Speaker 1: What's going on? Everybody. Welcome into Fantasy pros. This is
Speaker 1: the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Rico, and
Speaker 1: today we're gonna have a little bit of fun. We're
Speaker 1: gonna look forward to twenty twenty seven, talk about some
Speaker 1: ADP predictions, and I have a great guest here. He
Speaker 1: is the second most noteworthy mustachioed Paul s in the
Speaker 1: baseball sphere. You could argue he's number one, but I
Speaker 1: think Paul Skins might take that got me title from
Speaker 1: mister Paul Sport. But we love him nonetheless, Paul, greaty
Speaker 1: to talk with you. Different network than we're used to
Speaker 1: talking on, and it's been a while since I've hosted
Speaker 1: you on the show. Right, well, this should be a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, my friend.
Speaker 2: It's great to be on with you.
Speaker 3: Joe. Yeah, we usually do sleeper in the bus. I'm
Speaker 3: driving the bus. I like to be in the passengers.
Speaker 3: See I can be passenger princess today and talking twenty
Speaker 3: twenty seven is gonna be fun. You know, we still
Speaker 3: have a whole second half. I know they're not equal hals,
Speaker 3: but you know we still got a whole chunk of games.
Speaker 3: Things could change, but We know some of our sick
Speaker 3: friends out here. They're gonna start doing drafts soon, and
Speaker 3: we're part of that.
Speaker 2: I don't know how early you do it.
Speaker 3: We know Justin will get on the draft tomorrow if
Speaker 3: they asked him to, So people are going to start
Speaker 3: drafting pretty soon, at least in August. I know that
Speaker 3: there's usually that meatball draft, so they're going to have
Speaker 3: to make some of these decisions right away on where
Speaker 3: everyone's going to be going in the draft next year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. It's like a few weeks ago, James
Speaker 1: Anderson was on the show and we did a second
Speaker 1: half redrafting Welsh and I kind of ran back the
Speaker 1: idea the other day, and now we can start looking ahead.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about about fifteen players today and
Speaker 1: how we think they should be drafted in twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and I think we'll start right at the very top here.
Speaker 1: Jacob Mazerowski and Cam Schlitzler have been the number one
Speaker 1: and number two pitchers this season, which is probably not
Speaker 1: what anybody was really expecting, especially to the degree that
Speaker 1: it is. Jacob Mazerowski is thirteen dollars clear on the
Speaker 1: auction calculator of the number two pitcher, who is Cam Schlitler.
Speaker 1: That is the difference, my god, that is the difference
Speaker 1: of a Braxton Ashcraft or a Bryce Miller, or a
Speaker 1: Gavin Williams or Kyle Harrison or even de Grom is
Speaker 1: a fourteen dollars player. So it's essentially the difference of
Speaker 1: a deGrom between the number one and number two pitchers.
Speaker 1: Misrowski's been amazing. Schlitler has also been amazing, right and.
Speaker 2: But for him to be that far ahead.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if they are now the new schoobl
Speaker 1: and Skians to some extent at the top of draft boards.
Speaker 1: Has Scoogle done enough to move off of the number
Speaker 1: one pitcher in terms of the injury and you know
Speaker 1: he'll be in a new destination most likely yester year.
Speaker 1: Will that keep people off of him? Skeens has the
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of blows.
Speaker 2: He's been a little bit.
Speaker 3: I think we can say he's not tall Skins right now,
Speaker 3: He's not like unquestioned six plus every time out ten
Speaker 3: plus punches. He's fine. They're certainly not flailing because of him,
Speaker 3: but he hasn't. No, Ashcat's been the ace the last six.
Speaker 2: Weeks, so Yeah.
Speaker 3: As far as the Schoobl piece, I do think he's
Speaker 3: going to be off the number one spot for me specifically.
Speaker 3: This isn't like scorned lover, leave my team. I don't
Speaker 3: want to draft you, but I subscribe to the Glenn
Speaker 3: Colton and Rick Wolf the part of their smart program
Speaker 3: where they don't like to buy guys on the first
Speaker 3: year of the mega deal. They never suggest that they
Speaker 3: always fail, and I'm with him, that's not what it is.
Speaker 3: It's that you want to give a year of transition,
Speaker 3: see what happens. How's Kyle Tucker doing for you this year?
Speaker 3: And again you can find guys who are doing great.
Speaker 2: Right. It's not a one way or the other.
Speaker 3: It's that we you know, those two and myself separately,
Speaker 3: but they pioneered it.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm giving them credit.
Speaker 3: Want to step off for a year and just see
Speaker 3: what's what what's the adjustment now that you're the dude.
Speaker 3: Schoobl's been the dude. He's a two time side. I
Speaker 3: don't think he's going to be some sort of wilting flower.
Speaker 3: But Tucker wasn't some sort of you know, nobody that
Speaker 3: had to go out to LA and become something and
Speaker 3: he's folded under that.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he's.
Speaker 3: Dealing injury or whatever's going on, but he's had a
Speaker 3: bad year. What if schoobl goes out there and maybe
Speaker 3: that's just I gotta deal with this. This is tougher
Speaker 3: than I thought it would be. Whatever the case may be,
Speaker 3: I doubt he will fail, but you a most certainly
Speaker 3: won't be my number one guy. Big part of it
Speaker 3: being that reason because I don't think if he's healthy,
Speaker 3: of course that we're not worried about that.
Speaker 2: If he's injured, that's a whole different story.
Speaker 3: But if he's healthy ready to go, I think it's
Speaker 3: gonna be Miss Scooble, and then I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: Kind of go from there.
Speaker 3: I'm still gonna have him too, but I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: have him in that number one spot. And I could
Speaker 3: see a Schlitzler, and I can still see Skeins getting
Speaker 3: there too. I'm not gonna throw Skeins out off of
Speaker 3: a handful of crummy stone, like two actual bad bad
Speaker 3: starts and then a handful of like you know, you're
Speaker 3: not being your a self. So I think there is
Speaker 3: a new number one and miss when healthy, and that's
Speaker 3: gonna obviously be the biggest caveat here. But we're trying
Speaker 3: to break the future. So let's go with him healthy.
Speaker 3: How do you not take him number one? With what
Speaker 3: he does?
Speaker 1: I mean, his output is reminiscent this year of the
Speaker 1: peak Patro years.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I was gonna say here.
Speaker 1: Johan Santana type like, it's just like the peak pictures
Speaker 1: of the last twenty years. This is what we're seeing
Speaker 1: from him. A thirty three percent drake out to walk right,
Speaker 1: a point seven to six whip era doesn't matter that
Speaker 1: much to me, but the fact that it's at one
Speaker 1: sixty two is still pretty remarkable. Total twenty runs he's
Speaker 1: allowed this year in one hundred and eleven innings. He's
Speaker 1: just been outstanding. So he's healthy, he's the number one
Speaker 1: guy with a bullet or I mean, can we project
Speaker 1: forward and say, look, he's throwing one hundred and five,
Speaker 1: he's throwing one hundred and four. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to be the guy holding the bag or he does
Speaker 1: end up getting hurt. Is that a prudence strategy?
Speaker 3: You think there is prudence to that, And that's where
Speaker 3: it becomes really difficult, because you take a look at
Speaker 3: that leaderboard of the top x ten twelve velocity guys
Speaker 3: in any given year lately, and you put a little
Speaker 3: X mark next to the ones who have been injured severely,
Speaker 3: and you're gonna have eight to ten X marks on
Speaker 3: that twelve player list right like it happens all the time.
Speaker 3: And so he does feel like a ticking time bomb
Speaker 3: while also being the best picture on the planet right now?
Speaker 3: So how do you balance that? I still think he's
Speaker 3: the number one guy. I still think I could see
Speaker 3: scenarios where I myself would take him. But if somebody said, hey,
Speaker 3: when you're throwing this hard, like we know that the
Speaker 3: one hundred mile an hour throwers get hurt, this dude
Speaker 3: throwing Buco three bucko four, how is it not a
Speaker 3: guarantee that he's going to get hurt at some point?
Speaker 2: And I want to lay off.
Speaker 3: I would not clown that person if they wanted to
Speaker 3: go for a safer hitter. Nobody's safe, You're not. You're
Speaker 3: not going to get a perfect anything. Hitters are indeed
Speaker 3: safe for though that's a guarantee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so is MS a first round pick then, assuming
Speaker 1: definite number one pitch, or you think he's a first rounder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got gotta be for me. Like again, we're talking
Speaker 3: he's healthy coming off this year. Let's say he raises
Speaker 3: the VRA even all the way up to like two ten,
Speaker 3: which would be kind of a bumpy second half, which
Speaker 3: is crazy to think, right because he's at one sixty.
Speaker 2: Two right now. But let's say he ends two.
Speaker 3: Ten, eighty nine on the whip, three hundred and ninety
Speaker 3: five thousand strikeouts. I just don't see how he's not
Speaker 3: a top five pick next year.
Speaker 1: I think, I agree, I think he is. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of where the top pitcher has been going
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. Maybe not always in the
Speaker 1: top five, but you will see minimum picks like second, third, four, yes,
Speaker 1: with an ADP of like five or six, and.
Speaker 3: Schemes Google started to inch toward the middle back end
Speaker 3: there as hitters got pushed up.
Speaker 2: I mean, we could see that again. Because you know
Speaker 2: another thing.
Speaker 3: About this year, and that this is where miss and
Speaker 3: Schlitzler came from, is that second and third tier really
Speaker 3: paid off handsomely this year, big time. The weight on
Speaker 3: pitching strategy that Nick Poullack loves to employ in his leagues.
Speaker 3: That was the way to go this year. You could
Speaker 3: get a good ace, right. If you took Sanchez, you're fine.
Speaker 3: I took Scoogle and I'm you know, he got hurt
Speaker 3: and that wasn't great, but I'm not I'm not losing
Speaker 3: my league because of him. So there were good ones,
Speaker 3: but crochet bust schemes SP fifteen had that from day one.
Speaker 3: So I mean, it was tough this year at the
Speaker 3: top of the pitching queue, and I think that's going
Speaker 3: to bring some caution for some folks, excuse me, and
Speaker 3: they're going to want to play in that middle to
Speaker 3: find the next miss and the next Schlittler.
Speaker 2: Easier said than done, though, of course.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Let's keep it going and we'll move to what
Speaker 1: it's been the hottest offense in Major League Baseball this year.
Speaker 1: I still say it kind of hesitantly because I don't
Speaker 1: really truly believe it, but the Washington Nationals have been
Speaker 1: the best offense in baseball this year. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about their three massive standouts. Offensively, James Wood, who, if
Speaker 1: you're looking just among hitters this season, is the number
Speaker 1: one hitter in all A Fantasy Number seven is CJ
Speaker 1: Abrams and now at number twenty two, more shockingly than even.
Speaker 2: Those two biggest shams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Luis Garcia Junior sitting here with twenty homers almost
Speaker 1: seventy ribbis at the break in a two eighty four
Speaker 1: patting average. So I'll say James Wood's going to be
Speaker 1: a first rounder. C. J. Abrams probably a third rounder.
Speaker 1: But Luis Garcia is the one where it's like it
Speaker 1: really is going to come down to what he looks
Speaker 1: like in the second half, I think. But a top
Speaker 1: one hundred or so pick I think is on the
Speaker 1: table at this point, sport, what do you think?
Speaker 3: I certainly think so, and I don't necessarily know exactly
Speaker 3: how I feel about that right now.
Speaker 2: I enter it with some trepidation.
Speaker 3: And yet I look at somebody who will be turning
Speaker 3: two seven, so certainly not old. Has been around the
Speaker 3: block multiple times. That's the thing. Like, this guy has
Speaker 3: years under his belt already. This is his seventh year.
Speaker 3: Now they're not all full seasons. Abuck thirty nine, two
Speaker 3: forty seven, plaited appearances in the first two, but then
Speaker 3: three seventy seven, forty two, five, twenty eight, five, twenty
Speaker 3: six and already three nineteen this year. This guy has
Speaker 3: tons of experience, and he took a major step forward.
Speaker 3: He already has a career high in homers this year.
Speaker 3: I don't know how you don't get him up there,
Speaker 3: because there's some there's some viability to this too. Now
Speaker 3: there are some things that you could poke holes in.
Speaker 3: He has no idea that if you take four balls
Speaker 3: that you get a walk. He doesn't even know that
Speaker 3: rule yet. But when you're hitting like this, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to crush you for it. Fifteen percent. Hey rate
Speaker 3: tells me that you don't need to walk. You know
Speaker 3: how to make contact, you know how to go get
Speaker 3: your pitches. So don't you know, sometimes we want to
Speaker 3: force these guys to walk like a Tim Anderson type.
Speaker 3: I remember saying if you could just walk ten percent,
Speaker 3: but you forget about how that would like fundamentally change
Speaker 3: who they are. Would they give up on pitches that
Speaker 3: they could normally hit. So I don't need to change
Speaker 3: Luis Garcia from that standpoint. But he's gonna end the
Speaker 3: year almost assuredly with thirty bombs, right, that's only ten
Speaker 3: more of the rest of the way. You certainly hope
Speaker 3: he's pushing closer to thirty five and the two eighty
Speaker 3: four average show batting average these days is impossible. Wind
Speaker 3: about mine on the sleeper and the bus in the
Speaker 3: main this year, I'd kill for two eighty four. So
Speaker 3: the fact that he brings that average with it, I
Speaker 3: think it will make Luis Garcia Junior a top one hundred,
Speaker 3: barring just a complete collapse a fade like let's say
Speaker 3: he has a one thirty seven ops plus right now,
Speaker 3: Let's say he ends closer to one twenty eight one
Speaker 3: point thirty, so shaves a handful of points off hits
Speaker 3: two eighty and those thirty three homers.
Speaker 2: That's top one hundred.
Speaker 3: Pick I think, especially with this offense, because people are
Speaker 3: gonna be excited about them next year, especially if they
Speaker 3: do something crazy like make a playoff run, which I
Speaker 3: don't think they're going to, but if they somehow snuck in,
Speaker 3: I think that would add to their cachet.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if their bullpen was even somewhat competent,
Speaker 1: and even the rotation. I mean, this really just comes
Speaker 1: down to the pitching. But that walk remark about Garcia
Speaker 1: is one of the funniest things I've heard her say
Speaker 1: on a show in the last couple of years. It's
Speaker 1: actually hilarious too, because he has walked fifteen times this year.
Speaker 1: He's walked one hundred and twenty three times in his career.
Speaker 1: Won twenty three. James Wood James Wood has walked seventy
Speaker 1: nine times this season.
Speaker 3: Barry Bonds has a season with over one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty three IBB's I believe that one of those mega
Speaker 3: years like that is crazy, but again he makes it
Speaker 3: where Louis Garcia Junior does, so hats off to him
Speaker 3: on that. It is crazy though, how some of these
Speaker 3: guys are just like now, I'm here to swing, and
Speaker 3: you know what, it is definitely working. But who could
Speaker 3: have seen this coming? You know, if you did, I'll
Speaker 3: take your word for it, but send me a note
Speaker 3: on Twitter or something, let me know what you saw,
Speaker 3: because I saw a guy who fell off big from
Speaker 3: twenty four when he hit two eighty two with eighteen
Speaker 3: and twenty two, that was a really nice season. Twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four was, but then he kind of said, I'm
Speaker 3: a little bit of a fluke. Sixteen fourteen was okay,
Speaker 3: but two fifty two on the average and sub two
Speaker 3: ninety OBP had me scared. I was running for the
Speaker 3: hills on Garcia, I got that one wrong. I'll raise
Speaker 3: my hand on that one. But if you were in
Speaker 3: on him preseason, like you didn't just luck into him
Speaker 3: and you saw something, please let me know because I
Speaker 3: would love to know what I missed with him. But
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying watching him and the Nats. I've watched way
Speaker 3: more Nats games this year, pretty much since their heyday
Speaker 3: when they when they had strass and they were competitive.
Speaker 3: I've probably watched twenty games of theirs, which I don't
Speaker 3: think I did in the last three years combined Joe, They're.
Speaker 1: A fun team. I mean, I love Foster Griffin. I was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the loudest mouth about Kate Cavally was me heading into
Speaker 1: the season, and he's kind of figured it out a
Speaker 1: little bit. But they've been a fun offense. Like this
Speaker 1: team as a unit, I mean, Curtis Mead they figured
Speaker 1: out this year. He bear had that hot run earlier
Speaker 1: this season too. It's been it's been a fun team.
Speaker 1: And Luis Garcia. I was kind of interested in draft season.
Speaker 1: I had him on two fab teams and then looking
Speaker 1: back on it, so through the start of the season
Speaker 1: through May first, he had a sixty seven w RC
Speaker 1: plus he had one homer, two steals, he was hitting
Speaker 1: two forty three. He made games that was three So
Speaker 1: first one hundred and eight played appearances.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is what makes this game so hard because
Speaker 3: anybody who would have cut him there, I'd have said, hey,
Speaker 3: you gave it a month, like and that's that's all.
Speaker 3: That's all I asked people to do with like their
Speaker 3: breakout picks, give them some time to see where they're at.
Speaker 2: But you can't hold people endlessly.
Speaker 3: And we sign our boys, uh justin and I sign
Speaker 3: our boy Scott Pianowski all the time. When when he
Speaker 3: says if you never make a cut that you regret,
Speaker 3: you're probably being too tight. You're probably keeping guys too
Speaker 3: long and likely sinking with too many ships, he's saying
Speaker 3: that you're being too passive not cut everyone after two weeks.
Speaker 3: But again, you could have waited five six weeks here
Speaker 3: with Louis Garcia and it didn't really get going even
Speaker 3: until about the first ten twelve days into May when
Speaker 3: you had a two homer game on May twelfth. So
Speaker 3: that's another thing too, is that Louis Garcia's probably not
Speaker 3: on most of the teams that drafted him, especially in
Speaker 3: your tens and twelves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, since May first, it's a nine to eighty two ops.
Speaker 1: It's a one to sixty four wrc lous nineteen homers.
Speaker 1: I mean, like just unbelievable production and completely agree with
Speaker 1: the piano man, one of our favorites here. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to try and get him on. Although now that
Speaker 1: it's football season, I've I've probably missed my window.
Speaker 3: Bo.
Speaker 2: You'll see we could be focused. He could be focused
Speaker 2: on the old hand egg.
Speaker 1: You will see him at that at some point here
Speaker 1: on the channel in the future. But before we keep
Speaker 1: it going today, one to remind he gives about my playbook.
Speaker 1: With my playbook, you'll instantly identify the best pickups available
Speaker 1: in your league when every trade with our trade analyzer,
Speaker 1: and see the most optimal lineup every day based on
Speaker 1: our projections and your specific scoring settings. You can sink
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Speaker 1: or download the Fantasy Pros app for personalized expert advice.
Speaker 1: If you're looking to get a little sneak peak a
Speaker 1: couple of days free, it's fantasypros dot com slash free
Speaker 1: for our premium tools. On the site. Let's keep it
Speaker 1: going here spor really fun conversation. I do love this.
Speaker 1: I know it's not the most practical for people today,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a really fun conversation to look
Speaker 1: forward and see something yapping guys next sek just get
Speaker 1: the bit, see.
Speaker 2: All start break.
Speaker 3: I know there's one game time, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: is pretty unfair to the Phillies and Mets. I never
Speaker 3: liked for a couple of years they did it where
Speaker 3: everyone had Thursday off. It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 3: I know they're paid hands. I mean, I'm not saying
Speaker 3: feel bad for the players. There's a little unfair that
Speaker 3: two teams have to play when everyone else gets another
Speaker 3: day off. I don't know about all that, but anyway,
Speaker 3: we're still on break here, so I agree with you.
Speaker 3: It's not super practical for your fantasy purposes right now,
Speaker 3: but we're having fun this week.
Speaker 1: People demand baseball, and God gives them the Mets, so
Speaker 1: that's what you get, folks. And they just said that
Speaker 1: opening day next year is going to be March twenty
Speaker 1: fourth or something, so it's like we're starting early. It's
Speaker 1: the earliest and major League history, so oh my're not.
Speaker 1: So if you're like in the World Series next year,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have the shortest amount of time that you've
Speaker 1: ever had. So they're just kind of really caring about
Speaker 1: the breaks that guys are getting.
Speaker 2: It seems well, but that assumes we start on time.
Speaker 1: This does assume.
Speaker 2: I hate to say that, but you gotta be practical.
Speaker 1: Keep our fingers crossed. I hope we will. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about some catchers and we'll go to your neck of
Speaker 1: the woods here for one of them. Catchers have been
Speaker 1: unbelieve and it's been talked about a lot this season,
Speaker 1: but there's seven twenty dollar catchers. There's twelve catchers who
Speaker 1: are at least ten dollars. It's been unbelievable. Hunter Goodman
Speaker 1: is the name that we're gonna start with here, and
Speaker 1: Dylan Dingler, the two of them. I am really curious
Speaker 1: to wonder where they go next year because I think
Speaker 1: Ben Rice is going to be super expensive and he's
Speaker 1: been great. Liam Hicks probably won't be super expensive, just
Speaker 1: because this is his first time doing it. Langeliers, Contrerez, Herrera, Baldwin,
Speaker 1: They're all gonna be expensive, but they were already kind
Speaker 1: of expensive. Goodman was in that same realm of kind
Speaker 1: of expensive. But he's also just surpassed expectations for me
Speaker 1: this season. Twenty seven homers already, he had thirty one
Speaker 1: all of last year, fifty nine runs scored, he only
Speaker 1: had seventy three all of last year. And he's able
Speaker 1: to hit for a good batting average behind the dish,
Speaker 1: which is pretty rare. And then your boy Dylan Dingler,
Speaker 1: a twenty six dollars catcher, nineteen homers, sixty RBI. He's
Speaker 1: already a four win player in eighty seven games this year,
Speaker 1: looking like a super day in real life perspective. So
Speaker 1: what are we thinking? I guess we could take it
Speaker 1: from a more macro level too. It catchers in general,
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen with their prices? But Goodman and Dingler,
Speaker 1: I'm particularly interested to hear your thoughts here.
Speaker 3: I really think Goodman is going to jump up. He
Speaker 3: was seventy two in the main. I think he's gonna
Speaker 3: jump up into this year's Shae Langelier's territory, which was
Speaker 3: like picks forty to fifty range. I think that's gonna
Speaker 3: be where he's at. He's not gonna be the number
Speaker 3: one guy, the boy you mentioned earlier, Ben Rice. He's
Speaker 3: gonna be that number one guy, and he's gonna kind
Speaker 3: of take that cal rolly spot.
Speaker 2: I think in that second third round range.
Speaker 1: I really think people are gonna though he might not
Speaker 1: have the eligibility though Rice, he probably won't.
Speaker 3: Wait, how many games does he have because he's eligible? Now,
Speaker 3: I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: I think he's got zero. Honestly, he might have won.
Speaker 1: Let me see, I think he.
Speaker 3: Hasn't caught it all this year. Oh my goodness, I
Speaker 3: did not realize that. I thought he was still getting
Speaker 3: catcher games. Is what happens you don't have somebody you
Speaker 3: don't follow the day to day. I knew he was eligible,
Speaker 3: but that's, of course from last year. Okay, that changes
Speaker 3: the calculus. I still think he's gonna go up there
Speaker 3: as a first baseman, but that's totally different.
Speaker 2: I wonder could Goodman be the number one? Then?
Speaker 3: I think that there's really a really big chance because
Speaker 3: here's the thing. You didn't even mention it. It's the
Speaker 3: easiest thing to mention, I understand. But course he's got
Speaker 3: that in his back pocket too. So your regression concerns
Speaker 3: can be at least a little bit mitigated with the protection.
Speaker 3: Of course, it can't hit the ball for you, right.
Speaker 3: We saw that over the years. In fact, we've been
Speaker 3: searching for a Colorado catcher for fifteen years before Goodman
Speaker 3: popped off last year. Every time I catcher would comes
Speaker 3: like is this the guy? You know, the first decent
Speaker 3: guy since like Chris Ayanetta, who wasn't even that.
Speaker 2: Good, but he had some consistency going.
Speaker 3: And now two years in a row with Goodman, I
Speaker 3: don't know how he's not going to jump up like
Speaker 3: there are some faults. He still strikes out a lot,
Speaker 3: but again that's where that course protection comes in, so
Speaker 3: that the batting average I don't want to say ant
Speaker 3: crater because of course it can. Baseball is insane. I
Speaker 3: wouldn't have thought that cal Rally would completely impluge this
Speaker 3: year the way he did. But I think there's there's
Speaker 3: a decent floor around two forty five because of cores,
Speaker 3: as long as Goodman isn't striking out like forty percent
Speaker 3: of the time. So like I said, I'm gonna put
Speaker 3: him inside the top forty five. And for context, Langliers
Speaker 3: went exactly pick fifty this year on average in the
Speaker 3: main event. So I got Goodman just a little bit
Speaker 3: higher there as the number one catcher, but that's still
Speaker 3: going to lower where the top catcher goes, because again
Speaker 3: Raley went twenty three this year.
Speaker 1: I've just noticed the strangest thing with Hunter Goodman. Looking
Speaker 1: back to last year at home he hit three oh seven,
Speaker 1: he hit thirteen homers. He actually had more home runs
Speaker 1: away from course field last year. Oh if you look
Speaker 1: at WRC plus was one eighteen away and one sixteen
Speaker 1: at home. I'm about to knock your socks offs for
Speaker 1: because this season Hunter Goodman has reverse course splits. When
Speaker 1: he is away. He has a one to fifty seven
Speaker 1: WRC plus when he has at hold. When he's at
Speaker 1: home this year it's a seven forty seven ops, which
Speaker 1: I think is maybe more prudent to you then h
Speaker 1: WRC plus because course gets knocked down. I think a
Speaker 1: little bit take get crushed. So a seven to fifty
Speaker 1: oh ps is still totally serviceable, but nine sixty four
Speaker 1: away if he starts hitting a course the way everybody
Speaker 1: else does like this is and he did last year.
Speaker 1: He hit very well at Cours last year, so it
Speaker 1: feels like small sample size stuff going on there, this
Speaker 1: guy might be a first round finisher in terms of
Speaker 1: the player raider this year, right, especially with the boost
Speaker 1: that catchers get, if he's able to start hitting at
Speaker 1: home in the second half, which he should be able to, right.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I mean I'm seeing a two eighty three Babbitt.
Speaker 3: That's probably a big culprit here as to why getan
Speaker 3: only hitting two twenty three at home? So yeah, if
Speaker 3: he flips that and doesn't crater on the road, right,
Speaker 3: because if you three thirty Babbot on the road, that's high.
Speaker 3: But it's also not like impossible to sustain that when
Speaker 3: you smash the piss out of the ball the way
Speaker 3: he does. So what if what if he has you know,
Speaker 3: forty two bombs one hundred ribs and in a two
Speaker 3: fifty five two sixty average, we see some first round Goodman,
Speaker 3: am I going too crazy here?
Speaker 1: I mean, Raley, did I win it?
Speaker 2: That's a good point. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: But Goodman, with the cores factor, it's like complete polar
Speaker 1: opposites for park factors because sattles absolutely terrible and Goodman,
Speaker 1: just look at it now. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: our player raider at Fangrafts gives a little bit of
Speaker 1: a boost to catchers, which most player raiders do. But
Speaker 1: Hunter Goodman's the number seven player despite not really doing
Speaker 1: much at cores in the first half. So yeah, five
Speaker 1: steals thrown in, Like, is he potentially going to be
Speaker 1: a top five player to finish the year? He might be,
Speaker 1: And if that's the then we might be entering the
Speaker 1: Rawley territory of he's a top twenty five, top thirty pick.
Speaker 1: I'd probably fade that, but I would I wouldn't rule
Speaker 1: it out entirely. I wouldn't. The reason I probably would.
Speaker 3: It's less about him and more the depth a catcher, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, I didn't see quite this good. You know,
Speaker 3: Justin and I talked about the catcher depth though a
Speaker 3: lot is here and we weren't doing ones. I'm not
Speaker 3: I'm not back patting here. I'm saying the fantasy community
Speaker 3: knew that Tetcher was deep, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: any of us saw it being this excellent who No
Speaker 3: one really missed in these top ones except I guess
Speaker 3: Ralegh of course the top one, and then Salvey's been light.
Speaker 3: He has his power, but his average is created. I
Speaker 3: think he's actually gonna be fine in the second half.
Speaker 3: But then Bengaliers, Contreras, Rice Goodman, Baldwin, I guess Augustin.
Speaker 3: So actually, okay, three of the top nine here, three
Speaker 3: of the top nine did fade and it's still been
Speaker 3: this good because of guys like Dingler, who we haven't
Speaker 3: even mentioned yet.
Speaker 2: But I'm totally with you that Goodman is going to
Speaker 2: be sky high.
Speaker 3: As for my boy, Dingler picked two thirty nine this
Speaker 3: year as somebody who's like, hey, that's my C two.
Speaker 3: He plays every day. I did not see this coming.
Speaker 3: Did I think that he could be a good everyday player. Yes,
Speaker 3: I've been liking Dylan Ingler since his college days. In fact,
Speaker 3: the only thing I don't like about him is that
Speaker 3: he went to Ohio State, but hey, he can't be perfect.
Speaker 2: But everything else I really like.
Speaker 3: He calls an amazing game, and he had thirteen homers
Speaker 3: last year with a two seven average. So I'm not
Speaker 3: saying anybody should have seen exactly this, but you could
Speaker 3: have been in on Dingler. I don't think you just
Speaker 3: lucked into him. And maybe I'm saying that because I
Speaker 3: have him on my main and I want I want
Speaker 3: credit for finding it, but you know, it was easy
Speaker 3: for somebody to make the case that they wanted to
Speaker 3: get Dylan Dingler as somebody who could improve to this level.
Speaker 2: It's been crazy.
Speaker 3: But given that he did it last year for four
Speaker 3: and sixty to nine plate appearances, another three sixty one
Speaker 3: this year. You add it all up, it's a two
Speaker 3: seventy one average and sixteen homers per four hundred plate appearances.
Speaker 3: There does he jump up into say the top one
Speaker 3: fifty area, because that would be around Basaiah went one
Speaker 3: fifty one this year. Could you see him being the
Speaker 3: tenth eleventh catcher Dingler next year.
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest that even when you said that,
Speaker 1: in my mind my initial reaction was that feels even
Speaker 1: a little bit light maybe but perhaps yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2: Maybe Jiner Diaz one twenty Will Smith.
Speaker 3: Not that catchers have to go at these specific spot
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to give a frien reference for where
Speaker 3: they went this year. Do you think him do you
Speaker 3: think Dingler's more in that Agustin Ramirez janer Diaz range
Speaker 3: which was ninety three throwing sal there ninety one to
Speaker 3: one twenty range.
Speaker 1: Then I mean, if we if he ends the year
Speaker 1: hitting like two seventy with twenty seven homers and eighty
Speaker 1: two RBI or something. I feel like he's gonna go
Speaker 1: in the Agustin Baldwin type of range, like back into
Speaker 1: the top one hundred maybe, but maybe. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess with.
Speaker 3: The average this, I can see that because average, dude,
Speaker 3: two sixty two from a catcher is like three hundred
Speaker 3: from somebody else.
Speaker 1: And I should have said this at the beginning, but
Speaker 1: these numbers for the catchers in particular are definitely more
Speaker 1: geared to two catchers. Oh yeah, you're gonna If you're
Speaker 1: in a one catcher league and you take Hunter Goodman
Speaker 1: in the second round, I will personally yell at you
Speaker 1: don't two catcher leagues. It's a different story altogether. But
Speaker 1: I mean, so Janer Diaz was like one fifty and
Speaker 1: Addley one fifty. Adley went one to fifty last year
Speaker 1: coming off of a fairly season, but he did have
Speaker 1: a bit of a track record as well. Right name by,
Speaker 1: I think one twenty five feels like a good number
Speaker 1: for Dingler. If I'm predicting an ADP, I think one
Speaker 1: twenty five would be where i'd set over under.
Speaker 3: As I can absolutely get behind that. I think that's
Speaker 3: a really good number, and I think he can back
Speaker 3: it up again. If this was this first year out
Speaker 3: of nowhere and he didn't have last season with it,
Speaker 3: I'd maybe be a bit more skeptical. But this is
Speaker 3: two years now, he's going to be twenty eight, he's
Speaker 3: in the midst of his prime. Tigers are extensibly a
Speaker 3: solid team at least. We'll see how the rest of
Speaker 3: the year goes here. I know both of our teams
Speaker 3: need to come out of the gates firing here in
Speaker 3: the second half to stay in the race. Less they
Speaker 3: have to start trading pieces. But Dingler is obviously a
Speaker 3: foundational piece to this ball club, and I'm really excited
Speaker 3: to see what he does in the second half.
Speaker 1: He is far and away too this year, the best
Speaker 1: real life catcher. It's not even particularly close. I guess
Speaker 1: if you want to use Baseball Reference War for catchers,
Speaker 1: and there's always a bit of a back and forth
Speaker 1: between which war to use for catchers, But using Fangrafts War,
Speaker 1: he's at three point nine and the next best Gabby Moreno,
Speaker 1: at two point five, so a full win and a
Speaker 1: half clear of number one.
Speaker 3: I don't want to be a total company man Homer here,
Speaker 3: but I will say that you can't use b ref
Speaker 3: war for catchers. It doesn't include the framing. You gotta
Speaker 3: get the framing in there to really give him a
Speaker 3: fair shake there. That's such an instrumental part. And I
Speaker 3: don't know if anyone's baking in challenges at all, but
Speaker 3: he's one of the best challengers out there.
Speaker 2: Saw a great thing from him about Dingler.
Speaker 3: Jason Bennetti was talking about how he interviewed Scooble and
Speaker 3: he had brought up a situation to him. I don't
Speaker 3: remember the exact snaris, like you throw this pitch in
Speaker 3: this count and it's worked so well, you're giving up
Speaker 3: like a one hundred batting average whatever it was. He's like,
Speaker 3: how do you do that? And Scooble was like, talk
Speaker 3: to that man and pointed right to Dingler because he
Speaker 3: has such instilled trust in him. Scooble didn't even know
Speaker 3: what Bennetti was talking about, not that he wasn't clowning Benetti,
Speaker 3: but he didn't understand, Like he's like, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 3: I just execute what he tells me. I have that
Speaker 3: implicit trust in Dingler that if he says it's slider
Speaker 3: outside right now, then it's slider outside.
Speaker 2: And now not every pitcher's like that.
Speaker 3: Some want to have their own say in the call,
Speaker 3: but it's so nice when you can have that implicit trust.
Speaker 3: Aj Ellis got a whole career off of building Kershaw's trust,
Speaker 3: and you know, he was a fine player himself.
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not trying to integrate him with that,
Speaker 2: but like he.
Speaker 3: Was a backup catcher who got a ten twelve year
Speaker 3: career because he built the trust of one of the
Speaker 3: greatest pitchers ever.
Speaker 2: And Dingler's doing that. He's a quite a bit better
Speaker 2: than aj.
Speaker 3: Ellis, And I just love how he has built that
Speaker 3: trust with the pitching staff. And that's part of why
Speaker 3: the Tigers are still kicking, even because in his hitting
Speaker 3: and his ability to bring up the pitching, they're still
Speaker 3: navigating this dog.
Speaker 2: Pardon me, I can don't know if we can swear.
Speaker 3: This terrible American league that leaves both of our teams
Speaker 3: still in it despite being several games under five hundred
Speaker 3: on June sixteenth, July sixteenth, Excuse.
Speaker 1: Me, it's unbelievable. Like even looking back at last year,
Speaker 1: the Kyle Rawley had nine wins last year, just insane.
Speaker 1: Next best was four point seven for Alejandro Kirk over
Speaker 1: the whole season. Dylan Dinglar's three point nine this year
Speaker 1: and half a season would have been the fifth best
Speaker 1: catcher season last year as a whole, and he's still
Speaker 1: got half a year to man, he's one of the
Speaker 1: five that he would have been behind based on his
Speaker 1: four point one last year. So this is like, if
Speaker 1: you're talking real life baseball over the next five years,
Speaker 1: if we could take any catcher in the game, if
Speaker 1: you said Dylan, I wouldn't argue it right right.
Speaker 2: Might not be everyone's one one choice, but I certainly
Speaker 2: I'm with you. I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't blink at anybody's saying I love Dilly ding
Speaker 3: He's excellent.
Speaker 1: Played disciplines there, the power metrics are pretty solid, the
Speaker 1: catching is obviously elite. Like he's just he covers a
Speaker 1: lot of different bases.
Speaker 3: Team leader too, not that that matters for fantasy, but
Speaker 3: like it's clear that he helps lead that Tigers team absolutely.
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Speaker 1: called one eight hundred gambler. Now these next two players,
Speaker 1: I put them together because they are both guys I
Speaker 1: think that have a wide range of outcomes. Here for
Speaker 1: their ADP in the second half, and that's Jordan Walker
Speaker 1: and Pete crow Armstrong. We just did this last year
Speaker 1: with PCA. Over the first half of the season he
Speaker 1: had been declared the MVP and YadA, YadA, YadA, and
Speaker 1: then the second half of the season he was arguably
Speaker 1: the worst hitter in all of baseball. He picks things
Speaker 1: up this season where he didn't leave off actually where
Speaker 1: he started in twenty twenty five. Twenty one homers, twenty
Speaker 1: four steels, sixty three runs. He's hitting two ninety one.
Speaker 1: I think he's better than he was at any point
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. And then we have Jordan Walker,
Speaker 1: who I think people had kind of given up on
Speaker 1: Jordan Walker to some extent, especially in the redraft community.
Speaker 3: All the way you could have over one thousand plate appearances,
Speaker 3: I know he was only twenty four.
Speaker 2: That was probably the saving grace.
Speaker 3: I am somebody who you know, if you're young and
Speaker 3: you still maybe your story's a bit unwritten, but once
Speaker 3: you cross that thousand plate appearance threshold, I start to see,
Speaker 3: you know, this is kind of maybe who you are.
Speaker 3: So I jumped off, and I say that specifically because
Speaker 3: I was a Jordan Walker truther for those first three
Speaker 3: years and throughout his prospect days. So it was kind
Speaker 3: of tough, you know, I had voice of Man, it's
Speaker 3: so hard to say goodbye playing in the background as
Speaker 3: I was like picking them off my draft list, man,
Speaker 3: and he was not expensive, but I'm like, what am
Speaker 3: I getting here? You know, you're starting to remind me
Speaker 3: of a write handed version of Cardinals. Jason Hayward like
Speaker 3: couldn't hit for a lick at all, and it was
Speaker 3: just like all the talent there. Now he's starting to
Speaker 3: play like the comp that I gave him the very
Speaker 3: first moment I saw him. And I know comps are
Speaker 3: lame and I don't always do them, but this one
Speaker 3: just struck me because he.
Speaker 2: Looks like him too. Derek Lee.
Speaker 3: I saw Derek Lee the same size, their faces looked similar,
Speaker 3: for God's sakes, their stay chants was similar. He was
Speaker 3: raking at Fall League and I fell in love immediately.
Speaker 3: And again three years of hell well, actually the first
Speaker 3: one was all right, one thirteen ops plus let's be
Speaker 3: fair to the rookie, pretty solid, but then two absolute
Speaker 3: piles of pooh in twenty four and twenty five, and
Speaker 3: like I said, you crossed that thousand peer and spresial.
Speaker 3: It's not magic, just like one hundred pitches isn't magic.
Speaker 3: But it is a representative sample where you start to say,
Speaker 3: who is this guy? Jerry's twenty four, But being young
Speaker 3: alone doesn't make you better. So until I see something,
Speaker 3: I'm out. So I didn't get him anywhere. I regret it,
Speaker 3: but I think process versus results. Process was right to
Speaker 3: not necessarily being on him. The results are He's been
Speaker 3: amazing and I love him. I like him more than PCA.
Speaker 3: Is that crazy to say I think he has a
Speaker 3: more bankable back. I think I'm still I think you
Speaker 3: can make the case that as well ahead of him.
Speaker 3: I'm sticking out my neck here on Walker because I
Speaker 3: still have the same concerns that I had about PC. Well,
Speaker 3: actually I shouldn't say same, because he's nearly tripled his
Speaker 3: walk rate or over doubled his walk rate from four
Speaker 3: and a half percent to eleven percent.
Speaker 2: That's huge for PCA. What I was.
Speaker 3: Concerned with is when you strike out too much and
Speaker 3: you don't walk, that's.
Speaker 2: A deadly combo.
Speaker 3: Well, strike out's still a little bit high at twenty six,
Speaker 3: but an eleven percent walk rate I can live with.
Speaker 3: So I shouldn't say he's the same guy, but I
Speaker 3: am still a little bit nervous about his volatility and
Speaker 3: where that's gonna be. I might be getting two suckered
Speaker 3: on half a season because of my previous love of
Speaker 3: Jordan Walker. I'm not saying I would necessarily take him
Speaker 3: over PCA, because frankly, I don't think you have to.
Speaker 3: I think PCA is going to be a first round
Speaker 3: pick unless he utterly collapses again in the second half.
Speaker 1: I think he probably will too. Yeah, I'm just like
Speaker 1: going through Walker's profile, He's got some add at batspeed
Speaker 1: this year. I mean quite a bit of added batsby.
Speaker 2: I think he hit driveline by the way I think
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: I think he did, and that sometimes it works, sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't work. It appears that it really worked for
Speaker 1: Jordan Walker, and that's kind of the main thing here
Speaker 1: because you look at the chase rates, the contact raids,
Speaker 1: the swing strike rate is a little bit better, but
Speaker 1: still not great at fifteen percent, and it's really just
Speaker 1: the bat speed. And I saw Mike Petriello tweet something
Speaker 1: about this the other day to say bats speed is
Speaker 1: not everything. But in the top twenty five batspeed leaderboard,
Speaker 1: there's like twenty three guys having really good seasons, So
Speaker 1: it does appear to be a very important.
Speaker 2: Pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: It's still on the newer side, and people can be
Speaker 1: I mean, people still don't like WRC plus and stuff,
Speaker 1: so they see something like basspeed and they might think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't need to worry about this, but it is
Speaker 1: something that we need to pay attention to.
Speaker 3: Isn't it akin to velocity for pictures though, where it
Speaker 3: doesn't make you good? But what it is with velocity,
Speaker 3: the reason we stick with guys who throw one hundred
Speaker 3: over the guys who throw ninety two is it increases
Speaker 3: your margin for error. It raises your floor undeniably. I
Speaker 3: think we've see that with the pitch velocity guaranteed percent undisputable.
Speaker 3: Maybe not as undisputed for the bat speed stuff, just
Speaker 3: because it's a little bit newer, but I think it's
Speaker 3: a very similar parallel there. So yeah, I do believe
Speaker 3: that that is something that I would care about. You
Speaker 3: mentioned WRC plus, by the way, and just to throw
Speaker 3: it back to our boys in the nation's capital, they
Speaker 3: were doing some all star questions of the guys, what
Speaker 3: stat do you use to judge yourself? And most of
Speaker 3: them said ops, which, hey, you could do worse. You
Speaker 3: could have said, like batting average, you know, because batting
Speaker 3: average has.
Speaker 2: A one unit. This is how good I am. Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: Single tier rolled down my face when James Wood said
Speaker 3: WRC plus single tier rolled down my face. When Corbyn
Speaker 3: Carrol said, whoa bah, I'm like the kids, man, they're
Speaker 3: gonna be alright.
Speaker 2: Baby, I was.
Speaker 1: I was really really.
Speaker 3: Happy to hear that they're looking at those second third
Speaker 3: level stats to try to see how good they're And again,
Speaker 3: no one stat is perfect, but WRC plus overaps all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And just looking at the bat speed leaderboard, the
Speaker 1: only guy who's swinging the bath hearder this year than
Speaker 1: Walker is Junior Cam. And you keep going down the list,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of guys that are like really like
Speaker 1: cam Smith is fourth, Garrett Mitchell is fifth. But you
Speaker 1: look in the top twenty five and thirty, it's Schwarbur, Wilson, Contrerez,
Speaker 1: James Wood, Julio Colson, Montgomery, Vladimir Guerrero, Gordon Alvarez, Riley Green,
Speaker 1: Corbyn Carroll like, it's the guys that are having great seasons.
Speaker 1: And again it's not everything. But you sort by the
Speaker 1: bottom of that leader board and there are some guys
Speaker 1: having good seasons. But it's like, I completely agree Paul.
Speaker 1: It's it's pitching velocity for hitters. But there'll be some
Speaker 1: blowhards on Twitter who say, no, no, no, we don't
Speaker 1: need to care about how hard you hit the ball
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And I feel like that it's
Speaker 1: still crazy.
Speaker 3: Jeff Fine Jason Michaels are going to be the ones
Speaker 3: saying that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but people listen to those old I know players
Speaker 1: for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: And I just because it confirms blues that they already
Speaker 3: had and they don't want to learn new stuff. And
Speaker 3: like old man yon at Cloud et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But like, come on, man, I do wonder you know
Speaker 3: if that makes Cam Smith interesting for next year. He'll
Speaker 3: be twenty five or twenty four next year with guess
Speaker 3: what about a thousand plate appearances under his belt. He's
Speaker 3: at eight to fifty right now. He should get another
Speaker 3: buck fifty this year and it's gonna be a better
Speaker 3: result than Walker. But maybe that says stick with him.
Speaker 3: Who was the other one you said, Oh, Garrett Mitchell.
Speaker 3: And Garrett Mitchell is somebody who has certainly shown flashes
Speaker 3: of greatness. If he could just make more contact with it,
Speaker 3: so we know he beats the piss out of it
Speaker 3: when he makes connection. The problem is is his strikeout
Speaker 3: rate has been consistently thirty two thirty three percent the
Speaker 3: last four years, actually his entire career. I'm sorry, he's
Speaker 3: a thirty four percent career guy for seven hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty six play appearances. But honestly that makes me interested
Speaker 3: in both. From a long term standpoint, Maybe cam Smith,
Speaker 3: if you're in a keeper league and you're out of
Speaker 3: it this year, go see what's up. Ideally they would
Speaker 3: be on a contending team. Cam Smith would say you
Speaker 3: could give them some contending pieces and get yourself a
Speaker 3: cam Smith. But I would be interested in buying off
Speaker 3: of bat Speed because I used to buy off of
Speaker 3: I don't play any trading leagues anymore, but I used
Speaker 3: to buy off of Velocity with pictures and it doesn't
Speaker 3: work every time, but it works generally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, looking at cam Smith, I might declare him my
Speaker 1: first like my guy of twenty twenty seven. Just thinking
Speaker 1: about the trajectory of the bat speed, he gained three
Speaker 1: miles an hour on his bat speed from twenty five
Speaker 1: past six.
Speaker 3: He has twelve and nine too. Like he's not totally worthless.
Speaker 3: This year, despite the slash being lagging.
Speaker 1: It looked like he was. I think I wrote an
Speaker 1: article earlier this year about like the breakout of him,
Speaker 1: and it hasn't stuck because you know, he's kind of
Speaker 1: fallen off a little bit. July, it's a fifty WRC
Speaker 1: plus so far. It was a seventy four in May,
Speaker 1: but we've seen flashes. I think it was the first
Speaker 1: couple weeks of the year. Cam Smith was a hot
Speaker 1: fab guy in like week one or week two or three,
Speaker 1: and he kind of fell up a little bit. But
Speaker 1: the bat speed gains, the raised launch angle this year,
Speaker 1: the hard hit rate, barrel ray going up. This feels
Speaker 1: like the year before with Jordan, because you look at
Speaker 1: Jordan Walker did last season and it's kind of the
Speaker 1: same thing. Like he had really good bad speed. It
Speaker 1: was an increase in bad speed. He went from seventy
Speaker 1: seven to seventy eight from twenty four to twenty five.
Speaker 1: The barrel went up, the heart e rate went up,
Speaker 1: and it was like he was on the precipice. It
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and obviously he had a sixty six WRC plus.
Speaker 1: He needed some fine tuning. But Cam Smith coming into
Speaker 1: that already at an eighty seven WRC plus, a guy
Speaker 1: who got traded and had to learn a new position
Speaker 1: and all this stuff and in the major star yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know, it's almost like Andrew Vaughan with the
Speaker 1: White Sox, like, oh, we have Jose Bray you now,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna be a right fielder and Cam Smith
Speaker 1: has to change positions. He's traded for Kyle Tucker. A
Speaker 1: lot of pressure still so young, Like this was not
Speaker 1: meant to be a Cam Smith discussion.
Speaker 2: No, but I'm I'm with you, dude. This is taking
Speaker 2: my hand.
Speaker 3: I'm putting a little star next to him mentally that
Speaker 3: I want to keep tabs on this because you know,
Speaker 3: you have to look at that second and third level.
Speaker 3: We just talked about how much we like WRC plus,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't tell you everything. It starts to story. Okay,
Speaker 3: he his WRC plus sucks. Well, what's under the hood.
Speaker 3: And when we start to look under the hood, there
Speaker 3: might be an engine here worth buying into. Put a
Speaker 3: little elbow grease on it, and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: we got a guy. Because here's the thing too. In
Speaker 3: his uh six hundred game or six hundred point appearance average.
Speaker 3: He's fifteen to twelve cam Smith is, and so if
Speaker 3: he is hitting them, that's with an eighty seven WRC
Speaker 3: plus if he's closer to one hundred or one ten
Speaker 3: even which isn't even a stud that's like average.
Speaker 2: How's he not a twenty twenty guy?
Speaker 3: Then, let alone the ceiling to go way higher if
Speaker 3: things break out. So, yeah, you totally sold me just
Speaker 3: on that one metric and what it could mean for
Speaker 3: cam Smith with the skills we've seen around it.
Speaker 1: Last piece I will say on cam Smith because I mean,
Speaker 1: I could honestly spend a lot of time talking about him,
Speaker 1: but from last year to this year, it's it looks
Speaker 1: like he's taking a downward trajectory. If you just look like, oh,
Speaker 1: the batting average is worse, the on base percentage is worse,
Speaker 1: longercentage is about the same. But Walker kind of did
Speaker 1: the same thing for a couple of years. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: looked like he was sputtering. It looked like the career
Speaker 1: was kind of like, Okay, he might end up being
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bus but you got to
Speaker 1: stick with these guys. They're still so young. Walker is
Speaker 1: twenty four, Cam Smith is twenty three. These are still
Speaker 1: so young. I'm not saying like, all right, Jared Kelvick
Speaker 1: is gonna figure out, Like not everybody is gonna work
Speaker 1: right out, but cam Smith, when they have the skills
Speaker 1: below the surface, it really really is piquing my interest
Speaker 1: here with cam Smith. I want to hop into a
Speaker 1: draft right now actually for next year, just so I
Speaker 1: can take cam Smith.
Speaker 3: This is a real by low too, because you know,
Speaker 3: it's easy to say by low when somebody has a
Speaker 3: two point fifty wOBA and a four hundred expected wOBA,
Speaker 3: it's like, okay.
Speaker 2: Cool, and hey, I've done that too.
Speaker 3: I'm not I sound more sarcastic than I'm trying to be,
Speaker 3: but like, really, the only thing to cling here is
Speaker 3: prospect pedigree, some decent counting stats for camp Smith and
Speaker 3: this Batspeed piece, but you can truly buy low. There's
Speaker 3: no way somebody's gonna be asking a big price in
Speaker 3: the market right now if you go try to get
Speaker 3: him in a Keeper of Dynasty league, there's just no
Speaker 3: way they might ask for like a real piece back.
Speaker 3: But nobody's gonna be asking for premium, not what it
Speaker 3: was when the prospect hype was built up last year
Speaker 3: when he was first coming up, or at the beginning
Speaker 3: of this year when he had like four homers and
Speaker 3: four steels relatively quickly.
Speaker 2: So I'm totally with you.
Speaker 3: We did not mean to make this a camp Smith bitch.
Speaker 1: That is all we do, though, will I will stamp that.
Speaker 3: I'll stamp that part by saying, I do think PCA
Speaker 3: that as long as he doesn't collapse like he did
Speaker 3: last year, and I mean collapse, he can regress. But
Speaker 3: as long as he doesn't collapse, I think he's a
Speaker 3: first rounder. I think Jordan Walker is going to be
Speaker 3: like a third fourth rounder type and I'll be probably
Speaker 3: happy to pay that because he also has some sneaky
Speaker 3: speed too. He has thirteen steals. He had ten last year.
Speaker 3: He was ten for thirteen. He knows how to run
Speaker 3: again the Derek Lee comps run across the board for
Speaker 3: me with him and Derek Lee had some sneaky steel seasons.
Speaker 3: People remember him as a nice power guy, but he
Speaker 3: had a four year run of nineteen twenty one, twelve
Speaker 3: and fifteen steals from a big burly first baseman.
Speaker 2: So Jaywalk Derek Lee two point zero baby, He is.
Speaker 1: Just an athlete like six six, two fifty, Like he's
Speaker 1: a pretty unit. But ninety ninth percentile arm strength, one
Speaker 1: hundred percentile bat speed, ninety eighth average ex at velocity,
Speaker 1: and ninety second percentile sprint speed. He is just a
Speaker 1: true package. Now, the defense as a whole, I don't
Speaker 1: think is that great, but he feels like a guy
Speaker 1: who could develop into five tools. Typically. We spent a
Speaker 1: long time there, so let's move on and talk about
Speaker 1: Jordan Alvarez and Byron Buxton, the guys who are the
Speaker 1: quote unquote injury concerns who have stayed healthy. With Buckston,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're gonna get a couple of eye also,
Speaker 1: he's gotten nicked ub Yeah, but by and large, like
Speaker 1: seventy five games, he has twenty five bombs, seven steals,
Speaker 1: he's hitting two seventy one. And then Jordan Alvarez, it's
Speaker 1: just you know, a god one eighty six WRC plus
Speaker 1: that's like the Judge Judge Otani levels. Yeah, like it's
Speaker 1: that type of It's probably a tier of one right
Speaker 1: now with Judge out, when Judge's back, as the two
Speaker 1: of them, and I think they're both a half step
Speaker 1: ahead of Otani even but what do we do with
Speaker 1: this going forward for guys who historically have been pretty
Speaker 1: banged up, especially Buxton. I mean, we went a decade
Speaker 1: without Buckston playing one hundred games, and now he seems
Speaker 1: to have done it a couple times in a row.
Speaker 1: But he's also gonna be thirty three next year. That
Speaker 1: Jordon's gonna be hidden. Jordon's gonna be hitting thirty. So
Speaker 1: are they gonna be more fades? Especially because Jordon's gonna
Speaker 1: be a first rounder next.
Speaker 3: Year at Bucks, he is only gonna be like second third.
Speaker 1: Second third depends on the second half goes fades.
Speaker 3: Let's say he gets through this this ile stint.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was a big injury.
Speaker 3: Let's say he gets off of this pretty clean, comes back,
Speaker 3: does more of this big damage. I think we could
Speaker 3: see some second third round Buckston. They're both gonna be
Speaker 3: fades for me, though Alvarez's knees are forty five years old, man,
Speaker 3: and like, look, I'm not gonna roast anybody for taking
Speaker 3: him because we cannot predict the future. And looking out
Speaker 3: Grady is this year because I had the same take
Speaker 3: coming into this year.
Speaker 2: I love him.
Speaker 3: He's a great player, I'm terrified of him, and so
Speaker 3: I missed out on thirty one homers and seventy ribs
Speaker 3: in the first half. That danger is not gonna wane.
Speaker 3: It's only gonna get worse with those knees. And then,
Speaker 3: like you said, Buxton, we do not have enough time
Speaker 3: to go over all of his injuries, and even with
Speaker 3: the two one hundred game seasons these last two years,
Speaker 3: it's only one two and one twenty six.
Speaker 2: He just can do so much and so little.
Speaker 3: He's the present day Eric Davis, which is a compliment
Speaker 3: but also a warning to be nervous because Eric Davis
Speaker 3: struggled to play full seasons. He was great in the
Speaker 3: times that he played, But do you want to invest
Speaker 3: that much draft capital bucks then a lot more appealing
Speaker 3: when he's more of a mid rounder and you can
Speaker 3: take that shot on it. But when you're paying that
Speaker 3: firm third, fourth round, maybe even second round if he
Speaker 3: has a great second half, I don't think I can
Speaker 3: get there. And Alvarez as a top three, four five pick.
Speaker 3: I'm just too scared of the knees.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 3: That maybe too simplistic, but I don't know why that's wrong.
Speaker 2: To be worried about his body.
Speaker 1: Still no, And it's like the Dylan Ces type of
Speaker 1: thing or the even an odd year Nola, like you
Speaker 1: buy the dip. Last year was the dip on Alvarez.
Speaker 1: That was the year to buy. It was the year
Speaker 1: to buy Mazarowski and Burns and those guys too. But
Speaker 1: Alvarez is not going to be anywhere close to a
Speaker 1: fourth rounder again. I mean maybe if he gets he
Speaker 1: will be, but I think he's got enough good will
Speaker 1: at this point that even if he did miss the
Speaker 1: final to.
Speaker 3: Be end of the year devastating injury.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he's gonna be a first rounder. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: he falls into like the one two turn, But like, regardless,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be expensive. He's gonna be really really expensive.
Speaker 1: And I don't really see what the point isn't paying that. Also,
Speaker 1: Houston as a whole, they used to be this juggernaut
Speaker 1: offensively that if you had a piece of the Houston lineup,
Speaker 1: it was like, holy crap, he's got the A.
Speaker 3: And for the first two months this year too, by
Speaker 3: the way, I should point out, for the first two
Speaker 3: months they were up there. They eventually faded, but it
Speaker 3: was looking like they might be again. But they just
Speaker 3: lost too many people. They're too thin. It really is,
Speaker 3: you know, Alrez trying to put the team on his
Speaker 3: back with a few with a few guys with him,
Speaker 3: but he doesn't really have a second guy there.
Speaker 2: And then Correa got hurt.
Speaker 3: You know, Partez, Panya Walker, They're fine, but he does
Speaker 3: not really have a Robin right now.
Speaker 1: There's no Tucker, there's no Springer, there's no Bregman. This
Speaker 1: is not h the teams that we were seeing over
Speaker 1: the last decade in Houston, they're they're at the end
Speaker 1: of their quote unquote dynasty. Al Twove is still not bad,
Speaker 1: but like, this is not a this is not a
Speaker 1: lineup where you look at it. It's like, oh, he's
Speaker 1: gonna boost up his runs and RBI simply by existing
Speaker 1: in that lineup. He's gonna have a lot of them regardless.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't get the plus being an astro that
Speaker 1: he would have a couple of years ago. And then Buxton,
Speaker 1: who has declared unequivocally he wants to be a Twin
Speaker 1: forever even though they are literally the Titanic. I don't
Speaker 1: get it, but it's not gonna be good.
Speaker 3: I don't bag on players when they don't want to leave.
Speaker 3: I don't think you should have to want to leave.
Speaker 1: Maybe not, maybe not, And why.
Speaker 2: You have to only seek out winning.
Speaker 1: Championship for me again, for you, for you, for me,
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 1: I would see it is the ultimate goal of winning,
Speaker 1: of being in this league, especially after you've made your
Speaker 1: millions like Buckston has, you would think it would be
Speaker 1: to get a ring.
Speaker 3: He wants to win, and I'm not saying that that's
Speaker 3: a realistic dream, But like I don't like bagging on
Speaker 3: players who don't want to leave, first off, when they
Speaker 3: play long enough to earn that right, especially which he has.
Speaker 3: He's a ten to five guy, ten years in the league,
Speaker 3: five with the same team. Listen, moving sounds like a
Speaker 3: it's always a nightmare moving in season. I don't know
Speaker 3: what his family situation, if he has a wife, kids
Speaker 3: and all that that throw on extra If so, though,
Speaker 3: because that's an extra nightmare.
Speaker 2: So I get it.
Speaker 3: Maybe an offseason where he says, Okay, we can kind
Speaker 3: of plan this whole thing out and decide. But I
Speaker 3: totally get not wanting to be traded mid season. That
Speaker 3: seems like hell and b shots to the guys who
Speaker 3: can handle it. Every year you know or regular. We've
Speaker 3: seen so Laier get traded twice. I think both times
Speaker 3: to the braces. I wonder if they'll go get him
Speaker 3: a third time this year. Like some guys can handle
Speaker 3: it and thrive with it and respect. But I understand
Speaker 3: Buckston knows who he is and he's like, I'm not
Speaker 3: going anywhere, And.
Speaker 1: That's probably the fair take. I just I would view
Speaker 1: it if I was a professional athlet I would think,
Speaker 1: especially if I was a guy who was already financially secure,
Speaker 1: you'd think, I want a championship. Sure, but he's he
Speaker 1: wants to stay in Minnesota.
Speaker 3: So what if he wants to secure that legacy in
Speaker 3: Minnesota that might not include a championship, but maybe has
Speaker 3: fifteen years of spars but impact play when.
Speaker 1: He was playing fifteen years in the three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy two games.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fifteen years and four total seasons of games.
Speaker 1: No, true, I don't. I don't mean to bag on
Speaker 1: him like he is. If he was healthy his whole career,
Speaker 1: I think he'd probably be a first ballot Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: I think so just so talented athletically coming up, and
Speaker 1: we've seen it these last couple of years now that
Speaker 1: he's on the wrong side of thirty, putting up a
Speaker 1: thirty five to twenty five season last year and not
Speaker 1: even a whole year like he's so talented. But the
Speaker 1: team around him next year to go back to the
Speaker 1: initial point, I don't expect it to be a really
Speaker 1: good team either. So it's kind of Buxton has to
Speaker 1: do all of this on his own because I imagine
Speaker 1: Jeffers is going to probably get shipped out, and he's
Speaker 1: kind of the only guy that I think.
Speaker 3: Is that.
Speaker 2: Fully depends on how they're a game under.
Speaker 3: They're in a way better situation than both of our
Speaker 3: teams that we said aren't going to sell, So I
Speaker 3: don't know why they got to. Now we get extra time.
Speaker 3: The deadline is the third of August, so there's extra time.
Speaker 3: These teams are gonna take every moment that they can.
Speaker 3: But I think it would be tough to go in
Speaker 3: there and tell the guys that you're gonna sell Jeffers
Speaker 3: right now, I think you got not that they're legit
Speaker 3: World Series contenders, but once you get in the dance,
Speaker 3: you never know, And so I think they owe it
Speaker 3: to that team to at least play it out here
Speaker 3: till about July twenty eight, twenty ninth, they kind of
Speaker 3: see where they're at before they start moving Jeffers and
Speaker 3: maybe like an Ober or Joe Ryan. Obviously Joe Ryan
Speaker 3: will get a lot, so they could do that thing.
Speaker 3: Remember when the Tigers traded Flaherty and then made the run.
Speaker 3: They could trade Joe Ryan, get impact talent for this year,
Speaker 3: fill in two spots, and then still make a run.
Speaker 3: I know that's it would still strike morale in the
Speaker 3: clubhouse to see their big dude go. But they could
Speaker 3: definitely do that play that sort of one foot in,
Speaker 3: one foot out type of vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like the way that the wind has been blowing. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just media bs, but it feels like they are
Speaker 1: positioned more to move off of some of the expiring
Speaker 1: deals that could not end up coming to fruition. Even
Speaker 1: if we go into next year with the team as
Speaker 1: currently constructed or roughly this team, I don't think they're
Speaker 1: a great team. I don't think I don't great offense,
Speaker 1: as all had a pretty good offensive season. To their credit,
Speaker 1: they have a one oh five w RC plus I
Speaker 1: don't see them as a great offensive unit. And the
Speaker 1: overall point is, I just don't think that we could
Speaker 1: see like a hundred plus runs and a hundred plus rbi,
Speaker 1: especially considering a good point the likely time he's gonna miss.
Speaker 1: And as a second rounder, I'm kind of hoping for
Speaker 1: a hundred runs and a hundred RBI. So mm hmm,
Speaker 1: they're they're both. They're both generally gonna be on the
Speaker 1: fade for me. But if you can only take one
Speaker 1: or the other, who do you trust more? From a
Speaker 1: health perspective? Is it your on or is it busting
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: I think I would go for for Alvarez more. It
Speaker 2: is his knees.
Speaker 3: It's pretty specifically that with Bucks and it's I mean,
Speaker 3: he's the operation guy from that old, that old game,
Speaker 3: like everything is ailing him, you know, not right now,
Speaker 3: of course, thankfully.
Speaker 2: I mean he is on the il. But it's not
Speaker 2: like I forget what it was.
Speaker 3: I should look it up before I keep saying it
Speaker 3: wasn't a major injury. But yeah, it would be Alvarez.
Speaker 3: But that price is so high that it'd be tough.
Speaker 3: But he is the one I would pay for.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's wrap it up here with a couple
Speaker 1: of rapid fire ones. Okay, it's the top top twenty
Speaker 1: wanton rapid fire relative to you and I to us,
Speaker 1: it might be that might that might be a half hour.
Speaker 3: But injury, by the way, is what he has and
Speaker 3: it's not supposed to keep him out for a super
Speaker 3: long time. Should be eligible to return pretty much at
Speaker 3: the ten days here, which is right after the break.
Speaker 2: Sorry, go ahead, Okay, that's really good.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, that's goot. This good context because I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what it was either the top twenty guys who
Speaker 1: have been washed out, it's mostly due to injury this year,
Speaker 1: and they're for the that really come to mind. Hm,
Speaker 1: you could probably you could probably add a couple more
Speaker 1: like I could probably have Vladi in here, But I've
Speaker 1: spoken enough about him and I'm sick of talking about him.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Aaron Judge, Ronald Acunia Junior, Garrett Crochet,
Speaker 1: and cal Rawley. These were all drafted as cornerstones either
Speaker 1: first or second round picks, and Judge, Acunya and Crochet's
Speaker 1: case almost exclusively first round picks, and then Raleigh usually
Speaker 1: more into the second. How will this impact their price?
Speaker 1: And I guess with Judge. You also got a factor
Speaker 1: in the age thing here because Aaron Judge is probably
Speaker 1: older than you realize. He was debuted I think he
Speaker 1: was twenty five or twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty four debut for twenty seven games, but then
Speaker 3: his first full season age twenty five.
Speaker 1: Or twenty five. So he's gonna he's thirty four coming
Speaker 1: off of what'll be, uh mostly a washed out injury season.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you look at twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: actually didn't miss that much time in twenty one. It
Speaker 1: was more twenty nineteen and twenty eighteen where he did
Speaker 1: miss significant time. Twenty three it was the I think
Speaker 1: he ran into the outfield at Dodgers Stadium. He like
Speaker 1: ros a toe on the wall or something like that.
Speaker 1: But we have seen injuries from him. We've also seen
Speaker 1: like he's arguably the greatest right handed hitter who's ever lived.
Speaker 1: So is he still I think he's still a first
Speaker 1: round pick? Is he still gonna be in the conversation
Speaker 1: for the one oh one though? If he ends the
Speaker 1: season healthy, because usually the last couple of years it's
Speaker 1: been judged versus o TAWNI, could you make the argument
Speaker 1: for taking him at number one after the year we've seen.
Speaker 3: Yes, if he finishes on the field being Aaron Judge,
Speaker 3: I think it won't be hard for a decent contingent
Speaker 3: of fantasy managers to say he's in the one to
Speaker 3: one conversation again, because yes, I'll be thirty five, and
Speaker 3: yes he's got some injuries under his belt as well,
Speaker 3: but he is so good, he's so unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna be fade and Judge.
Speaker 3: Now, the other three on this list probably gonna be
Speaker 3: pretty easy fades for me, almost assuredly, depending on where
Speaker 3: they go. But Judge is one that, even at the
Speaker 3: extreme price, which is probably gonna be a top three,
Speaker 3: four or five pick depending on how he finishes the season,
Speaker 3: I can still get there if I see the Aaron
Speaker 3: Judge that I want in October, because I assume the
Speaker 3: ankles a make the playoffs. We'll see, but I assume
Speaker 3: and he's there doing Aaron Judge things, and I mean
Speaker 3: being good. And I know he's had some playoff struggles.
Speaker 3: That wasn't a diss on him, But as long as
Speaker 3: he's upright and playing, he's in contention for one of
Speaker 3: those top three picks. For me.
Speaker 1: Acuni is also really interesting because we obviously know the ceiling.
Speaker 1: But it's been three straight years now of this type
Speaker 1: of you know he's not gonna plays. I just I
Speaker 1: don't think I can do it anymore, especially paying exhorbited.
Speaker 1: It's exactly that I could be. I'm sorry, I keep up,
Speaker 1: but drafted though I know you're good, you're good. Where
Speaker 1: do you think he's going drafted next year? Is he
Speaker 1: a second round or maybe third?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: And that's the thing, like you said, people keep paying
Speaker 3: the premium form, and for years, going back to Bufston
Speaker 3: real Quick, we kept paying the premium form, so it
Speaker 3: was hard to even get discounts on him. It finally
Speaker 3: took until last year and then he broke out and
Speaker 3: really paid off the people that stuck with him. But
Speaker 3: with a Kunya like, the talent is still there. I'm
Speaker 3: not suggesting that he's a scrub. Seven and fifteen isn't bad,
Speaker 3: but he's fifteen for twenty two on the basis you
Speaker 3: want to talk about some Swiss cheese knees. He's had
Speaker 3: major surgeries on both and I was roasting Alvarez on
Speaker 3: his he doesn't want to use his Alvarez all he
Speaker 3: needs to do is trot and rip easy doubles into
Speaker 3: the gap that he can coast into. Acunya's legs are
Speaker 3: a key component of his game. He's going to be
Speaker 3: twenty nine, which isn't old, but he does have ten
Speaker 3: years in the league now. You know it'll be going
Speaker 3: into his tenth year, I should say. And so I
Speaker 3: don't see I don't see myself taking him really anywhere,
Speaker 3: barring just a huge collapse in price, which would probably
Speaker 3: take another catastrophic injury because he's already working his way
Speaker 3: back on rehab right now. Hit A Homer should be
Speaker 3: back in the second half, and we'll probably do a
Speaker 3: lot of fun Acunya things. But I don't see myself
Speaker 3: drafting him. I can't get there.
Speaker 1: I think I'm there too, and I think I'm there
Speaker 1: for Crochet as well, like I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: on Crochet. I love him, but all these setbacks and
Speaker 1: he's not even throwing the ball and it just looks
Speaker 1: really And they said he won't need surgery, but I
Speaker 1: don't know, we've heard that before.
Speaker 2: No, I really don't think so. And you know, at
Speaker 2: this point, what do we have? One season?
Speaker 3: Well, two, that's unfair to say one the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four was at least two thirds of a season. I
Speaker 3: know that third coming down the stretch there he was
Speaker 3: basically shelved, which I was actually fine with, you know,
Speaker 3: And I totally respected him when he said, if you're
Speaker 3: gonna trade me, give me a deal, let me get it.
Speaker 3: You know, I had no problem with that. He was
Speaker 3: advocating for themselves exactly like he knows, like picture, when
Speaker 3: you throw this hard. We just got done talking about
Speaker 3: with Miz. For as exciting as it can be to
Speaker 3: talk about miss and Schlitzler, crochet is that cold water
Speaker 3: of like, yeah, it doesn't always go perfectly, even when
Speaker 3: the skills are immaculate, and they are, and I know
Speaker 3: that his six starts that he had this year one thing,
Speaker 3: I throw it all out injury wash out season. But
Speaker 3: it's another injury wash out season. So I don't think
Speaker 3: he's gonna go super cheap crochet. And so that's a
Speaker 3: part of why too. If I thought there was going
Speaker 3: to be some sort of substantial discount, sure, but do
Speaker 3: you think he gets past Let's just say that. Let's
Speaker 3: say he comes back this year September, and he's fine
Speaker 3: He's not elite. He's kind of like what Schoobl's been
Speaker 3: since returning from his injury. Fine, but not Schoobl. You
Speaker 3: know what if he does that, they don't make the playoffs.
Speaker 3: You know they could, but let's just say they don't
Speaker 3: and we're go into next year with him having ended
Speaker 3: the season healthy. Do you think Crochet is going to
Speaker 3: go later than the third round? I don't, and in
Speaker 3: which case I don't think I can get there.
Speaker 1: I mean, the horrible comp and I hate to say
Speaker 1: it is Cole Reagan of course, right, it's the bright
Speaker 1: lefty that pops off for a year or two. And
Speaker 1: Cole Reagan's has still been expensive over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. Even last year was a bad injury washed
Speaker 1: out year, and Reagan's was still a fourth rounder. And
Speaker 1: I think his peak is it is better. I one
Speaker 1: of my most rostered pitchers this year, a huge l
Speaker 1: But Crochet, I think at his peak is a better
Speaker 1: pitcher than Reagan's. Agreed, No, it's arguable, but I think
Speaker 1: Crochet is a little bit better. So yeah, the price
Speaker 1: will be higher assuming he finishes the year healthy. Now
Speaker 1: the other side of that coin, what if we don't
Speaker 1: see him again this year. Then I think we're starting scared.
Speaker 3: Yes, then things start to get interesting because then I
Speaker 3: wonder if it's more an eight to eleven round range,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, you know it's a
Speaker 3: little bit of wide range there building in. But then
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I start to look at things
Speaker 3: quite a bit differently where I can take that risk,
Speaker 3: because once you start to get in those middle to
Speaker 3: late rounds, you know that not all those guys are
Speaker 3: going to be on your team all year anyway. You
Speaker 3: don't just take flyers or anything, not saying that you
Speaker 3: would want to do that, but like you could go
Speaker 3: for a potential ace hoping to spike it big with him,
Speaker 3: that would be a by the dip situation. But anything
Speaker 3: in those first four or five rounds with Crochet, I'm
Speaker 3: probably looking elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I have to agree. Unfortunately, as much
Speaker 1: as I'd love to continue to draft him, it's just
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel good. It really doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: good situation. But this is one where we really do
Speaker 1: need to see the second half, because if he starts
Speaker 1: five games at the end of the year looks brilliant,
Speaker 1: then you might see him in the second because people
Speaker 1: are crazy.
Speaker 3: Well, we saw what happen with Bradish, and I was
Speaker 3: part of it, so I'm not throwing stones at anybody.
Speaker 2: He had six excellent starts down the stretch.
Speaker 3: We thought that that magically fixed him and should have
Speaker 3: been more cautious on it, for sure, But he was
Speaker 3: a top twenty pitcher and it wasn't just me and
Speaker 3: a few other end was his ADP was I think
Speaker 3: SP twenty one, so like I was at SP seventeen,
Speaker 3: you know, so I was higher, but like the market
Speaker 3: was hot on him too.
Speaker 2: I would be careful of wanting to do that with Crochet,
Speaker 2: but I think that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 3: You're right, if he came back showed himself to be Crochet,
Speaker 3: He's right back in the second round.
Speaker 1: I bet one more name and we will wrap it
Speaker 1: up here, and it's cal Rawley. And this one is
Speaker 1: so puzzling from a number of perspectives because I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody expected another sixty bombs. But cal Rawley has
Speaker 1: always been a good Major League hitter. On twenty two
Speaker 1: worc plus one, fourteen, one, eighteen and one sixty one
Speaker 1: last year and then down to seventy one, and I
Speaker 1: think Paul it feels like there was an injury going
Speaker 1: back before the season or something. I know he has
Speaker 1: missed some time with the injury. The bat speed has
Speaker 1: gone down, the average exit velocity, barrel heard, hit rate,
Speaker 1: every important stat that we cite is down. He's chasing more,
Speaker 1: worse contact within the zone, worse contact in general. I
Speaker 1: feel like this is one where I will probably buy
Speaker 1: the dip in the two catcher leagues if he's like
Speaker 1: a you know, pick one hundred and ten next year
Speaker 1: or something, which maybe you won't fall that far. But
Speaker 1: if he does happen to fall, well, okay, here's an
Speaker 1: interesting one. Next year. Would you rather have Dingler or
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to do that.
Speaker 2: I knew it.
Speaker 3: Oh man, you know, I think I go Dingler. And
Speaker 3: maybe I'm a little bit influenced by this year. I'm
Speaker 3: not saying their performances this year. I'm talking more about
Speaker 3: the batting average. I've whined incessantly about my main event betting.
Speaker 3: I'd talked about it earlier, but I am struck by that.
Speaker 3: And I've had a batting average problem in the last
Speaker 3: couple of years. This nothing like this, but I am
Speaker 3: clearly making draft decisions where I'm a shooting batting average
Speaker 3: too much and I'm winding up in these situations.
Speaker 2: And then this year was just a.
Speaker 3: Collection of awfulness with Meryl, Trey Turner, and Machado sinking completely,
Speaker 3: and I think that would be the reason for me
Speaker 3: to go Dingler. We never thought sixty was coming again,
Speaker 3: but I had him down for another thirty. I was like,
Speaker 3: even if he hits two thirty and thirty, that's not
Speaker 3: a second round pick, but like, that won't kill your season.
Speaker 3: I'm with you, rallies injured if you know has been
Speaker 3: injured this year that.
Speaker 2: Has caused this.
Speaker 3: If he does go down though into that let's say,
Speaker 3: you know, one ten to one twenty range, that does
Speaker 3: become a lot more appealing. And I can also see
Speaker 3: myself doubling the two up, taking Dingler and Raleigh together
Speaker 3: like a one safe quote unquote and then one risky
Speaker 3: type of vibe there right in the middle of the draft.
Speaker 3: Secure both my catchers and see what I can get
Speaker 3: out of them as a combo.
Speaker 2: A lot will depend on what we get.
Speaker 3: From Raleigh the rest of the year, but I'm not
Speaker 3: totally out that is going to be very much price
Speaker 3: dependent will the market. Like let's say he stays pretty
Speaker 3: bad and ends the season with like an eighty nine
Speaker 3: WRC plus twenty one homers. You know that would still
Speaker 3: give him ten to eleven twelve down the stretch here, but
Speaker 3: like nothing special to write home about. I could see
Speaker 3: the price createring because if you really think about it, it's
Speaker 3: only one transcendent season. Thirty four one hundred with two
Speaker 3: twenty and twenty twenty four was good, but two twenty's
Speaker 3: pretty tough even in today's average environment. Two twenty is
Speaker 3: still bad. So the thirty four to one hundred good,
Speaker 3: but it can only do so much, so I will
Speaker 3: be open to buying the DIMP, but I really want
Speaker 3: to see where it goes with rally. And if you
Speaker 3: put me to it right now and say, hey, fifth
Speaker 3: sixth round, maybe you no.
Speaker 1: Feels a little rich? Yeah, Like he hasn't really picked
Speaker 1: things up in July. It's only ten games but one
Speaker 1: homer hitting two hundred in June, fourteen games yet one
Speaker 1: seventy four with one homer just bad, just really bad.
Speaker 1: So I do think you will turn it around. I
Speaker 1: do think the price will be cheaper, but let us
Speaker 1: know down below. What do you think who would you
Speaker 1: rather have? Between Cal Rawley and Dylan Dingler. I want
Speaker 1: to start a fight in the comments. We'll see if
Speaker 1: it happens. But Paul, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today. It was a lot of fun putting you
Speaker 1: in the analyst chair instead of the usual verse that
Speaker 1: we have. But let people know where they can keep
Speaker 1: up with you. Any work upcoming that you'd like to
Speaker 1: plug that people should be keeping a lookout for.
Speaker 3: Should have an spachart update next week. I was gonna
Speaker 3: get it done this week, but I'm at my sisters
Speaker 3: and I'm on my laptop. It's a nightmare. Dude. I
Speaker 3: like to have my big setup, my multiple monitors working
Speaker 3: on my desktop, so I'm not gonna be doing that
Speaker 3: this week. I said, I really wanted to take a break,
Speaker 3: So next week starting picture ranking update. Over at fangraps.
Speaker 3: I do my speachart daily back tomorrow. Is this gonna
Speaker 3: come out on Thursday? The sixteenth?
Speaker 2: Thursday? Gonna come out on Friday?
Speaker 3: Should be Friday, okay, So then the speachart is up
Speaker 3: now for Friday's games, and I do that Monday through
Speaker 3: Friday over at fangraps. I do the podcast with you
Speaker 3: and Justin of course, and so yeah, just follow me
Speaker 3: on fangrass. I am on Twitter and Instagram, but I
Speaker 3: don't really go on them as much anymore.
Speaker 2: I really hate Twitter.
Speaker 3: I know, I tell you that all the time, but
Speaker 3: you know, I like to go look at Wiener dog
Speaker 3: picks on Instagram and thankfully my feed is littered with
Speaker 3: just a bunch of stupid Wiener dogs and they're so
Speaker 3: hilariously adorable. Yeah, follow me on social but definitely come
Speaker 3: over to fangraft and I'm always in my comments, so
Speaker 3: you wanna, hey, why you're ranking this guy here? I
Speaker 3: got this guy in a twelve team and I'm debating
Speaker 3: these two. I'm always in there answering questions.
Speaker 1: Paul is truly one of the best. You definitely should
Speaker 1: be following this work at spore. He's just, you know,
Speaker 1: one of my dear friends in the space. So it's
Speaker 1: really good to do a little bit of one on
Speaker 1: one action here for the first time and been a
Speaker 1: minute a while a while since it's been just one
Speaker 1: on one, but great stuff, Paul, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Make sure you guys are following along on Twitter. I'm
Speaker 1: at Joel Rico ninety nine, not that I use it
Speaker 1: so much, but we'll share out the show links and stuff.
Speaker 1: Phill John bangers at Sport. I still got the fastball.
Speaker 1: I could still throw one on the corner, but that
Speaker 1: will do it for us for today. For Paul Sport,
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Rico. We'll talk to you next time right
Speaker 1: here on the Fantasy Pros Baseball Podcast. Take it easy, everybody.
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