Fantasy Baseball Today - Undervalued & Overvalued Players! ATC Projections w/ Ariel Cohen! (1/29 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Welcome to the show, Ariel Cohen! What are ATC projections and where can we find them (3:40)? ... What are some of the new ATC features (9:10)? ... How should we use projections in Fantasy (15:23)? ... What do projections struggle with (21:10)? ... Let's get into some undervalued players based on ATC projections (25:15). ... Anthony Santander is undervalued compared to ADP (30:12). ... Who are some undervalued pitchers (33:44)? ... Any interest in these five mid-round hitters (37:57)? ... News (44:28): Kirby Yates has finally signed with the Dodgers. ... Which players are overvalued based on ATC projections (56:13)? ... Are Oneil Cruz and CJ Abrams overvalued (58:42)? ... Is Corbin Burnes overvalued after signing with the Dbacks (1:02:05)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: https://sptfy.com/QiKv Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. What's up and welcome into Fantasy Baseball today on Wednesday, January 29th. I am Frank Sanfield, joined by Scott White, Chris Powers, and a very special guest. Today on the show, we're talking undervalued and overvalued players based on ATC projections.

Plus, the Dodgers have officially signed Kirby Yates. We'll break that down later on in the podcast. Here to help us, you know, if we're talking projections, we can only have one. The creator of ATC projections, host of the Beat the Shift podcast, Dominator of the Elderly in Pickleball. I actually just learned that. Live from City Field, it's Ariel Cohen. What's going on, Ariel? Thanks so much for joining us.

Oh, thanks for having me. How you doing, Frank, Chris, and Scott. Pleasure to be talking with you guys. Yeah, we're happy to have you, of course. Talk a little projections. We'll find out why Scott hates projections for, I don't know, like the 20th year in a row. So we'll get his thoughts on that. But yeah, happy to have you on. I feel like maybe I should give you the chance to defend yourself on the pickleball thing before we get started. Oh, well, Ian Kahn once teased that I destroyed a couple of 70-year-old women. It's a true story. The very first time I ever played, I signed up for, I don't know, a beginner class. There was three other women in me. And I think I won every game like 11 to 1 just dominated in. Yeah, I can probably jump a level or two here.

Gloria says hi, by the way, French. Yeah. I had to bring it up because I was actually just on the Beat to Shift podcast. And you brought that story up yourself. So I felt like it was fair game to bring up. But we are here to talk projections. Let's talk a little bit of just general projection talk. before we get into some undervalued and overvalued players.

Ariel will start right here up at the top. What are ATC projections and where can people find them? Well, ATC projections are the projections that I do, which is an aggregation projection. It takes other projections that are available, mostly from fan graphs, and it aggregates, it takes a weight of each of them and it smushes them together to give the best of the brightest. It has a different model for a pitcher strike.

and a different model for homers and a different model for RBIs in terms of what weights and what projections they use because it knows by studying past history, what's better. What ATC is good at doing is getting a good betting true average. You know, when you have a lot of projection uncertainty because different projections have a different way of doing things and some get things right and some are more certain of what's going on

and some aren't, ATC sort of takes a wisdom of the crowd's approach and it gives you a great betting average. And God bless, ATC has been very successful. It's been the most accurate projection system for each of the last five years and counting. Yeah, and you could find those over on Fangraphs.com. If you have a CBS Sportsline subscription, you can find Ariel's projections there.

Is there anywhere else that I'm missing, Ariel, with the ATC? Yeah, also on Rhodo Boiler, on Rhodo Wire as well. And can't announce yet, but going to be on a couple of other places as well. You'll find out soon. All right. So make sure to follow Ariel on X at ATCNY to learn more about that. Scott, you are here and it is time for your annual breakdown.

Why do you hate projections? Tell us all. Well, let me start by saying this isn't meant as a comment on ATC projections specifically. I think. You just happen to be in the firing line, Ariel. Yeah, because this is the show where we really talk about projections. And, you know, the way taking a bunch of different. projection systems and kind of finding the mean more or less between them, I think is probably

the best way to do that. When I speak to my I don't believe in projections stance, it's more like, you know, people ask, what do I project for a certain player or where are my projections? And I don't look at players that way. I don't like reducing them to a single outcome, which you know, you could explain it. You could try to explain it away as much as you want, say, oh, yeah, this is just kind of the mean of all the different outcomes that could exist for this player. But that's not how people are going to interpret it. They're going to say, why do you only project Lawrence Butler for this batting average

when you're so high on him as a breakout candidate? And it's like, well, I'm accounting for downside there. But it also doesn't like totally express the full extended. of the upside that I'm more likely to buy into on draft day. So for me, there's a range of outcomes for every single player. Some of those ranges are wider. Some of those ranges are narrower. And all of that kind of just gets built into my rankings.

And the players with the wider ranges of outcome, where exactly I take them kind of depends on if I'm looking to gamble more or if I'm looking to play it's safe at that point in the draft. at that in that particular scoring format. It just, I don't like the idea of saying this is what I think the player stat line is going to be because I know it could vary. I know there's a lot of, there's a wide range of outcomes, like I said. And one thing I want to add is you should think of like distribution curves for players. And I would say for most players, it probably looks something like a bell curve where there's a name.

end on the low end and a narrow end on the high end. And these are the relatively unlikely outcomes. And then it gets wider as you get towards the most likely outcome for most players. But I think when you think of a guy like Lawrence Butler, it might be better to think of it like so that you know how there's one humped camels and then there's two humped camels. Am I making this up? Or is that a real?

There are camels with two humps. Yeah, let's go with it. Lawrence Butler is like a two humped camel where there's probably a fairly wide. range of outcomes overall. And there's probably like a bunch of them that are on the lower end where like the contact rate becomes an issue. He strikes out too much. He doesn't,

he hits 2.30. And then there's probably a fairly large amount of those outcomes on the high end where he hits 285 with 28 homers and 28 steals and is absolutely a superstar. And that is what makes him an especially hard player to talk about in terms of projections because it's just you're only going to get the one number, but that one number doesn't quite encompass. And so that that's where, you know, I think that what we're doing, you know, the discussions that we have every day about what can go wrong for a player, what can go right is what we can bring to the table in addition to projections. So, and by the way, that two hum thing is known in the statistic world as a bimodal distribution. That's what I was going to say that.

I just didn't want people to feel, you know, overwhelmed by the extent of my brilliance. Yeah. Now, I want to add that one really good thing about ATC in because it views other projections. And, you know, the different projections might have the different target, the different aspects of them. A guy like Lawrence Butler has a much wider range of outcomes up and down. ATC captures that. And I have a volatility statistic that tells you just how much the projections don't agree and how wide the outcomes. Jacob de Grum has an unbelievably wide outcome range.

So ATC's volatility statistic is pretty high for him. Somebody like George Kirby, who pretty much is going to be very solid with the whip. And we know it's a very tight range of outcomes with there, maybe the ERA a little bit of a tick. but Kirby is just absolutely much more predictable in terms of the makeup. He's got a very low volatility. So ATC has a couple of different statistics, volatility metrics, that can really paint the picture and give you a better flavor. So you're not just looking at one point and saying, oh, he's a $15 player.

Well, he's a $15 player. A, projections don't agree. B, there's upside and, you know, and tells you about the profile of the guy. Yeah. And I'm happy you brought that up because that's exactly where I was going. next, Ariel. And if you're watching on YouTube, I'll try to explain this for the listening audience. If you go to Fangraphs.com and you hover over the projections tab, you click on ATC, then you drop down, there's a little menu at the top, you click on Fantasy. This will show you those metrics that

Ariel was just talking about. So on the right side, you see volatility, skew, and DIM. That's for Dimension, right, Ariel? Yes, dimension. And that's a brand new statistic for this year, and I think you guys are going to love it. Yeah, so the volatility. metric, the higher that is, the wider the range of outcomes. If you can, just explain what these other two metrics are here, just in case people want to dive in and look at some of these projections themselves. Yeah, so volatility is what I explained before, is how spread out the projections are. Somebody with a very low range of outcomes, I think, well, on the low side, a guy like Muki Betts is a very, very low range of outcomes. We were pretty much sure projections

all agree. Ryan McMahon is a guy that everybody knows. It's a 20 homer guy, 20 homer guy. Boring, but there he is. On the high volatility side, you get guys like Fernando Tatis, Michael Harris, Brian Delacruz, you're showing up there, Spencer Torkelson. Like, we don't know what he's going to be. The skew statistic, that is actually more important and it has a correlation with better expectation. Skew shows you where there's upside. Because what happens is when you have an aggregation of projection, sometimes there's a projection that's very low compared to everything else. And if you're doing the wisdom of the crowd's approach, well, that low one is adding to the average, but you're almost better off throwing that one away. And if you throw that one away, the actual average should jump up.

That would be a positive skew. So for a guy like Ryan Moutcastle, Jackson Merrill is another one, has positive skew there. You know, there's one projection that's really low. And if you throw them off, the ATC average should go up. So that gives you an indication of projections upside. And on the flip side, the negative skew, if you have a negative one, watch out because it's being propped up by a really good projection. You're highlighting Christian Yelich.

Yelich is probably worse than the ATC projections give it because there's some ridiculously high projection. Now, dimension is a new statistic showing the, pretty much what dimensional player? Think of a guy like Julio Rodriguez, who's a 4.8 dimensional guy because he's almost a five category type player, whereas an Ellie Delacruz, who only gives you like two and a half statistic, he's a 2.5 dimensional player. So you can actually take a look really quickly by looking at the dimension. Are you getting all the statistics or aren't you? You know, if you're taking guys in the first round, you might want to take higher dimensional players so you can fill out your roster

more easily as you go through the draft. All right. Very well said. I did want to touch on that because I knew you added some new features to the ATC projections this upcoming season, and I think they could be pretty helpful for fantasy purposes. Let's take our first break when we return a few more just general projections questions, and then we'll get into some undervalued players based on projections versus ADP. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. We are here with Ariel Cohen to break down ATC projections and just talk about projections in general.

And Chris, I actually wanted to throw this question your way, because I feel like we've got some version of this question every offseason from listeners. What are the best ways to use projections for fantasy, right? Whether it's an auction calculator or just kind of, you know, finding a, making a spreadsheet of projections yourself, how do you like to use them for fantasy?

If at all. I would say one thing is they can be useful in the context of your draft, comparing your team to other teams, seeing not necessarily like, I need 1,100 RBI or whatever the number is, because projections aren't necessarily going to match that. There are always going to be outliers. You're going to get replacements for games missed, stuff like that. But just making sure as the draft is going on,

that you're not falling way too far behind your competitors, if you can keep track of everyone at the same time. I think there's some value to that. And I think there's just value in identify as like a sanity check. I think is the way I look at it. Like, we've talked so much about Lawrence Butler, but I'll go back to him. You know, like I have talked a lot this offseason about how I think Lawrence Butler is probably being overvalued in drafts.

He's up to like the number 18 outfielder in ADP, I think, top 65 pick. That feels a little too rich for me. And then, but that is one where you look at the projections and it's like, well, hold on. He is, I think the number 21 outfielder. in the ATC projections, 22. So it's like, well, that's not too far off. Obviously, I think when you're talking about a player with what I, what I think is the downside of Lawrence Butler,

he's right next to like Luis Robert. I think that's a similar case where you do probably have to bake in some of that risk in addition to the projections face value number. But it can be helpful to like, actually, it's fascinating. 2021 and 22, James Wood, Louise Robert, Lawrence Butler. I think that's a fascinating grouping of players in the outfield rankings where I think you're looking at similar upside downside cases for all three of them. Kind of feels like Luis Roberts, maybe the only one whose downside is being baked in at his current price.

He's going 20 picks later. Then Lawrence Butler, 35 picks later than James Wood. So that's also one where it's like, well, if the median outcome for those three players is relatively similar, I'm okay taking, I'm okay waiting on Luis Robert. Further taking us down the Lawrence Butler aside here. We are the Lawrence Butler podcast. Do we have enough data from Yahoo fan tracks,

other sites that we can take their ADP seriously? Because it is worth noting Lawrence Butler is going a whole round earlier on NFBC than he is on those sites. and his composite ADP or average ADP, average average draft position, has him 24th in the outfield. Yeah, that's on Fantasy Pro. So I'm not exactly sure.

I think that will continue to update the more drafts are done on those websites and obviously the more mock drafts we do on CBS and real drafts that get done. But yeah, on Fantasy Pros, Lawrence Butler is the 24th outfielder off the board within the ADP of 80 so far. across all of the websites.

And we brought that up earlier in the offseason. That, okay, we really only had NFBC data to work with earlier in the offseason, and things are going to change as other outlets become made available and more drafts get done. And maybe it's more likely that you can get Lawrence Butler in your home league at, I pick 80 or 90, or like 100 compared to NFC. That's kind of what I was bringing up is the same way I don't like to treat projections as gospel. I don't like to treat one-site's ADP as gospel. Yeah, let me just add something about that.

In the NFBC, there's the concept of an overall competition. And so a lot of people who, especially ones who, there are people who play like, I don't know, 50 of these drafts. Yeah. Hit on one to get the overall. So the high upside guys, even if they have a downside, tend to go around or too higher in these overall contests. Because if you hit it, you get it. Another good example is like Jacob de Grum. DeGrom is way higher, yeah.

way higher because if you hit the de Grum ticket, it propels you to the lead. But if you go in a regular Yahoo draft, people and it's just a home league, yeah, I'm not touching that risk of the grum. So I think the kind of upside in the format really, you know,

mean something. And I think that's especially acute when you're talking about those overall leagues where if you finish sixth in your league, you finish 12th in your league. There's not really any difference. And if you finish third in your league, okay, you might get your money.

money back. We talked about this with Vlad Zedler a couple weeks ago, if you're not familiar with these leagues, but what you really need is not just to win your league, but to win your league by a huge amount. Where in a head-to-head league, where a significant portion of our audience plays, you need to get to the playoffs. You know, you might only need to be one of the top 60. You want to win the whole thing, but once you get to the playoffs, we know anything can happen there. So the incentive to be far, far and away better than everybody else in your league is a lot lower the way most people play fantasy baseball. Right.

And I did just want to quickly mention with Jacob de Grom. The ADP on NFBC is 41 across the other sites, 47 on Yahoo, 58 on CBS, 55 on RT Sports, 63 on fan tracks. So Jacob de Grom going much later than currently on the NFBC. Still not late enough. Still too high at every site for me. I agree. Ariel, just a few more questions here before we get into the players.

what are some things that you find projections struggle with the most? Is it prospects who have not debuted yet? Is it young players with a limited track record? Is it outlier players like an L.E. Dela Cruz? And have they accounted at all for the

ballpark changes this upcoming season? We know the Rays are playing in George Steinbrenner Field. The athletics are playing in Sutter Health Park, so two minor league ballparks, and then the Orioles are pulling in left fields in Camden Yards. Your thoughts? Yeah. M.E.F. to all those. things that, you know, projections are going to struggle with anything new or anything that's

not well documented. I mean, most of the projection stuff goes off on experience, right? If you take a standard Marcells, it's just, hey, what has he done the past three years? Well, if it's a new player, minor league player, it's going to struggle. But anytime something has changed, if a pitcher has exhibited a pitch mix change, the projections are not going to incorporate that. What if a player is playing with a hidden injury all year, playing through injury. His numbers might be artificially low and, you know, the team decided, well, he can play. He's probably better than whatever replacement. Sure. But when you're doing your projections, it's going to show that he's actually worse than his true talent. He might be better than that,

right? Stuff like that. Playing time adjustments. Projections might just go off a standard thing, but if you have an inkling that a player is going to have more playing time than you think that is going to be huge, right? The playing time is a big thing. You're a big thing. factor. As far as parks, theoretically, projections do account for that properly, but that's only for well-documented things.

If the athletics are moving to Sacramento and we don't really have much history, tougher. I know in the Steinbrenner field for the Rays, it's sort of new. It's new for major leagues, but there is some data. So yes and no. I'm actually going to have Derek Hardy, who does a lot

of these playing the park adjustments on my show next week. So I'm going to learn myself more about what they do. As to whether they're incorporated ATC, it really depends on the extent of the underlying projections. My guess is some properly account for it and some not. So for me personally, looking at ATC, I'm probably going to actually bump up any of the Sacramento players

just a little bit for the park factors. And the same thing goes with the Tampa Bay race. I feel like Derek's been a little quiet this off season. And I need him to chime in because he does like the atmospheric modeling. and that's what I'm interesting because these two parks in particular, like you can look at the dimensions and overlay a hit chart, but like Tampa Bay is going from an indoor stadium that had some weird stuff going on with how it affected pitch movement to playing outside in humidity.

Sacramento is a really a much warmer environment than Oakland. So it's those are the things that I want to, because I'm not smart enough. Like, I can assume that the ball travels further when it's hot. I want someone smart to tell me that that's true, though. Yeah, and who knows? Maybe Derek Cardi's just, he's in the lab all offseason trying to figure those things out. So, yes, I would highly recommend everyone go and listen to that podcast with Ariel Cohen and Derek Hardy next week.

Last thing that I'll mention, just in terms of using projections for your own fantasy baseball leagues, if you download these projections and you have a way to input them into a drive, software, whatever it might be, if you have a feeling yourself or, you know, you've done the research to figure out how these ballparks are going to effect, if you think, okay, lefties, I'm going to knock up two to three more home runs on Josh Lowe and Brandon Lowe, whatever it might be, you can submit, you can change the projection and then it will spit out how much that player is worth, so on and so forth. So that's just one other way. You can kind of download projections and then tinker with them yourself to see, okay, how does that change their overall ranking,

overall auction value heading into the season. All right, it's time to talk about some undervalued players based on ATC projections versus NFBC ADP in the month of January. And I'm going to start with three players that we have talked a lot about already this offseason. The three util only bats, not named Shohei Otani, who are going to be drafted in every league,

Marcel Ozuna, Kyle Schwaber, and Brent Rooker. So Ozuna is currently the 38th ranked player by ATC. The ADP is 66. Kyle Schwaber, 44th ranked player, ADP 71. Brent Rooker, 46th ranked player, ADP 69. Ariel, people have heard our thoughts on those players. What do you think about the projections on these three? Ozuna, Schwerber, Rooker, are you buying in?

Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I think that it's not just an ATC phenomenon. I think whatever projection system you use, they're going to look like great bargains. And that's the cost of the fact that they're utility only. It's more about drafting. If you're going to draft, it makes it tougher to fill out the rest of your team or to acquire bargains later if you, quote, block your utility spot. If you have OZuna, it means you can't afford yourself of another player, maybe an outfielder later who would be your sixth outfielder,

but he's worth it. Well, you can't buy him because you bought Ozuna. It's just tough to move around and gives your roster less flexibility. so there's a little bit of a penalty for it. But if you think on a theoretical basis, and if truly OZuna is your guy all year and you have no problem with traditional flexibility, if you buy the Willie Castro of the world

and get your flexibility otherwise, yeah, then you're getting stats at quite a discount. And all these guys really do the trick. I think that I'm more on Rooker than I am, Rooker and OZuna, let's say, and Schwarber. Rooker is a little bit younger. I think Rooker's got more power upside and he's going into that Sacramento environment. So I'm higher on him. But either of these guys are a nice bargain that you would consider whether I would actually buy them really depends on if I think I can

get a bigger bargain later on with the use of my utility spot. So if I think I can just get a round discount by getting one of these util guys, it's a no for me. If I'm getting them two, three rounds, I'm buying them all day. I totally hear you on blocking your utility spot. Obviously, if you take Otani earlier on in the draft, you cannot be in the market for any of these players. Unless you play on Yahoo, I think they use two utility spots. But if you're someone who just subscribes to get your stats, like let me just bank as many

stats as I possibly can, you know, if Ozuna, Schwerber or Rooker had first base or outfield eligibility, they might be going, I don't know, two or three rounds higher than where they are right now. So I do like getting them at their current cost, assuming it stays that way across other websites as well. Let's move over to. Go ahead. For the discount, I think everybody should be just bank your stats with them,

provided you didn't take Shohei Otani at the start of the draft, obviously. Could I ask Ariel a quick question about your process here? Do you have your projections, obviously, and the players come out in a certain order based on the ATC projection. Do you have rankings separate from those? Do you kind of, do you have a list where you apply some of these adjustments that we're talking about here? Or do you just kind of, you have the projections and then you have these explanations that go along with it? No, for what I publish and for what I do, I have the projections.

And if you're using an election calculator software, you can do them. You know, the rankings are based off the projections. Now, personally, what I do is I don't take projections as gospel. I use projections more so to bubble up to the top players that could potentially be bargains. I don't want to go through and evaluate myself all the players. You know, every, you know, the thousand players. Oh, do I like this guy? I do I.

I zoom in on guys for my draft that I think are bargains. And I use ATC to come up with, oh, here's a list of players. Like on my podcast, I take all the corner in. Frank was on last night. We take all the corner infielders that ATC sees as a bargain. but we don't just say, yeah, great, we'll go with them. Those are the players we take a deep dive and say, okay, is that right? Does it look?

What did ATC do right? What did ATC do wrong? Is there another explanation on top of it? And then we make a judgment whether he goes. So my own personal rankings, I might adjust them off of what ATC does, but I'll start with the projections that show that there could be bargains. If the ATC is showing this guy is a ridiculous overpay, I'm not even going to buy. I'm not even going to bother to look and see if he has merit.

And just to give people a sneak peek, some of those undervalued corner infielder's according to ATC were Vinnie Pasquantino, Alec Bohm, Yandy Diaz, Luis Renhifo, Nolan, Aeronado, Andrew Vaughn, Michael Bush, and Ryan McMahon. So if you want to hear our thoughts, obviously, go check out that podcast. Anthony Santander, ATC, has his,

the 58th overall player. The ADP is 96. And the projection, it seems pretty fair. 242 batting average, 33 home runs, 93 RBI, 786 OPS as the 14th, 16th outfielder in projections. The ADP currently has him as the 24th outfielder. He just signed with the Blue Jays earlier this month. Chris, I kind of poo-pooed Anthony Santander. I think you guys were a little bit more fair to him, but, you know, that projection seems all right.

What do you think about the Santander projection here from ATC? Yeah, I think it's perfectly reasonable. I think he's obviously undervalued in a way that we talk about happens a lot in these NFBC drafts, especially that happened in November and December where guys who are unsigned tend to get pushed down. I think unfairly, like the lineup and the park and everything, that stuff matters. It mostly matters on the margins, right? Like there is a difference between a 90 RBI version of Anthony Santander and a 90. version RBI version of Anthony Santander.

But that's probably more or less the extremes of where he could land. And so I do think unsigned players tend to be unfairly discounted in a lot of these early drafts. So I think that's what's happening with Santander. I think we'll see him get pushed inside the top 90 and ADP for sure, probably closer to 85. And I think he's still a decent value there. The Blue Jays thing, Toronto's become.

I don't know if it's a bad place to hit. It feels like a weird place to hit. I don't like they made some changes. It was sort of like Cleveland where they made some changes to the configuration of the park. And it kind of messed with the way the park plays in some ways that I think have been tough to figure out. But I think the bigger concern is more when players switch leagues. That's where I think you see those first year free agency struggles or transfer. struggles because they just, they haven't seen that player pool. They haven't seen the pitchers

that pitch in the other league, at least as often. I think that matters more than, you know, the unquantifiable he's pressing because he has a big contract. I don't know if, like, there are certainly examples of that. There are also, you know, guys having the best seasons of their career after they sign. So I don't put too much stock in that. Ariel, is Anthony Santander someone you could see yourself drafting this offseason? Yeah, I mean, he just hit 44 homers. I mean, with regression, let's take off 25% of his homers and you get 33, which is still giving him a great projection.

And ATC says it's a bargain. You know, last year his BABIP was 225, and he still had that $23 year with a $2.25 Babbap. So his batting average is probably going to be a lot more reasonable. I'm projecting 242. I think it's going to be even higher. You know, Toronto, different type of field gets more hits, go by with the right.

So yeah, this is a lock for, and a lot of his value comes from run production, right? He had 100 RBI's last year, over 100, he had over 90 runs. If he's hitting in the middle of the lineup, he's going to get those high run production. They're just a very big base

here. I mean, just a solid, solid player. There's no reason to shy away when it comes his turn for you to pick them. All right, let's take a look at some pitchers. Three early to mid-round starting pitchers that ATC has is undervalued. early on here. Framber Valdez, they have as the SP9, ADP is SP16, Sunny Gray as the SP14, with the ADP of SP 32, and Max Fried as SP16, ADP 27. Scott, can you, do you agree with any of these?

Are you more in line with ATC or ADP? What do you think? I think I'm more in line with ATC, certainly with Sunny Gray, I've noticed him to be a big bargain in drafts. We talked about starting pitcher tiers the other day. And I mentioned Max Freed is the one I'm most often taking from the good glob. I had health concerns about him going into the offseason, but the fact it never came up in his physical with the Yankees kind of relieves those concerns for me. They obviously signed him to a record-breaking deal for a left-hander, right? so I'm sure they were motivated to make sure he's right.

So I think Max Fried has become undervalued in my eyes. Specifically with Framber Valdez here, we talked about a lot, obviously, as it was happening, and throughout the off season, how much better he became down the stretch. He started throwing his curveball more. His strikeout rate went way up. Final 13 starts, Framber Valdez,

191 ERA, 0.89 whip, 10.3K per nine. Have you noticed, Ariel, with these different projection systems, because I'm sure you've looked at the individual ones closely, do a lot of them put more weight on second half numbers, maybe not specifically second half, but like August, September, kind of down the stretch numbers, because it seems like when you get a Framber Valdez, or on the opposite side of the coin, we were talking before the show, you said the projections don't, like Corbin Burns, who had a terrible August. So how does it seem like projection systems take that into account more?

That's a good observation. I can't tell you that everyone does or doesn't, but I know, for example, Steamer does. So the way Steamer works is that it takes every single game a person has played, and it gives it some kind of weight in terms of how they come up with the true talent. and the most recent numbers, the most recent months, weigh a lot more for steamer than anything else. Like a lot of times when you're doing the three-year average,

you wait the previous year more, you wait the second year, a little bit less, and the third year ago, you wait less. But steamer actually does it on like a date-to-date basis. So, yeah, so you'll see a bigger effect of steamer showing the last half a year valued more. So that's a good observation, and I think it's true for steamer. I'm not sure who else does or does in it, but that observation is correct on your part. Ariel, can you see yourself buying any of these three pitchers, Framber Valdez, Sunny Gray, and Maxfried?

I love Framber Valdez. I think he is a legit ace. I think that he can sustain like a sub three ERA and maybe get down to like a 1.1 whip and tons of strikeouts. And to be honest, he missed a couple of starts last year with some issues, which went away the last half a year. He can get back to 200 innings. If he does that, we're talking about a guy who has maybe SP number three upside here. And he plays on a good team. He'll get the wins.

He's just an anchor that you're getting in the fifth round that really could be the number three or number two or three pitcher are there. Yeah, I agree completely. I think that's kind of my, if I wait on pitching, if I can give for Amber Valdez in round five, I see the ADP is even round six on Valdez. I think that's a great buy. He's a proven workhorse.

The ratios are there. You know, he's not a huge strikeout pitcher. The whip has actually improved over the years. You know, he's got it down to like 115-ish area. You know, you probably have to surround Valdez with a few more strikeouts. But I think if you wait, he can be a perfectly fine building block. And I like the fact that he's pitching for a contract this upcoming season as well. Five mid to late round hitters that ATC has marked here as undervalued.

Vinnie Pee! Baby! Vinie Pass Guantino, Stephen Kwan, Nick Castellon. Alex Bohm, Jeremy Pena. Chris, you might notice a theme with some of these guys. They're kind of boring. But what they do is they just kind of get the job done. Do you see yourself interested in any of Pasquantino, Kwan, Cassiano,

Bome, and Pena? I think you can certainly make the case for any of these guys being, you know, definitely values, but also just really solid players. But one thing I would add that I think, is relevant to this specific cohort of players is they are very safe playing time projections. Like, Alec Bohm is going to play every day. You know, Jeremy Payne is going to play every day. And those guys, as long as they're providing positive value, doing that over 160 projected

games or 158 or whatever it is, they're going to be higher than where they're drafted just because I think a lack of perceived upside. but also just like there are other guys who have more questions about how much they're going to play. But when they're on the field, people expect them to be more impactful than some of these guys. So I think that's where these are the these are kind of the classic types of players who might get, I don't even know of overvalued is the right word, but just are going to come out higher in a season long projection than they will when, people are actually drafting. And I think of like, to go back a few years, the guy I always pointed to the South for was like Hunter Pence at the end of his career. We're like, man,

that guy's going to play every day. And he's going to get 21 homers and 86 RBI at the end of the day. And he's not going to kill you in batting average. And he's going to finish as the 24th best outfielder in fantasy. But throughout the course of the season, at every point in the season, there will be more than 24 outfielders you'd rather have. it's just attrition will take its place and at the end of the day he's left standing as a top 24 guy even if he wasn't necessarily

that's how I feel about most of these guys I think Kwan is an interesting one because like what we saw last year is maybe there's a little more upside than we thought maybe the range of outcomes is a little less narrow than we thought for him. I'm not saying he's going to be a 15 holder guy but yeah we saw the regression in the second half Right, right.

With, what, 11 homers in much less than a full season? 14. Ridiculous first half, terrible second half. So, so Juan was somebody who wasn't skewed favorably by the poor, he wasn't, his poor second half didn't drag down the projection, the thing, the phenomenon I was referring to earlier. One thing to kind of bring this back to the start of the show, one thing that stands out for this group, the skew score, I would imagine is pretty low for all of these guys. I don't know that it should be low for Vinny Pasquantino. I'm not totally confident we know who he is yet. But Kwan, Castellanos, Boehm and Peña, Jeremy Peña,

I would imagine it's a low skew score. And that's the sort of player that you're going to want to target more the deeper the league is. You want to target the higher variance guys with the huge ceiling in a shallower league, like a head-to-head 252 player rostered league, because those are going to be the ones who actually set your team apart. If you're starting Nick Castionis in a league like that, you're kind of holding yourself back.

Yeah. So, Scott, I think you actually love projections because you are absolutely right at those players. I'm looking at their skews. They're all either flat or negative. Vinnie Pasquantino, by the way, has a positive skew. So there is upside.

But you're right. And look at that. you look at projections, you see the negative skew, you can just look at him and say, I know exactly when to use them. We use them for deeper leagues. Don't use them for their. So these volatility metrics really tell you when and where to play guys. I love it, Scott.

I think you've come over to our side. I internalize projections. That's the thing. I don't need, I don't need this crutch of actual visual projections. I embody them, exactly. Scott is actually the shredder on MLB network. and we just never do it. Wait, I don't know that you want to time me to that.

Yeah, I don't know that I want that kind of heat. All right, so next year when we have Ariel on for ATC projections, I will start the show with Scott. Why do you love projections? That's something we've learned throughout the podcast here today. Let's take our final break when we return. We'll hit some news and notes quick, and then we'll wrap up with some overvalued players.

We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today here with Ariel Cohen. Let's quickly break down the news and notes. and it is finally official. The Dodgers are signing Kirby Yates to a one year, $13 million deal. He can get up to $14 million if he appears in 55 games

this upcoming season. Again, shout out to Bob Nightingale. He was all over this one and it did eventually happen. A loaded bullpen for the Dodgers. Well, a loaded team, but also a loaded bullpen that includes Kirby Yates, Tanner Scott,

Blake Trinen, and Michael Kopeck will be there eventually. The Dodgers had 50 saves as a team last season. Chris, I will give you the first shot at an impossible task, but let's just say they get something close to 50 saves again. How do you see these saves being divvied up amongst this bullpen? Pass.

All right, Ariel, you are up. So, like, someone said on Blue Sky, Eric Stephen from True Blue, L.A., the SB Nation Dodgers blog, I believe, said that the Dodgers have 100 and over 100 saves from 2024 on their roster currently. Well, you know, Kirby 8's had 30 plus, Copac had 20 something, whatever it was. I think someone's going to get 25 and someone's going to get 15 and a couple of other guys are going to get five. And I have no idea who's more likely to, like, I think Tanner Scott, just because he got 72 million is more likely than Kirby Yates, but I don't know.

Tanner Scott's a lefty. Kirby Yates has more experience. I could absolutely see a situation where it's Kirby Yates getting 25 saves. I think it's really unlikely anyone gets 30. And so in a 12 team league, I think you're probably not avoiding this bullpen, but you're probably not paying a top 170 price for any of these guys because you need more 30 save guys to compete in that format. In a 15 team league,

Tanner Scott was like the number 8 RP last year in Roto. So you can still be super valuable with only 20 something saves. I don't think Tanner Scott's going to have a sub 2ERA again. I don't think his whip's going to be quite as good. I think there's going to be regression there. So I don't think you should project him to be the number 8 reliever. I think I have him and Yates around, I want to say it was 18 to 25 for both of them,

but I have zero, zero confidence in this one. The skew rating is super high for both of these guys. I think if nothing else, if you had already accepted with the Tanner Scott signing and some of the comments from the Dodgers GM about how they're not going to have a dedicated closer this year, if you'd already accepted that there's going to be a distribution there, with the saves.

I think this Yates signing, at the very least, kind of narrows the focus down to two pitchers. Scott and Yates. It probably takes Blake Trinen out of the running except as a late round flyer in a very deep league. Evan Phillips, Michael Kopeck, who's not even to be healthy at the start of the year. I think it probably takes them out.

Alex Vescia got like six saves last year, right? Yeah, something like that. So I think at the very least, you can just say, okay, Scott or Yates. and I'll probably only think about it in leagues where saves are scarce like those deeper roto leagues but I'll probably just take

whichever is going later assuming they're not going in the same vicinity just let everyone else decide who they think the frontrunner is because I don't think there is a clear front runner my gut says it'll probably start out Scott for the reason you said Chris but in the long run it might become Yates

because he was arguing believe the most dominant closer last year and has shown a history of that. And Scott could be shaky. And Scott has a lot of control issues. Yeah. Could get frustrating if they stick with him in that role. Yeah, I can be completely wrong. I don't think anybody knows for sure.

My first inclination is that Kirby Yates would be the first man up because he has more closer experience and maybe they signed Tanner Scott's of this big deal so that they can use him all over the place and different matchups and multiple innings if they wanted to do something like that. But again, I don't think anyone knows exactly. We'll wait and see how the ATC projections kind of spit out all the numbers here. But Ariel, just rapid reaction here. How would you rank the Dodgers, Relievers, Yates, Tanner Scott, Blake Trine, and Michael Kopeck?

I mean, name a team that spent $72 million on a reliever and didn't make him the closer. That's a lot of money. This is not a $50 million. It's $72 million. I have to imagine the first shot goes to Tanner Scott. and I think that the Dodgers just show that they're going to go on runs. If Scott is, guys, gets the first one, he's going with it, he's going to be the closer. If there's a stretch where he's a little bit off, then no problem.

Throw in Yates three, four games in a row. He'll rack up the things until Scott gets back. Basis a couple lefties in the ninth inning and then gets back in track. So if I had to split it up, we're talking 20 save for Scott, 10 saves for Yates and trying in, Kopec and whoever, three, four, five, you know, that kind of. All right. Astros GM, Dana Brown said Jose Altuve could get reps in left field in addition to second base this season. We heard that with the updated news that they are talking to Alex Breggman once again.

But it sounds like maybe even if they don't sign Alex Breggman, Jose Altuve could still play the outfield this upcoming season. So keep that in mind with his eligibility and fantasy. Roki Sasaki apparently was given a recommendation to undergo Tommy John surgery by a doctor prior to his first season. in Japan. So before anyone freaks out, he's not having Tommy John surgery right now. This was long ago, I believe he was 18 or 19 years old. So that was back then. Sasaki decided against it, eventually discovered the issue was shoulder related with a nerve problem leading to discomfort in his elbow. It's still kind of worrisome long term for someone who throws this hard. But yes, that was not the best update we got on Roki Sasaki. Aaron Boone said Tuesday that

Jazz Chisholm is penciled in at second base this upcoming season, and I believe that means one of Oswaldo Cabrera or DJ LaMayhew will play third unless they sign somebody else. I've been the downer on Jazz all offseason, but Chris, second base, not the best position. We're talking about three different position eligibility now for Jazz. Will you move him to the top? If he already ranked there, would you move him ahead of Cotel Marte and your second base ranks? That's what I was just going to check. And in my overall rankings, I do have Catel Marte one spot ahead of Jazz Chisholm. But if you're sitting on the clock at 24 where I have Catel Marte ranked, I could see saying, well,

Cattel Marte will only be eligible at second base. Or I could give myself the option of, you know, we're talking about Brent Rooker and those guys earlier. We all love drafting them. well, you know what can help make that a little easier to stomach? Is if you've got Jazz Chisholm, who you can slot in three different spots in your lineup, that can those types of guys can help make that a little easier to balance over the course of the season. So I think it's a viable tiebreaker. It shouldn't dramatically change how you view a player, but I think it's an okay tiebreaker, sure.

Plus, I don't know about you, but part of the reason I was ranking Catel Marte and ahead of Jazz Chisholm in the first place is he plays the weaker, position. He's in a tear of his own. Yeah, that's not going to apply. And, you know, we'll have to wait five games or whatever it is in your league for him, for Jazz Chisholm to actually pick up that eligibility. It's not, it's not like you can pencil a minute, second base from day one.

But if that's ultimately where he's going to be eligible, I don't know. I think at least in categories leagues, roto leagues, I got to move him ahead of Marte. Might depend who you take with that first pick. You know, if you got Bobby Witt, maybe you go with Katel You don't need the stolen basis so much. If you go judge, maybe you take jazz. Ooh, a little doubling up on the Yankees. Get a little stack.

Oh, I'm walking here, Chris. I didn't know you were a big Yankee fan now. You know me. I'm a New Yorker. The red sign Austin Hayes to a one-year $5 million deal. He was awful last season, but pretty solid in 2021 through 2023. I'm not sure if he's going to play enough. Rostor resource has penciled Hayes in as their everyday left-fielder.

Scott, it's just one more piece to the puzzle. There's T.J. Friedel, Jake Frailey, in the Reds outfield. Matt McLean, we thought maybe could play some outfield. They also traded for Gavin Lux. They have Christian and Carnaccio and Strand. They have to find playing time for. So just one more piece. Thoughts on Austin Hayes.

I mean, in theory, I like the idea of Austin Hayes in a small park. I was excited when he escaped the Camden Crater at the trade deadline last year, but ultimately Philadelphia didn't. save him. Cincinnati's even better, but I don't see him being an everyday player right away. I would say it's more a keep an eye on it situation. And if things unfold in such a way that Hayes ends up playing every day for the Reds, which probably won't be from day one, but if it eventually happens, then he might be of interest. The Padre signed catcher Alias Diaz to a one-year $3.5 million deal. Sounds like he will split reps with Luis Campu Sano. Don't think you're

really need to know either of those for two catcher leagues. And apparently the Mets have discussed a potential trade for Ryan Moucassel. We've also heard the Mets linked to Spencer Torkelson. While we'd love Mountcastle to stay in Baltimore now, the new left field dimensions and Camden Yards, this would open up some playing time for presumably one of Heston Kirstad or Kobe Mayo, so that would be nice to see for the Orioles. Ariel, how would you rank the likelihood of stuff?

Starting at first base for the Mets next season, Pete Alonzo, Torkelson, and Ryan Malkasson. It's going to be Pete Alonzo. It's not going to be any of those two guys. Wow. I think I agree with that. I mean, there's just stirring up a market. Oh, we're going to, we could trade for Torkelson. We could trade for Mountcastle.

Watch out. Watch out. Scott, we're really interested in Spencer Torkelson. The projections guy, all about finding the average. the most average outcome is saying with 100% certainty. No, not 100. It's Pete Alonso. No, no, not 100.

There's some percentage. Which one would I take those? I'll take Torkelson maybe ahead or, yeah, maybe ahead because maybe their tigers are frustrated. But no, I think that Alonzo is going to be back. I'm hopeful he'll be back. Listen, if he wanted to be a Blue Jay, he would have signed on the dotted line by now. He didn't. And now I heard he's talking with a co-exam.

someone is talking with the, with the Alonzo camp, they'll, they'll get it done. They're not, they're not signing Soto only for, you know what, we don't need anybody to hit the hook. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to cheap out on Pete Alonzo for $5 million over three years, right? Yeah, yeah. It's not. Like, it's both camps, though, because it's Pellonzo, I might sign with the angels.

Watch out, guys. You're not going to sign with, come on. No. Let's wrap up with some overvalued players by ATC projections versus NFBC ADP. and three early round hitters here. Ellie De LaCruz is the 12th ranked player by ATC. The ADP is 4.3. Gunner Henderson, the 16th ranked player.

The ADP is 6.1. And Jaron, 42nd ranked player. The ADP is 22.4. I can see projections struggling with Ellie DeLer Cruz. He's a unicorn. You know, Gunner's projection actually seems pretty fair. It's 32 home runs, 100 runs. I'm surprised by that.

Yeah, 17 steals, 272. sounds pretty good for Gunner. Ariel, in your opinion, why do you think projections are down on someone like Jaron Duran? Is it because he's only done it for one season at this elite level? Oh, sure.

I mean, you have to have a regression baked in. This came out of, I'm not going to say nowhere, but this was just an unbelievable season for him. You know, and just, and by the way, if you're playing the game here, why would you buy somebody at the top of his game

when he had an outside season in the second round? I mean, you're only going to go down from here, he's not going to jump up to the first round. The more likely outcome of anybody is regression, right? If you had a bad season, you'll regress up. If you had an amazing season, you're more likely to go down. So projections realize it. That's the whole basis of projections.

It's regression to the mean. And that's exactly what's going on for Duran. That's probably a little bit what's going on with Gunner, although I am surprised why Gunner is projected much lower by ATC than the market. I actually side more with the market. than ATC on Gunner. The others, though, I'm totally fine with that ATC says makes sense. With Duran, one question I would have is,

is the fact that he's an older breakout as well? You know, he was 27 last year. I don't know if a lot of people realize that. Is that going to drag him down as well? Because, you know, obviously his pretty good AAA numbers came when he's 24, 25, so that that gets, you know, weighted down a little bit. Is that how that would work? Yeah, I mean, principles of projections are, you know,

or aggression to the mean and age curve. So sure, for most people who are on that trajectory, probably a little bit earlier in life, they're actually projected to go just from age alone, projected to go up. Now he's starting to go a little bit down, although he's going to be 28. It's not like he's over 30.

So I would say that's probably a small factor, but it is going to go in the negative direction. Let's move on to two other young, exciting hitters. O'Neill Cruz is the 60th ranked player by ATC. The ADP is 41.7. CJ Abrams, the 78th ranked player, and ADP 49.3. Scott, do you agree that O'Neill Cruz and C.J. Abrams might be overvalued right now by ADP? I think they probably have a high skew score. High range of outcomes there. I hope this is because part of Scott's everyday analysis.

I'm just going to refer to skew score now instead of range of outcomes. I think I side more with A. TP than ADP. I feel like ATC. ATC. Something sounded wrong as I was saying it. ATZ, yes. I side more with Ariel's projections here than with ADP for both of these players.

I don't think ADP is factoring in enough downside for players who've shown us a lot of downside since they've broken to the league. And I think they're both cases of players who are going to go earlier in NFP. BC specifically players, drafters playing for the, hoping for the big score to finish at the top of the big contests rather than than playing it safer and just trying to win their league.

So, so yeah, I side with the projections here for these two. So with these guys, the ATC projection is lower, but the skew is actually positive because these players do have the upside, but their average is lower.

So that's really the shape of what's going on. See, have the terminology right. Maybe I should just stick to a range of outcomes. One thing I would say with C.J. Abrams in particular is he only ended up with 31 steals last year. It was on 43 attempts. He attempted 51 in 151 games the previous year. Stolen base percentage year over year is incredibly volatile. He was way too efficient in 2024 or 2023. He was, I think, unfortunately inefficient in 2024, and that'll probably bounce back. So I think projecting closer to 40 steals probably makes sense.

And then also just the Nationals ran so much more than anyone else in baseball. 296 stolen base attempts as a team last season. The second highest was the Brewers who ran a ton, 259. So 34 fewer attempts. That's one thing I'm thinking about with Dylan Cruz is like, are they really going to run that much last next year? Was that just like Dylan Cruz, you're in September. We don't care.

Go run as much as you want. That's one thing I'm struggling to wrap my head around. Yeah, so also with CJ Abrams and, you know, his value comes from steals, right? Stolen bases are not worth as much as they did four years ago. Power is more scarce. There is abundant stolen bases. So I think when you told him an evaluation and how he should fit in in an overall value scheme, He's lower than he should be.

And I don't think the market is perceiving that. The market sees, wow, the guy can steal. Sure, he can, but it's not worth as much as they think it should be. And that's why he's actually going, ATC is showing a lower value than what the market perceives. Four category stars are undervalued in 2025 drafts. That's the flag I'm planting. All right. Four pitchers who are currently ranked in the top 15 by ADP that are currently overvalued,

according to projections. Cole Reagan's, the SP21 by projections. Corbyn Burns is the SP 23. Garicol is the SP 24. And Michael King, the SP 31. So again, all those names going inside the top 15 in ADP and going much lower here. So, Ariel, you have some explaining to do.

No, I know you don't actually come up with these numbers yourself. But do you have any reason or thought for why, you know, these four names in particular might be coming out as overvalued right now. Again, that's Reagan's Burns, Garrett Cole, Michael King. Yeah, well, Garrett Cole, I think, has the ERA problem

that he tends to have these blowups and his ERA is not going to be in elite pitcher. Like, you're not getting sub-3 ERA from Cole. You're getting, I think he's more likely to have a four ERA than a three ERA if that makes sense. And his projection is quite high, so I get that.

I think Reagan's the issue is the whip. although I think that ATC has this, not wrong, but I like the market price on Reagan's better. Michael King, I was also surprised. He just looks so stable and reliable, and those strikeouts are juicy. I also am more on the market than I am at ACC. Corbyn Burns, though, is so much lower on ATC than the market.

I think it has a lot to do with the park change for Corbyn Burns. I mean, ATC is seeing a high three's ERA, and that's just not an elite pitcher. And you got to pay an elite price to get him. So I agree with ATC on Cole and Burns. Regens and King, I think I actually agree more with the market than I do with ATC. I think it might have to do with that August for Burns. It was, it was, and he had a great September.

We've talked about the underlying reasons for both having to do with his cutter. But I think just looking at it from a projecting standpoint, just the data of it. I could see why that August would end up inflating Burns ERA. I mean, 366. That's not something we're used to seeing from Burns, even last year. It wasn't close to that. Cole, I mean, you say he's more likely to have a four ERA than a three ERA.

I don't really know what to expect from Cole anymore because I don't know if he's Garrett Cole anymore. He doesn't, he didn't have his best pitch. And yet we talked about how he didn't look like himself last year. Still had a 341 ERA. He hasn't had an ERA higher than 350. since 2017. So it's possible

Garrett Cole's elbow is still messed up and he's just never good again. I've talked about how he's the hardest pitcher to rank. But I think if he's good,

he's going to be good. I don't think ERA is going to be something I'm worried about with him. The Reagan's one, the fact he's only projected to be

the 21st starting pitcher, and yet I see the actual numbers he's projected for. 349 E. R. 120 whip, 10.2K per 9 and 178 innings. Now, I think he's going to be better than that, but I understand why the projections skew the numbers down,

make them worse from what I'm thinking, because of it's taking into account more than just the last couple years. But those seem like from a projection standpoint where you're finding the mid-outcome for every pitcher, those seem like good numbers from a projection standpoint. Like, and he's only 21st. I would imagine some of the pictures ahead of him are guys who've been doing it a long time

like Aranola. No, ATC hates Aranolovus. Okay, so it's not even... I don't know how the projection system... Chastio is ahead of him. He's coming up with 20 pitchers that are better than him when it's projecting him for those numbers. Your guy, Sunny Gray.

Yeah, that's who you got to blame. Sonny Gray. Tyler Glass now's ahead. There are some per inning producers that, I mean, even DeGrom in 140. innings grades out higher. Glass now in 134 innings, grades out higher. Roki Sasaki and 136 innings

grades out higher than Cole Reagan's as well. But yeah, I mean, those projected numbers, 349, ERA 120 whip. You know, I know the walk rate's a little bit higher, but I think I probably expect something closer for like 115 whip. So look, a mid-3s ERA, 115 whip, 10K per 9. That's probably a borderline SP1.

So I think we're all kind of in agreement with that. Are you, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think maybe part of the reason Burns is projected lower, I think projections look at a lot of the same things that the underlying ERA estimators look at. And if you look at the Sierra for Corbyn Burns the past two years, it's been 375 and 402. So if projections are looking at a lot of those same things that Sierra accounts for, then yeah, maybe that's how they get to a 366 projected ERA. Oh, sure. His swinging strike rate has gone down significantly, right?

He is not especially, he's leaving. His ERA hasn't been unlucky or lucky based on his strand rate, but the Babb, the amount of hits that he gives up, his Babbat has been 269, 244 the last two years. These are lucky he's getting a lot more outs on the bases than he should. And now he's going to a worse ballpark for him. So I think the whip is an issue for him and the whip will lead to runs. I am more in line with ATC.

I am not, I'm going to have zero shares of Corbyn Burns this year. All right, Ariel, we do appreciate you coming on, helping us out here with a little projections talk. Again, he is the creator of ATC projections, the host of the Beat This Shift podcast. Make sure to follow Ariel on X at ATC and Y. Ariel, is there anything else you'd like to promote before we let you go? No, that's it. Thank you so much for having me.

this was a blast guys and great to Spain back-to-back days with you frank yeah how about that let's make it a regular thing you know uh mondays with ariel we'll see what we can do we're gonna wrap there for ariel co and scott and chris i am frank thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on apple or spotify and we will be back again on friday bye amount podcasts