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Speaker 4Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. And first pitch, rushing! Deep left field! This is way back! Walk the walk! 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 1Every year, we give out a bunch of sleepers, breakouts, and busts. Let's take a look back and see how we did. Welcome into Fantasy Baseball Today. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. Today on the show, you guessed it. We're recapping sleepers, breakouts, and busts. What went right and wrong? What can we learn from it? And I did not mention the date at the top of this show, Chris, because we are recording at a different time than usual. If people are watching, they can actually see the sun in the background of your camera here. And we're recording at 2 p.m. Eastern time here on Monday, October 12th. So, it's right before two more playoff games. And then this audio is going to come out on Tuesday. So, everything's kind of all over the place. How you doing?
Speaker 5I'm good. I feel like I've been here before.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Nothing to do with that. Before we get into some of the news and notes, just want to quickly mention, like, of the playoff updates that make sense for us to talk about right now, the Guardians came back from down 0-2 against the White Sox. And obviously, awesome, awesome for the Guardians and their fans to come back down 2-0. Like, obviously, that's a huge accomplishment. Love
Speaker 5seeing Jose Ramirez
Speaker 1ball out in the playoffs. Dude. Home run on a ball that was, like, on the ground.
Speaker 5It was, like, nine inches off the ground, I think. But, yeah, he hadn't really done a ton in the playoffs before this. So, it was good to see him carry them to a division series win.
Speaker 1Yeah. I wonder if you would say the same thing for Aaron Judge, Chris.
Speaker 5Well, he has to do it first.
Speaker 1Anyway, disappointing end to the season for the Chicago White Sox and their fans. But, not that you need me to remind you, but keep your heads high, man. It was a great season for White Sox baseball, for their fans. Obviously, trending in the right direction. Have all this young talent and much more young talent on the way, too, when it comes to, you know, top position player prospects like Caleb Bonamer, Rock Cholowski could be up in the next year or so. And then you have these young pitchers that you could transition into starter roles. Grant Taylor, Hagen Smith. It kind of feels like pitching is the biggest bugaboo, obviously, for the White Sox. But, great, great season. Great turnaround for them. And I think. Much better days are coming very, very soon.
Speaker 5Yeah, it feels like a team that's got, like, a bunch of 3 and 4 and 5 guys in the rotation and could use, like, one really good stabilizing starting pitcher. Of course, that's easier said than done. They tried to trade for Luis Castillo to be that guy. He's clearly not that guy. So, there is some work to do. But, yeah, a very bright future overall there.
Speaker 1All right, not going to touch on the other games because, again, there's a bunch of other playoff stuff happening before this podcast. Actually, it comes out. Quickly run through the news and notes before we get to our preseason sleepers, breakouts, and busts. The Braves had their end-of-season press here. And we did get some interesting items here. Both Spencer Schwellenbach and Spencer Schreider should be part of the team's rotation. But the team doesn't expect either to fill a starter's role for the entire season. So, basically, they're hoping that those guys could be starters for next season. But not necessarily banking on them being starters all season long for the Atlanta Braves. Injury update on both. Schwellenbach had the fractured elbow last year. Surgery to remove bone spurs from the elbow in February of this season, 2026. And then he had a second surgery to repair the right elbow fracture in August of 2026. Schreider went on the IEL on June 13th with right elbow inflammation. He never returned to the Braves. Not in the regular season, not in the postseason. And then we learned they were shopping him in trades. There was apparently discussing him for Jacob deGrom, some kind of trade there as well. So, we're in an interesting spot, Chris. I feel like both. Schwellenbach and Schreider are wild cards for the Braves and for fantasy for next season.
Speaker 5Yeah, I mean, Schreider, unfortunately, just kind of feels like we're done here. Like, even when they were rumored to be talking about him in trades this offseason or at the deadline, it did seem more like he was like a salary dump than a key piece, which is probably right at this point, unfortunately. Schwellenbach, he's a little bit younger. He's actually going to be 27 next year. Schwellenbach, he's older than you might think. And it just kind of depends on how this surgery goes. You know, with Schreider, we really haven't seen anything from him in the last three years. Like, 2023 was the last time he was really a relevant pitcher for fantasy. But Schwellenbach was very, very good in 2024 before that injury. And so if this, you know, suite of surgeries can fix the injury issues, yeah, maybe. But I think you have to look at him the way the Braves. Anything you get from him is a bonus. You know, if he's healthy to start next season and he costs the 280th pick in the draft, yeah, I'll happily take a chance on Schwellenbach. But I don't think you can view him as someone that you can expect anything from.
Speaker 1Somebody you might be able to expect something from next season is Didier Fuentes, who will enter spring training as a starting pitcher. Could be transitioned into a relief role if needed. But Fuentes got to over 90 innings this year. So. I know Mark Bowman threw out 130 innings as a possible innings jump for Fuentes. But Chris, when you dive in, the surface level numbers, the underlying stuff, you watch him pitch. Obviously, Fuentes is really awesome. I think we would be very interested in him as a starter for next season. But also in the back of my mind, I just kind of wonder if they don't bring back Raizel Iglesias. Robert Suarez had an injury-plagued season. Like, if they don't have a closer, could they look at Fuentes in that role? So I don't know. I think either way, he's probably going to be fantasy relevant. I think we would like him more as a starter. But, I mean, maybe as a closer. I don't know.
Speaker 5Yeah. He's someone in my first round of rankings that I released on the FPT newsletter. He was my number seven RP, I believe. Let me make sure that that's right. Yeah, number seven. And so that was basically, there's kind of all the elite guys. And I include Mason Montgomery in that elite category. Maybe that's a little too much. I love it. I love it. But then I kind of slotted Didier Fuentes in as an RP. Or as a spark. But, yeah, I think he's someone you're just going to want to draft next year. And whether it's as, you know, hey, him and Jacob Latz don't have a lot in common. But Jacob Latz was someone in my deep sleepers column. I was like, yeah, he could be a useful end of rotation piece. It turned out he was like the third best closer in baseball. I think Fuentes is more talented. And so whether it's as a starter or if he gets a shot in a high leverage situation, Didier Fuentes is something. I think Fuentes is someone who could be really impactful next season and absolutely deserves to be on fantasy radars going into 2027.
Speaker 1And that's been a popular theme so far since the season is ending is getting back to trusting skills and not necessarily roles and just like drafting players who have very clear talent. And I think Fuentes fits that. I think, again, the White Sox guys that we mentioned, Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith, in whatever role they are, we're hoping that they turn into starting pitchers for next season. And we've seen a lot of these relievers turn starters work out in previous years for fantasy as well. So I hope that what the Braves are thinking is Fuentes is a starter for next year. But, you know, the fallback, even if he's the closer, I mean, that could be pretty awesome as well. Could work out either way, yeah. For fantasy. A couple other news items here. Shane O'Mac, Shane McClanahan, will not be available to pitch for the rest of the postseason. He went on the IL with forearm soreness. in early September. timber and there was another update earlier today that that kevin cash said that shane mcclanahan will be healthy heading into the offseason but they just they're not gonna bet on him to provide anything in the playoffs obviously when he's been hurt he's another wild card chris where it's like at this point in his career he's dealt with so many injuries he's shut down again it's just i don't really think that we should expect much from shane mcclanahan heading into next season
Speaker 5i agree i think like schwellenbach and strider you just view it as anything you get out of him is a bonus he'll be drafted ahead of those guys assuming he's healthy but not someone that you can draft i think as a starter for your team vlad
Speaker 1jr underwent laser eye surgery and perhaps this can have a max muncie-esque effect on vlad remember muncie put on the glasses in what may of last year and he's just been awesome ever since he was good before that too but uh obviously uh you know kind of re a resurgence in max muncie's career so perhaps the decision was a problem for vlad we'll we'll see if that can help him get back on track
Speaker 5cory seager nobody cared who i was until i put on the glasses
Speaker 1cory seager underwent surgery to remove a bone spur from his right elbow he should be fine for opening day whenever that is caleb durbin had successful surgery on his left pinky finger should be ready to go for spring training and jacob marcy underwent ucl surgery with an internal brace on his left elbow on monday and he is expected to be ready to play in games within six months so could be ready for opening day i think the more likely outcome is that you know we're probably misses the first month maybe the first two months so for any of those sickos that are drafting way too early drafting here during the the fall and winter time for next season uh just remember jacob marcy might not be ready to go um i know there are a few prospects that are close chris that maybe could make an impact in marcy's place for the marlins yeah i
Speaker 5know scott really likes cam canarella for the marlins he was a he started the season at high a he finished it at triple a hitting 282 with a 393 on base percentage at triple a he's only 22 years old there's a little bit of pop only 15 homers although he does hit the ball pretty hard there's a little bit of speed as well good approach at the plate um if jacob marcy's not ready cam canarella is a definitely a name to know for the marlins and centerfield all right
Speaker 1big thanks to everyone watching us live or on demand we appreciate you being here make sure to hit that like button let's take a break and we'll be back right after
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Speaker 1right let's recap our pre-season sleepers and i wrote down add it all to the rundown our sleepers 1.0 our sleepers 2.0 our sleeper breakouts and busts 1.0 are all published usually in january and uh obviously that's uh very very early on in the off season before you know many drafts are happening and uh so it's very interesting to look back and see what those names look like now um i'm not gonna read off all the names here chris but i mean you got some definitely some big hits here between like okamoto and connor griffin and chase the water parker messick was a big one carson bend you had as a deep sleeper and then in your 2.0 carter jensen jj weatherholt dale and lyle those are the ones i wrote down as like bolded as you know probably your biggest wins but what sleeper pick would you consider uh as the one you got most right or maybe the one that you learned the most from writing up way back then in the off season yeah
Speaker 5i think it's clearly parker messick um in in both lists and and to be clear the way i think we all have kind of different definitions of these um but for me i do tend to be pretty strict about keeping it tied to adp and so i i think it's just outside of the top 200 i'll consider anyone a sleeper um i know you can make the case that a top 50 pick is a sleeper if you think they should be a top 20 pick i i i get that but i i stick with the top 200 i like to give myself a little a little more specifics on what i'm picking from and i think the message from messick is especially when you're that far away from the season if the biggest argument against a player is their role that'll probably get sorted out you know that's not always true right like kate anderson i think would be the the primary thing where the only thing he needed was an opportunity that's what we thought anyway but let's stick with that the only thing he needed was an opportunity and an opportunity should come up eventually well in his case he was pitching at double a and had been drafted a year less than a year before parker messick was you know i don't know if he's going to be able to do that but i think he's going to be able to do proven at triple a he had made 20 starts at triple a in 2025 very few top prospects ever spend more than 20 starts at triple a i think i looked it up last year when bubba chandler or in 2025 when bubba chandler was stuck down there and i think bubba chandler and uh oh gosh the phillies guy who got traded to the twins whose name i'm blanking on mick abel mick abel were like the only two top 50 pickers in the league and i think he's going to be the only one who's going to be able to starting pitchers who made more than like 20 starts at triple a in the last five years and that was because mick abel just wasn't good at triple a um generally speaking once you've proven it at triple a to that extent you're a major leaguer and i know there was some concern about whether parker messick would end up in the guardians rotation he did life finds a way as we know and i think one lesson to take there is for players who have already gotten to the major league level for players who are proven like who don't have anything left to learn at the at the high minors you should just kind of not worry about playing time um because it'll figure itself out if they're good enough and there are worlds where parker messick just isn't very good and gets sent down or flops at spring spring training and doesn't make the rotation but given where he was being drafted which i think was outside of the top 300 it just doesn't matter that there's no downside to making the rotation and i think it's going to be a good time for him to be able to make that pick i think people were were sleeping on parker messick in the classic sense of just overlooking him overlooking how good he was as a rookie overlooking how good he was the minors and i i think that's the big lesson here is life finds a way we say it all the time and especially at pitchers if you're the sixth guy on a team's rotation plans at the start of the season and you stay healthy there's a pretty good chance you're gonna make 25 starts that year that's just how
Speaker 1pitching works yeah i actually had parker messick in my sleepers 1.0 as well wish i drafted more of them this season but i i think everything that you said was spot on especially and this has been a pretty consistent theme so far since this season has ended but really getting back to just like focusing on skills for me it's a little bit i just like that security and i'm sure this is the way for most people like that security of knowing already that somebody is in a rotation spot or in a lineup spot in a starting spot and i think that's the way for most people i think that's the way for most people so you almost want that confirmation before you draft somebody but again when a player is going as late as parker messick was around pick 300 or even like once you get outside the top 200 i mean all those players are late round flyers at that point yeah bet on skills and parker messick flashes skills down the stretch of last season he had seven starts where he looked very good minor league track record obviously was very good came with prospect pedigree and in an organization that does really really good with pitching development so uh yeah i think that's the way for most people - Yeah, I think Parker Messick is one that both of us got very right and hopefully could learn to lean into the skills even more, even if we do have some questions about what the role will be for a specific team. The other name I wanted to mention is one of the sleepers I got most right, and that is Alec Burleson, who his ADP was 175. He finished 24th overall. And my thinking with him was that I assumed that he would, you know, step into an everyday role with the Cardinals this year, that he would just play more than he has in years past. And there was some skill growth in previous years. We saw last year his average exit velocity went up, his barrel rate went up. I didn't think that he would lead the majors in RBI by, you know, coming into the season. But I just thought that he would be a solid all-around type player, like someone that doesn't hurt you anywhere, good batting average, like 20 to 25 home runs, good RBI because he, you know, puts the ball in play a bunch. Um, and he was just going too late. So to have someone that plays every day at that part of the draft, uh, I think obviously it worked out pretty well here. What's crazy is that part of the reason I had him as a sleeper is that he improved against lefties last year. He was, he was awful. He was so bad against lefties. It's so weird. It came back down this year. He was awful against left-handed pitching, but he was mostly an everyday player and he led baseball with 116 RBI. So it genuinely
Speaker 5one of the weirdest stats I can remember is, uh, Alec Burleson had a 548 OPS against lefties this season. It was awful. He had 212. He had 40 RBI against lefties. I think he was tied for second in the majors in RBI against lefties. I, I, I have no idea how this happened. More than a third of his, uh, RBI came against lefties. And I, I don't understand because he was incredible against righties. He had 311 with a 939 OPS and he had 76 RBI against righties in 400, uh, 464 plate appearances. He had 40 RBI and 206 plate appearances against lefties. It's baffling. I don't understand how this happened. And I think this is a, we're going to do an FBT express and Alec Burleson may or may not be one of my early bus calls for next season just because I think if nothing else, that RBI total is going to come way down. And I think he's a pretty good player, but not a great one. Um, and so if it's more like 88 RBI in 2027, I think he could be a pretty big disappointment.
Speaker 1Yeah. What, what's hard about the way too early bus calls that we're going to have is that we, we just don't have ADP yet.
Speaker 5So it's like no idea where he's being drafted.
Speaker 1Bus calls for all of us are usually just relative to where they're being drafted. So without knowing where players are going to be drafted, it's just like, all right, we're, we're kind of forecasting a little bit, but yeah, I could see that being the case. If people kind of overvalue this season too much for, um, Alec Burleson, but he does it in that kind of Josh Naylor way that he makes a lot of contact. So with runners on base, he just naturally is going to have a higher RBI total. And if you look at like the underlying skills, he, he really has just gotten better every single year in terms of hitting the ball harder and optimizing his launch angle more and OPS and WRC plus just like constantly getting a little bit better. I feel like maybe he could take a little bit of a step back against righties. But based on how, like, he wasn't great against lefties in, in 2025, but it was an OPS over 700. So I just thought that like, all right, maybe that can bounce back a little bit. So perhaps a little bit of evening out next season for, um, Alec Burleson, who was like, just kind of a don't hurt you anywhere, boring player coming in. But, uh, I thought it was, um, the process was right there. It was a great call by you for sure. Yeah. A couple of others that I, uh, I got quite right. Gabriel Moreno, Cosimo Okamoto. I had all the rookie shortstops on here. Again, we wrote this in January before like ADP kind of settled. Obviously Connor Griffin got pushed way up, but Griffin, Weatherholt, McGonigal, you know, in January, all we had was like NFBC. And I think their ADPs were all outside the top 200 at the time. I had Ian Seymour as a deep sleeper, Parker Messick as well. Um, and then sleepers 2.0. Not great. Not great by me. I had Trevor Rogers, Imanaga, Musgrove, Durbin, and Andrew Vaughn. Really? I mean, Imanaga was like the only one that kind of paid off there. Uh, but yeah.
Speaker 5Durbin was really good for like two thirds of the season. He was just so bad early on that, you know, the final numbers don't really blow you away. But I think, well, I guess there's also just, if you drafted Caleb Durbin, you probably didn't get any of the good numbers from him because he was so bad early on. You probably dropped him in
Speaker 1and someone else reaped the rewards there on, uh, on Caleb Durbin. So those are the ones that we got most right. Chris, what about the sleeper you got? Most right. What's wrong and what can you take away from it?
Speaker 5I think the biggest one for me is probably Francisco Alvarez. Um, and I say that because look, I had Kyle Manzardo and Matt McLean on there as well in, in sleepers 1.0, Justin Crawford. I had some, some pretty bad players on the sleepers 1.0 list, but I, I went with Francisco Alvarez because personally I ended up drafting him a ton. Um, his price ended up moving up as the off season went on to the point where he no longer qualified. For sleepers 2.0. And I think I replaced him with Carter Jensen and actually moved Francisco Alvarez to my breakouts, which are the, the calls that you're supposed to feel more strongly about. And, um, he was pretty bad. There were a couple of injuries in here for Francisco Alvarez, but I think part of where I went wrong was, you know, he had that turnaround in 2025, he got sent back down to the minors, crushed it at AAA, got called back up and was really, really good for the final, like month and a half, two months of the season. And I just kind of bet on there being, if not continued growth from there, him kind of establishing a new level. And I think I ran into the full season statistics are more predictive than partial season statistics. And I bought into a narrative that, Hey, he's young. He got sent back down. He changed his swing. He figured it out. And sometimes that works out. I'm not going to say that never works out, but it is easy to fall for the like second half breakout narratives with young players. And it's not always going to work out the way you hope it does.
Speaker 1Yeah. I think part of it for him too, is that he can never stay healthy.
Speaker 5Yeah. And it's a lot of different, like, I think it was a hand and a knee this year or something like that. And yeah, it's just always something with him for sure.
Speaker 1Like he hits 16 homers in 113 games, even if he plays like 130, that's not a great, he's probably somewhere in like the 20 to 25 home run range still like hits the ball hard. The barrel rate 15% was the highest of his career, but also strikeout rate went in the wrong direction, struck out more than ever. I mean, one of the lessons I have for later on is I, I had, um, Royce Lewis and Mackenzie Gore in my breakouts 1.0 and it just like, stop trying to make fetch happen basically. It's like, you know, when we have enough, you know, when we have enough, you know, when we have enough of a sample, I understand like progress for these super top prospects is not linear and they can like break out later on in their career. I get that. But it's like at some point you gotta take what they've done in their career, especially when you have a three or four year sample, you have to take it at face value. And I think you could say that about Mackenzie Gore and Royce Lewis. I think Francisco Alvarez, unfortunately kind of falls into that same bucket with those
Speaker 5guys. Yeah. I, I, I think he's squarely in the number two catcher discussion for next season, but not someone like I would. I was drafting him as a top 10 catcher and, and I do think we should be careful about falling for this with Carter Jensen who closed out the season. Incredibly strong, um, that September 1194 OPS in the month of September.
Speaker 1Um, his, his month by month OPS, I, I started like deep diving catchers for the off season. His monthly OPS was just all over the place.
Speaker 5Carter Jensen. Yes. Really good in March and April. Really good. Really, really good in September. Absolute disaster. The other three months.
Speaker 1Yeah. Um, so he kind of did it in, in like an accumulator type way. I don't want to look 27 home runs as a rookie catcher is good for Carter Jensen. But yeah, it's just like to make sure that we're not overvaluing that too much to the point where he's being drafted as a top eight catcher or something like that. I think I'm going to, if he's in that like 12 to 15 range, I think that's fine.
Speaker 5Yeah. I'm going to view him as what? What he did overall. And I, I, I worry that it's going to be, yeah, I have him 11th, a catcher. He could go to 10th, Liam Hicks. I think, yeah, I think that's fine. I think it's good range, but I think there's going to be a, yeah, but look what he did down the straight. He figured it out. And it's like, maybe he figured it out or maybe it's just a high variance player being a high variance player.
Speaker 1You know? Yeah. He is young enough where he can obviously continue to improve and he can build off of things like that. I don't think that we should overrate any of the small samples that I think Carter Jensen has right now. What we're learning is that the plate discipline is not great. And as a result, he, he's a pretty streaky player. Lots of Royals hitters are, are streaky so far early on in their careers, but that that's kind of my early takeaway for, for Carter Jensen. But yeah, that's a, that's a good point. Like don't overvalue that September too much. He did something similar last September. Right. And so, um, he still paid off where he was drafted, but yeah, just, just the sleeper that I think I got most wrong. And again, I, I got a lot of these wrongs I could point out. A few, like I had Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien. It's just, dude, why are we going after these like old?
Speaker 5kind of injury prone dudes. I kind of like the Mets off season. So what the heck do I know?
Speaker 1Yeah. Chris Bubich was a letdown. Joe Musgrove was a letdown.
Speaker 5Both on my list as well.
Speaker 1The one that I think I was, I was most convicted on. He was the pitcher I loved on Valentine's day was Nick Lodolo. And I think I just didn't put enough stock into his injury history and the history of blisters that he specifically has. And look, he could bounce back next year. Obviously in 2025, he didn't really deal with the blisters and he was great. And that was part of the reason why I really liked him coming into this season. And that could still happen. Like he can bounce back and be healthy and he can have a great season. But I, I just kind of overlooked that injury history a little bit too much. Like blisters are something that, you know, if it's happened multiple times year over year, it starts to become pretty consistent. We've seen this with max free too. It's like, it kind of pops up every year, unfortunately. So I think just not putting enough stock into a certain pitcher's injury history and just paying a little bit more, more attention to that. But I, I had lessons I could take away from all these guys like boobage and Musgrove. It's just like drafting injured guys when they're not healthy. And the last time we saw them, they most recently were not healthy. It's just, you really don't know what you're going to get. You don't know if they're going to show up to spring training and be healthy or not. So that's just kind of a shot in the dark type thing. And then it's like Polanco and Marcus Sammy. And it's, you know, betting on older guys, especially in Polanco's case, where don't bet on the mats. Yeah. That, that might be the lesson there. Polanco just really outside of 2025 really has not been able to stay healthy in his career. Do you have any other takeaways here from kind of drafting injured pitchers or a Nick Lodolo who's just dealt with blisters over and over
Speaker 5again? No, I think the, the Lodolo one specifically is just, you got to get a discount on your kind of if your players and, and he was more excited. I don't, I don't think he was like crazy expensive or anything, but, but if I remember correctly, he was like a one, a top one 40 pick. Yeah. Top one 50. And so around there for sure. Yeah. That's, I mean, look, it's not like the other guys in his range were great. Uh, Zach Wheeler went right. A few spots ahead of him. Okay. That would have been an awesome pick. Sonny gray would have been an awesome pick, but also Emma Sheehan, Brandon Woodruff, Blake Snell, Ryan Pepe. I'm like blanking on Michael King. Uh, here's the problem with that.
Speaker 1Chris is that like cam Schlitler was also in that right ahead of. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, take care of Zach Wheeler or,
Speaker 5or Jacob is your ask. He was 10 spots ahead of him.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's all coming back to me now. I remember all these, this range of pictures. Like I love Lodolo. I love Pepe. Oh, and both of those guys, uh, obviously dealt with their injuries, but you know, Gavin Williams was going after him. Like, so there was a bit of an opportunity cost. Obviously you have to pick the right pitcher. We don't always know who that pitcher is going to be.
Speaker 5Maybe, maybe the lesson there is just don't fall in love with one pitcher. Yeah. No, that's fair. Just divert, like just take everyone in every range of drafts because you're probably not going to like the chances of any individual hit pitcher hitting like that are really slim just by the nature of the position. And so that might just be my, my overall pitching lesson for next year is just draft everyone. Just do not have a preference for any player in any tier and just every draft, take a different pitcher at every point in the draft. And hopefully I will hit on some good pitchers.
Speaker 1I feel like we're kind of hitting on a lot of, you know, Scott's lessons learned and his strategy talk for next season where, you know, he's, he's mentioned his nips a few times where it's no intention, intentional player strategy, but also he talks a lot about starting pitchers, just like taking as many shots in the middle rounds as you possibly can and kind of trying to do it with volume and just, you know, take as many breakout sleeper chances in the middle to late rounds and just hope enough of those guys hit where, and it, and it pays, it pays off. And I think that's kind of the overarching thought that we're, we're talking about here as well. Let's take a break. And when we return back into our preseason breakouts and busts, and we will talk about those right
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Speaker 1Welcome back fantasy at baseball today. We are recapping preseason sleepers, breakouts and busts. What do we get right? What do we get wrong? What can we learn? And Chris, taking a look back at your breakouts from before the season, some of your big hits breakouts 1.0. You started it with a section that was like bounce back candidates. You're on Alvarez, Jackson, Merrill and Dylan cease. Just check, check, check a plus plus plus. I mean, you, you could do no wrong after those three picks. You also had Kate Smith on that list of breakouts. And then in 2.0, you had Caglione, Chase Burns and Yvonne Herrera. So all those names I thought were the biggest winners in your breakouts, one and 2.0. But what do you think the one you got most right was and what you could take away from it?
Speaker 5Yeah. If we're not counting the guys from 1.0 who were established star level players before. And I think crucially we're still in their prime and didn't have an obvious reason why they couldn't be good again. Like Dylan cease. The skills were still really strong. Jackson Merrill, really, really young player who has really strong physical tools and was hitting well last year in 2025 before he had a concussion. And then, you are on Alvarez. I hammer this point home a lot, but if the only argument you can make against the players that they can't stay healthy, you only need one thing to go right. And that's what happened with your on Alvarez. He mostly hit like himself and stayed healthy. And that, that was enough. Um, if we're not counting those guys, I also don't really count Kate Smith. That felt like one of the most obvious picks you could possibly make elite pitcher. Who's now a closer. Great. I would go with Chase. Burns, who I think is also a very, very obvious breakout pick. Um, elite, elite talent who just, there were, I guess, some questions about the workload. There were very, very faint questions about whether he'd be in the rotation to start the season. But even at the time, it felt like something not worth worrying about because he would be in the rotation eventually, even if it did happen. That was just a bet on an elite talent and it worked out. You know, I, I, I don't, I didn't really have any performance concerns for Chase Burns. Any concerns about him were strictly workload or injury related. And I guess for those of you in a points league, unfortunately, the workload questions did crop up. He didn't really make a valuable start in September and that, that stinks in a head to head points league. But I think on the whole, it was a remarkably effective breakout season for Chase Burns.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was a popular one. I, I think we were all pretty, pretty intrigued by Chase Burns. And he was specifically interesting during spring training because there were talks of, you know, would he definitely be in the rotation? Are they going to go with a six man? I feel like maybe he had some kind of like slight injury thing pop up or like a fatigue thing during spring training that maybe scared us off a little bit. But we, we talked about this last week where, you know, if you have conviction and your eyes tell you that this pitcher is really awesome and he's a good breakout candidate, like don't let spring training, sway you one way or another too far. Obviously like camp Schuettler had a thing in spring training. And so I think the same thing could be said for both Schuettler and Chase Burns. I'm trying to figure out who a candidate could be for next season's Chase Burns. It's not as obvious because we don't have this like last year we had this obvious group of like Burns and Schuettler and Mizzy Arowski and Trey Savage and Bubba Chandler and not all those guys hit. But obviously, the ones that hit, they hit really big, but we don't really have that same crowd. Like Jared Jones is going to be popular. I think it's the obvious one. I'm trying to just think more like a prospect who got called up like Kate Anderson, but it's different.
Speaker 5He wasn't very good.
Speaker 1Kate Anderson, but Chase Burns wasn't, he didn't really do much in the majors once I guess that's fair. Yeah, but it's just, I think it's different because Chase Burns, you watch him pitch and it's very different than Kate Anderson, right? It's like the stuff
Speaker 5obviously played the way
Speaker 1that those guys are going to be good. They are very different.
Speaker 5So if he's, if it looks like he's tracking for a rotation spot, but yeah, we are this and this stuff is all cyclical, right? Like this stuff is all anytime there's a bunch of young players that generally means that the next year there won't be as many young players because a bunch of those guys graduated. Right now it's like looking at my, at my rankings. Didier Fuentes looks like the most obvious one. and I think Kate Anderson should be included in that conversation. I ended up bringing him right at 48th at starting pitcher, which is just kind of a, yeah, you belong.
Speaker 1We'll see. Jared Jones, for sure. I think the other group is, like, elevated past this point. Like, Cavalli and Logan Henderson, I think those guys are going to be drafted higher than where Burns was going.
Speaker 5Yeah. Probably not. Maybe Emmett Sheehan, if it looks like he's got a rotation spot.
Speaker 1He could do that again. The Dodgers hate that guy. Maybe Connolly Early.
Speaker 5Yeah. You know, if he's healthy.
Speaker 1I think some of the relievers make sense. They're going to be drafted much later, though. Like, the Fuentes, Grant Taylor, Hagan Smith group, they're all talented. They all had some level of prospect pedigree. Like, you watch them pitch, they're clearly talented. They're going to go much later than, you know, Burns' ADP was 115 and Schlittler was, like, around 125 and Miziorowski was in that range. So, this is just your latest reminder that, like, every year's draft pool is very different. It's not, you can't always draw conclusions like, who is this year's Chase Burns, Cam Schlittler, Miziorowski?
Speaker 5Yeah, nobody. We got a couple people in the comments saying Andrew Painter, maybe. I like Painter, too.
Speaker 1Like, I dug in a little bit so far on him and we did our early breakouts for last week for the FBT Express and he was on the short list. He was, like, a name that I considered. Basically, once he got called back up and he changed that pitch mix, he was really good. And the stuff plus metric. The stuff plus metric was really good on Painter, too. So, yeah, I can see that one being pretty interesting.
Speaker 5It is a lot harder to do that exercise this year than it was last year, for sure.
Speaker 1Yep. Some of the breakouts that I got most right this past season, I mean, some of the obvious, like, Ben Rice, Cam Schlittler, Sal Stewart, those were all in breakouts 1.0 and everybody was excited about those guys. I don't think I can really take too much away from those. In 2.0, I got, I would consider Jonathan Aranda a win, and I know he kind of fell off as the season went on, but I think his ADP was around 150 and he finished as a top 80 player, so that obviously came through. Jack Caglione. The one I want to highlight is actually Braxton Ashcraft. His ADP was 239. He finished 78th overall, and it was up and down. Obviously, the first half of the season was tremendous for Ashcraft, and then he struggled a little bit. He changed things up, started throwing his sinker more, and got back on track towards the end of the season. But basically, what I learned here is, is pretty similar to Parker Messick. It's like, we had a small sample last season of Ashcraft in the rotation, in the eight starts that he made. It was a 216 ERA, 114 whip, over a strikeout per inning. And I just remember when I was diving in in the offseason, the pitch mix looked good. He had two breaking pitches that got whiffs, got a lot of ground balls, around a 50% ground ball rate. It's just another one of those things where we did have some questions. Is he definitely in the Pirates rotation? But you dig in, and he has a prospect pedigree. And he has the skills. So it's just, it's another one in that same kind of Parker Messick mold, Chris, where it's like, just bet on some pedigree and some skills, and they don't always work out. But for these two in particular, Messick and Braxton Ashcraft, it did.
Speaker 5Absolutely. Yeah, no, I think, you know, Ashcraft's a tough one for 2027, because the skill set was very different in the second half. He reverted back to being much more of a contact pitcher, much more of a ground ball pitcher. And you can still be effective. That way, it's really hard to be as good as he was early on in the season. That way, you know, he was a guy who had a couple of double-digit strikeout starts, you know, looked like an ace for about three months. And then in the second half, he kind of looked more like he did in, you know, the limited role in 2025. So I do wonder how to approach Graham Ashcraft for next season. He ended up 33rd in my first run of rankings, right behind Jared Jones. That's an interesting one, because Jones, I think, has much more upside, but Ashcraft probably a lot more projectable.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I agree with Jared Jones being ranked ahead of Ashcraft. And Ashcraft also ended this season hurt, too. Right arm discomfort and fatigue in September. So that's not great. I think all fair points for projecting him forward. For next year, I also think, and I mentioned this midseason, I think that the Pirates just pushed him too hard early on in the season. You remember, he was going like six and seven innings regularly. And, you know, he does have a history of being a starting pitcher in the minors, but he hadn't really handled the workload on a per-star basis like that at the Major League level. And at the time, I just felt like, yes, it's great. We're getting all this production, but he's also a young guy. I felt like the Pirates maybe pushed him a little bit too hard early on in the season. And that's why he winds up. You know, production takes a step back and he winds up hurt towards the end of the year, too. So doesn't make for an interesting evaluation for next season is Braxton Ashcraft. What about the breakout that you got most wrong, Chris?
Speaker 5Everyone in the fantasy industry got Kyle Braddish wrong.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's what I wrote that to. I'm just like, what did we miss?
Speaker 5How did we get here with Kyle Braddish? I don't think we missed anything, honestly. He was just significant. Maybe we overreacted to some small sample size success. In both 2024 and 2025, sandwiched around the Tommy John surgery, he had outlier strikeout numbers. 12.1K per nine in 2024, 13.2 in 2025. It was 71 innings total. Before that, he was around a strikeout per inning guy. The problem with, well, we should have seen this coming, was he was really good in 2023 as a nine. He was a K per nine guy or a K per inning guy because he had really good control. And that completely evaporated this season. And he stopped being as good of a ground ball guy as he was. And it was just every single skill set got worse. Like, it'd be one thing if, you know, you look at 2023 and he had a 283 ERA and a 327 FIP. He wasn't an ace, but he was very good. If he did that again, I think maybe it would have been in my favor. It would have been a wildly disappointing season for Braddish, who, remember, was being drafted off as a top 15 starting pitcher. But I think we would have been fine with it. 2026, he was just a completely different, worse version than he had ever been. The whip was 146. His walk rate was 10.5%, four percentage points higher than in 2023. His strikeout rate, four percentage points lower than in 2023. He got hit a lot. He got hit a lot harder. It was just, I don't know how we should have seen everything got worse coming, you know? Like, that feels like a difficult process to try to figure out.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I think that's the lesson here, is that maybe we didn't do anything wrong with Kyle Braddish, right? I looked into, so his career before this past season, 2022 through 2025, 67 starts. That's a pretty substantial amount. 347 ERA, 116 whip, 9.5K per nine, just under three walks per nine. If he gave us that this year, like you said, maybe a slight disappointment, mid threes ERA, solid whip over a strikeout per inning. Not a top 15 starting pitcher. I kind of thought that was the floor. Like, that was like your median expectation for Kyle Braddish. It's just what he has done in his career. But I thought there was a ceiling based on what we saw last year where he can, okay, maybe we are talking 11, 12K per nine, and, you know, he takes that ace leap. I really thought that was possible. But, I mean, for his whole career, 2.9 walks per nine, and then this year, 4.1 walks per nine. His career, 9.5K per nine, down to 8.3. Career, 106 location plus this year, 98. I just don't really know that there's anything, like any way we could have seen this coming. The only other thing I can point to is that he had surgery for a sports hernia after the season. Like, they said, oh, he was pitching through it for three, or four starts. Maybe it was longer than that. Maybe it was just, like, most of the season he was dealing with this hernia thing. Because I don't really know how else you could explain that his control just completely goes away.
Speaker 5I mean, look, I had a, when I was in the hospital earlier this year, I had a CAT scan, and they found that I had a hernia from, I don't know when. They had no idea. So, yeah, maybe. I don't know. I think the thing with Kyle Braddish is I think you can very, reasonably say that the process for ranking him as a top 15 starting pitcher was wrong. That we bought too much into the best case scenario outcomes for Braddish based on very small sample sizes in 2024 and 2025, where he struck out a lot of batters. But I think the lesson there is that he should have been ranked 25th. Right. And he finished, what, 70th or something? Like, it, I just, yeah, not, sometimes stuff just happens, you know? Like, I think that is, I have been criticized for saying, I don't know when asked questions on this show before, and I understand. But sometimes the answer is just, yeah, sometimes unexpected things happen. And I think that's the biggest thing with Kyle Braddish is just what we, maybe it's what we said earlier about Nick, like Lodola, don't fall in love with one pitcher you know maybe that's the lesson to draw um because it seems like everybody in the industry fell in love with Kyle Bradish yeah but even then he shouldn't have been this bad based on what we knew coming in the other names
Speaker 1that I just wanted to mention here quickly again it's with Royce Lewis and Mackenzie Gore it's guys that are pretty established at this point they did have a lot of prospect pedigree let's probably just take their their career stats at face value at this point and then you know if they take a leap good but let's not necessarily expect that to happen specifically with Gore and I could tie this in with Michael Burroughs as well who I had in my breakouts 2.0 it's like sometimes a change of scenery doesn't result in you know a huge breakout or anything like that so I thought Burroughs going to Houston and obviously they had their pitching development and you know he showed some signs last year but obviously that just did not work at all.
Speaker 5One thing that I I'm gonna start doing is I think the Astros might be like a bad organization now and they just let go of their they've they've right like they've let go of pretty much everyone from the good years you know Dana Brown is gone Dana Brown is gone um and their owner is the acting uh GM right now and it just seems like their reaction to a lot of the the the the the the the the the the the of the um sign stealing and and everything that's happened since has been to move away from analytics and and get more old school and I don't really think the Astros have that edge that they used to anymore so I I actually think like you know the baseball prospectus uh Jared Seidler did a ranking of every organization based on just how competent he feels about them and I'm pretty sure the Astros were very close to the bottom of the list and it's kind of hard to argue at this point yeah
Speaker 1all right let's wrap up with pre-season bus some of the ones that we got most right and most wrong Chris looking at some of the names you nailed here in bus 1.0 Blake Snell Spencer Schreider I mean those were kind of like the free squares it's just like hurt Blake Snell always hurt Schreider coming off injury wasn't good the year prior didn't know what to expect Shane Bieber also kind of in that bucket um although I think you wrote this before we knew he was hurt did we know he was hurt yeah
Speaker 5we we didn't quite know yet although there was that one report that came out around December of last season that he had like not recovered well um but he was still being drafted in like top 150 pick yeah at that point and um I think that was clearly a mistake uh yeah some of the
Speaker 1other names here Jacob Wilson you went out on a limb there and you got that one right I mean part of it for him was like he was injured all year too Nick Pavetta that's another one where I I technically you got it right but we thought the performance was going to take a step back it was really just that he was injured all the year and then in your bus 2.0 you had Noel V Marte Luis Robert and Carlos Estevez as some of the names that you nailed there so uh what what would you consider the bus that you you got most right
Speaker 5this season well I I don't think Blake Snell counts because he's been a bust in like eight of 11 seasons that he's been in the majors it's just and you know what Chris if
Speaker 1he's a top 100 pick next year I'm gonna have him in bus again
Speaker 5it's just like I don't know what the spell is that he has over the fantasy industry I know that when he's healthy and good he's incredible he's unhittable but like we can't keep drafting this guy as a top 20 starting pitcher based on the good month and a half two months you get at him every year it just it isn't worth it and and for the most part it I could find the stat there's some stat that like he has been a top five starting pitcher in the last year and a half starting pitcher twice in his career and I don't think he's been a top 30 starting pitcher at the end of the season any other year when it works it works really well but at some point we got to stop giving him the benefit of doubt that being said I think the player that I most went out on a limb on I think was Noel V Marte who was the 130th player in ADP in NFC drafts last year I don't know if we said the name Noel V. Marte after like I don't know May on this show like whenever he got sent out I guess he got called back up again at one point we did
Speaker 1hype him as a pickup or at least I did yeah once he came back I thought there was a chance it could
Speaker 5work it did not yeah and that one was just um you can go wrong reading spring training stuff sometimes but that's when it comes to like performance stuff or like oh this guy looks really good and I don't know if he's going to be able to really good or this guy's having a great spring like I don't care about that at all I don't care if a beat writer thinks a guy looks good I barely care if a manager thinks a guy looks good but with Noel V. Marte if you started looking at quotes from the coaching staff in Cincinnati there was a lot of like we're not sure this guy can play the outfield we're not sure this guy can hit lefties like there was a lot of stuff out there with Noel V. Marte where they were talking about you know is he even an everyday player and it was pretty clear early on that the coaching staff had soured on Noel V. Marte and that just never crept up in his profile and I mean what were we drafting this guy 130th based on like a good month and a half in 2025 the fact that he was a prospect of some note a few years ago like it was a very flimsy case to begin with with Noel V. Marte he was in 2020 set 2025. he was pretty good in July he was pretty good in August very good in August he was awful in September he struck out 32 times in 98 plate appearances he gave a lot of that back and it was just kind of like it didn't really matter we were viewing him as a as an everyday player and that was never there so that that one I actually feel pretty proud of my ability to like read what was actually happening in Cincinnati with Noel V. Marte. yeah yeah I think uh
Speaker 1you were on top of that during spring training too so that that's a good call there on Noel V. Marte and I understand people trying to like slice and dice and say oh you know he's a prospect prospect pedigree and but that you really need like he's locked into playing time if you're gonna make that case and and we just didn't know that at the time so uh I think that was uh obviously a good call there on Noel V. Marte if you look at my bust 1.0 again put this out in January and I think that's a good call there on Noel V. Marte. January I don't want to toot my own horn but I got eight out of ten like just nailed this bust 1.0 article here Carlos Estevez, O'Neal Cruz, okay I got that one wrong, Spencer Schreider, Byron Buxton, Trevor Story, Blake Snell, Tyler Glassnow, Cal Raleigh, Riley Green got that one wrong and then Geraldo Perdomo but like eight out of ten like clear clear busts this past season and honestly like usually busts are the hardest thing for me to come up with like naturally I just I don't want to be negative about players like you know I just I'd rather try and find like the good and present like the upside case but yeah I mean for me Raleigh and Perdomo were just some of the easiest calls because this is like paying for the career year it just never made sense for even that with Raleigh what's
Speaker 5up even that with Raleigh's kind of like Kyle Braddish where it's like yeah you could say you could see oh we're overpaying coming oh I didn't think it was gonna
Speaker 1be this yeah that like there's a lot of people that are going to be like oh we're overpaying there's no way we still thought he'd be good I thought he would be I thought he would go back closer to the catcher he was before 35-ish
Speaker 5homers and and he ended up almost a third as many homers as he had the year before I mean it was you could see it being a bust for sure how bad it was that was a lot tougher to see coming yeah for sure
Speaker 1yeah 100% agree on that one and then I Perdomo is an interesting one because again it's like you didn't know what to do with him last year like those were there he was a top 20 player in terms of where he finished last season and then the ADP came in around like 70 or 80 I think it was so you were getting a discount based on where he finished but it was obviously far better than anything he had ever done before so he's an interesting player because I know you and Scott were on him and then obviously I was off and I'm not like there's stuff that you guys get right and I get wrong but uh yeah like these two in particular I just I was never gonna pay for the career year especially when you think about shortstop too like it's just such a loaded position it's just why did we have to make that bet on Perdomo like inside the top 100 picks you know
Speaker 5yeah that's one where if he was second base eligible I would feel a lot less dumb about or even third base you know yeah how much I drafted Geraldo Perdomo because you know you look at the final numbers and it's it's not great it's nine homers 21 steals 262 average the counting stats were very poor that that was I think where I expected this Diamondbacks offense has been really good for fantasy over the years and it just kind of wasn't this year they were 11th in run scored I guess that's a little better than I thought but I don't know um but yeah the counting stats just weren't there but if it was like if he was a second baseman you know he's probably going to be a little bit better than I thought but I don't know it's probably more like the 13th or 14th best player and it's okay but yeah I think that one just not paying up for the um for the career is a good is a good uh lesson yeah yeah and
Speaker 1to your point depending on where the adp falls for alec burleson could be a similar case it's you know i don't think this is going to happen but if if for some reason he's like a third or a fourth round pick like that seems like a pretty obvious fade and then spoiler alert one of the names i have for fbt express is randy rosarana just because i hope that people don't overvalue this career year for for randy it was a great season no doubt but we have a long established track record of randy rosa or rosarena not being this good and being more like uh someone you should take in maybe rounds six through eight if he's a top five round player i think there's a good chance that he can let you down but again we don't really have adp uh for next season what about the bust you got most wrong here chris
Speaker 5the bust i got most wrong well there's some good ones there's some good choices here uh ben rice although i took him out of 2.0 so i don't want to hang that one on myself um i think it's zach wheeler uh i was just too cautious about that one but in a way that i don't really feel like i need to learn a lesson from
Speaker 1um it's very specific i don't know that we're gonna have many future hall of fame pitchers coming off thoracic outlet surgery in their mid-30s you know
Speaker 5well and specifically the version of thoracic outlet surgery that he had was not as um seemingly as big of an issue as the one but like yeah that that's just like i still feel like it was a huge risk to to draft zach wheeler where we were and it worked out sometimes risks work out like that that's the other thing is kind of the the counterpoint to the kyle bradish is sometimes that works out but there doesn't necessarily have to be a lesson he's a really good pitcher maybe the lesson is don't remove really good pitchers from the team that you're and and maybe it that's kind of the corollary to what we're talking about with nick lodolo where it's don't fall in love with one player don't completely take one player off your board either because every player has a range of possible outcomes um but yeah that that's i think clearly the the biggest miss there you know nick hurts not a great call either um but yeah i i think wheeler's clearly the biggest one for me yeah
Speaker 1we mentioned this last week when we were doing the best picks by round and um we we mentioned it with chris sale it's just like betting against the first ballot hall of fame pitchers to even though they're getting into their mid-30s i know wheeler was a very very specific case but it's just he's one of the best pitchers when he's on these guys are different yeah they're just they're just different they age different and again it's like unless we see in sales case unless we see a reason like that the production is starting to slip which we haven't seen uh wheeler wheeler's different wheelers is a very very specific case from this past season i think the bus calls i got most wrong uh my 2.0 not as great as my 1.0 by the way so bus 2.0 i had nick kurtz jaron duran aroldis chapman nick pavetta sunny gray so uh pavetta technically i got right because he got hurt but it i mean i just thought he was going to take a step back jaron duran that worked out pretty well kurtz chapman and sunny gray obviously did not
Speaker 5work out yeah i mean kurtz i think the it's i think it's a good one i
Speaker 1think it's a good one process for kurtz was was fair because it was a second round price tag for a guy who strikes out as much as he does who we had a limited sample from granted you know he's super prospect and very very loud tools hits the ball extremely hard but going in a part of the draft where there's other very established players at a position that was the most loaded coming into the season i don't think the process was bad for nick kurtz i think for him and o'neill cruz i kind of lumped them together in that just betting against tools that loud is kind of the my takeaway here is that yeah you probably just don't want to do that
Speaker 5but yeah i mean look he went from uh slugging 619 as a rookie to slugging 483 he went from hitting 36 homers in 117 games to hitting 21 and 99 games he was still a really good player but part of the case against nick kurtz was not this guy's gonna be terrible it was you are paying a very high price for a skill set that has some real downsides and that works when he hits 290 with a 364 babbit when he hit 256 with a 363 babbit the babbit was actually the same this year but he couldn't keep the the batting average up because he strikes out so much and so look i i think nick kurtz is an awesome player my view of him hasn't really changed but i think he's a great player and i think he's a great player and i think i'm probably more likely to draft him this year than i was coming into 2026 because you know he might be more of like a third round pick than a second but i think that's an okay bus call it's not a huge win for for you or for me i had him on my list as well um but i think it's okay like he he's it wasn't a terrible call based on the way
Speaker 1that it finished but if he stayed healthy right and that hand thing never yeah i mean that that lasts
Speaker 5like three weeks was really if you
Speaker 1look at his july it kind of dragged the numbers down but through june 276 with 19 home runs yeah that's fair and a 937 ops not as good as the sample from last year but you know that's uh you just double that i mean he's on pace for nearly 40 home runs while hitting 275 i mean that would that's fair that would have been a pretty pretty awesome season there for kurtz so um that'll do it there you go recapping sleepers breakouts and bust some of the things we learned what we got right what we got wrong we will have another podcast later this week we'll go live later on wednesday night um and we'll be i think drafting the first two rounds for next season we'll kind of you know rotate all three of us me you and scott so we'll do that then we are gonna wrap there for chris i am frank thanks as always for tuning into fantasy baseball today please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on apple or spotify and we will be back again later this week bye
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