Fantasy Baseball Today - Sleepers 2.0! Undervalued Players to Target & Scott's Tout Wars Draft! (3/5 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

Sleepers 2.0! Chris kicks things off with Jackson Jobe (2:50). ... Robbie Ray is throwing a new changeup (8:05). ... Gavin Williams looks healthy and has upside (12:07). ... Jeff Hoffman could be a steal as the Blue Jays closer (18:54). ... Josh Lowe is getting no respect (22:37)! ... Jorge Soler offers power and Jesus Luzardo's velocity is back up (25:50). ... Scott is back in on Jake Burger (29:20). ... Lars Nootbaar is a good hitter (31:45)! ... We list off the rest of our Sleepers 2.0 (36:00). ... News (43:17): Adolis Garcia is dealing with an oblique injury. ... Here's a quick reminder of our Sleepers 1.0 (52:11)! ... We wrap up with a look at Scott's 15-Team Roto (w/ OBP) Tout Wars draft (1:00:22). 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

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. It's about that time. Sleepers 2.0.

Welcome into Tepie Baseball today on Wednesday, March 5th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we'll reveal our newest sleepers that we wrote up on the site. We'll also go over some of our favorites from Sleepers 1.0. We wrote that all the way back in January. There's a lot more people watching and listening and reading our work. So we want to catch you up on some of those players that we also liked. Plus, Scott had his Tout Wars draft.

Just a heads up. This will be a little tease for later on. I was baffled by Scott's first round pick. and I'm just going to leave it there. I'm not going to give Scott a chance to talk about it yet. We'll get to it later on. A little tease. Chris, you are back.

Welcome back. Give us a name that you added to Sleepers 2.0. Someone you are excited to draft this season. All right. Well, I feel like I've talked a lot about Jackson Job, but let's just keep on talking about Jackson Job because I think his price remains extremely depressed relative to where it should be. Yeah, in the last two weeks of NFBC drafts,

257.4. There's barely been any movement here for a guy who is widely considered to be one of, if not the best pitching prospects in baseball, who continues to tinker with his arsenal and who has, I think, almost no path to not being on the opening day roster. I mean, there really aren't any questions at this point for Jackson Job. And yet people. really aren't interested. And I think I understand why. It probably doesn't have very much to do with the four innings he threw at the major league level last year.

He wasn't super impressive, but it's not like he got rocked. He just didn't get a lot of whiffs. There are some weird things in his minor league numbers last year for a guy who is as highly regarded as Jackson Job is. His strikeout rate 26%. That's good in the majors. But when you're talking about a top pitching prospect in the minors, probably hoping for something closer to 30.

The walk rate was a little high. So even though he had a very, very good 236 ERA, I would guess the projection systems are pretty uninterested in what Jackson Job did. And I just think those projection systems are wrong. And maybe that is famous last words. Maybe they're just right to be skeptical about him based on the underlying stuff. But I just, I think the stuff is major league caliber and we're going to see a potential impact arm from Jackson Job as soon as, I don't know, the fourth game of the season. Academically, I agree with you 100%.

Just without even going into much detail, the fact that leaving Roki Sasaki out of it, some people don't want to call them a prospect. So let's just leave him out for the purposes of this discussion. you've got the consensus top pitching prospect already penciled into a rotation spot and he's going outside the top 220 picks on average is that right? 220? 250.

He's going to 50 even lower. 257 the last two weeks. So that, I mean, that alone, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of upside for the cost there and not as much downside as you might think since again he's already penciled into a rotation spot. I just find that there's so much upside at starting pitcher, even through that range of the draft, that I still end up gravitating toward other pitchers. I'd be fine taking Jope there.

I just end up taking somebody else instead. If nothing else, you know Job's workload is going to have limitations. He's never even thrown 100 innings in the minors. He seems to think the underwhelming strikeout rate last year is a problem because he said he worked on out. a two seamer and a curve ball to miss more bats to put hitters away with two strikes. Great, in theory,

didn't look like Job used much of either in his second spring start. So I don't know how committed he actually is to that. And he spread everything out in that outing. It was 41% four seamer, 21% curveball, 14 for the changeup band sinker, 10 for the cutter.

So it's a full arsenal. and it's not like he's sitting on any one pitch. I saw no, so did the, did it change? Because this was Sunday, Job's most recent start. And it had no sinkers or curveballs for him. Yeah, now I'm looking at it right now. It says he threw four sinkers and six curve balls. Only got one whiff on the curve ball.

That remains kind of a thing where Job isn't getting the whiffs that you would think based on his the way the stuff looks and his track record, but we're dealing. I mean, he threw 29 pitches total. So it's pretty small sample sizes all around. But the point for me,

and I get your point because like Clay Holmes, ADP is basically identical in this two month, two weeks stretch, Hazers Lazzardo, very close. I like those guys a lot, but going beyond them. Sean Minai is going there now too.

You know, you know I'm going to take Nio for joke. Yeah, That's an interesting one. I think I'd take Job, but I get it. There's value in having an I.L. spot to play with as well. But then you look at some of the other names,

it's like Jeffrey Springs, Reese Olson, Nestor Cortez, Ranger Suarez, Michael. Like there are guys in there. I like Max Scherzer. You know, I'm drafting him a decent amount, including on my ALA, but I'd definitely rather take the chance on Jackson Job than almost everyone going behind him. Almost everyone. Quite a few guys going before him. All right, fair enough.

Scott, over to you for an addition to Sleepers 2.0. Okay, my favorite addition to Sleepers 2.0 is probably Robbie Ray. It's actually Sean Maniah because he wasn't in my Sleepers 1.0, but I've talked about him so much. Well, that's actually my favorite addition to 2.0. And I think there's even, obviously, even more bang for the buck potential since his ADP is just dropped by 100 for an inch. for an injury that might not even keep him out long. So that's my quick-sh be a luminaia, the rest you've heard before. Okay, so let's talk about Robbie Ray.

At Robbie Ray, I have really warmed up, too, over the last few weeks. I remember during pitchcon, the pitcher list all day, or actually, I guess, whole weekend. What do you call that? Live stream, basically? Yeah, live stream, basically. Whole week and live stream. They had me on for a sleeper pitchers panel. And somebody else on the panel picked Robbie Ray, and I, and I,

I was kind of like, yeah, I kind of said what I said about Jackson Job. There are other pitchers in that range I like more. But Robbie Ray, when he came back from Tommy John surgery, he was throwing the hardest he had thrown on both his fastball and slider since 2021, the year he won the Siam. So he'd gotten peak velocity back. For the seven starts he made, he had a 16% swinging strike rate. Only two pitchers with 100 innings last year had a 16% swinging strike rate.

Gare Crochet and Blake Snell. So Robbie Ray was an elite company in terms of missing bats. The ERA did end up 470, but over a small sample, you can understand how that happens. His last start, or maybe it was the second to last start, before he ended up suffering a hamstring strain was great. It looked like he was trending toward having really strong numbers just with how overpowering Robbie Ray looked. And he actually says that at that time, everything felt foreign to him because it'd been so long since he'd been on the mound and he didn't even feel like he had regained his delivery fully yet. So that's reason enough to be excited. But here's the coup de grace.

He has always struggled to throw a change-up. He talked to maybe the best pitcher at throwing change-up and to change-ups in today's game, Terrick Scoobel. And the lefty, so you've got that comparison right there. very similar arm slots. That's why he reached out to him. Mm-hmm. And so Scoopal just gave it all to him. And Ray said, I've always struggled with throwing a change-up,

and I don't pronate very well. That's usually how you throw a change-up. The way he taught me, you don't have to. It seems to be working pretty well. And he actually did throw it a fair amount in his most recent spring start when he struck out six over three innings. And I didn't write down the number. But it was a fair amount, I believe.

I don't think we had Stackass data for that. game, Scott. Okay. Maybe that's why I didn't write down the number. One of their beat writers was at the game, watched it, and said that he got a lot of whiffs on the change-up specifically. There you go. Yep. So that, like, I was already warming up to Ray as a sleeper, and then I found that out. And it's like, yeah, there are durability concerns for sure, because he's missed a lot more than he's played the past couple years. But that seems like the only thing that could hold Robbie Ray back. Genuinely, who cares? He's 174th over the last three weeks or two weeks. I, I,

I just, that would be one thing. And his price has gone up a little bit, I believe. But like when you're tying about the 120th pitcher or something, sure, okay, yeah. But like at that point in the draft, it's not necessarily all upside, but it's not far off. I will say ridiculous to call him a sleeper when I'm adding him to breakouts 2.0, which is coming out tomorrow. Ridiculous to call him a breakout when he's been a sigh young. Yeah, I know. but you know, whatever.

These words are meaningless. Scott. It's just a way to say player I like. In addition for me, I actually haven't wrote Sleepers 2.0 yet, but we'll be coming out next week. I already have the names that I do want to write about though. And one of them will be Gavin Williams, who

Sleeper, Breakout, he's one of those things, but, or could be. Weird year, last year, suffered the right elbow inflammation in spring. He did not return until the end of June, so he missed a large chunk of the season. He didn't really look right once he returned. He was not very good. A 486 ERA, a 137 whip. He threw his slider a lot less. Maybe that was due to coming back from that elbow injury. But this is a former top prospect. He's still just 25 years old. He had two starts with double-digit strikeouts as a rookie back in

2023. And remember those final couple months, he actually looked like he was starting to build towards being a breakout in 2024. And through two spring starts, you guys hold me accountable. If I am leaning too much on spring stuff, let me know because I don't really want to put too much stock into this stuff, but he made a spring start on Tuesday, and he had 15 swinging strikes. 13 of those came on the fastball. So pretty awesome stuff there from Gavin Williams. Apparently he's throwing a revamped slider that he's starting with less velocity of the season. It's down about two miles per hour so far this spring for Gavin Williams. But again, it's just the prospect pedigree is there. He's on a great team in terms of pitching development.

He's on a good team in general and great division to pitch in the AL Central as well. The ADP for Gavin Williams over the past two weeks. Let's pull that up real quick. That would be... It's still super late, right? 236. To Scott's point earlier about Jackson Job, there are a lot of interesting names going in that range. So just loading up on as many of them as possible, Gavin Williams and Nicololo and Jesus Lazzardo and Clark Schmidt and Clay Holmes

and there's just so many names. Jackson Dobe. I just load up on your bench in names in that range. Do you guys have any interest here in Gavin Williams as a sleeper? He has been the ultimate somebody knows something I don't know when I'm going with that someone player for me this spring where I don't, obviously I know he has the pedigree and he was a great minor league pitcher. In year two and the majors took a big step back and really isn't proven at all.

so I didn't know what to expect. Well, now I'm beginning to understand what that thing is that somebody knows that I don't. Because when you miss, when you get 13 whiffs on your fastball alone, and granted he threw like 80% fastballs, so he couldn't get whiffs on much of anything else. But that's still like an insane number of whiffs to get with that pitch. And anytime you can miss bats with your fastball, that may be the strongest indicator of upside for a pitcher.

and hearing that he made some changes to his delivery after it got messed up with elbow injury last spring and now is getting better induced vertical break on that fastball, able to live at the top of the zone with it. Like that's exactly what you want to hear and there's some proof of concept now. So yeah, it's, I'm definitely joining in on the Gavin Williams' excitement. He might wind up in my breakouts 2.0. Who knows?

Oh, all right. A few things to promote before we move on. subscribe to the FBT newsletter if you haven't already. Chris puts a lot of work into it. He sends out spring training notes, his latest articles, and much more. Hit to CBSports.com slash newsletters or scan the QR code if you're watching on YouTube. A few other reminders, we are now accepting FBT Listener League submissions. Please send in something fun, creative, or just tell us why you deserve to be in the league. Email your submission to Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. That's the letter I.

make sure to put FBT Listener League in the subject and let us know which league you want to be in. There's a 12-team head-to-head points league. We're drafting that on Tuesday, March 25th, or a 16-team head-to-head categories for the People League. That will be the very next night on Wednesday, March 26th. Both of those drafts will be done in the evening, and I will announce the winners on Friday, March 21st.

One other thing, we have our first annual FBT-Mock draft Megastream next week on Thursday. Thursday, March 13th, thinking it'll be a 3 p.m. Eastern Time start, something like that. Mark your calendars. We'll be here all day, all night, maybe as well. We'll be doing five drafts in a row, five on all different sites, CBS, ESPN, Yahoo, Underdog, and NFBC. If you want to be in the NFBC draft and compete against us, I'm going to tweet out the link later today on Wednesday, March 5th, so keep an eye out for that. It's an online championship league on the NFBC 12 Team Roto with in-season fab, a $350 entry.

So be on the lookout for that. The draft, that specific draft will be next Thursday, March 13th, 7 p.m. Eastern Time as part of our draft megastream next week. Okay, I think that's everything. Let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Sleepers 2.0, Chris, back to you.

We'll just keep rotating through these and let's keep it moving. Gets as many names as we possibly can. Yeah, I will throw a name who's technically a breakout for me, but everybody's got their different definitions. And these words are all squishy. So I want to talk about him today. And that is Jeff Hoffman. You know, we're doing breakouts 2.0 tomorrow, Chris, if you want to. I don't care because we're not going to talk about Jeff Hoffman on tomorrow show.

We're going to talk about him on today's show because Jeff Hoffman, his price remains weirdly deflated, 146.4. ADP over the last two weeks. Over the past two seasons, out of 144 relievers who qualify for this leaderboard, Jeff Hoffman ranks no worse than 11th in ERA FIPP, XFIP, Sierra, K percentage, K-minus walk percentage. Basically, whatever metric you want to use, Jeff Hoffman is a no doubt about it, elite reliever as good as basically anyone in the game. And he's like the 19th reliever in fantasy when he's definitely closing for a team that we think is

going to at least challenge for a playoff spot. I don't understand this at all. I think people are way over thinking it. And I know two different teams failed a physical form. I get that. There are concerns about his shoulder. That's fair. another team did sign him.

Like, I get the point about the other two teams not signing him, but like another team did sign him. That's a thing that happened. And so I'm not sure why like the red flag of two other teams failing a physical one, we don't know like from what has been reported. I think the Braves had offered him a five year deal. So yeah, I think you'd be a little more concerned about a red flag and a physical. And I would also think that these two teams were both looking at him as a starting possibility. and the Blue Jays certainly aren't. So I don't know, man.

I think people are really overthinking this one. I think Jeff Hoffman is a top 12 reliever for fantasy. I like this one a lot too. I wrote them up in Breakouts 2.0 that came out last week. The ADP the past two weeks, 147. Chris, who would you rather draft Jeff Hoffman or Trevor McGill this season? Jeff Hoffman. What about Jeff Hoffman or David Bednar?

Jeff Hoffman. Jeff Hoffman or Tanner Scott Jeff Hoffman What was the first one he said Jeff Hoffman or Trevor McGill Yeah I have Hoffman over three

Overall three two I just counted he's my 13th reliever so I'm basically with you I guess we disagree on one guy I'm gonna guess it's Felix Bautista I would or Ryan Walker Do you have Ryan Walker ahead of him? I have Ryan Walker ahead of Hoffman yeah

Yeah I have Hoffman one spot ahead of Batista the one I'm struggling with is Robert Suarez, who I have some concerns about anyway, and I don't really care that much that the velocity's down in spring training, but I care a little bit if it doesn't come back because he's so, like, his fastball has to be like the best fastball and baseball for this thing to work. He went pretty late relative to other closers in the Tal Wars draft tonight. I think he's, I think people are beginning to, yeah, Robert, Robert Suarez.

I think people are beginning to fade him a little bit, which means I'm more like, to draft him because sure yeah I always want the faded closers yeah interesting Scott because in I believe NL labor last weekend and

it's different and I'll only I get that but he went for $19 it was a big big price tag for all this war is there's such a scarcity so few yeah all right Scott over to you for another sleeper 2.0

all right I'm gonna go with one I know you like Frank maybe you talked about him last time I don't know Josh Lowe did you talk about him last time? On sleepers 1.0, I'm not entirely sure, but yeah, let's talk about him. I've added him to my sleepers 2.0, just deciding that I wasn't giving him enough credit. Of course, I liked him coming off 2023 season.

He hit 292, 20 homers, 32 steals, finished that year as I believe it was the number, Yeah, number 12 outfielder in Roto leagues, number 24 in points leagues. So high-end player either way was messed up last year. And it's understandable why his swing was messed up. He had hip inflammation in spring training and then followed that with two separate stints on the IL for an oblique injury. We've heard from several hitters already about how an oblique injury really messed up their swing. Lowe said earlier this spring, I felt like I was swinging a different way, protecting my oblique. or whatnot.

But now I feel great. And I feel like I can move freely and move how my body is supposed to move. His hitting coach also said he looks like he did two years ago. And again, two years ago, he was basically a stud. The biggest problem, though, had two years ago, was he often sat against left-handers, as is the Ray's way. The Ray's need them a lot more now than they did then. And looking at their projected roster,

I'm not sure who could even start in place of him. against left-handers. I guess Jose Caballero. Jose Caballero, I guess, potentially could, but that would be a big downgrade offensively. I don't see the race doing that very much. So I think you add the effect his injuries had on his swing, the possibility of more playing time,

the fact he'll be a left-handed hitter at Swamp Brinner Field with the short right-field porch, but Florida humidity. and I think Lowe could be in for an even better season than he had in 20, 23, potentially more power. So he's another player. I've talked about how,

why would you draft to throw one of my busts in here? Why would you draft Pete Crowe Armstrong when you could get Cedric Mullins X number of picks later? Well, now I'm at the same place with Lowe. And to the point, I might just take him ahead of Pete Crowe Armstrong, frankly. Yeah, I think that's totally a fair point. You look at the ADP past two weeks. Josh Lowe is 154.

Pete Crowe Armstrong at 141, so not going that far apart, about a round at this point. And yeah, I wrote him up in Sleepers 1.0, a lot of the same reasons that you did, Scott. And the fact that even with that injury last year,

still put up 10 homers, 25 steals in 106 games, and hit the ball harder than ever before. And that's while he was banged up for basically most of the season. So I kind of look at that as the floor, and I think he could get back to, the player he was a couple of years ago,

now going outside of the top 150 picks. So I do like that call quite a bit. Definitely more so in like a roteau or categories league, but yes, very interested in Josh Lowe. For me, I'm going to give out another outfielder an oldie but a goodie here. Sleepers 2.0. Jorge Soler.

Still a solid power source going late in draft once again. Got off to a slow start last year, but from June on he hit 263 with 15 homers and 855 OPS. Still showing a good eye at the plate, 12% walk rate last season, still hits the ball hard, 90.5 average exit velocity, a 12% barrel rate. And I really like to move over to the Angels.

Last year, 16 of his 21 home runs came on the road, and it is a huge park shift. San Francisco, 28th in home run park factor the past three years, Angel Stadium fifth. So that is a huge upgrade for Soler. And it's just hard to find power later on in draft. So for an outfielder going outside the top 200 picks, I think could still approach 30 home runs. A lot of that comes down to health. He's dealt with a lot of injuries.

He had 37, two years ago, right? And that was in Miami. Yeah. Yeah. I think the power is absolutely still there. If he stays on the field, I could see another 30 home run season coming from Jorge Saler. Chris, back to you for a sleeper, 2.0.

You talked a little about, about Jesus Lazzardo and his velocity being up in his first spring start. And that's exactly what we need to see from him, because he is one of these guys, this term dead zone fastball gets talked about a little bit. And basically what it means is that for your release point and velocity, your fastball moves the way it's expected to, the way most fastballs do. And what a lot of the research has found is that your pitch needs to be different. It needs to be weird or it needs to be hard.

And those are basically the ways you get whiffs. And Luzardo has a really low extension, I think like one of the lowest in baseball. And his movement profile for his fastballs are pretty normal. So he kind of needs to be sitting 96.5 to be good. And that's right around where he was in his first spring outing. You know, first outing, you think he might be able to build up even as you account for longer outings. So just to say that the difference between a Hazel's Lazzardo averaging 95 and a Jesus Lazzardo averaging 96.5 might legitimately be a guy who's a must start pitcher

and a guy who's barely worth roster. And it's weird to think that that might be the case, but we saw he was a must start pitcher in 2022 and 2023 when he was healthy. He was terrible last year. He looks healthy now. The vast ball is where it needs to be. I think his price has been surprisingly cheap all throughout the draft process. And I'm very excited to see if he remains in that 250 range, because that is one of the guys where it would be hard to click on Jackson Job if Hazel Flazardo is there. I think he just started so low in the ADP that people don't want to bring him up too far compared to where he started. It was outside the top 480p, then he gets traded and slowly, slowly climbs up and now the velocity is there in spring.

So I do wonder how high the climb will be for Jesus Lazzardo. You mentioned when he's healthy. 50 starts in 2022 and 2023 combined. A 348 ERA 115 whip 10.6K per 9, 14% swinging strike rate there for Jesus Lazzardo. I am in completely. I'm there with you on him.

Scott, back to you for another sleeper. Well, I've been hinting that I was going to add Jake Berger to sleepers for a while now and I finally did it here in 2.0. I am back on the burger bandwagon even after it burned me last year. To be fair, it only

burned me in the first half, 225 batting average 635 OPS. But in the end, he had such a strong second half that his numbers kind of wound up where they were the year before that got us so excited in the first place. And now he's with a good team. The Rangers traded for him. And at first that seemed like a bad thing for him because it looked like he was just going to be like a power bench bat. But then they traded Nate Lowe.

And so, okay, Berger's their first baseman. And, you know, after spending. the last few years with the Marlins and White Sox, it's got to seem like Valhalla to him. I think it's going to have a big impact on him. Clearly in the counting stats, the runs in RBI, there's just the potential for so much more

in a deeper lineup like that. But I think there's the upside for 260 batting average as hard as he hits the ball, like 96 to 99th percentile max exit velocity readings for Berger. 35 home runs would seem to be within reach for him. I don't know that he's much of a sleeper for points leagues because his plate discipline is so bad. The best he can probably be is a serviceable starter for you in that format.

But in Roto, he meets two scarcities at the perfect point in the draft. He's a first baseman, also a third basement, but especially a first baseman. And he provides the opportunity for big power production at a point when it's drying up. So I'm liking burger a lot all of a sudden. There's just one problem. What's the problem? We're not shopping on the value menu anymore. This is not a dollar menu burger.

I didn't think it had to be. I just think he's undervalued. He's up to 106.5. Yeah, this is a double quarter pounder. Double quarter pounder with cheese, man. He's more like 125 when you combine all the sources. Yeah. At the same point I was going to bring up is the last two weeks, 106 for Jake Berger.

he's going now ahead of Vinny Pass Guantino, Tristan Kossis, and Alex Bregman over the past two weeks. So pretty interesting there. Scott, do you like drafting Burger more as a first or third basement in fantasy? First baseman. I think there are a lot of third baseman in the same price range that I like more, but less so first baseman. All right, a name, I cannot quit. Lars Neupar. I will not quit. I can't do it. I am convinced that he is legit a good hitter and he just has not been able to stay healthy. Will this be the year? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure hoping. that he stays healthy this year, but it's still really good play discipline, a 13% walk rate, a strikeout rate under 20%. He hits the ball hard, 91.8 average exit velocity. He has very even career splits, so I believe he's going to be an everyday player for the Cardinals. I just think if he gets to 130, 140 plus innings. We're looking at a three. Games. Innings, yeah, what do I see?

Yeah, games. That would be helpful for Lars Neupar. A 350-ish OBP, 20 plus home. is 10 plus steals. It's not, you know, I don't think he's going to blow you away or anything. I don't think there's a huge breakout season coming or anything, but just a player that can provide value going outside the top 250 picks as a serviceable outfielder. And the deeper you go into drafts,

it is pretty hard to find those serviceable outfielders. So I'm back in. Our's Newpar. I think he's someone I'm more interested in a 15 team league than a 12. I think he's pretty fringy in a 12, even if the, you know, like you just, if you give him 600 plate appearances at his pace last year, you're talking about like 18 homers, 11 steals, something like 75 runs in RBI.

It's like, that's a useful player, but it's much more useful in a 15 teamer. So that's mostly my thing with Newpar. I just, and maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe it's just I have a little bit of fatigue and I've been. told that Lars Nupar is going to be a thing for so many years and he just ends up being the kind of same vanilla flavor. I guess this is his last chance. This is his last chance for me.

I talked about him in the sleeper. Actually, had him as a breakout, how he worked all last off season with Nolan Aeronado on pulling the ball in the air more, which Aeronado is a good guy to work with on that, you would think. And then, well,

it didn't work because he got an oblique injury right away and wasn't able to to do the routines, do the things he needed to do to stick with that approach because his oblique didn't hurt. So he just had to kind of abandon it. But he actually talked about this in September and how he wanted to get back to that. So he certainly has the exit velocities for power. If he can figure out how to do that more. All right, let's take our final break. When are your turn, we'll rattle off a few more sleepers here right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. Sleepers 2.0 undervalued slash late round targets that you should be targeting. Targeted. targets. Yeah, I just said that. That's redundant in your fantasy baseball drafts. And Chris,

I'll throw it back to you. I'll list off the rest here in your sleepers 2.0. Feel free to give a quick nugget or if you just want to focus on one of these players, go for it. But Hunter Goodman, Jackson Holiday, Jonathan India, and Evan Carter were also additions for you. Yeah, these are all varying levels of interesting. Like Hunter Goodman is just, hey, here's a name to know in your two catcher leagues, but he's seemingly locked into a roster spot for the Rockies. He's probably going to be the backup catcher, but maybe he plays a little bit of outfield, gets a few days at DH and can, you know, find a way to 400 plate appearances. There's big power there.

Obviously, Jackson Holiday, I think he was on at least one of your early sleepers lists as well. Breakouts for me. Sounds like he's more or less locked into an everyday job for the Orioles, unless he totally blows it this spring. They're talking about him wanting to be more aggressive as a base runner. It's a bet on a blue chip talent who's only 21 years old. And Evan Carter, kind of the same thing. I just don't know if he was ever healthy.

I know the numbers were really bad last year. But I'm a little surprised at how quickly everyone went from. Evan Carter is a top 120 pick to Evan Carter is dead to me and I never want to hear his name again. His ADP is 275.3. He's 22 or 23 years old. still has shown really good plate discipline at the major league level, has shown really good athleticism to think that there might be some stolen base potential there. I love taking Evan Carter with a late round pick.

All right, Scott, over to you. Some additions to Sleepers 2.0. You've got, you mentioned Sean Mania up earlier, but Danesby Swanson and Nick Pavetta also additions for you. Yeah, Danesby Swanson, it's mainly just he's being undervalued. I understand his numbers were down a little bit over the full season. He was playing through, we now know, a hernia, right? A heart, a core muscle injury that eventually required surgery.

He was playing through it, but he actually turned things around at the end of the year, even playing through it. Final two months, he had 283 with seven homers, 12 steals, and an 822 OPS. Now he's had the core surgery. I think, you know, looking at the underlying stats, Swanson is the same guy he's always been. And that guy is looking at fantasy pros ADP, 181st player off the board right now.

Last year he was 109th. Go back to 2021. The latest he's been drafted is 116th. So you're just getting him so much later. And I don't think there's any good reason for him to fall that much. So that's Stansby-Swanson. And then Nick Pavetta,

and we talked about it when the Padre signed him, the underlying numbers have always looked great. Over the last two years, minimum 250 innings, fourth-best Sierra, 13th best batting average against, fourth-best K-per-9, fifth-best K-per-9, fifth-best K-month-month-off rate,

always had great strike-out numbers, improved his control by a lot over the last two years. that's gone from a weakness to a strength for Nick Povetta. It's just the home runs. They killed him mainly. That's kept his ERA over four. Now he's going to a pitcher's park in San Diego for the first time. And I just have to think it's kind of go better for him.

Even if he just pitches to his expected ERA last year, which is 351, even if Povetta just pitches to that, with the kind of strikeouts he's going to give you, with the kind of whip he's going to give you, he's going to be a good bang for your buck kind of pick. he could be like a poor man's. Well, he could end up being just Joe Ryan, basically, for a lower cost.

And Povetta made his Padre's spring debut on Tuesday, two and two thirds, no hit innings for strikeouts. Velocity down a little bit, but had six swinging strikes on 40 pitches there for Nick Povetta. Two names I am also adding are going to be Max Scher and Max Meyer. The two Maxes, how about that, on completely different ends of their respective careers. Max Scherzer, 40 years old.

Does he have anything left? I think so. Last year, he was still okay when he pitched. Had a 14.6% swinging strike rate. That was the same as Terrick Scoobel. And in a very small sample this spring, the strikeouts have been there for him. I think he could still get whiffs.

It's just how many starts are you going to get out of Max Scherzer? I think that is a real question. But for someone who's going close to 300th in ADP over the past week or so, you know, he's going behind names like Mitch Keller, Michael Walker Ranger Suarez. I just, I think that there is more upside,

a lot more upside on a per inning basis there for Max Scherzer. You want a bold prediction? What do you got? Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander both have ERAs to start with a three this year. Oof.

Oof! Spicy! I got Verlander on my NL only team, so I hope you're right. They're going to do it in very different ways. And obviously I think there's a lot of risk for injury. Like I think the strike aren't coming back for Verlander, although the lot of the fact that he's been up,

yeah, the fact of velocity's been up, like maybe he can get back to average, but he has remained elite at generating weak contact over the past couple of seasons, even as the skill set has changed, obviously he's in a great park, a great defense behind him.

I think there is something left in the tank for Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, although I do like Scherzer more. Right. But my concern for my concerns for Verlander or wholesale. My concerns for Scherzer are really just limited to how often he's going to take them out. Yep. Because the stuff still played. Yes. Really well last year. And Max Meyer, who I mentioned there, he's a former top prospect. He's turning 26 next week, actually. Happy birthday, Max Meyer. He's thrown 63 career innings in the majors. He's been really bad. But this offseason said that he worked. on adding velocity and adding a couple more pitches, a sinker and a sweeper.

So far, those have rung true in spring training. The velocity on Monday was up between 1.7 and 2.4 miles per hour on all of his pitches. Fastball is up to 95.9 for Max Meyer. And he threw 115 total innings last year, so I think he can get up to like 140. Winds are going to be hard to come by in Miami. But, you know, if it all works out,

and this version of Max Meyer stays, healthy, then maybe we get pretty good ratios, some strikeouts there, in a good pitchers park. So Max Meyer going around 400th in ADP the past couple of weeks. He is extremely cheap, maybe an aim in some of those deeper leagues. New sweeper has graded out pretty well for Max Meyer, which is big because his slider is more of a gyro slider. It's more of like a weak contact and like a lefty pitch. So he needed a pitch to put away righties. And sweeper could be it. All right, we'll hit some news and notes, then a couple more sleepers from 1.0. We'll wrap up with Scott's Tout Wars team, but we got some news here on Tuesday.

Adolas Garcia was scratched due to a left oblique injury and is set to undergo an MRI. He might be up against it here for opening day. Obviously, we're already into March. And if he has to miss time, Lioti Tavares likely would be the fill-in there in the Rangers outfield. So we wait to learn more what kind of strain it is. is and how much time he's going to miss, but I'm guessing we're all going to be lowering Adola Garcia a little bit in the rankings. Yeah.

I mean, obliques are, unless it ends up not being a concern, but yeah, obliques are, I think you kind of always have to move guys down when they get the spring training oblique injury. I just said, we've heard from so many hitters last year, so many hitters this spring saying an oblique messed up their swing last year, which doesn't mean that's what's always going to happen. and I don't want to over-correct. Gunner Henderson also had no bleak injury last spring. Yeah. He had a decent season.

Right. But it is something to take a little more seriously than other kinds of injuries. Jordan Walker was removed Tuesday with pain in his left knee. We're waiting to learn more on that injury. Guardians' prospect Chase DeLauder might just have the worst look in the world. He is out eight to 12 weeks after undergoing sports hernia surgery. his entire professional career to this point has been derailed by injuries

and so far it is again here in 2025. It's a new one. At least he didn't break that foot for the fourth time. I think he missed a bunch of time in college too. He just has not been able to stay healthy. It's, yeah, it sucks. The first time he broke the left foot was in college. I almost think you just like treat him like a pitcher

and just as soon as he's healthy, just get him on the major league team because who knows how, Like, why have him play a minor league game if it's not going to count? Mm-hmm. We'll see how Jean Kinsey Noel is doing at that point because Noel is straight up murdering the ball this spring. On Monday, he had three batted balls more than 111 miles per hour. Friend Mel Reyes lives.

Yeah. He just has an aesthetically pleasing swing when he connects, which is not always the case. But when Noel hits a ball, it can go. a long, long way. So a pretty fun player there to watch with, what's his name? Big Christmas. Is that his nickname? Big Christmas. Yeah. Oh, like that's an 80 great nickname too. Yeah, love that. Pete Alonzo spent a lot of time this offseason refining his swing mechanics to quote, replicate, replicate the good feelings from his postseason swings. See if it amounts to anything. Both Luis Renhifo and Taylor Ward said they'll be back in game action soon. Renhifo dealing with a hamstring

cramp and Ward is dealing with knee soreness. Jock Peterson started at first base again on Tuesday with Jake Berger at D.H. And I'm starting to think Jock Peterson could gain first base eligibility this season. Really, still just a name for deeper rhodo leagues, I think, daily lineup leagues where you can just get Jock in there when he's playing, but could gain out first base eligibility. He could. I might take a while. It might take a while.

Like I think they just want him to be able to back up Berger at first base. Yep. Some stack has stuff from Tuesday. Roki Sasaki made his spring debut. Three shutout innings with five strikeouts. He had eight whiffs on 46 pitches. We were talking beforehand. Seven of those came on the splitter. That splitter is a unique pitch.

That is the word I'm going to use because watching the highlights, it kind of looked like a slider. It was just, it was weird. So I just thought of something that always makes me think of my college newspaper. advisor because I was going to say it's the most unique pitch in baseball. And I can hear Alfred in my head, like most unique is not a thing. Like unique is just a standalone thing. I get it. It might be the most unique pitch in baseball because, yeah, the first inning that he threw it, there's always calibration issues with Stackass when you have a new pitcher or new pitches.

And in his case, I think his first six splitters in the first inning, two of them were marked as a slider, two as a change up, one as a cutter. And I think that kind of. kind of tells you the movement profile of this pitch. He threw some that had pretty typical splitter movement, just that, you know, arm side run, late drop out of the zone. But then more than a few splitters that had glove side movement, which is not very common. I looked it up last year.

The average spin rate on that splitter was 518, 518 RPM. So it's kind of, it's kind of knuckleballish in terms. terms of unpredictable movement. Yeah, Kodi-Singa's forkball has 1,200 RPMs, but for comparison. I want to say Yamamoto's splitter also has very, very low spin rates. Nope, not even in the same neighbor at 1326. Lance Prasdowski did point out that the splitter was down about three miles per hour from last year. So that's another wrinkle.

I don't know. He got seven whiffs on the 18 he threw. And guys looked really uncomfortable. And the way it moved today, I think it looks like it should be just an absurdly high whiff rate pitch. I'm not sure it's a pitch he's going to throw for strikes very often, which splitters generally are buried in the zone anyway. But there were a handful of times where he hung them. but it's such a weird pitch that like there was one he got I think a strikeout on

that was like basically a backdoor slider except it was a splitter that he kind of hung on the inside corner to a righty and it's just it's such a weird pitch and he's one that fastball is kind of that dead zone he does get good extension but the movement profile is not anything special so the fact that he was averaging 98 with it

when he was averaging 96 6.3, I think, his last year in Japan. That's a good sign. 96.8. So it's up a little more than a mile per hour. It could still go up from there because it's so early in spring training. It was 98.8 in 2023. And he had a Chris Sale like whiff rate on it.

It was 96.8 last year. And he had a Chris Flexen like whiff rate on it. So 98 in his first spring start. I think that's trending the right direction for Roki Sasaki. And that's going to be important. and how hard he's throwing that fastball. Encouraging first side. The biggest issue with Sasaki is still,

with the injuries he's had in Japan, with the innings limit, the lower number of innings he's thrown in Japan, just given how young he is, why would they lean on him that hard during the regular season? They have a ton of rotation surplus. They're already going to be going to be a six-man rotation.

They're making the playoffs. matter how much Sasaki throws for them, I think their main goal with him this year is preservation. And so that's going to limit his fantasy value. I think he's going to be great. Probably this year, I think he's going to be very good.

It's just, and we were talking about this before the show, I was comparing him like Tyler Glass now, where like, you might just peg both those guys at 130 innings. And you might just give them very similar projected production.

you would still rather have Glassnow than Sasaki because Sasaki's 130 innings might be the ceiling over the six months of the season. Maybe it's 140, maybe it's 150, but you get my point. Glass now's ceiling is 180. He just isn't going to stay healthy and he's not going to hit it. But you would rather have a pitcher who throws 130 or 140 innings and misses two months than a guy who pitches the whole season and throws 130 or 140

innings because every time he's on the mound, it should be more valuable. And you get replacement value from the guys that you fill in for him. Whereas Sasaki, it's going to be a lot of skip starts throughout the year, I think. It's going to be a lot of five-inning starts. It's just, it's probably not going to be quite as valuable as it appears in the moment. All right, we are going to go a little bit longer here because I want to mention some of our sleepers from 1.0 for people that are you know just getting back into the podcast and catching up on things and we're going to recap scott's tout wars team as well but for sleepers 1.0 I'll just mention all the names here that you guys and then scott if you want to just choose one two three of these guys that you want to

give a quick nugget out on feel free but scott's names from sleepers 1.0 cody bellinger bobbichette brandon demo jerkson pro far esock parade is Carlos Correa, Brandon Lowe, Ryan Mountcastle, T.J. Friedel, Clay Holmes, Cody Bradford. And Scott, these are names that you talk about a lot. You talk about them regularly. Obviously, these are players that you like, but is there a name or two that you just want to highlight from that list? Well, I want to mention, first of all, that when I went and updated their ADP from Sleepers 1.0, because I carried them over to Sleepers 2.0, updated the ADP.

They'd all gone up 30 to 100 spots in ADP. So not to the point that they've caught up to me In terms of how I rank them So I can still rightfully call them sleepers But they're You know, people are beginning to wake up to them So Bo Bichette is the biggest one He hasn't moved up all that much

The fact that his whole career We've drafted him as a first, second or third rounder He has one off year One year where he hits less than 290 And everybody bails He's a 12th round pick now I thought he was overvalued overvalued in round three last year, but round 12, ridiculous. He was playing her last year. The batting

average is going to bounce back. There is a long history of him being a major contributor in that category. Isok Perretta is probably my favorite sleeper of all. It's getting a little too much attention now from other people, but I still like the value at around pick 170. I have him more like 130. He's going to, there has never been a venue to spray. angle matchup better a match there better than paredes at uh dyken park i think it's called now formerly minamade just with the the short porch in left field the crawford boxes 315 feet down the corner paredes just lives there that's how he gets all his power and um he's going to probably be at least as good as bregman was in his last couple years for the astros now that paredes himself is playing for

the Astros. And then I will also highlight Ryan Mountcastle. Now, this is one sort of like Jake Berger, better left for roto leagues because the plate discipline's going to be bad. But I think he's looking at 30 home runs this year. I really do. His last season, the last season before the Orioles pushed the left field fence way back in Camden yards, 30 feet.

The full length of left field, they moved them back 30 feet prior to the 2022 season. And last year before that, Mount Castle hit 33 home runs. And since then, he's added a lot of exit velocity. He looks like he should be more of a power hitter, but he played as less of a power hitter because that left field fence was just so ridiculous. Moving the left field fences back in this year, 13 feet in some places, 26 feet and others. I think 30 homers is within reach for Mount Castle with good RBI numbers batting in that lineup. Scott, I completely agree with you on Esoc Paredes.

I will just mention another name you have on this list. Cody Bellinger. That is another one where the swing to stadium, Yankee Stadium, I get your point. It's probably not as perfect as ESOC Paredes, but man, it is great. Cody Pallinger going into Yankee Stadium. Bellinger is the one who, the hardest,

the one who from Sleepers 1.0 that I have the hardest time calling a sleeper still because of how much he moved up. Yeah. I went ahead and left him in because the case for him is so compelling. But I'm not sure the value is really there for him anymore. I found myself, I want to draft him. I have to have him on at least one team this season because I really do think he's going to have a big year with the Yankees.

I haven't really had that opportunity yet, so I do want to change that with Cody Belich. He's going inside the top 90 picks now. Yeah, yeah, that is a big, big rise there for Cody Belanger. Chris, some of your names from Sleepers 1.0, Yvonne Herrera, Brandon Liao, Carlos Correa, Michael Conforto, Nolan Jones, Nick Ladolo, Spencer Arrogati, and Michael Soroka, who has RPi eligibility for those in Points Leagues, is there a name or two that you'd like to highlight here? I mean, let's start with Mike Seroca, who I know you guys talked about on Monday's podcast, I believe,

but his velocity was way up in his first spring outing, which is fascinating because presumably it's coming while training to be a starting pitcher. So he's hoping to be able to sustain this kind of velocity. He made a switch last season to being just a fastball slider guy. He was miserable in the White Sox rotation when he tried to be the guy he used to be in the Braves rotation when he was a sinker guy, but once he switched over to a multi-inning relief role, switched to that fast,

that four-seamer slider approach, he was running like a 40% whiff rate. I think he had 60 strikeouts and 36 innings over the course of the season. We are dealing with terribly small sample sizes. And in a 12-team Roto League, I think I need to see more for Mike Soroka to even be interested in as a depth pick. But in 15-team leagues,

in NL-only leagues, and in head-to-head points leagues where he is a spark, I think he is one of the more interesting sparps and probably might be number five. I think I'd rather have Nick Martinez, but I think after that Job, Francis, and Clay Holmes group, I think I'd rather take the flyer on Soroka.

Over Bubich? I'd rather have Boobich. I think so, yeah, I think I'd rather have him than Bubich. I drafted both than Tow Wars, Soroka in round 29. And it's a 15 team league. So yeah,

that makes sense. Yeah. I think like, you know, we got TGFBI going on. We'll probably do another 15 team league at some point. I think Soroka's a name to keep in mind there. And then,

you know, we're talking all this big game about the best park shifts to swings. And you guys forgot to mention Brandon Lowe, who's going to be moving to Swamp Brenner, I believe is what Scott called earlier. So, yeah, short porch and left field, right field, great for left hand in power. Should play even better than Yankee Stadium because of the weather effects.

I think Brandon Lau is, Scott has made the Pete Alonzo at second base comparison. I think that's a reasonable ceiling. And I also want to point out, Yvonne Herrera, just been a couple weeks since we mentioned him, but he is one of my favorite sleeper catchers. I'm hoping he ends up being the primary option for the Cardinals. Last I read, it sounded like that's the way it was leaning.

And he had some really good minor league numbers and some really, really, really impressive underlying stats to the point where I think there's a world where Ivan Herrera is like a top five catcher this year. If he plays 65% of the games. Some names from My Sleepers 1.0. I have Tommy Edmund Matt Shaw with the Cubs, who is back in the Cubs lineup in spring training. he dealt with an oblique early on, but I still think it's his job to lose at third base. Bowden, Francis, Reese Olson, Tyro Estrada, Grant Holmes, and Ryan Weathers.

I do just want to make a quick note on Ryan Weathers. Lance Brozdowski sent out a newsletter this week. This is the Lance Brasdowski podcast. We mentioned his name a lot for good reason. He does great work. Make sure to follow him on Twitter. But he sent out a newsletter highlighting Ryan Weathers' first start in spring this season, and he sat 98 miles per hour with his fast.

He topped out at 99 and he did some comps on the shape and he said it's around Cole Reagan's Garretcher and McKenzie Gore. So it's just if he's sitting 98 miles per hour from the left hand side and he's got that sweeper with a 50 plus percent whiff rate, it's I think there's upside here, man. I know the Marlins again, winds are going to be hard to come by but I am excited about Ryan Weathers. I was excited back in January. I'm still excited now. I'm probably even more excited. All right. Those are the sleepers.

As I mentioned, we're going to go a little bit long here. Scott, it is time to defend yourself because we are as he says, not as he does. I am going to pull up the Tout Wars draft board for those watching here on YouTube. Tout Wars and industry draft, 15 of the best fantasy baseball minds in the industry competing against each other, 15 team roto with OVP instead of batting average. Scott was drafting 13th out of 15 teams. And if you are watching on YouTube, you see where my mouse is right here?

This is right below Scott White's team name. First round pick, Terrick Scoobel. Scott, explain yourself. A couple things. This is an OBP league. That is the biggest difference between it and a standard Roto League. 15 teams, OBP instead of batting average.

OBP, that's a tough one. OBP is a tough one. As much as we talk about how batting average is concentrated early in drafts, OBP even more so, because the batting average guys that come later in drafts generally don't walk a lot. So it kind of just becomes this indistinguishable mass with a bunch of bad OBP guys and then some not terrible OBP guys. But to really bolster that category,

or you need to do that early. And it turns out everyone in this draft really, really, really took that to heart to almost an extreme laughable degree. But I couldn't get left out, right? So I had my choice of picking 13th or 15th. The past two years, I picked 15th. Didn't go well. I decided to pick 13th this time for the explicit purpose of drafting your

Alvarez getting a nice OBP base there early, pairing Jordan Alvarez with Bryce Harper. By ADP, it looked like I could pull this off pretty confidently. Jordan Alvarez went 12th. Yorna Alvarez went 12th. So I was tilting from the get-go, and I had a situation where it didn't even look like, I don't know, the fan tracks draft room, it kind of threw me at first, how they highlight things. And I, you know, I was just kind of tilting over that and not realizing that I was up until, you know, it started playing the like doom theme of you have less than 10 seconds left. And so I had to make a quick three second calculation. I said, Lendor loses a lot of value when it's OBP.

Fernando Tatis loses a lot of value when it's OBP. Julio Rodriguez loses a lot of value. Jackson Turyo loses. Like none of these guys are good at OBP. Jackson Merrill. I want to take somebody who's really going to give me something good, you know, something that I can say I have an advantage here.

So I took Terrick Scoople. I don't think his OVPs going to be good, Scott. I think you messed this one up. I had a chance of, like, I might have just taken Harper, who I intended to take in round two. Fortunately, I was still able to get him to round two. So that was the one thing that went as planned.

I would have really been tilting if that hadn't happened. I might have just paired scoble with skeins at that point, to be honest. Skeens ended up going with the six pick in round two. So I had a chance of 2 on the way back. Yeah. But no, I got scoobal and Harper to start out. And it felt weird. And from that point forward, you know, my plan was out the window.

I just tried to keep feeding the OBP monster because everyone else was doing it. Everybody was drafting OBP guys until the OBP guys were gone, basically. And I couldn't afford doing it. get left behind there, but also trying to take advantage of obvious values, guys who slid because it's an OPP league and people were passing them over. So I was kind of splitting the baby there, not trying to force anything. That's kind of the theme for me this year. And it's, it's been a long time coming, this admission. But I think we're there. I don't think I should approach any draft feeling like I can outsmart anybody anymore. I think, I think, I think,

our methods of evaluating players have become so sophisticated and so accessible to everybody that you're just not going to get an edge that way. So I got to get an edge some other way. Like if I try to defy the consensus, I'm going to miss more often than I hit. So rather than doing that, I want to take advantage of when my particular draft defies the consensus and just gobble up the value regardless of my personal feelings, trust in the consensus to the degree possible. Of course, the later it gets in the draft, the more you have to go with your own gut feeling

of players. But that's what I tried to do here beginning in round three. And it is not a team I imagine myself drafting. I should probably rattle off some of the picks for the people listening so they know what I'm talking about. So was Terrick Scouble in round one, Bryce Harper and round two. Corey Seeger in round three,

a miracle that in an OPP league. That was the key pick of my draft, I think, that he lasted to that point in OPP league. That is the 43rd overall pick. So Segar in round three, Chris Sale in round four, two pitchers with my first four picks.

Time out, time out, time out. It's got two pitchers in your first four picks. Yeah. I was just, you know, I was eating dinner with my wife. And of course, you know, the romantic that I am, I've got my phone next to me.

I'm refreshing, checking Scott's team. I want to say, all right, what's Scott doing in this draft? And I look over it, I'm like, I don't know what Scott's doing in this draft. I'm like, he's got two pitchers in the first four rounds. I'm not saying it was bad. I think the values you got them at are fair. It threw me for loop just because, you know, you've been the kind of anti-pitching early all-off season. It's kind of a Chris Towers team.

Yeah, in that way, it might be. And it's like obviously 15 team leagues, the scarce. universities change and so you have to keep that in mind. And I think it turned out well taking those two pictures early because there were clearer hitter values to seize upon in the middle rounds in this particular draft. But it was very much in the spirit of I don't feel like I can outsmart anybody anymore. So I better just take the obvious value when it's presented to me and work around that. And so, okay, so again, scuba one, Harper 2, Seeger 3, sale 4, 5 C.

CJ Abrams in traditional five by five leagues. He's the 42nd player taken on average over the last week, NFPC. 42nd. I got him 73rd here. So that's how much CJ Abrams fell due to it being an OBP league. My second shortstop, middle infield spot obviously. My first base dealer. So I really needed a lot of those at that point. And so I was happy to get CJ Abrams, even though he was filling my middle infield spot in round five. round six Ozzy Albiz same thing fell a lot

because it's an OBP league I think people overthought that one though I think so too that's why I took him like he doesn't

walk a ton but he's like when he's right he's usually average at OBP he's not a 320ish yeah

320ish right I think the MLB average is like 320 now and he contributes a lot of everything else yeah there was kind of

a fixation on OBP that went beyond and I get it like I said at the beginning, it is even more concentrated in the early rounds than batting average. But yeah, everybody just went. So like, for example, Kyle Schwerber was the 17th overall pick.

He actually went a spot ahead of Harper, which that's hard to justify even if you are thinking OVP. But because it is OBP you're measuring for Schwerber instead of batting average, he moved up that much. And that's just one example. I know somebody took Tyler... Stevenson in round seven. And he's had some good OBP years in the past, not most recent. I was very, the justification was it's an OBP League. But Tyler Stevenson went ahead of Shea Langalears.

Somehow J.T. Real Muto went behind Austin Wells, Logan O'Hoppe, Francisco Alvarez, Shaylaugleaders, and Tyler Stevenson. Yeah, that's great value on Rayamuta there. Yeah, I should have. I was gearing up to take him in round 11, but it didn't work out. I think you did a good job of with your next couple of, with three of your next four picks, finding OBP guys who can help make up for what Abrams and Albee's will

take away from your team. Yeah, I think so too. And I had a really good base at the beginning between Harper and Seeker that I thought, even if that didn't happen. But I wanted to be good at OBP, not just, I didn't want to just survive it. So Albee's in round six, then Mike Trout in round seven. This is where we get into some dicey territory health-wise. Mike Trout in round seven, Brandon Nimmo in round eight.

Two good at OBP guys, my first two outfielders. I don't love that Brandon Nemo still hurt. Yeah, me neither. But in theory. It's not a foot though, isn't it? Wasn't it like a, no? No, I thought I saw a piece the other day that he's still dealing with the foot. Maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah, he is. He is. but that's kind of something you deal with for the rest of your life. Yeah. So I think it'll probably be fine. I think if his batting average bounces back, he's elite in OBP, and I think he'll be good at everything else if he stays on the field. So Nimmo in round eight, Justin Steele in round nine is my third starting pitcher.

Jerks in ProFar in round 10 is my third outfielder. Again, I had to move him way up because it was an OBP league. Didn't want to fall behind there. Royce Lewis miraculously in round 11. He was still there after Max Muncie, Alec Bome, some really... After Anthony Volpe. Some really obscure third. Like, it was clear, Royce Lewis, this is the last...

I think the next best third basement after him was Nolan Aeronado. So, like, if you want a good third basement, this is your last chance. And so I got great value on Royce Lewis. But of course, there's some injury risk. Jordan Romano in round 12. That's my first reliever. He looks awesome. And then a couple...

I won't read the whole team. couple great values here in round 13 and 14. Brian Wu in round 13. He fell a long way. It's my fourth starting pitcher. Bryce Tarang and round 14. I hate Bryce Tarang. Don't trust him as a hitter at all.

He went 110 picks after his ODP. And I really needed his steals at that point because my only reliable base stealer was C.J. Abrams. I get, you know, another 40, 50 steals there in Tarang. Later on, I get your guy, Victor Robles, Chris. I think between those three players, I'll be plenty competitive in steals, Abrams, Terang, and Robles. And, yeah, I ended up with, I ended up in a better save situation than I feel like I normally do in these Deep Road of leagues. My first one was Romano.

So, you know, a little risky there. But number two, Erseg, Lucas Erseg. Number three, Calvin Foshe, who should be the Marlins closer. And then I also got Edwin Usaita in round 24. So I think I got four guys who will contribute to saves to some degree. And if only two of them work out, I'll probably be okay. Maybe the weirdest thing I did at Catcher, I came, like, I really wish I had gotten Real Muto in round 11.

I also came close to drafting Joey Bard at one point, but there was another guy even earlier. Connor Wong? No. Let me see if I can look at my tears. Refresh my memory that way. Sean Murphy lasted pretty long, Scott. Sean Murphy. That was it.

John Murphy. Round 18, yep. I was gearing up to take each of them when they went. J.T. Roimuto in round 11. Joey Bart, I think, went before Sean Murphy, and then Sean Murphy in round 18. And it just didn't work out. So at that point, I was like, I don't care.

Like, they kept, people kept giving me grief about it. I don't have a catcher yet. What are you doing? At that point, all the catchers stink, you know? Like, okay, I could take Bo Nailer. He was so great last year. Like, maybe he'll be good, but probably not. And so it's just like anybody who's going to get even a decent number of the bats there,

you can probably get like a 240 batting average 10 home runs, you know, not a zero and runs an RBI, whatever. It just doesn't matter at that point. So my second to last and last pick, I went with Drake Baldwin and Dalton rushing, just hoping they find their way into a batts early. It sounds like Baldwin will be the brave start. at the beginning and maybe he finds a way to stick around. And if they don't find jobs early enough,

I'll just use somebody like Travis Darno or Jacob Stallings to fill in. And I think it'll be fine. I think it was a better use of those picks once we got to a certain threshold to catcher. But the rest of my lineup, you know, I got full-time players there, some injury risk. But in theory, they're all going to play a lot.

And that's a big deal in a deeper league. Pitching staff looks strong. wrong pretty much in every category. I don't know. It was, it was, I was a stress ball the whole time. Like I said,

I was tilting from the beginning. A lot of these players aren't players that I typically draft. How do you guys feel about it? I do have one question. Okay. David Fry wasn't taken, was he?

He was. Okay, I didn't see late. Okay. Yeah. Because that, that'd be a good one to stash if you were, you were looking for that.

Yeah, no, I think it came together pretty well. Frank, can you scroll down so I can see how you just got filled out the pitching staff? Because I love scoble, sail, steel, woo. Three lefties and then woo. So great start. My next starting pitcher, I named my four relievers already. My next is Cody Bradford, who I like. But he's round 21.

Then Chris Boobitch in round 22, again, also like on my bench, I tried to get some pitching depth on my bench. just kind of safe, stable guys because pitching injuries are going to happen. And in a 15 team league, you're trying to fill that in off the waiver wire. You're going to wreck your ERA and Webb. So on my bench, I have Chris Bassett, Jameson, Tyone, and then Mike Soroka with my very last pick.

So it was scubel, sail, steel, woo, then Cody Bradford, Chris Boobich, on my bench, Chris Bassett, Jameson, Tyone, Mike Soroka. So it's a little week for, presumably starting six starters. You don't have to. You can start five. I think you can go five, four to start the season and then

kind of stream from there. Probably do. As long as everyone's pitching well, with my weaker starting pitchers, I'll take advantage of two start weeks to the extent I can. As long as everybody's healthy and pitching up to their capabilities. Yeah. I would prefer like one more upside-ish arm, but I get the thought process behind

Bassett and Tyone can be stabilizers while you search the wire because I'm sure there were some guys undrafted who are you know have some some intrigue but Tristan McKenzie went undrafted he was the if I went the upside route I would have gone with him but he walked five batters in his last spring star

and it's just like I'll probably not get another chance that even like a Tyone type yeah no I get that but yeah when I guess four pitchers in your first 13 and then nothing for a few rounds. Yeah, I would probably go with another, would have gone with another pitcher that I feel has some upside,

but I get it. You know, Scott, I think the statistical profile came together well. After the first four picks, and I was kind of like, whoa, whoa, what Scott doing? I think the fact that you went- Imagine how I felt. You went aggressive on hitters after that.

It was, what, six of your seven next picks were all hitters. And, you know, when I came back to the draft later, I said, all right, I feel like statistically. it came together well, it's just health. How many games are you going to get from these guys? I think that is going to be the key for your team here. It's just, you know, can we keep Mike Trout on the field and Royce Lewis and Brandon Nimmo with his foot. Those are the two biggest.

Yeah. Like, okay, yeah, some of these guys have injury histories apart from them. I mean, certainly Chris Sale, too, if you want to factor a pitcher in there. So let's say those three, Sail, Trout. And Brian Wu. Yeah. Yeah, fair enough. it's the sort of thing where it's like you can't address everything you know you're having to address all the different categories you're having to address all the different positions you're having to address OBP specifically because it was priced way up in this draft health risk just kind of took on a lower priority you know and I would say Trout Lewis are the ones that worry me most because I'm asking a lot from Mike Trout and I don't really have a fallback plan at their base.

if Lewis goes wrong. So I think the value and the category needs that they fill, it was fine, especially Lewis. I mean, it was insane value. But in a deep league like this, you want health for sure. All right. Again, that is Scott's Tout War's team, 15-team, Roto with OBP instead of batting average.

Scott, I assume you'll have a write-up on the site for people. I sure will. All right. And you can check out Scott's Twitter if you want to look at the rest of the draft board and compare some of the differences between where players go and batting average versus OBP.

Check out Scott's Twitter. He'll have the draft board up there as well. We are going to wrap there for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. Please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify and we will be back again tomorrow.

Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.