source of stolen bases than

than he's ever been before. And obviously those um you get a you like getting those in the early rounds especially. Yep. And I looked into this last year when Joe Girardy joined the Phillies. Joe Girardy actually liked to run a little bit with the Yankees. So I think this is, you know, coaching tendencies tend to, they tend to influence steals. And we saw that with Jace Tingler and the San Diego Padres. U. Darvich won with the very next pick 26th overall right after Bryce Harper.

He was the SP10 in this draft at pick 26. Chris, am I missing something here? with you, Darvish, or are people just kind of playing this cautiously because he got traded? No, I mean, I'm not sure exactly at starting pitcher where I have him. It's probably five or six. And that seems like that'll happen, I guess. I don't know if it's necessarily like a conscious decision people made to to avoid him. Yeah, I don't know what the answer there is, but it doesn't, if there is a conscious decision to push him down draft board, that seems like it's probably a mistake.

I agree. You know, the Padres team context is better than the Cubs. Yeah, he's not going to pitch as well as he did last year. But, okay, you know,

he had a pretty historic season, and it was only, you know, 12 or 13 starts. So that, you know, that's kind of expected. But, you know,

the Padres have a pretty good defense. They have. a better home park than Wrigley. And I think getting him as SP10, that feels pretty good. This is one of those picks that just seemed, it just seemed oddly out of order. Because, you know, in round two,

you had Bueller and Flaherty and Scherger go. I'd take Darvish over all three of those guys. And then you had Aeronado going round two. You had Bregman go pretty early in round two. And I think you tend to see both of them fall to round three in this format. So you're going to get, that's how you get Harper and Darvish going in round three instead. Chris just want to go back to you real quick.

You took Lucas Golito at 28. So if I'm following correctly, you took Max Scherzer in the second, Golito in the third. And then you actually took two more starting pitchers. You had four of your first five picks were starting pitchers. Chris, blink twice if you've been abducted, if you need help. It looks like you're in the same location that you're always in, but this is not the Chris that I'm used to. I didn't have another starting pitcher until the 14th round. So that, you know, kind of explains it.

And normally I would say don't do that. But I think if you have like four of the top 20, I think it's okay to wait that long. And so I ended up with Scherzergeolito, Kenta Maeda, and Tyler Glassnow is the top of my rotation. And tons of strikeout potential there. A fair amount of risk with two older pitchers, a guy in Tyler Glass now who, you know,

hasn't shown he can hold up to a full season and wasn't really as good as we expected him to be when he was on the mound in 2020. But part of it is this was my first mock draft of, I think since like October or something like that. And, you know, the draft room doesn't have like the 2021 default rankings yet. And so you're kind of drafting off of your own list and trying to get. And so, you know, there were probably, I think that can to my A to pick. You know, you can see it took two minutes and five seconds, maybe a little bit of a, oh,

crap, I'll just take him. But I don't hate it. I don't either. And that's mostly because, you know, my offense, my next four picks on offense were mostly

guys who I think are probably being a little undervalued this season and have real bounce back potential. Yes. It helped that, you know, you say we took, you took pictures with four of your first five picks. The one you didn't was your first pick

and you got one of the super studs and Fernando Tati's, who would be a five category standout and you get a lot of steals right out of the right out of the gate. So I think that's, that makes it easier to do. The first rotomoc we did, it may have been the one back in October. I think I did

something similar, four out of five or maybe even five out of six. And I wasn't as happy with the way it turned out. But I didn't get a hitter as good as Fernando Tatis in that stretch, I'm sure. Well, you guys are both kind of leading into the theme and I'll highlight your next

pick here, Scott, but you took Corey Seeger in the third round, and I'll just tell your next three picks. You took Seeger in the third, you took Rendon and the fourth, you took Tim Anderson and the fifth, and that's after starting with Shane Bieber and Trevor Bauer. And this is kind of the drum that I've been beating all offseason

is that I think if there was ever a season to go with two starting pitchers to start your draft, it's this season because we have so many concerns over pitchers in general, the workload, you how good they're going to be.

I mean, if you just anchor your staff with two of your top 10 guys, there is so much hitter value in rounds three through 10 this season that I'm kind of okay taking two starting pitchers to start. Did you like the way

that your first kind of five picks worked out here taking those three hitters after the first two pitchers? Yeah, for committing to pitcher-pitcher at the start of the draft, I thought this couldn't have gone any better for me. Corey Seeger in round three, okay, that's pretty much textbook.

I love the value. value there. I think in a fair world, he's probably a second rounder, but there are just too many other more proven guys in that range that he gets pushed out. So I was happy to take him there. Rendon in round four seemed like a steal. I mean, he's he's kind of right there with Aeronado and Bregman to me where he's borderline second third rounder. So to get him in the middle of round four, I thought was awesome. Tim Anderson in round five. Again, that seemed like a round too late. And then the next pick, Luke was, you didn't mention him. Voight in round six. I mean, I'm expecting him to be, I don't know where his ADP is, but I was expecting him to be more of a fourth rounder. So it looks like fifth round is where he typically goes. But like, I didn't expect, I don't plan to have much Luke Void this year, but if you get him in the middle of round six, particularly if if you're behind the eight ball power wise, like that just seemed like an easy, easy pick. I remember why I panicked on the Kenta Maeda pick, by the way. It was because Anthony Rendon got taking two picks before me.

And that was the guy I was going to take. Yeah. I think Rendon is one of the, I don't know if he's going to move up. It's kind of for the reasons you mentioned, Scott, with Seeger, that there's just, there's other players who either provide steals or there's pitchers being drafted ahead of him, or just flashier players in general that pushes Rendon down the board. and I just think he's a fantastic value. He's another one.

Part of the reason why I don't mind starting my draft with two starting pitchers this season. He's always relatively undervalued. Yeah. The last year would be the one exception because he was a little disappointing, but it's not like he was bad. Yeah, he still was not bad on a per game basis.

The last one I'll mention is Jose Altuve went at pick 31. This is one of those where things kind of look wacky because the ADP is one. 100.3, according to fantasy pros on Altuve. So I don't think we'll normally see him go that early, but you got to get your guys, right? Got to get you guys. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we return, I will try to power through the rest of at least the next three or four rounds,

and then we'll just kind of take a little bit of a recap of everyone's team. We'll do that here, fantasy baseball today. So to start the fourth round, we had Blake Snell and Jose Abraeu at Picks 37 and 38. and then we get back to back to back short stops in Adelberto Mondesie, Boba Chet, and Zander Bogartz. So I actually took Adelbertoe Monashy

39th overall, and Chris mentioned rankings haven't been uploaded to the draft room yet, so it's kind of hard to draft. If I knew Boba Chet was there, I would have taken him ahead of Monashy, but I will say,

I think that if you want Mondesie, pairing him with another hitter that you feel relatively good about their batting average, someone like a yellich, I think that's probably the way to do it when it comes to drafting at Alberto Moncey. So, Scott, if you are on the board in this range

and you want one of these short stops, Monisey, Bichette Bogarts, they all go in a row. Which one would you take? I actually would take Mondicey in this format, the 5x5 format where steals are critical, particularly if you don't have any steals yet. Now you're probably getting some with Yelich,

and I think you said in the draft room after this was over, that you probably overdid it with steals in this draft, and I would agree looking at your team. But for somebody who doesn't have any steals yet in round four, like Mondesie is probably more like a third rounder in this format because he can carry you in that category without bearing you in some of the others.

So I would take him over Bichette Depending on need But in most circumstances, yes And as that It was coming to my pick in the middle of round four And I saw Rendon was still there I had Mondesee queued up right behind him Until you took Mondesie a few picks ahead

And that made Rendon And even a more obvious choice for me And Mondesie is going to be someone who is If you draft based on projections He's probably going to go He's probably going to go he's probably going to be ranked even higher than he will be from the industry

just because my process and putting together my rankings started with taking a bunch of different sources, ADP, other people's rankings, some projection systems and kind of combining them all and that was my starting list. And he was 19th by that method,

whereas he's more like 25 to 30 in ADP or in most other people's rankings. And so there is, I think the the rankings are probably baking in what the downside is for Modesty, which is like he could get sent back to AAA. It would not, like, he could have a 260 on base percentage

by June 1st and get sent down. Yeah. You could kind of look at his 2020 season, Chris, as kind of a might. microcosm for rostering at Alberto Montesey. His first month

versus his second month where he was dreadful in the first month. I believe he was hitting like sub 200, not walking, striking out a ton and in that final month

just goes off and seals a bunch of bases, hits a bunch of home months. And that's where he's been you know, since really that, that breakout 2018. It's just been

super, super inconsistent. Yeah. Is Mondesie a good hitter? I don't know. I don't think that I can answer that confidently. I mean, he's a 30% strikeout rate.

He doesn't walk all that much. But what he does do, 24 steals led baseball. And putting that in perspective, there were five players tied for fourth. They all had 12. So they had half of the amount that Adelbert Romancey gave you. I feel confident in saying he's not a good hitter. I mean, we're talking about a guy with a 284 career on base percentage in the majors.

He's got a little bit of pop, but not much. But it doesn't really matter because, you know, just combine his. 2019 and 2020. He's played 161 games in those two seasons. He's got 15 homers and 67 stolen bases. 91 runs 84 RBI. He's hitting like 258.

And that's probably a second or third round value in a Roto league. Yep. And that is the case with Adelberto Monashy. I will just say the first month, there's a chance that he struggled because he was coming back from shoulder surgery, which he had in 2019. So last year was the first. first time, I believe he hasn't been hurt in at least the last four or five seasons.

And it was the perfect time to draft him because it was a sprint. It was only two months where he needed to stay healthy. Of course, the rest of the fourth round, filled with just great hitter. So again, kind of reinforces if you want to go pitching early. Stalling Marte went in the fourth round. Rendon, we mentioned Kyle Tucker, I thought was a really strong pick. Luis Robert and Whitmerfield as well. In the fifth round, two first baseman went in this round. Pete Alonzo went 50th overall. Vlad Jr. went 56th. Both of them, I thought, were interesting that they went ahead of Luke Voigt, who we mentioned Scott got in the sixth round,

so that was something that stood out to me here. And I will just point out, Scott, you took Tim Anderson in the fifth round at pick 54. That means two of your first three hitters were short stops. Now, did you have, were you hesitant at any point because you didn't want to fill your middle infield spot too early because that's something that I've wrestled with in drafts in the past? Nah.

not not not not with a roto lineup where you you get that extra middle infield spot i mean shortstop is deep but once they're gone they're gone and second base is not deep at all so i i don't really feel like i'm going to regret filling that position too early and and like i mentioned i might have gone montessy and round four if if rendon was gone and montesie was available to me so I would have done it even a round earlier. Drafted a second shortstop. It's just a position where there are a lot of big numbers to be had and particularly a lot of guys who can make a contribution in stolen bases

like Tim Anderson can. You know, it doesn't ever make quite the contribution in stolen bases we want them to, but it's always something. The final four picks of the fifth round included Corbyn Burns, Carlos Carrasco, Heungen Ryu, and Sonny Gray. I took Carrasco, which gave me three starting pitchers in the first five rounds. That's pretty standard.

I've mentioned that's something I like doing so far this off season in mock drafts and real drafts. My first three pitchers then were Aaron Nola, Zach Allen, and Carlos Carrasco,

which I think is really strong. I like that start. But I do think that, Scott, we are higher than the industry on Carlos Carrasco for whatever reason. His ADP is like 72

and I took him 59th. So I know that you and I are higher on him. Chris, I wanted to get your thoughts on Carrasco. Obviously traded over to the New York Mets. I think there is some injury concern.

He's dealt with a lot of stuff in the past. Obviously, he had the leukemia. Hopefully he's past that as well. But last year, I think he kind of reminded us that when he's on the mound, the skills are still really, really strong for Carlos Carrasco. So I haven't ranked inside my top 20.

Yeah, I mean, he, before 2019, he had made at least 30 starts in three out of his previous four seasons, the fourth one, he made 26 starts, including the minors. So he is 34 years old and that that is a concern. But I don't have any doubts about his abilities. Like you said, I have him 53rd overall. So I'm right there with you.

I'm actually a little higher than where he went. I think that's a little behind where Scott has him. But yeah, I haven't been in the top 15 at starting pitcher. And that's more than anything, it's specific to this year. and it's because he has the workload history that a lot of these guys who went ahead of him in this very round, Tyler Glass now, Corbin Burns, certainly.

And I think we saw Blake Snell even go to the previous round. I don't know if you guys heard that listening, but my cats are fighting in the background. It's like ready to rumble back there. What's going on? Yeah. So, you know, those pictures might be better than Carasco on a per inning basis, but I think the inning difference in this year especially

is worth paying for. Give me all the cookie Carasco that I can possibly handle the sixth round. Now this was interesting. Right here at the start of the sixth round, Will Smith, casher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, went 60 second overall,

40 spots ahead of ADP as the first catcher off the board. I got JT Real Muto in the seventh round, I pick 82, which I almost never draft a catcher early, and I don't draft real muto, but I mean, to get him at 82, his ADP is, I think it's like 43, 45 in that range. Best catcher in baseball, I'll say that confidently.

Have no problem taking him at the end of the seventh round. Scott, what happened here? Will Smith, sixth round? Well, Tim McLeod took him. Tim McLeod's... He's a prospect guy. Yeah, well, and he's been around for a long time writing about fantasy baseball.

And I just think he's, I just think he's confident enough to go by his own rules. I mean, Will Smith, if you take what he did at face value last year, dramatically reducing his strikeout rate, like opposite end of the spectrum, going from extreme strikeouts to no strikeouts

without compromising power. If that's, if that's really who he is now, then he has a chance to be the top catcher in baseball, I think clearly. But then there's the other issue of him playing for the Dodgers. and he's not going to get the playing time of J.T. Rio Muto.

So, I mean, that's the biggest reason I can't rank him near the, I can't put him near the top of my catcher rankings is because, okay, I don't know exactly who he is, but even if he's as good as he might be, the Dodgers are going to keep him from making that sort of impact. So it was an aggressive pick and not one I can really get behind. And I really like Will Smith. I haven't ranked fourth at catcher just behind.

the big three. I think they're pretty, I mean, some kind of consensus. J.T. Real Mutu, Salvador Perez and Wilson Contreras. Maybe some people have Contreras ahead of Salvador Perez. I think you're one of those people, Scott. But then right after that, I think you can kind of pick and choose whoever you want to be fourth. And I have Will Smith fourth. So I like them a lot, but it was an aggressive pick. I will point out, you brought up the playing time for the Dodgers. They played 18 postseason games. Will Smith started 17 of them. So I thought that that was pretty telling for how they feel about their young catcher. Going to move forward a little

bit here into the seventh round. This was filled with hitters that were used to seeing drafted much higher in years past. Javier Baez went at pick 73. Carlos Correa went at 75 and his ADP is actually around 120 so

he usually goes later than this. He's someone I like this year because of the discount you're getting. J.D. Martinez went at pick 80. Specifically for Baez and Martinez, they both complained about not having in-game video in 2020. And I did a little bit of digging, and I found this from a Ken Rosenthal article back in September. I haven't heard anybody talking about it, so I wanted to bring it up here on the podcast. The temporary ban on in-game video is a

health and safety measure so players do not gather around the same video station. Players were given iPads, but those can be loaded with video only before and after games, not during. them. MLB is expected in 2021 to introduce a system in which players can access video on those iPads during games but with the signs edited out to prevent illegal sign stealing.

So I haven't heard anyone talk about this. I guess we probably need some confirmation from MLB that they're actually going to put this rule in place. But Scott, if that's the case and you're buying that excuse, J.D. Martinez and everybody else who's blamed this could be had

at a great value. in 2021. Yeah. Part of the reason I think Martinez went as late as he did in this drafting as late as this ADP's 88 Consensus ADP right now.

So this is about where he normally goes. DH only. He's the first DH only player to go. You had Jorge Soler go the middle of the next round, round eight, seems kind of early, relatively speaking. Then round nine,

you had both Jordan Alvarez and Nelson Cruz go, actually to Chris and I. Chris and I were picking two spots apart. I knew Chris was going to take one of them. I assumed he was going to take Cruz, actually. Yeah, it was like, it was real iffy. He took Alvarez, but I was going to take whichever one he didn't take. But that's like, we talked about this, I think, just on the last podcast is

because there are so many of those DH-only guys, there's a chance they're going to fall even more than we're used to seeing. And it certainly played out that way in this draft. And I'm like, I'm going to make sure my D.H. bot goes to one of them if that's, if this is the way it's always going to go. And this is,

you know, there are reasons to push Jady Martinez, Jordan Alvarez, Nelson Cruz down. But like, just based on what I expect from Nelson, Alvarez, Nelson Cruz,

I think he should be a top 25. pick just based on like I think he will be that good. But he's old. You're now, whereas if he's healthy, I think would be like a top 40 pick. Janie Martinez, I have less, I'm less assured. I have less surety about those two. But, you know, I think if you get him around 88th, you're, you, you can reasonably expect he'll be better.

The one thing I will say is in this draft where we didn't have a bench spot, I felt the, the squeeze of having my utility spot filled early. But you just have to remind yourself if you get Nelson Cruz, if you get Jordan Alvarez, you got those guys. They're really good. So it's not even that early. You know, there was a point where I thought,

oh, I can't. There's a guy thinking about taking, oh, I can't because I've already filled my D.H spot. Okay, whatever. I'd much rather have Nelson Cruz in that spot. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't. And even beyond that, you'd rather have Nelson Cruz than Josh Bell or Mike Mustakis or Alex Verdugo, the guys who, the hitters who went immediately after those two.

Right. Right. Yeah. So it's, it's as much, it's as heavily discounted as you're going to get these guys. And it's absolutely worth capitalizing on, especially if you're somebody who plans to load up on pitching early like I did using my first two picks on it. I mean, Nelson Cruz might be the caliber of bat I passed up by taking. Trevor Bauer in round two. So it's something worth doing.

Just since I didn't address your point about the video, Frank, at all, I changed the subject for Martinez there. I'm not burying Martinez because I buy his excuse about the video. And I was already assuming there would be some, you know, whether it's because they're going to be able to lift the health and safety protocols as everybody's getting vaccinated. and hopefully fans start to return at some point during the season or just because they come up with some other solution because of the players all griping about it. I assumed that was going to be something that would be solved. And so I'm hopeful that J.D. Martinez bounces back.

But that's really all I have to go on is his track record and this excuse he's given because he just didn't really provide much of anything at the play in 2020. And he's in his mid-30s now. So you don't know, you don't really know if it's the beginning of the end for him. Yeah. I mean, there are other risks for, JD Martinez outside of just the in-game video

excuse that he made this past season. Other hitters that were drafted after round seven, I keep bringing up rounds three through 10, three through 10,

that I believe, you know, some of these hitters that are coming out of value because of recency bias because of what we just saw this past season. Round eight,

Anthony Rizzo, Charlie Blackman, Austin Meadows, round nine, Eh, Eugenio Suarez, Uriz we spoke about. Round 10, Mike Mustache,

Nick Casayanos, Tommy Fam, John Carlos Stanton, and FAMM and Stanton in particular, just two of my favorite value plays. I don't know if you want them on the same team because, I mean, that's a lot of injury risks to take on, but I think FAM in a Roto League, probably like 20 homers, close to 20 steals. Stanton, we spoke about the other day as well.

All right, I just want to kind of end. We'll talk about each other's pitching staff and just kind of compare and contrast and see how they turned out. But I do just have to bring up one thing. I texted Scott in the middle of the draft. I said, hey, Scott, I mean, something's going on with position eligibility. Max Muncie, he doesn't have second base eligibility. I was looking to fill my second base spot.

So Scott pauses the draft, does his magic, figures it out. All right, everyone's got their eligibility. Scott went on to steal and draft Max Muncie after I told them about him. I mean, I thought we were friends here, buddy. unbelievable. Like he's got this like all shucks persona, but Scott is ruthless.

Scott will, Scott will gut you like a fish. How dare you, Scott? I didn't know you pointed that out because you were eyeing him to fill your second base spot. I had been eyeing him to fill my second space spot

for several rounds at that point. And I was been like I was gearing up to take him. And then you pointed out because we had some old settings in the, in this league. It was a league. we were reusing the position eligibility wasn't what it should be. So I got that fixed and ended up taking,

the irony is I ended up having to move Muncie out of my second base spot because of a pick later. He ended up filling my corner infield spot instead. I wish you hadn't drafted Nelson Cruz now. No, I didn't. But I wasn't, it was innocent enough, Frank. It was innocent enough. Yeah, I don't know if I'm buying that.

I got you back. I drafted Brian Hayes a little bit later on. Of course, you could find the full results at CBS Sports.com, and it's also in this podcast description and in the YouTube description as well. I'm going to run through each of our pitching staffs real quick. It appears that Chris is completely punting saves because he only has Trevor Rosenthal

as his only potential closer. That's not completely punting saves, Frank. Close enough. It's Trevor Rosenthal. You can't get more of a sure thing than that. Yeah, he's in a sure thing. surety if I've ever seen one. Lucas Gialito, Tyler Glass Now, Kenta, Maeda, Max Scherzer. Those were your big four starting pitchers for your first five-round picks. And you rounded that out

with Marco Gonzalez. I do appreciate the consistency. I know you liked him last year. Hermann Marquez. He's always good. Hermann Marquez you wound up with. Who else did you get here? Michael Kopeck, who, all right, let's, I don't really know what his role is going to be, but we know that there's upside. Shohei Otani, another one. So how do you feel overall with your pitching staff. I imagine you like it a decent bit, Chris. I do like it. Obviously, the Kopec and Otani picks are, you know, there are some questions there. Although I think Otani will be better in 2021.

He's still super talented. Kopec, obviously, we'll see. You know, he's not coming, but the thing that I think we need to remind ourselves about Michael Kopeck is not coming back from injury. He was fully recovered from Tommy John surgery. He made one appearance in spring. I think there were only one inning but looked really good was kind of the talk of camp for the White Sox

and then opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID concerns. And so, you know, he is a full two years removed from Tommy John surgery, but he hasn't pitched in that time. So there's some concern about what his role is going to be, how much the White Sox are going to let him pitch. But, you know, was he the top pitching prospect in baseball

before the injury? If he wasn't number one, he was very close. He was close to him. So he's still technically a prospect. He's in my personal top 20. Check out my top 100. He's in the top 20.

So he is a late round pick who I really like Otani the same thing. And with benches, you know, I would have filled it out with a couple more guys who I feel a little more sure about. But yeah,

I'm pretty happy with that. There's a good mix of certainty and upside there, I think. You got four big guns, which I think is a must. That was my standard last year, and I'm sticking with it this year. You got four big guns, and then you got them upside beyond them. So I don't think there's, you know, I think it's a good outcome for your pitching staff. Scott, you wound up with Shane Bieber, Trevor Bauer, your two first picks. And then you also grabbed Zach Rankie.

to Nelson Lamet. You have Framber Valdez, who is your guy. Five of my top 30 is what it ended up being. I said five of my top four years earlier. It was actually five of my top 30 with Valdez being 30th. And you also got Sixtho Sanchez late, who was someone that I was eyeing as well. I will just, I will just come...

Round 15, I got Sixtho Sanchez. I'll compare this to mine real quick. So I just read off yours, and I think it's better, no doubt about it. But I wound up with four of my top 30, which I'm trying to make sure that I get this year, three of my top 20. And I had Noah Gallen, Carasco, Hendricks as that top four.

I think I waited too long for my five and six because I wound up with Stroman and Tyler Malley, who I think they kind of complement each other well. Strowman's like fine, consistent, high floor pitcher, and I think Tyler Malley has some upside. I mean, it's all gravy after the four big guns. I'm putting Hendricks in the big guns category this year. Yep.

I'm higher on him now than I ever have before, partly because he just keeps proving me wrong. And you know the workload's going to be there for him. So you got the four big guns, I think, I think. Would you be okay with that pitching staff? Yeah, I'd be okay with it. I do like mine more. I think I like mine the best of the three,

but I don't look at any of our three pitching staffs and say, okay, you're going to have pitching problems. I think we all made sure to address that. And that's the most important thing. to address and fantasy drafts these days. The last thing that I'll point out is what happens to your pitching staff if you don't take a starting pitcher

until round 10? That's what happened with Micah Henry in this draft. And while he did take two pitchers inside the first 10 rounds, those were closers. He took Liam Hendricks in the 5th, he took Josh Hayter in the 6th.

The way his pitching staff worked out, round 10 and on, he went with Dylan Bundy, Sandy Alcantara, Aaron Savali, Kevin Gosman, Tony Gonselin, and Frankie Montas.

So there is some upside there, but I mean, that's what you're looking at if you wait on starting pitcher this year. Is it bad? I mean, time will tell. I mean, you know, three, two or three of those guys break out.

Allium's going to be tough. Yeah. I think that's the biggest thing here is any of those guys could be pretty good, but, you know, who's going to throw 180 innings on that staff? That's where I think the,

the biggest issue you run into is. Honestly, it could look worse. Sure. Considering how long he waited. I expected it to look worse than this, but like, he's going to be buried in strikeouts, partly because of the volume issue. And so he's really, he's really banking on a lot of pitchers out overperforming ratio expectations, which is possible with this group, but unlikely. And the last point that I'll make is, I'll just piggyback something that you just said, Chris, the volume. It's not just the volume that you're getting, the, well, we would assume assured volume that you get from those elite aces in the first couple of rounds, but it's the

endings that they're giving you within that volume. They're really, really strong endings. So I just kind of want to hammer home that point that, yeah, not only are we, we feel comfortable that, you know, Bauer and DeGrom and Bieber, they're all going to give you over 180 endings, and maybe even 200. They're going to be really, really good. Yeah. And it's, it's kind of, it is both obvious and it's kind of counterintuitive, but like a 3.2 ERA at 180 innings is more valuable than a 2.9 at 150 innings. Like the more innings you have,

the more of your teams total are being made up by a good pitcher, the better it is. And so, you know, if we're looking at a situation where, you know, maybe 15 starting pitchers, they're 190 plus innings and then it's just a bunch of guys in the 160

range and below, the edge of the edge that those aces could give you could be even more valuable than normal. We're going to wrap there. Thank you all for listening for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks for watching as well.

We'll be back again on Monday. Bye-bye.