Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep: 32 : Our Top Ten Pitchers

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Ep: 32 : Our Top Ten Pitchers · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode thirty two of Cards and Categories. I
• 0:20
  am Mike Coolard from Rasball. I am joined here as always by my very
• 0:25
  good friend Jeremy Brewer, also from Rasball. Jeremy, how are you doing
• 0:28
  this evening? Doing fantastic as usual? Ready to talk some fun baseball with
• 0:33
  all the exciting news news is is that another thing the news breaking? But
• 0:39
  more excitedly we are in spring training, that which means guys are getting hurt
• 0:43
  and fantasy dreams are being crushed. But really really excited to jump on tonight.
• 0:50
  Yeah, it will be Spring training opens this weekend. I don't know
• 0:54
  if you've noticed that, but I'm going to be glued to MLB dot Tv,
• 0:58
  just streaming game, trying to get in as much baseball as I can
• 1:03
  after this winter of not having anything on although I watched a decent amount of
• 1:07
  lead them this year, and I've been watching a lot of college baseball that
• 1:10
  like it scratches the itch. But yeah, if we are recording on Wednesday,
• 1:15
  the twenty first of February here, so that is coming up this weekend
• 1:19
  for spring training. We've also got I'll be on pot of Paloza this weekend
• 1:23
  Justin Mason's pot of Palooza. You can check me out on Sunday. I
• 1:26
  will be on at the I think it's the one pm Eastern spot, but
• 1:30
  if you want to get the specifics, I'll tweet it out on my Twitter
• 1:34
  handle m cool seven. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I've
• 1:38
  got beat On on my panel and we're going to be covering sleepers, so
• 1:42
  it should be a great time. Justin Mason does a great job over there
• 1:45
  at Rotographs and Friends with Fantasy benefits that this is a charity event, so
• 1:51
  everyone's kind of donating either things from their sites or there's one person who's on
• 1:59
  Pot of plusa who's donating out autographed Mike trout card. I don't know which
• 2:02
  one it is, but he must be. I mean, you're looking at
• 2:06
  a couple hundred bucks right there, so I'll take it. Yeah, lots
• 2:09
  of great prizes, lots of great donations going on and raising charity funds.
• 2:14
  So check us out this week on Potopalooza. All right, you would just
• 2:20
  want to dive right into the news. We haven't. We recorded a little
• 2:23
  early last week, so we've got a little extra. Let's go, let's
• 2:27
  get into the news. Yeah, okay, okay. The first one we've
• 2:31
  got is the Giants signing Jorge Hilaiir to DH for them and presumably hit in
• 2:37
  the cleanup spot. So this gives the Giants the big powerbat that they've been
• 2:40
  looking for the past couple off seasons. Shows up that lineup a little bit.
• 2:45
  I think the Giants will have a long ways to go if they're gonna
• 2:47
  be serious contenders in the NL West. But for Horace Hilaire, this is
• 2:53
  I would say an okay landing spot because it does give him a really good
• 2:59
  batting spot. You know, he's gonna be hitting clean up third in this
• 3:01
  lineup pretty much all season. Definitely a rough park. If you're looking for
• 3:06
  homers out of Jorge Hilaria, it doesn't get too much worse than hitting in
• 3:09
  San Francisco. But if there's anyone who's got the power to hit it out
• 3:14
  just about anywhere, it might be Solaria. If you just look at his
• 3:16
  work in Miami the past couple of years too. Yeah, I mean yeah,
• 3:21
  I would probably not be quite as Polisihous. I think it's one of
• 3:23
  the worst landing spots he could have. I mean, yeah, he does
• 3:25
  have a full time roll right in the middle of lineup, but that's not
• 3:30
  the strongest lineup. That is what the third worst hitters park for power.
• 3:35
  The Solar probably can get through that to a degree. You know, he's
• 3:38
  his power is not one of those is just barely over the fence type of
• 3:40
  things. I so, I you know, it's you know, he's only
• 3:46
  ever had more than two thirty home run seasons, despite what we think that
• 3:49
  he is as a power hitter, you know. So it'll be interesting to
• 3:53
  see how that plays in San Francisco. But I'm not really excited about Solare.
• 3:57
  That's said, where he's going in drafts from a fantasy per effective is
• 4:00
  really reasonable. I think it's you know, like one fifty one sixties something
• 4:03
  like that for that for the power, So I don't really I guess I
• 4:08
  have a problem with that. I don't think it's really impacted too much by
• 4:10
  the signing. What what I found most interesting. I'm sure you've probably seen
• 4:14
  this or where, but the the Giants haven't had a thirty home run hitter
• 4:18
  since Barry Bonds. No, they can't, right, yeah, look it
• 4:24
  up. The only reason I can be confident is I did look it up.
• 4:29
  Are you still confident? But it too Well, it's on the internet,
• 4:32
  so it must be true. But yeah, so they've only yeah,
• 4:38
  well most recent one was two thousand and four with the Barry bonds, and
• 4:42
  so I guess if there's anybody that's looking to break that, So there's probably
• 4:46
  one of your better bets, yeah, to do that. So you know.
• 4:50
  Again, so there's probably a two thirty hitter and he's gonna hit maybe
• 4:55
  be thirty bombs and the RBIs might be a little lacking at least is in
• 5:00
  the middle of the lineup, so it's the best shot he has. So
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  probably a disappointing park, but probably a decent situation to landon because to your
• 5:08
  point, he's going to be locked and loaded in that cleanup spot for the
• 5:12
  Giants. Yeah, and oddly, the bad X projection right now for the
• 5:15
  exact same WRC plus that he had last year, a one to twenty six
• 5:19
  with actually the same batting average he hit two fifty last year, bad X
• 5:23
  as two fifty again but lighter home runs. He hit thirty six this year
• 5:28
  in Miami. Bad X is calling for thirty. So I think the bad
• 5:32
  X line is pretty spot on. I think of what you're looking at for
• 5:36
  Jorce Hilaire that I think maybe I'm a little bit more bullish on his overall
• 5:43
  batting average just because he does hit it so hard that that ball will find
• 5:46
  the alley ways in San Francisco and add to just like doubles, and I
• 5:50
  mean he might lay out a few triples actually this year too, hitting it
• 5:55
  into right center. But the other thing is that San Francisco left field is
• 6:00
  a little bit easier to reach, so I don't, like I said,
• 6:03
  like Miami was really tough place to hit. So I think it will be
• 6:09
  maybe about equal going across. So wherever you were taking Horaeyce Hilaire last year
• 6:14
  or how he vowed him valued him, that's I think what you can be
• 6:17
  looking at again this year. It's just a late power bat with no speed.
• 6:21
  So you know you're looking to add thirty homers and eighty ish runs and
• 6:27
  RBIs to round out your outfield. Horayce Hilaire, you can certainly do worse
• 6:30
  than him. Yeah, I was going out to Baseball Savants and just took
• 6:35
  a look at you know, so Lair's expected home runs by park for last
• 6:40
  year. He did have thirty six home runs. If you know, this
• 6:43
  is the if he played all games in you know, a single stadium,
• 6:47
  what would this play as And it would have said, you would have thirty
• 6:53
  two in Miami instead of the thirty six. He'd have thirty two in San
• 6:56
  Francisco. Oh, it's like the same park kind of, It's like this,
• 6:59
  it's like the same part for him. Really the you know, I
• 7:01
  guess the best lines landing spot would have been Cincinnati, but that's pretty much
• 7:04
  said for anybody h at this point with with that band box and so yeah,
• 7:10
  he's I think it's you're absolutely right, probably is a pretty comparable uh
• 7:15
  landing spot for him. And you know it's right. It's that power,
• 7:17
  especially because it's that left field power. There's a little center field power there.
• 7:23
  But he's not he's not threatening the Bay by any means out in San
• 7:26
  Francisco. When last time Solaer hit an opposite field home run was probably never.
• 7:30
  So I think he had like one legit one last year. But that's
• 7:35
  okay. Yeah, and I'm gonna be like the most ultimate DFS play when
• 7:40
  he goes to Couris Field too, that that Colorado line up with Jorge Silaire's
• 7:45
  bat like he might put up a three or four homer game and couriers this
• 7:47
  year. Yeah, it'll be it'll be fun, it'll be fun to watch.
• 7:51
  So, you know, Solare is an interesting one at the back end
• 7:56
  of the like third outfield group, fourth into the fourth outfield to be going
• 8:00
  after. Yeah, I totally agree. Okay, the other veteran signing that
• 8:05
  we had, I mean we had a handful, so we're still waiting on
• 8:07
  the big boris four. But another one that we had go to a contender,
• 8:13
  And this I think was maybe a bit of a disappointing landing spot.
• 8:16
  I mean not even bit, like certainly a disappointing landing spot if you've drafted
• 8:20
  anywhere. And that's wit Marrifield joining the Philadelphia Phillies, mostly because right now
• 8:26
  in roster resource wit Marrifield is slated for a backup role in Philadelphia that he
• 8:31
  should probably be playing some sort of utility role, you know, spelling Bryce
• 8:35
  and Scott at second base here and there, getting some opportunities in the outfield.
• 8:41
  He's going to see a lot of time, I think subbing for Nick
• 8:43
  Casteanus and right field late in games as a defensive replacement. So whit Mayfield.
• 8:50
  I mean, I think lots of people were maybe hoping that he could
• 8:54
  find a good landing spot where he could get full at bats and maybe see
• 8:58
  a bit of a spike in his stolen BA again. But I don't really
• 9:01
  like this for Wit, and like unless there's an injury that clears the way
• 9:05
  for him, like if he does somehow get time in a corner or you
• 9:09
  know, if Castianis goes down for an extended stretch or something else happens,
• 9:13
  then certainly I'd be rushing to add Wit Mayfield. And I mean he'll be
• 9:18
  one of like the main pickups on my waiver wire, like weekend column if
• 9:22
  that happens. But what do you think about Wit Maryfield overall, because I
• 9:26
  know that you've been a big fan of his over the years. Yeah,
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  I absolutely am a whitt Mayfield truth, probably to my own detriment, but
• 9:33
  I the I'm want to say the silver there's silver lining here because you're absolutely
• 9:37
  right he's not slated for a full time role, but I think that he's
• 9:43
  going to be one of those super utility because Maryorfield can play pretty much all
• 9:46
  over the diamond when when you look at it and as he's playing shortstop or
• 9:50
  catch it, no, I get it, but you know, he's he's
• 9:52
  going to be able to play you know, four or five different positions,
• 9:56
  and there's some decent flexibility with some of the field, the Alphia infield that
• 10:01
  can make sure to utilize that. So I think that they're kind of two
• 10:05
  really good possibilities for him to kind of stumble into playing time. And I
• 10:09
  mean, they dedicated a seven million dollar salary to him, so it wasn't
• 10:13
  just that they didn't pay him like a bench roll. They paid him like
• 10:16
  he's going to be, you know, a super utility player or even a
• 10:18
  starter. But I think he's going to get almost every day at bats,
• 10:22
  just filtering in out of the lineup, trying to keep guys healthy, and
• 10:28
  guys generally that Philadelphia lineup aren't actually terribly healthy. I think Brandon Marsh had
• 10:31
  knee surgery, so there's questions of is he going to be ready for opening
• 10:35
  day? You mentioned Castianos, You've got Bryce Harper there that, you know,
• 10:39
  sometimes feels like he plays the full season. Funtimes, it feels like
• 10:41
  he plays three games. So I think that you know, and if anybody
• 10:45
  loses, it's in a time. Airfield is a starter for sure. So
• 10:48
  I think the silver lining here is that he's if he gets drafted like a
• 10:52
  bench player, and so you're catching him in the last rounds. I'm I'm
• 10:56
  probably gonna own a number of shares there just because he's one of the better
• 11:00
  lottery tickets and you know, if you get squeezed for roster space later,
• 11:05
  sure to cast them off if you need to. But I think, especially
• 11:07
  in daily leagues, there's gonna be enough value there that you're that's worth picking
• 11:13
  up. So I still kind of like Maryfield, but that's just with the
• 11:16
  assumption that the draft prices are gonna plumb it. Yeah, And I mean
• 11:20
  we've had this entire discussion without kind of mentioning Johann Rojas and centerfield. Who
• 11:26
  yeah. I mean you've also got Paschet out there that those types of players
• 11:30
  just scare me when they're all glove and no back that it especially in an
• 11:35
  environment like Philadelphia with that fan base, you don't know like how long you
• 11:39
  can get away with that before people might be clamoring for somebody like Witt Mayfield
• 11:43
  getting some action out in center, which I don't know if i'd recommend,
• 11:46
  given that he's in his mid thirties and aging very rapidly, it seems like,
• 11:50
  but I do, I do see like there are pathways for Wit to
• 11:54
  get that playing time. So it's definitely somebody I'll be keeping an eye on
• 11:58
  as we get through spring training especially. Yeah, but overall, it is
• 12:03
  disappointing because if you were thinking was going to be a surefire starter and maybe
• 12:07
  kind of get you get kickstarted after being in Toronto, that is definitely not
• 12:13
  the case. Yeah. And then we had another utility in field first outfield
• 12:20
  sometimes signing that happened just last night, and that is Aben Brozario signing with
• 12:26
  the Tampa Bay Rays and he's currently slated to be a short sided platoon player
• 12:31
  for the Rays on roster resource. But this also is assuming that Jose Cabagiero
• 12:37
  is going to get full playing time at shortstop on that roster resource lineup,
• 12:41
  which is a little iffy, I think given having Rosario around, and I've
• 12:48
  always liked Rosario's just price that, like his skill set is very blah.
• 12:56
  I will I will admit that it's not very exciting, and maybe it's a
• 13:01
  little bit because I was swayed by some of those Cleveland years. You know,
• 13:05
  in twenty twenty one, in twenty twenty two he had double digit homers
• 13:09
  and double digit stolen bases both years, you know, with seventy seven runs
• 13:13
  eighty six runs in those years that he also put up a two eighty two
• 13:18
  to eighty three batting average. So when he's he's one of those players when
• 13:22
  he gets full playing time, he kind of finds a groove and it's it
• 13:26
  can be an empty batting average, but almost like last week, we were
• 13:33
  yeah, just last week, I guess we'll see in all central, man,
• 13:35
  it's been a long week, huh. That we're talking about Andrew McCutcheon
• 13:39
  kind of in this vein in terms of somebody who could give you double double
• 13:45
  homers and steals at the end of a draft. And then I think Rosario's
• 13:48
  got a little bit more upside in the average department, but lower in the
• 13:54
  runs and RBI. So I think that the way that you were talking about
• 13:58
  with Mayfield, I could find myself with some Amed Versario shares, just because
• 14:03
  it's the same sort of thing. If you're in a daily league and you're
• 14:05
  getting a pretty prime lefty matchup that Ahmed Versario's facing or you just see that
• 14:11
  he's you know, in a day game with some wind blowing out, or
• 14:16
  just opportunities to actually play. I think we'll present themselves much more regularly in
• 14:22
  Tampa for Ahmed Rosario. But Grew, what do you think for Amed Versario's
• 14:28
  outlook in Tampa? Yeah, I really I'm not too terribly excited for Rosario.
• 14:33
  Like, I don't have any arguments with with what you just laid out
• 14:37
  there. The two things that are kind of detracting me to a degree is
• 14:41
  they gave him a million and a half. I mean, they give a
• 14:43
  million and a half, Like, that's not paying them to start. I
• 14:46
  did see somebody say like, hey, well that's the race spending money.
• 14:48
  So if they're gonna spend any money, he's gonna be a starter. I'm
• 14:50
  like, it's like what double the league minimum these days? So it was
• 14:56
  really just tossing some dollars there to have a little depth, in my opinion,
• 15:00
  and of all the teams like that, you can make the arguments like,
• 15:03
  oh, maybe he'll be a plot tune player that the Rays drive me
• 15:05
  nuts. When you got that fringe player that you just hope is gonna get
• 15:09
  the playing time like they never seem to get the playing time, or if
• 15:13
  they do, it's like they've changed the line of the last second. Like,
• 15:16
  just on a principle, I probably wouldn't have Rosario because he's on the
• 15:18
  Rays and he's in this not clear clearly defined role. There's probably great opportunity
• 15:24
  for him. He probably is a good bench pluggin kind of guy to have
• 15:28
  there. I just they would drive me nuts, and I'm gonna manage myself
• 15:33
  into problems with that daily type lineup. I'm just gonna steer clear, just
• 15:37
  because it's not worth the headache. Yeah, and I mean I won't lie.
• 15:41
  Like you look at his bad ball there data, he's got a career
• 15:45
  three point five percent barrel rate. The hard hit rate is like the most
• 15:50
  consistent in the mid thirties that like you could ever see that. It's kind
• 15:54
  of crazy that Ahmed Rosario has been this player ever since he came up,
• 15:58
  and it's just like never changed. And so it is a little bit of
• 16:02
  like a speed and batting average combo that it's really hard to find. That
• 16:07
  it's strange to find a player like this in the modern game because he plays
• 16:14
  like he's like a mid nineties like middle infielders kind of nothing. This little
• 16:19
  slap guy that just knocks a few out to get some bass, just kind
• 16:22
  of scrapy. Like that's your point, Like there's nothing I'd say beyond average
• 16:27
  for him, but it's all just good enough. And which is like the
• 16:32
  proto typical bench guy, Like the guy's gonna have a really long career because
• 16:34
  he can play a little bit of everything and does a little bit just well
• 16:38
  enough. Like he's that guy that's just gonna be like thirty eight years old.
• 16:41
  It's like, well, somebody picked him up a minor league deal,
• 16:44
  he's made the roster, and here he is in the postseason somehow, Like
• 16:48
  that's that's Rosario for us in ten years, not ten years. But okay,
• 16:53
  the next relieve or well veteran I kind of already broke the news is
• 16:57
  a reliever signing that, Well, it's gonna break my heart. And that's
• 17:03
  Liam Hendricks signing in Boston with the Red Sox that I'm really sad to see
• 17:07
  Liam go. That not only was he obviously a great picture for the White
• 17:11
  Socks over the past couple years, but even just like a better human overall,
• 17:17
  that he really helped a lot of causes around the city of Chicago.
• 17:19
  Him and his wife were really big philanthropists and gave to a lot of great
• 17:23
  causes, and he was just a really fun dude. So it's gonna be
• 17:26
  a bummer seeing him go, and it's going to be just like a Yeah,
• 17:32
  it's going to be like a death march watching these White Sockx play all
• 17:34
  summer. But right now, Liam Hendricks is recovering from Tommy John surgery that
• 17:41
  he had mid last year, and so I don't know if he'll be back
• 17:45
  fully this year, but there's a decent chance that he's back in time around
• 17:51
  like the trade deadline, And I think that especially spells trouble for Kenley Jansen,
• 17:56
  who's been in trade rumors for the Red Sox recently, and they just
• 18:00
  ship John Schreiber out of town. I don't know what the Red Sox are
• 18:03
  doing, Like, if you're trying to compete, the last thing you need
• 18:07
  to be doing is shipping dudes out of the back of your bullpen. But
• 18:11
  what do you think that this move pretends for Hendricks in Boston and maybe even
• 18:15
  Kenley Jansen as well. Yeah, I think you know it's it's It is
• 18:21
  an interesting thing. And I think we just start with the human side,
• 18:23
  Like it's so exciting for Liam Hendricks, like he has had such a tough
• 18:27
  road the last few years to see some you know, a team believe him,
• 18:32
  want to invest in him and bring them in, you know. And
• 18:36
  I think you're absolutely right. They're looking at, you know, twenty twenty
• 18:38
  five with Hendricks, they're not really looking for much out of twenty twenty four
• 18:45
  and then you know, hoping to get a few years. So I think
• 18:48
  it tells you that Jansen's on a short leash. And I think you could
• 18:53
  probably have seen that before the Hendricks signing, Like he just he Janson's got
• 18:57
  more and more volatile last few years. It seems like, you know,
• 19:02
  he just isn't he'sn't the player that he once was. And I think that's
• 19:07
  I think the Red Sox recognize that, but nobody wants is probably going to
• 19:11
  pay to take him at this point in time, just because they everybody could
• 19:15
  probably kind of sees it. So I really think that they're setting up that,
• 19:18
  Like the Red Sox, I'm just not sure how good they're going to
• 19:22
  be this year. There's just a lot of question marks on that team.
• 19:25
  So I think that they're kind of set themselves up for mid season, maybe
• 19:29
  letting somebody like Jansen go and you know, seeing what they have at the
• 19:33
  back of the bullpen, seeing if anybody sticks, and then being really looking
• 19:37
  forward to Hendrix next year. So I think Jansen's probably on the outs,
• 19:41
  and if anything, it just signals to me that I don't want Jansen at
• 19:47
  the draft table. I think that there's just enough warning signs that none of
• 19:52
  them like really portray really what's going to happen. But I think there's enough
• 19:56
  warning signs like this Hendrick sign. I mean that I just don't want any
• 19:59
  any part of Jansen. Yeah, you know who. It actually makes me
• 20:03
  more interested in it's ourr boy top ten or top twelve AlSi young pitcher last
• 20:11
  year, Chris Martin, that he's coming off that wonderful year with the Era
• 20:15
  Sub two, And I think the tellious here are actually saying that Boston might
• 20:21
  be leaning on Chris Martin in a bigger role this year. That I don't
• 20:26
  know if he's necessarily going to take the closer job outright from Kenley Jansen,
• 20:30
  but I really see a big season from Chris Martin in terms of almost like
• 20:37
  just like one of those like Andrew Miller ish relievers. You know, when
• 20:41
  Andrew Miller was in his prime that provided really great ratios, really great strikeouts
• 20:47
  and then maybe like ten to fifteen saves. That if that is happening with
• 20:52
  Chris Martin, he's going to be criminally underrated because that type of production in
• 20:56
  today's fantasy game, with how hard saves are to get as well as I
• 21:02
  mean, I've been kind of preaching this all winter, is that as the
• 21:06
  starter workloads come down, like it makes more sense to start putting high end
• 21:11
  relievers on your team because like, if you're not going to get enough innings
• 21:14
  out of your starters, you might as well go and find a reliever who's
• 21:18
  going to give you really good volume from mka's innings and you know, great
• 21:22
  whip grad era. So I'm definitely going to be interested in Chris martin Layton
• 21:27
  drafts to round out some of my pitching staffs. And it's also like a
• 21:32
  great piece to take at the end because you know, if he doesn't get
• 21:37
  as much playing time as I thought, you know, I can certainly move
• 21:41
  on from him and start streaming to start pitchers or any sort of like hot
• 21:45
  rookie pitchers that come up. But Chris Martin can also just be a great
• 21:48
  roster glued to throw in there on some weeks when you know you've got a
• 21:52
  couple of your pitchers going through Colorado or Cincinnati or something like that, and
• 21:56
  just bad matchups that hey in a reliever for this week and just not worry
• 22:03
  about it as much. Yeah, I think the thing could be even said
• 22:06
  to a lesser degree for Garrett Whitlock. Yeah. I think Whitlock's really interesting
• 22:11
  in there. You know, he was a starter and a reliever last year,
• 22:14
  and I mean as a reliever he was had an X fifth of three
• 22:18
  four, he had his walks runner three, he struck out eleven guys per
• 22:22
  nine, like, he was pretty gashtarn solid. And he's one of the
• 22:26
  more exciting young guys in in that bullpen. So you know, he he
• 22:32
  does have the potential to be a starter. And so I don't know if
• 22:33
  they've really decided what they want with Whitlock, but I I think he's another
• 22:37
  guy just to keep an eye on because I think there's just turmoil in the
• 22:41
  Red Sox bullpen is really really the call out here, but just calling out
• 22:47
  for all those that are in keeper leagues dynasty leagues. Let's let's look at
• 22:51
  Liam Hendricks because I think there's a really good sign here that Martin and Jansen
• 22:56
  I believe were both free agents after the year or so. You know,
• 23:02
  if you want to try to pick up a closer on the sly, hopefully
• 23:06
  you know, Hendrix gets back late in the year to show that he's he's
• 23:07
  still got it, and then you've got yourself a cheap little closer going into
• 23:11
  twenty twenty five. Yeah. Absolutely, I think that's a it's a great
• 23:15
  play, especially if you're a rebuilding squad too, Like that's somebody who you
• 23:21
  can target, you know, if you're starting to tear down your squad with
• 23:23
  at mid season. Okay, let's move on to some news, because there
• 23:30
  are some other small signings, but we thought those were the most fantasy relevant.
• 23:33
  But because we have everybody reporting for pitchers and catchers and spin training taking
• 23:40
  off, this is when all the injuries start happening too, as guys start
• 23:44
  ramping up and realize that the injuries that they thought that would heal since the
• 23:48
  end of last season hasn't quite come to fruition or things just kind of tour
• 23:55
  got misplaced when they went back out onto the fields this past week. So
• 24:02
  the biggest one that I think is going to just impact like the top of
• 24:06
  drafts is news came out about Aaron Judge and his toe that he broke last
• 24:11
  year running into the outfield wall in Dodger Stadium. That the word is that
• 24:17
  it's going to require constant maintenance, is what Aaron Judge said in terms of
• 24:22
  I'm not even sure what that means, like if he's just doing extra stretches,
• 24:25
  or if it's like really intense like warm ups on moving his toe around,
• 24:30
  or I'm really interested to see what this constant maintenance is. And that's
• 24:36
  not exactly something you want to hear coming in to a season for somebody who's
• 24:41
  always kind of battled injuries and it's always been more soft tissue like oblique injuries,
• 24:48
  and now you're messing with his bass as well. That the toe is
• 24:55
  not a great spot to have an injury because just of the kinetic chain overall.
• 25:00
  But I'm looking at his stats from when he returned from this toe last
• 25:03
  year and they were pretty good. That he kept the power going. The
• 25:08
  average dropped a bit, but it was a smaller sample size of two hundred
• 25:11
  and forty five at bats, but in that time you put up a one
• 25:15
  sixty four WRC plus with eighteen homers, that would be just passed like a
• 25:21
  forty five homer pace I think on the season. So he didn't run at
• 25:26
  all though, And that's pretty worrisome considering you're you're looking for a few bags
• 25:30
  out of Aaron Judge potentially, and I think because of that, like that's
• 25:34
  why I would be fading Aaron Judge more than anything else, is that if
• 25:37
  he's got this toe problem, it's kind of like Mike Trout as he's entered
• 25:41
  the later stages of his career with his back injury, Mike Trout has stopped
• 25:45
  running as well, that it's just not worth the risk from an injury perspective.
• 25:48
  So it really I think hurts Aaron Judge's value overall. Yeah, I
• 25:55
  fully agree. I've been generally out on Judge for a few years now just
• 26:00
  because the injury concerns, and I mean the two years I was out,
• 26:03
  he's been just pretty good, especially that twenty twenty two season where he took
• 26:08
  a stand of skipping Air and Judge. But I I when you're taught using
• 26:15
  that early draft pick because you're talking a first second round or here for Judge,
• 26:19
  probably early second And if you're investing that and a guy that has a
• 26:25
  known injury issue and it shows up to your point in kind of in the
• 26:29
  stats where he's not running, I just I can't you can't confidently invest that
• 26:34
  level of pick and knowing you have damaged goods, Like you can't be doing
• 26:38
  that. Sure if we're talking maybe a third or a fourth round, like
• 26:41
  he's slipping something like that, and you're like, well, I can get
• 26:45
  a forty home or guy for guy that makes one hundred and ten games of
• 26:48
  the season. Yeah, it's it's it's it's interesting, it's worth it.
• 26:49
  But like I think your Trout comparison again is really really good. Here is
• 26:53
  that Trout is going like the sixth round or something like that, and you
• 26:59
  know it because of injury concerns and stuff like that, not a talent issue.
• 27:03
  That's it's kind of the same thing with Judge. I know, it's
• 27:06
  different than the extent of the injuries and stuff like that, and back injuries
• 27:10
  versus a toe. I don't know, if my toes hurt, my back
• 27:12
  hurts, doesn't seem to affect my baseball performance. But I think that you
• 27:19
  have to look at that and go, are we is the market? Is
• 27:22
  the market ignoring the judge because what he did two years ago, and you
• 27:27
  know, ignoring the injury history. I think it is, and I'm probably
• 27:32
  just I'm going to be steering through your judge in general. The only time
• 27:33
  I would be interested in judge is if I've got a nomination and auction draft.
• 27:38
  I'm putting them up real soon to spend everybody else's money. Yeah,
• 27:41
  I think that's a great call, and I was certainly I was thinking about
• 27:47
  Aaron Drudge as previous price before this news came out, But now there's no
• 27:52
  way that. Currently I'm looking at NFBC draft data since just the beginning of
• 27:57
  February, so we're looking at the past three weeks. We've got just over
• 28:00
  one hundred drafts, and he's been the tenth pick off the board. And
• 28:06
  so I mean, I think he's gonna end up fading pretty far on a
• 28:11
  lot of draft boards because I'm starting to look down. I mean, I
• 28:18
  think I would be dropping him towards like past Vladimir Guerrero, and like I
• 28:23
  would even rather have like Michael Harris the second who's they're going at the end
• 28:29
  of the second round round thirty pick thirty thirty one, and so yeah,
• 28:36
  I think you're spot on. I would rather have loose Robert Junior over him.
• 28:40
  It's probably about like that Jose Al too day Bobashett is where I would
• 28:44
  maybe like do Judge instead, just because the power upside is so tremendous.
• 28:48
  Like, I think there is still the possibility that you could see like a
• 28:52
  gian Carlos Stanton like fifty homer season out of Judge and just really bash a
• 28:57
  lot of power metrics that I think he can play well through the toe,
• 29:03
  but it's just gonna be like a diminished version without the steals. Yeah,
• 29:07
  I think it's right in that range. Right. You look at guys like
• 29:10
  seeger Lad Harris, Altuve, like all of them start to have some type
• 29:15
  of question mark, and so like here's Judge with a clear question mark.
• 29:19
  I think it's valid at that point to start talking to him. But that's
• 29:23
  really in the mid to late third round, when you know it's I think
• 29:29
  the conversation is gonna be had, and I don't think he I don't think
• 29:32
  he's gonna drop that far for probably a few reasons. One, it's just
• 29:36
  it's Aaron Judge, New York Yankee. Look what he just did. He
• 29:37
  could win your league, and he's probably one of a number of folks leagues
• 29:41
  over the last few years. And I think the other piece is just look
• 29:45
  at ADP data. No matter where you draft, there's probably already ADP data.
• 29:48
  That's just he's gonna be sitting on the top of the queue for folks,
• 29:52
  and he's just gonna be it's gonna be so tempting. So I don't
• 29:53
  see anyway he lands where you and I both would want to take him.
• 29:57
  He's I'd be sure if he's not going in the top twenty. Yeah,
• 30:02
  I mean just the way that people's cues work, and like I mean,
• 30:06
  I'm I miss picks and like I'm diligent in drafts that like, yeah,
• 30:08
  there's no way that like it's not even like an auto auto pick. He's
• 30:14
  hired than what we want to exactly. Okay, uh Yeah. The other
• 30:18
  major injury news that came out honestly, like the first day of camp,
• 30:22
  we just missed it when we recorded last week, and that is Kyle Bradish
• 30:26
  from the Orioles has a sprain UCL, which means he has a tear in
• 30:33
  his UCL. And this is really like maybe the nightmare scenario for the Orioles
• 30:38
  that on this pod. You know, we've talked about them needn't get pitching
• 30:44
  and really round out this team, and I mean, I've been advocating for
• 30:47
  them to be chasing Snell and Montgomery, and honestly, like Montgomery is the
• 30:51
  perfect fit for their team. I'm surprised they didn't immediately sign Montgomery after this
• 30:56
  injury, but I'm totally wiping Kyle Bradish off my boards that I know that
• 31:02
  there are cases of guys pitching through this type of injury in the past between
• 31:07
  like Masahiro Tanaka, and I mean even though Tani pitched through one for a
• 31:11
  little bit. That it happens, but it just seems like the shoe pretty
• 31:17
  much always drops, especially when you're looking this early in the season that Kyle
• 31:22
  Bradish showed up and this thing was already injured without you know, putting any
• 31:26
  sort of stresses of actual game action on it in you know, three four
• 31:30
  months that I just don't see how this works out very well for Kyle Bradish.
• 31:34
  And when that happens too like if he's gonna try to rehab this thing
• 31:40
  for a couple months and then I mean just look at where Leeton Hendricks was
• 31:44
  last year in terms of he ran into the same problem early in the season
• 31:48
  and tried to rehab it a little bit hope that it would come back with
• 31:51
  some like PRP injections, and then finally went down with Tommy John and then
• 31:55
  at that point and even Jacob de Grom too, Like it just wipes out
• 32:00
  like two seasons of production. So from like a overall like outlook from a
• 32:07
  dynasty or keeper perspective, this really hurts too, because Kyle Bradish was probably
• 32:12
  a pretty cheap keeper for you and the production was amazing. So this is
• 32:15
  a big blow to the starting pitcher market overall. Yeah, I fully agree
• 32:22
  with you. You know, just looking at the ADP since this was announced,
• 32:23
  he's dropped about thirty spots, actually want forty spots, yeah now,
• 32:29
  but his max pick is up to four oh seven, and so you can
• 32:34
  kind of tell that, like, yeah, the market's like just kind of
• 32:37
  catching up to the news type of thing. And to your point, like
• 32:40
  if he's in anywhere that range is absolutely off limits. But it does feel
• 32:45
  like you know, dejas vous with a number of players that have had this
• 32:49
  ucl sprains, like we can work through it, things like that, and
• 32:52
  it does feel like it's just a ticking nigh bomb that at some point and
• 32:57
  like you just better off now just going under the knife and don packing it
• 33:00
  up and say, I can, I should. He should be able to
• 33:02
  make it back for the majority of the twenty five season at this point.
• 33:06
  But you are really risking losing two full seasons of Kyle Bradish at this point,
• 33:12
  and can the can Who's really afford to do that? I know,
• 33:15
  I know that they you know he is their number two after Burns and uh
• 33:21
  or I guess Grayson, however you want to argue that, and I think
• 33:24
  that's gonna be that's what's holding them back as they're looking like, oh,
• 33:29
  we're so relyant on the guy again. We don't know the damage, we
• 33:31
  don't know how bad it actually looks, and even if I knew what it
• 33:36
  looked like, I wouldn't be able to tell. But I think I think
• 33:39
  it's one of those that from a fantasy perspective, Just toer clear, we've
• 33:45
  seen this story before with the number of pitchers and uh, you're just gonna
• 33:49
  be gonna be fighting all season. When when the shoe's gonna drop? Is
• 33:52
  he gonna get healthy? Is is it gonna hold up? The only way
• 33:57
  I'm taking Bradish is if if he's really dropping in the draft and I can
• 34:01
  d l stash him early in the year and you know see what happens.
• 34:07
  Yeah, I'm I'm proud of you. I'm I'm gonna give you a little
• 34:08
  bit of applause you you are holding up with your your resolution here that you're
• 34:15
  walking away from Cale Bradish. It only took a like a mostly torn ucl.
• 34:21
  I mean, it's but I still give myself the album. But if
• 34:24
  it's free at the end, I'm like, it's not. But we all
• 34:31
  have our line. Apparently mine is your arm has to actually fall off.
• 34:38
  And I'm not even going to try to suggest like where you might zig or
• 34:44
  zag with opportunities and that oils rotation because whoof man Cole Irvin slots into the
• 34:50
  bed starting rotation now and do not look at their triple A roster. It
• 34:53
  is bad. It is real, real rough, and so I mean the
• 35:00
  I think are in real trouble unless they pull up some pretty fancy moves here
• 35:04
  over the next couple of weeks that honestly, this is shaping up a little
• 35:07
  bit like it could be a disaster like what the Cardinals did last year in
• 35:09
  terms of once you like walk in a couple of pictures short, it goes
• 35:15
  downhill real fast. It absolutely does. And that's where you have to start
• 35:21
  thinking, like, what what kind of back end rotation options they have?
• 35:24
  You know, they're probably kicking themselves now for dealing deal Hall. Oh yeah,
• 35:30
  absolutely, you know, I mean, yeah, brought your corp and
• 35:31
  birds, so they're probably kicking themselves too bad. But yeah, there's just
• 35:36
  not a whole like a lot, a whole lot to like after the front,
• 35:40
  So you have to think that they're looking for, you know, kind
• 35:44
  of some back end guys just to get some innings to see if there's a
• 35:45
  way that they can they can kind of make a bye. I know,
• 35:50
  I wouldn't be surprised to see a guy like Bruce Zimmerman getting tons of starts,
• 35:53
  Like he's like the notorious like number five guy that nobody wants to go
• 35:58
  to hocker across teams. He always seems to pop up in the situations and
• 36:02
  here he is on the Oriols. So Yeah. I mean, I think
• 36:06
  they probably are kicking themselves for dealing Hall because the Orioles have so many bats,
• 36:10
  Like, why couldn't have they traded Colton Kowser instead or anyone else that,
• 36:15
  like you could have swapped out dal Hall for any of the number bats
• 36:20
  that they have, and I'm sure the Brewers still would have done the deal,
• 36:22
  because, like, the Brewers are the ones that go out and like
• 36:25
  find these one two million dollar deals and turn those pictures into something that the
• 36:31
  Orioles really wish they could that. You know, you combine the two rosters,
• 36:36
  it'd be a pretty pretty awesome team. Yeah, I guess the only
• 36:38
  only silver lines here they do have the prospects and the hitters. If they
• 36:42
  want to go get a you know, Shane Bieber, Dylan Cees or something
• 36:46
  like that, they could still do it. One of the few teams I
• 36:50
  think can easily do that. Yeah. Absolutely. And then the other piece
• 36:53
  of news that we have coming out of camp is Xander Bogart's is moving to
• 36:59
  second base for the Padres. And so I thought this was an interesting move
• 37:02
  because you were it was pretty easy to look at like that Padres lineup and
• 37:07
  just kind of wonder how it was all gonna fit together with having like five
• 37:13
  shortstops, and where are they all going to play, considering they have zero
• 37:16
  outfielders, And it does look like Manny Machado is gonna open for most of
• 37:22
  the beginning of the season at DH as he's still rehabbing at an elbow surgery.
• 37:28
  He had tennis elbow that was cleaned up, and so this is probably
• 37:34
  it's a strange move considering you know, they just signed Xander Bogart's last off
• 37:38
  season and moved him off of shortstop right away. It's a pretty pricey contract
• 37:44
  for a second baseman who you know is hitting too ad ish with less than
• 37:51
  twenty homers usually that he was my cell when we did our NL West overall,
• 37:55
  just because the name value for Xander Bogart's is a little bit more than
• 38:00
  like what you're actually getting, although I do think that this mate boost his
• 38:05
  value a little bit, just because playing shortstop is a grind for an entire
• 38:07
  season that shortstop end cerner fielders move the most and put on just like the
• 38:15
  most mileage in terms of moving around the actual diamonds. So moving Xander to
• 38:20
  second might save his legs a little bit, and I wonder if maybe that
• 38:22
  does help him a little bit at the plate. What do you think group,
• 38:28
  Yeah, I don't know that, you know, And he's one of
• 38:29
  those that I think his numbers do attend to underwhelm versus the name value.
• 38:34
  But but they're still pretty pretty gush larn good. I think the positional flexibility
• 38:38
  is what really excites me here is that he's gonna, for at least for
• 38:40
  this year, have short stop and second base flexibility. So as I'm looking
• 38:45
  at that point in the draft where he's going, I'm a little bit more
• 38:47
  willing to give him a look here just because I'm not locking myself in,
• 38:52
  which is which is nice. But yeah, at the end of the day,
• 38:57
  yeah, you're right, probably it takes a little off him the grind.
• 39:00
  It kind of shows you. One thing that really excites me is that
• 39:04
  this says that hasan Kim like they were fully in on him. They should
• 39:07
  be, but like I there was still I had some lingering fears of like
• 39:10
  they really fully dedicate to the guy, Like it seemed like even when he
• 39:14
  was breaking out, they weren't fully doing that. So I do still find
• 39:17
  it interesting that it seems like, you know, the You could argue the
• 39:20
  top five hitters in their lineup all come play short stop and then they have
• 39:24
  literally nothing else after that. So I'm I'm still just that lineup just baffles
• 39:32
  me when you look at guys like Jerks and Profar and Jose Asa Car like
• 39:37
  trying to you know, balance that out. There's just that that Padras team
• 39:44
  is really really thin. Uh, They've got some star power, and this
• 39:47
  the stars and scrubs fantasy approach if if I've ever seen one, Yeah,
• 39:52
  to the max. Although I do think, like in reading the tea leaves
• 39:57
  a little bit that honestly, I think this is opening the door a bit
• 40:00
  for Jackson Merrill going into camp that it would be pretty easy to slot Hassan
• 40:05
  Kim over to third and bring Marylyn as the shortstop. Merril almost broke camp
• 40:09
  with the Padres last year, and A j Preller has shown that he wants
• 40:15
  to move prospects really quickly through the system, partly to save his own skin.
• 40:22
  That like, you know, he's been through four managers at this point,
• 40:23
  and it's a little hard for him to keep pinning it on managers if
• 40:28
  it falls apart. More So, he's got to move these guys through that
• 40:31
  he's drafted, and all the reports on Jackson Merrill have been glowing after he
• 40:37
  He struggled a little bit out of the gate last year in the minor leagues
• 40:39
  with a few knicks and a couple bruises, but he came on strong later
• 40:45
  in the year, put up a good average, has good back control,
• 40:47
  and I mean, I'm really excited for Jackson Merril, you know, in
• 40:51
  one of our long term keeper leagues that I've got to share that I've been
• 40:54
  holding on to, and I think that this does show that there's a decent
• 41:00
  chance that Jackson Merrill could win a job out of camp. And if that
• 41:02
  happens, you're looking at somebody. I mean, I think he could be
• 41:07
  like a two eighty bat and like just a really solid middle infielder performer that
• 41:12
  like a little bit of like a blend of like a Bryson Stott is what
• 41:15
  it reminds me of, you know, like just good back control, a
• 41:19
  little bit of speed, maybe a little bit more power than Bryson Scott,
• 41:22
  but just a great contributor. Yeah. I think that's actually a really good
• 41:27
  take. I had not thought about that possibility because it feels to a degree
• 41:30
  that he's blocked and they have five short stops on the team. But I
• 41:36
  do think you're right. But Merrill, you know, he he's set himself
• 41:38
  up to potentially break camp. I don't know that he will, but of
• 41:45
  any team that was willing to do that, I think the Padres will,
• 41:47
  and to your point, Preller has some pressure for sure on him. So
• 41:53
  yeah, Jackson Merril is definitely worth giving a second look in early drafts.
• 41:58
  Yeah, I think so that. Like I think he's a great dart throw
• 42:01
  in any mixed league late draft, especially now. Like if if things start
• 42:06
  turning in camp, like Jackson Merril is going to be shooting up draft boards
• 42:10
  like really quickly because the prospect pedigree is there, and I think people have
• 42:15
  been on him. It just kind of he's faded a little bit as that
• 42:19
  slow start happened last year, and you know, he's just gotten lost in
• 42:22
  the shuffle with kind of all those other crazy bats that have been coming through
• 42:25
  in the twenty twenty three draft, and you know the likes of Jackson Turio
• 42:30
  and others. All Right, well, I thought we would discuss a little
• 42:36
  bit of cards. We don't have any huge discussion after going through Tops twenty
• 42:40
  four Series one last week, but I figured this would also happens. There
• 42:46
  is just a little bit of fallout in terms of, you know, things
• 42:50
  that have been uncovered as people have been opening up these new twenty twenty four
• 42:52
  Tops cards. Thankfully, no super fractor any sort of like issues there so
• 43:00
  far not gone yet. Yeah, I mean it's not a Bowman product,
• 43:05
  so maybe that's part of it. It's like a Bowman exclusive to have all
• 43:08
  the multiple super factors out there. But I think the biggest news that's kind
• 43:14
  of come out is and we even missed some of the parallels when we ran
• 43:16
  down all almost forty parallels of each card that are in this set. It's
• 43:22
  a little absurd just seeing all the different variations and all the different boxes you
• 43:29
  have to get the variations of the cards from. But one wasn't ever on
• 43:31
  the list because it is a super short print Kevin Hart photo bomb card of
• 43:37
  every card in the set, number to fifty two. That we know that
• 43:42
  Kevin Hart as a relationship with the Fanatic CEO, and so I think this
• 43:47
  is like a little call out to Kevin Hart. And there is a history
• 43:52
  of this with Tops that if you're not familiar with it. Back in two
• 43:54
  thousand and seven, Derek Jeter had a short print card with Mickey Mantle and
• 44:00
  and George W. Bush like photo bombed photoshopped into the background of the card,
• 44:05
  and in twenty ten these are Actually I've been really fascinated by these cards
• 44:09
  that I've only read about them because they're so rare. There are Abe Lincoln
• 44:14
  short print cubs cards from the twenty ten top set in only series one,
• 44:19
  So the Jeff Samarga, the Ryan Dempster, the Milton Bradley, and the
• 44:22
  Tyler Colvin all have super imposed photoshop like Abraham Lincoln's in the background. But
• 44:30
  lots of these Abraham Lincoln's of these cubs ones are buried because they're really hard
• 44:36
  to find. That like, if you're not looking for them, you can
• 44:39
  totally overlook them in the background. As opposed to the Derek Jeter one,
• 44:44
  it's pretty easy to see George W. Bush hanging out in the background of
• 44:46
  the card. I'll link to all this in the show notes so you can
• 44:50
  see the cards. Obviously, it doesn't work very great in this audio medium.
• 44:52
  As I describe them, it's a lot easier to look at them.
• 44:55
  But yeah, these Kevin Hart photobomb cards I think harken back to that.
• 45:00
  But it's also interesting because there's one for every card in series one, so
• 45:07
  you've got fifty two times with three hundred and fifty cards. Well is there?
• 45:13
  It's just the Phillies. It's just, man, just get my stats
• 45:17
  right when I start doing all this stuff. But yeah, that is okay.
• 45:21
  So it's just the Phillies. So do you have the Phillies list in
• 45:23
  front of you or I do not? I mean it's the Phillies. So
• 45:27
  there's like three cards. I'm kidding. Yeah, it's like Schwarber, Harper
• 45:31
  and Stot team card. Okay, well that does make a big difference.
• 45:38
  I didn't. I thought it was for everyone. But yeah, if you
• 45:43
  haven't seen them, it's Kevin Hart photo bombing on the card and just kind
• 45:46
  of in a weird position that they are easier to spot because they're numbered on
• 45:52
  the back compared to the other short prints that I've talked about. But I
• 45:54
  kind of like this, what did what do you think? Yeah? I
• 45:58
  I do. Also, it's it's one of those things like it's really gimmicky
• 46:02
  to put in the set here, and if you look at the Phillies.
• 46:07
  I think they have roughly, I will say, thirteen twelve thirteen cards,
• 46:12
  so you're you're you're talking, you know, six hundred seven hundred of these
• 46:15
  total cards out there. And it's like I said, it's kind of gimmicky,
• 46:22
  but it's it's like this that Easter egg type thing where you're just and
• 46:24
  I'm not referencing the cards that have Easter eggs on them. Sorry, I
• 46:29
  don't realize. Have to make that clarification now from now on. Yeah,
• 46:32
  but like it's just got this kind of fun thing that didn't announce and it's
• 46:36
  just kind of the it gets a little publicity and it's just like really fun
• 46:38
  and how cool to be to just throw back and pull that card, because
• 46:43
  I did. I did look online a little bit and it sounds like that
• 46:45
  they are, you know, reversed in the pack in the middle of the
• 46:49
  with the rest of the inserts. So it does like it calls it out,
• 46:52
  so you know that you found something, and so I'm glad they do
• 46:55
  that. But like you pull this card, you're looking around, it's like
• 46:59
  out of fifty two, I don't remember anything of being out of fifty two.
• 47:00
  You turn over, you're like cause Bryce Harper like, what's no special
• 47:02
  about it? Like it's not color anything that's weird. And then you're like
• 47:06
  looking closer, like is that Kevin Hart? Like why is Kevin Harden's card?
• 47:10
  Right? It's it's you know, it's an interesting dynamic, and I
• 47:14
  think it's just gonna it causes like this weird cult following because you know,
• 47:17
  there's Phillies fans out there that want to have the full set of Kevin Hart
• 47:22
  cards and there's fifty two. It's really it's really rare. So I don't
• 47:25
  know if you if you've looked, but you know me eBay Junkie two degree
• 47:30
  and I've been out there. Have you have you looked at all? What
• 47:32
  do you think these are selling for? I haven't looked, but I would
• 47:36
  have to guess because it's all still new, Like this set just dropped last
• 47:40
  week, so we're right in the prime of the highest prices you can get
• 47:45
  with series one right now. So I would probably guess maybe like two hundred
• 47:47
  bucks for one, uh you wish there if you're on Little name players,
• 47:54
  Yes, I think that's about the range. Schwarmer went for about three hundred.
• 47:58
  It was wow sold. Bryce Harper he has, there's an auction with
• 48:02
  almost two days left is it four to ten? There's a buy it now
• 48:06
  at four to seventy five available, So it looks like right now, the
• 48:08
  like the bigger names are in that three to four hundred dollars range. Those
• 48:13
  will come down, don't get me wrong, but with only being fifty two
• 48:15
  of them, like, there is gonna be the scarcity that kind of remains
• 48:19
  with them. So it is. It is really interesting. Even the Team
• 48:22
  Cards bids up like three hundred and thirty dollars and that's tough. It so
• 48:29
  it is. But yeah, so I again, I like it. It's
• 48:31
  this really interesting dynamic. You know, there's somebody that pulled one. They's
• 48:35
  just like, ah, this is use worthless, just tossed to the side
• 48:37
  a little. I know there's through, you know, three hundred dollars to
• 48:40
  the side. But yeah, yeah, great cards, I think, and
• 48:45
  then not so great cards. I noticed this over the weekend as I was
• 48:50
  looking at cards on Reddit, that all the silver Mojos are misprinted this year
• 48:54
  that I'm pretty sure it's consistent for all Series one Silver pack Mojo cards.
• 49:00
  So if you're not familiar with that, with that is in all of the
• 49:05
  hobby packs that you will buy, both jumbos and regular hobby boxes, there'll
• 49:09
  be like a little silver pack of cards at the top, and what they're
• 49:13
  always filled with are what are called the Mojo parallels of the yearly inserts.
• 49:19
  So this year it's the nineteen eighty nine inserts. And what Tops is doing
• 49:23
  with these inserts is they're always thirty five year anniversaries of those card designs,
• 49:29
  so they're always printing the thirty fifth anniversary on the top of them. And
• 49:35
  the regular inserts are okay, don't I haven't seen any issues in any of
• 49:38
  the regular inserts, and actually the Mojo autographs are all okay too. I
• 49:42
  haven't seen any issues there. So some mix up happened to between, but
• 49:47
  they didn't roll the date forward on the stamp that they put on the Mojo
• 49:51
  cards, So all the Mojo cards that have come out in those silver packs
• 49:57
  have thirty five years nineteen eighty eight to twenty twenty three. So I run
• 50:02
  into this as as an accountant in my daily life that you know, usually
• 50:07
  you're rolling forward things that you did last year and you'll come across something where
• 50:13
  you put it out in your financial statements or in a report that you issue
• 50:16
  and you forget to roll forward one of the dates because you're just kind of
• 50:20
  copying and pasting things. And looks like that happened to Tops fanatics here this
• 50:24
  year on the silver Mojo packs. Yeah, what what I think is interesting?
• 50:30
  And first of all, it's like, are we surprised? No,
• 50:34
  But what I think is interesting is you make the comment that the autos are
• 50:37
  correct. Yeah, the autos are like, unless I'm missing something, there
• 50:42
  are not much different than the the base except for they have a sticker on
• 50:47
  them, so they say top certified autograph on them. Does it say that
• 50:52
  or something? A sticker? Oh, it does say that on the cour
• 50:54
  Okay, I was missing that because I was like, did they somehow just
• 50:58
  like really funny? They caught themselves halfway through like nobod you'll catch this's just
• 51:01
  a little sticker on it and call the day, So okay, I'll give
• 51:05
  them credit to they Actually, yeah, it is like printing plate, so
• 51:09
  that's why. But they definitely missed it on and it's kind of I would
• 51:15
  be fascinating to figure out how that happens like that. I mean, I
• 51:20
  think the autos are obviously getting produced first because they just need to be determined,
• 51:25
  I think quicker than like the rest of those Silver Pack inserts, So
• 51:30
  that might be one factor. And maybe it's just like a different QC team,
• 51:34
  But yeah, this is a pretty big mess up compared to like usually
• 51:38
  these sorts of things happen on the back of cards where it's not as noticeable.
• 51:42
  But man, what a luckdown if you're out there chasing and they're beautiful.
• 51:46
  These eighty nine Silver Mojos are are beautiful cards with some great rookies between
• 51:52
  Jason Dominguez and Mason Wins the second when it comes to mind for me.
• 51:58
  But you also got Junior Camenaro and Evan Carter and so like lots of pretty
• 52:02
  big names, and yeah, I all got errors on them. They're not
• 52:06
  even like short print terrors because I don't think there's any corrections coming. And
• 52:09
  the thing is you have to imagine that they knew, like they caught this
• 52:14
  because the series one Series one has like a locked in date, like of
• 52:19
  all the sets, like they can push some Series one is so locked in
• 52:22
  it is the flagship at the end of the year. You have to think
• 52:24
  somebody caught it and goes well because I mean again, if the if the
• 52:29
  auto was right in the printing process too, yeah, like yeah, exactly,
• 52:32
  like if they if the auto was right, like somebody clearly looked as
• 52:37
  something there and like mess something messed up somewhere. So somebody's like, all
• 52:40
  right, executive decision, guys, we're rolling this out. We've already printed
• 52:44
  all the cards. We can't throw those away. So it is what it
• 52:47
  is. It seems like the silver packs end up being the issue. Wasn't
• 52:51
  last year they just forgot to include them? Or was it two years ago?
• 52:54
  Yeah, I mean they're all sorts of strange things that happened silver pas,
• 53:00
  And I mean half the time the mojos are so poorly like centered too.
• 53:04
  When they are, it's it's incredible. They're like, yeah, I
• 53:07
  don't know if it's just the printing process with that mojo refractor foil or yeah,
• 53:12
  it's it's confounding. I guess what do you think Series two? Do
• 53:16
  you think they fix it or they just let it ride? I think they
• 53:20
  fix it. I'm I'm I'm thinking of that. They already they knew what
• 53:23
  they were doing, they messed it up, they caught it, and they
• 53:25
  still put it out there, and they they're going to fix it with series
• 53:29
  two. I kind of hope they don't, but I think they will just
• 53:32
  like lean into it. Yeah. But yeah, how have you been enjoying
• 53:37
  opening twenty twenty four Series one? Yeah? I think it's it's been good.
• 53:42
  You know, I like the design more than you. I was actually
• 53:45
  presently pleasantly surprised on the design that they had a little i think metallic esque
• 53:50
  type of finish on some of like the team logos and stuff, which I
• 53:52
  couldn't you couldn't really tell them the photo. So I really liked the the
• 53:55
  overall look of the cards, the fuel of cards. The parallels again are
• 54:01
  a great I from what I've ripped, I didn't really pull any parallels,
• 54:07
  which's a whole other discussion as far as the print runs. But the thing
• 54:12
  that that that kind of caught me is, you know, usually when you're
• 54:15
  you're ripping things right after the view that the markets are pretty hot from and
• 54:20
  really the markets are are They're pretty pretty tough right now. There's not a
• 54:23
  whole lot of resell value, even like those mojos. If you pick something
• 54:28
  like that, you get a rookie usually thinking you can flip them for you
• 54:30
  know, three to five dollars early on and things like that. No,
• 54:34
  those are all dollar cards right off out the gate. The market really is
• 54:38
  kind of depressed on these, and I think it's a combination of the print
• 54:44
  runs still expect to be high, but there's overall cooling of the hobby is
• 54:47
  also taking place. So that's a that's a little disappointing because I'd like to
• 54:52
  rip more of it, but it is kind of like it was looking like
• 54:57
  a little more feasts and famine product than what you would a take expect with
• 55:00
  a flagship product. So how about you, how how have you enjoyed it
• 55:05
  so far? Have you had any better luck than I have? Yeah?
• 55:07
  I had an opportunity to rip some hanger packs that I found hanger boxes I
• 55:13
  guess that I found at Target over the weekend, and they treated me well.
• 55:16
  That we were spouting last weekend or last week about how the hanger packs
• 55:22
  certainly had the best odds, and I think that's true because out of my
• 55:25
  five hanger packs, I was able to get one relic and one auto,
• 55:30
  and that's pretty tough usually out of hangers. As well as the parallels were
• 55:36
  decent, I didn't hit any of like the gold parallels or anything, but
• 55:38
  I did hit a blue retail foil, and so certainly it was more bang
• 55:44
  for my buck than a hobby box. So I think that if you're out
• 55:46
  there and you see the hanger boxes, which usually they go for twelve bucks
• 55:51
  a pop, I think it's a it's a great product for that this year.
• 55:54
  And I mean the strategy of hangers or bangers is back, so this
• 56:00
  is gonna be Even though I still don't like the design, I will say
• 56:04
  like I was surprised by the foil as well that like it does give a
• 56:07
  little bit of a nice touch to the neon parts of the of the card,
• 56:12
  but I don't like I still don't like the fade border, like it
• 56:15
  just makes the top end of the card too heavy seeming. And then the
• 56:21
  incongruent like fonts between the team font and like that weird comic sands neon,
• 56:27
  and then the the names of the players is just in a totally different like
• 56:32
  italisized font. Plus the backs of them are really blank. It's just like
• 56:37
  a white part. That is very true that the backs are really boring.
• 56:40
  They're not even like a little like note of a design on the back of
• 56:44
  the cards. Yeah, it's really like bare bones and so yeah, I
• 56:47
  don't I don't like it overall, but I love the eighty nine inserts.
• 56:51
  The other inserts look great, and so in the parallels do really pop.
• 56:54
  The parallels look amazing. But yeah, I will be certainly ripping I think
• 57:00
  as many hangers as I think I can find in the wild, because I
• 57:04
  mean, especially at twelve bucks a pop, it's not that bad of a
• 57:08
  deal, you know, to make your money back that. I mean,
• 57:12
  I should just about break even once I moved the cards that I got in
• 57:15
  there, or you know, have investment in some orkies here and there.
• 57:19
  So yeah, it was a good experience opening the hangar boxes. Awesome.
• 57:24
  Well glad one of us is did well. I'll I'll have to readjust my
• 57:30
  strategy for the rest of the spring. Yeah, okay, Well, I
• 57:34
  think we're gonna take a short break here and gather our wits because I didn't
• 57:37
  even preview this. I probably should have off the bat, but now we're
• 57:39
  so deep in like, hopefully you stuck around long enough or read the title
• 57:45
  of the podcast to figure out that we're gonna be going through our top ten
• 57:50
  pictures. So what we're gonna do is draft ten pictures back and forth,
• 57:53
  five apiece that we're going at the top end of the draft and just getting
• 57:58
  the best five man rotation we can from a fantasy perspective. So I think
• 58:01
  it should be fun after we've been digging deep in the weeds over the past
• 58:05
  six weeks finding really deep buys on every divisional team. So if you are
• 58:10
  checking us out for one of the first times, certainly go back and check
• 58:15
  out those divisional previews. We've got great guests that we're on the past six
• 58:17
  weeks and winn in deep on every team. So if you're looking for in
• 58:22
  a bigger overview on each team going into the fantasy season, that's a great
• 58:27
  place to start and also just kind of figure out our vibe. But yeah,
• 58:30
  brew, we will take a short break here and be back with a
• 58:34
  draft of the top ten pictures that we've got stick around, all right,
• 58:53
  Welcome back, everybody. We are going to dive right into our draft of
• 58:58
  the top ten pictures to take five apiece back and forth. No, I
• 59:04
  mean, it would be funny if we snaked, but just with the two
• 59:07
  of its, it's a little unnecessary. And so this harkens back to back
• 59:13
  In one of our earliest episodes, episode seven. Way back in August,
• 59:16
  we were brazen enough to do a twenty twenty four mock first round draft like
• 59:22
  this where we went through the first twelve picks, and honestly, it's it's
• 59:25
  been holding up pretty well. I will give us credit that. I don't
• 59:30
  know if there's really any qualms I have about it, except for we took
• 59:34
  show Hay a little early, but I mean that was right before his UCL
• 59:37
  blew out, so we can't be for that. Yeah, I mean that's
• 59:39
  clearly. I think it was like the like within a week or something like
• 59:45
  that event. That's right, Yeah, hard because we alway, we even
• 59:50
  debated that one quite a bit. It's like, well, you know,
• 59:52
  Akuna show Hi, what are we gonna do here? And then it's like,
• 59:54
  well that was decided pretty quickly for us. Yeah, it was decided
• 59:59
  extremely quicklying, Okay, well, I've got a real life coin, so
• 1:00:02
  I'm gonna flip that and I'll let you call it because you are the guest
• 1:00:08
  on this zoom call. Technically it's my account, so all right, what
• 1:00:13
  are you calling? Oh, we're we are clearly going with tails tails never
• 1:00:16
  fails. Let's see what we get. Oh, it's headsails we'll be taking
• 1:00:22
  first. And I mean this also is so boring because it's almost too easy,
• 1:00:29
  Like it's Spencer Strider, It's got to be the number one picture.
• 1:00:30
  I mean, I guess, do you have any arguments against Spencer Strider being
• 1:00:35
  the number one picture off the board and being honestly, he's the only picture
• 1:00:38
  I would consider in the first round at all? I have zero argument here
• 1:00:44
  that is clear as day. Spencer Strider is the number one picture. And
• 1:00:47
  I think there's a pretty big gap, a huge gap, yeah, you
• 1:00:52
  know, with Strider like it, and even though you look at the ADP
• 1:00:55
  data, the gap between him and the next you off the board, I'm
• 1:01:00
  not gonna name them all just because we're gonna talk about it here potentially in
• 1:01:02
  a minute. Even though the gaps only maybe you know, six seven picks,
• 1:01:08
  the significance of the kind of hitters that are going in that range means
• 1:01:14
  that, you know, taking Strider at like ninth overall, you are passing
• 1:01:17
  up on a massive hitter when everybody else in your draft is loading up on
• 1:01:23
  those guys. So I think that that says even more about the fact that
• 1:01:28
  he is infiltrating that first round with the talent that's there. Yeah, absolutely,
• 1:01:31
  and I mean you can see it. I'm just looking at like the
• 1:01:35
  Fangrafts auction calculator right now and I flip it to the bad X. I
• 1:01:37
  found that bad X is the best protection system that I think. It's been
• 1:01:44
  pretty consistently rated that way. And I like it because it integrates lots of
• 1:01:49
  different baseball savant metrics as well, so it kind of allows some of those
• 1:01:53
  talents to come through. And I've got it set to standard, but I
• 1:02:00
  get the picture batter split just because that is what I do standard, and
• 1:02:05
  I think it's what lots of people do. You can see, you can
• 1:02:07
  see that gap. The first picture they have ranked is Spencer Schrider at fifty
• 1:02:12
  one bucks in this rankings that I've got. The next one's at thirty four
• 1:02:15
  dollars. So far and away Spencer Strider. It's not even close. Just
• 1:02:19
  the strikeout volume, the whip is really good. You would think that the
• 1:02:22
  ra should bounce back that the issues that he had last year. I think
• 1:02:28
  we're just more so kind of not buckling down and focusing at times that he
• 1:02:32
  would just kind of pipe fastballs in there and they would leave the yard just
• 1:02:37
  because he would have leads and still be able to finish with wins. So
• 1:02:40
  I think he will will have taken the off season to really figure that out,
• 1:02:45
  and the stuff is electric. There's no yeah, I'm not even just
• 1:02:50
  like, is there any like holes that you see in Spencer Strider? No,
• 1:02:52
  I mean the argument's always going to be there that you know he's got
• 1:02:55
  he's a two pitch pitcher and you know he's his his control isn't perfect,
• 1:03:01
  and he's like, yeah, you can try to pick things out, but
• 1:03:04
  there's really nothing to argue with. I mean, we're talking about a guy
• 1:03:07
  that, like, it's not gonna be shocking if he wins twenty games,
• 1:03:10
  strikes out three hundred guys and wins the cy Young like like is it's just
• 1:03:17
  a matter of how many innings does he get? And they you know,
• 1:03:21
  I think the Braves, if they are the team that we think that they're
• 1:03:24
  gonna be this next year, they're probably gonna try to you know, save
• 1:03:29
  some innings on that arm to a degree, And so does he hop two
• 1:03:32
  hundred ten innings like maybe some of the other hop guys probably not that's like
• 1:03:39
  if I'm trying to poke coals, like that's where those holes are. But
• 1:03:43
  like we're we're minting words here of clearly the number one starting pitcher, So
• 1:03:47
  that's there's no there's no more discussion to behalf yeah, And I mean I
• 1:03:52
  think on top of that too, like who is out there that you can
• 1:03:55
  count on for two hundred innings? And on top of it, like it
• 1:03:59
  is two pitches right now, but the parts are He's coming into camp with
• 1:04:02
  a curveball, so that can mix it up a little bit. But also
• 1:04:06
  just watch those two pitches. You don't even need the stuff. Plus metrics
• 1:04:10
  are insane, but just watch him pitch like it's it's very easy to figure
• 1:04:15
  out and he's good. All right, So pick number two is going back
• 1:04:19
  to you, and let's see, are you gonna zig here from the ADP?
• 1:04:27
  I would love to, you know, how much of a contrarian I
• 1:04:29
  want to be. I cannot zig. I'm to the point that you just
• 1:04:33
  made, well, how many guys are actually getting two hundred innings? And
• 1:04:36
  I'm gonna grabble one of those. Garrett Cole, I don't think there's really
• 1:04:41
  much argument here. Garrett Cole over the last oh what do we say,
• 1:04:45
  no, seven seasons has five of those over two hundred innings and you can
• 1:04:50
  kind of throw out twenty twenty. So over the last you know, six
• 1:04:54
  full seasons, he has five when he's broke two hundred innings pitched. You
• 1:04:58
  know, he did back off the strikeouts this last year a little bit,
• 1:05:02
  and so that is you know, maybe the little warning sign there. But
• 1:05:05
  he's he's probably a lock for you know, mid two hundred strikeouts, and
• 1:05:11
  you know he's he's gonna have some decent backing for him as well. So
• 1:05:15
  there's there's a lot to like with Garrett Cole. There's really not much to
• 1:05:21
  concern. It does seem like, you know, Cole is getting up there
• 1:05:26
  a little bit in in age and seems like, you know, there's a
• 1:05:30
  he does feel like he's kind of at some point things are going to start
• 1:05:33
  to deteriorate a little bit. It seems like you've seen flashes of it the
• 1:05:36
  last few years. But again you're mentioning words at this point. So Cole
• 1:05:41
  is my guy at number two. He'll be the the guy that anchors my
• 1:05:45
  theoretical staff here that we'll forget about very quickly as we go into all of
• 1:05:48
  our other drafts. But any any argument there or it was Cole, you're
• 1:05:54
  clear number two as well. Yeah, he's mine as well, just partly
• 1:05:58
  because of that volume. He's such a work course between. I mean he
• 1:06:02
  obviously, like even twenty twenty, he made all of his starts. He
• 1:06:05
  hasn't had any issue since twenty sixteen, which I guess his famous last words.
• 1:06:11
  But he's built for this type of workload. You know, he's got
• 1:06:15
  that kind of classic Roger Clemens justin Verlander, just like this guy was born
• 1:06:20
  to be a pitcher, and it shows every single time they's on the mound
• 1:06:24
  that even if I mean his k rate did slip last year in terms of
• 1:06:29
  the K nine dropped from eleven and a half to nine and a half,
• 1:06:32
  but he was still a fantastic pitcher. He did a much better job of
• 1:06:36
  limiting the homers. And I think that's why the k rate dropped a bit,
• 1:06:41
  is that he was conscious of making sure he didn't give up his many
• 1:06:45
  long balls. And he's just turned into a better and better picture as time
• 1:06:50
  has kind of gone on. Like he does remind me a lot of Verlander,
• 1:06:54
  and I think he's really rounding into a Hall of Fame career right now,
• 1:06:58
  and especially now they put that cy Young on his resume after last year,
• 1:07:02
  I think, if anything, the projections are kind of rough on him.
• 1:07:08
  Sure, his FIP was a whole half run more than his RA last
• 1:07:13
  year, but the FIP was still three one six, and all of the
• 1:07:15
  projections on fangrasts right now, the lowest projected ERA is three five to three,
• 1:07:23
  So I just don't see him in that range. Like I think you
• 1:07:28
  can pencil Garrett Colein for more of like a three two five three three RA,
• 1:07:33
  and then once you do that, it really shaves off a lot of
• 1:07:36
  those runs and boosts his value because even like in those bad X the auction
• 1:07:43
  calculut I was just talking about, he's actually kind of low. He's down
• 1:07:48
  at number five on pitchers. But I think it's because when you look at
• 1:07:54
  it, it's giving him negative dollar values for er and I just don't see
• 1:08:00
  that happening that. You know, the the league environment, he's always going
• 1:08:02
  to be, I think, a good ear rate picture and that's not even
• 1:08:06
  kind of counting what he also gives you a whip. He's fantastic for whip.
• 1:08:12
  Yeah, what the the only you know, would you look at his
• 1:08:15
  stat cast, it is starting to deteriorate year over year. If you just
• 1:08:19
  kind of look from like nineteen is like it was Spencer's strider level, then
• 1:08:24
  you kind of start to go back. You year over year, now you're
• 1:08:27
  hitting twenty three, and it's you know, he's he's not who he was.
• 1:08:30
  From a hard hit rate, from a barrel rate, from a whiff
• 1:08:32
  rate, like so there's a number of those metrics are are starting to step
• 1:08:35
  back. But the volume he provides as far as innings and the wins,
• 1:08:41
  it just it compensates, and it does to me feel maybe as we go
• 1:08:46
  through we'll see how you feel that the top of the pitching class. It
• 1:08:50
  seem like many years you have like four or five real clear guys. There's
• 1:08:54
  just like top tier and then it kind of, you know, another tier,
• 1:08:58
  like it feels like it's much muddier this year, and so a guy
• 1:09:00
  like Cold, there's a few things it'll be like, yeah, I could
• 1:09:03
  arguld argue that everybody else has words too, So there there, it doesn't
• 1:09:09
  seem to be as clear as as it has in the past. And he
• 1:09:12
  had like healthy shusers and Verlanders and you know all those guys out there.
• 1:09:16
  Yeah, absolutely, Okay, I am going to with my number three pick,
• 1:09:24
  well my second pick number three overall. I'm also not going to break
• 1:09:28
  adp here again. I'm going to take CORYN. Burns as my number my
• 1:09:31
  next picture off the board. Honestly, you can almost copy and paste a
• 1:09:34
  lot of what we just said about Garrett Cole and put it on Burns.
• 1:09:38
  He's not been doing it quite as long as Burns, but the past two
• 1:09:42
  years he's put up two hundred and two and one hundred and two, one
• 1:09:45
  hundred and ninety three and two thirds innings. It's been really solid. I
• 1:09:48
  think he's just Garrett Cole with a few more walks, and it's a new
• 1:09:53
  situation for him. So that's, you know, not the greatest, but
• 1:09:58
  wow, what a ballpark to be walking in to when you've got Waltimore behind
• 1:10:01
  you in Camden Yards. That that's going to save a lot of runs.
• 1:10:06
  You know, as he's working through the season getting out of American Family Field
• 1:10:11
  in Milwaukee, and even if he is in the slightly tougher division, I
• 1:10:15
  think the home park boost is gonna offset any sort of degradation in what Corbyn
• 1:10:21
  Burns will provide for you. And so I think especially like part of the
• 1:10:26
  reason we're going chalk here is that, like with my overall pitching strategy,
• 1:10:30
  like especially early on, I just like when you're looking at a guy like
• 1:10:34
  Corbyn Burns here, who I mean, you can put in one hundred eighty
• 1:10:38
  hundred and eighty five innings and not feel weird about it. Honestly, you
• 1:10:43
  can put in almost like one hundred and ninety and not feel weird about it.
• 1:10:45
  You can do that with all the guys that we just talked about that
• 1:10:47
  early on. Like even if there is maybe a slightly lower K nine,
• 1:10:53
  you know, Corbyn Burns is dropped to two point nine or nine point two
• 1:10:57
  last year, it's still like the volume in the steadiness is just so you
• 1:11:04
  can't pass it up at this point that you know you're looking for that because
• 1:11:09
  projecting out an entire season of pitching is really tough. But these sorts of
• 1:11:14
  guys should be in there constantly unless they run into some sort of serious injury.
• 1:11:19
  You know, they do pitch through a lot of you know, I
• 1:11:24
  would say like ups and in downs for them. It doesn't really show too
• 1:11:28
  much like game to game, but Obviously they're battling stuff everybody does throughout the
• 1:11:32
  season, but you can also count on that even more so with Burns.
• 1:11:35
  I think this year, as he's walking into a free agency year, that
• 1:11:39
  I just don't see how he doesn't go out there and make sure that he
• 1:11:43
  puts in thirty two starts. Yeah, I think that if Burns had remained
• 1:11:46
  in Milwaukee, I might be a little less bullish. I agree on him.
• 1:11:50
  I think that you're right, you know, fresh environments, the ball
• 1:11:55
  park in Baltimore. I don't think they realized the impact they were going to
• 1:11:57
  have when they change those dimensions there, And I think that that that's really
• 1:12:02
  really gonna help him because even last year, there were there were times where,
• 1:12:06
  you know, he just didn't seem like he was the Burns of the
• 1:12:10
  of a you know a few years prior. Uh, he you know,
• 1:12:13
  did take definitely took a step back in the strikeouts and the control a little
• 1:12:16
  bit. Uh yeah, just last year. And but at the end of
• 1:12:21
  the day, he's still a ace. He is an absolute ace, And
• 1:12:25
  I think you're right that Baltimore is gonna help him. So I also had
• 1:12:30
  him at number three, but I strongly debated him at four. Uh So,
• 1:12:35
  I'm not gonna disagree with you here, but I think that the gap
• 1:12:40
  between him and the next guy, at least on my list is not too
• 1:12:44
  terribly wide, Like I'm not. I think Strider Cole at the top is
• 1:12:46
  pretty much one two, like there's not much discussion there. And then I
• 1:12:50
  think Burns in the next guy here are I could, I could see switches
• 1:12:56
  and I wouldn't argue one way or the other if if you wanted to start
• 1:12:59
  switching guys out. Okay, Well, I mean I think that's kind of
• 1:13:02
  interesting because I think this fourth one, it kind of enters a bit of
• 1:13:06
  like a glob in terms of a lot of you're really parsing out small pieces
• 1:13:13
  of these guys's arsenals to be able to determine which one you want to take.
• 1:13:16
  But sounds like you have one in mind here for your second pick.
• 1:13:19
  Fourth. Overall, I do, I do, And to me, the
• 1:13:23
  more I look at him and more, it's very clear. Zach Wheeler.
• 1:13:26
  Yeah, Zach, Zach Wheeler. And again I don't think I'm breaking ADP
• 1:13:29
  by any means here, but I did consider Wheeler at the number three,
• 1:13:31
  and you know the reasoning again, a guy that outside he had a little
• 1:13:38
  little decrease. He missed a few starts in twenty two, but outside of
• 1:13:43
  the COVID year, he's done twenty nine starts, thirty one starts, thirty
• 1:13:45
  two, twenty six, thirty two. He's broke to internetings once. He's
• 1:13:49
  been in one eighty five to one to ninety the rest of the time.
• 1:13:54
  But what really interests me about Wheeler is the ridiculous conscipt And see this guy,
• 1:14:00
  like if you if you're looking at his you know, his his walk
• 1:14:04
  rates. We're talking about a guy last four years two point oh three,
• 1:14:09
  one point nine four, two point oh one point eight three. He is
• 1:14:12
  consistent as as get out his whip. For the last three years one point
• 1:14:15
  one one point four one point eight he's hasn't given up more than a home
• 1:14:19
  run per nine and you know, four years. His ground ball rates have
• 1:14:25
  to come off a little bit, but overall been very very strong. Even
• 1:14:30
  his luck metrics have like been incredibly consistent. So yeah, I look at
• 1:14:35
  Wheeler and he just you know, reeks of consistency for for lack of better
• 1:14:41
  terms, and I love that, especially as my number one. I think
• 1:14:45
  you know what you're getting I do think I'm surprised he hasn't had more wins
• 1:14:48
  and uh with with that lineup in Philadelphia, and I think that it's just
• 1:14:54
  a matter of time that the wins will come for for Wheeler. So I
• 1:14:58
  really like him. And if you actually go it's kind of funny if you
• 1:15:01
  go look at his stack cast compare him to like a guy like Cole,
• 1:15:05
  Like he looks fantastic, Like there's almost everything is red across the board.
• 1:15:11
  He's in the top quarter of you know, metrics for almost every single metric,
• 1:15:17
  and you know it shows, it shows in the field. So I
• 1:15:21
  really like Zach Wheeler. I think the consistency is is the piece that's pushing
• 1:15:25
  me there, that he is consistently really really really good. He is not
• 1:15:29
  He's not gonna sniff the Strider's space or anything like that, but you know,
• 1:15:32
  he to me, he's probably the the sion front runner in the NL.
• 1:15:40
  Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with all those things on
• 1:15:44
  Wheeler there, that he provides a lot of the consistency that we've been talking
• 1:15:47
  about that you know, he has picked up like an injury tag over his
• 1:15:53
  career just because he started that way. But wow, that was ten years
• 1:15:57
  ago, you know, the way a long time ago when he was in
• 1:16:00
  the Giant system and with the Mets and everything. So he's been really rock
• 1:16:04
  steady with the Phillies overall, and so yeah, I think it's a great
• 1:16:10
  pick that I think he's just like maybe like the beginning of the next tier
• 1:16:14
  for me in terms of everything else. But you certainly can't go wrong if
• 1:16:17
  he's your your ace staff because he's bringing a lot of the same qualities that
• 1:16:23
  Cole and Corbyn Burns are and a lot of really similar stats. So I
• 1:16:29
  think you're you can't go wrong if you're stuck with Wheeler quote unquote here.
• 1:16:34
  Yeah, for me, he's you know, there's two guys the top tier,
• 1:16:38
  there's two guys in the middle tier, and then it starts to go
• 1:16:41
  from there. So I'm probably a little more molish on Wheeler, but I
• 1:16:45
  don't know, We'll see. What do you think at five overall? Are
• 1:16:48
  you going to start to break ADP? Yeah, I mean this is where
• 1:16:51
  it does start to get difficult, because you know, there's some guys you're
• 1:16:58
  looking at and training to put a little bit more upside into them and hope
• 1:17:03
  that like you get a little extra out of them, and I think that
• 1:17:10
  is the route I'm going to go here, I'm gonna go. We talked
• 1:17:12
  about him just the other week, and that's George Kirby, and because he
• 1:17:16
  was my buy out of the Mariners for our Al West discussion, and I'm
• 1:17:24
  sticking with him that. Like, I've been hearing discussions recently about people kind
• 1:17:28
  of being lukewarm on George Kirby, and a lot of it deals with like
• 1:17:33
  the bad ball quality, and I just like, I don't get it,
• 1:17:39
  Like this is maybe like the closest modern version we have to Maddox in terms
• 1:17:44
  of control as there is, and even like his home run rate, it's
• 1:17:47
  still just about like won a game that's not awful. Honestly, the defense
• 1:17:54
  behind him should be better. He doesn't have Unnio Suarez at third base anymore,
• 1:17:58
  and that should significantly help them. I would think that, you know,
• 1:18:03
  Julio's still in center, and you're looking at a pitcher who doesn't even
• 1:18:09
  need Julio. He's got a forty four percent ground ball rate, which I
• 1:18:11
  know you love. The strikeouts are a little bit lighter, but I do
• 1:18:15
  think that just because of the control, he sneaks in a lot of extra
• 1:18:20
  strikes. And part of it too, is like he's also trying to work
• 1:18:25
  efficiently with the arsenal that he has, so you can see that in just
• 1:18:29
  like his supreme whip rates too, that whip that he put up last year
• 1:18:34
  of a one oh four, It's not like he had a ton of babbitt
• 1:18:38
  pluck. His babbitt was at two ninety two. That I like what George
• 1:18:42
  Kirby gives me, and you put him inside Seattle to a great home ballpark,
• 1:18:46
  a pretty good division to the Astros are getting worse. The A's are
• 1:18:50
  the A's, the Angels are the Angels. Obviously the Rangers are scary,
• 1:18:55
  but I mean it's it's a lot of really great matchups and I think George
• 1:19:00
  Kirby can take that next step that like I think the Mariners are, they
• 1:19:05
  have a chance here, even with the weird offseason that they had to kind
• 1:19:10
  of pushed forward. As the Astros are stepping back, and we talked about
• 1:19:15
  it during the Al West preview, the Texas Rangers back into that rotation is
• 1:19:18
  looking a lot like the Orioles until they get back their old injured guys.
• 1:19:23
  So I think George Kirby could really be a huge leader for the Mariners overall
• 1:19:28
  and push them to a big season. Yeah, I'm not really shocked that
• 1:19:32
  you took Kirby here. I did not have him at five. I had
• 1:19:36
  nine six on mine, so I was again I was a little bullish as
• 1:19:40
  well, but I like the guy at number five just a little bit better.
• 1:19:44
  So I'm not going to argue, here's what's interesting here, ms if
• 1:19:48
  you're going to take him next, Yeah, exactly. But I think what's
• 1:19:51
  interesting is you can start to think through the correlation of your top hitters and
• 1:19:56
  how we've talked about speed speed speed has been so critical this year, and
• 1:20:00
  if you think that, you'd want to make the same assessment across the board
• 1:20:03
  and say, you know, strikeout power pitchers like is just as valuable.
• 1:20:08
  But I think there's been enough enough, you know, impact of the control
• 1:20:15
  or whip how what are you gonna call it? The top power arms,
• 1:20:21
  the controls just not what it was. And so there's like some guys that
• 1:20:26
  are sneaking in with a little bit more control, a little less strikeout upside
• 1:20:30
  that are are actually really really viable because they get a little bit more innings
• 1:20:35
  and they're just gonna be a little more consistent for you. So I think
• 1:20:39
  it's interesting that you know, a guy like Kirby could be go as you
• 1:20:42
  know, as the top five pitcher. He's he looks at the part like
• 1:20:45
  I think that's what's thought about a guy like George Kirby. Like you watch
• 1:20:47
  him pitch, he looks like it's an absolute ace. He's a work course.
• 1:20:53
  So so I love them. I'm not gonna argue with you there with
• 1:20:56
  with George Kirby. Yeah, And I think part of it is that I
• 1:21:00
  I love the the floor that he brings to in terms of innings, Like
• 1:21:03
  it's another guy where you can probably set and forget for one hundred and eighty
• 1:21:08
  innings. That it starts to get a little more dicey here is we're working
• 1:21:12
  our way down the list that even some of these staff faces, I'm not
• 1:21:15
  sure you can fully set for one hundred and eighty. So it's starting to
• 1:21:18
  teeter a little bit. And because like, yeah, if you're gonna give
• 1:21:21
  me one hundred and eighty innings of like a one oh five whip, like
• 1:21:26
  that's that's gold. Like that that is much harder to find than I think
• 1:21:30
  people will give credit for Yeah, So I think that what you can almost
• 1:21:35
  predict my next pick because he is basically in the same moment as George Kirby.
• 1:21:41
  So I don't know if I can. I'm trying to parse it out.
• 1:21:44
  I think I have a guess, but I'll let you pick. Well,
• 1:21:46
  I'm jumping down a guy that's going after George Kirby. Pablo Lopez.
• 1:21:51
  Yep, okay, next yep, So Pablo Lopez. Uh, the all
• 1:21:58
  things you just talk about with George Kurk we kind of applied to Pablo Lopez.
• 1:22:01
  He's got the control. He's one of the few guys that looks like
• 1:22:04
  he can go. He's last two years, he's had one hundred and eight
• 1:22:08
  hundred ninety four innings he had in his six year career. He has never
• 1:22:14
  walked more than two point eight three guys per night. He's incredibly consistent,
• 1:22:18
  he keeps the ball on the ground. His whip does send to be a
• 1:22:23
  little little high. And for that absolute age when I say high, like
• 1:22:28
  one point one to five last year, it's just it's just not elite.
• 1:22:31
  But he has really come into his own and what the reason that I took
• 1:22:36
  him, I would take him over Kirby was that he seems like he really
• 1:22:41
  made a pitch mix change last year and in twenty two he was purely like
• 1:22:45
  a four seam fastball change up pitcher, and then he kind of worked in
• 1:22:49
  his cutter his sinker a little bit here and there, but like we're talking
• 1:22:54
  over seventy almost seventy five percent of the time he was using two pitches.
• 1:22:58
  Last year, he was really almost a three to five pitch pitcher. He
• 1:23:04
  really backed off on his change up, like significantly dropped from about thirty five
• 1:23:12
  percent usage about twenty one percent usage, and he brought the curveball in more.
• 1:23:16
  But he also introduced a sweeper. And you know, the sweeper was
• 1:23:19
  all the rage last year and opponents against it, their ex batting average against
• 1:23:29
  it was one seventy six. It was good. His hard hit rate was
• 1:23:32
  twenty two against that thing. And I didn't I didn't look to see,
• 1:23:38
  if you know, how if he changed the how often he used it throughout
• 1:23:42
  the year. But it seems like he kind of added something that was arsenal
• 1:23:46
  that was already really really good, and that kind of just added to the
• 1:23:50
  to a little bit of tick on the ability to be kind of a little
• 1:23:54
  bit more of a strikeout pitcher. So for all the same reasons that you
• 1:23:59
  like Kirby, I like Lopez. I think I just saw a little bit
• 1:24:02
  more growth in Lopez, a little bit more change, where like Kirby,
• 1:24:06
  he's just got less experience under his belt. So it also could just be
• 1:24:10
  growth ends up in the same spot. But yeah, Lopez for me is
• 1:24:15
  really exciting. You know, I wish I wish he pitched for a little
• 1:24:19
  bit better team so the wins would be there, so that, you know,
• 1:24:21
  maybe an advantage to Kirby. There come and they in the Al Central,
• 1:24:27
  I think, yeah, and they Al Central, I guess, well,
• 1:24:28
  you just got to show up and be a warm body potentially to get
• 1:24:30
  some wins. So it's very reasonable. So yep, I got Pablo Lopez
• 1:24:34
  as the sixth overall. He was number five on my draft board, but
• 1:24:39
  I'm pretty happy about about it. Yeah, he would have been my sixth,
• 1:24:42
  so I think it's a great pick that I think that this will actually
• 1:24:45
  be. Maybe one of the bigger debates is kind of draft season goes on,
• 1:24:50
  is between Lopez and Kirby, because I think they're very similar. It's
• 1:24:56
  just that you're trading like a little bit of Kirby's whip for lowpe as his
• 1:25:00
  strikeouts, and so it creates just an interesting dynamic on knowing how you draft
• 1:25:05
  as a player and what types of pictures you want to pursue going forward.
• 1:25:09
  You know, do you want to take more high like high risk shots on
• 1:25:15
  arms that might provide like a twelve K nine but be a little riskier on
• 1:25:18
  your whip, or do you want to try to hunt whip guys later on
• 1:25:21
  that might not quite bring as many strikeouts. So it's a it's a kind
• 1:25:28
  of a choose your own path in terms of like what you want to attack
• 1:25:30
  later and knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are in terms of evaluating the picture
• 1:25:33
  pool. But I certainly have no problems with you taking Lopez here that I
• 1:25:40
  think that he's a great pick as well. All right, Well, where
• 1:25:43
  are you going with with number seven overall? Okay, So I'm going to
• 1:25:46
  go back to somebody that we skipped over in ADP, and that's Kevin Gausman.
• 1:25:50
  It's a little bit of like the steadiness and the strikeouts that he does
• 1:25:56
  bringing more strikeouts. I don't love that his whip is a little bit higher,
• 1:26:00
  but I do believe more so in the defense behind him that like,
• 1:26:05
  especially two years ago when his whip went over one point two in his first
• 1:26:09
  year with Toronto, I think just the whole Vladimir Guero Junior and whoever else
• 1:26:15
  was on that infield supporting him kind of didn't help Gousman as well as you
• 1:26:20
  know, getting used to that turf up in Toronto, I think takes a
• 1:26:24
  little getting used to, especially when you're coming from San Francisco, so it
• 1:26:28
  was a little bit of a growing pain. But I mean, man Flay
• 1:26:31
  vlag Gero Junior is in the best shape of his life. He looks like
• 1:26:33
  he might he might be out there. Wouldn't go glove at first base.
• 1:26:41
  Let's let's hold hold the horses. Uh, we'll do the fielding top ten
• 1:26:45
  another week. Yeah, But I I mean when I'm looking at just like
• 1:26:49
  the guys left that, I like Goussman's steadiness and I love the splitter.
• 1:26:56
  It's always going to bring strikeouts. And you can't kind of argue with the
• 1:27:00
  team dynamic around him. You know, the Blue Jay should be a pretty
• 1:27:03
  solid team again, so you're looking for mid teens wins hopefully here and yeah,
• 1:27:10
  I mean he's been a very steady eddy for the past three years,
• 1:27:14
  going one hundred and ninety two one hundred and seventy four one hundred and eighty
• 1:27:16
  five innings. That it's you know, I think we're down to maybe like
• 1:27:21
  two or three guys you can put in one hundred and eighty innings that are
• 1:27:25
  going up at this high of a draft pick range because of the strikeouts.
• 1:27:29
  And yeah, especially if you can get that eleven and a half k nine
• 1:27:33
  out of Gousman again this year, I don't know if he'll quite be there,
• 1:27:36
  but wow, the periphials have always been great, you know, the
• 1:27:40
  fip has been staying underneath three. So I just don't see any reason like
• 1:27:45
  why Galsman should really slip further than this is part of it. Yeah,
• 1:27:49
  I head Gusman as the next guy my board as well. I've always struggled
• 1:27:55
  with Gusman two degree. That feels like that profile file is volatile, but
• 1:27:59
  then you look the numbers at the end of the year. Even though like
• 1:28:00
  he seems to be one of those guys will blow up here and there and
• 1:28:02
  things like that, but he is. I think he's a little bit more
• 1:28:05
  of a roller coaster than some of the other guys, but at the end
• 1:28:09
  of the day that the numbers come in in aggregate to be really, really
• 1:28:13
  good. And so he's one of those that I wish he was on the
• 1:28:15
  West coast just set and forget it and wake up the morning and move on
• 1:28:18
  from a fancy perspective, but I don't think he's one of those that really
• 1:28:23
  he's gonna be more in the mid threes on the ear ray, his whip's
• 1:28:27
  gonna be a little bit more in the mid one ones, but he's going
• 1:28:30
  to make up for it with the strikeouts, and you know, he overall
• 1:28:34
  very very consistent. So I'm out there with you, no no qualms with
• 1:28:41
  with Gosmin. All right, who are you going with at number eight?
• 1:28:45
  I think this is where it starts to get tough. Like I if you
• 1:28:47
  want to start to say that there's you know, another tier here after Lopez,
• 1:28:51
  Kirby and Gosman, I have no problem with that. I am not
• 1:28:56
  going to follow adp for for this one. I'm gonna skip over a guy
• 1:29:00
  that's that's going a little higher, and I I'm gonna I'm not one hundred
• 1:29:04
  percent confort there's two guys I really like here, So you can't take the
• 1:29:09
  guy I leave on the next pick, but I'm going to take Zach Gallant
• 1:29:15
  at this point. Gallon, he he does again we're talking about like these,
• 1:29:21
  we're really at the end of the guys that can you know, sniff
• 1:29:26
  two hundred, two hundred innings last year he had two hundred ten innings.
• 1:29:30
  He he was just an absolute stud. Uh seventeen wins, you know,
• 1:29:33
  struck out almost nine and a half batters per nine. Was really almost exactly
• 1:29:40
  to walk for nine. And you know, I'd even argue he he had
• 1:29:44
  a little he had the worst BABA of his career, worse left on base
• 1:29:48
  of his career. So like even from a luck perspective, you know,
• 1:29:53
  he he was maybe a little bit unlucky. The advanced stats I don't nestly
• 1:29:58
  don't agree with that, So I think maybe his stuff took maybe a little
• 1:30:02
  step backwards. But he seems to be really solid. I think he's to
• 1:30:06
  be playing for a really good team there in Arizona, and like they he
• 1:30:11
  is their workhorse, He is their absolute ace, and he has a little
• 1:30:15
  bit of something extra, just like a grit about him. I just love,
• 1:30:18
  which you know, it's just like saying he has good clubhouse and tangiles
• 1:30:23
  for your fantasy team. That doesn't mean anything. But I really kind of
• 1:30:28
  like his overall general approach. The only red flag that I really see with
• 1:30:33
  Gallen, Like if you look at his some of his expected stats, like
• 1:30:39
  twenty twenty three was definitely a step back. His XCRA was like four point
• 1:30:44
  one, you know, his hard hit rate with like forty six. We're
• 1:30:47
  looking at the stat cast, like, man, there's some things that kind
• 1:30:49
  of jump out there that just didn't match. But he still delivered some pretty
• 1:30:54
  good results overall. So I'm taking Gallon there more of volume and uh,
• 1:31:01
  you know, kind of a known quantity if you may, versus some of
• 1:31:03
  the other guys that are in the same range. But if I'm if I'm
• 1:31:06
  drafting them and including hitters, I think this is where I'm starting to pull
• 1:31:10
  back a little bit from starters as we get into this this next year.
• 1:31:15
  Yeah, and I yeah, I like Gellen too. I've also heard kind
• 1:31:18
  of, like on other pods and things, that people are starting to fade
• 1:31:21
  him a little bit. And I don't fully get it that you would think
• 1:31:25
  that this is kind of the prime of his career. You know, he's
• 1:31:28
  been around for a couple of years, and I think, especially when you're
• 1:31:30
  talking about Ace Pictures, it takes a couple of years to just get to
• 1:31:34
  know the league and be able to figure out how to consistently retire these guys
• 1:31:42
  you know at bad By at bad and you know, over a longer span
• 1:31:45
  of time and playing that longer kind of game of chess with all these batters.
• 1:31:50
  So I love the stuff on Gallon. And part of it too,
• 1:31:55
  is like that home park in Arizona is a huge pictures park and it doesn't
• 1:32:00
  get as much credit for that as I think people should like give it that.
• 1:32:05
  Ever since they switched to a ball that goes in a human door there
• 1:32:10
  in Arizona, like it's turned immediately into a picture's park. It's a huge
• 1:32:14
  park, and you're hitting a ball that has you know, met the specifications
• 1:32:19
  to ratchet down the offense a little bit. And so yeah, I think
• 1:32:24
  this is a great pick that you know, he's only twenty eight. He's
• 1:32:27
  walking into I guess it would technically be his like twenty eighth year that turns
• 1:32:32
  twenty nine in August, So this should be like right when you're turning the
• 1:32:36
  corner, and like I think, especially prime, this is prime Gallen.
• 1:32:40
  Yeah, I think especially like I mean, just what we're talking about with
• 1:32:44
  Goussman. It took almost a little bit for Gaussman to get going in his
• 1:32:47
  career, and obviously it was a little bit more meandering because of going in
• 1:32:51
  and out of relief and different teams and stuff. But like you look at
• 1:32:57
  like all these other guys that we've drafted, it takes except for Spencer Strider,
• 1:33:00
  it's just like a totally another it's like an alien. But it this
• 1:33:04
  is like Zach Gallen is right where he should be to, you know,
• 1:33:09
  possibly put up a career year and be right back in that cy Young conversation.
• 1:33:13
  So yeah, I like Yellen here. All right, well we are
• 1:33:16
  coming to the to the end of it here, So where are you going?
• 1:33:20
  After I took took Gallen right right on pace where I expect him to
• 1:33:25
  be. All right, here we go. I'm I'm going a little bit
• 1:33:28
  off of the reservation now and I'm taking Yoshinobo Yamamoto like I'm doing it here,
• 1:33:32
  and this is right about where I'm taking him, I would think,
• 1:33:35
  because the upside is talking like Garrett Cole Spencer Strider range just because this stuff
• 1:33:46
  from the WBC last year was insane, Like he had the best stuff in
• 1:33:51
  the tournament. He is so nasty. He's pitching for the Dodgers, so
• 1:33:58
  the winds should be there. I think that like even like in terms of
• 1:34:02
  you worry sometimes about Japanese pictures coming over and just adjusting to the grind of
• 1:34:11
  what you know, a new life is in America and like just everything culturally.
• 1:34:15
  But he's got Otani right there with him to show him the ropes.
• 1:34:19
  He's got the Dodgers machine around him that I think he's gonna be really really
• 1:34:26
  good, And like I I'm I'm ready to take the bite of the apple
• 1:34:30
  of the risk right here that like this is probably the first spot where I'm
• 1:34:34
  I'm ready to start doing it just because I believe in the talent and I
• 1:34:40
  think the talent's really gonna win out that I mean, I don't even it's
• 1:34:45
  really hard to like peg what like the upside could be because like, honestly,
• 1:34:49
  I think a Spencer Strider like year is in the cards that there is
• 1:34:54
  a bigger chance of that outcome than I think maybe anyone else on this list
• 1:35:01
  that we've taken because just of the supreme talent alone on top of you're also
• 1:35:06
  talking about a guy who the league is not seen at all. So we
• 1:35:12
  saw how that worked for code A Senga last year that there was just like
• 1:35:15
  an uncomfortability because you weren't used to that ghost fork. And I think Yamamoto
• 1:35:23
  is going to create lots of similar situations with everybody because the fast pall is
• 1:35:29
  electric, the slider is electric, and so I'm ready to start betting on
• 1:35:33
  those intangibles in terms of the pitches, and just like the team situation that
• 1:35:40
  I mean, I don't think it's out of the cards that we're talking something
• 1:35:44
  like one hundred and eighty innings eleven K nine low three zra like a sub
• 1:35:51
  one point one whip with fifteen wins, And I mean, yeah, that
• 1:35:57
  that's it's an easy to see ceiling just because of all of the kind of
• 1:36:02
  factors that are unknown in his game as well as just what you're looking at
• 1:36:06
  in terms of the arsenal and the talent. So I think this is where
• 1:36:11
  I do start taking Yoshinobo Yamamoto because I can't miss out on that upside and
• 1:36:16
  I can figure it out kind of on the back end with my second and
• 1:36:20
  third picture. If I'm taking him as my number one to try to give
• 1:36:25
  some extra like solidification to my overall staff, you know, going to like
• 1:36:30
  with one of our favorite Sonny Gray or something like that pretty soon after this.
• 1:36:32
  But yeah, I love Yoshinobo Yamamoto. Honestly, I was really waffling
• 1:36:39
  on taking him at my fifth or seventh pick because I do think that,
• 1:36:44
  like the sky is the limit on this guy. Yeah, so I'm not
• 1:36:47
  gonna agree. I had him a nine on my list, and that's what
• 1:36:51
  you heard my hesitation when I took Gallon. That's because I was sitting here
• 1:36:56
  going, I don't I don't know that I get Yamamoto. I'm not sure
• 1:37:00
  that I get him. And I'm feeling instant buyer's reborse on Gallon, Uh
• 1:37:06
  with you taking Yamamoto. So I think that tells you that you know,
• 1:37:10
  you know, Moto might have been the right pick there. That the only
• 1:37:13
  things that are holding me back, like at this point, like again,
• 1:37:15
  you're you're picking between like aces, you're picking forth between really good players.
• 1:37:20
  The only things that hold me back is I'm a little concerned with the innings.
• 1:37:25
  The Yamo is gonna get for two reasons, you know, just coming
• 1:37:28
  over from Japan. What's that transition to look like? How are they gonna
• 1:37:30
  are they going to pitch him every fifth day or they gonna hold him off
• 1:37:33
  just a little bit, try to keep him healthy. But also the Dodgers
• 1:37:36
  will signed literally fifteen million pictures. And so to me, like I'm reading
• 1:37:42
  the tea leaves and thinking like they're gonna maybe slow roll a little bit.
• 1:37:45
  They're trying to make Kirkshaw back, you know when he gets atally healthy,
• 1:37:47
  you know, So I and they have like there's really good pictures that aren't
• 1:37:54
  going to be making that rotation. And so I am not gonna be shocked
• 1:37:57
  if they're giving him a little bit of rest. So I'm thinking, if
• 1:38:01
  I'm nitpicking, the innings might be a little lower than what what what we
• 1:38:05
  want to project. So that's my only knit with yam Moto is that And
• 1:38:11
  that's what you said, which is he's it's unknown what's that transition going to
• 1:38:13
  look like, but the upside is enormous, And so that this is the
• 1:38:16
  point where right, like I said, right at the beginning of this tier,
• 1:38:19
  and maybe he belongs in a tier his zone right after like the Lopez,
• 1:38:23
  Kirby Gosman range. Maybe there's this a yam Moto tier, which is
• 1:38:27
  like the are you feel unlucky tier? Roll the dice and go with Yama
• 1:38:30
  Moto and then you get back to normal life. So yeah, I don't
• 1:38:33
  have qualms. I think you know, you're we're taking both of them,
• 1:38:38
  taking him a little bit before others are taking him. I think, you
• 1:38:44
  know, at this point we're talking, there's from ADP perspective, these guys
• 1:38:47
  like Castillo Glass now that are going before him. But I think that that's
• 1:38:56
  especially in spring training, when your eyes on him, I think it's gonna
• 1:38:59
  start close a little bit further. Yeah, and I mean I think really
• 1:39:03
  the biggest debate it boils down to with Yamamoto is almost in in first year
• 1:39:09
  player drafts fy pds. I mean, do you take him or Wyatt Langford
• 1:39:14
  if you have the number one pick that it's that's a that's a tough spot
• 1:39:17
  to be in. That's not tough. That's all day. Yeah, motive
• 1:39:21
  all day for me. I think that finding pure aces at that age for
• 1:39:29
  like a like a dynasty type is so hard that it you're willing to invest
• 1:39:36
  in and go after that. Whereas a hitter, I feel like there's a
• 1:39:41
  little bit more likelihood that you can find a top round hitter that in drafts
• 1:39:47
  a little bit later. So I'm I'm taking Ammoto in the first year player
• 1:39:50
  drafts. Probably I'll advise, but that's that's kind of I like. I
• 1:39:54
  like to build my teams. I do like to have really strong pitching,
• 1:39:58
  and I feel like you can you start with really good at pitching and you
• 1:40:00
  can kind of go easy in the middle of the pitching and then finish it
• 1:40:03
  out with some with some really good upside guys while you're making the rest of
• 1:40:08
  your team. Yeah, I think that's fair. All right, Well,
• 1:40:11
  since I stole your pick, who are you going to take at number ten?
• 1:40:13
  Well, I I'm going to jump down the draft board for number ten.
• 1:40:16
  I'm gonna have to say it. I am leaving see one, two,
• 1:40:21
  three, four, five, six guys on the board from ADP perspective,
• 1:40:27
  and I'm going down considerably to ADP of sixty two and taking Max Freed.
• 1:40:34
  I am a big fan of Max Freed and everything that he can bring
• 1:40:40
  to the table. I know there's folks have had injury concerns with with Freed,
• 1:40:45
  and that's kind of what comes back. But you know, just if
• 1:40:49
  you set those those aside a little bit and say, you know, this
• 1:40:53
  is a guy that in twenty twenty two three hundred and eighty five innings.
• 1:40:58
  You know, just last year he he was more than a strikeout for nine
• 1:41:01
  and the last three years he has been just lights out from control perspective.
• 1:41:08
  You know what I'm gonna go to next. I absolutely love the way that
• 1:41:11
  he keeps the ball on the ground. He last year he was a fifty
• 1:41:14
  eight percent ground ball rate. That's just just as incredible. Means he keeps
• 1:41:18
  the ball in the park, means he really is going to contain that that
• 1:41:23
  whip and uh, you know he's he's pitching for the Braves where he is
• 1:41:27
  going to get there. Their team that lets pitchers go deep. They have
• 1:41:30
  a pretty good bullpen, and they're gonna lock in some wins for you.
• 1:41:34
  And if you you know, go look at his you know, his stat
• 1:41:40
  cast and his expected stats. His x CRA was two point seventy three,
• 1:41:44
  it was top three percent of the league. His ground ball rates top three
• 1:41:48
  percent of the league, barrel rates top five percent. His average velocity is
• 1:41:54
  in the top ten percent. You know, yeah, I could, would
• 1:41:57
  you like a little bit more strikeouts? Sure? But like to me,
• 1:42:00
  he does have that body of a workers. He's a six' four or
• 1:42:03
  one ninety guy. He's a big guy. Maybe like a little bit more.
• 1:42:08
  I'll wait on that frame potentially, But I really like Max Freed,
• 1:42:15
  and I think that he's gonna a guy that we could be talking about next
• 1:42:19
  year easily in the top ten, if not a little bit higher than that.
• 1:42:26
  Yeah, I mean I like the skills. I'm really afraid of that
• 1:42:30
  injury, that the forearm injury and what that pretends. I think if it
• 1:42:35
  wasn't for kind of the strategy we've been talking about in terms of like I'm
• 1:42:39
  looking for a decent amount of bulk here that then like yeah, then I
• 1:42:45
  would start considering Freed. But I can't get behind him at this place.
• 1:42:48
  I know that you love him, but like, yeah, that forum injury
• 1:42:51
  is whoa boy? Yeah? And really is? I think part of it
• 1:42:55
  comes down if you look at the other guys that I skipped over. Yeah,
• 1:42:58
  I have more problems with the other guys, Like, yeah, I
• 1:43:00
  am scared of death Louis Castillo. I was gonna say, why do we
• 1:43:02
  hate Castillo? Yeah, so I just real quick for me. He he
• 1:43:09
  is a little bit of a home run prone pitcher, and he all of
• 1:43:14
  a sudden last year turned into this flyball pitcher out of nowhere, and it
• 1:43:18
  seems to be like it was getting worse as the season went on, and
• 1:43:21
  like he is going to pay for that dearly. And he's he's always had
• 1:43:26
  a little bit of volatile control issues and so he I mean from a volatility
• 1:43:30
  perspective. Yeah, he's looked pretty good the last few years. But there's
• 1:43:33
  a lot of word and signs I do not like there with Castillo. Uh
• 1:43:36
  so that's why I passed on him. But there's other guys like that.
• 1:43:40
  With with school, there's there's concerns Aaron Nola, like, there's a few
• 1:43:44
  concerns, Like you know, there's there's other guys there that just don't do
• 1:43:47
  it for me. And so the freed skills are so strong that I'm willing
• 1:43:53
  to overlook the injury risk. And you complimented me earlier for sticking to my
• 1:43:58
  guns on my resolutions, so we could make it through a whole pod without
• 1:44:02
  me taking somebody with injury risk and here we are. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:44:05
  I yeah, I knew I had to come back around eventually, but yeah,
• 1:44:11
  I'm I'm in the same boat on Lucesdo that, like the skills degradation
• 1:44:15
  around the edges is not great between the flyball spike, and then he lost
• 1:44:20
  a tick on his fastball too, so that's there's also like a point where
• 1:44:27
  like, obviously these aces start wearing a little thin, and I think that
• 1:44:30
  might be happening with Lucesdo that he's kind of got to get over that hump
• 1:44:34
  of rounding his career into that just solid veteran and it might require another tick
• 1:44:43
  off the fastball. And I mean it's a good park that, like I
• 1:44:46
  do think I wouldn't take him next. I think my next guy that I
• 1:44:50
  would take is probably Logan Web just because of again, really steady, workhorse,
• 1:44:58
  great park, And then I think I would think about Castio, But
• 1:45:00
  I don't think Castio is going to be dropping down there for me in drafts,
• 1:45:04
  just because he's got a double digit in that K nine, so people
• 1:45:09
  are really chasing that, and I think at this point in the draft,
• 1:45:13
  like even with that, I'm just a little bit afraid of those skills.
• 1:45:16
  I really think if I miss out in those top ten right there, I
• 1:45:20
  am going to take a break and then I'm going to come back and maybe
• 1:45:23
  double up on that next tier, maybe you know, two or three rounds
• 1:45:29
  later. So I want to put you on the spot and ask you a
• 1:45:30
  question. If you look at, say that that next tier of guys,
• 1:45:34
  I'm gonna say start being in you know, the probably ADP around the seventies
• 1:45:40
  and lower. Who's a guy that you think if you're looking out like that,
• 1:45:44
  you would not be shocked if he broke out this year and was in
• 1:45:47
  the top ten conversation for next year, like if you're if you're skipping that
• 1:45:50
  that range, and I think it's very fair. Like Glass Now, we
• 1:45:54
  didn't even talk about him, like I'm I'm not touching Glass now, uh
• 1:45:58
  Schoogle. This concerns Nola. I'm actually not too too thrilled with Peralta.
• 1:46:01
  I actually don't mind Freddy also too much, but actually not touching bring up
• 1:46:06
  Peralta because those bad X projections I was talking about earlier. Actually Max fred
• 1:46:12
  is fourth by them, Freddy Pearlta's third. I'm trying to figure out why
• 1:46:17
  I think Paralta's always been a really really good pitcher and just underrated because I
• 1:46:23
  think he started as a reliever. I think, if I recall and like,
• 1:46:26
  that's also giving them a three five seven ear array when everyone else is
• 1:46:30
  getting like a three seven to three eight, which I think is part of
• 1:46:33
  it, which is a little strange, but I mean I think that's also
• 1:46:39
  he should be a pretty good workhorse in terms of like twelve wins. But
• 1:46:45
  I do need to dive in, I think a little bit more into Freddy
• 1:46:46
  Perlta. I've for seeing that because the bad X. I don't know if
• 1:46:49
  it's picking up like something from his savant page, but that is interesting.
• 1:46:55
  I had him in my right at the top twelve thirteen was where Peralta is
• 1:47:00
  for me. So anyway, going back to my question putting me on the
• 1:47:02
  squat, give you a little time to stall. I did. Like you
• 1:47:05
  said, if you start looking at like that ADP of like seventy overall and
• 1:47:11
  lower. Yeah, And the reason I picked that area there is a number
• 1:47:15
  of young guns that start to pop in that like number two, number three
• 1:47:20
  starter draft range. So who's the guy for you that next year you think
• 1:47:26
  we're talking about in the top ten. I think this is actually a really
• 1:47:30
  easy answer. I think it's Grayson Rodriguez from Baltimore that I think he's got
• 1:47:34
  a lot of the pieces there and he just has to show it now.
• 1:47:40
  I think over a full season. Yes, last season was a little up
• 1:47:42
  and down as he was refining his pitch mix and had a rough start in
• 1:47:47
  the majors and had to go back down to Triple A for a bit,
• 1:47:50
  But the last couple months of his season were really really strong, and honestly
• 1:47:55
  like he would be maybe like that next person kind of like for Luis Castillo,
• 1:48:00
  like I'm bumping Grayson Rodriguez up pretty high, like past Senga, Gilbert
• 1:48:06
  Snell, Valdez. Honestly, I would take him over Max Read personally,
• 1:48:11
  like give me yeah that. I think that a lot of the prospect shine
• 1:48:17
  for Grayson Rodriguez is still there. It's just that people kind of maybe got
• 1:48:23
  burnt by him last year, and I think that he's the guy that can
• 1:48:27
  easily make that step up into this top ten discussion for next year pretty easily.
• 1:48:32
  On top of like he's in Baltimore, so like it's one of the
• 1:48:36
  better pitching parks and his arsenal is just nasty. It's a full arsenal,
• 1:48:42
  and as he refines it and gets better with more repetition that I think this
• 1:48:46
  is going to be a pretty big year for Grayson Rodriguez. What about you?
• 1:48:51
  Yeah, So it's funny you started that with, well, this is
• 1:48:54
  easy, and then you didn't pick the guy that I would have, which
• 1:48:58
  I'm I'm not gonna argue Gracing because I think that's a really good pick and
• 1:49:00
  because when I'm made the comment of like, if I'm getting that mid range,
• 1:49:03
  I'm probably skipping out and maybe taking two guys in this range. For
• 1:49:08
  me, it's Bobby Miller. I think Miller he has all the ingredients to
• 1:49:12
  break out. His staff is just nasty. Again, another guy looks like
• 1:49:15
  he has the potential to really be a workhorse, you know, type type
• 1:49:20
  of player. I think that there's a lot, a lot more in the
• 1:49:25
  tank. Again, we're talking to guys only had a one year in the
• 1:49:29
  in the majors, but has great control, you know, keeps the ball
• 1:49:32
  in the ground. His strikeout upside like strikeouts like I think people are looking
• 1:49:36
  at it's like only those eight eight six kper nine, but like throughout the
• 1:49:40
  minor leagues. He was eleven twelve, thirteen kper nine. Guy, Like,
• 1:49:44
  there's more more in that for him, and he again from a velocity
• 1:49:48
  perspective, I mean, he's a guy that pumps it up there in ninety
• 1:49:51
  nine, like there is there is more in that tank. And if he's
• 1:49:56
  if he's just starting things out, I think there's a ton of ups side
• 1:50:00
  for Bobby Miller. The only concern I have is man again that stacked up
• 1:50:03
  Roger's rotation. They've got everything, everything in there. But as we talk
• 1:50:10
  about got emposy and Brown presences six five, two twenty, this is a
• 1:50:15
  a massive human being that throws the ball in the top two percent of power
• 1:50:21
  for a velocity in the league and then brings all those other things that you're
• 1:50:27
  looking with control, keeping the ball on the ground. Like there's a lot
• 1:50:30
  lot to like from him. And you know, if you you know,
• 1:50:35
  I love baseball savant. When you compare the velocity and movement to guys,
• 1:50:40
  here's the here's the five guys that listed with Bobby Miller, Garrett Cole,
• 1:50:44
  Jacob de Gram, Hunter Green, Louis Everno, and Spencer Strider. It's
• 1:50:48
  an okay list. Yeah, I mean like Hunter Green Loose se Reno are
• 1:50:53
  like, oh man, those the best names, like, but there's a
• 1:50:55
  ton of throw it hard. Yeah, yeah, there's just a ton of
• 1:50:58
  talent in those two. And then just because we have to go there,
• 1:51:00
  they also compare on the bat ball profile. I mean to ignore four names
• 1:51:03
  on the list because the number one guy is Sonny Gray. We did not
• 1:51:06
  talk about them enough, and I didn't I can get a chance to say
• 1:51:09
  Sonny Gray in the top ten, So I had him finish up the pod
• 1:51:12
  making sure I referenced Sonny Gray because him I would not if I consider him
• 1:51:17
  one of the best pitchers in the league. I think I'm that guy that
• 1:51:21
  would take him in the top ten if the rest of the market was willing
• 1:51:26
  to go there with me. I thought you were going to bring him in
• 1:51:30
  at number ten were free. I thought about it, but I just I
• 1:51:35
  didn't want all the listeners to give out on us at that point. I
• 1:51:40
  mean, it would have been good. They would have had to hold out
• 1:51:42
  all the way through the entire draft to be able to doggy for it,
• 1:51:45
  so it would be great. But no, I do think Bobby Miller is
• 1:51:48
  a great pick because even though like the Dodgers, you have lots of pictures
• 1:51:53
  around like they've got to develop an ace sometime, and I think they're gonna
• 1:51:58
  let Bobby Miller just work through it and try to build his innings up and
• 1:52:01
  so that he can go forward and try to be like that one hundred and
• 1:52:05
  eighty inning picture, because it's really super valuable from just I mean, look
• 1:52:12
  at like what the Cardinals did signing Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, Like you
• 1:52:15
  can be bad and throw one hundred and eighty and eighty innings and you can
• 1:52:18
  see how valuable it is for teams that if you get a guy with the
• 1:52:23
  talent of Bobby Miller, I mean obviously it gets into the conversation of these
• 1:52:27
  guys we're talking about as top ten pictures. So you've got to try to
• 1:52:30
  push in my think a little bit this year if you're LA. Yeah,
• 1:52:32
  absolutely, And that's where I think, you know, if you're going to
• 1:52:35
  hit or heavy as being in the draft and you're guys like Grayson Bobby Miller,
• 1:52:41
  I'd even go down a little bit with with guys like you know,
• 1:52:45
  Cole Reagan's Tanner, Biby, Michael King, that I'd be like willing to
• 1:52:48
  like be like give me like four or five of those guys and just build
• 1:52:53
  a whole staff right there, which would I would be really thrilled with that.
• 1:52:56
  Yeah, And I think that's also why like Luis Castillo is just not
• 1:53:00
  terribly interesting. Yeah, I feel like we're the only downer we have is
• 1:53:03
  like I just stay away from Louis Castillo. Yeah, I swear we didn't
• 1:53:08
  discuss this before. Both of us were just down on Louis Castillo, independent
• 1:53:12
  thinking. Yeah, all right, well, I think that's a great preview
• 1:53:16
  of the top ten pictures and even a little more. We're really talking some
• 1:53:20
  top tier pictures here. So let's wrap it up here. Brew. Can
• 1:53:25
  you let everybody know where they can find you on socials and elsewhere? Yeah,
• 1:53:30
  find me over on x slash, Twitter, jabrewer one seven by me
• 1:53:33
  on the weekends at rasball doing your hitter profiles. We were finishing up the
• 1:53:38
  divisions here shortly, and then we'll be dropping the top one hundred hitters as
• 1:53:43
  we near the season here starting in a few weeks, So come over disagree
• 1:53:48
  with all the rankings. The first article is of the year is always the
• 1:53:53
  most fun because it's just open season, come after me. I love it,
• 1:53:59
  so make sure you're there when we drop it. How about you,
• 1:54:01
  Where can they find you, Mike? Well, yeah, I've got to
• 1:54:03
  think of some user names to be able to dog you in your own comments
• 1:54:06
  there, so I do. I can see the email behind the scenes,
• 1:54:11
  by the way, so you're gonna have to really go after it. Fake
• 1:54:14
  emails took. Yeah. You can find me on Twitter, slash x and
• 1:54:18
  on blue Sky at m coool seven, and you can find me at rasball
• 1:54:24
  once the season starts. So I need the season to start before I can
• 1:54:26
  start doing my Waiver Wire columns. But obviously we're here on Cards and Categories
• 1:54:30
  every week. You can find the podcast on x slash Twitter at Cards Categories,
• 1:54:36
  and you can email us at Cards Categories at gmail dot com. And
• 1:54:41
  we're running all sorts of great subscriptions on rasball for your fantasy draft season,
• 1:54:47
  so certainly check it out that Rudy's got a new tool that helps you through
• 1:54:53
  your draft rooms and all sorts of different projections and just great tools in terms
• 1:54:59
  of especially DFS if you're a huge DFS player, I think we've got some
• 1:55:02
  of the best tools out there in terms of the daily projections and matchups.
• 1:55:05
  So Rudy puts in a lot of great work. I love what he does.
• 1:55:09
  Certainly check out all the other writers were in full steam ahead right now
• 1:55:13
  that we've got a great roster for this year. So we hope that you
• 1:55:15
  check us out at rasball dot com and you will be able to find us
• 1:55:20
  here at Cards, Cards and Categories next week, same time, same place.
• 1:55:25
  Take care until next then