Fantasy Baseball Today - The Process w/ Jeff Zimmerman! Stuff+, Bat Speed, Injury Grades & More (3/1 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Welcome to the show, Jeff Zimmerman! What is 'The Process' (4:15)? ... Are Stuff+ metrics predictive (5:56)? ... Which pitching stats are predictive (12:40)? ... What have we learned from the new bat speed metrics (16:05)? ... How does Jeff come up with his starting pitcher injury grades (21:45)? ... Are projections accounting for the new ballparks (29:40)? ... Can we trust pitchers with big innings jumps (35:07)? ... We wrap up with Spring Training buy or sell (43:00). 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, @CPTowers @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. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball today and welcome to March. I am Frank Stamphill, joined by a very special guest. Jeff Zimmerman.

How's everything going, Jeff? It's going good. It's just getting baseball season. It's got the labor auctions this weekend. TGFBI starts next week, Monday. It's just going to be pretty much constant drafting news for the next month. And then its season starts. It's like seven months of craziness just pretty much starts right about now.

Crazy is a good word, Jeff, because here we are. It's March. We've got spring training baseball in full swing. By the time this is coming out, you might have learned about more injuries. It feels like every day we're getting more and more. So we had to find ways to finagle that, obviously, in fantasy baseball. And then we've got all these drafts coming up. Yeah, actually, later on today, when this is coming out, I've got NL labor.

So looking forward to that, we've got TGFBI coming up, and a whole bunch of Tout Wars drafts coming up in March and NFBC leagues and all that kind of fun stuff. Jeff, we have you on today because we want to talk about your award-winning book, The Process, co-author, of the process. You can also read his work over on fan graphs. You can listen to him on the launch angle podcast. Make sure to follow Jeff on X at Jeff W. Zimmerman and on blue sky at jeffw Zimmerman. B-Sky. dot social. And congrats on winning the FSDWA award for best baseball publication.

Perfect timing. We're having you on to talk about this book and you just won an award. So there you go. Yeah, I had no idea if we were when they were going to announce. And I didn't even know if we were going to win either. So it was one of those deals where it was like, well, it could. We might know before we potted, might not. Could have happened in the middle of it. Who knows? But it's been a labor of love more than anything else, but it's nice to be awarded for the hard work that Tanner, myself, and all the other writers have put into it.

Yeah. And reading through this book, I can attest there is a lot of work that goes into it, a lot of research. And you ask people around the industry and you hear them talk about this specific book, the process, right? and a lot of smart people who play fantasy baseball use this book and learn from this book. So, Jeff, I will throw it your way so you can kind of maybe go more in depth and tell people what they need to know. What is the process?

Just a general synopsis of what the book is and maybe where people can go to find it. Yeah, the general synopsis is just what it takes from spring training, I mean, from like spring training or even before that, just collecting the information and how to, run a fantasy baseball team, how to set up an auction values, how during the season, what's the best ways to stream your hitters, stream players, done a lot of research done looking into that. So for years, we just kept updating a large book, the whole process and kept adding to it and just kind of refining it. When COVID hit, we kind of ran into some issues. And since the we've only put out an appendix. So we've kept the main one. So if you don't have the main one, you can read it. Nothing's really changed in it. And then every year we add an appendix to it,

which is kind of more like a magazine. And then people can go through it and look for the changes that we have with that. The one year we ended up spending so much time like editing the big one for it. And we didn't really spend much time adding studies. So we're just like, oh, let's just do studies. And that's what more people want to see. Yeah, I think that makes sense, right? Especially where the game is changing year over year. And that will lead us into our first discussion point. I do want to remind people where you can find the book. It's the Fantasy Baseball Process.com,

and you could also find it on Amazon. So make sure to check it out. And if you like what you're here today, maybe go out and buy the book as well. So talking about some of the things that change year over year and new things that are being implemented into baseball every year, I want to start with stuff metrics, because this is something that's kind of just blown up

in not only the baseball world, fantasy baseball world, both of those worlds alike. We see and hear prominent analysts referring to Stuff Plus metrics and Eno Saris from the Athletic, we know he's kind of at the forefront of that. So what is Stuff Plus exactly? The stat looks at physical characteristics of a pitch,

paying attention to release point, velocity, movement, and spin rate. I could be wrong about this. I still feel like we're in the infancy of learning about this metric and its usefulness and how it could correlate to fantasy baseball. With all of that said, you ran some numbers in this book, the process. What did you learn about Stuff Plus and how predictive is it moving forward? The one thing that I looked with it was

kind of looking at the fantasy stats that we care about. What's key for us? And the one thing that I found with all of the stuff metrics, the ones I used were the one Eno Seris has, which that's kind of like there's multiple sources. So his, we're the two at fan graphs, his and then bought stuff was also there. And I looked at him to see how well they predict the fantasy stats. And the one thing that they do is a really good job predicting ERA, that they do a good job with that. Where they start breaking down maybe a little bit is with strikeout and walking. rate. The keys there is just you strike on walk rate. They're more predictive of it than the stuff metrics. But what I found out also was when I looked at different correlations is

the good thing that stuff does better than anything else is how they is predicting soft contact, how they just limit hits or limit home runs. And it like I said, just does an amazing job of pulling out those numbers. In the book, we look at like, what's your one month, like, value was and how predictive it was. And it was just like, with ERA, it was, all the stuff metrics just blew it away.

But what was most surprising is when you get down to it, WIP is a better predictive factor for future ERA than actual ERA is. Wow. Yeah. You might just want to stay away from ERA as like looking forward because it just doesn't tell you that much. But I think like, yeah, it was just when I looked at like year to when if you go to like looking at the year to year, what if you have one value one year and one to the next, all of them just kind of point to the bot values or the stuff values predicting this week contact later. but there was some normal traditional stats mainly just strike out rate and walk rate that do a great job of predicting future.

So I think if you can kind of know that those are the ones you should focus on, possibly like Sierra also does a good job. If you could go through the book, pick out like those five and just kind of ignore the rest because it just doesn't really tell you that much predictively. Mm-hmm. And if people are wondering where they could find Stuff Plus metrics, if you go over to Fangraphs.com and you hover over leaders, you go to pitching leaders, and then pitch modeling, you can click on Stuff Plus and you can look at each pitcher's Stuff Plus by specific pitch, what that all kind of grades out to, one Stuff Plus metric. And for those wondering, the top three qualifying starting pitchers in Stuff Plus last year were Corbyn, Bill & Dillon Seas, and Terrick Scouble, which makes a lot of sense. Those are three of the top 10 or top 12 starting. pitchers drafted in ADP right now. One issue, Jeff, that I've run into with Stuff Plus, is a lack of uniformity. And I see people citing different Stuff Plus metrics, right? And to be honest, it can be confusing for me.

So I can imagine, like, the consumer, people who are listening to this podcast and reading Fantasy Baseball articles are trying to figure out which stuff plus to you. So that's why I still kind of look at this as like, it's in its infancy and we're learning more about it because Enosaris might have his stuff plus. but then I see someone like, you know, T.J. Stats on X who does a great job.

I love the content that he puts out. But, you know, his stuff plus might say that a pitcher is awesome. And then Eno's stuff plus might say that a pitcher is average. So it's like, how do we use this? We need some kind of uniformity, you know, amongst the stuff plus metrics. That would be the greatest thing ever if they just got together. And even put on the same scale because some of them, they have a stuff of 110. ENOs. That actually means with Eno's, that player is 66% better than league average. It's one

standard, standard deviation. Another metric, the one Lance Bruncowski uses, that means he's only 10% better than league average. Ah, so yeah, it's very different. Right. So it's like get them on the same scale would be nice. And then like the bot, which is actually the one I use because after talking to David Appelman is, I can't remember who wrote it. I can look it up. But he wrote it and they got signed by the Indians. So he's working for them. And it performs great. It was, and a lot of times beat the one that Eno's been working on that hasn't been touched in years. So it stands up good. It just doesn't, isn't getting the publication that it needs, but it's a great indicator. And it's consistent. It stays the same every year. And so you can actually go back and

look to see its usefulness, like if there's any trends or stuff with it. I mean, this year, the one with Eno is like, I did all this work and then here a couple months ago, Eno changed it all. So even some of my numbers might be off. I just wish stuff, the people that got it would come together because there's just, I know baseball America has their own, T.J. Stats has their own. There's probably a good 10 of them floating around out there. Yeah.

Yep. So it's not to be overly critical or anything. I think there is use for it. And obviously being able to measure which pitchers do, quote unquote, have better stuff is helpful for fantasy and watching baseball. So yeah, it would be nice if we can kind of get together. Jeff, you mentioned some of the stats, other stats that you think that are predictive, right? I just, I know it seems impossible. I wish there was just like one metric that would just put everything together and tell us which pitchers.

are good and which pitchers are bad moving forward, right? It would make life a lot easier. But we don't have those things. If you just had to boil it down to a couple, what would you say are the pitching stats you look at most and the ones that you have found to be the most predictive of future value? Strikeout minus walk. If I had one stat, that was the only one I would use. It's so, if you just look at the leaderboard, like, oh, those are really good pitchers. And it's so simple. And like everyone's trying to improve a part. it. If you can't improve upon it, you just need to kind of stop, like look on, move on. The other one that I like on a shorter time frame, because stuff doesn't stabilize as fast,

I like to look at like swinging strike rate and like ball percentage on like individual pitches and maybe like a single start because sometimes you just don't get those walks and it takes a little bit of while for the strikeout minus walk to stabilize. So those are two that I kind of look at maybe on a single start or a couple starts just to kind of see if the guys generating some swinging miss and just throwing the ball across the plate. All right. Well, let's take a quick break before we do that.

Just big thanks to everyone watching us here on YouTube. Make sure to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. We are on the road to 30,000 YouTube subscribers. Let's get there by the end of draft season. Let's take a break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today, joined by a special guest Jeff Zimmerman to break down his award-winning book, award-winning F-S-W-A award-winning, the process. So I want to take a look at a new Stackcast metric that popped up last year and whether or not we can use it for fantasy.

The Batspeed metrics, right? So this is like Stuff Plus, these metrics I think are in their very earliest stage. We only have one year of data so far. there are also multiple metrics that you can look at. It's not just one. There's average bat speed. There's fast swing rate. There's squared up percentage, blast percentage, swing length, much more.

With that said, you looked into some of these bad speed metrics, and what have you learned so far about it? My biggest takeaway is, first of all, it is just one year. We can't even compare one year to the next. We're comparing the first half to the second half of the season. So who knows what people do over the offseason, how much this change. changes. We just don't have any idea. So I think that's one thing to kind of keep in mind. The one thing I did find is bat speed stabilizes really quickly, the actual bat speed that they swing at. So we know this is how hard they're swinging and how hard they're hitting. In there, I have a table where basically to be a reasonable hitter, like a replacement level, you probably have to have 70 miles an hour.

miles per hour on your bat speed. And to be like a good hitter, you got to be pushing about 74. So that's where I think that you can kind of see a guy come up and just like, you might have heard like, oh, maybe if it's some prospect, like does he have newfound power? It might be some younger guy that you're looking at that way

where it's like, oh, did he finally grow into his body and he's got some bat speed that really might not be shown up in the data because it's such a small sample? of him coming up. So I think that was one thing is just kind of setting those ones of like if he comes up having that 70 miles an hour minimum and then for like to be a really good

hitter of 74. And then the other thing I looked at is of the ones that are like low, like there are some guys that make it under 70 miles an hour. But the key with them is they make so much contact. So I think to be a useful hitter and have under 70 bat speed,

they almost have to have a strikeout rate of around like 17%. So I think I just kind of some of these thresholds you can look at. So it's like, oh, they're not swinging very hard and they don't make any contact. Probably not going to be a good major league hitter. So I think that's all I could take out from this year. I'm like, we just don't have enough data. But it just kind of gives a couple thresholds of that.

It was kind of like with pitch velocity when it first came out, It's like, well, you know, here's all these ones we don't know for sure, but it's like the guys that are throwing 87 miles an hour probably aren't going to be making it. You know, it's like you can kind of just group them together. So, yeah, we'll know more in three or four years, but not right now. Yeah. I mean, it is pretty cool that we have the ability to measure this now, right? I mean, we've heard for years, right? Like, look at the bat speed on this prospect or this young player, right?

like saying that he has bat speed. Now we could actually measure it, right? Same thing as, oh, that guy barreled that ball up. Well, now we actually know if someone barreled up a ball or not. So it's, it actually is, I know for a lot of people, it's kind of intimidating to learn about new metrics and why do we need to measure these things. I mean, part of it is confirmation bias, right?

Like, we can see that someone has good bat speed or that they barreled it up, but now we could actually measure those things. So it's pretty cool to actually be able to put some numbers on that. Just for the sake of numbers, was the top five in average bat speed last season. John Carlos Stanton, O'Neill Cruz, Kyle Schwaborber, Aaron Judge, Joe Adele.

Not really surprising there, Jeff. I mean, it's a lot of guys that we know have big power, but maybe, with the exception of Aaron Judge, some pretty big holes in their swing as well. And on the back end of that, the bottom five in average bat speed, it's a complete opposite. It's Luis Arise, Nikki Lopez, Stephen Kwan, Justin Turner, and Nolan Chaniel.

So those are guys more likely to make contact, hit to old fields, line drive hitters, maybe they can wait for the ball to travel a little bit and just kind of take it wherever it's pitched things like that. So, I mean, that's just kind of a pretty obvious correlation, I guess, like, yeah, you swing the bat harder. You're probably going to hit for more power and vice versa so far. Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, if you have to, if you just don't have that speed, you're just going to have to make that contact and put it into play, kind of be slower through the zone, and go with that. but you can also kind of notice like some of those guys down there like Justin Turner doesn't have that much bat speed and still had kind of some contact issues. So those are the ones that you might just have a really problem kind of getting a reasonable bat batting average with.

Yeah. Well, you know what? That might be Jeff. That's called age. Justin Turner, he's old. He's getting old. So yeah, we're seeing the bat slow down a little bit and maybe some contact issues there as well.

Yeah. And that's the one thing I would love to know. Like we'll probably have some this next year. We can't even create an aging curve for him. Like that'd be nice. Like in three or four years, you'd be like, oh, you can figure out how much they age. We have no idea right now. Yeah, that is interesting, actually.

Yeah, you could track bat speed over time and see, you know, someone that comes to mind would be interesting to see is Paul Goldschmidt because, you know, his contact skills and strikeouts have gotten worse over the past couple years, and it makes sense. I mean, he's only getting older, right? So it'd be interesting to see, like, over time how someone's bat speed kind of slows down as they start to climb up there in age. Something else in the process is your starting pitcher injury grades.

So I've heard these reference. I know that they were a part of Enosarice's starting pitcher rankings last season. I don't know if they are this year. Maybe you could correct me. But what goes into your injury grades and where can people find them? So you can, I go over some of the background,

look back at last years, and kind of, look to see where I can improve. I think I did decent going through them. I really hit like the top guys and then went down a little bit. The one thing that I implemented was I called the Tariq Scoobel rule where if a guy comes, I looked at like their previous season innings, but it's a bigger deal if they threw those innings in the second half than the first half. So like the end the season healthy. If you threw 80 innings in the first half and then in the second half, it's likely that you were hurt. So that was one of the big changes I made this year. The factors

I look at is age. That's actually important. It's just as they get older, it's going to happen. Fast fall velocity. It's not, it's a factor. It's not a big one, but it did improve the odds. So it's there. I think a lot of people, I include it, and I keep hearing it get referenced, but it's not a huge factor. The biggest two factors, are the innings they threw the first and second half and the innings they threw two seasons ago. Those are the factors. If you are healthy for two seasons, your best odds are. The other ones I looked at are their career IL days. The IL from the last couple seasons and then the total arm injuries. Like a lot of people will have injuries, but it's like they took a ball off their kneecap or something like that. So I wanted to just concentrate.

trait on those arm ones. And they're, again, like velocity. They're a factor, but not a great one. So, yeah, it comes out that I looked at it like historically, like Madison Bumgarner, like just destroyed it. He was just through so many innings at like such a low velocity and just never got hurt. So he was, he was always like the epitome of like the super healthy guy. But it was this year, like Logan Webb take the top spot. He just doesn't throw hard. She's just been throwing. year after year or so if he hadn't had like an iL stint earlier on in his career he probably would have had a top score like probably broke in the hundred grade yeah so some other names with the a health grades uh Logan Webb Logan Gilbert Corbin Burns George Kirby and then some who had

F health grades no surprise but Jacob de Crom is at the top of that list uh Robbie ray Tyler Malley Lance McCullors Jr so I think a lot of those make sense and the Robbie ray one Maybe this is a good reminder that, you know, he hasn't been a model of health, although we are getting excited here in spring because he's throwing this new change up. He learned from Terrick School, but just keep in mind, might be a little bit harder to project innings moving forward for someone like Robbie Ray. Something else you have in your book here about injury grades is spring training innings, and you wrote that they matter a ton.

And if a starter doesn't throw over 10 innings or preferably 15 in spring training, that they should be dropped a letter grade. So why is that? Why is it that spring training innings actually matter for health grades? Just looking back at it, it's like if they're not throwing, and the one thing that I looked at was trying to find that like, some of these guys were like, oh, they were healthy,

but they're thrown on the backfields. But if they were thrown on the back fields, they were probably being monitored really close. Like the team didn't trust them to go out, they didn't want to make sure they weren't ready for the season. So it's something like when I published, it, I don't know the innings. We still don't know the innings. Like, there's a couple of guys we can put zeros on because, like, Manaya, you know,

it's like he's not going to do that. But right now we don't know. But this is a case where when I looked at it historically, it's as a major factor. We just at this point, like when it has to go to publication for everyone, we just don't know it. So just keep an eye on it. And it's kind of, like I said, it's key that it's the in the actual spring training games, not. the innings, like, oh, they're thrown on the backfield for, we don't even know how much. Yep. And obviously, people can find your injury grades in the process. Is there anywhere else they could find them? I know last year they were in Enosarist's starting pitcher rankings.

Are they there again? They're in there again. He wanted him, I created them, like, as the letter grade, so it kind of worked out that way. And it has the percentile. So 100 would probably be the most healthy and zero was F'd like way down there. I don't know how we're going to get any lower than DeGrom, but it's maybe a 40-year-old. Yeah. I'm not sure. Jeff, what do you make of Jacob DeGrom's ADP this year? I just want to bring up and get your thoughts because like I understand the upside,

but the fact that he's coming back from a second Tommy John surgery, he threw like 20 innings last year and he's being drafted as like a top 12, top 15 starter inside the top 50 picks. It just, it seems insane to me. What do you think? I have Strider ranked ahead of him. And Strider's going way later. I'm not for sure what it is right now. But at least in the NFBC,

I think he's got through him where any Strider is, and I think that they could come out and have the same talent. So I think there was some early drafts that people linked on to, and it just hasn't moved. And it's one of those instances. And also, it takes one person in a draft. to take him early. It would be interesting to be like,

actually see people's rankings of him and see like where he stands in everyone else's. But like I said, it just takes one. One person sits there and gives him what he did a few seasons ago and just gives him those numbers over like 120 innings. Like, yep, he's going to be it, you know, really good. But I'm not sure.

I'm going to be the one. to do it. Like he hasn't broken 92 innings. I think that has to be what you give him as a projection and no one else is there. Looks like Zips is not liking him. They're at fan grass at 51 innings, which I can kind of understand, but it was like, like I think you max out at 92 and I don't think a lot of people are going to do that. So I don't like it. Like I said, I'll take Strider every day over him. Yeah. So DeGrom hasn't thrown 100 innings since 2019. I mean, that's just so long ago. And people are, you know, maybe part of the logic drafting him this high is they see what he did in a partial season in 2021 with a 108 ERA.

And it's like, is DeGrom that same pitcher still? I don't know. He's coming back from his second Tommy John surgery. And, you know, looking at steamer projections, they seem to be a little bit more injury agnostic than every other projection system. They have him for 26 starts and 152 innings. It just seems really, really optimistic for Jacob deGrom. His ADP the past two weeks over at NFBC, 52.9.

as the SP, it looks like, 12. Yeah, SP 12 off the board right behind George Kirby and just ahead of Blake Snell. And shout out to Scott White. I know he's been making the same case you just made. It's why are you taking Jacob de Grom top 60 when you can get Spencer Shrider, you know, 75 picks later or whatever it might be.

So yeah, really good point there. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll get to some other questions for Jeff Zimmerman. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball. Today we're joined by a special guest Jeff Zimmerman and moving a little bit away from your book The Process.

You do a lot of other things, Jeff. I want to touch on some of those things as well. You wrote an article about new ballparks this season and it is a big talking point this off season for good reason. The athletics are moving from Oakland to Sacramento. The race are playing in George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa Bay. And the Orioles have moved their left field fence in Camden Yards to mitigate what they did, what, three, four years ago,

they pushed the fences back 30 feet, right? So now they're kind of meeting at a happy medium, moving those fences back in a little bit. What did you learn, looking into this thing? Are projections accounting for these moves? What did you find with these three ballpark moves in particular? I think all but one was, Clay Davenport may not have been.

I actually asked all the creators of them and they all got back to me that they're taking them all into account. One of them kind of forgot about one, so they were going to get to it, but I kind of believe that they were. They just kind of, they forgot about Baltimore moving the wall in. So they were going to go look into that.

But as a whole, I think they're already accounted for. I think the key here is like if you're using projections, find out if they are, which most likely they are, and you don't give them another boost. I'm kind of worried some people are going to give them a boost, like a double boost. Like they've already gotten the boost with projections and then they're going to get a little bit more.

I think the key with all of these is that you're going to, the hitters move across or up in all of them and the pitching is going to go down across the, you know, for each of these three parks. So I think that's kind of the key that you kind of have to consider. Are there any names in particular that you find yourself gravitating towards that you think can maybe take even more advantage of some of these moves, right, for the Orioles? In your article, you pointed out Adley Rutchman, who is a switch hitter, but obviously we'll bat righty in Camden Yards at times. They brought in Tyler O'Neill.

There's Ryan Mountcastle, there's Jordan Westberg. In Tampa Bay, there's Brandon Lown, there's Josh Lowe, Jonathan Arronda. For the Athletics, Lawrence Butler, big hype breakout candidate this year. Brent Rooker, Zach Gelloff, Shee Langalears. Are there any of those names or any other names that you have found yourself, self-gravitating towards? The only ones I think, I really think they did a good job of figuring it out. If I was taking a target one, it'd be the Tampa Bay guys to see if they can take advantage of that short porch. Low and Lau would be the two I would kind of look into.

But otherwise, like it's taken into account, all the athletics is kind of kind of be across the board. it's just they're not playing in like the biggest stadium there ever was with and this huge foul territory so they can at least they're i'd like to see what their batting average kind of goes up to where they're not fouling out so much the athletics will be but those are the ones the other one might be ryan mountcastle there's been a lot of layovers with him like oh he had had this many more possibly i mean it could work out that way but he's one that i'm not afraid of anymore i think a lot of people before and I don't think he's I think he got anchored really low early in draft season and just hasn't moved up to where he belongs. What about on the flip side, Jeff? Are you fading pitchers, right? Because again, that's kind of the complete inverse of what's happening here. And for me, the

Tampa Bay ones again kind of stand out because playing in the heat and humidity being a flyball pitcher which a lot of their pitchers are, you know, Ryan Pepio, Taj Bradley, Shane Bosz, they all lean flyball tendency and especially in Todge Bradley's case, he gives up a lot of hard contact. So just worries me a little bit more. What do you think about the pitchers in some of these parks?

The one thing in Tampa, I'm worried a little bit. I don't know how the weather is going to play out. Like the storms and when that's going to hit, are they playing in the heat of the afternoon before those late afternoon ones? Are we waiting to play really late at night? I just don't know. Like, oh, is a guy just going to throw three innings and not?

I really don't want to count on any of the Tampa pitch. pitchers. Like, I don't want them to be any of my core ones. If it's someone I have to drop later, it's no big deal, but I don't want him to be a court pitcher. For the athletics, they're going to a park that's going to be the equivalent about what Minnesota or Kansas City play in for elevation, heat, and so forth. So it's, like I said, it's not Oakland, but it's still not some crazy heroes park. Yeah, it's not Cincinnati or anything. Right. Everyone's like, they're going to a better park. It was just like they're in the worst park. And now they're going to just like a middle of the road park.

So I think with them, I'm not too worried about the pitchers otherwise. Like you're not worried about pitchers in Kansas City or in Minnesota doing it. It's like with the heat and everything, it should be similar with that. With Baltimore, I think it's more with the hitters I'm worried about because it's like, I mean,

I want to concentrate more on them because it's just going to be a few hitters on the other team, going to get some home runs. I think you'll see some increases, but I think it's going to be more with them. It's going to be that targeted group of those right-handed bats. Now be able to hit some home runs. Yep. We spoke earlier about some health grades

and maybe some things that go into, you know, giving out those health grades. And obviously, innings are huge proponent of that. And I wanted to ask you if you've done any studies or anything you've learned about innings jumps, right? And like, we have data from years past, right? And I think it's a really big talking point this year because a lot of the high-end pitchers have made really big jumps from 2023 to 2024.

So Terrick Scouble, Garry Crochet, Cole Regens, Michael King, Spencer Schwellenbach, Rinaldo Lopez, Luis Heel. And I think as we start to see more relievers transition into starters, we keep having this conversation, right? Like, are these pitchers going to be more prone to injury the following year, which for a lot of those guys will be this year 2025? because they made the big jump from 23 to 24. Jeff, what do you have on innings jumps?

A lot of them can handle it. It's one of those deals. Like, I'm not worried about it. The one thing I have put down is Seth Lugo is the recently. There's some crazy guys in like the 1910s. He went from like being just the reliever to a starter. his 146 innings was the most any starter ever through. So that's where I'm kind of maxing Clay Holmes's innings at.

Like that's the most any one's ever done. And most of them are less than that. Like I said, all of them are less than that. So I think that that's one thing just to take into account is knowing those guys making that move, you might cap them out at 150 innings, but probably even like 140. Just like looking at historical numbers, that's how many innings that they end. up throwing. They weren't able to, for various reasons, just haven't been able to go that long. For the young guys, you can almost have a 15 innings jump. And there's no problems with it.

It's just like that's how it goes. I know that kind of have been some other studies on it, but I haven't found any issues with pitchers making that one. I think it's the biggest one is as long as they're probably going between like 80 to 100 endings on their start and getting at least like four to five days rest. I don't have a problem with how the pitcher is making it. I kind of think they're being babied a little too much and you can kind of see some teams pushing it with their starters. Yeah.

And I've asked Nick Pollock that exact question. And he's given me a similar answer to that once a pitcher shows that they can handle that workload and they can go every five days, and they can throw 80, 90, 100 pitches consistently, then, you know, he pretty much buys in and thinks that a pitcher is capable of doing that. I mean, I think Garrett Crochet is just such a unique example because he dealt with so many injuries in the past,

and then last year got all the way up to, like, the 130, 140 innings. The problem was in the second half, and maybe it's not a problem, but they didn't let him throw more than four innings in any start from July on. So do we know if he can handle a full starter's workload? We don't like the skills on a per inning basis are amazing. But how do we know that he can just be an ace now, right?

And handle like 175 plus innings. We don't. That's kind of the issue with him. It's like you haven't seen him do it. They really, did they even push him to like over 90 pitches in an inning? I was kind of looking that up here. Like he never threw,

he never threw over 72 pitches. Oh, wait. Now, he did go over 100 a few times. He did push it there. Yeah. So he threw, he threw 102 on June 13th. He got up to 8. June 1st. Yeah. He did 103. Yeah. But it was like he just really wasn't like the workhorse. And then toward the end, it's just like they weren't letting him throw at all. After those, they just kind of worked him down and never went over like 74 on July 23rd. And then it was like never over 60 from then on. And so we don't know if you can. I think they wanted him to look good, the white socks to be able to get a decent trade off of it. But he's one word like you don't know because he hasn't done it.

And kind of like the issue is, is like you hope he can go long enough in those starts to get you to win. Because he's just throwing that much. But I kind of think the Red Sox are going to try to push him and see if they can get. get his numbers up, but who knows if that'll actually work or not. Like, we'll see. We just haven't seen it. Like, I think that's kind of the key is you want to see him do it. It's Logan Gilbert, they kind of had some issues with, and now he's just like, he just goes out and just shoves every time.

Yeah, yeah, Garrett Crocet is such a unique example, too. And I get why the White Sox did what they did. They were trying to protect their investment so that they could trade him in the offseason, but did get up to 146 innings last season, you know, just doing some simple math, like jumping from 146 up to 170 or 175, feels like it would make sense, but for someone like Crochet, who's so unique, it is a little bit tougher to say. Did just want to get some quick thoughts on some other relievers turned starter this year, because again, this has been a revelation in fantasy and baseball the past couple of years.

We've seen so many pitchers make this jump crochet just last year. Ronaldo Lopez was awesome doing it as well. Seth Lugo a couple of years ago, you know, Clay Holmes has looked great. so far in the spring. Grant Holmes is someone who everybody has is like a deep sleeper this season. So what do you think about that next crop, these guys that are going reliever turned starter heading into 2025? Clay Holmes was the one where I was talking about with Lugo where it's like, I think he has the pieces to do it. The one thing to kind of keep track of is to see if their velocity throughout the season kind of stays up. That's kind of always one issue. I mean,

Out of all the success stories, we still had the AJ Puck failure. We still had Jordan Hicks, where he couldn't make it the full season, wasn't able to do it. He's going to give him another shot at it this year. So there's some pitchers don't make it. I think Clay Holmes is one that where he's going, it's definitely, I would take a chance on. And Grant Holmes is definitely one where I think across the board,

everyone has, yeah, has him as their sleeper looking at what he did late. I mean, I think kind of the key with him is he's out of options. So he's got to, Braves have kind of either got to keep him in the rotation or in the bullpen or they just got to release him and someone's going to pick him up after the season he had last year. Yeah, Clay Holmes, the past two weeks, the ADP 274, Grant Holmes going just outside the top 300. And Scott has made this point about Grant Holmes. He is out of options. so is Ian Anderson.

So those two are in the rotation to start the year, we think. And then once Spencer Shrider is back, presumably, if no one else gets hurt in the meantime, one of those guys will have to be booted from the rotation. So I think it's whoever performs better between Grant Holmes and Ian Anderson. My money is on Grant Holmes. I'm willing to bet that he will be the better of the two there.

And then maybe Ian Anderson either is moved to the bullpen or maybe dropped off or traded away to another team. Jeff, you are also the author of Miner, the news on fan graphs. This is a very, very useful article where you dive in around the internet, you dig in, you try to find tidbits that can apply to fantasy. So again, it's very useful and I would highly recommend people check it out. Let's do a little spring training buyer sell. So looking back at the past weeks worth of mining the news, one that kind of went under the radar. I haven't really seen other people talking about this. Otani still feels some limitations at the plate with

his range of motion in that shoulder following off-season surgery. So he's, I think he's a confounding player this year. He just went 50-50. He was far and away the best player in fantasy. He's just setting records. He was amazing. But now he's trying to rehab as a pitcher, and he also is coming back from off-season shoulder surgery.

So buyer-sell Otani should be the number one overall pick. I think it's a 50-50 shot at this point. I think if he was feeling, 100% he is the number one pick. Like I don't think that there's anything. I think just this little bit, if you kind of give him a little bit of a ding on the shoulder surgery and bring it down, he could not be, you know, not his value could get closer to wit. And then also he's talked about not stealing as much. So that's one where it's like, I don't know, that's always the one like is he really not going to steal or not?

I mean, it's kind of one that, like, you don't know for sure if that's going to be the case. But I think it's a little bit closer now. The one thing you may want to do is if you have, like, the choice on the top is maybe just split the two. I mean, it's not bad to have wit in one league and Otani and another. Yeah. You know, it's like, okay, you have to split it around. I may not put all my bad, you know, all my eggs just with Otani. but last year would have been the season to do it

when he just freaking carried teams to championships. I know he won me plenty of money. Jeff, you have the first overall pick in your only draft this year. Who are you taking, Otani or Bobby Witt? I'm probably still going to go with Otani. Yeah.

My only league. Yeah, it'd probably be Otani, but I could be talked in otherwise. Yeah, I mean, the upside is just so massive. Well, the deal is I've had three number two picks so far this year. I thought I've not ever in all my years at the NEPC in a draft. In the auctions, I've had number ones. I don't know why that is.

But in my drafts, I've never had the number one pick. But I've had number two, so I already have like three wits already. Okay. So in all those drafts, Otani went first overall? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Fair enough.

The Orioles plan to be more aggressive on the base paths this season, Jeff, buy or sell. What do you think? I'm going to buy it. I think they have the speed. I don't know why they have so many fast young guys. It's like, just go with it. And they seem to be playing like station to station and not making teams aggressive.

I think that that's like one of their advantages is having this young team and just go out there and just put the pressure on the other pitchers and just go after them. I buy that they're going to try it. I think they really want to get Mateo back. I think that that could be huge for them and just get him out there running. But it might be a bit before he comes back.

But with Mullins, all these guys are young. They've got good speed scores. Just let them go. Yeah, so last season, the Orioles were tied for 18th in baseball in stolen bases. We know Gunner Henderson obviously is fast enough. Jordan Westberg, 91st percentile sprint speed. So the hope there with him is he starts to run a little bit more. We did see Gunner Henderson from his first year to his second year.

start to be more aggressive. So hopefully that happens with Westberg, Gunner Henderson, Jackson Holiday, assuming he could actually make contact and get on base. Yeah, I think we could see all those guys be a little bit more aggressive this season. What about Mason win? He says that he wants to steal 30 bags this season by or so. I buy that he wants to. It's the Cardinals and they never let anyone really, like they sort of have,

but they kind of hold guys back. I think like if he's leading off, just let him go. Like, he's been generally successful. So he's stolen over 30 bags in the miners multiple seasons. So 43 back in 2022 before he came in. So I don't see why there's a reason. I think it might be something with the manager.

So if he wants to, I think so. But I'm a little bit doubtful if the team will always give him that light. Yeah. I hope there was a little bit of change in team philosophy here. that they're going through a change and, you know, Heim Bloom is going to take over next year the Cardinals kind of front office and all those types of things. But Mason win, he's fast enough.

He stole a bunch of bases in the minors. He did it with good success rates. He makes good contact. He gets on base. I know Chris Towers has made the Tim Anderson comp. I think it's a really good one. I think Mason win maybe, maybe not this year,

but over the next couple of years, can develop into a player like that. So I think he can get close to 30 bags this upcoming season. I think 25 to 30, I think, is maybe what I would expect there from Mason Wynn. The Angels apparently say Christian Moore could contribute this upcoming season. So he was their first round pick last year. He got some run in the minors and he made some noise, hit some big loud home runs. Also strikes out quite a bit.

Jeff, buy or sell that Angels prospect, Christian Moore can contribute this season. everything I keep reading from the owner to the manager all love him and their filly's going to contribute. That's also that team is kind of banged up to start with and they're not really like healthy after it. Like you got Yon Mankata at third base. Like we heard Fanggrass we have for 309 plate appearances. 39. I'll take the under on that one. Zach Nettos already heard at short.

stop. So, I mean, is Tim Anderson going to go there? Luis Renjifo can play everywhere, but he can't cover three positions. Can't cover second, short, and third. And even Renhifo is coming back from wrist surgery. So I know. So it's, I think more is, I think they wanted to. I think there's, I don't know how they want to do, like control his service time. They just want the extra year and then not get the picks or how they want to go about that way. But I think there's a good chance he's up. The team wants him up and there's some holes that may be like whenever Moncada gets hurt for the first to five times, they bring him in.

But I think there's a good chance we see him this year. I drafted him in a few places just seeing the running on the wall and just the lack of infield talent on the team. Yeah. And there has been some buzz that he could even be there on opening day. I don't buy that. I know the angels are really aggressive with their prospects, but just drafted last year. I think he needs a little bit more seasoning. and if you think about the long-term picture for the Angels,

I think having another year of service time for Christian Moore makes more sense than them just trying to keep him on the roster all year and go for a draft pick if he were to finish top three in A.L. Rookie of the Year voting, which, you know, as of now, seems like a long shot, but, you know, crazier things have happened in baseball. Let's talk about Evan Carter, who believes his back issue is fixed. He had off-season surgery and is trying to regain his old swing.

Jeff, are you buying that Evan Carter is healthy, maybe a sleeper? I mean, he's going outside like the top 250 picks. I think the problem with Carter is like, even if he is healthy, he's just kind of a platoon bat anyway. It's not that many plate appearances, but he has a career negative 34 once created plus against lefties. Oof. It's just, it's a 231 OPS. Yeah. So you're hoping he's healthy and it's probably just going to be against, you know,

right-handed pitchers. So I'll let someone else take that chance. I know he says he's healthy. I'd rather see it for a whole season. A lot of these guys, you'll even hear it afterwards like, yeah, I wasn't 100% right. You know, I was kind of dealing with it. I was good enough to play, but not, you know, back to my full self. but he's kind of got those, he still could be hurt,

and he's just a platoon bat. And I would prefer not starting the season with the platoon bat. I know Alfield is just, it gets horrendous. We were talking on the launching a pod, we kind of started getting into the platoon bats, like the Alec Burlesons of the world and the Hesu Sanchez's. It's like they're platoon bats. They're only going to play, you know, 75% of the time.

But then they're just don't, you don't have any other options right now. Yeah. So I, there's a place to draft Evan Carter, but I just haven't gotten any of my drafts, had him get to the top where I ended up picking him. All right. The last name here on the list is Bryson Stott.

He says that he was dealing with a nerve issue in his right elbow last season. And this goes back to what you were just talking about, Jeff, where Bryce and Stott was playing through something, and maybe that's the reason why the numbers were down. He said first discovered it in May and just kind of played with it from then on. He's another name that could be a platoon bat this upcoming season. Buy or sell the bounce back on Bryson's stock.

If you need those steals, it's, you draft early like all power. You can, you got to love kind of some of those steel options that, 30 plus steals that he'll probably provide. I kind of buy it, but I think it's more build-orientated.

The deal is, is if anything, I'm going to grab power and batting every, really just power earlier on, because I feel like I can sort of find some speed and I can find batting average later, but I just can't find power. So that's, this is just one person where it's kind of like the numbers work that he should be going as early as he is in drafts, but it's also someone that I'm just not, I'm going to try not to target unless I've really just, like he did, that, I don't know, the deal as he goes so early,

you don't know if you have an all-power team and you need those stolen bases. You kind of have to take him and then start filling in power after him. Yeah, I actually just took him in a DC that I'm in, and then my very next pick was Jorge Soler. So I was like, did exactly what you said, took Bryce and Stott for some speed there,

but then followed it up with some power with a Jorge Soler. And doing a DC right now, you know, speed kind of dries up a little bit. So, yeah, Bryce and Stott is someone that I was looking at, Andres Jimenez. his names like that. So hopefully can bounce back. Do you think he's an everyday player, Jeff,

Bryce and Stouter? You think they go back to platooning him this season? Because he was an everyday player two years ago and then out of nowhere, they just started platooning him last season. Maybe it's because he was kind of banged up. I don't know. Yeah, looking at his career numbers, they're almost identical.

Yeah, like he's not bad against lefties. It's weird. Yeah, he's like over his career, it's even, he's better than against lefties and he is righties. I'm maybe, but he's also like a, low average hitter. So that might be one thing. Like his career OPS is under 700 for against Fridays and lefties.

So it might just be someone who's better than that. Like that's kind of a one thing. It's like he may not be bad, but someone can just be better. And they can kind of improve on that. So I guess it is some worry about it that he just ends up not playing as much. All right. Well, he is Jeff Zimmerman here today on the show, co-author of the award-winning book The Process. Make sure to go check it out. The Fantasy Baseball

Process.com. You could also find the book on Amazon. Jeff, thanks so much for coming on and be sure to let everyone know where they can find your work. Running at Fangraphs from now till the end of the season. We're back on doing the launch angle pod all that once a week. Me and the Robbs are doing that. Rob Silver and Rob Piotro. And then, yeah, then, of course, the process, it's go out and buy it. Like I said, there's definitely something to learn, especially since we've had the new riders,

I've learned something too, since I'm not the ones actually doing it. So it's just the questions we had and people went through and try to answer the ones, answer them the best they could. And it's definitely illuminating. Yeah. And there's so much more than even we just covered today. I mean, there's discussions about what to do in season. in. There's fab discussions and player projections and how to project players and what goes into that

and all different kinds of metrics and tables and formulas. And so it definitely is worth checking out. We are going to wrap there for Jeff. 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 next week. Bye-bye.