Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 24 : Lessons Learned And New Resolutions

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Ep. 24 : Lessons Learned And New Resolutions · Cards & Categories

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Hello, and welcome everybody to episode twenty four, our Ken Griffy episode or
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Willie Mayn's episode. I have to do this now before we get too much
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higher, because then we'll run out of useful numbers. But yes, this
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is episode twenty four of Cards and Categories. I am Mike Coolard and join
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this holiday week by my very good friend Jeremy Brewer. Brew How are you
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doing during these holidays? Doing great during the holidays, No snow cold,
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so not very festive by any means, but it is great baseball time to
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get ready for next year. I am looking forward to twenty twenty four.
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I'm already missing the fantasy season. I know about you. It's already starting
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to think in that we still got like three months till till baseball here.
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Yeah, it is true, but at least you've only got what six weeks
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until drafts start, probably in full and knowing us, maybe even just two
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or three, because right when that calendar flips to twenty twenty four, everyone's
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going to be starting to make their rankings and putting in new projections and fiddling
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with their values because at this point we've also got some of the biggest free
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agents off the board as Yoshinobo Yamamoto has signed with the Dodgers for three hundred
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and twenty five million dollars, which is absurd, just absolutely absurd that the
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bidding got so high. But that's what happens when you've got Dodgers, Mets,
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Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, who else, I mean, who
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else was I mean, everybody was on, everybody was was was in.
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It's just especially at the when the price was supposed to be somewhere in like
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the one fifty to one eighty range I think originally, and that's when every
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team I think submitted to bid. But once you had the big players in
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here, it pushed that contract past three hundred million dollars. You're looking at
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twelve years for Yamamoto as he lands in the dot with the Dodgers joining Otani
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there, and I think once they got Otani and you saw the structure of
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that deal and then they went aggressive brought in Glass. Now you could see
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that the writing was on the wall that the bidding war was going to be
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between the Mets and the Dodgers ultimately for Yamamoto. And it's just I couldn't
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see how Yamamoto wouldn't pick the Dodgers given their history with Japanese players, with
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Hideo Nomo, and it being on the West coast, and it's just a
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much better fit, I think than New York overall. So, Brew,
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were you surprised by Yamamoto landing with the Dodgers and thoughts on him being there
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for over a decade? Now, Yeah, I don't say I was.
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Honest, there's no surprise that he's landing with the Dodgers. It almost made
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too much sense after the Otani deal, with the deferrals that were built in
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there, and you know, their biggest need clearly being starting pitching. You
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know, it made a lot of sense. I am a little surprised that
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another team didn't outbid, and now we don't really know. Maybe some of
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they did, but from the reports, it seems that the Dodgers not only
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were the best fit but also outbid everybody. And it's hard to say the
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best fit, because well, who doesn't want to go play for what appears
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to be a team trying to build a juggernaut. But I am surprised that,
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you know, the Mets, or the Yankees, even the Phillies to
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a degree, the Giants, they didn't put the biggest bid out there.
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It feels like one of those teams was going to try to make the splash
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and say no, we got the guy, and or not be at least
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be told that, yes, you had the highest bid, but I decided
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to go elsewhere. It doesn't appear that that was the case. Appears that
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the Dodgers did have the highest bid and we're using all that all that Otani
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money elsewhere. So not overly surprised, very very intrigued though for this this
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Dodgers teams. They are creating the rotation next year. Just assume Otani gets
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healthy. That's gonna be a dangerous with what Yamamoto, Otani, Walker,
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Bueller, Tyler Glasnow and Bobby Miller. I'll take that one of five any
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day. It's that could be if they're all top of the game and healthy
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again, a big iff there. That could be an all time rotation,
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uh for for the Dodgers. And they could hit a little bit too from
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what I hear. Yeah, honestly, it'll be interesting to see how they
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round out that lineup because it is a little weak on the bottom still when
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you're depending on dudes like Chris Taylor and post acl injury, Gavin Lux and
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Max Munsey and his kind of fall off the cliff in terms of batting average,
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especially he's kind of you know, waned a little bit. So it'll
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be we'll see how the Dodgers can and round everything out, and that might
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be the kind of their weak point going forward. But this is turning it.
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It reminds me the comparison isn't even very like good. Is that Like
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this is like the nineties Yankees kind of all over again. And when you
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do look back, like the Yankees used to have random holes in the team,
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Like I mean, Scott Brocious was pretty solid, but he wasn't,
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you know, anything special, and they would always like end up having to
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use Louis Soho at second base and just like there would be random kind of
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missing holes because that's what happens. And I think that's what's gonna happen with
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the Dodgers here that you know they're going to go on this kind of dynastic
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terra we'll see how many World Series they can bring home. But it is
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also I think fun to have a Darth Vader Evil Empire sort of team to
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drive the narrative of the league and the Dodgers will squarely be that team here
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for the foreseeable feature. Yeah, I think you're right. It's it in
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a weird way. It's nice to not have it be the Yankees because it
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feels like that's who was for so so long. And you're right, and
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I think it will actually force the Dodgers to consider alternative ways to rounding things
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out. When you spend a billion dollars on players in offseason and you still
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have, to your point, a few areas that look like they could be
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holes. Are they gonna push a few of their guys and the miners up
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a little earlier trying to, you know, squeeze that value. Are they
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gonna flip some guys trying to get somebody that's more affordable to fit in some
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of those roles, or are they just gonna kind of, like you said,
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use the Chris Taylor's, the Jason Hayward's, the Max Mounzies that like
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they're they're valuable players and being the bottom of your lineup is fine, hoping
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that they can squeeze enough out of them, because the one through four in
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that lineup is fantastic and once but once you get down to the bottom of
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that lineup is uh is six seven, eight nine. Is it gonna be
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good enough or to get by? Yeah, it's gonna be good enough,
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I think, is the is the answer. But it's not. They're not
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gonna be the best line about there. Atlanta clearly is gonna probably have one
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of the best lineups out there, and so you could see the one risk
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for the Dodgers short series against a team that has you know, one or
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two really good starting pitchers and a crazy good lineup. The Phillies, the
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Braves, those types of things are still gonna be really dangerous for the Dodgers.
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Yeah, I totally agree. So let's revisit Yamamoto and see what this
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kind of means for him on the fantasy horizon. Here for twenty twenty four,
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Steamer has him for a very pedestrian line that usually it does a decent
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job of translating the Japanese numbers. But I will be interested to see some
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of the other systems here, like the BAT and bat X, because I
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think they probably will factor in Yamamoto's actual kind of stack cast dish performance a
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little bit better than Steamer does. But Steamer has him for a three to
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ninety seven him being Yamamoto, that is a three ninety seven era over one
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hundred and eighty four innings. That's a nine point seven K nine comes with
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a one to two whip, And obviously it's on the Dodgers, So I
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mean you're looking for wins in the mid teens that could possibly reach twenty.
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So like he's gonna get a full slate of starts for a really great one
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hundred win team. I think that's really light on his projections overall. I'm
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I don't think that's really going to play some much better than almost like a
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George Montgomery or something in the projections. But let's where's he going in the
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draft right now? Brew Obviously it's gonna tick up, I think because the
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wins will be there. But people knew he was gonna sign with a winning
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franchise, but with the Dodgers, it's just kind of taking him to another
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level. Where's his current ADP hovering? Yeah, So overall ADP he's sitting
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and we're talking really kind of December drafts here, trying to there's quite a
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few out there. He's at number seventy five overall for all players. Thirty
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three is pitchers, twenty three of starting pitchers, and so he's threatening the
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top twenty starting pitchers, and so he's got plenty of helium already before signing
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with the Dodgers. So I think that that'll be interesting to see how much
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additional push that that gives to him. So just a few names going around
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him, a little bit above him, but right, you know, within
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a few picks you got code I singa maybe a little irony there. The
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closest one. We have Uri Perez, Grayson Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert. A
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few of those actually surprised me. Grayson being that high actually surprises me a
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little bit. You also have Logan Webb, Max Fried and Blake Snell about
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ten picks ahead of him. And then on the back end of it,
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you've got guys, you know, his teammate, Bobby Miller, Jesu Suzardo,
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zach Eflin, Joe Ryan. So as I look at it, he
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kind of is maybe the right rage or I could see him moving up a
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little bit, and I'd think I'd be okay with that. I think I'd
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be taking willing to take Young Moto over Grayson, Rodriguez over a Logan Gilbert
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over a logan Web. You know, you start to get the Blake Snell,
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Franber Valdez, Freddy Peralta area, I'd be okay that that makes the
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decision a little bit tougher. So I don't know what are your thoughts there
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in some of those names and how he fits in. Is there room still
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in that adp Oh yeah, I mean when you're listing those names, I
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was like thinking about like the Yodel guy and the prices right when he's like
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going up the mountain, like yeah, all the way that like even past
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Freddy and Valdez that I think I would rather of those guys that you listened,
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I'd rather have Snell, Web, Yamamoto and put them in a tier
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even above Freddy Peralta and from Profaldez that I like Blake Snell a lot that
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like the strikeouts have always been there and sure like he can get in trouble
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with Walks, but he's produced. I think that logan Web is criminally underrated,
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that he's just a total workhorse and provides great ratios. And Yamamoto,
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Yeah, I think Yamamoto is right there, So that would put him,
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I guess based on when we were discussing with glass Now last week. I
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mean somewhere in like the top ten to twelve pictures. So yeah, that's
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that's right where it looks like he really should be that glass Now is almost
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a perfect example because then you start talking about guys like glass Now, Pablo
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Lopez, Aaron Nola, Treek Skooble, like that feels kind of like the
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spot that Yamamoto should be at. And I think, what's you know,
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there is just an absolute, you know, massive group of starters going off
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the draft board for about two rounds. When you get to about the fourth
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round, getting the fourth round through, like the sixth round, there there's
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probably fifteen starting pitchers all grouped right there, and they're all so close that
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it's gonna be interesting to see them start to get some separation at the draft
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table. Yeah, I think Yamamoto is gonna have a lot of helium in
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that draft price, especially as people really start to round out what his the
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full picture of his arsenal is. You know, on fangrafts, Eric Longenhagen
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has given him a sixty five future value with an eighty on the command.
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I mean, he is a shorter guy, but like the frame and repertoire
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and just his entire arsenal. Like you, you don't have to squint too
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hard to kind of see like a young Pedro here that it's really in terms
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of like the overall size. And Patro's a little bit hard maybe to compare
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people to because he also had just crazy long fingers. But Yamamoto, I
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think is a really special dude. And coming over from Japan seeing him in
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the World Baseball Classic, you know, we do have more info on him
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than before, and especially looking at what Senga did last year and blowing everyone
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out of the water in terms of what the projections are supposed to be.
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I think he could say something here with Yamamoto. Yeah, And I don't
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know that I have like the same innings concerns with Yelmot that I have with
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other guys. I mean, over the last few years. You know,
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he's so back. In twenty twenty one he threw one hundred and ninety three
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innings, did the same thing in twenty twenty two and twenty three he had
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one hundred and seventy one innings. Again, we're not counting the World Baseball
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Classic, so I mean that's up to the upper Eschel out of major league
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pitchers, is getting that many innings. And so if you're if you're getting
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that with his his strikeout and his control numbers, you know what really jumps
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out off the page, you know, gonna get wrong with the era is
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being in the mid ones is pretty good for my recollection. But his whip,
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because he does have such good control, you combine that with his run
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prevention. His whip again, I know these are numbers have to translate,
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go back three years again, point eight five point nine to three point eight
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six. Those are pretty good. You can get thirty percent worse and still
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be some of the best out there. And so I think that that's the
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interesting thing here is that your point, the sky is the limit for him,
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Like I think it really is, like he like, it's within all
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the realm of possibilities and the simulations you could run. Him being a top
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three pitcher in baseball is definitely possible. Like yeah, now we got to
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see that develops and all these other things. But like if you look at
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him, go, yeah, it could happen. So that's what I think
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is going to be so interesting at the draft table next year is he could
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be so much but is also so much unknown singa is the one thing that
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gives you a little confidence. There's like somebody else came over and did it,
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and so he just motive looks better. Yeah, I totally agree.
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And I think what's really messing with those steamer projections is he's slated for about
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a two and a half walk per nine, which is bloating his whip to
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the one two, which I just don't see. He's got good enough control
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and his stuff is solid enough that it's not like he's going to be nibbling
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around the zone in MLB that I think he's going to go right at hitters
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and have that. I mean, he had a two six walk pernine as
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a twenty one year old in Japan. Yeah, exactly, see, but
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the last few years has been like one and a half to two. Like
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yeah, he's yeah, he is again, the Majors will be an adjustment
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for him, but a lot of the things that a lot of things point
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to him being ready to just run with success. And also I think there
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is something to be said for going to the Dodgers and not being the number
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one attraction, right he is going to get to hide behind Shoetani to a
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degree. Like people arena be excited to see him, but he's like the
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seventh most exciting player on that team. I don't know. I didn't do
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the do the math their but like he got some pretty good players with Mookie
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Bets, Freddy Freeman, Walker Buehler, Shohey Otani, Like he's one of
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the guys. If you went to San Francisco, like he is the attraction,
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he would have been the attraction. Everybody would have shown up for those
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starts. The pressure would have been immense. It'st elements in Los Angeles,
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but there's a different degree when you're not the guy. Yeah, And I
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mean along with that Otani being there, it allows him to learn the ropes
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directly from Atani too, that I think that's going to be a really major
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point in his development, you know, being able to go up and ask
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Otani things about pitching, things about scouting reports that, you know, if
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he's having to work through an interpreter, I have also I don't know,
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but I'd have to assume he knows English decently well. But yeah, like
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just having that factor and not having to worry about some of those translation adjustments
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and cultural adjustments maybe quite as to the same degree because you have, you
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know, like a big brother there to show you the ropes. It's really
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going to be huge. And so I think that's, from a strategic standpoint,
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the most important. And you know, as a pitcher, it is
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like a chess match. You are out there starting the action, and so
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as Yamamoto works his way through the league, he should have a leg up.
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Is not like going to be a true rookie the way that Senga came
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over and some of these other guys who have come from MPB might have run
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into a wall there. Yeah. So do you think that part of Otani's
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negotiations was I'm gonna leave this money open, but I want you to go
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get yam Moto like it was it like this is the guy you need to
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go get. Like I wouldn't be shocked by that me neither. No,
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that I mean, I think, yeah, that that was part of like
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a little bit of like the handshake agreement of like taking the trim in the
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in the pack for the first ten years to be able to sign somebody like
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Yamamoto. It would make sense, Yeah, yeah, would And then I
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think the other aspect maybe to cover with Yamamoto is he's going to be huge
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in first year player dynasty drafts. Where are you putting him in the mix
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between Whyatt Langford, Paul Skiens, Dylan Cruz That Like, I think I
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could see arguments for any of those guys being the number one pick if you
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had it in a first year player draft for a dynasty. But I mean,
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I can tell you right now, I think my preference would be Langford
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or Yamamoto number one. I think I would be torn if I had the
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number one pick that the number two pick I would almost prefer because then I
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would just pop Langford or Yamamoto based on whatever the guy in front of me
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did. But what do you think, Crew, Like, where is he
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in that mix for those other draft picks for you? Yeah? I mean
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for me. And this goes to probably some degree of the way that I
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build fantasy teams. I'm actually taken the picture. I know every all you
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know analyst out there always say, like, take the hitter, go for
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the best hitter. Those things pictures are so volatile. I think that generally
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applies except for the upper upper echelon, and especially in a situation like this
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where you know yam Moto is going to be on a great team and he's
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he you know, has a pretty high floor for the next ten years,
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and he's going to be on the roster, he's going to be starting.
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Yeah, Langford still has something to prove. Don't get me wrong. He
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looks really really good. But to me, like I feel like you're just
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drafting a potential ACE and the potential downside is a number two, Like is
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kind of what you're getting where Langford like he you know, he hasn't been
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to that level of competition, and so I think you're just getting a head
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to start with a guy like Yamamoto in those drafts. So for me,
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he's a clear number one. And that doesn't mean anything against Langford or Schemes
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or clark Er any of those other guys out there. I think there's a
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like this first year player draft is loaded like this loads are like, hey,
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I got a top five pick. I'm thrilled, But I would be
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taking al Moto all day just because it's it's like drafting a guy that's you
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know, it's like, oh, Aaron Nole's out there in the in the
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first year player draft. What do I want? The guy that's done in
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a million times? And it can just plug in or do I want to
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hope these guys develop into that Like you, He's already there to a degree
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in my mind, Yeah, I can totally get that argument. So I'm
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in the same mind. I think I just like Langford a little bit because
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of what you were talking about in terms of that analyst like worrying about pitching
20:48
blowing out and Langford just Langford is an incredible bat. I think, yeah,
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you know, it's like Bryce Harper level, and I think it'll move
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fast. But I see what you're saying. I don't think that you can
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go wrong. I feel like you and i've probably made these trades before,
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and I don't think i've run up in this podcast, but I'm going to,
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Uh, there's a trade a year or two ago for you and I
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in a Dynasty League and there's this guy that I can't remember his name,
21:15
Spencer Streider. I think it was that I acquired at the time. And
21:22
that's just the way I end up building teams is like I go for those
21:25
those pictures and I build the top end of my staff and then I kind
21:29
of focus on other pieces. And it's been very successful for me. And
21:33
so it's just to your point, it's the way you build the team.
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If you comfortable with your strategy, that's gonna drive what it is. Don't
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don't let some analysts something like, don't tell us what to do if you
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if you've been successful, lead into was successful. Yeah, exactly, And
21:45
that also occurred to you because a little bit of my strategy and dynasties is
21:49
I am the gold like miner out there looking for all sorts of random arms
21:55
and just constantly flipping them like the Yankees. So yep, I'm like fantasy
22:00
the Yankees, where I'm the guy uncovering random pictures out there and you'll see
22:04
one come across. You're like, where who is this? Then you look
22:07
and he's got fourteen K nine and double A and you know, been looking
22:12
great. Stuff like that, And so that is a little bit of like
22:15
where we matched up on that trade too, Is I am the Yankees out
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there gold binding. Yeah you tried, you tried to get your capital,
22:22
and I said, like, this is the guy I want to leave my
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rotation. It was It's uh, it was ironic, but that's what anyway
22:29
sometimes. But anyways, I think with that, that's a good lead into
22:33
what we're going to talk about here for the rest of the pod. It's
22:37
really our personal lessons from the year. I don't it's kind of I just
22:41
trying to think of the right term for it, because there's not like a
22:45
for resolutions is the other side we're going to talk here, you know,
22:48
going into the new year, there's a word for resolutions, but I guess
22:51
a recap or a look back on kind of summarizing our twenty twenty three for
22:56
both Fantasy and card color. So we're going to go into lessons that we've
23:02
learned for twenty twenty three and then also provide resolutions that we have going into
23:06
twenty twenty four on both sides. So we're going to start with one apiece,
23:10
but you know, if we have some extras that we want to discuss,
23:12
we'll certainly be open to that. Figured it'd be good for this holiday
23:15
stretch, is I mean, knock on wood. Hopefully the MLB executives kind
23:19
of take it easy and try to take a little bit of a rest and
23:25
that allows for us to have a little bit of a discussion on our personal
23:30
kind of years. So you want to start with cards or categories here,
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brew, I'll let you pick Oh, that's this is a tough one.
23:37
I think. Let's let's we're kind of we've been kind of on the categories
23:41
perspective, we've been talking about on motive. Let's keep let's keep the fun
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going. Let's let's start on the fantasy side of the world here. Okay,
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so let's go with you. What was your one, like number one
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lesson that you learned from twenty twenty three in terms of fantasy baseball playing?
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And uh, yeah, how how do you think it'll affect you maybe going
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forward? Yeah, so I'm gonna it's gonna be more of a strategy versus
24:03
learning about certain players or something like that. And it's more of a that
24:08
I think twenty three just reinforced for me and something I learned many years ago
24:15
and I and I have continued to do pretty much every year. It's hard
24:19
to remember to do, but it's a simple strategy. Document your league,
24:25
and it's something that I try to do pretty religiously, mainly at the draft
24:29
time frame, but a little bit throughout the league. Is document the atmosphere,
24:33
the strategies, the flow of your league, keep a note of it,
24:38
and then use that to your advantage. And so the way that this
24:42
works. It's it sounds pretty simple, but every year, you pretty much
24:48
in your league. Unless you're starting a brand new league, it doesn't work
24:51
there. But whether it's a dynasty, whether it's a you know, a
24:55
single year league, whether it's a you know, somewhat keeper mixed league,
25:00
if you have the same players in your league, the same characteristics will come
25:04
through. And so every year when I forget out on a draft, I
25:08
document what happened in that draft, how it flowed? Was there was it
25:14
was an auction? Was there you know, really high prices early? Did
25:18
it then have a quiet period in the middle and then guys really cheap?
25:23
Did everybody seem to have money left over at the end? Was there always
25:27
a closer run? What is it about that draft? And I document that
25:32
every year of like what happened during the draft itself, as far as the
25:37
economics of the draft. The same thing can be said for for kind of
25:41
a snake draft or a straight draft of where were the pockets? What does
25:45
it feel like people over invested in? And I'm in a few leagues?
25:48
Well, you and I are both in a few leagues together, and others
25:52
outside of that where closure is a great example. They are valued completely differently
25:57
in leagues, and there's something leagues I can just like, ah, you
26:00
know, I can wait till the end of the draft. I can pick
26:03
them up. I can muddle through. There's other ones like if you don't
26:06
get to your guy, you will have zero closers all year, and you
26:10
have to plan for that. So I found that to be extremely successful because
26:15
then I go into the next year knowing what's gonna happen in that draft.
26:18
It and it. I've been shocked how consistent that is year over year over
26:25
year that the same things I say to do. I leave my notes that
26:27
like, if I could do this with draft over again, here's what I
26:30
would do go to the next year. It holds true almost every single time.
26:34
And I could say the same thing generally across the season is when you
26:38
know where you should be making pickups, how quickly you need to make pickups.
26:45
Is this a league where anybody that gets hot is gone within the day
26:48
or do you have a chance to let guys merit it on the waiver wire?
26:52
How's trading? Does everybody have a flurry at the trade deadline? Or
26:56
do you have to like really marinate those those relationships to make it deal like,
27:00
documenting those things has been so successful for me, and I think just
27:04
throughout twenty three it's just reinforced that for me that there's way more than the
27:10
analysis on the players. It's about how the league operates that makes you really
27:15
successful. So that's my reflection for twenty three. Again, it wasn't about
27:19
a single player or something like that. It's like, ah, you should
27:22
really draft Ronald A. Kunya, Like, duh, I heard, the
27:26
guy's pretty good, But it's really I think fantasy baseball, relative to every
27:32
other fantasy sport, you can win your league by the way you approach it,
27:37
and there's less luck in it. Don't get me wrong, Luckily helps,
27:41
but you can win your league even if you know you have injuries and
27:44
all these other things by really thinking through and getting ahead of the dynamics to
27:48
your point, mining for guys, knowing who to flip, knowing who loves
27:52
prospects. Yeah, that's good. That's good to make your winner. You
27:56
can finish in the top half of every league by just being a good x
28:00
secuter of the strategy, regardless of who you draft. I think, yeah,
28:04
no, I think that's really wonderful. Because I think it also really
28:07
reflects at the source of it, what fantasy baseball is to baseball is trying
28:14
to reflect the spirit of actual baseball, and I think that's what it actually
28:18
does. Is baseball at its core is kind of an adversarial sport. You
28:22
know, it's a discrete pitcher versus batter. That's why there's so many statistics
28:26
is because it's really easy to isolate that stuff and do analysis on it that.
28:32
Because of that, it also becomes very much like a head to head
28:34
and league dependent thing. That's why you see surprise teams win in baseball all
28:38
the time is because they're grinding out those matchups. They're playing them correctly on
28:44
a matchup to matchup basis, and I think that also reflects that they're in
28:47
your strategy of working your fantasy baseball leagues by analyzing the environment behind around you
28:53
and then tailoring your strategy from there. I was curious, though, when
28:59
you're tracking this, is it like a quantitative a qualitative like, how exactly
29:03
are you doing this? Yeah, that's a great question. You don't have
29:06
to get too much into the details to give away your secret sauce. But
29:08
you know, yeah, it's it's dangerous because it could be used against me
29:12
basically from this pod. But it's a little combination. Mostly qualitative is what
29:19
I'm tracking. So let's just talk about the draft. For example, I'm
29:25
really going through and assessing where I feel like, uh it use an auction
29:30
draft as an example, where do I feel that the money's flowing? Is
29:34
it that at the beginning of the draft it seems like everybody's asleep to that
29:38
first round, and so if you are, if you want somebody, you
29:41
got to nominate them and grab them because they're gonna be actually really cheap,
29:45
and then everybody's gonna kind of wake up in the like second, third,
29:48
and fourth nominations, and everybody's gonna be overpriced at that point. I'm really
29:52
kind of trying to ebb and flow and kind of describe what's going to take
29:56
place in that draft, and then I'm going to at a little of I'm
30:00
gonna say the quantitative side is like, you need to get three of these
30:06
types of players early, you need to get one of these late. You
30:08
can leave this many positions open and know that you can fill them later.
30:14
And so I'll use an example of the league that we're in you can figure
30:17
out which one it is. But I go in expecting to get three outfielders
30:22
for a dollar, and I know every year I'm gonna be thrilled with what
30:26
I get at the end of the draft because we got guys that are going
30:29
to overspend and I'm gonna have fantastic guys dropping into my lap at the end
30:33
of the draft. And I do the same with pitching. And a great
30:37
example last year I spoke my love for this guy many times in this podcast
30:45
was I got Sonny Gray at the end of a draft for a dollar.
30:48
And that came down to understanding the dynamics of the draft and how people operate.
30:53
And I was leaning into us throwing guys up using everybody else's pitch your
30:57
spots and had my guys left, and you I'm gonna be I might have
31:02
five dollars left to the draft, and I'm going to get a better pitcher
31:03
than everybody else because I'm going I know the dynamic that everybody's gonna want to
31:08
fill their spots and then they're gonna want to go after hitting, and there's
31:11
gonna be all these great guys at the end of the draft that I I
31:14
could get for a dollar that should go for ten. So again it's mostly
31:18
qualitative, but a few very specific things like this strategy, here's how many
31:23
guys, here's how many you should you should be planning for. Yeah.
31:27
I think that's great, Okay, Yeah, And then for my twenty twenty
31:33
three lesson learned on the fantasy side, I have to go to stolen bases.
31:37
I think it was going to be it was always going to be the
31:41
hardest thing to put our thumbs on coming into the year with the new rules,
31:47
between the limited pickoff moves, the bigger bases, the pitch clock,
31:52
there was a lot of variables, and I think lots of people it was
31:56
really tough to try to figure out how it would impact the stolen basing because
32:00
it was also really tough to tell with how these new rules have been implemented
32:07
down in the minor leagues that it was hard to take that and project it
32:10
across the major leagues because you've obviously got catchers who are much more diligent defensively,
32:16
You've just got better pitching and sharper base dealers as well. So I
32:22
honestly, walking into the twenty twenty three drafts, I thought I was just
32:27
going to try to use the same stolen based strategy I have before, because
32:30
I thought just maybe the levels would rise, that you know, all things
32:37
would be kind of equal across the league, and these changes would affect everyone
32:39
relatively equally and you know, go along from there. Unfortunately, that didn't
32:45
happen because I struggled with stolen bases in a lot of leagues. And you
32:47
know me, usually stolen bases is one of my bread and butter because it
32:52
is a lot of my strategy is making sure that you're maximizing playing time and
32:57
also just making sure that you're using players that are playing, and that involves
33:02
guys who are usually at the top of lineups and because of that, are
33:06
getting more chance to stolen bases, usually a little bit quicker. So runs
33:09
and stolen bases have traditionally been my stronger suit on hitting categories, and this
33:15
year I really struggled because I think part of it was that last year and
33:20
previous years, my strategy was always to try to in drafts get chunks stolen
33:27
bases early in drafts, you know, get guys who picked up fifteen to
33:31
twenty stolen bases and weren't total zeros early on and then just try to round
33:37
it out later, knowing that there's always used to be guys either at the
33:43
back end of drafts or sitting on waiver wires. Raji Davis is the perfect
33:47
example of this. Who were free, just absolutely free, and you could
33:52
pick up and plug in for a month and get some stole on bases and
33:55
just kind of like build this that didn't happen this year. And so like
34:00
I was looking, this is really really rough and dirty. I should if
34:06
I was like a real calculus whiz or whatever, I could, like,
34:09
you know, I guess it'd be statistics was not a calculus wiz, but
34:14
you know, go through like rank how this all fell in terms of the
34:16
concentration of players. But I'm just looking roughly at like the twenty twenty two
34:22
stolen based leader boards and the twenty twenty three stolen based leader boards, and
34:27
twenty twenty three. You obviously had it won by RONALDA. Tuna, Corbyn
34:31
Carroll, Bobby Wood at the top. But as I'm also listening to those
34:35
names, it takes a little while to go down the list in the twenty
34:38
twenty three and find somebody who would have been free at a draft table.
34:43
Like it's guys that were drafted, you know what I mean, even CJ.
34:46
Abrams and Nico Horner, who were fourth and fifth in stolen bases,
34:50
like they were bought for stolen bases at the draft table and just picked up
34:53
extra ones. To find your first truly kind of free guy in twenty twenty
34:58
three, you have to go a number seventeen, TJ. Friedel with twenty
35:01
seven stolen bases, and even him, lots of people were popping him at
35:05
the back end of drafts for twenty stolen bases. So then you have to
35:09
go more so down to like MIKEL. Garcia at twenty two, who came
35:14
up and swiped twenty three bags for the Royals in twenty twenty two. You
35:19
didn't have to go very far that like Jorge Matteo was pretty free. He
35:22
would led the league in stolen bases in twenty two, but also came with
35:27
the batting average risk and reminds you a little bit more of like a Billy
35:30
Hamilton type player where he's not offering. Scott Pasidnik, yes, yeah,
35:35
and even Pittsednik would give you a ton, he would. But to get
35:39
somebody that was free, you only had to go down to twelve, Josh
35:43
Rojas thirteen, Isaiah Kiner fluff A sixteen, Miles Straw twenty two, Kwan
35:51
twenty four, Elvis Andrews. You know what, Like you could easily have
35:54
crafted some of these together and found stolen bases easily in previous years. Twenty
36:00
twenty two. Obviously I'm just looking at but and maybe it doesn't work as
36:06
well when I go back to the years, but I'm pretty sure it will,
36:07
because, like I said, you would always find somebody like a Raji
36:10
Davis, somebody that was just really cheap, really easy to plug in those
36:15
stolen bases. That doesn't happen anymore. The guys who are stealing the bases
36:20
are the stars, the guys at the top of draft boards, and traditionally
36:24
I haven't focused on trying to pay up for steals, and so it really
36:30
burnt me, I think, in twenty twenty three in a couple leagues,
36:31
because I have to pay for steals now that if you want the steals,
36:37
they're concentrating your stars. And you can see it going into drafts next year
36:40
that A Kunya and Carrol wit are all top five draft picks, and even
36:45
from there like you're gonna see I think guys like C. J. Abrams
36:51
be pretty high up and pretty expensive the drafts. You know, you're Hasan
36:53
Kims. It's not going to be cheap to get stolen bases. Again,
36:58
I think we're next year and I don't don't really see any great targets for
37:02
really cheap stolen bases. Yeah, I actually really like like this assessment.
37:07
I I would like to say I saw it coming a little bit more.
37:12
And I because I've traditionally kind of drafted this way where I like, I
37:15
want my early picks to have speed, but I think it's even more important
37:20
in next year. Like that's why you're seeing guys like Aaron Judge and Juan
37:25
Soto and uh you we're on Alpharez Mattelson like being more of like that second
37:31
round pick. Previously those have been like the first round picks. Those are
37:35
the guys you want to power and things like that. And I think you
37:39
can really get yourself into a dangerous spot if you go like grab you know,
37:45
a Wan Soto or an Aaron Judge and like a Spencer Sprider and a
37:51
Garrett Cole, Like you're like, I'm gonna get one of the best pure
37:52
hitters and one of the best you know, starting pitchers out there, and
37:55
be so excited, Right you have one so and Cole or Spencer Strider as
38:00
you're one two, you feel so good about that because you've got made potentially
38:05
the number one starter and so to let's argue he's probably one of the best
38:09
pure hitters in the league. And then you're gonna go down and be like,
38:15
oh crap, you're just a Chase stolen bases the rest of your draft,
38:17
and that is going to kill you because when you get further down that
38:21
draft, they're not bringing the other elements right to your point, like they're
38:24
so top loaded that you're gonna be really really stretching trying to find those steals.
38:30
So they're just not gonna exist or what they're gonna come with is so
38:34
much else other than certainty. So I think it's gonna be very, very
38:39
risky to not take those guys at the beginning because it's almost like there's a
38:44
new sea level and steals. Yeah, And actually I did make a mistake.
38:49
I didn't I was only sorting by qualified hitters, so I did miss
38:52
dudes like Estuary Ruiz this year, and I guess the first three one would
38:55
have been Willie Castro, but will Castro gave you thirty four or RBI,
39:00
you know what I mean, Like that's the problem that was not too different,
39:04
right, yeah, And so I mean I guess like that does help
39:07
from that perspective, but it is just like when you're going through and seeing
39:12
the list, it's not quite like as random as it used to be,
39:15
you know. Yeah, And I feel like the free ones have such a
39:20
big penalty elsewhere, and that that's the piece where it used to be able
39:22
to like, you know, kind of stream a few those like you just
39:25
can kind of luck into as long as you didn't ignore it completely. But
39:30
yes, Steals, I think we're more than almost anybody kind of expected.
39:34
And I have to think with some of the other changes, you know,
39:37
the pitch clock timing going down just a little bit and some of the players
39:42
just learning, I don't think it's gonna slow down And that was a pun
39:45
on purpose, by the way. Yeah, And I mean along with it
39:51
too, it's like you're also some of these dudes who were even you know,
39:54
quote unquote free are going to be a bit more expen and just like
40:01
you know, I'm looking especially at like Ruiz, Like you did have to
40:04
pay a decent price for Ruiz at the draft table, the way you used
40:07
to for Billy Hamilton, and like it's just really tough. I think to
40:13
try to rely on that waiver wire to come through because it starts to get
40:17
real gross. Like there's also like a tier last year in terms of like
40:22
you know, you're Jake McCarthy, Bryce Terrang, Jose Cabierro even like Volpi
40:29
really hurt you. But all those guys had sub two forty batting averages except
40:36
for McCarthy, who was at two forty three, And so like that is
40:40
not great because you're losing all batting stats except for your soulen bases, and
40:45
like that didn't used to always be the case because you would pick up runs
40:50
and RBIs and stuff from some of these other guys where you know, you
40:52
could keep a little bit of pace. Yeah, no, I completely completely
40:57
agree with you there. Okay, anything else that you learned it twenty twenty
41:00
three that you want to summarize or did you just have the one? Really
41:02
I'm just gonna stick with the one. I think that pretty well covered it.
41:06
So all right, let's let's move on Yeah, categories resolutions for twenty
41:10
twenty four, So is it building off for twenty twenty three or you got
41:15
something different this This was a little bit different, So it's nottly gonna be
41:21
building off of. But for me this it might be an ongoing personal issue.
41:27
But twenty three kind of illustrated it again is avoid the injury guys.
41:34
Simply put, avoid the injury guys. You've played with me for a long
41:37
time. I have a sick addiction to what I think is a steal of
41:40
the draft and pay and paying it off badly, and I have a tendency
41:46
to dedicate is the roster spot is the issue, not necessarily the player to
41:52
somebody there. So last year I was drafted too much, Trevor Story too
41:57
much, Jacob de Gram to much. The guys that just had that that
42:04
risk. They're coming off of something you hope you could get better. And
42:07
that's fine to a degree, But time and time again I continue to get
42:13
burned by it. It's like if I only had that roster but because what
42:15
ends up happening is during the season, the flexibility that you lose bore that
42:21
because those guys aren't terribly expensive Trevor Story is a green staple. I had
42:23
them everywhere last year, and you know, you forget, forget the rust
42:28
that they come back with. He was basically free at the draft table,
42:31
and you're like, well, he could be back by mid season. This
42:35
is a guy that's a twenty twenty player. Things like that. Don't get
42:37
me wrong, I still actually love Trevor Story goings the next year because he's
42:40
worn off from that rust and he showed that he's still got those skills.
42:45
His numbers weren't great, but for the redraft league last year of hoping that
42:51
I could, you know, go into the playoffs with like an all star
42:53
shortstop or second basement coming off that he saddled you so much early on because
43:00
you couldn't invest in potentially another guy coming off of the waiver wire. You
43:07
if you had a few injuries, your your injury list was filled and you're
43:12
starting to use bend spots. Things like that really really hurt, and it
43:16
also caused you to assume you had something you didn't and so it was like,
43:22
oh, when I get to later in the season, I don't need
43:23
to try to grab this other position. I need to fill this need because
43:28
I've got a guy coming. It's a great don't get wrong, And I
43:30
still think there's a value to doing it. Just don't make it part of
43:34
your overall strategy and really make that more late draft. And I've been known
43:38
to do that early in the draft and be like, Ah, this guy's
43:40
gonna be fine, And then all of a sudden I find like I got
43:44
like seven guys in the I L and I can't plug holes. I can't,
43:46
but I can't drop any of them because they're all everybody wants the guys.
43:51
So for me, that's again it's maybe just a personal problem, but
43:55
avoid the injury guys. I think more and more uh unexpected