Fantasy Baseball Today - Second Half Standouts! What Did Chris Miss Down the Stretch? (1/10 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

Link to Scott's article- https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/news/fantasy-baseball-what-you-missed-in-september-includes-notable-newcomers-concerning-developments-more/ Chris Towers is back! We're reunited (1:45). ... Let's take a closer look at second-half standouts, starting with Zac Gallen (6:15). ... What does Chris think of Byron Buxton's price this season (11:30)? ... Can Francisco Lindor build off his big September (21:43)? ... Is Frank Schwindel a worthy corner infielder (34:24)? ... Who do we trust more between Giovanny Gallegos and Camilo Doval (41:50)? ... Who do we like more between Frankie Montas and Max Fried (48:41)? ... What was up with Gerrit Cole down the stretch (55:55)? ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive. Center field. What 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. What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. Happy Monday, January 10th. Frank Stample joined as Owens by Scottie Dubb, Scott White, who is dead. Check out in the UGA jersey. Scotty, how are we feeling about the national championship? I don't know. I don't know how I'm feeling.

Like, the pressure is definitely off, given that the Braves just won the World Series. And I know, you know, not everybody who's a Georgia fan is a Braves fan. Okay, I'm sorry if you're not in that boat, but I am. I am. And I don't know. I'm not really sure how I'm going to feel either way. I guess I guess I'm expecting them to lose because that's my default. expectation for these things and because obviously they just played Alabama in the SEC championship game and it was their only loss.

It wasn't especially close. The Alabama pulled away in the second half. But you know, they steamrolled everybody else. Obviously steamrolled Michigan to get to the championship game and, you know, I think they could win. We'll see. Would you say there are more Georgia fans in Atlanta than any other? Well, probably than any other school, but you think it's more than half? Whose voice is that?

Who is talking right now? I didn't know. This is, what is going on right now? This is, hold on, should we start over? I don't even know what's going on right now. Someone I've hacked into your stream. He hacked in. He is back.

It's a big week of guests, by the way. I had this whole big introduction plan for Chris. And then, of course, you know, he had to give his thoughts on the National Championship. I mean, if he wanted to introduce me, maybe do it. first. I was going to do it. I was getting there. I had this awesome thing playing. I was going to play this song. He's back. It's a big week of guests, but yes, uh, no one, of course, I'm not a guest. I'm not a guest. I mean, you know, I live here. I subluck. How you doing Chris? It's been a while. It's been a while. You, you were off doing, doing the football thing,

and now you're back and you're doing some baseball rankings and you're diving back in. And the whole crux of today's show is to catch you up on what you missed while you were doing all that football stuff. Yeah, I can breathe again now that football season's over. No more working until three in the morning on the fantasy football today newsletter, which you should subscribe to CBSports.com slash fantasy or newsletters, I think. Also subscribe to the fantasy baseball today newsletter. Yes, do that. And yeah, no, it's, I'm looking forward to, I mean, I, like, I know what we're going to talk about. It's not like, I'm in like some ignoramus.

I kept up with it, but not to the extent that you guys did certainly, because I wasn't preparing for a nightly podcast and all that stuff. So I'm looking forward to, to learning from you experts about what I might have missed in the month of September. Looking forward to learning as much as I can. I'm a sponge. And yeah, I'm back for baseball.

I'm working on my rankings this week. And, uh, those will be on the site next week. for all of us. Yeah, hopefully. Unless they push it back. Assuming we finish. Yeah, I mean, you and me, Chris, we're in a similar spot here.

Yes, thankfully the football season is over. We're going to be, I have a long Google sheet just absolutely filled with a bunch of notes. So I just need to kind of hammer that down and put it all into rankings. And I'm hoping that I am going to get that done this upcoming week. I mentioned we have a big week of guests coming up. on our Tuesday podcast. I'm not gonna reveal the identity of this guest yet, but I'm very excited to talk to said person here.

So that's a little teaser for you. And then later on the week, Thursday's podcast will feature a reunion. Nando Defino, Adam Azer, and Scott will be on the podcast. Maybe I should just leave and you guys can do it by yourself and it can feel like, you know, old times. But yeah, we're gonna have some fun there. I don't know how much actual fantasy baseball information

you're gonna get out of that podcast, but I'm just going to let you know that that is happening. What you missed... In my experience, when you bring Nando out as a guest, things tend to go sideways fairly quickly. I don't know if you guys watched the fantasy football today draftathon. Oh, I did. But Nando was on for the 11 to midnight hour,

and, yeah, things went sideways pretty much immediately. Good thing that he was, and there were no kids watching, no kids in attendance, because it definitely went sideways. But yeah, we're going to have that coming later on in the week. Very happy to do so. But today on the podcast, as I mentioned, Scott wrote this awesome article back in October where he highlighted all of the crazy things that happened not only in September.

It was really August and September as the season was winding down. But it was for those who obviously started playing fantasy football. And, you know, maybe you felt kind of tuned out around the time Chris did. Sure. But I think a lot of people are kind of catching back up now. The YouTube numbers, the download numbers have been great, so we appreciate everyone for jumping back in. But people are excited to hear about fantasy baseball again

and maybe catch up on what they missed. So that's really the crux of what we're going to talk about today. Scott's article, I will put it in the podcast and YouTube description if anyone wants to follow along here. And Scott, you had five different categories in this article. Notable newcomers, even better than you think, partial redemptions, noteworthy debuts, and healthy returns. So I chose a few different players from each of those categories.

we're just going to jump around and talk about the players that I find that I find the most get up and get down. That is exactly what we're going to do. We're going to start with partial redemptions and Zach Gallen, someone who we really have not talked about at all this offseason so far, Scott. And it was a really weird season for Zach Gallen. He had a hairline fracture that he suffered in his forearm back in March. He made his return in mid-April. He went back on the IEL in early May with a UCL spring, returned in mid-June, then placed on the IL with a hamstring injury early July returned a few weeks later after the All-Star break. His final eight starts, however, a 3.19 ERA, 1.13 whip, 52 strikeouts, over 48

innings pitched. What was so weird though, Scott? Only an 8.6% swinging strike rate, 18.8% K-minus walk. That's actually fine. He allowed a lot of hard contact. So I still don't really know what to do with Zach Allen. I liked him a lot heading into last year, but I think the under. underlying numbers here, coupled with the injuries that we had last season,

I'm still kind of worried. The good news is that you're getting them at a discount as ADP is, you know, just outside of the top 140. Yeah, no. I, um, I'm worried too. I mean, really this, this finish to the season, uh, it is kind of the only reason for hope I have.

And as you point out, some of the deeper numbers weren't even, you know, the swinging strike rate didn't bounce back specifically. That concerns me. Yeah, I mean, when he he misses time with issues with the UCL and there's no kind of surgical intervention or anything, he comes back and he doesn't look as dominant. I mean, that seems like a recipe for disaster, and yet he was kind of able to put it, pull it together toward the end. I have him 54th in my starting pitcher rankings, and what's the magic number in my starting pitcher rankings this year, Frank?

55 55 55 55 pictures that I think are really I don't know what I what do I call those 55 the 55 that I really the 55 that I really want to to like basically build my pitching staff from and if I get anybody outside of that top 55 then I'm kind of just settling so Zach Gallin is barely inside that group probably not going to get much of him because I've gathered there are other people who are more sanguine about the way his season played out, his 2021 played out than I am. But I agree with you, Frank. I'm more concerned than not even with that pretty good finish. And I wanted to talk about Gallen because I've seen some optimism in the industry recently on Twitter, just people talking about how Zach Gallen is underappreciated right now in ADP. And I guess that's the case just

comparing him to where his ADP was last year when he was going in the problem really like round three through five range as, you know, either a borderline SP1 or a high end SP2. People were excited. And again, I was one of those people. So I don't want to act like I wasn't. But it was, it was just overall a very weird season for Zach Allen. So Chris, where do you come in here? Just kind of diving back into the numbers and seeing what they were at face value, but maybe you'd dive a little bit deeper down the stretch and realize, it was, I don't know if I could trust what Zach Gallant did over these final eight starts. Yeah, I think the thing with, with Zach Allen that is going to be important was how much of the drop-in, basically the usage

of all of his secondaries as the season went on, how much of that was tied to the arm injuries that he dealt with over the course of the season because his fastball usage rate was way up, the highest it's ever been in his career. And so that's where I get the concern because it's really hard to be a pitcher who throws 60% fastballs, which is what he was at at the end of the season, really. It's really hard to be that kind of pitcher and succeed. You have to be, I mean, who actually does that right now? Lance Lynn is kind of the only notable example of a guy who throws like 60 plus percent fastballs.

And it has to be like a really good fastball, right? Yeah, and Zach Allen has a pretty good foreseamer. His cutter, you know, I think that. the fact that he went away from his cutter last season is probably a good thing because that's not been a great pitch for him. But, you know, that will be interesting to see if he can get back to, you know, 20% change up, 16% curveball mixes in a slider a little bit more, you know, then I think you can feel okay about him, but obviously that's the kind of thing we're not going to know until

we see him. And then you have the questions of whether he's going to stay healthy. which exists for every pitcher, but obviously a guy who's coming off a season that was at least partially derailed by a UCL injury. That's more concerning. I would say 54 sounds low, but I haven't done the rankings.

And I know that this year, and talking to people, starting pitcher is considered to be a little deeper than we usually think. So I think I would probably end up with him, like 12th round, which is what his ADP is, his average draft position on NSC is 144.35.

that's 12th, 13th round. That makes sense. That feels like a good price. I would probably buy him there. All right. Well, we can't do a podcast with Chris here without talking about Byron Buckson, obviously, who returned.

And down the stretch, reminded us just how good. There was, I think it was like five to seven games as soon as he came back where he looked kind of lost and he was striking out a ton. And then 29 September games,

the guy just turned it on again. 283 batting average, nine homers, four steals, a 966 OPS, just around a 23% strikeout rate. The exit velocity was there, over 92 miles per hour, 18% bowel rate during September as well. And just how good was he on a per game basis last year?

Scott, something that you highlight in the article, 3.9 fantasy points per game that tied him with Bryce Harper and Juan Soto. And that's not even his best format. Yeah, which is crazy. And he really didn't even walk much either. So it just goes to show you that he made more. contact and when he made contact, it was really good. He was hitting a lot of extra base hits, obviously a lot of homers, and he was running too. He signed a seven-year, $100 million contract

extension, this offseason with the Minnesota Twins, which is filled with incentives because he hasn't really been able to stay healthy. So Chris, once again, kudos to you. I know you're all over Bucks in last year. The ADP right now, 65.6 since December 1st, over at the NFBC, 19th outfielder off the board. So a mid-six-round pick in a 12-team, league, how do you feel about the price tag? It feels a little high. Ooh. I mean, not for me, because that's around where I was ranking him last season.

You're disappointed. You're disappointed. Everybody's caught up to you. Right. I was ranking him around the fifth round last season in Roto League. So I think that is reasonable based on the risk and the reward that he provides. But, you know, obviously, given the concerns that most people have had about him, it's a little disappointing that it's that high, but if you told people he was going to play 130 games next season, that's a third round pick and roto, I think. Like, that's the kind of player he is,

the skill set that he has. He's just awesome. He could be a 35 homer 10, 15, 20 steel guy. So, yeah, I think Byron Buxton is probably worth that price. I'm going to end up with less of him than had last season, but that's okay. That'll happen. And you know how I feel about injuries. I think we're not that great. I think we're pretty good at knowing how good players are and not very good at knowing how much injury risk they have. So Byron Buxton has more than most players, but John Carlin Stanton stayed healthy last season. If he can do it, Byron Buckson can do it. Yeah, that's kind of become your like whole identity across sports, right? It's just like, oh, Christian McCaffrey. Number one pick in 2020, baby.

Ignore the injury risk. Unless it's a carryover injury, right? Like that Gallin's case is different. Yeah, I would say this. The way I would put it is past injuries in terms of injury risk are overrated and present injuries are underrated. Too often we're just like,

well, he'll come back and he'll be fine. But that's not necessarily the case. When you're actually injured, then things can go wrong. But if you're not currently injured, You know, there's, we, we tend to treat it like Byron Bucson has 100% chance of getting hurt. He clearly doesn't. And we treat it like.

Well, but nobody would be drafted him in round five if it was 100%. Right, right, right. But that's the way we talk about it at least is Byron Bucson is going to get hurt. And we talk about, I don't know, Nick Kestianos is someone who's been pretty healthy. And we tend to talk about it like Byron Bucson is 100%. And Nick Castianas, who's just the first guy I came up with, I don't know, maybe it's Maybe that's not a good choice, but is zero percent. So where is...

And sorry. And so we treat it like a binary when it's not, you know? Can I go now? Go ahead, it's got it. Yes. So where do you stand on Mike Trout? I mean, his injuries haven't really been... It hasn't been like the same injury every year, right?

No. No, it hasn't. But my point just being calf injury in May of this past year, we think, okay, all-star break he'll be fine never makes it back yeah a lot of people are really concerned about that what's wrong what's going on with the calf i am like i'm thinking okay he had almost he had two thirds of a season and an entire off season to get that calf right i think it's going to be right that's that's kind of how i'm approaching him so i still see him as a first rounder but not everybody's there no i i i'm definitely going to be more in line with you especially because when we saw him he's still like like

arguably the best hitter in baseball so i'm not really i'll dee you downgrade him because he no longer runs and you know soft injury soft tissue injuries can have a way of recurring but i don't know it it seems like and we also sort of ignore that he only missed seven games the previous year you know um so yeah i i think i'm going to probably have mike trout ranked higher than the consensus i'll probably be closer to you scott and look he's a 30 year old he's really, really big. And so that is a type of player who tends to get injured more often. Byron Buxton's case is much different because he got hit by a pitch, you know?

Like that was the kind of thing where people were like, he got hit by a pitch and then he had a hip injury. And it's like he'd never had a hip injury. I don't think he'd had a lower body injury before. And so it's like, oh, I told you was going to get hurt. Well, not really, you know? Like you can't just tell me someone to get like, Byron Buxton's more. likely to get hurt from being hit by a pitch. That's, that's dumb. Yeah, no, you're exactly, you're exactly right about that, Chris. And that's what I was going to highlight, too, is, is one of

the injuries that he suffered where he missed time was that he got hit by a pitch. And same thing with Corey Seeger. You know, people will point out, oh, last year, Corey Sear got hurt. He always gets hurt, but he got hit by a pitch, you know, it's not, it's not really his fault. It's not really something you can predict. You can predict. Uh, predict. Uh, pretty significant injuries, Corey Seeger. You know, he had the UCL and the hip injury, and that was the same season, and he lost pretty much an entire season. Yeah. Other than that, it's been, you know, smaller nagging things.

I think the smaller, random nagging things, I'm not going to say they're unrelated from each other. I'm not going to say they don't portend risk in the future. But generally speaking, you can profit off of those type of players. Chris, you did mention the 130 game threshold. I'm just going to wrap up Byron Buckson here. Steamer hasn't projected for 131 games. 268 batting average, 31 homers, 82 runs, 85 RBI, 15 steals.

So if he can manage this. stay healthy for 130. He might even be better than that, but... What is the OPS they project him for? 831. I guess it's... So they're really just kind of going... That's like a pre-breakout pace.

Because, you know, part of the reason I highlighted Byron Buxton in this article here and how he finished is because, you know, he had this, like, amazing start to the season where he looked like a first-round type player. And he never... Like, we had projected Buxton's numbers out. out over a full season before and oh yeah this guy looks like high in fantasy player if he stays healthy but like he he actually played better he was actually a better player and so I was anxious to see coming off that injury if that was just a small sample fluke at the start of the year kind of

looked like that at first when he first got back but then he caught fire at the end and you know final numbers are what they are he pretty much hit all year yeah there were like every player has slumps in there but like there wasn't I mean he wasn't active long enough to, you know, have a prolonged slump. But the times we saw him, he was pretty uniformly great. Yeah, the 150 game pace based on what he did last year. 47 homers, 22 steals. I, the projection is, it's tame.

It's not really based on what he did last year. But I also don't know. That's to be what projections are. But yeah. I also don't know how real last year was, right? Like, we still have to. It was 60 games. So like, let's not.

We're right 60 games because that's what we did the year before, you know what I'm saying? But the XBA was 300. The X-SLG was 611. The ex-Wobo was 407. His underlying numbers backed up what he did. Yeah, overall, I like Bucks. Which doesn't mean he's going to do it again. But it does mean that last season, if it was a fluke, it was a fluke of him playing better.

And that is something that we've seen over the past three seasons. As opposed to getting lucky. Right. It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't just like he had a couple of extra, you know, 61 games, that kind of thing can happen. And he could just get hot for 61 games too. But he saw a spike in exit velocity in 2019 that didn't quite carry over in 2020, but it was still the second highest of his career.

And then he had another spike last season. We're talking about a guy who is 28 years old. I get in my head now because someone in the comments of a fantasy football episode the other day pointed out that fantasy analysts and football people say we're talking about

or you talk about a lot. I actually listen to that podcast. That is, it's a crutch that I know I use and now I'm very in my head about it and every time I say it

I kind of like, oh God, okay. So, but yeah, you talk about a guy like Byron Buxton. You're talking about a superstar.

No, but really like, if he plays 120 games, maybe he won't be worth a fifth round pick, but he's probably not going to be a bust. And another thing people often don't think about when they talk about injuries is you don't just get a zero for that spot.

Right. You know, you do get to replace that player in your lineup. I should have known that adding Bucston to the rundown was going to take up a large portion of the show. Sorry, sorry, this is going to be a four-hour episode. At least another hour left on Buxton. Let's move on to another player here in Francisco Lindor. Overall, I think we could all say that it was a letdown season for Lindor, but he ended very strong.

30 September games, a 257 batting average. Nine homers in 895 OPS. He didn't run much down the stretch. Might have been due to the oblique injury that he was returning from. But the underlying numbers were actually really good for Lindor during this stretch. Strong walk rate, 12%, 23% strikeout rate, nearly a 49% fly ball rate. So putting the ball in the air more and he was hitting the ball hard. 92 mile per hour, exit velocity.

13% barrel rate. So a lot, I think something positive to take from Lendor heading into this upcoming season. Now it's just how much do we trust what we saw in that final month? We don't want to put too much weight on it, obviously. And Scott, this might be simplistic to look at it this way, but it was the first year of a massive contract on a new team in a new league. He hasn't played anywhere outside of Cleveland. So if you want to just give him the benefit of the doubt because of that, I don't really have a problem with it. The ADP right now is 49.5, so the 4-5 turn, I wish we were getting more of a discount on him, but it doesn't seem egregious for someone who was being drafted in the second round last year. Yeah, I'm kind of sticking my flag in the

take, though, that I don't really see him performing like a second round player again. I don't think it was so much just he went to the Mets. I think it had a lot to do with the new ball because the kinds of players who were most impacted by that are exactly like Lindor. They put the ball in the air a lot without posting premium exit velocities. And you look at his history and unfortunately his career almost lines up perfectly with the entire juice ball era, but that really began his second season. And the power production caught everybody by surprise.

They were thinking of 15 to 20 Homer guys. what Lindor is going to be, jack that fly ball rate up in his sophomore season and suddenly became this 30-homer guy. And I don't think that's going to be the optimal setup for him anymore if the ball doesn't carry like it did before. And I think that's primarily what happened to him last year. So, you know, maybe he could still get 25 homers with this setup, but the batting average is going to suffer.

because of how often he puts the ball in the air. And I think his best outcome now is probably going to be to adjust the whole thing. So he's not getting so many flybals anymore, but I, of course, don't know that that's going to happen. And even if it does, I don't think second round number should be the expectation. You look at the overall season, 20 homers, 10 steals in 125 games, dealt with injuries, really, really a slow start to the season as well. I think you take that at face value.

It's not awful. I think the floor is actually still pretty safe for Lindor. I have to imagine, even with all the fly ball scott, that the batting average bounces back somewhat because 248 bad-ip, I mean, that is just so much lower than his career mark. It's going to be a low babbip, is my point. I'm not saying he's, I'm not saying he can't be better in 2022 than he was in 2021. I expect him to be a little bit better, but only a little bit better.

And my thing is, like, there are so many awesome shortstops. Carlos Correa is going later than him and Carlos Correa had a great year. I don't really understand the motivation to Draftlandor even in round 4 or 5, you said. I mean, I have him as my

number 12 shortstop. I don't know. So one thing I'll add is if you go back a little further and really not just a little further, If you go back to May 6th, and obviously I know that is about as arbitrary an endpoint as can be, although we know Cinco de Mayo's a historically big moment.

That's nothing. I'm like, where is he going? But that was the low point of his season when you look at OPS. He had a 471 OPS. That was the lowest it was all season after the first week. From that point on, his 162 game pace was 250 average, 31 homers, 102 runs, 97 RBS. guy, 16 stolen bases. He was pretty much Francisco Lindor. The batting average, lower than you'd want it to be, but not even, 250 isn't killing you in this environment. So

I do think, like, that's maybe not a second round player. Um, you know, and especially in points leagues, I mean, 133 strikeouts, 71 walks. It's not even bad for points leagues, especially because you had a lot of plate appearances. I think that offense, man, I've said, about the Mets for like seven years in a row, but I think that offense is going to be better than it was last season. It could only go up, right? So much went wrong for them. And so I'm a little more optimistic.

And, you know, Scott, you talked about the players who were most impacted by the changed ball. And I do think Lindor does fall into that category, but not to the same extent that, you know, a DJ LaMayhew or... Yeah, no, he doesn't. Right. Not to that extent. Because, you know, his average home run distance

has been average to below average over the last few years. So he gets his fair share of wall scrapers, but he also pulls the ball a lot in the air. And so you would expect those shorter distance home runs to be sustainable to a certain extent. So I do think fifth round seems fine. It just bothers me the short stops he's going ahead of, I guess. Like in a vacuum fifth round sound,

I'd be okay with fifth round, but when it's ahead of Carlos Correa, It's ahead of Corey Seeger. It's, yeah, several rounds ahead of Corey Seeger. Yeah. It is 35 picks or 25 picks. No, I'm with you on that. That, like, I would take him over Chas Chisholm.

I would take him over Javier Baez. Of course, me too. But those guys are both going over court ahead of Corey Seeger. Yeah. I mean, it just has to do its speed, honestly. And I think people are overreacting a little bit about Corey Seeger going to the Texas Rangers, which I think you need to downgrade him, but he's probably being downgraded a little bit too much.

Scott, you keep bringing up Carlos Correa in comparison to Francisco Lendor. We still have to see where Carlos Correa winds up, but I would expect a better batting average for Correa. But he doesn't really stand out anywhere else. Like the counting stats have been really good for him because he played in the Astros lineup, but 25 to 30 home runs doesn't run anymore.

I would expect a similar home run output from Lendor, and if the Mets lineup is better, then the counting stat should be really good for him as well with 12 to 15 steals. I think that's possible for Landoor. I think Lendor's ideal scenario is that, yes. Yeah. Can I ask a potentially dumb question?

Sure. Why are people worried about Corey Seeger in Texas? Well, it's a bigger, I don't know if it's a bigger park compared to L.A. It plays more like a pitcher's park. And it's obviously a much worse lineup. Yeah. Right, but that's the biggest thing.

Players own... like 95% of their production. Like most of a players, the number of played appearances will go down, but the, you know, the Rangers do have a DH. He hasn't played with the DH with Dodgers.

So I think you can expect that to be pretty level based on where they've been the last few seasons. And so it's a downgrade for sure. But I don't know, Texas doesn't seem to be like this extreme pitchers park. You know, if you look at the park factors, it's a little below average.

Dodger Stadium is actually one of the best for home runs specifically, and it doesn't rate as much for, you know, the other, the other hitter factors. And so, but yeah, I'm thinking just like RBI run production mainly. He might, he might get 85% of what he was getting with the Dodgers, which makes, you know. Yeah, I would say it's probably like he was a hundred, the last two seasons combined, he's played 147 games. He has 98 RBI, 92 runs. I mean, maybe a little lower than that, but I don't know.

98 home runs and 92 are, 90, 90, 98 home runs would be a lot. 98 RBI and 92 runs. That sounds pretty typical of a good hitter and a mediocre in a bad lineup. And Corey Seeger is not just a good hitter. He's a great hitter. Yeah, I'm thinking the counting stats could wind up being lower than that, Chris. I think even if everything kind of breaks right for Texas, you know, if he plays 145 plus games, you know, 80 to 85 run scored, you know, probably 90 RBI, which again is very good.

with, you know, 25 to 30 homers and a good batting average. So I think we're all kind of in agreement that Corey Seeger is, he's undervalued right now. It's just he doesn't offer any speed. So I guess keep that in mind when you're drafting in Roto leagues. In Points Leagues, he should be fine once again. And I've said this probably a million times this off season, but when our only ADP data is TGFBI, you get the TGFBI biases baked into the data. You mean NFBC, Scott?

Gosh, darn it. I do mean NFBC. It's one fewer letter. Sorry. Yes, but you are correct. Obviously, the NFBC, a lot of people are playing for overalls, and they're elevating players who provide speeds. Yes.

But it's the only ADP that we have, so. Right. It's, uh, just putting it out there. All right. So we have talked for 30 minutes, and we've talked about three players. So we are going to take a quick break. Before we do that, I just want to mention that this past Friday, the athletic reported that MLB is preparing new core economic

proposals that they will deliver to the Players Association later this month. Now, this is significant because it's really the first thing that we've heard since December regarding the MLB and the Players Association actually talking about anything. So we want to remain optimistic here. I'm starting to get, like, once we get into like mid-January, late January, I start to get that feeling about pitchers and catchers and I just, I get so excited about baseball coming. And I want to have that feeling again. So obviously we're rooting for everything to work out here, but that's the latest. I don't like the sound of this month, though.

Pretty early in the month. I mean, prepare yourselves for like 15 or so days from now. MLB has sent their new core economic proposals, you know, 17 days from now, the MLBPA has responded. 18 days from now, MLB releasing a press release saying, these aren't serious proposals. Yeah, I just don't know why there's not more urgency. like, in these modern times, we can do things faster than this.

Like, I understand. It doesn't have to be this way. Have your negotiation, but I don't know if it's like an, you know, you don't want to over promise and under-deliver, so we're just going to say this month and they're actually targeting the 15th or whatever, but I don't know, got to put the pedal down there, I think. I agree, Scott. I think most people would, but you know how these things go, and we're going to get to the middle of February. Pitchers and catchers are going to get canceled, and they're going to be like, oh, wait, there's a baseball season we're supposed to have. Let's, you know, let's figure this thing out. So hopefully that actually does happen. Let's take a quick break.

And when we return, we'll talk about some notable newcomers and players who were even better than you think here on fantasy baseball today. All right, so let's talk about some of those notable newcomers. And Frankie two hits, Chris, I don't know if you were around when we were calling this gentleman, Frankie two hits. Why do we do that? Well, he had multiple hits in 25 of 56 games that he played with the Cubs. That's pretty damn impressive. And the person we're talking about, of course, is Frank Schwendell, who had a massive September. But really, it was just those final two months when he became an everyday player for the Cubs.

344 batting average, 13 homers, 19 doubles, a 10.06 OPS. Does not make a lot of hard contact. And I want to stress that because the Fangraph's hard contact rate, the Stackass exit velocity, it is very underwhelming for Frank Mandel. But what he does well is he puts the ball in play, just a 15% strikeout rate, and he makes a lot of contact. So, Chris, I don't know how much you've dug into this gentleman,

but how do you feel about Frank Mendel some pretty lofty steamer projection, 270 batting average, 27 home runs? So one thing I would say is you need to get a drop from Wayne's World when they say shwing for him. I agree. Let's do that. That's a reference for the older kids in the audience. You know, this won't surprise anyone, obviously.

But obviously, I've seen bits and pieces. I've never watched any Wayne's World movie from beginning to end. It is a classic. It's a great movie. It's very dumb. That is one of your, that's not as embarrassing as many of your other admissions, Frank. But, Scott, doesn't this fit right into the mold of movie. It doesn't surprise me at all.

This fits into the mold of movie that I have seen though, you know? Have you seen like other Ackxnell movies? Dumb comedies. Dumb comedy. Rockstar or Night at the Roxbury. Oh, yeah, I've seen Night at the Rocksbury too many times. The thing is, Frank, Wayne's World is a dumb comedy, but it's not as dumb as the comedies you normally watch. A little bit higher end than that.

I mean, anything that Adam Sandler and his crew has done, Grandma's boy, I will, you know, I put it up on the pedestal. it's one of the best in my opinion. But yes. Chris, Doug is like a fax machine. How do you actually feel about Schwindel? This is generally the kind of player that I will be more pessimistic on than the crowd just because, look, we've got 54 games of him in the majors, right? 54, 56, 70 total, but 56 this season. That's just not very much.

It's the kind of thing where you can look at the exit velocity and you can look at it and say, well, he doesn't strike out much. And all that was true. Like he didn't strike. I think the thing that you have to keep in mind with Schwendell is he didn't strike out much. And he did hit for good power,

despite having minimal eggs of velocity standout numbers and all that stuff. So, you know, that is true of the past, but whether it will be true for the future when you're talking about a 29-year-old, you know, kind of career minor leaguer. who does have pretty good minor league numbers, but again, very, very old for most of his minor league career.

So I think, I don't know, if you could get him as a corner infielder, that seems fine. But, yeah, I would not want to rely on him as, like, my starting first baseman. Yeah, and you don't have to. I'm based on the ADP, it's 234 since December 1st. That's perfectly reasonable. Yeah, 24th first basement off the board

just ahead of Brandon Belt. and Nathaniel, no longer Nate, that is Nathaniel Lowe. Scott, who would you rather have of that group? Brandon Belt, Nathaniel Lowe, and Frank Schwindell. Well, one of these names is not like the others, and that name for me is Nathaniel Lowe. I don't really think he deserves to be up with those other two. Oh, Scott.

I have belt ranked a couple spots higher than Schwendell, but at the cost I like taking a chance on a Frank. Frank Schwendell just, you know, it kind of depends on the direction everybody goes. It seems like everybody's inclined to just, ah, whatever, 29-year-old career minor leaguer. He's a nobody, so I don't have nothing to do with them. And I like seeing the glass half full on those players, because, you know, a lot of times it ends up being lucrative. He has had a very strong minor league career, often hitting over 300 with, you know, good power production. I'm not high exit velocities, I assume, but good power production.

So I always kind of liked them. Just in spring training, he'd be doing a bunch of crazy stuff. Why won't this? Anyone ever give this Frank Schwendell a chance? And somebody finally did, and he was much better than anybody could have imagined. I don't think he'll be that good over a full season. But, you know, could he be like a more powerful version of Uly, Guriel? I think it's possible.

One thing I'll say, just looking at the ADP, is there's one guy in particular. I know I will rank ahead of Frank Schwendale, and he is going around 40 overall picks later, and that is Luke Voight. You know, assuming, like, we have questions about where he's going to play, and obviously health has been a concern for him in two of the last three seasons, but, you know, you kind of just take the middle ground

between what he did in 2020 and what he did in 2021, and you're looking at a 260 average with 850 OPS and 30-plus homers, kind of easy 30-plus homers. So I think Void is one player I will be higher on than that ADP. And I would imagine that's going to rise. Yeah, I have to assume that ADP for Voight is just people drafting right now are assuming the Yankees will bring somebody else into play first base. Yeah. If that doesn't happen, then Void should be like a top 15 first baseman.

Yeah, I think by the time, by the time people are actually drafting, we'll know more about his situation and he should move up the board, assuming he has a starting job. I think that there is a route where he doesn't, where if the Yankees signed Freddie Freeman, sorry Scott, but if that happens, then what happens with Luke Voight? Maybe they trade him off for something else, a reliever, whatever it could be. But I would say if they make a trade for Matt Olson, he's probably part of that deal, along with prospects. So we'll see what happens regarding Luke Voight.

Nathaniel Lowe, Scotty, I was a big fan last year, and I'm not giving up yet. So I'll just leave it there. We'll talk about him another day, but too many ground balls. That's one con for Nathaniel. He hits lefties very well. And obviously, the lineup for the Texas Rangers has gotten a lot better. So I think that he can bounce back.

Joey Votto's too low. Joey Votto is too low. Oh, gosh. Yeah. 161 right now. That's ridiculous. It's interesting. We could take Rieckoskins ahead of Joey Votto, seriously? Oh, whoa.

What's going on? Everyone's bashing my guys today, man. Let's be, let's be, let's be grownups about this. Chris, look at the- Joey Votto is better than Reese Hoskins. He was better last year, but Reese Hoskins on a per game basis when he was healthy was great. Hoskins was fine.

He wasn't as good as Joey Votto, but he was good. He was on pace for like 35 to 40 homers. Anyway, let's move on. I want to talk about a few other notable newcomers here. Some relievers, actually, the only relievers I plan to talk about today, and that includes both Giovanni Gallegos and Camilo Duval of the Cardinals and Giants, respectively. They both took over as the closer for their teams down the stretch.

Alex Reyes eventually faltered. I'm sorry, Chris. And then Giovanni Gallegos was ready when it happened. He led baseball with 11 saves in September, 21 strikeouts to just five walks, over 14 and two-thirds. And he's pitched. And then for Doval, he came back. He started originally with, he didn't start.

He got called up earlier in the season, and he wasn't very good. Went back to the miners. Came back in September. 13 innings. Seven hits, two walks, zero earned runs, 18 strikeouts with a 17% swinging strike rate for Camillo Duval.

He had three of eight giant saves in September. Those were the final three saves of the season. He also pitched three games in the postseason. He finished out two of those games. So Scott, I'll go to you first. Gallegos and Duval.

Which one do you like more? Let's say if you're drafting in a Roto League where you need saves. I'm trying to remind myself who I have ranked first. This may be dumb to say because, based on what we know about Gabe Kapler, but I feel better about Duval's chances

of opening the season as the Giants closer. I do currently have him one spot behind Gallegos in my rankings because Gallegos is certainly more proven and I think probably a better pitcher. But the course, Cardinals generally haven't been inclined to make Gallegos their closer, even though he's been their best reliever for like three years now. They like him in a more versatile role. And, you know, they end up moving them into the closer role because they've kind of exhausted their alternatives.

Now, that could change completely. A new manager for the Cardinals, and the thing about closers is it's entirely manager's discretion. So you guy coming in, we don't have any idea what their. going to do. It's not like they've brought in another closer candidate yet. Still could, obviously. But if, if Gallegos is indeed the Cardinals closer, might move him into my top 10 relievers, you know? Deval, I don't think, is moving up. I'm around 15th.

But he was, he was the Giants closer even after Jake McGee was healthy again in the playoffs. DeVal remained in that role. So to the extent you can trust Gabe Kapler to stick with, a guy. I think Doval is the guy. Yeah, I think for the Cardinals, specifically for Gallegos, we just need more information, right? As we get closer to the season, are they going to sign

whoever? I don't think they're going to. I mean, they spent some money before the lockout and they signed Stephen Matt's to a four-year deal. So are they going to spend money on a Kenley Jansen? Even if they bring in an Ian Kennedy type, is he better than Gallegos? No, he does have some closer experience. So we'll have some time to figure that out. But I think if both guys are the leaders going into the season. It's Giovanni Gallegos ahead of Camila DeValle,

I think quite easily. I tweeted this out about a month ago. And Jake McGee, while he had 31 saves last year, that was only 55% of the Giants' overall saves last season. They had a ton of saves. 56 saves. They were tied for the league lead. So while Jake McGee's saves were great, all 31 of them,

it was only 55%. So keep that in mind. Like, Gabe Kapler... It wasn't so much a re-er... Like, it wasn't. so much like a, Kapler was pretty consistent with McGee. McGee was bad for a stretch, I think, in like Mayish and kind of lost his job for a little while, but once he got it back, he kept it until he got hurt.

So, Capilar behaved a little differently last year, which is why I'm giving him more benefit of the doubt as far as this goes. But, you know, McGee didn't even have a strikeout for inning last year, so does he really deserve to close? Deval was lighting up the radar gun at 102. and, you know, getting plenty of strikeouts. He's had major control problems in his history in the miners, so it could fall apart very quickly,

but that's, of course, true for any reliever. All right, Chris, how do you feel about Giovanni Gago's holding on to this closed role? Let's assume that they don't sign anyone else. They still have Alex Reyes. They still have Jordan Hicks in their bullpen versus Gabe Kapler, maybe just sticking with Camillo Duval as the guy for the Giants. That stuff is so hard to predict. It really is.

Because it just, it, it is correlated with effectiveness, but it's not necessarily 100% tied to it. And so I think Giovanni Gallegos is probably the Cardinals best reliever, but they historically, as Scottset, haven't wanted to use him as their closer for much longer than a few weak stretches. So I don't know. I'm looking at the closer ADP right now, and he is 11th in NFC drafts at 110th overall in ADP.

That feels a little rich to me. Closer prices right now seem ridiculous. Yes, they are crazy. Liam Hendricks and Josh Hader are going in the top 36 picks. Yeah. I feel like that happens with these early drafts because there's just so, like, the few calls. closer roles that are decided, those guys go for a premium because there's just so few bankable

save sources. And like, I get that. An oxymoron anyway. Yep. As far as that goes, you know, they are. Yeah. Like as far as, you know, a closer can be bankable, those guys are. Yeah.

But yeah, I, I, whichever one's cheapest will probably be the one I would prefer to draft. I'm not going to want to spend a premium on closers. I think. At this point, we should know well enough in this era of Major League Baseball that it's just outside of maybe five guys. It's just not worth it. They're too hard to predict.

They're too role-specific. And I don't know. Yeah, whichever one's cheaper and whichever one has a role. Frank, I got some breaking news. Somebody sent me a headline. Yeah, I'm reading the same one. I'm Butchery plotting a comeback.

Whoa. I think this might require a little visit from our friend, Michael. Not on the spot. Not on the spot. But maybe if we get a Thai-buttery return. Shout out to our boy Cole Claybourne. He helps us out in the fantasy baseball today Facebook group. So he sent that over to us on Twitter.

We'll see if our boy, Ty Butchery, can get back in the mix here in the MLB. Two pitchers who were even better than you think. I'm going to join these guys up together. The ADP really is not too. far off between these two. And the first one is Frankie Montas, who really just remembered that his splitter exists and he up the usage. So his first 16 starts, his splitter usage 17%. His final 16 starts, he ups that to 27.7%. And during those final 16 starts, 217 ERA, 105 whip, a 15.5% swinging strike rate tied for second in baseball with Robbie Ray, only

behind Corbyn Burns and ahead of Max Scherzer during that stretch. So, Frankie Montas was amazing. Max Fried is the other gentleman here, final two months of the season for him, a 146 ERA, 0.77 whip, 64 strikeouts to only nine walks. It was, it's like one walk per nine during the stretch. So the control was just amazing for Max Fried. 11% swinging strike rate does a little bit differently than Frankie Montas. Gets ground balls, limits hard contact versus obviously Montas.

gets a lot of whiffs and a lot of strikeouts here. The ADP for Freed is 72, and for Montas it is 88. They're about six pitchers off of each other. Freed is SP21, Montas is SP 27. Chris, what do you think about the difference in prices this early between Freed versus Montas? I think you'd probably have to prefer Freed, just because I do believe in his ability to limit hard contact.

I think that's something that he's been really quite good at throughout his major league career he's not Kyle Hendricks, but he's definitely had very good results on balls in play. And so that is something I believe he has. Montas has just been so all over the place. There's never been any doubting the talent, really, since he broke out in 2018

when he had the PED suspension. He's kept the gains that he had from that season in terms of his velocity and all that, it does seem tied to the splitter, and it reminds me a little bit of Kevin Gosman before the breakout where for whatever reason in Gosman's case,

it was because he didn't have the feel for it, and he would develop blisters if he started throwing his splitter too early. I don't know if that's the case for Montas, but he's clearly someone who should throw his splitter just a ton. And, you know, probably really his splitter and his four-seem fastball, he should not throw his sinker as much based on the results he gets from those pitches.

But this season he went from Sinker and Slider being his two primary pitches that he threw 63% of the time to four seam and split being number two and number three that he threw 51% of the time. So that is moving in the right direction in terms of the results that he gets from his pitches and the type of usage that he should have for them.

So I do think if Montas continues with that approach, there's quite a bit to like about him. He's just been so up and down throughout his career that I'm not sure you can necessarily rely on it. And I typically worry just a little bit about spending too high of a draft pick on pitchers that rely so much on their splitter. Now, Gosman has done it for the past, I guess, one and a half seasons. 2020 wasn't a full season.

Two seasons technically, but yeah. And Montas, you know, again, he's, he's, been hit or miss, as you said, Chris. I mean, there's been these stretches where he looks amazing, but kind of lacks that consistency. So it's got two different pitches here. Although, two different pitchers. Max Fried is not necessarily the most consistent pitcher.

I mean, his final results have been pretty consistent, but within seasons, he has a lot of peaks and valleys. You take the three starts out from this past season for Max Fried, when he was dealing with a shoulder injury, ended up on the I. You take out those first three starts. 244 was his ERA last year. Very similar to the 225 mark he put up during the pandemic short and season that nobody thought he could repeat. And, you know, the health was tied to the poor performance in those first three starts, clearly.

Having said that, I actually do have Frankie Montas ranked one spot ahead of Max Fried. And I know I'm probably on an island there. and the key is why to me. There's more upside. Yes, that's why. I mean, more strikeout potential, specifically, much more strikeout potential. Max Reed, I would bet against him being a strikeout per inning.

For this stretch we're talking about at the end of last season for Molintas, how many starts was it? 16 starts. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So basically half a season where he was one of the very best swing and miss pitchers in baseball. No, the key for me is why. with the splitter.

Why did he stop throwing it so much in 2020 after the 2019 breakout? Why did he continue not throwing it much early in 2021? And why did he suddenly throw it a ton more than he ever did before? Is it just because he didn't realize? That's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping he hadn't figured out how successful he could be with that. But if it's a feel thing, like it's something he loses the feel for easily, or, you know, you brought up the blister example with Gosman.

If there's another external factor that he has no control over with regard to how often he throws that splitter, then I might downgrade him if we come to hear that at some point in spring training or something. And the other thing is we've seen a stretch like this from Frankie Montess before. But not with the splitter that much. It was still one of his third most used pitch, as opposed to his most pitch, you know.

It's a very good pitch. Scott, you have both of these guys ranked inside of your top 24. Would you actually be comfortable with them as an SP2? You don't really have to draft them that way because they're going a little bit later on. But what do you think? It's not the ideal, but I do it. Sure. Again, I want seven of my top 55 is the goal.

I'm hoping to make up because I don't think the ace tier is as deep this year. I think it's a very deep upper-mere. middle class at the position. And so I'm trying to lean into that with seven of my top 55. Yeah, Frit is SP21 in NFC ADP and I believe Montas is 26. No, 25. Once you take out the relief pitchers. Okay, I had them as SP 27, but I might have missed a relief pitcher in there. It's, it's kind of hard because they have relief pitchers and starting pitchers together on NFBC ADP. but yeah, I mean, they're not far off. They're, again, they're going like 16 picks apart right now.

The manual Class A is RP4 right now. Wow. That's the one that you were on, right? Chris, you like Class A. I did like Emmanuel Class A lot. All right. Great. Well, Scott, you just mentioned that ace here,

and this is kind of where we'll just put a bow on everything. And concerning developments down the stretch, we all remember what happened with Garrick Cole. The struggles are well documented. I'm interested to see what kind of baseball they plan to use here in 2022, too because this middle class that we're talking about, Scott, this like how deep pitching is. I mean, it potentially could change if they come out

and change to baseball again. We just really don't know. I mean, that's how it changed last year. Exactly. So we'll see what happens. They changed a lot of rules for pitchers last year. And, you know, not necessarily at the start of the year. Yeah.

Not really the most fair thing for pitchers, as we saw, unfortunately. What for us, Frank. It's not fair to us. That is true, as we saw for Tyler Glass now. Poor Tyler Glass now. Don't worry. We'll see him again soon. Maybe too simplistic to look at it this way, but

Garrett Cole had a 4.65 ERA or higher. Three of the final four months of the season. The one month where he didn't, he was amazing. And it was in August where he had a sub-1 ERA. And there were other really good starts chipped in there. He had a 12-strikeout complete game against the Astros, I believe, the final day of July. he had a 15 strikeout game in September,

a seven-ending performance against the Angel. So there was still really good games in there. But overall, from June 1st on, 14% swinging strike rate, 24.6% K-minus walk. Those numbers are still really, really good. They're just not as good as where Garrett Cole has been in the past.

So Chris, would you still be willing to, I mean, you weren't willing to draft a pitcher in the first round last year, so I don't know if you're going to do it again. but his ADP is 7.9. Would you actually use a first round pick on Garikol? That seems okay. I mean, that feels like the floor,

what we saw last season in that last four months or so. And I mean, when your floor is a 31.5% strikeout rate and a 3.66 FIP, like, you're really good. because the floor for most other pitchers, like if things go wrong for other pitchers and the way they did for Garrett Cole, it's probably going to be worse than 146 strikeouts and 110 innings.

You know, like his control was still very good. He had issues with the home runs. His babbip was a little inflated. Yeah, I think he probably needs to be the number one pitcher off the board. I probably won't take him in the first round, but I can't say for sure that I wouldn't. I'm going to have him ranked as a top two pitcher. I mean, it's him versus Corbyn Burns, I think, for most people.

I mean, if you want to get weird and put Churzer or Bueller in that mix, I guess you can. Nobody's even thinking about the Grom, huh? I technically have the Grom first in my rankings right now. I understand the injury risk. Yeah, we just need to see more. The stuff with that elbow last year was weird. I mean, nobody should really be drafted. I still think he's the best pitcher, though.

An actual team right now is kind of my thing. I'll adjust down when spring training starts and we hear what's going on with him. But, you know, my assumption right now is he'll be ready to go at the start of spring training. And if he is, why wouldn't you draft him number one? But anyway, yeah, no, I mean, even when Chris was still on last year, we were talking about the kind of in the long run, what does this foreign substance crackdown mean? And I think we saw it play out with Garrett Cole

where still the high-end pitchers are still going to be high-end. They're just not going to be as high-end and not as consistently high-end. And I think that's played out for the most part. And it's part of the reason why I'm treating the starting pitcher position differently is because it's more of a very large upper-middle class than this group of super studs at the top. of the rankings.

Yeah, and... Go ahead. I think the problem with Cole is when you see a stretch like that and this is getting into some larger philosophical things, but I, you know, this thing that happened over four

months, we look at it and say, well, that is what happened when really like, yes, it is what happened. Obviously, that goes without saying. But every event is you know, the result of a you know, a bunch of different factors

that could have gone one way or the other and there's probabilities involved in all that. And maybe we just saw the worst four months of Garrett Cole coincide with that. And maybe that doesn't mean we should expect something similar moving forward. Yeah. You know, like

maybe we just had a, it's like Byron Buxton earlier. Maybe Garrett Cole was just cold. In the classic way that we talk about that term. There was a hamstring injury in there too. that it kind of, you know, end of June when the crackdown first starts and all these pitchers are struggling. And then the pitchers stopped struggling.

They figured out how not to struggle anymore even with that crackdown. And there was, even if you look at like the spin rate and Bauer units and all that stuff, coal is very- Like by August, it looked a lot like the pre-crackdown times. Yeah, it did. we don't need to get into the how or why. The house, they were using some kind of foreign substance that they were able to get past the crackdown.

But the point is, Cole was right in that group in August. His August was amazing. And then he had this hamstring injury fairly early in September, and it seemed like it affected him mechanically. And I think that's why we saw him kind of stumbled to the finish line. It really lines up with the headlines for him. And so that's part of the reason I'm not concerned.

Yeah. And we heard that after the season ended too. Like there were questions about it. He performed very poorly in the wild card game against the Red Sox. And a lot of people said that obviously he was pitching through stuff. You know, he's not going to reveal that. He's going to go out. He's a pitch.

He's a bulldog. He's an ace. He's got to go out there and do it. But yeah, it's very likely that he was pitching through something down the stretch there. Scott, real quick, we'll wrap up with this. Would you actually use a seventh or eighth overall pick on Gary Cole this? season. Personally, no, because I don't think he's as clear of a standout anymore. In a points league, yes. But in 5x 5, Roto, he'd be like, I think I'm 13th overall.

Yeah, I think that is very fair. All right, Chris, you did it. You made it through your first baseball podcast of the year. How do you feel? A little winded. Yeah, there was a lot of Byron Bucks and talking there, so. I mean, you go and then take a cold. shower and watch yourself off and we're going to get out of here. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank, thank you all for listening and watching fantasy baseball today. We'll be back again tomorrow with a special guest. Bye-bye.