Fantasy Baseball Today - Second Base and Shortstop Tiers! Draft Jose Altuve Early (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Download and follow Fantasy Baseball Today in 5! You can find FBT in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. You're going to want to target an elite second baseman early on in your drafts. Shortstop is a much deeper position. You can get standouts like Willy Adames, Carlos Correa, Wander Franco and Tim Anderson later on in drafts. Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-baseball-today?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-baseball-collection 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 in 5 on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 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

Let's hit the middle infield tiers up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5. Today is Thursday, January 26th. I am Frank Sample joined by Scott White, and we'll start off with the second base tiers, and that brings us to the elite tier. Jose Altuve, Marcus Semyon, and Ozzie Albiz, with an ADP from 30 to 53.

That's right. No second baseman being drafted before pick 30, and Scott, that's exactly why this is your favorite tier to draft from. Yeah, it's a high priority. In fact, I'd say my highest priority in drafts this year is to get a second basement from this tier, whether it's Altuve or Simeon preferably, one of those two. Albi's more of a fallback option. You say Albi's ADP is outside the top 50,

but all the drafts I've done, these three have gone in quick succession, all three in round three. And so that's where I'm looking to take one. I haven't even gotten to do it yet. It's my top priority, but every mock we've done, they've gone in such a sport short span of time that I didn't have a chance to react, which makes, you know,

you want the tiers to exist so that you know when to react when a tear starts depleting. I'm just warning you now. You're likely not going to have that opportunity at second base. Yep, that is fair. I mean, I think second base, third base, you really want to put a priority on both of those positions early on in your drafts.

Let's run through the rest of the tiers at second base. The near elite is just one player, Jazz Chisholm, who is going in the fifth round of early drafts. The next best things includes Tommy Edmund, Andres Jimenez, Max Muncie. That's from a range of 74 to pick 142. So three tiers in, we've only done seven players so far. That's how bad second base is. And it's about to get worse, because look at the fallback options with an ADP of 123 to 220. That includes Catelle Marte, Jorge Polanco, Brandon Lau, Glaver Torres, and Von Grissom.

So again, that kind of shows why you want to attack that position a little bit earlier on in your drafts. Let's jump over to the shortstop side of the tiers. The best around. No doubt. Trey Turner, now with the Phillies, he has an ADP. of two because he is incredibly high floor and still pretty high ceiling. Hopefully he can get back to running a little bit more in Philadelphia. The elite tier.

This is from ADP 15 through 60. It includes Fernando Tatis Jr., Bobauchette, Bobby Witt Jr., Francisco Lindor, and Corey Seeger. Worth mentioning that Bobby Witt moves down a tier in head-toid points because of his plate discipline, and Corey Seeger moves down a tier in Roto and Categories leagues because he doesn't run. and he's actually known for his plate discipline. The near elite tier, there's just three names here. Dansby Swanson, Zander Bogart's, O'Neill Cruz. Swanson now with the Cubs, Zander Bogarts, now with the Padres,

O'Neill Cruz, sky high potential. And let's just jump right into the next tier, which is Scott's favorite. There is an argument for combining the near elite and next best things tier because there's a lot of similarities between these players, if we're being honest. And it includes Tommy Edmund, Tim Eiffman, Anderson, Carlos Correa, Wander Franco, Willie Adamas, and Jeremy Pena, who is one tier lower in a head-to-head points league.

Scott, why is this tier your favorite at shortstop? Because I don't think it is that much worse than the previous tier, Carlos Correa being in this tier. Zander Bogartz is in the other tier. I think Carlos Correa's best case scenario is better than Zander Bogart's best case scenario. I've said that for a long time and we have yet to see it. But I think it's true. So I'm not even sure, even though he's a tier lower, that I want it straight up prefer Correa.

So it's, this is a difficult stretch in the rankings, the shortstop rankings, but really whether you're talking to any position, this is a difficult stretch to tier because where exactly is that drop off between the Danes B. Swanson, Zander Bogart's, O'Neill Cruises of the world, and the Carlos Correa, Willie Adomis, Jeremy Pena's of the world. I know it exists somewhere in there. And I don't think making this one big tier and eliminating the tier ahead or the tier behind.

You know, it just wouldn't work. It just wouldn't work. These need to be two distinct tiers. but I think like mentally I'm going to treat them more like one and be just as happy taking a Carlos Correa or a Willie Adama as my starting shortstop than a Danesby Swanson. And you better...

You better make sure you get a shortstop by the end of this tier because even though the next tier is called fallback options, you really don't want to depend on this next tier which only has two players in it. Javier Baez and Ezekiel Tovar. So there's a really, really big drop-off from the next best things to the fallback options.

Make sure you get your shortstop before then. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today in five, and we'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.