Fantasy Baseball Today - Winners and Losers of an 80-Game Season! (05/12 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Yesterday we introduced the latest MLB proposal and today we're figuring out the biggest winners and losers! Who gains the most with the DH in the National League (2:03)? The Brewers, Reds, Dylan Carlson, and Austin Riley were some names that came to mind. ... Who are the biggest winners and losers based on the new schedule (18:05)? Teams would only face teams in their division and the same geographic division in the opposite league. Why did AL West pitchers and Kyle Schwarber stand out? ... Surprise, surprise, Frank thinks the Yankees and Rays come out as winners as well (28:31). Is it time to hop back on the Gleyber Torres bandwagon? ... Scott also found a few fly-ball pitchers who could benefit from this schedule (31:28). ... Who were some prospects that will gain the most (40:17)? Should players like Tim Tebow and Michael Jordan be allowed to take other players' spots!? ... 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.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on Tuesday, May 12th. Yesterday we gave you the outline of this MLB proposal and how it might affect some of your leagues. Today we're taking a look at the biggest winners and losers from hopefully every angle possible. You don't earn the nickname Scotty Dobs unless you are a winner. How's it going, Scott? I know you've been grinding away with this latest proposal.

Yeah, yeah. I thought through it quite a bit last night, put out a couple articles, one of them being the five biggest winners and losing. based on the new schedule proposal, where teams would be playing against just their own division and the corresponding division in the opposite league. You know, there's some interesting takeaways from there. I'm not sure it's the biggest thing to take away from the new proposal, but I dove into it a little bit, and we can talk about that, this show, among other things.

Oh, we shall. We shall do exactly that. Tuesdays are usually for drafts. we like to do and we create these fun teams. We've done the All Disappearing Act team, the one-year wonder team. But this seems like the closest that we've been to a proposal that is legitimate, that, you know, the closest we've been to, you know, getting an announcement on the MLB season. So because of that, that's why we're jumping into the winners and losers here.

And, you know, maybe we'll address some of those drafts and teams in the offseason again as well. Chris, Adam, how you guys doing? Everything well? All good, baby. Rocking and rolling, Frank. Ready to go. Rocking and rolling, let's do it. Email the day from Chris Perkins.

Hey Nelson, John Carlo, and Chris with a K. Those are all designated hitters. I was wondering who you guys think will benefit the most from the proposed universal DH. This is something we've talked about maybe a couple of weeks ago, a month ago, but I wanted to kind of re-address the situation here now that it does seem like this is actually going to happen.

My nomination, Chris's nomination, is undoubtedly Aristides-Hikino, the Punisher. The guy carried my team for a stretch last year, and I think he could be one of the best DHSs in the league, if given the chance. Would love to hear your opinion on which player would benefit most from this proposal. Adam, let's start with you.

Aristides-Sakino, I think, is a great one, but I think there are some other names there still in the mix for Cincinnati. Who is your biggest winner if the D.H is when the D.H. is in the national? I thought about the Brewers and Avi Garcia and Ryan Braun. I've had this conversation and this discussion with you guys before I know. Chris likes Braun, it seems a lot, and Scott's excited about Garcia, so this would clear up some playing time. I do wonder if Ryan Braun would be as good as he was last year if he played more regularly.

Perhaps part of his success was, you know, get a little breather every now and then, more so than most players. but I'd be, I guess, a little bit more excited about the upside of Garcia. Personally, I don't think Garcia is a very good player, but I respect Scott quite a bit, and Scott's excited about Avi Garcia, so this will help,

this will clear a little bit of a playing time log jam in Milwaukee. Yeah, I don't know if it would change things. Because what's really crushed Ryan Braun's value in recent years is because he just has so many nagging things going on. I think mainly it's like the back, but he also had thumbs. surgery a while back. And yeah, he gets scheduled off days to hold up over a full season. I'm not sure if the availability of the DH butt would change that or not. It's a good thought, because obviously

his body's not taking as much of a beating if he's just batting every game. I'm not sure about that, but it could be a big deal because, you know, on a per game basis, his production's still been very solid. You know what's crazy? Ryan Braun has had double-digit steals in six straight seasons and in every season except 2013 when he was limited to just 61 games. That is just mind-blowing. He's had back-to-back seasons of 20 plus home runs and double-digit steals.

So continuing to get it done even at his advanced age, played 144 of 162 games last season. Avi Garcia has spiked a few times with the batting average last year, 282. Got the stolen bases up to 10 last year and then 3.30 back in 2017 with the White Sox. Obviously, would be a nice little park improvement there coming over to Miller Park from Tampa Bay. Chris, who would be... What do you got, Chris?

Did we mention, I mean, I know we talked about him yesterday, but did we mention the other guy from the Brewers who would be a big winner? Yeah, Smoke is in this mix, too. Yeah, Justin Smoke. Another guy who I don't think is a very good hitter. I think he, I don't know, it's hard to say. He has appeared to be very unlucky two years in a row. How much of that is actually bad luck?

Well, that's a different question, I suppose. Maybe he's the anti-Marco Estrada, Chris. How about that? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You know, we have all these advanced stats that purport to tell us what a player's, quote, unquote, true talent level is. But, you know, there are surely some things that, these stats just miss and things that these stats just miss consistently and it could be that a player like smoke who is wildly unathletic might fall through the cracks.

Chris, let's stick with you. Unless Justin Smoke is your response for who is the biggest beneficiary of the DH in the National League? No, he's definitely up there, but Akeeno is definitely up there as well I'm trying to stall so I can pull up the column that I wrote about this which is on CBSSports.com which I should have had. Dominic Smith, Chris? Dominic Smith, absolutely.

I mean, he is still, I think, only 24. I think he's actually a few months younger than Pete Alonzo still, which is kind of mind-blowing because he's been a top prospect and he's been written off already in his career. But yeah, he showed some real signs last year. I think it's an open question as to whether every day at bats would expose him. But he was, I believe, a swing change guy who started hitting the ball in the air more often last season. And I would guess he'll get the primary DH duties at least until Yoannesestis is healthy, which may never happen.

If Yoannesis is healthy enough to play, obviously, he could be a big winner too. biggest ones in this column, which has finally loaded on my very slow computer, are Dylan Carlson, Garrett Hampson, and Austin Riley. I think at least for Carlson and Riley, this probably opens up a direct path to everyday playing time. And that might have been there anyway. For both of them, they kind of had to force the issue in spring. But if the Cardinals and Braves respectively have a DH to play with. I would expect Carlson and Austin Riley to be in the lineup pretty much every day

and they both have significant upside. I would probably be more willing to, I don't know which of Carlson or Riley, I'd be more willing to draft. I think probably Riley just because at no point has his ADP gone up during the spring even when, you know, the assumption coming in, I think,

was that he wasn't going to have a job, then it was very clear that he was in an open competition with the i can't remember his name that's how yohan camargo joan camargo who's kind of just a guy um and there was just no interest in austin riley and i think it was because he came up and was awesome for a month and then crushed everyone for a month and a half and i think people yeah kind of gave up so uh i like austin riley with one of my last round picks i liked him before the talk about the dh and And this just cements it for me. Austin Riley's ADP is 301.8, according to fantasy pros.

And you mentioned that first month, his first 43 games, 14 home runs and a 908 OPS, albeit with a 4.5% walk rate and a 32.6% K rate. Again, that is Austin Riley. Scott, who do you think has more upside? Because I thought Chris raised an interesting question. Dylan Carlson or Austin Riley? I think I think

I think Carlson both has the higher ceiling and the higher floor the higher ceiling because he can run at least in theory we don't always know how that's going to translate but that's something he showed he could do in the minors and better plate discipline and that's what I worry about for Riley too the strikeout rate throughout his minor league career

has been an issue it looked the best it had been so far at AAA last year before he got called up, but then, of course, he struck out a ton into majors. There was some hope that he had closed a hole in his swing this spring, and he, you know, it was obviously a tiny sample against pitchers who were working to flesh out their arsenals, but he didn't strike out much. So, you know, there's obviously a chance he's so young,

has the pedigree, he could take a big step forward and end up being the more productive player. but I see him as basically his ceiling is like Uber power hitter guy when Carlson may be more of a across the board threat so that's

that's kind of how I shape that up but yeah I mean nobody seems to want Riley at all and Carlson's kind of a trendy player right now so the easier one to get is Riley and you know and drafts that go on long enough that you can justify taking him I think it's I think it's a great pick

I think that's, I think he's even more certain than Carlson to, to get the playing time with the DH spot. Scott, let's stick with you. Would you choose one of Carlson O'Reilly to be the biggest winners with the DH in the National League, or would you go in a different direction? No, those were the first two names I was thinking of us. Okay, cool. Chris kind of took all my answers. But Garrett Hanson is absolutely, we haven't, I mentioned him, but we haven't talked about him. Who? Garrett Hampson. Oh. You know, this, he probably wouldn't play DH, but this.

This is just another path to playing time that he didn't otherwise have. Yeah, it's hard to say who exactly is the winner for the Rockies because they had so many bats who looked like they could be in and out of the lineup. And now they're all seemingly assured more playing time. Of course, you never know with them. Maybe Ian Desmond will become the full-time DH. But Sam Hilliard, I would think, would benefit there as well, although he may be limited to playing just against righties no matter what. I also think Chris kind of broke down the Mets situation, but it's hard for me not to think of J.D. Davis is a big winner too,

just because there's no doubt now he's going to play every day. Scott, it's hard for you. It's hard for you not to think of J.D. Davis, period. It's true. It's true. But that was going to find a way to talk about Mark Kana in the National League. That was like the one holdup.

Like, what if Dominic Smith starts stealing the ads in left field? What if you'll unassessment is, does. I mean, J.D. Davis is a terrible defender. Could they, will his bat be good enough to stick in the lineup? And now it's just like, all right, DH. Yeah, I'll throw one more name out there, like,

kind of like Garrett Hampson. I'm sorry if I miss this, but Gavin Lux, another guy who great minor league numbers, a little cup of coffee last year, wasn't great, but should be able to find ways to keep him in the lineup if he hits. Yeah, probably Muncie would DH

a lot, right? Or, I would I would hope so. I would hope Lux would be a winner, but it's just with the Dodgers, you just never really know. They have so many different players at their disposal. Chris Taylor, AJ Pollock. I mean, Pollock could be a clear winner there too. You don't want the guy to get hurt diving from balls in the outfield. You could play him at DH, right? Well, Paulick was actually my... Jack Peterson would probably be the DH, right? And then that opens up left field for Pollock and second base for Lux. But I guess, you know, Chris Taylor could still interfere. Yeah. Pollock was my choice for the Dodgers in my column as well.

not necessarily because he'll play DH, but just because it gives him the option to put him at DH, and he's another guy like Ryan Braun who could probably, definitely use more time off than your normal player, and maybe the DH gives him, gives them the flexibility to do that.

And just another thing on Lux, one thing that works against him, though, I'm going back right now and looking at his lefty-right-he splits. In the minors, there have been a lot of stops where he's been pretty bad against lefties, so the DH may not match. matter. That's just a reason to sit him against lefties, which, which, you know, based on his

splits that I'm seeing now, probably would happen. So quick news and notes I want to hit on here. These are really from the weekend more than anything, but Miguel Andohar is 100%, or so he says, at least somebody on the Yankees is 100%. Andorhar has been working out at the Yankees complex in Florida five days a week and has had no trouble with his surgically repaired right shoulder, George A. King of the New York Post reports. This quote from Anduhar, I feel great. I'm working out five days a week, building strength, working with the trainers, exercising, and doing my best to stay sharp.

And Dohar indicated in an email, I feel 100%. I'm very happy where I am at physically. While we're talking about teams that have a ton of depth, like the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees are up there as well. Even with Andouhar being 100%, nobody really knows how everything is going to shake out, even with the injury to judge. John Carlos Stanton is working his way back.

Aaron Hicks is working his way back. They have Talkman. They have Clint Frazier. They have Luke Void at first base. Just so many names there. But something to keep in mind, Andrew Hart is healthy. And George Springer is one and back in Houston.

I mean, what else are the Houston Astros going to say? He's entering a contract year. I don't want to get too much into this, but do you guys believe in contract years being a thing? It's just something I wanted to bring up because you do randomly see these spike years in contract years. No. Knowing that Scott and Chris are going to say no, I'll just say that I do believe they can be a thing, but I don't think that you, like you said, you do see players randomly like go off in a contractor. And it's just it makes sense that some of them would be motivated by getting their next contract. But it's too hard to predict. It doesn't happen often enough. So you can't do anything about it. So this has definitely been researched. I think baseball perspectives had a book in like 2005 that was.

called baseball by the numbers or baseball behind the numbers, something like that. And what they found was that production doesn't, players don't necessarily play better on a per game basis in contract years, but they are more likely to play more games in a contract year. More likely probably to play through nagging injuries and stuff like that, which, you know, it'll possibly hurt your rate stats, but in terms of the, you know, counting stats, it can certainly help. I wonder if players, they get paid so much more money now that they used to, what that study would look like 15 years later. Well, I mean, so few players actually reach free agency at a point where they can take advantage of it,

that I think that probably still does matter, given how tight the free agent market has become in the NFL. Oh, God. I don't think. I don't think you see. as much of a team breaking the bank for a player coming off an outlier season because they're more skeptical of it than they would have been in the past too. I think that's at play.

Yeah, probably. Gosh, the arbitration system is just so bad. Yeah, the next CBA for the MLB is going to be a very, very interesting one to say the least. But when we come back, we're going to talk about scheduling. Scott wrote an article on CBSports.com of the top. five winners and losers according to the latest scheduling in this proposal. We'll do all of that right after this quick break. All right, let's take a look at these divisions, what things are going to look like,

the teams that they're going to be facing, and any winners and losers, just anything possible that we can take away from this. Scott mentioned it at the top of the podcast that the eastern division, I guess you can say the AL East and the NLE East are going to wind up just playing each other so that they can stay in their geographic location. start there in the east, which would include the Yankees, the Rays, the Red Sox, the Orioles, the Blue Jays, the Mets, the Nationals, Marlins, Braves, and Phillies. I took a look at Scott's starting pitcher rankings, and your top three starting pitchers all come from this division.

Eric Cole, Jacob de Grom, Max Scherzer, five of your top 10, and nine of your top 20. So this was actually the division that has the highest percentage of elite starting pitchers, your top 20 starting pitchers come from the NL and AL East. You know, what else is there to take away from this? Because the offenses, I took a look, six teams in the top half of the league last year in run scored, park factors,

five of the top nine best parks for home runs come from this division, the Phillies, the Orioles, the Nationals, the Blue Jays, the Yankees. So it seems mixed. It seems like very top heavy with elite starting pitching scott, but then it also seems like,

you know, there are some teams lower down on the spectrum, like the Orioles that you could beat up on the Blue Jays. And there's some really good parks to hit in here as well. Yeah, that's the thing. I think this is one of those things that you could look too much into because most of the divisions are pretty balanced. The three that have the most personality, I guess, the most, what's the word I used in the article? I guess whatever the opposite of balanced would be are actually the three in the AL, the East has the most hitters parks probably of any division. The Central has the most rebuilding

teams of any division. They have two that are still early in it and the White Sox. We're not totally sure if they've come out of it. The West has the highest ratio of pitchers parks in all the majors. So one thing that one thing that was kind of an epiphany for me when I was going through this is just what we what we should be looking at in terms of so okay so let me let me just put it this way um every team is playing their own division and the corresponding division from the opposite league right and so your your natural inclination is to think okay let's look at that division in the opposite league see how that would affect players but the thing is at least the way ken rosenthal broke it down and I'm not sure

how much of this was just him theorizing and how much of it was him passing on what he's heard but it sounds like 60 percent of the schedule basically would be within the division so those four other teams each team

is playing 60% of their games against versus 40% against five teams from the other league so it's actually I mean 60% of your games coming from just four teams that's a that's a crazy amount. And so I kind of wanted to stick in division in terms of the effect it would have on players by playing that many games against their own division. Because, you know, think about like,

okay, so the athletics, they have one series at Colorado probably. How much is that going to change your opinion of any athletic? None, right? I mean, three games at Colorado, big deal. It's more, you know, that they're going to be facing the Mariners, Angels, Astros and Rangers, they're going to be facing them 12 times each. And what does that mean? Okay, so if I'm mostly focused on in-division consequences and the three divisions that have the least balance are in the AL,

then it seems like the players most affected would come from those three divisions, the AL East, the AL Central, the NL West. That was my thinking. That's my thinking so far. And I think the one division of those three that has the clearest winners and losers is actually the AL West. Now part of it is just because you can break it down.

They have a lot of players in that division who have been in that division a long time have been playing in those pitcher parks for a long time and you can see the effect it's had on. There's numbers. It's pretty extreme for some of them. I think the most extreme example I found and so one of the biggest losers is Yuleiguriel.

Career 808 OPS, but it's 691 in Anaheim, 645 in Seattle, and 699 in Oakland. Matt Chapman. But I took issue with that one, Scott, with Gueriel. Because I just wanted to know, shouldn't you just have looked at last year since he became a different hitter? And last year, the splits weren't as bad. Yeah, I don't think last year's enough of a sample size, especially when you're breaking it down park by park like that. But he became a different, I mean, I don't know. that there's much sense. Do any of us actually believe he became a different hitter?

If you buy into Gueriel? Okay, yeah. If you're drafting Gueriel thinking, oh, he's just the same old guy. I'm going to get good batting average. Then, yeah, I would look at the career splits. If you're drafting guerriel thinking he broke out last year, he made some changes. The Astros worked their magic. Then I wouldn't care about the career splits. I presume most people listening, and I think we've been unanimous on the show, that we don't think we don't think, we don't think, we don't think, Greel's 2019, there was much to it. The ADP doesn't show that. So I don't think most people are assessing him from that angle. But, you know, fair enough.

If it was Marcus Simeon, who I do believe in the 2019 more, I probably wouldn't. I did look at the career splits at each of those parks, by the way. But I might not have put as much stock in it as much stock in it as I did for Gurriel. Chapman, Matt Chapman. Matt Olson to a degree, too, but Matt Chapman, even more so, struggled at those same. pitchers parks. Actually, Houston is not such a great park for left-handed hitters either,

so that's another knock you don't think of it necessarily as a pitcher's park, but for left-handed hitters, it's not so great. Carlos Correa, surprisingly, terrible in Oakland, Seattle, and Anaheim in his career, sub-800 OPS in all three, and it's like 642 in Seattle.

So, you know, those were some of the biggest losers. the biggest winner I mean basically every pitcher in the AL Central right because they're going to face the Tigers and Royals lineups for such a large concentration of their games and the first one I thought of is Jake Oter Rizzy

I mean the one lineup in that division that is clearly a good lineup and it's a great lineup is the twins so twins pitchers especially are going to benefit by having so many games in that division because they're missing the one tough lineup, obviously. Jake O'Darizzi, between the Tigers, Royals, White Sox, and Indians last year had a 276 ERA 106 whip and 11.1 K per 9. And that's probably going to be, you know, about half his starts this year. So, you know, it kind of depends where those starts fall exactly.

That's kind of the issue, too, is you're dealing with a smaller sample size than you're used to for all of these things. So how much do you really, how much can you? you trust any statistical tendencies over a smaller span of time. It's a fair point. I'm not sure. So are we thinking that each team is going to play its inter-division foe 12 times? Yes. 12 or 13 times?

Yes. Six or seven at home? Yeah, I think the plan was four series against your division foes, three against the opposite league. I had seen two against the opposite league, four and two. It's how Rosenthal broke it down. I think that adds up to 78 games if they're all three game series. Right. Some of them will be four games series.

So then the teams in the NL West will be in Colorado twice, whereas... No, in Colorado once, because it would be... No, the teams of the NL West. Oh, right. Yes, exactly, yes. AOS would be there once, NLS would be there twice, and nobody else would have any games in Colorado. Right, but, you know, A.L. West is kind of the division of extremes because they have Colorado.

They also have San Francisco and San Diego. Who have, San Francisco probably has a pretty bad pitching staff. So that's another part of this, right? This one, it was really tough. You know, it's like on one hand, the ALEs got all these great hitter parks and last year, Nationals Park ended up being a really good hitter's park. I don't know how much we believe in that. But also, like you said, Frank, you got some of the best pitchers in the ALEs to the NLEs, because you have big market teams and they're spending a lot.

I don't know. I thought this was a tough exercise. Scott's research is really interesting. I want to bring up lefty-righty splits. Kyle Schwabber, to me, is a big winner because if you take out the Cubs, and now this won't hold up, but you just go to roster resource right now and look at the rotations, there are four left-handed starting pitchers in the NL Central. that are not on the Cubs,

and there are only six in the AL Central. If you include the Cubs, 12 left-handed starters in the central division rotations, 16 in the East divisions, A-L and NL, 19 in the West divisions. If you look at a guy like Michael Brantley, 19 left-handed starting pitchers right now on roster resource in the A-L-West and N-L-West.

None of them are on Houston. So he could face a lot more lefties than would make sense. proportionally he would have perhaps a very lefty-heavy matchup, you know, throughout the season. That stuff kind of said as me. Schwabber was pretty interesting, though, because there just aren't a lot of lefties in the NL Central for sure. And I already knew that, but then you combine that with the AL Central, not having a lot of lefties. And that's a big deal. It's a really good point.

And I wanted to go back to something that Scott said that I found interesting that you play your division 60% of the games. and that just instantly made me think of, okay, well, I mean, I think the Yankees and the Rays would be clear winners here because they're facing the Red Sox, the Orioles, and the Blue Jays, who I don't think have very good rotations. In fact, I think they're quite bad. So, I mean, Chris, is that something that you would take away as well?

I mean, just, you know, teams playing 60% of their games in the division, the A.L. East, the Yankees and Rays to me just stand out. Yeah, and, and, One other thing that I don't know quite how to quantify, but is worth discussing, is hitters tend to do better the more they face opposing pitchers. That's why batters do better the third time through the order. That's why hitters tend to struggle when they switch leagues.

But they're not going to face them more. They're actually going to face them less than they are over a full season. They're going to face them more in terms of percentage. But they're going to face them more. often in that it'll be a higher percentage of their games yeah they're going to see those same pitching staffs more through that three month

stretch than they ever would normally and so you know I I don't know about that because I definitely think there are times where teams face teams you know an inordinate amount of time in the first half of the season then not again for like four months I don't know if it's enough for me but I'm sorry right but like those are

there are cases like that you will see cases where a team play another team 12 times in a span of, you know, three months or whatever, and I'd only play them two series otherwise. But you're still, like, those are, that'll happen to each team maybe once. Whereas here, every single team will be playing every other team in their division. They will be seeing the same pitchers over and over more than they would. So I just think that is going to give hitters a slight advantage overall. I don't know how to quantify that when I'm drafting. I don't know how to who to discount or, you know, improve their value. But it makes me think that we're probably going to see in addition to just teams having

to rely on their bullpens more and rely on worse pitchers, I think we're going to see just another spike in offense. Maybe not as drastic as the one we saw last year, but I would say we're not going to see a regression in offense league-wide. Man, get back on the Glaber Torres bandwagon. I don't know if anyone here was, but based on that, look, the Blue Jays, Oreos and Red Sox, no Chris Sale on the Red Sox rotation,

Eduardo Rodriguez is their quote-unquote ace for the season. Labor Torres is going to do some damage here. Scott, is there anything else you wanted to add here? I noticed that you had some other winners also coming from the A.L. West as pitchers who are flyball, who allow more fly balls than league average guys like Mike Minor Jose Orkidi stood out to you

and then really just the flip side is the hitters in that division and yeah right and that seemed to be the division where the player stood out the most to me so they kind of dominate this list but Erkidi and Josh James is the same way for the Astros fly ball guy

who will spend the majority of his time in pitchers parks now Kenta Maeda along the same lines as Odarezi. If he's facing that many teams, if he's facing teams with bad lineups that regularly it only helps his breakout case. And on the flip side of that, I have Fran Mill

Reyes as a winner among hitters because maybe the only team from that division with a great pitching staff is the one he plays for. So he's going to beat up on bad pitching staffs. The twins pitching staff might end a bit pretty good, especially if you account for the bullpen. But the Royals, Tigers

certainly won't in the White Sox. It's at least up in the air. I think it would lean toward bad. I didn't, they didn't end up making this list of five winners and five losers, but in thinking in terms of the NL Central, because obviously they will be playing the AL Central with all those rebuilding clubs of Fair Amount.

And within their own division, how many good pitching staffs are in the NL Central? The Reds probably, the Cardinals, have a pretty good chance too. But that's it. Brewers, certainly not the Pirates, the Cubs. Hey, except for Darvish, they're fading pretty hard. Pirates are going to be good. Yeah, Adam sent us an article over the weekend.

Joe Musgrove, three reasons he's going to break out. If Joe Musgrove breaks out, it'll still be a bad pitching staff. They're going to have three aces. So what I'm thinking there is maybe hitters from the Reds and the Cardinals, like you eliminate one of the good rotations from that equation, and then they're just focused on the bad ones, they could see incremental improvement from that. I was looking at a guy like Mike Mustakis who not only plays for the Reds, one of those Central teams with the good pitching staff, but also spent a lot of time in the AL Central so we

can see his numbers from those parks. And the numbers from those parks aren't very good. So didn't really help in that regard. I'm not sure it means anything. He's had such a long career, and it was kind of. slow starting, so maybe it doesn't even mean anything, but I thought it was worth looking into. You know, overall, again, I feel like this is the sort of thing that you can make too much of. I don't know, you know, I have Jake Oter Rizzi is the biggest winner.

I haven't looked at my rankings to see if I can afford to move him up at all. It probably wouldn't be much, and I have him as the biggest winner, which kind of tells you how I'm approaching my rankings based on this. It's it's finding reasons within, you know, small, small little snippets of data and then trying to blow them up, blow them up over half the season while also taking it to account. These are just individual series. It's just a mess. It's kind of a mess trying to figure it out statistically.

It is. And I'm not, I'm not sure it's going to amount to a big change like we would have seen if, you know, the Cactus League was open for business during the regular season. That would have been a much more significant thing. I think what it does for somebody like Oterizzi, who again, I have is the biggest winner is it just gives me more confidence drafting him because before it was like, I don't want anything to do with them. It was, you know, where did this breakthrough come from? He was throwing harder for some reason. What was that all about? But then when you add the variable of, yeah, but he's going to.

be facing those in-division opponents so often. It's like, well, you know, I see less room for things to go wrong in that scenario. So I might be cool with taking them now. And quite frankly, the NL Central offenses were not very good last year. If you look at the AL Central and the NL Central, you know, you take away the twins. That was the only team that was in the top nine in scoring last year. This is by far. The central grouping, by far the...

fewest amount of high-end offenses last year. Don't know if that'll carry over this year. But number two were the twins, and then the next highest-scoring team was 10th overall, and I think that may have been the Cubs. So it's a good draw for Oterese. You can make a pretty good case that the Cardinals got worse. The pirates, I mean, there wasn't much room for them to get worse,

but they think they managed to do it. And depending on how you feel about the Cubs, you know, the Corps is one year older. They didn't add anyone. Their big off-season addition this year was, I believe, Stephen Sousa. So like... Respect the Sousa. I mean, look, I have Steven Sousa listed as one of the potential winners with the Universal D.H. I think he could play every day for the Cubs.

and, you know, we're only three years removed from him being a useful fantasy option. But I think the expectation should be that the Cubs have just an okay offense again. So, yeah, that matters. Yeah, an okay offense led by Javier Baez. Can't wait. Reminder to all fantasy football players out there that you should be listening to fantasy football today. You know, support our guy, Adam Azer. and remember when you won your league with Ladanian Tomlinson in 2006

or Randy Moss in 2007 or were you the one who bought into Peyton Hillis after his big season well this entire week? Frank, I'll just tell you, I'll just do the read. I'm just going to tell you that I've been embarrassing all of the analysts because my fantasy football yesterday picks are so much better, so much more thoroughly research. It just,

he picked Frank Gore for his running back Mount Rushmore And I just like, I just can't get. Like, this has been a really fun exercise, especially for me, because I've, I've been doing a lot of the research and compiling all the lists from everybody. And like, you're going to have a lot of fun looking at all the stuff on CBSports.com and in the podcast and on on HQ. But it's just seeing some of the choices. Like, you guys gave me crap for calling Mark Pryor a one-hit wonder. I was going to ask. I was going to ask, which is more egregious?

Frank Gore on Mount Rushmore is 100. 100% and and yeah i i agree with that that's how bad but frank gore's i mean the mark prior one is like a good pick and you guys are just babies about it but whatever uh famous football yesterday ton of fun heath uh you know we love heath uh we love his contrarianism but boy yeah bad is that a word contrarianism i got to look that one up yeah yeah that's a word you know what it Beans. You know what it means. All right, so Adam, for the rest of the week, I'm just going to throw you the read. And you could tell everyone all the fun stuff you've got going on over at FFT.

But today was Mount Rushmore. So make sure you go listen to that. And you can hear Heath talk all about Frank Gore. That's actually a lie because he wasn't on the podcast episode. But he was on the HQ episode. Oh, so he wasn't even there to defend his pick. Not HQ he was, though. Oh, man.

I'm disappointed Sean Alexander didn't make the Mount Rushmore for running backs. It was the one that surprised to me. had a really short, much shorter peak than you think, only really five years. Is that a short peak for a running back? That sounds pretty good. Relative to the other rise. Well, Priest Holmes had a three and a half year peak. Yeah, exactly.

But he was made it instead. But it was like, it was unbelievable. In fact, in the year he got hurt, 2004 maybe, I don't know. He was by far on a per game basis. He was five points better than any other running back in PPR. He played eight games. He was on pace for 20. 28 rushing touchdowns, which would have been his third straight season with more than 20.

His peak was short, but it was too good to leave him alone. And really, give Priest Holmes some of Larry Johnson's numbers and he looks even better. And that was basically what happened. I mean, it could be. FBTX FFT crossover. We've got to make it happen one day soon. I did want to get into some of the prospects that benefit from this latest proposal, which as of now, it seems like we're looking at 3,000.

30-man active rosters with a taxi squad of up to 20 additional players. So that's how you get to the 45-50-man roster that was reported from Ken Rosenthal. Scott, I know that you wrote an article, you know, basically who would be the biggest winner among prospects for each team? And the one that stood out to me, seriously, was Tim Tebow. I finally got some grief for that. This article's been published a couple times now, and it fell on deaf ears the first time, I think,

because I didn't get a single comment on that Tim Tebow pick for the Mets, but I finally got one yesterday, and it was as angry as it deserved to be, which, you know, it's more commentary on how little the Mets have that are ready to contribute, at least to an extent that would matter in fantasy. Well, when they need to get fired up for a big game, and they need a motivational speech.

Bring them up. I think if Sandy Alderson was still there, it would be a foregone conclusion that Tim Tebow would fill one of those spots. But like, I think it honestly could happen because they have so few choices anyway. And it's like if this ever is going to happen, why not when rosters are expanded by a few spots, you know? And then when the year's over, you know, you DFAM.

And maybe that's the end of his baseball career right there. And it's no longer something we have to talk about. but at least it will have happened at that point. I'm kind of annoyed by guys like Tim Tebow and Michael Jordan trying to transition into baseball. You're taking away a spot from someone who actually, okay, whatever, it's your dream, that's fine. But Tebow, you played in the NFL.

Jordan played in the NBA. Why are you taking away spots from other people? It's completely. It's, you know what? You know who it's good for? The only person is good for is whoever owns the Binghamton Mets or wherever he was playing last year because they do draw better crowds when he's playing.

otherwise the whole thing is a joke. Disagree. You're more, you are allowed to disagree, but I mean, frankly. There are so many opportunities for minor league baseball players. They had too many teams. They have to eliminate some of them. He's not taking away a spot from anyone. Minor league baseball is a total crock and is a sham.

It should be basically eliminated. You don't need more than one affiliate. You don't need more than one affiliate for teams. You don't. This is ridiculous. Adam. Let these kids be free and stop teasing them thinking that they actually have a shot. Adam, you're putting rich.

This is a whole. Minor league baseball is a complete crock. It should be eliminated. These kids are making absolutely no money. They should pay them more. I agree. But this is your Frank Gore on Mount Rushmore of running backs tag. This is ridiculous.

Dylan Carlson ends up outside your house with a bat in his life. Why does baseball need so many minor league? affiliates and no and football doesn't even need a minorly. Adam, if we followed your logic, uh, there's no Mike Piazza, there's no Paul Goldschmidt, there's no Alper Poole's. Oh, they would make it. They would make it eventually. One one minor league is just one affiliate. Yeah, the level of competition would be too hard. Albert Poole was like a 25th round pick or something. He's not making, no, I think it was like 12th round. Still, I don't know if that was hyperbole. And I, the internet doesn't get hyperbole. And Chris kind of represents the internet to me. So maybe he wasn't

getting your hyperbole. Wow. No, honestly, it really wasn't. It really wasn't. I think that it was that you just, minor league baseball is kind of crazy and you just don't need that many affiliates. Just one. Like,

I don't understand what makes baseball, what makes baseball so special that there's just recently a developmental league for basketball. There's no. Well, no, that's, Adam, that's not true. And it's being used to that in Chinese league, by the way. You're being, you're being, there are 120 amateur football teams in the minor league for the NFL. You don't think there's college baseball? Right. That's what it is. That's what it is. There's college baseball, right. But Adam, come on. There's college baseball. Saying that there's no development

league for the NBA and NFL, like that's just, that's because the best, hold on, hold on, hold on. It didn't exist. That's because the best prospects are forced to go to college and that serves as the minor leagues for those. Let's, let's call it what it is. That's all it is. And, uh, by the way, let's just, I wanted to bring up. one point just to get back on the actual topic of what we've been talking about on this episode. Aren't the Astros as a whole winners? We had an email about that today. Yeah, like, it just came in

before the show. I just read that one, and I think it's a, I think it's a kind of smart take. Like, if people were worried about the mental toll that playing in front of fans who hate them was going to take, that's a good point. Like, their

seasons should go a lot better. There should be fewer reporters to ask them questions. I think... They should still get plunked very often. But not Michael Brantley because he's going to face a lot of lefties. I don't know. Would they get plunked as often if there's not... I think the fans would absolutely...

I feel like that kind of plays to the crowd, right? I think yes. Like, they're all in an empty stadium. There are, like, it's actually like there's a lot of things that you can't quantify and you shouldn't really take into a... count. But there is, there have been studies that show that in professional sports, when you're playing in front of the home crowd, the home team tends to get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to officiating. That, who knows how that's going to benefit,

how that's going to affect things, but that's absolutely, like, there are psychological effects to not playing in front of fans that are absolutely going to be a factor. And for the Astros, it seems like that's the one that you can point to most specifically. I don't know how much it matters, but if you were dinging them for the possibility that they might struggle under the spotlight of the scandal, I think that absolutely benefits them. And I agree with Scott. I think they're probably less likely to get hit when there's no fan base fans in the crowd, because the fans are the ones who are going to drive the emotions of players to at least a certain extent. I want to answer a few questions, but real quick, Scott,

this whole conversation was started because I did want your three biggest winners among prospects. So if you can give me your three biggest winners, who would they be? What does it matter? It's all a sham anyway. So, you know, I'm broadening the interpretation of prospect here. They don't necessarily have to have rookie eligibility for, I mean, the three biggest winners are probably, guys, we covered this episode already.

Dylan Carlson, Austin, Riley, and, well, I mean, those are two of them anyway. Guys who weren't so obvious, it wasn't so obvious they were going to make the Major League roster, and now it is very obvious that they will. I think Ryan Mountcastle, I didn't say that name very well, but Mount Castle, of the Orioles, I think he's probably in the same boat. He can play any of the four corner spots. And if they had a plan to call him up at any point this year, it might make sense to do it from the get-go.

He might be the most relevant Orioles hitter from the get-go. And Nick Madrigal of the White Sox, I think he probably is the odds-on favorite to win the second-based job now when he probably had to have a blow everybody away-type spring otherwise. Nate Pearson. I don't see why the Blue Jays wouldn't let him into the rotation now before there was innings preservation situation, and now there won't be,

so he's probably just in the rotation to start out. Michael Kopeck. Yeah. Who did I pick for? Oh, I picked, okay. Magrigel. Nick Madrigal for the White Sox. But yeah, Kopec makes sense, too.

Ian Anderson for the Braves? I picked Kyle Wright over Ian Anderson. He was having the, you know, he already has some major league experience and he was further up the ladder, and he was turning some heads this spring again. I just went with Anderson because he's the, considered the better prospect

among those guys. Isn't that universal? I know they're both divisive prospects Anderson and Kyle Wright. There are some people that think they have very high ceilings and some people that think they're just mid-rotation arms. But yeah, I think Kyle Wright probably has a leg up

over Anderson, but they both could end up impacting the Braves rotation this year. Yeah, it's possible. All right. Continue to send us your questions, fantasy baseball at cbsi.com. This one's from Adam Kay in NYC. Listening to your discussion on potential scoring changes for head-to-head leagues was great, but I think you missed two key suggestions that could help leagues out.

First, for points leagues, you could implement the same top half in scoring system as fantasy football, where in a 12-teen league, the top six teams receive an additional win. This prevents teams from getting unlucky and missing the playoffs with six. say the fourth or fifth most points and doubles the possible wins you can receive. I think that you should do that in addition to facing somebody. So we spoke about double headers yesterday.

I think you face somebody, but you also, at the same time, the top six scorers for that week get a win every single week, if that makes sense, just to eliminate some of the randomness that's going to happen in a shorter season. You could also just play every team every week.

Oh, worst team. That league I ever did. That kind of eliminates the head-to-head-ass, back then, right? You might as well just do total points or make it a roto league. That was my best favorite league ever. I hated that league. You can't talk trash to everyone. With regards to head-to-head categories,

why not have 12-0 or 8-0 or 10-0 instead of a 1-0 scoring system? I hate that scoring system. Really? I hate that scoring system. I hate the one win? Oh. Yeah. I hate winning a week and getting a 5-4-1 on the scoreboard. That is ridiculous.

I hate that. A win is a win. It doesn't... No, it's not. To quote, what's his name from Fast and Furious? I can't remember his name

in the movie. The big guy with the bald head. Vin Diesel. Vin Diesel? Yeah, Dom Torretto. To quote Dom Torretto, I think that's his name. You're looking for the character name.

Doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile. Winning is winning. You never had me. You never had your car. Why do you have fast and furious quotes just on your mind at all times? You know, that doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning's winning is like something you should live your life by. All right?

It doesn't matter if you, it doesn't matter if you win on a, on a, on a shrimp in extra innings. You know, you still get the win. It still goes up on the scoreboard. What about shootouts? The team that loses on a shootout and hockey still gets a point. I mean, come on. We're talking about real sports here. I think if you play a head-to-head categories league and you don't score it where every category is like a win, that is almost embarrassing.

That is almost like you don't really know fantasy baseball. You get ridiculed for that. Right? You can't be like, no, I'm sorry. Don't let that just sit out there. I'm actually with Chris here. Oh, you guys are playing. And it certainly justifies punting categories more

if it's just, you know, it's 1-0 no matter what degree you win by. Yeah, what's all right. Thank you, thank you, man. No, you're wrong. You know what? Mark Pryor was not a one-year wonder, so. I mean, you're wrong on that one, too. This next one's from Nick Edgar.

We need some soundtrack for this one. Ooh Go ahead You can start talking I'll do the uh You know Hello Walt Brian and Q That was really good guys

Way to go Thanks Like fun both of you Walt Brian and Q Excellent Anything there That's uh I don't know

Breaking Bad's the only Walt I know of Yeah that's what I was thinking Are they Disney's And then I thought Q was What impractical Jokers Yeah Q was There's the Star Trek character

played by John Delancey who was in Breaking Bad. It is a podcast called Tell Em Steve Dave. Oh. Which is a reference to a movie. Clerks, I think. Well, they're not FBT, so get out of here.

I am in a 14-team league, and the commissioner traded Tim Anderson and John Gray for Jose Ramirez and Josh James, with a new owner in the league who was a fantasy baseball novice. Earlier in the offseason, the commission talked this owner out of trading Jose Ramirez away for a better package. What punishment does this commissioners deserve?

That is conniving. It sounds like this person shouldn't be a commissioner. Yeah. You're supposed to act in the best interests of the league as a whole as a commissioner, and this guy clearly has no interest in doing that. Yeah, I think you got to have a coup. So, yeah, so most people don't want to just, like, kick people. He doesn't deserve to be in the league.

That's really low. But if you're stuck with him, two options. One, you make him be the commissioner of a different league in which the scoring is head-to-head categories, but you win one-nothing instead of six to four. That's a horrible punishment. Or two, I would say you make him lose a week zero to ten. Like, basically to nobody.

Just give him 10 losses. right out of the gate. Well, I don't know the scoring here. Starts off with a handicap. You make him lose, yes. You dock him points or whatever it is. You punish him in the standings. That's really dirty.

Yeah, that's... Fantasy karma's coming for you. Commish, whatever your name is. This next one's from John and NYC. Hello, Pokey, Pieces and Cups. Yeah, Rises. That's good. Rees. That's very good.

I just joined a new category league, and I saw that they have six hitting category versus five pitching categories. How would you adjust your draft strategy to account for this, especially considering if you win six categories, you get one win for the week. See?

It all comes full circle. There is a 27-ennings limit, so I do need some starters. My thought is I just draft two aces in the Nola-Castio range, get Hader, maybe a little tap-happ AMC there, and another couple closers

towards the very end. One other decent, pitcher around 10 to 12 and never try to win Ws, wins or K's. I don't know why you're even worried about pitcher. Well, because there are five categories. Sure, draft your full lineup, draft your bench, and then draft elite middle relievers. Yeah, you could do that. But then that's only two categories, right?

Just punt steals. Yeah, that's what I think, Frank. I agree with you. punt steals. That's, I think I'm coming around to Frank's thinking on this in this format is just, you have to go so far out of your way to get steals right now, and it's just one category with no influence on any other. And it's, it's kind of nutty.

I don't feel like this is the time, like this is the era in baseball to be loading up on hitting, totally assured that you're going to be able to win the hitting categories based on that just because the offense is too, is distributed too far and wide for you to have those kinds of assurances. All righty. That'll do it. Great show today. Actually, I'll end on this one from Daniel Dakotis.

He has some more nicknames for the stamp, for the tram stamp. I want to talk to Stamson. Does anyone know where that's from? Of course. Come on. That is already in use on a CBS sports property, unfortunately, for you. Right, I need a beach. I didn't know, sorry.

That's from half bait. That's from half bait. And the other one is Stampy from The Simpsons. Yeah, I responded to this email actually from Daniel and I just wrote back, Stop that Mr. Simpson. Which, you know, he laughed at. He said, some podcast hosts are just jerks. The Stampy episode is one of the all-time greats.

No question. I'm going to have to go back and watch it. I don't know. Season three, maybe? Season three. Way behind on my Simpsons, way behind on my movies, but that'll do it for today. FBT, Season 5. For Chris and Adam. Scott. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back on Wednesday. Bye-bye.