Fantasy Baseball Today - Starting Pitcher Recap Part 2! Top 24 Finishers & Early ADP (11/21 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

The 13th and 14th starting pitchers this past season were Jack Flaherty and Hunter Greene (5:05). ... Cole Ragans had a great first full season with the Royals (16:32). ... Michael King broke out in a huge way (22:10). ... Tyler Glasnow was great when he pitched and Sean Manaea made a big change (32:56). ... News (40:19): we have an update on Roki Sasaki. ... Bryan Woo and Bailey Ober are both awesome WHIP contributors (52:04). ... Sonny Gray and Tanner Bibee seem boring but got the job done (59:05). 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. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today. It's starting pitcher preview.

Preview. Review. Recap Part 2. On Thursday, November 21st. I am Frank Staple, joined by Scott White and Chris. Towers. Last episode, we broke down the top 12 starting pitchers from this past season. Today on the show, we are recapping 13 through 24, perhaps even more. It depends on the pace, obviously. Don't worry if there are big names that we don't talk about on this episode. We've got two starting pitcher way too early ranking podcasts that are coming out next week,

so we will break down loads of names over the next couple weeks. It's our Thanksgiving gift to you. Be thankful. I know, Scott, I know you hate when I do this. and I asked this, but frankly, I haven't asked either of you this. How's the offseason going? How's everything going, guys? How's life? It's weird. It is weird.

Right? It's, well, like, I've never had an offseason before. I've been working at CBS since 2011. And this is the first time that I'm not covering multiple sports. So my fantasy football teams are garbage. I am the worst fantasy football player in America. Like nine months of not doing it. And I'm just like, I got nothing.

I know zero players. But, you know, it's nice. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I don't know as many football players as I probably should know. And yet my fantasy football team is 10 and 1. So I feel good about that. Not that you were asking about fantasy football specifically. I'm overstating how bad my teams are.

I think I'm in last place in like two out of my 10 leagues, which is bad. Well, you know what? It kind of makes you disillusioned about the whole thing that I could not name nearly as many football players as I could in my prime fantasy football player days. And yet I can somehow have a team that's 10 and 1. Like it just feels like the whole system is wrong. You can't really do that in baseball. You know what's crazy to me is that like I don't think I'm exposing you guys by any means

But I don't think you're that into basketball You guys both play in a 30 team fantasy basketball league Like that's crazy Yeah and and I'm doing well in that too And that that's uh I know even less about basketball So I have three I have three fanning people's heads explode in that league

I have three fantasy basketball teams which is like Three too many but it's it's a good time It helps the time move in the off season. Let's get into baseball, right? Recapping the starting pitcher position, like last episode, we're using the Fangraphs Player Rader for 12-Team 5-by-5 Roto leagues, and I will mention where they finish in points leagues as well.

We'll go two players at a time, we'll keep things moving, but let's quickly mention the top 12 from last episode. Terrick Scuble, Zach Wheeler, Chris Sale, Paul Skeens, Logan Gilbert, Chota Imanaga, Bryce Miller, Seth Lugo, Corbyn Burns, Framber Valdez, Dillence, and Ronell Blanco. Numbers 13 and 14, we had Jack Flaherty and Hunter Green from this past season. Flaherty was also the SP11 in head to head points per game.

Hunter Green was SP 16 in that format. Flarity, a huge bounce bag. He got his career back on track. Big Wifts, 13.3% swinging strike rate. Posted a career best walk rate as well. But he did take a step back with the Dodgers. He has an extensive injury history. He's a free agent this off season,

so we do have some questions there with Jack Flarity. And Hunter Green, he had that big breakout that many were waiting for, a 275 ERA, a 102 whip. He did a much better job limiting hard contact. His BABIP dropped over 100 points year over year. But Chris, as we know, it takes a long time for quality of contact metrics to stabilize. On top of that, he did miss some time with an elbow injury. So, where you had on Hunter Green, man?

feels like a tough one. He's electric. We know that he has this stuff, but all of a sudden, he's like a good quality of contact pitcher. Do you buy it? I don't know. And, you know, it reminds me of Shoda Imanaga, who we were talking

about in the first part of this, where you know, one thing I mentioned is like, he's effectively a two pitch pitcher. And that's the same for Hunter Green. Emanaga actually has a much deeper arsenal. He throws like I think five to seven different pitches at various points.

Green is really two pitches, splitter about what, 7% of the time, curveball, maybe 3% of the time. Like, it's really very fastball slider heavy, but maybe it's 8% for the splitter, 2% for the curveball. Maybe just the mere existence of those pitches

is enough to make the fastball play up, right? Maybe the splitter, especially with the North south movement and then, you know, dropping, keeps batters off the barrel with the four seamer. I think that is a reasonable explanation for what we saw from Hunter Green in 2024. This is the thing I keep coming back to. His 307X Wobon contact was, I believe, the lowest in the last four years among starting pitchers since 2020. I didn't look back further than that, but 2020 was the cutoff, not including 2020. The thing it reminds me of, he went from 384 expected Wobon contact in 2022 to 307 in 2024. Again, that is, you'll see a couple of relievers in a given year that low, but that is like a crazy low number for a starting pitcher.

Dylan's season 2021 went from 383 X Wobah contact. 2022, the breakout year, 313 X Wobon contact. So almost exactly the same in 2021. almost exactly the same improvement in 2022, 2022, 23, 383, exactly back. And that was the biggest gain that Dylan C's made from 2021 to 2022.

He's actually, his strikeout rate went down in his breakout season. His walk rate went up. But because he was so much better at quality of contact suppression, he was the, you know, ERA leader, Cy Young finalist, all the things that happen with Dillen Seas.

Kind of the same thing for Hunter Green. His strikeout rate was the lowest it's ever been in his three major league seasons. Walk rate right in between his first two seasons. So the main source of his improvement was quality of contact. If it's real, this is where we get the difference between real and sustainable. His 275 ERA is backed up by a 303X ERA. He earned what he did. It was real.

He did not get hit hard and that led to better results. Is that sustainable? I don't know. I lean towards being pretty skeptical of it. But I really don't know. He's right around SP 24 for me. I don't know how I'm sorting by pitcher now in my ranking. So I've got some relievers ahead of him.

I think there's four of them. So he's right around SP24 for me. Well, a couple things with Hunter Green here. I don't know either, obviously. Like, it wasn't a situation where his pitch, his arsenal expanded in a meaningful way or he threw harder or anything like that. His fastball velocity was actually down some. His movement profile on the fastball did improve very slightly.

It went from below average to above average. And his location wasn't really that different with the fastball and slayer either. He threw more strikes overall. But here's what I was going to say. He was 24 this season, still very young, still early on the developmental curve over the course of a major league career. And it was one of those tale of two halves kinds of seasons because he ended his year on an especially high note, Hunter Green, 1.02 ERA. over his final nine starts. Prior to that,

he wasn't really having, yeah, uh, well, he was having a career season. It was, he had a really bad, he had a really bad,

he had a really bad June, but ZRA was around three before June, if I'm remembering correctly. 102 over his final nine starts and in six of those, or, yeah, six of those nine starts, two hits or fewer.

So he was just untouchable there at the end of the season. And I, If you're looking at the breakdown of his arsenal during that time, I still don't see a lot that changed. But to sustain that level of dominance where you just can't be touched for two months, I don't know. That's hard to do. It could be a fluke, but that's an extreme fluke. Yeah. I mean, he has that kind of stuff.

There's no doubt about that for Hunter Green. I think there's a lot of volatility in the profile, the walks, the fact that he's a flyball pitcher in Cincinnati, although... The fact that he missed time with an elbow injury? Elbow, he has shoulder in his past, too. He had Tommy John's surgery in the past. If this ADP remains as like a top 20, top 24 starting pitcher,

my guess is I probably won't have much Hunter Green next season. And then clarity, how high? I think he's going... I have 18. Now, I'm not... This is definitely a range of starting pitcher where I don't have strong feelings about the order I have them in, but I do have Hunter Green 18. His early ADP is 86.1, and he is going right around Aranola, Bailey Ober, Freddie Peralta. Maybe it's not a terrible price tag. I don't know.

I'd rather have him than Peralta. I don't know. I'm surprised at how Peralta's price I don't love right now. I do have Ober one spot ahead, so I guess that's It's hard to say exactly They're in the same range with the exception of Peralta for me. It's hard to say exactly what number starting pitcher he is

Because NFBC ADP has relievers in there too So he's the 36th pitcher And there's probably I don't know, 10 or 12 relievers in here So yeah, he's like a borderline SP2, SP3 That's not as bad of a price tag I'm surprised I have him higher than ADP. Yep. That wasn't, yeah.

The AP's going to change a lot. Yeah, for sure. It's a frame of reference, but I, I'm especially probably annoyingly so vocal about saying it's, it's not gospel. I will say with Flaherty, if we can move on real quick. And I don't want to spend too much time on him because I think it's sort of straightforward. It's just, is he healthy or is he not? Um, is the velocity where it needs to be. Yeah.

I'm going to let the market tell me on this one. Like, I, I don't know if that's like oversimplifying it, but like, if Jack Flaherty takes like a one one, like a one plus deal or even a two plus where there's like not that much guaranteed money, that's going to scare me off a little bit. Whereas if someone gives him four 100, that might just be like, all right. Yeah. Cool. I'm down with drafting Jack Flaherty. I'm going to let the league tell me how they feel about Jack Flaherty's arm rather than having a super strong opinion about it right now. Yeah. I mean, the fact it was so much worse with the Dodgers, all those games he made with the Tigers were basically lost. I'm pretty skeptical. And I think that's a good approach. I do that a lot of times with free agents who I'm unsure about. Well, I think the people who are ponying up for them, they clearly have more invested in it than I do. So I'm going to kind of follow their lead. And I think that makes sense. But just as things currently stand, I like green a lot more than Flaherty. Oh yeah. Flaherty's SP 20 or 38 for me.

And their ADP is pretty... Yeah, there's a big gap. There's about 40, maybe 50 spots, 40 spots. Yeah, 113 versus 89. Okay, not as big as only 24 spots. Yeah. Let's take our first break when we return. We will talk about Ronaldo Lopez and Cole Regens right after this.

Welcome back in the number 15 and 16 starting pitchers. Renalo Lopez and Cole Regens. Two of the best sparse in Head to Head Points Leagues this past season. Neither will be RP eligible in 2025. The Braves took a chance. They transitioned Lopez back into a starter role and he excelled with a 199 ERA, a 111-11 whip. He also dealt with both forearm and shoulder inflammation, which is very scary. But he was somehow better when he returned from the forearm inflammation.

I can't explain it. And Cole Regans' first season was a huge success. The 314 ERA, a 114 whip. 223 strikeouts for the fifth most in baseball. The only concerns you have here, it's an elevated walk rate. So maybe there's a bit of a cap on how good the whip could be for Cole Regens. And there's a big innings jump here as well, from 124.1 to 196 and a third this past season. Scott, where are you at?

I mean, these are two of your guys. Renaldo Lopez from your Braves and Cole Regens, who you were pretty excited about this year. Yeah, I have Cole Reagan's seventh for next year. Part of it is because, like, you just look at that, you just look at Cole Reagan's numbers and compare them to all the other pitcher's numbers. He is among, he belongs among that elevated ace tier. And so he was pretty easy to rank. He's, he's among that tier. I have him toward the bottom of that tier, but he's in it.

And so, yeah, you could worry about the innings increase, the occasional control lapses. The fact that his velocity did slip a little in the second half, even though he pretty much pitched the same as he did in the first half. There are things you could worry about, but I think Cole Reagan's just because so few pitchers can live up to what he did this past year, has to rank there. Will I actually draft him? I don't know that I'm actually drafting anyone at that range, but that's where he knows. needs to rank. You want another reason to be optimistic about what Cole Regans did last year. And I think we mentioned this on a recent podcast, but I want to highlight it again.

Yes, we love Cole Regens. Give it to us. Col Regens did not face the White Sox last year. Yes, that's true. The Royals feasted on the White Sox. I think there were 12 and one against them with like a sub two ERA as a team. I'm pretty sure Seth Lugo made all 13 of those starts. Yeah, I know he, uh, Cole Regens did.

not face the white socks last year. He was the like only guy on the on the royals to not get to pick on that team. So you know, you figure you expect a pitcher to make three to four, two to four starts against every team in their road in their division. And that just never happened for him. So his numbers could have been even better. If you swapped out,

I don't know, a start against the guardians for a couple against the white socks. Yeah. Just pencil in like. 14 shutout innings for Cole Reagan's next year. Against the White Sox. Lopez is the more interesting case between these two. I think he's one of the most interesting pitchers for next year

because the knee-jerk reaction is to say, okay, he overachieved. I don't want any part of him next year. He had a 199 ERA. People are going to rank him too high. But they're really not going to. This is one of the advantages to starting pitcher being as loaded as it is,

these more questionable cases are just going to naturally be pushed down to a level where they're not that risky to draft. I think I'm on the more optimistic side for Reinaldo Lopez, and he's only my 40th ranked starting pitcher for next year. So this isn't going to be a big investment, if you want to gamble on him following up on what he just did to some degree. I mean, I don't think anybody expects him to have a $1.9. ERA again, but could he have a $299 ERA?

Well, his FIP was $2.92. The thing that I find most encouraging about Reynaldo Lopez is that for the stretch where he was healthiest, the longest, and putting up an amazing ERA, the strike rate was kind of meh. The walk rate was kind of mad. They were, they were okay, but like he was clearly outperforming his peripherals. And you thought, okay, this is going to end at some point. he gets hurt twice in the second half, two separate IL stints.

And you think, okay, well, that's going to stop the momentum. Yeah, that's it. If he's able to come back healthy, like, clearly he won't have that momentum. He's probably done being useful to us. But no, he came back, and that was his most dominant stretch of the season. For that, for that time, he had more than 10K per nine. And so I think that that has me hopeful that these changes are sustainable for Ronaldo Lopez. Whether he can hold up physically, I think is another matter, but I'd be fine taking

him as my fourth starting pitcher. I think that's all it's going to take. If not, you know, if you're going aggressive at starting pitcher, maybe even your fifth starting pitcher. Those final seven games, I wanted to mention just the exact numbers here, six starts, and this was after returning from the forearm injury for Lopez, a 174 ERA.81 whip, 13.4K per nine, 35% K-minus walk rate. Just insane numbers. So yeah, the next question is, does Kenny hold up? He was another one.

Big innings jump. He was a reliever in 2023. And obviously transitioned into a starter last year. The number 17 and 18 starting pitchers, Michael King and George Kirby. King was SP21 in head-to-head points. The walk rate is high, so I think it, you know,

he was a bit inefficient at times this season, though obviously he was still really good, Michael King. And Kirby was SP12, so perhaps a pitcher you can look at that gain. a little bit of value in a points league versus a roto league. King had the breakout season, 295 ERA, 119 whip. 201 strikeouts were ninth most in Major League Baseball.

A theme for today's podcast, innings jump from 104 and two-thirds to 173 and two-thirds for Michael King. How does the arm respond? And then Kirby just kind of seems to be settling in as this rock-solid SP2 provides a great whip over a lot of innings. but he's yet to take that next step in terms of strikeouts. And to be honest, Chris, I don't know if it's going to come. Like, we just haven't seen that big whiff pitch.

Kirby gets a lot of whiffs on his fastball more than the average, but he doesn't really have that wipeout, you know, slider, curveball, change up that he can kind of go to consistently to get more whiffs. Yeah, and he talked about, he's, I mean, the Mariners are a fascinating team if you're a pitching nerd because their guys are all tinkers. they all talk openly about what they're working on and why. And him and Bryce Miller are very similar in that they throw breaking balls that seem like they should be good. Like the stuff metrics like them, they're bad.

They just don't generate. Like they look too different coming out of the hand than the rest of their pitches to the point where hitters just lay off of them. And so the splitter and the knuckle curve, I think, were introduced to try to try to. get away from that issue with I think middling success maybe you know he's not as comfortable throwing those pitches as he is the slider and that explains the difference in usage there but I feel like those are two better pitches than the slider and I would like to like if you're looking for a way George Kirby could take a step forward I think it would be with that but he's so I'm going to say precious about his command and specifically about

walks that this is something I've said a few times about George Kirby but I feel like he's almost so afraid afraid hesitant whatever word you want to use to walk batters that it ends up working against him at times and he would benefit by throwing fewer strikes which is not something we typically say but I think he's fine like I don't think like he was being drafted as SP5 coming into the season it wasn't necessarily a mistake in that you got a must start pitcher. all year. But I don't think he has the upside. Michael King, though, the pitchability for Michael King is I think the thing that really stands out. And I referenced it once during the postseason, but there was a really fun interaction that Brent Rooker had with someone where someone posted a video

of that one great Michael King postseason start where he had like 12 strikeouts. And he had a sweeper that went like 13 inches off the plate. And someone was like, oh, Michael King's great, but how are they swinging at this pitch? And Bratwicker is like, well, let me explain. When you're pounding the outside corner with two seamers all day and that that pitch starts out off the plate and comes back over, you have to start. And that was like, man, Michael King, like when he's commanding

that two seamer off the plate and the four seamer up and then can get the whiffs with the sweeper, he's just, he's really impressive. He might be the pitcher, just, in terms of the talent level who impressed me the most this season. I have no idea if he's going to be able to hold up to another season as a full-time starter going from, you know, 104 innings to 170 plus plus the postseason, right? Yeah, he was probably like closer to 190.

185 and two-thirds. Yeah, that's a pretty big jump for a guy who's like elbow exploded while he was pitching once. He had a fractured elbow from throwing, not from, getting hit from throwing, which that's horrifying. I have no idea how he's going to hold up, but on a pure talent level, I think Michael King is arguably a top 12 pitcher in baseball. All four of his pitches are good to really good. Like, he doesn't really have a flaw.

And I think it's, it's easy to forget, you know, I know we like to do the full season numbers are more predicted than partial season, but his April, which really began March 21st, his April It was a seven-start month for him. It was horrible. Everybody was- I dropped him. Yeah. So from that point forward, 242 ERA 1-12-wit 10.5K per 9.

He was clearly an ace after April. I said on the last show that I feel like, it's a slight exaggeration, but I feel like 15 to 50 in my starting pitcher rankings you could put in almost any order. 14 is Michael King. So I put him outside of that group. Interesting.

I did want to quickly pull up his early ADP, which I can't do for some reason. 68.1. So, yeah, it's right around like- I think that's reasonable. It's a couple of spots ahead of Luis Castillo and Shodaymanaga who have different types of question marks. Yeah. It's a top 20 starting pitcher for King. That's what you have to pay to get him now.

So a top what? top 20 starting pitcher yeah i i have them 60 overall for what it's worth so pretty much yeah i'm right there but they may have more pitchers i love when that happens i've started working on my my rankings like my overall and i'm i've got like a rough a rough idea and then now i've got to like actually move guys where they belong but very rough early on he's 59 for me it's sp 15 i think you said 14 yeah i'm going to guess, well, no, you have Blake Snell ahead of him. Mm-hmm.

I'm going to guess I have Tyler Glass now ahead of him, Yamamoto. I'm going to guess Pablo Lopez and Garrett Cole are the two I have ahead of him that you don't. I have Garrett Cole ahead of him. Okay. Oh, you don't have Frember. You hate Framber. Oh, I have Frampervelt does one spot ahead of him.

Yamamoto? Yamamoto. Yeah, that's the one then. I did what I feel like Yamamoto, I know we're not going to get to him today because he didn't finish that high with the injuries. I'm surprised how much benefit of the doubt he's being given. I think he's really good, but I think a lot of pitchers are really good. And Yamamoto has some pretty major question marks about durability at this point,

not to mention durability, not just in the can he stay healthy, but how many innings do the Dodgers give him when he's healthy? That's fair. I understand that predicting pitcher injuries is nearly impossible, and the assumption should almost be that like half the pitcher pool is going to get hurt throughout the course of the season. For my first like three or four starting pitchers, I just, unless a pitcher falls to a good value, I don't think I want to spend it on a pitcher that we already know has durability issues, right?

Like, why would you almost dig yourself that hole if we know that there are, like, things are going to happen? That depends. But that's tough. It depends how you want to assemble your pitching staff. So this is kind of a broader topic than I think we plan to get into for this podcast, but since you brought it up, we've been going through some of these highest pitchers from last year and commenting on the innings increase.

Terrick Scouble, Paul Skeens, Chris Sale, Cole Regens, who else? Michael King. Michael King, that's like half of my top 14 right there. And I've talked about how good starting pitcher is through about 50 in the rankings. So I'm doubling down, I think, on my strategy from my pitching strategy from last year. I think it's even more applicable to this year where instead of paying up

for the really high-end pitchers who have some of those questions about the workload increase and really putting all your chips in that basket in the basket of them staying healthy to spread the risk among that giant group of 50, just pass up the top 15. guys altogether and get five or six of the next 35. I think that's how, like a quantity over quality approach with the recognition that the quantity is also going to be quality. I've done two, I'm in the process of a second early draft, but my first two drafts,

one of them started with Corbyn Burns and Cole Regens as my pitcher base in rounds like four and five, which felt really late for both. And then the other one was Dylan Sees and George Kirby. I mean, what do all four of those have in common? They don't miss starts. Or, I mean, Reagan's is kind of a smaller sample, but for the other three, it's like, just a lot of starts. Yeah, like the other three are just, you know, they're kind of like proven workhorses that have just conned out there and done it. So I think I want to make that a priority, but yeah, I'm still pretty early in the process myself. I did want to mention with George Kirby, I do have a Scott White special that I wanted to mention. He had two awful blowup starts,

six plus earned runs and less than four innings of each. If you eliminate, those two starts for George Kirby, he had a 299 ERA and a 0.99 whip. Yeah, and remember, it could have been a lot worse that August start. One of those wasn't even that one, right? Against the Tigers. I think it was supposed to be 11 earned runs. Yeah, it was 11 earned

runs and they, yeah. A scoring change made it 6, but he allowed 13 base runners in 3 and 2 3rds innings, and no scoring change could save him from that. So yeah, that was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for George Kirby. I will say he might,

just have a little aernola in him in that way though. Or he's just prone to blowups enough that it's going to make the ERA a little higher than you're comfortable with. Yeah. I have a Kirby 12th. And you can say the same thing about Billy Ober, who we'll get to later on too. Sure. He just feels very safe, Kirby, and that's why I put him 12th.

But I don't see him finishing much better than that. Yeah. Yeah. It's like at any given point, he's probably like the 15th best starting pitcher or 20th best starting pitcher. and then at the end of the season when everybody else has fallen apart, he might finish top 10.

The number 19 and 20 starting pitchers, we had Tyler Glassnow and Sean Maniow. Two, I mean, I don't know. I guess you could say pretty different starting pitchers here. Glass now was the SP6 in head to head points per game. Mania was the SP 17 in total headshead points. Glass now was great again on a per inning basis of 349 ERA, a 0.95 whip,

11.3K per 9, but it's the same song and dance. He was limited to 134 innings, which actually was a career high for him, but he ended his season with right elbow tendinitis. He did not pitch in the postseason either. For what it's worth, I believe he's already come out and said that his arm is fully healthy, whatever that means.

Sean Manaya. I moved him up a few spots based on that. Yeah. Sean Mania was, he was kind of cruising along, you know, midseason, just kind of having a Sean Mania type season, a streamer type, a high threes ERA, a whip kind of higher than you'd like.

And then he tried to replicate Chris Sales arm slot, and he did a really good job of doing it. Over his final 12 stars, a 309 ERA, and a 0.85 whip, nearly 10K per 9, and a 13.3% swinging strike rate. Scott, you can talk about Glassout as well, but I think on Mania, is this another one where you almost let the market

kind of tell you if they bought into what he did in the second half of the season? Yeah, I think that would make sense. It's going to be a little different, I think, for Manaya, than for, well, I don't know, Flaherty's no spring chicken himself. I was going to say Mania is going to be 33 before next year. Yeah, that's a pretty big difference. Flaherty's 29.

So Manaya can only get a deal so long, given his age. And so I think the dollar amounts may be going to say more in his case. But I think it's right to have a natural skepticism for this anytime a 32-year-old. That's what Menaya was last year, goes on to do things that he's never done before in his career. The delivery change, the release point is a compelling explanation. Don't get me wrong. That's a significant enough change that it could legitimately change everything. But his September, looking at the swinging strike numbers especially, was less dominant than his August.

You know, like there were signs that the league was starting to improve against it, that it wasn't catching them by surprise as much. And with increased exposure, that could happen even more for Maniat. That being said, the argument I made for Reynaldo Lopez also applies to Sean Mania, where because there's obvious reason for skepticism with this pitcher in a really loaded pitcher class, you're not going to have to pay that much for him. So I do have Sean. I don't have Sean Mani in my top 40. I do have in my top 50.

I consider him part of that group. But normally you're not paying much for a pitcher in the 40 to 50 range, you know? Yeah, the early ADP for Mania is 175. Yeah, that seems fine. Yeah, people are not really in here. Chris, I mean, is there anything else to say about Glassnow? It's the early price tag, you can't really say anything about it because, again, it's just like we're so early in the process. I think people drafting now, it'll either turn out to just be a tremendous value or like maybe Glassnow's arm falls off in spring training.

It just, we don't know. Yeah, I've got him 31 at starting pitcher. this strikes me as one that we get to spring training and he's healthy and he makes a few spring starts and he looks like Tyler Glassnow always does, which is a top five starting pitcher in baseball. And people are going to start buying back in. And there is nothing Tyler Glassnow could do in spring training to make me move him up is where I'm at. I think he can only move down. I just, I don't know, because look, he was the number.

19 starting pitcher last year despite only making what 19 starts something like that so like I could see the case for it just being like yeah just go draft Shamaniah or sorry Tyler Goss now like that's kind of the argument we're making coming into this year

and it's sort of this year he was like a top 10 starting right right that's what but that's what I'm saying nobody really thought he'd finish top 10 he was just going to be so impactful during the time he was healthy particularly now that he was with the Dodgers I think ERA ended up being a little higher than we expect.

You know, he gives up some hard contact when batters make contact against him. He's not like a consistent sub three ERA guy, even though he's very, very good since getting to the raise. His ERA in Tampa was 320, which is not terrible, but there were some real ups and downs in that along the way. Did want to give everyone an updated kind of just programming note for, uh, the next week. We have a bonus pod coming out with the Welsh on Friday tomorrow

when you're listening to this. We'll recap all of the Arizona Fall League, the biggest standouts, maybe some players who struggled as well and what we can expect from some of those prospects heading into next season. And for next week,

we'll have pods coming out on Monday and Wednesday. So a little bit different. Normally we go Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday in the off season, but we're not going to publish a podcast on Thanksgiving.

That would be kind of weird, right? So Monday and Wednesday for next week. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll talk about some news and notes, not anything too crazy going on, and then back into starting pitcher recap right after this. Welcome back in some news and notes. Rob Manfred confirmed that Roki Sasaki is expected to be part of the 2025

international signing class. So that means he won't be eligible to sign until January 15th at the earliest. And that's when, you know, the new international pool money resets. The Rays and Mariners are set to have the most money to offer, while the Dodgers and Giants will have the least. And when I say most versus least, it's like the Rays and Mariners have $7.5 million

and the Dodgers and Giants have $5.5 million. And they can trade a certain amount. It's not going to be money that determines where Roki Sasaki lands. The other thing is we don't actually know how much money anyone has for the 2025 international. Because remember the story that came out like two weeks ago about the, kid that the Padres had signed or agreed to sign four years from now, who it turned out they thought he was 12 and he was actually 17 or something. You guys remember this story?

Yeah. Technically, nobody is signed for the 2025 international free agent class. In reality, pretty much every team probably has agreed to sign several millions of dollars worth of player, but they're all verbal commitments. They are not supposed to exist. Well, and I presume that means teams are going to back out of them.

Yeah, yeah, which probably would fracture some relationships and they'd have to weigh that with their decision making. But my point, my first thought with this Roki Sasaki news, I mean, it's the commissioner saying is expected too. So it's, you know, we're presuming he won't sign until after January 15th. Every team, literally every team can financially afford Roki Sasaki.

I think there's a widespread belief the Dodgers are going to get him. But I've seen some people speculating reasons why it might not be the Dodgers. I wonder how this is going to gum up the off season because it doesn't affect the money available. since every team could use more pitching and since every team can afford him I think until you know he's not going to you that's going to really confine what you could do

so we've seen normally like between Thanksgiving and Christmas is where the bulk of the MLB off season happens but there are those years where it gets pushed into January more and I'm kind of afraid this is going to be one of those years yeah like maybe it's a bit of a holdup on the bigger pitcher names right if teams think they have a chance

at Roki Sasaki, we don't see the Corbyn Burns or Max Freeds and Blake Snell sign until after that. Hopefully that's not the case. I mean, yeah, like there's no team in baseball that could not use both Max Fried and Roki Sasaki. True. It's just

if they knew they had Roki Sasaki, they'd want to commit those free resources else. But like, I think I don't want to be a downer on Roki Sasaki because I agree he is an incredible talent. I think people are treating him like he's Yoshinobi Yamamoto and he's not he's not that proven he doesn't have the

workload he doesn't have the track record he has a longer injury track record and even if you knew you were going to get Roki Sasaki I don't think MLB teams should look at that and say great we got 30 starts I think you look at that and say I'm hoping for 24 starts next year and they might be really good, but you still need 138 games. So I, like, I saw one draft where I think he went in the second round as like the fifth pitcher. And I think the, the error bars in his ADP are going to be very, very wide. Yes. And I just, I want to hammer home for a redraft league specifically. First year player draft, unquestionably the number one player. Dynasty, I think you can make a case for him as a top 10 starting pitcher, all of that.

Redraft, he's going to be overdrafted. I feel very confident in that. And I'm not sure I'm going to rank him as a top 30 starting pitcher. Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm not. Like I look at like Joe Ryan's my SP 30, Tyler Glass now's SB 30. Do I really feel confident that Rokey said like, isn't what Tyler Glassnow just did kind of the best case scenario for Rokkees Saki? Maybe, yeah. And I don't know if it will be every draft

because again, like this draft that I'm in right now, he went to pick 74, so that seems a little bit more reasonable. That's still too early. That's still higher than I'm going to take him. But I want to stress again that ranking Roki Sasaki 35th in this particular pitching pool

still puts him alongside really good pitchers. So it's not meant to be an indictment on him. Let's quickly hit the rest of this news. The Rockies re-signed Jacob Stallings to a one-year $2 million contract with a mutual option for 2026. Kind of throw some cold water on Hunter Goodman or Drew Romo as very deep sleepers and two catcher leagues. The Cubs acquired Eli Morgan from the Guardians in exchange for Alphonson Rosario. And Morgan had a strong season, 193 ERA, 0.98 whip. Is he a threat to Porter Hodge?

I mean, I still think they could go outside someone, but is Eli Morgan, I don't know, could he be a high leverage reliever for them? Probably not. Last year was a bit of an outlier in that regard. It's pot. Like, Porter Hodge is not such a stud that the addition of a competent major league pitcher

doesn't impact him. Like, I would think the likelier problem would be someone coming from the outside beyond this, but I'm not. treating Porter Hodges as if he's just okay, he's a closer and a very good one now. The Mets acquired Jose Siri, hide your phones, they're listening, from the raise in exchange for Eric Orsay. I hope I got that right. Siri this season hit 187, 18 home runs, 14 seals, a 38% strikeout rate.

He is still an amazing, amazing defender, 99th percentile in outs above average. So it sounds like the Mets were clearly acquiring him for. his defense, maybe he's a starter in center field, maybe he splits time with Tyrone Taylor. The Ray's side is a little bit more interesting. My guess is Johnny DeLuca gets the first shot at center field. They also have a 24-year-old prospect named Chandler Simpson, who hit 355 this year.

He had 104 stolen bases, and he had 16 extra base hits of his 160 hits. So, yeah, we know this profile. Scott, we've seen it before. It hasn't worked out. don't see it very often. I mean, the thing.

Xavier Edwards is what he's trying to be. But Xavier Edwards is so rarely come along and succeeded. I think at Chandler Simpson's case, what I like is usually Nick Madrigal. Yeah, what I like about Chandler Simpson is he knows who he is. If you look at the batter ball profile,

like he is, he is Willie Mays Hayes for Major League One, not Major League 2 when he started trying to hit homers. He puts the ball on the ground. and tries to beat it out. And that, I think, gives him a higher chance for success. So I don't know. I don't know what the odds are that he's actually the race center fielder,

but Chandler Simpson, I think, is a name to keep in mind. I'm not super excited about Johnny DeLuca. I imagine there's a lot more moves coming here. And we shouldn't get too attached to anybody. Yeah. Simpson, again, is 24 years old. He hasn't played above AA. We know the rays are kind of weird with their prospects.

They certainly don't seem to rush anybody, so I don't see them doing that with Chandler Simpson, but maybe he factors in in like the second half of the season in 2025. Every free agent who received the qualifying offer declined, except for Nick Martinez, who we mentioned the other day, is headed back to the Cincinnati Reds. We have more award winners, manager of the year, went to Stephen Vote in the American League and Pat Murphy in the National League,

and Syung went exactly how we thought it would. Terrick Scoobel in the AL and Chris Sale in the NL. Shout out to Scott, man. Bold predictions in what? September or October of last year. Terrick Scuba to win the Cy Young 2024. Boom! Nailed it. Yeah. Pretty good. Let's go. Unanimous.

Yeah. You did? I just want to throw out your early prediction for next year. Bailey Ober. I didn't forget. I didn't forget. Here's a weird staff. Not as confident. But here's a weird stat that I saw that I hope I'm not doing the thing where I saw something and it wasn't real. But this was from MLB.com, I believe. I think he was the first Tigers pitcher to win the Cy Young without also winning MVP. So Verlander? I don't, I can't remember.

That's the only one in my memory with the Tigers. Interesting. Let me. Yeah. That. Well, if you find it, let us know. I mean, well deserved, man. Both guys were obviously amazing.

Sure is there and everyone a Sion with the Tigers? No. I don't think so. We did have a bunch of players added to their respective 40-man rosters ahead of the Rule 5 draft, which is coming next week. Cosa Montgomery with the White Sox, Davison, Delos Santos with the Marlins, Zach Veen with the Rockies, Owen Casey with the Cubs,

Tink Hens and Ticoa Robi with the Cardinals, Robert Hassel with the Nationals, Emiliano, Tejoto, with the Rangers. Yost Nixon Garcia with the Red Sox. his nickname is the password because if you look up the spelling of his name it's just there's a lot of weird letters going on there. Mick Abel

with the Phillies and Caleb Durbin with the Yankees. Do any of these names stand out as potential impact in 2025? Max Scherzer did win a Cy Young with the Tigers so whatever you read there Chris was wrong. I love

spreading false information on the internet. All right. Yeah I mean a lot of big name prospects here. I think I think I'm encouraged that Zach Veen that the Rockies decided to protect him. Yeah. Because he's had an up and down minor league career, but was once thought to have tons of upside. Emiliano Teoto was one of several interesting pitching prospects for the Rangers.

A lot of people think he might be a closer someday, but probably sooner than later he'll be contributing in some capacity. Yeah. Okay. I know what I did wrong. I got it. Before Terek Scoopal, Tigers pitchers had as many MVP's as Cy Young Awards

because How Newhauser won two MVPs before the Cy Young Award was introduced. I knew there was something true about what I said, even if the specific details were made out. It was directionally true. Yeah, it was, you know, the vibes. were true. Let's wrap up with some more

starting pitcher recap. We've got four other names that I want to get to here. We'll wrap it up. SP21 and 22 this season. We had Brian Wu and Bailey Ober. Brian Wu, SP14 in hedgehead points per game. Bailey Ober was the SP 16 in total headset

points. And Wu dealt with multiple arm injuries which limited him to 22 starts. At some point we thought, all right, this could be going south pretty fast. But when he pitched, he was great. 289 ERA.90 whip. Does an incredible job limiting hard contact and walks. Doesn't get the most strikeouts. I mean, that's, you know,

I guess the biggest flaw right now in Brian Wu's game and health. But Bailey Ober made a career high 31 starts. He's kind of taken on more of a workhorse role this past season. He's one of the best whip pitchers, and he has huge whiff rates, too. I wonder if, you know, this massive 14% swinging strike rate could even lead to more strikeouts moving forward for Bailey Ober. But, of course, he can be prone to some blow-up starts. We saw that with his 398 ERA this past season.

Scott, I think both pitchers are really interesting and both really, really good whip pitchers, Brian Wu and Billy Ober. Well, yeah, you know, I like Ober a lot. He did finish with a 398 ERA, which is unappealing. But if you look at the fundamentals for Ober, I don't think he's so different from Shoda Imanaga or even George Kirby, for that matter.

And if you take out just two starts, so not four like I was doing with Keller last year, but two, and one of them was opening day, by the way, which is always a little weird because you're trying to switch into competitive mode suddenly. If you take out,

over's two-worth starts, that 398 ERA goes to 318, which of course looks a lot more like George Kirby, for instance. So, yeah, fly ball pitcher with amazing control and enough strikeout ability for it all to hold up. Actually, a better swinging strike rate than you'd think, given the strikeout rate. Yeah, if I recall.

He was sixth among qualifiers and starting in swinging strike rate, Billy Ober. So there might be even room to improve there for Ober. I'm kind of floored that Brian Wu ended up finishing this high for as much time as he missed and as short as his starts were early in the season. That does seem like kind of a. Quirk of the rhodo formula having the what second best whip among pitchers with at least 120 innings I would guess only behind Miller yeah that that whip over that whip carries a lot a point 90 whip over 120 innings is is massive yeah and I I was kind of out on Brian Wu early on because

it was just four innings of one run and two hits and four strikeouts or three strikeouts and Like that was all he was he was like three strikeouts five strikeouts seven those are his first three then one two six one three one three one. It was a lot of really low strike. He was like a 17% strikeout rate guy in the first half of the season and he wasn't throwing more than 75 pitches. I don't think he did three times in his first 11 starts I think leaving every start. Yeah he was leaving starts. I think he got some starts skipped with like arm fatigue. It sounded scary.

Yeah. Arm fatigue. he had a forearm thing. I think he had an elbow thing at one point. He had a hamstring. And then calendar flipped to August. He threw 92 pitches there. And through at least 85 and all but one,

two of his final 11 starts, averaged almost actually over sittings per start. Strikeout rank went up to 23%. This is a guy who, he's made 40 starts at the MLB level. He has a 321 expected Wobon contact. it's still a small enough sample that you don't know, but like it sure seems like he's like a Kyle Hendricks type of outlier in that regard.

He might be a Kyle Hendricks outlier in terms of control. And he's got strikeout upside. So I, the durability is a big question, how he's going to hold up to being asked at their 95 plus pitches every time out, which he presumably will be is a big question. But skill set wise, I think Brian Wu is very impressive.

272 XERA last year. The strikeouts went up in the second half too. I wonder if that can lead to some more strikeout upside moving forward. 8.4K per 9, 24% strikeout rate, 12.3% swinging strike rate in the second half for Brian Wu. On top of going deeper into those starts, as you mentioned, he went 6 plus and 8 of 13 second half starts. He went 7 plus in three of those.

So pretty impressive. This is also a guy that, like, I don't know, pitchers and catchers probably report February 17th. If we get to like February 25th, and it's like Brian Wu didn't feel good in his bullpen session today. And they're shutting him down. Like that would not surprise me. Part of me even expects that at some point with Brian Wu. So he, I feel like he can go a lot of different ways.

But just in terms of skill set, I think he's, I'm not sure he's any worse than any of the other Mariners starting pitchers. starting pitchers in terms of skills. It's just, it feels much more volatile in terms of usage, which is why he's 40th at starting pitcher for me. But I think he's going to be good when he's out there. I did want to quickly look up his splits

because I think of all the Mariners' pitchers, he's probably the one that makes sense most for them to try and sell while his arm is still attached to his body. So a 247 ERA at home, a 329 on the road. It's not terrible. Not anywhere close to what Bryce Miller splits.

It is a similar. It is similar to Ober and Imanaga and that lots of strikes, lots of fly balls. So in a big stadium, like, he never gets hit hard.

Yeah. That's the thing is his, his, hard hit rate is 35%, which is super low for a pitcher. His, both of his fastball seemed to do a really good job

in opposite directions. like nobody can hit his foreseamer for anything but weak line drives nobody can hit a sinker for anything but weak ground balls it's it's really tough to thread that needle but he does it as well as anybody Brian Wu for Jaron Duran who says no um I think the red Sox would say now yeah Brian Wu is under team control through 2030 I mean Duran's not that much that durant's probably pretty similar right? I think you go into that trade thinking we don't know what Brian Wu is going to look like in 2030. Yeah, 2029 for Jared Rand.

Yeah, so not far off. The last two pitchers here, Sunny Gray and Tanner Bybee, they were SP 23 and 24. And they were right around there and head-ted points as well. So they were both top 25 in that format. Sunny Gray put everything together. He wound up with a ton of whiffs, 13.4 percent swinging strike rate was a career high, 24.4 percent, K-minus walk rate was third best of unqualified starting pitchers behind only Chris Sale and Terrick Scouble. So the skills were awesome for Sunny Gray. Even with that, posted an elevated 3.84

ERA and his season ended with right forearm flexor tendonitis, which is always scary, obviously. I think he's a pretty strong candidate to get traded this offseason as well, Sunny Gray. And Tanner Bybee, he had some ups and downs, but by the end of the season, a 347 ERA, a 112 whip, over a strikeout per inning. He was top 20 among qualifiers and all major strikeout stats. No, Scott, both of these starting pitchers, they feel kind of unsexy for fantasy, let's call it. But perhaps that will make them discounts in 2025. Yeah, well, I'm already getting that impression with Sunny Gray. I've already had to adjust down with him in my rankings because it's become clear to me that people aren't valuing him on the same level I was.

I saw his, Sunny Gray's 2024 is validating. After the Sy Young runner up 2023, he follows it up with a year where he gets his second most strikeouts. And he did pitch a high number of innings again, 166. They're not a super high number of innings, but relative to what we've seen from Sunday Gray in the past,

that was a nice workload. And he did finish with a 384 ERA, but that's compared to a 312 FIP and a 282X FIP. So I'm I'm sensing that people are looking more at ERA, maybe than they have in these early mock drafts than we've become accustomed to in recent years. It's something that's showing up with a few pictures for me. When it seems like I'm lower on a guy than the consensus, it's because he had a high ERA last year, even in a case like Sunny Gray,

where it's like all the underlying numbers look good. he should have had a better ERA, so why are we not valuing that as much? It's kind of a strange thing that's emerging. And maybe that has to do with the depth at starting pitcher. People are having to split hair so much. And when the rubber meets the road, they trust the guy who actually had the low ERA versus the one who didn't. I don't know. I'm totally just freewheeling here.

But it is, it's the only explanation. I could come up with for why Sunny Gray seems to have so little enthusiasm. For me it just, and I kind of think both of these two guys are boring and I hope we just go a couple minutes extra just that these aren't the last two

pitchers we talk about just because I This is where I'm right. I keep excited about either of these guys. 11K per 9 for Sunny Gray this past year. I wish he's got. The rate went up to 30.3% it was the second best of his career and that was awesome and the higher one was 2020.

So short in season. The problem is his quality of contact rent in the complete opposite direction was the worst in his career, one of the worst in baseball, to the point where despite having by far the best K-minus walk rate of his career, his XERA, last three seasons, 367, 367, 367. I think the perceived problem with Sunny Gray is, one, he's just old. and we just there's an inherent anti-old guy bias especially among starting pitchers in a way that probably isn't fair. There should be less of one for starting pitchers. Yeah, all pitchers are, all pitchers are volatile and prone to blowups and prone to just losing it. And I'm not sure Sunny Gray at 34 is any more likely than, I don't know, Tanner Bybee is probably what, 25, 26? Like I'm not sure there's much more of a chance of Sunny Gray just falling apart.

I think it's just that whatever different version of Sunny Gray you get, and it seems like it's a different one every year, it always comes out to just, all right, he was pretty good. I'm glad I had him around for the most part. There are certainly times, and I'm sure he probably had an ERA over six for at least one month this season.

He did $6.75 in July. But it just always, you get to the end of the season, And it's like, yeah, that was, that was fine. He's perfectly cromulent. If he pitches. That's the right usage of that word. Right. If he just pitches to his XERA, Chris, you know, a three, six to three seven,

an ERA, a one 15-ish whip over a strikeout per inning. And he does that over like 170 innings. It's boring, but it, that's fine. That's probably like an SP3. I mean, he just finished SP23, you know, so. I think he's perfectly fine. Then there's also, we don't know where he's going to be pitching in 2025, but we're pretty sure it's not going to be where he pitched last year.

And then ending last year with an injury is a little concerning. He doesn't have the best record of health. So I have him at 37 at starting pitcher. So lower than he finished last year, but I think a little higher than his ADP. and I think he's fine. Bibi is the one that I... We're definitely a part there because 37 you said for Sunny Gray.

I have him 28th. And again, that's after I adjusted down because I got him so late in our first mock draft. And then I do want to talk about Bibi for a second. Because I have him higher than Gray just under the assumption. Like, yeah, he's young. Maybe there's room to grow. He's another one. I find myself just very unexcited about.

And maybe that's not fair. and maybe I'm holding to a different standard than I should, and I should just look at, hey, he's a 24, 5-year-old who was just a top 24 starting pitcher. That's pretty good. And I rank him, I don't know, a couple spots, but he's 28, so he's fine. I got him 47. But I just. So I'm with you, but like we gave out 20 spots apart some out on Cantor Bybee.

Well, those 20 spots are pretty small. Right, because that's in the 15 to 50 range. But I just, I don't know. Yeah, no, I agree. The next step looks like. I don't think there needs to be the one, though. Like, he's made 56 career starts, Bybee, 325 ERA, 1-14 whip over a strikeout per inning. It's really good, man.

Like, he doesn't even need to take another step. But, you know, Scott, I saw your rankings, and I was a little surprised that, I know that it's very interchangeable, but I was a little surprised to see you have Bybee that low. I mean, look, you got to. You got to push people down who you don't. I was surprised to see him that low too, frankly. But it's, when I dig into Tanner Bybee, I see a lot of five-inning starts, sub-six inning starts, let's say. And it's hard to be impactful when you have a hook like that.

Yeah, the ERA looks good. The strikeout rate looks fine. But there's not, like, he doesn't. he doesn't I never got the impression in any of the leagues where I owned him or going back and looking through the game log I never got the impression with Tanner by the oh man he's about to break through as an ace you know he was just always solid yeah and I don't see I don't really see the upside for more there he's young enough that he could break through but like I don't see the path to it kind of like Chris was saying maybe the next step is him him just getting to that six inning threshold you know like maybe he does it over 190 innings next year yeah maybe that's the next step Maybe. Yeah. But it just like you finished SB 24 while making 31 starts. I don't know where he was in points per game.

I would guess it was closer to 40. So just to give you an idea some of the people I rank ahead at Bybee. So would I rather have, would I rather take the chance that Tanner Bybee grows into more? Or that Sean Minas sustains what he did. Or that Shane McClanahan and Sandy Alcantra come back looking good. That

that Reynaldo Lopez is 80% of what he showed last year. And I come out on the side of preferring those other preferring to bet on those other outcomes than Tanner Bybee being more than who he already is. All right.

I'm sorry, Chris, but that is where we're going to wrap up. You'll have to tune in next week to hear us talk about more interesting starting pitchers. 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.

Well, not we, but me and the Welsh. We'll see you then. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.