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Speaker 3Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasybaseball at cbsi.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris.
Speaker 4What's up and welcome in to Fantasy Baseball Today on Thursday. Almost Thursday, October 15th. I am Frank Stample joined by Scott White and Chris Towers. Today on the show, we are drafting the first two rounds for next season. Chaos. We know that this past year, the first two rounds were quite bad. Scott, you have hypothesized that the first two rounds could look quite different. For different people, different analysts, different players across the industry. And I think we're going to see a lot of that here. So are you ready?
Speaker 5I mean, we only we only have one first round, so I don't know how different it could look.
Speaker 4We're doing the first two rounds.
Speaker 5Well, OK, a sample of one for each round, though. Yeah, I'm being a smart aleck.
Speaker 4I'm sorry. Yeah, I. I was diving deep into these players over the past couple of days and trying to put them in an order. It was just.
Speaker 6Yeah, it's hard. No, I think there are various tiers throughout that I feel pretty good about. But the order within each tier, I don't read. And then I think. I mean, we'll see. I think after number one, it's really wide open.
Speaker 4I don't know if we have a consensus number one. To be honest, I don't. I don't think we do.
Speaker 6I don't think you had a different number one than I think the consensus will be.
Speaker 4Yeah, we are also doing this live during the NLCS game three. So it's kind of a. It's a lunch party. Thanks for being here. If anything crazy happens, I'm sure we'll react.
Speaker 6Well, it's show how Tony gets a hit.
Speaker 4Yeah, then we automatically bump him up a few spots.
Speaker 6You guys realize if he doesn't get a home run today, it's officially the longest he's ever gone in the majors without a home run.
Speaker 4I did not know that.
Speaker 6I'll be 25 straight games. He has not homered since August 18th.
Speaker 4Very fair talking point. Now, will he be the first overall pick? We are going to alternate picks. Scott is up first, followed by Chris. Then me. We'll go in order. I'll throw up a Google sheet for those watching here on YouTube. Google sheet. Is that not what it is? I don't know.
Speaker 5You said Google. Google. Baby talk over here.
Speaker 6Google sheet. Scott, you're on the clock. I got sheet.
Speaker 5Ah, well, since I'm number one. Oh, don't do it. I guess that means Shohei Otani is too. I'm here for it. Shohei Otani. Make it so. Obviously, he's been bad. He's been hurt. He's dealing with. Actually, it started in June with a knee issue. And that's kind of led to this cascade of other injuries that he's attempted to play through. Did finally go on the IAL toward the end of the regular season. But I don't think enough time to make him healthy again, clearly. But he looked like he was trending toward his fourth straight thousand OPS. season prior to that knee injury in June. The OPS wasn't quite at a thousand, but it had been trending up. And he was looking really good. And I think an off-season of rest is all he needs to get him back on track. And with the kind of elite track record he has, I'm not willing to pass him up with the first pick. You could say, well, you passed him up with the first pick this last year with Aaron Judge. But I think, you know, Aaron Judge, being four years older, you know, he's getting into his late thirties now. I'm a little more concerned about the age catching up to him than I am with Otani. And P. Crowe Armstrong, who's probably going to be the consensus choice for number one overall. You know, he's once. He's once given us a year, a first round worthy season. Obviously, 2025 was also really good. But I. You know, not enough to get him drafted in the first round or even the second round. So I think it's a little too quick to anoint him the top overall player, especially when you have somebody as reliably studly as Shohei Otani available. So Otani, I think, is the only player I'd take ahead of PCA. But unless we get some negative reports about his health this off-season or in spring training, I'm going to lean Otani over PCA.
Speaker 6So I will say Otani is old. He's old enough that if he's in his decline phase, I wouldn't be shocked. He's 32. He turns 33 next July. And look, I think part of the problem is you're right. P. Crowe Armstrong has only done it once. But Shohei Otani has also only had one season in his career that was better than P. Crowe Armstrong's 2026, at least according to the Fangraph Player Rater. And so. If I'm going to take a DH-only player first overall, one, it'd be really nice if he stole a bunch of bases. And I just don't think you can count on that for Otani anymore. I think the days of him being anything more than 15 to 20 steel guy are completely done. Unless, I guess, he's not pitching. Maybe that's a different factor. But I think it's likelier that he's a 15 steel guy than a 30 steel guy in 2027. And two, I just. If I'm going to take a DH-only player first overall, I really need there to be no questions.
Speaker 5And I. There wasn't. There was questions about Otani coming into this year, wasn't there? There was questions about Otani coming into two years ago. Right. There's always questions.
Speaker 6Well, sure. But then he did have an underwhelming season.
Speaker 5Not two years ago.
Speaker 6No, but in 2026.
Speaker 5Not coming. Coming off the 50-50 season. Remember, he was banged up in the postseason as well.
Speaker 6Yeah, he had the shoulder thing.
Speaker 5Yeah, he dislocated his shoulder. It was a more serious injury than the kind of injuries he's dealing with now, at least as far as we know.
Speaker 6Part of what makes this so hard is just I have no idea. He hasn't looked like a major league caliber hitter in like eight weeks now. Because he's hurt. You don't think he just stopped being a major league caliber hitter. No, no, no. Right, right, right. 100%. But because I don't know what the nature of the injury is, it's really, really hard to say that it's not going to be something that lingers, you know?
Speaker 5Setting an over-under on home runs, just home runs for these two players, Otani and PCA next year, what would your over-under for each of them be?
Speaker 6Home runs. I'd probably go 40.5 for Otani, 35, 34.5 for PCA. That sounds fair.
Speaker 5Okay. Yeah, I think we're about on the same page. Like, Otani, I think, is a lock-it-in 40-homer guy, potentially more, if he's healthy. Yeah. PCA, what do you think? He obviously hit 45 home runs this year. It was 31 the year before, so still very good. Yeah, I think he's more like a mid-30s homer guy on average than mid-40s or even 40. Of course, home runs aren't the only category, but that's just, like, we all agree, PCA's probably not going to do this again.
Speaker 4No. - Probably not, yeah, I did write comments of a rough expectation projection for myself just for like the five categories otani i wrote down 270 to 280 35 to 40 homers 110 to 120 runs 100 rbi 10 to 15 steals which obviously would be an awesome season and then i have pca at like 35 35 between a 260 and 270 batting average so uh it comes down to what do you want more basically between those two with that chris you are up with the second pick and i don't
Speaker 6think we need to spend much time on it because peter armstrong i think he should be the first pick
Speaker 5and we should just real quick we should clarify we're doing this for five by
Speaker 6five scoring yeah yeah yeah and so if he falls to me at number two i'll be thrilled that it happens i'm not sure shohei otani would be my number two pick right now and maybe i'm just overreacting to what we're seeing right now i'm not sure he'd be my number three or four i i genuinely have no idea it
Speaker 5is unlike you to suffer from recency bias that like you you are mr draft christian mccaffrey first overall coming off the whatever injury yeah torn acl i think
Speaker 6the the the way this season has played out has been one of my concerns with otani as a two-way player all along it's just that what we have seen for the most part in the past is when he's gotten hurt as a pitcher it has not affected him as a hitter and i i think that seeing the inevitability of that take a hit it shakes me a little bit it shakes my confidence especially when we're talking about you know peter armstrong is 25 or will be 25 on opening day and shohei otani is 32 now i i think it's just as likely that peter armstrong finishes outside of the top 20 as he finishes inside of the top five but he's got two seasons in a row now where i think on the aggregate he's been more valuable than shohei otani he was better than his 2026 was better than otani's 2025 his 25 was better than otani's 2026 you get what i'm saying yeah so the
Speaker 5combined 25 26 numbers pro armstrong is
Speaker 6ahead yeah okay um and so i i just i think that's a little safer it's entirely possible that we get out to february and it's like oh yeah what am i thinking but i'm i think he's taken just a little bit of a hit and i will probably need to get to the offseason before i'm able to put this out of my mind what we're seeing right now i mean i think
Speaker 4if your entire ethos and idea around your first round pick is to just minimize risk i i look there's risk with it with a bunch of these players we're going to talk about like even pca he's not the safest first overall pick but i do think otani comes with elevated risk because of that pitching and hitting and what that exposes him to pk armstrong obviously magical season you know 40 40 and uh made huge improvements against lefties in terms of plate discipline against non-fastballs he improved his bat speed like everything was fantastic uh can he maintain all of those improvements i'm not entirely sure and there have been some talks about like wrigley field wind blowing out like helping his home run total so again i'm more of a fan of pk armstrong i'm more of a fan of pk armstrong i'm more of a fan of expecting 35 35 for pca and like anything else that you get is fine but i mostly buy a lot especially at his age just the improvements he made it's mostly buying buying a lot of what we saw here from from pk armstrong it's
Speaker 5worth pointing out so i'd have him second behind otani and i'm probably going to be out on a limb with that i'd have pk armstrong fifth in a head-to-head points league which you know isn't that low and give it like obviously he made strides as a walker huge draws walks um so i i think compared to where he was last year like that's the biggest improvement and the fact that he could be a top five play could be drafted as a top five player player in a points league i think is to his credit but there would be there would be a few other hitters ahead of me him for me in that format
Speaker 4i have the third pick here and i i think it's completely wide open i think there are probably five to eight different names that you could probably mention here for for being the the third overall pick i'm still gonna go with bobby witt jr i understand it was a down season for him and he doesn't offer as much power as other players and obviously the rbi total was abysmal just 54 rbi this season but i i think it's pretty outlier for him like 80 plus rbi in each of his first four seasons in the majors i think him dealing with the sprain mcl on his knee kind of derailed the middle part of his season a little bit here and he just underperformed his expected stats too like everything is still awesome under the hood when i dug in here he's still in the prime of his career at 26 years old i i think a couple years ago we kind of saw an out like perhaps the best season of bobby witt's career so i'm not expecting that but i would expect him to bounce back in terms of multiple categories here and hit around 25 home runs i i think he's probably the best batting average of the three names that we've mentioned so far between otani he's not going to give you the gaudy counting stats but i just think uh the steals will probably be up around 35 to 40 as well for for bobby witt so i think there's an argument for like five different names but i'm still going with bobby witt junior at number three i actually have with
Speaker 5sixth i i i i feel like he is a safe pick but he feels a bit a bit like you're conceding something you're like you're you're giving up something to secure no risk here back-to-back years with fewer batting matches so i think he's going to bounce back as far as the other counting stats for the kind of investment you're making and with in that lineup it you know if if he's not a surefire 30 homer bat and he's he's not going to be a clear plus and an rbi i'm i'm just not that eager to take him here now maybe maybe he'll bounce back with 2024 production again next year i don't think that's outside their own possibility but after back-to-back years of really falling short and maybe he'll bounce back with 2024 production again next year i don't think that's outside their own possibility but after back-to-back years of really falling short and maybe he'll bounce back with maybe he'll bounce back with 2024 production again next year i don't think that's outside their own possibility but after back-to-back years of really falling short and maybe he'll bounce back in home runs um he just he feels more like a top five pick because you don't want to put somebody else in the top five than because bobby witt really deserves it if that makes sense
Speaker 6um if not for the il stint you're probably talking about a 20 homer 50 steel season in 2026 and the 281 batting average that's a little disappointing that's a really good season for most hitters and the xba was 302 the second highest of his career he's not someone who's underperformed his expected stats consistently uh 2026 is the outlier there um i still think he is about as strong a player in average runs and stolen bases as you're gonna find while still being at least a positive contributor at home runs and potentially very good you know i i don't think 30 homers is the ceiling for bobby witt you know i i think we could see some some high 30s homers seasons with the with how hard he hits the ball so i he would be my number two overall pick um i like i said i think after for me peak or armstrong it's very wide open and and there are yeah i think really like four or five players you can make a case for maybe more um depending on how optimistic you want to be about aaron judge um uh but i do think with the combination combination of safety and i i still think considerable upside makes him the right pick there it comes down
Speaker 4to how you want to build your teams too i mean if you're talking from a roto or category perspective in a points league he's going to be a little bit lower here like probably mid to late first round um but you know if you if you draft bobby witt you're you're you could look more at guys like kyle schwarber or peter lonzo in the back half of the second round you don't have to focus as much on batting average you can kind of get like those three or four category slugger types to pair with him and vice versa if you wanted to take a junior caminero or a jordan alvarez here i think you could you know focus on one of those speedy guys in the mid to late second so it just comes down to how you want to build your team uh but yeah i still think it's an incredibly high floor for bobby witt and underperforming his x slug by 60 points this year i just think like he's gonna bounce back in the power department even if it's not a massive total i think he's probably somewhere in that same thing
Speaker 5this is going into this year and he didn't like that's like when it happens twice in a row it's harder to say oh that was just something he
Speaker 6didn't he didn't underperform in 2025 though like he only hit 23 homers so i but like it was 47 doubles six triples he also hit 30 homers back-to-back
Speaker 4seasons in 23 and 24 so and
Speaker 6that just like 47 doubles 23 homers that just tells me it's a great power hitter and like that distribution is going to be slightly different from what it was in the one year to the next and i don't really think that's indicative of like a failing on bobby witt jr's part personally all right let's
Speaker 4take a quick break i i don't know if we're gonna get through two rounds maybe one round we'll see if we can do that we'll we'll take a break we'll be back right after this at t-mobile the
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Speaker 4welcome back in fantasy baseball today drafting the first two rounds for next season and uh yeah 20 minutes on three picks there's a lot to talk about there's a lot of decisions here being made and scott we are back to you it is the fourth pick of the draft okay
Speaker 5i'm gonna go aaron judge and i feel a little better about it i i exaggerated his age a moment ago i said he was about four years old or something like that i'm gonna go aaron judge and i feel a little better about it than otani he's about two years older than otani will turn 35 next april which is getting up there but not quite late 30s yet i think he's still really good the jump and strikeout rate is what scares me the most but you know he was obviously more strikeout prone hitter at the start of his career and was still awesome in fantasy just needs to stay healthy and it's a bigger question as you reach uh as you get deep into your 30s like this but uh again i think the track record is is it's not like he was just another first round player aaron judge he was historic all time put your fantasy team on on his back and uh get you get you over the finish line kind of player and that's what i want to use my first round pick on when uh when i have the advantage of picking this early in a draft and uh i think the odds are he's gonna stay healthy next
Speaker 4year so looking at aaron judge in april apparently he heard his first heard his rib in late april and then he went on the eye he didn't go on the eye until like late may early june so he tried to play through it for a while and it affected his numbers but through april he played 31 games he hit 252 with 12 homers five steals and an ops just over a thousand full season pace 62 homers 26 steals now i'm not expecting him to run like that uh anymore especially coming off the calf injury so when he was healthy the batting average was lower but like the power production was was still there when he was healthy this season i just really worry about the health man like a dude that big in his mid-30s coming off of a rib and a calf i i have a more like a late first rounder but i could be completely wrong about that like he can very easily finish the top player in fantasy once again if he's healthy enough it's just if you're at all worried about injuries or risk in the first round then i could see like lowering aaron judge but uh yeah i have him a little bit lower scott has him here at number four chris over to you
Speaker 6for pick five um okay pick five um i'm gonna go with ellie de la cruz and i think there's a lot of different ways you can go in this spot a couple of outfielders in particular i think will be popular picks but i'm gonna go with ellie de la cruz who i i think at this point the biggest and maybe only thing holding him back is just that the reds lineup wasn't very good i scored 99 runs drove in 79 despite hitting third most of the season i believe uh he went 30 30 he hit 283 the underlying stats better than they've ever been a big step forward i think part of my confidence in ellie de la cruz is that he took that big step forward in 2025 before the quad injury and that really dragged his numbers down but he was basically having the same season before he got hurt in 2025 so i'm kind of viewing it as two years at this level of production remember he had a grade two quad strain that he didn't miss a single game from so i do think that is slightly different than you know a lot of the ways we do like the first half second half thing i think in his case it's pretty clear what the the causal mechanism for his season going down the drain was i'd prefer if he still looked like a 40 steel guy and i don't think that's going to happen but i think 30 30 remains very realistic for ellie de la cruz i think you know the 280 ish batting average i don't think that's too much to expect from him moving forward given the gains he's made and there is still room because he's fixed his issues against lefties at least seemingly in 2026 i think there's still room for one of those 40 plus homer seasons certainly he has the physical tools for it so i i think ellie de la cruz is a very very good combination of safety and just huge huge upside like he i still think there's number one overall player upside here
Speaker 5with the kind of gains ellie de la cruz made in batting average not sure there's a big difference between him and bobby whitney more and i part of me kind of wanted to nudge de la cruz ahead of bobby whit clearly i'm down on bobby whit yeah like it's more that i think that i'm high on ellie de la cruz there are a couple outfielders i'd take ahead of either that we haven't mentioned
Speaker 6yet but i think ellie it's like i feel pretty good about him hitting 280 but there's risk i think bobby what's a 300 hitter and the downside is the 280 we just saw yeah and so sure there's a little bit more power with ellie but i i really don't i i i'd put the over-under for bobby what at 24 and a half homers personally i know he hasn't hit that either the past two seasons that i still think that's what the talent
Speaker 5level here i mean that's that's a reasonable over-under it's it's still under 25 which is
Speaker 6a concession in
Speaker 5round one especially the first half of round sure but then it's also 300
Speaker 6average and
Speaker 445 yeah yeah yeah i i think both guys are incredibly close as well just like huge improvements this year for ellie de la cruz it's crazy to remember he's still just 24 years old like he yeah he's been around for three or four years already but he got called up so so young and just continuing to improve big jumps in terms of quality of contact improvements against lefties obviously we need him to maintain those but i he's young enough where um i i could see him progressing in some other ways and uh yeah pretty excited about ellie de la cruz is like a mid first round pick totally fine with that one uh i am up here at pick number six and i have one of those outfielders i think scott was just talking about and that is uh juan soto i have uh i think him versus bobby witt is really close like again you're just nitpicking with a lot of these players but juan soto obviously dealt with the calf multiple times this year but if you look at what he did when he was healthy it was uh still 275 batting average he underperforms his expected stats every year i think that's kind of just part of the um expectation at this point but his full season pace 39 homers 92 runs 99 rbi 13 steals the steals came way down obviously we didn't really know what to do with that last year when he nearly stole 40 bases uh but it back down to where it usually is i think you expect 10 to 15 steals it's going to be a batting average that probably helps you a little bit and i think the power production and the the run counting stuff is just going to be obp he actually lowered his strikeout rate career best strikeout rate it's like 13 or some so uh yeah he's still in the prime of his career expect the mets lineup to bounce back although we say that a lot um yeah i think one of the highest floor players here is juan soto so
Speaker 6and i still think i don't know if we've seen the true ceiling here with juan soto like he is still only 28 uh in a few days and like he hasn't hit 300 since 2021. but it never feels impossible for him to hit 300 with the amount of contact he makes, with how hard he hits the ball, how many homers he hits. I still think we could get one of those it-all-comes-together seasons for Juan Soto where he hits like 315 with 45 homers and 260 combined runs. Just absolutely ridiculous numbers. I still think there's one of those there because we're talking about really like an all-time great hitter who we haven't really seen an all-time great hitting season from yet, outside of 2020 being the one where he had that, it was like a 1,200 OPS or something in 2020.
Speaker 4Yeah, 1185. Yeah, that's so stupid.
Speaker 5Is Soto the safest pick aside from. Bobby Witt, I guess, the highest floor pick?
Speaker 4I think so. I have them three and four, but I thought it was a toss-up between those two. I think so, yeah.
Speaker 5I actually have Soto ahead. And I guess this. Maybe what it is for me, the biggest issue with Witt beyond even the home runs, if I have it like. You obviously only get one first-round pick. And you want him to be an absolute monster, right? Like, I want somebody. I want somebody who I feel like could get me 110 to 120 RBI slash runs, you know? And I just. Because you can't get that. You can't predictably get that anywhere else in the draft. You can get 30 steals, 40 steals potentially elsewhere in the draft. You can't get those monster run and RBI totals.
Speaker 6Yeah, I think both him and Ellie kind of have the same problem in that regard, which is just the lineup around them stinks.
Speaker 4Yeah, there's a few of these players in the first two rounds where you know. You know that they're uber-talented power-speed options, but the run and RBI totals are kind of up and down for a lot of these guys. It's Bobby Witt, Ellie, Tatis. Tatis hasn't even had the massive run in RBI totals. You could say the same thing about Julio Rodriguez. You could say the same thing about. I mean, Corbin Carroll has had some big run-scored seasons, but, like, the RBI are never high for Carroll. So, yeah. Carroll, I'm.
Speaker 5We'll get to it. Yeah. And I get, like, that could change. Look at what happened. Look at what happened with the Nationals this year. I don't think anyone predicted they'd be the run-scoring machine they were. It was three years ago for Bobby Witt. I don't think there's much reason to think the Royals lineup, particularly in the park they play in, is going to make that kind of leap.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's like, you can point to 2024.
Speaker 6That's the one, yeah.
Speaker 4He did do it. And, you know, we have high expectations for Caglione and Vinny P, obviously, finished strong once he was healthy once again. And Salvador Perez, you know, kind of a shell of himself. But still popping some home runs. And Carter Jensen, like, I don't know. On paper, I feel like their lineup should be better than the way it's performed. So, I don't know. You don't want to project too much. And I wouldn't expect it.
Speaker 5It's harder to project runs in RBI than home runs and steals, for sure.
Speaker 4I wouldn't be surprised, I guess, is what I'm saying, if Bobby Witt still has one of these monster, like, running RBI seasons. All right, Scott, back to you at the 107.
Speaker 5Well, a guy who just had a monster season and everything, but stolen bases. I'm going with Jordan Alvarez. I'm going with Jordan Alvarez here, who retains his outfield eligibility. That's a big win. Not going to be confined to DH. And I don't, and I'm sure Chris would agree, I don't think anything he did this year was beyond his capabilities. I think this was the kind of year we were anticipating for Jordan Alvarez if health didn't bring him down first. Unfortunately, it didn't. Still in his prime. I would say with Judge potentially slowing. Obviously, I'm taking Judge before Alvarez, as I did in this draft. But let's say Judge takes another step back this year. Like, Alvarez may be trending toward being that kind of, filling that kind of void in the draft pool in the future. And I think he should be a slam-dunk first-rounder again. I actually have him in my top five.
Speaker 6I agree. And on a per-162 game pace, from 2022 to 2025. So that includes a bad 2025. His per-162 game pace was a 300 average, 101 runs, 40 homers, 112 RBI. That's basically what he did last season. Yeah. Like, that's just, I kind of think we got a little bit of a, best-case scenario from Jordan Alvarez. Like, it was the highest OPS-plus of his career. I think we got closer to a median Jordan Alvarez season last year than a best-case scenario. At least, you know, in terms of the production, obviously. Staying healthy may be a best-case scenario for him. But I think as long as he's on the field, this is just what Jordan Alvarez is.
Speaker 5Underperformed his expected stats. Yeah. So he won a batting title while underperforming his expected batting average, which is really hard to do.
Speaker 6I mean, I pointed it out before last season. Since he entered the league, I think he was second in the majors in WRC-plus behind only Aaron Judge. Maybe it was behind Juan Soto as well, but he was no worse than, like, third. He's just this good as a hitter.
Speaker 5Mm-hmm. Led the majors in batting average, OBP, and slug.
Speaker 4Yeah, and he was close to winning the triple crown. He was close to winning the triple crown, too. Again, the biggest bugaboo that we always point to with Alvarez is he averaged just 117.6 games played per season from 2021 through 2025, so.
Speaker 6But fun with arbitrary endpoints. At least 147 games in two of the last three seasons. That's pretty good. There you go. I don't know. I don't know if there's any injury risk there.
Speaker 4Yeah. Him versus Judge, I think, is an interesting conversation. You could tell me you want to go Alvarez just because, like, he's healthier now and he's coming off the healthier season. But I think if Judge plays more games than Alvarez, I would bet on him. Having a better season than Jordan Alvarez. I just don't know if I could expect that.
Speaker 5They're back-to-back in my own personal rankings.
Speaker 4Chris, over to you for the 108.
Speaker 6Okay, this is a tough one. And I think I'm going to give just the teeniest, tiniest edge to maybe the only time I'm willing to play the position scarcity game. And that is giving a little tiebreaker to Fernando Tatis Jr., who is second-base eligible, because second-base is not good, looking ahead. Now, I think the thing about second-base is it will be better than it looks, because that's always the case. Somebody will gain second-base eligibility. But, man, a lot of really good second-basemen from 2026 will not have eligibility for 2027. And so if you want to play position scarcity, I think the difference between Fernando Tatis and Junior Caminero or James Wood is slim enough. That I'm okay giving the edge to Fernando Tatis. There's a little bit of the positional scarcity with Junior Caminero, but I think on the whole, third-base is in better shape than second.
Speaker 5Yeah, I got that impression, too.
Speaker 6I wrote my state of the second-base position for the FBT newsletter yesterday, and there were multiple times that I wrote about a player, and I was like, wait, let me make sure he doesn't have second-base. Curse me, he does not have second-base eligibility. Zach Galoff, one game short of second-base. Second-base eligibility. Sal Stewart, just a ton of the best second-base. I think three of the top five second-basemen. Yeah, Otto Lopez, Luis Garcia, and Cedon Rafaela, all not carrying, so three of the top six from this season, all not carrying second-base eligibility. Zach Galoff also, Brooks Lee, Mauricio Dupont. Yeah, just a lot of the really helpful second-basemen are just not eligible this season.
Speaker 5So I'm up to shortstop in my position-to-position rankings, which means I've done both third and second. Bryson Stott is 16th for me at third-base. He's 11th at second-base. Yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 4Honestly, my assumption just going into the offseason was that third-base would be much harder to fill or just more scarce than second-base, but obviously you guys are presenting fair arguments here. Fernando Tatis, just the reminder that in the first 55 minutes, 55 games, he kind of changed his batting stance, and it clearly did not work. He did not hit a home run in his first 55 games. After he hit his first home run, his final 104, 299, 25 home runs, 24 steals, a 914 OPS. I think we have an idea what to expect just like year-over-year production. We've seen this now from Tatis, but is there a chance that he could carry over what he did for the final four months, and there's this unseen upside for Tatis? I think the answer is yes.
Speaker 6I absolutely think there's 35 home or 40 stolen-base potential here for Fernando Tatis, and those massive, massive counting stats we've been talking about, I think he has that 115 RBI or 115 run, 90 RBI upside. I think the Padres lineup doesn't feel great, but they were very good in the second half once he got hot, and yeah, I think he absolutely, like, he is one of the players that I think has, if he's. If he's the number one player in fantasy in 2027, I really wouldn't be surprised at all.
Speaker 5His. Per game production from the day he hit his first home run, May 23rd on. I know we're drafting for Roto here, but head-to-head point per game production from the first home run on. A flat four points per game. The only hitter who was better than that for the season was Pete Crowe Armstrong. When was the last time we had a second-base eligible player this good? I know Trey Turner, when he went to the Dodgers, he picked it up. But I think Tatis is potentially even better than that.
Speaker 4Yeah. I think a little more well-rounded, yeah. All fair points there on Tatis. The number nine pick for me here, you know who it is. Caminero! Ha! Ha, Caminero! Junior Caminero, one of the lock-it-in best four-category producers in the game right now. Not a huge batting average help, obviously one that doesn't hurt you either. I think he's going to hit around 270 to 280, somewhere in there. But made improvements again this season. Improved his plate discipline. He walked more this year. He got that OBP up. Back-to-back seasons up over 40 home runs. I think he's going to give you around 200-plus runs plus RBI. Not going to give you anything in steals, but still just 23 years old. There is a chance that he just continues to get better as well. No issues hitting in Tropicana Field this past year. I think the expectation is, yeah, 40, 100, 100. 200, 275, but at 23, like, could still get better. I mean, there's a chance that we can get, like, maybe a near 50 home run season if he improves the launch angle just a little bit here for Junior Caminero. So feel pretty safe about him. Scott, back to you for pick number 10.
Speaker 5Well, I think this is pretty easy because Tatis and Caminero are gone and this threesome feels like a tear and rounding it out is James Wood. Hard to remember, maybe, but he and. And Pete Crowe-Armstrong were neck and neck for Player of the Year honors before James Wood went down with an oblique injury. Cost him about a month. And when he returned, he scuffled. Only homered twice in 169 plate appearances, which brought down his percentages. But he was around 1,000 OPS before then. Hang on a second. I was looking at second-half numbers. He didn't quite get 169 plate appearances after returning. In fact, he didn't homer at all after returning.
Speaker 6Yeah, it was like, around 923 OPS before he went on the I.L.
Speaker 5And he was still having the strikeout issues. Like, the strikeout rate was still high, the launch angle was still an issue, but it didn't really seem to matter. 30 homers, 17 steals by the end of August.
Speaker 6And that was by the beginning of August. He went on the I.L.
Speaker 5August 3rd. If James Wood is doing that kind of stuff, is able to produce like that, even with those glaring flaws, then just imagine if he made any kind of. ground. Made up any kind of ground in those two areas, the launch angle and the strikeout rate. He has top player and fantasy kind of upside, for sure. And I think to get him as late as pick 10 feels like a huge win.
Speaker 4I think you could take him as high as pick four or five, if you wanted to make that case for James Wood. Again, my expectation here, I think he probably hits mid-30s in home runs, 20 plus steals, batting average, probably in like the 260 to 270 range. But again, like, he's only. 24 years old. Like, this is another guy that just continues to get better. I don't really want to put a cap on what he could be. That's just like a median expectation. He could just blow the doors off and have this nuclear season where he goes like 40, 30 or like even more than 40 home runs. So it's, yeah, pretty awesome stuff there from James Wood.
Speaker 5Before we go on to 11, I mean, Chris is ultimately going to decide it for this draft, but I feel like this is the top tier for the first round.
Speaker 6I was about to say the exact same thing.
Speaker 5Okay, sorry to take the words out of your mouth then. Like, we could quibble about the order of these 10, and we have, but I feel like the drop-off happens after here.
Speaker 6Well, and frankly, I'm not even sure there's a drop-off. It's just the next tier, you guys may disagree, but I think there are just three very different types of players who should be drafted in quick succession once these 10 are off the board. And so I will get us started with the second best player in fantasy in the 2026 season, Jacob Miziorowski, the best pitcher in baseball last year. Nobody knows what the future holds, and that's doubly true for pitchers, but it is hard to ask for much more than the pitcher Jacob Miziorowski emerged as in 2026. He threw 174 in two-thirds innings. He averaged, he had a 180 ERA. He had a, let's get that number correct,.80 whip. This is historic stuff, a 38% strikeout rate. He ended the season with 252 strikeouts. The control just got better as the season went on to the point where it was a legitimate strength for Jacob Miziorowski. He only watched 6.6 batters per night, or 6.6% of batters. That is just outstanding stuff. I have no idea how sustainable this all is. He is a beanpole who throws 105 miles an hour. It all feels like it's going to end in tragedy someday, but this is as skilled a pitcher as you could possibly have, and that's worth a first-round pick, I think, especially when there are pretty big question marks among the remaining hitters. So I will just get the pitchers started with Jacob Miziorowski.
Speaker 5That's where I would have gone to. That's what I was getting at when I said, when the drop-off happens at the hitters, and there are pitchers as good as we have at the top of the draft pool this year, I think that's where you slot them in.
Speaker 6I think any of the, well, no. Jacob Miziorowski should be the first pitcher. After him, I think there's two perfectly fine options, but I think it should be Miziorowski. Just what he did, I don't think we're going to get 200 innings from him. I think there will always have to be something. Some limiters on him, but if we get 180 innings out of him, he almost did that this year. He can take, he can add a full run to his ERA, and, I don't know, a quarter to his whip, and still be arguably the best pitcher in fantasy.
Speaker 5Health is the only question. And it will become an issue at some point. You're just betting on it not being next year, but you're kind of doing that with every pitcher.
Speaker 4100%. I think there is an argument to be made for Tarek Skubal, as the top pitcher drafted, just like track record and how long he's done it. But a big talking point so far since the season has ended is emphasizing skills and talent and getting the best per inning and per game production from pitchers as you possibly can. And if we're making that argument, Jacob Miziorowski is clearly better than Tarek Skubal right now. Skubal has been better over the past five years, obviously, because he's been pitching longer. But he's also a free agent. Where is he going to wind up? First year of a mega deal, potentially somewhere else. Talks about the Mets matching any potential deal that he can get this offseason. You know, the Mets are kind of the Mets, so I hope that doesn't affect anything. But yeah, I still think Skubal is awesome and kind of in play for that SP1. The next player I have up here actually is a teammate of Jacob Miziorowski, and that is Jack Centurio, who himself is still incredibly, incredibly young. He turns 23 in March, which is crazy to imagine. He missed time to start the year, back from the fractured hand. But when he played, it was 25 home runs, 23 steals. His full season pace, 31 homers, 122 runs, 95 RBI, 29 steals, again, as a 22-year-old. 291 batting average, too. Yeah, made huge improvements in terms of his quality of contact. You know, previous years, it was like, eh, the stat-cast stuff isn't very good. He doesn't hit the ball hard. But, you know, he has all this prospect pedigree. So, you know, let's not overthink that. Let's not overthink it. Like, he legitimately hits the ball very hard. The stat-cast number's improved. And he's only getting better. And I think he's going to continue to get better. So my expectation is, like, you know, fair 25-25. But, I mean, I think he could be a 30-30, maybe even compete to be, like, a 35-35 player as soon as next season is Jack Centurio. So I have him here at the turn at pick 12.
Speaker 6Just to underline that point again, he doesn't turn 23 until about two weeks before next year's scheduled opening day. Yeah. Like, he's 22 and is 22 for a while. It's just, it's, yeah, it's remarkable.
Speaker 4Yeah, he is a freak. So, again, our first round here so far, well, I guess it is the first round. It's over. But Shohei Otani, Pete Crow Armstrong, Bobby Witt Jr., Aaron Judge, Elie de la Cruz, Juan Soto, Yordan Alvarez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Junior Caminero, James Wood, Jacob Mizurowski, and Jack Centurio. Let's take our final break. And, I don't know, we'll talk and figure out what we want to do here for the second round. We'll do that right after this.
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Speaker 4Welcome back in fantasy baseball today. We just drafted the first round for 2027. I'll throw this guy's your way. Like, do we try to, I don't know, a minute per pick here for the second round?
Speaker 6We're doing it. We got to go faster, but we're doing it.
Speaker 4We're all on the clock. 60 seconds per pick. Scott, you're up. First pick of round two.
Speaker 5Oh, we don't snake here?
Speaker 4Oh, yeah. I guess we probably do do that. All right. I'm on the clock. With the first pick of round two. And let's go back over to my handy dandy list here and see who I have. My next player is Jose Ramirez. And part of that is position scarcity. Although you guys are kind of convincing me that perhaps third base is not as bad as we thought. I just think this was a completely injury riddled season for Jose Ramirez. When you look at his numbers before he got hurt, before he suffered the hammy bone injury, 72 games. He was only. Getting 239. He had 10 homers, 42 runs, 33 RBI, and 24 steals. His XBA during that span was 280. His X slug was 444. Those expected stats are basically right in line with what he did in 2025. So I just think that his season got completely wrecked by this hand injury. Obviously, he's looked like himself in the postseason. He's hit two home runs. Yeah, I would expect him to bounce back similar to what he did in 2025. I think it's good. I think it's good. His batting average, I think it's like modest home runs, probably like 25-ish. But lots of steals. I think the counting stats will bounce back. And again, the third base position, I think, is not great. So I'm not overthinking it. I still think he's like a borderline first round pick.
Speaker 5I think this is the biggest surprise so far to me because I had Jose Ramirez as only my fourth third baseman. He's going second here. And that pushed him into round three for me overall. So you're going with first pick of round two. Now, I decided that before the playoffs. And you're right that maybe the fact that he has hit as many home runs so far in the playoffs as he did during that entire time back from the hand injury paints a rosier picture on it. But he's in his mid-30s. He has a much smaller margin for error in terms of fading because he never hit the ball all that hard like Otani and Judge do. I don't know. That shows how much room there is for disagreement here because I had… Jose Ramirez an entire round later. And yet it doesn't necessarily feel wrong for him to go 13th overall. That's a lot later than we're used to seeing him go.
Speaker 6Yeah, I had him 16th. He's my number two third baseman. So I'm kind of in the middle of you guys. But I can hear both edges because it's like the question I kind of want to ask with both Judge and Jose Ramirez. And I think they're the only two that are this old. But it's like how much do you want to bet on the 34-year-olds bouncing back? Is that historically a good bet? You know? We talked about it with like Chris Sale with like, oh, well, you know, players of that caliber don't age the same. But what we said was unless they start showing signs of decline, and I think we saw a little bit of that with Ramirez and Judge, extenuating circumstances across the board for both of them make it hard to write them off. But they're definitely two very, very risky players here.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think that's all fair. Again, I just… If you look at the numbers pre-surgery, I know like on the surface they're not great. But his expected stats, his average EV, his barrel rate, it's all pretty much in line with 2025.
Speaker 6None of us were worried about him when he got… Until he got… Yeah, it's
Speaker 5really
Speaker 6just after it.
Speaker 5That's the concern. But he's helping to alleviate those concerns with his postseason performance. We'll see how long that continues.
Speaker 4All right, Chris, over to you. Pick 14. Tarek Schubel.
Speaker 6Yep. I would have taken him 12th. So I will take him 14th. I think there's enough of a gap between Chorio and Ramirez, who were my next two hitters on my rankings after that first 10. So I'll just… I'll go with the pitcher. And I… In my opinion, I think the next pick should be a pitcher. We'll see how that goes. But I know, Scott, you have Schlittler ahead of Schubel. So I… I do. I'm sure I… That was going to be an easy decision for you either way, I'm sure.
Speaker 5Yeah. Yeah. Real quick. My pick here, third pick of round two is Cam Schlittler. And I have them Mizorowski 11th, where you took him, Frank, Schlittler 12th, Schubel 13th. So I take the three Uber aces back to back to back before we dip into the hitters again.
Speaker 6It's the exact same for me. I just have Schubel ahead of Schlittler.
Speaker 4Would you guys worry about Schubel if he signs somewhere new in the… Like just a cliche, you know, first year mega deal in a new location type thing? Not at all. I mean, are the… Is it Colorado?
Speaker 6Yeah. Colorado or Sacramento?
Speaker 4That would be pretty awesome, actually, if he signed with the Rockies.
Speaker 6But like, I'm not going to say pressure wouldn't be higher, but like, he got traded to the Dodgers. Yeah. I was just looking at this, yeah. And was, like, as good as ever?
Speaker 4261 ERA 105 whip, 10.2K per nine.
Speaker 6I feel like he was really pitching deep into games, too.
Speaker 423% K-walk. After joining the Dodgers. And that's after having the nanoscope in his elbow, right?
Speaker 6So, yeah. Like, that's the other thing you have to keep in mind throughout the season. He's a 251 ERA, 251 FIP, 272 ERA. He had elbow surgery this year.
Speaker 4Yep. All right.
Speaker 5An experimental elbow surgery, returning from removed bone fragments, like, at a record.
Speaker 6And didn't have a rehab assignment at all, right? I don't think he made one rehab start. I'll confirm that. He made one single rehab start.
Speaker 4Okay. Yep. All right, Scott. Do you, I know we don't have much time, but do you want to make a 30-second case for Cam
Speaker 5Schiller here? No, I think it's self-explanatory. Yeah. He was. He might be the MVP of the AL, much less the Cy Young. Probably not, but he'll be in the running, for sure.
Speaker 4I think this area of the draft is, once again, completely wide open. I have a trio of just, players, I believe, are super talented and are usually first-round picks. And I just don't really know what to do with them. I stuck them right here in the middle of the second round. And the first one that I have is Corbin Carroll. And Corbin Carroll, so Corbin Carroll here at pick, that would be 16. And obviously, down season, we talked about it towards the end of the year when he started missing some games with that back injury. Apparently, the back popped up in late April. Actually, April 19th, to be exact. And it's something that could have just lingered for him all season. He wound up hitting. He wound up hitting 239, 22 home runs, 91 runs, 21 steals. And if you dig into his second-half numbers, I actually think he was pretty unlucky. Still hit the ball really hard in the second half. His XBA was 248, despite hitting just 219 in that second half. So I know his career is kind of up and down, and his profile changes yearly, and you don't really know exactly what to expect from Corbin Carroll. But if he's healthy, I expect him to be pretty impactful. You know, 25-ish home runs, 30 to 40 steals, lots of runs scored. The batting average will be lower. Actively hurt you in batting average. Admittedly, don't know where to
Speaker 6place him, so I just kind of placed him here in the middle of the second round. I think you can make a case that he's not a second-rounder this year. Like, the 21 steals, that's the thing, is that if he's not a 30-steal guy, like bankable 30 steals, the whole profile starts to look a little rough, because then you're looking at only 130 home runs. Only one season hitting 260. 259 one year, but you know.
Speaker 5Yeah, I get it. He didn't slow down. 97th percentile sprint speed. And he had always been so bankable for steals that I, yes, I agree, if he's just a 20-steal guy, but for the three players we're talking about, I think we're better off not digging into the numbers too much. Because, obviously, we're not going to like what we find there. They were just not up to their usual standards, but their standards are so high, and they're still so young, and they were that good for that long that I think, I think we just give them a pass. Just where we give them a pass is the question.
Speaker 4Jake Bowers has hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh inning of this game off of Blake Snell, lefty on lefty. Wow. What a year for Jake Bowers. What an NLCS. I mean, that at-bat that he had against Yamamoto the other day, 12-pitch at-bat for a walk ahead of Jelich, who I think hit like a two-RBI single after that. Just awesome, awesome season for Jake Bowers. Just an all-timer walk here.
Speaker 6Yeah. In terms of like, how much money this dude made himself. Incredible. For sure.
Speaker 4Incredible stuff. All right, we are back to Chris here at pick 17, the fifth pick of round two.
Speaker 6All right, Scott, cover your ears. Oh, I'm going to do it. I don't know what you're going to do. I'm going to draft Connor Griffin. I'm going to push him up here. I know Scott doesn't have him inside his top two rounds. Would he be a third-round pick?
Speaker 5Haven't gotten to shortstop yet. Hard to say. There's still some really good players left.
Speaker 6Oh, no. Sorry. Blake Snell gave up. The first and last pitches that he throws in this game will likely be home runs.
Speaker 4And to back-to-back lefties, to Jake Bowers and Garrett Mitchell.
Speaker 6Jeez. All right. Well, back to Connor Griffin, who's 162-game pace as a 20-year-old rookie. I believe he made his debut right after, right before he turned 20. Either way, he was very, very young. His pace was about 12 homers, 45 steals. Counting stats weren't great, about 75 runs, 65 RBI. The numbers are not going to be worth a second-round pick is what I'm saying. But you're projecting some improvement. And I think Bobby Witt would be the instructive case here where very similar rookie seasons. Not all that good as a hitter. There was a little more power, a little less speed for Bobby Witt. But on the whole, very similar. He takes a big step forward in the second season, goes from 20 homers to 30, goes from 30 steals to 49, hits 276. I think Connor Griffin's going to be a 45-steal guy next season. And I think he's going to be a 20-25 homer guy. And I don't think that's the season. And I think the batting average is going to be helpful. And there's a world where a player this talented just figures it out immediately and is in the conversation for the No. 1 pick next year. It's certainly not the likeliest outcome, but it is in play.
Speaker 4How interesting is this, Chris? The same exact WRC Plus for both Connor Griffin and Bobby Witt Jr. in their rookie seasons. 98 on the dot there from both of those two guys. Two uber-talented, super-prospect. Super shortstop prospects coming up.
Speaker 6By the way, Connor Griffin hit.290 from May 1st on. I don't know if you guys realize that, but that's pretty good. It's only 54 games, a small sample size, but his pace after May 1st was like.290 batting average. It was only like 12 home runs still, but close to 100 runs. Looks like about 45 steals. I think that's in play. For Connor Griffin, and I think it's more likely we're talking about him as a first-round pick next year than as a third-round pick.
Speaker 4I just haven't got to him yet in terms of my deep dives, but I might have been there if I got to him before this podcast.
Speaker 5Picks like these, I'm always just like, why? Yeah, it could work out. I think you even said it's not the likeliest outcome. With early rounds especially, I like to draft for the likeliest outcome. Bobby Witt, I was against people elevating him to round one after his rookie season, which wasn't near that level, and it worked out. It worked out for them. You're passing up so much ability here. Even if Connor Griffin does actually deliver on the second-round pick, the guys who are still left that you passed up for him also will, in all likelihood, they're more likely to, in fact. So why take that kind of gamble?
Speaker 6I guess part of it for me is I kind of think his likeliest outcome is like 15 homers, 45 steals. I just kind of think the likeliest outcome is.
Speaker 5I would be depressed if I got 15 homers from my second-round pick.
Speaker 6Yeah, the homers aren't great, but if he hits 285 and he steals 45 bases.
Speaker 4If you pair him with like a Jordan Alvarez or Caminero, I mean, that could work out pretty well.
Speaker 5Yeah, I just.
Speaker 6I just. Part of it is also just. It's either him or some more starting pitchers for me, honestly. Okay. See, there's. I just kind of think that the hitters are. I'm up next, right? Have plenty of warts of their own.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, to me. Two of that trio I mentioned are still available that I just find really intriguing, but yeah.
Speaker 5There's a shortstop coming off a 30-30 season who is in his mid-20s. And. Who will likely have second base.
Speaker 6Second base eligibility.
Speaker 5Who will pick up second base eligibility early next year. Like. C.J. Abrams is my pick here. That's perfectly reasonable, yeah. I. I can imagine a scenario where Griffin, Connor Griffin, has a better season than C.J. Abrams next year. I think batting average is probably the clearest gap there. I think steals, too. Maybe stolen bases. But I can't. It's not even. I don't think it's. Even close to the likeliest outcome. It is a possible outcome. I don't think it's the likeliest outcome. And then you add the. The expectation that Abrams will be a second baseman next year and how thin that position is. I was just saying, when's the last time we had a second baseman as good as Fernando Tatis? When's the last time we had a second baseman as good as C.J. Abrams? I guess Chisholm at his best, but. Yeah. You know, Abrams. Abrams is, in some ways, even better, I think. He did have his usual second-half slide, but still finished as a 261 hitter. Again, 30-30, 106 RBI, 93 runs scored. I think. I think I would have taken him over Corbin Carroll, also. I would take him over Corbin Carroll, yes.
Speaker 4I. I could see a similar expectation for both guys, to be honest, both C.J. Abrams and Corbin Carroll. I mean, just with Abrams. Look, I don't. Look, I don't want to downplay all the good that he did this year and the improvements that he made, like pulled air rate and getting the more power, but just, like, struggling again down the stretch, overperforming his expected stats by quite a bit. Like, he's overperformed his X-slug by 60 points. And when he played second base, he was an awful hitter. I don't know if that matters at all, but he did not seem happy about playing second base. And, look, ultimately, if that's what the Nationals decide, I mean, that's what he's going to do, unless he demands a trade or something like that.
Speaker 5I think there's a decent chance he gets traded this offseason, too. Yeah, it's possible. Yeah, there is definitely a decent chance, and he may not be. That's why I don't think we can bank on him being second base eligible. I think he's worth drafting here, even if he's just shortstop. And, you know, when it comes to what are you concerned about, the armchair psychology stuff is fun to talk about, but I don't put a lot of stock into it unless there's very, very, very strong evidence.
Speaker 4Come on, Scott. This is how we win. These are the margins. We have to win with the armchair psychology.
Speaker 5Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 4All right, I guess it's back to me. I've been talking about this trio of players that I just don't really know what to do with. And the next of that trio is Julio Rodriguez, who I think is kind of in a similar boat as Corbin Carroll. I mean, typically a first or second round player, year in and year out, in terms of where he's drafted. And he went on the IL. In early July with a concussion. And it seemed like it just kind of derailed the season. His second half was a letdown. He hit 230 with a 655 OPS. And typically, his second half OPS, each of the first four years of his career, 937, 941, 818, and 900. So the second half is usually when he takes off, but I think he was, you know, coming back from a concussion and clearly wasn't himself. And I'd probably expect the usual, like, 25-25 base from Julio Rodriguez. And maybe he can even get back to 30-30. So I kind of landed on that being in the middle of the second round. I have no idea if that's right. But that's where I've got him. Pick seven of round two.
Speaker 5I think that's right. The clincher for me was reminding myself he's 25. He's got to be 26 before the start of next season. But, like, a 25-year-old who was on a Hall of Fame trajectory before then. And, you know, the timing of his. really falling off a cliff. I understand his first half was underwhelming, but his first half slash line, Julio Rodriguez, right in line with his career first half slash line. It was a very typical first half for him. So the fall off was really the second half, and it coinciding with the concussion, I think, is a valid explanation.
Speaker 6It is just frustrating that it's happened twice in the past three years now. Because he got hurt. Yeah. Him putting it all
Speaker 5on the second half like that.
Speaker 6Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If we think that the first half, second half thing for him is real, and it has been throughout his career, it does mean that he really cannot have anything go wrong in the second half. Because in 2024. That's fair. He had that, like, high ankle sprain, I think, that he maybe missed a handful of games for and then came back and played through it because they were in a playoff race, but it was clearly affecting him. He was starting to figure it out before then. Kind of the same thing in 2026. And so it's just. That's a little scary, but I think. You're talking about a guy who, two out of the last four seasons, has gone 30-30.
Speaker 5This past year, he went 20-20. Yeah. Still. Even with all the problems. Julio Rodriguez. With the first half, second half thing, isn't it kind of surprising he's made three all-star teams? A little bit, yeah. A little surprising, right?
Speaker 4Yeah. I understand what you're saying, though. Like, it does open him up to risk where if he just doesn't have that big second half, like, we need him to every single year, he just won't meet value. And just because it's happened in the past doesn't necessarily. guaranteed it's going to happen in the future but that is the trend that we've seen so far in julio rodriguez's career so i i would bet on it more often than not um and i wind up with him here in the middle of the second round chris over to you eighth pick of
Speaker 6round two i think i'm gonna pass on that other first round outfielder that you're that you're circling although i don't feel good about it i'm gonna go with yoshinobi yamamoto so i'm gonna go with another starting pitcher here just rock solid safety across the board i i don't think he has the highest ceiling at starting pitcher uh he is the one that has been taken so far that i would be the most surprised if he finished with the number one fantasy pitcher i would also be the most surprised if he was like 70th you know like it just barring injury it just doesn't seem like there's any way things go wrong for now yoshinobi yamamoto that could be the most surprised if he was like 70th you know like it just barring injury it just doesn't seem like there's any way dumb thing to say about a pitcher but this is three straight years of ace level production he pitches deep into games to overcome the the six-man rotation thing i think he's more likely to get to 200 strikeouts than not even though he only got to 182 this year he's just not the highest upside pitcher but remarkably safe for a starting pitcher i
Speaker 4think scooble and yamamoto have the highest floors of any starting pitcher that you could draft in fantasy and i think there's a pretty clear top four in whatever order the ms scooble schlittler and yamamoto and then i think you could debate number five is it sanchez is it is it chris sale is it zach wheeler i think you could have you know conversations about that but the top four seems pretty locked in in some order scott over to you for pick nine of
Speaker 5round two so chris said he didn't feel good about passing up this guy i don't feel good about taking this guy it's the correct answer I think in the long run I may talk myself out of taking Ronald Acuna this early maybe but I'm going to take him here the reason why I'm hedging is because I just got through saying I like drafting for the most likely outcome in rounds one and two not necessarily the best case outcome and I feel like we're clinging to the best case outcome a little bit with Acuna now I still think it's there I don't think we've seen what's the right word legitimate decline from him as a hitter in terms of he can't get it back I think he is still as skilled of a hitter as ever it's just he is often banged up and plays through it and it messes up his mechanics and he needs to retool his mechanics and he gets back to where he was and looks great for a few weeks but then he's playing banged up again and it's just been this cycle for about three years now of that and at some point he's 28 now so not quite 30 but he's not like 25 either and when it becomes a pattern unless he's going to spend a lot of time at DH next year which you know maybe we'll see I think you're asking on some good luck at this point for him to avoid falling into that pattern again next year I still think he has 40-30 potential if not 40-40 potential he's not you know a sprint speed 40th percentile about now but he still runs aggressively I think he stole five bases in the postseason when he was clearly playing hurt and didn't get on base that much so yeah I'm going with Acuna but the risks are pretty obvious
Speaker 6all that being said and I think everything you said is fair he was better than Julio Rodriguez last season yep you know like that's the thing is that for all our hand-wringing about Ronald Acuna he was better than the guy who went earlier that went ahead of him at the same position
Speaker 4so yeah but again he was the third of that trio that I think they're all really talented I think all three are wild cards right now Corbin Carroll Julio Rodriguez and Acuna Acuna being the biggest wild card of the three I think he's the biggest wild card in the first you know two rounds of draft I don't know if he'll be a second round pick in every draft but in the early rounds I think Acuna is the biggest wild card I agree Scott I think he still could go 40-40 but he also just regularly misses time he's only played 120 games even twice in his career both years that he's done that he broke fantasy so he's kind of like the Blake Snell of hitters um yeah not
Speaker 6for what it's worth I would take him ahead of Corbin Carroll and Julio Rodriguez personally I think I think there's a fair argument for that if you just want to shoot for the upside I think they're all shaky and he has the highest upside
Speaker 5yeah that's how I ranked them in mid-September
Speaker 4he might have the lowest floor though just because of injuries but yeah yeah
Speaker 5he feels like the most volatile of the three yep could be in a good way and a bad way
Speaker 4all right let's uh let's wrap this up here I have the 10th pick of round two I think this is complete completely wide open as well like I've said for a lot of these picks I am gonna go with Nick Kurtz here as the first first baseman off the board obviously was trending towards a massive season before this thumb injury popped up for him if you look at his first 82 games before the first reported thumb injury he hit 280 with 19 home runs 59 runs 64 RBI 7 steals and a 951 OPS his full season top five is Nick Kurtz pace with those numbers 37 homers 116 runs 126 RBI and 13 steals he does come with risk like is that thumb completely healthy heading into next year I have no idea but I think he hits the ball extremely hard he's an ascending player he was a top prospect awesome home ballpark really good lineup if everyone's healthy I think we could get like a 40 homer just massive run in RBI season here out of Nick Kurtz but admittedly I think he comes with some risk too I just don't know don't even know if he's healthy right now so that's where I have to be
Speaker 5yeah but he was great before playing through the yeah he was the injury he was it's hard to repeat it's hard to be a guy who consistently delivers a 950 plus OPS but I think Kurtz showed that he was that guy before that month of playing through the injury
Speaker 4I agree he is my pick here I like this roster construction here too for team three Bobby Witt and Nick Kurtz together that feels pretty good compliment each other very well all right Chris your last pick here
Speaker 6this is the 11th pick of round two so here's something kind of weird I think this is very much subject to change but I think I have a run starting with Nick Kurtz of four straight first basemen in my overall rankings so I would go with not the number one first baseman in 2026 I will pass up on Ben Rice for Miguel Vargas asterisk there Miguel Vargas was the first baseman who was actually better for fantasy than Ben Rice last season Ben Rice ranks higher because he was catcher eligible but if you strip out the catcher eligibility and you just take what they did on the field Miguel Vargas was a better fantasy player in large part because he stole 22 bases and that is a pretty big outlier he only had six the year before but man you look at Miguel Vargas you dive into the numbers of what he did it really does not look like a fluke at all the only reason it might is because he's never done it before but he went out and put up a 14% walk rate up from 9.8% and he didn't increase his strikeout rate at all do you know how hard that is to see that many more pitches to go that deep into counts that consistently and not strike out more than you did that's really really tough to do and he did that while adding exit velocity adding damage on contact he ended up with a 363 wobo which is really good mark it was a 378 expected wobo that is a really really strong mark it's I would guess let me look it up but I think Ben Rice's expected wobo was better oh no 378 exactly the same between Ben Rice and Miguel Vargas that's a little bit surprising isn't it given how hard Ben Rice hits the ball but given that Miguel Vargas okay he's probably a worse hitter than Ben Rice but those stolen bases and that third base eligibility that's a little bit surprising yeah is enough to push him ahead of Ben Rice
Speaker 5not that I don't think he couldn't steal 20 again 82nd percentile sprint speed yeah and just how much more he was on base helps explain some of the steals increase Miguel Vargas was the single biggest gainer in average bat speed this past year which you know you mentioned him hitting the ball harder you like when you can go back another level and see that he improved in the in the thing that led to the thing
Speaker 6and his swing length didn't get much longer which would be the trade-off you'd be worried about you know you're you're getting a little bit of less plate coverage for more damage but no that wasn't really an issue for him it was just if what he did last year was real like if the skill set doesn't decline I think Miguel Vargas is just a rock-solid second round pick it's a question mark but Ben Rice's track record isn't that long Sal Stewart's track record isn't that long yeah Jordan Walker's track record isn't that long and I suspect might be who Scott's about to take uh but i'll i'll let him say it if that is
Speaker 4all right scott wrap us up
Speaker 6here okay it's
Speaker 5not uh i i you just said frank that you're not sure who the fifth starting pitcher will be so i will make the decision for us i will say it's christopher sanchez
Speaker 6yeah that that'd be my pick
Speaker 5as well who the only real concern is the whip the whip runs higher than you'd like for an ace for sure a lot of it is babbitt related which partly comes from giving up so many ground balls but there are other ground ball pitchers that are get fewer strikeouts than christopher sanchez uh that walk more hitters than christopher he's a great control pitcher and and don't have the same whip issues so i think a lot of it is defense related alec bohm's gonna be gone presumably a free agent louise arise a free agent not that he was a bad defender for the short time he was there but i'm hopeful that means trey turner shifts to second base where he probably belongs at this stage of his career we'll see we'll see where the phillies defense winds up next year but i have a feeling it's going to be better and that'll help christopher sanchez and even if it's not better i think he just having better bad at ball luck i would take the under if we set his this year's whip as the over under and then everything else is phenomenal and he's done it a couple years in a row now so i think he's a clear cut ace worth taking
Speaker 4here recapping round two i kicked it off with jose ramirez at pick 13 followed by terek skubal cam schlittler corbin carroll connor griffin cj abrams julio rodriguez yoshinobu yamamoto ronald de cunha nick kurtz miguel vargas and christopher sanchez what about some players who just missed well if you want to find out about those tune in to fbt express because that is what we will be talking about we are going to wrap there for scott chris i am frank thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on apple or spotify and we will be back again next week bye
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