Fantasy Baseball Today - Surprising Picks From Our Way Too Early 2025 Mock Draft! (Fantasy Baseball Today in 5 podcast)

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

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We just did our first mock draft for 2025. Let's talk about some of the interesting picks up next on Fantasy Baseball today in five. Welcome into FBT and 5 and welcome to November. Today is Saturday, November 2nd. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by Chris Towers, who is actually out in Arizona when we're recording this, but we're doing it a couple days in advance. So hope you're having time travel, you know.

Yeah, hope you're having a great time, Chris. Picks that stood out from our first mock draft, just want to take a quick look at the first round and make sure there was nothing too crazy going on. on Otani, Witt, Judge Soto, Gunner Henderson, Ellie Dela Cruz, the first six picks. This is the roto draft. I think that makes total sense. Then Jose Ramirez, Muki Betz, Ronald Acuna,

Kyle Tucker, Fernando Tatis, and Julio Rodriguez. Kind of feels like it all makes sense, right? I mean, probably too early for me personally to take Ronald de Cunia coming off a second torn ACL, but I totally understand his upside and why somebody would take him there. I think, you know, we mostly play in 12 team leagues, but a lot of people play in 15 team leagues. It feels like there are enough first rounders for a 15 team league. And so I was picking 10th in this draft.

I ended up with Kyle Tucker and Corbyn Carroll. That felt awesome. Like being able to, because I feel like I got two first round caliber players while picking at the back half of the first round. And like, look, you look at those last four picks especially. Ron Acuna, Kyle Tucker, Fernando Tatis, Julio Rodriguez. is if any of those guys finished in the top three next year, I wouldn't be surprised at all. So it actually does feel like getting a later pick might give you a real advantage this year. And I get the concerns about Acuna.

I will say, I'm a little surprised you took Shohei, number one overall. Just with the shoulder injury that he's playing through in the World Series, we don't know what that means, whether that's going to impact him next year, whether it's going to require any kind of procedure, but it just, I was a little bit surprised. Did you consider going with either, I think Witt or Judge would be the other two picks.

And I don't really think you can go wrong with any of those three. Yeah, I 100% considered Bobby Witt, Jr. To me, it was like there's so much offseason. We'll find out what happens. But yeah, Fultani has to have surgery. A shoulder dislocation, I mean, this is something that once it happens,

it could be more prone to happening in the future. So I totally understand. I was the one who was worried about Corbyn Carroll's shoulder coming into this season. So yeah, I think there's real question marks where, you know, a month ago, Otani seemed like the slam dunk first overall pick. Now maybe with a little bit of more injury risk. I don't know, maybe he's more like a top three or top five pick heading into next season. It's not his dominant hand at least, right?

Like Corbyn Carroll, it was his right hand. Shoha's his left arm. So maybe that's a little bit of less of a concern. I'm not a doctor. I don't know. Let's talk about the Jackson 4. That's right. We're getting closer to the Jackson 5.

Trurio, Jackson Merrill, Jackson Holiday, and Jackson Job, who is arguably the top pitching prospect in all of baseball. Churio went at pick 23. Merrill went at pick 26. So if you're doing the math, they went to the same manager there. I think he started Witt Chorio Merrill, Merrill, which is extremely fun. Might be better for a Dynasty League. Then Jackson Holiday at pick 80, which seemed early.

And then Jackson Job at pick 200. 39. Chris, how do those values sound for the Jackson 4? I think Churio and Merrill right around the end of the second round, third round, I think that makes perfect sense. Holiday at 80, that won't happen more often than not. I think he'll be drafted outside of the top 100. And we've talked about it a decent amount on the full episodes of fantasy baseball today. I think when we did second base preview, especially. I'm not giving up on him, certainly. I don't think. I don't think. I don't think. turns 21 until like February. So I don't want to say that I'm out or down on Jackson holiday,

but this was a guy whose skill set was supposed to be primarily driven by borderline, top of the line contact skills. And in both the majors and the minors, we saw real issues making contact on pitches in the strike zone, which is especially worrying. So look, he's so young, he's still developing. all that stuff is totally true, but I think probably 120 is where I'll end up ranking him overall.

So 80 definitely feels like a reach. Let's take a look at two early round names that, in my opinion, felt like they slipped a little bit. Austin Riley went to you at Pick 34, which again, felt awesome. He went after Willie Adamas and Jadish Chisholm. I don't know. You know, again, this is our first draft. There's still so much that we need to learn and go over in the offseason.

So maybe this is like the latest he'll go in any draft. also Corey Seeger. He went at pick 38. He went after Michael Harris. He went after Maddie. Almost made it back to me. I think one pick ahead of me. If those remain, I could see those being too great on paper early round values. Yeah. If I, I mean, we're not paying this out, but it doesn't matter. But man, if I had been able to start out a draft, Kyle Tucker, Corbyn, Carol, Austin Riley, and Corey Seeger. That's awesome. Awesome. I ended up taking see Jay Abrams when Seeger went off the board. I think that's fine.

It may be a little bit of a reach. I know, Scott thinks so. But yeah, I think Riley and Seeger should both be third round picks. I think, you know, Riley went like nine picks after Rafael Devers. I don't think there's much of a difference between the two of them. Agreed. Yeah, I was the one who took Devers. And when I saw how far Austin Riley slipped, I started thinking, I don't know, maybe I took Devers a little bit too early.

But it just seems like he got a little bit of a good, Good discount there on Austin Riley. What about the U-Till-only bats? Where did they go? Obviously, Shohei Otani first overall. You know, argue he's a top three, top five pick. Brent Rooker went at pick 47. Marcel O'Suna went to you at pick 58.

Kyle Schwerber went at pick 67. I was surprised to see that Rooker went first of that group. Obviously, you can argue for good reason, like why he should go that early. I was a little bit surprised. But Ozuna and Schwerber, I thought, were both great value. and I couldn't take them because I took Otani first overall. So that's something you also have to think about where if I take Otani, I can't take any of these other Util Onlybats either.

What did you think of where some of those names went in this first draft? I think there might be a wider gap between where certain analysts rank Brent Rooker and where others do than any player in fantasy this year because, I mean, he was a top, what, 11 play. I think he was the number 11 player in Roto this season. and the underlying numbers fully back it up. It does not look like a fluke except that he's a 29-year-old who didn't really have this kind of track record

and only really broke out last year. So I can see bumping him a few rounds down. You bump him another round or so with the util only. I think I'm going to rank him around 50 though. I think that's where he deserves to go. And if that's where he goes, I think that makes a lot of sense. If he slips, you know, where, you know, I took Ozuna 58, Kyle Schwerber, 67th, I would prefer to have those guys at those prices than Rooker.

I don't think there's much of a difference between any of them, but I think 47 is actually fine for Brent Rooker. And the last thing I wanted to hit on, but we're kind of up against it here. Pitching went really low in general in this draft. And I don't know if that's going to be a theme heading into 2025 or again, maybe it's just first draft. Everyone's kind of flying blind right now. And, you know, as we kind of figure out player values, pitching is starting to get, it will get pushed up. I think that's probably the more likely scenario.

But you can actually find all of these draft results on the website, cbsports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. I'll put the link in this podcast episode description. So you can kind of follow along and see where some of those pitchers went as well. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball Today in 5.

and we will be back again next week. Bye-bye. Mount Podcasts.