Fantasy Baseball Today - Scott's Early 2025 Top-50 Starting Pitchers! Where to Rank Garrett Crochet? (11/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

Should Chris Sale be ranked as a top-five starting pitcher (1:35)? ... Blake Snell and Garrett Crochet are in the Top 10 (5:15)! ... Let's build Scott's ideal Thanksgiving plate, starting with the veg...gie (10:15). ... Where to rank Gerrit Cole (12:55)? ... Yoshinobu Yamamoto flashed his talent but how many innings can we expect (15:13)? ... Which starch is Scott adding to his Thanksgiving plate (20:54)? ... Max Fried provides strong innings but his arm might fall off (23:26). ... How to rank Strider, Ohtani and deGrom (27:17)? ... Which part of the turkey does Scott eat (33:35)? ... News (35:53): Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani won MVP. ... Where does Spencer Schwellenbach check in (40:10)? ... How many innings to expect from Kodai Senga (43:36)? ... What's the third side on Scott's Thanksgiving plate (48:00)? ... Shane McClanahan could rise this spring (51:50). ... Who rounds out Scott's Top-50 starting pitchers (54:13)? ... What dessert on Thanksgiving (1:00:48)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ 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

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy. Now here's Frank, Scott and Chris. Scott has Garrett Crochet ranked where? Let's find out.
Starting point is 00:00:27 Happy Thanksgiving week and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. On Monday, November 25th, I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White. Today on the show, we are taking a look at Scott's early top 50 starting pitchers for 2025. We won't talk about every name. We'll be going in groups of five. But I'll pick out some of the more interesting ones and we will have a discussion. Also, I have a surprise for you, Scott. Are you ready?
Starting point is 00:00:52 Sure. So it's Thanksgiving week. I know that you enjoy your food content. Also on today's show, we are going to build Scott's ideal Thanksgiving plate throughout the podcast. So we'll pick three sides, one veggie, one starch, one other. We'll have a meat, a meat choice, and a dessert. So there you go. Okay.
Starting point is 00:01:15 So if you want to get the wheels turning, Scott, start thinking ahead, that's what we'll have today. It'll probably be a pretty boring plate. I'm on the traditional side, well, with most things, but certainly with Thanksgiving dinner. But it'll be fun. Yes, yes, indeed it will. All right, let's jump in. Early top 50 starting pitchers. And your top five for next year, Scott,
Starting point is 00:01:38 you have Terrick Scoobel, Zach Wheeler, Paul Skeen's, Chris Sale, and Corbyn Burns. These are all names that we talked about last week on our recap. I don't think there's really any surprises here. The only question I have is about Chris Sale. So he did say last week, when we're recording this,
Starting point is 00:01:54 that he's fully recovered from the back spasms that kept him off the Braves wildcard roster. It just feels like last year was the time. to buy Chris Sale when you were getting him at that discount. Obviously, you're going to have to use a probably top three round pick to get him in 2025. Can he repeat the health and performance two years in a row, soon to be 36 years old? I don't know. I worry about it.
Starting point is 00:02:19 I worry about it too. And I think when we talked about him a couple shows ago, the way I described my ranking of Chris Sale is, okay, there's an obvious top three here, Scoobo Wheelers. skeins and then who belongs fourth. I think it's, I don't know that I'm in my official tiers. I'm going to have them as separate tiers because you can only make the tiers so small at starting pitcher, but it does feel like a bit of a tier drop in terms of how confident I am that they'll perform like a total stud. And Chris Sale winds up at the top of that tier for me by default because he just won the
Starting point is 00:03:00 NL pitching triple crown. Of course, he's going to be back with the Braves next year, so it's not like his circumstances are changing. But I would be lying if I said I felt totally comfortable drafting him here, given that, well, he spent most of the previous four years injured and wasn't healthy at the end of 2024, his healthy season either. So it's risky. It's not like as soon as,
Starting point is 00:03:31 the last of Wheeler skeins and Scoobel goes off the board. It's not like when the last of him goes off the board. I'm going to be like, oh, okay, I got to take sale now. It's going to require him falling. But as I said on the last show, that's kind of true for all of these top level pitchers, all of this top 12 for me. That's like that's probably not a range of the starting pitcher rankings that I'm going to be living in, given the breakdown of the position this year.
Starting point is 00:03:58 Yeah. And I completely agree that after the top three, it feels like it kind of opens up. You can have a few different answers as to who you think the SP4 should be drafted. And, you know, I posed that question on Twitter. And I got a bunch of different responses from Sale, Burns, Logan Gilbert. Some people said, like, Jacob de Grom. I got a few like Garrett Crochet. Wow.
Starting point is 00:04:24 How quickly we forget on Jacob de Grom. We were kind of done drafting him as a top. five pitcher even before the Tommy John surgery. Yeah. Because we couldn't count on him to stay healthy. So I get your overall point. And I don't even think you like, because my fifth, obviously, is Corbin Burns after Chris Sale. I don't even think you like Corbin Burns as much as I do, right?
Starting point is 00:04:44 Don't you have him lower than fifth? I haven't actually ranked pitchers yet. I mean, I think I will probably have him a little bit lower than that. I'm not completely off. I do like the fact that he talked about the cutter. He made the changes. The strikeouts kind of bumped back up in September. he's just so proven from a ratio, workhorse perspective.
Starting point is 00:05:03 I want to see where he winds up in free agency for the most part. But yeah, I might have him a little bit lower than this, but he's still going to be in my top 10. So I'm not going to be completely out on Corbyn Burns by any means. Let's move on to the rest of your top 10. Six or 10, you have Logan Gilbert, Cole Regens, Blake Snell, Dylan Sees, and Garrett Crochet, who I mentioned up at the top.
Starting point is 00:05:22 You have him here at your SP10. I want to focus on him and Blake Snell. So Snell is a name we have not talked about yet. he had his usual slow start. Maybe that was kind of enhanced due to signing so late in spring training. But then he went on one of those runs. His final 14 starts a 123 ERA.78 whip, 12.8K per 9 for Blake Snell.
Starting point is 00:05:44 And then Garrett Crochet, he's a tough one to rank. He was one of the biggest breakouts this past season. He had a 358 ERA, a 107 whip, 12.9K per 9, nearly a 30% K minus walk rate. I mean, it's truly elite stuff, but where is he playing next season? My guess is on a much better team than the White Sox. And how does his arm respond? I mean, this is, again, this is the theme, Scott.
Starting point is 00:06:09 Pitchers that made this huge jump innings. He only threw 12 and 2 thirds, Gaircrowche did in 2023. He was all the way up to 146 this past season. So that's a big jump. So your thoughts here on Snell and Gary Crochet. Yeah, so the point about the big innings jump, and I brought this up on the last show, well. It's part of the reason I'm not really going to be living within this range of the starting
Starting point is 00:06:32 pitcher rankings. It's, uh, they're clearly, they're clearly the guys who deserve to rank here. We could argue whether Snell is, but for the most part, the 10 names you've mentioned, they clearly need to rank here. And yet, there are some concerns related to those big, that big workload increase for at least half of them. And then there are other concerns, uh, beyond that for several of the others. So it's not like you're getting such a thing. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We are getting a special Thanksgiving visit from Robo Scott.
Starting point is 00:07:14 Of course. Of course it would be the show where Chris isn't here to like jump in and save me from my robotic ways. He's back. What a nice time to visit. We are thankful for Robo Scott. I mean, yeah. Anyway. Like you were saying about Gary.
Starting point is 00:07:34 He's gone now, right? Like, Robots Scott is gone. Yeah, yeah. Robos Scott. He's left us. Good. I don't even remember what I was saying. Anyway, let's get into Snow.
Starting point is 00:07:44 Let's get into Blake Snowe because I feel like maybe this is the most controversial of these players in terms of how high I rank him eighth. And I kind of laid it out already. we've gone back and forth with Blake Snell so much over the last few years. Just breaking down what does numbers look like through the first 10 starts this year versus the final 20. What they look like through the first 12 starts this next year versus the final 15. and his tendency to like turn on a dime go from being totally useless early on
Starting point is 00:08:25 to arguably the best pitcher in baseball to the extent that it actually won him as I Young in 2023. And I kind of think we're over-complicating it. I kind of think we have enough data here that we don't have to concentrate so much on the minutia. We can just look at over the last three years, Blake Snell has a 282 ERA 116 whip and 12K per 9, which is amazing, which is as good as anyone else in this group, better than some of them.
Starting point is 00:09:02 And to a certain extent, it doesn't matter how he gets there. I think to the vast extent, it doesn't matter how he gets there. He gets there. Those are the overall numbers over the last three years. I'm not just talking about the good stretches. I'm including all the bad stretches in there too. and so maybe it's a little frustrating during those bad times but boy does it feel good during the long ones and the long ones have been exceeding the bad ones certainly the last two years that's been the case so i think we should just treat him like an ace because that's overall what he's performed like and he's look he's among this group that i'm kind of just ignoring this range of the starting pitchers so again it's it's going to take a discount for me to actually take him,
Starting point is 00:09:50 but he's the one most likely to be discounted. I rank Blake Snell, in addition to eighth, the starting pitcher, I rank him 45th overall. In our first mock draft, I got him 76, the middle of round seven.
Starting point is 00:10:05 So that's kind of where I'm waiting to draft the pitcher. And if it happens to be Blake Snell, I'm going to be thrilled because I have him eighth at the position. All right. Let's talk about this Thanksgiving plate, Scott. We'll kick things off. We'll start with a veggie. Let's get the veggie out of the way.
Starting point is 00:10:20 And we'll, you know, talk about some of the more fun, the better stuff later on. What's your ideal veggie side on Thanksgiving? You got options. You got Brussels sprouts. You got green beans, broccoli, cream spinach, anything else that comes to mind. What do you got? Well, the ideal Thanksgiving vegetable for me is inarguable. In fact, it might be my favorite part of the Thanksgiving plate.
Starting point is 00:10:46 And considering it's the vegetable, That's saying something. Ooh. Because vegetables are normally not the best part of any plate. I think you'd agree. It's green bean casserole. Now, some people hate green bean casserole. Some people love it.
Starting point is 00:11:03 I've noticed it makes a difference how it's made. Canned green beans, no good. Even fresh green beans. I don't know if you've noticed this with fresh green beans, but they can get a little stringy. if you're not careful to cut off the little pointy ends, it can, you know, it can really throw off the texture. It's just you're playing with fire with fresh green beans.
Starting point is 00:11:27 So you really want to go with the frozen and still be careful not to include those little pointy ends that nobody likes the texture of. You've got to kind of maintain it. And you've got to cook the green beans first. You don't want them too crisp in that casserole. You kind of want them to blend in with the cream of mushroom soup. Of course, you've got to have the fried onion topping, of course. Like, that's really what you're there for.
Starting point is 00:11:52 And then the green bean is kind of the vehicle for it. But yeah, always been a big fan of that. As long as you take care to make it properly and don't just, ah, it's green bean cassero or whatever and just throw it together. Like, you're going through the motions. Like, take care with everything you make. It's Thanksgiving for goodness sake. There you go.
Starting point is 00:12:13 Love it. All right. We've got our first out of the way. way, green bean casserole, the veggie side here for Scott on Thanksgiving. Before we hit a pick one or is it just me? Is it all about me today? Nobody wants to hear about my food choices. Nobody does.
Starting point is 00:12:25 I would just choose like chicken tenders for every single one of them. That's the end of my Thanksgiving plate. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder, download and follow our five minute podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today and Five. If you're watching on YouTube, you can scan the QR code and that will take you right to the FBT in five podcast feed. Let's take our first break when we return back into the starting pitcher rankings right after this. Welcome back in, diving back into Scott's top 50 starting pitchers for next season. And 11 through 15, we have Garrett Cole, George Kirby, Framber Valdez, Michael King, and Shota Imanaga.
Starting point is 00:13:02 Good old Garrett Cole. Let's talk about it. He had the elbow injury. He came back and made 17 starts. He had five more in the postseason. But in the regular season, a 341 ERA, a 113 whip. ERA estimators, in the mid to high threes, the swinging strike rate dropped down to 10.7%. But Scott, based on this ranking, SP11, it seems like you are expecting at least some level of return to form here for Garrett Cole.
Starting point is 00:13:31 Well, let's look at what he actually did. Of course, he didn't look like Prime Garrett Cole, but Prime Garrett Cole would be going first or second in this draft. And he would be first or second in these rankings. He wouldn't be 11th. So I'm not ranking him like Prime Garrett Cole. So he doesn't necessarily have to perform like Prime Garrett Cole to live up to this ranking. What he actually did was put together a 341 ERA 1113 whip 9.4K per 9.
Starting point is 00:13:58 It's pretty good numbers. I think definitely in the discussion to be a top 12 type pitcher with those numbers, presuming he gets the workload. So I'm kind of baking in a degree of. of Cole's never going to be the same again with this ranking. And yet, it's possible. He regains the slider after an offseason of rest on that elbow. He gets the bite on it back.
Starting point is 00:14:25 It's comfortable throwing it as often again. And it looks like Prime Garrick Cole. It's also possible that his elbow still isn't quite right. And that's why he wasn't throwing the slider. And he's going to suffer through this again next year. So there's kind of three separate paths I feel like Cole can take. and I'm taking the middlemost path with the ranking that he's healthy now, but he's diminished and will remain diminished.
Starting point is 00:14:53 And, you know, if it goes one of the other routes, you'll get either a great discount or he'll be a bust. And, you know, as we've been saying, every starting pitcher, every time you make a big investment in a starting pitcher, there's a high probability of bust just because that's the nature of the position. 16 through 20 in your rankings. You have Tyler Glassnell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Hunter Green, Pablo Lopez, and Luis Castillo. So three names here we have not talked about yet in the past couple weeks,
Starting point is 00:15:25 including Yamamoto, Pablo Lopez, and Luis Castillo. Yamamoto, to me, Scott, feels like the most interesting of this group. He pitched really well in his rookie season. Splitter and Curve look like legitimate plus pitches for him. The problem is that he was limited to just 90 innings with a, right shoulder strain. So, you know, ranking him SP17, how many innings are you expecting for him heading into year two? I'm non-committal. And that's why I don't like making projections, because I'd have to be committal if I made projections, right? Well, let me provide you with this then.
Starting point is 00:16:01 The only projection system out right now is steamer. They have Yamamoto for 181, which I think is very generous. Very generous. I agree. I agree. If I thought, he was going to get 180 innings, he'd be top 10 for me. He'd be at Blake Snell,
Starting point is 00:16:17 probably, because the ratios justify it. But that's a guy whose entire major league career, it's one year, I get it,
Starting point is 00:16:26 but he only got halfway to 181. I don't, and 181 is a really high number these days. That seems, that seems like a very bold prediction.
Starting point is 00:16:36 I will note that after he returned from injury for the Dodgers, Yoshinobu Yamamoto his the length of his starts were four innings, four innings, three innings, five innings and then
Starting point is 00:16:52 we get into the postseason where his starts were three innings, five innings, four in a third innings, and then finally six in a third innings. He finally gave us a decent starter's workload nine starts or eight starts into his
Starting point is 00:17:08 return from the IL, which also gives me concern for Yamamoto. It's not just about him staying healthy. It's about do the Dodgers let him loose when he is healthy? Are they going to treat him more than other pitchers like it's a six-man rotation? Because they want to keep him healthy and because that's the kind of routine he's used to from Japan. So I think there are workload concerns here for Yamamoto on.
Starting point is 00:17:41 several levels. And that's why I prefer to take a cautious ranking here. But he's really good. And if all goes right workload-wise, there's a good chance Yamamoto's competing for the Sai-Young. But this is also a range in the pitcher rankings where there's a lot of good pitchers with potential Sy Young ambitions.
Starting point is 00:18:07 So I don't think it's unfair to put Yamamoto this low. Let's quickly mention Pablo Lopjean. and Luis Castillo. Pablo Lopez, I mean, the tale of two seasons. His first 15 starts, he had a 563 ERA and a 125 whip. His final 17 starts a 291 ERA and a 115 whip. The end result was still an ERA over four and a whip approaching 120. Luis Castillo looks very clearly like he's on the decline.
Starting point is 00:18:35 You know, the strikeout metrics dropped down quite a bit this year. Fastball velocity has declined two years in a row as well. probably still could be worthy of this kind of SP2 ranking. But any quick thoughts here, Scott, on Pablo and Castillo. And this is where we get into the stretch of the pitcher rankings, and it's going to continue for like the next 30 names, where it feels like I have the pitcher in question ranked too low. For every single one, it's going to feel like it's too low.
Starting point is 00:19:04 How come I can't get them higher? Pablo Lopez and Luis Castillo, we're just used to. to putting him in the top 12 automatically. Like they've been around a while. We know they're going to give us a lot of innings. Let's just play it safe and put them there. But I'm kind of tired of taking that approach with them. The very next one, little foreshadowing here,
Starting point is 00:19:32 Aaron Nola's is my number 21. And he's part of that group two where, okay, yeah, they're going to be durable, probably. I mean, Castillo did spend some time on the aisle this past year, but he has a long history of durability. And so if they give us their A results, sure, there'll be, there'll be Aces in fantasy, but a lot of times they don't. Nola, three of the last four years, he's fallen short of ACE standards, I would say, in terms of actual performance. Pablo Lopez, it's really just that 2023 season where he actually performed like the ace, even though we see signs. of aced him in there,
Starting point is 00:20:13 only once in his entire career has Pablo Lopez delivered an ERA below 3.6. So it's hard for me to treat him as an ace at this point. And then Castillo, we actually saw some decline from him. Not just the IEL stint, but his velocity was down a little bit all year. And the strikeouts were down, the swing strike rate was down. It could be genuine decline for him.
Starting point is 00:20:41 So I am past the point of treating these guys like aces. It's certainly not unthinkable that they could perform like aces, but I think the odds are against it. And their main selling point is volume. All right. Thanksgiving side number two, Scott. We have the starch. This is a tough decision, man.
Starting point is 00:21:00 This could make or break the plate right here. Yeah, like half the plate is starch, right? Yeah, but you can only choose one. It's your ideal plate. Yeah. I mean, I look, I wouldn't knock anyone if you just made like a whole plate full. of starches, but for this exercise, we'll choose Scott's favorite.
Starting point is 00:21:15 Mac and cheese, you got stuffing, mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, any kind of potatoes. What are you going with? So, for most of my life, I think I'd say stuffing. I've always been a big stuffing fan. Of course, there's a lot of variations on stuffing. Dressing is how, like, is similar to stuffing. it's kind of cooked on its own in a pan and you kind of cut it out in these squares.
Starting point is 00:21:44 And that's more of a southern tradition. I feel like dressing versus stuffing. They're very similar. But I've decided in more recent years, what's actually been my favorite thing on the Thanksgiving plate the last four or five years is the sweet potatoes. Now, they've got to be cooked a certain way. I really like pecans in them. you got to get a lot of brown sugar in there. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:11 You got to get it kind of brown it up, you know. It's not just, you can't just have a sweet potato that you cut open and put butter on it or whatever. Like it's sweet potato casserole emphasis on the sweet, you know. But that's probably my single favorite thing on the Thanksgiving plate right now. So I'm going to go with it as the preferred starch. Do you get the marshmallow on top of the sweet potatoes too? because I've seen people do it. I could take or leave the marshmallows, to be honest.
Starting point is 00:22:39 I need the pecans. I need the brown sugar. And if marshmallows are on top, great, but I could live without them. I got to tell you, Scott, about this. I went to a burger place a couple of years ago, and you order sweet potato fries. They automatically come with a marshmallow dipping sauce. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:57 And it was incredibly sweet all around, obviously. But it was so good. It was so good. I've seen that before. Yeah. I mean, regular French fries are so good that it's hard for me ever to venture into sweet potato fry territory. But when you're not given the choice and they give you that little like marshmallow dipping sauce, yeah, that's quite a treat, Frank. Yes, yes it is.
Starting point is 00:23:25 All right, SP 21 through 25. You already gave a little foreshadowing here, but Aaron Nola, Logan Webb, Max Fried, Bryce Miller, and Bailey Ober's. So three names we haven't talked about, well, kind of two now because you talked a little bit about NOLA, but Logan Webb and Max Freed. Kind of feels like just boring SP2s, I guess. Freed, I think, is the most interesting to talk about. It was a bit of a weird season for Freed.
Starting point is 00:23:53 The walks were up, the whiffs were down a little bit, still ended up with great ratios, 325 ERA, a 116 whip. And I think he's about as bankable for ratios as you can get. at the same time, I kind of feel like his arm might fall off. So, Freed is another one where I would be very interested to see what kind of contract he gets because if some team signed him to like a monster deal, then maybe they're not as worried about the arm as I am.
Starting point is 00:24:19 What do you think? Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what he goes for because I've long harbored doubts about Max Freed's health. In fact, one of my bold predictions from a September article that I wrote was that, Max Fried will go for less on the free agent market than people are expecting because of concerns over his arm. It was something like that. I said it, it was pithier the way I put it in the article, but it was something like that. And yeah, I mean, for the elbow, we saw trouble with the elbow crop up for him in 2023, actually. And then, you know, he continued to have stretches where he just, you know, he missed time with Andrew.
Starting point is 00:25:01 What was the, what would officially put him on the aisle this past year? It wasn't the elbow, right? I think it was a forearm stream. Oh, okay. So it is, it was something related. Yeah. And we've seen stretches from him where he just doesn't seem right. The final numbers end up looking fine.
Starting point is 00:25:16 But he's never been a workhorse. He's only once thrown 180 innings in a season. The 174 and a 30 through this past year was the second most he's ever had. He's only twice during. his whole time as a starting pitcher had more than a strikeout per inning. And this past year was 8.6. So he's not a big strikeout guy.
Starting point is 00:25:38 He's not necessarily a big innings guy. He's probably going to be a good ERA guy, and depending on where he signs a good wins guy. But if he misses too much time, it's not going to be like a high total, wins total, even if it's a good winning percentage. So I think there are a lot of reasons to be careful with Max Fried.
Starting point is 00:25:58 And that's why I only rank him 23rd, even though he's kind of like Aeronola and Luis Castillo and Pablo Lopez, he feels like he just belongs high in the starting pitcher rankings because he's been there so long. And it's not like he's gone bad. He's just, I think there are limits to Max Fried's upside, and I think there are underlying concerns that are worth taking seriously. Just wanted to mention with Logan Webb,
Starting point is 00:26:24 because he was the pitcher I probably had the most exposure to this year. he basically just lost his changeup. It got hit really hard. From 2023, an 89.6 average exit velocity, 255 expected Woba on his changeup. This past season, 92 mile per hour, average exit velocity, 365 expected Wobah. So the X Wobah jumped up over 100 points on that changeup.
Starting point is 00:26:51 Now, if he gets the fuel for that pitch back and he can locate it, you know, who's to say, maybe Logan Webb bounces back with like a low 3 ZRA and a really, good whip, but, you know, he's, he's not really one of these pitchers that has great skills, kind of like under the numbers. He's really just a workhorse that you're hoping to get really good ratios from. So he'll be a name to pay attention to in spring training and kind of see where that change up is for Logan Webb. SP 26 through 30, Scott, you're rocking the Spencer Shrider
Starting point is 00:27:20 shirt, and that's where he checks in. Number 26, Spencer Strider, followed by Shohei Otani, Jacob de Grom Sonny Gray and Justin Steele Three very polarizing pitchers Here in a Rosecott With Strider, O'Tani and DeGrom You know, Strider and Otani Returning from the elbow surgery
Starting point is 00:27:38 DeGrom returned last season But you know it was Tommy John surgery And we haven't seen him throw More than 92 innings since 2019 How do you just figure out where to place these guys Because I feel like that's one of the hardest things It is it is And I put them to do
Starting point is 00:27:55 together on purpose because major upside, but major injury risk and availability risk for strider, Otani, and DeGrom. So I didn't see much reason to separate them. And you're right, I am wearing my strider shirt. I felt like I had to retire it, put it on ice for all of 2024, basically, once he was heard. I didn't want the reminder of, oh, this electric pitcher, we don't have them available to us. So I'm happy to be able to pull it out finally. because we're talking about Spencer Strider again. Where to put this trio strider, Otani, and DeGrom. Yeah, if I want them linked, where do I put them?
Starting point is 00:28:34 That's going to depend on how shallow your league is, I think, how tolerant you are of risk. You know, obviously shallower league, you could take on more risk. You could take them early or sell out for the upside harder. But in deeper leagues, you're going to have to be really careful with them. And I know some of those early 15 team mocks that we've been seeing deep leagues obviously
Starting point is 00:28:57 Spencer Strider's been going really late just because people don't want to risk too much on somebody who we don't know when he's going to be available you know what sounded like early on
Starting point is 00:29:09 he was going to be available for the start of the season but Alex Anthopoulos said pretty much in no uncertain terms that they're not expecting him to be available for the start of 2024 and he didn't really suggest
Starting point is 00:29:21 when he would be available if it's two weeks into 2024 great. But if it's two months into 2024, whoof, that's going to be hard to live with.
Starting point is 00:29:33 So hopefully we'll get more details on his timeline as the season approaches. I presume we will. And I can move strider down or up as needed. I think it's more likely he'll move down than up.
Starting point is 00:29:47 But let's not forget, at this time a year ago, he's the consensus number one in fantasy, a distant number one in strike. and wins in 2023, and as much upside as any pitcher in baseball. So you don't want to bury him, you don't want to forget about him, but you do want to pay close attention to the latest news we get on him. Otani is kind of a similar situation.
Starting point is 00:30:14 The Dodgers are talking like he's not going to be ready to pitch right away. We think it's going to be soon afterward. Not that far into the season, but we don't really know because the bat is so valuable. They don't want to do anything that would compromise that. They're going to be extra cautious with him, I think. And then DeGrom, okay, he should be available, but for how long? For how long? As you said, the most innings he's thrown since 2019 is what?
Starting point is 00:30:39 92. 2019 was a long time ago, and he's never gotten to 100 innings in a season since then. And I was to the point where I'm not sure he ever will, because that was the point in his career where he decided, I need to throw even harder. winning Cy Young's isn't enough for me. I need to be the best the game has ever seen. And I just don't think his arm is capable of, can hold up to it, can hold up to those kind of
Starting point is 00:31:06 velocities. I think it breaks down under them. I think that's what the years since have shown. Now, interestingly, after coming back from Tommy John surgery, he wasn't throwing his heart. And normally that'd be a red flag in itself, but maybe it's for the best for de Grom. And maybe it can help him be more durable again, like pre-2019. but maybe he just was fresh off of Tommy John's surgery
Starting point is 00:31:27 and not ready to air it out completely. Like part of it's going to depend on how DeGrom approaches pitching going forward. But whatever concerns you had about his durability prior to Tommy John surgery, I don't think they should be diminished in his first year back. One of the craziest, I would say, early price tags we see in drafts, Jacob deGrom being taken as the SP8 off the board 40.7 is the ADP.
Starting point is 00:31:56 So I don't know. I don't think that that will be representative of every draft, but again, it only takes one person, right? Like Chris talked about this with Paul Skeen's. It just takes one person in a draft to say, man, I really want Jacob to Grom
Starting point is 00:32:10 and snag him up in like the third or fourth round. And yeah, like maybe it will have that effect on ADP. I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean, it's a more extreme example, obviously, than Skeens. Because Skeens were talking about, oh, is he drafted in round one or round two? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:32:23 DeGrom, it's, like, I wasn't ready to draft a mate anymore before the Tommy John surgery. It's, it's strange where the consensus develops. Like, we're just, as a group, as an industry, we just decide, okay, we're going to be really optimistic about this guy. We're going to throw caution to the wind and just draft them like nothing could possibly go wrong. And how we've arrived there at DeGrom, here in late November, it's worth noting. I think he'll trend down as we approach true draft season. But it is strange that there seems to be so much optimism for him right now. And you could say, okay, these are the high stakes leagues where you're really incentivized to finish first at all costs.
Starting point is 00:33:17 And so people are just selling out for upside. But then why aren't they doing that with Strider? You know, it's inconsistently applied, that logic. Yeah, Strider, by the way, if you just wanted to know, the ADP is 125. So a little bit different. He's going 80 picks after Jacob de Grom right now. Back to the Thanksgiving plates guy.
Starting point is 00:33:36 You have green bean casserole. You have sweet potatoes on your plate. What kind of meat are you throwing on this plate? Obviously, you got turkey, the traditionalist, but what kind of turkey? Are you going with the white meat? You going dark meat? Are you grabbing the turkey leg?
Starting point is 00:33:51 Are you maybe saying, I'm going to skip out on turkey this year. Pass the ham. Oh. Oh. What are you thinking? Look, I'm not a huge turkey fan. I'm not craving turkey throughout the year. But it's Thanksgiving.
Starting point is 00:34:08 You've got to have turkey. I mean, it's Turkey Day. How else are you going to pass out on your couch? Come on. Yeah, I like him. I like a good honey baked ham, you know. But Thanksgiving calls for turkey. You ever been to Thanksgiving where they have both?
Starting point is 00:34:24 Now that, that is a treat. Turkey and ham? Turkey and ham. Yeah, that's my parents' house. They make both. There you go. That's the dream, right? But you're forcing me to make this scant Thanksgiving plate that frankly just looks like a regular dinner plate with one of each type of food.
Starting point is 00:34:48 and I can't skimp on the turkey. Like Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the turkey. It's like that everybody loves Raymond episode where Deborah cooked the fish instead. And it just total upheaval. It doesn't. You can't do that. And that's how I feel about it. As for what part of the turkey, I've never really warmed up to dark meat turkey.
Starting point is 00:35:16 I think I prefer dark meat with chicken. you know, but with turkey, I don't know, it's just kind of tough. And like a turkey leg, it's tough. I prefer the white meat. It's not as flavorful, but I prefer the texture of it on turkey. And, you know, usually there's gravy that you can lather it up and improve kind of the dryness of it. But even if there's not gravy, I'd probably go for the white meat of the turkey.
Starting point is 00:35:45 All right. Let's take our final break. when we return, we'll quickly hit some news and notes and then back into the rankings right after this. Welcome back in, some news and notes and apologies. We are recording this a few days in advance, so hopefully this news isn't too outdated and we didn't miss anything else.
Starting point is 00:36:01 But the MVP awards were announced on Thursday night, and both were unanimous, as we expected. Aaron Judge in the American League and Shohei Otani in the National League. This was Judge's second MVP. It was Otani's third, and Otani joins Frank Robinson as the only player to win the MVP in both leagues, the American League and the National League.
Starting point is 00:36:21 You know, Scott, as far as I'm concerned, I think two of the faces of the game right now. It's Aaron, Judge, and Otani. I mean, it'll be the top two picks in most fantasy drafts, I'd say. A little bit of concern over Otani's shoulder. But, yeah, I would say so. I mean, Otani's clearly the face of the game right now.
Starting point is 00:36:41 He might be the best baseball player ever. ever when you take into account that he's also a really good pitcher when he's healthy enough to do that. And even people say we haven't seen this since Babe Ruth, but you go back and look at Babe Ruth's career. By the time he really became the slugger we know him as, he stopped pitching. So it's, I'm not saying, like during the time with the Red Sox, yeah, he was hitting and pitching. But the really big Babe Ruth years is a hitter, he was done pitching. So he wasn't really doing it at the same time the way Otani does.
Starting point is 00:37:15 And, yeah, I think he's clearly the face of the game and judge the fact that he's a Yankee doesn't hurt with that. But he's also the preeminent slugger in the game today and a historic one with the 62 homer season, obviously. And just two years later, a season where he threatened that number. So, yeah, I agree. The Phillies could hold Andrew Painter out of spring training to preserve his, workload and I had Welsh on the Friday episode and he was really impressed with what he saw from Andrew Painter out in the Arizona Fall League. Scott, how many innings do you think we get from Painter with the Phillies next season? I'm not talking in the minors. It's, you know,
Starting point is 00:38:00 the time that he spends on the active roster, how many innings do you think we get from Andrew Painter? Well, I'd say, I'm trying to remember what they're starting five looks like because I'd say their fifth starter as of now is Taiwan Walker. That's according to Ross to resource. So I feel like Painter could work in pretty quickly. And he was kind of trending toward joining the rotation before having the Tommy John surgery two years ago as a 19 year old at that point.
Starting point is 00:38:27 So I think that can have it again. They may prefer to go the route of let's bring him along slowly because we know we can't give him a full season workload fresh off Tommy John. So let's kind of treat his April as spring training in the minor. you're sort of like the Pirates did with Paul Skeens this past year. And we don't end up seeing Painter until a quarter of the way through the season. Yeah, I'm going to say that's the plan the Phillies will follow. And let's see, Skeen's got to 133 innings.
Starting point is 00:38:58 So I will say, I'll say 130 for Painter. Total in the majors or do you think that's between the five? Just in the majors. Oh, all right. Just in the majors. I was thinking like 60 to 80 and maybe he gets like 20 to 40 in the month. minor, something like that. But all right.
Starting point is 00:39:12 No, I think he'll, I think he'll do better than that. All right. According to, it's, it's, I don't rank them quite like that. So my, my prediction here is, is, is a fairly optimistic prediction. But I think, I think painters deserving of it. According to John Heyman, the Tigers and Red Sox have checked in on Alex Breggman. According to Ken Rosenthal, Blake Snell has already met with both the Dodgers and the Red Sox.
Starting point is 00:39:35 Ken also reported that rival executives say the Cubs want to trade Cody Bellinger this offseason. and John Marosi reported the Red Sox could trade at Williara-Breyu. He mentioned the Mariners as a trade partner and I don't know. Willi-A-R-Bray-U for Brian Wu? Who says no? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:39:53 You did Wu versus Jern Duran last time. And we said, okay, the Red Sox say no. I think in this case the Mariners say no, a Brayu for Wu, but maybe a Brayu and stuff for Wu could be a possibility. All right, back into the early rankings and 31 through 35. You have Spencer Schwellenbach,
Starting point is 00:40:13 Hunter Brown, Zach Gallen, Jack Flaherty, and Grayson Rodriguez. So four of the five names we have not talked about yet. I think many people would want to hear about Schwellenbach, who is, I think, going to be touted as a pretty obvious breakout pick for many people heading into next season. He got called up. He was great for your Atlanta Braves, a 335 ERA, a 104 whip.
Starting point is 00:40:35 He throws six different pitches, the curve and the splitter, had whiff rates over 40. percent. The strikeout numbers under the hood. Everything looked good. The strikeout rate did plummet in September. I wonder if was it by design? Was it kind of like the workload was catching up to him type thing? But you tell me, Scott, Spencer Schwellenbach, in or out? Breakout next season. Well, I think I'm in by ranking him this high. I was trying to rank him in a more optimistic way. I'll admit that when I went into this process, I thought he'd come out higher than 31. But again, this whole range of starting pitchers,
Starting point is 00:41:12 like everybody feels like they're too low, and Shwell and Bach is included among that. But look, I got him two spots ahead of Zach Allen. I think that that speaks to my level of optimism. Yes, the strikeout rate was down in September. And from watching Braves broadcasts, it sounds like it was by design. It was him concentrating on getting outs earlier in the abats
Starting point is 00:41:34 so he could pitch deep into games. And I'd rather just see him get strike. But we know he's capable of it. And I think as he gets more established, he'll be able to deliver the best of both worlds, especially since Spencer Schwellenbach's best trait is that he is a strike thrower to the highest degree. 69% strike rate for his entire rookie season. That's going to rank among the league leaders. And it's rare given that he was not particularly established as a pitcher when the Bray's
Starting point is 00:42:09 drafted him. He progressed through the miners very quickly. He arrived with the six-pitch arsenal that he did a pretty good job of mixing up and pristine control. It's pretty remarkable the rise of Spencer Schwellenbach, but there's so much to like here. He's capable of getting whiffs. His control is elite. He has a really diverse arsenal. And he's just getting started to put into perspective how good Schwellenbach was over the last two months. or not even the last two months, the last three months, July on, Spencer Schwellenbach averaged 18.1 head-to-head points per game. Paul Skeen's this year averaged 18.7.
Starting point is 00:42:52 So if we're just, if we're treating that 18.1 over the final three months for Schwellenbach as a full season rate, it would have been fourth in baseball behind just scoble, wheeler, and schemes. It would have been ahead of, oh, behind sale, all. So sorry. So I would have been fifth in baseball. Yeah. I am absolutely in Scott. I'm going to try and get as much Schwellenbach as I can next season.
Starting point is 00:43:19 An NFBC draft that I already completed a 12-team league. I think I took them in round nine as my SP3. And maybe it's a little bit early, but I think that's the price you're going to have to pay if you want to get the breakout hopeful there in Spencer Schwellenbach. Your SP 36 through 40, you have Joe Ryan, Kodiysenka, Freddie Peralta, Carlos Rodon, and Ronaldo Lopez, another group with four names that we have not talked about yet,
Starting point is 00:43:46 and Ryan, Senga, Peralta, and Rodan. I want to focus on Senga, who finished as a top 20 starting pitcher in his rookie season, and then he was plagued by injury in year two. He was limited to just 24 in a third total innings that was between the minors, the regular, and the postseason, due to a shoulder strain, a calf strain, tricep soreness. This is another name, Scott,
Starting point is 00:44:09 where Kodi Seng of feels like a pretty tough pitcher to project and rank for next season. Yeah, and I've moved him around quite a bit already in my rankings because I don't feel totally comfortable with where I have him. There was a lot of optimism about him heading into 2024, or at least early on. He got hurt early in March, right? So for the bulk of draft season, his value was diminished. but prior to that he was regarded as a top 15 type pitcher. And so here I have him 37.
Starting point is 00:44:47 That seems like a great discount. Obviously, he missed the majority of the year. I'll but one regular season start and then three postseason appearances. The regular season start was great. Nine strikeouts, two hits loud, and five in a third innings. Then he strained his calf and didn't pitch again
Starting point is 00:45:04 until the postseason where he didn't look so great. So it's not like we can hang our hat on anything here performance-wise and say, here's why you should be optimistic about Senga. There's just the past optimism, the fact that he looked good as a rookie, got a lot of strikeouts. And I presume that's who he'll be again if he can avoid the injuries. but even looking back at that again, I'm less enthused about it than I was at the time because 4.2 walks per 9.
Starting point is 00:45:44 It's bad. 1.22 whip. Not as bad, but it's most of the pitchers being drafted in this range are better than that. And then, like, even then he threw only 166 in a third inning. So it's not like Kodai Senga as a workhorse. He's probably, even if he stays healthy, it's probably going to be kind of limited,
Starting point is 00:46:03 the number of innings he throws. I don't know. There are performance concerns here and there are obvious health concerns. And so I don't want to draft him too early. Where's he going among starting pitchers? Do I have him? Am I above or below consensus here at 37?
Starting point is 00:46:22 So his ADP is 142. He's the 58th pitcher off the board. They don't have it differentiated between starter and reliever, but just eyeballing it. I would think maybe there's like 12 to 15. I have him 136 overall,
Starting point is 00:46:41 so that's about in line. Overall, you're right. But I think if we knock out the relievers on NFBC, he's probably in the like SP 40 to 45 range, something like that. Yeah, so I'm not too far off, a little bit ahead. So it sounds like everybody's on the same page with me for that. And so you got to,
Starting point is 00:47:02 account for a few layers of risk here with Senga. And it's another situation where if we were inserting Senga with these circumstances into last year's pitcher pool, he might be 15, 20 spots higher. But there's just not a reason to roll the dice on somebody like this, given that it means passing up on Grayson Rodriguez and Zach Gallen. and Joe Ryan, some of those pitchers I have ranked ahead of them. I mean, there's some risk with all of them too, but I'm not sure the payoff, even if everything goes right for Senga.
Starting point is 00:47:45 The risks feel more acute for them, and I'm not sure the upside is an order of magnitude different. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's not an order of magnitude different, as a matter of fact. Let's get back into this Thanksgiving plate. So, so far you have green bean casserole, sweet potato, and white meat turkey. The next side that we're looking for is in the other category here. So, you know, you'll get like one of these little random things on the side,
Starting point is 00:48:13 the cranberry sauce or cornbread or a biscuit, deviled eggs, you know, something in that kind of category, Scott. What do you got? What's in the other category on Thanksgiving? This is a tough one. This is the toughest one. Oh. I'm going to talk about all of them for a bit if you don't mind.
Starting point is 00:48:32 because cranberry sauce feels like such a small thing, but that, that like punch of like sour, that like jolt, you know, that like, ooh, it like wakes you up. You get a bite of it when you got some turkey already in your mouth. It just kind of makes the whole thing, you know? You really miss it even though it seems like just this little like dollop on your plate. The cranberry sauce, you know?
Starting point is 00:49:02 So it's hard to pass that up. Cornbread and biscuits, okay, whatever. It's not, it's not, it's not, they're good, but they're like, you kind of eat them all throughout the year. So it doesn't feel like you'd, you'd miss it so much on Thanksgiving, I feel like. I will say, there's the way I've constructed this plate, my starch was kind of vegetabley in, in the sweet potatoes. A lot of sugar in there, I know. but it's kind of a, it was kind of a vegetabley starch, right? And so I don't have that like pure starchness.
Starting point is 00:49:39 And so maybe just to round out the plate, I need to get cornbread or biscuits in there. So that's another possibility. One you don't list here that has been a constant of Thanksgiving throughout my life is the Ambrosia salad, you know, the marshmallows mixed with the mandarin oranges and the cherry, maybe put coconut in. They're all mixed together with sour cream. It's something that I don't eat year-round, so it feels really unique to the holiday.
Starting point is 00:50:11 And it's just something I enjoy for that one time of year where it's available to be enjoyed, you know? I've never had this, Scott. I have no idea. I have no idea what it is. It's great. It looks interesting. It's the sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:50:27 if you eat it too much, you're over it pretty quick. But again, I don't eat it that often. I pretty much just at Thanksgiving, maybe a Christmas. And it's, it's another thing, another like cold item that just rounds everything out really well the way cranberry sauce does. But then you put deviled eggs here. Uh-oh. I love deviled eggs, Frank. I love deviled eggs. It's another you love them or hate them kind of thing. And I've had them underdressed. You know, you get an underdressed double egg where the yolk just tastes like yolk. It's, no. You got, you got to put a lot of mayonnaise, mustard, relish, whatever in there, really make that yolk not taste like yolk anymore. But it's delicious if you do that. And I kind of want to go with that. Like, you got to make me good deviled eggs.
Starting point is 00:51:23 You got to, hey. But if they're good. This is your plate, man. I'm going to down like six of those probably. Going to be like Gaston with eggs, except it's deviled instead of however he likes his eggs. All right. So that's what you're going with. You're locking it in, deviled eggs.
Starting point is 00:51:38 I'm locking it in. This was the toughest category, but I'm going deviled eggs, baby. All right. Let's get back into the pitchers here. We don't have much time left, Scott. So let's kind of rush through here. I wonder why. 41 through 45.
Starting point is 00:51:52 You have Brian Wu, Tanner Bybee, Shane O. Mac. Here comes the money Here we go Money Talk Here comes the money Shane McClanhan Seth Lugo and Sean Mania
Starting point is 00:52:04 So Shane McClan The only name of this group We have not talked about He had Tommy John surgery Back in August of 23 So he's had More than enough time to recover
Starting point is 00:52:15 But this is his second Tommy John surgery So that causes some Complications Scott The track record here For two Tommy John Surgeries
Starting point is 00:52:24 Is not the best I feel like McClanahan is a pitcher that could rise in spring training. If the velocity is there and he looks like himself and he's just mowing people down, he's the name that I could see kind of moving up rankings and ADP quite a bit. Yeah, I could see that too. I could see Shane McClanahan being a big riser based on the way spring training. We get some of those reactions from pitching ninja on Twitter in spring training and suddenly people are pushing Shane McClanahan into the top 20.
Starting point is 00:52:55 Maybe some people are already inclined to do that. It's another name where if you asked me going into the rankings process where I'd put Shane McLeanahan, I would have said, I don't know, 25, 27, something like that. And he comes out 43 just because other pitchers kept pushing him down. It comes down to me. I really have no idea what to expect from Shane McClanahan coming back from a second Tommy John surgery this year for Walker Bueller, a sobering reminder of how hard that is. I referred, though, to another pitcher who twice had Tommy John surgery, Cole Regens,
Starting point is 00:53:28 and we view him as a consensus top 10 option. And his whole career has come since two Tommy John's surgery. So Chris pointed this out, too. If you look at his actual track record, his major league career has been good overall, but there's only been that one year that was like, oh, this guy's an ace. He's in the Cy Young conversation. It was 2022. And then in 2023, you know, he was.
Starting point is 00:53:53 good, but he was more second-tier good. So I'm not even totally confident in a best-case scenario, health-wise, for McClain, what he winds up being. I'd rather play it safe with him, at least until we see how he's looking in spring training. SP 46 through 50, you have Jared Jones, Yusei Kikuchi, Christopher Sanchez, Sandy Alcantara, and Spencer Arrogatti. Such an interesting group. Honestly, Scott, if you want to give a quick thought on each, feel free. I just wanted to point out with Arrogatti,
Starting point is 00:54:27 final 13 starts a 308 ERA 118 whip, 10.8K per 9, 13.3% swinging strike rate. Massive whiff potential. I like Spencer Arrogati quite a bit as well. Yeah, his early ADP is a good example of why I'm not sure the people putting together that early ADP are people who do what we do, who analyze fantasy baseball
Starting point is 00:54:56 as like their job, because we know Araggeti was a different pitcher at the end of the season, and yet he's being drafted so far, like a guy who had a 453 ERA and 1.41 whip last year, which technically he did. But that's not who he was
Starting point is 00:55:13 by the end of last season. And so 50, I think, is great value for him. If time doesn't push him up the rank, rankings. Jared Jones, we were so, we were head over heels for him early in the season. It was basically just April. He was pretty good for most of May too, but pretty useless after that. And I know he spent some time on the IEL, but even when he was healthy, Jared Jones just
Starting point is 00:55:40 wasn't sharp and didn't seem like he was fooling anybody. He wasn't getting whiffs like he was. 829 on for Jared. Jared Jones, 8.8 fantasy points per game. That is dreadful. That is like, let me give you an example. Like Chris Bassett was 9.3 for the year, and a terrible year for him. And Jared Jones was worse than that from May 29th on.
Starting point is 00:56:11 So I think there's upside. I think he'll be better in the long run, but I'm treating him with skepticism because I don't know how long it's going to take to get there. to 48 just because it felt like I was too high on him compared to the consensus. And he's more of a floor pick than a ceiling pick, not a big strikeout guy, but threw a lot of innings for the Phillies. Obviously, good team backing him, high ground ball rate. The control, we're a little less sure about the control for Sanchez,
Starting point is 00:56:41 but he has the potential to be a good strike thrower. So I see Christopher Sanchez as like a much better, a much more predictable version of Ranger Suarez and would rather have him by about 30 spots in the rankings here. Al Contra coming back from injury, first Tommy John for him, but we're not exactly sure how that's going to play, and he wasn't the profile for Alcantra,
Starting point is 00:57:07 even before Tommy John's surgery, didn't feel totally secure. He was great, but in an unconventional way, not a big strikeout rate, a lot of ground balls. It's going to be kind of a tight road. It was always kind of a tightrope block for Sandy Alcantara, but coming back from Tommy John's surgery,
Starting point is 00:57:26 more risk of him, I think losing his balance and falling off the tight rope. And then he's got the Marlins backing him, which is just not great. That makes it extra hard for him to matter. And I already mentioned Argeti. He talked about him at number 50. So there you have it, my top 50 pitchers.
Starting point is 00:57:43 Is there anybody else? Is there anybody we didn't get to, in that top 50 that we just have to say something about. I'll mention some names in ADP that are kind of inside the top 50 starting pitchers drafted right now that that you don't have ranked that way. So Kevin Gosman, Shane Boz, Robbie Ray, Zach Eflin, Brandon Fott, Luis Heel. Those are, yeah, that kind of rounds out. Like, yeah, that's a similar range.
Starting point is 00:58:14 So those were names that you didn't have in your top. 50 or even top 55, right? I don't think I heard any of those names. Well, Luis Heel feels like the opposite of Spencer Araggetti, where it's just people looking at the, it's people looking at the full season numbers and coming away impressed and not looking at the breakdown how he got to those full season numbers, where great start for Louise Heel, dreadful finish.
Starting point is 00:58:41 And there was reason for skepticism, I mean, even when he was pitching well. so I tend to put more stock in the finish. Kevin Gossman, that feels like a legacy pick. We saw clear decline from him this past year. He's 58 for me, but yeah, outside that group. Shane Boz, he was solid, but he didn't have his slider and didn't get strikeouts at the rate we were hoping for.
Starting point is 00:59:06 And I'm just not sure where he stands. If he's totally 100%, or we didn't totally know what kind of pitch he was before the Tommy John surgery. So I think there's a lot of questions Boz has to answer, and I can't really understand taking him ahead of Christopher Sanchez. For instance, when Sanchez just feels so, so stable. Did it raise an eyebrow for you that I have Zach Allen as low as 33rd?
Starting point is 00:59:34 I think it's all right. I think there's an argument to be made either way. But, you know, the fastball effectiveness is declining, and the whip was high last year. walks were a problem he's kind of he has this like underlying you know is there an injury kind of lingering from a couple years ago so i i think it's fine i think anywhere from like the 24 to 36 range like that sp3 range i think that's fine for zach allen yeah i mean i've kind of just come to the point with him where okay that 254 era in 2022 is such an outlier he's he's more like a 360 era era guy so
Starting point is 01:00:14 like I was saying for Pablo Lopez. And then there was just a lot of weirdness in the second half that makes me wonder of gallons completely healthy. Yeah. So that's why he's another dozen spots lower than Pablo Lopez. But 33 still puts him in the same range as Spencer Schwellenbach, Hunter Brown, and Grace and Rodriguez. So it's not as much of a diss as it looks like.
Starting point is 01:00:36 But it is, it is, well, some people, some pitchers that seem too low just kept getting pushed down, gallon was pulled down a little more deliberately. All right. Take us home, Scott. We're looking for a Thanksgiving dessert. Many different options, many different ways you can go. Every pie under the sun, you got pumpkin pie, apple pie, pecan pie.
Starting point is 01:01:00 You go with pudding, a little whipped cream on top, maybe some ice cream. What are we doing? Interesting that you call it pecan pie. Yeah, I heard you say pecan earlier in the podcast. Yeah. Well, pecan is pecan? I thought that was the southern way to say it. So I thought I trained that out of me.
Starting point is 01:01:19 And Mr. New Yorker is calling it pecan. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's New Jersey now. Yeah. I think you could say it either way. It's tomato tomato. But you've always said pecan. That's interesting.
Starting point is 01:01:31 Yeah. Pecan sounds a little unappealing, but that's fine. I like pecan more. What's my favorite? I like pies a lot and I don't eat them enough. I think pies should be, should have like birthday pies. I like cream pies. I like chocolate cream pie. I like coconut cream pie. Scott, chocolate cream pie is the best. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. It's the best. But I am more of a
Starting point is 01:01:56 traditionalist, as I said. I'm not going to go with the pumpkin. I've always thought pumpkin pie was overrated. It's not very sweet. If you give me a piece of pumpkin pie without whipped cream, I'm not sure I'm going to finish it. Like, the whole appeal is the whipped cream. And like, that's not a good enough justification to eat the pumpkin. pie. So I will eat some pumpkin pie. You know, I'll get a little of every dessert you have. But I'm not like looking forward to the pumpkin pie. Pecan is close enough to traditional. But I am going to judge it up a little because you got regular pecan pie and then you got chocolate pecan pie. Have you ever had chocolate pecan pie, Frank? I don't think I have.
Starting point is 01:02:38 It takes it to another level. And that's that's the pie I want on Thanksgiving. chocolate pecan pie. I thought you were going to go with the apple pie. My next question would have been, apple pie's good. Apple pie is good. If you heat it up for a little bit, throw some ice cream on top.
Starting point is 01:02:53 Oof. So good. But here we go. Scott's ideal Thanksgiving plate. We've got all the desserts, Frank. I'm not going to lie. We've got white meat turkey. In addition to my marshmallow side
Starting point is 01:03:06 and my laced with brown sugar sweet potatoes. It's Thanksgiving, you know. Hey. Got to do it right. I'll just drink water. It'll all wash out. White meat turkey for Scott, green bean casserole, sweet potato, deviled eggs, chocolate pecan pie.
Starting point is 01:03:24 There you go. That's Scott's ideal Thanksgiving plate. We are going to wrap there. For Scott, I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a high star rating on Apple or Spotify. And Chris and I will be back again on Wednesday. Bye-bye.
Starting point is 01:03:49 Paramount Podcasts. Thank you.

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