Fantasy Baseball Today - TGFBI Begins! Roto vs. H2H Points vs. H2H Categories Strategy Talk (2/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational has begun (1:50)! How did we start in our 15-team Roto drafts? ... Let's talk strategy, starting with the traditional 5x5 Roto (12:55). ... What did you need for third place in each category in 12-team Roto leagues last year (21:37)? ... Which players gain value in Roto leagues (30:40)? ... News (34:10): Manuel Margot was traded to the Twins. ... Michael Harris was batting sixth and we have new pitch alerts (37:02). ... What is our strategy in H2H points leagues (43:45)? ... Which hitters gain value in H2H points leagues (53:00)? ... We wrap up with H2H categories strategy (56:10). Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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 lead. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today. Frank Scott and Chris all here on Tuesday, February 27th. Today on the show, we're focusing on strategy in each of the major formats,

roto, head-to-head points, and head-to-head categories. How do we approach each of those formats and which players get a boost in a Categories League versus a points league? You've probably heard us kind of make reference to some of those players before, but of course we will list them off a little bit later on. But first, the great fantasy baseball invitational. TGFPI is up and running for anyone who follows us on Twitter or follows any fantasy baseball player on Twitter. You probably have seen some draft board started or heard about this on podcast somewhere. Shout out to Justin Mason who puts these together every single year. A collection of 15-team roto industry leagues.

We're all in different leagues. You compete in your individual league, but also there's an overall prize as well. Scott is drafting first overall in his league. Chris is drafting 9th, and I am drafting 14th. So we are spread out. Scott got to draft Ronald de Cunia. That was awesome. And then he completely changed his entire draft strategy.

What happened, Scott? What happened was other people are drafting too, and they don't always cooperate with my plan. So, yeah, Ronald de Konya, I got him number one. Obviously, that was the most obvious pick you could make. I was the happiest day, the happiest moment of my week, finding out that I had the first pick in the draft. But nobody took pitchers in round two.

They took hitters. I mean, the top three, of course, Spencer Strider, Garrett Cole, Corbett Burns, went. This is a 15 team league worth pointing out.

So it's not, it's deeper than the formats we usually talk about. And so I thought starting pitchers tend to get pushed up in that, the high-end ones, in those deeper formats

because obviously they deplete faster when you have three more teams. And it didn't happen. And by the time it came back to me at the end of round two, the two-three turn, picks 30 and 31.

the top hitters available were Jose Altuve and Gunner Henderson. Now, you know I like Altuve a lot. And in a 12-team league, or if I was picking in the middle of the draft, I would have just taken Al-Tu-Ve with one of my two picks. As for Gunner Henderson, I don't think I could justify taking him over Zach Wheeler and Kevin Gosman, who are the two players they ultimately took, in part because, again, 30 picks till I'm picking again.

I'm seeing at the top of the draft board, nothing but pitchers. I'm like, oh, shoot, pitcher run is coming. It's going to get back to me in round four. And I'm going to end up with like Justin Steele is my ace. And I'm probably going to have to reach for him to do that. And, you know, the 15 team mocks I'd done up to this point, I had lived through the frustration,

the disappointment of not being able to fill out the pitching staff the way I'm used to. So I decided I'll nip this in the bud. I'll take Zach Wheeler and Kevin Gossman, not worry about pitching for a while. Hopefully I can get somebody like Adolice Garcia as my second hitter here. When it comes back to me at the four or five term, people just kept drafting hitters. They just kept drafting hitters. So the top of the draft room is still pitchers and we're like six picks away from my fourth pick. and so my number two hitter is going to end up being somebody like Nolan Jones

or Mike Trout Mike Trout is probably who I do or who else is there. I think you mentioned Royce Lewis. Royce Lewis, yeah, they're going to end up being my second hitter. It's tough, man. The 15 teamers. Yeah. Drafting on the end especially. This is the downside to taking Acuna, I guess, is like

you kind of end up in no man's land in rounds two and three. Yeah, but like, just kind of have to guess what everybody else is going to do. Think about it this way. Take 10 homers away from Ronald Acuna, take 35 steals away from him, and give him to Royce Lewis. And you're, yeah, I mean, that's true.

I mean, Ronald Acuna has got some production to spare. Acuna has so much production in all the categories that I mean, just from a balancing category standpoint, it kind of makes sense to go heavy at pitcher after you draft Ronald Acuna, but still, man. And for what it's worth, a lot of people are posting their draft boards

and I've seen a lot of Acuna pitcher pitcher. In my league, the person who had the number one pick went Acuna Wheeler Gosman. We aren't nearly as close to their fourth pick, so I don't know who's going to be available. But that kind of seems to be in, in the parlance of our times, the meta. Yeah, and I shared this on Twitter.

At the moment, I made the pick, and a lot of smart fantasy people commented. I know Fred Zinke commented, and they said, yeah, I mean, based on what was there, you really had no choice, but to take the two pitchers. I think I did have a choice.

I could have taken a pitcher in Altuve. Yeah. But those were the only two choices. And I'm a little surprised that you didn't, Scott. I know you love Jose Altuve. I get the rationale for why you did it, but yeah, that's part of the problem.

When you play in a league that deep and you draft on the end, sometimes you almost feel like you have to reach to get the player you want because it's like 30 picks away until it comes back to you. So I'm kind of feeling that on the other side. I'm picking 14th. But Chris, how did you start your TGFBI so far? So I had the number nine pick. And I, you know, we've talked about it a little bit,

but I had the realization that if you can't get the number one pick, I feel like eight or nine. And, you know, I'd probably feel more like this in a 12 team league. But eight or nine feels like a pretty good spot to be in just because you're probably not going to get the big stolen base source, which is a bit of a struggle. But I'd miss that myself. You're going to get a player who is a viable top two talent if you're picking eight or nine. Like maybe Freddie Freeman isn't the number two player. And that's who I picked number nine overall.

Maybe he's not the number two overall player. I don't think he is for anybody, probably. But like, if Freddie Freeman does what he did last season, I think he was the number two player in fantasy, wasn't he? Matt Olson. Was he ahead of Olson? No, Olson was the number two player. Okay, number two or?

I think Freeman's been number three overall in Roto each of the last two years. And first basement was ahead of him, Goldschmidt. I think the key there between Matt Olson and Freddie Freeman is, Freddie Freeman didn't have to hit 55 home runs to be the number three overall player. So I started with Freddie Freeman at number nine. I would have loved to have taken Corbyn Burns if he had come back to me. Unfortunately, he went one spot ahead of me. So I did go with Francisco Lindor.

It was down between him and Rafael Devers with that pick. Raphael Devers ended up slipping a couple more spots. He went like 24th overall, which is great value for Raphael Devers. And then coming back to me in the third round, I got Scott's boy, Jose Altovae at 39th overall. So Freddie Freeman, Francisco Lendor, Jose Altuve, it's old. It's pretty good. I like it. But that's pretty good. Yeah, that feels like I don't have a huge steel source so far, but I got some steals. You got more than me. Lador, right? Yeah, I got, I got 25-ish steals from Lindor. Yeah, you got 45 to 50 between Al-Tuvay and Lendor, probably. That's, that's a decent start. I'm going to,

I can't just forget about steals. now on. You might have 65 steals. Yeah. I did consider taking a starting pitcher there and, you know, we'll see how the rest of the draft goes because I would really like it if I could go. Like, I thought about taking Tyler Glass now there. And then this is where that 15 team league comes in because I don't love Tyler Glass now. I've talked about it a lot.

I think there's a lot of risk there. But he certainly can perform like an ace. and there's not a ton of those left. And so I'm I'm hoping Yoshiyamamoto is there the next time I pick. If Glass Now is there, I'd happily take him, but I think that's unlikely a 50 second overall. And I'd love to pair one of those with like a Logan Webber, or Framber Valdez in the next round,

but that might be asking a little too much. Yeah, that seems a little far-fetched. I think you'll get one of those SP-1s that you're looking for. I mean, I don't know if Yamamoto will be there in the fourth. You probably will get one of Logan Webb or Franbr Valdez, but I would be shocked if one of them wasn't there at least. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. So I was picking 14th,

and the plan going in was with one of these picks, I wanted to get Bryce Harper. He's the hitter I love. Obviously, I'm very excited about him this year. I did wind up getting him. I wanted to pair him with like Otani or Jose Ramirez, you know, give myself a little bit of a steals base there. But Otani went before my pick.

He went 12th. Trey Turner went one pick before, so I'm sitting there, and I took Bryce Harper with my first round pick, hoping, all right, well, I could get Jose Ramirez, hopefully, or even you're on Alvarez, whatever. I can get an outfielder with a lot of pop. All right, I could worry about speed later on. Both of those guys went at the turn.

So now at this point I have to decide, do I take Matt Olson and just double-tap first base, which is just such a weird start in a league this deep where you need speed? It's tough. Yeah, it is. So I thought about Lindoror. I thought about Albi's for a, for some speed, and ultimately I wound up taking Austin Riley.

So I don't know if that's the right answer. I think maybe someone like CJ Abrams will be in play for me at the end of the third if he's still there to try and grab some steals. But honestly, I just wanted the highest floor guy. I wanted a little bit better batting average, and so that's why I went with Austin Riley. But I don't know if that's right. So we'll see.

I think I would have gone Olson. Yeah. I mean, I probably wouldn't have gone Harper in round one. I'd have been more likely to go Olson there, but I think I would have done the two first basemen. What didn't help? What didn't help is that? In a 15 team roto league, I'm kind of less concerned about filling positions because it's hard to get, it's hard to feel like you have a starter that you actually feel good about at every position in a roto league this deep.

The person picking 15th in my league did go Olson Harper to start. I'm interested to see what it looks like. It helps that it's a roto league. So you do have that corner infield spot. You're not filling up your utility yet. So that that's, that's, I think, a key there. All right. So that's TGFBI.

You'll be hearing about it on this podcast, other podcasts as well. But there you go. That's how we each of us started up our respective drafts. Real quick, before we get into Roto Strategy, that's a pretty flawless transition talking about TGFBI. But real quick to join our Fantasy Baseball Today Facebook group, if you haven't already, that's Facebook.com slash groups slash fantasy baseball today. You can hop in there, ask any questions that you have, draft strategy keepers.

Dynasty, whatever it might be, and to download and follow our 5-minute podcast, Fantasy Baseball Today and 5, wherever you listen to this podcast. Let's talk Roto Strategy. Roto, also known as rotisserie or 5-by-5, the most traditional way to play fantasy baseball. Normally, you have 10 categories, 5 hitting, batting average, home runs, run scored, RBI, and stolen bases, and the five pitching categories, wins, strikeouts, ERA, whip, and saves. Obviously here, you want to rank highly in as many of those categories as you possibly can. The starting lineup does go a bit deeper, two catchers, one of each infield spot, five outfielders,

one corner, one middle, one utility bat, and nine pitcher spots. You could divvy that up however you want. Usually it's six starting pitchers, three relievers, or seven starting pitchers, two relievers. And like Chris recently mentioned, you want to shoot for a third place or better in each category. That's just kind of like a starting point.

I think it's something that you should be, If you're tracking your projections or you have category targets, I think that's what you should be looking for. We'll get to that in just a second. Scott, we'll start with you. General strategy when drafting in a Roto league and has it changed at all this year? General strategy is to balance the categories.

So I guess the distinctions, what makes my approach to Roto this year different from past years? I don't know if that's where you want me to start, but that's where I'm going to start, is there are more stolen bases available. You need more to be competitive, but there are more available. There is more, I think in Roto, there's actually more, based on the player pool this year,

more urgency to take high-in starting pitchers. Because if you get into that glob in Roto League, if you get into that unpredictability in ERA and WIP, that's going to hurt you a lot more in that format than it will in a points league where a pitcher can have an unappetizing ERA whip and still give you a nice point total. So you have to be a little more conscientious about drafting a high-end pitcher or two. Not that you have to take one with your first three picks necessarily. I've said before I want four of my top 35 or so ideally. But I think you have to be more conscientious about it in Roto League because you're guarding those ratios.

and the glob is going to hurt ratios the most. That's what it's, that's, that's, destructive nature is to come for your ratios. So, um, and as far as balancing home runs and steals,

that's always a goal in Roto. Like I said, the, the ratio of steals to home runs, it's more even than it's been in a long time. And so, you're, you're not required to reach for steals as much,

I guess. I would say, they are available in high numbers in basically all stages of the draft. If it gets on the later end and you don't have much of a foundation yet, well, you're probably too late. You need to work to build it up as the draft goes. But they're available in all stages of the draft where in recent years it seemed like it was almost to such an extreme that everybody just drafted base dealers until all the base dealers were gone. That's not the way anymore. I will say, though, at the top of the draft, between Ronald Acuna, Bobby Witt, Julio Rodriguez, and Corby and Carole, whatever order you want to put them, obviously Acuna would be number one. But those four players, that is a caliber of player that for most of the time we've all been playing fantasy hasn't really existed.

They're capable of giving you the steals numbers they are with those. the production that good in all the other categories. I mean, you have to go back to like the 80s, like the dawn of fantasy baseball to find players who could do that. And we have four here this year who could do that. So I do think how you build your team

and how much you emphasize stolen bases, it's going to make a big difference if you're drafting in the first four or five picks or if you're not. If you're not, then that might be an occasion to, take Ellie De La Cruz or C.J. Abrams. If, you know, you were picking toward the end,

you got like, Jordan Alvarez and Matt Olson with your first two picks, no steals, basically. But there are options. There are options, is my point. You'd rather be at the front, so you don't have to, you don't have to make the unfortunate choice to go with C.J. Abrams in late round three,

early round four. But thankfully, somebody like C.J. Abrams exists because that's not something we could say for most of the time we've been playing fantasy. The thing I would add regarding whether you need to pay up for stolen bases or not and the fact that they are easier to find throughout the draft, it's also worth keeping mind that among the hitting categories, stolen bases are the only one that just exist on their own. It's not technically true. You have to get a hit most of the time to get a stolen base. A stolen. A stolen stolen base probably marginally increases a batter's chances of scoring a run in that opportunity.

But on the whole, stolen base is stand apart. And what you see last year or what you see in the results from last year, I took a look at the average team that won every CBS Fantasy League last season. And that the average team that won their league last year had 10.7 category points and runs, 11 in home runs, so they finish in second place on average in home runs, and 10.3 in RBI. For batting average, it was 9.4. It makes sense.

High batting average doesn't necessarily help you in home runs, RBI, and runs. It can, but Luis Raias exists. And stolen base is 9.5 also makes sense. They're, you know, they stand by themselves. So if you have to prioritize one thing, home runs are the thing you should prioritize. They have the highest correlation pretty much every year with winning your fantasy league, but it doesn't guarantee it and you can't just ignore stolen bases either. Let's take our first break when we return. I have the categories, the targets that you mentioned, Chris, what you needed to finish on average, third place in each of the categories from last season.

So we'll go over that and we'll do it right after this. Welcome back in, continuing on with some Roto strategy. and here's what you needed on average to finish third place in 12-team Rotel leagues on CBS last season, a 264 batting average, 1,010 runs scored, 295 home runs, 977 RBI, and 185 steals. Per player, you're looking at 72 runs scored, 21 homers, 70 RBI, 13 steals, which doesn't sound like a lot, but once you start factoring in catchers, fourth and fifth outfielders, It gets a little bit tougher than you think. So do you guys, Chris, we'll start with you this time.

Do you track projected stats at all while you're drafting in a Roto League? Or I know some people use draft software that kind of keeps track of those things for them. Is there a way that you track your projected stats or is it just kind of a feel thing for you? I think it's reasonable not to, I don't think you should track your projected stats. That's tough. I think probably not. I generally don't. I have in the past, I would say at this point, I'll try to keep track and just make sure,

okay, I'm falling too far behind in one place or the other. But there are a couple of things that you run into, right? One is you're comparing yourself, your unfinished team to other people's unfinished teams. And you might have five hitters and someone else has nine hitters. And so you're way behind in a bunch of counting stats in a way that's not necessarily reflective of what your team is likely to produce. The other thing is projections tend to be more conservative on the whole. You're not going to have no projection system is ever going to project Ronald

Cooner for 40 homers and 70 stolen bases, even though we know that's something he's capable of. So I think it's okay to compare yourself to other teams at the end and see if you have a weakness, but you certainly shouldn't be beholden to them because it's difficult. One thing I have done is I've created a spreadsheet in the past that had like the average for each position in my spreadsheet

and then I fill in my player's projected stats as I go along and that way it kind of, okay, I'm ahead of the curve at shortstop, I'm behind at outfield that that's one. But on the whole, I'd say probably not. it's useful to have the category targets, especially, I think, for the rate stats, so ERA, batting, average, and whip. But you're going to drop a bunch of the players you draft,

and they're going to get hurt, and you're going to make trades. So it's, I think it's easy to become too beholden to them, and I think that's probably a surefire way to play for sixth place in your league. On the pitching side of things, here's what you needed to finish third place in each category in a 12-team Roto League last year. 89 wins, 1,344 strikeouts, 79 saves, a 3.6-9-ERA, and a 1.195 whip per player. That's nearly 10 wins per player, 149 strikeouts. And then for saves, I divided it by three because I figure most people are starting

two to four relievers. So you need like 26.3 saves per level. like three reliever spots on your team. That's three legit closers or, you know, two really good closers and then maybe a half closer or something like that. To finish where? To finish third, you needed a hundred, um, 79 saves last year.

Jordan saves. Yeah. So yeah, it's like if you have three relievers on your team, 26.3 saves per player. Scott, how do you usually divvy it up? Do you go six starting pitchers, three relievers, seven versus two? What's your usual? Well, this year I'm trying to go six starting pitchers.

three relievers, three relievers specifically who are in line for saves, or at least I think are in line for saves. And I'm glad I can do that again because there are more assurances around the league for saves right now. I need to find the exact count, but I think it's something like five teams where we are really just kind of guessing about who their closer is. And most of them are really bad teams who aren't going to have a great closer anyway. So they're not worth putting a high priority on regardless. But most of the teams we care about it, who offer their close are a good chance of getting a high number of saves.

Most of them, we have a pretty good idea who's closing. So I think it's much easier to get three relievers without making a heavy investment in the category, in the saves category, again. And I say again because, you know, 10, 15 years ago, that that was kind of the norm. It's just in more recent years where we've gotten away. from having a true closer where we really had to stretch just to get too, much less three. Some people might ask, can you punt a category in Roto and win? Everything that we've talked about to this point is balance.

Again, you want to rank as highly in every category as you possibly can. The answer is yes, you can punt a category and win. I've done it before. I mean, I've come in last place. What happens then is you basically need to assure that you are top three in each of the nine categories or maybe even top two depending on how how competitive the rest of your league is. So it is possible to do. It's something I would not recommend trying to do in Roto.

To add color to that, last year, the average for the average team that won their league in CBS Sports 12 team leagues had 98.6 category points. That was the average total. if you finish second in or if you finish second to last and saves you get one category point right or two category points okay go ahead and finish your point sorry you get two let's say you get two category points and saves that means you've got to average better than a third place finish in every other category yeah to win so it's possible but there is no margin for error yeah it is really really tough something you can do in head-to-head category But not in roto.

98 sounds like a lot of points. I don't know if just the kind of roto leagues we play in are more competitive maybe as a whole. There are fewer bottom feeders so the winner doesn't win with as many points. Let me make sure I did the math right there. Yeah, 98.6. I wasn't doubting you. I just, it's not uncommon to win with like 90 points, you know? And so that makes a big difference in terms of can you get away with punting?

And the only two categories you would consider punting. Not that you'd punt them both on the same team, but either stolen bases or saves. That's the, because those are the ones that are most disconnected from the other stats. Those are the only ones you could even consider punting. I've never gone.

It's really hard to win ERN whip with just starting pitchers. It's really hard. You've got to have really good starting pitchers. Yeah, that's fair. But you might punt saves and have some reliant. levers in there.

Yeah, like middle relievers that are good. Yeah. Bottom line is I don't recommend punting on a category. You give yourself such a narrow margin for error. You give yourself no room for adjustment as the season is playing out. I've never actually tried it in a Roto league because it just seems totally, it doesn't seem like I could get it to work. I know people have gotten it to work before, but I don't think it's a high probability strategy.

I think the thing to keep in mind, however, and someone in the comments just said this, you can punt saves during your draft. That doesn't mean your punting saves. I have done that before. That's, I think, the key distinction. And that might be more difficult this year when there's less uncertainty at the closer position. But that's the thing is there's a difference between punting saves during your draft, which is a perfectly viable strategy, although a higher degree of difficulty one, perhaps. and just, I'm not going to care about saves at all. Like that you cannot do.

And that is the category. You can, but it's hard. Certainly not in that 15 team roto league like we're talking about. If any potential save source emerges on the waiver wire, you're going to have to pay out your ear and five dollars to get them. But if you're on something shaller, like 12 teams, or certainly 10 teams, I'm not saying you should avoid drafting any closers,

but if you're trying to get closers at a discount and it just keeps not working, out, you still have hope of having a decent finish in saves as long as you're playing the way for wire aggressively when new closer options emerge. A smart fantasy player once told me, you are going to pay for saves one way or another, either in the draft or it's going to be on fab, but one way or another, you will wind up paying first saves. Let's wrap up this discussion with which players are better in Roto than in head-to-head points league. So typically ones that are steel specialists or are lacking plate discipline. I think up at the top, we've talked about this guy before.

More than ever before, the first two rounds seem more different between the formats than we've seen. Guys like Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt, Corbyn, Carol, as you mentioned, Fernando Tatis, they all get a slight boost early on in rotodrafts. But then other hitters, too, in the middle rounds, C.J. Abrams, Nolan Jones, Josh Lowe, Jazz Chisholm, Christian Encarnacion. Grand, L.A. Dela Cruz, Andres Jimenez, James Outman, Estuary Ruiz. Those are just an example. Those are the most obvious examples, but they gain more value in a

Roto or a Categories League compared to in a head-to-points format. Yeah, the big base dealers, the bad plate discipline guys, you know what? I have an all-roto team. Do you want me to just go through the names real quick? And if you have anything you want to interject, feel free. The catcher for my all-roto team is Yiner Diaz, bad-plate-discipline guy, the potentially good batting average. Honorable mention there, Cal Raleigh. First baseman of the all-roto team, Christian In Carnacian Strand.

Again, a plate discipline issue there. Honorable mention Ryan Mountcastle. Second baseman, Andreas Jimenez, big base dealer. Honorable mentioned Nolan Gorman for all the strikeouts, not so great in points. Third baseman, Josh Young. Honorable mention is actually Austin Riley.

Him and Raphael Devers both take a hit in points leagues relative to Roto, but especially Riley, because this play discipline isn't great. Shortstop, Bo Bichette, honorable mention C.J. Abrams, big stolen base guy. Outfield,

Luis Robert, Michael Harris, James Outman. Honorable mention there's Teoska Hernandez. Starting pitcher is interesting because here you have ratio darlings who may not give you the volume you're looking for in head-to-head points leagues. So the all-roto rotation is Tyler Glassnow,

Kodai Senga, Freddie Peralta, Yuri Perez, and Chris Sale. And the relief pitchers are kind of lame. I put Robert Stevenson and Yuki Matsui. Basically, the idea being that you can,

you can guess it, you can afford to guess it saves a little more in a Roto league than you can in a points league. I'd also just note, like, it might be even more like a Jason Adam and Brian, a Brady type thing for a Rota

just because those guys have no value in points leagues. Right. And they're actually, in a 15 team league especially where just having a really useful ratio guy can actually be really helpful when you're you know you don't have to chase

the bar for wins and saves is lower in a 15 team league one last point I want to make about roto because it's unique to this year roto you're typically filling five outfield spots outfield is the weakest position whether you're filling three outfield spots or five especially in a league where you're filling five.

That is the position you're going to have to prioritize a draft. Basically, you should design every draft this year around your approach to starting pitching and your approach to outfield. And the other positions, you can kind of just let them come to you as they may. All right, that was Roto Strategy. We'll get to head to head in just a little bit. Do want to talk about some news and notes and any spring training standouts from Monday's action. We had a trade, not the most important trade, but a trade nonetheless.

the Twins acquired Manuel Margot, third base prospect, Rain Don Cohn, and cash from the Dodgers in exchange for shortstop prospect Noah Miller, and Margot seems like a pretty clear platoon partner with Matt Walner and left field for the twins. And after the trade, the Dodgers signed Kike Hernandez as a bench utility option. My guess is this doesn't really matter much for fantasy, right? Yeah, I think it gives the twins a little Byron Bucks and insurance. probably a platoon partner at the beginning. But yeah, the prospects that were moved don't seem particularly.

I mean, Noah Miller was a comp round pick at one point, but I don't think he's posted even a 700 OPS so far in three minor league seasons. So he might have a future in the majors as a utility player, but it doesn't seem like it says a fantasy relevant one. All right. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will make his spring debut Wednesday against the Rangers. Reds manager David Bell said that Matt McLean is

making good progress with his right oblique. Justin Verlander will ramp up the intensity of his throwing during a bullpen session Tuesday. He's been delayed after his shoulder didn't bounce back well from his off-season throwing program. Tommy Edmund is further along

on his hitting program from the right side of the plate than the left side, but he remains without a timetable for his spring debut. He's recovering from off-season and wrist surgery. We're still about a month away from opening day, but this is something to monitor.

It doesn't sound great right now. They said maybe a couple of weeks he can start live batting practice. He's kind of up against it. We'll see if Tommy Edmund could be ready for opening day. Obviously, Tommy Edmund figures to play more outfield at this point, but they did sign Brandon Crawford today, which I don't know if he's going to start, but anytime a team starts adding guys at this point,

You do worry if that's, hey, we're not sure this guy's going to be ready situation. Everything I've read was that it was a backup plan for Mason win. But yeah, no, I think it's a fair point. Yeah. Jared Edmund's supposed to be the center fielder when he gets back. Jaron Duran is expected to make his Great Fruit League debut on Friday. He's been held out to this point as the team eases him back from toe surgery. Yuki Matsui underwent an MRI on his back, which showed inflammation, but no structural

damage. You know, this is something worth monitoring because, you know, if he's not ready for opening day, that might make things a little bit more clearer there for Robert Suarez in the Padres bullpen. The Cubs signed Garrett Cooper to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training, which has already started. So get there, Garrett Cooper. Spring training standouts from Monday. Michael Harris was batting sixth in the Braves lineup that looked a lot like their opening day lineup. It was missing Sean Murphy, but I thought that was kind of interesting. And, you know, if we continue to see that, and maybe we boost up Michael Harris a little bit,

like we talked about, more opportunities for counting stats here in 2024. I mean, I think he's already boosted up as much as you could justify. But I was avoiding him out of fear of him batting ninth. And, you know, maybe he still will. But as we see the Braves regular lineup more, if he's consistently hitting sixth, I think that's a good indication he's going to do that.

Six is a heck of a lot better than ninth. Yeah. And I think the context would be like he had 539 played appearances in 138 games last year. You can more easily project him for 600. You still, that's a lot less than a lot of players in his range, but it's better than 539. And there is a lot of steam on Michael Harris right now too. I've heard some really smart people kind of propping him up throughout the industry. And he went in the middle of the second round in my TGFBI draft.

He went 24th overall to the team that took. Freddie Freeman in the first round. So there's some steam right now on Michael Harris, and it might be worth it. He went 27th in mine. Yeah. So pretty close. Yeah, he's getting propped up there.

Some pitching notes here. Jack Flerty made his tiger's debut. The velocity was up on all of its pitches. Fastball was up 1.5 miles per hour. The slider up three miles per hour compared to last season's velocity, but it was only one inning of work. So we'll monitor that throughout spring training. Nester Cortez made his spring debut.

velocity was slightly up in his return from a shoulder injury last year, so that was nice to see. You say Kikuchi struck out three over two shutout innings. He debuted a new change-up grip, which was four miles per hour lower than last year. And we were talking beforehand. Kikuchi is always tinkering. I don't want him to change too much because he kind of figured something out that worked last year, but it's, you know, something again. It's a new addition. He figured out the breaking balls last year. You know, I think he found. a combination of breaking balls that worked. Now it's, you know, trying to finish off the arsenal.

But he's, I mean, worked really, really hard. You remember Yusakuchi's always been a really talented pitcher, but he was routinely posting ERAs over five for a couple of years. And I think he really figured something out last year. So I'm interested to see what this new changeup looks like. But like you said, he doesn't need to improve much more than he already has. Yuri Perez struck out three over one and two-thirds innings of work. He debuted a new curveball grip.

It was, his curveball was down six miles per hour compared to last year, but the spin rate was up 137 RPM. So it's a new look. Probably sounds like it's more of like a loopy, 1260 type curveball thing. But hey man, Chris, get hyped. Yuri Perez. So he only threw three of them. And there was a lot of talk from catcher Kirk Casale

and Skip Schumacher after the game where he only started working on this curvebog group a couple days ago, apparently, and it looked a lot better in the bullpen was what they said. Like, they were really happy within the bullpen, so that's why he started working it into the game. He only threw three of them.

His change up in curveball, I think command last year were probably the biggest weaknesses for Yuri Perez. So it's interesting to see that he is working on that. His curveball had the second. highest whiff rate of any curveball and baseball last year. But if you watch it and if you look at the scatter, the zone plots and all that, like he didn't command it super well.

He would get whiffs up in the zone and I don't know how sustainable that is. But I don't know how I feel. The curveball was an effective pitch for him last year. So, you know, does it being even slower? Does that make it easier to pick up for opposing hitters? I don't know. We'll see. You know, I think it's, he's still a work in progress as much as we love him.

He's 20 years old. We'll see what the data says over the next couple of starts, but it's definitely something to keep an eye on. Joe Musgrove allowed four more earned runs on Monday and saw that he was working on a new sweeper, but said he wasn't sure if he would use it in regular season games. I'm still not reacting or overreacting to Joe Musgrove not pitching well, but would like to see him do.

something good before the end of spring training, just coming back from the shoulder injury last year. There haven't been any velocity readings yet, but I think he'll be fine, but obviously we will continue to watch. Yeah, I think if, even though we haven't, like we don't have stack cast data for these starts,

I think we would have heard something if the ball wasn't coming out like it usually does for Joe Musk Grove. You know, we'll continue to monitor. or turret this spring. But right now, other than the results themselves, I haven't seen any reason for alarm with him. All right. Let's take our final break when we return the head-to-head formats. Head-to-head points, head-to-head categories. We'll talk about those right after this. Welcome back in. Let's continue on with strategy talk. This time, head-to-head points. And if you're looking to get into fantasy baseball for the first time, or if you enjoy playing fantasy football,

this is the format for you. You're going up against one other opponent. Some leagues, you could face multiple opponents at a time. But you just get fantasy points based on what your players do on the field, much like fantasy football. So on CBS, head-to-head points leagues use shallower starting lineups, one of each infield position, three outfielder, one utility bat, no corner or middle infielder. On the pitching side, you start five starting pitchers and two relief pitchers.

In the past, head-to-head points leagues favored starting pitchers, and you'd see more of an emphasis on pitching early in drafts. Scott, what is your general strategy in this format? head to head points and how has this changed at all in recent years? So I've never, I get why people say it's the better format for pitching. But I think they go about that wrong and have for a long time. I don't see that as you need to sell out harder for high end pitching. I see it more as you need to have a lot of pitching depth.

Because this is the format where, like I said, when we're talking about the Rotolese, It's not like a pitcher with a so-so ERA and whip with so-so ratio stats is going to hurt you so much in this. If he's logging a lot of innings, which are worth three points of piece, meanwhile, strikeouts are only worth half a point of piece, so they're not as valuable in points league as they are in Roto. You don't need those dominant high-impact pitchers as much in this format. It's also league where you're more likely to stream pitchers. We're more likely to go with two start options in a given week. where you're more likely to play matchups.

So you want a lot of pitching options. You want your bench to be mostly starting pitchers, but I don't think you should go into a head-to-head points draft at thinking, oh, two of my first three picks or three of my first four picks need to be pitchers. I think that's the wrong way to approach it. I still think, particularly in this year's player pool, you're going to do more to distinguish yourself from the competition

by going after those MVP caliber bats in the first. three or four rounds. It's not saying he can't take one pitcher if you like the value of one, but you should still mostly focus on bats. And part of the reason for that is usually in a head-to-head format, points league's included. You're talking about smaller lineups.

You're talking about no corner infield spot, no middle infest spot, just three outfield spots. So it's harder to get an advantage over your competition and it's more necessary to. You have fewer ways to distinguish yourself from your opposition. And also... So that's part of the reason why.

it makes sense to use your early round capital on the kind of bats that can do that. And those two things are related, right? Like the fact that you want that pitching depth because you want to be able to take advantage of as many two-star weeks as possible means that you need fewer question marks in your hitting lineup because you should be spending few. Like it's perfectly reasonable to go into a season in a head-to-head points league with one or no hitters on your bench, depending on what your team looks like. Because I think a good way to think about it is in a roto, you're building your base for the

season long. And so getting 280 inning aces or two 200 inning aces, as rare as those are, sets you up really well for the whole season. And it can in a head-to-head points league if those guys are, you know, getting 18 points per start or whatever. but your two aces are going to start, have two start weeks once every, I don't know, four weeks is probably how it works. And that's valuable.

Maybe once every three weeks is probably better, but either way. It's awesome when that happens, but your Spencer Strider can get outscored by someone else's Zach Eflin in any given week if Zach Efflin's got two starts. And he can get outscored in a one start week, but. Yeah, much less pitcher. the pitcher much lower end than Zachethlin even. Yeah, yeah. So that's the,

it's just the way the scoring works, right? Like you can much more easily get an advantage from two aces in Roto than in head-to-head more consistently because they impact the whole season rather than each week. And I just associate that strategy so much with my dad. We play in a head-to-points league together. He will pick up any pitcher as a two-star week.

He does not care who it is. He text me at the beginning of every week. my opponent's rejected to have three more starts than me. I got to pick up two star pitchers. That's why I drafted five sparks in our head-to-head auction last week because I'm going to have so many two-star options and some of them might even be good. Some of them might even be good.

Occasionally. You could definitely take the strategy too far. I usually have two or three pitchers in a head-to-head points league that I'm basically never sitting no matter how many starts they have. It's really just the other... three, four, or two, three, maybe four spots where you're swapping guys out based on matchups and two-start status.

But the point is, it is a strategy you're going to use a lot. When in Roto, I find it to be, it tends to do more harm than good because a fringy two-start option in Roto is very likely to actually hurt your team's ERA and whip and may do double the damage if they're making two starts. And think about it, logistically too, right? So, Roto has deeper starting

lineups that means the waiver wire is worse. So the pitchers you're picking up for two-star weeks are much worse. Replacement level is much, much higher in a head-to-head points league. Yeah, and to that point, again, it's the shallower of the format, you need to have more spots that stand out and distinguish themselves. It allows you to take a little bit more risks as well, because, again, that replacement value on the waiver wire is much better. Something else I feel that matters more in head-to-head formats as well.

both heads head points and heads head categories is consistency weekly consistency. The problem with this is... It's not really a thing. There's not really a way to track it, right? Well, you can track it, but from what I understand, I remember Derek Carty did some analysis on this that I should go find and retweet, but there are inconsistent players, obviously, but for the most part, in the past consistency is a thing

predicting consistency especially on a weekly basis is basically impossible I think the kinds of contributions certain kinds of contributions are more predictable from week to week than others for instance how much a player walks how much a player strikes out

sure so I think if you're and those tend to be the better players and head-dead points leagues anyway because walks by CBA standard scoring are worth one point each. Strikeouts for hitters are worth minus half a point. So I'm thinking in terms of like a Stephen Kwan or I don't know, maybe like an Alex Bregman. I think they have a higher floor from week to week, but they also have, certainly Kwan's,

has a lower ceiling. So if you do go with like a masher who doesn't walk much, a Luis Rye's, let's say in a points league. I do think you're going to see more peaks and valleys from week to week. But I also think there are other reasons to say that's not the preferred format for Luis Robert other than consistency. I think given how many players you're starting, I don't worry so much when I'm assembling my team, how consistent is this going to be?

Because some guys are going to have down weeks, some guys are going to have good weeks. and it's rare that they're all going to have their good week at the same time. It's a long season, guys. It's a long, long season. One name that comes to mind instantly is Randy Rosarena. I remember we did our outfield preview. I described him as inconsistently consistent, right? He goes on these crazy hot stretches.

He goes through these cold spells. In Roto, at the end of the season, he winds up giving you what you want. But man, on a weekly basis, it could be kind of frustrating with a Rosarena. The other thing is Rockies hitters, too. I would say don't roster multiple Rockies hitters. That's especially true this year just because they're not very good. But whenever they're on the road,

you don't want multiple Rockies in your lineup in a head-to-head format. So that's another, something that I've learned. A shallow is head-to-head format seem to be. It's basically just Nolan Jones. So I think you're safe. It's not much. Nolan Jones is the only Rocky you definitely want to start at home at this point. Let's talk about the scoring format.

Every website's points league scoring format is a little bit different. On CBS, plate discipline matters a lot for hitters. So you gain one point for walks. You lose half a point for strikeouts. And that is the biggest distinction between head to head points and roto, at least on CBS. So hitters that gain value in this format, early on, Mookie Betts, Judge, Soto, Olson, they get a little bit of a boost into the first round. Other names Alex Breggman, Kyle Schwerber, Max Muncie, Yandy Diaz, Masatatat,

Akha Yoshida, J.P. Crawford, Stephen Kwan, Jung-Hoo-Lee, all guys expected to, again, have lower strikeout rates, usually good walk rates. I like to target hitters that hit in the top half of good lineups too, just because they get more opportunities, more played appearances. And then pitchers that gain more in this format, you'll see ones that consistently go deep into starts and ones that provide quality starts. So you get a, I think it's a five-point boost, right, on CBS or three, three-point boost. Three points for a quality start. Every inning is is worth three points. Yeah.

So guys like Logan Webb, Framber Valdez, Aaron Nola, Chris Bassett. Want to go to the team again? Go through the teams, Scott. All the head-to-head points team here. Okay, catchers, Adley Rushman, not that he's not the top catcher in Roto, but I think he's worth selling out for more.

And a head-to-head points league, alternate is Kiber Ruiz, who never strikes out. First base, Yandi Diaz, of course. Great plate discipline. Honorable mention of Vinnie Pasquantino, who's another one-to-one strike-out-to-walk guy. Second base, Catell Marte. mostly because he's just not providing steals for roto.

Honorable mentioned Jonathan, India, a good plate discipline guy. Third base, Alex Bregman, maybe the player with the single biggest difference between his roto and points value. Difference between him going into the third round in points leagues or like the seventh round in roto. Honorable mention Max Muncie,

who might be the second biggest difference between his points league and roto league value for as much as he walks. Shortstop, J.P. Crawford was great in points leagues last year. Corey Seeger, honorable mentioned, though, obviously he's great in both. Outfield, Juan Soto, of course, with his plate discipline, Kyle Schwerber, going to kill you in batting average in Roto, but that doesn't matter in points because it's not scored directly.

And he walks a lot. And Stephen Kwan, who hardly strikes out. Honorable mention to Jung Hu Lee, who he also don't think is going to strike out much. Rookie Outfielder for the Giants. Starting pitcher, the volume guys, right? Logan Webb, Aaron Nola, Framber Valdez, Logan Gilbert. I think meets this description, though he's a little further down the rankings. And Mitch Keller fits this description.

And then relievers, again, it's kind of stupid. A manual Class A and Chris Paddock, or who I chose for the all-head-to-head points team. Chris Paddock representing all the Sparps, basically. Yeah, and you hear us talk a lot about Sparps. Those are starting pitchers as relief pitchers. They're kind of a cheat code in this format. And the names that do fit that description, Cole Reagan's, Michael King, Nick Povetta, Ryan Pepio, Chris Paddock, Frankie Montas, Sean Mania, Zach Lattel, D.L. Hall, and one of Chris's new favorites.

Cody Bradford from the Texas Rangers. Why are we taking shots? I don't understand. I'm not sure I've seen anyone other than you draft him. I'm giving you credit. Only in a head-to-head points league. Only has a spark. Hey, man, I drafted Alex Wood in the Sky White Dynasty League. So he's in a rotation. Who am I to talk? So let's wrap up with some Head Dead Categories talk. We might go a little bit longer because I want to make. sure to give this format some of its due as well but to be honest i don't have an all head-to-head categories so that'll save us some time we could do a whole i mean it's the wild west man it's rhodo and head-to-head points they had a baby and boom head-to-head categories came out typically

the standard five by five but i've seen people get crazy with it 10 by 10 categories and so on too much it's too much you face off against the my favorite is the ones that have like complete games as a category like what are we doing uh you face off against a team you each week, whoever ranks higher in each category wins that category. And there are different ways to keep track of standings too. So there's one win where if you beat your opponent six to four, you win six categories, you lose four, your record becomes one and up. The better format. There's each category where if you win six to four in week one, your record is six and four. If you lose four to six in week two, your record becomes 10 and 10. It sounds like Chris prefers

the one win, Scott. The better format by far. I kind of like the each. category. I will quote Don Torretto. Uh-oh. In the, I don't know, 2001 classic Fast and Furious. Doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning's winning. And that's the way. This is like saying, oh, we should decide who goes to the playoffs based on run differential. No, we shouldn't. You play to win the game. Because, right, this like, oh, I'm going to get six, six tenths of a win. No. You get one win, you get one loss, and that is the way we play sports in America.

America. Rub some dirt on it, kid. There you go. Exactly. The standard lineup for this format, by the way, is one of each infield position, three outfielders, two utility spots, no corner, no middle. And on the pitching side, you get two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and four just pitcher spots. So, Scott, this allows for a lot of flexibility. And again, it's what kind of makes head-to-head category is the Wild West, because, yes, you can get, you could stream starting pitchers, you can have some aces in your lineup, you can have a few closers.

But you could also just have like set up guys and middle relievers that you just plug into those pitcher spots and they're just giving you something every day. It might not be a good thing, but, you know, you could get strikeouts. You could wind up with like a lucky win. So it makes, it allows for more flexibility and it's interesting. It is interesting. And I think your approach to the league changes and that changes a lot based on your particular setup. I think head-to-head categories leagues, for instance,

are the most likely to have daily lineup changes. And so how you make up your roster is going to make a big difference. How waivers are run in a league with daily lineup changes makes a big difference in how you make out your roster too. But yeah, in theory, if it is a daily lineup league, you want more relievers on your roster so that you can swap them in when your starting pitchers have days off

and maximize your output in the pitching categories that way. But let's say it's not. Let's say it's just a weekly lineup league like we're used to playing with in the other formats. It's still probably worth carrying more relievers because ERA and WIPP for the week is going to be is going to be highly, highly unpredictable. It becomes more predictable

if you have more relievers who can help control it. And I think there's a higher threshold that a starting pitcher has to meet to be worth putting in a head-to-head categories lineup at all, which is true in Roto 2 to an extent, but I think even more so in a head-to-head categories league. in that vein of

you're breaking the roto categories down into individual weekly competitions I also think a jack-of-all-trades type hitter somebody who's going to give you C-plus to B-minus across the board C-plus to B-minus production across the board I think it's less valuable in a head-to-head categories league

I think you want to aim more for hitters who make a high, more predictable from week to week impact at a specific thing. You want extreme base dealers. You want extreme power hitters because you can more reliably count on winning those categories from week to week if you know you have guys who do a lot of that thing. rather than in a roto league, you just need it to balance out over the course of a season. And Scott mentioned this, Chris, that usually head-to-head categories leagues are daily lineup.

So how does that change things for you? Are you more likely to take guys that might be in a platoon? I mean, if you're worried about Josh Lowe being in a platoon, maybe he's someone that gains more value in this format. I don't know that you want his platoon mate

on your bench, like a Johnny DeLuca or something like that, but is there anything that you could see doing differently in a daily lineup league. I think that's where for hitters, you can get a small edge. It's kind of what the race already do

in running their actual team. If you really are capable of keeping track of this and being in or retentive about it and updating your lineup every day and tracking, okay, Josh Lowe's out of the lineup. I got to get them out of like, you can gain an edge,

but that's kind of tough, right? Like, let's say you got a Thursday. That's a lifestyle. Josh Lowe's. That's a lifestyle. That's another job. And I hate these leagues. Just to be perfectly clear, I hate daily lineup leagues.

I refuse to play in them. I will never play in daily lineup league again. I would rather jump off the roof than play in a. But it's also like, let's say Josh Lowe's playing at seven. And you find out at 2 o'clock that he's not in the lineup on a Thursday. If your alternatives had day games, then you're kind of screwed anyway. way. Right. So I think you can gain an edge that way. I think it's a bad way to play fantasy. You're not really rewarding building a good team. You're rewarding whoever's the most

ain't all retentive about updating theirs. And I don't think that's ideal. I think it works better at it's easier to do in the pitching side because you know when your starters are or are not going to be starting, having some relief pitchers who are really good to slide in there. I think that That's where it becomes more helpful. And people get crazy with streaming too in daily lineup leagues. I think if your league uses daily lineups, you have to have a weekly maximum of waiver wire additions. Whether it's, you know, I think three to four is probably fair. Maybe you want to stretch it out to five.

But anything more than that, people just go crazy with the streaming just later on in the week. And, you know, I don't love that aspect of it. Daily lineup changes with daily streaming is. okay, whoever has the most free time is going to win this league, basically, which, you know, people who play in those leagues, they swear by them, okay?

I'm not here to kill your buzz. But, yeah, I've realized we're alienating our entire head-ded category as audience right now. I just don't have the attention span for it, but God bless you if you do. No, I understand. Like, well, you know, people want to be involved, right? It's the same way of, you know, if you

ran a real-life baseball team, right? You're making the lineup every day. You're going out there. your pitchers in your lineup and stuff. I get it. For you to feel like you're having your competitive urges satiated, you have to be able to find 11 other people who are legitimately willing to do that. Otherwise, what are you doing? You're not really challenging yourself.

Yeah, let's talk about punting categories because this is a format where you could definitely do it. I think we can kind of work in if you guys want to mention the Marmold strategy. I don't know if it's something that is still viable at this point anyway, but for those who don't know, that used to be you draft, you have like two aces on your team or two pitchers that give you innings.

And then outside of that, it's mostly relievers. You're trying to dominate saves. You're trying to dominate ratios and just barely meet that innings requirement for the week. But it does allow you to kind of punt and, you know, dominate what you can dominate.

It requires self-control is the biggest thing about the Mar-Mall strategy is it can work, but what you can't do is take your two starting pitchers and they get to the 12th round and be like, ooh, I like that value at start. And then you have to just, because the idea is you're going to dominate hitting categories because you're not going to invest in pitcher. And then you're going to take a bunch of middle relievers at the end of the draft, a couple of closers, and just dominate ratios, dominate saves at a low, low investment.

And you have to really stick with it. You have to be willing to churn those guys. And you have to be willing to play that daily lineup game. And it's hard. And it does not guarantee success. But it can work in a head-to-head categories league. It's just I don't know if I've ever really had the discipline to pull it off. Do you think there should be a weekly innings minimum?

Because if there isn't one, then theoretically, every team could just use relievers. So like 25, 30 plus, something like that? Yeah, I mean, like in theory, if you had no many innings minimum, you could just have one pitcher on your roster. You could just have Devin Williams and then a bunch of guys who are in AAA and win ERA and whip every week. Like that it's you obviously need, you don't need. You can play however you want.

you should have checks and balances in your rule set. And this is true of Roto and head-to-head in different ways. You know, in Scott White's Dynasty League, there's a maximum of nine starting pitchers you can have on your roster. Like, you need ways to balance your league to create, you know, to enforce competitiveness. And I think innings minimums, waiver wire regulations on how many players you can swap in and out of your roster.

I think of those are all a key to making headdemeanor. head categories more competitive. And I should have mentioned this earlier because in Roto leagues, there is typically an innings minimum that you have to meet throughout the season, whether that's 900 innings, a thousand innings. It's just so that you don't just basically do this and run out a bunch of relievers on your team.

So there is a minimum of, you got to have obviously a decent amount of starts throughout the year to get to that 900 or 1,000 inning minimum in a Roto league. Any other thoughts? Scott on like punting categories. We mentioned it a little bit in Roto. I think if you're going to punt

in offensive category, a hitting category, like Steeles makes the most sense to do, but it's like so many of the best hitters now also steal bases. So I don't know how viable it is to even try doing that anymore. Yeah, I think Steele's made the most sense.

And punting in general makes more sense in head-to-head categories than in Roto, particularly if it's scored the way Chris prefers where, no matter how much you by in a given week, you get a single win out of it, then yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's easier to build a winning team without steals, potentially even without saves, though you're going to have to figure out another way to keep your ERA and whip under control. The fact it's scored week by week, I think, makes it a little more plausible because you're going to see more dramatic

swings from one week to the next and the ratio stats especially. But, uh, like you're saying, there are so many more steals to be found now. And the stolen base, like what is a good base dealer now has more stolen bases than he did two, three years ago? And actually, this is, I know we're not talking about head-to-head points leagues before,

but I think this is worth bringing up in a head-to-head points league context because we were talking about how in categories, leagues versus points leagues, okay, the base Steelers get pushed up in categories leagues. They're necessary when you can score in other ways in points leagues.

Well, I do still think the big base dealers are more valuable in categories than points leagues, but now the big base dealers steal more bases. So it adds up to a higher point total than it did before. And you'd be surprised how well Nico Horner,

Ellie de la Cruz, even as much as he struck out, you'd be surprised how many points they scored, there's less difference than their points in roto value than you might think. We're 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'll be back again tomorrow. Bye-bye.