The ups and downs of spring. Let's talk to the pros.
Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros.
This is the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. It is me, Joey P. Joe P's Apia with me as always as the Welsh, and it's you and today we're going to talk about the same old thing we talked about all last year, Jacob de Gram's injury. Oh my goodness, are we back
again where we started? Let's hope not. But we're also going to talk a lot more about the good things in spring, the risers in our rankings from what we've seen so far from spring performances, and of course wherever there's risers, there's fallers as well, So we'll be going through some of the guys that maybe had not so good springs, maybe some injury concerns or some other issues
have crept up that we've dropped in our rankings. And since we know this is the biggest weekend of MLB drafting, there is to give you a couple of quick little tips at the end to make you smarter, because that's what the Welsh and I do. Welsh, as we were talking before the show, we're getting closer and closer to actual baseball. We're less than a week away now, and I'm getting very excited for the start of the season, how about you.
I was until I got sick and then Jacob de Grom got hurt. So if there's two constants in the world, is me going down right before all of the big stuff happens and Jacob de gram hurting his arm again, ruining my draft shares and all that stuff. But no, I am excited. I have a different perspective than a
lot of you guys because of spring training. You know, like I've been inundated with baseball in person for you know, a month, getting to see games, getting to be around players, getting to watch practices, getting to see the little things on where guys are going, the players that aren't coming out, all that type of stuff. So my perspective is a little bit different. But of course getting into games that like really count gonna be pretty exciting.
No, absolutely, And before we start to break down all those players, I want to remind everybody if you got your draft coming up this weekend tonight, doesn't matter. The draft assistant with Sink is there for you to help you. At fantasypros dot com. Slash Draft Wizard. So if you're making investments in leagues, you should be investing in the best tools, and we've got them here in Fancy Pros to help you. I don't understand why you wouldn't want
to do this, because they're amazing. So the Draft Assistant what it does is it sinks ups to your draft right, It gives you suggestions for picks in real time. It can tell you when a player might last an extra round if you reached on a player. Basically what you've seen from the Draft Wizard as we've been doing shows here too, but a whole lot more. And it sinks up to Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, all the major ones there, and it's got the same interface as the Draft Simulator.
So basically, if you're an MVP or a Hall of Fame subscriber here Fantasy Pros, you have access to the Draft Assistant with SINK. That means you can put the cheat sheets along with it too, so you can pick me and well, sure, maybe your other favorite. I don't know why you'd have another favorite besides us, but if you have other favorite analysts, you can put them on that cheat sheet. Two. Every time we make an adjustment to our rankings. We're gonna have that cheat sheet updated
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those formats. You got the cheat cheat you can print out the sleepers, the bus, the draft strategy, everything, it's all there at Fantasypros dot com slash Kidd And don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Fantasy Pros MLB because the Welsh and I starting on Wednesday before the season starts, we're gonna start and we're gonna start leading off and it's gonna be great. So we want all those peanuts and cracker jacks to
follow us there. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Click that notifications bell so you can join us live, ask questions. If you got funny comments, snarky comments, you'll make the show. We love the interactive maybe of that show. And Welsh you're gonna be the You're gonna get a chance to really interact with the peanuts and cracker jacks at a high level. Are you excited?
I mean, I interact with crackers and peanut jacks, panat.
Jacks, crackers and pena jacks. That's all. That's That's a whole lot of it. Like I do a lot of American history.
I think, yeah, you can't do that.
Two notes. I wanted to because you busted through like a ton of stuff there, so it was like I was waiting to try to like crevice my way in Two things. I just released the my draft cheat sheet that's available, the articles that honestly pro that's part of the Yeah, but yours was last week. Mine's there if people want to check that out as a solo article or part of the draft kit. And also we were doing a mock draft on in this league, our final one.
You know, we do these mock drafts through January. It's wild. They're a completely different experience than what we do here. And it was our final one and one of the guys in there, one of our army members on our on our in this league patrio, we have he Uh, he's a great fantasy guy. And we started to notice because he'd done a couple of mock drafts. We're like, he's projecting out great every single time, and he is a staunch Fantasy pros guy. And this last one we
finally were like, wait a minute, this is fishy. He would we didn't. We haven't gotten to the controversy. We're one hundred confident that he was using the Draft Wizard against us in it, because he got a perfect one hundred in the mock draft and did in the final one projected out number one, and we were like, the hell's going on here? And it's happened in two straight mock drafts.
I can guarantee you he's using the Draft Assistant.
No, we know he was.
He's a Fantasy pros like hardcore guy, so we know it.
Uh telling you, I mean, we're not selling stuff here. We're trying to win you stuff. There's a big difference. Okay, we're part of this together, all the peanuts and cracker jacks, not the crackers and the peanut jacks.
I don't know who those are.
Jacks, Damn peanut jacks. Man. I love you know. I'm so hungry lake snails. Hungry after that bad start. Yes, all right, let's start with the headlines. And of course I woke up and it's you know, I'm old, so I fall asleep at like ten o'clock and I woke up this morning.
And it's it's April Fool's Day.
And I see the Jacob de Gram tweets and I'm like, a ha ha, okay, but no, it's real. He's going for an MRI on his shoulder. He's got some tightness. Now this could very well be soreness tightness, and you're you're just kind of the normal thing that happens to pictures that they ramp up. But because it's Jacob Degram, there's hyperventilating going on, and rightfully so, because of everything we saw last year when he's on the mound Welsh, he is the best there is.
I mean, it's just it's it's not even like to say he's.
The best is not fair to the word the best, because he is so dominant, he's so incredible. Even it's kind of like, you know, when he had Derrick Henry who got hurt last year and he was still like RB ten or whatever by the end of the season because he was so good With de Gram, he had a one eight ERA last year, a point five whip, which is just nuts over ninety two innings. Check out one hundred and forty six guys walk just eleven. I mean, it's absurd, it's disgusting how good he is so well
going into this weekend. Now, what do you do with de Gram? How do you approach him from a draft standpoint? Now that we have this latest news where things are a little bit up in the air.
Here's the benefit to it? Because I it's a little tough for me because I've been a staunched a Gram guy. I tend to do this. I recognize it, and I think people that listen to me recognize it. These guys that are incredible talents that might have an injury tag around them, I don't like to ding them to the level of even like what was happening with Da Grom. You know where people are like, listen, you can't take maybe in the fourth round, but you can't take Da
Grom in the top five pitchers. Blah blah blah. And then as soon as I called it, it was one of those things I absolutely called. I said, watch what happens when you start seeing him pitch. He's gonna go back up to being the top pitcher. He went two I think overall in a main event on NFBC this past weekend. So you know, the blinders come on, you should recognize it. But my fault is I don't ding him for these type of things because he is so insanely, insanely dominant.
And I mean, how many times do you see, you know, projected pictures to have two and a half eras in projections you don't because projections follow the x FIP in a lot of those factors. He's just he is the best picture when he's out there. So to the question what do you do, here's a benefit MRI is happening here on Friday. You should know what you're getting into on Saturday. For the most part, the likely scenario is
it's nothing serious. He does not pitch his scheduled start on Saturday, and then they just line him up for the season and no DL I el stint and then that's the best case scenario, and I think you move forward with what you were doing. I was never taking de Groam fifth or six overall of all players I loved. I loved to Grom before everybody else loved to Grom, and it was popular this year in the second round. That's where I really liked him. There a risk in
the first. I don't like taking pictures in the first unless it's a points league in general. So nothing has changed for me. Everybody else has changed from maybe I'll take him in the late third to taking him fifth overall, I still stand where I stand now. If it's something where you know there's a slight tear and blah blah blah, you know, move him down, move him off the board. To be frank, If it's something that he's going to
miss a month, he is going to plump. I mean to the point of not even drafting at that point, like maybe really late post one hundred. But best case scenario, we have answers on Friday following the MRI, we move forward and maybe just don't take him in the first. Take him after cold, take him after burns, take him in the second like I was always doing.
It's very frustrating though, because this is a guy we want to take it in the top five picture. But there's a chance by the time we get to this weekend's drafts that he's more in the Chris Sale, Lance mccullor's Jack Flaherty bucket than he is in the top five Pitture bucket.
And that's just a fact.
And you just mentioned what if he does miss three months, what if he misses the whole season?
You have to weigh that. And I always say this to everybody because.
He had the end I mean interview, but he had like the elbow or the elbow inflammation I think it was, and then he also had the UCL stuff last year. So the absolute fear is any of this is tied to that, and this is going to remind people back on the injury.
Oh absolutely, yeah.
So God.
I think the point I make to everybody is this, if you're in a league where you have a heavy financial investment, I'm just not taking the risk.
I'm not doing it. There's other approaches.
Why put yourself in a deficit, and it's heartbreaking because I know what the upside is. But if you're in a fun league, if you're at a casual league, yeah, this is a great way to have some fun and take a chance if you get a discount, and I
assume you're gonna get a discount. If he was a pitcher going consistently in the second round, I would think, no matter what the MRI tells you, even if it's positive he's gonna at least take a two round hit, he's gonna go in the fourth round or something like that would be my guess for most casual leagues, or even.
Unless you pitch his saturdy, if he goes back and he's on his normal schedule and.
It's not that'd be really hard sale for me. I don't know about that.
You think I'm just saying, well, that's his scheduled start. If you were to go and pitch just hypothetical, I think he's no longer a for sure first rounder. He's somewhere in the second, you know, maybe late second. Maybe you get a little bit of a discount on him. If we go back to a regular scheduling program like that's where that would go. But I don't know if that's going to be the case.
All right, let's get back to our regularly scheduled topic here, which is spring, risers and fallers and Welsh what's start with you? Who's a guy that's rising up your board after spring is now sprung?
Now this will be a funny one because as a prospect person, you guys know that, especially this specific person I've talked a whole lot about. But I have to admit I would chastise people in January for taking this guy so high because I didn't see the path. And then you had MLB's agreement on CBA come out and they have some incentives prospects to make the roster. Okay, that's a little bit better. Still didn't see the path. This team then made a move to trade for a
positional player that this guy would be there. I still didn't see the path. Then I saw this guy in games and saw how the team was treating him on the backfields, and Julio Rodriguez had to skyrocket back up the boards. He wasn't a guy I was drafting early on. And because I mean honestly, the team has babied him. You know that there's been a breaking ball kind of thing. He gets a little bit wild, which he showed in a couple of days ago, where you know, he's young guy,
base path, running defense. Sometimes I can get just a little bit wild, and I didn't see the need for the team to want to press him. But you now go out you see how he had some adversity. I think it was on Wednesday, and then Thursday he comes out and he has an inside the park homer. He's walking, He's two for two. He's a team leader. I've been on the backfields of the Mariners about four times over the last like two and a half weeks. He is
consistently working with Kelnick, consistently working with Winker. He's with the majors at every point. He's most physically imposing guy. He's one of the best players that is out there consistently offensively, and it's hard to deny. I don't think the Mariners necessarily are doing it for the extra compensation, but when you get into that two hundred range, it is worth taking the risk and the shot. On Julio Rodriguez, it looks like he can make the opening day roster.
I don't see what they're going to put him down for Kyle Lewis is hurt. Taylor Tremmell has not been playing, by the way, even healthy, he's all good, they're not playing him in competitive games. I think he's a fourth outfielder. I think Kohlio makes the roster. He has skyrocketed up the boards. I don't think I'll be the top guy on Fantasy pros, but I pushed him up very close into the two hundred range, and he's one of the top prospects you should draft, even though there's no guarantees
on him. Do it now, because if they were to announce let's say today and Friday, coming into the weekend. I don't know when you guys are listening to this, but let's just say hypothetically, Scott Service comes out and says, Julio Rodriguez has made the roster and he'll be batting six for the Mariners this season. I'm not joking you. Julio might go right around one hundred overall. I'm serious.
I really think he well, I've got him as a top fifty outfielder already.
Yeah, I think he can get in that range. So that's why you should reach. You should go. And he has skyrocket up my board, and Spring has done him fantastic favors where most you know, most of these guys, it doesn't really do that right.
And that's the other thing too. We always talk about how certain players Spring matters more than others. Other players they can, it doesn't matter. They can have good springs and bad springs.
You know who they are.
But to look at the ten games he's had this spring, two on the run, six RBI, nine strikeouts, but he's got three walks, three stone bases, hitting three sixty with a four to twenty nine OVP and the seven to twenty slugging. So the ops is eleven forty nine. So Rodriguez right now, I'm with you. In fact, I'm good
with being aggressive on him. And if you have a draft Friday, as we're saying Saturday, when that news changes, if it does change, If it does, it's gonna be even worse in terms of price tag you're gonna have to pay for him. I wouldn't take over in a redraft. I'm not taking him over Jared Walsh yet. I'm not taking him over Hunter Renfro yet. But right around where you got to start to have that Jesse Winker say as a Zuki kind of conversation. That's where I'm starting
to wonder do I want the upside? And I think it's a fair conversation.
You and I are a little different on that. I just want to point out Winkers which one far higher. I mean, you put Winker in the saales Zu I do not. I do not remotely put those two in the same range. But I just want to point out in our last mock draft, I think Julio went about one seventy five, so I think between I think when one fifty hits, you need to start getting on your business. You need to start considering if he's a guy I think around for do Go, I think around Carlson. Suzuki
is a great example a Doulus Garcia. That's where you need to start considering if you want to be aggressive on him. Rookies are a little bit dangerous, but regardless, this could be I mean, Julio's running now, so he might steal fifteen if he plays all year, and he legit could hit thirty strikeouts. Though you got to watch, and that's always been the thing I got right. I don't know if they bring.
Him up well in Roto.
I think the power speed combination is tantalizing enough in points league's different story, so I think.
That's also with the caveat all. Right, let's go to my guy.
First on my list is Tore Scooble, who's had a wonderful spring so far. If you look at what he's done so far over the three game starts, eight two thirds innings, thirteen strikeouts, just three walks, just a one point two six whip. People have been waiting on kind of in this grouping of the Mannings and the Mises
and miss pitched very well also. But I think with Scooble, what you've seen so far is he's gotten hit around the ballpark a little bit, and that's the thing that you want to try to cut back a little bit. Home runs last year a big problem too. Gave up thirty five of them. That's going to be way too many to have success. But I think if you look at what he's doing now, this is very encouraging because
it's twenty five years old this year. This is where you want to see him after you know he's had about what thirty five starts or so in the big leagues. This is where I think you want to look and take that step forwards, like, okay, you got your feet wet, Now what's your confidence level?
And I think when you're.
Looking at Schooble, this is one of those pictures we always talk about, you know, good pictures on bad teams. Yeah, they probably can help you with wins, but if they can help you with quality start leagues, keep an eye on them. And if they're efficient, that's important, and if they can help you strikeouts and school might be able to do a lot of those things. So although he might not get you w's when you're looking at guys who are undervalued right now, I think he's one of
those guys. So Schooble for me, is one to keep an eye on. Any I've moved him up my board too. I'm not I'm not saying that he's, you know, a number three starter by any stretcher that means, but I think he is in that conversation now, in that top sixty ish range to at least consider what do you think?
Yeah, you know, people forget too. There was a period of time where people started to like Scooble over Casey Miz, you know, in Casey Miss with the big Splitter, you know, has always been unique, but Scooble has been, you know, a big two punch type of guy, big fastball, just needed to get right. And I think both of these guys it's the you know, Matt Manning throwing in there is also really interesting because at one time he was seen as a top guy, and I think he's kind
of moved below those three. I think it's been very, very encouraging. He was a really intriguing strikeout guy on the back end of this last year. And what's weird is myz doesn't have like this, and I say secondaries outside of the splitter, he doesn't have overpowering secondaries of that. Matt Manning hasn't really proved to be consistent. Scooble probably
is the best strikeout guy here. And you know, probably at the end of the day when we're just trying to piece together a couple of these categories, if you can get strikeouts cheap late, this might be a nine and a half, maybe even higher K per nine type of guy. Detroit's got a few more pieces in there, especially if they let Torque and Riley Green break camp and they've got Hobby Bison, they might sneak a couple
more wins. I wouldn't be surprised to see to Scoogble pick up a few more wins as well and be more of an asset. So I like that pick.
Let's take a quick break in the action to tell you about fan Tracks. I want to tell you about an awesome baseball giveaway being done by our friends over at fan Tracks.
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To any MLB game for you, you and your entire fantasy league up to one thousand dollars towards traveling accommodations. And you can enter by creating a free account over at fantracks dot com slash fantasy pros. Then either create a new league, join an active league, or bring over your existing leagues from another platform for free. All existing fan tracks leagues are automatically included in the giveaway. And remember, more leagues you're a part of, the more chances you
have to win. Each active league counts as one active entry, and the winner will be chosen and emailed by April twenty nine. So get on that again. Go to fantracks dot com slash fantasy pros to enter. Now that's fantracks dot Com slash Fantasy Pros and now back to the action. All right, let's go to another one of your risers this spring. Well, she was on your list.
Now that's a big name guy, and this is probably a pretty obvious one, but I soured quite a bit coming into this year on Chris Bryant, who I've always loved, you know, really poorous year didn't really seem to have a proper home. You know, the Giants were a question where was he gonna play? But I can't deny going to Colorado absolutely changed everything. It's almost like the dumb and dumber thing, like absolutely, you know, just when I had him, God, man, I had him around, I think.
Totally redeemed himself. Yeah that's that, yeah line you're.
Looking for, totally redeemed yourself. He was around the nineties. I mean, I was legit thinking between Anthony Rendon and Chris Bryant. The move to Colorado in the extra the extra love that you're gonna get with kind of a crappy position in general, I'm not the biggest Alex bregnant guy. Aaron Otto's fine, but the upside on Bryant to regain that MVP quality in the most hit or friendly place, even though they all have humidors now, which is interesting.
He flew up my board and I haven't gotten into this territory where people are taking him around twenty five thirty overall, which is bonkers on that bed especially.
I think they do it for the position flexibility, which is in the mack we do. A couple weeks ago. I did that, and I love the fact that the draft then came to me and I could go BPA for three rounds after and just keep moving him around the diamond. That's a huge That is worth a little bit of a premium to me. I don't want to overstate it, but the deeper the format you play, the more that becomes a huge asset because less the draft than filter to you, and you could keep taking the best talent.
Just move.
I'm not gonna move to first, move to third, can move now for like a move all over.
I agree, but I think it's more the Colorado. It just put a hit.
It helps him thirty homers in.
Colorado who's had like Cody Bellinger. Everybody's off on Cody Bellinger right now. Everybody is kind of fading him. It's actually not a guy will probably talk about here in a little bit, But imagine Cody Bellinger coming off these bad years and then going into Colorado. What people would do, you would forget. So it's kind of the same thing
as Chris Bryant. Chris Bryant has proven to be a better hitter, So I agree, position flexibility is great, third base sucks, and put a you know, big bopping hitter in Colorado. All those factors came in. But from a rising perspective, that's it for me. He's really moved up. Plus, I think this team can be aggressive on the base paths, which might be good for players in front for RBI opportunities.
It's not a there's obviously, the Dodgers are incredible. The Padres are fine, though they're little wonky and their staff, but you know, you get to play Arizona, you get to play in Colorado. So he has really moved up into that you know, top fifty range. I don't really love it inside the top twenty five, but anywhere between thirty and fifty if you want to jump on it, I'm good with it. And he has rocketed up my board.
All right, I'll give you another big name on my list too, since we're doing the big names here and it's Francisco Lindor.
Who is I know, you know, he's had good springs in the past.
I get that. I understand that that's that's good, that's a positive thing. But after last year, it was such a bad taste in everyone's mouth, and we saw the typical guy signs a big contract in a new place, especially a big market, struggles out of the gate, gets into some media tussle, especially New York.
You have that whole controversy.
Who went bias showed up, They where the thumbs down stuff and all that nonsense. But at the end of the year, those people held on to Francisco Lindor, those people who acquired him actually ended up getting a benefit there. They stayed true eventually, if you were still relevant, Francisco Lindor did perform. And what he's doing right now this spring with ten hits, ten RBI, four home runs, already hit four hundred this spring, he's showing you power. He's
got a couple doubles too. Again, stolen a base, which is just I'd like to see him steal a base the spring. That'd be nice. But this was a player a couple of years ago, just a year removed basically from he's kind of an almost first round talent, and
I think we have to buy back in. I think the hype that goes along when you go to a big market team is the adverse that happens too, is when you don't perform well all of a sudden, then people underestimate you and forget and they want to pile on a little bit because the exposure level was so big on the positives and the failures, and he felt a little bit last year. Let's be honest, I would say what four and a half months of the season was a failure for Cisco Landor? Right? Would you agree
with that? Well? About about right. So now we're getting to a point with Lindor where if he's got a good spring, if he seems like he's got a good fresh attitude going in there, I think here's a lot more attention on guys like Scherzer right now and some of the other acquisitions, and there is necessarily on Lindor. That's all the good things. So Lindor to me's another player that I I know say move up because he's already pretty highly rated player. That's the struggle kind of
like with Welshissing. But I've moved him back into that place where I think, yeah, you know what, this guy is a second round talent and you might be able to get him, might maybe in the third or fourth round.
And I think that's right.
Yeah, man, Yeah, I mean I think depending on the depth of your league too. I mean, if you're in a shallow league, he's going a little bit later than he should because people also look at shortstop, but it's quote so deep end quote they're kind of dismissing the talent there. And I think Lindor has another big season potentially in him. But this is a guy with you know, twenty five to twenty five kind of potential.
Yeah, I mean I was. I'm with you because I was always there this spring, you know, digging in on last year. I mean, there's a lot of like little worrisome things that were poking out there. But it's one of those anomalies to the picture who he was if you take it over you know, the COVID year in last year. Otherwise, this had been a really consistent hitter, you know, a twenty twenty type of guy, a five
tool player. If you a five tool, right shortstop where you get those really needed stolen bases where some of these guys don't you know where you're not getting him from Seeger and Korea by as you're not getting the batting average for you got all of that with Lindor, and Lindor, like you said, uniquely could be a first round talent that you can get in the third or
fourth round and you know he's had. We've also talked about this before where a lot of these guys in this new adjustment team period where they change major franchises, they've got some growing pains to learn, new divisions, new teammates, just new life, you know, circumstances, and then they come in and they rEFInd themselves. Matchata as an example of that. I think this can be that year for Frankie Lindor. So I have been there with you. I'm totally with it.
He was high pre spring and I'm still there and I'm excited. I'm excited to try to draft him. Actually this weekend, I don't know if I have a ton of shares.
Well, I don't have any yet. I haven't really gotten a chance to take him. He's going as the ninth shortstop off the board. Right now. I would take him over Tatisse right now. I think I would take him in a five by five over wander Franco. I would take him over Trevor's story. Personally, I think he is the conversation with Tim Anderson. If you want to have that one, that's fine, But I think he's you know, maybe safer than Marcus Simeon coming off that career year.
You can make the argument the Lindor.
Is the third or fourth shortstop in fantasy. You can make an argument because you can never make the argument.
Yeah. The problem is there's that also the problem in that position, there's this clump of all these great guys that I don't even like to sit here and have this argument of like this guy over this guy, because literally within a ten pick range, I think you're looking at Tim Anderson, Trevor's story, Wander Franco, Francisco, Lindor's a and Bogarts and all those guys, and you can pick
and choose. You know, it's a create your own adventure with what whatever shortstop you want, where it's like, hey, I get second base eligibility with Trevor story at some point, or I'm going to get the stolen bases here, or I'm going to get better batting average with Franco, you know, so you can build the stories of all of those guys, but it also kind of muddies that position a little bit.
Why I probably don't have the shares because there's so many guys, and there's guys later like we've talked about with the you know, Willie Damis or the Brandon Crawford's even super late or Bobby Witt Junior. So that's why I don't get in on that. But what would be nice is if Lindor is the faller, and he's likely to be the guy that falls because story's got new big buzz. Tim Anderson is big on stolen bases, Wander Franco,
you know, the next big thing. Lindor seems to be the odd man out, and that's actually really good for that, like you know, forty to fifty range if you can swoop him up.
All right, let's get to another guy who's a riser for you this spring Welsh in the draft boards.
I'm going with another young guy, Jeremy Pania. I don't know how many people are up on Jeremy Pagnia. He's a shortstop with the system. He's actually out here in the Arizona Fall League, like two thousand and nineteen, I believe it was, and he has consistently bulked gotten bigger. He's a hulk out there, and the team loves him, loves him so much that they've given him the reins
for Carlo's Korea Leaving. On the broadcast just a couple of days ago, I was watching Jeff Bagwell was just owing and awing about him where they were hitting him up high in the batting order. I don't really truly believe they would do this, but they're talking about even potentially letting Jeremy Paenia lead off occasionally. He's a really
solid contact guy. He's got completely underrated power because just people don't understand or really know about Jeremy Pania, and if you're hitting high in that lineup, you kind of can't deny the value that might be there from the shortstop position for a guy like this later in drafts, and I think I've seen a lot of people picking him up late just his perspective. In twenty and twenty one, Painia, in only one hundred and forty five at bats, had
ten homers. With sixtill in them. Base is hitting two ninety seven in the minors and he has hit over two ninety since twenty nineteen. He's gone through four levels of the minor leagues. He's twenty four years old, big six foot shortstop, added power. I think he could sneak into twenty homers there. He'll steal some bases as well. Astros don't steal bases, so we'll kind of see how
that goes. But if they are really gonna put Kyle Tucker back in the order and not lead off Altuve and Paynya is going to get some of that run. This is a guy who through his spring he's been successful and the team has talked him up and they haven't filled his position. So Jeremy Pania super good, sneaky late shortstop to pick, and he has moved up my draft board to really pay attention to because we would be drafting him as more of a middle infielder and he might be worth.
It, I can tell you right now. Via to the top of the order in April.
I'm gonna be very interested in the DFS world in him because he's going to be a lot cheaper than a lot of the other guys in that position, and hitting at the tubby the order is always something you want to targeting those. So I think that's a great name to throw out, not just for season long, for DFS purposes too, So Welsh throughout a young guy, I'm gonna throw out an old fart. Normally it's good when you lead the league in home runs, except when you're
a pitcher. Patrick Corbin last year gave up thirty seven of him not good. He also led the league and earned runs, giving up one hundred and eleven. Patrick Corbin is such an odd career when you look at it, because if you go back to some of those diamondback days, you know the years where he's going two hundred innings
back to back, right back to back seasons. In eighteen to nineteen, the ERA was under three to three, and then all of a sudden, right he goes to the Nationals, has a good season there, we think, okay, you know, two hundred and thirty eighth strikeouts, All right, this is this is the guy we won Patrick Corbyn. Then twenty twenty the wheels fell off four to six six ERA, and then last year, I mean the whole he fell
out of the car. I mean, if the wheels fell off the car, he was like Fred Flintstone, kind of like trying to put it together with his feet. Which I know that's an older reference for some of you out there. You could go google it, but I mean last year he was nine and sixteen. I know we don't pay an attention at records, but it's just funny. So he led the lead again, lost games, He led the league and earned runs, and he led the league
in home runs given up. It's not good, but but he is free and so far this spring nine innings, ten strikeouts, two walks. So I don't know if it's a health issue the last couple of years with him, I don't know if it's a confidence issue. I don't
know what it is. Well, but as a free pitcher towards the end of drafts, if you're gonna give me a healthy enough Patrick Corbyn, who could even get dealt as I'm sure Washington's gonna just continue to unload assets here this year, he could end up on a much better team sometime in July or August. If that happens. You know, right now, the spring performance has been eye opening to me, and I always like to look at this.
You know, those bounce back guys are just as important as the young sexy guys like the Rodriguezz that we talked about before, the school bulls. Sometimes the old fart guys too that people have kind of dismissed and forgotten about. And if he can get back on track, this is a guy. Once upon a time, Welsh was one of those guys you looked at as a one to a kind of ace in fantasy baseball. And I know the Nats aren't gonna win a ton of games, but I think as a free square, I'm investing.
What do you think about KORbin potentially bouncing back?
Yeah, this is another one of those guys. You picked another one that I like as well. Twenty nineteen he had fourteen wins with an over ten k per nine and a three ERA. He actually had three and a half x FIP in two thousand and nineteen and twenty eighteen he had a sub three x FIP, which is bonkers. I mean literally, his x FIP was better than his era. The problem is, guy's a two pitch pitcher, and if you get inconsistent or you're not full in anybody, you're
not gonna work, and that's where he's falling apart. It's the same thing we've seen with the Chris Paddock with the padres where you know, I know he has tried to add a third pitch and try it. I think
it's the curveball and trying to get more. You know, guys, you have to be able to set up more, and when you're a two pitch pitcher, you don't have a lot of that, especially if your fastball is flattening out or you're not getting spin on it, you're not commanding it, and all guys are gonna do is sit on your second sit and wait on your secondaries because they know they can catch up to your fastball. And that's a
lot of what we saw with Patrick Corban. But I'm in because this team can't get out from under the pitching because of the contracts. They also, even though we talk about them maybe blowing it up, they're kind of pseudo still in there and still competing. And if the pitchers were to work, I think it would get them back in that. Patrick Corbyn is a guy that I think can get back into double digit wins. I think he can regain the strikeouts we're kind of seeing it
in the spring, which I think is encouraging. And the most important part is he is free. He's free with only two years removed of ten plus k per nine and lots of wins. It's not the same team, but I will take free ninety nine on Patrick Corbyn and I'm in.
He's free like the MLB draft kit over fantasypros dot Com slash kid. See what I did there. So I've got Patrick Corbin. I've moved him all the way up into the high sixties here. He's in that same range as like Casey Mice and Louis Patino. Would you take Corbyn or one of those younger guys.
In a redraft to Pattino or.
Yeah, Louis Patino and Casey Mice, Yeah.
They're all in the same tier. I might well, you know what, I would have said, Patino, but he's been like a little bit banged up. I might take Corbin.
I think I might take Corbyn. I've got Corbin ahead of him again, that's the order right now. I've got it corbyin Patino myz. And then you know some guys like Alex Cobb floating around there too. Well, that's a bonus one we're not gonna talk about, but I'm sure he's flying up and rightfully so. If he's touching ninety seven on the gun coming off a good year in Los Angeles, that's another bonus guy that wasn't on our
lists but almost made mine. But I just think I'll take my shirt on the guy who's thrown two hundred innings more than once. You know.
Yeah, And that's actually the really important key there is he's gonna get massive amounts of innings. They're gonna rely on him all year long. I don't think they can get out from the contract. You hope he doesn't have sixteen losses again this year, but it kind of a scrappy team.
I'll take the sixteen losses if he gives me a ten K per nine. He gives me a mid three z e R, I'll take that.
That's fine.
You can lose all those games you want, all right, Let's go to the last guy on the Riser list for you while show you got.
If you're talking about, who are the guys during spring that have helped their cause, I'm not sure there is a guy that's helped their cause more than Haesu's Lozardo, whose former top prospect. I absolutely loved him with the A's and he really fell into inconsistency, which is so interesting because that is a lot of what he was built off of. Lozardo multi pitch pitcher, lots of different pitches, he could command the zone. But one of the things I loved about him, he's a very off kilter pitcher.
So you know, he would normal pitch you and then you know, second pitch in he might he might quick pitch you, like he gets the ball and just bahm, and then he might do a hold, you know, hold his foot motion and then pitch, so he would keep guys off balance. He's a really smart pitcher with multiple good pitches, and became completely inconsistent. He lost a decent amount of his fastball. He's risen his average fastball. This I know one of the starts, and my buddy Chris
Claig had tweeted about a couple of these things. You've seen him a put almost three miles per hour back on his fastball, hitting the high nineties and see b see jumping in and throwing the curveball more than the fastball. And that really sets up because if you are throwing ninety nine and everybody has to sit on that curveball,
you're going to get strikeouts. It's just the type of success a young pitcher that's actually like kind of like a twenty seven to twenty eight, twenty nine year old type of game I would think they would be playing. This is a really smart game plan for him, and I think it's going to lead to success. Overpowering with your secondaries and then just punch out, you know, high on the fastball and him adding that type of ve low. That speaks for itself. You know, that's not even a
spring stat. That is just result, and we don't always need stats to you know, make us come to our decisions. That is a simple result that leads to probably him being a guy that not only need to target, but we've talked about the cheat code guys. He's an RP. He's in a qualify relief pitcher for a lot of places. So if you want to sneak in that, throw him in there. So Lizardo's moved.
Up for me, all right? Love that one. Love Wizardo. In those leagues where he might qualify at RP and s P, that's that's huge, especially in those mandatory spots there. So I hope he gets back on track because I'm like you, Welsh, I was somebody who was absolutely in love with the talent in the Oakland system.
And then it's just he's not free anymore, which I don't like. He was free before. He's much less free. He's really risen up boards, So I don't I will say this, I'm not willing to overpay for him and a lot of other people buzzy names. People will pay whatever the costs, even the guys we've talked.
About, like, well, he's consensus to seventy three overall right now, pitcher number eighty three on the board.
That's it's pretty good.
But I've seen him go into the two hundreds.
Like, well, here's a question for you.
Would you take Alex Cobb or would you take Hazu's Lozardo because those they're pretty close to each other right now in terms of the expert consensus rankings on Fantasy pers you.
Picked another guy who's had a lot of good vload changes as well.
Yeah, that's why I put it out there.
I would take Cobb personally, but I think Iron as well.
I'm hiring like that ballpark, Yeah.
Yeah, I'm in the same mind as you, all right, last guy for me, it's a riser. Mackenzie Gore having a wonderful spring this year. He's taking the ball three times nine innings so far, eleven strikeouts, one walk. If you go look at the minor league track record over fifty five minor league starts, he's got a three point two eight career eer got a two point eight five career era. Pardon me, I was, We'll get the wrong number there, the one point one zero six whip. The
guy's striking out eleven per nine. This is a guy we've been hearing about for ages now. It seems like and just haven't quite cracked that rotation. We thought he might get dealt in one of these deals moving back and forth. But I mean, Mackenzie Gore right now certainly looks like a guy that should get a shot at this rotation. Clevenger did start this week. It was not a great start. Clevenger said, I always think and bring. He hasn't pitched in a very long time, so there's
a chance maybe that Clevenger's working behind everybody. I'm not exactly sure how many starts we're gonna get out of Mackenzie Gore this year, but I think you're gonna get enough to invest in him, so I moved him up my board a decent amount, still kind of after some of these other guys because of the unknown factors a little bit. And he is still a young pitcher, so
there's still some limitations. But when you're looking at Mackenzie Gore, where do you have him Welsh and and what are your expectations for Gore in twenty twenty two.
I am not with everybody else on this. And I loved Mackenzie Gore back in twenty seventeen, was at his pro his first pro start, one of my favorite pictures. I had him at number one forever. But over this last two years he's really kind of fallen apart a little bit as who he was. Saw him in common.
He was terrible in the Arizona Fall. By the way, I don't know if you watched him. He was a seventy hour dude.
He was gonna say you saw him, bitch, he was.
Did He played rookie ball out here. They kept him hanging at the complex for a while. Then he played rookie ball. Then he went to the AFL after he's shown signs, but that's my problem with him. I believe he's a reliever and I think he should be groomed to be a closer at some point. His fastball doesn't have the spin that it used to. He can't pump ninety seven inconsistent. He's got a pump closer to ninety four. He started throwing his curveball again, which I think has
been more success. But his stuff is all right, you know, and he's had more He has more confidence right now where he's hitting the zones. But I don't personally believe he's gonna get into the second or third through the lineup, and that's going to hurt as a starter. So my expectation for this year, and maybe I'll be wrong. You know, the Potters might trade out Chris Paddock and Nick Martinez is not an option, and they put him in. But I don't think there's a role for Mackenzie Gore to
be a starter. I think he'd be a spot starter. I think he's a kind of mid reliever playing a Garrett Crochet role. I think he'll find success. Maybe he'll be a starter next year, but I really believe the bullpen long term is where he's going to go. But I will point out he has worked with the starters the entire offseason. Here in the spring, he's with Paddock all the time is where I usually see him. I don't see him hanging out with any of the relievers
or anything like that. So they're going to continue to do it until they can't. But I personally do not believe he can. So I'm not on board with McKenzie gore.
All right, fair enough there, So those are our risers, Treek schoobl Francisco Lindor, Patrick Corbin, Mackenzie Gore. For me, I would also throw Hunter Green into that mix as well. Who's making the rotation? Who? My goodness, I only had eight keepers in this one league, and I kept him for like three bucks because I was like, I feel like he's gonna play this year a lot, and feeling pretty good about that one. So that's good. That same team as to gram on it. So hopefully somebody pitches
for me this week, Oh my god. All right, and then of course the Welsh has Julio Rodriguez, Chris Bryant, Jeremy Pinia, hayesus Lozardo. When we threw an Alex cobb in there two as a mutual one. All right, let's get some of the followers here. For me, number one was Lance mccullors. I mean, this is just easy, and it's injury related. You know, spring performance when there's zero spring performance and this lingering injuries with a guy who's had injuries already. I love the talent. I was very
high on him. If he asked me in January, I was like, oh, I'm and I have all the mccolors this year. Hopefully shows up to camp healthy and we're ready to go. That hasn't happened. He's been a foller for me. I've knocked him sick magnificantly down in my rankings. In fact, I'm going to do another, probably another refresh of some of these rankings right before we finished this show,
and I've just plummeted him. I just don't feel like we're going to get a Lansma Color Seniors season at this point, which is very sad.
So I'm just not touching him.
I have him at Pitcher seventy five right now, but that might even potentially get worse. So he's a definite faller for me. Welsh, who is a faller on your list.
You know, it's not as significant as that, And I don't want to make every single one of these about injuries, but Luis Castillo has kind of fallen for me. He's been the kind of some of the inconsistencies with the team. I'm really worried about the team context with him as well. Injury worries are out there, so I've pushed him outside
of my top one hundred. And you know, he's one of those guys everybody, you know, primatively everyone's like, oh Lois Castillo, he's going to break out, and he's inconsistent in seasons. He's got months of eight eras and then he finds it for a month and a half. He's the hobby Bayas or the He's the odabertilmnd Tocy of pitchers type of guy, like he could be one of
the best and he can completely fall apart. I'm just not I would take him if Bush comes to shove, but I'm not interested in paying the cost for him. And you know, them decimating that team has moved him off a little bit. So Luis Castillo number one for me?
All right?
For me? Another faller's Cody Bellinger. I was trying to be patient, give him the benefit of the doubt, Welsh, and I think that's a smart thing to do when you've seen players who have had monstrous seasons, right, I don't want to go and be the prisoner of the moment. I don't want to go and see a player who was once hitting forty bombs and then have some struggles and all of a sudden say, yeah, that guy's toast. He's done. But man, I'm just not seeing anything. Cody Bellinger,
he's had a buck forty eight so far. I know he had a decent postseason where people start to get a little excited again. But the biggest one for me, Welsh this spring He's had ten games, twenty seven at bats. He's had seventeen strikeouts in those twenty seven at bats. Something's wrong there, and I'm just not touching him. I'm not touching him.
For whatever the ADP is.
It was the discount of all discounts, maybe very very late in a draft, but that's not gonna happen. Somebody in your draft is probably gonna take Cody Bollinger a little earlier based on previous performance. But Welsh, I can't help but get around the seventeen strikeouts and twenty seven at pass, to me, that's a huge flag.
What do you think the punchies he calls him. He said, He's like, that's what spring's for. You got to get the punchies out of the way. Yeah.
Well, he's getting them all out of the way. He's not gonna have any left at this point.
He is. I am a Cody Bellinger disciple. I kind of defend him a bit. I definitely am a little bit worried with how bad this spring is. But to the same point, good or bad, you don't want to buy everything in. But seeing the amount of strikeouts and some of the changes he's done is a little bit worrisome. I think there's just a lot of playing around that's going on. As well season comes. I think he's gonna stop screwing around. You know, he's gonna stop messing with
his swing, and he's gonna get back to basics. The basics might be the problem. Though, here's what I'll say. I'm not with you. He has fallen. He actually has fallen a little bit because I think I was hyper aggressive. I will still draft him, but I like it now because he comes at a much cheaper cost because he was starting to rise up.
There were some.
Behind the scenes a couple people I've talked to that had some good things to say about some stuff that Cody Bellinger's did this past offseason that could help and could go to a breakout. It's not an application right now during the spring, but I am hoping that the punches are out of the way and I can take him a little bit later.
Coming into this year, I feel like we had Yelich and Bellingers like Okay, some around like outfielder twenty five. You could take a shot on one of these guys. I'm not taking the shot on Bellinger there, not even close. I mean at this point, I'd rather be taking shots later and guys like Kirolov we talked about a lot more earlier this week on shows. All right, let's get to another guy on your list, Welsh, who you have?
I mean, it's just an easy I don't need to go crazy into it. It's kind of like your mccoulers. It's flerty flirty with the injury stuff. He's also kind of had some of those inconsistencies of a good month, bad month. He's coming into the season on an il stint. Do we really fully know the extent of of these injuries. You just moved way down and he's I'm less likely to draft him. I don't want to call him off my board, but I don't see a scenario where I
draft him. So he's kind of plummeted down in the same mccullor's range.
Yeah, that's fair, And look, injuries are important, especially when it comes to the pitchers here that you have to knock them down. You can't always think everything's going to be rosy and you can't say, well, you know, hopefully you can get healthy. Because we've seen this already. It's your starting off at a deficit. You're already going to
have to deal with injuries in season. If you're going to make investments, especially big investments on pictures who are very talented but are already hard to hurt to start the year, Excuse me, that's tough. I mean, I think you're already putting yourself behind the eight ball and it's
not a place to be. Another guy for me that's falling down is Jared Kellnick, another one that I thought Spring was very important for seven strikeouts in the nine games and the twenty five played appearances, hitting just two hundred two thirty one obps. Take it, just one walk in those twenty five at bats. So part of the reason why I've been moving up Julio Rodriguez because I feel really confident about that guy and the tools that
he brings. And I'm still waiting for Kellenick to click, and it just feels like he's one of these can't miss prospects. But we see this happen well sometimes where maybe something was lost in translation, maybe that first run of the Major League is really hurt his confidence, or I don't know what's going on with Jared Kellenick, but if you look at the track record in the minor leagues,
was this a very solid player. A lot of people felt a very polished player that would actually transition to the major leagues quite easily, and everybody was wrong about that. And until he shows it to me, I'm knocking him down significantly in my rankings. I just can't get there. I can't do it. To me. There's a lot of guys in the outfield that are suspect as you get deeper, and if I'm gonna take somebody's suspect, I'm gonna take somebody that's got more of a track record I'm gonna
try to take right now. I mean, you got guys like Horay Solaier, Adam Duval, Jared Kellenick. They're kind of in that same range. I gotta be honest with you. I'll take some of the boppers that I know are gonna crush batting average, but they're also gonna crush dingers. I don't know what Kellenick's gonna crush set by batting average, and I know they're committed to him, and I think that's great. But there's even guys like Tommy fam and Andrew Bennan Tendi where I kind of feel like they
might be safer than kell Nick. He re draft leagues right now, Welsh, what do you think.
I'm huge on Andrew ben and Tendi this year? Yeah, I don't reach for Jared kell Nick. Some players have to learn adversity. I think Joey Dell was experiencing that. I don't think there was a lot of, you know, baseball adversity he was dealing with. Jared Kelnick. No baseball adversity. You know, he dominated at every level. The biggest adversity he faced was being traded to the Mariners, and these
guys haven't experienced a whole lot of failure. And then you get to the highest competitive level where they're being challenged where they weren't being challenged before, and you're seeing major, major, major struggles. Some players don't need it. You know, we've Wanda Franco, doesn't. You know, like failure is not an option. You know, that's not something that is in his game plan of how he plays the game. Some guys do. And I think you're gonna and that's gonna be the
true testament. But you know, why pay up right now for the opportunity for him to get it fixed. Spring looks okay, he still looks a little bit beat. Julio looks better than him right now. So I don't disagree with you. I still believe in Kelnick, but he's not a draft target for me. I don't think I've moved him down a ton, but I really just don't prioritize drafting him.
I have him, I've got him right now in the low seventies ish range. Like if Michael Confordo doesn't have a team the Minnick Michael Conforto signs, I would take him over Jared Kelnick. Here's a question for you. These guys have clumped together, Cavin Bizio, Jared Kellnick, Andrew Vaughn. Who would you rather have those three if you had the draft one?
Oh? Kel Nick? Hands down?
Okay, so still Kellenick for you. All Right, Well, let's just get another guy on your list. Who you got?
Well, this is gonna be an interesting one. I don't know if you saw my notes I put up here. I don't have a third one. I gotta tell you because of a trade that just went down, a huge trade which has massive implications. And it was the guy that I had on this list. I had Craig Kimberl. I watched Kimberl pitch the other day against the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was Walker Bueller. Kimberl didn't really look fantastic. I gotta admit to you. He didn't looked great. The
White Sox kept talking about keeping him. They had not moved him. I didn't feel good about anything happening with Craig Kimberl, and I put him on this list. And then as we were recording this show, Craig Kimberl traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Aj Pollock. It's a massive move. So I'm cheating because he's not on the list now because that was the guy, and he jumps into that closer role. Blake Trinon is now the guy that is, So that's my pick. Blake Trinon is the
guy because he's no longer the closer. He likes to even be that high leverage guy. Kimberl's the closer with the Dodgers skyrockets up and Blake Trinon moves down. Also an uptick to Gavin lux who I think might be able to take some of this playing time for Aj Pollock. So lucks up, Kimber up, Trynon down. That's my pick because I literally had to that.
Thanks for all those people who took Trent in early, especially after you felt if you took him really early before the Kenley Jansen move, you felt like a million bucks, like I'm a genius. Only six days before the season to have this happen, that's just that's crushing. All right. I've got one more on my list, is yours kind of got stolen from underneath you? Why don't you take another one here?
Oh yeah, my last one on my list is Kamilla Daval kind of in the same range. He's a guy that's moved down. He actually could still be really interesting to draft, I would say, because I think he will. Bogmin's even said he thinks Camilla will lead the team in saves, and I believe it, but people are still drafting him pretty high. I always got on Bogman's case about doing it because there were no guarantees. They've said Jake McGee is the current closer. So from the perspective
of falling down list, Kamille Deval has moved pretty far down. Kapler, you know, is he going to give away that job early, especially to a young guy, doesn't seem likely. I think McGee is going to get the opportunity for quite some time here. So Kmilla Daval was another guy that over spring has moved down.
Well, she's gonna hate me for this last one. It's Jesse Winker. I just think last year was a one year wonder I do. He's always been a good contact hitter in the minor leagues, never had a lot of power. But to me, it's it's not even the Spring performance, which if you want, I could give it to you. You want to hear the spring performance twenty two ap
bats point zero four or five batting average. Okay, he's not hitting anything right now, showing no power right and on top of which, he's moving now to the Seattle Ballpark away from Cincinnati. I just don't like this move. I think people are overrating him based on the fact that someone traded for him. He's a nice baseball player. But I'm telling you, if the power regresses and he doesn't have that same kind of run, he had a magnificent month of baseball last year and that power was fantastic,
And I agree. I was in that train, going Okay, maybe Jesse Winker has turned this corner, and if he's going to turn it, Cincinnai's a hell of a place to sustain it. I'm just concerned that he can't sustain it. If he was crushing the ball this spring, maybe I would feel a little bit more comfortable arm and Fuzzy and my Tom Tom about it. But I don't, I don't, and I don't like this point zero four to five
batting average and spring spring can get overrated. Well, you couple that with a move from a great power hitting ballpark to it not as great power hitting ballpark, not saying you can't hit them runs there. But Winker's been more of a contact guy than a power guy in his career either. Sometimes I left you right, he splits two against pitchers have been less than thrilling with Winker and his career. Also, I think there's a lot more risk than people realize. So that's where I am.
And the only thing I don't like about it is where people are giving Brian Reynolds the pass if he's the funnest, coolest guy to draft on the planet.
He is.
They're the same player, Jesse Winkers are the exact same player, and right now, Jessin Winker plays on an exponentially better offensive team if you get now, if Reynolds gets straighted to the padres, that's maybe a little different story. But I just feel like there's they're the exact same guy, and everyone loves Reynolds and now everybody hates Winker. So I just don't I don't buy it.
This is good. Debate is good, difference of opinion good. We shall see how this one ends up at the end of the day. But he is Team Winker. I am not. Now, we promise you at the beginning of the show, a few little draft tips here to close things out as we're heading into the final draft season where we're giving you all the tools here fantasy pros to be successful. We're giving you all the podcasts, all the YouTube stuff, all the knowledge we have, our our
own little cheat sheets and our draft strategy guides. That Welsh put out that I put out, Bachmann put one out to. I think Cleig put one out there. I want to say, Mayor probably put one out there also. They probably let Yeah, they probably let Mayor they mayor.
Go do something.
That's what they say. Ryan on that list, Ryan Mountcastle, I'm sure it's round one, Ryan Mountcastle, Round two. Uh, Ryan Moultcastle, Round three, round four, Ryan Mountcastle. Right.
Yeah.
But here's some other tips that won't want to give you. And the first one is draft good assets.
And what I mean.
By this is, well, that sounds really stupid, but I think people get too hung up on trying to fill out their team instead of drafting core roster strength. If the outfield market comes to you, hammer that outfield market, If the pitching market comes to you, hammer that pitching market. Whatever the value is in the draft. Over the course of the year. You can make trades, you can make waiver pickups. There's going to be movement in the league.
Use your draft, especially salary cap driven drafts, to acquire good assets, because the more talent you have on your roster, the better your roster is going to be, and the better it will be over the long run as other things inevitably do happen, like injuries or miss time. I know they've changed the rules a little bit this year too, so the pitchers have to go in the IL for fifteen days, position players ten, which is good because now you're not going to that manipulation anymore that you had
in the system in the last few years. But I'm telling you right now, we know the inevitability is going to happen. We're're going to lose players. Get as much talent as you can on your roster. That's what your draft is for. You'll fill out your team. Don't worry about it. It'll all work out in the end. Draft assets, especially in dynasty keeper leagues. Don't get hung up on positions so much or filling out your team. There's ways to get that done. Give me one of your draft.
Well, I just want to add in I'm going to jump to my second one because I didn't read how you wrote yours. How you just said it. It's literally the same thing how I wrote mine was don't stress about positions early where people are like, ooh, I already got a short stop. I mean, you just said everything, so I don't need to repeat it. But that was my take as well, is don't worry about going nuts
about roster construction and getting the best players. Plenty of great players might take two short stops in the first four rounds. You can make it work with middle and shortstop.
You can do or even utility.
If you've got great players on the board, take the great players.
This is RPV. One on one.
Create an advantage somewhere. Otherwise you're just a mediocre team in the middle.
Yeah. So I'm gonna move to the second one because I agree with that one of and it's kind of in line with even your second one as well. But it's take closers with actual jobs. Like there's a theory across the board, and you're going to kind of talk about it how you can treat closers. But at the end of the day, this is just a way of me saying get your closers early that you know have gigs.
You can speculate and people will win. There will be winners early in drafts or in April and in waivers on guys that get some closer gigs and that you made it out of it. But you don't have to play the game. If you get involved and you get class as, or you get Haters or Hendrix or Iglesias or Craig Kimberl's, you get those guys, be the one that doesn't have to chase and doesn't have volatility and
loses their gigs. Your roster construction will feel better and you won't have to chase those saves later, which again, some people can make it work. If you've got a plan and maybe you're gonna go really heavy starting pitching and you're gonna just go for cheap guys, you can do that. That's a solid pivot. But I prefer to get, especially in Rode, to get my lockdown saves guys this year that have gigs without question marks. So I'm not playing around this year and I'm getting the top closers.
I was just in my head, all I kept thinking was take the card jobs mark. Yeah, they took our jobs. For me, it's don't overpay for mid tier closers, whether they have job security or not. You can find a guy laid on a bad team, maybe it's a Gregory Soto or somebody else later saves or saves at the end of the day. Yeah, some of the ratios blah blah blah, saves or saves, and those jobs are gonna turn over. They do every year. Don't pass on good quality depth in that mid like one fifty ish range
for guys who may or may not be closers. It's absolute fantasy death. And my last one here for me is attack that one a slash high end SP two market this year. To me, that is a very profitable place to attack. It's that Freddie Peralta Giolito all the way down to you know, the older guys like Verlander and Charlie Morton. To me, it's okay to start your roster with two offensive players, even in a points league, and then just hammer this pitching market after that. Trevor Rodgers,
I think it's gonna make a huge step forward. There's a lot lot of guys in this tier that I think have huge upside to perform, like aces this year. So that's just more of a not a general strategy, it's specific for twenty twenty twenty two. Welsh, what's your last draft tip for everybody's we send them off into the weekend.
Yeah, you're gonna be adults. We're gonna send you off to college and you're gonna draft and you're gonna be all growns up. It's all growns up.
Mikey's growns all growns up, and Welsh and I are gonna cry and have empty nest syndrome because we're so proud of you. I so far you've come.
Pay attention to steals. I'm not saying overpay, and I'm not saying don't overpay. I'm saying, pay attention to steals. Watch it as it goes along in the draft. Pay attention to the people that are doing it. You can get steals all over. I tend to. Here's a nice thing about the top round guys. A lot of them steal, and I kind of want those guys because they're consistent. There's some middle guys that are gonna get you stolen bases. Frankie Lindor pay attention later in drafts. Do you have
to overreach for Miles Straw. No you don't, but pay attention Andrew Benintendi, Ahmed Rosario, there's late stone and Basis, Josh Rojas, even Aj Pollock steals. There are late stolen bases. If you get one or two core guys, you can easily find three to four other ten plus stolen base guys as you move along in the draft. So pay attention to steals without going one direction or the other. And I think it's going to help you out.
All right, So we've given you all. Wee can the Risers the Fallers next week on YouTube dot com. Slash Fantasy Pros MLB leading Off is going to start on Wednesday at noon. Be there live. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and click that little notifications bell so you know when we go live. So you can just go right there and listen on your lunch break or listen on the West coast. Will you just get into work and
tell your boss hang on. I know it's nine am and there's a meeting, but Welsh and Joey p are talking.
I got a meeting with Welsh and Joey.
Yeah, I got an important meeting here with Welsh, Joeyp everything else can wait.
That's what you tell your boss.
Also, free stuff Fantasypros dot com slash kit, our MLB draft kit is there for you. The ranks, the projections, the values, the printable cheat sheets. It's amazing everything that we've got there for you. The prospect articles too. If you're dealing with dynasty, we've got that also, so make sure you get in on that for free at fantasypros dot com slash kit, and then the draft assistant with sink As Welsh was saying, how is that guy gaming the system? He's using the right tools at Fantasy Pros.
So make sure you upgrade to that MVP or that Hall of Fame subscription. And when you do, then you can go and take part in stages on Discord and all the other things. There's lots of perks to being in with the cool kids.
I'm going I'm supposed to do with stages this week part way, but I got sick and kind of a cold, so I think it's going to be pushed. But I think I'll be doing my first stages next week.
So just to excell.
There's so much fun.
It's like a call in radio show.
You can talk about your problems your life problems, your team problems. It will help you out. But I'm telling you this draft assistant with sink. It looks up to Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, It doesn't matter what you got. We hook up to it and it gives you that insights that you need and the advantage you need every single round to know exactly what you're doing, how you're building your roster, the players to take, the players to avoid, and most importantly,
when to take them. And that's a fantasypros dot Com slash draft wizard that'll do it for us. But the story of the game goes on for the Welsh. I'm Joey P. We will see you next time.
Kids,