Fantasy Baseball Today - Schwarber to the Nats; What Happened in September? (1/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

Frank is back after a luxurious staycation, which involved binging TV shows and playing old video games. But enough of that, Kyle Schwarber signed a one-year deal with the Nationals (3:42)! What does this mean for his value? ... We hit on the rest of the news and notes, including Mize and Skubal competing for rotation spots, Tomoyuki Sugano heading back to Japan, and more (9:52). ... What were some of the things you may have missed in September (19:41)? Who is the real Luis Robert? ... What happened with Aaron Nola's control over his final three starts (25:14)? ... It was a tale of two seasons for Aaron Civale (28:34). Why are people still excited about him? ... How did Adalberto Mondesi turn around in September (34:25)? ... Was Frankie Montas' final start enough to buy back in (40:05)? ... Are we buying these late-season surprises (44:42)? Jared Walsh, John Means, Brady Singer, and Adbert Alzolay all showed out during September. ... Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive, center field, and swing. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank Scott, Chris, and Adam.

All right, let's do this. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Monday, January 11th. I'm back. Frank Stamphill here with Scott White, No Chris Towers, but he'll be back on tomorrow's pod. Scott, thank you so much for holding down the fort. You did a great job while I was away on a luxurious vacation, locked away in my apartment in New York,

binge watching Cobra Kai and the boys. I completed Donkey Kong Country One, the Super Nintendo video game. They remade it for the Nintendo Switch. So that's basically what I've been doing the entire week. Scott, have you played Donkey Kong Country One or watched either of those shows? Cobra Kai or The Voice. I have not watched either of those shows.

I kind of hoped you had binged Mandalorian like I did on my vacation, so we could have another conversation about that. But no, I haven't watched those two. Usually my approach to shows is to watch them, ideally in their last season, so I can kind of experience the finale with everybody, but I don't have to wait in between seasons. And, you know, failing that,

just wait till the show is completely over and just take it all in all at once. I feel like that's fairer to the person putting together the story, to not have your anticipation filling in so many gaps along the way. So no, I haven't watched either of those yet, but I'm interested in both. I hope to watch them someday. I have played the original Donkey Kong country before on Super Nintendo. Not a lot, but I've played it before. familiar. Oh man, that game stirred up angered in me that I did not know existed, Scott. So that was,

that was very fun. Cobra Kai was great. For someone who didn't live in the 80s, I am a sucker for 80s nostalgia. Stranger Things was great. Cobra Kai was really, really good too. So I just couldn't stop watching. And now, nostalgia for something you didn't experience. Exactly, right? But I always said that. I wished I was this age during the late 80s, early 90s. I was born. I was born in 1991. So again, I didn't really get to enjoy it, but so many great things were made, started in the 80s. So I kind of wish I lived through that. We could do a whole podcast on those things. But the people want fantasy baseball talk. I am pumped to be back. I genuinely missed being here. I missed you, Scott. So I'm happy to be back. But especially excited because January really marks

the transition for everybody into fantasy baseball. I see people. being more active on our Facebook group and people asking more questions and emailing us as well. So really excited to get into it. We do have a move that happened. We had Kyle Schwerberstein with the Nationals. We have a few other notes that we'll get to as well. But the main point of today's podcast will be what you miss in September while football was going on. So if you just finish fantasy football, yes, the playoffs are still going on, the NFL playoffs.

But you might be coming back. And you want a little refresher. What happened in the month of September? Scott wrote an awesome article, so we'll look over some of those things that happened there. We have a few dynasty questions that were emailed to us. Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. We'll get to those a little bit later on in the podcast as well. Kyle Schwerber signs a one-year $7 million deal with the Washington Nationals,

has an $11 million mutual option for 2022. Nationals manager Dave Martinez has indicated that the early expectation for the batting order will be Trey Turner leadoff Juan Soto batting second, Josh Bell batting third, Kyle Schwabertie batting fourth, cleanup spot, and Starling Castro

batting fifth. The ADP this time last year for Schwerber, 133. He was a top 150 pick. He was coming off of a top 20 outfielder season in both Roto and Head to Head Points in 2019. And then this past season didn't really live up to things.

Batting average plummeted, hit more ground balls, strikeouts, just a really, really streaky hitter. So what do you think about this, the signing in general, Scott, and the value for Kyle Schwerber? I mean, it's possible he bounces back. He's still in the prime of his career. 2019 was a career season, which is part of the reason he was targeted so high. He made, he improved his strikeout rate quite a bit in the second half of 2019 and ended up hitting 280 with a 997 OPS, 20 home runs in the second half of that year.

So a lot of momentum heading into 2020, and then he just fell flat on his face. The strikeout rate was back up. You know, went from a career best season to, I guess a career worse season. But still in the prime of his career, he's never been very good against left-handed pitchers. He was actually okay in 2019,

but historically has not been good and not a good defender in left field. So there's incentive beyond just those poor splits to take him out of the lineup from time to time. And so I'm not super high on him. I feel like, I feel like 2019 is going to end up being more of the exception than the rule. I don't mind him as a cheap source of power late. But I feel like, I feel like that he'll be at a playing time disadvantage.

And I feel like, you know, 250 is probably the high end of what he's going to hit, given his shortcomings. Yeah, it's Schwerber. I think we kind of know who he is at this point. He's a slugger, he can hit for power. In the middle of a, not a great lineup, I'll call it a pretty decent lineup. There's two superstars at the top of it, so there should be RBI opportunities for him. The one thing I noticed for Schwerber in 2020, this shortened season, first 36 games, he was pretty much normal Schwerber, 238 batting average, 857 OPS.

Ten homers was hitting the ball extremely hard, a 94 mile per hour average exit velocity during that time. Final 23 games, he hit just 101 with a 427 OPS. home run during that time period and the ground balls really just got out of control and he didn't hit the ball nearly as hard. So we know that he is very streaky and we should probably expect more of that but I think you're getting him at a pretty decent discount. The ADP as of now is 201 and I will point out for everyone who normally uses NFBC, you can continue to use that sorts if you want. The Fantasy Pro is ADP which lumps together RT Sports, NFBC and fan tracks is currently available.

And it will add more that it's factoring in as more data becomes available. I mean, I don't think there's been any, there's any draft results from our site, for instance, but it'll eventually be included

in the fantasy pros data. So yeah, I mean, we don't need to be totally NFBC focused here with that. I will say Kyle Schwerper said after signing this deal, I got this from MLB.com,

he says he needs to get back into his legs. and I love when players say things like that because it comes across like they think we're supposed to know what they mean get back into my legs. I assume that means he had some mechanical issues going on in 2020. That's what I'm going to interpret that as. But he's been in contact with the Nationals hitting coach Kevin Long. And, you know, it's 2020 was probably a fluke the other way,

but I don't really expect him to be as good as 2019 again either. Yeah, so I mentioned the ADP is 201. I really kind of like this range. Just going ahead of him, Jesse Winker, Andrew McCutcheon, Trey Mancini. Obviously, we've got to figure out what's going on with Trey Mancini. But as of now, everything has been positive

and it looks like he's going to be ready for spring training with the Baltimore Orioles. Scott, I mean, you see those four outfielders on the board. Mancini, McCutcheon, Winker, Schwerber. Where would you be leaning there? I would actually lean Mancini because, like, I'm all about upside late, and I think that's,

that's the upside. I mean, Trey Mancini's best season is the best of any of those players, right? You rattle the names off pretty quick, but I think that's true. McCutcheon, but we know McCutcheon's not going to get back

to the superstar he used to me. Right. Yeah, he's clearly post-prime. So Mancini, it's just does he come, does he bounce all the way back from dealing, it's colon cancer,

right, that he's coming back from? I believe so, yep. You know, pretty, went through some stuff last year, and it may have, it may have kind of depleted him physically some. We don't, we don't exactly know how he's going to come back

and, you know, I guess it's possible, as things stand now, he's supposed to be ready for spring training. I'll just put it that way. And if, if that's so,

and he looks, he looks 100%, he's clearly going to be the guy I want to draft here, and I think he'll be a huge discount. Yep, yep, I would agree with that.

I think his upside is the highest. We've seen that before, what he did back in 2019, Trey Mancini 291 batting average 35 homers in 899 OPS. He was fantastic, but I think there's, I think these are all pretty good value. So I think after Mancini, it depends what you need. McCutcheon, if you need a little bit of speed

and just an all-around player, that's fine. Schwerber is definitely going to give you power. If you look at just after him, there's not really great power sources after Schwerber here. So if you're just focused in on like 30 plus homers, This is probably one of the last bats that you're going to find that could do it in this range.

Some other news, specifically for the Detroit Tigers, I believe their GM, Alavila, had a press conference, Zoom call, so he answered a bunch of questions, said that Casey Mize

and Terrick Scouble will compete for a spot in the rotation. As of now, it looks like there's only one spot available. Matthew Boyd, Spencer Turnbull, Michael Fulmer, and Jose Urania are the first four

that can easily change if one of those guys is just super bad or, gets injured. So I guess that's something to follow. Matt Manning is expected to start in the minors. I think we kind of all expected that as well. And Willie Castro will be the team's starting shortstop.

He was actually one of the names that you wrote about in your article, Scott, about what people might have missed in September. And he was really good. He played 369 batting average, six home runs. He's going to be the starting shortstop for the Tigers. Anything to see there? Yeah, potentially. I mean, I think he overachieved.

I think the expected stats show as much. It's not like he was, you know, he was a prospect of some note coming up through the miners, but not somebody who was expected to put up the kind of numbers he did in a short, in a small sample last year. You know, the plate discipline's pretty bad. The hard hit rate. I mean, average exit velocity was bottom 6% of the league,

so he doesn't hit the ball especially hard. and yet he did have an expected batting average of 299, much lower than the 3.49 he actually hit. But I would imagine, I don't remember top of mind, but I would imagine that that must mean there's pretty good line drive tendencies there. And I think for Willie Castro, I could see him becoming,

being someone who delivers like the typical Gene Seguera season. I think that's what the upside is for him. Not those two seasons Gene Seguer. where he was a stud, not quite that high, but like the typical Gene Seguerra season where, you know, maybe 12 to 15 homers, 20 or so steals and a respectable batting average

with a low on base percentage, I think there's a chance Castro could be that. It could be worse than that. I don't think he's going to be much better than that. Yeah, and that would be a pretty damn good player. I mean, that would be a mixed roto league relevant middle infielder, for sure. And speaking on Willie Castro,

his in 2019 in AAA in the minor's 11 homer 17 steals so does have some of that power speed combination and yes he had a 26.9% line drive rate so that definitely helps with the babbit, the batting average and the expected batting average as well.

Japanese starting pitcher Tomo Yuki Sagano who some people were excited about will return to the Yomiuri Giants for the 2021 season. He has an opt out after next season as well. So this is probably something we're going to be following next year to see if he's posted and if teams are interested in him again, I assume that they will be. Former Angels clubhouse attendant, Brian Harkins, this is interesting. This is a story that people have been talking about all weekend. He named Garrett Cole, Max Scherzer, Adam Wainwright, among others. As players he supplied

ball-doctoring substances to prior to his firing last March, Scott, does this matter at all? I assume every pitcher in baseball is using something. That seems to be the assumption. I don't know. I had trouble getting outraged by this. I didn't see a lot of outrage by this. I think he's only putting it out there because he's hoping to, he's hoping to, I guess, get back in somebody's good graces

by exposing this scandal. but I just think, I just think people are, are, they've kind of met their limit on scandals. So I don't, I don't think much is going to happen with this. That probably seems like the wrong way to do it too, right? Blowing the whistle on people using substances, pitchers using substances while to help them gain spin rates or whatever it might be. I mean, there was a great article by Enosaris of The Athletic where he basically pointed out a bunch of pitchers and he had all different kinds of sources and, and people talking about how 99% of pictures in the MLB

are using some kind of substance right now. So it's really not surprising. I'm not really making anything out of this story. It's just whatever. I don't know if it was Enosaris or somebody who's a writer kind of like him raised the possibility

that maybe MLB should just introduce some kind of substance that's legal. Yep. He wrote about that in the article. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that way it doesn't have to be a controversy because, you know, it is a not having enough grip on the ball is a safety issue. Now, you know, pitchers use it because it makes them better to put more spin on their pitches. It's not just that, but it's like you want that you want pitchers to be able to grip the ball well.

And it's apparently they're not going to grip it so well if they don't have some kind of Ackey substance there to help them. Yeah, and then that goes back to the type of ball that they're using now as well. So there's a whole bunch of different factors in play here, but it's a talking point and we'll see what MLB does in regard to substances for pitchers.

The Orioles have talked to Jonathan VR about a potential reunion. Richie Martin is currently penciled in as their starting shortstop. So I think VR would be welcome there, especially from a fantasy perspective. VR's early ADP, is 126. That's about 80 spots later

than he was being drafted last year. Definitely would welcome him back to Baltimore. It's a good ballpark to hit in. Should help his power. And if he plays every day, I think that's all he really needs in order to... I mean, that's an idealist landing spot for him. One, we know that Park serves him well,

but two, I have him currently ranked like he's not going to be an everyday player, just because, I mean, he wasn't good enough to do it for the Marlins. So if he lands somewhere where he can't be, he would rocket up my rankings for sure.

Yep. Likewise, I haven't ranked really low, but it's hard to do anything more because we don't know where he's going to play as of now. Again, that's Jonathan VR. Met's president, Sandy Alderson, has, quote, made it clear that he is not comfortable with Dominic Smith as a left fielder. So we're rooting for you, DH in the National League. We'll continue to see what happens here. There's been really no update, Scott. So like, if the season started tomorrow, there's no DH in the National League, which means Dominic Smith is probably not playing all that much. much. I read an article recently from Jeff Zimmerman. He does mining the news over at Fangraphs where he kind of goes through all these different kind of articles and picks out fantasy relevant items. And there was an article recently that said, don't rule out the

possibility of Dom Smith and Pete Alonzo platooning at first base if there's no DH. I don't think we'll get that far, but that was the first time I ever even heard of that as a possibility, Scott. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of wasted. asset there. Like I feel like including those guys in a trade would be preferable to that. And you know what?

Like I don't have, you know, I only know what Sandy Alderson said. You know, he's not comfortable. I don't, maybe there's more context to that that would tell me more,

but not being comfortable with Dominic Smith and playing left field and not playing Dominic Smith and left field are two different things. So that's worth keeping in mind too. But yeah, it's, it's, I had hoped there would be more clarity after the Mets got rid of two infielders to get one back in that major deal with Cleveland. But it sounds like it's still, there's still reason to be anxious about that if you're investing in Dominic Smith or maybe Pete Lanzo, yeah.

Yeah, well, I think the national signing Kyle Schwerber means maybe they know something that we don't about the DH coming to the National League. If not, Shorework could just play left field. He's done it with the Cubs the past couple of seasons, but maybe they know something. Maybe I'm just reading into it, because I really want Tom Smith to be a thing. So let's see what happens with the National League, DH. I just want to quickly plug a few things.

Do you own a smart speaker? Maybe you got one for Christmas, whether it's an Alexa or a Google Home. You can listen to Fantasy Baseball today without lifting a finger. 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. And it's easy as that. Our Facebook group I mentioned is very active right now. I encourage you to get involved if you have a question or if you maybe want to help others up. You want to get involved in just some general discussion. There's a lot of dynasty questions being asked right now. So you can find that at Facebook.com slash groups

slash fantasy baseball today. And you may have realized last week, but for the rest of January, be producing four podcasts per week. Three of those are going to be fantasy baseball related with Scott, Chris. Chris will be on most of them and myself. You'll hear those Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. And then we'll have a bonus baseball podcast with our friends Danny Vietti and former Major League or Will Middlebrooks. They have great guests on every single week. Last week, they had Marcus Stroman on, actually. And maybe I'll clip out a segment of that because he was

talking about some new pitches that he's been working on and changing up his pitch mix. So that's something that could definitely be relevant for Marcus Stroman and fantasy baseball alike. Things you missed in September. A lot of people paying attention to fantasy football throughout September. And this is probably more relevant of an article and just an idea in general, Scott, over the course of a full season. I guess the fact that the baseball season was only two months means maybe people were still paying closer attention to baseball than they usually do.

But I thought it was good to just kind of, let's bring some back. let's bring some things up that we remember that happened and remind people here and kind of talk this out from a fantasy perspective. So we'll start off with some of the bad before we get to the good. But Luis Robert, I think, is going to be a really big talking point all offseason and leading up to drafts in March Scott because he was really good. I mean, he took the league by storm, looked like he was going to run away with the American League rookie of the year. It looks like maybe he's trending towards being a second, maybe even a first round pick for fantasy purposes. and then just completely crashed and burned in September.

So I guess remind people what you saw and what happened with Luis Robert. And are you comfortable with taking him, his ADP right now is 40? So 12-team league, I mean, that's the back end of the third, early fourth round. What do you think about Robert there?

Well, clearly that ADP, I assume you're getting that from fantasy pros or NFBC. Yeah, so fantasy pros, all those sources combined, ADP is 40 overall for Luis. Robert, those are the numbers you're citing because an FPC sells out pretty hard for upside generally. And so that would make sense for him to go that high. But either way, clearly that's a 5 by 5 ranking. And he is a player geared for 5 by 5 leaks right now because you can count on him for a healthy number of stolen bases.

But the play discipline is pretty horrid. 32.2% strikeout rate doesn't get much worse than that. stance to reason he ended up hitting 233. Actually, the expected batting average was 226. He definitely showed he can hit the ball hard. And like the power is going to translate. He's going to run a lot, which was one of the questions that we had about him coming into the season, given the White Sox history with some potential base dealers who didn't live up to it.

like the power speed is going to be there. Is he going to become a disciplined enough hitter to be respectable in batting average? I imagine he will someday, but in his first, what's going to be his first full season, I'm not going to invest. I'm not going to presume that

in where I draft him. I feel like 40, you're kind of presuming it at that point. I don't, I'd have to pull up my rankings to see exactly where I have him by comparison. But I think more like the 60 range than the 40 range seems appropriate. And again, just for that format,

it would be significantly lower in a points league. Yeah, the strikeouts are going to continue to be a massive issue. And you brought up something about the base dealing. I wonder now that Rick Ranteria is gone. And, you know, the past couple of seasons, we've wanted the White Sox to run more. And I think that they have players

who are talented enough and they're fast enough to go out and run. I wonder if they, you know, get the green light. Now with Tony Larissa, I did this whole thing. I looked into his previous history. The last five seasons he spent with the Cardinals, they really didn't run all that much.

They also did not really have, they didn't really have anybody who was all that fast, so I guess it comes down to your personnel. He also coached Ricky Henderson back in the early 90s with the A's, but of course, Ricky Henderson was a different beast in his own. So we'll see. Well, maybe, you know, the White Sox get the green light a little bit more. I mentioned that Jeffson,

article, the mining the news article that he put out recently over on fan graphs. And he pointed out that Luis Robert made a tough diving catch on September 5th. He was hit by a pitch on his tricep the next day. He didn't play September 7th, so he had the day off after getting hit by the pitch. But through September 5th, 38 games, Robert was batting 270, 11 home runs, 30% strikeout rate, and a 35% hard contact rate. when he returned his final 17 games, he hit 153,

zero extra base hits, his hard contact rate was 17%. Scott. It was cut in half. It went from 35% to 17%. So I do wonder if that played into, you know, the struggles down the stretch,

the fact that he was dealing with this injury. But it sounds like regardless, you're not going to pay that price. Like, I actually looked it up when you were talking. I have in 59th. Yes. About 60th,

I have in 59th and in rhodo, standard roto rankings. Would you take Luis Robert or Eloi Jimenez, his teammate? So I actually have, and I'm probably the minority here, but I actually have Eloi Jimenez four spots higher than Robert. I don't know if that's going to be the minority, because I have Eloy ahead of Robert as well.

Well, unless we're just both in the minority. But, I mean, they do things completely different. I said this before last season. I'm sticking to it. I think Eloy is eventually going to turn into this, this Nolan Aronado type in the outfield where just four categories stud. You know he's not going to give you any speed.

And I think we're working our way towards Eloy Jimenez being bad. So he won't give you any stolen bases, but I do prefer Eloy Jimenez over Luis Robert myself. Aaron Nola, his final three starts, Scott. 6.60 ERA, 1.80 Webb. Not great. Not really don't like to see that.

After a fantastic start to the season, those final three starts were pretty bad for Aaron Nola. And despite all this, I still have him ranked as my SP4 overall, Scott. I moved him just behind the big three. I'm not really worried about it. Really? Are you? Really? So you're even more, you have him ranked even more aggressively than I do.

And it seems like for a second straight year, the fantasy playing world is down on Aaronola beyond what I think they should be because I think he's pretty awesome. You know, last year he expanded his arsenal through his changeup, got a lot more comfortable with his changeup. became a much more effective pitch. It seemed to make all his pitches more effective in terms of missing bats. The control issues of 2019 more or less went away.

I think he just happened to hit a bump in the road there right at the end of the short season, and it skewed his numbers, which, I mean, it skewed it to a 328 ERA 108 whip, and he still had 12.1K per 9. So the numbers, as they were, were awesome. But if the season had ended three starts earlier for him, you know. He might be a first round pick. Probably not. But, but yeah, I mean, he might be early second.

Yeah. Yeah. So for, I mean, you mentioned he hit a bump in the road, final three starts. It was really the walks of Scott out of control during those three starts. He had a 6.60 ERA and six walks per night. So his first nine starts, that was just 2.1 walks per nine. So the walks did get out of control a little bit towards the, towards the end of the season there for Aranola. And it seems to be the only thing that troubles him at times.

It was the same thing in 2019. The walks were 3.5 per 9, and that was really the first time we ever saw them over 3.3. If he can just get back to his 2017, 2018, where he's in those mid-2s, Scott. I mean, two and a half walks per 9, especially. with the advancements that he's made in terms of swinging strike rate, 13% swinging strike rate in 2020 was by far a career best for him. You mentioned he changed up the pitchmakes a little bit. Yeah, I have no problem.

Once you get into that early mid-second round, if you want to take a starting pitcher, I will be looking at Aronola there. Even ahead of names like Darvish and Luis Castillo, who I have just ranked just behind him. So I don't mind him as a second round pick. Would you actually pull the trigger there? yeah i think

i wouldn't hesitate to do it i have g i have nola in my second round too i think i have lucas gilito in that same range uh i can pull it out and i got my rancies right here i have so i go well you didn't mention bower bowers my number four yeah i feel about bower be on you're not going to be deterred from being uh scared of power that's fine uh i got bower then darvish then nola then nola then Gialito all in the middle of the second round there. So yeah, there's a good chance I'll draft Nola of fair amount.

Another pitcher named Aaron or Aeron, Savale. His final six starts, man, remember, it was basically as soon as I made that proclamation here on the podcast got Aaron Savale over Tyler Glassnow, rest of season. I remember it like it was yesterday because as soon as I said that, Tyler Glass now became awesome and Aaron Savale became the opposite. Those final six starts, a 6.62 ERA, 1.68 whip. What did you see during those final six starts that people need to remember heading into the season? Well, I think they need to remember that he allows a lot of contact and it's not the kind of contact you want to allow. It's not a lot of ground balls.

You know, he's not really a big bat misser, and he's not a really big ground ball generator. And I feel like you need to be one or the other to be a reliable fantasy option. Like, he's not terrible at either, but he's not, he doesn't excel it either. So you get a 392-X-fip from him, a 4-11 Sierra. They were even worse in 2019.

And I just, I just think that's, pretty middle of the road. And I don't totally understand. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for him among fantasy analysts at large. I don't totally understand that. I think he's competent. I think he's solid. But you know, you're going to get some good and bad with him.

And I don't think he's going to be somebody who's going to put you over the top. I mean, even in terms of like the, the expected stats like XC like that that that's more like the XERA he was actually good at that in 2019 332 XERA last year was 439 and that's of course based on stat cast which is probability uh where the actual batted balls go whether they're going whether they should fall as a hit or not so you know he didn't even excel at that last year it was actually worse than that than than something like X-FIP that I usually cite so there's not a lot of, there's not a lot here for me to get excited about with Aaron Savali.

Yeah, so I was the Savali guy entering last season. I really liked what I saw in the first six starts. Um, I think the biggest difference between his first six starts versus his final six were the walks. I think the walks kind of got out of control for him. Uh, those first six starts, a zero point nine walk per nine. He was never going to maintain that. But, uh, his final six starts that went all the way up to three point two walks per nine. So Savali is someone who I consider a, uh, a better control pitcher. He also has a very diverse pitch mix. Scott,

I think that's why some people in the industry might be excited about him. He throws like five different pitches. He has a four seam, a slider, a cutter, a curve ball, a change-up.

So he has all these different kind of breaking pitches and off-speed pitches. And I think that's why people are a little bit excited about him. So the walks got out of control. Those final six starts, the swinging strike rate went down.

He started to tinker a little bit. But Cleveland, I kind of just always give them the benefit of the doubt. They're just really good at developing pitchers, and we saw that with Zach Plesack last year. And I kind of feel like they have confidence in these guys if they're willing to trade away Carlos Carrasco.

So we'll see what happens. But the ADP for Aaron Savale, as of now, is 178 is going behind. Names like Bassett, Dallas Keikle, Joe Musgrove, who is the man, obviously. If you were going to draft Savale, Scott, what would you want him as? one of your, like, your SP5 is like one of your starters? No, it's like a... No higher than that, I should say.

Okay. I mean, ideally me with how deep I want my pitching to be more like a sixth starter. Yeah, a bench pitcher, right? Honestly, I don't expect to draft them at all unless I just, unless I just strike out with the kind of pitchers I'd rather be drafting.

But it sounds like the consensus ADP there is more in line with, with my rankings. some of the pictures I have just a little ahead of Savali are like Dallas Caichol and Joe Musgrove Michael Paneda, Jose Orkidie are also right there in that same range as guys I like a little more.

Okay, so we're not far off but yeah, I do like Savali, I think, a little bit more than you do, probably closer to where the industry is on Aaron Savali. We're going to hit a quick break when we return. We do have some partial redemptions towards the end of the season

and then of course some surprises some players that really kind of came out of nowhere and performed better than we expected them to. We'll do that here, fantasy baseball today. We're back here, and it was about the time that Luis Robert started to fall off that Adelberto Monisey Scott did exactly the opposite. Just really kind of flipped a switch in September

and went off his final 22 games, 376 batting average, six homers, 22 runs, 16 steals. Some people might have even dropped him in their leagues, and he wound up being a league winner for people who either picked them back up or held them all season. So,

Adelberto Mondesie, are you buying this late season surge that we saw out of him? He is going, pull up the ADP here, Adelberto Monashy is going 28th. So early third round pick, he's right back there, Scott. Would you do it?

Would I do it? Early third round pick. Of course in Roto only. We're not drafting him that early in a points league. Of course. Probably the single player with the biggest difference in value between the two formats because like he's his 24 steals

in a 60 game season I think the next closest was 16, right? And like only four people were even halfway to 24 including him. Something like that. It was like he's a distant

number one in steals. like the guy who could carry you in the category, and with enough track record of being that, that you can feel pretty confident in it. So regardless of what he does as a hitter, that has a lot of value at a time when stolen bases are so scarce. You can just take care of the category with them. And then the fact that he's kind of teased us with this possibility

that he's a good hitter, or at least contributes something other than steals, It's just a nice bonus. I mean, he's done it obviously September, that ridiculous month he had in 2020. And then the second half of 2018, I believe it was. And then he was pretty strong at the start of 2019, too. So the thing to remember about him is he played with a torn labrum.

He was coming back from a torn labrum last year. So maybe that explains why August was so bad relative to September. At the same time, I mean, the strikeout rate was awful in both. It was roughly the same,

about 30% both in August and September. And you're not, you're not going to see too many hitters succeed with the strikeout rate that high. Usually the ones who do

are like elite, elite, power hitters, like, you know, Aaron Judge level, uh, you know,

maybe like a Jorge Salaire could, could get away with striking out that much. Miguel, Suno. Not usually a, guy who, you know, just has a modest amount of power like Mondesie. So I'm still skeptical. I'm still skeptical he's going to be more than...

I'm still skeptical he's going to be even a decent hitter. I think there's enough power there that if he's, you know, hitting 225, 230 with all those steals, he lives up to third round value in this one format. I think it's possible. So let me see where I actually haven't ranked. I haven't ranked 31, so I'm I'm there. But like I don't think he's who he looked like he was in September. I just think September was a reminder that he's probably good enough with all his steals to justify that kind of investment.

But Scott, would you do it? What I do? Well, I mean, I'm ranking him 31st. So yeah, I think I would. If you started your draft, say, you had the fifth pick, and you start with either Jacob de Grom or Garicol, you start with two pitchers, would you take Adelberto Monasine the third round

of a roto draft as your first hitter? I might, because then you got the biggest scarcities filled with your first three picks, high-end starting pitcher and the best base dealer. Now, if I got Ronald Acuna or Fernando Tatis in the first round, already had a big advantage in steals from them. Well, obviously, Fernando Tatis doubling up on short stuff, probably wouldn't do that.

But the point is the steels. If you've already have, if you've already taken a big bite out of the steels, Apple, when round three comes out, you're probably not going on to see. But if you have none at that point, it's something I would definitely consider doing. I suspect in most of my drafts, regardless of format, round three, is I'm going to go pitcher in most of them. But, you know, if it's a draft where I happen to get a pitcher in round one, maybe not. Yeah, I thought the point you made about his shoulder injury was probably, for me, the one that stood out most.

And it's something that we've seen, Conforto, it wasn't a labor room. It was some kind of other shoulder surgery that he had, but we saw, it took him a whole season to get back on track. We saw Jesse Winker took basically a whole season, and I think that actually was a labrum. So with the shoulder injuries, it takes some time. So I think that could explain why his first 37 games, Alberto Montessi, did perform as poorly as he did, changed the batted ball data, started hitting more fly balls. And he actually hits the ball really hard for, you know,

someone who we consider a speedster, his average exit velocity, 90.6 miles per hour. That was in the 78th percentile. So that's pretty damn good for, for one, Adelberto Montesey. He's got Frankie Montas. He was, along with Zach Gowan and Max Fried, one of three of my favorite breakout picks for,

2020. And it didn't really happen. It was a weird season for him. His first four starts were, on the surface, very good. The underlying numbers during that time were not good. Then he dealt with a back injury. His next, I believe it was six starts,

were not great at all. They were actually quite bad. And then he finished as a season with this six innings pitch, two run runs, 13 strikeouts. What do you make of Montas in his 2020?

It was such a weird season. Yeah, it was a weird season, but that last start, for it being such a short season, was enough for me to say, okay, we can't, we shouldn't completely bury this guy. Because remember, there was, when he was struggling early on, there was concern, okay, the split is what made him in 2019, and he's just not featuring it as much. He started featuring it more as the season went on. Also, the swinging strike rate overall ended up being very, similar to 2019.

So the jump he saw with the addition that splitter in 2019, it's not like he lost a lot of swinging strikes when he kind of faded it a little in 2020. So I'm he's definitely a player, Frankie Montas, where I wish

we could have gotten four months extra to really know what's going on with him. Because it's just you know, some players they don't get going until mid-delay match. and, you know, if we were assessing them up to that point, we'd have a very different impression of them.

It's just, it's kind of unfair to, it's kind of unfair to us. It's kind of unfair to the players, too, to say, all right, I know, I know what this guy is after 60 games. Obviously, we wouldn't feel that way at all if it was 162 game season. And I think Montas really exemplifies that,

Oh, that was it. That was the end of the sentence. It did not sound like an end of the sentence to you? It didn't tell like the end of the sentence to me. I thought you were ready to say something else. But yeah, I always cite, you know, 2019, first 60 games, U. Darvish and Jose Ramirez, right? Like, what if we had to judge that hitter and that pitcher

after their first 60 games? What would we be left with? I mean, nothing but questions. And it's kind of similar to a lot of players that we're dealing with here. You also wrote in your article regarding Montas that manager Bob Melvin said that he got back to, quote, pitching angry after overthinking his mechanics and his pitch selection all season. So just pitch angry. I mean, I don't know what else to say, Montas. I think that he has legitimate talent.

He throws the ball hard. His splitter is really good. We've seen this with other pitchers who rely on the splitter. Is that if that pitch is not working, then it really could kind of derail the rest of. their pitch mix. So it's always kind of in the back of my mind. But same question as Savale, Scott. What would you want Montas as if you were drafting him? Your SP4, SP5. Would you be all right with him as one of your starters? I have him ahead of Savale. So I have Savale 59th among starting pitchers. And I have Frankie Montas 50th. So that's about 15 spots lower than I had Montas

going into last year, 15 to 20 spots lower. But it's, it's around. It's just after, it's just after like Corey Klobber. I actually have him behind like Marco Gonzalez and Dustin May who aren't, don't really have the same strikeout promise. So I don't know.

I'm expecting to get him as a discount if I get him at all, I guess. But it, you know, you take the totality of those two months. It was a bad season, right? It was, it was bad from Frankie Montas, the overall numbers.

So I think that's fair. I'm just not ready to totally bury him, I guess, is my takeaway from that last start, as impressive as it was. Yeah, I still like Big Frankie. Him and Savale, I wouldn't mind having as, you know, back into your rotation. If you're in a Rotel League, normally I start six starting pitchers.

If one of those guys was my SP5 or SP6, especially as a bench pitcher, that would be awesome. But I wouldn't mind them being towards the back end of one of my starters. I still do like both quite a bit. Let's do a little bit of rapid fire with some of these surprises that we saw the final month

of the season, Scott. And Jared Walsh, nine homers over his final 20 games of the season. He came up for the Angels. The current ADP for Walsh is 194. He's the 23rd first baseman

off the board. You get him pretty late. As like your corner infielder, are you buying what we saw down the stretch from Jared Walsh? It's difficult to go that far. I think where'd you say, 194?

Yeah, he's going just behind Josh Bell, just to put that in perspective. Yeah, now I'd rather I have him 234, so I guess I guess others are higher on him than me. I give him a chance because it wasn't just that he hit a bunch of home runs

in a short period of time. He ended up with nine and 108 plate appearances, but he struck out only 13.9% of the time. And when We first saw them in the majors in 2019. It was 40.2% of the time. So we're talking like 13.9 is nothing.

13.9 is like, that's like in his prime Jose Altuvae, right? That's a ridiculously low strikeout rate. Yeah, that is about what Jose. I guess Jose Altuviz had lower than that. But the last four years, he's been right around the level that Jared Walsh did in this short in 2019. Now, Walsh was between 25, 30%. strikeout rate for most of his mind like we're not very good.

So we're still talking about this 30, this stretch of 108 plate appearances where he was something different and how much do we want to put on that. But like if a guy with power, which he clearly has, if he can keep the strikeouts down, good things are going to result from that.

I'm just skeptical. I'm just skeptical because of the sample size because he's a guy, you know, 27 years old already and he's only now getting a real shot in the majors. And he doesn't walk much. So there's not much to fall back on if he can't keep the strikeouts down. And I've read that he will start at first base for the Angels and they're, you know, they're starting to phase out Albert Poole's as his final year of that, whatever it was,

10-11 year mega contract that he signed way back when. But it seems like Walsh was going to get the opportunity to play every day. steamer seems closer to you. The steamer projections on fan graphs still has Walsh projected for a 29% strikeout, right? If that's the case, the batting average will likely be suboptimal. Scott, going three picks apart,

would you rather have Walsh or Trey Mancini? Mancini for sure. All right. Good to know there. Let's stick with the Oreos. Your boy, John Means. You've talked about them a lot this offseason, but in case other people weren't listening,

final four starts for John Means, 1.52 ERA, 0.63 whip. Remind the good people out there, Scott, why you are such a fan of John Means. And many people are as a late round sleeper for this season. Yeah, I mean, he was just totally transformed. From the beginning, his fastball velocity was up two miles per hour. That's a huge jump.

I mean, he went to being this fireballing lefty when he was already a, he already had amazing control. It's already a great strike thrower. and then he added this velocity onto it. And it didn't show up first in his ability to miss bats. His first six start, it was just a 9% swinging strike rate. But then the last four, it jumped to 15.7%. That's opposite ends of the spectrum.

That's like bottom quarter of the league to, you know, top 10 swinging strike rate for John Means. And like you said, that led to a 152 ERA. 0.63 with 11.4 strike as per nine in those final four starts. And so like it, it just, it just really, I don't know what led to the jumping velocity in the first place, but if it's here to stay, then with his control, I think, I think the outcome could be pretty exciting as he showed in those final four starts. Yeah. And I'm pretty excited about him too. I guess the one thing that you can say to throw some cold water on the John Means Love is just the division that he's,

pitches in and the fact that his home ballpark is Camden. So you worry about those things. Has to face the Yankees. Red Sox lineup is still pretty damn good. Blue Jays are up and coming. So you worry about that. But, you know, if he pitches this well, if he's, if he's throwing this hard and with this type of control and getting as many swinging strikes as he did during that stretch, then it might not matter who he's facing. So definitely a late round name to pay attention to. What about another pitcher who's going pretty late? Brady Singer, Scott, final four stars. And I remember Three of these starts were great, and one of them wasn't, and I believe it was either championship week

or the second to last week of the season, the semi-final week, because so many people were relying on Brady Singer, and he let him down in that one start. But during those four starts, it was a 1.50 ERA, 0.71 whip for Brady Singer. I think he did something different during that time, right? That helped him kind of get to this level?

Yeah, he changed his pitch selection. He kind of ditched the change up and just went fastball slider, and apparently he was working on tunneling those two pitches, which if you're not familiar with the term, it's making them appear similar out of the hand so that the batter, fooling the batter in that way,

so that they don't have enough time to adjust because it looks so similar out of the hand. And it seemed to work for them. It seemed to work for them because, yeah, three of the final four stars were awesome. And like really the overall numbers were strong too. 406 ERA 1.17 whip 8.5K per 9 for a rookie pitcher. I mean,

I feel like normally that guy's getting hyped more than Singer seems to be. Groundball rate was elite. So he certainly has that going for him. I don't know. You know, I don't know if he can just continue with this fastball slider thing or if it's just a building block, then he's going to work back in the changeup and maybe even get better from here.

I don't know, but it seems like he's pretty good just the way he is. And, you know, certainly I'd take him as like my number seven starting pitcher. Seven, eight would be great.

Yeah, and there was, he was a high draft pick, right? Like, he's a legit prox rounder. Yeah, first rounder in 2018. So it seems like there probably should be more hype around him. I would like to see a third pitch. Some may to pay attention to throughout spring,

but he was considered like a high floor Prospect versus the ceiling. Like, he's not supposed to be a big bat misser. But 8.5 for an elite, 8.5 K for an elite ground ball guy. And certainly the 9.4K per 9 he showed in those final four starts. I mean, maybe he'll end up being better in that area than expected. And going even later than John Means,

Means has this early ADP 213, Brady Singer down at 233. Last name I wanted to bring up, someone who I imagine is going later than both of those names. Yeah, way later. 100 picks later. Adbert Al-Zalay. Came up in 2019 for the Cubs.

I'm not sure that he was like a big-name prospect, but had some interesting minor league numbers in terms of the strikeouts, at least. And he also featured this new slider over his final two starts, where he was pretty damn awesome, Scott. And, you know, they're in a transition period right now, the Cubs.

It looks like he's going to have a spot in the rotation. Yeah, I think it's Al-Zalai, first of all. Okay. Edward Alzali, but I am, I'm buying in hard here because that slider, he didn't have it. He didn't have the pitch and now it's his best pitch. And like he was getting by okay without it. He had, I don't think he allowed it. I think he allowed one hit in each of his first two major league starts in 2019.

And he kind of got some hype and fantasy because of that. You know, they were both short outings, but one hit in each. It's kind of exciting. But then last year, introducing this slider. and it looks like a pitch that's just going to pile up whiffs for him. And he ended up in his stint with the Cubs. Now, it was only 21 to third innings, but he had 12.2K per 9 because that slider was so transformative.

And he is going to get a shot, it would appear, since the Cubs are kind of not looking to invest much in the Major League roster right now, it looks like. So, you know, I put together last week, I spent majority of the last week putting together my top 100 prospects. And, you know, I kind of like to pile at the end of my top 100 picks, guys who are maybe wouldn't show up on other people's top 100 list, but they're so, they're ready to contribute right away.

They're going to make an impact in the current season. And I think there's a chance they could end up being legitimate asset. So I made sure to get Adbert Alzali in my top 100 process. And I think he's closer to 90 even than the end. And I think we could look back and say, wow, I was too low on Aeselai. That's kind of what happened with Tony Gonselin, where I wanted him in there because I thought there was a chance,

but he wasn't like this huge prospect. And now it's like, you know, I could have been even higher on him. I think looking back, we might end up saying that about Aalai because of this new slider. And he's free. He's free. So remember the name, whatever you do. I mean, keep a running notepad on your iPhone,

whatever kind of phone you have, sleepers that you hear about on podcasts, put the name, Adbert Aleslai, in that discussion. We have a few Dynasty questions here, Scott. I just wanted to wrap up with Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Continue to send us your emails. This one's from Daniel Morales, 14-Team Dynasty startup.

Doesn't say if it's head-to-head points, Roto, or head-to-head categories. I would be giving up Brendan Woodruff, Dean Kramer, and Vidal Bruhan, top 50 prospect overall in baseball of the Tampa Bay Rates and would be getting back Tyler Glassnow, Cade Cavali and Dylan Dingler. Cavali and Dingler,

if nobody has ever heard of these guys, it's okay, you probably shouldn't have because they are first round picks from 2020. They have yet to appear in the minors. They're a ways away. They are like both are expected not, like they have an ETA of 2023, maybe even later than that.

So that's the trade, Scott. Woodruff, Kramer, and Bruhan for Glassnow, Cavali, and Dingler in Dynasty. What do you think? I think I would have rather stuck with, or I would rather if it hasn't gone through yet. I'd rather stick with Woodruff, Kramer, and Bruhan. Woodruff and Glassnow are both in their late 20s, so nobody has, like, a long-term advantage there. And I rank Woodruff higher for the immediate future. I think he's a more stable, a stapler,

profile and you know, dominant enough. So definitely Woodruff over Glass now, one for one there. Kramer versus Kavali.

Kade Kavali? I actually think Kavali's a I mean, it was the 20th overall pick this year for the Nationals. He's probably their

best prospect and I think he's a good prospect. He's better long term than Kramer. Kramer came closer to cracking my top 100. Neither of them did.

Kramer appears to have a spot in the Orioles rotation already. but I'm not super confident in his in him being an impact player and then Bruhan definitely have more faith in him as a prospect than Dingler.

So yeah, I think Woodruff Kramer and Bruhan I don't really see the argument for going Glass now, Kavali and Dingler instead because Kavali over Kramer that's really the only advantage that side has and it's a small one. Agreed, 100%. Won't add anything there. This one's from Lucas

and this one's right up your alley, Scott. I've got a group of guys who have been playing redraft fantasy baseball for the past few years, but now we're thinking we want to take it to the next level and do a dynasty startup league. In general, we all really like the points league and want to keep that with the new dynasty startup. But I'm a little confused as to how the whole prospect thing works slash should work. So his question, the first year, obviously, we will have a massive draft at first. But once we do that, is there a prospect draft we should do every year after that? I was thinking five minor league slots for each team, but I'm confused as to the whole prospect,

as to how the whole prospect draft thing works. What purpose is there to a prospect draft? If you keep five minor league players on your roster anyways, should you only do a prospect draft draft if you have space available on your minor league roster. So Scott, you have your Scott White Dynasty League, which is a head-to-head points dynasty league. So if you want to kind of offer up what you do for that or any type of suggestion. It seems like it would be helpful for our guy Lucas here. Yeah. So the easy answer here would be to Google Scott White Dynasty League because I wrote

when baseball was shut down for a while and there wasn't much to write about. I wrote this very long piece chronicling the Scott White Dynasty League, how it came to be and kind of defending the rules and actually included a link to the Constitution. So you could model it after that. and that might be better than anything I could explain here on this podcast. But to answer the question, the direct question asked here, separate minor league draft, most dynasty leagues I've played in don't do that.

I think unless you're creating this very clear distinction in terms of like a salary between major leaguers and minor leaguers and what kind of, of salary you're assigning each of them, then I don't know that it's necessary to split them up in that way. For the Scott White Dynasty League, we do have a separate minor league draft that, you know, every other player is actually done via what we're calling a salary cap draft now, but we used to call an auction. So they're done that way. And they're assigned a salary based on what the actual bid was. and then players who get taken in the minor league drop separately, they don't have a salary.

So they're kind of needed to be a distinction for that particular setup. But I think in most dynasty leagues, it's not necessary. It kind of creates more variance in strategy if you can allow people to jump in and take a minor leaguer amidst the major leaguers. So I don't frown upon it in general. But my favorite dynasty league that I've played in is the one I've set up. And it did happen to distinguish it, though, distinguished between them, though it was for a very specific reason.

Yeah. So I think that's one way you could go about it. You can distinguish, you know, major league talent versus minor league talent and only have a select number of minor leaguers on your team. But the dynasty leagues that I've played in, it's basically a free-for-all. It's you can have as many major leaguers, however many minor leaguers, obviously you need to be able to feel the team that is playing in the major. So you need to have enough major leaguers to have that.

but if you're going through a rebuild, you could have as many minor leaguers as you want, take as many shots on these prospects and see who hits and who doesn't. And every year, the draft that you have is a first-year player draft. So basically whoever was taken the previous year in the MLB draft and whoever comes over from, you know, international signings, Japan, Korea, whatever it might be, those players are included in the first-year player draft as well.

We're going to wrap there for Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball City. We'll be back again tomorrow with Chris Towers. Bye-bye. You know,