Bounce Back Central, let's talk to the pros. Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy Baseball Podcast. It is me Joey p Joe Pizzapia, and today we're gonna take a look at ten bounce back candidates for the twenty twenty three season. That's right, last year is
not the end all, be all for these guys. We're gonna tell you which names you want on your team to give a second chance, and we're also gonna talk about some of the projection gems some guys that it might be a little undervalued when it comes to projections that we think have a bigger twenty twenty three in store for them. And to help me do it, of course, is my partner the Welsh Chris Welsh, following on the Twitter machine at is it the Welsh and Welsh? I like second chances? How about you?
Yeah, third, fourth, whatever, Yeah, give me all the chances you can get. Yeah. No, in baseball, I'm definitely with it. Also think, you know, you can look at it a couple different ways, as we look at sleepers different ways. You know, the term sleeper can mean a lot of different things, even bounce back candidates are not only second chances, but you know, you're looking at weird opportunities maybe lost by injury and stuff like that that can necessitate the
bounce back, if you will. So there's a lot of different ways to look at this, and I am here for it. It's actually probably my biggest struggle Joe. Like I'm I'm a sucker for a guy that has performed really well, especially when they've done it, maybe even like two seasons, and then just something weird or odd takes them off the table. I got a hard time quitting them,
whether it's prospects or major leaguers. And there are definitely quite a few on this list and your list, I think I pretty much take a little glance a glance at the Joe list here. Yeah, pretty much agree with almost top ten. There's actually one I don't, But there's a couple on there that I would have picked had you not. But Joe got to the sheet first, folks.
Well, the advantage of making the sheet is that you get to put all your stuff in the sheet first. But I'll say this, you know, it's always different reasons too. Sometimes it's injuries, sometimes it's you know, guy, you know signs a big contract, puts that onus upon themselves. Sometimes it's just circumstances beyond their control, or the team starts jettising players around them, they lose line of protection. There's so many reasons why guys sometimes have down years. I mean,
sometimes it's just personal things. They're actually people, everybody, believe it or not. Let's jump into some of these names. Let's talk about him. Let's start here with my number one guy, which is Nick Castilianos. To me, Casianos is the perfect suitor of what I just mentioned, which is, you know, first spot in the new city. We've seen this happen plenty of times in the past, where I think when a player like Nick Casiganos, he's got such a good track record behind him that you're not really
concerned about the kind of player he is. I think it's just a matter of now that you know, you can relax into this setting in Philadelphia. And I'll tell you why. With Albryce Harper for the first three plus months of the season, they're gonna need Casianos. They're gonna need him to really kind of bounce back and be the guy he was. And if you look at some of the deeper numbers, they're still pretty good. I know last year was a huge disappointment in the power department,
only thirteen home runs. He did steal seven bags, which is not you know, normally what you get out of him. But you know, if you go back to the twenty twenty one numbers where thirty four home runs and drove in one hundred, I don't necessarily expect that, but I think you can get somebody closer to that twenty six to one hundred, that twenty seven to ninety kind of a player in Nick Castiano's it's a favorable home run ballpark. I think it's just a matter of first year in
a new place, pressing a lot. He's a very personality wise. I think Casiana's a little wound up kind of a dude. I think we've seen that in the past of the Cincinnati days, so I think it was hard for him to kind of relax and settle in this year. I expect him to do that, and like I said, I think they're going to really need him, and he's looking right now. I mean, the ECRs won twenty one, the ADP is one thirty overall, He's coming at a pretty
good price. Where outfield is rough and a guy like Casiano's going as the thirty third outfielder overall, I think you could do a lot worse than.
That Welsh Yeah, you know, and in taking a look at him too, there's a lot of things that don't feel crazy off. It was a lot about hard hit. It was a lot about that. I mean, he was striking the ball at quite a lower rate as far as career wise, and usually is. Hard hit percentage was thirty four point six percent, which was the second lowest of his career. And my point is like that's an anomaly. You know, he's been in the forty percent five straight
seasons in there. X slug was actually a little bit higher than his slug as far as expected goes, and most everything else kind of in line sat there. You know, launch angle, barrel percentage is a little bit lower, but you talk about pressing, that's kind of it. He's going to be really really counted on this year, is going to be locked into that team a little bit more.
You got Trey Turner who might be hitting at the top of the lineup, which is probably going to also create some problems as far as defenses go, and maybe more RBI opportunities. I really like the bounce back on Castianis because he feels like I like, he gets lost in the shuffle of outfielders, Like you don't think about him, you don't look, and then all of a sudden, you're like one hundred and fifteen and you're like, all right, I need a third outfielder or second outfielder, and you're like, oh,
Castianos is still there. He's a good buyback, all right.
So who is the first guy you want to talk about? And the bounce back candidates for twenty three.
So the bounce back really has to do with the injury. When I was thinking about this, like I said, I thought, you actually encapsulated on the majority of these really good bounce back guys that struggled maybe out of weird performance things. This is one that this player was lining up to be what I think would have been one of the bigger statistical seasons, and the time taken away has kind of pushed him back at his position. And it's jazz chisseum.
And I know that might feel weird. You like bounce back, Well, he's not. Imagine had he played the season, the guy was lining up to be a thirty twenty player, and what a thirty twenty players do They go in the first round. Well, right, Jazz is not going in the first round, and he's not going in the second or third, and he's going off as about the fourth second baseman if you will across the board. And you know, Jazz was really he's always been like this big, crazy poll hitter.
He was really starting to establish himself. Walk percentage went up by two percent, strikeout percentage went down, batting average was kind of like stabilizing if he could be a two to fifty guy. Projections still really like him, and the batex has him as almost that twenty thirty guy to anyone Homer's twenty nine stolen bases. So this is a little bit of a different situation where it's not necessarily about like one off year of performance, but that
off time miss. Plus he's moving positions, which I think just has people weirded out about him going to center field. I think Jazz is prime for a bounce back off of the injury and it's going to put up some big stats. And like I said, if he's a twenty thirty guy that is first round, like that's just what it did, and let's tell you guys, that's first round talent. That's why I'm so high on Jazz.
Yeah. Look, I think you drafted him yesterday, didn't you. Do you have Chishem on your team?
Yeah? I think so. I mean I try you. I think you did it.
I want to say you did. If you missed that, go check it out. Justin Mason was around yesterday for our first live stream draft. You can see it on the YouTube channel. And by the way, if you are watching us on YouTube, don't forget to drop a comment below, because if you do, you have a chance to get
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get a free upgrade too. We're gonna pick people out of there, so be a subscriber and go drop a comment in the chat about that, and Welsh looking at the next guy on my list, it's Eddie Rosario of the Atlanta Braves. Now, Rosario is going pretty late. He is like in the nineties in the outfield range, and I understand, you know, he'll probably play mostly against right handed pitching, but in those deeper leagues, we're really looking
for some help. If the vision is right, I'm not chasing the thirty two to one oh nine season from twenty nineteen. I'm not doing that when it comes to Eddi Rosario. But what I am gonna do with Eddie Rosario and say to myself, all right, is this guy healthy enough to give me one hundred and thirty games or somewhere in that range, Because if he does, and if you look at some of those years that he posted with the Twins, he had a twenty five home
run guy. And I think we're all searching for some late power and Eddie Rosario could be one of these guys that I think that if you look at spring training, it doesn't mean a whole lot for a lot of people, but for guys like Eddie Rosario, it does. You want to see that he's healthy. You want to see that he's seeing the ball well, but you also want to see him have some early success because I think he does.
There's a really good omen for the twenty twenty three season, and he's basically a free player.
Welsh, Yeah, Okay, he is free. So this is the one that I don't like. I'm not with of your list or the other four. I buy three of them. I'm very, very staunching at Castianos. Is one actually your last two? Like one hundred percent. When I knew the topic I was going to put on here and you'd
already got to them. This is the one that I'm just not with, though he's free, And I try to make this case a whole lot, because I feel like sometimes in fantasy baseball, we all just get stuck in this circle where it's like everybody's got to talk about the furthest down players, and there's a problem with everybody and dah dah da da da, And then people will pick on a guy that's like two sixty and they're like, well, this guy is really going to be a bus, and
it's like it's hard to be a bus at that level. So I'm gonna acknowledge that that Eddy wasor is free, which is nice. But the problem is, yeah, he's absolutely free. The problem is strikeout rate went way up, contact rate way down. He looks like he's in a platoon right now with Marcello Zoon. I know Zunu can play DH, but they also want Travis Darnault, something they kind of
promised when they brought in Sean Murphy. I just don't know if the playing time is consistent, and I'm worried about a player like this being able to have the opportunity to get hot, and I don't think that's there for him. But he's free, so the bounce back is really guess what I want to.
Remind you remember a couple of years ago when Mitch Hanneger was free. He was a free player with the power. He had that huge power spike season. I'm not saying he's gonna do that, but I think the Braves really need some more help in the middle of that lineup right now, and I think he could be that kind of guy if he gets off to a good start in the spring. Like I said, spring is very important
for his rio. I wanted to prove that the vision problems are correct, and I wanted to prove that he's healthy. And look I brought it up. He's not gonna play every single day. The fact they have the DH of the National League now helps his case to being, you know, getting more at bats than you realize.
But to your point, and my breaking news is it's not hard to bounce back off of five homers in three stolen bases in eighty games. It's actually pretty easy for him. Guy had thirty two homers just a couple of years ago. Though he has not had more than fourteen homers since twenty twenty, it's still a pretty easy bounce back for a free player. Not my favorite of your picks here, but I really don't understand the logic.
That's fine, twenty twenty, it's only fifty seven games to be played because of COVID. So thirteen homers of fifty seven games. That ain't so bad, baby, that's you're right, that's a pretty good extrapolation. Nation. All right, let's get to your number two. Who is the one guy I should have put on my list but I didn't.
Yeah, I was actually surprised about this because you're stealing all the good names here. This is one that really kind of qualifies more on the list of what you put together. There's only just so many that you can have. It's Ilo, Jim and az Aloe, who has only played over one hundred games once, that was his rookie year. That's been a big problem in the short sample sizes. He's always putting up big stats. He's had double digit homers three straight years, where two of them he played
fifty five games apiece. Health is always a big issue. I saw him at camp about a five days ago or so. Looked a little bit skinnier, like maybe a little bit of weight loss, which is probably a good thing. Strikeout percentage was down this past year. It's really about health because last year he still had a career high average exit velocity. He was up in the top ten
percent of max EV. He had a x slug which was over five hundred, so that's still maintaining in a three sixty five x WOE but with a three seventy one. But all that stuff is just telling you with a fifty four percent hard hit rate, he makes a lot of contact and he's gonna barrel up the ball a bunch and he's got great rob Howard Guy hit two ninety five last year, and two of his four seasons he has hit two ninety five or better. And I think we could all see a situation where Eloy Jimenez
can get going. We just all know that the team really needs to make a commitment to keeping him at DH, and I don't know if they are going to be fully committed to that. Plus the other that's a little bit worrisome with them is they're just all their guys are injured. Like even if they were like, okay, guys, they sit around a table, they're like, we're gonna do this. We are going to get Eloy at DH. Robert, Ben and Tendee and then co Los, we're gonna put you
in the outfield. Robert's not the pillar of health. And I don't know if you necessarily say that about Ben and Tendee as well, that they might be put into situations where they feel they need to get him out there. If we can get him to DH and we can keep him healthy, Eloy Jimenez will get back. Projections over one hundred and thirty games vary from twenty five essentially
to thirty home runs. I think he's going to put up thirty homers this year, if he plays one hundred and twenty five games, make a ton of contact, and those running RBI totals to be great. He's a good, good, good, five category player. He just comes with some risk and that's why we can get a bounce back because he's teetered. Joe teetered. And by the way, did you know this is a fascinating fact. I had no idea. Do you know Elo Jimenez has zero career steals. I had no
idea about that. He has never stolen a base in his career. He is becoming I think, the outfield version of Carlos Korea, where it's just like he never actually lives up to the potential that we're putting on him.
And it makes me sad. I don't want to put bad on him yet, but you're you're might not be off. Look, I think him is going to play more games than that this year. I think the White Socks arena need him to to justify their investment in him as well. I mean, let's he's one of these guys that they made their early investment in along with Robert, and I think when you do that, you guys are looking at these guys and saying, Hey, you know, Jose Brady's not
here anymore. You guys have to carry this offense and be the guy. So, whether it be a rotation in the outfielders, you're saying, you don't want to get these guys in the outfield too much, But an attendee's a much better defender obviously co loss as well. So look,
you're one hundred percent right. DH is where he should be, and if he just has a healthy enough season to even get to one hundred and forty something games, that would be I think very eye opening, and I think he comes at a grid enough value to do that. Let's take a quick break in the action to tell you about fan Tracks. Fan Tracks is the most customizable fantasy platform in the industry, offering the greatest fantasy experience
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Today I saw him.
It was pretty awful. Did you say hello to inform me?
I said, for you, I said hey, Joe says hello, and he was like, man, thank you so much, Joe.
And you know, I'm so glad he likes me. Now, last year I didn't like him, so he's probably pissed off of me. Still. It was just the ADP was way too high. And the reason why you know, he's a career You know, if you look at his career batting average against left handed pitching, okay, and not even like the breakout ye because a breakout, he was still bad against lefties okay, he was just monumentally good against
right handed pitching. He's still a two to five career hitter against left handed pitching for his career with a six to sixty one. Ohps, he's terrible. He is practically a platoon player, but he is coming in a discount this year. He is on the good side here, being the left handed bat where he's going to face a
lot more right handed pitching. He's going to be out there in good spots, and because he's in a favorable home run ballpark, I think this is a player that you can look for some sort of moderate bounce back. I have zero expectations for him to get to the guy who you know, hit three zero five with those kind of splits in your career is not something you're likely going to do. But can you get to that two to eighty mark. Can you give me twenty home runs or even eighteen home runs? I think there will
be a pretty good situation there for Jesse Winker. I like the Brewers this year. I have money on them already to win the Division. I think the Jesse Winker this year is a much better let's invest in find out player because last year you were paying for what you got, which was an all star caliber player going into twenty twenty two, and I just did not think he was that. So to me, it's just now all about the guy is at the right price point and
at two thirty one. Overall, it's a decent investment once again, not gonna cost me much to be wrong.
Yeah, he said this is like a totally weird anecdotal thing, but seemed in really good spirits. Today, actually couldn't find him, so all the other players at Brewer's camp and was focused on William Contreras and Willia Damas and Rowdy Talez. I got a little bit of video of and then Winker just popped out. And I've never and I was around him with the Mariners last year, and brooding would be a description I would give to you his mentality.
It's tough, you know, player spends his whole life with an organization and yet trade. I think sometimes guys take it personally with a chip on their shoulder, and some guys maybe powder you don't have issues with it, And I'll go there are issues.
With the Mariners, the Mariners in general that this has been off discussed where I think, you know, our friend in Osaris had talked about it, that he talked to Winker and like there was a very close knit group with the Mariner's, a lot of guys that came up together, and Winker was a little bit on the outside looking in. Yeah, exactly, and then he comes over here. He was in great spirits today working with I believe it's Pat Murphy, former ASU baseball coach that was out here and the happiest
I've seen him. Not that that necessarily means anything, but what I would say is a comfortability level is something that you really can't consider.
This with their tam is sneaky. They're sneaky. I don't even think they're sneak. They're stacked. It's all about the pitching staff health. If they can get that pitching healthy, they're in really good spot. All right, let's go to the next on your list for a bounce back, candidate Welsh.
We got Well, if you guys, get on your internet, your phone and click on over to Amazon and you typed in the Fantasy Black Book twenty twenty three by Joe Buzapia, you could pick that up and you would know that I wrote quite a bit of infield profiles, all of them first base, second. So I'm gonna read you a couple of things that I had put about Jose Bray, because I think the obvious thing here is you're going into what is essentially hitting environment with incredible
players around you. Jose Brio coming off fifteen homers, eighty five runs, seventy five RBIs not good. Those are not good first base stats whatsoever. In the Fantasy Black Book, which I had wrote about him, and this is a lot of like kind of anecdotal stuff for you to kind of understand the player that he was. Last year, io hit dropped from three hundred and twenty twenty down to one forty one. That's a dramatic drop, almost not believable.
That power decrease was also highlighted by a career low launch angle and the first time he had a home run a flyball ratio that was under ten percent, it was nine point six. What's interesting, though, is he registered as a top ten percentile in exit velocity and x LUG based on oh I'm sorry. He'd also finished in the top five percentile and XBA x woe, but in hard hit percentage all of those at the position. A fun, fun little thing was based on expected home runs in
different ballparks. A radio would have hit twenty homers with eight different teams compared to his fifteen, and if he was a Cincinnati ready, who would have went twenty eight. So coming back to it, it's just a better hitter friendly environment for a contact hitter that's gonna be hitting around. Tucker Alvarez al Tuve. I think the homers are going to tick back up. I think projections kind of agree with that. I think the batting average is going to
be up there. I think the RBI opportunities are going to be phenomenal. I think we're getting back to him being a three and a half to maybe high four category player, and he was being way under sold early on. He's coming back up. I just took him in tout. I'm prioritizing a guy like him, and I think he's going to have a big bounce back at that position where he just didn't. You can't have fifteen homers full time starting as a first baseman. I don't care what
other numbers you put up. Unless you put up one hundred and twenty runs and one hundred and twenty RBI, that won't work. And this is a great opportunity for him to bounce back. And I've also talked about how I kind of want him over a Vine pas Quentino right now, So Jose Brey, that's my guy.
I would agree with that. I want him over a pass Quentino too. The track record is just way longer for Jose Brewing you mentioned the lineup is great too, Although well concerned about Alvarez with that hand thing. Hopefully it's not a handmapone or something like that. I'm just kind of holding my breath on the hand issue he's been dealing with in the last day or so. So hopefully everything will be fine, and hopefully everything is fine in your drafts too. But if you're looking about your drafts,
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You see the insights, you see what's going on, and we talk about them and you know when you reach when you get a steel player when other guys were drafting after you or gals draft, you have certain positions locked up and you shouldn't be chasing them. That's the stuff you need when you only have a minute to make the decision. So once again, check it out fancypros dot Com Slash Premium and then of course check out the Draft Wizard Fancypros dot Com Slash Draft Wizard or
just download the app. The app is easy. Go do the app, all right. Next guy on my list pivoting two guys second base Slash Outfield it's Katel Marte. Now last year to forty batting average, things kind of really fell apart. But I also think this team around him was just not very good last year. I think when you're looking this year, you're seeing some signs of life when it comes to the d Backs a little bit.
I'm a you know, Welsh has really been the guy pushing for Corbyn Carroll and I am one hundred percent on board with him. I am very aggressive. I got a whole TV segment on Sunday on Sports Grid lined up about him because I really think he's going to be a huge draft value. This year, and I'm looking at Marte and I'm looking at this team. I think it's going to be a little bit better. And I think if you look at the historic Kateel Marte batting average,
two forty is not where he's going to be. That's going to come back up. Even if he just gets back to the fifteen to sixteen home run range, that's fine. But if the team is better around him, the counting stats get better, the RBI total, the run totals, all that is better when the offense improves around him. Forget them twenty nineteen incredible, Oh my god, thirty two home
run campaign, forget that. Stop chasing that. But if you're looking at a player right around the two hundred and ADP mark with multiple eligibility at a position that frankly is kind of rough. I mean, he's going after Jonathan India, and India has never had a season quite like Marte. He's going after Brennan Drury, he was coming off a one year wonder season. You know, he's going after Jeff McNeil, who has never come close to the power that Katel Marte has shown in a full season. So I'm not
chasing the high point of Marte. But I definitely think there's a bounce back in him, and I think it's also a tuned to the Diamondbacks starting to make some improvements around him. What do you think?
Yeah, I agree. Actually, it was at Diamondbacks camp two days ago and I got to see Kittel. Actually freaked me out. Kultell hit a ball off of his foot and limped off and sat in the dugout and then shook it off and got back out there. One thing that was super noticeable was he has thinned out. He looked He's looked very big in years past. I'm just speculating, and maybe I hadn't seen him in a long time.
He looked noticeably thinner, maybe by around ten pounds. And something I wonder was had he built up a lot of bulk because he was trying to be more of a power hitter. I kind of think that's gone. I think he might have scrapped that because, like I said, it is noticeably thinner in person, and I feel like that is going to be back to maybe more of a contact approach, which is what he needs. He has to stop that guy swings through his shoes when he
is just trying to make good contact. He'll run into some homers, but we'll take all day long if we can get back to three hundred hitter Ktel with only fifteen homers, because the run and RBI totals are there, and you said it best having better players around to put not only like in better scoring opportunities for runs in RBI, but also put pressure on the other team to maybe have to approach Katel a little bit different.
So I'm very much with this. I try not to be a homer and be like ooh all the Diamondbacks, but like if I'm buying back on guys like I'm buying hard on Corbyn Carrol, and I really do like the idea of just the dirt cheap ka tell Marte right now, this is one that I would have picked, and it is. I was just encouraged by him kind of physically changing a little bit because I'm assuming and I'm projecting a little bit. I saw a tiny bit
of it in his batting practice. I'm assuming that body change is maybe going to be also coming with a stylistic change which hopefully is not trying to hit.
Get back to contact, get back to driving the baseball good things happen. Then now the next guy on your list. Four out of year five are four of my favorite guys this year. But this next one, this is the one ryany convincing because I am not there when it comes to Max Moncy. So go ahead and make the case because last year was rough, and I'm just a little concerned that maybe we've seen the best of him, because he is a player that sort of crept up
and came out of nowhere. And when those guys sort of fall off a map, I get a little kind of wishy washy when it comes to their value of the previous year. Year.
Yeah, I can understand that, and I shy away probably more than anything from like these these like really low content, like even Kyle Schwarber kind of bothers me a little bit, like really low.
Batting allarge guys and not chasing KYLEE. Schwarber's twenty twenty two.
There's a weird thing that goes on with Maximunths. You've noticed where like he has an on off year, it's almost it's almost clockwork. But if you look over the last five years, three of those he's hit essentially two fifty or better. The home run totals have been out there. The ISO sticks. He's he's struck out a little bit more this year, but that's not necessarily his norm. Baseball
Savant page is pretty red outside of XBA. The discouraging thing was he didn't have like a expected batting average that improved, you know, it was it was barely improved. It was like actually in the bottom five percent of the league. But his batting average was so stinky. It was a little bit better. His walk percentage though near the top of the league. I think, based on what we've seen in the past, he kind of bounces back off of batting average. It was also the third lowest
babbot of his career. Guy doesn't have a highabbat at all. It's usually around like two fifty. I think it's a crew two fifty six. It was two twenty seven. That's not necessarily sustainable. I also believe the approach of the Dodgers might be a little bit different this year. A lot of guys trying to get on base. You got Migil Vargas, and I think I don't want to call it manufacturing runs because you still got Freddy Freeman and Mookie Betts. So that doesn't necessarily change, but Maxi Munsey
has shown this before. The Babbitt was a tiny bit too low to believe. There's tons and tons of hard hit overall in his game, and he technically did improve in the second half. First half he hit one sixty four, second half he hit two thirty A two thirty. Max Monci is worth inside the top one hundred easy because he's probably going to push thirty homers, RBI totals are going to be better, and he qualifies at a couple positions.
I think this is an opportunity for Maximuntzy to bounce back because he's also done this like kind of time in and time out. This is what he does. This is this is his other year right now.
I hope so. But the injury is he had going into last year scares me a bit. And I'll tell you what, Welsh. I want to take Max Munsey because if you look at third base, it's rough, like the spots where he qualifies, the corner spots where you want him. I mean it is rough out there right now, and you want to him in one of those spots. But I just can't take the leap. I even took Matt Chapman over him yesterday, just because I just can't get there now. The one guy I shouldn't get there with.
My last guy on the list is Wander Franco. Wander Franco, everybody knows listen to the show. Last year was a big Wander Franco guy. He was going what like second round, late second round last year, you know, early third, somewhere in that range. He is just twenty two years old. Guys, last year was an injury plague season. It wasn't good. Forget it, wrap it up, throw it away, forget it happened.
Because Wander Franco in his minor league career two hundred and twenty four games a three thirty five batting average with a four h two OBP and a five thirty seven slug nine thirty nine ops. This is an elite bat Okay, guess I said elite. When you get guys in that three four five slash, that's an elite player. There's not a lot of guys that can hit for a high average with a high on base and also give you the power. And I think the power is going to come. I keep saying that about Wander Franco.
Frame Wise, he's a strong guy. The lower half is strong. Power is going to come. Just like when people told me the franciscol Indoor is never gonna hit for power, and I said, you're crazy. Let me tell you, this guy's gonna hit for power. It's not the greatest ballpark, unfortunately, I understand. But also having some health around him, Brandon Low being back healthy, that also helps. I like to
see them surround them with a little bit more. But Wander Franco is just too good, too young to give up on, and I just absolutely love I mean, he is in the eighty sixth spot. He was a top twenty five player last year. He is an eighty six overall ADP. That's nuts to me.
I would have picked him. I would have picked him probably just my top guy here, with a caveat that, like, I don't know if he's going to become Francisco Indoor or anything like that.
But the caveat is, I know he's not the Rodo Darling player because he doesn't. He's not a high power, high speed combination necessary guy, at least not now in his career. But if you're in points leagues, I'm telling you right now, this guy is just a pure oh yeah, just go be aggressive on him.
But I still think in category leagues he can bounce back. I think this is just a prime this is this is one of the bet on the skill set guys, and the skill set.
Is so high for Ony two.
Yeah, well, I mean this is the same thing where people call their shots on a twenty one year old and being like he's done or he's the greatest player. The developmental process is not linear. Wander Franco has not. I don't even know if he's really had enough of a sample size to truly understand who he was. And I've kind of come back to what we talked about earlier in some episodes, they're like that first month he was lining up to be like a twenty five to
twenty guy, and then the injury took him back. He's got some contact issues where he can hit it on the ground and hit across his body. He's got the windmill kind of swing that I think it stabilizes him. But like, I just don't think it's crazy to think that he could be twenty fifteen or eighteen, you know, eighteen fifteen or eighteen ten, even with a really high batting average, really good runs. I don't know about the RBIs with the Rays overall, but I don't think he
bounces back to elite. But I really do think he bounces back because he's becoming a major afterthought after being one of the most hyped prospects in the game, and I really think he's gonna find himself this year.
All right, well, ssh, give us the last guy on your list, and this is the guy that I've been taking a lot of shares of as well.
Yeah, we're probably gonna talk about him here in a little bit. I was actually surprised when I was looking at this list. I was like, are we doing all hitters because we didn't have a pictures and I thought a pitcher came in here.
That's okay. In my undervalued gems. I got a bunch of pictures I made up for loss.
You do, Yeah, I think you have all pictures.
Yeah.
I went with Lucas Giolito and I'm not going to side off like a gazillion things because we've talked about it multiple times, but it's it's a lost year for me with him injuries. He bulked up crazy last season.
Did you see the side by side picture? I think it was to remember who tweeted it out as the guy from the White Sox.
It was, I know what you're talking about. It's like he'd lost forty five pounds. I think it was because he had bulked up last year around two eighty, because he's a large human being six foot seven.
To be tweeted.
And with that weight gain he had last year, the positive weight gain, he was pitching inside his body and he's moved that off and he lost a whole bunch of weight. And he's also went to drive line and re kind of developed the way he throws. And I think that's enough for me to go back on what was I think a perennial, cy young type of guy.
I'm willing to buy back in on it. So really my argument for this is he was so bad last year with so many oddities of the weight and the way he pitched that he changed in injuries and all of that is kind of beside him. I think this is a great opportunity to buy back on the historical data of Lucas Giolito, who is trending in a great direction. And I'm going to do that, and I'm going to draft him pretty much wherever I can.
And on that note, one of my undervalue projected gems is Lucas Giolito, So right off the bat, that's one of my guys, and that's because I think people have been way too harsh on the down year. Look at the previous two seasons of this guy. It's it's crazy to think that a player could be so good, so consistently for two to three years and he has a down year where he whatever, maybe he was out of shape, maybe he just came in heavier, whatever that is. It
doesn't matter. I'm not going to live in that bad season because you have a situation where he has been good before. He's going at pitcher forty six right now. That's crazy. If you look back a couple of years ago, we're looking at guy striking out two hundred and twenty eight guys in the shortened season. In twenty twenty he struck got ninety seven guys in seventy two winnings with a three to four ERA to three and a half ERA in twenty twenty one, struck out two hundred guys.
Enough is enough, everybody, So Lucas Giolito is definitely one of my three pitchers. The other one that I want to talk about Code Senga again. I'm looking at the projections on him, and I'm looking at the buzz early from camp. What is just Do you have it read at the Bat right now? I do have it Welsh The Bat has him at a four to six two ERA over twenty five starts and a one forty strikeout. I don't. I think it's going to be way more than that. Atees he's got one hundred and fifty eight
k's over one hundred and forty eight innings. Some other ones like Steamer a little bit more aggressive. Steamers got him at three seven two ERA, one hundred and fifty six innings, one hundred and seventy seven strikeouts. To me, I think you're looking at a guy much closer to this one eighty threshold and probably closer to this twenty seven starts. Kind of, I think they're gonna push him because it seems like that's where the Mets are, and when you have the age and the rotation the Mets do,
you might not have a choice. Unfortunately, so for better or worse, maybe it hurts his era on the back end a little bit, but I think at the end of the day, you're gonna get more win potential out of him. The bullpen's very good. I mean most of the projection sites have him for somewhere around ten to
eleven wins. Welsh, I think, especially if he gets off to a hot start, I could see him being one of these guys it's like six and one out of the gate because he is just so fresh and new and the arsenal pitches he has where it's kind of like when you Darvish came in the league. I'm not saying he's you Darvish, but when you Darvis came in the league, he was just people like I can't even pick up the ball, no idea, what's going on. It took a while to adjust. So Senga Gildo and the
other guy. For me, Welsh, it's undervalued in projections right now is Hunter Brown and the Houston Astros. And it's the same reasoning I had last year with Christian Xavier.
Really like this one.
I think the dude's just going to get more starts. He's just going to get more opportunities. He's already got the goods, he just needs the opportunity. And with Lance McCullers already dealing with an elbow issue, there's a chance not only does he break camp as the starter, but even if they go out and they get a veteran. I mean last year they got Otteezi and everybody dropped a Christian Javier everywhere. Do you remember that? You remember what that happened? And we said on the show, go
pick him up. If he got dropped, go pick up Christian Xavier. It doesn't matter. Eventually, the better arms went out, Brown qualifies at SP and RP. I think Brown, Gledo, and Senga. Right now, the all the projections are not savvy enough to I think what the high end for these guys are in terms of innings and in terms of talent, and I think right now they're they're underperforming
in ADP because of it. Well, so, who are the three guys for you that you're looking at that are undervalue when it comes to projections so far this year?
Yeah, And I think it's actually kind of all of them. You can check out if you guys, go over to fantasypros dot com. You can check out projections that are on the site if you want to peruse all of that. And I was kind of going through there and a couple stood out to me, and it wasn't even necessarily like Fantasy Pros versus let's say the bat X. It
was just kind of all of them. The first one was Christian Walker, who Christian Walker's coming off a thirty six home run season, worst babup in baseball in the first half, had a phenomenal second half where he hit two eighty. So come back to the median line where he hits two fifty. And what I don't understand is all of the projection sites on the lower home run totals significant home run total decreases do not make sense to me whatsoever, especially if he's going to be a
better contact hitter. Fantasy Pros projections got him at twenty seven homers. The bat X only at twenty four. If I'm telling you right now, if Christian Walker hits two fifty, he's hitting thirty plus. This isn't an argument, So I don't know what we're doing here. Number two on it, the Fantasy Pro's projection stood out to me like a sore thumb was Jose Miranda. Jose Miranda was projected at eighteen homers on Fantasy Pros. So really, if you're going
through there. This is a guy that moves through as far as projections go too, sixty six batting average with eighteen homers. If you come over and look at the others, the bat x only fifteen homers. What are we talking about here? I think this is a twenty home run plus guy. I've talked about the amount of contact he makes in general. He steals bases as well. No projection system. They haven't met one stolen base two. I mean he steals a little bit. He's stole in twenty twenty one.
I think I always make that into a big thing. I think he can steal a little bit more. I know the power can be there, and none of the projection sites have anything on him. And the other one was George Kirby. George Kirby was another one of those that stood out. Let me see if I can remember this. I was looking at Kirby's numbers, and Kirby's numbers, as far as projections go on, here were actually relative to
some guys that were God dang, they were. They were a little bit higher because you only had one hundred and forty. Now I should have written this down, and I didn't write it down. So this is killing me because I had a really good one. But George Kirby's projected had one hundred and forty seven innings this coming season with.
He's triking numbers last year, that id an injury for him to get to that number.
I don't understand it. With nine wins, nine wins, seven losses in Seattle in one hundred and forty seven innings here and you know, for perspective, like Tyler Glass now is projected for one hundred and thirty three. That's going to kill me first of my life.
Let me tell you how you're either George total On Kirby is way too low. It's it's crazy, It's way too low. It should not be the case. So Walker, Miranda Kirby, Senga Giolito Brown, those are guys right now. The projections haven't quite caught up to our expectations for twenty twenty three. And of course, if you've got more expectations, make sure you're with us all the time. Go subscribe
to our YouTube channel, Fantasy Pros MLB. Drop a comment below let us know who some of the guys that you are in on this year as the comeback candidates. I want to hear from you drop your candidates down there in the chat in the YouTube column right now, and of course don't forget head over to Fantasypros dot com slash Draft Wizard or just download the app, check out the Draft Assistant with Sinc. And go premium today at Fantasypros dot com slash Premium. I want to thank
the sponsor of today's show, and that's Fantracks. Head over to fantracks dot com slash Fantasy Pros today, start a new league or move your old leagues over to fan Tracks, the best place to play fantasy baseball. And when you do, you could win a sign Vladdie Junior Jersey only at fantracks dot com slash Fantasy Pros. That'll do it for us, but the story of the game goes on for the Welsh. I'm Joey P. We'll see you next time, kids,