Fantasy Baseball Today - Salary Cap Draft Strategy; Jacob deGrom's Draft Cost w/ Ariel Cohen & Ian Kahn! (12/28 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

Ariel Cohen and Ian Kahn join the show (1:00)! ... How do they start their Salary Cap Draft prep (5:35)? ... What are some of the ways they find value in this format (13:38)? ... What's the ideal pitcher vs. hitter split in terms of your budget (16:30)? ... Should you draft with balance in this format (25:47)? ... What are Ian and Ariel's nomination processes (33:06)? ... How should you value Jacob deGrom right now knowing what we know (42:18)? ... We wrap up with a few ADP battles (53:33)! '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, @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. I drive. Centerfield is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam.

Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, December 28th. I am Frank Sanfell. Still knows Scott White. He'll be back next week. Hope those who celebrate had a fantastic Christmas And I love this time of year, of course, for the holidays, but also because you start to feel it. You feel fantasy football winding down and coming to an end.

And my Twitter feed is littered with fantasy baseball draft results everywhere. It's awesome. It's amazing. It's fun times. I'm very excited. And I'm very excited for today's podcast. Now, I know you're probably tired of me saying every single week, this guest is one of my favorite indie industry.

But I've got to say it again. again. These are my guys. That's right. We have two guests on today and I'm hoping, praying that they can keep it civil. Two of the absolute best fantasy baseball players. I have had the pleasure of speaking with introducing first. You know them. ATC projections, beat the shift podcast. Of course, writer over at Fangraphs. Ariel Cohen, what is going on, my man? Oh, not much. I'm getting excited to talk baseball in December. What could be better, you know? can be better indeed. Make sure you follow him on Twitter at ATCNY. The other gentleman joining us today, you can listen to him on the Under the Radar podcast with our friends, Nanda Defino and

Derek Van Riper. You can follow him on Twitter at Ian Con for it is Ian Con. What is going on, buddy? Hello, my friends. It's good to be on with both of you. My old pal, Frank, my old pal Aurel. This is pretty great. And for those who don't know, look, if you haven't listened to the Under the Radar podcast, what are you waiting for? But, Ian, has, he has fun. He has fun on that podcast. And of course, he's also known for being General George Washington. And look, do great work there. And you have a lot of fun. You do, you make these skits up together between like General George Washington and Ardle Cohen. So that's why I thought it would be really fun to have you guys on both of you here together on the same podcast. And not only for

those reasons. Obviously look like outside of this like we're all like good friends. And I really, really do respect you guys as fantasy baseball players because what do we all have in common? That's right. We've all won the Tout Wars head-to-head salary cap league, formerly known as auction as well. So I thought that would be the crux of today's show. I mean, we're going to do salary cap draft strategy. We're going to talk about a few players a little bit later on how to quantify their value right now. Ariel and I had a great conversation. We went out to lunch recently and we talked about Jacob de Grom and how to value him right now. It's very early in the offseason, but people are drafting. So we'll talk about that. And of course, we'll have some

ADP battles later on in the podcast as well. But Ian, we were talking beforehand. You mentioned there was a few things that you know about the Tout Wars head-to-head salary cap draft. We've all won it. So if you'd like to reveal those things. Well, what's interesting about it is in my first year in the league, I came down to Clay Link and myself in the finals.

So that was my first year in the league. And Clay had been in the finals a year before against Jake Sealy. And I was very lucky in that last week, last two weeks, and won the championship in my first year. The second year in the league, which was Frank's then first year in the league, Arielle and I came down literally to the last game of the season. And it wasn't the same setup, but it was either Ariel was going to win or I was going to win. And we tied and Ariel won on a tiebreaker on points. And so he won the championship. So I went from champion in my first year to runner up, close runner up in my second year.

And then in the third year, I then moved to the 15 team Tau Wars and had some challenging luck, injury luck, challenging league too. But then in the third year, Frankie in his second year goes to the finals against REL. And then Frankie wins in year three. And Ariel came in a close second. So it's just, I don't know, it's just something about it. It's like we've been, you know, it's like you win. you win it and then you lose it tight and then you win it and you lose it tight and now if if things were to stay then next year a new player would come in and frankie would come in second you know but

maybe it'll be ariel in in the finals but i just i think that's interesting that that we've been on this path and it's great because you know i've known frankie frankie i've known you for a long time now i knew you back in the day when you were you weren't the big muckety muck that you are these days oh well come on you know you a little muckieieieieie muck. Oh, anyway. It's just,

it's cool. It's cool. I do miss that league. That was a fun league to plan. But I'm in a tough league now and well, you know, lessons learned. Yeah. 15 team, the,

that is the mixed, that's also salary cap draft auction style, right? Okay. Cool. Yeah, because I know that Scott White is in the 15 team mixed snake draft. So we have many representatives that have been on this podcast that have either played in Tout Wars,

have won Tow Wars. Obviously, Scott won. his league in 2020 as well. So just champions abound here on the podcast. But let's get into it. Let's start off with our salary cap draft strategy. And Ariel, we'll start with you and just,

look, we'll run through many points. Obviously, there's, like, we can do two hours on just strategy in this format alone because there are many different ways to win it. There are many different ways to attack it. How much do you plan beforehand going into a draft like this? Because I overdo it, where I basically plan out

every player that I want at each position, I have a backup in place for each of those players. I know how much money I want to spend at each position and I find players that kind of fit that mold, that price range. Do you do something similar when it comes to salary cap drafts? Well, I mean, I do quite a bit of planning, quite a bit of number crunching to determine what I think

the projected value of each player. But no, I don't come up with a plan that I need this player at this price point for this position. What I do is I look at the project. at various different price points. And I say, who are the couple of players that I think are bargains at that point? And maybe there's a couple of $25 players that I think are underpriced. Maybe there's a couple of $10 players that are underpriced.

And it really doesn't matter what position, because eventually there'll be $1 players and you could fill in whatever position with the $1 player that you need at the bottom, right? You don't have to, on top, think of it. A $15 second baseman, if price correctly, is worth the same as a $15 catcher. So I really don't have to worry about position. But when you group, when I get four or five players, or if I can, even three players of people who I think are underpriced at a certain price point, I just list those three names. And I'm fine buying any one of them. So if I think that there's three $10 players, I'll say boom, boom, boom, write them down on a list.

And whichever one I can get cheapest, that goes on my roster. I buy him. And I'm guaranteed a bargain. And the thing is if you do that, there's always some player that somebody in your league wants. Oh, I really wanted Tatis. I really wanted this player. You'll never get that specific player if you plan, I want this player. But if you come up with four guys who are about the same price and you're indifferent to getting either one of them,

there's a high probability that you're going to get one at a price you like. And I call that the hotspot drafting where you come up with these hotspots are okay drafting either of them for a good price. And that's how you roll. Yeah, so I think I actually do something similar to. And this, you know, this goes back to like making tiers. Like when you're making rankings and you tier the players into certain groups, right? And those players have a similar set of projections. Maybe not the same type of numbers that you're going to get.

You know, maybe one guy's projected for 30 home runs. The other one's projected for 25, but a higher batting average, so on and so forth. But similar projected dollars in the salary cap draft. You find multiple of those, again, like those hotspots that you're talking about, Ariel, where you can attack those. And I knew that going into, let's just bring up the Tout Wars Head to Head Points draft that we did last year, at third base, I knew that I wanted one of Alex Bregman or Anthony Rendon. Now, in hindsight, it didn't work out very well.

But in a points league, those are the types of players that I like to target who obviously make... I got Rendon, by the way. Yeah, you wound up with Rendon, I wound up with Alex Bragman. It didn't really work out for either one of us. But I knew going in that I wanted to spend $25 to $28, somewhere in that range, and that was probably going to be my best hitter on my roster. And it was going to be at third base. So those are just a few things that I'm looking at.

And I will have backups where, all right, look, if I just get priced out on those guys, who is someone that's cheaper that I also like at that position? And I have this notepad here, and I kind of go crazy with it, and I just write down names at each position. And by the end, this thing looks like a complete mess, but it's part of the method of the madness. Ian, how about you? When it comes to salary cap drafts, are you pulling? planning out, it almost sounds like we're doing it very rigidly, but it's really not, though,

because we have options that are all within a similar price range at each position. So I'm listing those out. Are you doing something similar when you're prepping for yours? You know, I think the key for me when I am successful, when I'm successful, is when I really know the player pool and the prices on that player pool. So, and I mean to the dollar. And I don't have to look it up. I just know it. Now, sometimes it's easier in the A.L. I did the A.L. I did the A.L.

I did the A.L. I literally had a number for every single player. So that when I saw somebody coming up and I go, that's not his number. His number, let's say it's a like a David Fletcher who in an A.L. In an A.L. only league has a lot of value because he's going to get regular playing time. And I think I think the number I had was 11 or something, maybe 12. actually. And I saw it for like six. And I'm like, I'm in. So it became a game for me of just finding the value at every spot. And now I think that's more valuable in only leagues than it is

in deeper leagues. And certainly in the 12 team that the 12 team that you guys are playing in the head to head, it's a different, it's a little bit of a different game because there's guys at the bottom at the back that are worth a lot that you're going to get for a buck, two bucks, that are going to be really good players or have really good upside. But when you you're playing in a 15-team league, full both AL and out, or if you're playing in a 12-team-only league, I really have come around to this idea that value is king. Now, there are guys that I love, and in drafts, it's a little bit different, but in the auction leagues, I still call it an auction league, sorry, in the salary cap league, finding that value is immense. And so for me,

the thing that is to really have a number, really know where you want to go with it, so that you can recognize when the value was there and realize what you. the room is doing and say, oh, wow, all right, I have a number of 14 on this player. It's at seven. I don't even want this player, but it's at seven. I'm getting in. And I think that that's something that people aren't, people don't do enough. And for me, to give Ariel a good amount of credit, you know, he had beat me in the last minute of Tao Wars the year before. And I was, it was devastating. It was a devastating loss. It was my second year in Tao Wars. I really wanted to go back to back. It was heartbreaking to lose that way. And it's all Keegan-Akin, man. So what I did was I called him up. And I

said he didn't if he gave me five innings I went he gave me three innings I lost that was it that's the whole thing and I called him up and I said you know how'd you win he's like well and I'm not going to do his impression I'm not going to do the impression but he was just bad he was like well you really don't know what you're doing with the auction strategy and there's a lot you can learn it's pretty much what he said no you are a little bit yeah I'm on the verge of doing it right here I know I we were were taking bets beforehand about how long it would take for Ian to start doing his his ariel co-impression. No, no, I'm not going to do it.

Can't do it. But what I learned, but so what I did was I learned a lot from him in the last off season. And I really did learn that finding that value can be incredibly powerful. And then you can find the guys that you want. And you can want to spend a little extra here and want to spend a little extra there. But really finding value all the way through your draft gives you the opportunity to spend

extra. Like I went into A.L. Labor wanting Jose Ramirez. I was going to get him. I was going to pay for him. And I think I went up to $41 on him last. year. Well, I can do that if I know that I'm going to be finding value elsewhere. There's a limit to it. You can't go to 46. You can't go to 47. But you can spend a little bit. It's like real life. It's like budgeting your budget in real life. If you know, I'm going to save money, I'm going to buy everything at Costco. Well, that gives me a little bit of extra money to go on vacation with my family. You know, something like that. And if you think about the auction that way and you really know what everything's going to cost. I don't like, I don't like programming in the numbers. I'm going to spend this much on this player. I'm going to spend on this player. I'm on the. this position. I'm going to spend this much on that position. I don't like that because it actually blocks me from finding values in other spots. Okay. That's that's my point of view. And I look for

those those really cheap options like last year's second base. There's a lot of cheap options at the back that I liked. Ariel, I want to throw this back to you because I know last year, there were corner infielders, the so-called boring corner infielder is that you were all over that you know, you mentioned these guys are going to go for a buck and they were Joey Votto and they were Eduardo Escobar and you were all over these guys and I, you know, I wanted to give you credit for that. But knowing where you're going to get that excess value later on, or I guess even early in your auction, salary cap draft, if you throw those guys out early, then it allows you to maybe spend over a little bit, you know, if there's inflation within your salary cap draft, which I think

happens in most drafts. People just don't really talk about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, it goes back to what Ian is saying, and you have to know the player pool. And if you know that there's going to be a bunch of corner infield bargains at two, three, four dollars, then you probably don't want to get two top corner infielders because you're going to, sure, you can get those, but then you won't get those great bargains at the bottom. So you make the most money if you know, I'm going to get the bargains later, and then you do that. But as far as throwing out nominations early, and I call it the Joey Votto nomination because, you know, I thought Joey Votto was going to be a $8, $10 player this year, right? And I really didn't want him per se. I wanted to get some

guys in the middle. I had Jose Obray, I'd Pete Alonzo that I had great values for. I would love to get Joe Evato for a dollar or two, but I also didn't want anybody else to get that bargain. And if you waited to nominate him until the end of the auction, then somebody would have gotten him for $1.2. And, oh, no, that's an $8 profit. So what you do is, you nominate him early. And if somebody's nominated early, it's going to go one, two, three, four, five. You just collapse the return on investment. Now, an $8 player only makes

$3 over five instead of making $7 over one. And just by the order of nomination, you'll still get your players, but you'll collapse that return investment for somebody else. And by the way, that's one less corner infielder for somebody else to get, makes you more likely to get

your guy in the middle. So that's just a great nomination tactic that I do. Yeah, and I do think, you know, if people are wondering how do I figure out these these values, right? Salary cap values, auction values. Fancrafts has a fantastic tool where if you hover over their projections tab, they have an auction calculator on the bottom. Once you click on that, you can do it for Roto, you can do it for a points league, you can punch in any kind of stats that you have, any kind of point values for players, and then you click generate projections, you could use steamer or once the ATC projections are out,

you can use those projections, any projections you want, and it will spit out dollar values based on what that player is projected to do this upcoming season. So you could do it that way. I'm sure people post their auction values that you can find ours over on CBSSports.com as well. So those are just some ways to find out how much a player is worth. So you want to know that going into your salary cap draft. Ian, I wanted to ask you about an ideal split.

Do you have a split in terms of pitching versus hitting that you know going into your draft that you want to spend? People often bring up this 70-30 split in favor of hitting. In Roto, you start 14 hitters, you start nine pitchers, which means hitters take up roughly 61% of your roster. However, there are five pitching categories, and there are five hitting categories. So why not 50-50?

Well, it's not 50-50. Yeah. But I'll tell you this. In past years, I've always kind of leaned more heavily towards pitching. but in the NFBC draft champions that have already done, I've already done one with Robert Mershack, who is my partner in many leagues, Dynasty leagues and GDD,

we partner in many leagues. And we did a 400. And what I've noticed about how I feel about it, and I think it's different than most people, is I don't want to spend on any of the top pitchers this year. I just don't, I don't like anybody's price. The only person whose price I kind of like is Brandon Woodruff at like 17.

I like Woodruff at 17. 16, 17, that's it. Everyone else makes me nervous. So, I mean, literally, I go down the list. And I'm like, I don't want that guy. I don't want that guy. The first guy that we took this year in the seventh round was Luis Castillo. And we were on the wheel.

So we took Luis Castillo. It's a seventh round 15th pick. And then Frankie Montas, maybe it was fifth and sixth. No, I don't remember. It was, but it was at the wheel. So I don't know. Would you guess it was because. No, it was probably fifth and sixth is where we took them.

Yeah, I think based on early 80P, it's probably fifth and sixth. Yeah. So that's where we took. And I didn't want to touch anybody earlier. So based on that from a draft perspective, I'm thinking hitting more, hitting higher, pitching less this year. I just think pitching back to the old school 2015 conversations. Pitching is very risky.

You know, I mean, people are spending $55 on Garrett Cole. And then Garrett Cole, the sticky stuff goes away. I'm not blaming it on this. then all of a sudden he's not as dominant as he was. So you can't count on that. I mean, Corbyn Byrvin Burns sure was dominant, but how much are you going to trust that? So at least for me, for this year,

my split's going to be probably a little closer to the 70-30, I think, than I've been in a very long time. Yeah. Can I answer this one? Go ahead, Ariel. Yeah, because I have a really, my explanation is as follows. The answer is that it actually doesn't matter what you think the split should theoretically be there is no theoretically this is an auction it's a marketplace you know if i thought

that every single pitcher was overvalued and every single hitter was undervalued it just means that i didn't have the right hitter pitcher split um let me give you the exaggerated case let's say everybody in the league for some wild reason thought it should be 9010 hitters and i thought it was 65 35 and we've seen that actually we've seen that in the tout wars head to head A couple of years back, probably the year before you came, Frank, the point structure was so wildly messed up that people were spending all their money on hitting or all one year and then the second year, all their money on pitching. Sorry, Ariel. Continue. So that does happen from time and time.

Yeah. Now, points league, points league, it could theoretically happen a little bit more because it's more points. But in a roto league, and that's what most people do auction in, in a rotel league, you got five hitting categories, five pitching categories. If you actually say, I'm going to come in with 65, 35, or whatever you. think the real answer is and everybody else does 9010, it's going to happen is they're all going to buy the hitting. You're going to have terrible hitting. You're going to have fantastic pitching because they are spending 10 percent and you're going to get all the points in hitting and none of the points in pitching. You end up with an average team. The answer is it doesn't really

matter what you think. It matters what the market thinks. And you should initially base your dollar amounts that you're targeting and set them so that optically, right, it's an optic. optically, you're indifferent to getting bargains or not. You want there to be some bargains and hitting available, some bargains and pitching available. I always say that when you come to it, if you misestimated, if everybody is thinking pitching is more and everybody has starting pitching $6 over, I'm okay with spending $2 more. That's not a number, that's not throwing away value that I'm $2 over my value. I see that as a minus four to what market's doing. But of course, if you originally set the hitting pitcher split a little bit better, you'll actually view it as,

oh, they're $2 over on one player, and there's a pitcher that's $1 under that's a bargain. Oh, there's a bargain. So it really doesn't matter what you think originally. You just want to make the optic good. And so for that reason, it's set whatever the market is. NFBC uses $6.138. That's what I would use. Hold on.

But at the same time, that's when you have, but this is sort of a base level is I think what the question is asking. It's like, and for me, this particular season, if we, if we say a first round player is worth, top first round players worth 38 to $30 to $41. And, you know, back of the first round is $32. And second round is $26. And third round is, you know, 25. You know, going, going all the way down.

That's why that answer, that's how that answer came from me. And I think it's a fair question that Frank's asking. though. Outside of what you're saying, because what you're saying is right, and you have to be, and that's part of what I was talking about, about staying like, uh, no, so, so, no, no, but there's a difference, Ian. So you're distributing, your idea is to distribute the pitching differently. Instead of going top heavy and then having some guys on the bottom, you're deciding to spread the pitching in the middle, but there's going to be a total aggregate value of pitching. And you're still going to want to get to that. And that's still going to want to be close to what

the market does. So you can, you can, you can, you can, can value pitchers to the market and still say, I don't want the top guys, they're too risky. I'm going to go for the middle guys. But set your actual starting amount towards the market, is what I'm saying. I think essentially what you guys are saying is kind of similar because, Ian, you're saying that you kind of base what this split, this theoretical split should look like based on what this season's player pool, how the season's player pool is playing out, basically. And right now it looks like there is. is a wealth of pitching.

More so in the middle class than we've seen in many years. So it goes very deep in terms of like 60, 70, 80 starting pitchers that might actually be serviceable. Whereas in years past when we had the bouncy ball, the elite were so much better than the middle class

that you wanted maybe one or two of those aces. And Ariel, what you're saying is basically to set the split to what the market is. And if that's what the market, also, but he's also, he's also playing, he's, he, he, this is high theory stuff. Right. That's my argument is that for, for, for this show, just let me finish the thought.

That it's, it's, it's just pretty high theory stuff that you're sharing that it's going to require. Okay. I mean, just us talking salary cap is, is awesome. And I think people should try to get in as many auction salary cap leagues as they can. But it's just, you're, you know, you're talking like Caspar off chess at this point. So you're like, you know, when they do this, we do this. It's like, you know, I'm trying to. All right.

So, I'll, I'll say one other difference, though. I'm talking about what you should set your, prices when you're looking at it on a sheet. What you're doing is saying, given that's true, I want to tilt and spend a little bit more. So you might be saying, I'm going to spend 70-30, but what I'm saying is on your sheet, you should look at it as 62, 38, what the market does. And that's okay. Like when I actually bid, I say, you know what, I'm not that good in pitching, let's say.

So I'm going to buy more pitching just because I'm a better hitter evaluator. And so I'm going to give a little bit more umph. It's okay to veer off of it for what you buy, but I'm talking more about what you should put on your sheet to start you as a base. And maybe you're right about that because for me, in GD. D.L. I mean, I seem to be able to pick the pitchers. And so for me, I'm finding myself light on power sometimes. And so I'm going to make an adjustment for that. I'm light on average. So, you know, I can pick the pitchers. So I trust myself to pick the pitching and finding those, the Robbie Ray's of last year, the, you know,

the Frankie Montas is last year. Those guys anchored me in A.L. Labor. But, you know, whereas, and well, everything anchored in a labor. So that that wasn't the issue. But in other leagues where GDD, where I just didn't have the firepower on the bat side. And so I guess I'm making an adjustment for that. It's something that we do. You know,

we're like, well, you know, maybe I need to bring a little bit more of the bats. Bring some bets. There you go, the different kind of impression. Again,

if anyone's wondering, like, what are we talking about when in terms of like a sheet that you're putting a split on, there's a lot of draft softwares out there where you punch in the players while your salary cap draft, your auction is going on.

and they need to know what you want that split to be. So it's 62.38 in favor of hitting, obviously, 65, 35, whatever you want it to be. That's ultimately what we're talking about. So just keep that in mind in case you're trying to dive a little bit deeper into this format, this upcoming season. I just want to wrap this up, this conversation on salary cap drafts with. Do you have a general approach? I know we spoke about like players, you know, targeting players and how much you prep beforehand. But Ariel, we'll start with you.

And it seems like I've learned this from both of you guys. Again, super smart players. I saw how Ian won in GDD, which is a 15-team rotodraft that we do together. And then I saw how Ariel won Tau Wars. And I noticed that you guys weren't spending on big-name players. So I'm not trying to, you know, reveal your strategy. But sorry, guys. I just revealed your strategy.

You're getting, Ariel Cohen wrote an article about my auction strategy. my, that was actually, that was what we began. He was, he wrote a freaking article about it. That way, I forgot about that until just now. I forgot that you did that, Ariel. So I always, I always noticed that you guys, typically, you don't spend more than 30 to 35 players on one player. And you like to live in the mid tier. And that's exactly what I did this past year.

And it worked. So Ariel, if you'd like to elaborate more on that strategy. Yeah. I mean, the truth is I come into every single auction, not thinking I'm going to do that. I'm thinking that I'm going to have the ability to play in every price tier. If I'm going to the jewelry store and I got to buy 23 items, I don't want to just buy middle or I don't want to say I'm just going to buy top. I want to say I want to buy the nice item from the diamond section,

a great item from the gold, an undervalued item from the silver, and I'll get a bunch of sterling silver items that are just better than what their price is. I come in there. What happens is a lot of times, especially in shallow leagues, guys go nuts. They go $10 over on top. And where I think Juan Soto is worth 42, they're going $51. There's no way that you can ever make up a $10 loss at the top at the bottom. When you get your dollar players at the bottom, they're worth six or they're worth seven.

There's no way you can make up that 10. So if you think about it, if everybody's doing that, then you're going to end up being better if you go in the middle. And by the way, when I went into labor this year, which I came in third place, I think, but like a point out of first. I did the opposite. I actually was very aggressive early on. I got a bunch of high 20s, a 30-something dollar player. And that's because people didn't go that high.

I thought there was some $35 players, and I took them for $36 or $1 over. Heck, I'll make up that on the bottom. So it really depends on very early on in the auction, how fierce the intensity is. And if you think that things are going just a dollar. two over, you pounce on it and you take those high dollars and you'll get the dollar picks at the end. But if you see that they're crazy at the top, you have to have the patience and the real fierce stability to say, I'm just going to sit it out.

And Tower Wars this year was so extreme that I think I have like one or two players over 20 and then 16, 17, 15, 15, 15. And it's just where the value was. The value was in the middle. And in labor, the value was at the top. So you got to be flexible. and you got to see where the bargains are. That's what I can say.

It's such a unique format too in that way, Ariel, because while you want to be aggressive early, obviously you have to do it within your price restraints. You also need to be patient, too. So it's just so unique in that way. Because I remember at the first intermission that we had during this draft, I think I had one or two players. Same here.

You know, everyone's looking around like, all right, well, you know, it's Frank and Ariel going to buy anybody. and I, you know, I had the players. And then you ended up as the, as the champion in the second place. Yeah. And we. So let me, there's a psychology to it. Right.

I look at it from as a trained actor for many years. There's a feeling that happens when the draft starts. Everybody's psyched. They've been waiting. They've been working on this. They can't wait to go. Let's go. Let's go.

Come on. I can't wait. And the players start showing up. And people are going to bid. They want to, they want to get a player. And they've got a guy they want. And you're going to see that number. I think that's probably where it comes from.

Same thing with me. Like my buying Shane Bieber for $35 last year is very out of character for me. But it was such a good value that I was like, I'm in. Somebody's going to come over the top of me for sure. But I think that that's psychology. If you can be wise enough as you're in the beginning of a draft, whoever you're playing with, who you're playing the industry guys,

you're just playing with your friends and you get 12 other, 14 other guys. And you can say, wow, everyone's going nuts. Don't get caught up in it. So much of life is about not getting caught up in whatever the energy.

is that's happening. So if you can find your way not to get caught up with it, go, I'm not paying 52 for Juan Soto. And then, oh, okay, there's, you know, this not so sexy player who now is like $8 below. Yeah, I want that. Like, if that's what you go into the draft looking to do is finding as many of those guys as you possibly can, you're going to really do well. Yeah. And you'll be high. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, just about that, I think that, you know, knowing the players and knowing the stats and is great, but there's an extra element in the salary cap in the auction where it's playing the economics of the room,

is not getting caught up and having the patience. And that's the extra element that has nothing to do with the players. It's just knowing when to strike. And that's really, I'm not going to say more important, but it's almost as important to getting that correct. Yeah, I actually, look, Ariel and I have these battles. I mean, we don't just talk on podcasts.

We talk on the phone. And we go back and forth and, you know, the question is, what's more important? Is it knowing the players or knowing the value? And I definitely think it's both. And Ariel's like, it's the values, dude. It's just, it really is about the values. I mean, he told me that, I mean, I don't know how your fantasy football team ended up doing. But he's like, I don't know anything about football.

And I'm able to use this same method and win every fantasy football league I'm in. Well, I had Derek Henry this year. So you can tell how that went sour quickly. I don't know how that. I don't follow the fantasy football, which gives me more time to focus on fantasy baseball. But I do think that having that understanding of value really does give you a huge advantage. And it's, it's, okay, so here's what I'll say. It's not as much fun and it's much more fun.

It's both because it's not, you don't get like, okay, I want Joey Gallo. I want John, let me pick somebody. I want Aaron Judge. I love Aaron Judge. See that? Love him. Love him. I want Aaron Judge.

So I'm going to have Aaron Judge on my team. Now, the advantage that the three of us have is that we don't just have one fantasy baseball team. And, you know, for a lot of people who are listening to the show, they might just have the one fantasy baseball team. And there's something to be said for paying a little extra for that guy that you want to have and you want to root for. I actually do believe that that should be part of your thing. But if you're playing in multiple leagues, you shouldn't be worried about that because everyone will eventually. You'll get everyone that you want eventually. And, you know, do a couple of 100, you know, do some best balls to $10 best balls to $10 best balls.

to get guys that you want to have. But really, the fun of looking at your team at the end and saying, I got $320 worth of value for my $260, that'll be more fun because at the end of the season, you're going to be either in first, second, or third place. And that's a lot more fun. It's a lot more fun to have the fun of the season

than it is to have the, hey, I got my guy on the draft night. I said we were going to wrap up with that. Let's actually wrap up with this. I think something that is overlooked. And again, like we could probably talk about this for the next 30 minutes. But the nomination and the bidding process is such a huge part of this as well.

And it's like probably more psychological than anything that I would say. So Ian, we'll start with you. I mean, do you have a rigid idea of what you're trying to do? Are you throwing out big name players that you know are going to go for a lot of money to get money off the table

so that there's more money for the players that you actually want to acquire? Do you mix it up? Do you maybe throw some players out there that you do want to try and keep people off balance. How do you do it? I'll give an example. And then I'm going to pass this on to REL because this is like right in his wheelhouse. This is right in his hot spot, right in his hot spot. I made a move in GDD this past year that had, which kind of shows that I kind of didn't do great,

even though I think when I fourth I finished the season, fifth, fourth, something. Yeah, fourth. Fourth, yeah, fourth. Out of 15, not terrible, good league. I decided that it's a day, it was a, it's a daily league, which is insane. And I decided that. I decided that. I was going to get Shoah O'Tani, who I had almost everywhere last year, except for AOL labor. I didn't have him, which is crazy. But I had him almost everywhere else. And I was determined to get him in GDD because the value of being able to use him in both slots as a hitter every day. And then as a pitcher, I said he's going to be a $30 hitter and he could be a $25 pitcher.

Well, he wasn't quite a $25 pitcher. But I was intentional, I was going to get him. So what did I do? And Ariel was like, why did you do that? And I almost did the impression, but I didn't do it. What I did was I put out DHS every time. My first six nominations were all DHS because there are certain players who like having DHS and there's certain players who don't. And I wanted to get all the guys that would take the Fran Mo Reyes's, the Nelson Cruz's, the Jean-Carlo stands.

I wanted them on a team. So those guys like Glenn Colton, he's going to take a D.H. He wants the bats. There are a bunch of guys who like Jason Collette, he's always going to take a D.H. there's a guys who and I'm going to play to those guys. So I put all those guys out every time I had an every time it was it was me and I was saving money for Otani because I was going to spend up to $35 for Otani. And I was telling Robert Mershack about this before and he's like, you're crazy.

He didn't say you're crazy that it's not going to be worth 35. It's like I'm willing to go to $40 on Otani. So I need to save that money for him at the end of the auction. So we get everybody out of the way. Everyone's got their DHS. Then there's some people who don't want a D.H because they're like, if I have a D. then it's going to make life hard for me later. So I waited until after the first break and I was like, okay, now.

And I dropped Otani. And Ariel and Derek Carty, who were teamed up, had, they had their DH spot available. And I just casually put them out for a buck. Two, three, four, five, six, seven. You know, it was light. It wasn't heavy. And then it got to $14. And I bid $15.

I was like, okay. And that was it. And I got Otani for $15. So everything that I had done, that entire auction was for that purpose. And I guess what I would say is I hand it off to Ariel where he's a master at this is I would say to do things with intention. You should always be doing something with your auction strategy. And Ariel is the best at describing this. So I will pass it off to him.

Well, thanks for that glowing girl recommendation there. You should have gone to 60. You should have gone to 16, Ariel. Yeah. I mean, we thought the number was 17. So, you know, we wanted to more than. I was going to. Knowing that, I should have gone to 38. But, you know.

Go ahead. No, but really. Ariel is the best at explaining this. Well, thank you. Yeah, I mean, in general, nominations are power. And having information is there. And I think, I mean, I do an hour at first pitch about why nominations are important. But just to give you a couple of tidbits, why, I talked about the Joey Votto thing, right?

That got money off the board and then that got some things there. here's the story. If you are in a position where you don't know which player is going to be a bigger bargain, let's say there's two $15 players, Michael Conforto, Michael Brantley. You don't know which is going to be the bigger bargain. You suspect Conforto is going to be the bigger bargain, but you think Brantley is going to be a bargain. If you don't use your nomination to throw out Conforto first thinking it's a bigger bargain, and then somebody nominates Brantley, well, you just don't have the information to know,

What if I only get a dollar or two bargain? Should I take it? Should I wait for Conforto? You don't know. You're better off nominating the guy you want. If you lose them, okay, they're still Brantley available at a bargain. Or you might get a bigger bargain, right? Knowing your information is far more important.

And getting that information is more important than anything. The only thing I would say is that if you have just bought a lot of players and you're lower on money, you do want to throw out people you don't want that are high price to get money off board. Because essentially, just as I talked about with the jewelry store, you want to play in every category, if you have far less money than everybody else and you've got to save money, you won't be able to bid in the next 10 players. So you don't want that. You want to have an equal propensity to buy anything at any point in the auction. And if anybody comes up, be ready. So you want to stay somewhat in the middle with your money. In that case, you should throw out somebody that

you don't want. But in general, you should try to throw out the guys that you need information for. Now, you don't want to do this every single time. Give it away, but two to one, three to one ratio, you know, some kind of thing to keep people honest, but in general, you want, you want more. Of course, in the first round, if you think everything's hot, throughout somebody who you think is overpriced, because you're not going to bid that high price, sure. But I mean, in labor this year, I got out Tim Anderson, and I put him up at $16. I thought he was worth $20 something. But I put him out before Boba Schett, before Trevor Story, before any of the other short stops,

because I, nobody wanted, Tim Anderson, they can get, oh, my God, a better one. So I thought I can get the best bargain by throwing him out early. And I did that. And I got him for like $17 or so. I did the same thing with Tim Anderson in A.L. Labor. And I got him for 30 bucks. And he was a key to what happened for me.

And it's because you use the nomination to get. Because it was before, like you said, it was because it was before Bichette. It was before all these other guys. And people, and then, so what happens is people, the price is getting closer to what the number was. Was it 30? I think I did. I paid 30.

Those are my two big buyers was Jose Ramirez for 39 and Tim Anderson for 30. And they were the key. They were the base of the team. But what I just did just to tie down what Ariel is saying, the other guys thought to themselves, well, I don't want to go to 31 because I can get Bichette maybe for 34. And I kind of want Bichet more. And Bichet was worth more. But then you get that value. So putting out a guy that you do like earlier, it does, it's valuable.

It makes it, it, it's really interesting. It's really fun. It's really fun. Yeah. Especially when it's a player that's within a tier, that group that you're talking about, like Tim Anderson and Boba Chet, and, you know, let's just say this group of second or third round short stops. If you throw out the player maybe that you like most of that group before all the other players

come out, you might even get that player at a, at a discount, at a bar. So yeah. And to add to that, when you acquire Tim Anderson, it's supply and demand. What happens to the other prices of the other guys? They shoot up because there's one less shortstop and now it's a bigger demand. They go for more. So you accomplish two things. You get your guy at the bargain and everybody else got to pay a dollar to more.

It's that's just the way to play the game, the economics. Let's wrap up our salary cab discussion there. We're going to take a quick break. But just quickly, I want to remind everyone, you can now rate podcasts on Spotify. So if you listen to Fantasy Baseball today or Fantasy Baseball Today in Five on Spotify, please feel free to hook us up with five stars there. We're going to take a quick break when we return.

Let's talk about Jacob de Grom a little bit more here on Fantasy Baseball today. All right, so Jacob de Grom, the very interesting case of Jacob de Grom right now. Ariel and I went out to lunch recently, very gracious, took me out because we're celebrating Tate Wars, obviously, and the holidays and stuff, but it was a lot of fun. And we started talking about, like, how do you value Jacob de Grom right now? because he's so interesting. He is the eighth starting pitcher

off the board right now. Technically seventh starting pitcher off the board right now. ADP of 22.7. And he has just this wide range of outcomes because we know that if he stays healthy for 160 plus innings, he's very likely going to finish as the SP1 in fantasy baseball.

The other side of that is he can make five starts and be done for the season. Just look at all the injuries that he's dealt with. Over the past two seasons, neck injury, lat, back, shoulder, forearm, elbow issues, eventually shut down with UCL inflammation.

He's 33 years old. It's not promising. Like, you know, there's serious risk when drafting Jacob deGrom where he is right now. He is currently projected for 152 innings by Steamer and projects as a $455 pitcher in a 12-team Rodeleague. Ariel, what do we do? How do we value Jacob DeGrom right now knowing what we know? Well, 152 innings, oh boy.

I don't know if I would, I mean, you want to buy to a certain innings projection there. And I don't know, at 152 innings, I'm not that confident. I mean, the real way to do it is to say, you know, what's his value at 200 innings, what's his value at 170, what's his value at 140, what's his value at zero? And what's the probabilities of that? And, you know, you look at that. And then it's about pricing in the risk. When you're buying somebody with a lot of risk, you need to risk-adjusted price.

and you've got to take a few dollars off. I think he's comparable. And, you know, I'll throw this one out. It's called binary risk. Let's say you're in an AL-only league, 12-team A-L-only league. And Kenley-Janson comes up. Kenley-Janson has not signed with a team. We think that he's the closer wherever he signs.

So maybe he's an $20 closer just to give a round number. But if he signs in an AL league, he's 20. if he signs an NL team, he'd be worth zero. The question is, what would you pay for him in an AL-only league? If you say $10, that might be true in the long run, you know, but in a short season, when you need one season worth and it's 20 or zero, you can't just pay the average. You need to get a risk discount on that.

And I calculated with a standard deviation. It's a lot. It's a $3-4 discount. You need to pay only like around $5, $6 to roster a $3. $20 player with that much risk. I think the same is true for DeGrum. I think that you need to bake in another $5 off of whatever price it is. And if the price comes up that he's $25 on average with the innings, you need to buy

him only a 20, which means that you ain't getting to Grum this year. The only thing I'd also say that came up, I was talking to Ron Chandler on my show, you're going to see in home leagues DeGrum is going to be priced a lot lower than he is in the NFBC. And the reason is that in the NFBC, there's a lot of power drafters who they don't just have one or two leagues that they're in. They've got 10 or 15 teams league, 10 or 15 leagues that they're in. And they're going to say, just like Ian said, well, I'm going to draft this or you know what? I'll take a shout at DeGrum here. I want my DeGrum share. I'm going to have one team with DeGrum. And the thing is that if half your league in the NFBC or power drafters, somebody is

going to say, I'll pay more. And that'll be my share of DeGrum. So that's going to push up his price in the NFBC with the power drafters, but he will be a little bit lower in the home league. So I think that you have a better chance of getting a better price in a home league than you would in a more competitive league for that reason.

Don't be scared by the standard deviation of what he said. Don't get scared about it. If you're listening home, don't, don't be nervous. Like if you hear everything else, the standard deviation makes you a little nervous. Everything else makes a lot of sense. Just stick with, you know, stick with a train of thought. If we just go based on the ADP right now,

It's 22.7 for Jacob de Grom. So if you play in a 12-team league, that's a late second round. Or if you play in a 15-teamor, that's the middle of the second round. So normally, I think that would price out as a $30 player, you know, somewhere in that, like, 30-to-35 range. And based on what R.L just said, you need to bake in more risk than that. You need to get a discount based on that. So if you haven't priced as a $30 player based on his ADP right now, then you need to tell yourself, all right, I'm not spending more than $25 on Jacob de Grom.

based on the risk associated with him, which means they're probably not going to wind up with Jacob de Grom. Wait, you know what? I'm going to say one thing, though. I want to add in one thing. Because it didn't occur to me to have De Grum. You call him De Grum, right? Is that what you call him?

De Grum. Is that what I'm saying? No, no, no. That's Aurel. He calls him Jacob De Grum. How do you say? I think I say Degrum. Maybe it's DeGrom.

I don't know. We don't like him in my family, by the way. All right. My wife took the, I mean you don't like him. Listen, my wife took the kids down to Mass Spring training. and he came over and can I have an autograph? And he would be like, no.

All right, but. Okay, okay, fine. With DeGrom. You don't like it. Okay, I understand. You should like, you're still a Mets fan. DeGrom. Okay, but here's my thing about DeGrom.

I just want to throw this out there if you don't mind. I'm going to throw this out. I'll say this. In a 15 team league, I'm not getting them anywhere. I'm just not. I'm not going to pay for him. I'm not going to take him in 23. It's why he's like one of the main things.

Like Wheeler, I guess at 25, 26. I guess I could be sort of suckered into that. If he falls to 26, 27, I could be suckered into Zach Wheeler. I hear enough, there's enough good stuff about Wheeler. But if it's a 12-team league, that might change my thinking a little bit on the risk assessment that I would give with him. Because in a 15-team league, if you lose $28 worth of value, you're screwed. I mean, you're not fully screwed, but it's hard to come back from. But with the 12-team, because the numbers are so, there's so many people are doing stars and scrubs, there really are a lot.

There's always guys in the waiver wire who are going to be good. Like always. There's always somebody on the wire who has every day at bats, who's in the rotation, who has his upside. I still wouldn't. He wouldn't be on my board in the first two rounds and a 15 team. But would he be on the board for me in the middle of the third round of a 12 team, somewhere around 30, 31, 32?

Maybe, maybe. I'm just putting that out there. He's not a conversation for me at 22, 23. Ariel, you're the numbers guy. Does that make sense what I'm saying there? Does that... Yeah, 100%. The shallower the league, the more you can take the risk because the replacement level of the waiver wire then becomes higher, certainly. I would say, though, that I think what you say is true in a draft, I think in an auction, it's not because his price will go up in an auction. Whereas in a draft, it probably won't as much.

Yeah, maybe. Exactly what you just said is why I've personally never wound up with Adelberto Mondesie, very polar. player in his own right, but much more likely to take him in a 12-team road a league than a 15-teamer because the replacement value. You know that this guy is going to miss time. And it's easier to make up that loss in a 12-team league versus a 15-team league. Who has more IL days this year? Mondi-or-Degrom. I'm always like anything involving the I-L, I'm going to say modesty. I'm going to say Mondesie on it. Well, I'm not going to bet on this this year. I'm not going to make a bet on it.

the one time where Mondesie makes sense to me right now. Actually, he makes sense in a number of different areas for me. But most especially in NFBC draft champions, if you're going for the overall championship, if you want to win the overall, that's the kind of play you got to make and you got a hit on it. And he's got to score with it. It's like if I'm going to play in the World Series of poker, I've got to take chances to get at a certain point. And if you're going to win the overall, not only do you have to be. great in around 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. You got to be great all the way through, but you got to hit on a

guy like that because what he does, let's say he did play 160 games. Sorry, that made me laugh just saying, but let's just say that he, he played it 160 games. He would steal you 65, 70 bases, I believe. Yeah. I mean, and because he's running that much, he won't play in that many games, but he really does have ridiculous fantasy baseball upside. Can I ask you guys a question about a player that is not on the list? Sure. I really am finding myself getting Jorge Mateo everywhere. Like, I want him. Is he still on the Orioles roster?

Yeah, yes, he is. And he, to me, he showed something last year in the four weeks that he was playing every day. And I can see him playing third base. I can see him being an Aldo Alberto Mondesi style difference maker in fantasy baseball. I'm pretty sure he's still with the Orioles. And if you're drafting. then you should target him at his current cost. It's 419.9.

So, I mean, can't do the math. There are a lot of guys. There are a lot of guys in that 419 area that are really cool and really fun. You've got to make a choice to get Mondesie there. I mean, not Monti. Mateo, thank you. Sorry. Mateo there.

You actually have to be conscious and make it say, you know what? I'm going to get him because somebody else is going to get him. And I just want to throw that out there. It's just a little under the radar guy that we're talking major pedigree. We were talking about a guy back in the day was going to be the next Billy Hamilton. Now, Billy Hamilton didn't turn out to be much. But if a guy can steal 45 bases for you that you're getting in the 22nd round, and that's what I did. We paired, I believe we paired Mondesie with Mateo in that draft.

So if we do lose the stolen bases from Mondesie, which we probably will, we do have that Mateo. And he could steal you 45 bases from the 20th round. The key is getting on base. And he had made some good adjustments to his strikeout. rate and it came way way down from previous. So if that can hold, that could be a good stolen base dart late. And he's got power. Yeah.

He's got power. According to Rosser Resource, he is still on the Orioles roster and he can play a little bit of infield. He can play some outfield. They have Rugnet O'Dore. Penciled in as their starting second baseman right now. So yeah. Or third base.

I mean, you know, that's a team that's growing. It's a perfect place for him. You could see him, I could see him. Who do they have a third base at roster resource right now? It's somebody like Kelvin. Is it still Kelvin Guadierrez? Kelvin Guadierrez, yep. Yeah, who looks like a great baseball player.

He really does. Looks like a great player. Just isn't yet a great player. But I can easily see Mateo taking that job. And again, I think, you know, I'm going to regret saying this in front of you two guys because I'm sure you're going to be bidding them up on me in GDD. But there's a guy that I'm putting my little finger on. Just saying, hey, Jorge Mateo.

Basically coming up with the end here, but I do want to get to some of these ADP battles. So we'll do a little rapid fire here. Real rapid. Real rapid, huh, Ian? Well, not because I want to get out, but just because, I mean, does it, go ahead. I'm sorry. I shouldn't. No, no, I don't know.

No, no, it's just, you know, ADP. It's like, but, but no, these are, these are good. But rapid is good. Rapid is good. You know, this guy or this guy. I like it. All right. So let's just start off with a few second basement here.

Jose Altuvae at 75.1. Jazz Chisholm at 75.9. And look, they're going right next to each other. Jose Al-Uv, they do very different things at this point. Obviously, Al-Tuvae will give you some power. the counting stat should be fine. He has a batting average. It's not going to hurt you. It'll help you a little bit. Jazz Chisholm, like, this is aggressive for me. I understand there's power, there's speed, there's lots of talent. I think he's still pretty raw. He also was not very good

over the final five months of the season. There's a book on this guy now. We just saw five months of a book on this guy that he didn't really know how to read. Yeah. So Ariel, we'll start with you. Jose Al Tuvae or Jazz Chishol at their current cost. I'll give you the short answer. It's Al-Tu-L-L-2. by a mile. I mean, Chisholm's profile is similar to Robbie Grossman, who you can get a pick 167. I think Chisholm, his strikeout rate 30% is ridiculously high. So we're talking a crappy average. Al-Tuve, a lead average. He's got plenty of power. I mean, this is like a $10 difference in Rota value for nothing in ADP. Ian, what is his home? Chis home. It's just how he says it. For me, it's Al-Tube, but I, I, On a number of these, like I'm going to make a choice, but I'm also going to say I wouldn't take either of these guys at this spot.

Sure. I would take Al Tuvae a little bit lower than this. I don't want to reach for Al Tuvae, but there's a value spot for Altuva. It's a little bit lower than this for me. It's so this is 75, I think you said. If he slips to 85, it's tough to let him go there. I would not, I would not touch Chisholm in this spot. Someone else will, and he may be the superstar stud of the superstar.

studs, but no, it's a pass for me. I could almost see Judge Chisholm back in the minors. It doesn't mean he's not going to have, there's a 15% chance that he could be an all-star. He could be the best second baseman in baseball. It's possible. He can explode. But I kind of like O'Neill Cruz 200 spots later as a, as a, it's just five months of not so good. That's a book.

That's, hey, he doesn't hit that. I don't know, I don't know what the specifics are, but there's a slider down in the, down in the lower half that he cannot handle that. that it's like uh... Kevin Bidgio from last year if whoever made the mistake it's the same mistake you know yeah

uh Jose Al Tubei it's funny you bring that up Ian he goes at the 5-6 turn my first DC we got him in the middle of the 6th round so I think it was pick 81 get a little bit of a discount on them there and yes we took them that's where you that's where you pay that's where you get them

all right next up I honestly just wanted an excuse to for Ariel to talk about Teosca Hernandez so his ADP is he's gonna call him Tioscar the ADP is 34.6 on Teasca Hernandez. He's going right next to Yerdan Alvarez. Ariel, which one would you rather have? I like both players, to be honest, but

Tiyoscar Hernandez is, to me, the winner. The stats he put, I mean, he was like the seventh or eighth best player in all of Roto last year. He's in that amazing, amazing Blue Jays lineup. He's, I mean, he's peaked late and I think he's still there. He even steals a couple, he'll still you a dozen days. He still 12. His numbers, if you look at Juan Soto, 2019,

it's the same profile as him. I've told people this. I would take Tioscar over Mike Trout this year. So I like him. Alvarez's fantastic. I think both are good prices, but I love Hernandez better. Yeah, Ariel said that while we were eating at lunch.

I almost spit out my food. I was like, wait, hold on, Teoscar Hernandez. We're talking about the same guy. Now, I like Teoscar Hernandez. It's just, it's crazy. It seems like people are devaluing Mike Trout quite a bit, and maybe that'll be the right call.

We've got some time before spring training rolls around. Ian, what do you think? Ariel Cohen and I had a good fight about Mike Trout about two weeks ago on the phone where I got him at 16 and he was like, I was almost going to do the impression. I'm not going to do it. And that's what we get over here. Anyway, you know, I love Jordan and Alvarez. I love, love that guy. He can hit.

Like, he's truly one of the best hitters there is, period. He seems healthy. I mean, he's just a beast. He's like a, he's like a different generation of hitter. I'm going to say Yorda Alpress. He's Nelson

Cruz by the way, right? I mean, he might, but I think he's even more unique in a way. His age, he's so young, so selective. I just think he's a,

I think he's an absolute monster, Yordana Alvarez. The only question is his knees. It could certainly creep up, back up on him. And the fact that he now has outfield eligibility, I love him.

So if I had, if I was going to choose one of the two, it's a, I mean, you know, but I love them. I love Yordon, so I'm going to say Yorna. Yeah. How about you, who did you take? And by the way, the nice thing about playing an auction is you can actually get both if you really

wanted, right? Yeah, that's right. Which is why auctions are so much more fun than drafts. There's just so much better. Hey, look, even if you play in a snake draft, I think if you're at, you know, the two, three turn, if you wanted to grab both of these guys, you could do that right now as well. For me, it's probably a cop-out answer. It is a cop-out answer. But in Roto, I would take Teoscar in a points league, I would take Yurdon-Alvarez. I still think that there is.

For sure. I think there's still a little bit of strikeout risk with Teasca Hernandez. I know he's lowered the strikeout rate each of the past three seasons. He's made phenomenal strides. It's been really fun to watch Teasca Hernandez becoming a player. Can I tell a quick dynasty story? Last year, right before the season, I was trying to get Otani everywhere before. I traded for in the two Dynasty leagues I was in, I'm in.

I traded for Otani last year in the off season because I was like, there's no better time to buy him. Because he's coming off the arm injury. He wasn't hitting. I was like, I'm just getting Otani everywhere. And I traded Tiosker Hernandez straight up for Otani in one league and felt like just a king. And now it's like the other guy's like, hey, I got to Oscar Hernandez. And so, you know, there's value there. The other one, I think we traded Rob Mershack and I traded Tommy Edmund for, it was Tommy Edmund and Lioti Tavares for Otani in a dynasty league.

Oh, geez. I think there was another piece. there had to be another piece but it wasn't it was mostly Tommy Edmund and they had to convince you right no no I was quite happy but that was back when Otani

was that here's the one thing I want to say about dynasties leagues because we're not talking about them and we should because I love dynasty leagues and that's really my game that I love the most just please like wherever we're talking about value and auction leagues and value in draft please get value in dynasty leagues just get value it is value to be had.

Go get the guy. Don't go trade for T. Oscar Hernandez right now. That's not who you trade for. You don't trade for Mike Klovenger now. You traded for him then. You traded for Sindergaard last year. You don't trade for him now. You know, like go get value.

There's always value to be had. Like a guy that I'm trying to get is Tyler Glass now, man. I want Tyler Glass now in every Dynasty League right now. There's no better time to buy him. Anyway, I just want to throw that in there for dynasty lovers. No, that's totally fine. I have a feeling a lot of the people who are listening now, and they're probably diehard fantasy players,

and some of them might be dynasty players as well. Ian, I haven't asked you about this, but I know that you love Otani, so I'm just dying to know. Are you willing to pay the price tag this year? The ADP, it's right around pick eight.

We're talking about a mid-first round pick, someone that you have to use in your utility spot. No, no, no, no, no. You can't do it, no? No, I mean, the, yeah, love having them, but I don't want, I mean, No, I mean, eight.

I just can't. I mean, I bought them for 225 everywhere last year. Yeah. I bought him at 250. It's like Cedric Mullins. I'm not getting Cedric Mullins this year. I'm not getting Robbie Ray this year. Anybody who I got,

that ALABOR team I had that I love every member of that team. They will be on every one of my teams from now on. But I don't want to buy Cedric Mullins now for $30 when I got him for two. I don't want to buy Robbie Ray for $27 when I got him for four, you know? it's just the value is and I think that's a that's a weak spot in my game because I should try to be able to shake that off and say well if I can get such a moment's for 22 I'm going to get him for 22 but I'm not going to spend 28 29 for him if I can get a value on them I'll take him but no tani I'll let somebody else have the fun of it because I've got him elsewhere I've got

them in the dynasty leagues so it's you're paying a premium for the fun but the fun isn't so much fun when you're like do I start him as a pitcher or do I start him as a pitcher it's not fun it can be valuable. It can be valuable. Don't get me started, Ian. Don't get me started. I want to lead the charge in finding a way to get all of the value out of Otani in weekly leagues because it's very frustrating to me.

I had Otani in the main event. And this isn't, you know, calling out any kind of service provider because even at CBS, you know, we, you have to choose whether to use them as a hitter or a pitcher. And it's frustrating because, you know, you play in a league that deep and you need pitching and you're like, I can't take Otani out of my, my hitter spot. You just can't. You can if you've got a big lead in. I ended up using him in both of the dynasty leagues as a pitcher in all of August and September

because I had big leads and home runs in both of those. You can't plan for that though. No, you can't plan for that. It's so tough. If you're going to buy him, you're buying in a weekly league, you're buying purely his hitter value, right? That's correct. Yeah.

It's so frustrating about him, though, because you go out there and you watch him throw these awesome games where he's going six, seven, eight innings and double-digit strikeouts. But you can't, look, you can't buy off of those. Like I don't want to buy Otani. I don't want to, I don't want to buy guys on the up. You want to buy guys who are coming down, who are on the down. That's the danger. That's where people get, that's where people lose value is buying last year's

stats. And it gives me a little bit of concern about T. Oscar Hernandez, a little bit, a little bit, just a little bit. And why Trout at 16 makes sense to me? Because I'm buying him at the base of his value right now. I mean, now maybe next year we'll be on the same. same podcast right before the new year. It'll be Ariel, Ian, and Frank. And Ariel will say you can get Mike Trow now in the fifth round. He can get him in the fifth. He was available in the first last year.

And now he can get him in the fifth round. It only took us, 10 minutes. It only took us 70 minutes to get there. But we got there. We finally got there. And I think that's a good place to wrap everything up here. Again, it's Arno Cohen. It's Ian Khan. For Ariel, you know, we've had him on before. or probably have you on again, honestly, before the season starts, Ariel, to talk about your ATC projections. You can listen to him over at the Beat to Shift podcast. He writes for Fangraphs as well. Follow him on Twitter at ATCNY.

Ariel, we appreciate you coming on. Anything else that you'd like to promote while you're here? No, you got it. Thanks so much, Frank. Pleasure to talk to you twice this week. And it's a pleasure. Thank you so much. Ian, make sure you listen to Ian over at the Under the Radar podcast.

You can follow him on Twitter at Ian Confor. By the way, I probably should have mentioned this much earlier. I know that it's been a reference a few times. Ian is a very accomplished actor. So if you didn't know, then now you know. And you should go watch him, of course. He played General George Washington, intern Washington spies. Ian, appreciate you coming on.

Anything that you'd like to promote? That the show under the radar is under the Athletic Fantasy Baseball Network. Okay. The Athletic Fantasy Baseball podcast, and our line is under the radar. We talk about Frankie all the time. Ariel, I have, I do a regular impression of Ariel on the show that, and actually do do a conversation between George Washington, although I have had a, I did have a longer career before Washington as well. But it certainly would have known for it the most. But I do have a conversation between Ariel Cohen and George Washington.

We did four of those episodes over the course of the season. It's always fun. Ariel's become one of my closest friends in this industry for sure. and and great and Frankie man love you so proud of you for everything that you've been able to accomplish so thanks for having me on the CBS fantasy baseball today podcast I mean man this is when I first started listening when I first started playing in 2010 I listened to that show with Nando dafino Scott White and Al Milt Cooper and that was the that was the podcast so it's always you know it's always a little bit of a thrill when I get to be on your show so thanks for having me yeah 100% I appreciate those kind words man like it's it feels like

like every guest that we've had on recently, they say something similar to that. And it's still a really surreal experience for me, just, you know, 100% transparency. The fact that I'm here and I'm doing this, it's, it's awesome. And to have people like you guys on to talk to some of the best in the industry, that makes it all the more better as well. For Ariel and Ian, I'm Frank Decoe, for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again on Thursday. Bye-bye. Bye. Good time.