Fantasy Baseball Today - Wander Franco vs. Francisco Lindor; Early 2022 ADP Battles and Takeaways w/ Paul Sporer! (11/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

No Scott White this week but we've got Paul Sporer joining us to talk early ADP (1:00)! ... News and notes (2:35): Anthony DeSclafani is headed back to the Giants while Charlie Morton got the cast off his leg. ... Is starting pitching deeper this season (17:06)? ... Why are closers getting pushed up so high (21:35)? ... How do we feel about the early hitter pool (25:25)? ... On to ADP battles part one starting with Mike Trout vs. Freddie Freeman (31:05)! Turkey or ham on Thanksgiving!? ... ADP battles part two featuring Wander Franco vs. Francisco Lindor (43:00)! Best Thanksgiving side dish? ... Is third base as bad as everybody is saying (52:40)? ... The Battle of the Shanes plus Verlander vs. Kershaw (1:06:28)! ... We wrap up with MLB The Show tips for our video game players (1:12:43). '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. What is up, everybody? Welcome into fantasy baseball today on Tuesday, November 23rd. Frank Stample here as always. Scott White is off this week, enjoying some welcome. deserve time off with his family. So I started thinking, this is our only podcast this week. No, Scott. I had to go big. If you play fantasy baseball and don't know today's guest, it's time to get out from underneath that rock that you're living under right now.

Somebody that I'm a big fan of, been listening to for years. You've read his work on Fangrass. You've listened to him on The Sleeper in the Bus podcast. Welcome in Paul Spoor. What is going on, Matt? Nice to virtually meet. Frank, it's great to virtually meet. you, man. Thank you for that intro. That's awesome. I appreciate it. I appreciate you listening. I can say the same right back, been enjoying the show quite a bit. So great to be on. Thank you. Yes. We're talking beforehand to mention, look, I've been listening to you since the days when Enosaris was on the podcast. Love what you're doing with Justin. I know Colette hops on there every now and then too. So a really big fan of your work there. Happy to have you on the podcast.

Of course, everyone could follow Paul over on Twitter at Sporer. That's, you know, whenever I say your name, I feel like I'm not like pronouncing the last part of it. It's like spore er. Sporer. Sporer. You follow them on Twitter at S-P-O-R-E-R. Today on the podcast, we've got some news. We'll talk about the latest news items.

We now have 13 NFBC drafts in the books. And it's time for some way too early ADP takeaways. We've got a few ADP battles as well. We'll talk a little Thanksgiving. It's Thanksgiving week. We've got some, I've got some dishes I want to talk about. We'll do a little turkey versus ham, some side dishes, pies get to all that.

And of course, if you follow Paul, then you know he's big on Twitch. This guy's a big deal. It plays MLB the show, plays OTP, the guy streaming on Twitch. I just got MLB the show this year first time. It came over to Xbox. I have an Xbox.

I suck. So I need Paul to help me out and anyone else is listening who plays. I know I've had a few people reach out to me saying that they also play MLB the show. So hopefully he can help all of us. Maybe you don't need the help. I definitely do.

But we will get into that a little bit later on. Let's just start with some news and notes. We had a re-signing, Anthony Descofani, back to the San Francisco Giants on a three-year, $36 million deal this past year, finally gets out of Cincinnati and has a really strong season. If you look at his splits going into 2021, he was great outside of Great American Ballpark. So we kind of thought, all right, well, maybe there is some sleeper appeal here. Turns out to have a really good season. 317 ERA, 109 whip, 16% K-minus walk rate, the second best of his career, 11% swinging strike. great, the best of his career.

ADP right now, 232, just ahead of names like Trista McKenzie, Casey Mize, Aaron Savali. Spoor, what do you think about, do you want me to call me a polar Spor? What do you prefer? Either one. People call me Spor all the time. It really doesn't bother me. I think I'm going to change that. I'll go back and forth.

But what do you think about this for Anthony Descalfani going back to the Giants and this ADP range that he's around right now? Does it make sense? Yeah, I think both are a great fit. I think the Giants resigning him is a point. perfect fit. I love when like the narrative comes together, right? You kind of paint the obvious narrative of, we'll get him out of that ballpark and get him in a place that maybe can mitigate the home run rate a bit and maybe we'll have something. And that's exactly what

happened. He goes to a park that is much better for him. And frankly, you could have massage this ERA down quite a bit more if you wanted to play it cautiously with him and not play him against the Dodgers. His two worst starts of the year were against the Dodgers. Two and two thirds in both of them 10 and four earned runs. And I'm, I'm going to guess that there's somebody out there, at least in a mixed league format that played it just like that. And they played it perfectly. Now, they would have missed a couple of decent ones at the Dodgers, five innings,

three runs, six strikeouts, four and two thirds, two runs. That doesn't really hurt you. But if you just played it straight up, no Dodgers, you'd have massaged a sub three ERA for sure from Anthony Delfofani. And I don't see any reason that he can't continue to be this kind of guy. in San Francisco as long as he stays healthy. That's the biggest factor. But I think that's built into the price.

So you don't really have to count that against him. That's why he's so cheap. Yeah. And he doesn't have to be a must-star pitcher too at that ADP, right? So exactly like you just said, you play him in the right matchups. Don't play him against the Dodgers, most likely. Don't play him at course field. And just be convicted to it.

Like even if you're going to do it, just commit to it. He might have a great start against the Dodgers. He'd be like, darn, darn, that would have been nice to have. But if you just commit to it. commit to it, I think it can pay dividends if that's the way you like to play. If you like a guy that you don't have to sit, then maybe don't get him because he has to go to Colorado too, which is where his home run issue can crop back up as well for Descoffani. Yeah, I was just about to say, maybe you don't play him in Colorado, but at the same time, if they lose Trevor's

story, I don't know. This offense could be really, really brutal, but we'll see. That's true. That's true. And, you know, we've seen that like, we love what Coors does for guys, but it doesn't really make guys out of thin air the way we kind of, uh, pretend, and I guess pun intended, because the thin air is what drives that park. But it doesn't. You have to have a measure of skill. So if it is a bunch of slugs, it'll be a better offense because it's in course, but it might not be scary.

It might just be kind of a regular middle, upper middle of the pack, defense that you can play guys against. But maybe not Descofani just because of his home runs. Right. Apparently the Giants are also close to re-signing Alex Wood and are also talking to Alex Cobb, which I think would be really... This all makes so much sense. It would make so much sense, right?

Like, they just took Kevin Gosman, who's also someone who relies heavily on his splitter. They made, look, kudos to Kevin Gosman. I don't think that the Giants just completely made him, but had the big Velo jump and he was awesome. Cobb was good this past year with the Angels. So if he winds up with the Giants, that could be just a match made to heaven.

So we'll see if that actually comes to fruition. Next up, we have Charlie Morton, no longer wearing a cast on his surgically repaired right fibula, and is now sporting a walking boot, his early ADP, 82.3, that's SP 27 off the board. Scott has Morton SP15 in his rankings. So quite a bit of a disparity there where if you're drafting off those rankings, you're probably going to wind up with a lot of Charlie Morton.

And Sporer, I do like this price tag quite a bit for Morton. Coming off a year where he was SP10 in points leagues, SP12 and Roto, assuming that he can stay healthy again, which I guess you can't really do because he's older, but he seems like a steal right now at his ADP. He really does. And with Charlie Morton, I think some folks are going to play it

where if I'm a year too early and he's good again, that's okay. I'm willing to give that up in the market. That's part of what's driving this price down, which I totally get. You're not going to go broke, betting off of 38-year-old starters. Staying off of them is what I'm trying to say.

Sorry, just avoiding them as a general rule. If they get to 38, you say hands off. it takes conviction to do that because sometimes you see a Max Scherzer, I think it's about to be 38 or Verlender, certainly will be above that, I believe. But if you just get rid of those guys, you won't go broke. That said, there's nothing in Morton's profile that predicts anything is coming. Now, when you are 35 plus, injuries can just come at an instant and it can be done. That is the risk of like it's not just a month or so. He just hangs it up. But the skills upside is there.

And so I'm willing to bet at that price on Charlie Morton. I actually have him closer to that price as far as his ranking, but I'm fine with that. And I understand why Scott has him high because the skills are so solid that if you can get even 150 innings, which he's eclipsed each of the last three full seasons, obviously absent 2020, then you should expect some pretty good numbers from Charlie Morton. Royals prospects. First baseman Nick Prado and catcher M.J. Melendez were added to the Royals 40-man roster. and I think there's probably a good chance we could see both of them this upcoming season in 2022. Marlins' outfield prospect,

J.J. Bladay and Cardinals' first base prospect, Juan Yepez. You know, I should have looked up how to say his name. That's correct. Yeah, Yepez. They were both named co-hitters of the Arizona Fall League and Rangers pitching prospect,

Owen White, named the pitcher of the AFL. And of those three, I'm thinking Yepez is the only one that we see in the Bigs next season. Maybe Bladay. I mean, he's played a double A, but he really struggled in the minors this past season. I guess there's a chance.

He did, but like, go ahead. You finish. I was just going to say, like, with Yippez, the Cardinals likely going to have the Universal D.H. I think that obviously could help him. He's bounced around. Like, I don't know that he's a good fielder. He's played some first.

He's played some third, a little bit in the corner outfield. I was just going to say, I know that you were at Arizona Fall League. So were there any names that we should know for 2022? If you have anything on these three that I just mentioned as well, you can also throw that in there. You know, I kind of wish that Yepaz would have.

slowed down because that was my guy that was my big takeaway guy that i was really impressed with but now he's on the he's kind of on on the uh landscape a bit being a hitter of the afl so it's not so so hidden this looks like a true cardinals guy too where they kind of take somebody that uh you know you don't understand quite how how it works like he doesn't look like a great body not great defense but he just hits and he hits a lot and I think he's a guy who would come up and just rake for them, especially if they do have that DH. I'm a Bleday guy. I can't quit him.

I'm still really intrigued by him. AFL is a finishing school. The fact that he doesn't have AAA, I don't even think it's that big of a deal. I think he can go down and get 20 games there. If he kind of carries over some of this work, I mean, obviously he hasn't shown anything. He lost that big development year in 2020.

That's huge. There is some swing and miss, particularly with velocity up. that is a concern. But I still like the power. And he put it on display at the fall. We got to see him crush a couple home runs, which were impressive, including in the Fall Stars game. And I think at 24, he needs to touch the majors this year or else. There's some real trouble with this path. This comp is more of a guy who was drafted high and then kind of really pushed his stock down in the minors before popping up. But Jonathan India vibes come across a little bit with JJ Bladay in that I wonder,

if when he gets to the majors, it kind of clicks for. Maybe this is the jumpstart he needs at the Arizona Fall League. Again, he does have issues. It's not that there's nothing wrong with this game that was causing him to struggle, but I do wonder if he might kind of be ready and maybe just didn't have the full commitment that he had to have in the minors and is better than what we've seen in high A and double A. I like the Jonathan India comp too, because he walks quite a bit near 14% walk rate this past

season at AA. The batta ball profile looks pretty good too. You probably want to see some more line drives. Don't love the infield fly ball rate, especially for prospects. But yeah, look, we'll take the AFL, what he did in the AFL and see if he can build off of that. I think when I was listening to the podcast that you did there, you mentioned another Malins outfield prospect, I believe, right? Cameron. Izner. Cam Meisner, yep. Who was also really interesting and is basically kind of positioning himself as like a cheaper version of Bladay. He doesn't have the hype. He was the first rounder as well, but 35th pick, not fifth pick. I can't remember exactly where Bladay was, but he showed his power at the Fall League quite a bit.

He was a guy that took away from, actually had two trips to the Fall League this year, one in October and then one in November for the Fall Stars game. So getting that extra look at a bunch of guys was really cool. Saul Meisner continued hit for power. Only hit 205, so that's not going to jump off the page, but seven homers, a 513 slug. That's really showing the pop. I really took that away. still swing and miss issues similar to Bladee. That's what I say. He's kind of a die up with day in fantasy because you don't have to pay nearly as much, but you might get the same thing.

So instead of paying for the name brand of Bladay, if you're worried about him and share some of the concerns that we've seen, go get Misenor much cheaper. You're probably getting about the same thing. I have hopes that Bladay can push his level up a bit. But for now, it looks like those two could be pretty similar, high power, low batting average types that should be able to stake in at least a corner. But they might have center field possibility.

For anyone who watched the Falcars game, by the way, too, you might have saw a spora in the background with our buddy the Wells, who we've had on this podcast many times. Anytime someone would strike out, you see these two goons in the background, doing their strikeout calls, punching people out. So that was really fun to watch. I saw a few clips of that on Twitter, so good stuff there. The Tigers, you're a big Tigers fan.

They seem to be interested in every shortstop on the market. which one do you think they actually wind up with if they do? I think it's got to be Correa. This is something that, again, I don't say this to like a brag, but I was calling since before last year. Like it was so obvious. Again, I wasn't predicting something that's crazy. It just fits, right?

This is exactly what they need, a premier shortstop. They don't have one coming. Their young team on the rise, shortstop is obviously a remarkably important position. How often do you get an opportunity to get a guy on the right side of 30 of this quality. That's what we're seeing with these free agent classes like this one and the ones that are coming up. We're going to see a lot younger guys than normal. A lot of times free agency you're buying like 29 and higher, often guys in their 30s. We're seeing that age down because

guys are coming up sooner. And this is the fruits of that. And a guy like Carrillo is going to be 27. You got hinged there for the obvious link. They got to pay them. Like it just makes too much sense. Insofar as these big deals go, I know the review on a lot of these, I think, like, 150 plus million dollar deals is pretty negative because the tail end is always going to be bad. There's kind of like a built-in bias against them just due to their length. But you're paying for the early years. And the next four years of Correa should be excellent. So should it be for the tigers. They're opening a window. It makes way too much sense for them not to go out and get their franchise guy. Correa should be.

the guy, I think Story Seeger would both fit. Baez, I hate being negative on him because I really enjoy watching him play and everything he does defensively. And when he's on, he's awesome at the dish. But he's just not always on. And that volatility of his plate profile will not age well unless he kind of learns to learn the strike zone a bit better. It's not that walks inherently make you better just by virtue of taking walks.

It's that you don't swing at balls and get yourself out. And that's something that Correa does a lot. He reminds me of somebody like a Carlos Gomez, who burned brightly, but then was gone pretty quickly in terms of an effective player. I feel like that's what bias is going to turn into. The other three guys, they have a lot more stable hitting profiles, and they can be a franchise guy for the next four to six years. And then the extra, you know, three to four years on the back end of it, those will be

a coin flip, and you might get lucky and get somebody who age as well. Or you get a done and you start moving in third, first, DH, whatever. Yeah, I think Correa to the Tigers makes a ton of sense, right? this whole situation, like, AJ Hinch has done this before. He took over the Houston Astros. He saw them basically turn their entire organization around with younger players, right? So now he's doing that again with the Detroit Tigers. Scott and I have talked about quite a bit already.

The Tigers from 2019 to this past season, that's the last two full seasons that we've had, 30 win improvement from 49 to 79. That is massive. Like, you don't see that over, you know, that short period of time. So it looks like they're ready to take that next step here in 2022 as. Well. A few more smaller moves I wanted to mention. Brent Honeywell traded to the Oakland A's for cash considerations. Aaron Loop signed with the Angels on a two-year $17 million deal. And according to Jeff Fletcher, who covers the team, this is the first pitcher the Angels have signed to a multi-year

deal since Joe Smith back in November of 2013. It is November of 2021. This almost seems impossible. They didn't sign a single pitcher to a multi-year deal in 18. A year. A year. In years. That is just mind-boggling. That really is. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah. It explains a lot about them, though, too. Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, it makes perfect sense for where the angels are at. I mean, hopefully Noah Sindergarde can turn it around for them. Pedro Severino signed with the Brewers on a one-year, $1.9 million deal, and Jose Cantana to the Pirates on a one-year, $2 million deal. Let's get into early ADP.

13 drafts done so far over at the NFBC. That's the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. for anyone looking to get involved, right? Like, you might be intimidated by it. Paul and I were talking beforehand. They have lower price points now. They have best ball leagues for $5, $10. They have NFBC 50s. I believe those are just drafted hold leagues

where you have $50, whatever, and you don't have to make any moves throughout the course of the season outside of setting your lineup. There's no waivers, there's no trades. You just set your lineup. So you might be intimidated by the whole thing, the whole scene, but like, don't be.

I mean, there's lower price points now as well. I wanted to start off with starting pitching and just ask you, it seems deep. You know, time will tell if it actually is. But it seems like we saw the return of the middle class in 2021. Maybe it's thanks to the ball. Maybe, you know, people using sticky stuff for half the year, just inflated numbers for the entirety of the season, whatever it might be. I know that ERA did take a pretty big step back from June 1st on, which makes sense because usually there's more hits. There's more home runs in the summer anyway.

Yeah. But I really like, you look at the same. 75 to 150 range for pitcher. I mean, it just, it seems so enticing. There's a few names there that we're going to talk about a little bit later on. You have the Shains from Tampa Bay there. Ranger Suarez is in that mix. There's a lot of enticing names in that range.

But even outside the top 200, there's Joe Ryan, Hyun Jin Ryu, Jordan Montgomery, outside the top 300. John Gray, who could wind up somewhere else. Eric Lauer, surprisingly good. Even Zach Granky, you don't even have to be a Granky fan. His ADP is 330. I mean, he's basically cheap. He's basically free.

So I want to ask you, is starting pitcher deeper than it has been in recent years? What do you think? I mean, that's the general feeling right now. But I feel like we say this pretty regularly. Maybe not every year and likely not last year because we had no idea what to expect coming off the COVID year and what to take from it. But part of it, I think, is the proximity to the season. I think the freshness of what we just saw and us kind of being intimately familiar with the entire pitching pool. It kind of has this, you know, it creates this false sense of security because we know the

breakouts at the different levels. But what? Like 30, 40 percent of the top 100 will probably bust, you know, based off of what we're projecting. But we project positively off of what they just did. And I think sometimes we don't, we don't fully take in the downside of pitchers, just how much they break and everything. So I don't know that it's necessarily all that much deeper because we always really start to fall in love with these middle tears.

It just feels that way comparatively because the last time we said it was probably after the 19 season because last year was so weird. I think why we had this return of the middle class where there was a little bit more parity at the position was because of the ball, which we couldn't, like we knew that they changed the ball and that they said that there was going to be less home runs and that they were dejuicing the baseball. We didn't know the extent of how much it was actually going to change the entire landscape of the game.

So you take that into account the fact that we had the sticky substance situation. It was just like a weird year all around. It really was. Look, this is impossible to predict. But what do you think happens with the ball next? Because they're like talking about pre-tacking the baseball. They did it in the NFL. Apparently they did it in the Olympics as well.

So it's something that they've experimented with. I guess there's a chance that they could start the season with. with that going into 2022. If it changes again, like, you know, this could affect the pitching landscape, but it's just so hard to tell, like,

how it's going to change it. That's the thing. Like, we can't know because we don't know exactly how, what the process is with the ball. You know, I could see a carve out for some kind of substance allowance

in the CBA, like you said, like attack and they agree on a certain level, and that's on the ball, and it changes things. But the ball is always the next factor because we have no idea. And they just lie.

They just, lie about it and we'll say, no, it's the same and it's being, you know, it's being studied by other people that have the wherewithal to know the differences and it's very clearly different. And so it's kind of always the next factor that we just have to, you know, I guess kind of, you know, hope for the best with it, really, hope it doesn't create things too drastically to where we overdraft pitchers. If anything, we'd like it to pay better dividends on the pitchers that we draft it. Let's stick with pitching and talk about closers. on the rise so far, Hendricks and Josh Hayter at 35 and 38, respectively, in ADP.

Again, there's only been 13 drafts, so anything could change. But last year, they were also the first two closures being drafted at picks 57 and 58. So, I mean, we're talking about, you know, 20 to 25-ish picks apart from where they were last year versus this year. And we got this question from Brendan Toome on Twitter. I know he does work with fantasy pros. And he asked, can you talk about Hayter Hendricks going so early? Is this because it's early in the off season due to the 15-team Roto format, which is a lot of the draft champions, draft and hold leagues that are going on right now?

Is it a shift in strategy or all of the above? Does the idea translate to more, quote, standard 12-team leagues as well? I tend to think it's kind of an all-of-the-above situation and includes 12-team leagues. I think it's the ever-increasing lack of the reliable go-to guys. There were 62 guys with at least five saves. last year. That's the most ever up 10 from 2019. Meanwhile, nine guys with 30 saves is the lowest since 1988, which is still pretty early in the years of dominant closers becoming a thing because

like 86, 85, 87 are all there too. So you start to see it slowly go up there. So, I mean, that's a different era too. That's a completely different era when relievers just weren't as important or in a completely different situation. Relievers are much more important, but teams are realizing that they want to deploy their guys at the best situations for them, not just keep the best guy for the night. It's the right thing to do. It's the right way to manage the leagues of Copicat League. They're seeing teams like Tampa Bay do it and have success.

They're starting to emulate that more. It's hell on fantasy, though, because of how difficult it is to accumulate saves and the assets that you have to hold sometimes. But I think that's what's driving up these prices. I don't think they're going to go down. I think they have a better chance of going up, to be honest. Yeah, I'm right there with you too. And I don't know about you, but I'm not going to be the person to pay that price tag.

I don't fault people for wanting to do it. Look, you get two of the best relievers in the game. You get ratios across the board. You get strikeouts. You lock in 30 plus saves. Or at least that's what we think you'll be getting there. But I mean, I want to try and get one of the top, I guess, seven to eight, you know, eight to ten maybe in that, you know, fifth or sixth round range.

But using a third round pick, man, it's like the opportunity cost is just, too much for me. What do you think? You know, I'm open to it. I drafted Giovanni Gallegos very high in a mock draft or in an actual draft for the NFBC draft and hold when we were in first pitch Arizona.

And, you know, it was pretty high. It was the third round, super high. But I'm really bought in on him. I think he's going to be the guy I wouldn't normally take him there. I didn't know if he's going to make it all the way back, though. I thought people started eyeing closers and I was like, dang it. Because I was thinking I want to say Hendricks and Hayter were both gone already.

So I was like, I'm going to go and get Gallegos here. He's kind of my next guy up. I think you can kind of get it back. You're talking about the opportunity cost. It's going to lead into the next thing that we're going to talk about. I think there's a big depth in the tier we're about to talk about that makes it okay to jump up some pitching because guys have to fall for all this pitching to be up. We already know that starters go up. They've been going up and up lately.

and in the NFBC in general, they tend to get pushed up as sort of a general versus the consensus of home leagues, let's say. And so now you're throwing in closers into the mix. That has to push some hitters down. And I think we start to see that flex itself here in the hitting tier that we're going to talk about, even though you have a little trepidation about that tier.

Yeah, so let's talk about hitters up at the top. I think we get about, you know, 70, 75 picks in, and then it seems like it starts to slow down. I mean, it happens every year, obviously. The elite hitters go up near the top for obvious reasons. They're going to give you some power, some speed. If not one of those things, they're obviously going to contribute batting average. Obviously, we're trying to get, you know, five-categority production as much as we can early on.

But right around pick 70, we have someone like Jazz Chisholm, and don't get me wrong. I really like Jazz Chisholm, but, I mean, that seems a little bit aggressive, man. And then, you know, we're seeing Bobby Witt now. This is like the first time we've really seen a true elite prospect being drafted this early since I've referenced Ronald Acuna, his ADP the year he was coming up, 2018, was 100 on the NFBC. Roberts was around there too, right? Luis Robert?

I do. Because he signed the deal. Yeah. Now, he was, he was probably safer than Witt because he signed the deal. So we were knowing that he was going to play. But yeah, with Witt, I will say this, about Chisholm and Witt, there's still kind of outliers in this.

group. I don't think they quite fit here with some of the other stability. Like Correa is at 94. And obviously I just talked about him. I'm excited. Hopefully my favorite team signs him. But, you know, I think Bregman at 92, he's finally priced properly. Brandon Lau at 88. So I think there's still like just right there. There's some guys to show that, uh, that are going after those two. They're pushed up because of speed. Witt's kind of the shiny new toy. He also has a 36 min pick there. That's doing. a lot of work in these 14 drafts. I'm going to be eager to see how wit goes as we get deeper into drafts, at least in the winter. It'll change maybe in the spring if it looks if it's looking

like he's going to break camp. But I think with outward that he's going to break camp, I think it'll start to go down. I think that 36 is holding it up quite a bit. Jazz is in the 50 to 1 14 range, so a little bit tighter range. But then I think it goes really deep to the point where you start to get to Willie Adomis, Lordus Garreal Jr., Yohan Moncada in the 140 to 150 range, Avicel Garcia, Conforto, Gavin Lux, around 200. They're a cut lower than Chisholm and guys around there, but that's closer to me, that talent, I believe,

than a 125-pick gap would normally indicate. Yeah, you kind of answered the question, I guess, but I was just going to ask, like, given the way that things are kind of shaping up right now in the hitter pool, a few names that you mentioned I think that they're going to be contributors, no doubt about it. Obviously, not names that contribute speed.

But I think that's what, for me at least, it lends me to grabbing maybe three or four elite bats in my first five or six picks. Whereas, like, last year I was leaning into starting pitching and the volatility of the pitching. I almost wanted to give myself an insurance policy, right? So, like, if I'm going pocket aces, look, if one of them busts, then at least I have a next one up.

I was trying to grab, like, three pitchers in my first five, picks. I was really aggressive on that. And now it seems like maybe I'm going too far the other way, but I'm looking at maybe grabbing three or four hitters in my first five or six picks. Is that something you are thinking about doing yourself? Well, that coincides with the perceived depth at starting pitching too. If you're more comfortable with the middle and back end of that pool, you're going to feel more inclined to push it a little bit. Again, I think as things shape up more with rotations, the reason we see a shift, it's not just that, uh, you know, the NFBC values pitching so much more.

I also think there's a stability that we, a stability indicator that we have once we get into the spring where we know what rotations are going to be, then you can kind of be more confident in pitching. Did the guy that you like make the team? Okay, you can move them up 60 picks. If you liked him that much, depending on where he is, 100 picks, if making the team was the big thing.

So I think that's part of it too. I've been kind of mixed. I've done a couple of drops. I did the one in Arizona, and I'm in a best ball one right now, which you do draft a bit differently there in best ball. You can take more volatility, obviously,

because you're only going to get the good of a pitcher, and pitching is kind of pushed down there. But I didn't have, I had one pitcher through six rounds with bets, Bogart's, Starling Marte, Yosmani Grondal, and Randy Orozarena. Interesting.

All right. Well, what we're going to do that. And then I got Webb and Lynn. That's a 12 teamer though. That's a very important to mention. Yeah, for sure. We're going to take a quick break when we return. We'll get into some ADP battles, some standouts.

We'll do that next year on Fantasy Baseball today. All right, so let's do it, ADP battles and some standouts. A lot of these I crowdsourced on Twitter and our Fantasy Baseball Today Facebook group. And we're going to start up top. We got this one from Ryan on Twitter. And he asked about Mike Trout at Pick 15.9 versus Freddie Freeman at 18.7. And he says, quote, with Trout, most likely. not stealing and injury prone,

aren't we hoping that he has a Friday season best case scenario? And Mike Trout, I've referenced this before as well. Since the start of 2017, Trout has missed 33% of his games to injury. Obviously, a lot of that was due to last season where he, I think only played like 36 games or whatever it was.

Even if you take out last year, he's missed 19% of his games from 2017 through 2020. So that's not nothing. And now he's 30 years old. So I think he's still going to be really, good when he's on the field. I think you have to factor that in some, uh, you know, a little bit at least for, for trout. Freeman, I mean, he's rock solid. Two 95 plus and in six straight seasons.

30 plus homers. Great counting stats. He's going to chip in six to eight steals. Uh, I think that, you know, he's not going to, he doesn't have the power upside of a Mike Trout, but he's also much more dependable. He's missed seven games over the last four years. Yeah. That is insane. Like this guy is an Ironman. Kind of like Whitmeryfield, right? Like Whitmeryfield just doesn't miss time. It's pretty crazy. But What do you think, Mike Trout versus Freddie Freeman? It's an interesting pairing there for sure because, you know, the first base is still kind of interesting.

Like I like a lot of the players, but there's not a lot of that lockdown premium talent there. You've got Vlad Freeman, Olson, Goldschmidt, Muncie, Pete Alonzo, pretty much there because 40 homers with, you know, with good runs and ribbies. Like that, that'll do it. But then it really starts to find a huge, cluster of sameness. So getting Freeman there, like, we usually think a first base as deep, and it is in terms

of usefulness, but you're still getting a cut above when you get Freddie Freeman. Yeah. Then with Trout, like the trepidation is understood completely based on the health that we've seen. The thing for me, though, is I don't believe he's done having healthy seasons, and I still think a healthy trout is going to be better than Freeman. Like, when he's played, he's still just been so. elite 1090 OPS in the 36 games he did play with eight homers two steals i still think that a healthy trout will will run double digits i mean um he had 11 in 134 games in 2019 again if if he gets back

to 150 game season which i believe i still think he'll have at least one i know it'll be 30 this year i think he at least one more 150 game season because it's a matter of getting fully healthy and then once he is we'll see if he can stay healthy i i i I don't know, he is accumulating injuries. But I'm still leaning toward Trout. I kind of have them right there. I think they make an interesting turn. If you're at pick like 15 and take an open Trout Freeman,

I think that'd be a really cool start. I wouldn't like that. Now, I'll be able to say your speed is challenged there because, again, Trout, what are you betting on 15 max right now, unless he just spikes a crazy season out of nowhere. and Freeman's a chip in, you need some speed. I don't think you have to draft speed

in the first two rounds or else you're dead, but you can't, you then have to use the next two picks to get some speed contributions. I do think that you can't wait too long after that if you don't use your first two picks

on some measure of speed. Yeah, I think I'm with you. I think I'm still going to take Mike Trout. Look, when he's all in the field, like if he manages to stay healthy for 150 games, I still believe that his upside is higher than Freddie Freeman's.

Same. You're going to get 300 plus batting average. Again, you're going to get more power. It's going to be 40 plus home runs. Counting stats will still be really good. Even if it's only 8 to 10 steals for Mike Trout, that's the max that you're going to get from Freddie Freeman as well. And look, if we're talking, Roto, you need five outfielders, obviously, too.

So let's not forget about filling those spots. You're right about first base. Like, it's definitely not a great position, or it's not, as of now, not looking like a great position. But yeah, I still think I lean Mike Trout. Do you put any stock into you? the strikeouts and ground ball rate way up for trout this year? Or is that just like small sample size noise?

It's too small. And I think we learned a valuable lesson. One we should have known. We've known since the like money ball age of like small sample size. But we learned how much we overrated the 2020 season. Right. Just because it was called the season and how little it really meant. So he basically played another one of those, 36 games.

So he was great. There was some good, some bad. so much of it would have smoothed out. You can't take much from it except for the fact that he was still great. I think you can still at least appreciate that and say he is still one of the most talented players in the game. And what you're trying to bet on is some health. And that can be scary because he hasn't been healthy. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

I'm still willing to take that lottery ticket, though, even with a first round pick or second round pick and hope that I can get that full season because I know whatever I do get from him seemingly going to be very, good. And then if I have to work around replacing him, if he plays 130 games again, I'm still pretty happy with that. Like if he repeats 2019, I mean, of course, that's insane, 45 and 11 in 134 games. Yeah. He didn't even need a full season. That's how insane he is. He's putting up full seasons of work in 18 to 19. Everyone talks about what he missed. They don't talk about what he did. Like, he was still amazing. Definitely was. Let's take a look at some early third baseman. Rafael Devers at 19.4 versus Mani Machado at 26.9 Devers this past season.

Awesome year 279 batting average, 38 homers. Finish as the number 12 overall player. He's now finished 12 overall in the top 12 overall in two of the last three seasons. And the stat cast numbers bear that out. I mean, he was 89th percentile or better in barrel rate, average exit velocity, XBA, X-Lug. Devers is awesome, just really not going to give you much speed. That's the only difference here. Machado, a little underwhelming with the power.

Only 28 home runs. The home run to fly ball takes a step back. Probably related somewhat to the ball, I would imagine. But someone who underperformed his expected numbers. So 290XBA, 517 X-slug tells us, all right, maybe there could be some bounce back regression here for Manny Machado. What do you think, Devers versus Machado? I'll probably just take the cheaper of the two.

I think I've had a little bit of a blind spot on Machado and just kind of underappreciated him a bit. but I think that's a perfectly fair price for them. It's not like the market is super out. You pay for just kind of a steady force that you can put in your line. Talk about another iron horse there. Machado comes to play. He's going to be 29, still on the right side of 30.

And there is still that kind of double-digit speed upside there that I think pretty much covers the gap between. Like Devers probably has more pop. I mean, we saw the 38 this year. We've seen what he can do now, back to back, or two straight 30 plus seasons for full seasons, right? Again, throw 20-20 off to the side. He's gone 32 and 38 the last two years. So he gets the power advantage, but I will trade those 10 homers for the eight to 10 extra steals. To be honest, those are going to be more valuable to me easily.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, that's basically what you have to weigh. I think we probably get a similar batting average, you know, 275 to 285 somewhere in that range for both of these. guys, then you get more pop from Devers, probably get more counting stats from Devers too. Maybe the Padres entire lineup can bounce back. I mean, Tates was awesome, but everyone else that seems like they need to get back on track there. But yeah, you're definitely going to get more speed from Mani Machado. I think, you know, it looked at. Sorry, real quick, I was just going to send, they played the exact same number of games since 2019, 369. So you can really compare them with a huge sample pretty easily. Devers has five more homers.

like 20 excuse me 45 more ribbies or runs runs excuse me 50 more ribbies almost so you're right the counting stats are a lot better there but 10 more steals over two plus years yeah it's close man I mean it is close you don't want to underestimate those counting stats right because like no that adds up so if Devers is giving you know 210 220 plus runs an RBI I mean that's that matters that matters so I think I still lean with Devers but, man, he's just not really part of the way that I usually build roto teams.

Is it because he doesn't have the speed and you got to take him in the second? Yeah, you know, it's just like if I'm using a second or third round pick on someone, it's, I want at least 10 steals, I would say. I hear you. I mean, but he's so devastating. Yeah, he really is. And don't forget, he hit 311 in 2019. That's in his skill set for devers to hit even higher,

which Machado has had some years in the 29th. but we and he had 304 in the in the two months but that's what he does like that's perfect for him in 2020 to show 304 because he can do that for two months to hit 278 you do have two months that you hit 304 like that's that's pretty obvious so I'm actually leaning toward devors a little bit more comfortably too as opposed to the just the cheaper one I think I think I can get behind that especially if I get big speed what if you get like trey turner in the first I think we solidified it I'm going to go raffa Lever's I am going to rank him ahead of madey machado but look, getting Machado, that's a perfectly fine constellation.

And the way things are playing up right now, if I'm setting up like a KDS or I have my pick at where I want to draft, I want a top five pick. And then coming around, like, I don't know if Devers will make it back in the second, but I'd be perfectly fine, you know, taking Machado and then maybe my first pitcher in the third round, something like that. It's Thanksgiving week. Let's start up at the top.

I mean, it's the big ones right here. It's turkey your hand. Spora. Which way are we going? You're a turkey or hand? Look, you could you could take both. Nah, turkey all day, man. I'm not even that much for ham to be honest. Sometimes I'll have it. I've had good ham before, like where it's a bit better.

But most of the time, it's pretty C plus. Whereas I think turkey can range. It can be bad. If a dry turkey, you're chomping on that. It's stuck in your throat, man. You're like, I'm dying over here. But with ham, you don't put gravy on it. I don't.

I think that's weird. But with turkey, you can, and that can kind of fix it. So I prefer turkey. Dark meat probably better, too. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I like both of them. I like both of them. I'm going to take ham.

Adam Azor and I were talking. We were doing a football stream earlier on Sunday this week. And me and him were both team ham. We were going up against Chris Towers and Chris was big on turkey. I like both of them. I hear what you're saying. I think the gravy could get on top of the turkey. It doesn't make as much sense on the ham.

But I think you just, we got to, I'll make some arranges, man. I'm going to have to have you over for Thanksgiving. Because the way that my parents make ham, it's like there's just like this brown sugar, like maple glaze on the outside of the ham. And it is awesome. I'm in for that. Like I said, I've had, I've had good ham what you consider what you consider good. Definitely not just some run of the mill.

And I've had run of the mill turkey too. I'm just saying if I, that's kind of what I was judging off. What's the lowest tier I would take and like run of the mill turkey versus run of the mill ham? That I'm going with the turkey. So it's more, it's a more stable floor for me. Maybe Ham has a little bit of a higher upside, especially the way your parents make it. So I'll have to find out.

That's the only way to judge that is to find out. I like this. We're bringing the fantasy terminology into our turkey versus ham, so that's great. Let's get back into fantasy baseball, and somebody submitted Tim Anderson versus Wander Franco. Now, I appreciate the submission, but I'm going to tweak this one a little bit,

because I thought Wander Franco at 47.7 versus Francisco Lindor was a little bit more interesting to me. So that's what we're going to go with. Francisco Lindor is at 53.2. He's going about five, six picks after Wander Franco right now. And Wander was great. Look, first season, 288, seven homers, 53 runs scored in 70 games.

He only had two steals. He had that 43 game on base streak. Maybe someone who plays up better in a points league. Obviously, great OVP is going to walk a lot. Has awesome plate discipline. Disappointing season from Francis Goulendor. No doubt about it. Still gave us 20 homers, 10 steals,

in 125 games. So gives you power, gives you a little bit of speed. Something clicked for him in September. It's a small sample. I don't want to hold on to that too much. But in September for Lindoror, 257 batting average, nine homers in 895 OPS, gives you a glimmer of hope going into the next season.

He attempted two steals. He got caught stealing on both of them. So, Paul, what are you thinking here? We're going, Wander Franco versus Francisco Lindor. You know, I think Franco is ready. Like, he has arrived. I don't really have much concern about him being a, productive fantasy.

I don't think he's going to be at his best right away next year. I think we'll probably look at like a 2023, 2024 going to be the best of Wanda Franco when he fully settles in. But I think he's ready to go right away. We saw what he could do this here. The eye and the ability at the dish to kind of get on base. That can really help alleviate slumps too.

So you're not going three weeks without even touching first base. You're still getting on, maybe scoring, contributing to the team type of deal. Because he will hit some slumps and some teams. he'll figure him out for periods of time and then he'll adjust. That said, as much as I like him, I think. I think you got to go Lindor here just because, first off, he's cheaper right now. And of course, they're close.

That means sometimes one's going ahead of the other. But we've seen it so much with Lindor. And that was his first year in New York. And I kind of have, you know, a little bit of like a first year rule where I'm not, I'm not so interested to get those guys first year, huge new place with a fat deal. Now, he was traded there and they. signed. It works very similarly though. You know, obviously he's he's set up to be the franchise guy, 10 years 341 million. I give him a year to kind of figure it out. I think it's going to be

very much Carlos Beltran-esque where he's going to get back on track. And I think he's got a chance to be like a fantasy league winner because he's a guy that you get what did you say is ADP was. It's at 53 and he plays like the number three player. Like, you know, gets back to that insane level that we've seen before. I really think that's possible for Lendor. And so I would take him over Wander for sure. Oh man, this is so close. I came into this thinking that I was, I was pretty sad on Wander Franco. Like, I'm going to have him ranked higher. I think the batting average is going to be better for Wander Franco. I just don't know where the power and speed is going to be for him right away. So I think you're, you're right about that, that we're not going to see

the best of Wander Franco yet. That being said, like, I didn't really believe Boba Chette is a second round pick or whatever he was last year, and he goes out and has this monster season. So can we see Wander Franco do that? I think it's within his range of outcomes. I just really don't know how much he's going to run. So that's the biggest thing for me. I thought we were going to get a better discount on Lindor. I honestly thought we were. And I was going to be excited to draft him to, like, I just wish, you know, maybe he was going to like a round later. I guess it makes sense, right? Because he's still going to project for at least 25 homers, I would say, 12 to 15 steals. That's a solid player.

And if the Mets and homers in a month, yeah, huge. If that stands out, that's lasting, I think. Yeah. And if the Mets lineup bounces back, too, like, the counting stats should be there too. I think I'd just kind of talk myself into Francisco Lendor, but man, that is, that is close.

I can't really fall to anyone there. I'm going to go with Francisco Lundor right there with you as well. Sandy Alcantara, I want to talk about him. He's on the rise. He's an early fourth round pick in 12 teamers. He's a late third round pick in 15 teamers as of now. I wanted to ask you about three pitchers that are going in a row right now. Sandy Alcansara, Chris Sale, and Aaron Nola.

So Chris Sale, we saw him come back from Tommy John. Really, the only one between him, Severino, and Cindercard, comes back and makes nine starts, much more than those others. 316 ERA, 134 whip. The hits were up, the Bavip was up. He was very good, swinging strike rate, not where it's been at in years past with him. Sandy was just, like, down the stretch, his final 13 starts. He had a 15% swinging.

strike rate. That was fourth among qualified starting pitchers. Like the guy, I feel like he's just ready. You know, like the change of usage is up, just like progressing as a pitcher all across the board. It seems like everything's there for him. Aaron Nola is just, how can you be that unlucky for an entire season, right? Like 463 ERA, everything underneath, the underlying numbers, every ERA indicator is sub three, five. And it was really just the home runs. I mean, the fact that his, uh, his ground ball rate was the lowest it's been of his career. So as a result, gives up more fly balls, a few more home runs. I've really just doomed Aaronola here.

So who are you taking to that group? Sandy, Chris Sale, Aranoa. Sandy's my guy. Got him the highest of the three. You talk about somebody you wish he had a better discount on. I wish more people will sleep on Nola, but it's obvious, right? It's right there. Like it's not a buy low.

It's not a sleeper. It's nothing like that. Everyone is fully in on Aaron Nola because we all see the. very obvious underlying numbers. And so you have to pay full market price. But that's fine. You shouldn't be buying solely off of last year anyway. And this is just a good lesson that.

And yet people will say, oh, there's not enough of a discount. I won't buy him. It's like, but you are going to buy him because you're valuing him as a mid-3s ERA guy anyway. So just because the discount's been taken, he's now just where he belongs. You can still buy him. So I'm right there with the whole trio in terms of willing to pay their market price. but I do have an Alcantara sale, Nola.

Yeah, I think I'm going to have Sandy. I haven't done my rankings yet. I'm looking at ADP. Scott has his rankings out right now. I believe he has Sandy ranked the highest of the three as well. But yeah, I think everything is just there for him too. Like, he gives you so much volume too. He was only, he was one of four starting pitchers with 200 plus innings this past season,

talking about an extension right now with the Miami Marlins. So stays in that great ballpark, has the familiarity there. And again, he's only getting better and better. throws extremely hard, strikeouts up, walks down, everything that you want to see. So it's a big price tag, but I'm right there on Sandy Alcounter. He's going to be a target for me in that third round. I've seen, look, if you start two hitters and you get one of Sandy or G. Alito or Nola in the third round is your first pitcher, I'm fine with that.

I think I feel all right with that, man. And then like you come back in rounds five, six, seven, you could take, I have ADP up right here. Like you get a Logan Webb or a Jack Flaherty as your SP2 Or even if you wait till the sixth round You get like Luis Castillo on a bounceback The whip is always gonna be bad I think I think we know that at this point But you get Castillo as your SP2

Or Charlie Morton as your SP2 Come back with like a hype guy a little bit later on Like a Shane McClanhan As one of your top three starting pitchers I feel good with that man I don't know what are you thinking That's right where I'm at I mean I really feel comfortable with that

I'm okay not necessarily forcing somebody in the first two rounds if it doesn't fit. Now, I will take a picture there, but again, it's something where I think kind of last year I really wanted to have one, at least in like the first three rounds. Now I can get to the fourth round without having a starter and thinking, oh, no, I'm in deep trouble. I think there's a path there to where your pitching feels fine by plucking out of that tier a few times. All right, Thanksgiving. We're back. Here we go. We've got side dish addition right here, a battle green bean casserole, very popular on Thanksgiving, versus a sweet potato casserole versus stuffing. Which one you got?

I'm going to go stuffing. And again, that's another thing that needs to be made well, but I think has a decent floor to where it's hard to make it terribly, I guess, or maybe I just haven't had terrible stuffing. But I've had really, really good stuffing. And I really like it. I've had fine casseroles, but I'm not a huge casserole. guy. So stuffing for me. I'm with you, man. We are simpatico. Let's go. Stuffing. I agree. Like, if it's made right, it can be awesome. I think greenbee casserole is very good as well. Sweet potato casserole. I mean, you get a little crazy. You know, people put like marshmallows on top of

their sweet potato. And it's just like, all right, I get it. Like, you know, that I'm sure it tastes amazing. Makes it more appealing, yes. Yes. But it's just like at that point, it's a dessert, isn't it? Like, I don't know. That's where I always felt. I'm like, why are we eating this with everything else that feels problematic. Yeah, and look, maybe it's the five-year-old within, like, I don't know. Yeah, I see marshmallows and we're like, yes, dessert. I was, I like mac and cheese. That was going to be my pick.

If we get mac and cheese on Thanksgiving, like, that's awesome, you know, whatever. Like, give me mac and cheese, you know, the next, like, give me chicken fingers. Yes, I eat like a five-year-old. It's perfectly fine. Yeah. Let's do it, dude. I'll never grow out of like the mac and cheese. I don't, if that makes me a child for life, I'm signing up for that.

I mean, I'm at least eating annies. I eat adult mac and cheese. cheese. So, come on. That's something. All right, this one isn't a battle, but we got this from Mark Farrell. Farrell? We'll go Farrell. On Facebook. He says,

I keep hearing third base is thin, but is it? Chris Bryant, Alex Bregman, and Anthony Rendon in the 92 to 116 range, and that's round 8 to 10. Then, Brian Hayes, Juan Makata, or Justin Turner, in the 13 to 14 rounds.

I'd consider first base to be thin. So what do you think about this statement here about third base? I hear that. Um, but I mean, I think that that second group in particular has a lot of wards. Brian Hayes hasn't done it. Yohamankata, I guess you kind of rallied to the finish line. I got to be honest. When I saw, I know we're going to talk about it will be the show later, but when I saw he got a finest card, I was like, what? They moved him down to a bronze. How did he get a finest card? But then I looked and he had a pretty good season from like a baseball standpoint, thanks in large part to a 375 on base.

But he wasn't like 14 homers and 61 ribbies in a 263 average. That's what you're psyched about getting at third base. That's tough. And Turner, you know, he's a guy who could age pretty quickly, wherein it could start to go. He was still good last year. I absolutely believe that. But again, 37.

There is a way that I think there's a viable strategy of just saying like no 35 plus guys on my teams ever. just because of the bus rate, and you won't go broke doing that. You'll avoid guys like this. That doesn't mean everyone will be bad. It just means that overall, that'll be a winning bet if you have a certain ADP range. Obviously, the later you get, the more you can take that gamble. But he'll be 37.

He has a litany of injuries under his belt. He did play 151 games. So I know I'm sounding a little wishy-washy on Turner. I like him, but I don't know if I want him to be my guy at third. I think you're giving something back to the rest of the pool if he's your starting third basement. So the depth isn't just do I like a guy, but you have to understand what you're giving back to. Yes, you're going to take him later, so you're going to be positioned well at other positions. But I don't know if you're gaining enough to make Justin Turner your starting third baseman.

Look, it's definitely a weak position. There's no doubt about it. We have one third basement in the first round. We have Devers and Machado. If we're looking at a 15 teamer, they both go in the second round. And then, I mean, we wait a little bit. We have Monise, which he will have. third base eligibility, but

I mean, look, that's, if you want to do the monosy thing, perfect, that's all you. I do the monosy thing sometimes. Austin Riley, I like the price tag there. Look, the ones that he asked about, like, yeah, I think Bregman at 92, like, that's a fair price tag.

Rendon, I know he burned a lot of people. I had him on a lot of teams last year. Same. I love him. I can't. Like, we're getting him at 116. I'm totally fine. Like, he's probably not going to hit for a lot of power, anymore, but if he hits 280 plus with 25

homers in that Angels lineup, like, that's the thing. Yeah. The batting average with like 25 over, he could drive in a hundred, too, even with lower power because Trout and Otani on base ahead of him just like constantly. Obviously, if things play to fruition.

But yeah, and obviously he needs to stay healthy. But, you know, he missed this season basically 58 games, but he played the two months, not like he missed anything in the two months season. 146, 136, 147. That's where he lives. That's why he is the price that he is,

because Rendon doesn't play a full season. So this is really the first season that I should say that he's burned anybody. I'm not going to quit him yet. He's 32. He has skills that should age well. And if Rendon is healthy, he'll be good. We'll know if he's healthy. If he's performing the way he did last year in the 58 games,

we'll know that he's probably still battling something, but a healthy Rendon is going to crush. Yeah, I'm still right there with. you. Rendon's going to be a target of mine. Mark Farrell also had a follow-up. He says, you should ask Justin Mason who this year's Cedric Mullins will be. So, on a

future podcast, if you want to bring that up with Justin. It's been discussed quite a bit. I don't know that he's found one yet. Okay. I don't think he's trying to make it a thing. I encourage him to actually do make it a thing, though, because I mean, hello marketing. Like, you know, Vlad Sedresterner

does his this year's Christian Yellich, like, hello, this is a thing, that you can have that can be your thing. This year's Cedric Mollins. And what if he hits on like two in a row? Then it becomes a huge thing. So I think he's crazy not to embrace it. I might steal it.

I'm telling you right now, Frank, I hope Justin doesn't listen to this. I might just steal it. And I might gaslight everybody into believing that I said it last year, that I was the Cedric Mullen's guy, and completely take it away. Because if you're going to be handed something cool like this, a little thing that you can have annually and you don't want it,

finders keepers. Very clearly finder's key You guys pod together I mean look you're close enough at this point right Like that's what I'm saying You can adopt it Going back to when I called Cedric Mowens last year Frank

That was that was a call It started one stormy night I was cooped No I'm kidding But yeah As far as who he put Did you see Lane Thomas there

That's an interesting name Lane Thomas I actually I actually threw that one in there That wasn't for it Yeah I thought that was him So you through Lane Thomas, I want to let you talk about it, then, instead of me setting them up,

because I'm with you that there's some intrigue here. There really is, man. First off, I know Cardinals fans are probably bugging again, another guy who could potentially bust out after leaving the cards. But all their years of devil magic, like Alan Craig and freaking Matt Carpenter and, you know, a bunch of different guys. There's more than that, but I can't think of them right now. They can stand to lose a couple of these.

But Lane Thomas might be that dude. He looked really sharp in that 206 plate appearances with the Nats. That's just a small sample, but it shows something to build on. And he's 26. He should get an opportunity at a full-time job. I think people are kind of sleeping on Lane Thomas. So I did just set him up after saying you should, so I'm an idiot, but go ahead and talk about him now. Hey, look, you said everything that I needed to, right?

He played 45 games with the Nationals. And I think what's so eerily similar to Cedric Mullins, right, is I've heard Justin talk about it before. And he said, well, if you followed him the year prior, you saw that he was leading off towards the end of the season for the Baltimore Orioles, and it was the same thing for Lane Thomas with the Washington Nationals. He was leading off towards the end of the season. They clearly have some confidence in the guy. Like, if he

performs well early, like, he's going to give, he's going to be given every opportunity to lead off once again for this team. And I don't think the nationals are going to be great, but like, whenever you have Juan Soto hitting behind you, that you're probably going to have a decent amount of run scoring opportunities. And he gets on base. Maybe not as good as like

Cedric Mullins, because obviously the guy was ridiculous. He went 30-30. But like. bananas, yeah. This is very similar to Tommy Fam, in my opinion, right? So, like, Pham was awesome for the Cardinals. Then he was good for the raise. He was all right for the Padres, too. And it's like...

Health was the only thing that kept him from the Padres. Very, very similar, like, skill sets here. Walks a decent amount, makes good contact, has some power, has some speed. I think it's, like, his ADP right now is 280 or something like that. I like, I like Lane Thomas a lot. I need to jump in a draft. I don't know if you know the Siege on Twitter, Siege, C.J. Caltinback, I believe is his name. Yes.

I remember him. I think 19 or 20 was talking up Lane Thomas. Him and somebody in my Twitch chat, who I don't remember, this was a long time ago, and I just randomly remember it. Two people that I heard talking up Lane Thomas before this year at all, before I, like, just keep your thoughts on Lane Thomas as an outfielder for the Cardinals. But obviously they have such a cluster that they couldn't really find him time. Like this one was a necessity to get rid of. Like I understand people with the Luke Void and the Randy of Rosarena and who's the other one? Wasn't there three guys that they lost recently that were just killing it? But like, where's Lane Thomas going to play when you have O'Neill, Bader, and Carlson?

There was no spot for him. But they might have found something here for the nationals. Yep. So that's my early pick. But again, like, I've done, I've not done enough baseball research yet. So we're already at the hour mark here. We usually keep these to about an hour. But look, it's our only podcast of the week. So we'll go a little bit longer here. We've got a few more ADPs that we want to talk about. A few that Sporer provided himself. So the next one that we're going to talk about, I kind of wish Scott was here because I don't know how you feel about this player. But if you don't like him, it would have been awesome to see you guys go at it. So Ranger Suarez has an ADP. P of 146. Oh, he's a big Ranger guy. He's a big Ranger guy. Scott has him at SP 33. He loves him.

He has him ranked ahead of like Shane McClanahan. He is all over Ranger Suarez. 12 starts for Suarez this past season. Mind you. I didn't really realize this until Nick Pollock brought it up on this podcast. Yeah, yeah, I know. Really favorable schedule for Rangers Fawres down the stretch. 151.ERA, 108 whip, 57% ground ball rate,

tick over 11% swinging, right, great. He's basically sinker four seam and change up, mixes in a slider 8% of the time. I like Ranger Suarez. I don't inside my top 40 starting pitchers like Ranger Suarez. So where are you at at ADP 146? Yeah, I mean, I don't hate him, but that price is steep. And I think I get it because here's the thing, even people who look under the hood, what are they going to see? Nothing but greatness. The season was like, it's infallible in terms of the profile statistically. So even people who do that second level, third level analysis are going to see, wow, this was crazy.

And some people are going to run into exactly what Nick talked about with the schedule. I'm going to be like, okay, I'll take a little bit off for that. But we're talking about a 136 ERA and a one whip in 106 innings. Okay, so the schedule gets tougher. And is either 351 Sierra that we posted or that he posted with like a 115 to 119. whip. I'm fine with that. I think the fact that he also showed the volume, like he was going deep into games. He had a shutout. He had a bunch of six inning games. I don't see any reason that he can't have like a huge volume next year too. If he stays healthy, I think he can be like a

175 type of guy. I don't know. The price is the problem for me right now because that's full price. I need everything to come through to pay for him at that price where I thought he was going to be, I thought I was going to be a Ranger Suarez guy. Turns out I'm a little bit more tepid about it because of the guys he's going around and some of the ones that I like a good bit later than him too. Like I'm still a huge Jose Iricidi guy and he threw a hundred six, he's got to pick 168. Yeah, I was thinking, just looking at ADP right now, 175 probably would have been a fair range for Suarez. If he was going right where Erod was going, again, like that's, you know, 175.1 for Erod. I think that would make a lot of sense for Suarez. He's going ahead of

Marcus Stroman. He kind of does a lot of what Stroman does and Stroman's done it for longer, right? So that doesn't really, it doesn't really add up for me. I like Ranger Suarez the player, but I agree with you. He should probably be, I would say, 25 to 30 picks lower than he is right now. He's got a 97 min pick. So again, I wonder if, you know, maybe a couple men picks are really holding that number up. He's as low as 183. So that's a pretty wide range, especially in comparison to the guys around them. You see a few spikes. You see a Clayton Kershaw went 68, somebody being maybe a bit overconfident there.

Adam Wainwright at 34 might have been drafting off of like a 2021 Q or something because he was really good. But obviously, you cannot do that. That's insane. But otherwise, guys are mostly going around pick one 10 to 120 there at the front end of their average. So if that's where his front end drops down to, then he'll put. probably be somebody that dips down Ranger Suarez Suarez well. But again, I think with these stats,

it's hard for people to get off of Ranger Suarez. Yep. Thanksgiving pies. We haven't talked about any dessert yet. So I don't know if you're big on pie. Some people don't like pie, which there's better desserts than pie. I recognize that. That's fine. But pie's fine. Sure. Pumpkin pie versus apple pie

versus pecan pie. Where are you going? Pumpkin all day. I absolutely love pumpkin pie. It's amazing. I'm looking for a picture to show you, to show you what I did one time with a pumpkin pie, which is a terrible setup because that makes it sound like it's a picture you definitely don't want to see. But I promise you do. I promise.

But no, I love pumpkin pie. I don't like the others that much, but I really do love pumpkin pie. That's definitely my favorite. And I put like four pounds of cool whip on it, which is definitely too much. But, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. I would take pumpkin pie.

I like apple pie. What do we got going on here? Did you make it inside of a pumpkin? No, I, sorry, I know it's like reflecting weirdly. I cut out the middle for my piece. Oh, okay. And made that my piece like a giant jerk. And I was very proud of myself.

I thought it was like the funniest thing ever. You know, my sister, brother-in-law, my girlfriend, they didn't think it was as funny. But I thought it was hilarious because I'm an idiot. I'm absolutely an idiot. All right, we've got a few more position battles here, ADP battles rather, and they were provided by spores.

So let's jump right in. Battle of the Shains. We have Shane McClainahan at Pick 99, and we have Shane Baiz at Pick 126. Play on the same team. They're both awesome. It sucks that you might have to choose between them, but McClan 343 ERA,

20% K-minus walk is just like ridiculous. In your 15% swinging strike rate. He has legitimately four pitches and Seamer projection for 159 endings. Shane Baz also has, Baz also has four pitches. Only used a change of about 6% of the time. Only made three starts, 16% swinging strike rate. Watch him against my Yankees.

The guy was ridiculous. Lights out. I think both these guys are awesome. The difference, Seamer projects Shane Boz for 136 endings. So, you know, about 20, 25 less. So who do you like between these at their respective costs? Yeah, and that's why I'm going to go with McClanahan. I'm going to pay the premium a little bit there, 99 versus 126, not too much.

You're drafting these two around the same area. If one of them goes and you pick soon and you really want one, you need to take that guy right there. You push it any further, you run that risk because obviously with averages being 99-126, they go a ton in that different range. But with McClanahan, I do agree with Steamer on the more reliable innings count. We know that Tampa Bay doesn't mess. around with that stuff in terms of the fact that they will take a guy out for a period of time, put him in the bullpen, park him in AAA, things like that. He's coming off of, uh, Baz is coming off of 70, what was that, 79 innings this year.

He had 81 back in 2019. He's only going to be 23. Obviously, 2020 was a total washout. He probably threw some endings at the training site. So I don't think that they're going to ramp them up too crazily. I think McClaintingham can eclipse him by 30, 50 endings perhaps, with his season total. So that's why I've got to go with him.

But I do like Boz. Just plan for 125 innings. But they could be so great that it's worth the price. But you just plan for that. Maybe you take your first reserve starter much earlier because he's a guy that you expect to bridge the gap with Boss. If you plan for things and you can afford to take these players at their respective price if you still really like them.

Yeah. And maybe you select Boz with an innings eater in tandem with him. Yeah. someone that provides more reliable endings. Someone like Marcus Stroman, we've already mentioned the name, right? I think he's going to be pretty reliable in terms of his endings. So that's something

that can make a lot of sense. I'm still taking Shane McClanahan at his cost. Another one where I wish people weren't as in on him as they are, but like we're all looking at the same things and we all see that it seems pretty obvious that Shane McClanahan is going to be pretty awesome. We're going to wrap up here with

one more. Picture-related Justin Verlander at Pick 154 versus Clayton Kirshaw at 156. So Verlander is going to be 18 months removed from Tommy John surgery when the season begins. Last time we saw him in a full season was 2019. He finished as the number one overall player in 5x5 roto, not just like pitcher. The number one overall player, that's how good he was. Clayton Kirschaw really, really good when he was healthy this past season, but where is the health?

I think that's something we have to find out more about. In the off season, the Dodgers did not give him the qualifying offer, which it's probably going to scare some people away. And yeah, I think for a good reason. We'll see where he signs. He's a free agent. Talk about the Texas Rangers. I know he's from Texas,

so that could make some sense. But we'll see, ultimately, where he winds up. And I'm interested to see where Verlander's ADP goes from here. Because I think now that he resigns with Houston, the fact that he has familiarity there, the fact that they are the team that closely watches his rehab. They know how healthy he is. I think Verlander's going to start to shoot up here.

So what do you think in between these two? Yeah, absolutely Verlander. It's who I'm taking. And I totally agree that the price is going to go up. I mean, I'm a huge Justin Verlander fan, being Detroit Tigers fan, love what he did with Houston. By the way, this highlight,

he kind of shows the risk of taking Morton, right? It could be a six-inning season. And that can happen with any pitcher. I'm saying the risk of that is higher. And the older you get, that you just pop. And you have to miss a year. Now he's going to come back. What's he going to be?

based on what we've seen, we should expect him to be pretty good. He's a unicorn, right? We talk about certain guys that are unicorns. Justin talks about how Max Scher is. Justin Berlander is as well. Now, I understand the unicorn is supposed to be a single entity, but you get a handful of unicorns in the pitching landscape. Do you want to take on that risk?

I think we probably dilute ourselves a bit into thinking that the risk that he busts is significantly higher than the risk that anybody busts. but the truth of the matter is that the difference isn't that high or isn't that much. The fact that he's older is why there's that enhanced risk. But otherwise, I think that's fine. I'm getting a discount on Verlander. He can be a top five starter again. So the fact that even when he jumps up, say he jumps up to like pick 110, 100,

that's going to put him around pitcher 42, 49, throw in 10 closers. You're talking just outside the top 30. I'm okay with that for Verlander. I'm ready to pay that. With Kershaw, I'm not completely out on him. I think I'd pay that price. If it starts to go up, I think then I start to push away from Kershaw at that point.

Yeah, I could see it happening where if Verlander's healthy and he shows us something in spring training, I mean, we're talking, he shoots all the way up. Like the second round. Yeah, like I'm thinking, yeah, I was just going to say like he's like a top five round player. But yeah, we could see it go like even like even, into like the second round, something crazy like that.

If he's, you know, if he just looks like Verlander, right? So I know he threw a showcase recently. He was at, he had like, throwing 97 miles per hour at his fastball. Sounds pretty good. Sounds like Justin Verlander. So we'll see. You need to jump in a draft now.

If you won Verlander, we're getting him at the cheapest he is going to go basically all off season. He probably should have been drafting like two weeks ago, but it's perfectly fine. Let's wrap up here with MLB the show. Obviously, Paul, you know, you do some stuff over on Twitch. We're talking beforehand. I think this whole,

kind of generation of Twitch is like really interesting too. It's, you know, some parents might not understand like, why are my kids watching other people playing video games? It's like this whole weird phenomenon. But like, let's be honest, man, growing up, if you went to your friend's house, like, there was one friend that would play the game. There was a bunch of people who sat around and watched that friend play the game. Like that was totally.

Or two at most, right? Two people are playing. Three others are waiting to get next. So you're sitting around watching, talking, having a good time. And it's that similar vibe there. and you're shooting the breeze with guys talking baseball, things like that. So there's people in my community that don't even have a PlayStation or MLB the show. They're just there to hang out and talk baseball because it's a cool place to hang out and just talk sports.

Yep. So look, say I'm just buying MLB the show today. What do I need to know? How do I get better? Because I feel like that's kind of where I'm at. I will tell you the settings that I play with. There's going to be some people who are listening to this. We're like, what are you talking about?

I don't care. Don't worry what they say. You customize it to what you like best. My current settings. Hitting view is strike zone two. Don't know if that's good or not. I'm pure analog. I'm going with the flick.

Okay. My PCI is off. I can't look, dude, I can't. That's fine. I can't do the PCI thing. Like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to focus on moving it. If it distracts you, then that's a problem. But are you still, you're still moving it though, right?

If you turn it off, I think it's still, if it's invisible, or you're saying you don't use PCI or you just turned off the visual of it. I turned it off, I think. Okay, if you turned it off off, then I don't know about pure analog hitting, to be honest. But I can tell you the number one thing. You can finish your settings. But how patient are you? Do you take pitches?

I'm getting better. That's the key. That's the key. You have to take pitches. And I know, you know, nobody wants to sit down. play video game to take walks. Actually, there's a lot of fun in taking walks. I don't take a ton. So when I'm patient enough to not swing at everything, I'm like, yes. But the best players are super patient. They don't always take a ton of walks, but they wait for their pitch. Right.

You feel pretty confident that you'll get a fastball in every at bat because the off-speed stuff is just not that effective. Like, you've got to bring some heaters. So if you're waiting for your heater, you got to be getting deep into the counts though. If you're rolling over two pitches in every time people are going to make quick work of you the confidence in their pitchers going to get better so they're only going to kind of have a perpetual state of getting better against you and you're in for it big time trying to scratch out a couple hits and maybe call a run or two across so what do you're what what settings you use when you're strike zone i use analog hitting um where i move the PCI and then press the button and then um i use the analog pitching that's not

it's not analog hitting that's not what that's called because that's what's what's you use. I'm an idiot. But whatever the PCI one is called, sweet. I don't even know the name of it. I've had the same settings for so many years and I forget. But then I'm not using the new pitching, which I know I should be because pinpoint is better. They said it's proven. It's better. If you master that between all three, if you mastered all three, you will get better results with pinpoint. So that stands the reason that if you're, you know, at 70% on something and 70% on pinpoint, whatever it is, there's an advantage to being better there. I just need to take it under because I've I've been afraid of it. But yeah, as far as pitching too, you have to try

to pitch like an actual pitch. You have to try to set guys up, keep them off balance. Don't throw obvious two-oh fastballs all the time. They're waiting for one. They're expecting one. Sometimes you will throw them, but you're battling your guys. It's, it's chess every app bad. That's what's so fun about playing other people too, is trying to get in their head and predict their pitches and predict where they're thinking you're going to pitch it. Yeah, for sure. So do you use the meter when you're pitching? I use the analog. So I bring the stick down and then flick it up. Okay. But the pinpoints, the new one where you make, and that's what you, you and I should have an advantage there as Xbox guys, because the 2K, basically that's what you had to do. You had to like make a shape with the analog to

throw the pitch. They brought that in this year called pinpoint pitching, and they made it the best one there is. But I've been, I've been too lazy to take the time to learn it. So I get impatient every time I start sucking, and I go right back to my comfort zone. Yeah, I think that's, I should probably try it out too, right? If you're saying that it kind of lends itself to the Xbox player. So I didn't even try. I think it started on the meter. So I was like, all right. I'll just, I'll go ahead and pitch with this. Meter's all right. Like meter and analog are fine. But they have said explicitly San Diego Studios that you, if you're better at pinpoint, it will give you better results.

Like it when you achieve the highest, it delivers better than the other ones on purpose because there is a higher threshold of skill. All right. Well, for anyone who plays MLB the show, I hope that helped you out a little bit. If you're still listening and you don't play MLB the show, you probably are extremely confused and you have no idea what's going on, but I appreciate you for sticking around regardless. If you want to watch Sporer beat some people in MLB the show, you can do that on Twitch.tv slash Sporer and getting back to fantasy baseball related items. Obviously, you can find all of his work over at Fangraphs.com. You can listen to The Sleeper and the Bus podcast. Follow them on Twitter at Sporer. That's S-P-O-R-E-R. Paul, I

appreciate you coming on, man. This was a lot of fun. I kept you along. It's pretty late here, but I do appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thanks so much for having me on, Frank. I had a blast. And I talked too much. That's why it went long. So don't worry about that. I appreciate you sticking with me. No, no. Look, I'm famous at this point for, I make like two hour rundowns for, you know, podcasts that we're supposed to keep under an hour. And we would have like three hour pods easily. I feel like you and I would just get going back. Okay, well, it's been three and a half hours. We should probably wrap this up. Yeah. Once again, appreciate you coming on. Everyone go follow

him on Twitter for Paul. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening and watching Fantasy Baseball today. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody out there. Have a happy and healthy holiday and we will talk to you again next Tuesday. Bye-bye.