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Speaker 4Way too early bus candidates for 2027. Up next on "Fantasy Baseball Today Express." Welcome into "NPT Express" on Wednesday, October 14th. I am Frank Sample, joined by Chris Towers. Way too early bus candidates for next season. Admittedly, kind of tough to do because we don't have any ADP as of now and usually busts are relative to where players are being drafted, but we'll kind of forecast and predict where we think players are gonna go, and as a result, we might be fading some of those guys. So, Chris, you are up first. Who is a player you could see fading next season? -
Speaker 5Well, yeah, I think it's worth noting, like, you're in a draft right now where Ben Rice was a first-round pick, and if Ben Rice is gonna be a first-round pick in the 12-team league, I'm gonna have him on my bust list, even though I think he's very good, 'cause I don't think he'll be worth that. But without that knowledge, I'm gonna start us off with, I think, a guy who is going to be maybe the free space on the bust list, and that's Randy Rosarena, who is coming off, I mean, probably the best season of his career. He hit.281, which is the biggest outlier here. This was a guy who hadn't hit better than.254 since 2022. All of a sudden, he has this massive.281 batting average. Everything else was kind of normal Randy Rosarena, in 2026, you know, 26 homers. That was one fewer than he hit the year before. 25 steals, that was actually six fewer than the year before. So I think if you're buying Randy Rosarena based on his 2026 season, it's likely to be a mistake, and that batting average is likely to come down pretty significantly. He's 32 years old, or will be on opening day. He's a free agent this off season, so that's one thing to keep in mind, is if he ends up signing somewhere that's a great place to hit, maybe we'll reconsider. But right now, Randy Rosarena looks like someone who is likely to be drafted significantly higher than he ever has been. He was the 90th pick on average last season. If that's more like the 50th or 60th pick, that's probably gonna be a mistake. -
Speaker 4Yeah, so you referenced that mock draft that I'm in right now. Very slow, Roto-World mock draft, very early on, just to get an idea, get the wheels turning a little bit. Randy Rosarena went 53rd overall in that mock draft. - I'm gonna be out on that price. - Yeah, awesome season in a contract year. Previously, 26 homers, 26 steals, massive runs scored. But just that fluctuation in batting average, when we have an established track record of Randy Rosarena being a lower batting average bat. Earlier in his career it was better, but the previous two years before this, it was 238 and 219, so I'd probably expect more like a 240 to 250 batting average. You know, 20, 20, maybe 25, 25, which is fine. I think he probably should go, you know, maybe pick 60, 70, so this isn't too far off, but yeah, once you're talking like a top five round player or top 50 pick, I think that's probably overreacting a little bit too much there on Randy Rosarena. First potential bus candidate for me, and people might think I'm crazy for bringing this up, Frank, the Yankees fan, how can this be? Aaron Judge, I'm gonna throw Aaron Judge out there. And it's not really production related, it's mostly the fact that he is just a gargantuan human being and he turns 35 years old in April of next year, and we're already starting to see the injuries. He's kind of pile up here. You know, he dealt with some injuries earlier on in his career. There was some fluky stuff, the toe, that being broken in Dodger Stadium. I thought that was pretty fluky, but a stress fracture in his rib that kept him out for most of this year, and then a calf strain late in the season, which didn't allow him to return in the playoffs. If you look at what he did in the month of April when he was mostly still healthy this year, 252 batting average, 10 homers, and OPS over 1,000, that is a 52 home run pace over a full season. And I realize, he's Aaron Judge, and he is a future First Ballot Hall of Famer, and he very easily could make me look stupid. But if he is a top five or six player, I just think there's a lot of risk involved with taking him that high based on, you know, the injuries that have piled up here and obviously his age. So I'm interested to see where the ADP kind of winds up. Is he a top five pick locked in every draft, or is he more like a late first, early second round pick? So I do think there are some talking points, some questions there with Aaron Judge. And let's take a quick break. When we return, we'll get more, some more bus candidates, and we will do that right after this. - Baseball season is in full swing, and there's no better place to be than Cal Shee, 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 Cal Shee, 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 post season. Download the Cal Shee app and use code FAN to get up to $500 in bonus credits when you trade $25. K-A-L-S-H-I, Cal Shee, trade on anything. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Cal Shee products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calsee.com/regulatory. - Welcome back. FBT Express. Chris, I'll throw it back over to you. If you have any thoughts on Aaron Judge, feel free to go for that. If not, your next bus candidate. -
Speaker 5Well, yeah, I think with Judge, it'll come down to the price. 'Cause I think you can make a case that he's not necessarily worth a first round pick for 2027. And it's not just for me. The injuries, although that's the biggest part of it, but it's also, this is the first time we've really seen Aaron Judge's skillset show signs of decline. His max exit velocity was 116.2 miles per hour. That was the lowest since 2020. His average exit velocity, 94. His expected WOBA, 396. The lowest since 2020. It's a 2020-esque sample size, only 66 games. Many of them were played after the injury. So take it with a grain of salt. But if you're talking about a guy who has the kind of injury risk Aaron Judge does, I think you need to be really careful. I think you need to be really, really certain that he's one of the three or four best hitters in baseball. And I'm not necessarily sure that you can be certain of that after what we saw in 2026. Again, might make us look incredibly stupid. I'm open to that possibility. - Very possible, yeah. - But if he's the fifth pick on average, it's gonna be hard to click that. As for an additional bust pick, I'm gonna go with Michael King, who had a very successful return from injury. He threw 185 innings, made 32 starts, no injuries there this season. But once you look past the 321 ERA, there are some pretty worrying signs. It was a 7.7K per nine. That was the lowest of his career. The 440 XERA, the highest since 2021 for him. The FIP, XFIP, every ERA estimator was above 4.0. Now that has been true for Michael King before, and he's definitely a guy who has outperformed his peripherals, the XERA, his career 392 compared to a 323 ERA. So he has that skill seemingly, but he is likely to be a free agent. I believe he has a player option after this season with how healthy he was. I think we're gonna see him opt out. And that means he may not be back in San Diego. And that is one of the best pitching environments in baseball that plays a big role in why he has outperformed his peripheral so significantly. So I just think we're talking about a guy playing about a 32 year old starting pitcher or will be early on next season, whose peripherals has started to slide. And he's likely to move away from one of the best home parks in baseball. I just think there's a lot of room for Michael King to really disappoint.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, even on the surface, just looking at K-walk stuff and some of the ERA estimators, I think that makes a lot of sense. So not overvaluing Michael King. We'll be interesting to see where he winds up. I think he really likes San Diego. I think the Padres like him too. It'll just come down to what is the price tag? What does the contract look like? Because this is likely Michael King's last big contract. So, I mean, he deserves to make his money, but I just don't know what that's going to look like if he wants to remain with the San Diego Padres. Another bus candidate for me here is going to be C.J. Abrams. And this one in particular, if he's going to cost a first-round pick or an early second-round pick, I think we kind of just learned a little bit from paying for that career year. And perhaps we might fall into that with C.J. Abrams. On the surface, awesome season. 33 homers, 34 steals. Clear career year for C.J. Abrams. And he made changes too. Like, I want to give him full credit. I want to give him full credit for what he did. Putting the ball in the air more. Career-high pulled air rate. Career-best barrel rate. Legitimately made changes. Give credit to the Nationals organization as well. It feels like with the changes they've made, they are finding ways to optimize hitter swings more. And clearly did that with C.J. Abrams this year. I just don't know how much of that he can replicate year over year. And I don't know if I'm going to be the person to pay up to find out. Again, everything is relative to cost. If it's a first-round pick, it's not going to be me drafting C.J. Abrams. If he's more like a 2-3 turn or like an early third-round pick, yeah, I think that's fine to jump in there. But I probably won't overreact and draft him in the first round. Back to you, Chris, for one more bus candidate.
Speaker 5It's going to be Jose Soriano, who you can spin up a yarn and like look at him and look at Christopher Sanchez and see very similar skill sets there and project the improved control that we've seen from Christopher Sanchez. That is not the kind of thing you should project. And especially for Jose Soriano, we have been fooled by this guy so many times in fantasy, including in April of this season when he looked like he was one of the best pitchers in baseball and then really declined after that. But for some reason, this guy just gets a lot of the benefit of the doubt from the fantasy community. Look, the stuff is really special, and I get that. It looks really good. When he's on, he has a rare combination of bat missing and contact suppression or quality of contact suppression. To really stand out. But I just think the command is not there. And I'm not going to pay what is likely to still be a pretty hefty price to find out. Because Jose Soriano is someone who just people really like projecting on him in a way that I've just never felt comfortable with. So I think he probably is what he is. He's going to be 28 next season. I just don't think there's all that much special about him.
Speaker 4I am interested to see what a full, off-season with Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker could bring out of Jose Soriano. But this is another one where, what is the cost? What does he look like in terms of ADP, where he's being drafted? If he's a top 40, top 50 starting pitcher, I agree. I probably wouldn't do it there. But if he falls to the later picks of the draft, he's one of your last round picks, late round flyer types. Just given the stuff, how hard he throws, and the slight possibility of the Blue Jays kind of getting the best out of him, I might take a shot. But anything, like top 50, SP, ADP, I probably would be out there on Jose Soriano. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Baseball, today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to FBT Express, and we'll be back again later this week.
Speaker 6Bye-bye! Bye-bye! We'll be right back. We'll be right back. But if you're listening to this, consider it your sign. Grab a crisp 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. We'll be right back.
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