Fantasy Baseball Today - Trust Aaron Nola!? Early 2022 Starting Pitcher Rankings w/ Nick Pollack! (11/11 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 11, 2021

Hey, Nick Pollack is back (1:20)! ... What are his overall thoughts on starting pitching for 2022 (2:47)? ... News and notes (8:46): Alex Reyes will be stretched out as a starting pitcher plus Bobby Witt could be on the Royals' Opening Day roster. ... Top-5 SP rankings (11:55): trouble in NY? ... Top-10 SP rankings (14:11): are we concerned about Shane Bieber? ... Top-15 SP rankings (23:05): do we trust the process with Aaron Nola? ... Top-20 SP rankings (36:10): what should we expect from Sale and Flaherty? ... Top-25 SP rankings (40:38): is Logan Webb legit? ... Top-30 SP rankings (48:15): the most polarizing pitchers! ... Top-35 SP rankings (56:07): Nick has Ranger Suarez ranked where? ... Top-40 SP rankings (1:00:27): Shane McClanahan love. '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. I drive. Center field. What is magnificent? Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality.

Now here's Frank Scott, Chris and Adam. You want pitchers. You want lists. Well, you've come to the right place. Welcome in to Fantasy Baseball today on Thursday, November 11th. Frank Stample joined as always by. Scott White and a special guest. But for those watching on YouTube, Scott is looking real slick right now. He just rub a dubbed, hopped out of the shower, and here we go. Ready on the podcast. How you doing, Scottie?

We got a high-profile guest here. I really had to snazz it up. And he, you know, he recognized my shirt, too. He recognized what going on here. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I appreciate because you never did, Frank. Yeah, honestly, you guys were talking beforehand. I had no idea what was going on. By the way, the voice that you just heard, starting shortstop for the bad news beers, the man behind everything. Pitcher list, go check it out. PitcherList.com. You can follow them on Twitter at, you guessed it, hitter list. No, I'm just kidding. It's Pitcher List. What is going on? Nick Pollock, my man, how you doing, bud? What is happening? Oh, thank you so much for having me here. That is a fantastic shirt, Scots. I'm so happy you can get the appreciation finally that you deserve. Yeah. And really,

It's a Settlers of Katan reference. It's wonderful. Those wondering. I think it's been rebranded just Katan now, which is dumb, but whatever. Is it really? Well, all right. But I think the most important thing here, guys, it's not about starting pitching. Sorry, Scott, as much as I want it to be, it's not about your shirt.

It is the fact that Frank Stanfel just became a new age. He just had his birthday. And I am so unbelievably honored to be here on this moment that, you know, Frank, happy birthday, man. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. I joined the big 3-0, the dirty-thirty club. So right there with you guys, let's go. Let's do it. Today on the podcast, you might have guessed, we are going to be talking about pitcher rankings, the top 40 starting pitcher rankings for 2022, way too early rankings. You can find them. They are live on the site. CBSSports.com slash fantasy slash baseball. And what we're going to do is we're going to compare some of those rankings to Nix rankings. Again, the website,

pitcher list. It's all about the list of pitchers. And his is currently live. Top 100 starting pitchers are live over at pitchel list.com. So we will compare and contrast a little bit, some cage matches where I pit you guys up against each other. We debate some of those pitchers. But before we actually get into those players, Nick, overall thoughts on starting pitching, heading into 2022. It seems much deeper than ever before that we started off last podcast talking about it.

And, you know, last year, Scott and I were very aggressive up top in trying to grab some aces, you know, maybe two pitchers in the first three rounds, something like that. It feels much deeper now. What do you think? I mean, I don't think it much has changed, honestly. I think coming out of 2020, when we only had 60 games, we didn't really understand how deep it was. We didn't really have as much exposure to it. But generally, in 12-teamers, this is the way it is.

You know, generally, it is very deep because there are so many options on the waiver wire every single whole season. This past year, past 260 in your drafts, You could have had Carlos Rodon, Freddie Peralta, Chris Sale, Ranger Suarez, Alec, Manoa, Trevor Rogers, Jamie Clanahan, Patrick Sandeval, Chris Flexen, Robbie Ray, and Adam, Wainwright, Logan, Webb, and so on and so forth. So many players were available on your waiver wire in season. And I don't think it's going to be any different next year.

It hasn't, it's been this way for a while, if you remember getting Lucas G. Alito, and Lance Lynn and all that kind of stuff in the past. And I think it's finally, oh, we're all recognizing this is the way that it is in 12-teamers. I would kind of argue that it's not really that different because a lot of the guys we're going to be talking about today are still not going to be like 180 inning guys. So a lot of them have not really been proven at that level yet and we're still going to have to deal with that in our draft.

So it's not too different in my view from previous years, but at least we're all on the same page about, hey, we don't need to get two of the first 10 starters or three of the first 20 or something like that. Scott, I do wonder if we might be going, I mean, it's very early. We've done one mock draft to this point. but so last year we went so far the other way right like just leaning all the way into the volatility of the

position with pitching and we did a mock draft on tuesday night our first mock draft and i know you waited a bunch on pitching i took one pitcher with my first i think six or seven picks so i don't want to go too far the other way but again i feel like that that mid tier we talked about a last podcast it's it's it's back and it's it's more reliable than it has been in years past yeah i mean that's i i yeah i do think it's quite a bit different from the past couple years, in part because we did see so many emergent options off the waiver. Why not that there have always been emerging options because it's just there's so many players that play the position, obviously, but you need a ton of them.

And there was just, in 2019 and 2020, when it seemed like the juice ball year was at its peak, it didn't seem like there was much of a middle class at the position. The high end was very high end. But if you didn't get a high end guy, basically any starting pitcher you plugged in there, unless you were really good at playing matchups, was dragging you down. And I think the middle class at the position

came back with a vengeance last year because of the dead end ball, because later on the sticky substance ban, the former made it so you didn't have to be the most high-end kind of hurler to be an impactful player, the dead and ball accomplished that. And I think the sticky substance ban

brought that upper tier at the position a little back down to earth. So now it strikes me as a position with a very deep middle class and it's an upper middle class. So in the previous couple years, I felt like I pretty much had to assemble my pitching staff from the top 40 options

because I just, you know, I couldn't count on threading the needle on the waiver wire all season. But now it seems like it's 55 pitchers I feel good about instead of 40. By the way, I realized that I introduced you, Nick, as a starting shortstop of the bad news beers. And people listening are probably, like, what are you talking about, frankly? Like, this, what is this thing? We played on a softball team together this fall. It was great. And it was fun.

I think we played like six regular season games. We finished three and three. We got smoked in the playoffs, but it's fine. It was the first time this collection of humans ever played softball together. A lot of us never met each other before. And Nick was on the team. He was shortstop. I kind of bounced around a little bit.

I played some third base. Chris was our pitcher most of the time. So it was a lot of fun. But yeah, that's what the bad news beers are. It was a great team. You know, they'd be really, really proud of you mentioning them here. And by the way, I actually have a presentation about 2019 up to showcase pitchers, drafted past 300 in

2019 and it's kind of shocking. It's like Jake Oter Rizzies in there, Brad Woodruff was in there, Mike Minor, Zach Gallin, Yanni Chorinios, San Diego, Elcanara, Tyler, Molly, Frankie Montas, Lance Lin again, Max Freed,

Caleb Smith was good then, Sean Mania. It's still, the list was still long. Yeah, it's a stretch to say Caleb Smith was good then. Well, no, but he was for, if he had him properly, you had him for 11 starts. No, no, but I think as a

manager, though, you had him for the first 11th starts. then he wasn't good and then you dropped him and that was still a very effective strategy for you. You took some bad starts before you dropped them. I mean, probably one or two or something like that. Yeah, but I still feel everyone on this list, John Means is also here, Savali, Musgrove, that you had stretches as a fantasy manager where you got a lot more good than you did bad. And that's still, it's kind of always been that way, I think, when it comes to stuff.

Yeah, it may have been, it may have been kind of how you play it. just in terms of, I think reliability was a major issue. And like, it was very easy in those years for a marginal starting pitcher to just completely tank you. All right. So that's where we're at. Cage batch zero. Sorry. That's where we're at with starting pitching overall. I want to hit a few news and notes before we actually get into the rankings.

But Alex Reyes and Jordan Hicks are viewed as potential starting pitchers moving forward for the St. Louis Cardinals. and we mentioned that recently with Jordan Hicks, but now some confirmation that they're going to at least try to convert Alex Reyes back into a starting pitcher. Robinson Canoe made his Dominican Winter Ball debut on Wednesday and will be reinstated by the Mets next season. So assuming there is a universal D.H, I think Robinson Canoe will probably occupy that spot quite a bit for the New York Mets. John Morosi said that Bobby Witt is in a good position to make the opening day roster in 2022.

Now, we had the well-old. Well, Sean, recently, and he was talking about, you know, maybe like pick 80 to 100, the possibility for Bobby Witt. Yeah, I think if the closer we get, if that's like a real possibility of him being on the opening day roster, then he's probably going to go in that range. And rightfully so. That mock draft we just did, I took him in the 11th round. And I'm good with that. What do you think, Scott? Yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly where you took him.

That was a round pick, it was a round pick 120. So I saw Jared Kelnick go the round before in round 10. 10, and I remember those are the two players we were debating with the Welsh. So I was like, all right, once I saw Kelniko, I'm like, it kind of went on my radar. Like, all right, let's draft Bobby Whit. I mean, if he has a big spring and, yeah, it becomes apparent he's going to win an opening day job. Of course, the hype is going to escalate. And I imagine he will be a top 100 player.

The difficulty in when we did the shortstop recap, I talked about this then, is that like it's, the position is, so deep and high in talent. And Willie Adama's Danes B. Swanson, they're both really good. And proven certainly in a way, Witt isn't. So while I think the upside is

definitely higher for Witt, it's just, I don't know, it's going to be hard for me to, it's going to be hard for me to justify moving Witt up enough in my shortstop rankings to get him into the top 100. And I don't feel great about it, but once the hype starts,

maybe I'll hop aboard too and have to be forced to move them up, especially with the belief he'll be more of a base dealer than those two. While on prospects, Bryson Stott has a chance to make the Phillies opening day roster next season as well. And I realized that I haven't mentioned recently that Japanese outfielder Seya Suzuki will be posted this winter. He's a 27-year-old outfielder with power and speed last season. He hit 319 with 38 homers, nine steals, and a 1075 OPS over in Japan. the Mariners and Rangers are two teams that are already said to have interest. Again, the name there, Sayya Suzuki.

This Sunday, we kick off the second half of the season with an NFL on CBS doubleheader, with the early games featuring the Browns battling the Patriots and the Saints taking on the Titans. Later on the Seahawks are on the road in Lambo for a meeting with the Packers. As always, the day begins with J.B. Coach Cower, Nate Boomer, and Phil on NFL today. NFL double-hutter action coming up this Sunday on CBS. All right, enough chit-chat. Let's do it. Scott's 22 starting pitcher ranks,

and we'll go five at a time. Whichever players we didn't really talk about on the previous podcast, we'll try to talk more about on this podcast. So top five, we have Jacob de Grom. Interesting. Number two, Garrett Cole, and then Max Scher, Corbyn Burns,

and Walker Bueller rounding out the top five. We heard Scott's thoughts on both DeGrom and Cole on our previous podcast. Nick, you're back. What are your thoughts? On the New York Aces, I know that you have DeGrom down at 7th. You have Garrett Cole first overall in your ranks.

But yeah, I mean, it was kind of an up and down season for Garrett Cole. Sticky substance. He was like the face of everything that was going on. DeGrom, we know, is awesome. It's just we don't know if his arm is going to be intact by the time spring training rolls around. Yeah, absolutely. And first and foremost, I heard you talk about prospects and all this stuff.

And I was so shocked that I'm here. But you know the phrase, brevity is wit. And I'm so happy that you took that to heart. Anyway, so with Jacob de Grom, if he is injured, that's the major question, right? And I think that anyone that is willing to spend that draft pick in the first or second round would likely want someone they can depend on for 200 innings. And that would be Garrett Cole to me. So I think everyone understands, I don't think anyone is betting on the fact that Jacob de Grom is going to go 180 innings next year.

I just think that that, we've seen this enough, we've seen this song and dance. that's just likely not going to happen. The skill set, we all know, he's the best pitcher on the planet. But for my fantasy teams, I mean, if I'm going to get that guy, that means that's someone that I'm expecting elite production through the entire season. And sadly, that means I have to put DeGrom all the way down to seven for me and put Garrett Cole at number one just because of the track record.

He's done this for so long. I think he had the weird bounces this year because of all those sticky stuff, and then he had the amstring. And he's still amazing. I don't think there's anyone else that you really just feel so certain about for the year ahead, just because also, Garrett Cole was still really good, despite all the hiccups that we saw this year. So he's my number one. Jacob de Grom, by the way, 33 years old.

Over the past two seasons, he has missed time due to neck, lat, back, shoulder, forearm, and elbow issues. So I don't think we need to say anything more than that. Six through 10 in Scott's rankings for next year. Brandon Woodruff, Shane Bieber, Zach Wheeler, Robbie Ray, and Julio Arias. This brings us to our first cage match of the day. Shane Bieber, Scott, you have him seventh in your rankings. Nick has him down at 13. So it's not a huge discrepancy, but probably like a tier apart here that we're looking at.

Yeah, I mean, it's significant. I have Bieber as a second rounder still. And, you know, he's difficult to rank, obviously, because we didn't see a full season from him. And what we did see was kind of all over the place. I feel like my ranking is chalkier, so I kind of want to hear Nick's case first. But my case is just, okay, obviously was an Uber ace in 2020

and was, you know, an ace second round top five material in 2019 as well. So obviously he has the tracker. Even what we saw of him last year, I mean, particularly at the start of the year, he got off to an amazing start, double-digit strikeouts every time out. And then he got hurt. and missed a lot of time. Okay.

He came back and the spin was down, the velocity was down, and he missed a lot of time. It was kind of a hurried buildup. You know, we saw every pitcher's spin, not every pitchers, but we saw a lot of high-end pitchers spin rates drop when the sticky substance band first kicked in, but then they somehow figured out a way around that and their spin rates went back up.

So I think in the long run that'll happen for Bieber too. I don't really put any stock in anything. that happened to him, those two short appearances late in the year. I just think there are a few, very few starting pitchers out there who could meet his workload expectations and his strikeout ability, the combination of those two. So Shane Bieber was limited to just 16 starts this past season with a right shoulder strain, finished with a 3.17 ERA, 1.21 whip, 134 strikeouts over 96 and 2 thirds. settings pitched. Nick, the ERA and WIP don't really line up. It was again, kind of a weird year overall

for Shane Bieber. Some of the underlying numbers line up with him, expected ERA, not so much because he gave up some hard contact. So why do you have Shane Bieber outside of your top 12 as of now? Yeah, okay. So the story of Shane Bieber this year was kind of weird. If you remember having him in the first two months or so, it wasn't quite clicking for Shane Bieber. He had a 125 whip across those first first starts. First month was great, but then he started giving up a lot of hits. Things were weird. He wasn't out of the zone as he used to be with his breaking ball. We saw a 50% zone rate this year on his curveball and that should be a huge whiff pitch, really, a 30% or so zone rate. He found himself having to do that because he didn't have quite the same fastball command as getting hit

a lot harder. 274 batting average allowed on his fastballs this year versus 210 in 2020, 220, 229 and 219. And I wonder if there's something about that. Maybe that was injury acting up. There's something kind of off if you had him in those first, yeah, essentially until the injury happened. Then I remember when he was hurt, the narrative was, is Shane Bieber going to survive the sticky stuff, the gloop gate and everything? And we were really excited to see what would happen when he would come back because, yeah, there's some stuff about the spin rates being higher than it should and all that stuff. And what we got at the end is actually what kind of terrifies me is that we saw a drop in velocity on the fastball. I watched every single pitch in those

last two starts with Shane Bieber. And I think anyone can tell you the blueprint that he has of precise fastballs mixed with a pair of breaking balls that he gets out of the zone, right? And that wasn't what I saw. His fastball was all over the place. He had some whiffs in there with the with the breaking balls. It just wasn't the Shane Bieber that we know. And hey, you know what? There's a long off season now. Maybe it's just hit them rushing it back to get those two starts. And we shouldn't really think about that. Six innings. At the same time, I've seen guys come back from injury, you know, and we talk about the September performances and stuff, and they look like the normal person, and we feel much better about it. We've seen a lot of injured guys that I've

been giving the benefit of the doubt for recently. I mean, to come to mind, Kluber and Tyone, that I thought, you know what, they should be good and better. And obviously, Beaver is above this, and don't get me wrong, the sample size of two does not define Shane Bieber. I can't help get out of my head of maybe the assumption that he's totally fine from the shoulder injury isn't necessarily one I should be making, especially when he wasn't at his ace caliber level, even before it early this season. I'm not saying that Shane Bieber is bad for next year. You know, I have him inside my top 15, I believe. It's right around there if not. I haven't at 13. But I see other guys, I see like Sandy Alcantara, who I think is just destined to be an

ace for a long time now. I see Robbie Ray making significant changes to what he does. and doing it for an entire season, not like June on. This was the third start of the year, and then he did for the entirety of the season after. Hulia Urius is amazing with this festival and curveball. Lanselin is just a foundation of success, I guess, for what he does with this festival. And then you have Kevin Gousman,

who just repeated exactly what he did in 2020, if not did more of it. And that to me is just more of a in-the-bank value than Shane Bieber, where there is just a little bit more risk. and I just wouldn't go for that personally ahead of those guys. Not to completely derail Frank's plan here, but what was your take on the way the sticky substance cracked down

played out in general? Because what I saw, you know, my kind of overall takeaway from it, was that it wasn't, it didn't have that big of an impact on starting pitching. There wasn't, and I may be forgetting, somebody, but there wasn't anybody who seemed like he was ruined because of it. It seemed like...

You're Richards. Okay, okay, maybe Garrett Richards on the lower. You're right, though. The impact wasn't nearly as large as we thought would be. It seemed like it made the most elite pitchers like the Garrett Cole class a little more human, a little more vulnerable. They weren't quite as sharp every time out, but they were still like, they were still the best pitchers in baseball. Didn't it... I'm not...

That's part of the reason why I look at those six endings from Bieber and I'm just like, whatever, he'll figure it out. I don't think that was a spin rate thing. I think that's more of Bieber not being him yet. And I'm worried about from the injury. And seeing a full take down, I'm like, well, okay, are you okay?

Is everything all right? But about the spin rate stuff, I mean, the Garrett-Ritcher thing is hilarious to me. You saw all the spin rates, it's like minus 300 or so. So we introduced a change-up because you can't lower your spin rates if you've never thrown it before.

But big brain stuff there from Gert Richards. But no, I remember hearing this from, you know, from a couple of people saying like, look, what happened is the all of a sudden MLB got pressured all of a sudden by someone's, you know, wonderful article that we might be very close to that we know very much that exposed this whole thing. And now MLB is forced to make this change. The players are upset about it. They're trying to figure out what to do about it. But when you look at what the MLB implemented, what does the umpire actually do? He takes the glove, he takes the belts, and that's about it and just like, look, you know, that's it, right? And the hat.

Yeah. Those three things. There are other parts to hide stuff. And I think if you actually look at the spin rate numbers, yeah, I think guys tried to comply at first and they realize, oh, I can just kind of put it underneath my thigh or something like that. Yeah. And that's fine. And like, they won't be looking for that. Or maybe use subtler things than spider attack, maybe. Right.

I honestly think that there was something that they, some players like Tyler Glassa tried to follow along and be okay. But then everyone just kind of goes, oh, okay, right, right. So MLB doesn't actually care. They just care about the press and the appearance on the outside. So yeah, when everybody was complying, I mean, Glass now got hurt, Gallin got hurt. Right.

So that's, I think what happened is there's some guys, they tried to shuffle it and then, all right, you know, wasn't really much of an impact. I will say you Darvish is another that comes to mind. I think they did affect his command a bit. His stuff was still great. It didn't really show up in the spin rates. Right, but I think the part of sticky stuff is also just feel

and being able to put the ball where you want to that isn't a spin thing. So that I think it did affect him a little bit. He even openly said that, yeah, I did it because everyone told me I was supposed to do it and I completely get it, but I think it did affect him a little bit. All right, we'll get to Darvish a little bit later on. I promise you we will.

Number 11 through 15 in the rankings, Sandy Alcantara, Lucas Gialito, Kevin Gosman, Aaron Nola, and Charlie Morton. Nick, you mentioned that you have Sandy Alcansara eighth in your rankings, and we did our first mock of the offseason on Tuesday night. I took Alcantra as my first starting pitcher,

32nd overall as the eight starting pitcher off the board. So I think we're in lockstep there. And both of you guys have Aaron Nola ranked inside your top 15. And for the people who had Nola on their teams, past season, whatever device that they're listening to this podcast on, they just threw it, right? Like their phone, they just threw it, like their laptop, computer, wherever you're watching this listening, like they just, are you serious? Aaron Nola inside your top 15?

Well, let's talk about it. 4.63 ERA for Arrna. Changeup took a huge step back this past season. I had Nola ranked as a top five starting pitcher last year because I thought the changeup that he showed in 2020, short in season, had like unlocked him as a true ace. And it's It just turns out that that was not the case. He gave up way too many fly balls more than ever before. It was just a weird year. But if you are someone who likes to trust the process, the underlying numbers are still very, very strong for Aaron Nola.

So Scott, I know that you defended him quite a bit down the stretch. Is there anything else that you'd like to add that you didn't say, I guess? No, I mean, just other than the fly balls being up a little, the home run rate being up a little, not even as much as I think you'd expect, given the results. He looked like typical Eric Nola. It was one of his best strikeout rates ever.

It was his best walk rate ever. He had a 337 X-FIP, 339 XERA, 337 FIP, and then this 463 ERA, which just does not compute. You mentioned the change-up. Look, he was an ace before, the change up even really entered the picture, so I don't think that has much to do with anything. We've seen him bounce back from an underwhelming season before,

and I just, I think he's going to get to the bottom of whatever happened, and there's still clearly a lot of ability there. You know, he's going to take on a big workload. I feel pretty comfortable, especially if you can get him as your number two. I feel pretty comfortable with that. Nick, I think that there are some pitchers, and people aren't going to like hearing this, there's not really much reasoning for it,

but I think there might be some pitchers, there might be some hitters, that sometimes what you watch is not what the underlying numbers say is there, right? So Aaron Ola just seemed off for some reason this year. Like he was getting hit hard, seemed like he was missing his spots within the zone, and every time he would do that,

he would just get hit really, really hard. Maybe that's a part of being unlucky. I don't know, but just watching him in the second half of the season, he just seemed off. Are you trusting the process here with Aaron? Nola. Man, you said it twice, the Phillies and Philadelphia and trusting the process.

I love it. I love what you're doing, Frank. I'm picking up what you're putting down. So some people might be looking at the top 150 starters. I put out and say, wait, hold on a second. Aaron Nola is not inside your top 15. Nick, are you ever met 19? Well, there are a couple of guys that I have been open about changing.

And Aaron Nola is one of them. I probably would have him. I don't know if I want Jack Flerty more or less. So it's either 15 or 16. But definitely above Luis Casst, too, who is not 18 anymore. actually. I think I'm actually putting him down a little bit more. We'll talk about that later. But, Aaronola, yeah.

So Scott, you kind of hit it a little bit about just the, well, zone rates were weird with Aaron Nola for me. Fourcing was getting hit a lot, 256 batting average allowed this year. So that meant to him, oh, I can't throw my fastball. I can't get ahead with that as much. I have to use my curveball and might change it more inside the zone. And normally when you see that, you also get an uptick of called strike rate on both pitches. However, the curveball went down 0.5 ticks and the change up went down four ticks on called strike rate each.

That's a problem. That to me is showcasing you're just kind of two-hittable a little bit. Do I think that's something that's going to stick around? Likely not. I think, you know, anyone that had Aaron Nullis, yes, you're upset about the 463 ERA, but I think ERA is the most overrated stat in some ways because you forget about the 30% K rate in 112 whip

that was great for you. You know, across 181 innings, getting a 30% carry, that's a lot of strikeouts, guys. So you're going to be happy with that still, even in this bad season. Well, yeah, it was just home runs, and he got it unlucky with that. And 463-8, all right, it's not going to be that next year. It's going to be definitely a lot better, probably, I would say, 3-4, 3-5. And as you said, Frank, you watch a guy sometimes. And I actually, I know this might not be what you were talking about,

but I implore everybody to watch a pitcher and recognize your first. feelings about that picture as you watch them because you'd be surprised you'd excuse me my god you'd really pick up how if the pitcher is battling himself or the batter like how much in control are they of their outcomes and you'll watch Aaron Noah you'll feel like oh yeah he's cruising along against the Miami Marlins for four innings everything is amazing he's sending strikeout records and all of a sudden he allows like six in the fifth inning and you just think what just happened you can say oh yeah that guy is way better than the person that allows a run in the first and two in the second and so on, right?

There's a clear difference here. And Aaron Ola is one of those guys. You got super unlucky this past year. I'd be very happy, as you said, Scott, number two starter. Sure, if I were to take a first starter in the first couple rounds, which I wouldn't. But still, Aaron Ola, yeah, around that spot, I'd be happy with that. Yeah, I think I'm going to buy back in on Aaron Ola too. Like, I was so hard on him down the stretch, too.

It was just, I know. I had him on a few teams, and it was frustrating. So I, you know, I empathize with everyone who had Arnoa on their teams. I was hoping we'd get him at more of a discount, but I think this is probably where he's going to settle in in terms of ADP as well. Cage match number two. Scott, you have Charlie Morton 15th in your rankings. And you mentioned last podcast, you want to move them up. You're like, maybe I want to get him inside my top 12. You know, I love Charlie Morton.

Nick has him down at a, down at 28th. So, oh, wow. Hold on, hold on. 28th. I didn't know if he was retiring or not at that point. I believe this extension had it been signed or was like in question at that moment. Okay. So keep that in mind a little bit.

Just just a little bit. But yeah, but I would not have him at 15. So it's fine. All right. So let's talk this out, Nick. Like if you're, if you're factoring in the, that he's coming back,

are you moving him up the rankings a little bit? Or I mean, look, I think the element about Charlie Morgan that we, I think we're getting spoiled about is that we've seen Charlie Morin pitch a lot more than we have in the past. Like 185 innings from him in 194 in 2019. He was hurt in 2020.

Before that 2019, it was just Charlie Martin always gets hurt. He just does be ready for it. It's what he does. It's his entire career. Fine, 194. Then got hurt again in 2020. And then 186 innings. That's really good.

I'm not debating the ability of Charlie Morton 334 ERA. 104 whip in a 29% strike. at Ray that curveball is amazing. He actually didn't even have his cutter that often that he normally uses to steal strikes and it wasn't that great this year is really just fastball curveball and he cruised with it. I think it's just too much of a risk where I don't think the ceiling is really 200 innings. He hasn't done that ever in his career. 180, I think it all worked out 33 starts to get 186 innings this past year.

This is without even mentioning the whole injury of during the World Series that I don't know if that takes into account 15th or not, Scott. He says it'll be fine opening day, but I do understand that there's some remnants of that injury that lasts longer than like five, six months. But it just seems too risky again for me. And that's why I haven't down to 20th. We have a lot of guys who are so exciting.

All right. I kind of feel like you made the case for why Charlie Morton shouldn't be top five. But like if it's workload, like who outside of this? doesn't have major workload concerns. Jack Flaherty, I mean, obviously he does. Clayton Kershaw, Lance Lynn got some workload concerns introduced out of nowhere last year.

I don't know, Jose Burrios doesn't, but I feel like that's a different level of pitcher, one whose stats aren't going to be as useful for you as Charlie Mortons are. So, no, I'm, I acknowledge there's some risk there. There's age, obviously, there's injury history, but like a pitcher who goes beyond 180 innings two of the last three years. I mean, I feel like you can't get many more workload assurances than that in today's game.

So, okay, about workload. I'm looking at this now of like where I have guys. So like you're saying 15. So Shane Bieber's ahead. Chris Sale's ahead, I assume. No, no. I have Chris Sale 17. I mean, first full year back from Tommy John surgery.

You've got to figure there's your workload concerns there. Well, he did do enough, I think, this year generally, that makes him comfortable for next year. And the Red Sox, they, what are they going to do? They need Chris Sale to pitch pretty much every five days. It was a lot of, like, sub-sixth inning starts from Chris Sale, which is one thing you don't get very often from Charlie Martin. Sure. Yeah, I've been convinced, even like talking about this right now,

I could probably push Charlie Martin closer to 20. But I don't think I can put him over, say, Aaronola. I don't think I can put him over Freddie Pallel. I don't have him over Nola. Say Lucas G. Alito, I don't think I can put him over that. Jack Flaherty, don't think I can do that. There's good debate about him and Joe Musgrove. And they both bring very similar ability, I think, there.

I can definitely see my hype around the young guys like Shane McClainan, Alec Manoa being too high, even though they both went about 130. And I would say the workloads should be somewhat similar. Because, again, Charlie Mourin is not going to be a 200-ending guy. So that's how the And neither is Shane McLean or Alckman Neither is the other day, exactly But that's what I'm saying though

Is that though that's not the consideration I don't think the workload is any difference It's just about what the ability will be I don't really expect a 105 whip And a 3-3 ERA again from Charlie Morden Really? Well I think because it's really a curveball And that's the story

With Charlie Morn It worked well this year and that's actually We kind of saw April I don't know how many questions you guys got About what we do with Charlie Morden in April But I got so many Oh man and just like guys like hold on to Charlie Moore and it really worked out But this was this felt more like a peak than a plateau to me for for Charlie

morning this entire season surviving was just those two pitches I mean you you look at 2019 and Maybe I'm weighing 2019 too much but at some point you you you look at the last three years and Charlie Morton is one type of pitcher for the vast majority of the last three years, you know He's a very good picture I call him the quiet ace this year Low 3 ZRA You know I more than 11 K per Or more than 10 K per 9

So I want to see if the slider The slider was really good in 2019 The Cutter Whatever you want to call that I took a step back this year Yeah Maybe I am underrating him I don't think I can push him to 2015 though

Or sorry 2015 2015-on my ranks It just seems a little too aggressive While I do think we haven't seen the best Of some other guys that I currently have ahead of Charlie Martin right now and I think we just saw the best of Charlie Morton. I think that's fair. And let's take a quick break.

With that, we are going to be back in just a few moments and when we return we'll try to get through a bunch more starting pitchers here. We'll do that next on fantasy baseball today. Well, let's try to do that. 16 through 20 in Scott's rankings. We have Lance Lynn, Chris Sale, Jack Flaherty, Clayton Kirschaw, and Frankie Montas.

What did we think of Chris Sale's return? And only nine starts, 3.16 ERA, 1.34 whip. It was really because of the hits, 9.49 hits per nine, 3.58 Babbip. Those would both represent career highs for Chris Sale this past season. Scott, we'll start with you. What did you see from Chris Sail on his return? I saw that he's more or less Chris Sail. the velocity wasn't quite there

but he's obviously been a really high-end pitcher at that same velocity going back in his career I think around 2017 or something his fastball averaged about the same and the strikeouts were a little down that year but we still thought of him as like a top five pitcher in fantasy

so he definitely looked he looked more stable than what we were seeing from him before he had the surgery which you know makes sense he's going to be 33 next year. I was a little underwhelmed by, as I mentioned earlier,

you know, him generally being just like a five-inning pitcher, which, you know, coming back from Tommy John's surgery, maybe you give him the benefit of the doubt there, but at his age, you know, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't think he's quite prime Chris Sale. If I did, I'd put him in my top 10. I think he's still really good. You know, I don't see a ton of risk here, but there's obviously a little bit of risk. Yeah, again, it was only nine starts.

He had a 12.8% swinging strike rate, a 21.9% K-minus walk percentage. And those are still very good relative to the position, but they are just, they're down compared to where Chris Sale was in the past. And if that makes him a top 15 starting picture, that's still really good. He's just probably not the top three guy

that we're used to seeing in the past. There are steamer projections out. It's the only projection system that's currently live on fan graphs, and they have Chris Sale for a 3.57 ERA, 1.14 whip, 210 strikeouts, over 171 innings pitched. That's really good. That's their SP10.

I don't know that he's going to get there, but pretty lofty projections there so far. Nick, you're going to get Jack Flaherty. He just turned 26 years old. He was limited to 17 games last year, 15 starts, and because of this oblique injury, right? He missed like half the season because of that. Career is kind of all over the place, Nick.

Like 3.34 ERA as a rookie, had that awesome 2019, which was supported by like this ridiculous second half that he had. He had a 4.91 ERA in the shortened season last year. 3.22 ERA this past season, but the underlying numbers don't look very good. What do we do with Jack Flaherty? We hope that his change up is better than Chris Hales last year

because that was a terrible pitch last year and hopefully Chris Lill gets it back. I'm sorry. Okay. So with Jack Flaherty, this first 11 starts this year. I think I saw some comments about, I don't know where it was Twitter, redder or something, about how Jack Flaherty was clearly just a fluke in 2019. What he was this year was not good whatsoever.

And I'm thinking, what are you talking about? 2021, his first 11 starts were a 29 ERA with a 103 whip and a 26% K rate. That's what you wanted. You had the guy and then he got hurt. I think Jack Flaherty is great. I was actually one of the doubters after 2019 because that was a man in rhythm. I mean, it was absurd what he did. And something that I've been trying as best as I can to rationalize or quantify is when a guy does well and he deserved to do well, how much of that is actually going to carry over the next season.

Right? Just because a guy does well and deserve to do well today doesn't mean he's going to do that tomorrow. And that's the hardest thing that we do is we try to look at all these numbers and say like, well, this means that he's going to do it. Jack Flaherty at that time in 2019 was someone clearly just in the zone and we didn't know if he was able to carry it over, right? I think the start of 2021 was this showcase like, yeah, I'm this guy now.

Like, why are you not treating me like that? And I just think everything else is just injury, forget about it. But yeah, he's great. I'm a fan. I'm in. Speaking of being in the zone, Logan Webb was quite in the zone in the second half of the season. Let's move on to 21 through 25.

Max Freed at 21. Jose Barrios, 22. Logan Webb at 23, Freddie Peralta at 24, and then Joe Musgrove rounds out the top 25 starting pitchers for 2022. Logan Webb, his final 14 starts. He had a quality start in 12 of those. 2.68 ERA 101 whip, 61% ground ball rate with a 13% swinging strike rate.

He made two starts in the postseason against the Dodgers. 7 and 2 3rd shut out with 10 strikeouts, seven innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts. The only thing that we don't have, Scott, is track record with Logan Webb, but outside of that, he did every single thing that you want to see from a young starting pitcher this past year. Yeah, he did. I don't feel, I don't have a lot of hesitation here with Logan Webb.

I kind of liked him heading into last year. I know that's, or heading into this past season, I know that's easy to say in hindsight. But I actually did because I feel like you saw that he could be this elite ground ball pitcher, and you saw that for an elite ground ball pitcher, he had pretty good bat missing ability, better than they usually do. And if you can bring those two together and you're not walking a batter every other inning,

you're going to have a lot of success. So then there was last spring, this new hype around his change-up. And while it wasn't a pitch that we saw pay big dividends early, it did have an impact as the season went on. had some starts where it seemed like the change-up was maybe even his best pitch. I don't think it is his best pitch, but it could hold its own. It could hold its own with the others, you know?

And he pitched deep into games, which is a big hurdle to clear. He's obviously in a pitcher's park with a great supporting cast. He looks like the complete package to me. I don't think he'll be an elite strikeout pitcher, but again, for having that elite groundball ability, he's a much better strikeout pitcher than that type of pitcher usually is. Nick, you and I were texting earlier today, and you said, Logan Webb is someone who's actually moved up the rankings,

moved up to around SP20 for you. So I take it as you're in. Scott, man, he killed that. That was so good. I was like, okay, make sure you talk about how we treat him before because the change up was there. Oh, you nailed that. He was actually really bad when we're talking about April.

Like, oh, man, if only Logan Webb was good. And then he got injured and came back was amazing. And then even also, yeah, Logan Webb really was a four-seam slider guy. Changeup for the entire season was a 25% CSW. However, there were some starts where, yeah, the change-up was the best pitch. And it just showed up out of nowhere. I'm like, oh, my God, this is really cool. You can do this too.

So I was, yeah, this is kind of funny because I was the guy that I still have these hesitations. I went up in Arizona saying, like, I'm out on Logan Webb. And the reason for it, I still can't quite decide on, but I think in my initial rankings, I didn't take into consideration the ceiling enough. So like the chance that, yeah, you could just repeat this. I didn't have enough of that weight in my ranks. But there is a fear. It's that Logan Webb is a slinger.

That is he's a lower arm angled guy. And what I've seen over the past, and you guys, there are always exceptions. They're always guys that are able to do that effectively. Aaronola is one. That go through a lot of bouts of command being in and out. Again, that flow, the same exactly we're just talking about with Jack Flaherty. And when you have a lower ar,

arm angle. It generally means that it's harder to get the exact timing right as you come across your body. And we've seen this from a lot of guys in the past. The famous ones like Jake Arieta that has done that. But like Andrew Heaney did that, Zach Ali has done that. Um, uh, Shamanaya. Luis Castillo, I think doesn't have his command always because he has a super low arm angle. And I do wonder a little bit that Logan Webb as I keep staring at his GIF on the right side of the screen, um, that he is just, it was something where he was in rhythm with it for so long this year and he won't have it next year. At the same time, he had one of the highest amounts of vertical drop

on his sinker of anyone else in the majors. It was so well deserved as he did it. I just can't get it out of my head that it was this wonderful flow that he was in and that he's not going to have it next year. But yeah, you got to just, this guy was so good. Fine, I'll put him like 22 or something like that. All right. It sounds maybe begrudgingly for Nick there

on Logan Webb. We do have cage match number three. I mentioned Freddie Peralta is Scott's SP 24. Nick, you have him at SP17, so you're a little bit more excited about Freddie Peralta. And look, I don't think

there's any doubting this stuff, right? The guy was amazing. 281 ERA, 0.97 whip this past season, among starting pitchers with 140 innings pitch or more. He was sixth in K-minus walk rate.

He was eighth in swinging strike rate. Again, this is Freddie Peralta. Let's do these cage matches a little bit quicker here. So let's go like 30 seconds or less. It's all my fault. No, no, no, it's fine. It's fine.

Look, we had the Welsh on recently, and we went like an hour and 20 minutes. Like, he'll tell you himself, like, the Welsh likes to talk to. So it happens. But I want to try and get through the top 40 if we can. So let's go 30 seconds starting with next time. We'll go with you this time, Nick. We'll start with Freddie Peralta. Why you haven't inside the top 20?

So I love the fact that Freddie Peralta had a 55% zone rate on his fastball. And it's such an effective pitch, 164 batting average allowed on it, that the fact that he doesn't command it precisely and he is, a little bit of a low R.M angle guy too. It doesn't matter because it's just so effective and he's able to get enough in the zone. Then he added the slider that was ridiculously good through about a quarter of the time.

33% swings. CSW on it, 20% swing strike rate. 158 batting average allowed. I don't think that's going to change. The big worry is, well, we've only seen for 144 innings, but we always knew the fasts really good. We just didn't know about the slider.

And the sliders, what do you know? Amazing. The brewers are going to need him to go more than 144 innings this year. It's going to be about 180 or so. 180 at this level 281, ERA 96 whip and a 34% K rate. I don't think it should be that different. Anyone that had him on this fantasy team will know how dominant this guy is.

And I don't think it's going to drastically change for next year. So I think it's a pretty safe play inside the top 20. All right. That was about 55 seconds. So I'll let you slide this time, Nick. Frank. All right, Scott, you're up. Yeah.

So off the cage matches so far, this is going to be the one I'm the squishiest about, I think, because I have a... I don't really know where I want to rank. Freddie Peralta is the thing. It's mostly workload concerns, and you mentioned only 144 innings. Obviously, Peralta spent a lot of time in relief before that. I think he's amazing inning for inning.

I just don't know how many innings he's going to get, presumably more than 144. And actually, I wrote in my article about my top 40 starting pitchers. For Peralta, I wrote, he could jump 10 spots of the Ups' workload this year, which would make him a top three. I really have no problem with where you rank him. It's just kind of an upside versus downside argument.

All right. Well, let's move on to 26 through 30, which is, go ahead, Nick, you got something? Got one more thing? Well, there is one point I do want to make. I think we'll all do this. If it's a question about, like, a pitcher's performance, not about their quality per inning, but just about, like, there's a difference between quality per inning or just how they'll be over the course of the entire season, I will always take the quality per inning guy.

even if it's a lower workload, because that is just more value in the bank than it is the guy that we're debating around the more questionable stuff over a longer period of time. 26 through 30 in the rankings. Luis Castillo, Shohei Otani,

Blake Snell, U. Darvish, Justin Verlander. This is a very, very polarizing group of starting pitchers here. So let's give a quick thought on each. Let's, again, like 30 seconds or less. Scott, you will start with Luis Castillo who was awful in the first two.

months and then had a 2.73 ERA over his final 22 starts. What do you think? Yeah, I just think, I just think we're a little, we're maybe viewing that improvement with, with, with, with, through rose colored glasses because yes, the ERA was much better. The ERA was great. The WIP was still pretty high. The strikeout rate was still pretty low. So if he's, I think, I think WIP, you got to expect him to hurt you in whip at this point. You know, the expectation for whips among pitchers across the league has just gotten so high that a 1.25 whip guy with that many innings is going to be bad for you. And I don't think the strikeouts are enough.

Even though the swinging strikes are great with the change-up and everything, it doesn't translate to as many strikeouts as you expect it to. So I think he's kind of just a little above average in strikeouts. And with the damage he's doing in whip, I don't think he's even a number two in fantasy at this point. Yeah, Luis Castillo finished with a 1.36 whip overall on the season. That's been 1.22 or higher three of the last four years for Luis Castillo. Nick, you get Shohei Otani, who is 27th in the rankings.

Most will use him where he's one player. They'll use him as a utility. They'll use him as a hitter, rightfully so. But there are still some sites where he's two different players. He's a hitter and he's a pitcher. He did not escape the first inning against the Yankees on June 30th. After that, his final 11 starts, 2.82 ERA 0.94 whip. What do you think about Otani the pitcher?

I think Otani the pitcher is amazing. The problem that I have with Otani is I don't think he can survive the same workload again. And we were just talking about the quality and everything. But I really would be shocked if we saw a full season of Otani. And it was maddening. Well, Joe Madden was the manager. but what I mean is actually just infuriating seeing how he would get skipped on weeks

and in some ways he was a hipster or headache-inducing starting pitcher that stifled the entire roster where you didn't know what you were supposed to do with Otani. Well, they would kind of announce it the day before. Otani's going to start tomorrow. It's like if you're in a weekly lineup league.

It drives you nuts. But I think we got spoiled from this year. Remember the beginning of the year? All the questions was, yeah, but how much is he going to pitch? How much is this or that? And we have one season of it. And a lot of times it just goes away. And like, no, no, no, that's not the case.

This is still a serious risk for him. It's funny, the pitcher, though, is just, I mean, I want him to be one here. If there's anyone that I can wish that, I want you to be the number one pitcher. I want it to be Otani. But I can't, I can't live with that. So I think personally, there are a lot of really exciting guys. I mean, I see right next to him for you is Blake Snell, who just made these massive adjustments and looks so good now.

I would rather go with that than play the game of what is Otani going to be through the year. Last year I was so in because he was like going the 60th-st starter like this is amazing. This is so great. And now if he's going inside the top 30 then I think there are better options to go for.

All right. Otani's broken my ranking convention by the way because I always multi-eligible guys I always used to rank them where they would be drafted regardless of what position it was at. So Buster Posey when he was first base eligible would be

looked like he was too high in my first base rankings, you know? But I can't do that with Otani because he's a first round hitter. So he would be my number one pitcher if I just, if I followed that same I couldn't do that. Oh, come on, Scott.

I mean, let's get aggressive with these rankings. Good job, Scott. Good job, Scott. I'm proud of you. Scott, we mentioned Blake's, well, I didn't mention him. Nick mentioned Blake Snell. And entering August, Blake Snell had a 5.44 ERA. I wouldn't be surprised if many people dropped him. And then he was maybe the next, the best starting.

He was maybe the best starting pitcher in fantasy over his next seven starts. Once we hit August, 1.85 ERA, 65 strikeouts over 43 and two-thirds innings pitched. Basically just went fastball sliders got. And it worked for Blake Snow. Yeah, it did. He was amazing. He looked like that guy who won the Cy Young in 2018 with the sub two ERA. and strikeouts were way up, walks were down.

And, you know, obviously, this is meant to be an optimistic ranking based on that. I feel like you can only go so high given the struggles he had leading up to that two months stretch, about two months, right? But, yeah, this is meant to be me saying, yeah, I'm buying into Blake's Nell again. Nick, you get you, Darvish,

29th in the rankings, and it looks like the sticky police, might have got you Darvish here. 2.16 ERA, his first two months of the season, a 5.60 ERA, the final four months of the season. I had him on my NFBC main event team, Nick, so I felt all of it. I felt the wrath of U. Darvish. What do you think? U. Darvish, to me, is someone who went through the sticky stuff, lost his command a little bit. And we'd actually go back and forth every other start, essentially. A production, not production, production, not production. Drove us insane because we're trying to figure out what to do, and

you can't do anything. imagine he'll bounce back. I mean, I think it's just that case. I think his stuff is too good. I think this is a case where he's training to do one thing and then it gets interrupted and he never really got the time or never just didn't get it back in back in rhythm again. So I'd expect that for you, Darvish next year. I have him ranked around the same spot. I haven't met 30. I was trying to figure out who we differ on. It's Shane McClannahan. We'll talk about that, I guess. He's the one that's like offsetting all of this because I pretty much have Darvish and Snell back to back as well. So, yeah, this is where I see him around 30. Yeah, we got to talk about the Rangers for his ranking, too, because that's a really fun one. Last name here, Justin Verlander, 30th in the rankings, probably I would say one of the hardest pitchers to rank this early in the offseason. He turns 39 in February, and he's coming off Tommy John surgery.

He'll be 18 months removed from Tommy John by the time we get to spring training. But the last time we saw him in a full season, he was the number one overall player in 5x5 roto back in 2019. So, oh, yeah. Yeah, well, it was 22 wins and over 300 strikeouts. Yeah. So, Scott, I feel like you're optimistic on Verlander and Nick, I feel like you're more pessimistic about him. I cheated.

I cheated, though. I did a ranking of four guys, Clevenger, Verlander, Sendergarten, and Severino as like my injured guys that I know I'm going to change because February will have all this extra information where we're actually doing drafts. So, I mean, I can understand a 30 ranking of Verlander. I think I would have other guys ahead slightly just because we know more and I like knowing more. But yeah, Ferlander could be right there. He could even be like slightly higher.

You could argue if he's sitting 96 when he does his workouts. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of straddling the fence here with this ranking, I feel like, because like if spring training comes and all the reports suggest he looks like Verlander's always looked, you know, he's probably moving up

to around 15th where Charlie Morton. nice. Yeah, there we go. All right, we got like 10 more pitchers I want to name. We're not going to talk about all of them, obviously, here. But I got a few more. Look, the ones I really want to just debate,

we'll do it, is Ranger Suarez and Shane McClanahan. But 31 through 35 for Scott. Carlos Ordone, Alec Manoa, Ranger Suarez at 33. Remember that number of 33. Pablo Lopez at 34. Chris Bassett is at 35. Okay.

Ranger Suarez, 33. Nick has him. 71. SP 71. This is not a joke. This is real life. Casey Mize ahead of him. Scott.

Oh, no. Scott, 30 seconds, the case for Ranger Suarez. Go. I mean, I don't. Basically everything I said about Logan Webb, the main points I made about Logan Webb could apply to Ranger Suarez, just not over the same number of innings.

I mean, elite ground ball rate, I think even better than Logan Webb. And yet the strikeout rate, the swinging strike rate, were beyond what you normally see from a ground ball pitcher. And even if you want to save for Ranger Swarres, well, you know, he was converting from the bullpen. We got to see him tested as a starter. His last five starts were all six innings plus.

There was even a complete game in there. He finished the year with a 136 ERA. I mean, I think he's really good. All right, Nick, did, did a three? Ranger Suarez like beat you up in high school or what happened here? Ranger Swarres, okay, I watched I watched every pitch that he threw

in one of these starts and I was like, I need to truly like grasp this. Because I mean, I think we all have the understanding of Ranger Swarres. He throws 93 with a fastball that I guess has success. I mean, 202 batting average allowed somehow gets it to 9% swing strike rate

on it, 29% CSW. In every way, it's fine. But it's, he avoids the middle of the plate well with it. He is a nibbler and he was an effective one as a starter. The other pitch is a change-up. It throws it about a quarter of the time. And it's a 21% swing strike rate.

It's a good change-up. I like the pitch. Nothing wrong with that. But normally, when it comes to a guy like Sores where it's not an elite fastball, I would not call it that. I wouldn't even call it an elite change-up either. It's a very good one, but it's not elite.

There's nothing else. It's a slider and a curveball. after that. And those are not pitches that you want to lean on. 8% thrown on that slider had a decent called strike rate at 17%. But like it's not, this isn't a massive third pitch for Ranger Suarez. He

faced such an easy schedule. Now, I hate saying that and just throwing it out there because you still have to do it. You still have to take advantage of them. But these eight starts he made at the end of the year, because I think the other ones were 4.2 innings. It wasn't him like really letting loose. It was the raise. You know what? Good.

Awesome. Then the dying backs, then the Marlins and hosting the Rockies otherwise known as Rocky Road because it's super sweet. You have the Cubs, you have the Orioles away from Camden, you have the Pirates, and then you have the Marlins. That's what he faced. Now, a 124 ERA, though,

so it's not like, you know, a lot of guys go have that schedule and they have like a two and a half a year array or three and Suarez did it. But I'm not going to draft that guy. I'm not going to draft Suarez who's clearly on what I call a Vargas rule, which is a guy that you don't actually think is that great, but he's on a great stretch,

and you keep him going. Come on. It was two pitches. The peripheral were much better than... Jason Vargas earned it back then for three months. It was an amazing run. And it's not a thing... You know, we normally get excited about guys

that have these runs later on because their stuff is that good and it's coming to fruition and it blossomed in eight starts. That wasn't what I saw from Ranger Suarez. This was a guy who would probably have like a 3-7-2-4-E-or-ray, maybe a 3-9 or something over the course of season, like a 120 whip, not close to the same strike every, probably like a 20-21%.

And for me, the reason that he's all the way down there is because I just, I really don't think he's going to be this kind of guy. And there are just all these other ones that I just want to chase instead that have, I think, I know it sounds crazy considering what he did, but I think actually have more sustainable upside with his stuff than Ranger Suarez does. Maybe 71 is too egregious and I'm not giving enough weight like I was with way Logan. But there's no way I can stick him inside of my top 50. I'm sorry. I just can't do that. 36 through 40.

We have Lance McCullors, Shane Boz, Framber Valdez, the aforementioned. Dylan Cis, down at 39. And Shane McClanahan, number 40, Scott, you know, when I saw these rankings, just absolutely broke my heart. Shane McClainahan behind Shane Boz, behind Ranger Suarez. Nick has him all the way up at SP24. How? How can you do this to us, Scott?

I thought we had a thing. I thought we had a McClanahan thing. I like Shane McClanahan. Let me just put that out there. Don't come in here with these lies. I like Shane McClain. I like all of my top 55 pitchers, all right? And he's 40.

I like that he had a 323 X-FIP, 331 FIP. Those are numbers I get excited about. You know, there's a lot to like here. He misses bats, his walk rate's not too crazy. I think the reason I push him behind some of these other guys are strangely hitable, nearly a hit per inning, 8.8 hits per nine innings,

which isn't the go-to. Obviously, there's a lot that factors into that beyond the pitcher's control. But that's pretty high because how did he have a 127 whip when he only issued 2.7 walks per night? Oh, that's why.

Look at all those hits he gave up. And that was consistent throughout the year. And the other thing is he pitches for the race. And I think that speaks for itself. Look, you bring up the, how many hits he gave up, and it's really not hard to believe. When you look at his stat cast page, he gave up a lot of hard contact.

So I guess that is something that could be worrisome for Shane McClain. I'm not sure how sticky that is year over year, you know, allowing hard contact. Yeah. But, Nick. No, that's fair. I don't know either, but like, I feel like, I feel like 30 to 41 to 40. I'm nitpicking, and that's something I weighed heavier than some of these other factors. Nick, maybe we have like workload concerns

because he pitched for the Tampa Bay Rays but it just felt like watching him like the stuff is just absolutely nasty right? Like upper 90s fastball he's got like multiple secondary pitches that he can use super high swinging strike rate it's just a matter of like if the Rays unleashed him

kind of like they did Glass now this year then I mean we could have an ace on our hands yeah we saw 123 innings this year I guess I really my whole thing is what we saw from Shane McClain in this year as far as workload goes is what the raise are going to do to Shane Boz this year. I actually, I'm throwing it out there.

I wouldn't be shocked if the race do not have Shane Boz on their opening day roster. Because knowing them, they might bring him up in, you know, late April or something along those lines like they did with Shane McClan and keep him around 130 innings. Now with Shane McClanhan, though, Shane McClan, 128 this past year, probably goes up to 160, 170 for them because he's their ace.

He was their game one starter. Tyler Glasno's out, this is their guy. And we actually saw Shane McClanahan get those six inning games. We saw it starting. And then they said, okay, great, you can do this. Let's dial it back. We have the AL East. It's here.

Let's slow you down. We want to prepare you for the playoffs and ease into that. I do believe that Shane McClain is not destined to be a five-inning guy this next season. I think we'll see a lot more of the six-inning starts, a lot more of the comfortable outings that we want to see from a guy like Shane McClain. Frank, you mentioned this stuff. It's amazing. The slider is just gorgeous, 34% CSW.

21% swing strike rate. The curveball, 43% CSW, 19% swing strike rate with a 24% called strike rate. Only through 16% of the time. I actually think he's going to up that a little bit. Changeup has shown some promise as well. But Scott, as you mentioned, biggest issue. Yeah, he's a little too hitable. It's fastball out of 311 batting average allowed.

I think this is something that is fixable. We've seen a lot of guys come up. that generally their issue is more of walks and that is their problem. But guys that are actually able to put pitches in the zone 70% strike rate on the fastball for Shane McClanahan, I think he can learn to maybe dial it back a little bit. Be a little less desperate, I guess, to earn those strikes and make batterers lean more on those sliders and curve balls that will allow his fastball to improve. I mean, the guy threw 101 this year at times.

Like, he threw it past Marcana. It was amazing. It was great. He throws 95 plus 96.5 average on the fastball for Shane McLeanahan. The stuff is so legit. I don't believe that what we just saw it was it for McLeanhan after one year. I'm just so excited about it. I would be surprised if we saw anything close to a one three whip next year.

And considering the endings, it's just, I am very shocked. I would like to hear why it's Shane Boz instead of McClain. Scott, I have a prediction, by the way. I don't know how bold this is, but I think Shane McClainan is inside your top 30 by the time like we're we're actually drafting. Oh, that's, yeah. I mean, if we get into draft season and I'm just never able to draft any Shane McClanahan,

I'll move him up just for that reason. You know, I'm not looking to win any awards with my rankings. I'm just looking to win leagues. So I'll definitely massage my rankings based on what everybody else is doing. I would honestly be the nun from Game of Thrones and just get both Bieber, get Boz, and McClanahan and just ring the bell

and say, Shane, Shane, Shane, Shane all the time. That's what I would do. I recently rewatched the last episode of Game of Thrones again and it was... It's bad. Yeah, it made me sad. That's where we're at. Prospects to know in redraft.

Just names I wanted to bring up, we're not going to talk about these. Obviously, the Shane's from the raise, Baza McLanhan. I don't even know if McClanhan technically is still a prospect. But Grayson Rodriguez with the Orioles, George Kirby, Emerson Hancock and Matt Brash with the Mariners. We have Max Meyer and Sixtho Sanchez going to return from that. shoulder injury with the Marlins, Nick Ladolo and Hunter Green with the Reds, and Ronesy Contreras, who we saw make, I believe it was just one start down the stretch.

It was like three or four endings, but he actually looked pretty good in said start. We're going to wrap it up there. Nick Pollack, the man behind all of Pitcher List. PitcherList.com. Make sure you follow them on Twitter at Pitcher List. Nick, what do you got going on right now? Oh, man. Hanging out with you guys. No, I mean, we're preparing for appeal seven. We have a lot of things you want to, oh man, I cannot wait to tell you more about it. Frank, you know a little bit about it.

I like seeing your eyes widen when I showed you what it was. We're excited for that. We also have PitchCon come in the end of January, so be on the outlook out for that. Four days' virtual conference with hopefully you guys there too as we talk about stuff. So stay tuned for that. But yeah, we have a podcast every single day on our Pitchless Podcast Network. So subscribe to that and enjoy baseball while we can. Yes, let's do it for Scott.

Frank, thank you all for listening and watching. Fantasy Baseball today. We'll be back again on Tuesday. Bye-bye.