Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 30 : AL West Preview

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Ep. 30 : AL West Preview · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode thirty of Cards and Categories. I am
• 0:21
  Mike Coolard here from Rasball, joined as always by my very good friend Jeremy
• 0:26
  Brewer, also from Rasball. How you doing, brew We're into the thick
• 0:30
  of February here. Now we're in the thick of February. Spring training is
• 0:34
  within reach Stone's throw. I think that's fair to say so excited, ready
• 0:41
  to get to the spring and see what's going on and also discuss some fun
• 0:46
  baseball news. I feel like we've actually had an interesting week of transactions and
• 0:50
  things like that that we feel like the last week and a half or so
• 0:54
  not as exciting. So a little bit more going on this week for us
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  talk about Yeah, it is definitely starting to turn corner. We hinted at
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  it a little bit over our preview series here the past few weeks that you
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  know, spring training is fast approaching. But the annual from Baseball Perspectives finally
• 1:12
  hit my doorstep this morning, so that's I think that's when it really delineates
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  for me, when I can start flipping through the six hundred page annual and
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  reading all the caps and finding all the funny jokes. It's a it's a
• 1:26
  rite of passage. But you are correct that a lot of news has broken
• 1:30
  over the last week. In fact, like right after we finished up recording
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  our pod last week, that's when Corbyn Burns was traded from the Milwaukee Brewers
• 1:40
  over to Baltimore for Joey Ortiz and dal Hall plus a comp pick, like
• 1:45
  a draft comp pick. So we missed it just by a little bit,
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  and it was a good thing that we hadn't already previewed the Brewers. That
• 1:53
  will become a next week for our last one for the NL Central, But
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  we did cover the Orioles, and I think, honestly some of us might
• 2:01
  have ended up making Corbyn Burns our bye, because you can't really, I
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  can't have envisioned much of a better landing spot for Burns overall in terms of
• 2:12
  great home park to pitch in winning team, a little bit of a tough
• 2:15
  division. But I like what this does for Corbn Burns's value. What about
• 2:19
  you? Yeah, I agree, this is as bad as good as it
• 2:23
  was gonna get for Burns, unless the only thing that could maybe even better
• 2:28
  is go to the Dodgers, because I feel like every other picture is going
• 2:30
  there right now. And so apparently they still have room for they're going with
• 2:35
  the ten man rotation this year. But yeah, I love the landing spot
• 2:38
  for Burns. I'm actually a little surprised at the price. I felt like
• 2:45
  the Orioles, to you ree, kind of stole Corbyn Burns from the Brewers.
• 2:50
  Yeah, you know, there was the comp pic but because this is
• 2:53
  all season trade, they can just throw a qualifying offer on them and get
• 2:57
  a comp pick back. So it was really deal hall enjoy Ortiz for Corben
• 3:02
  Burns. I'm paying that all day if I'm the Orioles, And you know,
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  I don't know if Burns becomes the number one in Baltimore for the or
• 3:13
  or if you want to argue that that's Grayson Rodriguez with kind of the way
• 3:17
  that we talked about him. But either way, you know, he really
• 3:21
  makes an impact for that rotation, and from a fantasy perspective, he's got
• 3:24
  a good line up behind him. He's gonna get that more spacious ballpark after
• 3:30
  the dimension changes a few years back. I really like this for Corbyn Burns,
• 3:35
  and I have to think there's just a little bit of excitement for Burns,
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  like he feels like he was just kind of down and out in Milwaukee
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  with the way that they had you know, treated him, traded everybody else
• 3:46
  away, and just kind of fizzled out the last year or two. So
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  I think just straight up adrenaline is gonna add to his ADP. Yeah,
• 3:55
  I mean, I think it's gonna be a pretty like great season for Corvin
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  Burns as he's walking into free agency after this year. And you know what
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  I mean, not only did we get the annual from Baseball Perspectives coming out
• 4:11
  and Pacoda coming out this week, but we also finally got like all the
• 4:14
  projections up on Fangraphs, so we got the bat and ATC. So it
• 4:18
  gives you a little bit of like you pick and choose that you can kind
• 4:23
  of it gives you bands and seeing where players could go, especially if somebody
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  is using the Steamer ra in your draft table. For Corbyn Burns, they're
• 4:33
  the high projection system right now on Fangrafts at three seventy two, which is
• 4:40
  really absurd. He's never been close to that. He did have a three
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  eighty one fit. But I mean part of it is Corbyn Burns. It's
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  just so good at controlling the strike zone in terms of you know, working
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  it in and out with that cutter, and he's a very cerebral pitcher.
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  You know that he's missing lots of barrels, and so I just don't know
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  how you're gonna get a three seventy two ear unless they're really trying to bake
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  in some sort of blow ups in Boston or New York or something. But
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  I think it's going to be a pretty fantastic time to be buying Corbyn Burns.
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  And yeah, I agree. I think only his price is going to
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  be going up at the draft tables, and I think you're going to be
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  seeing people pushing him further and further up into the second round. I think
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  as draft season goes on, Yeah, I think you know, the risk
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  there at that point is he has lost loss in the last few years.
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  You know, he's got some baby of luck things like that. So I
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  think that's kind to be baked into some of those projections. But I have
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  to say, and it's the intangibles. I have to say that just the
• 5:43
  move and the environment change is going to pick up a degree of that,
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  and he's going to a better ballpark. So yeah, I think you're right,
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  this is probably going to push him into that second round conversation and kind
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  of start putting some separation between him and guys like Zach Wheeler, Louis Castillo,
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  Paulo Lobez. I don't really put you know, Burns in the squarely
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  in the top three starting pitchers. Yeah, absolutely, So what do you
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  think about the other side of the trade, going back to Milwaukee? We
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  have Joey Artist and Tiel Hall and what it just kind of does for the
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  overall rotation and line up in Milwaukee. Any thoughts there? Yeah, I
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  I don't know that I'm too worried one way or the other, or too
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  excited one way or the other. It's the non event for me. Oh
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  okay, well I got a little bit of a thoughts here, So deal
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  Hall. I will say, I do wonder what the Brewers saw in him,
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  because his problem has been through the miners' walks, like it seems that
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  he's got good stuff, but he just doesn't fully know where it's going.
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  And that is pretty clear when you're walking three to four dudes at every stop
• 7:00
  in the minors. So if there is a fix that the Brewers see,
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  I'm going to track him a little bit in spring training. See if like
• 7:08
  he does tighten up his command a little bit on the starts they gets and
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  I think you'll be interesting if he does. But right now he's like more
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  of a watchless guy for me. D L. Hall in Milwaukee, Yeah,
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  I think you're right. What it does surprise me is that he is
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  the fourth highest drafted Milwaukee Brewer at the draft tables. So I know we're
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  not talking the the NL Central today, but it's gonna be a slim pickens
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  when we start talking about the Brewers here in the in the coming weeks.
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  So I guess that's tell two stories, right four the fourth highest player pick,
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  but going up pick five hundred, that's an economy. But yeah,
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  I think you're right. He's interesting. He is one of those guys that
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  if he did figure something out, like he just figured out his control,
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  then it could be a whole from ball game. I just with the with
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  the Orioles selling them feels a little bit like that they're a team that's kind
• 8:07
  of got a lot out of their pictures, and if they're selling Burns Burns
• 8:11
  Hall, it's kind of like the you know, the Rays or the Guardians
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  or somebody like that selling their pictures going but you they already know something and
• 8:22
  letting those guys go. So yeah, I don't don't think you're wrong.
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  I just I'm probably just gonna look like right past that side of the deal.
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  Yeah, ideal hall is the fourth pit Brewers picture. I think you've
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  got the picture, oh pictures. Yeah, you're missing all the all the
• 8:39
  hitters. Oh so well, I feel way better now because I was really
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  concerned, like how terrible, just wanting to ground you back in reality for
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  a little bit. Okay, well fourteenth that's I mean half a dozen ones.
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  That makes a little more sense. I And I I like Joey Ortiz
• 8:56
  as well too, So this is another guy who I think if you're in
• 9:00
  a more shallow league, I would watch list again. He's got really good
• 9:03
  bad and ball data from when he's been with the Orioles. The Orioles have
• 9:07
  shown that they can develop hitters, and so I wouldn't be surprised if he's
• 9:11
  able to carry a lot of the tools that he learned in the Baltimore system
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  over to Milwaukee. And I mean he came through the minor leagues with good
• 9:20
  strikeout rates, solid walk rates, really great WRC pluses at every stop it's
• 9:26
  just that Baltimore didn't have a spot for him. You know, when you're
• 9:30
  the six seventh, maybe even like eighth, best infield prospect in the system
• 9:35
  in Baltimore, you're an expendable piece. But he's currently slated to be the
• 9:41
  starting third baseman on roster resource per roster resource for the Brewers. I think
• 9:48
  he's going to be in in dynasty leagues. I do like him as a
• 9:50
  pickup because I think he's going to be the Willia Damis replacement after this year.
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  Adamis is a free and after this year as well for Milwaukee, and
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  so I think if I might, if I'm in a deep league and I'm
• 10:07
  looking for somebody to bring in as a bench am I I like Joey Artist
• 10:11
  because it's a good ballpark up in Milwaukee. He should play a lot,
• 10:16
  either between third base or short or second. What do you think about Joey
• 10:20
  Artists overall? Brew Yeah, I orties as well. Like I think,
• 10:26
  as long as you have your expectations in check, then then there's a little
• 10:30
  interest there because a lot of times I think we look at young guys like
• 10:33
  like a Joey or Teas and like hope for like the stardom. And if
• 10:37
  that's your hopes, you're not going to be too excited about Joey or tease.
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  But if you're looking to I think your point out bench, middle infielder
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  or guy that might have to you know, might get some of bets here
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  and there matchup play, I think there's a little interest there because he does
• 10:52
  he does have a little speed, there's a little power, has an okay
• 10:58
  lineup with a decent ballpark, and so he doesn't hurt you really too bad
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  anywhere. But he also doesn't incredibly help you too bad anywhere. So he's
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  like the epitome of replacement level player. And so if you've got a guy
• 11:09
  that's hurt and you're trying to plug and play him, I think that's that's
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  good. Just don't like, I don't think you invest in Ortiz as your
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  future you know, starting third, basement or shortstop or anything like that.
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  I don't think you playing on that. And if you're not playing on that,
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  then yeah, yeah, I think you're perfectly perfectly happy with him.
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  Yeah, I agree, And I'm the other thing too is I wouldn't be
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  surprised if he turns into some sort of shared playtime situation, you know,
• 11:37
  out of spring training, because he will I think have a battle for that
• 11:41
  third base job with Tyler Black. I yeah, like Tyler Black, and
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  I think if Tyler Black is the starting third baseman Milwaukee, he's going to
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  be like he's going to swing a lot of leagues if he can run the
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  way he did last year in the minor leagues. So I'm going to keep
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  a really close I on kind of deal Hall, and both deal Hall and
• 12:03
  Joy Artie is going into spring training for the Brewers to see how they were
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  fare all right. The other signing that we have is Clayton Kershaw is returning
• 12:13
  to the Dodgers, So that came through just yesterday and it looks like he
• 12:20
  should be back sometime and maybe like June or July after undergoing back and shoulder
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  surgery. That, like, I think it was a combo of the both
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  over the off season, and so I think a lot of like the signings
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  that we've seen in LA over the past few weeks also show that the Dodgers
• 12:39
  are approaching the pitching staff as like a I don't I'm not even sure like
• 12:46
  how many dudes that they're going to cycle through, But I mean this might
• 12:48
  be a pitching staff that goes through eight to ten arms, and they plan
• 12:54
  for it as they cycle Kershaw in and Paxton in and trying to work Walker
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  B. They're back on extra rest. So Brew are you investing in Clayton
• 13:05
  Kershaw anywhere? Or is you Is this where you're gonna invoke your resolution and
• 13:09
  stay away from an energy guy? Oh it hurts. Let's just can we
• 13:16
  just delete that pod? Like one of our most listened to possibles. Listen
• 13:22
  to pods and I love the Christmas episodes. I think I've really abused my
• 13:26
  my New Year's resolution to no end. I think I've only stood by like
• 13:31
  one time as we've talked about a guy, and I'm gonna abuse it again
• 13:35
  with Clayton Kershaw. But part of was I think the price and I don't
• 13:39
  know where he's gonna settle right now. His ADPs like doesn't count. It's
• 13:43
  he's free. I'm not sure if people thought he was not gonna sign.
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  I'm not sure if this's a combination of that and the injury. But at
• 13:50
  the end of the day, Clayton Kershaw, if when if, and when
• 13:56
  he pitches, he is good, if not great, and that's what you're
• 14:01
  counting on if you pick him up. And so I think that he's going
• 14:05
  to be pretty cheap at drafts, and you know, they're not going to
• 14:09
  rush him back. They've got a stable of you know, seventeen starters that
• 14:13
  they're they're looking to use. But you know, the last five years,
• 14:18
  he's had a you know, struck up more than a guy per inning.
• 14:24
  His high watermark of the last decade for walks was last year at two point
• 14:31
  seven, but otherwise he's barely been above two. So he's the guy that's
• 14:35
  running out a crazy good whip at you know era generally in the twos maybe
• 14:41
  low threes. And that's all times where he's been battling injuries and questions about
• 14:46
  if he's going to return and things like that. Hershaw's going to return and
• 14:50
  he's gonna play. He's gonna be a Dodger, and he's going to come
• 14:54
  back and have that itch and he's going to be a top ten level pitch.
• 15:01
  I don't have any question about that. Yeah, I know he's coming
• 15:03
  back from an injury, yea, yeah, YEAHA. But I think he's
• 15:07
  going to be a top ten level pitcher when he pitches, and as long
• 15:11
  as you're not planning around him, like you're not planning that he's going to
• 15:16
  be your you know, ace or something like that. You're trying to like
• 15:18
  bridge to the Bridge to July or whatever it is. You're gonna be thrilled
• 15:24
  when he gets back and he just boosts your ratios. So I I will
• 15:28
  own a decent amount of Kershaw shares unless some hype train gets out of control.
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  But I think the injury will keep that, keep that at bay.
• 15:37
  Yeah, I think so too. Am I off my rocker? Am I
• 15:39
  off my rocker at this time? No? I don't think you are,
• 15:41
  because I think that, like he's going to be just an easy pick when
• 15:46
  you're at the end of drafts, and if he's sitting there and I know
• 15:48
  that I can pick him up and move him to the il right away while
• 15:52
  then using that spot to either stream somebody or take a flyer on somebody who
• 16:00
  got a job out of the spring. That's fantastic. It's like an extra
• 16:03
  draft pick. So yeah, if that option is available, I'm going for
• 16:07
  it. But that's the only spot where I'm taking Kershaw. You know I'm
• 16:10
  not. I'm not paying anything more than like that last pick in the Snake
• 16:14
  draft or a dollar at the draft table or anything more than like the most
• 16:18
  minimum investment. Yeah, I will probably own him in all of our leagues.
• 16:25
  Yeah, because plus minimum investment plus other minimum investment, so you got
• 16:32
  two x. Yeah, I will two x or three x years because I
• 16:37
  have to say spots at the end of the draft, all my other injured
• 16:40
  guys, I'm gonna take. So Kershall is going to be like, you
• 16:41
  know, third to last pick for me, because I'm just gonna you know,
• 16:45
  pile on. You know, I don't know who it's going to be.
• 16:48
  Somebody else's that gets hurt in spring training. They might show back up
• 16:51
  in September. That's my last pick. Yeah, I think that's uh,
• 16:55
  that's pretty fair. So the next transaction that we got to cover is Gregory
• 17:03
  Santos moving from the Chicago White Sox to the Seattle Mariners for a package that
• 17:08
  included Zach de Loach Zach dec Yeah, is I think the person who's probably
• 17:15
  got the other biggest chunk of fantasy value also was another right hander and another
• 17:23
  draft pick. So this really kills any value that Gregory Santel's had. So
• 17:32
  I don't think that there's any chance that he's going to be pushing Andre Smunos
• 17:36
  out of the job in Seattle or even like, yeah, I was gonna
• 17:40
  say he might not even be second in line because that is a really just
• 17:45
  fantastic bullpen in Seattle, and it's going to take a couple of people in
• 17:48
  front of him to go down before he gets a shot. So I think
• 17:52
  with the fantasy the biggest fantasy implication here obviously, if you've got Gregory Santos,
• 17:59
  he's kind of droppable wherever you might have gotten him. But is the
• 18:02
  other side where he's leaving the south side? And this might be the worst
• 18:07
  bullpen I think I've ever seen in my like history of being a baseball fan.
• 18:12
  It is awful. The White Sox are in it to lose a ton
• 18:17
  of games this season, and are there any arms that you might take a
• 18:22
  flyer on. Let's let's say I'm I'm actually like im pinning you to like
• 18:27
  a life or desk situation here, brew and you have to take one of
• 18:30
  these arms in the Chicago White Sox bullpen. Who are you going to count
• 18:36
  on to get the most saves? Right now? That's a if I If
• 18:42
  I have to pick it's uh and I and we know how badly I butcher
• 18:47
  names in this so as the resident White Sox fan, please correct me.
• 18:52
  But Garrett Crochet, Am I getting that right? Yes? If if I
• 18:57
  have to pick, that's the guy. He was a first rounder. He
• 19:02
  does have nasty stuff. I know, he's you know, kind of come
• 19:03
  back after some injury issues. But I think he has the highest upside.
• 19:08
  And of all the guys in that bullten, he's the only one that,
• 19:12
  like you can actually come project out that. Yeah, there's some injury history,
• 19:17
  Yeah there's a velocity back. I think there's a lot of question marks
• 19:19
  with him, but he's also the only one that I can see really doing
• 19:25
  anything exciting. I mean, otherwise we're talking about John Brebbia is gonna have
• 19:27
  the the saves at the end like Rebia for all, you know, all
• 19:32
  Den's purpose is actually a very solid picture. But he's a solid pitcher.
• 19:34
  He's not anything beyond that. And everything ever, literally everything else in that
• 19:40
  bullpen is like a reclamation project or like a former starter that is trying to
• 19:45
  like make it in the bullpen. That literally is the entire bullpen at this
• 19:49
  point, with like Cays like Devide Garcia, Tuki tissand even Jimmy Lambert like
• 19:57
  was at one point starter, so like, yeah, there's not much else,
• 20:00
  So Garret Crochet, like, I think he's an interesting dart throw for
• 20:06
  like to your point, second to last pick in the draft before Kershaw,
• 20:11
  Yeah, exactly, and like being forced to make a decision that I'm looking
• 20:15
  forward to where this bullpen goes, because it's going to be right for picking
• 20:19
  for my waiver wire articles, trying to find saves in deep leagues because I
• 20:25
  think whoever is holding down that job in Chicago will be a lot like what
• 20:30
  Trevor May was last year, where it's just like a closer sitting out on
• 20:33
  the waiver wire and you're trying to play that game of how badly do you
• 20:37
  need those saves to? Like like how many save opportunities will there even be
• 20:41
  part of? Like every two weeks there's like one save opportunity. So yeah,
• 20:48
  I mean there's probably twenty to twenty five saves and that bullpen somewhere,
• 20:52
  but it's just like is it going to be concentrated in John Brebrio or spread
• 20:56
  out or it could go so many different ways and it'll be so nowhere to
• 21:00
  keep your eye kind of glued to as the season unfolds, because yeah,
• 21:04
  Saves are Saves likes. We went over with it on this explanation of Sagnoff.
• 21:11
  You know, Saves ain't got no face, that this is going to
• 21:14
  be the absolute like beacon of that. Yeah, I feel like if the
• 21:18
  Saves are coming out of the sex bullpen they have a bag over their head,
• 21:23
  they should pull different definition to not have no face. And then I
• 21:29
  brought up the return on the other side with Zach DeLoach going to Chicago because
• 21:34
  I'm actually a little bit interested here in Zach de Looach because right field is
• 21:40
  another dumpster fire position to the White Sox right now that it's some sort of
• 21:45
  battle if you can call it that, between Dominic Fletcher, Kevin pr Or,
• 21:51
  Kevin pollar Oscar Colas, Gavin Sheets, and now Zach de Loach answers
• 22:00
  into this race, who is entering his age twenty five season. He put
• 22:03
  up a one to eleven WRC plus as a twenty four year old for Seattle
• 22:07
  and Triple A last year, and that came with a really fantastic line in
• 22:12
  the one hundred and thirty eight games that had gotten Triple a. He hit
• 22:15
  twenty three homers with ninety runs, eighty eight rbi, eight stolen bases with
• 22:22
  a two eighty six three eighty seven forty one slash like that is a He's
• 22:26
  a pretty solid hitter with a good eye. He walked at a double digit
• 22:30
  clip and struck out a little bit more than you'd like to see, But
• 22:36
  I think it's because he's trying to flex some power. So Brew, do
• 22:41
  you have interest in what zach DeLoach might bring to the South Side Chicago?
• 22:45
  Yeah, I actually do. I think to your point, he if you
• 22:49
  look at him, he is one of the more intriguing is the is the
• 22:55
  most intriguing piece of this trade, and it's probably because he's going probably the
• 23:00
  only place that he goes to. He is a legitimate shot to be playing.
• 23:03
  Like do I think he's stretched a little bit if he's not ready,
• 23:07
  But I mean he's twenty five years old, like he it's that put up.
• 23:10
  It's now or never for a guy like the lotion. He did not
• 23:12
  have a spot in in Seattle. But you know a guy that you know
• 23:18
  keeps the strikeouts in check. Relatively, He's not in the He's not that
• 23:22
  guy in the Miners is striking out thirty fibers in the time, but he's
• 23:25
  upper twenties. He does walk, you know, thirteen fourteen percent of the
• 23:30
  time, and so definitely if you're like an OBP league, very very interesting
• 23:36
  there. But you know, he has a little sneaky speed, a decent
• 23:41
  power like he's he's that kind of guy that's you're like fourth outfielder, fifth
• 23:45
  outfielder that you're You're just like, hey, into the draft. I'm not
• 23:49
  gonna spend a lot of time here. Let me throw three or four guys
• 23:52
  in there. And he's one of those guys that you throw in there.
• 23:55
  And if he gets the job, I don't think you're gonna be terribly disappointed.
• 24:00
  I think he I don't think to me as a kind of a steady
• 24:03
  Eddy kind of guy. For uh, it's just a matter of does does
• 24:07
  it translate to the majors? But I the profile he has, uh,
• 24:11
  he's not a severe fly ball hitter, is a severe ground ball guy.
• 24:15
  You know, he's a very balanced profile. I think it's gonna play better
• 24:21
  than people think. Yeah, and he's left handed, so that does play
• 24:26
  in Chicago that they're finally figuring it out that you know, there's a shorter
• 24:30
  right field porch over there, and oftentimes the way that the when swirls in
• 24:36
  that stadium, it's going out to write a little bit stronger. So I
• 24:38
  don't know, I was doubting Chris Getz when he first got hired, but
• 24:42
  he might be starting to piece some things together here. Hey, and don't
• 24:47
  forget the guy was the second round draft pick. I mean, it's not
• 24:49
  like he was just had a few good years of the miners, like he
• 24:52
  had a pedigree and he's been pretty solid throughout. Yeah, I get he
• 24:56
  was a you know, college draftee and he has maybe that moved through the
• 24:59
  system much. But hey, there's a little intrigue on this one, that's
• 25:03
  for sure. Yeah, I absolutely agree. So I think, especially if
• 25:07
  you're in ale only leagues like great guy, to put it in for a
• 25:11
  dollar in your reserves. So that is going to wrap us up for the
• 25:17
  news and notes that we had happened this week. There's a little bit of
• 25:22
  card activity that I think we should touch on, just because the schedule has
• 25:25
  been updated that we said when Stadium Club came out a couple of weeks ago.
• 25:30
  Has it been a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's been two weeks
• 25:33
  at this point. Yep, It's just yeah, it's been a fun ride
• 25:37
  opening Stadium Club that I've had a blast opening it, and the cards have
• 25:41
  been really gorgeous and they've treated me well this year. So I've been seeing
• 25:45
  really great things just online about Stadium Club. I think it was a great
• 25:49
  hit and hopefully they don't ever put it back on the chopping block. But
• 25:53
  there's a couple more twenty twenty three releases that are still coming, and I
• 25:59
  think these might be the last, but I shouldn't like try to make that
• 26:03
  guarantee anymore. So today, on February seventh, as we're talking, twenty
• 26:08
  twenty three, Tops Luminaries came out, which is a one card per box
• 26:14
  three hundred and fifty dollars lottery ticket. So they are gorgeous cards and have
• 26:18
  lots of you know, one of one's cool autographs, cool patches. But
• 26:25
  it is the biggest lottery ticket gamble. I think you will ever see fun
• 26:30
  to watch breakers open, but I don't think it's really for the normal person
• 26:34
  out there, the common man. So brew, how many do you have
• 26:37
  any Luminaries in your collection? Have you seen any be opened. I'm trying
• 26:44
  to think. I feel like at one point I did have one Luminaries that
• 26:48
  or I was thinking about getting one one of the two I but yeah,
• 26:52
  you're right, it's one of those that kind of like a diamond icons or
• 26:56
  something like that, where I'm trying to think there's a few others like that
• 27:02
  that if you get a chance, it's it's great to have one. In
• 27:04
  Dynasty. Tops of Dynasty, I think, is another one that's like,
• 27:07
  man, these are just really high end cards. And what I find myself
• 27:12
  struggling with is like it's a lot to put into one card, even like
• 27:17
  as a I would say a minor, you know, contributor. You're you're
• 27:21
  talking, you know, base. Their base cards are not based like they're
• 27:26
  they're fancy base. You're talking thirty fifty dollars for like the worst of the
• 27:30
  worst cards, all the way up to one thousands of dollars for the hits
• 27:33
  that you're after. So I love Luminaries. I won't own but maybe a
• 27:41
  handful of over my lifetime. I was just just looking because the breakers have
• 27:45
  them now right, the breakers have Luminaries. They're ripping them day one,
• 27:48
  and like the cards that are being already tossed onto eBay, not much sold.
• 27:53
  But you're you're talking about you know, seven hundred fourteen dollars like cards
• 28:02
  some like the big Rookies and stuff like that. And the cards are they're
• 28:06
  beautiful. They're absolutely you know, crazy patches, crazy autos, you know,
• 28:11
  in case type of thing. But you know, they're not too far
• 28:18
  off from like if you if you look at especially this year's design from like
• 28:22
  a finest or a triples threads things like that, usually they're a lot classier
• 28:26
  kind of design. I feel like this year's design is not as good as
• 28:29
  it has been the past of Luminaries. And so your point is a lottery
• 28:33
  ticket, man, it is a lottery ticket, but it's a hard one.
• 28:37
  It's definitely a hard one. You won't catch me open in a single
• 28:41
  box of these probably ever. Yeah, I I thought the same thing that
• 28:45
  I'm glad that you also share that thought on the design that usually when you
• 28:52
  are opening Luminaries, because of that price point, there is something very regal
• 28:57
  about it and classy and high end and dynasty is usually the same way too,
• 29:03
  But this year it just doesn't look that way. It does look a
• 29:08
  little like cheap and futuristic and honestly reminds me a lot of like what Top
• 29:15
  Series one looks like. So maybe it was added towards the end of the
• 29:19
  schedule and kind of got rushed, but it is quite the choice, I
• 29:25
  would say, of going and with the route that they've chose for the just
• 29:32
  overall design of luminaries, especially when you're talking three hundred and fifty dollars a
• 29:36
  pop and some of these cards are going to go into PCs for thousands of
• 29:38
  dollars. Yeah, it is. I feel like the last few years of
• 29:42
  looking back to some of these designs just they've kind of slowly petered it out
• 29:47
  from some of like the unique really classic designer, Like I just have to
• 29:52
  own one of these cards too. Now it's just like it doesn't look that
• 29:56
  different than something you can get out of a cheaper set. So yeah,
• 30:00
  I think they're hurt again. There's there's some cool chases in here. I
• 30:03
  was just looking at the one on one Spinster Strider what they call Masters of
• 30:10
  the Mound and it's literally they put the hide off the baseball and had them
• 30:15
  sign it and then built that into the card, kind of like the bat
• 30:18
  knob cards that you see in is that museum that you see those in?
• 30:23
  And they were Tier one maybe either way cards, I don't know, And
• 30:30
  it's like those are those are the chases and they are amazing when you hit
• 30:33
  them, but man, they are so so hard to come by. Yeah.
• 30:38
  Absolutely. And the other twenty twenty three least that got added to the
• 30:44
  schedule recently is on February twenty first, we have Tops five Star coming out,
• 30:49
  so I think this is another one that was kind of revived from the
• 30:53
  dead, along with you know, Stadium Club and a few of these other
• 31:00
  sets that have been coming out. So Tops five Star. If you're not
• 31:03
  familiar with it, I think you should reference back to our previous discussion on
• 31:07
  Tops Tier one, and it's pretty similar that. Like even when I'm sorting
• 31:12
  through Cards a Lot or looking at cards and eBay, I confuse Tier one
• 31:18
  and five star Cards a Lot and Museum Collection Base too. Like the bases
• 31:23
  all kind of run together, and you got the gold kind of stamping usually
• 31:27
  on the five Stars, So lots of fancy patches and autos again here,
• 31:33
  but it is going to have more than one card in the box, So
• 31:37
  that's good for you if you like more than one card from your box.
• 31:41
  So five Stars coming out on the twenty first, and brew, I know
• 31:45
  you have some five Stars. I don't know if you've ever opened any,
• 31:48
  but it's probably you know, a more approachable product for just the common collector
• 31:56
  because the box is a little bit more Ford Bowl and provides a few more
• 32:00
  cards as well as like they have some lower end things in the collection too,
• 32:07
  so that keeps the price down but also allows you to get some pickups
• 32:12
  of you know, nice five star cards of maybe lesser players. Yeah,
• 32:19
  I agree, I do really enjoy five Star, not from a ripping perspective
• 32:24
  to is just it is a lottery ticket as well, not the same as
• 32:28
  like illuminaries or anything like that. It's still is a little bit harder to
• 32:34
  invest in if you're not buying like a case or something like that to kind
• 32:37
  of spread out your risk. But it's one of those products that has a
• 32:43
  higher high pretty high end feel look and feel, and there's always some really
• 32:47
  cool autos uh in you know. I think it's five Star that separates you
• 32:53
  know, the different colored inks and different colored pens that they use, and
• 32:58
  so you get to like lower numbers instead of just the blue ink or the
• 33:00
  black ink. It's gold ink and things like that, which really really makes
• 33:06
  some of those cards pops. So I do own quite a few five star
• 33:08
  cards because they are especially from a few the years past. They are a
• 33:13
  lot more affordable and if you want to kind of play into the mid high
• 33:19
  end card stock type market, they're a great entry product because you can pick
• 33:24
  them up for not too bad on the single side and be very very pleased
• 33:30
  with the result there. And they are generally pretty good looking cards. So
• 33:35
  big fan of five star overall. Probably not something that I would rip unless
• 33:42
  you have a chance to get a case on the cheap. Yeah, and
• 33:45
  I should have increased my reading comprehension before I start talking about five start.
• 33:50
  But you'll get two cards in your box of five Star. You did say
• 33:53
  multiple. I believe you said multiple. Yeah, yeah, double the cards.
• 34:01
  But yeah, it is to buy one get one five star compared to
• 34:06
  Luminarius. Very true. And yeah, it also known for the button patches
• 34:13
  too, So you'll see it in the checklist that we'll link to in the
• 34:16
  show notes that it's on Beckett. You'll see a really nice picture of the
• 34:22
  Julio Rodriguez button card there and like I said, that's gonna be I think
• 34:31
  in terms of like the design, it looks a lot more like what I
• 34:35
  expect from five Star compared to Luminary, So that is a little bit more
• 34:38
  encouraging that not everything is being rushed here at the end, not everything just
• 34:44
  to them. But yeah, next week is the big release of twenty twenty
• 34:50
  four Top Series one that comes out officially on February fourteenth, on Valentine's Day,
• 34:57
  So we're gonna have a huge preview of it next week when we look
• 35:00
  at that and the NL Central for our fantasy portion. So if you are
• 35:05
  interested in twenty twenty four Series one, certainly tune in next week. We'll
• 35:09
  have all the details, will go through lots of different pieces of information in
• 35:15
  terms of hit rates and parallels and different types of how you can open boxes
• 35:22
  and where you can find them. So stay tuned next week for that information.
• 35:25
  I'm really excited, Ber, What about you for twenty twenty four.
• 35:30
  Yeah, I'm excited. Always love the first flagship product of the year and
• 35:36
  it it's I think it's going to be We've talked about the design is gonna
• 35:40
  be fun to debate. I still don't know how I feel about it,
• 35:45
  I know how you feel about it. I'm still I'm still giving it a
• 35:47
  chance. I'm still going to take it for a spin before I make final
• 35:50
  determination here. But I'm really excited to get into twenty twenty four. I'm
• 35:55
  not sure if it's because of the cards or if it's what signals about the
• 35:58
  twenty twenty four baseball season being basically here, it is the kickoff, if
• 36:02
  you may, of baseball season for me. Yeah, absolutely, all right,
• 36:07
  So we are going to take a short break and then we'll be back
• 36:10
  with the categories portion of this show, which is a preview of our classic
• 36:15
  by Sell, but with the AL West. So stick around. We'll be
• 36:20
  back right after the break. All right, Welcome back, everybody. We
• 36:39
  are going to get into our discussion of the AL West this week. So
• 36:45
  if you've been tuning in for the past few weeks, we have been previewing
• 36:50
  all the divisions, and this is our fifth one, So if you want
• 36:52
  to go back and hear any of the non Ale West or NL Central divisions,
• 37:00
  this is the last two we have left that came in previous pods.
• 37:05
  But this week we're going to cover AL West and the way that we're going
• 37:07
  to approach this is by going through each team alphabetically by city name and then
• 37:14
  finding a buy and sell from each team. And so what we will go
• 37:21
  through and and analyze is, you know what people are drafting these players at
• 37:28
  and why we might want to buy them at the price. And then on
• 37:30
  the cell side, obviously there's some sort of flaw we've seen in the player,
• 37:34
  or we don't like the opportunity or just don't like where the market is
• 37:38
  putting these those players for us. So we're just going to dive right in.
• 37:43
  Brew you you ready for this? I am stoked for this. I
• 37:46
  think this is a really fun division for fancy purposes. I think there's a
• 37:51
  lot to talk about. So even though it's just you and I, we
• 37:54
  did not grace by anybody's presence. I think we'll have plenty to discuss,
• 37:59
  and I think we will disagree a few points. Yeah, I think so
• 38:01
  too. Honestly, we're probably gonna have it right off the bat here as
• 38:07
  we start with the other thing about the ALS is it always trips me out
• 38:10
  that the Houston Astros are first alphabetically because of the H So that's where we're
• 38:15
  starting. We're going down to h Town starting with the Astros, and this
• 38:19
  is a team that is kind of waning in terms of like where the dynastic
• 38:27
  outlook for the franchise was going. As you know, Josel Twove assigned that
• 38:31
  longer extension. But he's starting to get into his mid thirties, Bragman,
• 38:35
  starting to get older. You have a forty one year old Justin Verlander pitching
• 38:38
  for the Astros this year, and it's just becoming evident that other teams around
• 38:45
  them have kind of started catching up to the Astros. Way, So,
• 38:49
  Brew, who are you gonna go with? Four year by out of Houston?
• 38:52
  Yeah, I'm going with one of my favorite starting pitching buys in the
• 38:57
  majors, Hunter for the Astros. I love Hunter Brown. You know,
• 39:04
  he's got he's a real high strikeout potential guy, reasonable control. You know,
• 39:10
  he's just you know, twenty five years old. He's you know,
• 39:15
  in the top fifty percent from a ground ball rate perspective. So he keeps
• 39:19
  it on the ground, keeps in the ballpark, and you know, he's
• 39:22
  a pretty hard thrower. He's mid nineties, mid the upper nineties type of
• 39:27
  guy. And right now he's he's going off the board. Uh adp like
• 39:31
  almost one ninety, which would be your seventy second pitcher off the board.
• 39:37
  So he's really really reasonable, And I think a lot of that comes down
• 39:40
  to his era. Last year over one hundred and fifty five innings was over
• 39:45
  five, even though his you know x cra was four four three and his
• 39:51
  ex fip was actually three five. He had bad baby love, bad babe
• 39:55
  bip pluck. Try saying that three times fast, bad baby pluck. I
• 40:00
  still can't do it. He you know, he didn't leave guys on base.
• 40:04
  He had bad luck there as well, inherited runner scoring and also from
• 40:07
  his perspective. But what's really really interesting, and I don't know if you
• 40:12
  have you been out to Hunter Brown's Baseball Savant and Page by chance, No
• 40:15
  I haven't. No, Okay, so you know Baseball Savannah. They compare
• 40:21
  the pitch arsenal and also the pitch movement to two players to other players like
• 40:24
  them, and it's kind of a kind of a tell like it's it's not
• 40:27
  always predicted, but it's kind of an interesting way to look to say,
• 40:30
  Okay, who who could this guy become? I'm gonna I'm gonna read the
• 40:35
  five pitchers to you on the Pitch Arsenal list for a Hunter round. So
• 40:39
  these are the top five comps of Arsenal to Hunter Brown, Garrett Cole,
• 40:45
  Tyler, Glas Now, Zach Gallon, Todd Bradley, and Zach Wheeler.
• 40:52
  I don't know about you. That's a pretty gosh darn good list. And
• 40:54
  then you're just like Ann Hunter Brown like it. It like which one of
• 40:59
  the doesn't feel like the others. It's Hunter Brown, And I think it's
• 41:02
  because Hunter Brown is like the others. There's a lot a lot to like
• 41:07
  with Hunter Brown. So I am going to own him everywhere except for any
• 41:13
  league that I just boosted his price with you. Yeah, And I think
• 41:17
  this is a good pick because you can also see very evidently how much he
• 41:22
  wore down as the season went along. He put up a career high in
• 41:27
  innings last year, even it wasn't even close before that, Like in twenty
• 41:31
  twenty two, his closest was just over one hundred and twenty combined innings.
• 41:36
  He went over one hundred and fifty last year, So that's a pretty big
• 41:39
  workload increase. And in the second half is era was an unsightly six to
• 41:44
  fifty seven and so I saw Hunter Brown, you know, being dropped in
• 41:49
  lots of leagues, and even when I was doing my waiver wires late in
• 41:52
  the season, I wasn't touching him as a suggestion because you could just tell
• 41:57
  he was beat and needed the rest. And so yeah, I think this
• 42:02
  is a great pick because if some if others in your league, you know,
• 42:06
  owned him and experienced that stretched that a Hunter Brown had, it probably
• 42:10
  less a pretty bad taste in their mouth, and it really skewed his overall
• 42:15
  stats for the season. I just I'm not sure how many chairs I'll have
• 42:19
  because I love lots of other pictures that go around him, and I think
• 42:22
  we'll get into a few of them actually in this division. But it's a
• 42:25
  it's a really prime spot to be buying pitching. And you're absolutely right there,
• 42:30
  there is a glut of pictures in that kind of late one fifty to
• 42:35
  two hundred range for the ADP. There's a ton of pictures there that I
• 42:38
  really really like, and that's that's going to strategy. I use this yere
• 42:43
  is to go after the horde of guys versus like one or two aces and
• 42:47
  then you know, fill the back end. I'm just gonna have like ten
• 42:51
  guys from that middle middle area of the draft. Yeah all right, I
• 42:55
  mean I guess this is just the two of us. We didn't decide do
• 42:58
  you want to do both of our together or buy and sell? Let's go
• 43:01
  bye bye, Like let's go there because little start the argument faster. I
• 43:08
  agree because I know you're going to hate this one because I had late last
• 43:15
  year. Chas McCormick is my bye here. Still I still don't get it,
• 43:22
  Like I look at his page all the time, and I don't understand
• 43:25
  why he's not going higher. I mean, this dude is just almost like
• 43:30
  free twenty and fifteen in drafts, and even his projections are too low,
• 43:38
  Like he's not going to play only five hundred ish at bats you know this
• 43:45
  year, or played appearances because Dusty Baker hated him. Now that Dusty Baker
• 43:51
  is gone out of Houston, I think that the talent for Chas McCormick will
• 43:54
  show through. And sure the k rate is a little high, but he
• 43:58
  walks at a decent clip. He plays good enough defense to stick. He
• 44:02
  put up three point eight war last year behind a one thirty three WRC plus
• 44:07
  and it's all backed up by good savant metrics. He has a double digit
• 44:13
  barrel rate, he has a good hard hit rate, and I just I'm
• 44:17
  gonna end up, I think, with a lot of Chas McCormick shares,
• 44:20
  because when you're trying to fill out the back end of your outfield, you
• 44:22
  know, third, fourth outfielder, it's really hard to do worse than Chas
• 44:28
  McCormick. And like, what I really like compare him to is almost like
• 44:32
  a prime Tommy fam Like the stats when you look at them and line them
• 44:38
  up. I think the batting average is low here too, because he he
• 44:42
  does smoke the ball, and he's been starting to take advantage of the crawfield
• 44:47
  the Crawford boxes a lot more in Houston. He's a really strange right handed
• 44:52
  bat left handed thrower, so that just means that he's got like a little
• 44:58
  bit weaker right arm for the power. But if you're putting him in the
• 45:01
  in Houston and giving him shots at those Crawford boxes, he can kind of
• 45:05
  tomahawk shots like Alex Begman. And I just really like the entire package that
• 45:10
  Chas McCormick brings to you. Yeah, I look at him and I can't
• 45:16
  disagree. Yeah, And I'm gonna use an argument you can completely tear apart
• 45:20
  because I use this argument in favor of Lane Thomas. He's just boring.
• 45:24
  Like he's just boring, and you look at the numbers, you look at
• 45:29
  the pages, and you're like, nothing stands out, nothing's too exciting like
• 45:32
  his you know, his contract rates are eh, they're okay. Like it's
• 45:37
  just it's this above average profile. And because it is above average a little
• 45:42
  bit almost everywhere, but not fantastic anywhere, it kind of plays. That's
• 45:45
  that Lane Thomas argument. But I just can't get on board. I don't
• 45:50
  know why. And I look at where he's going in the draft in that
• 45:52
  he's he's a third round outfielder or a round he's a third third outfielder for
• 46:00
  you, And I look at the outfielders around them, and I just don't
• 46:02
  like anybody Like I look at that and I'm like, I will past like
• 46:07
  top twenty outfielder great, I like guys in the fifties, Like, but
• 46:10
  there's this middle of the outfield landscape that like third fourth outfield where it's just
• 46:16
  riddled with like problems, like nothing as a guaranteed. I'd almost rather just
• 46:22
  have like one or two really high end outfielders and just fill out with every
• 46:27
  like six fifth outfielders and hope that I hit on one of them. So
• 46:31
  probably nothing against McCormick per se, because your argument is very fair, and
• 46:37
  if you look at who's going around, I probably do want McCormick over guys
• 46:42
  like Jorge Hilaier, Cedric Mullins, even Anthony's Santander, Like, like,
• 46:47
  I think you're right, McCormick's probably better than them. I just don't like
• 46:51
  any of them. Yeah, So yeah, and it is I honestly,
• 46:54
  I feel weird like spouting all this Chas McCormick love all the time, but
• 46:59
  I think it's gonna to be something that pays off for people. So all
• 47:02
  right, who you going off in sending away with yourself? Well, it
• 47:08
  was not Chas McCormick, But I'm selling jose L two Vekay, jose L
• 47:15
  two Ve. You know, last year he list time at the beginning of
• 47:19
  the season last year with injury, but when he came back, he paced
• 47:22
  pretty much a twenty five homer thirty steel pace and then he signed a really
• 47:28
  big, nice extension here in the off season, and he's going off the
• 47:31
  board in like the top forty picks, fourth second baseman overall, Like he's
• 47:37
  he's going pretty pretty far up there. But if you start looking under the
• 47:42
  covers, and I don't, you know, give people what they do or
• 47:45
  not, whether I believe in x stats or whatnot. But you know,
• 47:50
  if you look at x BA X batting average, he had the largest gap
• 47:55
  of any qualified hitter in the majors between that and it was his bat average
• 48:04
  was three eleven, his XBA was two forty five. It was a huge
• 48:08
  gap. Slugging, he was the third worse in slugging, hanging out with
• 48:15
  guys like TJ. Friedel and Adam Duval like he he got a ton of
• 48:20
  luck in that point. And if you look at some of the other metrics,
• 48:25
  his worst hard hit rate in like five years. He had the highest
• 48:30
  babe BIP in a number of years. Sorry, worst hard hit rate in
• 48:34
  almost ten years, Like the worst highest baby up in five years. Like,
• 48:37
  there was a lot of things that went right for was l twov last
• 48:40
  year. And you're basically talking a late third, early fourth round pick for
• 48:45
  this guy. And if you just if he just performs at the expected stats,
• 48:52
  you're not gonna getting what you what you expect here. So I really
• 48:55
  think that two days price is gonna go up because he's in the new with
• 49:00
  a contract extension, and I think it should be going the other way.
• 49:04
  Yeah, And I was maybe wondering if, like some of that those data
• 49:08
  points that you were talking about came from Josel two bay also aiming at the
• 49:15
  Crawford boxes constantly. But he actually he had a higher fly ball rate on
• 49:20
  on the road. He had a higher pole rate on the road. So
• 49:24
  that's not really what's going on here. I actually you're kind of uncovering something
• 49:30
  for me, because I was thinking OSL two Day's price was pretty fair,
• 49:35
  and I was actually considering him as a by just because second base is shallow.
• 49:38
  But there are signs that are pointing the wrong direction here, I will
• 49:44
  own I started looking at him as a bye as well. As I started
• 49:47
  look I was looking at the ADPs and like, oh, Twoday, Like,
• 49:50
  I mean, man, guy hit three hundred, he's easy, twenty
• 49:52
  twenty, and he usually is more like I'm kind of that that's solid.
• 49:57
  He's always been that guy. And I started looking him like, I don't
• 50:00
  think he's that guy. I don't think he is, and the more I
• 50:02
  spent time with it, it's like, man, there's a lot of red
• 50:06
  flags here. That not that it's still he's still gonna be a valuable,
• 50:12
  very valuable player, but top forty pick I don't think so. Yeah.
• 50:16
  And a lot of the projections are seeing it too. I mean, all
• 50:20
  the projections are coming in right at like two seventy four to two seventy seven
• 50:25
  on the batting average, which would be his lowest since two seventy eight and
• 50:30
  twenty twenty one. And I'm gonna just gonna throw twenty twenty away like that
• 50:34
  don't count. Yeah, when he hit two nineteen, buzzer or no buzzer,
• 50:37
  that doesn't count. Yeah. And they're all projecting for some of the
• 50:40
  lowest WRSC pluses. That huh, that is interesting. I am making a
• 50:46
  mental note. Don't worry, I kept him in one of our leagues.
• 50:51
  Yeah, great, great move. That's a good threats. Okay, all
• 50:54
  right, who do you get? Who are you selling on my cell?
• 50:58
  Is gonna be Christian Javier That he obviously really fell apart last year as his
• 51:04
  era bloated up to four fifty six, and it didn't look good like all
• 51:09
  season, the k's weren't there, he lost a tick off of his fastball.
• 51:15
  The slider just flattened out and looked gross, and you could see that
• 51:19
  in the slider just value that it's it's a pretty blunt tool that I don't
• 51:23
  use it for much more than like when you're trying to make a you know,
• 51:28
  a statement like this where you're just looking real fast that you know,
• 51:30
  his slider on pitch values on fangrafts was I'm not even sure like what these
• 51:36
  pitch values are, maybe like runs. I guess I should know before I
• 51:38
  used them. But it was a ten point nine in twenty twenty two and
• 51:43
  negative point six in twenty twenty three on the slider, same thing with the
• 51:47
  fastball, twenty one point four on the fastball in twenty twenty two, six
• 51:52
  point seven on the fastball in twenty twenty three. That I don't know if
• 51:54
  Christian Heavier was hurt last year, but he there's been no news about him
• 52:00
  like getting any sort of like treatment or rehab or anything like that, and
• 52:06
  that's pretty worrisome. So I mean, if he does come into spring and
• 52:09
  he's back to his velocity levels that he had in twenty twenty two, maybe
• 52:15
  I'll consider kind of scratching him from this cell list that he might actually turn
• 52:19
  into a little bit of a bye, because I think his price is going
• 52:22
  to keep dropping as people dig into him a little bit more, and he's
• 52:24
  going in again that kind of glut of all those pictures that we're talking about,
• 52:29
  and certainly I'm going to let him fall as far as he can,
• 52:32
  because I just don't see how he puts together with this arsenal. Yeah,
• 52:37
  I agree with you, and he you know, his numbers almost kind of
• 52:42
  read as a guy that had just almost like three years of just fantastic luck
• 52:46
  and then last year he had just average luck, not even bad luck,
• 52:50
  just average luck, and I almost think it snowballed on him. His strikeouts
• 52:55
  dropped, you know, he actually was relatively reason like home run for a
• 53:00
  fly ball. He didn't have terrible long ball luck or anything like that.
• 53:04
  It just I think he had like a normal year, and that's normally not
• 53:09
  valuable, uh for for Christian Xavier. So yeah, I'm with you.
• 53:14
  I am. He used to be the guy you chase like the strikeout upside
• 53:17
  and thought he could just you know, if he could just develop a little
• 53:20
  more control than he'd be really great. Instead we've gone the other way and
• 53:24
  the luck has come back. So yeah, when you know he's going,
• 53:29
  I think two guys in front of hundred round and right behind the guy like
• 53:31
  Shane Bieber. I'm taking those guys all day exactly. Christian Xavier. Christian
• 53:37
  Avier is the guy I'm nominating in auction drafts at the beginning, and someone
• 53:39
  else take him. I totally agree, and that honestly, we got through
• 53:45
  the Astros without as much little too easy. Let's let's let's let's slice it
• 53:49
  up here. Let's see how we do when we go to Anaheim or Los
• 53:53
  Angeles. I guess if you want to go by what the marketing team there
• 53:58
  says, but the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, obviously, this is a
• 54:04
  pretty depressing situation. Now it's gonna be really strange this season, just kind
• 54:10
  of going forward from like my baseball viewing habits, because I used to watch
• 54:15
  so many Angels games just to see Otani, and now I probably might not
• 54:20
  watch an Angel's game willingly like all year unless they're playing somebody I'm trying to
• 54:24
  watch. Is this team is just black? Like it's really stuck in between
• 54:30
  as they have Trout and they're trying to fortify around him, but sold so
• 54:36
  many pieces last year's deal or deadline that like there is aren't any pieces and
• 54:42
  Ardi Morino doesn't want to spend money. It's a it's a weird mix.
• 54:45
  So the Los Angeles Angels, who are you going with for your bye here?
• 54:50
  You already mentioned him. I'm going with Mike Trout. I'm going there,
• 54:54
  And I it feels wrong that we're talking about a I feel like Mike
• 55:00
  Strout has what did he do to people? Like? Why is he being
• 55:05
  penalized so bad? He's going in the sixth round. He's one of the
• 55:07
  best baseball players that ever played the game. And yes, I know this
• 55:13
  injury discussion again that I've made a you know, New Year's resolution on that
• 55:16
  I'm failing with. But like he is, like he's a forty homer,
• 55:22
  one hundred rbi two eighty guy. You know, that's like his average.
• 55:28
  Like that's why like if he has a good year, he can do even
• 55:31
  more than that. And you know, if you want to, if you
• 55:36
  if you just if you're feeling down and you need to look at something pretty
• 55:38
  lookause his baseball savant Page, like he's still like ninety ninth percentile and literally
• 55:44
  every statistic, maybe he's slowed down just a little bit, but like every
• 55:49
  statistic is just phenomenal. Yes, I know he's been hurt a little bit,
• 55:54
  but I'll take that for half of a season, and you know,
• 55:59
  the the sixth round and he's just got He's going with guys like Gass Chishm
• 56:05
  or Cody Bellinger and things, the other guys that have like had one really
• 56:07
  good year, or I know Belinger has had a few more, but he's
• 56:12
  really big stinkers. Trout's issue has just been health, not he is.
• 56:15
  You know, I'd rather have Trout for half the year of three quarters of
• 56:19
  the year than a guy like Bellinger, where I think is gonna be great
• 56:22
  and just stinks it up the whole year, Sami Chisholm, when he's probably
• 56:23
  hurt the whole time. So it feels so so wrong to call Mike Trout
• 56:30
  a bye because he's been a perennial first rounder, almost first overall, the
• 56:35
  discussion for years and years, and I don't know what happened why he fell
• 56:39
  so low, but I'll take it. I will gladly take Trout and if
• 56:44
  he does get hurt, that's okay. I'm fine with that. I'm accepting
• 56:47
  that. Yeah, I had him under heavy consideration here because I agree that
• 56:52
  it's gonna be tough sitting there in fifth round of drafts and like not wanting
• 56:57
  to take Mike Trout when he's sitting around because he's going so late that,
• 57:01
  Yeah, it's gonna be tough because the situation around him is bad. But
• 57:07
  you know, he had a hand. It's Mike Trout exactly. He had
• 57:08
  a hand injury last year. It wasn't the back, it wasn't his calf,
• 57:12
  and so that is more encouraging than if he had struggled again with like
• 57:16
  another soft tissue injury. Yeah, exactly. So I just can't pass it
• 57:22
  up this year. I don't know how would you who were who were you
• 57:23
  buying from the juggernaut that is the Los Angeles Angels Anah, yeah, I
• 57:30
  am going to pick Brandon jury that until I started doing my research. Did
• 57:35
  you know Brandon Jurry hit twenty six boonds last year? I'm I actually knew
• 57:39
  that he did go crazy, but last I looked, it was just scary
• 57:45
  at least, you know, it was scary filled with a little bit of
• 57:49
  luck, but maybe maybe maybe not, so you convinced me. Yeah,
• 57:53
  And part of it is he's going so late. He's going round pick two
• 57:59
  hundred on average, and so I mean that's amongst people like Lucas Gilito and
• 58:04
  like it's super late to be getting mid twenties. Homer's upside and brand Jury
• 58:09
  also is going to qualify at first base and second base for you, So
• 58:14
  that is amazing to be able to slot in him at first corner second am
• 58:19
  I honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he picks up third base two,
• 58:23
  although he didn't play any last year, so maybe he won't if maybe if
• 58:28
  Anthony Rendon does come back and try to play that, So I think you
• 58:32
  can count on Jury sticking to second and first base. But part of it,
• 58:37
  too is I think the projections aren't incorporating like New Brandon jury because you
• 58:44
  can you can tell when he went to New York in twenty twenty one,
• 58:47
  he made some swing changes because he just started hitting it better, like overall,
• 58:54
  in terms of the WRC started jumping above one hundred for the first time
• 58:59
  it's career, and since then in twenty twenty one, He's played three hundred
• 59:04
  and fourteen games that put up a two sixty three average all of the projection
• 59:08
  systems, the high is at two fifty one from ATC. Most of them
• 59:13
  are in the two mid two forties that I think they're not capturing what Brandon
• 59:17
  Jury has developed into as he's gotten into being a veteran that I don't I'm
• 59:23
  not going to say it's anything like Justin Turner, but it's like a very
• 59:28
  Justin Turner light. You can see the jump and all the barrel rates too.
• 59:30
  He's been putting up a double digit barrel rate now for two straight years.
• 59:35
  So I really like Brandon Jury and what he can give you at especially
• 59:39
  second base, like putting mid twenties homers with maybe ADRBI and like a two
• 59:45
  sixty average second base this late in the draft is amazing. Yeah, I
• 59:51
  have a more I look at it and I think since he was like,
• 59:52
  I just have this preconceived notion about Brandon Drury me too. And I mean
• 59:57
  he's you know, he's one of those guys that never walks, so he's
• 1:00:00
  like not great for OBP, but you know he's start going a little bit
• 1:00:05
  more last year than the year before. But it's been two years now,
• 1:00:07
  pretty consistent. You know. He from a run RBI production standpoint, it's
• 1:00:12
  gonna be a little a little rough, but I mean he did. He
• 1:00:14
  hit twenty six bombs, one hundred and twenty five games like and respectable average
• 1:00:20
  these days, and you're right, the projection systems do kind of seem to
• 1:00:23
  be down on them. Yeah, he's He is that kind of guy that
• 1:00:29
  you're like, Uh, I'm sitting there looking at the second base or first
• 1:00:32
  base and going, I'm fine skipping some of the mid tier guys and I'll
• 1:00:37
  just pick up Drewry and take it to the bank. So, okay,
• 1:00:42
  you you you sold me a little bit on Drewy here. I think I
• 1:00:45
  sold you on al Twove. So yeah, a little bit too much agreement
• 1:00:50
  going on here, So let's let's let's get through the angels here and see
• 1:00:53
  if we get any disagreements. But my angels cell here is incredibly easy.
• 1:01:00
  There is very little analysis on this. It is Carlos Estevez. Okay,
• 1:01:04
  me too, because Robert Stevens is better. He as my other sell It's
• 1:01:08
  mostly like this is a bullpen. I also don't want to be dealing with
• 1:01:14
  this is like the Royals bullpen. We're like, I just don't want the
• 1:01:15
  whole bullpen. Yeah exactly. That like lots of the projection system still have
• 1:01:21
  this team as like a seventy to eighty win team. I don't see win
• 1:01:24
  tea. Yeah, I do not see it. And so the vibes in
• 1:01:30
  La Anaheim are going to be awful I think all summer. And yeah,
• 1:01:35
  I've never liked Carlos Estevez and same thing with Stevenson that like, I think
• 1:01:38
  the price is going to be a little bit too high because people like him
• 1:01:42
  and like the skills, but it's like for what maybe eighteen to twenty saves,
• 1:01:46
  it's not going to be the salve that I think people are counting on
• 1:01:52
  from Robert Stevenson. Yeah, I think the one disagreement I have on Stevenson
• 1:01:55
  is that he is a racial help because the strikeout rate is so high that
• 1:02:00
  if you can bring you twenty saves and strike out ninety five guys in the
• 1:02:06
  sixty innings or something like that, then like I think that there's a little
• 1:02:10
  bit added bonus with him. So I don't know, I don't know if
• 1:02:15
  I'm fully selling Stevenson but the reason I'm selling the best of it is because
• 1:02:20
  Stevenson is there. But yeah, it's not you're you're right, it's not
• 1:02:23
  a bullpen that you're assuming a guy can get thirty five saves that that's definitely
• 1:02:29
  not happening this bullpen. No, I don't think so. And part of
• 1:02:32
  it too, is like the pitch, the pitching staff, Like the rotation
• 1:02:37
  is rough, like I don't know how they think that's a mid seventies rotation,
• 1:02:44
  like mid seventies win rotation, and this bullpen is gonna get exhausted.
• 1:02:47
  Yeah, that and like the bridge from the middle or like the starter to
• 1:02:53
  get to that closer is also a little precarious. I mean, they did
• 1:02:57
  sign Matt Moore, which will help shore things up a little bit, but
• 1:03:00
  it is not pretty that you know. Here's the I mean, even Matt
• 1:03:05
  Moore's The Ray is projected for four to twenty one, and the only other
• 1:03:08
  era under four to twenty is Jose Soriano. So like it is a rough
• 1:03:15
  bullpen that it's going to be I think tough for save chances to come.
• 1:03:21
  Estevez and Stevenson's ways, well that was too easy. Yeah, agree,
• 1:03:28
  reason here the problem might lay with the next team that there's just not too
• 1:03:31
  much to talk about. Yeah, if I'm doing alphabetizing right, Oakland Athletics
• 1:03:38
  otherwise known as the Las Vegas Athletics, I don't I don't know. Maybe
• 1:03:45
  yeah, it sounds like Las Vegas isn't one of any either, So Athletics
• 1:03:49
  and ad is let's see what we can analyze here, because trying to find
• 1:03:55
  a buye was really painful. This is maybe like the toughest spot I've ever
• 1:04:00
  had to like analyze in my fantasy baseball writing career of trying to find a
• 1:04:03
  buy here on the Oakland Netflix. But who did go well? And I'm
• 1:04:08
  going to kind of agree with you here. I have two bullet points on
• 1:04:12
  this guy, and the second one that says, and there's nothing else to
• 1:04:15
  buy, So it's like the only guy that's even worth considering, and that's
• 1:04:19
  Mason Miller. Mason Miller has a fantastic arsenal. He should be the closer
• 1:04:26
  if they're going with the best stuff. And like I said, but there's
• 1:04:31
  still probably better things to buy at the same point in the drafts. It's
• 1:04:35
  just there's literally nothing else in Oakland that excites me. And Mason Miller does
• 1:04:45
  peak my New Year's resolution a little bit here, because that's the guy with
• 1:04:49
  an injury history, and you're you're if you're here at twenty eight is from
• 1:04:54
  Mason Miller, you should be thrilled. So I'm tenally buying Mason, but
• 1:05:00
  I'm not really too excited about it. So fuck find a better one for
• 1:05:04
  me, because that's all I got. He's actually myself because of like what
• 1:05:10
  you mentioned that like this dude has pitched. I'm trying to get to add
• 1:05:16
  up, but like like, yeah, he pitched forty five innings last year
• 1:05:21
  or yeah, in total, No, no, no, there was a
• 1:05:25
  little bit more than that. I guess it was fifty, like two ish,
• 1:05:30
  but just look at it. There's a lot of single digits on each
• 1:05:34
  stop that Oakland moved him along because he's got great stuff and people love that
• 1:05:40
  stuff. But I just don't see him being able to pitch like there's it's
• 1:05:45
  too chronic, And I don't want to invest any price on Mason Miller because
• 1:05:51
  I would just rather find something else because I don't think, like you said,
• 1:05:56
  I think maybe you'll get twenty innings and who knows when and where are
• 1:06:00
  they gonna happen. Well, does this count as a disagreement. I mean,
• 1:06:03
  my cell is pretty or my mind was pretty luke warm here. Yeah,
• 1:06:08
  I'm not pushing them back too much here. Yeah, I can understand,
• 1:06:11
  but I do have a real bot here. And it's actually we skipped
• 1:06:15
  over him from the transactions that just happened. But he got traded here over
• 1:06:18
  the past week. And that's Ross Stripling joining the Oakland Athletics just because I
• 1:06:25
  think he's gonna make thirty starts and half of them are going to be in
• 1:06:29
  Oakland, Like that's all it is. And at that point you're just trying
• 1:06:33
  to hope that Ross Strippling finds something more akin to what he put up in
• 1:06:39
  twenty one and twenty two with the Blue Jays when he was I think just
• 1:06:44
  maybe being jerked around too much in San Francisco last year he was also banged
• 1:06:47
  up, but you know, he pitched twenty two games, eleven of them
• 1:06:50
  starts. It was a little higher start ratio when he was in Toronto that
• 1:06:56
  he was making more so, like eighty percent of his appeer instance, it
• 1:07:00
  starts. And so I think with the consistency of getting the ball every fifty
• 1:07:04
  in Oakland, and they're just gonna let him go out there and eat innings
• 1:07:09
  I think, and try to put up, you know, one hundred and
• 1:07:12
  sixty one hundred and eighty innings out of Ross strippling and absorb as much as
• 1:07:15
  they can. And I'm just hoping that I can play some matchups and catch
• 1:07:18
  it in the coliseum correctly, because right now you're not paying a very high
• 1:07:25
  investment on raps stripling. He is going all the way down at pick five
• 1:07:30
  point fifty right now the NFBC data. So yeah, if you're talking like
• 1:07:35
  last part of your roster, I would not mind dedicating that to ross strippling
• 1:07:42
  so I can throw them against you know, the Mariners or the Angels at
• 1:07:45
  home every once in a while. Yeah, I I don't disagree. I
• 1:07:51
  guess his biggest problem historically has been homers. Like he's in a guy that
• 1:07:56
  gives us a lot of home run So I guess I would have thought San
• 1:08:00
  Francisco to help that. It didn't, so maybe Oakland can. But yeah,
• 1:08:08
  I guess you're looking for a streamer that you can lay half the time.
• 1:08:12
  Yeah, I feel like we both had to put our hands to the
• 1:08:14
  fire on on Oakland. That's about all you can get out of Oakland.
• 1:08:17
  I think a streamer and a guy that might be hurt in May, but
• 1:08:24
  hey take what you can get. So all right, who is your cell
• 1:08:29
  though? Yeah? So so my cell is the highest picked Oakland a Estuary
• 1:08:34
  Ruiz and it it really comes down to you, so how terrible he is
• 1:08:41
  at everything but running Ruiz game change and speed but three of the five artistory
• 1:08:47
  categories he is just like absolutely dreadful and places for the for the a's.
• 1:08:54
  It's kind of like we argue for like why you you don't want to draft
• 1:08:58
  Joey Gallo is he's really really good at hitting homers, but he's really really
• 1:09:02
  bad at everything else. The same thing applies. I guess the good news
• 1:09:08
  is he's gonna play, he's got playing news he's but his supporting cast makes
• 1:09:14
  like purely one dimensional when he when he does and he's going off the board
• 1:09:20
  is a high end third outfielder, Like that's that's that's pretty rough, and
• 1:09:27
  uh, there's a lot of speed out there that doesn't hurt you so so
• 1:09:31
  bad. And I guess the only reason you be taking Ruiz is did you
• 1:09:36
  like draft like starting pitcher Aaron Judge and then another starting pitcher and at the
• 1:09:44
  beginning to have literally no speed from the first like three rounds, like that's
• 1:09:47
  the only time you can take Ruiz, and at that point you've already messed
• 1:09:50
  up, so I guess take them. I think that's probably why it is,
• 1:09:55
  because it's not Judge as much as I think it's like if you're taking
• 1:10:00
  from that kind of little blob of Jordan, Bryce Harper, Austin Reiley,
• 1:10:05
  Corey seeger Rafael Devers and getting like a corner there in the second round,
• 1:10:11
  you've noticed real quick that you're gonna start falling behind on stolen bases, and
• 1:10:14
  so then you're kind of backing yourself into this estuary of Ruize corner. And
• 1:10:19
  it hurts when you have to take him, because if you need the stolen
• 1:10:24
  bases that bad, you've got to jump him early before somebody else does.
• 1:10:28
  And it becomes a game of like chicken in terms of who can get to
• 1:10:31
  him first. And you have you seen this min pick with a N pick
• 1:10:35
  is fifty seven? Yeah, exactly. See, somebody's like like, oh,
• 1:10:40
  man, like I need Ruize, Like Ruiz is the kind of guy
• 1:10:43
  I went for my bench like I'll ah Billy Hamilton and then I like realize
• 1:10:46
  him in a tough spot and I throw him in for a little bit or
• 1:10:49
  you know, great matchup against a terrible catcher and then you know, hope
• 1:10:54
  you can light in a bottle. But or just significantly later in the draft,
• 1:11:00
  if he's going closer towards the back end of you know, the two
• 1:11:06
  hundred range and closer to that two hundred, yeah, I don't think he
• 1:11:11
  would be a cell. I think he would actually be a bibe because like
• 1:11:14
  that's where he should be. But yeah, you're you're we're playing a dangerous
• 1:11:17
  game if you have to take him. Yeah, exactly. So I guess
• 1:11:21
  the other thing is the rest of the team easier way to go. But
• 1:11:26
  there was a there was a call out, so I got you, Okay,
• 1:11:29
  we will go up the coast a little bit too. It's actually a
• 1:11:32
  lot of it. You know, you can tell that we're Midwesterners because I
• 1:11:35
  can't tell like stretched out things are in the West. But we're gonna go
• 1:11:41
  up to Seattle, where I'm I'm kind of starting to like this team.
• 1:11:46
  I was a little unsure of it when Depoto was shuffling things around with the
• 1:11:51
  d Backs and sending ju Henio Suarez out and I didn't see the full picture,
• 1:11:57
  but it's starting to round into a full team now that they have Fogeye
• 1:12:00
  Blanco. And I mean, I don't know why they need to restrict themselves
• 1:12:05
  from a stending or spending standpoint that it's weird to try to like do this
• 1:12:13
  with one arm tied behind your back, but whatever makes the Mariners happy.
• 1:12:17
  So I think they're going to be a pretty solid team. And Brew,
• 1:12:20
  who are you gonna go with for your buye here? Yeah, I mean
• 1:12:24
  you can probably predict one of two guys that I would buy from the Seattle
• 1:12:28
  Mariners, But I'm going with one of my favorite catchers out there in Mitch
• 1:12:33
  Garver, if you can call him a catcher. I love Mitch Garver,
• 1:12:39
  sixteenth catcher off the board, but a guy with thirty five homer power and
• 1:12:44
  he should pretty much play every single day as the DH Like that's that's the
• 1:12:50
  thing there is that he will. I think we'll keep catching all the jusibility
• 1:12:54
  because we'll be fill it in here and there, but he's gonna play every
• 1:12:57
  day because he's not gonna take be taken. You know, A beat.
• 1:13:00
  Yeah, I get it again, he'll spend a challenge. Yeah yeah,
• 1:13:02
  yeah, I feel like recovering fancy baseball player here, But I'm easily passing
• 1:13:10
  on that first wave catchers and uh waiting for a guy like Garver. Now
• 1:13:15
  we're talking age barrel rate, great plate patients, and we're we're talking fifteenth
• 1:13:21
  round uh in drafts. And he is also nicknamed Garve Sauce. I didn't
• 1:13:27
  know that this is really Garf Sauce. Yeah, this this is deep analysis
• 1:13:30
  here, and like, what is that even supposed to? Like, it's
• 1:13:36
  like when you don't have a good nickname, they just take your last name
• 1:13:40
  in short and call Sauce on the end of it. So I know exactly
• 1:13:45
  that's that's what we got. So uh, if nothing else, you have
• 1:13:48
  a dude fantasy baseball team name as well, if you draft Mitch Garver,
• 1:13:51
  just the Garf Sauce. So I yeah, I mean, you're not gonna
• 1:13:57
  make me ever say anything bad about Mitch Harvor. That I mean, I've
• 1:14:00
  spilled a lot of words, a lot of ink supporting him, and this
• 1:14:04
  dude crushed the ball all last year. That uh, the ballpark in Seattle
• 1:14:12
  scares me a little bit, but you know what, it's a catcher.
• 1:14:15
  And so if you're getting him that cheap, and especially in a two catcher
• 1:14:18
  league, making him your second catcher, and you know, getting one of
• 1:14:23
  the younger catchers maybe earlier on or paying a little bit for them, and
• 1:14:27
  getting Mitch Harvor cheap, I think it's a great way to go. So
• 1:14:30
  I like Mitch Garbor a lot. Yep, that's it's it's it's you know,
• 1:14:34
  if you're on the marriage name you named Mitch, I love you,
• 1:14:38
  Mitch Garver, Mitch Haniger. Doesn't matter which minshit is, I'll take him.
• 1:14:42
  So Mitch is all around. Who are you buying? All right?
• 1:14:45
  My buye is I'm not. My bye usually doesn't come from this area of
• 1:14:50
  the draft, but I'm going with George Kirby. I like this dude is
• 1:14:56
  a pitcher. He doesn't walk anybody, and it's really hard to find anybody
• 1:15:01
  since Maddix has left the game that is Maddox like. But George Kirby might
• 1:15:06
  be up there. And I think he got a lot of flak for whatever
• 1:15:10
  he spouted off angrily about, you know, wanting to be a pitcher.
• 1:15:15
  He doesn't go deep into games or whatever. But this guy is a bulldog
• 1:15:18
  and when you watch him pitch, he knows what he's doing. It's amazing.
• 1:15:25
  It's just really wonderful to watch. And mostly because like when you're looking
• 1:15:30
  kind of at that tier of I would say, because he's probably like more
• 1:15:35
  towards like the I guess I should have actually checked to see what picture he
• 1:15:42
  is in terms of going off the board. He's ninth pitcher off the board.
• 1:15:45
  Yeah, but like he's probably never my eighth Shoahiotani's list is a picture
• 1:15:50
  Okay, so eighth, but he is like the one I would say,
• 1:15:54
  like in the top ten that you could see taking a step forward. He
• 1:15:58
  would be my pick to like start pushing into the Corbyn Burns sort of territory
• 1:16:03
  in terms of value, just because you can see him getting to be a
• 1:16:08
  better and better in picture. And this is, you know, not exactly
• 1:16:11
  the best analysis, but if the progression comes, that's where he's gonna go.
• 1:16:17
  Like he's twenty six, I believe, let me check that again.
• 1:16:23
  I should have done a little bit more research. Probably twenty six years.
• 1:16:28
  So yeah, he he's only been in the league for a few years,
• 1:16:32
  so I think I like this just growth pattern for him overall, And yeah,
• 1:16:36
  I'm buying George Corvey at that price. And I think even for me,
• 1:16:41
  like he's probably more so in like my top five that I would rather
• 1:16:47
  have him over Papul Lopez on ADP, I'd rather over Les Castillo, I'd
• 1:16:54
  rather have him over Gausman. And I think right when I get to Zach
• 1:16:58
  Wheeler, that's what I'm starting to coin flip him in. George Kirby,
• 1:17:01
  I one hundred percent agree. I think you're right there. It is kind
• 1:17:04
  of weird to say a guy that's starting a picture off the board as a
• 1:17:08
  bye, but yeah, you're right like there, if there's a guy that's
• 1:17:12
  projectable at that point they could make that next jump, it probably is Kirby.
• 1:17:17
  And you know he's He's one that you know, I think the folks
• 1:17:21
  are kind of not on the same page with and so you might actually get
• 1:17:25
  a deal with Kirby as well if you want them. You can't really wait
• 1:17:28
  if you're in a you know, a snake draft, but if you're an
• 1:17:31
  auction, he's the kind of guy that might kind of sneak by for a
• 1:17:35
  cheaper price than you think. So I think you're right on with with George
• 1:17:39
  Kirby. Yeah, I'm looking at the ABP date over the last month and
• 1:17:42
  his his men or his max pick is sixty nine. I want to be
• 1:17:45
  in whatever league that was. That George Kirby fell to the sixty ninth pick.
• 1:17:50
  That's insane. All right, I'll take him. I'll take him.
• 1:17:56
  All right, who's your cell out of Seattle. Well, I'm going to
• 1:17:59
  use stick in the rotation and stick with a control artist and go with selling
• 1:18:03
  Bryce Miller. Okay, Bryce Miller. We're talking the strikeout artist of a
• 1:18:09
  guy that could barely strike out eight guys per nine and to today's dang game
• 1:18:13
  they in age. That's not too exciting by any means. You know,
• 1:18:16
  he did pitch to a four to three year eight last year, but his
• 1:18:21
  x ERA was like four to eight, you know, kind of pushing on
• 1:18:25
  on five. And his you know, contact rates stats are just dreadful.
• 1:18:30
  They're like the bottom quarter of the league across the board. You know,
• 1:18:34
  he's he's hard hit, you know, forty two percent of the time,
• 1:18:39
  his barrel rates in the bottom death style of the league. It's just bad.
• 1:18:45
  Everything's in the air, like there's not a whole lot to be too
• 1:18:47
  excited about and so he's just getting crushed. I think he came up and
• 1:18:53
  he had a few good games and got people really excited, and then when
• 1:18:57
  the wheels fell off and he showed his true colors, people kind of like,
• 1:19:01
  oh, he's just got tired. Things like that, which probably is
• 1:19:04
  true to a degree, But there's not a whole lot else in the profile.
• 1:19:09
  When you don't strike out a ton of guys, you put the ball
• 1:19:11
  in the air, you let hard contact happen, the ball tends to go
• 1:19:15
  over the fence, and that those are harder to catch from from my assessment,
• 1:19:19
  So give me a hunter round, give me Shane Bads, give me
• 1:19:23
  anythink Youivaldi or something like that in that that same range. Actually, I've
• 1:19:27
  always going with these amount later. I believe Miller, I think is going
• 1:19:30
  to get a lot more hype than he deserves. But he's the young twenty
• 1:19:35
  five year old, you know, early round draft pick, big guy.
• 1:19:42
  Kind of maybe he's the next George Herby because he has that control. I
• 1:19:45
  just don't think it's there. Yeah, this might be like our first kind
• 1:19:48
  of disagreement because I do love Bryce Miller a lot. I know you love
• 1:19:51
  Bryce Miller, So I was ready and I and the projections here are all
• 1:19:58
  over the place in terms of the Bad has them at four four three for
• 1:20:01
  the ra Zips has them at three eighty eight. I'm looking at Pakoda right
• 1:20:05
  now, they've got him at four to seventy seven. So I think we'll
• 1:20:11
  see like what this season bears for Bryce Miller overall. But it is just
• 1:20:16
  a little bit of an eye test too that when you're watching him the fastball,
• 1:20:21
  the way it plays just is totally different from like what a lot of
• 1:20:26
  the metrics will tell you, just because of the slot it's coming out of
• 1:20:30
  and this height, and so it's a little bit like Joe Ryan, I
• 1:20:32
  think in that sense where he's just confounding hitters because it looks so strange and
• 1:20:39
  it's really hard to map that across except for like, he's shown great control,
• 1:20:45
  and I think now that he's got that first season under his belt,
• 1:20:48
  if you I like to take guys like this and add that growth, as
• 1:20:51
  I just did with George Kirby, and yeah, I might end up going
• 1:20:56
  wrong, but I can also see where this goes right too. Yeah.
• 1:21:00
  Uh, And I can see where it goes wrong, so I help so
• 1:21:05
  who's who's your cell here in the Seattle mine. I mean, he's going
• 1:21:12
  pretty late. So his his overall average pick is three twenty one. That's
• 1:21:17
  ty France. And mostly it's just because I think there's lots of players out
• 1:21:25
  there who have used ty France in the back as like in the past,
• 1:21:28
  as a last resort at first base or corner to just bail you out.
• 1:21:32
  But I think this is the year that ty France just falls off the face
• 1:21:38
  of the planet and like loses his job all the way that this is actually
• 1:21:42
  the one area where Seattle has built up a little extra depth that's over what
• 1:21:47
  they've had previously the past couple of years. You know, they brought in
• 1:21:50
  Luke Raley, who can play first base. They've got Mitch Garver, who
• 1:21:54
  I think can play first base. You've got Louis Urias around, who can
• 1:21:58
  you know, help shift people on the infield, Dylan Moore around, and
• 1:22:01
  so ty France really has to put up to be able to be able to
• 1:22:09
  you know, keep his job overall. And so last year he really struggled
• 1:22:13
  with that one O four WRC plus And I just don't see anything in his
• 1:22:17
  bad ball data or his plate discipline that says that anything is coming, but
• 1:22:23
  more regression that you know, the babe was you know, two ninety four
• 1:22:28
  last year. So like it's not like he was unlucky or anything. He
• 1:22:30
  just isn't impacting the ball the way that he used to when he broke into
• 1:22:34
  the league. And if you're in any situation where you've gotten into, you
• 1:22:40
  know, depending on somebody like this late for a corner, you've got to
• 1:22:43
  go a different direction. That ty France is not who he used to be.
• 1:22:48
  Yeah, so I'm going to disagree with you. Okay, let's finally
• 1:22:51
  get there. Two things on ty France, he was a much better hitter
• 1:22:57
  in the second half than he was in the first half. His numbers don't
• 1:23:00
  look terribly different, but he was hitting the ball harder, he was being
• 1:23:04
  more patient the plate. He really seemed like he was coming around is barreling
• 1:23:10
  the ball up a little bit more like he seemed like he was figuring out.
• 1:23:13
  It just wasn't translating into those final final numbers. And the other thing
• 1:23:17
  is ty Franz spent the off season at drive Line, and that just means
• 1:23:23
  he's an All star. So I think a guy that showed the coming out
• 1:23:28
  on the up swing there, recognized he needs some work and being is putting
• 1:23:33
  it in, and I whether it's true or not, it seems like the
• 1:23:38
  guy to go through drive line, like they put in something and they work
• 1:23:43
  through and they work some magic. So for where he's going to drafts and
• 1:23:48
  the kind of signals there, I'm willing to take a gamble on ty France
• 1:23:53
  because I don't think the cost is too perhpitive that he's one of those guys
• 1:23:57
  if he does turn it back around, he's a guy that we would love
• 1:24:00
  a few years ago. And so if it's just a matter of making a
• 1:24:03
  few tweaks and getting back to that and that's what he's been doing this offseason,
• 1:24:06
  I'm taking that to the bank. So I do like ty France because
• 1:24:12
  of where he's going in the draft at that three forty at least since the
• 1:24:17
  numbers I have that are probably bad. Yeah. I took the last month,
• 1:24:21
  James, Yeah, I went since the beginning of the year. But
• 1:24:27
  I think that there's enough profit to be had there and not in enough risk
• 1:24:33
  picks into the price. I'm willing to give it a shot. Yeah,
• 1:24:38
  Yeah, I mean you might make a sun on your dude, James Paxton,
• 1:24:41
  he's going three twenty three, so exactly, that's that's tough. I
• 1:24:45
  mean it's I mean, the thing is his middle names Mitch, if you
• 1:24:50
  didn't know. Actually, I'm kidding, I'd made that up, so that'd
• 1:24:54
  be awesome. I need to look up ty France's middle name now. Oh,
• 1:24:58
  and James Paxton too, they'd be that's that like that that would just
• 1:25:01
  be very like a Jerry to type thing to just go after. So I'm
• 1:25:06
  sure Wikipedia has Oh it's really his first name is Tyler, and no lame's
• 1:25:12
  Lawrence. I mean, no guy's names Lawrence. Come on, tl frant
• 1:25:16
  I like that good writer name. All right, Well, we've got a
• 1:25:21
  little disagreement in Seattle, but I think it's it's a great spot for opportunity
• 1:25:28
  that like, there's a lot of new blood there and it'll be an interesting
• 1:25:31
  team I think to watch because there's a lot of pieces going around, and
• 1:25:34
  I think it's gonna make or break a lot of fantasy teams up in Seattle,
• 1:25:41
  I agree. Okay, Last, but not least, we have the
• 1:25:44
  world champion Texas Rangers, which feels very weird to say, and they're going
• 1:25:50
  to be trying to defend their title with I think a little bit of an
• 1:25:55
  uphill battle. That the lineup looks pretty good and should be returning, but
• 1:26:00
  have you checked on this rotation? It is rough without having de Gram should
• 1:26:08
  be out for the entire season, and sure they should be out for about
• 1:26:11
  half the season. So it's I don't They've got to sign somebody. I
• 1:26:16
  would think that it seems like a great landing spot for Join Montgomery or maybe
• 1:26:20
  even Blake Snell, but doesn't seem like the Rangers want to spend money,
• 1:26:24
  which is strange coming off of the title. Anyways, who are you gonna
• 1:26:29
  go with for your buye in Texas? Yeah, so young, exciting hitter.
• 1:26:34
  Josh is a young young justh young young. That's what I thought,
• 1:26:40
  and so I should have just leaned in, but I didn't. Yeah,
• 1:26:45
  Josh Young. He's going off the board after the first one hundred picks,
• 1:26:49
  so that's actually not too steep of a price. I think it is about
• 1:26:55
  the twelfth third basement off the board, and I'd argue he could be going
• 1:27:00
  three or four spots higher in the third base. But yeah, he has
• 1:27:03
  everything we're looking for in a hitter. Great pettigree like he's he was a
• 1:27:09
  top top pick in the drafts. You know, he has top tier power
• 1:27:13
  metrics. He's not going to kill you in the batting average. He also
• 1:27:17
  it doesn't play, you know, show up in the stats in our fantasy
• 1:27:20
  games. But he's a fantastic third baseman, which will keep him in the
• 1:27:24
  lineup day in, day out and play. You know, he's generally hit
• 1:27:29
  in the middle of one of the strongest lineups in the majors. Yeah,
• 1:27:31
  and they're gonna need to score runs to your point with the pitching. So
• 1:27:34
  he's come into what should be some of his strongest years. He's you know,
• 1:27:39
  he's in the mid twenties. A lot to like and I think even
• 1:27:43
  though he's had maybe a little elevated some of luck metrics with baby, but
• 1:27:45
  I think it's going to be kind of offset by some growth that we see
• 1:27:49
  as he gets more and more comfortable in his third year in the league.
• 1:27:53
  So I'll really like Josh Young. I think there's a lot to like there,
• 1:27:58
  especially considering he's being treated as one of the last starting third baseman and
• 1:28:04
  out there and I think he I would not be shocked to see him really
• 1:28:09
  break out and be you know, in that discussion for the top tier of
• 1:28:14
  third basement going into the next year. Yeah, I totally agree that third
• 1:28:17
  base is really shaky this year. That I think, especially as Manny Machado
• 1:28:23
  and Nolan Arnatto age in front of him, it makes Josh Young look more
• 1:28:27
  and more enticing. And you can see that there's a huge third base tier
• 1:28:30
  that he's like the last member of in the NFBCADP data that he's going over
• 1:28:36
  the last month on average pick one oh three the next third baseman in the
• 1:28:43
  data, and this is just anybody that qualifies that third basement is Jake Berger
• 1:28:46
  fifty picks later. So there's a huge tier there, and I think he's
• 1:28:51
  going to be one of the better guys who can really help you out before
• 1:28:56
  you have to start relying on the Jake Bergers and Alec BOMs of the world.
• 1:29:00
  Yeah. Absolutely, So yeah, give me Josh all day. So
• 1:29:03
  who are you bind with the Rangers? All right? I am going to
• 1:29:09
  buy the hot, young, exciting outfielder down in Texas, Laoti Tavares And
• 1:29:16
  so you had me, You had me going yes. Although I will say
• 1:29:21
  I love White Langford and Evan Carter a lot that I think I'll end up
• 1:29:26
  with a lot of white Langford shares because I think both of these guys are
• 1:29:30
  kind of like this year's Corbyn Carrol like or have the potential to be.
• 1:29:34
  But Laoti Tavares, I this is a little bit like Drury where I didn't
• 1:29:42
  realize how good Laoti Tavaris was last year until I kind of started diving into
• 1:29:45
  him for this week, that he put up fourteen homers, fourteen soule and
• 1:29:49
  bases with a two sixty six average and his age twenty four season, that
• 1:29:55
  the prospect fatigue on Leody Tavarus is real because he was on everybody's radar since
• 1:30:00
  he was you know, sixteen seventeen years old and signed into the Texas system
• 1:30:04
  by Aj Preller. But I think he's really starting to round into his own
• 1:30:09
  and he's in as you already alluded to with Josh Young, like this is
• 1:30:13
  a stacked lineup where even as a nine hitter with Leodi Travers, he's a
• 1:30:18
  little bit like a Michael Harris light in terms of, you know, giving
• 1:30:23
  you the potential of mid to upper teens stolen bases and homers with a pretty
• 1:30:28
  solid average, and what is way better than normal counting stats out of that
• 1:30:33
  nine hole because of how good this lineup is around him, and so where
• 1:30:38
  Leoti Tavers is going in drafts just makes him such an intriguing option because you
• 1:30:44
  know he's being drafted at you know, round pick two eighty four. So
• 1:30:48
  other outfielders in this range are you know, a couple of them don't even
• 1:30:53
  necessarily have guaranteed jobs, you know, between Nelson Vlasquez and Brian day la
• 1:30:57
  Cruz, and then you also have Jeff McNeil, Parker Meadows and Jamon Lindez.
• 1:31:03
  I like Leoi Taveries over all those guys, just because there's also another
• 1:31:09
  gear here. You know, given his prospect pedigree, if he moves up
• 1:31:13
  in that lineup at all from the nine hole, it's not a guarantee that
• 1:31:16
  Evan Carter and Why at Langford are gonna hit that. Tavares is a grizzled
• 1:31:21
  little vet down there in Texas at the right old age of twenty five.
• 1:31:27
  Yeah, I'm not gonna say I love Tavares, but I I appreciate Tavaris
• 1:31:33
  at this point. I think you're right, he is going to be playing,
• 1:31:36
  and he is gonna have the outfield spot. He's a good defender,
• 1:31:39
  like he's he's what that team needs, especially again keep coming back to this
• 1:31:43
  pitching, like they need him in the outfield. Oh yeah, because he's
• 1:31:45
  gonna he's gonna be busy shaggings some fly balls, that's for sure. So
• 1:31:48
  yeah, I think you're you're you're right on there with Tavares. There's a
• 1:31:53
  lot worse picks at that point in the draft. If you get a guy
• 1:31:56
  that can just kind of give you steady Eddie a little above average production,
• 1:32:00
  Yeah, Tacon, Yeah, absolutely. Okay, who are you going with
• 1:32:03
  for yourself? Well, I'm gonna repeat something you said. I'm going with
• 1:32:08
  exciting young outfielder, Wyatt Langford. Okay, I am, I don't.
• 1:32:14
  I am. Well, let me let me clarify here. I am a
• 1:32:16
  Wyatt Langford fan. I don't think Wyatt Langford because what you just said about
• 1:32:20
  Leota Taveres is going to be starting the season in the major leagues. I
• 1:32:27
  think that he. You have a doles Garcia, you have of Evan Carter,
• 1:32:33
  and you have Leota Taveries, and those three are going to be the
• 1:32:36
  outfield for the Rangers. They are not gonna put Whitet Langford as a d
• 1:32:41
  H to start the season. He you know, they need to invest in
• 1:32:45
  him being a well rounded player, and they're not gonna just stunt his growth
• 1:32:50
  by saying you're just gonna go up there and hit and on the bench,
• 1:32:54
  go there and hit, send the bench. They're not going to do that.
• 1:32:56
  I could be wrong, but I just don't see that. I don't
• 1:32:58
  think it's a good move. And the this whole service time and all these
• 1:33:00
  other things, and they have a good lineup, so like he's not gonna
• 1:33:04
  make or break the team. The other piece with Langford is he has played
• 1:33:11
  forty four career minor league games. He could use a little bit more seasoning
• 1:33:15
  and used as much as we want to say he's the next corporn Burns whenever,
• 1:33:20
  like we said the same thing about Jared Keelnick and how did that go
• 1:33:25
  for us, We're still talking about him as a potential breakout candidate. So
• 1:33:29
  like the I'm not sure sure he's gonna be starting, and like the very
• 1:33:34
  the potential outcomes are very very wide with why at Langford and he's going off
• 1:33:40
  the board as a mid tier third outfielder, like you you are drafting him
• 1:33:45
  not only that he's going to have the job that he's going to produce in
• 1:33:49
  the job, like you gotta have multiple check boxes here actually come to fruition.
• 1:33:54
  And so yeah, he's a twenty twenty profile. There's a lot of
• 1:33:57
  upside, but like just you know, wait another one hundred picks, I'd
• 1:34:02
  be thrilled with him. I think he's just the hype train has gotten two
• 1:34:08
  out of control with Why at Langford, and he's going to be a great
• 1:34:10
  player down the road, just like we said about Jared Kellnick. And I'm
• 1:34:16
  letting somebody else take take that risk at this point. So tell me I'm
• 1:34:21
  wrong, tell me you love Why Langford, and I'm perfectly go hit with
• 1:34:25
  it. I do. Yeah, I'm taking that risk because yeah, it
• 1:34:29
  was like you said, it is only forty four games that he played in,
• 1:34:31
  but he says, W Marc plus this last year one nine, two,
• 1:34:38
  twenty four, one seventy seven, Like I know that some of like
• 1:34:42
  the talent kept promoted up out those leagues, but this dude crushes the ball
• 1:34:45
  and I don't it's going to be I don't know if there's really a great
• 1:34:51
  comp that I can think of, just because like the hit tool is so
• 1:34:56
  absurd, and everything I've read about him is extremely glowing. And I mean
• 1:35:01
  Zips has him projected for a one eighteen w r C plus the next year.
• 1:35:05
  Like it's I think there's something special here that it's gonna be. It's
• 1:35:13
  part of the reason that the price is getting so high ast because this even
• 1:35:16
  if he gets that, if he gets that one eighteen WRC plus and puts
• 1:35:20
  up what ZIPS is calling for, which is twenty four bombs, eighteen stone
• 1:35:25
  bases, ninety eight ribs is a lot. But if he gets if he
• 1:35:29
  sniffs that, he's winning a bunch of leagues even from where he's drafted at.
• 1:35:32
  And I mean he's also just a fun dude to have on your team
• 1:35:35
  that I mean, yeah, it's gonna be I'm looking for. I wish
• 1:35:41
  I could like zoom ahead into twenty twenty five because like next time, you
• 1:35:47
  know, next year, this time, we're either gonna be talking about wyat
• 1:35:50
  Langford in the first or second round, or we're gonna be talking about like
• 1:35:54
  Jared Kellernick, like you said, so it is it's that type of kind
• 1:35:59
  of outrange or outcome and range. And so I think especially the way that
• 1:36:03
  we draft where we're taking a little you know, fewer risks early on.
• 1:36:06
  That's why I'm ready to pop Langford. Where he's going at in drafts is
• 1:36:12
  because that's really where I'm starting to take the first bites of risk within my
• 1:36:15
  drafts. And this is the special kind of talent where I would want to
• 1:36:20
  do that because I'm not even sure like where this ceiling is here, because
• 1:36:26
  you can really see where this turns into, you know, like a prime
• 1:36:31
  market prime Mike Trout with maybe just a few or stolen bases and he is
• 1:36:36
  a bye by the way, Mark Mike Trout. Yeah, So that's want
• 1:36:41
  to be real clear about this. So I I like And that's why I
• 1:36:45
  think what was so hard about this one is I'm not selling Langford himself.
• 1:36:48
  Yeah, I'm selling the situation. Yeah, I get just That's that's what
• 1:36:51
  what takes it hard. I don't want somebody to go like, oh my
• 1:36:54
  goodness, guy doesn't like Langford, Like I will take Langford. I will
• 1:36:57
  gladly take Langford of my team. I just I don't. I think we're
• 1:37:01
  paying the price for a full season and no volatility, and I I just
• 1:37:08
  don't think I can do that. The other's huge upside, but I think
• 1:37:10
  the downside is just as bigh which is the problem that I have. And
• 1:37:14
  you know, to your point, like I do tend to be a safer,
• 1:37:16
  safer drafter and I'm not at that point in the draft. I'm not
• 1:37:20
  quite there yet on taking some of my gambles. I need to wait a
• 1:37:24
  little bit longer. So yeah, anyway, if you're not selling why at
• 1:37:27
  Langford, who are you selling? Oh? I was gonna make one more
• 1:37:30
  point on him though too. I would like watch it just in terms of
• 1:37:33
  what they're going to do at the roster, because like I think that is
• 1:37:38
  also a little telling here in terms of the talent evaluation from the Texas side,
• 1:37:43
  is they haven't signed a hitter to take that DH spot, and you
• 1:37:46
  look at their bench, there is nothing. Those are all defensive guys to
• 1:37:51
  come in late in games. You know, is Ekil Duran's got a little
• 1:37:55
  pop but got really lucky last year and is I think better off as you
• 1:38:00
  either like a second division starter or just a utahl player on this team.
• 1:38:03
  And then in the minors there's nothing. So if I disagree they brought Andrew
• 1:38:10
  Kissner in, I mean they're they're they're all in. Sorry, Yeah,
• 1:38:15
  I mean that's another thing to kind of watch in terms of like putting the
• 1:38:18
  tea leaves together as we get into spring training. That you know, if
• 1:38:23
  they show no desire to bring in another bat, that that I think that
• 1:38:27
  tells you what they're going to be doing with Langford and Carter here. Yeah.
• 1:38:30
  Absolutely, all right, My cell is I've got one quick hit,
• 1:38:38
  which is Jacob de Gram has an average draft pick of four to twenty seven.
• 1:38:42
  He's going to most drafts that don't. Just don't, I don't.
• 1:38:45
  He's not coming back, Like I know that. We just discussed like Kershaw
• 1:38:50
  like could be doing it, but we're not. Don't do the Jacob.
• 1:38:54
  Yeah, it's a little different. It's a little different. I'm there with
• 1:38:57
  you. Uh but my my real And it's actually and it wouldn't have been
• 1:39:01
  until just the other week when the news of his core surgery came out.
• 1:39:04
  Is Corey seeger that the price is really climbing and I get it, Like
• 1:39:13
  he produced a fantastic season in a limited sample size because of the injury last
• 1:39:17
  year, but hey, guess what, he's injured again. Like this is
• 1:39:21
  a guy that has had bumps and bruises, and he's a superb hitter,
• 1:39:26
  like he's, you know, pound for pound, one of the best hitters,
• 1:39:30
  if not like the best hitter in the league. When he's in there,
• 1:39:32
  you know, he's like Juan Soto, but he's also he's not running,
• 1:39:35
  and so when you take him in the second round where he's going right
• 1:39:40
  now at pick twenty on average, he's really putting you behind in a hole.
• 1:39:45
  And he's not running this year, I think, especially if he had
• 1:39:48
  core surgery on a sports ternia, that you can almost guarantee he's not going
• 1:39:55
  to be adding to those two stolen bases they's picked up they picked up last
• 1:39:58
  year, and you know has and picked up more than four once in his
• 1:40:02
  career. So you're getting bat only and then this is where you get stuck
• 1:40:09
  into taking a story of Reeves too early. Like I love Corey Seeger.
• 1:40:14
  The stats are great, the bad is great. I have no qualms with
• 1:40:16
  it. But from our game, if you're playing in any sort of league
• 1:40:21
  with a stolen base category, you gotta fade Corey Seeger a little bit from
• 1:40:27
  where he's at because you can't even count on that bat fully this year in
• 1:40:30
  terms of how he's gonna heal from that hernia surgery, and especially with the
• 1:40:34
  way that he swings, like is so violent and so much twisting too that
• 1:40:40
  like it really scares me when somebody like him has, you know, a
• 1:40:45
  core or oblique like issue, because there's just a lot of twisting him and
• 1:40:49
  torque going on. So yeah, and I hate to do it, but
• 1:40:54
  like Corey Seeker's got to be myself because you've got to be getting more stolen
• 1:40:59
  by then zero out of that spot if you want to be competing for a
• 1:41:03
  league title. Yeah. I was just looking at the ADP board and look
• 1:41:08
  at those shortstops there. It's like Bobby we Speed, Trey Turner, speed,
• 1:41:12
  Eli de la Cruz speed lindor not as much of speed Gunner a little
• 1:41:17
  bit. Bo I don't still don't understand Abram's Horner, McLain, CRU's Hassan
• 1:41:24
  Kim. Like there's speed all over the place in shortstop and if you don't
• 1:41:29
  have it, like you have to pick it up somewhere else. And that's
• 1:41:31
  the point that's where you're talking talking about Ruiz and that's not a good idea,
• 1:41:36
  as we already talked about. So yeah, I think you're right,
• 1:41:42
  and he's, man, you're going second round and guy didn't hasn't cleared one
• 1:41:46
  hundred runs or a hundred RBIs last few years, even with like that in
• 1:41:50
  that lineup, just saying that's kind of weird. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:41:57
  yeah, especially that if you're going to take us Preme bat like that,
• 1:42:00
  you need the the big time runs in RBI. It's the kind of the
• 1:42:04
  same story a little bit last week where I was like fading Flag Junior because
• 1:42:09
  like, you need the floor has gotta be real high if you're taking bat
• 1:42:13
  only up here. Yeah, absolutely, Like that's like the guys that's wrong.
• 1:42:16
  I'm like, I'm willing to, you know, talk about a Sodo
• 1:42:18
  or your don or something like that, who like absolutely could carry the home
• 1:42:23
  runs more than these guys. And from an RBI perspective, you're expecting one
• 1:42:28
  ten, one twenty something like that in ninety runs, you know, at
• 1:42:31
  worst, Like but you know, Seeger, he's he's good, but he's
• 1:42:36
  not. I don't think he's second round material, even if it was in
• 1:42:41
  fun of the yeah, the core the core surgery there. Yeah, Okay,
• 1:42:45
  well let's bring this thing home. Who are you going to pick to
• 1:42:48
  win this division? The Al West. Oh I should have been thinking ahead
• 1:42:55
  because I've only done it every other week. I I know, yeah yeah,
• 1:43:00
  So out in the al West here, let's let's look who who do
• 1:43:03
  I want to go with? This is a tough one, you know.
• 1:43:12
  I I don't want to I don't want to take the Astros. I I
• 1:43:18
  think I'm gonna go out on a limb and I'm going to go with the
• 1:43:21
  Seattle Mariners. I'm gonna go just a little bit because you can argue the
• 1:43:27
  Rangers, but their pitching staff is parable the Astros like they they're good,
• 1:43:33
  but they're not great. The athletics are tempting to make fun of. But
• 1:43:41
  that's you know I I I think I'm gonna go with the Mariners. I
• 1:43:45
  think there's, as you said something earlier, like, there's just a little
• 1:43:47
  bit more excitement there, and that bullpen is gonna be nasty. There's the
• 1:43:55
  the rotation is getting better outside of Bracemeller and the offense. They've actually invested
• 1:44:01
  and done some pretty interesting things that offense as well. So I'm gonna go
• 1:44:06
  with the Mariners going on a limb here. Whether it's the right thing to
• 1:44:11
  do or not, that's what I'm going with how about you. Yeah,
• 1:44:14
  that's actually my pick too. And I mean if you could read through the
• 1:44:17
  tea leaves a little bit when I was going through that Mariners intro and espousing,
• 1:44:24
  like all the things I like about Bryce Miller and other things on this
• 1:44:27
  team. That the rotation is amazing. When you have Brian Wu slotted as
• 1:44:31
  your fifth starter, you're looking really good. And that's not even considering like
• 1:44:38
  they've got the depth as well, you know, between what's coming through in
• 1:44:42
  the miners with Emerson Hancock, you know Park down there, and the bullpen
• 1:44:47
  arms that I mean I'm looking at like their triple A bullpen, all of
• 1:44:53
  them are projected to like have better ear rays than the White Sox bullpens.
• 1:44:57
  Like don't even know who these dudes are, but they're better than the White
• 1:45:00
  Sax bullpen. And so yeah, I mean, Seattle's got a lot of
• 1:45:05
  levers that are are moving along, and they've also got the depths trade from
• 1:45:09
  if they need to bring in another bat that they've got a really good system
• 1:45:14
  coming and they've got way too many middle dfielders coming through, so they're going
• 1:45:17
  to have to trade another one off, like Noel Vie Martelle, I think
• 1:45:20
  here over the next couple of years. So I like what Seattle's putting together.
• 1:45:26
  And if it wasn't for that Texas Rangers rotation, I would have picked
• 1:45:30
  them. But it is bad, Like I don't if the Rangers do sign
• 1:45:35
  Montgomery and or even Snell or somebody else just to like, I mean,
• 1:45:41
  at this point, they need to be signing like Wade Miley types to like
• 1:45:45
  shore up their rotation. That would give Texas the edge. But like,
• 1:45:50
  at this point in time, I'm picking Seattle. All right. If we
• 1:45:55
  end was an agreement, that's that's that's the first Yeah, yeah, we
• 1:45:59
  didn't get you didn't get into it too much. I'm impressed. So all
• 1:46:02
  right, let's wrap this thing up. Brew Can you remind people where they
• 1:46:06
  can find you if they want to reach out to you on socials? Yep,
• 1:46:11
  find me over on Twitter slash x at j Brewer one seven. You
• 1:46:15
  can also find me over rasball on the weekends doing your hitter profiles so far
• 1:46:19
  in the off season. Also will be hitting the top one hundred hitters throughout
• 1:46:24
  the season and in the spring coming before too long. So that where you
• 1:46:28
  can find me, how about you? Yeah? I will be doing waiver
• 1:46:30
  wires again at rasball once the season gets fired up. Obviously, you can
• 1:46:34
  find us here every week on cards and Categories, and you can reach out
• 1:46:40
  to me on Twitter slash x at m cool seven on Blue Sky at the
• 1:46:45
  same handle. You don't need an invite code. They opened it up and
• 1:46:47
  so it's a wild wild West out there. You can find me there,
• 1:46:51
  and you can find the pod on Twitter slash x at cards categories, and
• 1:46:57
  you can email us at cards Categories at gmail dot com. We also have
• 1:47:01
  gear for sale. We have hats, shirts, baby onesie we got a
• 1:47:05
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• 1:47:09
  got the link in the show notes and rasball we're running all sorts of subscriptions
• 1:47:15
  and tools here for your fantasy draft season. I went miss out great projections
• 1:47:19
  from Gray and Rudy over there that you know, maybe they can make sense
• 1:47:26
  of some of these irregularities that we found, because I mean, the systems
• 1:47:31
  are all over the place on some guys and trying to wade through that is
• 1:47:34
  a little difficult. From time to time. Rasball can help you out with
• 1:47:38
  a subscription. And yeah, it's one more preview left for this series.
• 1:47:44
  We got Nlcentral next week along with a Big Tops Series one twenty four preview,
• 1:47:49
  so you can find us here, same time, same place next week.
• 1:47:54
  Hope to see you, bye a