Fantasy Baseball Today - Royce Lewis is HIM! Things We Got Right/Wrong & Lessons Learned! (10/4 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

How did the first day of the postseason go (1:05)? Royce Lewis blasted two homers in first playoff game (6:45). ... What did Scott White and Chris Welsh get right in 2023 (12:40)? What can we learn from that? ... Frank had CJ Abrams as a sleeper but how do we differentiate prospects in redraft leagues (22:44)? ... News (35:13): Manny Machado had elbow surgery and will miss 4-6 months. ... We got prospects and a bunch more wrong this past season (42:05). ... We wrap up with our biggest lessons learned in 2023 (53:00). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, October 4th. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Scott White and Chris the Welsh.

Today on the show, we will be discussing things we got right this season, but nobody is perfect. So we will also break down what we got wrong, lessons that we learned this season, and the Arizona Fall League is up and running. What has the well seen from top prospects Jackson Job and Ricky Teeteman so far? We'll find out right there, live from the scene out there in Arizona. So we'll break all that down.

But first, let's just start with the postseason. Playoff baseball has started, Scott, and it was a bad day, our AL World Series pick, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, the Razor facing elimination. That's how it goes in a best of three series. But, you know, Jordan Montgomery pitched a great game. That's how it goes in a best of three series.

And all it takes is one great pitching performance to change the direction of everything. Evan Carter got on base four times from the number nine spot, a real Michael Harris-esque performance from him. and, you know, maybe the Rangers will advance instead. Or maybe the race will win two in a row. Who can say? We shall see. I believe on Wednesday, it's going to be Nathan Avaldi going up against Zach Eflin.

So on paper, I think that's advantage Tampa Bay. But you know what? I would have said the same thing on Tuesday, and it didn't work out that way. Jordan Montgomery, by the way, his last five starts, including this one, a 0.53 ERA and a 0.88, Evan Carter has looked awesome. The race made four errors in that game, the most that they have made in a game this entire season. They saved their worst defense for last.

My idea was it to have them wear their devil-raised jerseys. Oh, not a fan? Ooh, this is a bad hot take. Are you not a fan? I mean, I would think they are not a fan of their devil-raised lineage when they were a doormat. Like, why would you pull out the jerseys from your dormant years? instead of like that just seems like

I think it's appropriate. Not what did 19,000 people show up to a playoff game? I think that's very devil. I think they should wear those devil race. I don't know. I think they should threaten everybody. They'll wear them unless the stadium sells out and then just see where it goes.

I don't really believe in jinxes and luck or anything like that. But if you're someone who does, no way. It seems like pulling out the uniforms from the worst era. I mean, there's really what been, their franchise hasn't existed that long. They're one of the two newest franchise in the majors, but they were a dormant when they were the devil raise

and they have been consistent winners as the race. So why would you want to kick off your postseason run and devil raised jerseys? It just doesn't make sense to me. I'll tell you exactly why, Scott, because they are hot. Those jerseys are fire, man. Fired.

So I think that's why they did it, but you do have a point. I mean, they were pretty bad when they were the devil raised and they were pretty bad here on Tuesday as well. A team that was, not bad was the Arizona Diamondbacks. It took game one against the Milwaukee Brewers. Corbyn Carroll showing the national audience just how good he really is. Two for three with his

first career postseason home run. And I know it's only one start. I'm not going to put too much stock into this. But I've said this multiple times already. Corbyn Burns, you wound up with solid numbers this year. That's fine. But he's not the same pitcher as he has been in previous years. The swinging strike rate has been dropping. He gave up three home runs in this start. He didn't look very good in my opinion. Game two will be Zach Allen against Freddie Peralta, so potential pitching duel there on tap. But Welsh, your D-backs up. 1-0. It's a beautiful thing. This is like the prospect Wednesdays, the Welsh Wednesdays we'd have. It's just now there's the Diamondbacks and the Diamondbacks are doing some business and how appropriate for Corby and Carroll. Everybody was

on my case today too, by the way. They're like, how are you at a Foley game and the Diamondbacks are in the playoffs? And I was like, guys, we got technology. We're good. We can cover multiple angles. I can be there and I can watch and listen to a game. It's great. And I was terrified starting Brandon Faw. I was kind of screaming about it before the game. Like how the Diamondbacks put themselves in a situation to let Fought be game one and not do anything else in roster management and pitching management leading up to this is crazy. But this was an insane feat for a bullpen that was so bad up until the back end of the year that they were able to go, what was it? Six and a third inning no runs after Brandon Fott gave up a homer was giving up hits. It was dicey and they now get to go in

with a gallon and a very hot offense. Marte and Carol's the table setter. Morano's hitting. It's a team you probably don't want to face until like Brandon Fott comes around. Like they're not going to win a seven game series. You can't do that. They'll they could probably pull this out. It'll be tough against the Dodgers. But like you said, Corby and Carroll up in everybody's business. And the takeaway from this game for fantasy, I think, wasn't just that Corbyn Carroll homered. I mean, he hit a 440-foot upper deck blast off Corbin Burns. And Corbin Carroll homered only four times, a combined four times in August and September. I remember all the theatrics over the shoulder.

That was early July. And he had, I think, three home runs the rest of July or four home runs the rest of July. So he had a total of eight home runs in three months time after twice looking like he had suffered a season-ending shoulder injury and then coming back like a day or two later. And I mean, the rest of his numbers were fine during that stretch. I don't, you know, there wasn't another flare up with the shoulder that we know about. I think it's not something we have to worry about anymore. But the lack of power in the aftermath of those two scary moments for Corby. and Carol, I can't quite get them out of, I can't quite get that out of my mind.

Seeing a 440 foot home run from him helps. Every home run he hits this postseason will help to erase the thoughts of the concerns about that shoulder. Welsh, I'm going to kind of preempt to you, so I'm going to give you some time here to pull this up. I want you to dig into your mock draft from last week and find out where Royce Lewis went in that mock draft because I have a question on that. Well, I can tell you one thing.

He went to me. So we're going to go find out. I'm the one that took him. I know that for a fact. But yes, you set up, I will look. But you're going to be talking about me the one that took him. Twins, Blue Jays, game one, no hamstring, no problem for Royce Lewis. His first career postseason game, a double dong.

He's rounding first base screaming into the camera. I'm him. I am him. He might be him. Yeah, he might not be wrong about that. He's looked awesome so far. Whenever he's been on the field, that's the biggest drawback is Ken Royce Lewis stay on the field. Shout out to the Twins.

Their first playoff win in their last 18 games. So they lost their previous 18 before this. They get back on the board here with a win. Royce Lewis in my early mock draft, he went 89th overall. Welsh, where did he go in yours? So this was a 12 team. He went with the ninth pick in the seventh round.

So that is going to probably put him about, I think that's a, that's a little bit later than, I'm trying to do the math in my head and it's not working. Is that 81? It doesn't seem like 81. Ninth pick of round seven and a 12 team league. Yeah, that's 81. Okay, so 81.

So I took him just a tad bit higher. I'd actually taken Hassan Kim the round before that. But yeah, I swooped him up. He was sandwiched between guys like George Kirby and Joe Ryan. We're both too low. And that's just what the early mock draft season is. The problem is gonna be like, are we gonna get too too high?

because what Royce Lewis has done over the last couple months is going to resonate with us. It actually feels it's different, but it feels very Randy or Rosarena. I remember when he just had that really crazy end of 2020 season or 2021, and he carried it into this insane playoff. Royce has done it for a little bit longer, but he's just teetered between injuries and everything, had the crazy grand slam stretch, and he's just kind of keep doing this here. He might push third round, to be honest with you. Probably settles like fourth or fifth if we're,

you know, if we're letting the hype be real. But people are going to go bonkers about Royce Lewis. I mean, Scott. So you're going to take them? People are going to take them over Nolan Aronado, you think? Because I don't even know that Aronado is going to go that high. You know what? I do.

I actually, well, I don't think Aronado might be the best case study against Royce Lewis. Do you think so? Well, I'm just, I just picked, I'm just thinking about the number of high in third base when there are. Nolan Aronado, Alex Bragman. Of course, of course you have even high. in than that. So where Aeronado went. Gunner Henderson.

Gunner Henderson's a pretty high in third basement at this point. Like I would have a hard time putting Royce Lewis in my top 10 at the position. I don't have them all lined up. Maybe he's exactly 10th, something like that. There are just so many established

high in third basement that I think that would be difficult for him to break into. I mean, I'd like to be enthusiastic about Royce Lewis. the two home runs here in game one give him 13 in his last 27 games. Former number one overall pick who nobody really treated like a number one overall pick this year. This was actually his rookie season. But I don't know.

Third base is it's not an especially deep position, but it has plenty of high-end options. Who would you rather have this is not quite a one-for-one, but who would you rather have Royce Lewis or Matt McLean? I think McLean, I mean. I mean, just you have to factor in some injury risk for Lewis, don't you? Well, I mean, McLean didn't finish a year because he got hurt, but yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's one injury versus half a dozen for Lewis. Yeah, and you're going to get more speed.

I think I can confidently say that from Matt McLean. You know, maybe it turns out you get more power from a Royce Lewis type. But he now has 19 career home runs in 71 games played. And that includes, obviously, today. and everything he's done so far in his career. Royce Lewis has been awesome. Last of the playoff games here, the Phillies won over the Marlins 4 to 1.

Zach Wheeler, Clutch has been pretty much the case for him so far in his playoff career. Six and two-thirds innings, one run, eight strikeouts to zero walks for him. And we'll see if they can wrap it up here on Wednesday, Aaron Nola going up against Braxton Garrett. So we shall see. Yesterday we gave out our World Series pick, Scott, and I did.

Welsh. I'll give you a quick opportunity here. who you got in the World Series this year? Well, the Diamondbacks are going to play. No, I'm not going to get Homer like that. There's no chance. There's no chance. 84 win team.

You can't do it with two pitchers. You can't. You can't depend on Kevin Ginkle and Mantle. This is fun, but the Dodgers will ruin the day once again. I feel, you know what the problem is? I feel like I'm always boring. I don't know how boring you guys got. I stare at this and I only see the Houston Astros versus

the Atlanta Braves. I kind of wanted to pick that. I kind of wanted to pick that. That's all that I see. If I want to be like, if I want to be Mr. Fun guy, then I kind of think the Orioles are in play here.

And then, you know, I could throw out like a Diamondback team, but I'm the Astros and the Braves right now. Orioles is a maybe sneaky team. All of us picked Braves. Chris, the other Chris picked Orioles over Braves.

Frank and I picked, or I'm sorry, the other Chris picked Braves over Orioles. Frank and I picked Braves over, Rays, which are two teams that sound similar if you say them fast. That's exactly right. All right. Let's get into what we got right so far this so far. The season is over. What do we get right this year? So I grabbed a bunch of players that we wrote up in our sleepers, breakouts, and bus articles. I looked at a few other things and

tried to just remember which players that I was drafting and adamant about Lanselin. Don't worry. We'll talk about him a little bit later on as well. I tried to find some common themes among these players, but I want to keep this moving. We'll try and go like rapid fire. If there's really a player that stands out, obviously we can kind of slow things down and talk about said player. But Scott, looking back on some of the names that you were right about in your sleepers and breakouts articles,

Cotel Marte and Jose Burrios, they were both sleepers for you. And I think those were kind of obvious ones because we've seen them do it before, and they were both going outside the top 200 picks in ADP. And I just kind of like betting on players like that. I mean, Jorge Saler was one of those for me where he was going even later. He was outside the top 300, and we've seen Jorge Saler do it

multiple times before as well. So just kind of betting on guys that have done it. I think that made a lot of sense for both Marte and Barrios. The other name I wrote down for you here, Nico Horner, who I didn't really hear a lot of people talking about, but you were on him as a breakout.

And, you know, looking back at his 20-22, I think we saw some signs. Obviously, it's a good batting average. We saw the speed. makes a lot of contact, and obviously he just kind of took all those things to the next level this year. Yeah, and I like that he was,

the plan was fit for him to bat lead off coming into the year. I think he ended up hitting, he was mostly batting second by the end, but that's close enough. And I thought he had the chance to be a 40 steel guy with the rule changes. He ended up with 43 stolen bases.

You know, not much power. I don't think that's ever going to change for Nico Horner, but certainly a useful, player, and I think given the lack of power, you'd be surprised how high Nico Horner finished in points leagues even. Let's see, I don't have the full season stats pulled. Okay, here they are. In points leagues among short stops, Nico Horner was on a per game basis.

So he was 3.36, which would put him ahead of Fernando Tautice, head of Trey Turner, head of Gunder Henderson, and Ellie de la Cruz. Henderson was 3.02 versus 3.36. I mean, Horner was a stud even in that points format where power, traditionally, you think power plays better. Yeah, and in that early mock draft that I did, I took Nico Horner at pick 72, and I posted my team afterwards, and he was kind of a polarizing pick. Some people were like, wow, awesome, pick Nico Horner that late for next season. Some people said, why the heck would you drive Nico Horner that early?

So I don't know. It might be a polarizing player for next year. But I think if you grab a lot of power and batting average early, Nico Horner just makes total sense to kind of slot in there as like a 35, 40 steel guy. Well, my top five picks, or is it four, Ronald Cunia, Bobby, Witt, Julio Rodriguez, and Corbyn, Carroll. They're all going to give you 35 to, well, seven. I guess steals. They're going to give you somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 steals, let's say, those top four picks.

And then after that I have Mookie Betts, fifth, and Freddie Freeman's six. Not that they're total zeros for steals, but substantially less. And so I think if you don't have, like if you have one of those top four picks in a Rotar League or a Categories League, you can be pretty unintentional about your steel strategy for the most part. You can't completely ignore it because there are just so many steals out there. but you probably don't have to accept the loss of power that comes with Nico Horn. And that's the advantage to picking that early. That's why those guys are my top four for next year.

But if you don't get one of them, then Nico Horner might be somebody who's a very attractive pick for you, despite the lack of power. Yeah, and that early mock draft, I started with Freeman, Yordaun Alvarez, Tyler Glassnow, Mani Machado. So not a lot of steals between those first three hitters. So I thought it made sense to pair someone like Horner up with some of those sluggers early in the draft.

Some of the bust calls that you got right here, Scott, Janice Chisholm, you know, trouble staying healthy. And we were all kind of, you know, buying in on that power speed combination. But, you know, once again, struggle to stay on the field again. One of these years, he'll stay healthy. And I'll look dumb for picking him as bust. That was one of the biggest ones I got wrong this year, too. I don't even know if I put that in there. Like I was, I think I said this either.

Jazz was like my number one second baseman over everybody because of the power speed combo. And he still kind of showed that off when healthy. You know, that was kind of my outlier. But we'll talk about it a little bit later about the injury risk with a lot of these guys. I think the interesting thing about the bust here is it's not that jazz became bad. It's just he hurt and hurt and hurt and can't stay on the field. Still pacing out. He is, we're still going to walk into next year.

with looking at jazz, looking at projections as this is a 30-30 guy. Like that hasn't changed. It's just the thing that's changed is like, well, he's a 30-30 guy in 162 games, but he's probably going to be more like a 2020 guy in 95 games or whatever that he's actually going to play. But this is that was a major L for me on this one. Yep. Well, I was about to say second base is the position, you know, 30-30 is one thing. I think second base might be the position with the most 20-20 candidates going into next year,

maybe even compared to outfields. Certainly among infield. But then I just realized Chastisim isn't even going to be second base eligible next year. He is going to be an outfielder. So it's a different, different ball of wax. Yep. And two other busts that you got right. Jeremy Pena, I think maybe perhaps we were influenced by what he did in the postseason.

Obviously, it was a great showing for him. Maybe he's a better real life player because he's such a good defender. Has some bad plate discipline. Obviously, a little bit of power and speed. But didn't live up to that this season. and Starling Marte, which in hindsight just seems so obvious and like just kicking myself like, why did I draft so much Starling Marte?

An older player, trouble staying healthy, coming off dual groin surgery. Like, you were all over it, Scott. I certainly was all over it in a different way. I was all over drafting, which was not the best idea for me. But anything else, Scott? I just want to say, I think Jeremy Pena is who he is. He's already 26.

I think he's very Andrelton Simmons-like. You said better real-life player than fantasy. A lot of values derived from the glove. And maybe he'll have a year or two where the offensive, whether he steals enough bases or he hits for enough power, that he'll be useful in fantasy. But I just don't,

I don't think there's much of an offensive ceiling there for Jeremy Pena. All right. Let's go over to what the Welsh got right this year. First one with a star next to it, Corbyn Carroll, obviously, all over it. You joined us here last offseason, and you were just kind of, you were telling us. Corbyn Carroll, he's a stud, he's for real, the power is there, speed, all that. Obviously, a historic rookie season, Scott, I know you had him in your breakout's article as well.

But whilst you were also right about someone who left your Diamondbacks, Daltz and Varshow, we spoke about him recently. Obviously, he struggles with left-handed pitching, first year in a new environment. The ADP was still pretty high. He was like a borderline top 50 pick coming into the year, and very clearly did not live up to that. No, not even remotely close. You know what's funny? I got to pull this up.

I don't remember if I said this last week or where I said it, but Varsho, the big thing was like, oh, he's not going to hit lefties. I'm concerned about that. Also, the Blue Jays, they don't like to run. How much is he going to get to run? What is that going to look like? But outside of him not being able to hit lefties, he ended up hitting lefties better this year than Ritees.

He hit 292 against lefties and 200 or 202 against Ritees, which was totally whacked and weird. And yeah, I didn't like his approach. I didn't. I just didn't like where it was heading and where it was going. And, you know, we fell into the paying for these catchers that were playing out of position. And, yeah, it reeked of moving away. But I'm also very critical of catchers.

Like, anytime you put a catcher in the top 100 around me, it just smells bad. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Like, I don't even care of Ramuto, like, get you. I just, not many catchers beat their projection that are inside the top 100. Like there's a lot of work that's got to be done to actually get that. So I don't like to pay for it. And Varsho had a lot of warts out there. And now it's a moot point.

I mean, it can't be said enough. Dalton Varsha's outfield only next year. So, I mean, there's little redeeming about him. Okay, combined 37 home runs and stolen bases. That's not nothing. But there are, you know, James Outman. I'd rather have him than Dalton Varsho, if you're not going to get that.

average outfield numbers. Like, to catch you, you're like, okay, but they're like super barely average, barely rosterable, not three outfield rosterable, probably fifth outfielder, fourth outfielder, fourth outfielder in a five outfielder league, maybe. But yeah, he's not a target.

All right, let's take our first break. When we return, we'll talk about what I got right this past season. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. A quick reminder on the programming for next week. I mentioned this on yesterday's podcast. I will not be in the country.

I am flying out to Poland for a wedding next week. So I won't be here, you're in good hands. Scott and the Welsh will hold it down. They'll be live on Monday, October 9th, and Wednesday, October 11th at noon Eastern Time. So much earlier than we're used to going live, but turn the guys on while you're out at work

or whatever you might be doing, watch them on demand, whatever you want, but they will be live Monday and Wednesday next week at noon Eastern Time. So make sure to tune in. They got some fun things planned for you guys. Let's get into the things I got right from this past season. We'll start off with the sleepers and breakouts. Jorge So Ware, I mentioned this one, much like Justin Turner. I wrote Justin Turner up as a sleeper,

and these are guys that we've seen do it before, and they were going well outside the top 200. Justin Turner's ADP was 241. It seemed like Fenway Park was just a perfect fit for someone like Justin Turner, who still makes a lot of contact. I like betting on players like this. Later on in the draft, guys that we've seen do it before, people are just kind of over them. But I think that there's a good buying opportunity on players like that usually. A couple of their names that I had as sleepers and breakout. CJ Abrams, I had as a sleeper.

And we got a little taste of it last year. Obviously, had the huge prospect pedigree. We knew we had the big speed too with the new rules coming in. The other one here was Gunner Henderson, who obviously broke out in a big way. I'm not going to take too much credit for that because whatever.

That was an easy one, arguably the top prospect entering the season. And we saw him a little bit late last year as well. Well, the question on C.J. Abrams, and I think what's going to be tough to decipher drafting prospects for redraft, which I know typically that's not something that you are into doing. But we'll talk about this a little bit later on with things that we got wrong with like hyping up Miguel Vargas and Oscar Coloss. How do you figure out which young players to draft and which not to? It kind of just feels like there's a randomness factor there because, you know, C.J. Abrams,

he wasn't that cheap he's still going at like 150 so you had to pay like a mid-round pick to get him and it took him a while to get going this year like he really wasn't good the first couple months of the year how do you kind of separate that? Is there just randomness when it comes to these young players? I mean absolutely random I mean anybody wants to tell you otherwise

like there's of course randomness involved in it I guess my answer is going to be kind of lame and like cheap into my little world but it's like when there are guys that don't have any like discernible like information that's oh hey barrel rates kind of up or hey if we could do you know when you just see kind of a bunch of a mess one of the things i tend to go back to because i was with you on this one abrams was one of those that the biggest thing i screamed about was the projected stolen bases i was like that's insane there's no way he's going to steal 16 according to steamer if he plays the whole year this is stupid especially when the rules uh but i go back to like i saw him as a rookie very first pro at bat. He hit a homer. He always, always got on base. One of the fastest players I've ever seen. Made great decisions throughout the minors. And then you hit this really big rough patch as baseball.

Not only does baseball change from the minors to the majors, but the majors has gone through major adjustments. You're seeing, you know, the new trend of sweepers and gyro sliders and, you know, and hitting up in the zone. And there is so much that changes all the time that impacts these players that I kind of go back to the cheap prospect pedigree of players that have really done it at a lot of spots and struggle in the majors are players that I tend to want to bet on that can turn it back around. We saw that from Kelnick for even for some time early in the year and then it kind of fell back and the injuries and stuff. Like the pedigree, it doesn't always work. There's Joe Adels, but it is random to the spot of trying to hone in on players that do show some elite ability.

And CJ Abrams was like a 400 hitter in the competition. Complex League a couple years ago. He has shown power. He has run. I lean back from a prospect perspective that I don't like to give up on guys who have been really good for some time and are struggling in short stents. Royce Lewis would be another kind of example of that that is really bused through. When these guys click that they have the good backdrop to them, when they click, the talent

and elite talent comes through. And that was kind of Abrams. But yeah, it's also like totally random. someone there's not a formula. A couple of the things we got right this year. Specifically for me, the bus calls Jake McCarthy Welsh. I know you were out on McCarthy as well. I didn't like the profile. There was no power there and I thought you know, steals obviously were going to be easier to find the season. Hunter Green. Just so volatile bad control pitcher. Fly ball pitcher and in one of the worst

ballparks and baseball for a pitcher to be in. So I think that one was kind of obvious to. Daniel Bard, I wrote that he had bottom out potential. I think you just bet against Rockies closers, and you'll be right more often than you're not. Sandy Alcancera, this was kind of a polarizing one. It's your best one. It's awesome. And, you know, it hurt for me because I loved him last year, right?

Like, all over it. And my reasoning was just he didn't get as many whiffs as other aces. We had these new rules coming in where there were going to be shift restrictions. I thought that, you know, his babb would climb a little bit, and that he was volume dependent. And any kind of decrease innings what was going to hurt his value more than others. Like he needed that volume to maximize his fantasy output.

And I just did not think he was going to be as efficient. And again, like the K-minus Walker rate was a big reason for that too. Just not as good as other quote-unquote aces around baseball. So I was off on Sandy. And frankly, he was a lot worse than even I thought he was going to be this season. Three names that were injury risks that I wrote up, Byron Bucson, Tyler O'Neill, Tony Gonslin. It's like Byron Bucks in, just kind of rinse and repeat.

Just do not draft that guy any year. A few other names here. One's that Scott and I both shared that we both got right. I think like everybody was on this one. But Corey Seeger, I mean, just the most obvious breakout. Had awesome expected stats in 2022. We had the new shift restrictions coming in. We've seen his massive upside in the past as well.

Tristan Kossis, we both had him as a sleeper, Scott. And this kind of goes back to the question with CJ Abrams, right? It's like, how do you differentiate Tristan Kossis from Miguel Vargas, right? They were being drafted at the start of draft season in a similar range, right? Around pick 200. Tristan Kossis got off to a slow start, eventually came around and was really, really useful for fantasy. And Miguel Vargas did the opposite. So how do you explain it, Scott?

I don't really know. I kind of agree with what the Welsh was saying. I mean, it's, we refer to them as lottery tickets sometimes. because you don't know if they're going to win for you, but you want to have the investment in case they do. And in the case of Miguel Vargas, it didn't pan out. In the case of Tristan Kossis, it did. Now, I will say with regard to Miguel Vargas specifically,

who when we did our Valentine's Day show, he was the player I loved, and I'm sure I was more invested in him than in Kossis coming into the year. I didn't have exit velocity data from the miners. Fortunately, Prospectslive.com, good site. They set up a way to gather that data at least at AAA. And so now I have a look at both Miguel Vargas's exit velocity data in the majors and in the minors. I don't know what it looked like last year, but this year, regardless of where he played, it looked pretty bad.

And so if I had that information available to me, I might have had a different perspective on Vargas. Or I may not. Like I said, I don't know what it was last year. But I know this year, I mean, he's got to be like, I don't know, he's got to do, who's an example of a player. I mean, the most extreme example, I guess, is Isok Perid is of a guy who hits the ball in just the right spot that it's able to go out of the park. but you look at a stackass page and it's drenched in blue and you're like, how is this guy productive? It's just, you know, he hits it.

The most optimal launch angle and the most optimal direction. I wonder if that wrist and everything just like, I don't know, getting set back, maybe never healed. There's a part of me. Maybe, yeah. This is me coming back to the whole, like, the things I really liked about him were like extreme plate discipline, ability to get on base, barreling, you know, making solid contact.

Whether it was hard contact, that was, a little bit of like a tiny bit of a mystery. But like into spring training, not being able to like swing the bat and having that approach in your head and maybe falling behind. I don't know. I just wonder if some of it's mental.

I'm probably going to be one of those guys. Like if we at all see some hard hit numbers come up next year, I'm going to be like, Miguel Vargas, like, no, post type sleeper. If he looks like a different, if he's hitting the ball much harder in spring training than he was this year, then I'll be back on board quickly. Like it would have been harder for me to get on Kossis.

with Kossis is like more ability to strike out, like having bigger strikeout numbers, if Kossis had done what Vargas did, I would be probably more skeptical going into next year. But with Vargas having like a lot of things that bring up the floor, it feels like we could just get the ball hitting harder. We could have huge results with a guy like this.

I see that differently. I think it's, I think you can improve the plate discipline or the plate discipline is less important than how hard. you impact the ball up to a point. Of course, everything matters to a degree, but like... You mean if you're hitting the ball really hard?

If you're capable... Certain players are capable of hitting the ball harder than other players, you know? And that is something that can't really be taught. And so I think it is the most important single of variable when evaluating hitters. And so that's why I'm so thankful that I can look into some of that data at AAA now. But you're right that, you know, that that wrist injury. in spring training for Miguel Vargas may have had a lasting effect.

I wish I had last year's data to compare it to. And so that's why I'm not ruling out the possibility he could show up to spring training, hitting the ball much harder. But I will say in one 24 team dynasty league, I traded him away because I was worried about his

I was worried about his long-term outlook at that point. And then in another 24-team dynasty league where people can only keep 10 players, but still we're talking 240 players kept. How many 24 teams do you play in? That's a lot of 24 teams.

Oh, wow. All my dynasty leagues are 24 teams. I don't know if that skews my outlook on dynasty leagues. But anyway, 240 players being kept at least, and nobody was interested. Nobody. I tried shopping Vargas. Nobody was interested. So maybe that's just, maybe he doesn't amount to anything.

but man, if you play in a deeper dynasty league, you could probably get him for next to nothing. So if you do have faith in Miguel Vargas, then now is probably the perfect time to buy him in that format. A couple others that we got right, Jacob de Grom being a bust, trouble staying healthy. Obviously, we were kind of all over to that.

Two that I shared with the Welsh, Blake Snell as a re-breakout this year. He's another one where we've seen the upside in the past. I was really just kind of banking on him showing out in a contract year, which obviously he did. And Alec Manoa, we both had as a bust here, Welsh, The K-minus walk rate, very uninspiring last year.

His ex-fip and Sierra were both one and a half runs higher than his ERA. I mean, these are just fundamental things that we look at. Like, again, just the very first thing that we look at when examining a pitcher. And it just seemed so obvious to me with Alec Manoa. So I just wanted nothing to do with him. And that obviously cratered even more than I thought it could be. And one that all three of us were right about, Dylan Cs. The control was a huge problem.

2022 seemed like an outlier based on the quality of contact that he allowed he outperformed his ex-fip in Sierra by over a full run I had him with bottom out potential in my bust column so yeah I'm taking that one I remember everyone on opening day coming for our next 12th

I was gonna say Frank I was like I wish I bookmarked that tweet I remember like it was yesterday that tweet we got after that first good start and we all were looking at each other like and I think we literally all were on here together going the guys it's one start And then I didn't hear anything else

It was all downhill from there I don't usually mute people on Twitter But man I had to mute some people on opening day Because of that Dill and C stuff Let's hit some news and notes After that we'll get to the things that we got wrong Don't worry obviously we've got to talk about the things we got wrong as well So we will do that

Just some quick news and notes And a pretty big one I think For next year's draft stock Mani Machado underwent surgery to repair The extensor tendon in his right elbow His estimated recovery time is four to six months, which means anywhere from early February to early April. So that is a pretty wide range.

He could be ready to go for spring training. He could be in there for all of spring training games, or he might not be ready right until opening day. First diagnosed with an elbow injury last May, 2022, which he was day to day with at the time. He might have been playing through it since then. Scott, I know that was something we talked about towards the end of the season and kind of speculating.

on here, but I think this is... He ended up like September was his best month. And I think this is something we're going to have to, you know, monitor pretty closely here in the offseason with Manny Machado. All right. So Manny Machado or Royce Lewis next year. Come on, Scott. I mean, if Manny is opening day, I'm going to, it's Manny Machado. It's October 4th. You can't ask us that right now.

You have to commit today. I'm all be, I'm all like, I'm all like, ooh, would you rather have Josh Lowe? And you're like, would you rather have Boba Chet or Royce Lewis? I mean, obviously I'm going to rank Machado ahead of Lewis based on discussion we had earlier. I would still take Machado too. But it will be. I could see it playing out next spring if they play it more cautiously with his recovery. And he's still not appearing in spring games.

He's still not appearing in spring games. Oh, is he going to be ready for opening day? And people like panicking in drafts and passing him over three rounds longer than they should in him turning into a great value. So I'll have a lot of Mani Machado if that happens. Something I said last offseason, a completely different situation. But I said with Shane McClanahan, right, I needed to see him pitch in spring and make sure the velocity was all right.

I think it's a similar thing here with Machado. I want to see him play in spring and make sure he's all right. And the arm is responding to playing games and all that stuff. And I think once he does that, then I'll be good. I'll feel comfortable drafting Mani Machado. but I think it's kind of a wait and see and let's see what happens here with him in the offseason. Trey Turner, dealing with a sore elbow and Louisa Ries

with a sprained ankle were both in their respective lineups for game one of the Wild Card series. Trey Turner, by the way, two steals in that first game. He is now 32 for 32 overall in steals this year. Reese Hoskins will begin taking live batting practice on Wednesday. He's been out all season with a torn ACL that he suffered back in March, but hopes that he could help the Phillies if they're, make a deep postseason run.

Tommy Fan will be limited to DH duties because of turf toe, and Jordan Lawler did make the D-Backs wildcard roster, but didn't start much down the stretch for them. He went just four for 31 with a 129 batting average since being promoted on September 7th. Obviously, still just 21 years old and a very small sample size, so I don't think we put too much stock into it. But, Walsh, is there anything you've noticed

from watching Jordan Lawler in this small sample size in September? And pitch recognition looks like garbage. Like he just doesn't know what he's going up to do. It looks a lot more guessing game, which you're probably not surprised about. You know, it's funny, and not to turn this off of Jordan Lawler, but boy, what a sham it is of like, these guys have to be up by September, before September 1st to be on the wild. What a sham that is.

You won injury. Every single rookie that got called up, it didn't matter when made the postseason. Junior Caminero, Evan Carter, Jordan. They all did it with one simple roster move. What a sham that thing is. Because I'm sitting there like, oh, these guys can't make it. Easy. Easy to get them all on there.

But yeah, so Laller has been a pretty big disappointment. He's been overmatched in a lot of ways. And I think a lot of it has been able. It's been about just kind of a guessing game of what's going up there as far as what he's seeing in the pitch mix. I kind of want to actually go back and look and see what he's been. Because some of these guys will get really heavy fastballs. I want to go back and take a look at the pitch mix.

But we're going to have to have some serious, serious improvements. going into next year for him to be massively viable. Some other non-playoff news, Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said that Marco Luciano will be given the chance to open the 2024 season as the team's everyday shortstop. Just 22 years old, hit 223 with 15 home runs and a 776 OPS in 74 games between AA and AAA this season. Power remains the main tool there, the calling card for Marco Luciano. You know, if he's their everyday shortstop, there's no doubt in my mind.

He can hit 20 plus home runs next year. It's just what else is he providing? What is the batting average? The 212 average. Yeah. What, you know, are there any steals in there? Probably not, but we'll see. Last but not least, Terry Francona has officially stepped down as Guardians' manager,

which has long been expected. It could have a fantasy impact. I know the Guardians typically run quite a bit. So let's see who they bring in. And obviously, an awesome career there for Tito, Terry Francona. Shout out to him. I mean, we hadn't podcasted since a lot of managerial changes happen. I think maybe most notably Gabe Kapler being fired in San Francisco.

And I thought that was the least justified. I have not been a vocal Gabe Kapler supporter by any means. But that wasn't a very good roster. And he kept him competitive until late in the year. and just, you know, the way he managed as a team is annoying for fantasy, but you didn't see a manager go to greater lengths to get the most out of his roster than Gabe Kapler did. So that was disappointing to see him get the blame there. I don't know.

Maybe personality-wise he wore out as welcome. That's certainly possible. But I was surprised to see that he was let go by the Giants. And that's not the only one of me, Buckshaw-Walter's out for the Mets. And I don't know who else. Phil Nevin. with the Angels. Yeah,

Phil Nevin with the Angels. It's being speculated that Craig Counsel's going to be out for the Brewers, which is weird. Like, what if they win the World Series? I don't know. Yeah, that would be weird.

Yeah. Yeah. Weird. I mean, they've been pretty good, right? That's another team that they don't really spend much. So he's...

Well, I mean, he might follow Stearns for getting the first name. David Stearns. David Stearns. Yeah, to the Mets. Yeah, to the Mets. That's all hearsay.

But I thought, it was worth mentioning while we were talking about managers. Okay, let's take our final break. When we return, we'll talk about the things we got wrong, some lessons learned, and a quick update here from the Arizona Fall League. We'll do that right after this. All right, welcome back in. Let's run through some of the things that we got wrong this past season.

And Scott, we'll start with your sleeper and breakout calls here. Miguel Vargas and Oswald Paraza, I think those are just some clear prospects that didn't come through. The Paraza thing was weird because all offseason we thought he was going to be the starter and opening day. Turned out not to be the case because Anthony Volpe had a big spring. Yeah. And, you know, obviously the last round of sleepers was earlier in March. And so, you know, by late in March, I was all aboard the Volpe bandwagon. Not that either was that great. Yeah. But yeah. Cabrera didn't end up taking on the role I thought he would at first. Trey Mantini, Jack Flaherty, Jesse Winker, and Will Myers, all his sleepers there. Obviously,

some veterans, but I'm not sure that there. was much there for any of them, Scott? I mean, I'm sure you obviously made a case for them. That's why you had them as sleepers. But in hindsight, it feels like perhaps there was just not much left in the tank for any of those names. Yeah, perhaps. And, you know, that is the gamble with sleepers, right? If you're going to highlight a player who nobody's, if you're trying to find upside among a group

players nobody wants you're probably not going to find it so yeah that's what happened with that group i ate that will myers l too that one was making me laugh when i was looking at i was like that one is a blast from draft pass because i was all like oh will mires is one of the best cheap options can qualify it for a steel 20 bases like that one was i think the argument i think the argument was basically look what great american ballpark did for brand of jericho exactly exactly yeah i think we were all you know will mires and it's so stupid i think i think we were all you know will mires and it's so stupid You know, I really like Jesse Winker, too. Winker and Soler were in the five outfielder leagues.

I was just drafting those two and all of them. And one of them worked. And one of them very clearly did not. Three breakouts here that didn't work out quite well. Scott, Christian Javier, I was trying to find out why it didn't work. I mean, I guess we didn't have the biggest track record with Javier, and he is a two-pitch pitcher, so I think you can look at that as a risk. Patrick Sandoval, maybe we're enticed by the WBC.

obviously he was pitching well in the world baseball classic but control has been a huge issue for him uh and in hunter green i mentioned i had him as a bust earlier you had him as a breakout the swing and miss is tantalizing but again i think there's just probably just too much volatility for a pitcher going inside the top 125 picks this past season yeah i don't know i mean i he was hurt a lot too i don't really take a lot of lessons from miss breakout and sleeper picks like you go you go in knowing a lot of these guys are going to be wrong for the reasons I just said. Like you're trying to find value. You're trying to outsmart the conventional wisdom.

And so more of those picks are going to be wrong than right, generally speaking. What's interesting about Christian Javier is I think he kind of gained too much momentum as a breakout pick. And it kind of got priced out of my own range. And what went wrong for him, I don't think so much was, oh, I missed this about him. I think he just pitched worse. I think his pitches were just less effective than they were the previous year, really his entire career up to that point. And, you know, you can't always predict when a player is just going to get worse like that.

Yep. Three players you got wrong based on your bus calls, Freddie Peralta, I'll admit, one of the hardest players to evaluate this past offseason, but he's one of these guys that showed massive upside in 2021. And his first half was not so good. And then his second half, he was back to that pitcher from 2021. And I think he was probably a league winner for a lot of people as well. That's Freddie Peralta.

Adoles Garcia, you know, that late career breakout. He had some bad plate discipline entering this year. He didn't prove that quite a bit. Didn't run much this season. But obviously the power production was awesome for him. George Kirby, this is one that I was kind of with you, Sky. We just didn't really see where the whiffs were going to come from. His swinging strike rate did improve.

His control is just impeccable. I mean, 0.9 walks per 9 is unheard of. He's just clearly the best control in all of baseball. And he did get a few more whiffs this year on the slider and the splitter. Do you have anything here that you learn from Freddie Peralta, Doli Garcia, and George Kirby? Yeah, I mean, in some ways, the George Kirby bust pick was a pushback to how many people had him as a breakout pick.

I don't think he lived up to quite where the people who were highest on him thought he would. It was mostly his whip improved from one year to the month, but the CRA was almost exactly the same. I don't know. He kind of got swallowed up by the glob, and maybe he doesn't deserve individual blame for it. But I don't count that one as the total miss. And as far as wit goes,

because I know we were all incensed that wit was being drafted as like a top. seven player, even a first rounder at all. Scott, the mic. The mic. I mean, I'm losing my voice. It's because you're talking bad about Bobby Witt. That's the problem. Talk like this. Is this fine, Frank? Can you hear me?

Hey, I'm just trying to service the listeners, man. I know, but like, I don't know what to do about this. I don't know what's going on. I don't know either. You sound great now, though, Scott. You're doing it. Yeah, I lost my. my terrain of thought.

You were being mean about Bobby. I think the process was fine with wit. Like I don't look back and like, oh, I should have known he was going to have a 30 home or 49 steel season. It was a possible outcome. But I thought the risk was too high for the cost. And I still think it was too high for the cost.

Now next year it doesn't seem too high for the cost, which is why is my number two overall player. George Kirby, by the way, Scott, while I guess he didn't have this huge breakout season, he was a top 14 starting pitcher in both Roto and head to head points. So yeah. It's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome stuff for him.

Welsh, some things that you got wrong here. Chris Bryant, you thought he would be good. The dude just cannot stay on the field. It's like Byron Bucksson 2.0 here. Danesby Swanson, his first year with the Cubs. He missed some time. He was underwhelming when he played. The speed really took a step back.

He had 18 steals last year, only nine this year, even with the new rules. And Luis Robert, you were worried about the health. The pace numbers before this year. We're technically elite, but I think he had a little bit of that, that Bobby Witt, where he's, again, a former top prospect. We know that there's massive upside, and he just finally put it together and he lived up to it. Yeah, the one I hate the most is the Robert one, but you nailed exactly where I was. It was the injuries. The injuries were so prevalent that he never could tap into the full year, and the pace numbers didn't look like something where we needed to pay top 15 or 25 even, that you could get it in other spots.

And it was just wrong. I mean, everything, stolen bases were going up. He tapped into the power to an elite level, stayed on the field more. That one hurts. But yeah, you nailed the other stuff too. Chris Bryant is just stupid. I'm just like, oh, Colorado, it's going to happen. You know, he was hitting over 300. Just the power wasn't there. That can positively regress. It didn't. And he's always hurt. And yeah, Danesby was the stolen bases going down. We're going to take away his overall value. But he was just much better than I thought he was going to be. But the Robert one really does hurt. And just quickly.

I was absolutely with Scott on the Adola Garcia one. That one stanks. And I was on the opposite end though of like the Bobby Witt and George Kirby. So I was on both of those. I was with those two. Absolutely stinky wrong about Adola Garcia. I did not think it could happen. So now we'll all inevitably go for him this year and then this will be the coming year where it all falls apart. Don't say it. Don't say it. Well, I'm just saying. I like, you know, watching Adolias Garcia is a really fun player to watch too. So

I hope he keeps it going for at least a couple more years here. I'll just quickly run through the things that I got wrong this past season. Jazz Chisholm and Eloi Jimenez's breakout candidates. I mean, these are just two names that struggle to stay on the field consistently. And I'll mention this with my lessons learned, but I think valuing floor almost as evenly as upside with your early to mid-round picks, I think is something that I need to do more of.

Because guys like this, jazz and, Eloy going inside the top 75 picks year after year and cannot stay on the field. I think that's something we need to put more stock in and we just need guys that are going to be on the field more and at least give us something. Give us a baseline of production knowing that they're going to be out there. So I think I need to make that more of a priority moving forward for me. Some other names, Oscar Gonzalez, Hayden Wesneski. I think just kind of ignoring some of the flaws, Hayden Wesnesneski, just like a small sample darling from last year, maybe put too much stock into that.

Routy Teles is a sleeper. I still kind of like the process here. I mean, he showed massive power in 2022. Much better expected stats. We had the shift restriction coming in. I think he played hurt for a lot of like the first half of the season two. So I don't know. I still kind of like the process on Routy Tiles.

John Gray, I mean, just stop trying to make fetch happen, Frank. Like, it's just, it's not going to happen with John Gray. Edward Cabrera. Yeah, I love the stuff. Still do. But the control is just so bad at times. It's kind of similar to Hunter Green, I think, in that way. It's just he has a much better home ballpark than Hunter Green does.

Ross Tripley and Noah Cindergarde, just looking back, like, what the heck was I thinking? It's just like veterans that I didn't really have much to go based on. And like, Cindergarde, I literally had no statistical evidence. It was just the Dodgers. Dodgers is going to fix them. Like, that was it. I mean, look, if that was your reasoning behind Tyler Anderson and. True.

And Andrew Heaney the year before, you wouldn't spot on. So, like, it's, I don't know. I don't know. I think you're being a little, I think we're, I don't think you need to be as hard on yourself, Frank. No, you know, there are no reasons to like those guys coming in. And as long as you didn't invest too much in them, you know, that misses are going to happen. If you're not first, you're last, Scott. You got to be hard on yourself. Lance Linn, by the way, he's the last one again. We talked about him all year. He was somebody I targeted everywhere. I thought he was undervalued. I think trusting in an older pitcher and kind of using like second half statistics, you know, Chris, Towers has said for years. Full season stats are more predictive than partial season statistics.

And Lance Lynn, we looked at the second half stats from last year. And I think it was kind of a slippery slope when buying back in on him and just being an older pitcher in general. So I think maybe I should have saw a little bit more of that coming this season. Let's wrap up here some lessons that we learned this year overall. Scott, I asked each of you guys for two. So let's just quickly run through these. And maybe he already talked about some of them. Maybe he haven't, Scott, but we'll start with you. Two lessons that you learned from the 2023 season. All right.

One of them was that the return of position scarcity was just a blip. Blip brought about by that. In retrospect, a weird 2020 season where powered numbers were randomly down, it had a greater impact on the middle infield position. The infield positions that we don't traditionally think of as power-laden. And third base was strangely scarce as well. And so that was a heavy emphasis of mine on going into drafts this year. Remember, I had a plan where I wanted an outfielder in round one,

a third basement in round two, and a second basement in round three. That was the thing I was talking about for a while. You know, maybe the third basement would be in round one and the outfielder in round two. But basically the first three rounds I wanted to come out with those three positions. After the way this year went, you know, I was just talking earlier this podcast, there might be more 20-20 candidates at second base than any other position. I just, I don't, I'm going into next year with basically no intentional position strategy. Heath Cummings, Nips strategy, as he likes to call it.

Which isn't to say that, you know, there may be points, I'll still have positional tears and all of that. There may be points in the draft where it makes more sense to take one position more than another. But it's more going to be about the flow of the draft than something that's predetermined beforehand, because I think there's enough depth. really everywhere that it's not something you need to stress about next year. And I agree with that, by the way, too. I mean, I just remember in draft season, I was consistently passing up on these elite first basemen, just because I like the value at that position later on,

like Anthony Rizzo and Rowdy to Les. You like to Bray You were like, I'll say it Bray You, I know I did that so much. I'm like, I don't need Matt Olson. I can get him to say Bray You later. I think it's just more like, take the best players possible early on in the draft. And just like don't think about drafts, you know.

It's more about there's a point where there's a drop off among the hitters. Get as many of those hitters as you can ahead of that drop off. And same at pitching, though. The drop-offs, I think, are less clear there. And speaking of pitcher, Scott, I know that was your second lesson learned. Yeah, I mean, this is really the biggest lesson is just, and we've talked about it all season long, the way the pitcher pool has changed. And how I'm going to put it is this.

quantity over quality at starting pitcher. With the caveat that the quantity has to be of a certain quality, basically I want as many glob pitchers as I can get. And rather than paying up for Luis Castillo or Corbin Burns, or Zach Wheeler, somebody like that, I'm not saying I'm absolutely not going to draft. anybody from that tier. Ideally, I would get a couple pitchers from that tier, but I'm not going to

be so I'm not going to I'm not going to be like I have to build my pitching staff from that group or else I'm going to have bad pitching. And I'm not going to go the other way, which is ah, there'll be plenty of pitchy out there. I can

you know, I could find guys emerging on the waiver wire. I, you know, I'll just take whoever I take and I'll be able to piece it together during the season. I don't think that's true. That's especially not true in Roto leagues and that's especially not true in the deeper roto leagues, the 15 timers where

the waiver of wire just had no pitching to offer all season long. The reason I say quantity over quality is because the whole idea behind the glob, which again is a group of like 60 pitchers that I think are going to be very

unpredictable from start to start and you're not really sure where their final numbers are going to end up and because of that unpredictability that's why I don't feel like you need to invest so heavily in the high-end types who aren't as high-end even as in years past. And that's also why I think you need to give yourself as many shots within the glob of putting together a pitching staff that you can, that turns into a pretty good one and kind of trim the fat as the season goes on. Or maybe attrition itself trims the fat for you. I have some interesting stats here.

sure, I'm not sure if I've presented this information in the most cohesive way. But this year, in Roto Leagues, only seven of the top 75 players were starting pitchers. This is why I don't think it pays to invest big in one early. Only seven of the top of the top 75 players were pitchers. One of them was Zach Eflin, who were not going to rank that high in all likelihood. And one of them was Blake Snell, who we have a lot of doubts about his, well, seven of the top 75. Only 17 of the next 75 overall players in Roto leagues were pitchers. And this includes Clayton Kershaw, who you couldn't trust for the second half of the year.

Freddie Peralta, who couldn't trust for the first half of the year. Chris Bassett, who we're never that trusting in all year, right? Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, who we both think are on the decline and probably not going to be as good next year. So that's 24 pitchers total that were in the top 150 in roto leagues this year. That's compared to 46 in the top 150 last year. So that's just another way to demonstrate how the pitching pool has changed and how a big investment just isn't worth it because you're giving up so much value. Only 24 of the top 150 players.

So how many do you want to draft ahead of 150? I don't know. But at the same time, if you don't give yourself enough, lights at that glob apple and leave too much to happen on the waiver while, that's going to go poorly too. Yeah, I don't know, Scott. I mean, you talking about that now, I kind of felt like you presented the other side. Like the other case for it is that there's so few pitchers ranked inside of the top 150

that you need some of those in order to compete, right? Well, let me put it in another way. There were zero pitchers. The highest ranked pitcher was Garrett Cole, 20. he's going to go well before 20. Spencer Strider was 22. He's going to go well before that. Blake Snell was the third highest at 36.

And then there's only one more that was in the top 50 and it's Zach Gallen. I ran this thing real quick. If I could just take 30 seconds. I ran hitters and pitchers today. The top 30 best performance, the numbers of the top 30 at each category. Homers, runs, RBI. took the top 30 and averaged them out.

And I created the super player on both pitching and hitting. I did this earlier today. The super hitter, this is what the super hitter number looks like. Again, 30 of the best performances averaged out. The super hitter was 35 homers, 105 runs, 103 RBI, 34 stolen bases with a 294 batting average. Those are ginormous numbers. How many players do you think did that this year?

Two? How many? One. One. Just a Coonia. He's the only one that did that. Betts was close. There's a couple other guys. The pitcher superpower. I have a super player. I only did four. Here's what the super pitcher was.

13 wins, a 34 ERA, a 114 whip, 202 strikeouts. Those feel like two very different numbers. And the glob affects some of that. 3535 is the super hitter. And the super pitcher is a 34 ERA with 200 strikeouts and 13 wins. That the super pitcher is a globy type of pitcher. And by the way, there were only two pitchers that actually met that marker. And then there was a whole host of guys that were off by one category, Logan Webb, Kyle Braddish and guys that paced out, way more guys that paced closer to the super pitcher than hitters that paced to the super hitter.

And I mean, Spencer Strider had a 386 ERA. Zach Gallin, who I said was the fourth best pitcher, according to Rota this past year, his ERA didn't even meet that very low threshold. It was 347. So it's a combination of the high-end pitchers aren't really that good, and pitching as a whole isn't really that good relative to the hitting. And so, like, if the glob is really a glob, and we're not going to be able to distinguish from it very well,

I think you just need to draft a lot of it. I think you need to draft a lot of it and hope for the best. And by the way, that was basically my approach. I did well in my head-to-head leagues where there was a waiver wire that you could turn to. So I invested very little in points leagues and head-to-head leagues as a whole and did very well in those because I was able to build a pitching staff on the fly. But in Roto leagues, I did poorly. And I think this is the biggest difference between those.

two formats and why I got such different results with basically the same approach is because there's a higher threshold for pitchers to meet in Roto and there's less you can find during the season to meet it in this kind of glob pitching environment. I know this podcast is going on. I thought this would be more of a discussion and so I'm struggling to like whittle these ideas down to something digestible, but I guess it's just, I guess it's just what you're going to have to take for now. I'm still working my way through it. Look, we spoke about that yesterday, too. It's trying to figure out how to draft pitching next year is it's going to take some time.

I think we need to dissect this season and study the numbers and really kind of, all right, let's figure out our strategy for drafting pitching next year. And obviously we have a long time to figure that out. Welsh, your lessons learned this year. Oh, well, I mean, you said it earlier. I'd just be real quick. You talked about the, you kind of said the risk reward. That was a big one for me. It's kind of always one for me.

I really need to like hit home harder. I get very defensive of players that, like the Jazz Chisholm conversation, players that are huge and show elite traits when they're out there are my kryptonite. And Jacob deGrom screws me, Jazz Chisholm does it. You have to be more aware. I didn't pair these guys and you can never do that. But the old adage, the juice worth, the squeeze is probably getting less and less, especially as counting stats are going up and up.

That's one of them. Actually, the pitching one was another one with the whole super pitcher and kind of some of these other guys that showed up that were just, I mean, just barely missed the list. You had like the Kirby's, the Verlanders. Kodaisanga actually was a only missed it by the whip. There's a lot of those glob pitchers. So Scott already hit that. And the only other thing was just thinking about closers. And we, I looked today at the top 10 closers on the auction calculator on fan graphs as far as values go.

and six of the top 10 valued money dollar valued closers were taken 90th overall or later. Tanner Scott was like number three. And then who were the guys that were in there? They were the elite of the elite. So I actually see less value in that middle range, which I used to really have value in. I used to be like, I don't want the elite elite. Let me get a middle guy and then maybe like another kind of lateish middle guy. and then one dirt cheap guy,

that shows you a lot that get one of those lockdown guys and then just play it on the back end and obviously, as many people do with closers, play the wire. Tanner Scott was one of the more valuable guys and he was a guy that you picked up off the wire. So just understanding how I'm going to treat closers of maybe getting one of those top top guys

but then playing it in a shallow pool of closers later. You can get a lot of return value. All right, some lessons for me. And I mentioned this earlier. It's just valuing floor and ceiling. more evenly in the early to mid rounds. I've become a little bit more injury agnostic over the past couple seasons.

And when I first started playing, I was so worried about injuries to early round players. And I've already kind of mentioned this with Corby and Carroll. And again, like, if he has a good postseason and he comes back to spring training and there are no concerns about the shoulder, then I think I could change my stance on that. But right now, it's like enough of a reason to drop him down to, like, the late first round rather than like a top five pick.

But it's things like that. I think I just need to be more cognizant of injuries and risk in those early to mid-rounds. Obviously, later on in draft, you still want to take your upside shots, but I think it needs to be a sliding scale. Like, as the draft goes on, you can take a little bit, a little bit more risk, a little bit more risk. And then obviously those later round picks will be lots of risk. And then hopefully you hit on some of those. And I look back at some of my Roto teams. Scott and I mentioned yesterday that we kind of, we've struggled in Roto the past couple of years.

and I noticed a common theme, low batting average. I didn't have a single team in the top four in batting average in any of my Roto leagues. And I won a few Roto leagues. I want two of them. And I did that with teams that were outside the top four in batting average. And I think I said the same thing last off season, is that I need to emphasize the ratio stats more. Batting average.

ERA whip. Obviously, pitching is like a whole other conversation, which we just kind of tried to have. But they're so hard to make up those stats, later on in the year. You can't move up as easily as you can in the counting stats. I need to put more of an emphasis. Batting average, ERA, whip, early rounds in my drafts,

and not drafting the rowdy Telez's and these guys that are going to hit 200 or 210 or Kyle Schwabre hitting under 200 because it just tanks your batting average so much. And I think I need to be more cognizant of that as well. And that was something that I learned. And here we are. It's our second offseason podcast, and we've had like our longest podcast of the season. Like, I don't even know what's going to happen this offseason, but here you are.

Enjoy the content. It's free and it's here for you. We didn't get to talk about the Arizona Fall League, but I'll give you a little sneak peek. Our fantasy baseball today in five episodes, which is going to come out on Saturday, we're going to talk about all that stuff, and I'm going to drop it in the FBT feed,

so make sure to check out for that. Have the Welsh on, and we'll talk about Ricky Teetam in and Jackson Job and all those guys, but for Scott and the Welsh. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to Fantasy Baseball today. please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we will be back again next week.

Bye-bye.