Speaker 1Baseball season is in full swing and there's no better place to be than Calshi, America's number one prediction market platform. Atlanta is currently trading at 7% to win it all, meaning a $100 trade pays out over $1,200 with a win. On Calshi, you're trading against other people in a live market. No house, no odds makers. And as the odds move, you can buy in or out anytime throughout the postseason. Download the Calshi app and use code FAN to get up to $500 in bonus credits when you trade $25. K-A-L-S-H-I, Calshi, trade on anything. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Calshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see Calshi.com slash regulatory.
Speaker 2Delivered by Little Caesars, the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. Right now, score two favorites just for you with Detroit-style slices and sticks. You get two pieces of Detroit-style deep dish pepperoni pizza with crispy caramelized cheese edges and four pieces of buttery garlic-flavored dippable cheese sticks with a side of crazy sauce for just $4.99. Heck, that's the biggest duo since Monday nights and football, since touchdowns and victory dances, since armchairs and quarterbacks. Well, you get the idea. But hurry, because this time, Dynamic Delicious Duo is available for a limited time only and only at Little Caesars. Make your game day delicious all season long with Little Caesars. Officially delicious. Available at participating locations for a limited time. Prices may vary and are higher in Alaska, Hawaii, California, many areas in New York, Oregon, Washington, and third-party online sites. Taxes and fees may apply.
Speaker 3Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast. This is a podcast from CBS Sports.
Speaker 4And first pitch, rushing. Deep left field. This is way back.
Speaker 3Walk along. 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 1Hello and welcome to a very somber edition of Fantasy Baseball Today here on Thursday, October 8th. I am Frank Stample, joined by Scott White and Chris, Chris Towers. Today on the show, the best picks in each round of ADP this past season. Is there anything we can learn? But if we're being honest, it's kind of tough to do a podcast minutes after your team gets eliminated from the postseason. That's exactly where I am. And we're actually a couple hours after Scott's team was eliminated from the postseason. So here we are. We're all reunited.
Speaker 5We're a couple weeks since Chris's was eliminated from the postseason.
Speaker 6Yeah, see, that's why I've been doing such a bad job on the podcast for weeks. Ever since the Marlins came out. Got eliminated. We're all in the same boat. It's offseason mode. I mean, look, I do have to say, like, every time. Braves fans less so, but Yankees fans especially. I saw a Yankees fan do the Taylor Swift quote, you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. And like, unless you are like literally a child. A long-suffering Yankees fan. Got the idea. Yeah, like, I get it. It's been 17 years since they won a World Series. The Yankees have never in Frank's life played a season where they did not at least have some hope of winning a World Series. The Marlins have entered a season like maybe three times ever where I was like, yeah, they can make the playoffs this year.
Speaker 1In my slight defense of Yankee fans. That's a generalization, Chris, and I wouldn't say that every Yankees fan acts that way. I wouldn't say that I. No, I just get I'm not like, oh, my gosh, the Yankees are like what? Like, oh, my life is so bad. The Yankees haven't won in 17 years. Like, I understand that there was a very fruitful period of time in my life where the Yankees were good. And now it's just frustrating seeing other teams like celebrate on the field every year, but they're still good. They're good. They're good. I mean, they make literally literally every single season.
Speaker 6They win like 95. Five games. Yeah. Like, you know, like, let's not move the goalpost on what good. I believe the Yankees win total this season is more than the Marlins have ever won in a season. Right. Like, I think 97, they won 91 games. I think that's the Marlins franchise. Because both the times they went every they
Speaker 5made the playoffs three times the Marlins. Right. And every time it was as a wild card, you won two World Series out of that, which is a great ratio.
Speaker 6I'm just saying. Yeah. It's hard for me to find too much sympathy. I have a little bit of sympathy. You're my friend. I want good things to happen to you. But, you know, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1This is not supposed to be some kind of pity party. Like, I understand the rest of the baseball world is absolutely loving every second of this right now. Like, let's not get it twisted. I totally understand that everybody listening to this is pretty excited that the Yankees have been eliminated. So there's that. The Braves also got eliminated. I'm sorry, Scott. I mean, we kind of saw the. Writing on the wall, obviously going up against, you know, back to back
Speaker 5defending champion juggernaut hopeful last time we recorded, we were hopeful that they had just won game two without using Chris sale. So Chris, but even then, I can't remember if I pointed it out on the air or off the air just to, to show just to, to lay bare the absurdity of the amount of talent the Dodgers have the, the, the conversation heading into game three was. Well, they got away with a bullpen game in game two, the Braves, and now they got Chris sale going on regular rest, brilliant move and the counter is like, well, the Dodgers have Yoshinobu Yamamoto who willed them to the a world series championship with an all time great post-season performance and happens to be the most decorated pitcher in Japan, uh, baseball, Japan history, you know? Uh, so like that's clear. Like my analysis, I, I don't think the analysis of the Dodgers brave series has to go further than the better team one play and, and good luck to anyone else that faces the Dodgers. I mean, they didn't hit very well that series, like credit to the Braves, uh, makeshift pitching staff, which by the way, was a makeshift pitching staff all seasons. Part of the reason why I can't really get that down about them getting eliminated because I feel like with the kind of pitching staff they had, they were overachieving the whole time. It would be nice.
Speaker 6I don't know if Alex Anthopoulos thought, cause like Alex is up and thoughtless. I think he's a good GM or president of baseball operations, whatever the official title is GM colloquial. I don't know if he believes that there's such a thing as like a number two or number three starter. Like he seems to think that the entire pitching landscape is either ace or back end rotation and he will just never acquire anyone who's not an ace. And it's like, well, I mean, you look at the team and it's like, they could have used a couple more guys this year.
Speaker 5Yeah, that does. I mean, he has comments along those lines. His, his philosophy of pitching seems to be that it's all kind of random if they're not real difference makers in the post season. And, and so just kind of slap it together. And if you can't get an ace, like they got with Chris sale a couple of years ago, just slap it together and hope for the best. Chris came at a pretty huge discount. Right. But, but still, I mean, credit to, to Alex Anthopoulos for having the force site to see, he could still be an ace, but it kind of worked. I mean, in the sense that they had a low team ERA and they got to that, they won the division, got to the post season, but you know, then, then you go up against a team that has a combined seven Cy Young's. If you include the three versions of the Japanese award, Yamamoto one in Japan, obviously, and then Tyler glass now as a number four star, a healthy Tyler glass. Now it's healthy. I mean, obviously that would be another great pitcher if he was, but, but just those four, I mean, it's, it's, it, they're not unbeatable, but a lot has to go wrong for them to be beaten.
Speaker 1Yeah, that is for sure. And then on top of that, like Edwin Diaz is starting to look like Edwin Diaz again. Like he has saves in the last two games of that series, you know, granted look, Tanner Scott pitch earlier in the games against, you know, tougher parts of the lineup, but I guess if you want to take, have a fantasy takeaway, heading into next season, like we'll see what Edwin Diaz does the rest of the way, but it kind of looks like he's working his way back into that closer role for next season and they're paying him like that. So that would make sense. You guys were having a pretty interesting conversation beforehand, just about Ronald Acuna and he was dealing with this knee and he, you know, DH in game three, he was back in the outfield in game four, but, you know, just some talk about, you know, maybe more DH come D DH days coming and just some signs of like a lack of athleticism, maybe, uh, showing, showing their showing signs here for Ronald Acuna.
Speaker 5Yeah, I noticed as he was watching him in the outfield this year, look, he still stole bases. He stole five in the post season, despite not getting off base, base much, but watching him run around in the outfield this year, he kind of looked like the 10 man out there. Like he was afraid to bend his ankles or something. Uh, but looking back through the actual data, his range. Uh, on stack. That cast was third percentile. It's basically been fifth percentile or lower since before the first ACL surgery. So it may have not been anything new, his struggling to cover ground in right field. But, you know, then there's reports of him going into game four, perhaps not being able to play right field because his knee is feeling so bad. He ended up playing right field for whatever it's worth. But, like, it's a lot of injury maintenance over the course of the year. I'm kind of hoping he skips winter ball this year. He likes playing it. I get it. I know he was pretty upset about his performance after this series, so maybe that'll have him rethinking his off-season routine. But he just needs to stay off his legs for a while, I think. And maybe, like, I think the hitting skills are certainly significant. He's still there. It's just constant maintenance of these injuries and playing through soreness and whatever has had a bad impact on his mechanics. We saw him bounce back nicely in September, but it's clear he wasn't 100% in the postseason. Yeah, they're definitely picking up
Speaker 6Ozzie Albee's $7 million option for this year, right?
Speaker 5Yeah. Yeah. He kind of looks washed up. I mean, you got to compare it to the rest of the second. Yeah, I get it. It's not a very good position. He's still in the upper half as far as that goes.
Speaker 1And $7 million is like something that.
Speaker 6And $7 million is so cheap that, yeah, that's. That's like what a super utility kind of guy would get, yeah. That's $3 million less than Mike Jastrzemski's making next season. Exactly, yeah. Actually, honestly, probably half because he's got $4 million in 2028, and I feel like that's just a we'll pay you to go away for $4 million in 2028 kind of thing. Yeah, I don't know. Because we're hitting the. We're getting to the end of this core. Yeah. Acuna's only got two years left. He's still in this deal. Albies is heading into his final one. And Riley isn't the
Speaker 5same and has a long time left. Yes, he does.
Speaker 1You know, Olsen is older, but still performing like he's in his prime. And obviously, Drake Baldwin is entering his prime. But yeah, the.
Speaker 5And Michael Harris is in his prime.
Speaker 1They mostly just need pitching, I think, to add to the rest of that team. Just on Acuna for a second, I am part of a way too early, slow mock draft with some of the guys over at Roto World. And Ronald Acuna went and picked 17. So just a little way too early idea for maybe where you could expect him to go in drafts for next season. Back to the Rays-Yankees for a second, too. Like, I don't know, kind of burying the lead, but like shades of Jeffrey Meyer, like in Yankee Stadium. Like, why is it always Yankee fans, right? Like, this is always a thing. I do think objectively that the replay got it right. Oh, 100%. I did not think it was going to be a home run. I did not think that Victor Bates was going to catch that ball in left field. And yeah, I think RBI double made sense. But like, yeah, there's just always. There's something kind of wonky going on in the outfield in Yankee Stadium. At least this time they didn't grab Victor Mesa. Yeah, and try to rip his arm off or anything like that. Speaking of Victor Mesa, by the way, he did have the go-ahead home run in this game off of Max Freed, left on left. And I just really wanted to take a. Yeah, it was a bomb, too. And he took his time. He enjoyed it. And rightfully so. I mean, that's the biggest home run of his life. Just wanted to take a second to just kind of highlight how good he was down the stretch. And I think he could be a sleeper for next season. A name that we shouldn't forget. In five outfielder leagues. Again, home run left on left here. Was really good against lefties this season. The ex-Wobos says that he's probably lucky against lefties. But still, it was 14 homers, 9 steals in 79 games. Full season pace, 28 home runs, 18 steals. Really good bat speed. Pulls the ball in the air. Has some power and speed. He was a prospect of note. Like, yeah, I think deep sleeper, five outfielder leagues. Definitely a name we need to know for next season. Victor Mesa Jr.
Speaker 5Did you give the September stats?
Speaker 1I didn't actually give the September stats. September stats, no.
Speaker 53.55 with four homers, three steals, and a 10.15 OPS. So he finished very strong. Became a regular player down the stretch. I think he's one of those players who's decent at everything. His greatest strength is probably, like you said, he puts the ball in the air a lot. But I don't think there's huge upside here. But it might be a situation where he contributes a modest amount in enough areas that he ends up being a quality fantasy option. Victor Mesa, if he keeps getting the playing time.
Speaker 6I could see, like, there's probably a little more speed. But, you know, like, I go with the comp a lot. Lourdes Gurriel. That's just kind of a.
Speaker 1What about, like, a Dale and Lyle type? Like a Dale and Lyle from this past season. Yeah, something like that. So 2010, 2015 kind of guy. We'll see. But, yeah, very good showing down the stretch and here in the postseason for Victor Mesa Jr. In the lineup, batting cleanup against a lefty. Like, big spot. They trusted him, and he came through. As of recording this, the Brewers, and Padres game is still going on. The Brewers are up 2-1 in the series and 3-1 in that game. The Guardians did stay alive. Big day for their offense. Jose Ramirez showed up. Joe Adele, big postseason so far. Nice acquisition there. He is heading into free agency. So, nice strong playoffs here. We'll see if the Guardians can stay alive for at least one more game. Let's take our first break. Big thanks to everyone watching live or on demand. We appreciate you being here. Make sure to hit that like button if you're watching on YouTube. Let's take that break, and we'll be back. Right after this.
Speaker 7I'm pretty confident talking into a mic. Hey, I'm doing it right now. But home projects? I second guess everything. Is that noise normal? Is that water damage? Who do I even call? That's where Thumbtack comes in. Just upload a photo or voice note, and it uses AI-powered search to match you with a right top-rated local pro. So, instead of guessing, you get clarity and can hire with confidence. For your next home project, try Thumbtack, Hire the right pro today.
Speaker 8A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between thinking about photography school and selling your portraits online. It's the difference between giving away those cookies you just made for free and running your cookie empire. A beautifully designed Squarespace website is the difference between having a movie-reviewing hobby and a movie-reviewing career. Squarespace. Because no matter what you're into, a website makes it real. Use offer code DIFFERENCE for 50% off today. Now select plans. Terms and conditions apply.
Speaker 9Now that fall is in full swing and October report cards are right around the corner, keeping up with classroom lessons can feel like a challenge. That's why I love IXL. IXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, from math and reading to science. It gives kids personalized practice aligned directly with what they're covering in class, offering instant feedback and clear explanations that build lasting confidence. Whether your child needs a boost in a tricky subject or is ready to move ahead, IXL adapts to their exact level and pace. Plus, one subscription covers all your kids from pre-K through 12th grade. And an entire month of IXL costs less than just one hour of tutoring. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now. And listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixllearning.com.com. Slash audio. Visit ixllearning.com. Slash audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.
Speaker 1Welcome back. Fantasy baseball today. So my idea for this podcast was the best pick in each round. We could talk through a couple of options. We could settle on one. But really just trying to see if there are any lessons to be learned for next year's crop or just anything that we can learn in general. And we haven't done this before in the offseason, so we'll see how it goes and hopefully everyone likes it. But yeah, I have like 12 rounds written out and then we can get into like just general like mid rounds, late rounds and things like that. But in the first round this past season, and this is just looking at Fantasy Pros ADP from before the season. We talked about it so much in the second half of the season and down the stretch. Like the first round was completely brutal this year. By ADP, it was Otani, Judge, Bobby Witt, Juan Soto, Jose Ramirez, Ronald Acuna, Tarek Skubal, Elie De La Cruz, Paul Skeens, Julio Rodriguez, Kyle Tucker, and Garrett Crochet. The best pick in the first round, just based on where they finished, was Elie De La Cruz. And he actually missed like two or three weeks with a hamstring injury. He went 30-30 despite going on the IL. I don't really know that there's a lesson to be learned here. Just, I guess if we're learning anything with someone as young as Elie De La Cruz is like, he can still get better. And he did.
Speaker 6Well, and in his case, I think it is a good example of paying attention to when guys are injured and when they're healthy because he kind of put up these numbers in the first half last season in 2025. And then he had that quad injury. He ended up playing, I think, 162 games in 2025. But he was clearly not the same guy in the second half. Let me make sure I have the exact numbers. But yeah, he had an 854 OPS in the first half of the 2025 season. He had cut his strikeout rate to 24%. Walk rate was up to 10%. Everything was career best numbers. And then he was miserable in the second half and especially down the stretch August and September. So it didn't really show up. But that was one that I remember. You know, the breakout kind of happened before the injury. And that ended up working out for him.
Speaker 1Yeah. In the first half of last season, it was a 131 WRC plus 139 WRC plus overall this season. So did carry a lot of that that over from the first half from when he was healthy. And again, it's just like, A reminder, and you will see that for a lot of players on this list, the best picks, is that young players can get better. And a lot of times they will get better. And it's hard for us to think of Ellie as a young player, but he still is a young player. And his average EV went up from 91 miles per hour to 94.7. And his barrel rate up from 10% to 16%. So I would say he's pretty clearly the best pick in the first round.
Speaker 6Who do you guys think the second best player in the first round was?
Speaker 5That's what I was going to say. There's really, it's pretty obvious that it's Bobby Witt.
Speaker 6So according to the Fangraph Player Rater. I think it's Scooble, right? Yeah, it's actually Scooble on the Fangraph Player Rater.
Speaker 5He's very close with him. Yeah, I mean, obviously he missed a lot of times. So I don't, opinions may vary on that. But Witt was a mild disappointment. And had about the same year as Ellie De La Cruz. More steals, fewer homers. But obviously was drafted later than De La Cruz. I guess if you could take, if you could take some solace with anything here. Otani, disappointment because of injury. Same with Aaron Judge. Same with Jose Ramirez. Same with Ronald Acuna. Same with Scooble to the degree he was a disappointment. Same with Julio Rodriguez, I would argue. That concussion just before the second half led to a bad second half. Same with Garrett Crochet. The only two clear disappointments who weren't because of injury were Paul Skeens and Kyle Tucker. Yep. And those are the two that I think are going to fall the most in drafts next year.
Speaker 1Moving on to the second round. The lots of options here for, well, not lots, but I have four, I think, clear options. Fernando Tatis Jr., Junior Caminero, Jackson Churio, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yamamoto actually finished the highest of the pitchers drafted in the first two rounds. He actually finished the highest of all the names drafted in the first two rounds. So I think that is the old hat tip there to Yamamoto. But if I had to choose one, I think it actually would be Caminero. Caminero! Ha! Ha, Caminero! And I think that's mostly just because third base is so bad. I would choose Fernando Tatis. But I get it. I think it's close between those two.
Speaker 5It fits your theme better to pick Caminero, and it is close. I mean, I do want to highlight Tatis here because he is, if you had asked me, coming into the season, who was most likely to disappoint in the first two rounds. And you were excluding the obvious bust candidates like Cal Raleigh, Kyle Schwarber, because of age, Nick Kurtz. Let's go ahead and throw Junior Caminero in there as a more obvious bust candidate because he just had the one year to his name. Eventually, I would have gotten around to saying Tatis because I think we kept hoping for something, hoping that wasn't ever going to happen, hoping that his power would eventually live up to his underlying stats like it did that one magical year in 2021 when he just didn't have the kind of spray angle to justify it. And obviously, his 2026 is one of the 2026s that could be discussed the most because of the way it played out. Didn't hit his first home run until May 30th, so it seemed like the worst case outcome of that particular flaw, not pulling the ball in the air enough. But then he had 24 home runs after that, ended up having one of his best power seasons. And I think the second best year of his career overall, apart from that one where he was the best player in fantasy. So 3.41 points per game on the season for Nando Tatis, which is good. I mean, it's good enough to be drafted in late in round one as it is. From May 30th on, the day he hit that first home run on, it was 4.03 points per game.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's like Juan Soto territory, right?
Speaker 5And he picked up second base eligibility, which is maybe the best kind of eligibility you could have. I'd put third base ahead of it, but second base at the top is real rough. And Tatis is. I'm going to be more eager to draft Tatis than I have been in a long time.
Speaker 6I just want to say, I am going to print out Fernando Tatis' splits from 2026, as well as Jose Ramirez's splits from 2019. For those of you who are old enough to remember that far back. And anytime I hear like John Smoltz or whoever say, hitters just need to start hitting the ball the other way. I'm tired of this pool. I'm going to rub their noses in Fernando Tatis' splits. And Jose Ramirez's splits. Because those are like the two most high profile examples of hitters trying to do exactly that. And talking like openly, they both talked about. That was what they were trying to do. And it completely screwed them up. And as soon as they stopped trying to do that, they got back to hitting like Hall of Famers again. I'm not saying there's never room for going the opposite way. But major league pitchers are too good to go against your natural swing. And try to hit them where they ain't. That just does not work.
Speaker 5I think that's the idea, really. That last point you brought up. Where I don't think there's inherently anything wrong with going the other way. It does undermine your home run potential. It does elevate your batting average potential. But I think different hitters are better at different things. To try and reinvent yourself at the major league level is probably not the right thing to do. It's probably not going to work. It's hard enough to get there in the first place.
Speaker 6Especially when you're already succeeding.
Speaker 5We know it works
Speaker 6for Fernando Tatis. It's one thing if it's like Anthony Volpe trying to experiment because it's just not working. Okay, fine. But Fernando Tatis and Jose Ramirez were already MVP caliber players when they started to do that.
Speaker 1I did just want to point out a few other lessons that I took away from at least three players here. For Caminero, I didn't think that he just couldn't hit in the trop. I know some people did have that theory. But it just added a level, an unknown layer that I was not comfortable with drafting him in the second round. But obviously, it turned out that did not matter. And you know, 23-year-old super prospects couldn't continue to get better. And I think Caminero did get better this season. For Tatis, kind of an in-season one, but like, don't give up on your studs. Like, even if they're bad two months into the season, I think that's a lesson there. And then for Yamamoto, there were concerns for some about how many total innings he would provide coming in because the Dodgers would have a six-man rotation. And Chris, we actually mentioned this the last episode. One of your biggest lessons learned from the season is like, not worrying so much about total innings and just wanting to get that per-inning production and per-game production. And I think that's just like a good reminder with someone like Yamamoto. Even at the highest level, being drafted in the second round, it's like, he is so good on a per-star basis. Like, I don't really care if he makes 20, 29, or 30 stars versus like 33 for the other guy, you know?
Speaker 6It is kind of like, so he was the number four SP drafted this season. He finished number three. I think the previous season, he was the number six SP at the end of the season. I don't know if you can get, if he can really be the number one SP. I know the difference between one and three is only two spots, but like, there's a lot going on. It's not like he was just behind, as you're asking, or even Schlittler. It just feels like such a super high floor. Yeah, 100%. But like that, but that's kind of what we were just talking about, right? Is like, does a pitcher with a high floor actually exist? If one does, it's Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Speaker 1I also just think he's really talented, too. Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 6He's an incredible pitcher, and that's, yeah. But yeah, there are, there's a lower ceiling with him than with some other pitchers. Like, he got 182 strikeouts this season, but that is quibbling. He's incredible. I will say, it's funny you said the lesson for Fernando Tatis is don't give up on your proven studs. Well, let's talk about the worst pick of the second round. And probably the worst pick in fantasy this year? Well, frankly, there's two options. But both, I think, prove the point. Kyle Rowley and Vladimir Guerrero. Because both, trust your studs, they're going to figure it out. And Rowley did, kind of, in August. He was okay in September, but I think he had nine homers in August. Vlad was just awful the entire season. Yeah. Like, I don't think there was any point. He ended up with, like, $3 worth of value in the Player Rater. But that's just, he was present and didn't kill you in batting average. But I think Fernando Tatis was pretty clearly the worst pick in fantasy this year.
Speaker 1And I think lessons for both of those guys, too, is, like, I think they were playing hurt. Like, that doesn't explain everything, but we found out that Rowley had shoulder surgery, and he had the oblique. You know, Vlad was battling stuff all season. So I see your point. I also just think, like, Kyle Rowley was always being drafted too high.
Speaker 5Yeah. Boy, yeah, there's a lot there. Yeah, I do think they were playing hurt. I think we've heard about a lot of players who were playing hurt, which makes sense. I think playing hurt is the most likely reason for a player underperforming. But the other thing I want to bring up, Chris, on our Lessons Learned podcast, was it just earlier this week? I guess it was. I guess it was the last podcast. um podcast we did one of my lessons learned uh was about let me see if i can remember how i worded there does come a point where it's okay to drop a struggling stud it's rare and but i think the point it's rare and it's only for shallow leagues but in shallow leagues if you've if you've got a player that you're you're already feeling like you're never going to sit at this position anyway like with catcher it was an easy place to do it you know it probably would have been okay mid-season to drop cal raleigh if you had picked up gabriel moreno or something like that because even in a best case scenario you know how how likely are you going how how motivated are you going to be to switch and do you really want to carry that dead weight around again in a shallow league not in any real size i think it is
Speaker 6easier to make that call with rally than it was with vlad because and only in a
Speaker 1one catcher league too
Speaker 6it's so nice i think with vlad well
Speaker 5it's not niche it's more common than a two catcher league
Speaker 6well no but my point would just be that because rally went on the il so you had a clear exit ramp vlad you just kind of had to decide at some point it's not going to happen and that's that's a hard load sure yeah
Speaker 5that it was very likely you picked up a good first baseman along the way and i
Speaker 6definitely benched him in a couple leagues i never dropped him but
Speaker 5yeah yeah the other thing with vlad though is we knew for a long time he was playing through injury when i don't think that was as clear for a rally anyway you just because you brought up those two hitters it was they were the two examples i used for that lesson learned and it's like a lesson i kind of wary of saying because i think it's much more likely to be over applied and under applied
Speaker 6it's really easy to say that after
Speaker 5the fact it's it's it's more it's more me talking to the analyst class who i don't know i don't know if some leagues that have those do not drop list never allowed people to drop those guys all year i don't know it's more me talking to them than like the layman fantasy player who's going to be inclined to drop a struggling stud at the first sign of struggle the best
Speaker 1picks in the third round what a great freaking round in fantasy baseball drafts this year you had pete alonso at 24.6 christopher sanchez at 26.8 jordan alvarez at 30.2 pete crowe armstrong 30.4 james wood 32.6 and then matt olsen at pick 36 so third round i mean just hey sub it in for your first round last year it was like such a great great round look the obvious answer is that it's pete crowe armstrong but i mean realistically you're getting both of your mvps out of the third round in fantasy drafts this year pca and jordan alvarez i think obviously look there are lots of names here i will just throw out i guess like quick lessons learned with each and you can just take it wherever you guys want but i think for pca pca and wood it's like don't overrate bad second halves especially for like super prospects that come with amazing tools right like again these guys usually get better more often than not uh alvarez we knew he just needed to stay healthy and like if he did that he was going to be a good discount at his pick um and then for alonso and the other guys who are like the most competitive in the category proven commodities it's just like these are these are guys who have just done it over and over and over
Speaker 5again yeah i mean another lesson you could take is full season numbers are more predictive than partial season numbers i i think when you marry the two okay pete crowe armstrong and james wood both had really good full seasons in in 2025 even if they finished poorly but you combine that with the fact that they're both have incredibly high pedigrees where we're going to have a lot of people that are going major prospects and uh if if they've already shown they can uh they can dominate at the highest level for some stretch of time then it's more likely than not they're going to grow on it build on it not a certainty of course i mean kind of example would be wyatt langford or gunner henderson but i i i think when you combine those two sort of axioms uh you arrive at the point where yeah it's fine to take this guy in round three it's so tough
Speaker 6because these were you know specifically the what six names you listed i don't feel like maybe christopher sanchez but for the most part these were not especially popular picks in the fantasy industry last year i mean look they were all third round picks so it's not like people hated them but yeah i think it's safe to say that pete alonso jordan alvarez peter armstrong james wood matt also maybe to a lesser extent but those four were very controversial picks uh coming into the season and the fact that they all worked out you know you can like what i'm wary of with with lessons you know with a you know like drawing a lesson from it is like well we can say ah the four category proven studs you know well manny machado went a little later than them and it's kind of a rough season for him or like you know give young guys the the benefit of the doubt that they'll improve well we've been doing that with wyatt langford for three years now and it hasn't happened yet so it's it's tough to draw conclusions is i guess my point here um but yeah you were really happy if you had those guys on your team for sure yeah
Speaker 1no i think it's a good point that you bring up like really sanchez did start to get some helium and you know he wound up going in the second round and a lot of drafts and again like they they had their reasons for to be nervous like you know alvarez with the injuries and the the second half with those guys and just like for pete alonso and olsen i just felt like it was you know first base was so loaded that people were willing to wait on those guys and honestly like even if you waited and took like rafael devers in round five or six like that paid off pretty well too you know
Speaker 6yeah yeah no first base was just awesome yeah i do think the the the big one to take away is peter armstrong and james wood full-time drafts and drafts and drafts and full season statistics are more predictive than partial season statistics i'm going to struggle with jordan walker i just know that already in the process the the beginning of the process that
Speaker 1i've done but maybe you shouldn't for this exact reason yeah he sounds he seems like he fits the
Speaker 5mold it's tough because he
Speaker 6is the same age as them and he played through a hip injury down the stretch you know but we have a much larger sample size of him not being good than those guys too so that's true that's where i do think the the analogy does fall apart a little bit i think the analogy is still apt and i think your best choice will be to take what he did overall and say that is more likely to be who jordan walker is rather than saying the superstar version of him from the first two months or the pretty bad version of him the last two months it's less likely to be either of those than it is to be the totality of what he did and i think that is the lesson from peter armstrong and james wood if i could
Speaker 5rewind just a little bit to those others we were talking about here p crew arm i mean pete alonzo christopher sanchez uh matt olsen jordan alvarez i mean the lesson i take from that that they were the third rounders that people kept trying to come up with excuses not to draft the lesson i take from that is kind of my biggest lesson from from 2026 which is don't look a gift horse in the don't if some if if if this is a player's established value particularly if your own rankings where you've established him at that value and he slides beyond that value take him like don't there's no reason to to like outsmart yourself or try to outsmart other people there they are trying to they are committing the fraud of of of outsmarting themselves by passing on him at what they've established as his value already you are no
Speaker 6matter how good you are you are probably not smarter than everyone and so when you have that consensus value there is value in that i'm not saying you should just stick to consensus adp for everything but you do reach a point where when when everybody starts fading someone yeah take what
Speaker 5you're getting about value like i'm not saying you have to follow but there is never a draft where when it's your time to pick you never get a guy who's should have gone eight to twelve picks ago you know like that that never happens and so just take them when it happens you know it's if there's no longer a competitive edge to playing favorites let everyone else play the favorites and you'll be the one who profits off the inefficiencies they've created by playing their favorites that's a good
Speaker 1point let's take our final break when we return the best picks from rounds four on this past season we'll do that right now and we'll be right back after this the stratotech
Speaker 7t from viore is one of those shirts you put on once and immediately get why people love it it's incredibly soft stretches with you dries fast and still looks sharp enough to wear from a workout to the ballpark without missing a beat it's become my go-to t for pretty much everything head to viore.com pod 20 for 20 off your first purchase exclusions apply visit the website for terms and conditions. afternoon glare totally ruined my watch party for the big game that's when my buddy recommended
Speaker 10blinds.com with custom window treatments made to fit your style space and budget customers who shop at blinds.com experienced overwhelming satisfaction side effects may include a fuller deeper night sleep and the sudden urge to host the watch party again blinds.com isn't a medication but it can improve how you feel about your home visit blinds.com to order your free samples today
Speaker 1welcome back fantasy baseball today taking a look back at the best picks in each round of adp before the season is there anything that we can learn into the fourth round and i would say this isn't wasn't really a fruitful round for fantasy at least based on adp but i would say the three candidates chris sale at 39 mason miller at 42.6 and bryce terang at 44.8 i think the best pick was actually chris sale he finished sp4 and roto sp4 and bryce terang at 44.8 and bryce terang at 44.8 and fantasy points per game at a very volatile position i think for some of these i'll just throw out like what i jotted down as lessons and you guys tell me like if you agree and if you think they're like there's anything we could draw from it for for future years but um for sale i i have that it's okay to be skeptical about older starting pitchers except for when they're like first ballot hall of famers they're just different and they could just like last longer than than other names that we're used to with bryce terang personally i just didn't know which version of bryce terang we were getting uh he was awesome down the stretch of last year and he just mostly carried that over and i'm not really sure exactly what to do with that but um yeah what do you guys i would lean towards chris sale being the best pick in round four
Speaker 6yeah i agree and i think the lesson there in as much as it exists is just that aging curves matter when you're projecting multiple years in the future i don't think you should have any expectations for chris sale three years from now he will probably be retired not definitely but probably but if you haven't seen the sign of decline from the old guy and they're being discounted which is what the case was with chris sale just take the discount like i i think this is a thing that the fantasy but this is true in football it's true in basketball like every fantasy sport i think this has always been an issue people are so afraid of being there when the bottom falls out that they just overlook when guys haven't shown any signs of it i mean david ortiz was just a money printing machine in fantasy for like the last six years of his career like the smartest thing you could do is just take david ortiz three picks ahead of his adp every single time for like six straight years and i think we're at that point with chris sale it's gonna end at some point but there's no sign of it yet i mean
Speaker 1like there's just no skill set it didn't end for david i assume david ortiz
Speaker 6would not be a good major league hitter now yeah but we never saw it
Speaker 5yeah right um i wonder how and i brought this up on the last podcast i wonder how much of that is just uh kind of social media culture of you know the how everyone behaves on social media where it's it's it's not thoughtful analysis it's just you're giving me an excuse to zing you and you know nobody wants to look stupid and like if you take chris sale in round four nobody the obvious response is gonna be oh he's he was he was great you know eight years ago like he's he's that'll it's gonna be a great pick until his arm falls off in may and like that's the obvious thing to say and and you know we hear it all the time when we share some of our teams on social media and but that's just like that's not that's not an accurate prediction of the future it's just a zinger and like don't worry about getting zinged if you're you'd rather hold the trophy in the end and feel like the smartest guy on on march 25th you know yeah
Speaker 6i distinctly remember doing this analysis it must have been around 2021 looking at the the leagues around max scherzer seasons but i remember seeing someone did a like good luck drafting max scherzer here's the total number of pitchers who have ever had you know whatever the sub 35 era 150 innings whatever the parameters that this person chose it was like good luck getting that here's the number of total pitchers who have ever done that at 36 and it's like well what's the total number of pitchers who have done it at 35 and how many of them did it at 36 because it it doesn't really i don't care that oliver perez wasn't a good starting pitcher when he was 36 you know like that that doesn't matter to me what matters is how like like i said with chris sale how these old guys like sorry hall of famers tend to have different aging curves generally and then aging curves tend to be slower in the immediate future so if you haven't seen the signs of decline they'll come eventually but as long as you're getting a discount on the face value you should always take it with those with those older guys they're not always you know it'll the ones who haven't shown
Speaker 1sign up but yes yeah the fifth round was terrible by adp roman anthony edwin diaz cole reagan's freddie freeman jacob de grom cody bellinger austin riley william contraris freddie peralta josh nailer geraldo perdomo jaron duran this was a bad round of pigs if i had to choose the best pick i i mean by the player raider william contraris finished 25th overall they also push catchers very high because they put an emphasis on two catcher leagues the next highest was freddie freeman at 92nd overall this was just a bad round overall um perhaps perhaps there are more bad lessons here like lots of injuries there was underperformance here and i was toying with like maybe the lesson is that if there's a round of players in adp that you just don't like like maybe we should just go lower in the player pool and find a player you really do like like instead of trying to fit into adp if like if there are players that you don't like or you have questions about like why don't you just because you'll see in the sixth round the sixth round was a lot better than the fifth round like maybe you just drop down it's easier to say now
Speaker 5it's a lot easier to say you don't like these guys now than it was in in mid-late march i mean it it
Speaker 6is to a certain extent a round of guys who are getting the benefit of the doubt for one reason or another um you know roman anthony the benefit of the doubt that he'll just get a lot better cole reagan's yes stay healthy stay healthy yeah um freddie peralta that he'll have a career year again you know i i can see like especially with like like hindsight's 2020 austin riley was a guy i mean we talk about showing signs of decline there were i don't want to say clear signs of decline but there were definitely signs of decline his expected wobon contact had declined i think two years in a row coming into this one last year his strikeout rate was up like there were reasons to think that this guy as he got to his late 20s just wasn't the same guy and i i think you know we think of like 30 as kind of the aging cliff but it's really it's a spectrum and it's different for every players and some guys peak at 27 and some al schwarber seems to have peaked at like 35 um but i i do think once you're at 28 or 29 and you've started to show signs of slowing down i don't think we should necessarily ignore that with austin riley you know i i think that's one um honestly jaron duran yeah the same thing just because he's shockingly old i
Speaker 1think it's very similar for jaron duran and i think even for like josh nailer and geraldo perdomo like just buying guys coming off career years right who just like haven't really done that before josh nailer had been fine in previous years but like yeah that's
Speaker 5other than the steals he had been he had been good for a few years in a
Speaker 6row i think if there's a lesson for myself with josh nailer it's just 30 games is not enough to say yeah t-mobile park doesn't matter for him you know apparently he also went
Speaker 1through injury he had surgery already too but it was a wrist
Speaker 5yeah it was a wrist it was going on i can't remember the details but it basically his season got a lot worse once the injury
Speaker 1he did not homer in his final 41 games which was like
Speaker 5but it was even before that right it was months earlier than that that the injury was first
Speaker 1reported i think we looked into it the other day scott and it was like through may he had eight home runs and then he only hit like two the rest of the way or something and it first popped up in june i think the wrist so
Speaker 5i remember it i i don't think we have the specifics exactly right but it was something like
Speaker 1that yeah uh all right well let's move on to the sixth round because again this was a pretty awesome round of picks kade smith yoan duran ben rice jackson merrill cj abrams dylan sees just an awesome awesome round of picks here in the sixth round uh the best pick it honestly it feels like a tie i probably give it a ben rice but um between rice and abrams like they both finished as top 10 players and opposite ends of the spectrum like everybody wanted ben rice like he was the sweetheart breakout consensus breakout pick nobody wanted cj Like, nobody wanted anything to do with him, and they both finished as tight. top 10 players overall. The lessons that I had here for Rice is like, okay, the breakout became reality. For Abrams and Cease, I have, don't underestimate a change in coaching staff. So like the Nationals completely revamping their front office and their coaching staff. And then like Dylan Cease getting to Toronto and then like making changes with him and his pitch mix. I think that worked out very well. And then for Merrill, it's like by the dip on young players coming off injury plagued seasons. And I mean, I don't,
Speaker 5that first one with Abrams and Cease, I don't know that it's the sort of lesson you'd want to apply universally. I think there are, I think it'll be wrong a lot more often than it's right. It's true that it helped them, these two particular players. It can be a path to a player getting better. But what are you going to do? Artificially elevate everyone in the rankings who has a new coaching staff? I think you're going to, you're going to have a lot more misses than hits by doing that.
Speaker 1Just maybe as like a tiebreaker though, if you're deciding between players or something like that.
Speaker 6I don't think this is a one, you know, a one example thing though, because I do think the Nationals offense as a whole is a good example of just, I think the, like, I think the takeaway specifically with the Nationals, I think you can apply it to the Rockies a little bit as well this season. So the Rockies, I think were surprisingly almost competent. This year offensively. And that had not been the case in a while. Like they had more surprisingly useful guys than they've had in years. And that used to be a regular occurrence with the Rockies. And I do think the Rockies and Nationals were coming from such a bad place with the approach that their organizations had taken that even, like, I don't know if the Nationals coaching staff is like brilliant or anything, but I think just getting guys who know about baseball in 2026 probably helped. I'm not sure how actionable it is just because sometimes hyped coaching staffs are really bad or the results are really bad. You know, like that, I think that's also a tough one to figure out too.
Speaker 5Well, I mean, I remember the talk when Jose Soriano was traded to the Blue Jays. They're going to fix them just like they fixed Cease. Right. And no. Yeah, I just think it's a lot more complicated than that. And it's obviously easy to explain after the fact, but to just, I'm not saying there's never a case of a change like that being actionable, but I don't think it's something that needs to be widely applied. Certainly not universally applied. By the way, I was chuckling when you read off these round six picks because I was just remembering the rollercoaster ride that was Ben Rice's preseason value. Because it's kind of surprising where, you know, we were in like December, January with him that he only ended up as a round six pick on average because he was getting pushed up into round two, three for a while there. And then I think people were like, okay, we're getting out over our skis here. We need to back off a little bit. It turns out he ended up producing like the round two, three guy.
Speaker 6Yeah, he was 53rd in ADP in NFBC. So there was a little bit of a premium there, which I think is what we were seeing. I do think it's worth noting just because I'm riding my first base right now. Just when you're looking at last year's results and you see Ben Rice as like the clear number one first baseman in the rankings this season, it is worth noting the fact that he was catcher eligible influences that. I looked it up. He was a $39 player on the player radar by Fangraphs. Pete Alonzo was 32. Miguel Vargas was 28. Without catcher eligibility, if you just take what they produced, Ben Rice was actually the third best first baseman. So just throwing that out, it's not a knock on him. It's just he will come out looking a lot better. But you do have to keep in mind he is first base eligible only next season. And I think we have probably seen the last of Ben Rice as a catcher.
Speaker 1With Jackson Merrill, I wrote down by the dip on young players coming off injury-plagued seasons and that like maybe Gunnar Henderson and Vlad Jr. are those guys for next season. They're not necessarily young. They're not as young as Jackson Merrill. But like coming off injury-plagued seasons, like if we're getting them in rounds five or six next year, like maybe that makes sense to buy the dip on those guys.
Speaker 5I'm going to, the amount of players who experienced a dip this year, I'm going to be buying on a lot of dips next year. The dips have to be there. Like it can't be a situation where everybody buys on the dip and suddenly they get pushed up and it's not much of a dip anymore. But I'm imagining a significant dip for those two, Vlad and Gunnar and also Kyle Tucker.
Speaker 1What is the best dip? Is it like a ranch dip? A French onion dip? Hell of a good French onion dip
Speaker 6is my favorite like grocery store dip.
Speaker 1A queso? A black bean dip? Of course. A
Speaker 6queso is like
Speaker 1a good queso. Yeah, like a really good queso.
Speaker 6A really good, like a buffalo chicken. I mean, so buffalo wings are my favorite food in the world. Buffalo chicken dip is good, man. I don't care. So like a buffalo chicken dip, you got buffalo wings and cheese.
Speaker 1Oh, incredible. Buffalo chicken dip. Buffalo chicken dip with like corn chips or pita chips. Oh, yeah. That is awesome. Top tier. Primo stuff. Into the seventh round. The best options this past season. Jesus Lizardo, 72.6. Hunter Goodman, 72.8. Randy Orozarena at pick 83. I think if Lizardo doesn't get hurt down the stretch, it's probably him. Maybe you would argue that it was still him being the best pick. But Orozarena finished 11th on the player rater. Goodman was actually 83. But again, they like prop up catchers on that specific player rater. So one of those three, Lizardo, Orozarena, Goodman. For the lessons here, Lizardo, I have trusted skills from the year prior. He also leaned more into that sweeper, which we couldn't necessarily see coming beforehand. For Goodman, like some were nervous that he could not repeat. Not all were nervous about that. I know you guys, I believe we're still in on him. And then Orozarena, it's like sometimes boring mid-round picks are okay. And then like, they come with some untapped upside of like whatever contract year for Randy Orozarena. I don't know that I can actually take much away from that. But like Lizardo and Goodman, you might be able to take more away from those two.
Speaker 6I do think Randy Orozarena is a very, very likely candidate for an October 2027 episode of Fantasy Baseball today. The worst picks of the fourth round. I just career year at age 31 had, that it's not guaranteed to not work out for you. Kyle Schwarber has had multiple career years in his thirties, but generally speaking, that's a profile you're going to be better off avoiding when you have to pay. As always, it comes down to like, if his price is the same as last season, great. Oh yeah. But it's not going to be, it's going to be 30 picks higher.
Speaker 5Because what I was going to say about Orozarena is I feel like he had been undervalued a few years in a row, including this year. And now he's about to be overvalued because I think he's the same, the same player. The differences you saw were mostly a jump in batting average that doesn't necessarily seem sustainable. Yes, he led the AL with 113 runs too, but that was mostly because of that jump in batting average. It got put him on base a lot more. And like, yeah, he's 32 next year. That's not, but I think he might get drafted in round three and that would be even worse for Randy Orozarena.
Speaker 6I do think the Luzardo lesson is very apt and kudos to Scott for having faith in it. But it's just by skills. Yeah, by skills. That's just, I think that's the biggest takeaway there is we knew the skills were there. We knew the ERA estimators were still there and it had been a little while since he had gotten seriously hurt. So, you know, I think that one, there was enough of a discount that just buying what, you know, I think he was top 10 in FIP in 2025. If you knew nothing else about him except that, him falling to 72nd was kind of silly and it turned out to be.
Speaker 1Yeah. Scott, did we settle on a cereal for Krista?
Speaker 5Man, there's one I want. It was like $8 when I first found it. Don't worry, Scott. Scott, price is no.
Speaker 6Price is no option. Price is no object. It's okay. Object. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I can spend $8 on a box of cereal.
Speaker 5Well, I felt bad because it's jumped to $15. Now, and I was kind of waiting to see if it'd go back down again. Price is no object. Well, send the link. We'll see, you know. I'm feeling bad. I don't want to put the screws to Chris over this cereal bet.
Speaker 6But like, I think if you're looking for like a next year's Jesus Lizardo, go to Fangraphs, go to Leaders, Pitching, 2026, go to Advance. They got a little E minus F. That is ERA minus FIP. That shows you just the pitchers who underperformed their FIP the most. And FIP is a very dumb stat that we have much better versions of it now, but it still mostly works and it points you in the right direction. And you've got. I mean dumb in like it. It's very basic. Yeah. It's very simple. Yeah. Whereas XERA has, you know, literally thousands of inputs over the course of a season. Jacob deGrom underperformed his ERA by. or his FIP by.109. That's the. the biggest in the league, Kevin Garsman by 0.76%. 7-7, that one, even if he was a 3-7-4 ERA pitcher, it's like, eh, who cares? A couple of old guys, a couple of old guys. But Brian Wu, 3-25 FIP. I will say Mackenzie Gore, no. We are not doing that. Ever again! That has been his entire career. So apparently we can't pick out the next Jason Slazarda. Look, there will be a year where Mackenzie Gore has a 3-50 ERA. Maybe it'll be next year. I think he is talented enough to do that. And he'll, I mean, yeah, he's going to be dirt cheap next year. So maybe next year is the time to bet on Mackenzie Gore, but probably not.
Speaker 1You never bet on a Charizard.
Speaker 6And then, don't get mad at me, but Paul Skeen's underperformed his FIP by a half run.
Speaker 1I am mad at you. Let's get into the eighth round. O'Neal Cruz at pick 87. Alex Bregman at pick 90. Nola McClain at pick 94. Seiya Suzuki at pick 96. I would probably give it to Bregman, given third base and how bad it was. But the lessons here for Bregman and Suzuki, just kind of like steady Eddie veterans in the mid rounds that came through. Nola McClain, the breakout happened. He came through. And O'Neal Cruz finally came through despite getting hurt. He still finished as like a top 60 or top 70 player by the player rater. So I think for him, it's just like, you can never really count out the tools that are that loud. That's what I have here for O'Neal Cruz.
Speaker 5Yes. Yeah. I think that's the, the, the one with the clearest takeaway. I mean, I personally underestimated Alex Bregman. I thought he was going to be a bust going to Chicago, but they're not, we're not looking at him how I valued him. We're looking at him how the majority valued him. And I don't think there would have been much of an argument for valuing him over this based on the way his previous years went. But, but for Cruz, I mean, this was a player who still had incredible underlying, underlying data points. And this was by far the cheapest he had gone in his major league career. I kind of remember him going even later than this, which would have made it an easier pick.
Speaker 6Yeah. I felt like it was closer to a hundred.
Speaker 5Yeah. But the, you know, the numbers are what they are as far as that goes. I just thought people were being a little too quick to write him off given the kind of upside he had. And that we'd seen better from, from him in previous years, as far as I think the batting average was the main concern coming off of 2025.
Speaker 6I'm definitely going to have him on my bus lists for next year. I'm just going to bash my head into that wall again. It's going to go a lot earlier to be fair. Yeah. That that's, that's the main thing. If he gets drafted as if he's a two 80 hitter, it's an easy bus call.
Speaker 1We are in that early mock that I'm doing. We're up to pick 30 and O'Neill Cruz still has not been drafted. So we'll see.
Speaker 6Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, if he's, yeah, I think, that's reasonable enough in a Roto league.
Speaker 1Yeah. But for rounds nine, 10, 11, and 12, I will read off a lot of candidates, but what you need to know is that in these rounds, the best picks very clearly were Jacob Miziorowski, Chase Burns, Cam Schlittler, and Gavin Williams in successive rounds. So from nine, 10, 11, 12 on, it was Ms. Burns, Schlittler, and Gavin Williams. Just very easily. Those were the best picks in these rounds, but some other options in round nine, Michael Harris, Sonny Gray, Drake Baldwin. All those guys were great in round 10. It was really just Chase Burns and Josh Hader that I saw in that round. In round 11, Cam Schlittler, Yandy Diaz, and Zach Wheeler. Zach Wheeler is another fun talking point. Yeah. I don't know how you can. I, I, it feels very outlier for him, but I think it also gets back to like the Chris sale, like hall of fame curve type thing with Zach Wheeler, where it's just like, he's old, but man, like he's just awesome. And I think he just ages differently, but he was coming off the thoracic injury. Yeah, that's, that's the thing that's tough.
Speaker 5Yeah. Here's the thing too. Like Zach Wheeler was going at a point where Cam Schlittler was still available. I'm, I'm kind of surprised in retrospect to see Schlittler going this late because he seemed like a young up and coming surging pitcher. Sorry, I apologize for that noise. Manny Machado got robbed.
Speaker 6I was making a face too while I was watching it. Like almost exactly where, I think it was like the exact same. So you remember Adam Jones? Yeah. Rob, it looked like it was the exact same part of the park in Patco too.
Speaker 1And he gave it the look like he thought he got it.
Speaker 6And this was definitely going out. That was definitely, come on Padres fans.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, come on, do your job. Attack the guy, get the ball. Sorry, Scott, we interrupted you. I guess I'm just
Speaker 5saying like for the concerns we had about Zach Wheeler, that there was, an option as exciting as cam Schlittler going to that same range. Still, I can't feel that bad about Gavin. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6Gavin Williams went off the next round, you know, like, yeah, it's, it's not like Zach Wheeler was a much better pick than Gavin Williams. So yeah, look, it worked out, but I don't know if there's a, a lesson you can take from that because it's still such a scary injury to come back from. Yeah. Like ultimately he's different, but Hall of Fame, famous get hurt and have their careers ruined by injuries too.
Speaker 1What I would like to specifically call out for Jacob Mizurowski, Chase Burns and cam Schlittler. Yes, they were all breakout candidates and all three came to fruition. We did have our concerns about Jacob Mizurowski coming in, obviously issues with control in the past, how deep he would go into starts. And like, he just improved his command tremendously this year. It kind of goes back to what I was saying about O'Neill Cruz. And it's like, maybe a guy that has tools that loud. It's like, just don't ignore them. Just, just see with your eyes what this pitcher can do. And just let's not ignore what, you know, the talent level of Jacob Mizurowski and it would burns and Schlittler. Like there were some kind of like injury things in spring training and burns. We weren't sure he was going to be in the rotation.
Speaker 5That's right. There was something with Schlittler and spring training that they started to
Speaker 1come down a little bit, but it's like, yeah, like just don't, that goes back to like, don't overreact to spring training. And like, these guys are super talents and just like, they were breakout candidates and let's stick with them.
Speaker 6One lesson with all four of these guys might just be, you know, betting on elite fastballs is not a bad idea.
Speaker 5Yeah. You know? Well, I mean, that goes back to this, this pitcher skills, draft pitchers for skills, which, you know, that's a specific skill. I think it's, I think it's a very revealing skill. I've been on that. That's been a point I've made often in recent years that if you have a, a pitchers with dominant fastballs have especially high upside with the point about Mizorowski. I thought he had the clearest warning signs of these. If he was still available after these, because everyone agreed that he had the biggest warning signs of them, I probably would have had some shares of Mizorowski, but I can't feel too bad for prioritizing Schlittler over Mizorowski or even chase Burns over Mizorowski went on to have a great season. I mean, it was a great breakout season in a way that I felt safer to me. Obviously Mizorowski was better, but it could have gone a very different way for him. You know, knowing, knowing his, what his profile was then versus looking at it now with 2020 hindsight, you know, putting myself back where I was then. It's like, well, there's these other great pitchers who also have huge upsides and he don't have the same level of concern for them. I think there's a lesson to learn. From the point we raised here with Schlittler about there was a back thing going on in spring training. And so it scared a lot of people away. I think there's been an overcorrection in recent years with little, little spring storness type issues where some people treat players who suffer those as like radioactive. And I get why, because it's, it's kind of hard to tell in the moment, just how much of a, how much of an impact this injury is going to have on a player's season, but everyone's going to
Speaker 6get hurt at some point. Right. Why draft the guy who's already hurt? You know, I, I get that.
Speaker 5Yeah. But was Schlittler hurt? Well, it's just, I, I, I don't, I don't have a good answer right now. I wish I did, but there's gotta be a happy medium there where you play it a little safe, but you don't go overboard and, and, and end up missing out on a huge value. Because of it. I think the big takeaway from the
Speaker 611th round is Schlitt happens.
Speaker 1Yes. Let's do that. The, I do have a bunch of names is written off here for best mid to late round options on the pitcher side. Drew Rasmussen with a bullet. I mean, awesome pick. I think his ADP was around like one 50 or one 60 Parker Messick, Kate Cavalli, Braxton Ashcraft, Reed Detmers. Those are all kind of a, those are mostly late round guys that very late round guys that you were able to pick up. I think for them, especially for those four in particular, Messick Cavalli, Ashcraft, Detmers, uh, Messick Cavalli and, and Ashcraft. They're like young ish. I know Cavalli is older, but young in his career, he's young in spirit and, and they had prospect pedigree. So I, I think that was like fine. Detmers like always had the skills. So you can lean on that. Rasmussen is an interesting one just to like try and draw anything. Maybe there is no lesson to be learned here, but he's just like, he, he slid under the radar. His, as a starter were always great, And the Rays just let the reins off here.
Speaker 6If there's another pitcher who's had like seven straight years of a sub-3 ERA and goes that cheap, the lesson is definitely draft that guy. Unfortunately, it's only six straight years of a sub-3 ERA. Oh, all right. But yeah, that's a tough one just because it maybe.
Speaker 5Man, we were drafting him after Robbie Ray. Maybe not we personally, but people were.
Speaker 6Maybe the lesson is just. And I think this is something we've talked a little bit about already this offseason, but maybe the lesson is you don't know what a guy's ceiling is. And so when we put kind of a hard ceiling on guys, like Rasmussen with the workload, maybe there's something to just being a little more underrated. Uncertain about the range of outcomes that players have. Like Rasmussen coming into this season felt like a really projectable pitcher, but not necessarily a guy who had a next level because of the way the Rays treated him in 2025. And I assumed that because he was a double Tommy John surgery and an internal brace procedure guy. I mean, the track record of that is nothing, basically. Like how many. How many guys do we know of that have had three Tommy John surgeries? Chris Medlin, I think, was one of them, right? There's probably a couple others, but there's not a lot. And so we're kind of uncharted territories. But with Rasmussen, we knew he was really good. And I think they're. I'm certainly guilty of putting too definite of a ceiling on some of these guys. And even 33-year-olds. 33-year-olds who have blown out their elbow three times can surprise you.
Speaker 1TJ Antone, current reliever of the Reds. Three Tommy John surgeries. Three Tommy Johns, yeah.
Speaker 5Yeah, I think. I think this is generally how I've approached starting pitcher, but I think maybe I'm going to lean into it and maybe learn to articulate it more. The idea that just stockpile as much pitching upside as you can and don't. Don't. Don't get bogged down by specifics because you're really. If you're drafting upside, the possibility is it's a top five, top 10 arm. Like, you don't know. Probably it won't be, but you're taking as many bites out of that apple as you can and hoping you land one or two guys like that. And it may not be the ones you expect, but that's why you keep taking bites of that apple.
Speaker 6Yeah. Kind of a. It's kind of an extension of, like, we always say there's no such thing as a pitching prospect, and I think you can kind of take one of those P's out, right? Like, to a certain extent, pitchers, especially in this era, just can remake themselves overnight, and that's not always good. And so, you know, part of what I'm trying to internalize is be a little more open to a wide range of possibilities with every pitcher. Even, because, like, you know, you say, oh, draft upside a pitcher. Well, Drew Rasmussen wasn't that guy, though, right? Like, Drew Rasmussen was an 8K per nine, five and dive guy before this season. He was a much better, but still, like, he was in that Seth Lugo, Nick Martinez type of pitcher. And then he just exploded. Like, it's not just the Drew Rasmussen. That's the thing that's really hard about Drew Rasmussen is it's not just that he did what he's always done. Drew Rasmussen had a 26% strikeout rate this season. He got back in the trough, too. Getting back in the trough was a big deal. That's also, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And that was part of the reason we were pep boys, Chris. We should have just focused our energy on Drew Rasmussen.
Speaker 6We should have been Raspac? The Raspac. The Raspac. There you go.
Speaker 5That would have been better. Well, we could try. But the ERA and WIP were always so good for us. Yeah, I get what you're saying about the strikeouts. Always good. Yeah. I guess pinning down exactly what is meant by upside. Yeah, it's hard. Normally, youth and how dominant their pitches are, how many bats they miss. But there was a way you could look at Rasmussen and see upside. I'm not saying I saw it. I had zero shares of him. But it's easier to see it in retrospect.
Speaker 1The most valuable hitters drafted in the mid to late rounds of drafts were Sal Stewart, Miguel Vargas, Gabriel Moreno, Alec Burleson, Brandon Lau, Otto Lopez, Carson Benj, and Luis Garcia Jr. And for these names, Stewart and Benj, I mean, they were the rookie breakouts. They were names that had hype. Vargas, a post-hype breakout, like maybe just were not giving up on guys that had that much pedigree and have an everyday playing just role, everyday role. Gabriel Moreno finally stayed healthy. Wilson, the signs were there. Finally getting a chance to play every day for the Cardinals. Brandon Lau, perpetually undervalued. Yeah, I mean, the Brandon Lau, like. We can just talk about him next year, too.
Speaker 6I'll just put him on the run-down for next year. That's just like, can we please finally, like, value this guy properly? Yeah. He had a huge season in 2025 and his ADP moved up like 15 spots or something. It was crazy.
Speaker 1Yeah. Otto Lopez actually always had pretty good expected stats and just made good on those. And then Luis Garcia, back to him, like the changes in approach, like the Washington Nationals. I don't know that there's like an overarching, like, lesson that you can learn from this specific group. But if there's like a player or two you'd like to touch on.
Speaker 6Yeah, I mean, I think with Stewart and Vargas, they were both cheap enough that it was just, we know there's some talent here. We know there's some skills. We know there's a broad skill base for both of them. So I think when you're talking about your late round targets, unless there's just someone who completely falls through the cracks, targeting guys. Targeting guys like that, you know, who are on the younger side and have talent, I think it does make some sense. Stewart was like a trendy pick, right? Yeah. He ended up going that late.
Speaker 1Because I know Vargas wasn't.
Speaker 6Yeah, he was more. Vargas was outside the top 380p. Yeah. Stewart was.
Speaker 1These are mid to late rounds, so it's a very wide range. Stewart was 161.
Speaker 5Stewart. Yeah. I think it was totally reasonable to presume Vargas' breakthrough had already. Breakthrough window had already passed. Mm-hmm. He was the biggest gainer in terms of average bat speed among all major leaguers. He had a huge skill improvement there that fueled his breakthrough.
Speaker 6Which I don't think we have access to that data in the spring training anyway. That's a good question. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure either. I don't think it's out there. I'm not sure, but I.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, this is pretty cool. This Brewers-Padres game is still going. Trevor McGill is in the ninth inning, but Jacob Mizurowski is warming up in the bullpen. So, I guess if there's. If anyone reaches base or if there's any trouble, we could get the Miz here in this game. But you know what? Probably save him for game one of the NLCS against the Dodgers. How about we do that?
Speaker 6We are. Yeah. By the way, that Manny Machado would-be home run, it's about five feet to the right of the Adam Jones home run. It's very, very close. Wow. To that same Adam Jones robbery.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, it was eerily similar. We are going to wrap there for Scott and 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.
Speaker 4Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.
Speaker 11College football season is Modelo season. There's nothing quite. There's nothing quite like a college football Saturday. The fight songs, the rivalries, the traditions passed down from one generation of fans to the next, and of course, they're settling in for a full day of football with Chris Modelo. Because Saturdays are for the gridiron and Cervasus. College football is built on tradition, and no one knows tradition like Modelo. From the fan quakes that shake the stadium to the rivalry trophies that mean everything year after year, these traditions are what make Saturday special. So if you're listening to this, you're going to be able to see that. So if you're listening to this, consider it your sign. Grab a Chris Modelo, settle in, and enjoy a full day of college football. Because it's just not game day, it's tradition. And those who keep college football traditions alive deserve a Modelo. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. Drink responsibly. Modelo Especial Beer. Imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois.
PodcastTranscript AI