Fantasy Baseball Today - Winners and Losers in the Grapefruit/Cactus League; Tommy Edman Deep Dive (04/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

We're taking a look at the biggest winners and losers if the baseball season were played in just Arizona and Florida but first, should your leagues be redrafted (2:30)? So many things have changed since you drafted back in March. Should your league consider redoing the draft if the baseball season is played in just Arizona and Florida? ... How do we feel about Tommy Edman for 2020 (10:23)? The utility-man for the Cardinals offers some batting average and speed but that's only if he's in the lineup regularly. ... If there is baseball played in the Grapefruit League in Florida, who are the biggest winners (24:27)? Upon review of the park dimensions, Cavan Biggio seems to be one of the main beneficiaries. ... Who are some of the losers in the Grapefruit League (31:19)? Right-handed Phillies and right-handed Astros seem to lose some value as a result. ... Moving over to the Cactus League, who are the biggest winners here (35:00)? Is German Marquez finally trustworthy!? ... How much do we need to devalue the Rockies hitters moving away from Coors Field (44:38)? Most pitchers would suffer pitching in Arizona and Lucas Giolito might be the biggest name. ... Email us at [e-mail]. '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: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday 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/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! 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, at the wall, grand slam. This 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.

Happy Monday, everybody, and welcome to Fantasy Baseball today. April 27th, Frank here with Scott. And Chris, Chris, how's it going? Pick up any wins in Call of Duty this weekend? I got a top five finish in Warzone, but have not gotten a win. But in multiplayer, I've been killing it, so to speak. Literally. Doing very well.

You get me in a kill-confirmed match? Watch out, World. Watch out World. Chris Towers playing Cold Duty on a rampage out here. Scott, how's it going for you? How was the weekend, buddy? It was just lovely. Just

lovely for no particular reason. I did watch a movie. Everybody else was watching the draft that carved out of time, some time to watch a movie. That doesn't happen very often. Ford versus Ferrari. How was it? It was, uh, it was solid. It was solid. I was a little

the ratings are kind of through the roof on both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB so I was expecting probably a little more than it was it was pretty straightforward movie but it was it was very solid I watched Birds of Prey on Saturday night that was very good I highly recommend that if you want a fun

a fun action romp Ford versus Ferrari was one of the Oscar nominated movies like one of the highly acclaimed movies, right? I think I got some Oscar attention, yeah. Okay. All right, so I'm going to have to check that out. We've already kind of established here on the podcast,

at least within the past month or so, that I am way far behind in terms of like Oscar-nominated movies, anything that matters. I watched Wolf of Wall Street for the first time last weekend or two weekends ago. I thought it was all right. I thought it was a little overrated, not like one of the top five Leonardo DiCaprio movies,

for me at least. Ooh. Yeah. Inception, Shutter Island, gangs of New York was awesome. I would probably put those all ahead of Wolf of Wall Street, but... Man, you didn't even mention my favorite Leo movie.

What's that? Catch me if you can. I've never seen it. That's a good movie. One of Spielberg's best. Man, I'm far behind, guys. I mean, that's what you guys are going to learn about me in terms of movies, man.

I've got a lot of catching up to do. Speaking of catching up, there's a lot that I want to get done here on the show today, and I really just wanted to kind of throw this question out here at the top because I've seen people talking about this on Twitter. If you have already had your fantasy baseball draft, should drafts that have already happened be redone once a league start date is announced?

Because basically everything is going to change, right? Like if we're going to just play in Florida and Arizona or just Arizona. I mean, things are kind of all up in the air right now. But I've seen a lot of people making the case that any draft that has been done should be redone when a league date is actually announced. To that, Scott, you say? Maybe.

Yeah, I was pretty resistant to this idea at first because, you know, we were just talking about, oh, well, maybe some pitchers who we thought were going to have innings limit. They won't be so limited relative to the pool. You know, maybe you have to move those couple pitchers up or down your rankings accordingly. Maybe players who we thought were going to be injured for some time. You have to move them up. But it was just a handful or a couple of handfuls of players whose values were changing.

But if, you know, ever since this idea of them playing in a completely different environment was introduced, whether it's half the league moving to Arizona or the whole league moving to Arizona, That has more drastic and far-ranging effects. And look, me personally, I would just be fine with the challenge of taking the team I initially drafted and kind of molding it into something that would be better served in this environment. I don't personally feel like I have to redraft all my teams. But, you know, that's me. And I could totally understand how the majority would feel different. I would say it's up to your sheer league to figure it out.

I don't know if you poll everybody and take the majority or just, you know, get a temperature of what your league is thinking. Because if they want to redo it, then I can certainly understand the case for it. The one I'm still going to be more resistant to is like a dynasty startup. Because when you're building, putting together a dynasty league roster, you're not just thinking in terms of one year anyway. you shouldn't be. And there's still the case of, oh, you've already tipped your hand at this point. And like that would,

if I had put together a dynasty league team before this all went down and I had to dissolve that and start over, that would be very upsetting to me. Scott mentioned that originally, when the season was going to be delayed, there were maybe a handful, you know, 10 players that we were looking at that,

okay, because of the delay, they're going to have time to, recover from injuries, those were the main players that were going to be affected. But, you know, as Scott also mentioned, the other side of that is now we're talking about players playing in Arizona, and that's going to affect obviously offensive production and offensive output, which is something we're going to kind of highlight throughout the course of today's show because Scott wrote an article about which players would be the biggest winners and losers if they just played in Florida and Arizona. Chris, the pushback that I would have on the

idea that people should redraft their teams entirely because, yes, a lot has changed, was that everybody kind of was drafting under the same circumstance. So it's not like anybody had an advantage or disadvantage because everyone kind of all had the same information. So do you think that, you know, leagues that are already drafted should redraft once we kind of have a set plan in place for the 2020 season? I don't, I don't want to make a hard and fast rule. I think it depends on your league. What I will say is, I think all of us could use some entertainment these days.

And the best part of the fantasy season is the draft. At least for me, I don't know about you guys, but I think that's the most fun part, the most fun part, at least. Yeah, part of what makes it fun is because there are real consequences to it. Well, there's real consequences here. It would come just to practice round. The first one, sure. But when you drafted that first one, there were real consequences.

It doesn't take away from the fun you had in the first draft. You're just adding more net fun, guys. I'm all about net fun. Yeah. I think when you use a term, like, net fun, like really how much are you about fun when you use a term like net fun, Chris? I'm always about fun. Frank. I don't know if you know this about it. I've never heard that fun using a sentence before.

I'm an incredibly plus EV fun kind of guy. And look, for me, it's just, yes, everybody's on the same footing. And so if you want to keep it, that's fine. Everybody was dealing with the same information. Everybody has the same information moving forward. But it's going to be a different league than the one that you drafted. And it's, it's, going to be so dramatically different that it's just, it's a little hard for me to just say, well, you know, that's it. You're, everybody was on the same footing where it's, it's all fair. In terms of fairness, sure, that's, that's true. But in terms of like what would create the best league, I think redoing it probably still make sense. Yeah, and that's, that's what I keep coming back to is just how extensive the changes would be.

I mean, and we're going to talk about it in a minute, just the effect that that Arizona environment is going to have on so many players. My original thinking was, well, redrafting a team I was already happy with wouldn't be fun, because I'd constantly be comparing this new one to the one I had and wondering what if I got to play that original one out. And just, I would be like, I don't know, pouting with my arms crossed the whole time that second draft was. going on. I wouldn't be happy with it. It would not be fun. But, like, what if that team, what if we got to see that original team play out? Well, in a context where half the league or more is playing in Arizona, like that, that's not, obviously not an option anymore because it wouldn't be the same league anymore, like Chris is saying. So I don't know, I don't know if it depends on,

like, I'm trying to put it in perspective, or I'm trying to think in terms of like the average fantasy player who probably plays in like two to three leagues or maybe just one and how emotionally invested are you in your team that's what it really comes down to for me whether or not i'm going to enjoy that redraft process and if you're in few leagues fewer leagues you're probably even more emotionally invested than i am in mine so that's why like you just got to figure you just got to decide for yourselves guys there's no there's no right answer here but it's it's certainly something worth considering. And good luck convincing the owners that got Justin Verlander and Mike Clevenger at a discount

that you want to redraft once we figure out what's going on, because I guarantee you they will not be on board with that. Today on the show, we are also going to deep dive Tommy Edmund. We're going to look at the biggest winners and losers from the potential grapefruit cactus league that has been proposed, and then maybe, just maybe, we will answer some of your questions. Fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. But Tommy Edmund, an interesting player, came up last season for the St. Louis Cardinals, Utility Man playing mostly second base, third base, and right field.

He averaged three fantasy points per game, which was most useful at the second base position where that ranked as the 15th second baseman. The good for Tommy Edmund makes a lot of contact. He hit 304 with 11 home runs, 15 steals, and 59 runs scored in 92 games last year. that pace over 155 games would have seen him hit 18 home runs with 25 steals and 99 runs scored. His 287 expected batting average ranked in the 86th percentile, while his sprint speed ranked in the 97th percentile. Some of the bad for Tommy Edmund.

He had the chance to lead off last year, and for the most part, he let off a decent amount for this team. But he hit just 257 with his 664 OPS and 136 at bats in the league. off spot. I'm personally skeptical of the power. Never slugged more than 427 before last year. And then with the juice ball, he slugged 513 in the minors. He slugged 500 in the majors. His expected slugging percentage was 441. And how consistent will the playing time be? I mean, that's a major question mark I have. He's currently penciled in in left field, according to Rosser Resource. They have Matt Carpenter at third. He has to stay healthy. Colton Wong, likely going to play a lot

at second base. But Dylan Carlson is on the verge here. Tyler O'Neill is still there. And the outfield is a very crowded outfield for the St. Louis Cardinals. So, Scott, where do you kind of land? Because it seems like people are, for the most part, I would say, split on Tommy Edmund. Are you glass half full? Are you glass half empty?

Is he someone that you were targeting? How do you feel about Tommy Edmund in 2020? I mostly like him. However, he has... The cost has gotten a little higher than I'm comfortable with. And I understand why. I mean, it's sort of like the argument I remember making for Whitmerfield a couple years ago, which ultimately turned out fine, but he was in a similar spot to Tommy Edmund,

actually even in a more questionable spot than Tommy Edmund, because he was a guy breaking through in his late 20s as opposed to Edmund's 24 now. So he's in the range where players normally start breaking into the big leagues, following a normal developmental path there. But, yeah, the point I was making about Whitmerfield at the time is even if, even if just from a pure player evaluation standpoint, it's difficult to believe. It's such a unique player that you kind of just have to go along with it.

If you want to have those categories filled at that spot in that draft, like it's, if it does work out and he is a good player, then he's going to be a hugely valuable player because of the ways he contributes. And in Edmund's case specifically, I think the safest stats from him are batting average and stolen bases. I mean, it was 15 for 16

and about half a season's times in stolen bases last year. I do question the power. The 11 home runs he hit. Six of them came in September. And as you said, he didn't have a great track record for that. But it's also kind of when players,

surprise with their power, it usually happens right when they're breaking into the big leagues. Like that's where we see the big jump so often from that kind of player. So I don't want to completely rule it out. I just think it's it's certainly the most questionable part of Tommy Edmund's skill set. So like in a points league, even though he had good points league value last year, I'd be more reluctant to buy into him because that batting average that's still in base help just isn't as meaningful in that format. The one thing I would say is I think he's probably viewed as, you know, he stole 15 bases in 92 games, but some of those were not starts.

So you could reasonably project him out and say, well, maybe he could steal 30 bases. I think that's probably an unrealistic expectation. He did go 24 for 25 in stolen bases last season. and for his career has mostly been a very good stolen base rate guy, but he's not going to steal 94 or 95% of the bases he attempts to steal next season. That is one of those stats that just fluctuates wildly from year to year, and you should regress heavily towards the mean, and maybe he's an 80% stolen base success rate guy, which would be hugely valuable.

That would be great for his real life value. but if it's 25 stolen base attempts, you're probably looking at more like 20 steals over a full 162 game season. So I just think 20 to 25 steals is probably the ceiling that I would project for him, which would make him a good stolen base guy, but not an elite one.

It's a good point that you bring up about his efficiency on the base pads. In the minor leagues, he was 71 for 84 in his career in terms of stolen bases. And in 2018, he went 30 for 35. So pretty efficient. I like the comp that you made to Whitmeryfield. And I guess it comes down to, you know,

if he hits, he'll be in the lineup. It's kind of what we said last week. I forgot who we were talking about. But it's, you know, usually these things work themselves out, where if Tommy Edmund's playing well, he's going to be in the lineup. I took a look at the past month of average auction values over at the NFBC,

because they still have some auctions going on over there. And over the past month, mind you, this is in Roto. Tommy Edmund is going for $13 in an auction. That's the same price as Carlos Correa and Kavana Bizio during that time. So, Scott, in a Roto League, rank Carlos Correa, Kevin Bigio, and Tommy Edmund.

In a Roto league, I would rank them. I think I'd go, Kavana. I think I go Carlos Correa won Kevin Vizio to Tommy Edmund three, but it would depend how many stolen bases I already had at that point the draft. If I didn't have any yet, then Carlos Correa is probably getting passed over.

Man, I'm starting to get a little iffy on Cabin Bidio. I've kind of gone back and forth on him. And one thing that I hadn't really noticed is his bad at ball profile is not very good. For a guy that we view as a power speed guy, he did not hit the ball hard at all last season. You know, I've seen... He hits a ton of fly balls, though.

It's kind of like Reese Hoskins that way. Or Chris Bryant, for that matter. Yeah, but like those guys have like average, average exit velocities. Kevin Vizio's was pretty solidly below average. I've seen a lot of people mention that he had the highest sweet spot percentage. in Major League Baseball last season ahead of Mike Trout. And if you're wondering why Sweet Spot

percentage is not a thing that you've ever heard of, it's because it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really tell you anything. So yeah, I just, I really, I wonder about the bat there. Like, his expected slugging percentage was in the 36th percentile. So I would go Correa,

admin, Vigio. Yeah, I'm not even the Carlos Correa. I'm not a Carl's Correa guy. As you're learning, I tend to veer away from injury-prone players, and I would consider Carl's Correa injury-prone at this point in his career. But even still, I mean, at the same price as Edmund, I would rank Carl's Correa first of this group as well. I would take Kevin Bizio ahead of him.

And Chris, just on your point about the average exit velocity, league average 87.5 miles per hour last year, Kevin Bizio was at 88.7. So he was slightly above league average. He was in the 41st percentile among qualifiers. So, Bigio's average exit velocity last year was higher than Chris Bryant each of the last three seasons. Okay. That's fair.

And that's why you should all be down on Chris Bryant, guys. Well, he's never had a great exit velocity, Chris Bryant. And, as we'll soon discuss, he stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a move to Arizona. That is true, and we will get into that in just a second, but I do have some news and notes I want to get into. I'll mention those quickly from the weekend, but before that, just want to let everybody know that this Wednesday, April 29th, this podcast will be a live video stream

that you can watch over on our Fantasy Baseball Today Facebook page at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. We've been doing some live streams recently, Chris and I have. We did one this past Friday. That was a lot of fun. We were answering your questions. And, you know, we thought we'd like to try a live podcast. So, you know, we'll do some of the things we always do.

We'll have some fun. We'll answer some of your questions. And you can catch that this Wednesday at 8 p.m. over on our Facebook page. So make sure to join the group and you can watch us there. You can jump in. You can ask us some questions. We'll have some fun.

We'll do some crazy stuff. Well, I don't know how crazy, but we'll have some fun. It'll be cool. So make sure to join the Facebook group and be part of that this Wednesday. Some news and notes from the weekend. Just wanted to highlight some of these items that I saw real quick. According to Juan Terribio, who covers the raise for MLB.com, Brent Honeywell not likely to return at any point in 2020,

even if we have a season. So I thought that was interesting because people are still drafting him late-ish and, you know, still selecting him in Dynasty, but that's more so for the future. Another item that I saw, according to Jeff Fletcher. That's actually really surprising because I thought he was pitching in bullpens at the start of spring training. Yeah, he was.

I'm surprised by that too. I wonder. I didn't see this report. I don't want to need to put Frank on the spot. Did he say why? Had something gone wrong? Had there been some kind of setback? No, based on what I saw, it was actually one of the player news items on CBS as well.

So let's see here. Honeywell Elbow, who was in the midst of a throwing program before spring training was suspended, is still unlikely to make a return at any point during the 2020. season, Juan Tarebio of MLB.com reports. The right-handed last pitched in 2017 due to multiple injuries. So he was already slated for a robust rehabilitation program before any thoughts of a 2020 return were seriously contemplated. So he's, yeah, I mean, he's still going through a bullpen schedule.

It highlights that in this news item as well. But I guess even with that, he wasn't expected to be a major part for, you know, the raise this season. I mean, maybe, you know, he'll still obviously work in the minor league system. And I guess it's possible that he'll work out of the bullpen. But I guess ultimately, the takeaway here is just, yeah, he's not going to have a big role in 2020, in the majors, at least. So keep that in mind.

According to Jeff Fletcher, who covers the Angels, Griffin Canning is throwing between 120 and 150 feet at about 70 to 80% intensity. And, you know, on the note of the Angels, general manager, Billy Epler said, Sunday during an appearance on MLB Network Radio on Sirius XM that Shohei Otani is throwing roughly two bullpen sessions per week at about 80 to 85% intensity. So you want to talk about another player who potentially gained value with the season being delayed? I think both of these players, Griffin Canning and Shohei Otani, are in the mix there. And the last thing I wanted to mention, apparently the KBO, Korean baseball organization, is close to an agreement, I believe, with ESPN, that would allow us to

watch their games here in the States. Would either of you guys watch KBO baseball games? Yeah, man. If for nothing else because of the batfills, I don't know what the timing would be as far as, because like every time MLB plays in Japan, I always say, like, especially if it's opening day, I'm going to get up at 5 a.m. to watch those games.

And I get up like in the fifth inning, usually. So if they're showing them live, there's a very low likelihood that I will watch. But I'll try. Yeah, it's baseball. It's Korean baseball. It's going to be fun. So apparently Korea is 13 hours ahead of New York.

So I'm not even going to attempt to try to do the math, but there is quite a difference in time zone there. Shout out to Aaron Altair. I was looking through the KBO rosters earlier today and trying to see any names that I recognized. And Aaron Altair was one that actually stood out to me. So if we do get some KBO games, get ready to watch some Aaron Haltair.

There will definitely be a Remembersome Guys component to KBO games. Another guy who I really, really believed was going to be good in the majors was Biongho Park, who just didn't, didn't do it, had a lot of power, but just couldn't hit in the majors. He had 43 home runs in 2018

and 113 games in the KBO. So watch out, Bianho Park's hive. Bungho Park, he's back. He was a name that I actually recognized as well. So whether it's Bungho Park or Aaron Altair, if you want some baseball, it might be coming soon, some KBO potentially being broadcast here in the States. The biggest winners and losers for a potential grapefruit cactus league baseball season, whether that's just the start of the season or if it's the entire season,

these kind of details are still being ironed out. But Scott, you wrote an interesting article over at cbsports.com, highlighting some of the biggest winners and losers. So let's start in Florida, aka the Grapefruit League, and the teams that would be playing in Florida, include the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Oreos, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers,

Houston Astros, Miami Marlins, Minnesota Twins, New York Mets, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals. I keep wanting to say Arizona Cardinals, the NFL draft just completely messed up my brain this weekend. Tampa Bay Reyes, Toronto. Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals.

And the winners and losers that you pointed out, this is of course relative to the way these teams MLB venues currently play. So you had stock up for pitchers being the Philadelphia Phillies, the Detroit Tigers, the Houston Astros, stock up for hitters, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Miami Marlins, and the New York Mets. The one that I really wanted to highlight is someone that we actually, I've already referenced today on the show. And the Blue Jays TD ballpark

can also be sneaky for left-handed power bats given it's just 363 feet out to right-center field. Normally it's 375 to right-center in Rogers Center. So, Kevin Bigio, someone who pulls the ball, about 47% of the time, hits fly balls nearly 50% of the time, he stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of playing in Florida for the great.

Fruit League, Scott? Yeah, he is, I had a list of five players there who's gained the most from this. And yeah, that seems to be the case of 363-foot fence in right center. That's a really close power alley. It's, it's 380 in left center. So that's why I didn't have the Blue Jays listed as a team that becomes more hitter-friendly overall. Obviously, Roger Center already a very hitter-friendly place. but this would be especially good for lefty power hitters

and one who hits the ball in the air a lot like Vigio. I can see his value going up. What's difficult to account for because I have mostly hitters here among the players who I can see gaining value from playing in the Grapefruit League is would they gain enough value to compete with some of the Cactus League players still?

There are going to be so many, every hitter, except for maybe some Colorado Rockies are going to be gaining value on that side. So how universally do you move them all up? And would a gainer like Cabin Bigio move up in a way that's at all proportional? That's a really difficult question to answer. I don't know. And it still could be, in fact, maybe the most likely scenario is that everybody,

playing in Arizona. And then it would be more of the hitters versus pitchers thing, how proportionally do you move those two groups around? But the reason I didn't break it down that way in this article is because, like, the split Arizona-Florida plan where teams just play in their spring sites, that's the only proposal where we know where every team's going to play. And I don't even know how to begin to analyze players who are, you know, know, like, which Arizona park the Blue Jays end up playing most of their games in if they were

to play in Arizona. So it's a really interesting question that you bring up, and one that I hadn't thought of, but you're right. I mean, we even heard Ross Stripling talk about it last week in that the environment in Arizona is one where the ball does fly, not to the same extent, but similar to how it does in Colorado. And ultimately, and you've, you know, kind of painting. this picture before, Scott, where in spring training,

we normally see big offensive numbers in the Cactus league. So, you know, Chris, while we would see some hitters gain in advantage, you know, their stock would move up hitting in the Grapefruit League, would that matter enough to the point where the hitters in the Cactus League are just universally moving up, regardless of like if it's a better ballpark to hit in, just because the environment is that much better. So would it be something where you just boost all of the Cactus? League hitters where you're kind of using that as like a differentiating factor.

Like if you're, you know, kind of deciding between a Cactus League hitter or a Grapefruit League hitter, you're just automatically going to choose the Cactus League hitter. Yeah, I don't think we should, when it comes to the Cactus League, I don't think we should really care about dimensions. In an environment where pitches are going to move less and the ball is going to travel further, which is the assumption that we have given that it's played at elevation and in heat, whether the fences are short or not doesn't really matter. In Coors Field, the fences are actually really far away.

I believe Coors Field has the highest surface area in Major League Baseball. So what makes Coors Field such a great place to hit is not just that the ball travels further and you hit a lot of home runs, but that there's so much more room for the defense to have to cover. So, yeah, I think you just move the Grapher or the Cactus League up, those hitters. You know, I don't want to say it. It's not Coursefield. You know, you shouldn't give like, I don't know, a 15 or 20 percent boost in production like you would for Corsfield. But, you know, maybe a 5% boost overall.

I think that's probably, that probably seems pretty. reasonable. Yeah, so we'll get into the Cactus League a little bit later on. I did want to highlight a few more players that Scott had as winners in the Grapefruit League, Kevin Newman, Jonathan VR, Ahmed Rosario, Matthew Boyd. Specifically for Newman and Amade Rosario, I know that their home league numbers for the parks that they normally play in. For Newman, it's PNC for Rosario at City Field.

Their home numbers just haven't been great. It's obviously a much more brief career for Kevin Newman. but moving somewhere like where they would be playing in Florida in the Grapefruit League is something that would ultimately help their offensive output or at least we hope for the case of Kevin Newman and Ahmed Rosario. Scott, for the losers, you highlighted that the left center field fence in Spectrum Field where the Philadelphia Phillies play is actually 15 feet further which hurts the value of right-handed power bats.

so we would be looking at a potential stock down. And there's already been enough skepticism, I guess, for someone like Reese Hoskins. But J.T. Real Muto, you know, regarded as the top catcher in fantasy baseball, you have these two guys as losers if they were to play in the Grapefruit League. Yeah, Reese Hoskins much more so than JP, sorry, JT Real Mutta. J. NPR and Sibia?

Yeah, that was like a Freudian slip there. Yeah, much more for Reese Hoskins because his value is so much dependent on his power, and his power is so much dependent on just how much he's putting the ball in the air. If you look at Home Away splits for his career, Citizens Bank Park, which is great for a fly ball hitter like him, 908 OPS compared to 806 on the road anywhere else. So if he's playing at a park that's not so great for flyball hitters, I think it could get really ugly for him, considering it was already starting to go down that path last year.

Real Muto, he has the benefit of, well, we have the benefit of having seen him play at Marlins Park all luxears, which, you know, no matter what the Philly spring training venues like, it's not going to be as pitcher-friendly as Marlins Park is. And Rial Muto was still in contention for the top catcher in family. during that time, but it does kind of dampen enthusiasm for him taking another big step. Last year, he hits 16 of his 25 home runs at home. Maybe it causes me to drop him behind Gary Sanchez because I've kind of gone back and

force between those two throughout this extra long draft prep season. So I don't see Real Muto's value just plummeting, but it does hurt it a little. The fact that the fact that he still may be the top catcher, and yet I still have him among my five players who lose the most in the Grapefruit League, I think, says something. It says more about the way the minimal impact Grapefruit League play would have on player values versus the Cactus League. A few other losers that you highlighted here, Scott, include Caleb Smith, who last year had a 3.56 ERA at home in Marlins Park and a 5.40 ERA on the road. So sorry there, Chris, for your boy, Caleb Smith. Someone I actually do like as well, but he would be a loser here. Victor Robles is another one.

And then Yulee Gurriel, who you highlight would not have that short porch in left field that benefited him greatly. Scott, I'll just kind of also mention quickly, is this something that would factor into your mind of valuing Alex Bregman if he were playing in the Cactus League because he doesn't have that short porch in left field as well? I think it would have to, as people have pointed out, his average home run distance was pretty low last year, even lower than Gurriel's. And yet he hit, he had a lot of his home runs on the road.

I want to say like two-thirds of Bregman's home runs last year came on the road. And, you know, that just could have been a fluky thing, but I'm not, I'm not ready to, I don't want to overreact with him since he's so high in to begin with. I think he'll probably be fine no matter where he plays. We'll move over to Arizona, aka the Cactus League, the teams that would be affected here. Of course, the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs,

Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Oakland A's, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, and the Texas Rangers. Stock up for pitchers, just the Rockies. That's it.

As we've talked about basically all day, I mean, this is a supreme offensive environment, but it actually would be a little bit better for Rockies starting pitchers. So asking you shall receive, potentially Hermann Marquez value up, and maybe even John Gray. And in stock up for hitters, you have every other team outside of the Colorado Rockies. I wanted to focus on hitters normally in bad home parks. You know, we've gotten a ton of questions so far,

and we've tried to answer these a little bit. And I feel like we've highlighted, like, the teams that normally hit in bigger ballparks, like Hunter Dozier, the Kansas City Royals, Mike Yistremski with the San Francisco Giants. Those are kind of the lower-end players here. But, I mean, guys, I knew it all along. Manny Machado, the biggest beneficiary here.

I mean, why do you think I ranked them as high as I did all off-season? And then Matt Olson, it would benefit, I mean, just big time. Chris, someone that you've talked about a lot as having that potential 50 home run power is Matt Olson. And last year at home in OCO hit 236 with a 777 OPS, whereas on the road he hit 300 with an OPS over a thousand. So you put Matt Olson in Arizona for however long, you're talking. you're talking about a guy who, I mean, if the season were pro-rated over 160 games, yeah, you might get your 50 home runs there from Matt Olson if he's hitting in Arizona. Yeah, that certainly shouldn't be your expectation,

but it becomes more likely, especially with, you know, one thing that we'll have to keep in mind across the board is that you'll probably see more outlandish pace numbers with a shortened season. You know, every year there are guys who are on pace for outrageous numbers through 110 games, and then they kind of, they tend to level out. With less time to level out, we're going to see more extreme performances. And so, you know, to go back into the way back machine, a 1994 Matt Williams type season, would certainly not be out of the question for Matt Olson.

And, you know, you look at his career numbers. Sorry, I was trying to pull up his career numbers on the road. Because I would guess they're not as extreme as the 300 average 1,000 OPS that he had in 2019. Probably not as extreme as that, but he is very consistently performed poorly at home. Yeah, yeah. So it's a 269 average. He's played 183 games, 164 games started. He does have 50 home runs, but that's 730.30.

three plate appearances. So that's more like a 45 homer pace in a regular season. But yeah, 270 average 9-11 OPS. That seems reasonable for Matt Olson. And you figure the athletics will hit better overall. So you're probably, you know, probably go ahead and pencil in 100 RBI, maybe 100 runs. Yeah, he's a, he's definitely a winner here because O.Docco is, you know, arguably the toughest park and baseball for hitters. It's, I feel like the athletics are going to be the single team who see the most drastic changes in player value because they have so many flyball oriented hitters like this. Really, their lineup isn't particularly well suited for their home environment. They have, Olson is the most extreme example, but also Matt Chapman and Chris Davis could see a big boost

by moving to the Cactus League. And then their pitching staff really is well-suited for their home environment. So they just have a team full of flyball players on both ends of the ball. Mike Fires would just be devastated. But of course, he doesn't have much fantasy value to begin with. Somebody like Sean Manaya, I really worry about pitching half his games in the Cactus League. So that's probably the team that's going to see the biggest change in player values. The royals, in terms of just the venue itself,

they are going to see the most extreme change here because obviously a very pitcher-friendly environment in the majors. Their Cactus League Stadium is one of just two that are actually smaller than its MLB counterpart. Because, you know, you talked about, of course, you talked about how big course field is to account for the to account for the change in environment.

Well, most of these Cactus League parks are very big, but two are smaller. One is the Royals, the others, the Padres. Brewers and Cubs, they're about the same, which, you know, means it's obviously going to be in the desert air.

That's obviously going to lead to a lot more production if they're not bigger. But yeah, with the bigger ones, I don't worry so much about how big they are, like you were saying. I mean, if it gets too, point where you're increasing the size of the stadium and there's diminishing returns because it just whatever it does to keep fly balls in the ballpark, it ups BAPIT potential for every

hitter, which is really the biggest thing we see with course field. It's just everybody who plays there has this mid-300 BAPB. Scott, you can keep going all day if you're going to talk up the Padres because I think I drafted seven or eight teams and I have Manny Machado on at least half of those. So, yeah, look, if we're going to talk up the Padres ballpark, I'll just hang up here and I'll let you go for the rest of the show. You can just tell me how great Manny Machado is going to be. So that is music to my ears. Can I give you guys a hot take real quick? Sure. Go ahead. If they play in the same environment, the entire season, Matt Chapman would probably be nearly as good as Nolan Aeronado.

Hot take. They have identical OPS pluses over the last two seasons, 131 to 131, despite the fact that Matt Chapman has an OPS, nearly 100 points lower. You're looking at the two extremes of the ballpark factor spectrum. Matt Chapman strikes out more. Yeah, he does. the batting average would probably favor Nolan Aronado.

But I think the overall production would be extremely close for those two players. And that's not to say that Nolan Aronado should not be an early round pick. I think it would take him out of the first round discussion if he's playing on a more level playing field, you know, maybe more like a late second, early third. But I think you could realistically see like a 35 to 40 homer 100, 100. you know, 280 season from Matt Chapman. 280 might be a little optimistic, but yeah, go ahead, Scott. If we have Aeronado moving down, Rendon would be playing in...

A better part. He might become a first rounder because he'd be playing in... Jose Ramirez? Jose Ramirez. I didn't include him among the 10 players who gained the most because he's already a second rounder, and I had a really, you'll notice I just use five players who gained the most in the Grapeford League. I had to expand the 10 for the Cactus League and still had a hard time narrowing it down.

But so I ended up leaving Jose Ramirez out because he's already a second rounder. But he has such extreme fly ball tendencies and does not hit the ball especially hard. And those are the players that I was singling out. I was singling out players who are used to playing in a very pitcher-friendly environment, like a Matt Olson, Mike Yostremski is on this list, Hunter Dozier. And then also ones that put the ball in the air a ton. And it ends up leading to decent home run total, but potentially an even better home run total in the Cactus League.

And without the negative impacts so much on the batting average. And Jose Ramirez, I mean, he might be an MVP candidate playing in this environment. So he's going to go up. I mentioned Chris Bryant earlier because he has that. fly ball, but relatively low impact, bat at ball profile. I could see him getting back to being a home run leader, playing half his games in the cat,

or playing all of his games in the Cactus League. Mike Mustakis moves up. There's already, there's already so much happening at third base, so many high-end players, and this would just condense it more. Like, it would not be a position to spend on at all.

Chris, I agree with you that Aronado would probably drop down to an early third round pick when it comes to Trevor Story and Charlie Blackman just quickly on draft price. I think Story would probably still be a second round pick and Blackman, I don't know, fifth, sixth? Does that seem fair? Yeah, I mean, the one thing that Trevor Story has going for him

is the speed, speed plays anywhere. Right. I mean, maybe you get more winded playing at elevation, but that wouldn't be an issue for him anyway. He's used to course field. He's going to be fine. And Blackman, I mean, there's real concern that the bottom falls out for Charlie Blackman. He does have, even amongst the Rockies, relatively extreme home road splits. But, you know, I think you could, like, you look back at Park Factory. from the last year before

Chase Field installed the Humidor, which was 2017. Course Field had 1.332 runs, 1.332 run or park factor for runs, which means that runs were 33% higher than a normal ballpark. Chase Field was 20%. So, you know, you want to downgrade them, but, you know, it's not going to kill them.

And they're not going to have that, course field hangover effect. So they're going to be playing all of their games in a good offensive environment rather than, you know, 120 or whatever it would be between course field chase and Dodgers, I guess, are the other kind of, not really. So you don't want to go too extreme. You know, I think maybe a 5 to 10% reduction across the board.

Another thing that makes sense in terms of probably batting average home runs and RBI and runs. Chris gave you a hot take a little bit earlier today and I will give you, and I will rank it this way. If this is the format that we are playing out for the fantasy baseball season, Matt Olson in the grapefruit in the Cactus League will be better than Pete Alonzo in the Grapefruit League, straight up. I will rank it that way if this is the format that we actually end up playing in.

So that's one that I'll throw out there as well. And getting back to your original question that we started with the podcast, that's like if ranking changes are happening that are that extreme if we're if i'm having to hold overhaul my rankings to that extent and in a certainly in a split situation like this grapefruit half grapefruit half cactus i would have to do that i'd probably do the same as you i'd probably put matt olson ahead of pitalonzo in that scenario just because it's such an unfair difference in environment there. But if I'm having,

if I'm having to overhaul my rankings that much, like that's, that's another reason why it's, it's like how can you even, it's just a completely different world that we're playing in at that point versus what we were drafting in before.

I do want to point out, you know, City Field doesn't necessarily get talked about as a significant pitchers park, but it's been, you know, a tough place to hit over the year.

So I actually think there's a chance that Pete Alonzo might be looking at a better hitting environment in 2020 than he had in 2019. So that's just something to keep in mind as well. When we're looking at Stockdown in the Cactus League, it's basically all of the Rockies hitters. We've talked about that and starting pitchers.

You know, one that particularly breaks my heart, Scott, that is on this list is probably breaks both of our hearts. hearts is Lucas Gialito who pitched to a 406 ERA at home last season, which is regarded as a hitter's park. And now, if you're talking about him pitching all the time in this type of environment, you know, you also highlighted Chris Paddock, Madison Bumgarner, Trevor Bauer, as some other losers here. But I mean, Gialito is the one that's being drafted the highest out of all of them right now. So that's a heartbreaker right there, Scott. That's a tough one. That's a tough pill to swallow.

And it was the one that didn't immediately come to me. It wasn't top of mind for me. I had to look deeper at the numbers. I did not realize how much of a fly ball pitcher he is. And that's what all of these pitchers on here have in common, is they put the ball in the air a lot. And most of them are able to survive it because they, well, certainly in the case of Madison Bumgarner in previous years

and Chris Paddock last year, they were able to navigate it okay because they're at such a pitcher-friendly environment. Now, all of them, those two, but even Gialito who played in a Homer-friendly park last year, they're all moving to a more hitter-friendly environment if this scenario were to play out. And they're not going to be able to get away with putting the ball in the air as often as they did before. It's going to be something that could make, it could really skewer. their numbers. You know, maybe it'll be fine and they'll be able to maintain an ERA around four and maybe

an ERA around four for every pitcher pitching in this environment. That's going to be seen as a pretty good thing. But if they have particularly bad home run luck, I could see it pushing their ERA maybe closer to five. And then when we look back on their career, we'll have to explain what went wrong that year while they were pitching in Arizona. I'm a little less concerned about Gialito. Just because, you know, guaranteed rate field is a pretty tough place to pitch, especially for home runs.

And so that, I would expect it to be a worse environment, sure. But look, it all comes down to this. If he pitches the way he did after his early May breakout last year, he's going to be good anywhere. Maybe not Corsefield, but if he's going to be a 30% strikeout rate guy with good control, okay, he might give up some home runs, but he's going to be good, no matter what. And in an environment where half the league are seeing their pitching rates regress, I don't think it's too bad. Part of what we can't account for, we can account for how often a guy puts the ball in the air.

So that's what I was looking at, mainly. But what we can't account for is how the movement on their pitches is going to change and how they're going to respond to the movement on their pitching, on their pitches changes. Do they just recognize, okay, this is a product of my environment. I should stick with my approach. It's still the best I have. And your offense is going to score more runs.

That's the thing that I, like, you have to, it's going to be tough for pitchers, but you're going to have to like psychologically realize that okay my ERA is 4.5 but my team is scoring five runs per game so I'm still going to like that but that that is psychologically it's really tough it's really screwed with Mike Hampton who went from being a very good pitcher to even when you take into account course field a pretty bad one when he got traded to the Rockies. Yeah he started and his career in Colorado started he had a I want to say he had a really good half season. He was an All-Star in 2001, yeah.

Yeah. But then it just totally unraveled on him because you get to where you want to start making adjustments to see your previous results. And I just have no idea. That's totally in a pitcher's head and that's going to be a case-by-case basis sort of thing. And I think we're going to see some pitchers get really messed up because of it. Hopefully it'll just be a one-year thing.

but some of them potentially could take it on with them for the rest of their careers. So it's, you know, we can only account for what we can account for, and we can't account for that, but I do believe it's going to be a factor. I just can't say with whom. Again, some of the losers that Scott highlights in the article, Madison Bumgarner, Trevor Bauer, Trevor Bauer, always a loser. Sorry if you're listening, Bauer. Andrew Heaney, Dylan Bundy, Sean Mania, Chris Paddock, and of course, the Rockies hitters.

If you want to read about that, go check it out over at cbsports.com. But your emails continue to send them in. Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. If you have a question and you leave it in an Apple podcast review, we'll also answer your question from there. And that's exactly where this first question comes from. It's from Mikey Destano. You guys talk about how valuable sparps can be.

I play in a daily head-to-head points league, and I had this debate in my league last year. Is it, quote-unquote, fair to use sparps that are primarily relief pitchers in your SP slot. I use them almost religiously because it's a sneaky way to get added points for the day and it doesn't use a start. For example, the raised bulk relievers after their opener, Jalen Beaks, Yanni Torinos, Ryan Yarbrough.

And we've seen more questions regarding the reverse spark. So what would that be? Spraps. Spraps. Spraps. Repaps. Repaps. Or pass.

Paps. Paps. Reps. Wouldn't it just be repasts? Yeah, okay, yeah, that's right. Relief pitcher, a starting pitcher, repast. Okay, yeah. We've got more questions about this recently,

but this one specifically asks, is it fair? Scott, so what do you think? Is it fair to use reverse sparse in your league? Yeah, yeah, it's fair. If it became like the norm across the league, we might have to revisit the rule. but it's not. If anything, it seems like the rays are kind of backing off this approach.

It was basically just Torinos and, well, they didn't even do it with Tarinus that much because he doesn't have RP eligibility heading into this season. It was mostly Yarbrough that they did it with most consistently. And that's like, okay, that becomes a part of his value and how he's measured on draft day and particularly in a format like yours where you can take advantage. It's up to the people playing in the league to notice and value him accordingly. But it's fair. Everybody knows what the rules are and should be able to figure that out on their own. By the law, the definition here, Scott, you are correct. It is fair unless your league establishes some kind of rule that prohibits that.

Actually, in my longest standing home league, a keeper league, we play. It's a points league. We're not allowed to use Sparps. We've just established a rule that you have to use closers as your relief pitchers. And I actually prefer it that way. I'm actually, I guess, anti-Spark. But, yeah, I mean, it's something that your league has to lay out, like, before the draft or before the league even gets started.

Like, if there's no rule against it, then, yes, it's fair. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, letter versus spirit of the law, that kind of thing. You know, fair is a loaded word. I don't think we really have to use fair. Is it legal or not? If it's illegal, yes. I don't care about fairness. If it's unfair, if it's unfair, make it illegal is really what it comes down to.

Like, if it's giving, if it's giving. I mean, look, everybody's got the opportunity. As long as everybody knows about it, then yeah, it's fair. If it's the kind of thing where it's like, we've gotten questions where like one person noticed a loophole in the league rules that nobody else noticed and was using it to dominate. I can't remember the exact, but there was something like that. That's something that you should probably rectify. But if it's something that everyone's aware of, you know, snooze you lose.

Losers. Yeah, just draft him earlier. If you don't want to draft him any earlier than he goes, then it must not be that valuable. For the record, I am anti-sparps and anti-reverse sparps, so get them out of your leagues. from Brandon Mooney. I'm a big fan of CBS fantasy baseball podcast.

Thank you, Brandon. And so I thought I'd ask the experts, their opinions, and an idea I've been wondering about. I was wondering if it's worth a debate whether this would work in fantasy baseball as it does in fantasy football. During your draft, you would also select a team, such as New York Yankees, for example,

and instead of wins and saves categories going towards a pitcher's performance, they would instead be counted towards your selected team. when they either win their games or if they're behind for five or more innings but come back to win it would then get them a save. So I guess this is kind of similar

to team defense and fantasy football should there be, I guess what this is asking is like team pitching, right? Is like would you just rack up wins and saves that way? I like the idea of a team pitching more than that. I like the idea or just a team defense

where you get, you know, like in fantasy football, you have a team's defense and you get rewarded or detracted based on the things the defense does right or wrong. So if they allow a run, you lose points. If they make an error, you lose points. If they get a double play, you gain points, that kind of thing. I like that idea more than this one. This one, you know, it's fine.

I just, I don't know, you're going to, it's basically like you just draft the Yankees and Astros. Well, yeah, you draft the best teams. But that's kind of how it works with the DST and football too, right? Sort of. There's the matchup aspect that adds a lot of a lot more complexity to it than this would. Plus, if you're rewarding wins and saves the way they're traditionally rewarded, that's going to be much more impactful on the outcome of a fantasy matchup than a DST. normally would be.

So yeah, that's yeah, I don't I don't know. Like I don't know why you'd want to eliminate that part of the game. That's, I think, a pretty enjoyable part of playing fantasy baseball

and reduce it to just a team element like that. But it's, I don't know, I'd have some reservations about that. Though I do know there are leagues that do just like a team pitching staff. that is an actual thing that exists in fantasy baseball.

It doesn't get talked about much, but it's been around for a long time. I guess the fact it's not talked about much probably says something about how how people who've played in it view it and hasn't taken off in popularity. Yeah, I kind of like Chris's idea of team defense for baseball, too. I think that could be fun. I don't know how it would technically work in probably more of a points league thing than Roto, obviously. But, yeah, that would be pretty cool. Yeah.

Team pitching, it just eliminates a whole different element of, you know, matchups and two-star pitchers. And that's part of what makes fantasy baseball so fun. So I would probably be against the whole team pitching, but team defense, something that would, I think, be kind of interesting here for fantasy baseball, maybe in points leagues or in head-to-head categories. It could work as well.

But that'll do it here for today, Monday, April 27th. We appreciate you listening. Fantasy baseball today. A reminder that this Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, we will be live on our fantasy baseball today Facebook page. So make sure to hop over there and join the group for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening. Bye-bye.