Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 18 : Free Agency Bonanza

Transcript

Ep. 18 : Free Agency Bonanza · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode eighteen of Cards and Categories. I am
• 0:19
  Mike Coolard from Rasball, joined as always by my very good friend Jeremy Brewer,
• 0:25
  also from rasball. Brew How are you doing tonight, Bud? I'm
• 0:29
  doing just fantastic. Thanks for having me as always, glad you keep bringing
• 0:33
  me back each week. But loving the start of the off season. I
• 0:39
  know it was hard to see baseball go, but we are already off to
• 0:44
  a running start. It feels like with the off season with all the little
• 0:47
  rumors and all the option decisions, So I'm excited for the off season.
• 0:53
  I think it's gonna be a fun one. Yeah, are you like me?
• 0:56
  Where I'm still kind of almost going through withdrawal not being able to check
• 0:59
  baseball scores and I mean especially the fantasy ones from when the season ended and
• 1:04
  seeing your live updates but having no box scores to peruse and no information to
• 1:10
  look for it comes to a halt pretty quick. Yeah. I am in
• 1:15
  a little withdrawal of checking my especially my Dynasty type teams where I can't go
• 1:19
  check the news to see what happened, or the minor leaguer that how he's
• 1:23
  doing down on the farm to see if I need to switch anything out,
• 1:26
  like I can't make any roster moves right now, and I'm I'm kind of
• 1:29
  I think I got a tick from it, So it is it is kind
• 1:33
  of a rude awakening when there just is literally no say, player development news,
• 1:41
  and I mean we do switch, we do switch to the free agent
• 1:42
  news, which has a different, you know, different flavor to it,
• 1:47
  different opportunities, different fantasies, spend, different cards spin so that at least
• 1:53
  that's exciting for me. So I always enjoy the off season, and the
• 1:57
  the economics of baseball, as crazy as as they may be, are,
• 2:04
  are quite entertaining. So it'll be at least one week before I start planning
• 2:08
  my off season moves in NIAS leagues, maybe maybe less. Yeah, And
• 2:14
  it's going to start really cascading here pretty fast. As we're talking here.
• 2:19
  On November eighth, in the evening, the GM meetings have taken place,
• 2:23
  and we're already getting some shuffling going on that honestly, fortuitously, I feel
• 2:30
  like I really won the beginning of the off season by saying the Brewers were
• 2:34
  holding a lot of cards to where this thing was going to go. And
• 2:38
  I think they've shown what hand they're going to play. So we've obviously seen
• 2:43
  the big move that's happened so far, and that as Mark Canha being traded
• 2:46
  to the Tigers because the Brewers are too cheap to pick up their option.
• 2:50
  No, I'm no, I'm kidding. So it's obviously that did happen.
• 2:54
  But Craig Council moving to the Cubs is really the biggest blockbuster that's happened since
• 3:00
  we talked last week. And I think it tells us two things. Really,
• 3:05
  it tells us the direction where the Brewers are going, and they're going
• 3:07
  to kind of huddle back into being cheap again. Well, honestly, I
• 3:13
  think this takes the Cubs to a really different route than I thought that they
• 3:16
  would take. Because obviously, as resident kind of Cubs haters here between you
• 3:23
  being a card Span, I mean, being like a Sox Cardinals fan,
• 3:25
  we didn't give the Cubs very good praise throughout the summer between just the strange
• 3:37
  transactions in terms of like the way they started their year and then hopping back
• 3:42
  in at the trade deadline. But honestly, the biggest thing that I always
• 3:46
  brought up between this podcast and My articles is David Ross was not a good
• 3:51
  manager, and you look at the pithag record that the Cubs had, they
• 3:57
  should have been a ninety win team with that run deferential. He underperformed that
• 4:00
  and is now being booted out the door, partly because of you can tell
• 4:05
  that he hindered the team. The bullpen management was poor during the beginning of
• 4:10
  the year, as he kept running Michael Folmoer and Brad Bocksberger out there,
• 4:15
  and his management of just the lineup was strange, playing talkman in the leadoff
• 4:18
  role a lot. He would bench Christopher Moreld in the middle of hot streaks,
• 4:24
  he would put Nick Madrigal in weird situations, and so I'm not surprised
• 4:30
  that the Cubs wanted to move on here, but Brew, whatit's your initial
• 4:32
  take on where this is going to take the Cubs and what it means for
• 4:38
  Craig Counsel and any partying words for David Ross. Yeah, I mean,
• 4:42
  I think it sends a clear signal, and I think you're absolutely right with
• 4:46
  David Ross. I think a fantastic player, clubhouse presence, good baseball mind.
• 4:53
  He was not a great manager. Maybe he just needed more to learn,
• 4:55
  and maybe it tells you something about hiring guys right off of a retirement,
• 5:00
  as we see Steven Vote getting an opportunity and you know, others being
• 5:08
  being looked at in a similar vein. I think it's telling, you know,
• 5:12
  he he could have done more with that team, and it's almost like
• 5:16
  he expected that the Cubs were not going to be competitive and was still trying
• 5:23
  to like develop the team and figure out who was going to be there for
• 5:26
  next year, like as they were playing good baseball. It's like he couldn't
• 5:30
  get out of his own way. But I really think the signals that the
• 5:32
  Cubs are in. The Cubs are going to go all in. They're looking
• 5:36
  at this and going, hey, we might have another window here. We
• 5:40
  don't know how big it is, but we're bringing the big, biggest fish,
• 5:44
  and they, you know, sign Craig Council to you know, the
• 5:46
  highest pain being the highest paid manager in the league, and I believe I
• 5:50
  think he tied the highest annual salary for a manager. Ever, I think
• 5:57
  it was tied with Joe Torre if I if I re call, and I
• 6:01
  think this does say that the Cubs are gonna go spend in the off season.
• 6:05
  So I don't quite know where they're gonna spend. That's what's what's intriguing.
• 6:11
  It feels like every team needs pitching, so I expect that they're gonna
• 6:15
  be in that market. I don't expect that they're gonna try bring Cody Bellinger
• 6:18
  back. I think they would love to have him back, but I just
• 6:21
  don't think that that's where they're going to go. So I think they're gonna
• 6:25
  look at that their young hitting, which you know, is improving, and
• 6:30
  they're gonna try to bring maybe one guy in there, and they're gonna try
• 6:31
  to lean into the to the hitting side. So it looks like the Cubs
• 6:36
  are going for it. Looks like the Brewers are saying, well maybe next
• 6:40
  time. I really do wonder what would have happened if Brandon Woodruff wouldn't have
• 6:43
  been hurt for the Brewers and they, you know, keep an ace around
• 6:47
  and uh, you have to think it spells the end for a few guys
• 6:50
  there Milwaukee. Ut. At the same time, Yeah, I'm not even
• 6:55
  sure if Brandon wood to say Craig Council, because I think this is the
• 7:00
  direction Milwaukee was always hinting at going towards after I mean, I think even
• 7:05
  the Mark Kanha move came before council leaving, and maybe they knew that Council
• 7:11
  wasn't going to come back or knew that they needed to start unwinding things after
• 7:15
  that. But I think, honestly, the Canha thing is the egg coming
• 7:20
  before the chicken here that you know, they were signaling this kind of from
• 7:26
  Afar between that and just the really gross talk about needing to move and get
• 7:34
  taxpayer funds to rebuild that stadium and all the other things that cheap owners do.
• 7:40
  So I do think that Council was always going to leave in the bup
• 7:44
  because he knew that the Brewers were going to be cheap this offseason for the
• 7:48
  Cubs, though, honestly, I've been waiting for the Cubs to do this.
• 7:53
  That the Cubs have the wherewithal to become like the Dodgers or the Yankees.
• 7:59
  They are a huge which market team, They have lots of revenue streams,
• 8:03
  they have the popularity, and I was wondering when they would finally turn
• 8:09
  the corner from when they went through their stretch of austerity, and I think
• 8:13
  this is where they can really build a team that's gonna be just a beast
• 8:18
  in the NL Central because no one else wants to step up to the plate.
• 8:20
  That it's a really easy division to flex your muscle, because if you
• 8:26
  compare it to like the Braves, obviously they're dealing with the Phillies, the
• 8:31
  Yankees. Everyone in the Lease is good. In the West, you know,
• 8:35
  you have the Rangers and the Astros and the Mariners battling it out.
• 8:41
  The Dodgers have the Padres and the Giants that are there and an upcoming Diamondbacks
• 8:45
  team, but nobody in the n L Central. I skipped the al Central
• 8:48
  for a little bit because that's going to be in a little bit of a
• 8:50
  different as Alder. Yeah, just don't go to the Central. It seems
• 8:54
  like that's as But I was wondering when the Cubs would really do this.
• 8:58
  It was really sitting there for a long time, and they did it a
• 9:01
  little bit under Epstein, and I never understood the step back because they just
• 9:07
  need to spend the money and they'll be in the playoffs and just absolutely dominate
• 9:13
  everybody in that central day and day out. And I think this is honestly
• 9:18
  the start of that that. I do also think they're gonna go big in
• 9:22
  this free agent pool, and I do I think they're going to be a
• 9:26
  very dark horse for Otani because you said already they need pitching and they have
• 9:31
  bats that are coming. But you know who's a bat now and can pitch
• 9:35
  next year? Well by next year, I already mean twenty twenty five,
• 9:39
  and that's so Tani. I think they're going to be in an Yamamoto.
• 9:41
  I think they're gonna play in the Nola market. And I think they're gonna
• 9:45
  be in a lot of rumors all off season because look how they surprise everybody
• 9:50
  with this council move that I think they're gonna be talking to a lot of
• 9:54
  these free agents, and even if it isn't frontline news that they're going to
• 9:58
  be in those rooms and handing over some numbers. You know, yeah,
• 10:05
  they have a potential to do kind of say a San Diego esque off season
• 10:09
  where it's just like they've been laying low, layingload, all of a sudden
• 10:13
  they make a number of moves. I think they're gonna be an interesting one
• 10:16
  actually, ironically for Juan Soto potential fit that they do have, uh the
• 10:24
  the option they have a number of young players that they could play into that
• 10:28
  uh, that scenario and then backfill because they have the cash. So you
• 10:33
  know, I I I'm not fully sold that they're going to make the move,
• 10:35
  but they definitely of teams out there. You know, they have the
• 10:39
  potential to really go and make a big splash or a few big splashes.
• 10:45
  So it'll be it'll be fun to see if this really is a a tourney
• 10:50
  to the page, because otherwise, why why go bring in Council like they
• 10:56
  they they hit it. Well, nobody really saw it coming. Maybe you
• 10:58
  did, I didn't see it comment, but absolutely not. I thought Counsel
• 11:03
  was gonna end up going maybe to the Astros. I didn't see him going
• 11:07
  to New York honestly. It just didn't seem like a great cultural fit for
• 11:11
  him that, you know, somewhere like the Astros or the Guardians was too
• 11:16
  lateralval moves. So finding just a really solid job that would have been upgrade
• 11:22
  for Milwaukee was where I thought he was going to go. Yeah, but
• 11:24
  Chicago fits the bill. It's absolutely they don't have the massive expectations, you
• 11:30
  know, he can be the savior to the city type type thing. So
• 11:33
  yeah, I think it's a great move by Chicago. I think it signals
• 11:37
  things to come, and you have to wonder if they're going to strike strike
• 11:41
  early. Yeah, And the other side of the coin was what I was
• 11:46
  alluding to with the al Central discussion, because the Twins, along with the
• 11:52
  Padres last week, have kind of announced austerity measures for no good reason,
• 11:56
  like this is one where it reminds me of when the Cubs started to take
• 12:03
  the stuff back. It's like, and it's even more egregious because the Twins
• 12:07
  just won the division, have a team that was rounding into form, could
• 12:11
  have used another piece or two here in this offseason. Not even I'm not
• 12:16
  even talking like major, I'm talking signing ta Oscar Hernandez. You know that
• 12:20
  level of move Nothing quite as or shattering as signing Otani or Yamamoto that I
• 12:28
  can't believe. The Twins have announced that they're gonna peel back spending a bit,
• 12:33
  and I'll link to it. It comes from actually a Bobby Nightingale junior
• 12:37
  post. Bob Nightingale's son is the beat writer for the Star Tribune in Minnesota,
• 12:43
  and so he announced from the gam meetings yesterday, probably with a discussion
• 12:48
  with Derek Falvey, that the Twins are not going to spend as much when
• 12:52
  this is exactly when the Twins should be spending because the Al Central is a
• 12:56
  lot like the Innel Central, where again, if if one team steps up
• 13:01
  to the plate to bully everybody else financially, it could really put them in
• 13:07
  position to take over that division forever. And it's it's just really fascinating that
• 13:13
  none of those teams really want to ever do it. Yeah, I do
• 13:18
  think it's it's interesting and I'm gonna I'm gonna go on a limb here and
• 13:22
  this is not gonna be uh, there's this is a bold prediction for for
• 13:28
  the Twins. I'm calling smoke screen on this one. Okay, I am
• 13:33
  calling smoke screen that they they don't want to invest the the big dollars in
• 13:37
  the guy like Sonny Gray or something like that that's going to be required,
• 13:41
  and they're kind of putting it out there, especially with Sunny Gray being expected
• 13:43
  to be one of the early pitchers off the market. I think they're putting
• 13:48
  this out there to say, we don't we plan to reduce payroll, we
• 13:50
  don't plan to spend as much to give themselves air cover so that they can
• 13:56
  let their guy who you know, by all intensive purposes is I think what
• 14:01
  one of the top ten free agents on the market walk that it gives them
• 14:07
  an easy out for a guy that they just don't They're not the kind of
• 14:11
  team that's going to spend the twenty million dollars a year that it might take
• 14:16
  to retain a guy like Sonny Gray. So I'm calling smoke screen that they're
• 14:22
  they're throwing this out there and they're actually going to make some small moves and
• 14:28
  they're going to try to spread it around like basically any central club and NL
• 14:33
  or AL would do, and piece together a still strong team because they do
• 14:39
  have some up and comers. They have Royce Lewis who looks like he's gonna
• 14:43
  be something. They did keep Max Kepler on, so I think that they're
• 14:46
  still they're still looking to play. So, like I said, my bold
• 14:52
  prediction here is it's all a smoke screen. The Twins are they're still still
• 14:56
  in this one, and that would be interesting. I do always I wonder
• 15:00
  these teams that announced out loud why they're doing the step backs like this,
• 15:05
  that I it makes more sense to see moves like what the Brewers have done
• 15:11
  where you read the tea leaves based on the trade and not wanting to pick
• 15:16
  up our Kanaha's option. But when you're just announcing it out loud, what
• 15:20
  a weird strategic move to like just show your hand right out of the gate
• 15:28
  in the beginning of November. And it especially just tells other teams, you
• 15:33
  know, you can go and spend a little bit more. We're not in
• 15:35
  on these skies. You can get them cheaper. But that would be interesting
• 15:39
  if the Twins are trying to do the reverse psychology here, because I'm looking
• 15:48
  at the roster now, they're just a couple pieces away from this thing really
• 15:52
  being a juggernaut. They don't even need the pitching that the Cubs do.
• 15:56
  You know, they need a back end starter with Lopez, Ryan and over
• 16:00
  at the top of their rotation, and maybe one more bat to kind of
• 16:06
  be there with Matt Wallner in the outfield. But it's it's a pretty solid
• 16:11
  roster that should win the Al Central for next year. Maybe that's a little
• 16:18
  bit of their calculus, but considering the teams that we just saw do get
• 16:23
  out in the playoff run, I think it's gonna be a lot easier to
• 16:26
  win the playoffs if you're built more like the Texas Rangers than you are the
• 16:30
  Arizona Diamondbacks. Yeah, I do tend to agree, so it it's it'll
• 16:36
  be interesting to see what what what transpires. But yeah, we definitely have
• 16:40
  some jockeying early in the in the offseason, just based on hearsay or a
• 16:47
  few interviews. It's really hard to underto predict what's actually actually going to take
• 16:52
  place. Yeah, and so as you may be able to tell from our
• 16:56
  discussion right now, we've already rounded into the off season here that the discussion
• 17:03
  for the second half of this pod will be going through MLB Trade rumors top
• 17:10
  free agents lists where they have their predictions on where the individual players will be
• 17:15
  signing and what the contracts will be. But what we're going to do is
• 17:19
  just kind of go through the top ten and make our predictions some where they're
• 17:25
  going to go, whether or not we agree with MLB trade rumors, and
• 17:27
  then analyze what that fantasy impact might be. As we're again people are getting
• 17:34
  into early drafts, so the off season and the twenty twenty four fantasy season
• 17:41
  is kicking into gear right now. But before we get into that, we're
• 17:45
  going to have just a short cards discussion here that today. TOPS Archives twenty
• 17:49
  twenty three came out on eleven eight, And if you aren't familiar with the
• 17:53
  TOPS Archives set, what they do is it's a lot like Heritage Tops Heritage
• 17:59
  which uses an old TOPS design and prints a whole set in it. What
• 18:03
  Archives does is it actually chooses multiple sets. So this year they chose the
• 18:08
  nineteen fifty six, nineteen sixty five, and two thousand and three TOPS Flagship
• 18:14
  card designs and printed a set of those three designs. And it's got fewer
• 18:22
  parallels, I would say, than a lot of the other products out there.
• 18:26
  It's also a product that, honestly, it just doesn't hold its value
• 18:29
  quite the way that something like Heritage or Stadium Club or the Flagship obviously does.
• 18:33
  But it is a good product. I've enjoyed it in the past,
• 18:37
  I'll be honest. This year, the designs aren't my favorite. These three
• 18:41
  years are just kind of meh to me. That especially three with the blue
• 18:45
  borders is a really strange set. And maybe I just have weird PTSD with
• 18:53
  three because it's really hard finding three cards in good condition because of that blue
• 18:59
  border. But it should be a good rip if you find it out in
• 19:03
  the wild, it's at all retail stores, it's got retail blasters, and
• 19:08
  it has hobby boxes obviously, and what's called a hobby collector's box, which
• 19:14
  is I think the equivalent of pretty much a megabox, and all those options
• 19:18
  I think are great, usually a good value, usually a good strong signature
• 19:22
  list with retired players, hall of famers, fan favorites, just really fun
• 19:27
  autographs there. And yeah, if it's your type of set with the designs
• 19:33
  this year, then I would highly suggest looking into it. But it just
• 19:37
  kind of dropped unceremoniously as people I think are looking forward already to twenty twenty
• 19:44
  four, and it's a little bit of like a I don't know, I
• 19:48
  say, like a second tier set, so it's not quite as popular,
• 19:52
  but like I said, it should be a fun rip if you find it.
• 19:56
  Drew, what do you think about top archives overall? And are you
• 20:00
  on this year because maybe you are an O three fan. Yeah, I've
• 20:04
  never really been big into archives. It's it's funny. I actually really love
• 20:11
  heritage, but yet don't care for archives, which is same I is archives
• 20:15
  the knockoff of heritage. They're both trying to do the same thing, but
• 20:19
  what I think, what I like about Heritage is the fact that they're going
• 20:22
  after the full set. They're not mixing and matching. So yeah, I'm
• 20:27
  probably not gonna be jumping a whole lot into archives. It is an interesting
• 20:32
  rip, but there's just for me, almost a little too much variety in
• 20:37
  the set. It's just a little inconsistent, and that O redesigns is just
• 20:42
  this doesn't leave a lot to be desired. I just I can just I
• 20:45
  just feel those cars being off center to start, and that's that's gonna cause
• 20:51
  me some problems. The one thing that does intrigue me, and I don't
• 20:55
  know if you if you caught this was the Collector's tends. Did you catch
• 21:00
  the collector sends? I didn't list them, but yeah, if you want
• 21:03
  to go into more details, we can let everybody know about the tins as
• 21:06
  well. Yeah. So a few years ago Tops started doing this with some
• 21:11
  of the flagship products, where they would introduce like collectible tens with the cards
• 21:17
  inside that you know, there'd be kind of like a fat pack or something
• 21:21
  like that. And this year they have introduced in Archives four different collector's tins
• 21:32
  that you can collect and open. I think you probably get a top loader,
• 21:37
  is my guess, and then some exclusive Each ten comes with ten packs
• 21:42
  versus like twenty four in a regular hobby box. But the tens are designed
• 21:47
  as old school lunchboxes, and so you got the one that I've seen is
• 21:51
  the Hank Aaron lunchbox. I think there's a Hank Aaron, There's a Babe
• 21:56
  Ruth, Robertial Clemente, and Jackie Robinson tops lunchboxes the old metal style.
• 22:03
  The class that is going to last like maybe five days before that thing breaks.
• 22:07
  But it is kind of a little entertaining. I did not get a
• 22:11
  chance to look to see where where these are at and what stores are me
• 22:15
  carrying them, but it'll that is a nice little twist for Archives. That's
• 22:22
  the one exception I might make myself this year with Archives. If I if
• 22:27
  I walk by and I see a chance to pick up one of those those
• 22:32
  lunchbox tens, I might just have to do it. Yeah, And that
• 22:37
  those are fun because it gives you a place of starry cards and they are
• 22:40
  collectible, so I might do the same. But I think part of it
• 22:45
  too is Archives doesn't have a nineties design this year, which is really strange.
• 22:49
  That that's usually what draws me to the product is seeing some of the
• 22:55
  old nineties designs reprinted and so then skipping it. I think also might be
• 23:00
  a little bit of why I'm not excited about this yerious version because I know
• 23:03
  by they're skipping the eighties because I think that will be coming up here pretty
• 23:07
  soon for Heritage, that as they move the notch up from the seventies,
• 23:12
  that they'll probably start doing heritage in eighties, So they're probably not They're trying
• 23:18
  to not oversaturate the eighties designs as well as like all the thirty fifth year
• 23:22
  inserts that have been coming out with Flagship have had the eighties designs of late.
• 23:27
  But man, not having a nineties set in this archives run is just
• 23:34
  I think a little bit of what's not doing it for me. But I
• 23:37
  think, like you said, it's if I do find it, I usually
• 23:41
  can't resist maybe opening a little bit of it, because you know, we're
• 23:45
  suckers for finding blaster boxes at Target and Walmart. Yeah, well, we'll
• 23:49
  just look that we're a middly weak when it comes to just walking by a
• 23:55
  card, a pack of cards something like that. You still have to pick
• 23:59
  one up just because what if and jue. Generally for me, it's the
• 24:03
  what rather than the if in these scenarios. So I think the only other
• 24:08
  thing to really hit the cards. As far as kind of obvious, say,
• 24:11
  new releases have been announced. I know we've been talking about tops from
• 24:15
  Update museums those coming up two that I wanted to call out. As far
• 24:21
  as December releases, it just were announced. We're twelve six, we have
• 24:26
  tops Inception coming out. Top Inception is a favorite product of mine. It's
• 24:33
  always cool designs. Also one of those that I believe they announced this year
• 24:36
  they were discontinuing, kind of like Stadium Club and then lo and behold.
• 24:40
  Here it is late in the year. It's usually a spring product. Here
• 24:42
  we are late in the year and they must have got through their printing for
• 24:45
  the year and go, ah, let's do Inception while we're there. So
• 24:48
  tops Inception is coming out on twelve to six. Always some nice patch autos,
• 24:55
  rooky patch autos. It is much more of an exclusive product. I
• 24:59
  think. If I recall all, I'm doing this off the top of my
• 25:00
  head, not looking up. Usually seven cards a box. You're getting one
• 25:07
  auto, maybe two relics or maybe one Auto one relic and then like two
• 25:14
  parallels something like that, And so it is kind of a very high end,
• 25:19
  risky product that if you don't get a good name from the rookies and
• 25:26
  those, it's gonna be hard to scratch back much of your money at all.
• 25:30
  But there's some really high end potential. So TOPS inceptions fun and then
• 25:33
  coming out December sixteenth. Another fan favorite of mine is TOPS Japan Edition,
• 25:41
  and so it is very simply your flagship product cut down, so it's not
• 25:48
  the full usually the full array of players with the Japanese flag printed on the
• 25:56
  card. So get all of your favorite rookies, get your ad Lea's,
• 26:00
  your Corbyn Carrol's, Jordan Walker's with a Japan flag on them. And what's
• 26:06
  really interesting about those, they're just harder to find. They are only released
• 26:10
  in Japan, just like the TOPS UK series is only released in the UK,
• 26:15
  but you can't order it and have it delivered here in the US,
• 26:18
  and I have personally done that before. It's just you have to make sure
• 26:23
  you're translating the website correctly. I think you have to pay and yen,
• 26:27
  so I had. I was over there the other day when I think some
• 26:33
  of the BBM cards released. I was looking for Almamoto and I was debating.
• 26:38
  I was trying to I couldn't figure out how many cards for in a
• 26:42
  box. I'm like, hey, this box is only twenty bucks, and
• 26:45
  I have no idea what it was how long it was gonna take to get
• 26:48
  there. So Top Japan is a fun product. Just good luck ordering it
• 26:52
  because you better use Google Translate. Yeah, and I think the really premier
• 27:00
  card in there is the Japanese cherry blossom parallels between I think they don't have
• 27:07
  the listing of all the parallels out yet, but they should have the inserts,
• 27:11
  which are the nineteen eighty eight insert designs from Flagship but with the cherry
• 27:18
  blossom on the outside. You can see prior years versions of this, and
• 27:23
  we'll link to the checklist kind of promo that's already out there. But I
• 27:29
  think it will also be a very popular set this year because you have Yoshida
• 27:34
  and Senga rookies in there, So that could be a pretty hot set with
• 27:41
  the Senga and Yoshida cards with the Japanese logos on them or with the cherry
• 27:47
  blossoms that it's a really nice touch and I'm not sure how long they've been
• 27:52
  doing the Japanese edition, but it's obviously the biggest Japanese players that've come over
• 27:59
  since Tan. I don't know if Otani had a Japanese edition rookie. Yeah,
• 28:03
  I don't. I don't think so. I think they've only been doing
• 28:04
  it maybe three or four years. Yeah. And the other thing I like
• 28:08
  about it is a lower print run product, and I don't have it off
• 28:12
  the top, but you are kind of expected to be able to get a
• 28:17
  number of the parallels in a box. It's not kind of like what you're
• 28:22
  there's only six different looking at last year's checklist, six different parallels between the
• 28:30
  cherry blossoms, the greens, purples, golds, reds, and platinums,
• 28:33
  as far as variations on the cards, and you're usually getting a few of
• 28:37
  those in each box. This is just a generally lower print run of the
• 28:41
  product versus what we would see here in the in the US, so fun
• 28:45
  product usually something to grab a box of. I don't know where where the
• 28:52
  pricing will be this year, but my guess is somewhere in the you know,
• 28:56
  ninety one hundred dollars range to getting in including getting it shipped shipped on
• 29:02
  over. Yeah. Nice. Okay, Well that wraps up our or our
• 29:08
  card section. Sorry, the category section is still yet to come and going
• 29:12
  to fill out the rest of us podcast when we talk about these MLB Trade
• 29:17
  roomor free agent predictions, provide our own predictions and get into what we think
• 29:22
  that means for their fantasy values. So stay tuned, we'll be back after
• 29:26
  the break. Welcome back, everybody to the second section. I was going
• 29:51
  to say category section, but we didn't really have like a full card section,
• 29:55
  but category section of cards and categories. Second section we're winning today.
• 30:00
  Yeah, it's a little bit of a different format than we're used to.
• 30:03
  You get us out of our normal three act play and we totally lose it.
• 30:08
  Although I guess we've already done one episode that follows this format, but
• 30:11
  whatever, Okay, we're going to get into. MLB Trade Rumors release their
• 30:17
  top fifty free agents just the other day, and this is obviously, I
• 30:22
  think, almost like a ceremonious kickoff to the offseason when this drops, because
• 30:26
  it is a monster of a piece. Big ups to Tim Durkis and everybody
• 30:32
  at the MLB Trade Rumors team that puts this together. Every year because lots
• 30:36
  of people farm it for content, and we're going to get on that train.
• 30:38
  So what we're gonna do here is we're going to run through the top
• 30:42
  ten players on that list, go through MLB trade rumors predictions of where they're
• 30:48
  going to be going, provide our own predictions. I don't think we need
• 30:52
  to do the money because we don't need to be more wrong than we already
• 30:56
  are, So we'll just stick to the fantasy analysis on what that could mean
• 31:00
  depending on where these free agents land. So we're gonna kick it off right
• 31:06
  from the peak at the top of the mountain. Obviously, the number one
• 31:08
  free agent this offseason who's gonna dictate the entire market is Shoheo Tani pitcher slash
• 31:15
  DH formerly of the Angels, so it will be trade rumors has him slated
• 31:22
  for going to the Dodgers. Across the board, all three people that they
• 31:27
  have on this panel said the Dodgers they predicted twelve years, five and twenty
• 31:33
  eight million, which honestly, I'll take the over on. And what do
• 31:40
  we think on him going to the Dodgers? Brew are you also going to
• 31:42
  join this unanimous panel on him going to the Dodgers. Yeah, I you
• 31:48
  know me, I like to buck the trend, and I really want to
• 31:51
  hear, but I can't. It's that I do see other teams that are
• 31:56
  going to play in the market, and I think he's gonna have one of
• 31:57
  the most interesting markets we've seen a long time. I think there's probably from
• 32:02
  what reports I've seen, and I believe them, there's probably gonna be ten
• 32:06
  teams in making legitimate bids for Shoheo Tani and probably another another ten after that
• 32:12
  that are kicking the tires just to make sure. And you know, you
• 32:16
  could you could see him signing for four hundre thousand. You can see him
• 32:19
  signing, sorry, four hundred thousand, four hundred million. I'd take him
• 32:22
  for four hundred thousand. I'll get a loan. But you can see him
• 32:25
  signing for four hundred million. See them same signing for seven hundred million.
• 32:29
  And it's it's gonna be, you know, just a matter of the bidding
• 32:31
  war. But as much as I want to say, you know, you
• 32:37
  look at the payroll room the Mets're creating. We just talked about the Cubs.
• 32:39
  There are some interesting destinations. There's one team that has clearly been preparing
• 32:45
  for this moment, and it's the Dodgers they are, you know, just
• 32:50
  look at their failure to provide a qualifying offer to J. D. Martinez,
• 32:55
  Like that had Dodgers written all over it to try to get a free
• 33:00
  draft pick out of JD. Martinez. But they did not want to risk
• 33:04
  clogging up that DH roll because they wanted to bring in Otani. Who's gonna
• 33:08
  be in that DH roll while he's recovering and getting ready to pitch the next
• 33:13
  year. So I have to stick with the Dodgers this one. I think
• 33:15
  that's the most likely location. You know, you also have to look at
• 33:20
  Otani. It's staying in you know, the LA area, so it's gonna
• 33:24
  be more comfortable for him. It's is a big market, a lot lots
• 33:30
  of arrows pointing to the Dodgers on this one. So I've got to stick
• 33:35
  there in LA. How about you? Are you joining my bandwagon with the
• 33:37
  rest of the MV trade rumors. I think I'm actually going to buck the
• 33:42
  trend here that I think obviously the odds on favorite is the Dodgers, but
• 33:49
  I think the team that desperately needs him is the Yankees. You look at
• 33:52
  this Yankees lineup currently on roster resource they have Austin Wells penciled into the DH
• 34:00
  thought and that's also with Estefan Floril pennciled into center field. That Brian Cashman
• 34:07
  had a disastrous start to the GM meetings as he just got grilled over his
• 34:12
  weird comments on being a team that doesn't use analytics, which is weird,
• 34:16
  like that's a weird mission or thinking that, like you're appeasing the right people
• 34:23
  that like, if anything, that would really worry me if you weren't.
• 34:27
  But I think the Yankees need o'cani really really badly, and I think they
• 34:32
  are the ones desperate enough to try to match the Dodgers' offer to him,
• 34:37
  and they have the wherewithal obviously financially to do it. So I am going
• 34:43
  to actually think that he's going to the Yankees, and with that will now
• 34:47
  kind of get into the fantasy impact, which obviously, if he ends up
• 34:52
  in New York, the draft prices is going to be absurd as he gets
• 34:58
  the chance to swing it right field and that short porch as a lefty.
• 35:05
  The Steamer projections, which we should have probably included at the top of the
• 35:09
  show is big news. The twenty twenty four Steamer projections are out. They
• 35:14
  have him slated for thirty seven homers, twenty stolen bases, two seventy two,
• 35:19
  three seventy eight, five thirty eight, and that will come about one
• 35:22
  hundred homer or one hundred RBIs hundred runs. So that's a pretty strong line.
• 35:29
  And I think with the Yankees, I'd be looking for more homers if
• 35:35
  he went there. But with the Dodgers, I don't see why he wouldn't
• 35:39
  be almost slated for one hundred and twenty runs at one hundred and twenty yard.
• 35:44
  I just look at what Freddy Freeman and Mookie Betts do that either of
• 35:47
  these landing spots, He's gonna be slated in my book for well beyond the
• 35:52
  Steamer projection, and you'd have to think the Steamer projection would go up.
• 35:58
  Yeah. I actually think that this is weird because usually I like to steer
• 36:01
  away from free agents that are signing into the year from a fancy perspective,
• 36:07
  because their markets get inflated when they sign the big contract. Carlos Korea goes
• 36:12
  and signs with the Twins, and everybody's like he's the next greatest thing.
• 36:15
  And they just overlook who he really is. And you see that time and
• 36:19
  time again, where whether it's the new fan base of that team that's drafting
• 36:24
  him or whatever, that there seems to be this like ten percent increase in
• 36:28
  value just because a guy signs a free agent. I think Otani is the
• 36:31
  exception to that rule. I think the injury to his arm is making people
• 36:39
  forget how good of a hitter he is. And you know, it would
• 36:45
  not be a surprise to see him be the number two, number three hitter
• 36:52
  in all of baseball, especially if he's playing with one of these teams.
• 37:00
  Just look at what he did this year, and you know, he hit
• 37:05
  what three or four He had forty four home runs, He had twenty steals,
• 37:09
  and one hundred and thirty five games. So let's just round up.
• 37:13
  Let's say he gets one hundred and fifty games because he's staying healthy the whole
• 37:16
  year, and he hits fifty homers, he steals thirty bases, hits three
• 37:22
  hundred, and then he manages to get the run the production, and he
• 37:27
  goes one hundred and twenty five runs and one hundred and thirty five RBIs that's
• 37:32
  the number one hitter and that's not out of the question by any means.
• 37:37
  And I think I was seeing some early drafts where he was going like in
• 37:40
  this early second round. Yeah, and that's just wrong. I hate to
• 37:46
  say it. I hate to be that blunket about it, but that's wrong.
• 37:51
  You're discounting him because he's not pitching, but you're forgetting he is one
• 37:54
  of the best hitters in the game and wherever he lands, it is that
• 37:59
  got a lot better than the production of the line of protection he had with
• 38:02
  the Angels. Yeah, and I think that you'd bring up a good point.
• 38:06
  With the stolen bases possibly increasing next year. You know, if he's
• 38:09
  just not having to worry about staying healthy to pitch and can take a little
• 38:14
  bit of an extra risk, that we could see that number grow up.
• 38:17
  And I think he's going to be also a guy. I think I will
• 38:22
  caveat that. I'll probably end up taking the under steamer line on all these
• 38:27
  guys, just because I've been burned so many times before on guys coming off
• 38:31
  of free agent deals, and I guess I should probably be more scientific than
• 38:36
  this, but like, it does feel that the guys just do not perform
• 38:40
  quite to the same level as what they usually do, you know, the
• 38:45
  pressure of the new contract. Just look at Jay Turner this year, great
• 38:47
  example that like it weighs on the guys, and Otani is just a different
• 38:53
  animal that he is such a unique person in terms of being able to pitch
• 39:00
  and hit that I'm really not concerned about him going to a different team in
• 39:07
  a different environment because he's become this singular rock star that it just doesn't impact
• 39:15
  him. I think that he has had so much fanfare around him even going
• 39:20
  somewhere. I mean, obviously he plays in LA, but Anheim's not in
• 39:23
  LA, and so it's playing over the Dodgers. I don't think I'm concerned
• 39:29
  there obviously, But even in New York with the bright lights of the Yankees,
• 39:31
  I'm not concerned there either because again I think Aaron Judge would take a
• 39:37
  lot that heat off of him, that what he'll do with that captain's role.
• 39:40
  So it'll be I think it'll be fascinating to see where o'tany falls and
• 39:45
  drafts, because if he's available at the beginning of second rounds, I think
• 39:50
  that's a no brainer. Yeah, I think one more thought on his contract
• 39:54
  here, I'm gonna go out on a limon and say we're gonna see a
• 39:58
  really interesting contract for a time. And it's not about the opt outs on
• 40:00
  things like that. It's an accommodation of two factors. One we started to
• 40:07
  see those deals last year, of these really long deals they go into players
• 40:13
  early to mid forties, really trying to stretch out that annual value to keep
• 40:17
  your tax number down. But I almost see Otani getting one of those interesting
• 40:25
  contracts with i'd say ownership or personal services contract or something else creative that kind
• 40:35
  of locks him in as that face of that franchise for the next twenty thirty
• 40:38
  years. I think that there's some real possibility that teams start getting very creative
• 40:45
  and he somehow breaks the mold of what you expect in traditional contract right.
• 40:51
  I don't know that Otani is trying to set a new annual average value contract
• 40:55
  or something like that. He can easily blow away the largest contracts that have
• 40:59
  been and given out. But I think there's some odd creativity and I can'not
• 41:04
  predict exactly what it is. But when Otani signs like an eighteen year deal
• 41:08
  to play until he's almost fifty, I'm not gonna be surprised. I mean,
• 41:13
  yeah, there'll be some weird investigation that we'll get in to for it,
• 41:16
  but there's gonna be some interesting deal that they work out, or it's
• 41:21
  gonna be some weird contingent deal based on his arm health or something like that
• 41:25
  that you know, it's a ten year deal for you know, four hundred
• 41:30
  and fifty million, and if if he pitches, you know, in two
• 41:35
  years, it becomes a fifteen year deal worth six hundred million. Like,
• 41:38
  there's gonna be some oddity to this deal because teams will be trying to figure
• 41:44
  out how to set themselves apart because at the end of the day, I
• 41:50
  don't have experience in this, so take it for what it's worth. Five
• 41:52
  million versus five hundred and fifty million, I mean, just just chump change
• 41:57
  at that point once you pass like three hundred million, and who's really counting.
• 42:01
  So I think teams are gonna be looking to set themselves apart in creative
• 42:06
  ways. Yeah, I agree. So okay, I mean I'm looking forward
• 42:10
  to the tiny Sweepstakes all winter, so I'm just waiting for it to really
• 42:15
  kick off. That this should be a fun free agent period for that.
• 42:19
  So we'll move on to the second guy in the MLB Trade Rumors list,
• 42:23
  and that is Cody Bellinger, outfielder formerly of the Cubs, who is slated
• 42:29
  by MLB Trade Rumors for twelve years to sixty four, which uh, seems
• 42:34
  a little heavy in the years for me, but we'll see. And we've
• 42:37
  got one vote for the Yankees, two votes for the Giants. Brew Where
• 42:42
  are you sending Cody Bellinger? Yeah, I'm gonna steal your analysis on Otani.
• 42:47
  I'm sitting Bellinger to New York. Okay, I think you actually think
• 42:52
  it's fair. I think you stole most of what I was thinking there of
• 42:57
  just like the outfield that you're talking there, the DH role that he will
• 43:01
  probably spend some time in, like they just have nothing in those points,
• 43:08
  and Bellinger like, he's yeah, he had a rough few years and with
• 43:15
  the Dodgers, but he has played in big market, big market, and
• 43:19
  this is another big market, so I can easily see him playing in that.
• 43:22
  He seems like the kind of player that would thrive in that environment.
• 43:27
  And you know, he has that, I hate to say, a personality
• 43:30
  that would work with New York. Again, this is very deep analysis at
• 43:35
  this point, but I really see him. I think New York is a
• 43:39
  very very likely landing spotform with the Yankees. I do think the Mets can
• 43:45
  actually play in this one. But there's something telling me that it seems like
• 43:47
  the Yankees need Bellinger more and he is actually still relatively young, per se,
• 43:57
  and so I see them being willing to invest those additional dollars, additional
• 44:02
  years into him. So I got Bellinger going to the Yankees. How about
• 44:07
  you. I don't know if you're doing if you're counting all your dollars,
• 44:10
  but you've already spent most of your Yankees dollars on Otani. I mean there's
• 44:15
  a room for both of them in New York. I won't lie that.
• 44:20
  I just said Estefan Florial is penciled into center field for the Yankees and Austin
• 44:25
  Wells is at DH that honestly, both could go to New York. But
• 44:30
  I do think the Yankees walk away with one of them if honestly, like
• 44:35
  I said, why not both, Like they should probably be in on both.
• 44:37
  They need them desperately if they want to be the Yankees. But I've
• 44:43
  got a little bit of like a fun dark course here, and I think
• 44:46
  there's a possibility that d beas make a run at Cody Bellinger. I was
• 44:51
  just looking at their final payroll for twenty twenty three and where it's going for
• 44:55
  twenty twenty four. They've got about twenty ish million dollars to spend already,
• 45:00
  and Cody Bellinger fits their team great. They currently have Jake McCarthy penciled into
• 45:08
  right field, and you know it, Christian Walker is a great first baseman,
• 45:14
  but you know, he's starting to get a little bit old. Who
• 45:16
  knows if he's going to need to be moving to DH and Cody Bellinger can
• 45:22
  help cover that gigantic outfield and the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks have a young core
• 45:27
  that need a I would say, like semi veteran presence, and Cody Bellinger
• 45:31
  fits that bill perfectly. You know, he's been around since twenty seventeen,
• 45:37
  but he's still young enough to be able to like relate to those younger players.
• 45:39
  So I think he brings a nice presence for the Dbacks that I'm going
• 45:45
  to make a very strange dark horse move for Arizona. But now that I
• 45:51
  do think about like the years that MLB trade rumors is getting Cody Bellinger,
• 45:54
  I think that's maybe why the Yankees could be a better player because the Yankees
• 46:00
  could use him forever as they transitioned him to first base and then DH and
• 46:05
  give him that left handed bat. But yeah, dark horse Dbacks. Yeah.
• 46:10
  And I think one thing we haven't been talking about is how much payroll
• 46:14
  room these teams have. The Yankees, starting last year, they their opening
• 46:21
  day payroll was two hundred and seventy seven million. As of this point in
• 46:24
  time, they're projected payroll for twenty twenty four with you know, not counting
• 46:30
  non tenders and all those other things. So just kind of what's projected to
• 46:34
  happen is about two three. So they've got seventy five million dollars worth of
• 46:40
  room just to be where they were now. That would put him over the
• 46:45
  competitive balance tax threshold pretty comfortably. But I think that there there is room
• 46:54
  to spend to spend there. I'm not going to say I don't think there's
• 46:59
  a chain it's in the world to get both of those those names. I
• 47:01
  just think that I think Bellinger is going off of the market before Otani,
• 47:07
  and I think teams like the Yankees and the Dodgers will not sign anybody else
• 47:14
  until Atani is settled. And so we've got Steamer with let me find him
• 47:22
  here in my spreadsheet because the internet's running a little bit slow. We have
• 47:29
  got Cody Bellinger in Steamer, slated for twenty five homers, eighteen stolen bases,
• 47:35
  two fifty six average with roughly high seventies runs mid eighties RBI, I'm
• 47:42
  guessing you might actually take the over on this if he goes to New York,
• 47:45
  right, Brew, Yeah, I think you think you do. Not
• 47:49
  by a ton, but I think you do. And again, I think
• 47:52
  it's to a degree kind of what we have with Otani going to a better
• 47:57
  lineup, and again we just talked about Chicago go in the kind of the
• 48:00
  opening here where they're kind of to a degree up and coming, but I
• 48:05
  think surrounded by a better lineup and more opportunity to score runs. It's it's
• 48:10
  those counting stats that I think are really going to get a boost from Bellinger.
• 48:15
  So yeah, off air, we were both kind of trashed in the
• 48:20
  Steamer projections and now we're taking the overs. So way to stick to our
• 48:25
  guns. Yeah, Well, I will speak a little bit of caution here
• 48:30
  because I'm I'm not totally sold on the Cody Bellinger experience. I don't think
• 48:35
  that watching him all summer, there was an element of luck to what he
• 48:40
  was doing, and you can see that in his increased babbip this year,
• 48:46
  his lower hard hit rate, and obviously what he was doing is trying to
• 48:52
  focus on making contact. He cut his k rate a lot, but with
• 48:55
  that cut down him just punishing the ball more. That he went from a
• 49:02
  hard hit rate of thirty eight percent in twenty twenty two down to thirty one
• 49:07
  percent. That it'll be interesting to see which Cody Bellinger shows up. If
• 49:13
  it's the Cody Bellinger that is swinging more wildly, I'm not sure you're going
• 49:17
  to be getting that two fifty seven average and you're gonna be battling down on
• 49:22
  the two hundreds again, but maybe the homers will be there the way Steamer
• 49:25
  says. So, I I think that if he signs in New York too,
• 49:31
  he will be such a hot commoditie. There's just no way I think
• 49:36
  I leave drafts with Cody Bellinger because I'm just not going to be willing to
• 49:40
  pay that price knowing that kind of push and take that he's got in between,
• 49:49
  you know, hitting for power and hitting for contact and like, I'm
• 49:52
  not sure there's another season like this lined up for Cody Bellinger where he can
• 49:57
  produce. Maybe the shift help them with the Babbitt, But there were a
• 50:00
  lot of like pop ups that he also had fallen and just like weird grounders
• 50:07
  and stuff that happened all season that you can see, like his in field
• 50:09
  five ball rate did not get below ten percent, which is a really terrible
• 50:15
  mark. So there's a lot of kind of like concerning things in his profile
• 50:19
  overall that. Yeah, if the price at the table was the Steamer line
• 50:23
  for Cody Bellinger and he's in New York, I would be in. But
• 50:27
  I know that's not going to be. Yeah, I think even though I
• 50:30
  think he has a potential to outperform that for me, the issue with Mellinger
• 50:35
  is the variability that he could provide right his outcomes is a lot wider than
• 50:43
  a lot of other players will be drafted where he is, and so I
• 50:46
  likely also will just be straying away just because at that point in the draft
• 50:52
  I'm looking for high floors, not high ceilings and low floors. And so
• 50:58
  I think I'm a little more in on Bellinger than you are. I still
• 51:04
  don't expect to own him because I do think that he's going to get some
• 51:07
  helium with his signing. I think we were to look at that he was
• 51:10
  injured for you know, twenty one, twenty two, he finally healthy doing
• 51:15
  things, and I think there's a degree of truth to all that. I
• 51:17
  just think that there's more downside and Cody Bellinger than other guys. They're being
• 51:22
  drafted in a similar spot. Yeah, I think that's fair. Okay,
• 51:25
  So we'll move on to number three, and that is Yoshinobu Yamamoto from Japan
• 51:32
  coming on over from MPB. MLB trade rumors has some slated for nine years,
• 51:37
  two hundred and twenty five million in that range. I honestly think that
• 51:42
  might be a little light in terms of I think maybe fewer years, but
• 51:46
  higher a AAV. And we've got one vote for the Giants, two votes
• 51:52
  for the Yankees on MLB trade rumors, Brew Where are you sending Yamamoto?
• 51:58
  Yeah, this this is a this is a tough one. I'm really split
• 52:04
  between two teams. I'm split between the Giants where they're really there's a need
• 52:10
  for young Moto and then the Rangers. Why the Rangers, I can't tell
• 52:15
  you, it just feels like the piece that they need losing most likely losing
• 52:22
  Jordan Montgomery. It feels like that they have an offense there, they have
• 52:28
  a window, and it feels like they want to bring in that top line
• 52:32
  starting pitcher that's gonna match a going for a repeat. So I think that
• 52:38
  the Rangers are a really interesting play for young Moto. But if you force
• 52:45
  my hand, I think I'm going with the Giants, where there's just a
• 52:47
  much more obvious need and I think there's a lot more payroll room to work
• 52:54
  with there. I think they're payrolls projected to be about sixty million less than
• 53:00
  Texas at this point. Uh so they they definitely have the luxury, uh
• 53:06
  to to chase Yamamoto here. So yeah, I handed the fire. I
• 53:13
  am going with the San Francisco Giants to pull in Yamamoto. But I'm going
• 53:19
  to put in a falling hard there for the Rangers just in case. So
• 53:24
  where where do you see Ylmoto landing? Again? You can't keep picking the
• 53:29
  Yankees, I mean it will be trade rumors is picking the Yankees a lot
• 53:35
  too. But yeah, I did get a kick out of I was like,
• 53:37
  what Rake Rumors literally is spending all all of their their money here with
• 53:45
  with the Yankees. Yeah, I hinted at this earlier. I do think
• 53:51
  Yamamoto is going to the Cubs. So I think that the Cubs have a
• 53:57
  real big need in the rotation that the back and is currently occupied by Javier
• 54:02
  Asad and hoping that Jordan Wicks can keep the magic going and Kyle hendrixon never
• 54:08
  ages and tyone is slated as their number two right now, so that's a
• 54:14
  shaky rotation, and Yamamoto I think can come in and slot in and be
• 54:20
  the number two picture in that rotation, right behind Justin Steele. It's a
• 54:22
  great fit for him, and that allows them to give Ben Brown a little
• 54:27
  more time Hayden Westnowski to west Neski to develop a little bit more. So
• 54:34
  I'm sending Yamamoto to Chicago. And so this also opens our first discussion on
• 54:39
  Yamamoto and where we think will kind of be taking him. Just to give
• 54:45
  you a sense of where he's going in some of that early NFBC data that
• 54:50
  we talked about the other week, he is going in this range. So
• 54:55
  it's pick ninety one is where he's at high of picked fifty five low of
• 55:02
  one p fifteen, which so that means he's hanking pretty steadily towards the back
• 55:07
  end of the top one hundred and especially like the bottom like twenty percentile there.
• 55:14
  The top top one hundred pictures he's going around are Hazus Sosarto, Bobby
• 55:20
  Miller, Justin Ferlander, then Yamamoto, then Justin Steele, Zach Efflin,
• 55:28
  Kyle Bradish, and Joe Ryan so Brew. What do you think about Yamamoto
• 55:35
  in that group and are you taking him higher lower? Which you think?
• 55:40
  Yeah, I think that's actually the point of the giraft where I'm actually really
• 55:44
  interested in a number of pictures and I actually think I'm I'm going to take
• 55:51
  Yamoto before most of that group. He has had just such a run of
• 55:55
  dominance in Japan. It's just been a unrivaled I think in the last five
• 56:04
  years he's not had a r A above two to two, so, you
• 56:07
  know, just just decent. He you know, does strike out more than
• 56:12
  a batter per inning. That might not fully translate to uh to the majors,
• 56:17
  that might be a little bit of tail off in that, but he
• 56:22
  he does bring a lot to the table. He was statistically a better pitcher
• 56:29
  than Kodai Singa when he was coming over, and you know he he's been
• 56:32
  nothing short of fantastic for for the Mets. So I I think, uh,
• 56:39
  there's a really good chance that he he is priced about right, and
• 56:45
  I would be willing to invest in him above a number of those other guys
• 56:49
  there because I think the ceiling is significantly higher than the rest of that group.
• 56:55
  The rest of that group does. Everybody in that group has some wart,
• 57:00
  has something wrong. You've got Verlander with the age. You've got Joe
• 57:02
  Ryan with whatever Joe Ryan decided to do by letting everybody hit home runs this
• 57:07
  last year. You've got guys like Eflyn's just like I don't know what to
• 57:12
  believe in, Right, There's everybody in that group has some type of wart
• 57:16
  that you don't want to play with, and we don't have one on Yamamoto.
• 57:22
  Besides, we haven't seen him, and so I'm willing to take the
• 57:25
  gamble on the I haven't seen him and playing the flag there that I could
• 57:31
  see him going. I think, first of all, I think the helium
• 57:36
  is gonna show up. He's going to go higher. But I think it's
• 57:40
  I can see him going a few rounds earlier than what we're seeing right now.
• 57:45
  Yeah, And I think because people are waiting to see where he goes.
• 57:49
  But he's such a high caliber pitcher. I don't care where he goes.
• 57:52
  That I am on the same boat, that I am taking him way
• 57:57
  earlier than this group. That if that is his price, I'm gonna have
• 58:00
  them lots of places. So let's play a game of moving him up the
• 58:05
  ladder. Then, So Hazer Sarto was at eighty eight. The next picture
• 58:10
  starting pitcher up is actually code Senga would you take? You can just tell
• 58:15
  me if you'd prefer Yamamoto or Senga Yamamoto. Same logan web, Oh easily
• 58:22
  Yamamoto, Yamamoto for me too, Grayson Rodriguez Yamamoto. Same. The next
• 58:29
  one is Max Freed. Oh, give me Max Freed. But that might
• 58:36
  be more about Max Freed than this is about Yamamoto for me. Okay,
• 58:38
  And so that's at sixty eight. So that's about what you were saying,
• 58:44
  I would actually take Yamamoto over Freed. The next one is Uri Perez.
• 58:50
  I'd probably I'd probably take Yamamoto over Perez. Mainly the innings and the likely
• 58:57
  the support run support. I yes, same reason for me ony motto.
• 59:01
  So the next one is this is where I wouldn't take him over Ispike Snell.
• 59:09
  Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's about right, and I will
• 59:14
  We're gonna talk about Snell second here, But yeah, I am not a
• 59:16
  big Blake Snell fan in in fantasy. I think he's actually incredibly fun to
• 59:22
  watch. It's if it's like watching Jason Ireenhausen is a starting pitcher. Sorry
• 59:28
  for making an old school Cardinals reference, but it's like a heart attack every
• 59:30
  time the guy took the mound, but somehow seemed to get out of it.
• 59:32
  That's what happens when you leave the majors on walks. But ye might
• 59:37
  win the cy Young, so that's that's quite the accomplishment. But I this
• 59:45
  the strikeout advantage that Snell gives you is so significant that the risk of a
• 59:54
  few blow ups here and there and things like that is worth the gamble.
• 59:59
  So yeah, I think I takes Snell over Yavamoto just because they're you're locking
• 1:00:04
  in some pretty sick strike out numbers. Yeah, and I'm in the same
• 1:00:07
  boat. It's just a volume game with Blake Snell. He's proven that he
• 1:00:10
  can play the volume game. So that's that's where I would draw the line,
• 1:00:15
  and that's pick sixty one, so we have to be close to that
• 1:00:19
  min pick and I think that is I think he's going to go higher,
• 1:00:22
  but I think this makes good sense for like the tier that I'd be taking
• 1:00:27
  Yamamoto in other play. Other pictures that go in this area are Logan,
• 1:00:30
  Gilbert Scooball, Freddy peralta framber who's gonna drop a lot I think, and
• 1:00:38
  Aeron Nola. So that is more of the tier that I would be taking
• 1:00:42
  Yalvamoto in. Yeah. Absolutely, I think that's about the right the right
• 1:00:45
  spot where he does lay up. Okay, So then we'll move on to
• 1:00:50
  fourth. From the MB trade rumors listening, there is Blake Snell, as
• 1:00:52
  you mentioned, so he is slated for seven years, two hundred million,
• 1:00:57
  which again I think that's light. So the MB trade rumors, that's a
• 1:01:05
  it's a hydra, three headed hydra that we got the Phillies, Red Sox
• 1:01:07
  and Dodgers. So through where are you sending Blake Snell. I'm going to
• 1:01:12
  disagree with everybody or in trade rumors, and I am sending Blake Snell two
• 1:01:15
  queens, uh, sending him to the Mets. I think he's one of
• 1:01:21
  those that I hate to say, Like we just talked about how he's good
• 1:01:24
  for the fantasy world, but this contract is gonna look bad at some point,
• 1:01:29
  uh, for for Blake Snell. At some point, the wheels are
• 1:01:30
  gonna fall off. And you know the you know, we had Steve Cohen
• 1:01:36
  over in New York, tried to make the splash last year, uh and
• 1:01:40
  bring in you know, the top of the line starting pitchers, and that
• 1:01:46
  didn't work out. And I think he's gonna go back. I think he's
• 1:01:51
  gonna miss out on Otani. I think he's gonna gonna miss out on Yamamoto.
• 1:01:57
  I think he's gonna, you know, be wishing he had something else,
• 1:02:00
  and he's gonna want to make a splash. And I think Blake Snell
• 1:02:05
  has kind of that attitude, the big game pitcher that plays in New York.
• 1:02:09
  So I like Lake Snell going to to the Mets. I think that
• 1:02:19
  the price. I think that I actually see that the market's going to be
• 1:02:23
  maybe a little bit softer on Snell than actually the trade rumors is. So
• 1:02:28
  I think he's gonna be a little more affordable than people people realize, just
• 1:02:30
  because folks are gonna shy away from his paying for his career year. So
• 1:02:38
  I got Lake Snell to the Mets. How about you? I think I'm
• 1:02:44
  gonna send him to the Giants. I think that the Giants will probably strike
• 1:02:47
  out on those other three guys, and so they're going to have the cash
• 1:02:51
  to burn here and after Logan Web, their rotation currently is DeSclafani, Ross
• 1:02:57
  Stripling, Kyle Harrison, and Keaton Win with Alex Cobbs starting in the iel
• 1:03:01
  with a hip injury. So he would really fill out that rotation in San
• 1:03:06
  Francisco, and they've got the money to burn. I think this is a
• 1:03:09
  great landing spot for him, and honestly New York would be too. Those
• 1:03:13
  are both great pictures parks, And I will say that for pictures just in
• 1:03:19
  general, as a free agent move, I'm a lot less concerned about because
• 1:03:22
  pictures obviously like they're going to Colorado or Cincinnati. I would be concerned if
• 1:03:28
  they're going to a really crazy, offensive environment. But pictures dictate their own
• 1:03:35
  game more so than batters, and so I think it's a lot easier for
• 1:03:38
  pictures to settle in as well as like they have their set routines starting pictures
• 1:03:44
  do so like they stick to that and aren't quite I think as miffed by
• 1:03:49
  the day in, day out sort of stuff the way batters are. So
• 1:03:52
  I'm I would just honestly almost pencil Blake snell In for almost like a Marcel
• 1:03:58
  projection of you know, average his last three years, and I think that's
• 1:04:01
  what you're gonna get from him, you know, a little bit higher whip
• 1:04:03
  than you would like from the Walks, but wins K's innings e r A
• 1:04:10
  that I think he's going to be just the same sort of picture he's been
• 1:04:14
  the past couple of years. You know. Yeah, I think the only
• 1:04:16
  point I'll slightly disagree with you there is the lineup that he they go into.
• 1:04:23
  So from a starting pitcher perspective, if you're going to one of those
• 1:04:26
  big market teams, it's always in the game. If you're going to the
• 1:04:28
  Dodgers, you're going to the Yankees, you're going somewhere Houston. That from
• 1:04:33
  a five by five perspective, you have a chance to walk into a few
• 1:04:38
  more wins. That's always gonna be a plus for somebody like like like Snell,
• 1:04:44
  So especially pitchers coming from teams that are struggling. That's really where their
• 1:04:48
  free agency boost is going to come from. That or they're going to sign
• 1:04:53
  in like the Al Central and just be thrilled to be pitching against the Royals.
• 1:04:57
  So yeah, yeah, I think, I think, yeah, there's
• 1:05:00
  not much. I don't see Snell's value changing substantially from anywhere he goes unless
• 1:05:05
  I think the big if is if there's a dark horse that jumps out there
• 1:05:10
  that wants Snell to be their front of the rotation and say, hey,
• 1:05:14
  here comes the Pirates with Blake Snell, and I'm like, okay, hold
• 1:05:16
  off, there's something something smells fishy. I'll believe that and I see it.
• 1:05:21
  Yeah, I'm not predict I'm going bold predictions today, but I am
• 1:05:26
  not. That's bold, okay. And the fifth guy in the MB trade
• 1:05:30
  rumors list another picture. We got Aaron Nola who had just mentioned at six
• 1:05:34
  years, one hundred and fifty million, which again I feel is light.
• 1:05:38
  But I mean I do the grocery shopping and like I'm used to like seeing
• 1:05:44
  all these prices double of late, you know that I maybe that's I'm just
• 1:05:46
  inflating all these salaries but six one fifty feels light because I think lots of
• 1:05:53
  people are going to be claiming for Aaron Nola services. He's a pretty steady
• 1:05:59
  picture that you can throw out there and et innings, but at a pretty
• 1:06:01
  high caliber. All all the panel and will be trade rumors has him going
• 1:06:06
  to the Cardinals. I'll admit I also have him going to the Cardinals.
• 1:06:11
  Brew are you sending to Aaron Nola to Saint Louis as well? Well,
• 1:06:15
  I'll go to Saint Louis together, I say, Aaron Nola to Saint Louis.
• 1:06:18
  I don't think there is a more Saint Louis pitcher than Aaron Nola.
• 1:06:24
  There is a close second, I will admit, and we will talk about
• 1:06:27
  him later there. But Aaron Nola, everything about him reaches the type of
• 1:06:33
  pitcher that the Cardinals want. Uh, somebody that's gonna pitch, that's gonna
• 1:06:36
  be healthy, pitch deep into games. You know, they're never they're not
• 1:06:42
  been the teams that are looking for the high, high speed arms. It's
• 1:06:47
  really gonna blow everybody away. They they tend to want to get the ground
• 1:06:51
  ball guys that are gonna uh force the defense to play. So I see
• 1:06:57
  Nola fitting into Saint lewis. The only thing I think holding his him back
• 1:07:03
  a little bit is he he has a lot more innings on that arm than
• 1:07:09
  his age, and so I think that's part of what's going into those contract
• 1:07:13
  projections, is that. And I'm sure you already know, but you know
• 1:07:17
  Aaron Nola's age off the top of your head. Well, I am looking
• 1:07:21
  right off at RYA's fan grafts page right now. So that survey of one
• 1:07:27
  was a failed attempt. You were the kid that wrote on your hand at
• 1:07:30
  school. But yet Nola's thirty years old, and you know, I think
• 1:07:36
  a lot of folks feel that he is thirty two thirty three just based on
• 1:07:42
  the number of innings on his arm. He has a career total already of
• 1:07:46
  fourteen hundred innings, and you know he was in the majors at twenty two,
• 1:07:51
  and he already has three seasons over two hundred innings, five seasons over
• 1:07:58
  one hundred and eighty, So he's got some decent mileage on that arm.
• 1:08:03
  But I still do like Nola, and I might be a Homer pick for
• 1:08:08
  me, but I like Nolan, say Louis, Yeah, I do too,
• 1:08:12
  And I don't know if I'm actually this is one guy where like the
• 1:08:15
  because he is just such a workhorse and makes his starts like it makes him
• 1:08:20
  a nice fantasy asset for that. I mean, this year is a little
• 1:08:25
  bit wobbly. I have him in a couple of leagues and it wasn't the
• 1:08:29
  greatest getting that four four six year out of him, but at least you
• 1:08:31
  could know he was making his starts. And it's a little bit like Snell
• 1:08:36
  in that in that sense, but you know, a little bit fewer case
• 1:08:41
  and just the ratios are not quite as sterling that he makes his his starts.
• 1:08:45
  And I think it's because Nola has pretty good mechanics and he doesn't really
• 1:08:50
  have I can't think of any like significant well obviously he hasn't had significant injuries,
• 1:08:57
  but even like the little things that pop up up, you know,
• 1:09:00
  he he seems to get out there and make his starts. So Nola's Steamer
• 1:09:04
  line is currently slated at a three seventy one e RA with a nine point
• 1:09:12
  four K nine over one hundred and ninety eight innings, So like obviously they're
• 1:09:17
  going to project him for the same I gotta scroll down a little bit for
• 1:09:20
  the whip a one to fifteen whip. Honestly, that's a I that's pret
• 1:09:26
  spot on for Yeah, I feel like I feel like they're right on.
• 1:09:30
  If Nola had some tough luck this last year, he he's better than he
• 1:09:34
  played. Uh yeah, I was looking at the line. I'm like,
• 1:09:40
  I would not be shocked at all to see that be his exact line.
• 1:09:43
  And I am not a big fan of Steamer projections often, but I think
• 1:09:47
  they got this one right. I think so too, because he is a
• 1:09:50
  little bit of like again like a Marcel guy, where you just kind of
• 1:09:54
  pencil in the average of the past few years and said it forget it so
• 1:09:58
  well, it's funny that you go back all the uh to twenty seventeen and
• 1:10:02
  twenty seventeen, he pitched one hundred and sixty eight innings since then two twelve
• 1:10:06
  two O two twenty twenty seasons. So throw that one out one eighty two
• 1:10:11
  O five one three is he has been the model of consistency for six years
• 1:10:17
  seven if you if you want to throw that one sixty eight in and when
• 1:10:21
  he was just a twenty four year old, So like he doesn't miss time,
• 1:10:26
  he doesn't he doesn't and now he's gonna, you know, have time
• 1:10:30
  of John next year because we talked about it. Probably I feel like this
• 1:10:34
  is like an Anthony Rindn segment here, where it's like, the guy's been
• 1:10:39
  consistent for six years, what could possibly go wrong? Then you go to
• 1:10:43
  Anaheim? So yeah, I thinkfully we don't have to worry about him going
• 1:10:46
  to Anheim, but yeah, is going there? No, just Ron Washington.
• 1:10:54
  But yeah, I think because that I would be taking Nola right in
• 1:10:57
  the range that we just discussed there with the Yamamoto in Snell, So I
• 1:11:01
  think he's right in that clumping. If then I'd probably go, like if
• 1:11:05
  I had to pick between the three of them, even knowing, like if
• 1:11:11
  I had to do a draft tomorrow and not know where these guys would go,
• 1:11:15
  I think I would probably go Snell, Nola, Yamamoto in that order.
• 1:11:17
  And they're going to be pretty tight for me, like in drafts,
• 1:11:21
  what about you? Yeah, Yeah, I think that's the right order.
• 1:11:27
  I really do. I I prefer not to own Snell, to be frank,
• 1:11:31
  Yeah, I'd prefer to get my strikeouts elsewhere. But if I haven't,
• 1:11:35
  YE kind of have to take him there just because of that upside.
• 1:11:39
  So I think you're right on, right on point with those three. Okay,
• 1:11:43
  all right, We've got another picture sixth on the MLB Trade Rumors list,
• 1:11:46
  and that is Jordan Montgomery, lefty of the World Series winning Rangers.
• 1:11:54
  And I actually think that this contract is pretty spot on. Six years,
• 1:11:57
  one hundred and fifty million. I think that's right where Jordan Montgomery's range will
• 1:12:00
  be. We've got three different answers here from Vimobe Trade rumor panel, and
• 1:12:05
  that is we got one Rangers, one Mets, one Giants. So lots
• 1:12:11
  of these teams that we keep mentioning that kind of need pitching, and they're
• 1:12:14
  for shuffling them between each other. Brew where do you think Jordan Montgomery has
• 1:12:17
  the best chance of landing? Well, I've I've already used the Giants,
• 1:12:23
  the Mets, and I have a clause of the Rangers. But no,
• 1:12:27
  I haven't sent anybody to San Francisco yet. Oh No, I sent Young
• 1:12:31
  Moto officially to San Francisco with a call out to tell is that what you're
• 1:12:35
  going to go? I thought you were going to Texas, but I'll change
• 1:12:39
  it was it was a ninety it was a ninety ten. It was I
• 1:12:44
  hedged my pets, I'm sending Jordan Montgomery to Chicago. I think, No,
• 1:12:54
  there's only one team in Chicago right now on this discussion, So yeah,
• 1:13:00
  I see him being the kind of player that the Cubs are looking to
• 1:13:06
  bring in if they're looking to bring in a number of players to really round
• 1:13:11
  out that roster. He really put himself on display with the playoffs to show
• 1:13:16
  he can be a workhorse, and I think the Cubs need to go find
• 1:13:20
  pitching and I personally think they're going to strike out at the top end of
• 1:13:25
  the market and they're going to go play in that middle tier. So I
• 1:13:29
  think Jordan Montgomery has a good chance of ending up in Chicago, but he
• 1:13:33
  is going to have a very robust market. And so I actually think even
• 1:13:38
  though the six years, one hundred and fifty million feels about right for the
• 1:13:42
  value, I think he's one of those guys that could get surprised us with
• 1:13:46
  a long slightly higher av contract just because he's got so many suitors that are
• 1:13:55
  coming after him. So what about you. I've got him going to the
• 1:13:59
  Chicago clubs to be very clear about where he's going here, But where are
• 1:14:03
  you putting Montgomery? Yeah? I do agree with that because I think at
• 1:14:08
  this price point too, that he fits a lot of teams, and I'm
• 1:14:12
  sending him back to Saint Louis. I'm sending him to Saint Louis with nonall
• 1:14:15
  because I think there's a good chance that, you know, once the Cardinals
• 1:14:20
  pull the trigger on bringing in Nola and already losing that comp pick or whatever.
• 1:14:29
  I don't remember the exact mechanics of it right now, but why not
• 1:14:32
  go back to the well and get another guy that had a compick attached to
• 1:14:39
  him that they need him so bad? Because the rotation right now is Miles
• 1:14:45
  Nicholas Michaelis and four relievers, you know, between Steven Matt's, Zach Thompson,
• 1:14:53
  Dakota Hudson, Matthew lebertor that the Cardinals need an entire rotation and the
• 1:15:00
  this is the chance of an off season to do it. You've seen Jordan
• 1:15:03
  Montgomery Saint Louis. He performed well there and I think they welcome home back.
• 1:15:09
  So I think it makes a lot of sense for the Cardinals to be
• 1:15:14
  aggressive here at this tier of the free agent market because the Cubs, I
• 1:15:18
  think, are going to walk away with one of these guys, you know
• 1:15:21
  you sent Montgomery there, I sent Amamoto there. It will be trade rumors
• 1:15:26
  hasn't sent anybody there, but they obviously curated this list before council went to
• 1:15:30
  Chicago. The Cubs are going to be big players, and if the Cardinals
• 1:15:33
  want to hang with them, they're going to need a starting rotation, you
• 1:15:36
  know, imagine that. So with that though, I do think this is
• 1:15:43
  one where Jordan Montgomery I don't get this Steamer projection. He's got an increased
• 1:15:48
  K nine. He's been at seven to nine the past two years. They're
• 1:15:53
  increasing it to eight to two. And his era for the past two years
• 1:15:58
  has been three four, eight and three point two. The Steamer has him
• 1:16:02
  in for a three nine three, And I don't know if that's a little
• 1:16:05
  bit of like shading for where he could go, because obviously Texas was an
• 1:16:11
  okay neutral park. Saint Louis is a picture friendly park. But he also
• 1:16:16
  put up a three eighty three ar ray in the Bronx in twenty twenty one.
• 1:16:20
  So I don't see Jordan Montgomery. I would be penciling him for like
• 1:16:25
  a three five, And I think that if people are buying him at a
• 1:16:30
  three to nine ar Ra. The k's are lower than other people. But
• 1:16:34
  this is another guy who's been a workhorse for three straight years. He's made
• 1:16:39
  thirty starts every year. He is a guy who hasn't had kind of small
• 1:16:44
  injuries. He makes his starts. It's a great volume play. Yeah,
• 1:16:48
  and really, once mont Gummery got out of New York, which I'm not
• 1:16:53
  surprised they don't use analytics, it seems, is over to New York.
• 1:16:55
  So it seems like there's a number of guys that once they left left the
• 1:17:00
  Yankees from a pitching perspective, they kind of figured things out. So I
• 1:17:02
  definitely think that there's some upside here. I think you have to cap your
• 1:17:09
  expectations on Montgomery, and I do think he's one of those guys that's gonna
• 1:17:13
  get a lot of helium and drafts coming off of the World Series, coming
• 1:17:16
  off of a big free agent contract, going to a big market, Like
• 1:17:18
  I can see Montgomery shooting up draft boards more than I'm wanting. I see
• 1:17:25
  him a good mid rotation piece and not a frontline starter, but hey,
• 1:17:32
  he's gonna he's gonna cash in very, very handsomely this offseason. Yeah,
• 1:17:39
  I agree, and let me, look at where he's going right now in
• 1:17:42
  NFBC drafts, I just close that tab for some weird reason, you know,
• 1:17:48
  you think that kept that going, But he is I don't know.
• 1:17:53
  I think you might be buying some Jordan Montgomery shrifes because he's going real late.
• 1:17:57
  He's one fifty eight with a men of one nineteen high of two hundred.
• 1:18:01
  But other pictures that are going in this range currently are Shane Bieber,
• 1:18:12
  We've got Christian Xavier, Michael King, Mitch Keller was a Barrios. So
• 1:18:23
  now that's that's about the right tier for Jordan Montgomery. So I mean there's
• 1:18:27
  probably two of those guys I might take before Montgomery if you I wouldn't exactly
• 1:18:30
  if same feels it feels about right for him, Okay, yeah, but
• 1:18:34
  that's still a fair price one hundred and fifty eighth. So yeah, I
• 1:18:40
  think there's there's a lot of interesting pictures in like the mid rounds as we're
• 1:18:45
  projecting so far going into next year. Yeah, and so I think he'll
• 1:18:49
  be right in that mix, and I think he will probably pick up maybe
• 1:18:53
  a little bit of helium. But I don't there's gonna be a lot of
• 1:18:56
  people that will still prefer Shane Bieber to him. And you know, even
• 1:19:00
  a front of Shane Bieber, you just got Gavin Williams and Chris Bassett.
• 1:19:04
  So that's I think that's a fair spot for Jordan Montgomery. And yeah,
• 1:19:09
  if I if it lines up, I would be taken there. So let's
• 1:19:14
  get into the seventh player on the MLB trade rumors list, and that is
• 1:19:17
  Matt Chapman, third baseman, formerly of the Blue Jays, penciled in for
• 1:19:23
  six years, one hundred and fifty million. I'm okay with that price again
• 1:19:26
  too, So I think maybe I'm just higher on the upper level guys and
• 1:19:30
  will be trade rumors a little bit that their panel, they've got three different
• 1:19:33
  teams again, Giants, Phillies, Cubs, Brew. I think this one's
• 1:19:39
  a little bit of a wild card. Where do you think Matt Chapman is
• 1:19:43
  landing in your book? Yeah, I'm personally gonna take the under on that
• 1:19:46
  contract just to think. So, okay, I think that teams are recognized
• 1:19:50
  that Chapman isn't the hitter that they want him to be. I think you're
• 1:19:57
  buying Matt Chapman for the defense and a loud stick every so often versus really
• 1:20:03
  the potential all start third basement that folks want Matt Chapman to be. Uh.
• 1:20:08
  That said, I am going to I am gonna go with one of
• 1:20:11
  those teams, and I am going to send Matt Chapman to San Francisco.
• 1:20:15
  I think he fits that profile of that team. He they they need defense
• 1:20:24
  badly. That's how that team is gonna win that park with good pitching and
• 1:20:27
  good defense. Right now, they have JD. Davis Pennsylvan at third base
• 1:20:31
  there And don't get me wrong, J D. Davis has has a value,
• 1:20:36
  but it's not starting third basement for the San Francisco Giants. And so
• 1:20:42
  I I think that he has a really good chance to to fit into that
• 1:20:45
  lineup bring a lot of values to them. Uh and a lot of the
• 1:20:48
  other locations that I see him going. I don't think they they really need
• 1:20:55
  him. You list off like the Phillies and Alec Bohomes got great potent,
• 1:21:00
  so there, I don't see why the Phillies would be investing in Chapman.
• 1:21:04
  You got the Cubs and you've got options there like Morell and things like that,
• 1:21:10
  which you know, maybe not locked in. There's other opportunities to moving
• 1:21:13
  around. I just don't see as much need in a number of those third
• 1:21:17
  base markets than what the Giants. The fit just feels too much, too
• 1:21:23
  right to me. So I like Matt Chapman going to the Giants. How
• 1:21:26
  about you? Where do you got Chatman going? I'm a little bit torn
• 1:21:32
  because I do think he is a good fit on the Giants, But I
• 1:21:36
  think some of the reasons that you hesitated on Chapman and brought up or why,
• 1:21:43
  maybe I think they might want to spend their money elsewhere. So I
• 1:21:49
  think I'm actually I think Chapman might go back to the Blue Jays, So
• 1:21:54
  I was this also might be somebody who takes the qualifying off for like,
• 1:22:00
  I know, it's a lot of money to leave on the table, but
• 1:22:02
  he could use a bigger season to walk into free agency with than he put
• 1:22:09
  up this past year. And I don't know if he really believes in himself
• 1:22:13
  he would be I think smart to do that. And he put up only
• 1:22:19
  a one ten WORC plus, but he hasn't put up anything higher than a
• 1:22:24
  one to eight team since twenty nineteen when he put up that one twenty five,
• 1:22:28
  So maybe he doesn't have anything in the tank to increase that offensive value
• 1:22:32
  because the defense will always be there. But yeah, I think I'm going
• 1:22:36
  to put him back in Toronto because Toronto would have to go with Cavin Bigio
• 1:22:41
  otherwise, and it's not a very robust third base market. If the Blue
• 1:22:45
  Jays want to be getting back to the playoffs and contending for a championship next
• 1:22:48
  year, they kind of need Chapman. Yeah, I think that's fair.
• 1:22:55
  I think as you look at places where he could go or stay, I
• 1:22:58
  think that Toronto has a lot to be said for him. They know what
• 1:23:02
  he is, who he is, and like I said, if I'm taking
• 1:23:04
  the under, especially a team that already knows what he is, I think
• 1:23:09
  he goes there. I think you bring up a really interesting point though about
• 1:23:12
  the qualifying offer for Chapman. Like I said, I think that this is
• 1:23:15
  probably the time for him to to get that big contract because he's he seems
• 1:23:21
  to have a few up and down seasons. He had made enough noise this
• 1:23:25
  year that I think he locks in some long term earnings that he definitely needs
• 1:23:33
  to lock ends. So I think it's definitely a little risk for him if
• 1:23:36
  he tries to, you know, take that qualifying offer, though it's got
• 1:23:42
  to be tempting to take just twenty million for one year and come back and
• 1:23:47
  try again next year. Yeah, and Chapman is going real late in drafts
• 1:23:53
  because of not knowing where he's going to end up, and honestly, he's
• 1:23:56
  just not been a great fantasy player for a couple of years. So he's
• 1:23:59
  currently two hundred and sixtieth off the board. Here's some other bats that are
• 1:24:03
  going around him. We got Brandon Low I think nor is that the Lao,
• 1:24:09
  Brandon Lau, Brandon Lau yep and Jordan Lawler, Chris Bryant, Matt
• 1:24:15
  Chapman, Jose oh Brayu, Jake Fraley's in this range, Nelson Alaskaz,
• 1:24:20
  Tyler O'Neil, so lots of That's a real grab bag of bats down there.
• 1:24:27
  And I've never really been a big Chapman fan just because of the low
• 1:24:30
  batting average in the case, that's not my cup of teeth that I just
• 1:24:34
  don't like having that batting average driving down my entire Rodo value. And even
• 1:24:42
  in this range, I probably, I mean I would be taking Lawler and
• 1:24:46
  Velaskaz and trying to find a little bit more upside than Chapman down here that
• 1:24:50
  I would have to be pretty desperate for a third baseman or ci to be
• 1:24:56
  taking Chapman in this range. He's just not quite ever been my But I
• 1:25:00
  know you've been a real Matt Chapman fanatic in the past. So brew do
• 1:25:05
  you do you think he's got more in the tank here? Yeah. When
• 1:25:10
  he first was coming up with Oakland, I was I was big on Chapman,
• 1:25:14
  and I really have soured over the last few years. It seems like
• 1:25:18
  his approach just isn't what it needs to be. A little too much ground
• 1:25:25
  ball approach and a little too a little too aggressive, and so to your
• 1:25:30
  point, he does really hamper you from an average perspective. So I am
• 1:25:36
  generally staying away from Matt Chapman. I'll take him as a flyer. I
• 1:25:41
  hope he gets hot, use him for a month, and let him go.
• 1:25:45
  That's really what where I see the potential value for Matt Chapman, So
• 1:25:50
  generally sticking away, and especially in that range of the other guys you have,
• 1:25:54
  there's a number of other guys there that I think I would rather.
• 1:25:57
  I feel that there's a little more stability. Then once you get with Chapmin.
• 1:26:01
  Yeah, maybe best ball. Best Ball might be one of the few
• 1:26:04
  spots where I actually have some interest in Chappin. That would make sense.
• 1:26:10
  Yeah, and so that, Yeah, I guess we'll see where he lands.
• 1:26:15
  Also score sheet leagues, Like I guess if you have a score sheet
• 1:26:18
  league where you actually get that defensive value, Chatman actually boosts a little bit,
• 1:26:25
  but in a typical Roto leagues kind of black. All right, we
• 1:26:30
  will move on to our next guy that's eighth on the list, Josh Hater
• 1:26:34
  slated for six years, one hundred and ten million, which is really rich.
• 1:26:40
  We will see if that comes through for a reliever. All everyone on
• 1:26:44
  the MLB Trade Rumors panel has him going to the Rangers. Brew What do
• 1:26:47
  you think? Are you sending him to Texas as well? I don't want
• 1:26:53
  to. It almost makes too much sense, and so I am going to
• 1:27:00
  not send him to Texas, even though it seems like it makes a lot
• 1:27:04
  of sense. And I'm gonna go, I'm gonna take a flyer here and
• 1:27:09
  I'm gonna send him to Boston. Boston had I'd say one of the about
• 1:27:15
  the tenth worst bullpen ear a last year. I think Kindley Jansen is on
• 1:27:19
  his last legs as as a closer, and I think Boston's gonna miss out
• 1:27:28
  on the top tier of of starters, uh, some of the big name
• 1:27:31
  hitters, and I think they're gonna want to make a splash, and their
• 1:27:34
  bullpen has really been begging for something, uh, somebody like Hater that can
• 1:27:40
  really come in and make a difference. So I think there's a number of
• 1:27:45
  teams that need him. The interesting part about him is the dollar amount.
• 1:27:50
  I think a team like the Orioles would be great for for Hater. I
• 1:27:56
  think team like the Marlins would be great with with Hater. You know,
• 1:28:01
  even we just talk about the Twins, like another potential spot that they could
• 1:28:08
  they could use him, But I just don't see those teams opening the pocketbook,
• 1:28:12
  and so I think Boston. I do think Texas are are really the
• 1:28:17
  likely lady spots because there's just not gonna be that many teams that are willing
• 1:28:24
  to invest in the Hater where they need to. I think there's a good
• 1:28:28
  chance there's a one or two team bidding war here, somebody bidding against themselves
• 1:28:31
  for just Hater. So I mean, I think it'll be a real bidding
• 1:28:36
  war because I think there are. I mean, there's more teams that you
• 1:28:40
  didn't even list that I think could be in the Hayters switchstakes. And I
• 1:28:45
  think like you could see Houston in there, I mean in Detroit. If
• 1:28:49
  Detroit wants to actually make a run for it, Detroit could be in there.
• 1:28:55
  I do think Baltimore is a sneaky choice with Bautista down, I think
• 1:29:00
  that you could see the Cubs in this bidding war, that the Cubs have
• 1:29:06
  Al's laid back there. But I mean, Hater would really cement everything there
• 1:29:13
  the Dodgers, that the Dodgers really whiff on everything else. They might come
• 1:29:16
  here and see what Hater's asking price is. The Phillies. I could see
• 1:29:23
  the Phillies in on this if they give up on Kimbrol and the Giants too.
• 1:29:29
  But after all listing all those teams, I'm gonna go with the consensus
• 1:29:32
  the Rangers that it's too obvious that if they've got the extra boost and revenue
• 1:29:41
  from the World Series, they've got a terrible back at the end of the
• 1:29:44
  bullpen, It's it's a really nice match. Yeah, it does make a
• 1:29:48
  lot sence on paper. I've just been stubborn and trying to go against the
• 1:29:51
  grain with this one because it just felt too obvious to me. So but
• 1:29:57
  yeah, I think there's makes a lot of sense, and really, at
• 1:30:00
  the end of the day, I think wherever Hater goes, he's still one
• 1:30:02
  of the top three relievers closers in the fantasy game. You know. The
• 1:30:10
  only thing I think that could be interesting is that if he goes somewhere that's
• 1:30:14
  willing to want us to stretch him out a little bit and goes for some
• 1:30:16
  multi inning saves, that could get interesting because he has the skill set for
• 1:30:25
  that. But it seems like he historically has struggled in those situations, so
• 1:30:30
  I don't know how you predict that, but I think that he's still is
• 1:30:35
  going to be one of the top relievers in the game. Yeah, I
• 1:30:40
  agree, And that's where he's going in the NBC data, which I should
• 1:30:43
  have mentioned this earlier before we even started using it, but it's up to
• 1:30:45
  eighteen drafts now, so it's starting to get like to the point where the
• 1:30:48
  averages are a little more steady, and he's currently going as the third closer
• 1:30:54
  off the board. It is Devin Williams, Emmanuel Casse, Josh Hader,
• 1:31:00
  Edwin Diaz, Camillo Duval all going within ten picks of each other right now
• 1:31:04
  in the average. And so yeah, I think it's going to be a
• 1:31:10
  little bit of like everyone's going to have their preference in rankings. But do
• 1:31:15
  you remember all the ones I listed that I can give you my those five
• 1:31:20
  for me in order and then you can try to it. Oh, you're
• 1:31:24
  gonna have to listen them again. Okay, I followed all of them.
• 1:31:28
  So because I cannot find for life me the ADP on my on my computer,
• 1:31:34
  I'm having issues. So the way that I would rank them is Edwin
• 1:31:41
  Diaz first, then Devin Williams second, Josh Hader third, and honestly,
• 1:31:45
  wherever he goes, I don't think he's moving up or down from third for
• 1:31:48
  me. I mean, obviously if he's going to like Colorado, but I
• 1:31:53
  mean we're we can roll that out. So Josh Tater third, Emmanuel class
• 1:31:59
  A fourth, and then Camillo Davall fifth for me. Yes, so I
• 1:32:04
  could. I didn't hear you say Devall, that's the one I was missing.
• 1:32:08
  The the the difference I have here is just switching your top two.
• 1:32:13
  I got Devin Williams over Edwin Diaz, just because of the injury coming back.
• 1:32:18
  There's just a little of that that I'm not quite bought into. But
• 1:32:25
  otherwise I think those top three are pretty much the top three. And then
• 1:32:30
  there's another group there with Clays, let's say Dovall Romano over in Toronto.
• 1:32:36
  I think there's another group there the three or four guys, and then it
• 1:32:42
  starts to really really come off on the back end at that point as far
• 1:32:45
  as who you're really investing with, there's just risk that you start to see
• 1:32:51
  of guys that might have the job. But I got right Ryan Helsley.
• 1:32:56
  It's like he's got the job. He could be dominant, but is he
• 1:32:59
  going to make it past like five games for his arm blows out? So
• 1:33:04
  the closure market gets real thin in the fantasy world, real fast. Yep,
• 1:33:09
  I agree. So we will move on to our ninth guy from the
• 1:33:14
  MLB Trade reverse list, and that is Sonny Gray picture formerly of the Reds
• 1:33:17
  slated for four years ninety million, which sounds about right again, Split panel,
• 1:33:23
  We've got lots of random teams here from MLB trade rumers. We got
• 1:33:27
  Braves, a Dodgers, a Tigers, so brew the resident Sonny Gray fanboy.
• 1:33:33
  Where are you sending your boy Sonny Oh oh. I love Sonny Gray,
• 1:33:38
  have for years Sonny Grayson almost all of my teams and will continue to
• 1:33:44
  be. And I would like you just to repeat everything you said about Jordan
• 1:33:47
  Montgomery a few guys ago and just insert Sonny Gray because I see him going
• 1:33:55
  to Saint Louis. I think that he is matching with Aaron Nola in Saint
• 1:33:59
  Louis, that they have to get at least two top end pitchers. They're
• 1:34:05
  not gonna play at the very top end with I don't. I don't think
• 1:34:10
  they're gonna play in the Snell market. I don't think they're gonna I think
• 1:34:13
  they're gonna try to play in the motive market. I just don't think they're
• 1:34:16
  gonna be able to reel that in. But Sonny Gray also kind of reads
• 1:34:24
  to me very much as a Cardinals pitcher. I wish you could have partner
• 1:34:29
  to Sunny Gray with Yadi Molina that that that combination just would have probably been
• 1:34:32
  too much for me to handle. But I do think Sonny Gray, he
• 1:34:40
  is gonna be a more affordable option. He's gonna have a little bit shorter
• 1:34:44
  contract at at his point in his career. But I think that he's gonna
• 1:34:49
  be one of those that jumps the market and signs early and for all.
• 1:34:55
  As you look at all these teams that are being predicted, I think that's
• 1:35:00
  one of the interesting themes, is like we're somebody predicting the Dodgers. The
• 1:35:02
  Dodgers are not going to jump earlier for Sonny Gray, you know, predicting
• 1:35:08
  anything him to go to Uh, He's never He's not going back to New
• 1:35:11
  York. There's just no question exactly about that. The Mets are going to
• 1:35:15
  jump early for him. I don't see the Phillies jumping early, you know.
• 1:35:20
  I don't see the clubs jumping early now that the Braves brought back Charlie
• 1:35:25
  Morton, I don't see them in necessarily on on Sonny Gray. So I
• 1:35:29
  think the stars are aligning here for Sonny Gray to go to Saint Louis.
• 1:35:33
  I did see one of the beat writers, Katie wu for I recall,
• 1:35:39
  said that she saw, based on her conversations, as a seventy percent likelihood
• 1:35:43
  that Sonny Gray ends up in Saint Louis. And that is a for a
• 1:35:46
  beat writer, that is a that is a high number. So again I
• 1:35:51
  will say it one last time, Sonny Gray official fan club member. Try
• 1:35:56
  to remember he isn't being Saint Louis. Okay, inside information there. You
• 1:36:00
  hear it here first from Brew from Katie Woo, I think, yeah,
• 1:36:06
  I think that if the Cardinals don't get like the Nolan Montgomery that this is
• 1:36:14
  a great option too. So I do think that the Cardinals will be in
• 1:36:18
  play, and I'm surprised that I will be trade rumors didn't have him going
• 1:36:24
  there at all, but I'm going to go with another team, and that's
• 1:36:28
  I'm going to go with the Red Sox here that I think this is where
• 1:36:32
  they can play a little bit, and it just really solidifies the rotation in
• 1:36:38
  Boston that they've always the past couple of years, they've been struggling with Chris
• 1:36:44
  Sale being hurt, and then you just kind of have like these weird swing
• 1:36:46
  dudes between Paveta, Crawford and Hawk trying to piece together a bunch of innings.
• 1:36:53
  And I noticed this throughout the summer as I would do my waiver wire
• 1:36:57
  pieces, that the Red Sox had nothing in the miners to help those guys
• 1:37:01
  out, and so they just need some arms to provide innings and Gray is
• 1:37:06
  a great option for that. At this price point, he should be able
• 1:37:11
  to give them plenty of starts, putty an innings and has pitched in the
• 1:37:15
  Al East. But hopefully he doesn't hate Boston as much as he does the
• 1:37:18
  Bronx, so I'm going to send him there. But because of that,
• 1:37:24
  I mean, if he does end up in Boston, that's one place where
• 1:37:28
  I don't want pitchers to be going, And so if that does happen,
• 1:37:31
  I think I would be out on Sunny Gray. But if he ends up
• 1:37:34
  somewhere like Saint Louis, I think he's probably going to pitch pretty much again.
• 1:37:40
  Right to let me pull up the Steamer I was looking at early.
• 1:37:44
  I think it was pretty much like right where you would not peg him for.
• 1:37:47
  Actually, Steamer hates Sonny Gray. They have him pegged for a three
• 1:37:51
  eighty three eater er. The K nine is right where he's been the past
• 1:37:57
  couple years. But his era this the past couple of years has been three
• 1:38:01
  h eight and two seventy nine. Those have come with phipps of three four
• 1:38:06
  and two eighty three, with xcras of three six seven and three six nine.
• 1:38:12
  So maybe this is a Boston projection from Steamer, but at three eighty
• 1:38:18
  three e ray for Sunny Gray would be quite high compared to where he's been
• 1:38:25
  the past couple of years. Brew do you think he can outrun that Steamer
• 1:38:30
  projection? And what do you think about Sonny Gray just kind of overall as
• 1:38:35
  he moves again? Yeah, I think that if you know my answer?
• 1:38:43
  Yeah, I know I didn't. I probably I could like almost just say
• 1:38:46
  for you you can just do this whole segment yourself if you want. I
• 1:38:49
  think Sonny Gray he has the profile that consistently outperforms the the projections he's you
• 1:39:00
  know, if it's you know it, I hate to say it's laughable.
• 1:39:03
  Right, It's one of those where, yes, he doesn't blow everybody away.
• 1:39:09
  He is a he is a true pitcher. He really pitches. But
• 1:39:12
  you look at what they're projecting for him. Uh, just look at the
• 1:39:15
  whip projection one point two seven. When's the last time he had a one
• 1:39:17
  point two seven era A Uh he had a one point five and twenty eighteen
• 1:39:21
  with New York. Yeah, we all know that New York would not let
• 1:39:26
  him do what he wanted to do with his pitch mix. And he's learned
• 1:39:29
  a lot since then, so he has not been been that guy. Uh,
• 1:39:32
  they're projecting home runs per nine to be over one. He had that
• 1:39:38
  one year in the last six years, and that was in Cincinnati, so
• 1:39:42
  bad, so sad. I'm not seeing that happening again, and so you're
• 1:39:45
  just gonna kind of go down the line and steamers just lower on Sunny Gray.
• 1:39:51
  Then Really, you know, I think he ends up being a just
• 1:39:56
  solid pitcher. And really his achilles heel from a roader perspective the last few
• 1:40:00
  years is he's been pitching in Cincinnati and Minnesota and he's not gotten the run
• 1:40:04
  support that he should get. So I think wherever he lands, I think
• 1:40:09
  there he's getting more run support, gets more wins, but he is just
• 1:40:13
  going to be a solid guy. I think lows threes era is where I
• 1:40:17
  would put Sonny Gray about to strike out for nine. I'm gonna call it
• 1:40:23
  a one fifteen whip and yeah, twelve to thirteen wins. I like that
• 1:40:30
  is middle of the rotation fantasy starter for a cheap price. I will own
• 1:40:35
  him all day. Yeah, And I think the market for NFBC is with
• 1:40:41
  you there, because right in front of when we were talking about the grouping
• 1:40:46
  of Shane Bieber and kind of Jordan Montgomery. Sonny Gray is going just above
• 1:40:54
  that. He's in like the tier above with it's him and let's see who
• 1:41:00
  else, Cole Reagan's Chureser Tanner, Biby. So just that tier kind of
• 1:41:10
  like just above Jord Montgomery, which I think makes sense because that is what
• 1:41:14
  they're pretty similar, honestly, Gray and Montgomery. That the differences Gray picks
• 1:41:19
  up about one strikeout more per an inning and just a little bit more ERA,
• 1:41:26
  So it makes sense to kind of move him into that tier above.
• 1:41:28
  And yeah, if he ends up in a place that's not Boston, I
• 1:41:31
  would be right there with you that he will most likely outstrip those steamer numbers
• 1:41:38
  and be a nice little buy there. Okay, we're on to our tenth
• 1:41:44
  dude from the MLB Trade Rumors list, and that is Shotto E Manoga E
• 1:41:50
  Managa. Yeah, I'm gonna go with Imanaga. They got him slated for
• 1:41:55
  five years, eighty five million on MLB Trade Rumors got Cubs Cubs Angels.
• 1:42:00
  Angels is an interesting one. I don't see anybody signing with the Angels,
• 1:42:04
  but I guess we'll see. Maga is Imanaga is a twenty No, he's
• 1:42:11
  not twenty two. I was gonna say, I was just reading the reading
• 1:42:15
  it very quickly. But he's a lefty. He's five foot ten ish and
• 1:42:19
  so he's projecting more of like a number three, number four coin to MLB
• 1:42:25
  trade rumors, and is coming in as a thirty year old, so older
• 1:42:30
  than Yamamoto, but still should have plenty of good life in that arm.
• 1:42:36
  He looks good in the WBC. And what do you think Amanga is gonna
• 1:42:45
  end up there? Brow? Yeah, I think this is where it gets
• 1:42:47
  kind of tough, because this is he's one of those guys and he's the
• 1:42:49
  dust to settle. That said, he's gonna have a forty five day hosting
• 1:42:55
  window that he will have to sign in, and so I think it's gonna
• 1:42:58
  be really interesting to see when he gets posted. You know, I'm kind
• 1:43:01
  of expecting now Moto to get posted early in the off season. I'm wondering
• 1:43:06
  if imm Naga, I'm I'm this is we I need lessons if im Naga
• 1:43:15
  is going to be posted posted late, like I could see him be posted
• 1:43:18
  like in early December or something like that, where he actually has a chance
• 1:43:24
  to go all the way to like mid to late January on that that posting
• 1:43:28
  and wait for some of the dust to settle in the market, and I'm
• 1:43:31
  going to say I'm going to plug him with the Dodgers. I think that
• 1:43:36
  he is the Dodgers need that that pitching, even if they do somehow manage
• 1:43:44
  to pull off Otani. As as I was going earlier, I think he's
• 1:43:47
  one of those guys that can be had for a reasonable enough contract with his
• 1:43:53
  age with some uncertainty coming over from from Japan, that the Dodgers do need
• 1:44:01
  that pitching, and they have pulled a number of players over over the years
• 1:44:06
  and have a really good, established kind of pipeline with a number of those
• 1:44:11
  clubs over in Japan. So that's where I'm gonna place him. But like
• 1:44:15
  I said, I think a lot of it comes down to the timing of
• 1:44:17
  his posting window. So what about you, Where do you see him landing
• 1:44:23
  this offseason? Yeah, so I'm gonna send Imanaga to Queen's to New York.
• 1:44:30
  So I think I think you were spot on that this is a guy
• 1:44:33
  that I mean, when you're a pitcher who's a three four starter, literally
• 1:44:39
  everybody in the league could use a three or four starter between just to slot
• 1:44:44
  them in at the end of the rotation to provide innings and prepare for injuries
• 1:44:50
  that are to come, or to be more of maybe a one two if
• 1:44:55
  you don't have a great rotation like the Cardinals. So I think whoever leaves
• 1:44:59
  this out on some of those early tier guys will be will be coming to
• 1:45:06
  Imanga Imanaga a Imaanaga. That's why I'm trying. It's like a it's like
• 1:45:12
  a weird combination of vowels, So Emanaga, that's what it is. I
• 1:45:18
  first that like, I think he's gonna work well with the Mets, and
• 1:45:25
  that's maybe why like the Angels came up for him, will be trade rumors,
• 1:45:28
  It's because like it's just gonna also be anybody needs innings here you go,
• 1:45:31
  like this is a great place place to look for them. And because
• 1:45:35
  he's thirty, like Imanaga just fits on all sorts of different teams and all
• 1:45:41
  sorts of different timelines. That that's why I think he works for the Mets,
• 1:45:45
  that Imanaga can be there when the Mets our rage turned the corner.
• 1:45:50
  Honestly, probably more so in like twenty twenty five, but that way he
• 1:45:56
  can have a year to acclimate. So let's see where he's going in drafts
• 1:46:01
  right now for NFBC, he is going in the range of other similar pitchers.
• 1:46:11
  We've got Christopher Sanchez, rhys Olsen, Kintamaieta, Nestor Cortez, Reed,
• 1:46:17
  Debtmer's, Paul Stein's Cutter, Crawford John Means. So, I think
• 1:46:27
  that's probably about where he's gonna. I think that makes sense that that kind
• 1:46:30
  of grouping where you're those are a bunch of other guys who are three four
• 1:46:35
  starters but sometimes pitch like twos, sometimes pitch like fives that Imanaga, especially
• 1:46:42
  without a team. If he finds a really friendly team, I think he'll
• 1:46:45
  he'll move up a little bit, but it's kind of like a good grouping
• 1:46:49
  for him around pick two fifty. Yeah, I think he's the kind of
• 1:46:53
  guy that in that range. I'd probably take him a little earlier than than
• 1:46:57
  that group because he does have a little bit more strike out upside than even
• 1:47:00
  Yamamoto. He I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think he was
• 1:47:04
  about ten k's for nine over in Japan, so I think he has a
• 1:47:10
  little bit more upside in that aspect, and he doesn't, and he's he's
• 1:47:15
  pitched longer, he's not still trying to figure things out. So I think
• 1:47:18
  he's I think he has a good, really good opportunity to adjust quickly,
• 1:47:23
  uh to to the US and pitching the majors. So I'd be willing to
• 1:47:28
  take him a little bit more just because of the the the upside that I
• 1:47:31
  think that there there might be a little bit more in the tank than some
• 1:47:34
  of those guys have. But overall, I think that is about the right
• 1:47:38
  spot for him. And if you if you lose on Yamamoto, why not
• 1:47:43
  just roll the dice. Yeah, And honestly, I think I would move
• 1:47:48
  him up a little bit too. But also a lot of those other guys
• 1:47:50
  I listed, because the collection of pictures in front of that group that I
• 1:47:56
  just rattled off, which again was Christopher's Chez Riesa Olsen, kintam Eta,
• 1:48:02
  Nester Cortez, Imanaga, Redebtmers, Paul Schemes like that kind of group.
• 1:48:09
  Here's what's going in front of them, which is really interesting, And I
• 1:48:13
  would take literally all those guys I just listed over. These guys are going
• 1:48:18
  in front of them, Michael Waka Kyle Harrison, Edward Cabrera, Ant Sheehan,
• 1:48:28
  Nick Lodolo, Taj Bradley, Andrew Rabbit. I wouldn't take Andrew Rabbit
• 1:48:33
  over those guys, but that's a weird collection of pictures to be going over
• 1:48:38
  Imanaga and Cortez and redebtmers that. I don't know who's out there buying all
• 1:48:45
  these Edward Cabrera shares, but it won't be me. Well, I'm going
• 1:48:48
  to disagree with you there, not on Edward Cabrera. I'm not buying those
• 1:48:51
  shares. There's two names that actually jumped out in that list to me that
• 1:48:55
  I actually do like and I think have some hiden potential. Nick Lodolo is
• 1:48:59
  one of them. He even when he did pitch this this last season,
• 1:49:04
  he was very very interesting from an underlying U statistic perspective, even though his
• 1:49:09
  production was a little a little questionable and his injury concerns. Again, this
• 1:49:13
  is a theme that you and I have. I'm a little more willing to
• 1:49:15
  take that injury risk and then the other is in it. She Han.
• 1:49:19
  I think that there is some more upside in in that arm from again,
• 1:49:25
  some of the underlying metrics that that I've I've looked at. So I think
• 1:49:28
  that she Han has an opportunity to to do a lot more than than what
• 1:49:32
  he shouled this last year. So I'm I'm probably gonna be investing in in
• 1:49:36
  those two a little bit more than the rest of that that area. But
• 1:49:43
  that's also knowing that when I build pitching staffs you just saw, I have
• 1:49:46
  the Aaron Nola's, the Sunny Grays I have. There's a lot of stability
• 1:49:50
  in my pitching staffs, innings, things like that. Uh, the there's
• 1:49:56
  not nearly the risk, and so on the back end, I'm willing to
• 1:50:00
  to take some flyers on some of those guys that have that variability. So,
• 1:50:03
  but that said, it still does feel about the right range for that
• 1:50:10
  type of guy. But there's a lot of guys there that I'm just not
• 1:50:13
  touching. No Michael walking for me, please, Well, it depends on
• 1:50:15
  where he lands. Then he has been pretty solid, But yeah, you
• 1:50:19
  do want to find somebody with a little more upside. I'm surprised that you
• 1:50:23
  went with she Han just because he was so rough down the stretch that I
• 1:50:27
  thought you would go Kyle Harrison. That would be the guy that actually walks
• 1:50:30
  too many walks for Kyle Harrison. Yeah, but the strikeout potential is really
• 1:50:38
  great and so like what it reminds me of is Oliver Perez back in the
• 1:50:43
  day and I and if you can, you know, get it honed in.
• 1:50:48
  And I have more faith in the Giants' pitching staff than the Pirates back
• 1:50:51
  in the day. That especially that late in the draft around two fifty,
• 1:50:56
  I will take the dart On train to hope that Kyle Harrison can kind of
• 1:51:01
  turn the corner into like a Robbie Ray and that would be I think exactly
• 1:51:05
  the type of picture where his sealing could end up. You know, Yeah,
• 1:51:10
  that's it. I really like the Robbie Ray comparison for Hurst, and
• 1:51:13
  I think that's what that's what you're hoping for. And I also have own
• 1:51:16
  zero Robbie Ray shares in my entire life, so that goes to tell you
• 1:51:21
  the difference in our styles here. I'm willing to take the injury risk,
• 1:51:27
  willing to take the control risk. We'll see who's right. Yeah, Okay,
• 1:51:31
  well, brew we did it. We got through that top ten from
• 1:51:34
  will be trade rumors. We will wrap it up here and let's remind all
• 1:51:40
  the listeners out there where we can be found. So brew where can the
• 1:51:45
  listeners out there find you on the innerwebs yep, find me over on Twitter
• 1:51:49
  slash x Jaybrewer one seven will be there until they start charging me to be
• 1:51:54
  there. You. I'm me usually over at rasball on the weekends with your
• 1:51:59
  hitter profile, hitter rankings. Again, we'll pick up cours the end of
• 1:52:02
  the year here. Early January is when you'll start seeing me pop back up
• 1:52:06
  over on rasball. Mike, how about you? Yeah, you can also
• 1:52:12
  find me an x slash x slash Twitter and blue Sky at m cool seven
• 1:52:17
  And you can find me eventually on ras ball doing the waiver wires most likely
• 1:52:25
  going into twenty twenty four. And we also are on Twitter as a pod
• 1:52:31
  at cards Categories and we have a Gmail address. If you've got anything for
• 1:52:36
  us to cover here in the off season that you want to hear about,
• 1:52:41
  you can email us at cards Categories at gmail dot com. We will start
• 1:52:45
  using that going forward, because, like I said, we were content farming
• 1:52:50
  the MLB trade rumors, free agent lists, so looking to content farm here
• 1:52:56
  more throughout the winter. So we will see everybody next week. Take care
• 1:53:00
  until then,