Fantasy Baseball Today - The Strategy Show! How to Handle Roto, H2H points, H2H Categories & Salary Cap Drafts (3/21 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Let's talk strategy, Chris' favorite! We'll start with Roto hitter strategy (4:45). How much do you need to win each category? ... What about Roto pitcher strategy (11:15)? How do you divide up your pitchers? ... Let's move over to H2H points strategy (20:40). Should you be aggressive on starting pitchers or back off? ... What about H2H categories (34:48)? Should you punt any categories? ... News and notes (45:15): Zack Wheeler threw a bullpen this weekend and Max Muncy makes his spring debut Monday. ... Who were the notable spring training standouts this weekend (48:40)? ... How do we attack salary cap (auction) drafts (54:34)? 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  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/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday 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 to the Strategy Show. And welcome into Fantasy Baseball today. On Monday, March 21st, I am, for example, joined by the Plaid Bros.

Scott White and Chris Towers. They're both decked out and Plaid. They didn't even let me know. got some plaid. I could have made it work. Come on, guys. Well, it could have. Three's a crowd, Frank. We're going for like a property brothers thing here, but with Plaid brothers. Actually, I think only one of the property brothers wears plaid and then the other wears like, I don't know, they both have like really like opposing styles, you know, like one likes to look like a lumberjack and one

likes to look like all fancy pants, you know? I honestly, like, I honestly, like, I'm I could identify the property brothers as a pair, but I don't know either of their names. One of them's like married to Zoe Deschanel, I think, but I couldn't tell you which one. I don't know if they have like distinct personalities or I know nothing about them. They try to have distinct person. Like one of them has a beard and one doesn't. Like they're going like, yeah, one looks more well kept than the other, you know. I just know that they are.

others of property. But beyond that, my knowledge of them is pretty limited. You know, I have no idea who these guys are, obviously, but I'm looking at them on Google. And I would say that's, that's a pretty fair comparison. You know, one of them's grizzly with a beard. That's Chris. The other one is, you know, very well kept. Hair comb to the side. Scott White, looking pretty good. What's going on, Chris? Today is your, this is your podcast. I know that you live for strategy talk. Not that Scott doesn't, but like, let's be honest, Chris. Like you are, you are, you love the strategy. Yeah, I think strategy discussions, like, look, we, we do a lot of the player discussions. That's probably, I don't know, 75% of what we do, but it's worth keeping in mind how much of that stuff,

I don't want to say we get wrong, but just how unpredictable this stuff is and how hard it is to predict the future when it comes to, I mean, it's hard enough to predict my own future, you know, what the next week for my life is going to look like, let alone, you know, what the next seven months of some strangers lives are going to look like, or several hundred strangers, really. So I think there's always value in not just the should you have player A or player B, but what kind of team build player B or player A fits in or what kind of strategies. So I think that kind of stuff, there's a lot of value in that.

So hopefully this can be a good discussion for the listeners. Yep. And we're going to hit on each of Roto, the standard five by five heads head points, head-to-categories, salary cap tips and tricks, also known as auctions. And then we'll do some in-season management, talk about Fab as well. It was a big prospect weekend. We'll get to it a little bit later on, but was it a big weekend for Scott? I don't know.

Was it? How you doing, Scott? No. No? No, all right. No, just making sure. No, stop. No, I wasn't happy.

Speaking of strategy talk, I wasn't happy with the head-to-head points strategy or head-to-head points salary cap draft we did the other day, auction we did the other day. And so I spent a big part of my weekend making plans for the remaining salary cap drafts. We got mixed roto here, AL only roto here, NL only roto here.

You know, I kind of just, kind of just rolled in for that head-to-head points one the other day. And it's not good. You need to have a strategy. At least I do. That's how I operate best. Oh, same, Scotty.

Look, this is, for those watching right now, describe it for our listeners. This is my Tout Wars plan, and it's all kind of, I'm crossing names out, and I've got values written next to all different kinds of players and stuff. We'll talk about my Tout Wars team.

I had that draft on Sunday a little bit later on. We do have a live salary cap draft coming up on Monday night, 7 p.m. Eastern Time here on the YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. We'll also put the first two hours of that draft. It's probably going to take something like four hours, but we'll put the first two hours of that into the podcast feed as well. Let's start off with strategy and roto, also known as

rotisserie, and the standard five by five format where you typically start 23 players, 14 hitters, and nine pitchers before we actually get to the strategy. Some have asked about specific category targets, and these are the hitting targets that you needed to finish first place in 12-team Roto Leagues on CBS Sports last season. Chris and I actually did a podcast on this earlier in the offseason, so if you want to go check that out on demand, it lives in the podcast feed. You needed a 272 batting average, 345 home runs, 1,117 run scored, 1,77 RBI, and 149 steals. Again, each of those first place for a 12-team Roto League last year. On the pitching side, here's what you needed for first place in each of these. 99 wins, 92 saves,

1,546 strikeouts, a 3.28 ERA, and a 1.10 whip. With all of that being said, Scott will start with you. What is your strategy when it comes to drafting in a Roto League? Do you target specific positions or categories early in your draft in this format? I, well, I mean, I guess you mean specifically for this year, right? you know, the main place you start with Roto is usually home runs and stolen bases is you're trying to get enough of each of those. But as I've pointed out on occasion this year, I feel like there has stolen bases are going for such a premium now. There's so much demand for them that it's really easy to get caught chasing them.

and neglect the home run category, neglect power. And home runs, of course, directly contribute to RBI, to runs, to batting average. Every home run counts toward all four of those categories. Stolen base happens independently of everything else. Maybe it will contribute to runs. Maybe when you steal a base, you're more likely to score run, but it doesn't necessarily mean you will. And then it has absolutely nothing to do with any of the others.

So I am trying to be deliberate about not being so deliberate, intentionally unintentional, about stolen bases this year. And part of the thinking there is because there are so few stolen bases available these days, you don't actually need that many to be competitive in the category. I'm not saying win the category. I'm just saying not finish last, finish toward the middle of the category. and if you're crushing it in the other four-hitter categories because you've really been pursuing power hitters and batting average,

hopefully giving yourself a nice foundation of batting average early in the draft because it's hard to find power hitters who are also contributing to batting average late, then you shouldn't really worry that much about having a ton of stolen bases. You know, you'll win, you'll have an easier path to success if you don't shortchange the power categories. And if you do, it can all unravel pretty quickly. In that, just to add some context to that, last season, the average last place team had 59 stolen bases in a 12-team league.

So that comes out to, what, right around 5 per lineup spot, four and a half per lineup spot, I guess, of what it would come out to roughly. A negligible amount. A negligible amount per lineup spot. And of course, you're getting. probably getting close to zero from your two catchers. There are a couple exceptions. Yeah.

You know, it's, but any, basically any player can accidentally steal four bases or five bases or six bases, you know. Yeah, like you should be able to get that without trying. Right. Right. So then you start to look at like fifth place last season would have had 83 stolen bases on average. Sorry.

Sorry, I was like a throng column, 103 stolen bases. So then you start looking at it. If you do nothing at stolen base and you just get the bare minimum and then you add one guy who steals 30 and another guy who steals 15, that should get you to fifth-ish place, sixth-ish place. So, you know, that's kind of one way to look at it. You know, part of the thinking also is that if you'd go through that same exercise with how everybody placed in home runs,

a misstep in home runs can cost you a lot more. It's harder to keep pace with everybody and stolen bases. So you have to be really conscious every time you divert from the pursuit of home runs to get a base dealer or a batting average specialist or whatever, whatever offensive category you're looking to fill otherwise. So I try to avoid that. That's been a goal of mine this year. That's really the main thing I'm doing differently in Rotter's.

this year than in years past is just constantly feeding the home run monster that is looking to eat you. And something else, there are a couple other things that I think are worth keeping in mind when it comes to the rate stats in ROTUS. So specifically batting average, ERA, and WIP, is that a player can have a higher batting average and be less helpful for your overall team batting average if they're a player who doesn't have a lot of bad bad. So if they walk a lot, Juan Soto, you know, he might hit 315 this season. But because he walks so much, you know, his impact on your team batting average is going to be relatively muted. That's obviously not to say that he's not a hugely valuable batting average source. He is. But there is a distinct difference between

you know, someone like Whitmerfield who might get 650 at bats versus someone like Juan Soto who might get 500. So that's something to keep in mind. It's just the more innings, the more at bats that you get from a player, the bigger an impact they have on your team's batting average whip and ERA because the denominator is larger. So there's something to keep in mind as well. All right.

Let's move over to the pitcher side of Roto leagues. And typically there is a minimum. innings amount. There's like either 900 or a thousand. It's so that you don't just have nine relievers in your in your starting spots and you just, you know, have great ratios for the entire season. Plus, why would you want to do that? Because then you're not going to get wins and strikeouts, you're going to fall behind anyway. But typically there is a innings minimum throughout the course of the entire season. Chris, what is your breakdown? So you can start nine pitchers in a standard five-by-five-five roto league. And they could be any combination that you want. It could be

nine starters. It could be six starters and three relievers. How do you take? typically attack that? I usually almost never come out of my draft with three relievers or more. It's always two or one usually and sometimes zero in roto leagues just because one, if you're going to have three relievers who are going to, one, be trustworthy sources of saves and two, not hurt you in other categories. There really aren't that many options. And this year in particular, you're paying a big premium for those guys. I mean, we've talked about it. There are, what, 11 or 12 closers

that we feel pretty good about having their job and being good. And so, and even then, it might not be 11 who we feel are good and have the job. Yeah, I think there are 11 that are for sure the closer for their teams and one of them is Mark Malanson. Not all of them are good.

So I don't want to be the person who's chasing saves early in, drafts. I'm not saying I'm totally against it, but I'm more likely to take one closer in the first 10 rounds, another kind of flyer in the 20 round range. And then just the bar is low enough at saves to compete at this point that you really don't need. Like last season, the middle of the pack to finish in sixth place last season was 62 saves in a 12-team rode at league. So that's basically If you draft two closers and they stay the closer all season, you're probably going to be in the top four in saves.

It's kind of wild that we're at this point. And so I just don't see the need to have three relievers in my lineup. Unless like, I don't know, Giovanni Gallegos falls to a specific point or something weird would have to happen. But generally speaking, I'm trying to get as many higher upside starting pitchers in my team as I can. And so, you know, maybe three relievers on my roster total, including the bench. But for the most part, I'm going to be much more starting pitcher heavy than relief pitcher. All right. Scott, what is your breakdown when it comes to pitchers? You have nine pitcher spots.

You can divvy those up however you like. And what is your strategy when it comes to trying to find saves? Well, yeah, I mean, I like to draft. I like to invest as little in relief pitcher as I can while still giving myself a chance of competing in saves. I've gone so far as to not really draft a single save source and then just try to scrape it together on the waiver wire. And it's worked before, it hasn't worked before. I think the deeper the league is, the less likely it's going to work.

So if you're playing a 15-team Roto League, which not many people do, you probably need to draft at least one or two that you feel pretty good about getting some safe chances early on and then, you know, hope to add from the waiver wire, off the waiver wire from there. But the point is they don't have to be, they don't have to be that good. They just have to be in line for some saves. And, you know, the 11 that I mentioned earlier may go for a premium just because of that assurance. But in the end, what advantage are they really going to have in the saves category is unclear.

I mean, if somebody who's outside of that 11 that we. feel pretty good is in line for the same, the closer gig to begin the year like Giovanni Gallegos or like Scott Barlow, Taylor Rogers, you know, if they do end up having that closer gig from the beginning

and you know, they hold on to it all year, the number of saves they could give you, it might be just as good as like an manual class A and you pay much, much, much less for them. So I'm more, I think ideally I'm still aiming for three.

Unlike Chris, I could live with two, but I'm aiming for three as sort of like a hedging my bet situation because I'm not aiming for any of those 11 that are going for the premium. You know, so I might get like Camilla Duval, a Scott Barlow and a Dylan Floreau of the Marlins, three guys who I think are in line for saves at the beginning of the year, but they're not confirmed and it may not work out. but if it doesn't work out, you know, the investment

it wasn't that high. One thing I would point out is obviously the format that you're playing in, not just right over head to head, but, you know, a lot of the drafts, a disproportionately high number of the drafts

that have happened so far in NFBC are going to be, I guess they're referred to as draft champions, right, Frank, these draft and holds where you, you can't make roster moves after the draft. You're just drafting a super deep roster

and whatever you have, that's what you have for the whole season. And so those are formats where those reliable sources of saves, the handful that exist, truly could be worth the premium. And so that's one place in which you see. If you look at NFBC ADP, those prices are really inflated. And I think that's partially that. And I think, you know, when you look at like the fantasy baseball community, as it were, those types of drafts are probably overrepresented relative to how many people actually play them, you know, for the people listening to us.

And so when you see Josh Hater going in the third round or second round sometimes, I mean, in TGFBI, that was happening, you know, that will, that's skewed a little bit. And you shouldn't expect that in your leagues. And frankly, I think in your standard 12-team rode a league, it would be a mistake to draft that way. It'd be a huge mistake. I mean, you're just, you're giving up a true stud for, you're giving up upside for scarcity, basically. I mean, part of, part of my thinking, and I've, I don't think there's really been a time and all my time playing, writing about fantasy, where I've, I felt differently about saves than I do right now, pretty much always approached them the same way. And it's, you know, what I said about stolen base. is kind of adapted from the same approach.

You know, saves are one category, and the players who contribute to that category don't really contribute to the others. I know they technically do. But it's even more extreme when you talk about saves because no saves guys are throwing 200 innings. So even when you've got that elite ERA guy, saves or that elite ratios guy, you know, they're never going to have the kind of impact

that a high-end starting pitcher can have on wins, obviously, but strikeouts, ERA, or whip. So when you're talking about taking one of them in the third round, you're talking about taking one of them in place of Zach Wheeler, or Aaron Nola in the fourth round or something like that, someone who could legitimately give you 220 strikeouts and a low three's ERA and a very good whip and 15 wins. And so that's where if you play in a league with FAC,

and you play in a shallower league, like a 12-team or less, it's hard to justify at that cost. So you're getting, you know, you're mainly drafted the relievers for saves, and they'll only help it round the margins and anything else. And meanwhile, starting pitchers will contribute more to the other four categories, just like home run hitters will contribute more to the other four hitting categories.

You know, Miles Straw could conceivably score 100. runs. I don't think he will, but it's not out of the question to mention one Sullen-based specialist. So, like, he has the ability to help you in more than the one category in the way a normal player would, whereas the closers, none of them have that. Like, even Josh Hader at his best, you know, he was getting like, what, 120, 130 strikeouts? He might compete with the, you know, the really low-hint-stitch to contact starting pitchers and yeah. He might have more striggouts than Kyle Hendricks. At his peak.

Yeah. But even then, you know, how much is that worth? All right, before we get to head to head points, we want to welcome a brand new podcast to the CBS Sports family. In Soccer We Trust covers the beautiful game or soccer, as we like to call it, from a U.S. perspective. Join our hosts and former United States men's national team teammates, Jimmy Conrad, Charlie Davies, and Heath Pierce,

as they bring you a mix of expertise and passion on all things soccer in the United States. download and follow in soccer we trust on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to this podcast. Let's move over to head to head points leagues and typically a shallower lineup on CBS with nine hitter spots, five starting pitchers, and two relief pitchers. And pitching usually makes a difference in this format.

You see managers aggressive on starting pitchers early in drafts. Chris will start with you this time. How do you normally attack head to head points leagues? So one thing that I think is worth keeping in mind with every type of scoring format really is that historically the way starting pitchers have worked is that the first 12 or so, you know, however, wherever they end up going, tend to be really predictable and really impactful. And typically the guys who go in the first and second round in particular tend to be really impactful and really predictable. After that, pitching is very

much a high variance position. And so even your third and fourth round pitchers, you know, I've done the research on this and their chances of being like top 100 players at the end of the season are like 50-50 at best. And from the fifth round on, you're talking about 30 to 40% at best. And so, yes, pitching usually makes a difference at the very, very high end in a head-to-head points leagues. Justin Verlander in 2019 had like 740 fantasy points, which is just an outrageous number. You don't see hitters get that. I don't know if Mike Trout's ever done that in his best seasons. And so, you know, the best hitters are 600 to 650. The best pitchers can be much higher than that. However, last season, that wasn't really the case. There weren't that

many pitchers. I don't know if any pitchers got to 600 last year. And there were very few above 500, whereas a bunch of hitters did. And so is that a one-year blip? Probably coming off the short in 2020 COVID season, I think that's probably, we saw fewer pitchers going as deep into games as they have in the past. That's also a long-term trend, though. And that's a trend that's not going a way. That's not a trend that's going to reverse itself in a significant way. Maybe the universal DH has a moderate impact on it. But the days of a bunch of 200-ending pitchers are probably done. And so the number of true difference makers is just lower. And so what you'll often see in these kind of formats is what we saw in that head-to-head points league that we did on the podcast a couple

weeks ago where just every single pitcher's price was heavily inflated. And we were going deeper into the player pool on that head-to-head points league than we often do in roto leagues, which are deeper rosters. And the way I attacked that was I think I had two pitchers in my top 10 picks. And then I went after a bunch of pitchers starting with like the 11th round. Because the difference between the guys who are getting taken in the fifth round and the guys are getting taken after the 10th round, historically isn't that great. You know, maybe they're slightly more predictable.

Maybe they have fewer red flags or fewer ways that things can go wrong. But generally speaking, historically, there hasn't been that much of a difference. There's a really high end and then there's a very long, flat tail. And so I think it can be easy to make a mistake in going two pitcher heavy in this when you really want difference makers.

That's the thing about this format is nine hitter spots, seven pitcher spots, two relievers, five starting pitchers. That's a really shallow format. And what you want is strength. You want difference makers at as many positions as possible. And you're just not going to get that targeting five pitchers between rounds three and ten. They're just the difference between those guys just isn't going to be big. enough. So I prefer to

load up on hitter early, get two anchor starting pitchers in this format, and then load up on higher upside after round 10 is the way I prefer to approach this format. All right, Scott, how are you attacking head to head points leagues this year?

I think part of Chris's point that he was just making is that there weren't as many pitchers that separated themselves. The aces weren't otherworldly. Like, they have been in years past last year. know that's something that you've talked about as well. So do you find yourself still attacking starting pitcher as early as you have this year

compared to years past in headshead points leagues? I do exactly the opposite of what Chris does. I am getting five pitchers between rounds three and ten. And just recognizing that, well, I mean, the main reason I'm doing that is because I agree with the idea you want difference makers. You want difference makers everywhere. and I feel like the hitters that are available in rounds one and two separate themselves more from the hitter class than the pitchers available in rounds one and two separate themselves from the pitcher class.

I'm not talking historically. I'm talking about looking at this year's player pool. And I think a lot of the big points accumulators in the past were older guys that are being phased out of the game. and it's, you know, obviously Corbyn Burns, he's never going to be that 220 innings guy, I sincerely doubt anyway. And, you know, also it seemed like with the introduction, or with the sticky substance ban in the second half of last year,

one of, I think one of the clearest consequences of that were that the otherworldly super elite class of starting pitchers came back down to earth a little bit. They're still among the best. best at the position, but they don't separate themselves from the rest of the position as much. And I look at what kind of pitchers are available beyond round two in a points league. And I think there's ace potential there. I mean, Charlie Morton, we all like Justin Verlander goes in that range.

And he's, you know, that 2019 season he had when last healthy was, I think the last mega-scoring season for a starting pitcher. Yeah, it was him and Garrick Hall that season were well above the crowd and head-to-head points. It's a very, it's a very deep tier of pitchers who I think could compete for a Cy Young Award. And maybe there will be more misses within that tier than there will be, you know, among the Garrett Cole, Max Scherzer, Walker Bueller class, Brandon Woodruff. Jane Beaver is probably in there, right? Maybe there will be more misses, but that, like, you can't draft starting pitchers expecting they're all going to hit, right?

And that's why I like to draft more of them. I like to get in a head-to-head points league specifically. I like to get probably five guys before the end of round 10 at that position. And part of the reason for that approach in head-to-head points leagues, for me anyway, is because typically we're talking about a nine-man hitter lineup, just every infield position, three outfielders and a utility player. So half your roster is starting pitchers,

which isn't true in roto leagues. But if your head-to-head points league is set up differently from that, if you use like a standard roto lineup for your head-to-head points leagues and you've got 14 hitter spots to fill, it changes the math a bit. You can't afford to go as aggressively after starting pitcher in that case. So, you know, that's part of the thinking, too, is you only actually need one player at every position. So you don't need to fill them up too soon.

Yeah, the waiver wire is usually plentiful. I remember Scott last year, there was a Points League, one of our listener leagues, where, you know, you basically just rode the waiver wire for your outfield all year, and you wound up with some pretty productive players. So it's more likely for you to find help with hitters on waivers than it is to find pitchers. stream two starters and stuff, but that becomes dangerous as well. That's also an argument for making sure that you've got difference makers at every lineup spot. Because the replacement level is so high, that having a guy who's decent but, you know, gives you two or three projected points per week more than the waiver wire guy, what's the point

in paying any kind of premium for those guys? So that's... I mean, the thinking is that the waiver, the guy you're picking up off waiver wire, won't actually perform like a waiver wire guy. It'll be one of the breakthrough bats that everybody missed in the draft. And I feel like just given the way pitchers are broken in these days, it's much harder to find that within the pitcher ranks than it is within the hitter ranks. But they happen every year in both.

I just think they're more plentiful among hitters. All right. Yeah. And the biggest difference between hitters in Roto versus head to head points leagues. Obviously, you care more about plate discipline. walks versus strikeouts. You lose points for strikeouts, typically in a points league. At least you do on CBS. So you want to focus on strong plate discipline. I like hitters who hit in the top half of really strong lineups because they will, the lineup will turn over more, more opportunities for

fantasy points, the more at bats and more plate appearances that they see. Go ahead. The way I like to put it is when it comes to head to head points leagues, the size of the production is all that matters. You don't care what shape it comes in. So you don't have to, like, Roto, you've got those five categories and you've got to kind of figure out like, what's the best way to balance these fives that you've got, you know, in points leagues, it doesn't matter. If you've got nobody who can steal bases in your head-to-head points league, it doesn't matter. That being said, guys who steal bases can be undervalued. Yes. In that format, you know, that's like what Maryfield is someone who hits at the top of a lineup, gets a ton of played appearances, plays every day.

it's a lot of doubles doesn't strike out much. And those are things that don't necessarily value or have had direct value in a roto league, but in head-to-head points league, you know, yeah, you don't care about stolen bases, but doubles those things, a lot of played appearances, those things help. And so it really is just you don't care how the production gets there in a head-to-head points league in a way that you have to in a roto league. And that's part of the reason why I'm not. not, you know, apart from those first two rounds where you got the, you know, truly studly

hitters going off the board, why I'm not as concerned about filling my hitter spots early is because you don't have to be as particular about the kind of hitters you take. Somebody like Whitmerfield because people don't see, people obviously don't need stolen bases the way they do in a Roto League and he tends to slide. You know, he might be available as later's round nine or ten, you know, at a position like shortstop as deep as it is. You know, we've talked about how much we like Willie Adama's this year. He might be available in round 12 or 13. Everybody, everybody's already filled their shortstop position.

There are no middle infield spots to fill. So William Adamas just hangs out there for a long time. And, you know, that's part of the thinking, too, in terms of how I approach hitting versus pitching. All right. And specifically for pitchers in head-toed points leagues, typically you want to focus more on innings and quality starts. There is a bonus for quality starts in this format.

And speaking of quality starts, these are the names that have excelled in racking up quality starts over the past three seasons. A lot of these names are obvious, but a few standouts as well. Garrett Cole, Zach Wheeler, Walker, Shane Beeler, Zach Granky, Kyle Hendricks, Louise Castillo,

Adam Wainwright, Sandy Alcantara, Jose Burrios, Hian Riu, Max Scherzer, Lance Lynn, Jacob de Grom, Marco Gonzalez, Clayton Kershaw, and Lucas Gialito. Before we get to head-to-head categories, we made it through the first weekend of madness and now have 16 teams left competing to cut down the nets in New Orleans. If you want the latest previews, picks, and bracket breakdowns,

listen to Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander on the I-On college basketball podcast. Gary and Matt will also be recapping after each night of tournament action and recapping games instantly for the best March Madness Analysis, listen and follow the I on college basketball podcast anywhere you find this one,

we're going to hit a quick break, and when we get back, head-to-head categories here on fantasy baseball today. All right, so the Wild Wild West, known as head-to-head categories, kind of a combination of roto and head-to-head points. You're going up against one other opponent, but instead of accumulating fantasy points,

you're competing against each other in those 10 or more, we have people write in 6x6, 7 by 7, 8 by 8 leagues, that's how many categories. Just making up points, like, if you're getting that way of category. It can get crazy. Some people, someone emailed in the other day they said they have grand slams as a category.

I was like, what? That's so random. The problem with that, that is like, they're all weighted equally. Yeah. And so, like, if you have grand slams as a category. I mean, it's fun. Like, you get, I get it. Right. But if you're, You get one grand slam and your opponent gets zero.

Right. That is worth as much as your, what, 14 home runs are over his 12. Yeah. It's so random, too. It's, that makes it really tough. It introduces a lot of, like, random variables every week. Yeah, for sure. It kind of removes the skill element.

I'm not here to tell you how to have your fun. If you play in one of those leagues and it's, that's a big thing. What you look forward to. It's, you know, drafting for it's like Christmas Day to you, then, you know, whatever. But I think you could have, I do think you could have more fun other ways. Yeah. There are two different types of head-toed categories leagues. The first, and I believe is more popular.

If you beat your opponent in all 10 categories, your record becomes 10 and zero, 10 and oh. And you keep adding to that all season. So if you win 9 to 1 in week 2, your record becomes 9. 19 and 1. And then there's a traditional way to play where if you, as long as you win 6'4, then you get one win and your record becomes 1 and 0.

Chris, we will start with you this time. With all that being said, what is your strategy in head-to-head categories? Do you build for balance? Are there any categories that you like to punt? What do you think? It does depend on the way you set your league up. And I will say the second way that you mentioned

is the objectively superior way to play. to quote Don Torretto from the Fast and Furious franchise doesn't matter if you win by

an inch or a mile winning is winning and also family is the most important thing or whatever I don't I don't like this

like you win six four you get six points and your opponent gets four that is that is participation trophy culture

that is that is like determining who goes to the World Series based on run differential no professional

sports leagues actually work that way. It's ridiculous. It's nonsense. And stop doing that. That being said. Strategy in this format, it makes it easier to punt than it does in Roto because in a real Roto League,

if you finish in last place in steals or saves, you can't win. Like your average first place team is probably going to have something like 90 to 100 category points. It's tough. It's possible, Chris, you could finish in the last place in one category.

You have to finish top three in every other, all nine other categories. You have to probably win three or four other categories and not finish worse, and it's really hard to do that. Here, it's not that hard, because if you dominate four hitting categories, most weeks and you just don't have any stolen bases,

you're going to be in a really good spot. Now, that's not going to say that you win those four categories every week, weekly production is random, or at least hard to predict. I don't know. We don't like the word random. And so, you know, you can get away with that. You can get away with funkier strategies like going super relief pitcher heavy.

If you don't have dedicated RPSP spots, you can go, you know, I think the primary way that I think we all view it is like punting stolen bases is a much more viable strategy here. loading up on home runs, especially home runs tend to bring runs an RBI along with them. And so that's the way, I think, that you can look at it. But you can just build extreme versions of teams. And it's entirely possible to go with that Marmol strategy, go super, super hitter heavy,

and then get really, really great ratios, guys. And so that way you're putting yourself in a spot, where if you can win three or four hitting categories most weeks and get really, really good ratios and saves, you're going to be in a really good spot to win a lot of the time. So that strategy is more viable in that six to four win. You get one win kind of week scoring format rather than the 10 categories per week.

But yeah, that's one of the key ways in which the strategy can change in this format. And I think you just worry a little less about building a balance roster in this one. Just in case people don't know what the Marmal strategy is. I know you just mentioned it, Chris. It's basically you only draft relievers. Your league has to have a low weekly endings minimum or no minimum at all to pull this off. You punt wins and strikeouts, but you dominate the other eight categories. Theoretically, you focus on hitters in the first 10 rounds, and then you just load up on the best relievers that are available after that. I've never done it myself. I've used like variations, but I still draft starting pitchers in this league.

Scott, how about you? When it comes to head-to-head categories, do you like to punt any categories? How do you like to attack pitching? Because it's unique. You start two starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and then just four pitcher spots where you could do whatever you want with those pitchers spots.

Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of different setups. That's the Yahoo's standard setup. So, you know, it's a pretty popular one. I, I, I, this is the format of the three we talked about that I probably played in the least. and when developing fantasy baseball strategies, the difficulty is that you only find out once a year how you did. So it's very slow to develop strategies that you feel confident in.

But I think I've gotten to a point with this format where I know what I want to do. And look, the easiest place to start is if you approach it, if you approach head-to-head categories like a Roto League, you could do it as simply as that and probably come out okay. but if you want to really narrow your focus to this format specifically,

things to consider are kind of like Chris was saying, more extreme, instead of going for a balance, it's like there's not much downside to overkilling something, right? Because that just means you're going to win that category more often if you do.

So the same logic that I was applying to Roto this year, I kind of adapted from what I did in the head-to-head categories that league I won last year, and that was not paying a lot for steals, basically punting it, which I'm not recommending in Roto. I'm being intentionally unintentional about the category in Roto,

but I basically punted steals in that league last year. And paid for pitching early, got good starting pitching, and then just load it up on a ton of power. Load it up on a ton of power thinking, okay, I'm going to win home runs most weeks. And in those weeks when I win home runs, because all these home runs were hit,

I'm probably going to do well and runs in RBI as well. I have a reasonable chance of winning batting average. What you have to remember in head-to-head categories leagues, if they're scored weekly, is that it's only so predictable what can happen for your lineup in a given week. You know, players, their production goes up and down

over the course of a whole season and you confine it to one week. All sorts of crazy things can happen. So if you're going to commit to something, you need to commit to it hard. That's why it doesn't really make sense to balance steals the way you would in Roto, where we were just saying you need like 80 something

between your whole team to finish in the middle of a category in roto well if you're drafting a bunch of like 12 to 15 steals guys in a head-to-head categories leagues how many steals is that going to translate to in a given week like it and some weeks are going to be way different from others you'll have some weeks where nobody steals any bases you know so if you want to get if you want to assure that you're going to win consistently I think getting a ton of power is the way to do it And I'm not saying I won't draft any base Steelers.

You know, obviously the first second round type hitters who provide steals also provide a lot of power. So if I happen to get one of them, great. Maybe I'll win steals some weeks. If at Alberto Mondesie, is it goes for a good value, like he's there in round seven or something. I love taking him in head-to-head categories leagues because for however long he's healthy, he could single-handedly win you steals in that week. But otherwise, I'm not putting a lot of emphasis. on that category.

And with pitchers, honestly, I just approach pitchers the same way as I do in Roto. Mostly starting pitchers, try and get as many saves as I can without paying much for them. And that's it for me. It's worth noting that most headset categories leagues that I've played in are also daily lineup leagues. So you can target maybe hitters who have specific splits where you, if you're paying real close attention to it, you could start Rockies hitters when they're at home, or you could start guys like Jesse Winker when they're going up against right-handed

pitchers. And you could bench him when he's going up against less. thanded pitchers. So if you're going to be diligent, you could definitely do it in that format. And also, I think in head-to-head categories leagues, more likely to have relievers who are not going to give you saves, but just strong ratios, strikeouts, just leave those guys in your lineup. And hopefully they just help you out throughout the course of the week. Especially in daily lineup. Yeah, like Paul Seawald and Devin Williams and a bunch of guys like that. Let's hit some news and notes before we get to. I do want to talk about some salary

cap draft strategy overall. But news and notes from the weekend, Zach Wheelman. through a 35 pitch bullpen session on Sunday, and he'll be throwing another bullpen session later this week before advancing to batting practice and then game action, starting to feel a little bit better about Zach Wheeler, so continue to build up. And even if he's not ready for opening day, hopefully it's soon after that.

Max Muncie will make his spring debut on Monday, someone we're paying close attention to. Lucas Sims likely will not be ready for opening day due to elbow and back issues. My money is still on Art Warren. I know Luis Sessa, Tony Santion are also in the mix there. Scott, I mean, is there anybody else worth paying attention to in the Reds bullpen? I mean, Art Warren is the guy I'm going for.

But it could be a mix. Nobody ever really emerged from that bullpen last year. They didn't get Warren until, you know, he didn't get called up and contribute to later in the year. Yeah, that's definitely one of those teams where it's not, it's not, it doesn't seem like the reason they never had a closure last. season was philosophical, it was practical. They just, they tried so many people and, and it just, it didn't work for anybody. Yep. Bad news, Chris, for, for you and me, Luis Arias will be shut down for two weeks because of a quad

injury and isn't expected to be ready for opening day. Noah Cindergarde threw a bullpen session and indicated that he's been able to throw all of his pitches without restriction. Good news there. Late last season, he returned for one or two innings and he wasn't throwing any. breaking pitches. So good news for Noah Cindergarde. Alex Reyes has been shut down at least four weeks after receiving a stem cell injection in his right shoulder. So one less name in the back end there. If you're drafting Giovanni Gallegos, so that, you know, unfortunately for Reyes, but it does

help Gallegos. Reds prospect, Jose Barrero, will miss approximately six weeks with a hamate injury in his left hand. It appears Kyle Farmer and Nixon Zell will be the leaders at shortstop and center field respectively for the Cincinnati Reds. Carter Key, Key, Boom, we'll miss four to six weeks with a flexor mass strain in his right forearm elbow area. Mikel Franco and Ari Adjianza will battle it out for the Nationals' third base job for those who play in NL only leagues. A bunch of signings this weekend, Correa to the Twins, Kenley Jansett to the Braves, Trevor's Story to the Red Sox.

We covered nearly all of them in emergency podcasts. So if you want to hear our thoughts on that, you can listen or watch those on demand. There was one small signing that we didn't get to. Michael Paneda signed a one year $5 million deal with the Detroit Tigers. Last season, 3.62 ERA, 1.23 whip. Just 88 strikeouts over 109 in a third innings pitch. Chris, anything to see here, Michael Paneda, more so for deeper leagues. Yeah, I've got him in the Scott White Dynasty League.

I'm not saying that's the only league where I would be interested in him. It's a 24-team points league, but you'd probably have to go deeper than 12 teams for me to really care about Michael Panetta unless you show something earlier. Right. Yeah. AL only 15 team mixed. I'll be a streamer during the season. I'm pretty confident saying.

He lost some velocity anymore, so I don't think he has the upside we once hoped for him to have, but he'll pitch deep into games and limit walks. And yeah, we'll be streaming this year. I'm pretty confident saying. All right.

Some notable spring training performances this weekend. Justin Verlander, two clean innings with two strikeouts. He averaged 94.8 miles per hour on the fastball, which is basically what he averaged back in 2019. Good news there.

Luis Severino didn't have his best stuff. He allowed four runs over two innings pitch. Command was not great. I was watching the start. His fastball averaged 97 miles per hour, though, which is close to where he was in 2018, his last full season. He averaged 97.6 miles per hour that season.

Mitch Keller. I think the key for Severino more so than velocity is if he's confident snapping off that slider that used to be so successful for him and puts a strain on the elbow. He only threw like three or four. of them, but. Yeah, I don't really take anything from this spring start, but that's just what I'm saying is worth

monitoring for him. All right. New so far. Mitch Keller, his fastball, his curveball, his slider were all up between two to three miles per hour. I'm not saying anything is here yet. He looked okay. I think he left with an injury.

It was precautionary. But the velocity is up big time for Mitch Keller. So just a need to watch there. He has apparently now has. elite fastball velocity for a starting pitcher. Whether that means he'll be a good starting pitcher is a much bigger question. But this is, it's something you have to watch for in spring training. The fact that he's averaging 97 mile per hour with his fastball, like that's significant.

Even if it's not a guarantee that he'll be good, it makes him margin for error much wider. And Lord knows he's needed a wider margin for error. so far in the majors. But yeah, he's someone in the 12 team had to head points. Salaure cap draft we did last week. I ended up with him at the end of my bench. Worth a flyer. All right. Dominic Smith went two for three with the home run. Normally this wouldn't matter. He did that on Saturday. But Scott, I saw you tweet an article about Dominic Smith over the weekend. And there is some optimism heading into this year. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in like a deeper league late round flyer sort of way, I'm starting to get kind of excited about Dominic Smith because of course he was awesome during the pandemic

shortened season, had an OPS over 900 and you know former top prospect all of that was not so great last year but we only recently learned he was playing through a torn laborman his shoulder last year. It's a pretty big deal. It only recently came out. Not only did he Homer in the great in the first grapefruit league game he played in, Homer and a triple actually but he homered twice off Max Scherzer in an intra-squad game just a few days before

the article was written by Disha Thosar I think her name is the Mets beat writer for New York Daily News and what she wrote is if Smith is able to maintain his electrifying presence at the plate there's little reason to believe anyone other than the slugger will receive every day at bats in the D.H. role.

So she's thinking Smith over like Robinson Canoe over J.D. Davis. I mean, he's more of a building block than either of those guys. So if he shows, if he continues to perform this spring like he did during that 2020 season, he could have another productive year. Awesome prospects this weekend. Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez hit a three-run shot on an O2 pitch. Tigers outfielder Riley Green hit a home run to the opposite field. Padres middle infielder, CJ Abrams, hit two home runs.

runs this weekend. Royal's first baseman Nick Prado hit a dinger. Red starting pitcher Nick Ladolo, two perfect innings with four strikeouts. Mackenzie Gore, two perfect innings as well with two strikeouts, some optimism there. And then Reed Detmer's, Chris, someone that you like, two scoreless

with five strikeouts. You did hold your finger up if you wanted to interrupt me. Obviously, it doesn't necessarily matter that a manager or a general manager would say that they're not going to play service time games with a player when that is illegal. It's not allowed to happen.

But for what it's worth, Tigers Gym, Alex Avila had this to say about Spencer Torgelson and Riley Green. Quote, I'm not arrogant enough to think that I can hold a guy back because we're going to make the playoffs anyway. You go full bore from day one because those games at the beginning can mean everything at the end. That doesn't mean that Spencer Torgelson and Riley Green are going to be called up to start the season. but it is about as explicit as you can get from a general manager of saying that if these guys show that they're ready, they're going to be there. And that's what we want to see. That's what we hope that the new CBA will create as an environment where teams

lose the fear or whatever you want to call it of keeping guys down. I'm honestly not sure who plays first base for the Tigers of Torkelson doesn't. I'm putting together a position battles argument, a position battles article for the site. And it's Torkelson versus, I don't know. So I moved Torkelson up a bit. I also moved McKenzie Gore up quite a bit. He does have clear competition for that fit spot in the Padre's rotation.

But they sound pretty convinced that they've got it fixed after the control issues of the past two years. And this is a guy. Yeah, he's reworked his, he's reworked his deliver. He used to have a pretty pronounced hitch that was part of why people liked him. He hit the ball really well. He was a very deceptive pitcher as a result of that. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see what that means. But yeah, that's...

He was up at 98 in his first start. And, you know, this time of year ago was considered the top prospect in baseball. And now it's kind of forgotten. So, McKinsey Gore. All right. Let's spend the last, you know, 10 minutes or so here talking about salary cap drafts. He's are very popular, formerly known as all. auction again. And Scott, look, you mentioned you got all these papers. You're planning for the salary

cap drafts that we have this upcoming week. How do you plan for them? Do you have like multiple players? Do you have a set amount of money that you want to spend at each position? How do you plan for a salary cap draft? Well, I think the, what you do is you look at the rankings, you look at projected auction values, salary cap values, and you, you figure out, you know, just what is most valuable to you? Where at each position you think is the best bang for the buck? This is like this guy, this is where this guy will set you apart for this price at this position in a way this guy won't.

And obviously you can't get the best player at every position. Which positions is it worth doing that at, though? Like, maybe it's third base this year. Maybe Jose Ramirez is such a clear standout at that position that you want to do it with him. maybe it's catcher as I've mentioned several times. I think Salvador Perez stands out the most from the rest of the, compared to any other position, he stands out the most from number two.

So you do that. And yeah, I usually just fill in kind of my dream scenario, and then I figure out what that adds up to, and it's usually way too much. So I start pairing back what I can add. actually live with and what I can live without and I look toward the bottom of a position. All right, the guy's going projected to go for like $5 or so. Do I have a lot of faith in them outperforming that price?

And maybe I make them intentional targets. So that's kind of how I go about it. I don't put one for any position. If I can help it, I might have like a one at one position just to make the numbers work. But to prepare for the end game, you don't want to anticipate getting any player for a dollar. Because if you're counting on filling roster spots for a dollar, that means when your nomination comes up, that's your only chance to win the player. If you throw a player out there and anybody bids them up, you're done, obviously. So I make out a plan knowing that when it gets to the point in the salary cap draft where my max bid is half of what my remaining budget is, you know, I'm not really going to aggressively bid on anybody because I want to keep enough dollars around so I can I can be the guy that jumps in for two when somebody nominates who I want.

Yeah, I like to go position by position, Scott. just who are my favorite players to target at that position, right? So I just had my Tout war salary cap draft on Sunday and first base, for example, everyone knows by now. I love the profit pocket. Rees Hoskins, Josh Bell, Joey Vado. I write those guys in and then I put a range of their salary cap value of what I think they're going to go for. So I wrote down, you know, between $13 and $17. That's what I thought that they would go for. And I think I wound up winning Reese Hoskins for $13. And basically I do that for every position, each of my outfield positions, all five of them, I'll have, okay, I want George Springer or Yordaun Alvarez as my first outfielder. I want, you know, I want Cody Bellinger or Kyle Schwerber

as my out fielder three. And I'll just go, I'll do that for every single position. I really like to plan it out in advance. And Chris, what makes salary cap draft so amazing is that you can have any player that you want. You have to realize at some point you're going to run out of money, but if you want two first round picks on your team, you could do that. If you want a team filled with mid-round players, if you want to just attack the $15 to $30 players, you can do that as well.

Which routes do you find yourself going down? Do you like to do a Stars and Scrubs approach? Do you like to be more balanced? What do you think about salary cap drafts? I tend to go with the Stars and Scrubs approach more often than not. I think it depends on the league. If in a head-to-head points league, I think it's much more likely that I'll go Stars and Scrubs,

in a 12-team Rotter League, a little less likely. If I was doing a 15-team league, very unlikely, just because the replacement level value of the dollar players is going to be so much lower. I don't do the,

you know, write down three names and plan around that thing because one, I just, I don't do homework. I just, that's not how I roll.

That's not, I don't have the attention span for. That's how my, not how my brain works. I didn't study when I took tests either. I had low, low grades though, so. No, you know what?

Chris, you're definitely one of those people who didn't study for tests and you still did amazing on them. Because, I have a bunch of friends like that too, and it's so frustrating. I was the opposite. I would study too much,

and I would just get like, okay grades. And it was so frustrating. But go ahead. Yeah, my grades were bad. But I don't know how much of that wasn't studying as much it was like not going to class and not doing homework and stuff like that. But anyway, I also just, I notice with you two in particular a lot is you'll just start spiraling in your drafts when you don't get your specific list of guys. And like I've noticed that knock you guys off track multiple times.

and it just, I don't see the benefit in it for me, for the way I approach things, because I want to be flexible. And that's how I want to draft all the times. I don't want to be stuck to a rigid plan because if the draft goes a different way, all of a sudden, you know, you're so set on one way that it's hard to pivot. I always want to be flexible. And so if a given draft sees all the starting pitchers go for a lot more, you know, I want to be able to pivot. I want to be able to pivot if the hitters are going for a lot more. So that's just my philosophy. And don't have a plan isn't really a plan.

So obviously, like, you still have to do a lot of research. And then that's like, if I was doing a salary cap draft in the middle of January, when I've just started my research, I would not feel comfortable that way because I don't know the player pool. But once you become comfortable with the player pool for the coming year and where every position sits and you have your own values ahead of time, which we all do for the rankings, process, that's where I don't really want to have, you know, a set plan going in because I want to be able to stay nimble. So obviously, I think that requires more long-term planning rather than,

you know, a specific plan for your draft. But that's the way I look at it. And, you know, it really does. Like if, if I notice that all of the star players are going for, you know, $50 in a Roto League, I'm probably more likely to try to get second tier stars. Because at some point that money's going to run out. But you'll also see drafts where nobody's really going in for high-end players. And if you start to notice that trend, you've got to be willing to jump in early. And that's really the main value of projected auction values. At least if you use ours, I mean, ours are calibrated 12 teams, $260 budget, this

many roster spots filled. So they add up to exactly the right number. So if you see early in the draft that players are consistently going for more than we project them for, you know, there's going to be less money available further down the rankings. And if they're consistently going for less than we project them for, you know, there's going to be too much later and there's going to be a lot of overpays later. So, yeah, I agree you need to be flexible. It's tricky to find that right balance.

and like if I just wrote one name for every spot, like it's never going to happen, right? So like I look more at a range. You were talking about a range of values you're willing to pay. For me, it's more like a range of players that I'm willing to pay this much money for at this position. And it still doesn't always work out. So usually if it's like a particular player

that my whole strategy hinges on, and like if I don't, get him, I don't know what to do, then I come up with a plan B ahead of time. Plan A involves this player, plan B doesn't involve this player. There is still going to come a point when I spiral, Chris, that always happens. Yes. But for me, like, there is no, there is no success without pain. That's just part of the process.

One of, honestly, one of the true pleasures of this job is watching Scott during these drafts because it's just, he just like, I don't, I don't have a particularly high personal sense of self-worth, but I always like, it could be worse. I could be Scott during an auction draft. He's just like, oh, you idiot. I'm the worst person ever. You're going to get to see that. Oh, no, this wasn't that bad. I actually don't hate with you. And you're going to get to see that live on Monday. Again, 7 p.m. Eastern time here on the YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash fantasy baseball today. We'll go from, we'll probably broadcast the first two or three hours or so, and we'll put that on a podcast form as well. Scott, real quick,

nomination process. Do you normally nominate players that you don't want to bid on so that you get more money off of the table? Do you mix it up with like some players you want to bid on? So like you keep other people off balance. What do you think? It's a mix. I think there's value to all three. If it's a, if it's like a player that the whole thing hinges on, I just want to get it out of the way. because I need to know early if it's going to happen for me or not. Because if I wait around for that one guy and then he ends up going for way more than I budgeted for him, and I've already missed out on all these backup plans, like you're kind of screwed at that point. So it just depends at the stage and what I'm looking to do in that moment.

There are other times where I just throw a guy out there that I know I don't want because I want people to spend too much on them and then have less to bid on the guys I do want. there are times I throw out just like a totally random guy, it's usually pretty early on, just to see, just to see who bites and for how, like a lot of times when everybody has a ton of money, you throw out just any random guy who might be of some interest to people, and he'll go for like $6 more than he's projected to go for just because people have money to spend. And if you see that happening, then you do that a few more times, you know? Yeah.

As long as you're willing to win him for a dollar if it comes to that. But, yeah. Chris, the bidding process, when do you enter a bid for a player? Do you wait for the clock to take all the way down to one second, mess with someone? Do you maybe do like a quick bid or jump bid where you put on multiple dollars at a time on your bid? How do you normally go about it? You have to be careful with the jump bid because sometimes you're just like, well, this guy's not going to go for this amount. Let's be real. And then, you know, like, look, when we're doing like the Max Scherzer for $1. Oh, I'll go two dollars. Like that, there's no value in that. We all know what's happening. But sometimes you'll see a situation where a player's at $5 and someone will jump at $15. And then nobody will bid.

And so then it's like, well, what could you have gotten that player for? You know, like, cool, you got them. And if you think they're a $15 player, great. But if you could have gotten them for $13, you're still wasting $2. And so you have to be careful with that. This gets into a lot of the psychology of this scoring, this type of draft that I think makes it a lot of fun and a lot of, and really interesting because I have a bad habit of when I think I'm going to get a player and someone jumps in at the last second, I will just automatically

bid up one more dollar. And it's a really, like, I know it's a bad trend because I'm letting myself get frustrated and I'll get suckered into these bidding wars, but you know, you have to have some self-control on that. And that's one of the interesting things that you can play with people's emotions that way. I try to keep control on myself, but I always lose it. You know what, Chris? That ends up happening more because you don't have a plan going in. Like, the less plan I have, the more I bid emotionally like that. And I always, hey, how it goes. And I know your brain works differently, so I'm not saying you have to do that. But that's part of the reason why that's a frustration for you probably. I love this format so much, too. It's really the only format where, like, it almost sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but you need to be disciplined, but you also need to be flexible at the same time.

So it sounds like it doesn't make sense, but at the end of the day, it does. Like, you have an idea of how much you want to spend on a certain player or a certain position group and you have to stick to that. But at the same time, you want multiple options, so you need to be able to be flexible. So it really, you have to be flexible

in the way the draft goes, but you have to have discipline in how you spend your money. Like, you can't, if you have your list of three guys and all three of them go for $5 more than you had them valued for, you can't just, like, well, I guess I have to spend that to get one of the three. Maybe you do. Maybe that's ultimately the way it'll work out.

But you need to know when you're just chasing something that's not worth it. And so that's more difficult in this format. All right. Yeah, we're not going to get to my Tau Wars team. I wanted to talk about it. But if you want to see it, you can check it out on my Twitter at Rodo underscore Frank. For Scott and Chris, I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today.

We'll be back again tomorrow with our live salary cap draft. Bye-bye. Hey.