Episode 310: Valuing Players At The End of May

Mike and Jon talk about the tragicomic Mets, the utility of rolling three-week samples, not holding too tightly to fast starters who slow down, and then we conclude with a little game where we discuss players whose rest-of-season value has changed the most, for better or worse. Sorry, Bo Bichette.

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy" or visit our Twitter feed @baseballpro. 

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Twitter @FlagsFlyBP. The hosts of Flags Fly Forever are Mike Gianella(@mikegianella.bsky.social) and Jon Hegglund(@jonhegglund.bsky.social). The producer of Flags Fly Forever is Jon Hegglund.

Special thanks to the awesome and generous Petite League for permission to use their track "Mets" for the intro and break music. Find their sweet lo-fi indie-pop sounds at petiteleague.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Meet me, Step right up me. Welcome to episode of three ten of

(00:29):
Flags Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectivesfantasy baseball podcast. You know the drill,
I'm like Janella. That's John Haglund. It's been a little while,
John, how you doing. Meetthe Mets. Meet the Mets. Step
right up and greet the Mets.Yeah. So so that that's funny.
Like when you you left, right, I think it was we had one

(00:52):
week where you were away. Idon't remember at this point if you were
on vacation or in California getting mine. Oh, that's right, my niece
hitched. That's right, you were. You were an officiant, weren't you.
I was an efficient of a weddingand I believe, I believe it's
legal. I hope, I hopeso. And then I think last week

(01:17):
we were Yeah, last week wejust both had various things going on,
and you know, I don't want, I don't want to say forgot,
but we we just sort of kindof did. So. Yeah. But
but you know you mentioned the Mets, like when the last podcast dropped the
Mets on that date or the datewere recorded, it's even better. They

(01:38):
were eighteen and eighteen, they werea five hundred team. I think they
had a off day and like arain out because they had two days off
and since then and they won tonight, but let's pretend that didn't exist.
Since then, they're four and fifteen. Is that good? Mike? No,
Like, this is the thing aboutthe Mets. I heard Fred Zinki

(01:59):
talking about this on the Rotor Wirepodcast. I don't know if you heard
them this week or not, Fredand Jeff Erickson, but you know,
Fred was sorry about the Blue Jaysand then kind of ranting about, like
why do Mets fans care? Youknow, it's not supposed to be a
good year. It's like, well, I mean, first of all,
as a fan, you're supposed tocare. But I think I think that
eighteen and eighteen start made people think, Okay, like this could be a

(02:21):
five hundred team that maybe, ifeverything goes right, you know, can
compete for the wild the third wildcard, and it'll kind of be a
fun summer. And now it lookslike it's going to be a sad summer
where, you know, unless theyrattle off a ten game winning streak,
which I don't think they will,they're probably gonna win like seventy to seventy
five games, you should you shouldcare until you know you really you really

(02:46):
shouldn't. Yeah, even if yourteam is is not projected to be competitive
like on a day to day bay, that's what fandom is. It's just
I will say this, like,so I think I've taliced to the podcast
before, Like, like a differencebetween baseball and other sports is that,
like the Orioles up until they gotgood again, when all your player like

(03:10):
good players, or your your futuresall the minors right, and you're you're
waiting and you're kind of like,okay, like three or four years ago,
I can't see Alie Rushman, Ican't see Gunnar Henderson, and I
can't see you know, and thenext great crop, and you're watching the
B team that you know is theB team in the majors for the most
part. Then you're like, Okay, there's no point to this, like

(03:32):
I'm going to be watching a sixtywin team. I think what's frustrated with
the Mets, and this is trueother teams too, is that you know
there are players there now like Lindorwho presumably you hope are going to be
there when the Mets are good again. I think I think that's where some
of the frustrations. I think theother frustration is in that success failure cycle

(03:54):
you know that teams have when you'rebad for five years, you hope you're
good for five years, like inthe Mets dysfunction. They're good for a
year or a year and a halfand then things fall apart and it goes
back to lo ol Matt. SoI think that's the that's the problem that
fans have. That's a frustration.Sure, And I you know, the

(04:15):
Steve Cohen era got off to abumpy start, but the thing about the
Steve Cohen era is that you canyou can reload quickly, right, you
know with one of the few ownersout there who's willing to spend money.
So yeah, don't it's and Iand I yeah, and I thought the
purpose this year and I'm not theexpert on this, but I thought the

(04:36):
purpose this year was to reset likethe tax or you know whatever they were
doing. So that is part ofit, Like part of it is he
could have done that again, Likehe could have gone out and you know
tried to you know, reload yetagain, but was like now we're gonna
we're gonna pull back, and Ithink that's what they part of what they

(04:58):
brought in David Stearns too, likethey they brought him in from the standpoint
of, Okay, like let's reallytry to do this right. We don't
need to make this the Mets podcast. I just I think there's another BP
podcast devoted there is and you know, they have their they have their frustrations,
and you know, I I guessI understand that. I just you

(05:19):
know, the other thing about beforebefore we move on like a to the
main topic or topics of the show, I think the funniest thing about LLL
Mets is that they're probably like,you know, ten to fifteen percent funnier
than the rest of the league onaverage. But there's so much stuff that
happens to them that just could happento any team and gets prescribed, you
know, gets attribute to all Mets. I'm kind of okay, like I

(05:44):
get it, but you know whatever, it's the it's the curse of being
underperforming, big market team in thelargest city in the country. Yeah,
in the shadow of the Yankees too. In the shadow of the Yankees.
Part of it generally like rate mostyears and even the years they're bad or
like, you know, five hundredteam, but they're but they're boring,

(06:05):
and the Mets are, you know, just they're a dumpster fire in a
very entertaining way a lot of thetime. I don't know if this is
a segue into what we're going totalk about, but Aaron Judge is not
boring, my god, he is. He is making He is very quietly
like making history. Yeah he's that. I mean it's not so quiet,

(06:29):
but but he's making history. Heis making history. He did. He
is justifying your preseason enthusiasm, andhe is making us regret not pulling the
trigger on him at number seven,not that we really ever seriously considered that.
No, No, he was.I don't know if you remember,

(06:50):
like you know, Corbyn Carroll wasstill at the top of my list.
Judge was next, and I thinkyou were like, WHOA, Like that's
you know, it's kind of ahot take, and I'm like, well,
you know it is. But II like Judge, Like I like
him better than Fernando to Tease orFreddie Freeman or all those hitters who were
going before. You know Judge,who I think where was his ADP,
like thirteenth or or fourteen yeah,and I saw more as the middle of

(07:14):
the first round, which really isn'ta hot take. I think that that's
kind of one of the things abouta d P, which is like,
you can't plant your flag on everyplayer, but there's a few that you
you should. And I think onthe flip side of that, you know
what we did, and we're talkingabout our main event league, which is

(07:35):
you know, the ongoing. Ithasn't got it has It hasn't gotten much
better, Like we're no longer likeall the way at the bottom. There's
somebody who's replacing there, but we'renot much higher. I think this evening
we got to third from the bottom. I can checked, and we were
we were like, yeah, wewe were. We were flirting with eleventh
place at one point. To beclear, this is higher, YEA,

(07:58):
our individual bracket, not forget theoverall. The overall is is gone.
It's gone. Hey we're above sixty. We're at sixty one to fifty right
now. So yeah, but whatI was gonna make is, you know,
looking back on how we felt goingto the draft season, and this
is totally a tangent to I thinkwhat we're going to talk about. But

(08:20):
Carol I think was clearly in ourranks the highest player. But I don't
think either of us felt super excitedabout Carol. I think me less less
than you, And I wonder ifyou know, in the first round,
like yes, look at your ranks, but also you know, maybe try

(08:41):
to take someone that you're actually thatyou actually feel good about that. Yeah
too, unsigned, Yeah, welllet me ask you this, was there
somebody I think for you was totease, right, Like to tease was
probably the guy you were looking atas like well, if I'm going to
go with my guy here, orit would have been to tease. And

(09:01):
I told you too, I said, hey, look like if if you're
that like anti Carol, like weshouldn't take him. And you were like,
no, it's fine, you knowit's yeah, that's true, it's
okay, And you know it's funnylooking at something funny about to tease,
like I haven't looked much at himbecause well, as I said, on
many or that's not even true.He's having he's having a solid well he's

(09:24):
having a solid season, right,but but for a first round pick,
you know you're you're looking at likewhat a pace of what about twenty five
home runs like fifteen steals a twofifty average. That's that's good. You
know, it's not it's not adumpster fire. But it's also like,
wow, you know, last yearyou got the pass. You know,
I think because he missed the wholeseason, you know, he missed some

(09:46):
playing time because the suspension, youknow, and always going to be better,
you know, in twenty twenty four, and it's like not really like
he's he's been fine, and youknow he's he's a dynamic enough player I
think could pick it up. Butas of right now, it's like,
Okay, last year he stole twentynine in one hundred and forty one games.

(10:07):
This year so far, it's goinginto tonight and missus saving six and
fifty nine and like that's where youknow, And this is kind of our
theory with Carol too. It's likeif things fall apart, will at least
have the steals. And we're notreally getting with Carol and that those aren't
getting it with Taitise. Yeah.So that's one of the weirdest things about
this year is is that something I'vejust noticed is stolen bases just haven't really

(10:33):
been sticky for a lot of playersfrom season to season, like it cuts
both ways, like Jesse Winker.I've heard so many people talk about it
this week, but Jesse Winker suddenlyrunning is a surprise, But like there's
so many players the other way whereit's like huh, I really thought,
like, you know, CJ.Abrams would have way more steals by this

(10:54):
point, and he doesn't, andit's like okay, and yeah CJ.
Abrams has knopping has been bad oflate, but even when he was good,
he wasn't running all that much.Yeah. No, it's it's very
unpredictable. And you know, I'mpulling up the the leaderboard right now just
to see who's at the top.But yeah, Winker, I noticed,

(11:16):
you know how Winker and Abrams beyondthe same team was kind of a stark
contrast. And you know, evensomeone like Schwarber I noticed stole I think
his fourth base the other day.Yeah, he seems to be like every
other year, like some years he'slike, yeah, I'll steal ten or
eleven, and you know, someyears I think, like last year's like

(11:37):
nah, I'm not going to run. And there are some random names,
you know near the you know,on the first page of the leaderboard,
so in the in the top thirty. But I think what's most apparent are
players who's who are underperforming their theirprojections. Like I don't even just trying

(11:58):
to look for for a few people. But anyway, Yeah, so steels
is a weird one. I thinkwe all thought that it would be uniformly
at least at the level of lastyear, if not even a tick higher.
But it's been yeah, kind ofall over the place. So yeah,
you know, yeah, I thinkI think before we move on,

(12:20):
you know the thing about that,like just three players who are kind of
paired together the spring, you know, Bryce's stop, yes, running fourteen
steels, Hassan Kim, Yes,running thirteen steels. Nico Horner six steals,
which isn't you know, awful,But you drafted Nico Horner to steal
bases. You did not, yes, see it for average last year,

(12:43):
but you didn't really draft him formuch else. No, and if you
were projecting twenty steels for Nico Horner, he would have been what way way
inside the top two hundred maybe yeah, way way lower. Yeah, probably
around right around two hundred, Iagree. Anyway. Anyway, so we're
we're at the end of May.This is May thirtieth. Tomorrow is the

(13:03):
last day of May. So we'remore or less at the one third poll
of the season. And you havea lot of thoughts about the month of
May, and not just related tolike allergies and you know, budding flowering
plants. Right, you have baseballthoughts, Yeah, I do. So.

(13:26):
You know, last year around thistime I wrote an article. I
remember the headline, well, Idon't know, I don't think I put
it together, but the headline wasthree weeks and what I was specifically talking
about it was three years to thequestion mark. And what I was specifically
talking about was the idea last yearthat people were obsessed with the twenty twenty

(13:52):
three version of Jorge Matteo. Threeweeks into the season. He had an
incredible line, and there was therewere a couple of columns like there was
a fantasy one in a real lifeone that was like, yay, he's
turned the corner. You know,he's great. And what I wondered in
the column like, well, likewhy why were jeb Why was Horge Matato's
May where he was just horrible,like completely ignored, And it's sort of

(14:16):
that larger point of well, like, I'm not even saying that we shouldn't
look at April stats, but maybewe should look at each month the same
way and like look at trends andlook at the idea of like, okay,
well, you know, if NoelmanGorman was awful in April and being
written off, like, should webe looking at him now in May as
like, oh gosh, like he'sreally turned the corner. You know,

(14:37):
he's going to be a superstar.And of course we know the answer somewhere
in the middle, but that wasthe idea. The idea was to be
like, Okay, well, maybethere is something too rolling stats over like
a three week period or a fourweek period or whatever. But rather than
you know, just look at themin April and ignore them, we should
kind of look at them all yearlong. Yeah, And just to give

(14:58):
you like a kind of converse exampleto Gorman, his former teammate Tyler O'Neal,
who came smoking. But is Ihave I have leader boards. I
think he's just gone on the aisle. But up until that point in May,

(15:18):
he had oh a god awful WRCplus sixth worst mon qualified hitters,
a WRC plus of forty five.I've not seen I've probably seen you know,
maybe ten or twelve tweets slash articles, slash blurbs in April about Tyler
O'Neill's hot start. I don't rememberseeing anything in the last few weeks about

(15:41):
Tyler O'Neill's cold may Well. Andyou know the thing about that too,
you know, I made this point, you know, last year about like
I think last year was jonah Heim, Like jonah Heim was a similar thing
where you know, last April,you know, just got came out of
the blocks like super quickly, wasamazing, and then in May he wasn't

(16:03):
even bad. Like you know,he had five home runs in April with
a three hundred average, all overthree hundred, and then it May had
one home run with the two sixtysix average, which is fine. But
I think that was the problem isthat people were you know, combining Himes
April and May and looking at himoverall and thinking, Wow, he's been
great, when in reality it's like, no, he's been good, like

(16:25):
or even very good, but hejust hasn't been the amazing stud And I
think that's even the bigger danger thanApril in the moment where it's like,
wow, this guy's great, he'ssuper. It's more that people now roll
two months together and look at itlike, oh, this player's overall numbers
are good, when in reality it'slike, well, if there's a good
two or three weeks that were carryingthe player like at the beginning, and

(16:49):
there's five or six weeks that havebeen average or worse, the five or
six weeks matter more, right,Yeah, I would, especially if they're
more recent. Now. It doesn'tmean that everything you know, we know
players like you know, EBB andflow, but that's often like the case.
Yeah, and I think it reallyI'm as as you're saying that,

(17:11):
I'm thinking of one player in particularthat I've probably kept on my roster too
long, and I you know,I preface this by saying it's really those
marginal players who you should not holdon to based on that initial flush of
good performance. And so the playerI'm looking at right now who I have

(17:33):
still in my home league is JoeAdele, who who I picked up after
he had a hot streak basically hithis way into an everyday position. You
know, the fact that Mike Troutwent on the IL certainly helped cement his
place in the lineup. For theAngels. But I'm looking at just and
this is just May, and Ithink he had still had a pretty good

(17:56):
start of May. But in Mayhe's got a sixty WRC plus with a
slash of one forty one two thirteenthrough sixty five. And for Jo Adell,
it's like, you know, andnot to mention a strikeout rate of
almost thirty three percent, which is, yeah, reverting to the Joe Adell
that we knew, and so youcan kind of that, Yeah, that's

(18:18):
that's the problem is the strike out, right. I I noted about him
when I wrote him about him upin the fab call was like, well,
more than the bat at ball data, like he's straight. He was
striking out when he was getting pickedup at about an eighteen percent rate at
that time. I'm like, ifhe can even hold to like between twenty
and twenty five percent, he's goingto be a dynamic player. And of
course he didn't. He didn't,and you know, there's there's probably not

(18:45):
a reason to hope. You canhope, but there's not a reason to
expect that he's going to reverse thatand you know, adjust and go back
to like a sub twenty five percentstrikeout so uh yeah, but but that's
yeah, I mean you're your largerpoint, and I think it is a

(19:06):
good one that you know, thedon't don't just sort of think of players
as you thought of them when youwere paying close attention when all the fantasy
writers were paying close attention in thefirst few weeks in the season, you
know, keep an eye on whatthey've been been doing lately. Well yeah,

(19:26):
well the point about the fantasy stars. And now I will say something
I've noticed, like, like Ilisten fairly regularly to the CBS podcast just
because probably the most useful thing onthat podcast or the daily news and notes,
like particularly as I get become anold krusty fart and I you know,
start falling to bet on the youknow, sleep on the couch.

(19:48):
It's a great recap the next morningof news and notes because there's always one
or two things I missed where it'slike, wait, that guy got hurt
or that guy got sent down,or this thing happened. But at any
event, they've gotten bet or Ithink at acknowledging what we're talking about and
you know, being like, hey, look like you know what we were
saying three or four weeks ago.Wasn't true. I don't think it's just

(20:08):
them, Like I think a lotof people across the industry have gotten better
about it. It probably is morein a social media echo chamber like you
were describing, where that is morelikely to happen, where there's a lot
of chatter, people are excited,and then you know, three or four
weeks later, like they're just isn'tas much talk. Yeah, And I

(20:29):
think it's the players that are maybejust sort of under the radar, underperforming
that are the most dangerous because thoseare the players that can linger on your
roster when they haven't had like aterrible you know, like a you know,
three for twenty eight week or somethingwhere the failure is conspicuous and people

(20:53):
are noticing it. But if they'reyou know, like you mentioned the him
example from last year, like ina way like I don't know what the
you know, the numbers were,but the hot start and then kind of
cooling off, that's actually really encouragingif a catcher who hasn't really had a
record of success kind of cools offto be like a slightly above league average.
Yeaer, Okay, maybe that's thefloor, and I can I can

(21:17):
you know live with that. Yeah, I mean there's a danger zone with
that too. Like another example Ibrought up in that piece last year was
Jared Kelnick, who had an amazingApril. I don't even know if anyone
remembers this at this point, andthen he was average or slightly above average
in May. But the big thingwith him, you know, Sill,
what we're talking about is the strikeoutrate went up, and that's the piece,

(21:40):
Like it's often that little piece thatpeople overlook because they's so jazz about
the raw numbers, and it's like, well, you know, if a
player went from having a tolerable strikeoutrate to the danger zone, that could
be a sign for worse things tocome as well. Okay, I'm just
pulling up the May strikeout rates justfor sure for this year, for this

(22:03):
year. So it's so it's interesting, like I'm not gonna read it read
down, but the afforementioned Tyler O'Neilway out in front with a forty three
point nine percent strikeout raid in eightytwo plate appearances. That's something. Wow.
Yeah, Michael Bush coming in secondnow, he got quite a bit
of hype for a hot start,and the numbers are still okay, they're

(22:29):
definitely following what's your what's your plateappearance threshold, by the way, because
there's some people that I think aren'tshowing up in my query. It's it's
it's uh, okay, it's justqualified. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm looking. I'm looking at thetop ten here, and you know there's
some names here that who got quitea bit of you know, yeah,

(22:52):
I know I got attention. Well, well it's funny. I got him
super cheap and my tg FBI andI was like really happy about that.
And now it's like, should Ieven bother starting him? And it's like,
yeah, I'm probably not. AndI don't know if we should even
worry about thirty the you know,Ellie Daally Cruise is thirty three point six
percent. I mean I kind ofthink interesting because you know, he has

(23:17):
had a pra he's definitely cooled off. He's cooled off a lot. I
don't know if we should worry aboutthe strikeouts. It is more the overall
profile, where like what I lookat with him is the ground ball rate,
And this is what people said abouthim at the being of the year,
which is like, look, youknow, he he can hit the
ball. Super hard. But ifthat ground ball rate is that high,

(23:38):
he's not going to get many homeruns. And sure enough, and I
think this is extreme one home runthis month and one hundred and ten played
appearance. He'll do better than that. Like, I'm not saying, you
know, Ellie's going to hit tenhome runs, you know, a year
in a seasonal pace. What I'msaying is, well, he's nine home
runs. Now he could finish withtwenty twenty five being yere after April.

(24:00):
If you had said, oh,hell, he's gonna finish with twenty three
home runs, people will look givenyou a side eye like what are you
talking about? Like he's he's asuperstar. Now I look at it like,
well, that's that's a possible outcome. I mean there's also an outcome
or it goes in another tear andfinishes with thirty. Because he's a really
talented player, people were like,wells he could be like a you know,

(24:21):
thirty fifty. Yeah, they were. Now we're like, well,
he also could be a twenty onehundred player. Sure. I mean there
were a lot of Eric Davis likecomparisons, you know, from Reds fans
because they were looking at nineteen eightyseven and it was like, ooh,
the healthy you know Eric Davis whocan play shortstop. It's like, well
maybe, but that's that's really toughfor anybody to live up to. Anything

(24:45):
else you want to say about aboutthe month of May and the well real
So yeah, so you know acouple things. So something that I've started
doing is this goes back saying mea show. I have started looking at
like three week like cycles, andI've started particularly doing it for hitters.

(25:07):
And I do it, you know, because you know so the aforementioned like
CBS podcast and I'm not I loveyou guys, if you're listening, I'm
sure not listening, but you doa good job. I really enjoy you,
you know your show. I stillI text with Frank Stample like fairly,
like regularly. I made a connectionwith him like at labor not this
year but last year. But Iwas looking at bad at Bald Data and

(25:30):
like something that really in stackass data, and I think I think it was
someone in that show mentioned O'Neil Cruzas a potent as a as a down
mover in ranks, not as asolo and I was thinking it Cruise is
bad at bald data from the lastthree weeks, and I'm like, I
don't know, man, Like,I feel like he's somebody based on that
who yes, the strikeout rates high, but it just wouldn't surprise me at

(25:53):
all if he goes on a heaterjust because he is ex Veloci's top of
the charts MAXIV, which I thinkmight be a little overstated. Sometimes he's
top of the charts. Ball ratehe's second, I mean he's hard hit
rate. I think he's let's see, he's fifth. He is essentially like

(26:14):
right behind Judge and Aaron Judge andmost of these things. And I am
not saying he's going to be AaronJudge. I am saying that there is
more to O'Neil Cruz than his overallnumbers, and that's just one player.
Like these are the kind of thingsthat I'm kind of starting to look at
when it comes to players and beinglike, well, if somebody is hitting
the ball hard and they're doing itover like a three week period and the

(26:36):
results are like completely you know,putrid, that tells me an all likelihood,
yes, they might not sustain thebat and ball data, but in
all likelihood they're they're about to likepick it up, like that's just what
I'm seeing in those numbers like that. That's where the three week kind of
rolling like data is important to me. I don't want to overstate it,

(26:57):
but I do think it matters.And then so there's a second piece here.
And I think I've talked to youabout this before and I've kind of
become the boring, like metaphorical sandwichboard guy to anyone who'll listen. So
I know, we don't what totalk about over over but Corbyn Carrol so
so something that just fascinates me abouthim, and this is the you know,

(27:19):
I think I sent you the It'salways sunny meme where Charlie's you know,
like ranting and raving right with allthe connections. Yeah, it's the
it's the pepe Pepa silvia or yeah, it's a Pepa Silvia meme. So
in any event, Corby and Carrol, you know, people keep pointing to

(27:40):
his like lousy battit ball metrics andall this other stuff. What fascinates me
is that all of that, oralmost all of that, are from the
first two weeks of the season.If you take everything from about April fifteenth
till now and I know it fluctuates, maybe less. It's a little different
at his first half from last year, which was which was the time of
year everybody's like, yeah, Corbyn, Carrol's the god. He get it

(28:03):
for power, this and the otherthose metrics are extremely similar. They're they're
a little bit weaker this year,but they're very close, which which tells
me a lot of things. Likeone thing it tells me is that he's
surely underperforming now. He probably overperformedduring that first half last year. What

(28:23):
I hear a lot is like inthe second half, like, oh,
his shoulder is bothering him and hitfor as much power. I think the
more I look at it, Ithink that what was it, like eighteen
home runs in the first half lastyear was something like that, something like
that. Yeah, I think itwas a fluke. I think he probably
was more likely, you know,a ten to twelve home run hitter in
the first half of twenty twenty threewho overperformed. And so if that's the

(28:45):
case, I think this goes backto what we talked about again, which
is Carol, at some point,I still think it's going to come out
of this slump. It's just he'snot going to be the hitter we were
expecting. He's not going to bea twenty five home run hitter. He
probably is more. He probably ismore of like a fifteen to seventeen home
run seasonal hitter. And and thenreally again, the bizarre thing with him

(29:10):
is the lack of steals, becauseI don't know if you've watched him at
all, I'm sure you have.Anyway, every time I see him,
like tonight he scored a run wherehe was just motoring I think from first
base. I've seen like the oneor two of the four triples he's hit
this month. The dude is fastlike like that. That's the head scratcher.
It's like, why isn't he attemptingto steal more bases? I understand

(29:32):
some of it is you can't stealfirst, but some of it he's got
he's got almost a ten percent walkright there. They're insisting on leading him
off. It's just a head scratcher. Why there haven't been more attempts?
Yeah, I mean I would lookfor that to uptick. I mean,
it was what like two or threeweeks where they hit him lower in the
order, Yeah, it was.It was about two weeks. Yeah,

(29:52):
about two weeks. Yeah, sobut yeah, and you know the just
I mean, he he is gettingon base less, but but not to
the point where he should only havewas he have nine steals, right,
nine steals attempts. Brett Doyle hasmore steels in the last three weeks than

(30:15):
Carol has all year. And Doyle'sfast. I mean, I'm not,
like, you know, it's notJesse Winker, but it's still one of
those things where it's like, oh, man, I could have just drafted
Doyle and you know, way later, and you know, taken Aaron Judge
in the first round and I'd beway happier. So Breton Doyle is actually

(30:36):
a good segue if you're onto tothe the entertainment portion of the podcast.
I mean, so hopefully it's allbeen it would be it would be nice
to be entertaining for Okay, SoI've I've come up with little exercise for
you, Mike Ganella. This wassemi inspired by your article last week that

(31:00):
used Chris Salees kind of an objectlesson about evaluating players in season. I
think a lot of the the rationalefor the article was about trading and trade
value. But what I thought i'ddo is for so I've done this for

(31:21):
catch, your first, second,shortstop, third base, outfield, and
starting pitcher. Now I've got threeplayers for each position, and I will
tell you there. The first thingI will tell you is your fifteen team
mixed auction value for them in yourlast iteration of the bid limits back in

(31:42):
March. Okay. The second number. The second number I'm going to tell
you is their current earned auction value. And this is from the roto Wire
auction value, so it might differfrom your own, but it'll be a
okay enough proxy. I want youto What I want you to do for
each each position is tell me whichof three players which whose value has changed

(32:06):
the most for you for the restof the season, up or down,
and then you can comment on why. Okay, so three three, I
think so. So it's like threeplayers per position, three players per position.
You'll give me my preseason bid,preseason value, current earned value on
pace to earn through the current value, and then okay, okay, then

(32:27):
I'll make a value judgment as towho I think will be the upper down,
like who let's stay the best,whose value has changed the most,
Who's changed? Okay, Yeah,let's just start We'll start with Catcher.
Okay, uh, Salperez, yourpreseason value is ten value. This is
fifteen mixed, right, fifteen teenmixed. I think I got him right,

(32:51):
I got it from the Yeah yeah, be the third and final update.
Yeah, so sal Perez ten dollars, currently earning twenty four. Second,
Ryan Jeffers, you had a valueof three dollars, currently earn earning
seventeen. And Third Shay Langaliers youhad him for two dollars, currently earning

(33:14):
nine. Whose value has changed themost for the rest of the season for
you? I would say Jeffers,just because I that low bid was sort
of a I think he's mostly forreal. I think the average you know,
could and should drop a little bit, but the power to me looks
pretty legitimate, So I think it'sJeffers. Part of it is Perez,

(33:37):
and I haven't been tout words,so I'm pretty happy with him. I
still think there's you know, somelike Fad coming the rest of the way
and Leglers. As much as Ilike him, as average is low enough
that that still tamps down his valuesomewhat. Do you think has your playing
time projection for Jeffers changed? Itall based on his Yeah, yeah start

(33:57):
to the season. Yes, althoughsomething interesting. I think I posted this
on Blue sky Ers sent it toyou. He's way better a hitter as
a catcher than a dh I don'tknow if that means at some point they'll,
you know, kind of stop dhinghim. That could that be my
one concern with him. But yeah, like otherwise, it really looks like

(34:17):
Christian Vasquez is just catching to giveJeffers a break, you know, because
nobody can catch every day. Allright, First base, we've got Josh
Naylor preseason value fifteen, current earnedvalue twenty eight, Pete Alonzo preseason thirty,
current earned value thirteen, and MattOlsen preseason value thirty two, currently

(34:45):
earning a robust eight dollars. Andso what's the who's changed the most for
you for the rest, Well,it's probably Naylor. I believe both a
lot so and especially Olsen will bounceback. Also, is just weird because
then what I was talking about before, like his bat at bal data,

(35:07):
especially in May, has been great. I just think it's a matter of
time for him. So Naylor's theguy that was kind of wrong on and
I know he's I know he's fadedhe's faded lately, but some of that's
like bab up. He's got aone forty six babbit over the last three
weeks, but he at his groundball rate is kind of spike. But

(35:29):
I think Nayler's legit. He's somebodythat was kind of thinking could potentially take
off, and I believe he has. So we're looking at the early season
as kind of a reaching a newlevel for him, not a full breakout,
but a pretty strong Yeah, it'she It's amazing, Like I didn't

(35:49):
even realize he has fifteen home runs. Yeah, yeah, like like he
even even if he only hits liketen to twelve, more like, he's
close. That's close to a thirtyhome run hitter. And the average shouldn't
he shouldn't be a two forty hitter. That's that's kind of bab of fluky.
Yeah, and the two forty doesn'tyou know, if he's earning twenty

(36:09):
eighth then obviously the average isn't reallyhurting him that much in this environment.
If he finishes at two seventy orlike, that wouldn't that wouldn't surprise me?
Okay, second base and I kindof maybe fudge with positional eligibility.
I think I know the answer tothis, but let's do it anyway.

(36:30):
Jordan Westberg did not make your preseasonranks, currently earning twenty four. Bryce
Terrang I don't believe major preseason ranksfor mixed, currently earning twenty two.
David Schneider was a preseason one dollarplayer, now earning ten dollars. I
think it's against mover. I thinkit's Westburg. Yeah, he really he

(36:52):
really looks legitimate to me. Idid. This is one of those like
team context things, like don't underestimatetwo Orioles. They really I know Jackson
Holiday hasn't done anything yet, butthey just look like a team that really
has been able to maximize these players. I was relying too heavily on Westburg's

(37:13):
numbers last year and thinking, oh, he's not He's not going to do
it, And I was going tomake calm out another Oriole but I don't
want to spoil I think in anyother positions if you have them listed there,
so well, just I don't haveany other Orioles. Okay, well
then I'd say Gunnar Henders is anotherplayer like that for me where I think
I underestimated the team. Team contextin terms of development and growth. Yeah,

(37:37):
and I think for Westburg there weresome questions about playing time. I
think it was clear he's going toplay a lot, but with the holiday
thing in question, like if hegot off to a slow start, you
could see him being either you know, moved to a utility roller or sent
sent down for for some some morework. But yeah, he pretty much

(37:59):
grabbed that everyday roll from the openingweek of the season. Okay, so
again, like shortstop, that isgonna be I think another easy one.
But the point is more about howyou respond to the underperforming players. But
we've got some pretty big underperformers ashortstop. We'll start with a good one.

(38:21):
Anthony Volpe preseason bit of nine earningtwenty five, now Boba Schett preseason
twenty seven only earning five. AndDance by Swanson preseason fifteen earning negative four.
Dance by Swanson actually owes you money. Yeah, this one's a little

(38:42):
tougher, but I think I'm gonnaI'm gonna go with Bobaschett. I'm really
I don't want to say I'm worriedabout him, but this kind of goes
back to like last year, Likewhat I noticed about him, is he's
a volume guy. At this point, he hasn't he's not really running anymore.
Yeah, he's running a little morethis year. He's gonna beat the

(39:06):
five steals he had, you know, in twenty twenty three. But otherwise
I don't realize, really power wasso low. I don't realized. Yeah,
And and like just he's one ofthose players like where like everything on
the battball data just keeps pointing inthe wrong direction. I I just don't
he could. Yes, he couldturn around and could be a solid player,

(39:28):
but I don't think he's what whenI remember in the preseason, like
when I put my ranks together,I kind of had Bashett and Abrams close
and I said, hey, youknow, Abrams is the exciting. You
know, he could blow past this. Bashett is sort of the safe.
This looks like his ceiling. Ithink the ceiling is lower than that.
Now, Like, like, wouldwould you take Baschette like right now in

(39:49):
the third round? No? No, no, the fourth round of a
draft. That that's the thing.Like he's he's probably like a fifth or
sixth round. And I don't dothese ranks taking him in a sixth round.
I mean, yeah, the sixthround. It feels like that that's
the Okay, like I took arisk or two. I need volume,
but you need the volume to bebetter like in the fifth or sixth round
if you're gonna make that kind ofsafety pick. Yeah, I don't know.

(40:14):
I hope he turns it around,but it doesn't look good for him
right now at all. You know, I would like to go I'm looking
at his seasonal stat lines and Isuspect that a lot of that twenty twenty
one. I mean, we've mostlytalked about it in the context of flat
Guerrero, but I wonder how muchof that production twenty nine homers, one

(40:38):
hundred twenty one runs one hundred twoRBI steals less matter about the environment,
but a lot of that was inben Eden and Buffalo. I'd have to
go back and look. I mean, the two players I remember looking at
that year were Guerrero, who reallybenefited, and Marcus Semion who benefited.

(40:58):
And I have to admit, likeI a little bit, but you know
he's Marcus Semi has become a reallife star for sure. So yeah,
I'd have to go back and lookat that. Okay, continuing with third
base, a study. In contrastsJose Ramirez a bid of preseason bid of

(41:20):
thirty four, currently earning fifty two, which is actually the highest in the
majors right now. Alec Bohm preseasonthirteen, currently earning twenty six, Nolan
Aeronato preseason nineteen, currently earning three. Who has changed the most for you?
I hate to do another negative one, but probably Garnatto, Like I've

(41:45):
heard other people say this, butit's just sort of that problem of he
was maximizing his pull power. Ifhe's not doing that, I don't know.
And frankly, I think what Iwas hoping with that projection is that
he kind of split the difference betweentwenty two and twenty three. We now
have data like you throw the pandemic, you're out. But we have data

(42:07):
like three of the last four yearswhere he's kind of a slightly above average
hitter. Yeah, like more powercould come, but I don't know,
like this just we see this likeat third base in particular, two Like
players like this can fall off reallyquickly. So yeah, I I really
he really makes me nervous. Sothis is this is interesting because I think

(42:30):
you know, both you and Ihave been maybe partial toward undervalued veterans in
the past who might have you know, who had a really solid track record,
maybe had a down year and thenwe could sort of bet on something
of a comeback. But like itseems like more and more players like when
they're when they're cooked, that ithappens. And I'm not saying Eronata is

(42:52):
completely cooked, but I mean he'sdefinitely definitely, you know, step down
a few tears. Yeah, althoughyou know, I think you remember,
I did try to move away fromthat, like you which is funny because
I did, like I still woundup with Arnatto in a couple of leagues,
I mean, to be fair,one was you know Ena only where

(43:12):
you know, if you have apulse, you know you're you're potentially welcome
with the price is right, uh, Whereas Paul Goldschmid is someone I just
avoided from that standpoint of like,yeah, I don't like the trend lines,
I don't like the age. Youknow, yes he went to drive
line, but this isn't some younghitter, you know, learning his craft
as an older hitter who you know, could it be at the beginning of

(43:32):
a decline phase? Okay, outfield, I didn't do relievers, by the
way, so we just had outfield, thank thank thank god. It's kind
of pointless outfield. Jerkson Profar notranked in your bid limits that you published
in the pre season, earning twentyeight, the aforementioned Brenton Doyle also unranked,

(43:59):
currently earning twenty and Michael Harris thesecond preseason value of twenty nine,
currently earning eight. Well, it'sa tough one because you could make a
good case. I think, well, I don't think it's Profar, like
it's not profile propose value has changed, like he certainly should have been listed,

(44:20):
although that's more of a well youknow who knew he's popped up before
it. Yeah, it's one ofthe other two. It's a tough call.
I'm gonna say Doyle just because Ithink he can do enough with that
skill set, Like I think theaverage should slip a little bit, but
he should do enough with that skillset. And this is the caveat of
if he stays in cores, there'sdefinitely the potential here for him to do

(44:47):
more. And it's kind of someof some of the other players, which
is well, even if all hedoes is hit, like you know,
two fifty two, sixty and stealthirty five bases and hit like ten to
twelve runs. There's value in that, Like, there's certainly value in that
profile. I think the one concernI have is if the strikeouts go the

(45:07):
other way, it could go wrongin a hurry. But yeah, I
think it's Doyle. Okay, littleside quest here, who ends the season
with more fantasy earned fantasy value BrentonDoyle or Corbridge and Carrol. Sorry,
oh god, I still want tosay Carrol, but I I gotta be

(45:30):
honest, like, I well,if you're saying from now the rest of
the season, it's no, I'mtalking about end of season line, like
whole season earned value. Wow,that's a you're killing me, man.
Sorry, that's pretty. It ispretty. It is pretty dark. But
here's the thing, like, evenif you look at the rest, let
let's do a thought exercise here,Like let's look at the rest of the

(45:52):
season projections, which are still goingto very like heavily you know, favor
or you would think favorite Carol soOil. Like let's take his atc so
Doyle. It's like sixteen homers,thirty one steals probably about like a two
and you're adding you're you're adding theearth, I'm adding them to the R

(46:12):
O S. Yeah average, whichI'd have to kind of eyeball because that's
clearly not a fifty to fifty.You know, you can't just split the
difference. Let's say two fifty average. Yeah. Yeah, So so let's
let's look at Carol. So Carol, Yeah, sixteen home runs thirty nine
steals. It's close. I mean, if you go by the projections,

(46:35):
it's Carol, but not by alot, like like, yeah, it's
it's close. And really I'd stillgo with Carol. But you know,
if you were asking me to placea sizeable bed, I'd be like,
no, no, no, thankyou, Like I'll here's five, here's
a five dollars. Let's let's havea fun little five dollars bet, Like,
let's let's not make anything all right, Well, well, well we'll

(46:58):
flag that and return to it,you know, possibly to sob into our
I don't think I'll ever want totalk about like unless Corbyn Carroll goes off
for the next four months. Idon't think I ever want to talk about
him again. We're putting a We'reputting a moratorium on Carol talk until until
there are better days. The finalposition I have for you is starting pitcher.

(47:22):
So let's go with maybe an obviouschoice for this year, but Ranger
Suarez. You had a preseason bitof two dollars on him. He's currently
earning forty two dollars. He's beenChris Sale the subject of your article preseason
bit of six, currently earning thirtyfour. And going in the other direction,

(47:44):
Kevin Gosman preseason bit of thirty one, currently earning negative four dollars.
I think I think it's Suarez thosethree. So this kind of goes full
circle with Sale. So if youdidn't read my piece about Sale, the
argument or the premise that I kindof had was like, well, look
like we know Sale can can begreat when he's healthy, and that's what

(48:07):
he's doing right now. I ifI had to place an over under like
on his innings, if you putone fifty on the over under for his
innings for the full season, Ithink I think you bet the under,
and if you're wrong, okay,you're wrong, like you miss. Shit
happens. But Suarez to me isgood enough. Where is he an ace?

(48:31):
No? But but he's probably asolid like number two. And I
think here, here's here's the thingfor you. So if I was doing
we were doing our preseason thing,right, and I was like, it
is Suarez like a top twenty fiveor thirty pitcher where I try to take
him as well like my SP three, you know, at most in like

(48:52):
a fifteen team format where we're doingthe strategy of taking the three starters and
then backfilling. Oh hell, yes, Suarez is definitely gonna fit that model.
Would we rather have Ranger Suarez orDan Bobby right now? I'm sure
I'm sure everybody would rather have Suarez. Yeah, but even rest of season,
I think yeah. So so nowgo Goussman just to you know,

(49:14):
kind of talk about him a littlebit. This could mostly be perception like
we we don't have him anywhere.It would be really funny as much as
we like gripe about Lindor if wehad taken Causman, I do have him
in my home league too. WasOkay, I I don't ye, I
don't have him anywhere. But thething about him, I have a feeling
that if I look at his splits, it's not as much April as I

(49:38):
thought, but it is some ofit, like he's he's been better like
the strikeouts in particular, or liketrending way up in May, his like,
I mean, his his deserve islike off the charts this month,
and it's really it's really three badoutings, which I know it's the fallacy

(49:59):
of like, well those those badaddings count, but well last three,
just to do the the total hehad the last three, it's been a
two five O E R A.And yeah, well well the question here
is would I move him down fromthat lofty like bit limit. Sure,

(50:20):
yeah, would not as much asyou'd moves up right, and really like,
would Goussman still be in that topthirty for me if we're doing a
rest of the season draft, Like, yeah, I think so. I
think I would look at him like, well, you know what, he
had those issues, like he's he'smostly turned it around. I still he'd
still be in enough of my circleof trust to be like, yeah,

(50:43):
you know what, I'll take it. And you're right, like, I
know those three outings count, butI kind of look at the profile like,
you know, if you want tolike cherry pick the other way,
if you take out his first threestarts, you know, and one of
those starts was was fine only wentfour to thirty. It was like a
tune up. I think about Castmantoo, right, like he was coming

(51:05):
back from an injury. So youcould look at the first three starts as
like, well, you know hewas rusty. You take that out and
he has like a two six cR straightout rate. Is it as impressive
looking at that way, But it'sstill like a little bit over a K
over nine. So yeah, outsideof those first three starts, and that
includes one of the three blubs youmentioned, he's been good and I think

(51:27):
he'll continue to be good. Myother, my other choice for that last
startup pitcher was was Pablo Lopez,who also has very similar preseason value and
earned value so far. But I'mstill I'm still not all that worried about
Lopez. You know, it's justthat weird. The home runs are up
a little bit everything else I kindof look at like, yeah, like

(51:52):
it's it's annoying. You know,a lot of what it is is just
some of that, like the thethe left up base is is bad,
Like that's I mean bad for him, Like that's kind of flukey. The
fly ball rate is up and thatthat's fueling the home runs. But yeah,
I I maybe the overall numbers won'tbe as good. You know,
people play this out too, likethe thing about Pablo and maybe where I

(52:15):
overrated him slightly. I looked atthose that strikeout run and said said,
yeah, this could be a guywho finishes like with the three and you
know, has two hundred plus strikeouts. It could just be more of this,
more of last year where he's morelike a three you know, five,
three, six guide if you justfor context, this year it might
be better than that. But Istill see a ton of strikeouts coming for
him. And you know, winsare wins where it's like who who really

(52:37):
knows? How that? How thehell that's going to shake out? Yeah.
The other the other thing with withRanger, well, a few things
like first of all, and itwould be interesting because the player that I
think of when I think of Rangeras far as this year, I think
of last year justin Steele a bit. Yeah, I've heard I've heard that

(52:58):
calmp Okay, I don't know ifI heard it, so I might be
just replicating something that's been lodged inmy in my noggin. But yeah,
but for the most part, uhSo, eleven starts seventy two innings pitch,
so averaging over six innings a start, like a markedly improved strikeout rate,

(53:22):
you know, both in terms ofper nine and just raw percentage,
and same improven with the walk rate. So like, yeah, he's probably
way out over his skis, butwhat's he gonna what's he going to regress
too? And I think it's goingto be a pretty a pretty decent pitcher.
So yeah, and he's on agood team. He's on a team

(53:42):
that's winning every goddamn game they playexcept maybe against my Giants. Well,
you know, he had a badgame in Coors Field, which is like,
okay, like everybody gets a mulliganfor that. Yeah, I know,
the right, Yeah, and abad game was not that bad,
but right exactly, it's not likeyou gave up ten runs in two innings
where you're like, oh crap,I shouldn't have started. It's an you

(54:05):
know, it was a two startweek where it's like, okay, fine,
like that's to be expected. Yeah. It's funny. I'm looking at
last year's like e er A leadersat this time, and last year's leader
was Bryce Elder. He had aone point He had a one point nine
too. I'm not comparing Elder toso far as by the way, I'm
just laughing that, you know,so much of this stuff is just we

(54:31):
get so obsessed with what's real andwhat is but pitch starting pitchers in particular,
so much can change between now andthe end of the season, like
just just like so much can cankind of bounce around. All right,
that's my game. Okay, Wellthat was that was That was fun.

(54:52):
Maybe we should do that again atsome point in time. You know,
something I do notice is, youknow, before we finished, like at
the guys at the bottom, likean e ra, that seems like stickier,
where like if somebody was having abad year, like the die is
kind of cast. So if there'sa reason I'd be nervous about Pablo,
I guess that would that would beit. That even if he recovers or

(55:14):
you know, cough cough, likesmell cough cough, like the the dies
cast or guys like that, whereit's like, oh crap, like they're
probably not like gonna be able todig out of this hole as much as
I thought they could. Okay,five point seventyer v r A h over
ten k P nine less than onewalk per nine. Oh yeah, I

(55:37):
mean, and not even a ridiculoushomer and like it's you know, it's
it's about a homer and a halfper nine one point six five. Oh
oh oh, I know, Imean, I I don't. It's not
thinking at May's it's it's a walkand a half for nine. So my
bad. I know what you're saying. Though, his everything, like in

(55:59):
the overall like peripheral peripheral numbers exceptfor the homers, looks so good that
you're like, well, he hasto improve, like he has to get
better. Like I say, it'snot hard to see. No, all
right, let's get let's get outof here. Okay, Well, thanks

(56:39):
for listening to episode three ten ofFlags Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectives fantasy
baseball podcast. It's almost June.You know the website, if you're listening,
you love the website. But iffor some weird reason you're not a
subscriber. Why You've got Nathan Grimm'sDeep League Landscape, which really is one

(57:00):
of the better like deep league columnsout there. You've got Ryan Boyer's category
Helpers columns. I find those are. It was a nice little slant and
you've got the stash list with TimothyJackson. It's a great Really. I
use that as a resource for likemy my deeper mixed leagues to kind of
figure out who I might be ableto stash on the one team that doesn't

(57:20):
have, like, you know,just a million injuries. So for Mike
Chanella, John Hagland, thank youvery much. We'll be back with you
at some point soon. Meet theMets, Meet the Mets, good night.
Oh you just turned my stomach.Sorry, that's all right. M