July 12, 2024 • 45 mins
Hey, it's (just past) the middle of the season, so Mike and Jon talk a bit about how patience with slow starters and consistent FAABing have worked wonders for their suddenly-halfway-decent Main Event squad.
Then we dive into Mike's midseason valuations, which you can find here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/92181/midseason-fantasy-valuation-update-2024/
Sure, the pitching landscape looks weird but--guess what?--it does every year at midseason. We talk about what to do if your staff is full of found money like Reynaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, and Jake Irvin. (spoiler: don't stand pat!)
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.
Then we dive into Mike's midseason valuations, which you can find here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/92181/midseason-fantasy-valuation-update-2024/
Sure, the pitching landscape looks weird but--guess what?--it does every year at midseason. We talk about what to do if your staff is full of found money like Reynaldo Lopez, Seth Lugo, and Jake Irvin. (spoiler: don't stand pat!)
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.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:21):
Welcome to episode three thirteen, FlagsFly Forever, a baseball perspective Fantasy baseball
podcast. You know the drill.It's me Mike Jianella and it's you John
Haglund. How you doing, John, I'm doing a right. It feels
like it's been a few weeks andcertainly a while since we've done a just
(00:42):
just the two of us podcasts.So yeah, how's your how's your summer
been. It's been okay. Imoved to a new office. As you
know, I feel like most ofmy summer is driving my kids around to
their jobs. My wife is helpingout too, but that you know,
if you want something to make youfeel old, and we're not gonna turn
(01:03):
the bad cast, but driving yourkids around to their jobs, really,
it really is just that thing.Yeah, yeah, not quite definitely in
the driving around, driving my kidaround, but not so far. It's
it's not not to any place ofemployment, but yeah, yeah, it's
it's it feels like finally, youknow, in the Northwest here, it
(01:26):
takes a while for summer to gethere. But we've got the upper nineties
heat this week. Just had alittle vacation last week, We've got we've
got a small kitten that hanging outwith me right now that we've we're fostering
(01:47):
for a week, and yeah,it's it's a it's a busy time but
also a fun time. So Ithink we're going to talk about some baseball
since we are our This is ourfirst podcast after the the official middle of
the season, and we're coming upon the All Star break after that,
(02:08):
after that, after that five starpodcast that we we did the last time.
It's five stars. If you ifyou listen, if you listen to
it, you know what we're talkingabout. If you don't, you know,
don't, don't go back and listento it. Well, no,
always go back and listen. Thatis the official party line of Flag Forever.
(02:30):
Sure. Yeah, So we arecoming up on the All Star break
and we want to have just acouple of topics for conversation. In a
little bit, we'll talk about Mike'smid season valuations that went up on the
site. When last week earlier,this was it was as well it was
(02:51):
today, so today when you hearthis, it will probably be yesterday.
So so there's still pretty current,Like I don't go in and update them
daily, and it's still a prettymanual process. But I like to give
folks stuff to look at. Butyeah, I think we'll get into that.
We'll leave that a little bit forlater. This this is what they
call a teaser in the in thepodcast game. So I I at the
(03:15):
risk of being and this is notgoing to be just about our main event
team, which we we did talkabout quite a bit in in April and
May, and if you if youremember back to those those episodes, we
were doing very very poorly. Yeah, like we really bad about that because
(03:40):
yeah, I mean we were wewere at times we were I think fourth
from the bottom in the overall.Yeah, like for a day or two.
But but but for the first bot, like you know, like,
well I just pulled up, Likeso on April twenty first, we were
like in last in our league.We were fourteen out in our league.
(04:00):
This was an overall and we wereeight hundred and forty third, you know,
overall out of what is it likeeight hundred and you know, fifty
some teams. I don't know whatthe exact number is, but yeah,
yeah it was bad. It's afifty five. So you know, I've
heard like you know, Jeff Ericsonof Rode wire when it was guest recently
(04:21):
he talks about the seven hundred club. We were in the eight hundred club,
and yeah, it was. Itwas after like almost a month of
games, like not quite but itYeah, it felt bad where it's like,
well, not ever. We canwin the main event obviously, and
we frankly in our first year andexpect to. But I think our main
thing was like, well, wedon't want to like embarrass ourselves, like
we don't want to finish the yearwhere people look at us and go,
(04:43):
okay, the two BP experts suck. That That was really and that's that's
what it felt like, what washappening right, And I think what I
also said back then is that asmuch as I'm the person of all people,
it's like, don't get emotional.It's a long season, et cetera,
et cetera. I was getting prettyemotional. I think we both were.
I think we were both in ourfeelings about about this tape. It
(05:03):
was very Yeah, it was veryunpleasant, and I think it was it
was go ahead, No, Ilike, we drafted a team that we
kind of knew would have a slowstart, Like we drafted like some injured
players and you know the Situationally wekind of like, well, we know
(05:25):
we're not going to get after arowing start with this team. I just
think it was the degree of suckatudethat that got to yes, sure,
yes, yes, and and youknow, we pointed out the headline was,
of course our first round draft pickCorby Carroll, who has actually,
while he's improved slightly, he's stillhe's a big. He's a big somewhere.
(05:47):
I mean, yes, yes,I mean, there's no other way
to put it. It's a wet, flaming turn of a pick, like
like really, there's no I meanshort of not that he was available,
but like sure of taking like SpencerStrider, like you know, just got
hurt. I think that's what's frustratingtoo, is if Corbett Carroll like got
hurt on April fifteenth, that wouldhave sucked and was out for the season
(06:08):
and be like, Okay, well, you know, shit happens, people
get hurt. Like it's disappointing,but that's life. It's the fact that
he's playing and playing and playing anddoing what he's doing. It's like,
oh man, this is playing andplaying and playing. Until he wasn't always
playing and playing and playing and he'sjust and he's and he's and to your
point, John, he's just beingproductive enough that it's we can't really cut
(06:30):
him, like like like a ina standalone league, I might consider it
because I might be like, Okay, well let's let's get a power hitter,
let's get something else. But butin this league, it's like,
well, it doesn't really do usany good to like continue, you know.
And Franklin's another thing, like we'rewe're first or near first now and
home runs runs in RBI, solike to cut him to get power it's
like, well that doesn't really help. But see, this is what I
(06:53):
wanted to you know, so ourour listeners are are wondering why I'm bringing
this up now. In the secondweek of July. Yeah, so we
could just rant about, which wecertainly could do, but let's let's let's
let's commit to not doing that.Feed under. Yeah. So we have
improved considerably since then, and youknow, we've gone from last, you
(07:18):
know, sort of balancing around thelast two or three spots in our league
to now bouncing around the fourth andfifth spots our points. I mean,
we're we're in six for a littlebit. But yeah, we're we're kind
yeah right, you know, we'rein the nineties as far as our points
and more, I think more importantly, we're up to the I think we're
(07:43):
as high as like the two forties. And overall currently we're too Yeah,
we're don too, but it fluctuatesa lot. Yeah, so the overall
contest. But the takeaway here orthe thing I want to get to is
what happened, Mike, Like weand and here's the here's the interesting thing.
(08:03):
I know, you know, FranciscoLindora is a lot of it,
but he's certainly not the whole story. But we have, you know,
affected what I think it's a prettydramatic improvement because this really happened over the
course of about three weeks. Ithink we have a kind of meteoric rise.
Carol has been sucking the whole time. Manny Machado has been you know,
(08:26):
bad too, average, Pablo Lopezhas been on the whole quite disappointing.
Blake Snell has been mostly injured andwhen not injured, just a complete,
you know, flaming turd. Asyou was good, but his I
mean, you know, you've reallyreally a bit better off with him not
(08:46):
on our roster. Yeah, yeah, I think yeah, I'm not sure.
I wonder if the Giants feel thatway too, uh, and so
it's it's astonishing to me. Andwhen I think about it, whether or
not we finish, you know,in the money, whether you know it's
top three in our league or topthirty five in the overall, still a
(09:07):
long shot for us. But it'spretty incredible that we have managed to improve
so much with our top line,our top essentially like what five out of
our first six picks being just bad? I guess I guess you'd say,
right, I mean, did wewhen did we say? So? We
did? Carol Lopez Lindor Machado Snell, Right, yeah, the first five?
(09:35):
That sounds that sounds right. Okay, So Mike, what happened?
How did how did things take aturn for the better? Well, I
mean this is a really like longquestion. All you you have been curious
as to like who we took inin round six, because you know,
we went fivey right? That wasthat was Peter. It was Pete Fairbanks,
who honestly hasn't really been He's beenfine, but you know it's not
(10:00):
like it was you know somebody whereit's like wow, that's the guy who
turned it around. So this isthis is what's interesting about this. So
I this team is not going todo as well as do you about to
talk about. But I won toutWars two years ago. It was a
fifteen team mix league, and itwas kind of a similar thing where I
don't think that the first ten thefirst ten rounds weren't any great shakes,
(10:24):
and the hitters in particular were notgreat and I'm not going to relive Oh
jeez, I even forgot about TristanCassas in round eight. Sorry, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So I thinkthere's a couple of things here.
I think the first thing is thatone, your team is not as determined
in the first few rounds as peoplethink, and that this is true particularly,
(10:46):
I think there's a mythology about deepmix leagues. It's like, Okay,
if you don't nail your picks,there's not enough in the free agent
pool. Like there's some truth tothat, right, But but it's also
like, well, you know,what really matters is kind of how you
do like like down in the middleat the bottom. And I don't want
to say we aced like those portionsof the draft, but but I do
(11:09):
think like when you look at ourteam and look at like some of our
key players, there's a lot toothat, like like the guy that leads
our team at home runs and AnthonySantander, and we didn't get him particularly
early. It's you know, BrandonNeimo. You know, I don't want
to get too much as we didn'tdraft him, but he was dropped and
(11:30):
you know, I think we talkedabout this at the time and even then
we were like, oh my gosh, like we you know, we spent
so much fab on him. Itwas it was obviously too much because we
bid way more than the next team. But he has been essential, like
to to our squad, like CarlosKorea, you know, boring pick.
You know, I get hurt atone point it was almost like haha,
very predictable. He's another one,like he's kind of been a glue guy
(11:54):
for us. So like on thehitting side, I think it's just kind
of a lot of that boring consistency, and then the pitching side, it's
really weird. You remember before theseason where I was kind of like the
pitchers after the first eight rounds arerandom. Well, we've benefited from the
randomness, right, Like you know, if you look at some of the
pictures we've taken. Yeah, sure, we dropped Alex Wood and we took
(12:15):
like near the very end. Buta lot of these other guys like Brady
Singer and you know, like afew of the others that we drafted have
been you know, good or atthe very least like fine, Like Neesther
Cortez. Yes, he had abad night tonight, but Nesther Cortez,
like you look at his whip andeverything. It's at his lack of wins
is disappointing, but otherwise like,yeah, he's he's been completely okay.
(12:37):
So are we going to you know, I think you mentioned like finishing,
you know, in the top thirtyin the overall, that is not going
to happen. I think realistically,if we can climb up to say the
top one hundred in the overall andfinish in the top three in our bracket,
that would be a great outcome,like given where we started. No,
it's not the goal, and youknow, I'm not gonna you know,
(13:00):
at the end of the year belike woo, let's you know,
teut this is a great win forus, But it does speak a lot
to the idea of persistence, right, and and just plugging away. I
didn't even mention Jose Miranda, butyou know, just plugging away and be
like, Okay, well this sucks. But the worst thing you can do
in any league is just give upand say, oh, the season's over.
I think more than else is it'sthat whole it's the long season thing,
(13:22):
right, There's so much focus onthe first two weeks or three weeks
and you know what happened and howbad it is. And yes, the
start we had was fatal to us, you know, to your point,
like winning the overall or coming close, But it didn't mean this was a
bad team, Like I think onsome level, I always had faith that
we had a good team on thewhole. Yeah, And and I think
(13:45):
no one typifies that more than FranciscoLindor who I know, you know,
other than Carol's probably the player we'vewe've talked about the most, just you
and I, who, Yeah,had had a terrible April and since then
has been well. I you know, from I think I looked from after
(14:07):
April, he had like a onethirty seven WRC plus he's running, you
know, on a pace for abouttwenty five steals twenty five homers. The
averages is creeping up, and itwas you know, really a matter of
I think Lindor typifies this and Ithink it happened to some degree with Schwarber
(14:30):
as well. That you just haveto you know, and it's not like
we have a choice because these areplayers that you know, to your point
about Carol, that we're obviously notgoing to cut, but you have to
trust that they are going to comecloser to their project projections and that April
is just one month out of outof six. Yeah. Well, well,
(14:52):
the thing the thing with Lindor comparedto Carol is that with Carol,
I think right away, particularly thefirst two weeks, there were huge concerns
with him, Like the bad atbaal data was was horrendous. He just
didn't look quite right. His likeapproach was was terrible. Was Lindora watching
him, It's like, yeah,he had some bad at bats, but
there was nothing I really saw thatI was like, Okay, like this
(15:16):
is a different player. He's worse. You know, he's hiding an injury.
Ages getting him is more like,look, I think he'll be fine
and maybe he'll be like a twentytwenty player instead of a you know,
close to a thirty thirty one.But I don't really see the padic here.
You know, I keep referencing thisto you, and I wish I
could remember who it was, Likethere was a guest I mentioned before on
(15:37):
one of the rona Ware jeff Ericksonpodcasts, who And this is very interesting.
I think maybe it's good that maybeit's good that we don't remember.
Yeah, I don't want to.I don't want to slag this person,
you know specifically, but like whoeverit was, you know, he's like,
you know, I I I didn'tlike Lindor coming to the season,
but he said not me, youknow I, And you know it was
sort of the old confirmation biased thing, like this proves what I thought.
(16:00):
He can't. He can't return morethan like fifth or sixth round value now,
meaning even after even if you recoverfrom the poor start, he won't
do that. And we know it'snot true. Like I think right now
Lindor is on pace to like bringback like late second round value, which
is about what I was expecting,right Like I kind of looked at him,
like, no, he's not goingto break into the first round,
(16:21):
but he's kind of a boring,you know, boring floor player, and
that he runs a lot. He'sa lot of home runs. He's in
a good lineup, like this iswhat he should do and that's that's kind
of where he is now. Andwell he could he slump again, sure,
because he's a two fifty hitter,and that's the nature of like two
fifty hitters, they go through theirslumps. But I'm not gonna lose sleep
about like Francisco Lindor being a fantasydisappointment. He he just kind of is
(16:45):
what he is, right, Likeyou look at him with the Mets,
and he's a good he's not evena great hitter. That's funnying about him
if you look at his you knowDRC plus, like he's a good to
very good hitter, but it's justall the fantasy stuff that comes with it
that makes him makes him worth likethe price of admission. Well, and
you said, you know, Ithink you say a top top twenty hitter.
(17:11):
Well he's he's per your your rankings. He's ninth in the NL among
n L hitters in your midst evaluationsfor twenty nine dollars, which I'm guessing
is pretty close to your preseason valuationfor him. Yeah, it's about that's
about right, So you know,it's it's early July and Francisco Lindor shocker
(17:33):
turns out to be Francisco Lindor,you know. And and yeah, and
I think the other point about howwe're we've managed to improve with some many
of our you know, Carol anda few others not really performing or you
know, going out with injury.It is that those kind of like marginal
(17:56):
gains you get, you know,through weekly fab and this is this is
I think maybe we talked a littlebit about trading because NFBC obviously if you're
at all familiar with the format,you know it's there is no trading,
So your in season acquisitions are goingto be uh via via fab. And
(18:18):
I think we've obviously and I guesswhat I have come to accept, and
I think you have helped me getinto this mindset is that you know,
you just keep churning and week toweek the players you might get are you
know, many of them are justnot going to pan out. But if
(18:38):
you have that volume that turnover,you do get a Jose Miranda, right,
you do get a Carlos Santana whoyou know, has fallen off a
little bit, but for a monthor so he was he was just great.
And when we needed a first baseman, you know, you do get
some pictures that that could actually youknow, that can actually help you.
(18:59):
So yeah, I mean going backto your your first point about the myth
of your draft being determined it byyour first few picks. There's so many
different ways to get to success,and we're not, you know, and
it might be that Corby Krollin meansthat we're not going to get into the
top fifty or the top thirty inthe main event overall, but you know,
(19:22):
we really had no right to expectthat we would get above like three
hundred the way we started. Yeah, I think after the first there was
a point where I was sort oflike, well, like for what we're
you know, for the buy in, I'm not going to ever completely give
up. But if we didn't havethat three week run in June, I
(19:44):
probably like, well like, okay, like we'll keep paying attention to this,
but how much really can I keepinvesting in this team, like emotionally
and mentally. So yeah, ithas changed our mentality, even though again,
you know, I do want toemphasize I'm not touting this is a
great success. Like I think wemade some mistakes for sure that if we
do decide to do this again nextyear, like there's things to learn from
(20:08):
and and grow on. Yeah,and I think that, you know,
really, whether whether or not wewin anything, I think the fact that
I'm imagining you feel, you knowsimilarly, it's that I it's July and
I still am excited to you know, check the scores and you know,
(20:32):
see how the team is doing.And you know, you and I are.
I think if if our team wasyou know, still mired in like
the five hundreds of the six hundreds, we'd probably be paying less attention data
excuse me, day to day andyou know, we wouldn't be texting each
other and you know, are allcaps when one of our players, you
know, it's a run, andthat's you know, that's the that's part
(20:56):
of the reason, you know whyjoy fantasy baseball. It's exactly that fun,
whether or not you win in theend. Well, it was a
great thing about like doing this withsomebody like like Brett. Sarah and I
do a league together too, andwe did labor together for a couple of
years and that is the fun thingabout doing a team with somebody. He's
getting excited with somebody, Like yes, if it's your team and you're by
(21:18):
yourself, you're still excited. Butit's a very solitary experience, whereas yeah,
it's fun when you run a teamwith somebody, it's like yeah,
this guy did great, or eventhe other way like oh, you know,
I can't believe this player, usuallya pitcher, like you know,
like sucks so much tonight. It'sit's a shared experience. I think that
adds to ads to it. Iknow that having a partner's not for everybody,
(21:40):
but I think you and I havedone a pretty good job of like
splitting up the work, I guess, and kind of like I had a
lot of the draft stuff. You'vehad a lot of transactions, but you've
been like, hey, you know, this is what I want to do,
But what do you think as opposedto just take it to dictating and
saying, Okay, this is whatwe're doing on the transaction side. Yeah,
And I think the fact that we'vebeen podcasting for a while and we
(22:03):
talk about this so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you know,
it's not like maybe a lot differentyou know, going into this with
someone you know, I didn't havethat kind of rapport with as far as
baseball. Yeah, I will alsosay, like I think some of it
is that I probably the younger versionof me would have been much more stubborn
(22:25):
and more like no, I wantto do this my way and like having
a partner with have But I waslike I've gotten older. I'm like,
well, I mean this is important, but it certainly isn't like the be
all and end all, like it'sit's fantasy baseball. If I ever feel
that upset or sad about it,you know, it's the whole touch grass
thing, right, Like I needto go outside and get some perspective on
it. It's it's not the endof the world. No, no,
(22:47):
no. But what's funny is that, like I can tell from some text
when I if I float an ideaand I could tell you're you're not into
it, It's pretty it's pretty apparentto me. Well, like like justin
Turner, the just intern of thing. Yeah, So yeah, I don't
know, do you want to pivotto just a few your valuations before we
(23:11):
get out of here? Yeah,let's uh, let let's do that.
So I don't know where you wantto start if you want me to start.
I know we've done this in thepast, and usually it's kind of
a Q and A. But Ithink you've also had me sort of tee
off and explain like what they are, like what they aren't, and you
know, et cetera. Well youcan, you can certainly do that.
And I was just going to beginby asking you a very open ended question.
(23:37):
And you know, some of thisyou might have hinted at in your
article which everyone should go read andsubscribe to Baseball Perspectives if you're not a
subscriber, But just like what stoodout to you as you you know,
as you compiled these these numbers formid season, Well, I think one
of the there are a couple ofthings that stood out, and one of
(23:59):
them was, you know, isthat I think we keep hearing a depressed
offensive environment. I know I do. I think you do too. But
in a depressed offensive environment, Iwould expect the guys at the top to
also be depressed, and they're reallynot like I like, if you look
at the like Bobby Witch, youdon't know how they feel on the inside.
(24:23):
That's true, that's true. Butlike if you look at the top
in the ale, like you know, Bobby Witch Junior, Aaron Judge,
Gunner Henderson, Jose Ramirez. There'sreally a lot of firepower at the top
that I wouldn't expect to see ifit were truly an era of like okay,
like these hitters all are just notdoing very well. I know some
(24:45):
of that is the stolen based environment, but but that's that's not it entirely.
Like you know, some of thesehitters, like Judge Judge in particular,
Yeah, it's a few steals whichhelps them out a little bit,
but it's not really you know thing. And then similarly, you know a
lot of people talk about pitching andhow pitching it is really like, oh,
(25:07):
I can just pick up any oldpicture now I know. So this
is because I'm doing mono league valuesand not mixed league values. But even
so, like I was, Iwas expecting, say, the top pictuer
in the AL to like be maybelike a thirty dollars pitcher, but that's
not the case. It's Sarah Scuball, who's a thirty six dollars pitcher.
And this is something that I thinkit's lost on people. Don't look at
(25:30):
these numbers like I do too,not much in valuation. This is different
from you know what the players do. Not much invaluation really changes from year
to year. Yeah, there's somechanges on the margins. But and I
was said that a couple of yearsago, like when the first round of
expansion back in nineteen ninety three,that was a seismic valuation change. There
(25:51):
was so much more offense that yearthan the year before. We just haven't
seen a change like that. Yeah, feel must have been pretty pretty offensive.
It was, although I think it'sthe year to year change when it
jumps out, like the number ofhome runs like that year that jumped up,
Like we're not nearly as much fromninety two to ninety three, like
(26:15):
in terms of like per per teamor per game. Okay, yeah,
I mean it was. It was. It was like a high number,
and it did depress like home runvalues. But I think twenty eighteen was
already And you should go back andread the arc of a couple of weeks
ago about this if you didn't,you know, the one that starts to
the movie analogy. But yeah,I think that's really what it is,
(26:37):
is that, like the last fewyears, we've really been living in a
big home run environment, and Ithink people forget that, and so when
home runs drops somewhat, it's like, oh, no, home runs are
really down, and it's like,well, there's more home runs now than
there were like during the steroid era, Like it's not you know, it's
just a it's a big time forhome runs. So how do you want
(26:59):
people to use these valuations like youknow, it's mid season, it's it's
on the one hand, it's ait's a kind of you know, it's
it's validation or confirmation of performances thathave been either wildly above or wildly below
average. But how do you thinkthese numbers are useful to you know,
(27:21):
the average fantasy player going forward?So I think some of it Probably the
most important thing to me, andthis is how I've always used them,
is it offers context that you mightnot have otherwise. You know, I
think some people will look at apicture and think, oh, like,
(27:41):
this picture's great, you know thatthat one isn't you know, this picture's
contributed that that much to my team. But when you actually look at the
values and how they break down,it really gives you a better idea or
concept of like, oh, okay, well, as much as I thought
that like Cole Reagan's for example,was really contributing, you know, like
(28:03):
x amount, he's less valuable thanlike say Jack Flaherty. And I think
that's something that might throw people fora loop because they might look at reagan'ss
like strikeouts and some of his othernumbers and think that he's significantly better.
But it's like, well, youknow, actually Flaherty has it's close,
but you know, he actually hasa slight edge. So that's really what
(28:26):
I want. I kind of wantpeople to use it for that purpose.
Probably a big thing with pitching thatI think often gets lost is that saves
tend to be overrated. Now ifyou know, we were talking about a
NFBC before you play it and overallit's different, and that's not what this
is designed for. This is designedfor standalone, but a standalone league,
you know, looking at the NLfor a second. And this happened last
(28:48):
year too. Like Tanner, Scottis the fourth most valuable reliever in the
NL, despite the fact that heonly has thirteen saves. I think that
kind of blows people's minds. Ithink, oh, you know, Scott's
disappointment he's not saving games. It'slike, well, he's he's disappointing that
you need those saves. You hadto get them somewhere else. But he's
contributed so much everywhere else that he'sstill really valuable. Mm hmm. Yeah.
(29:11):
And I mean also just thinking abouthow to use these going forward.
I mean, a good reason whyScooball and Seth Lugo are the top two
starters in the al is you know, schoo Ball has ten wins, Lugo
has eleven wins, and they're greatand in you know, the the r
(29:37):
N whip and schools very very goodin strikeouts too. But you know,
there is a kind of you know, it's very arbitrary going forward, you
know, you don't, I mean, you would not tab the Tigers and
the Royals as teams that are goingto generate a lot of wins for their
their starters. So it's it's away to frame the valuations in terms of
(30:03):
this is just talking about the earnedvalue so far. Oh, it's it's
very descriptive like like that, likethat that that's the thing like that,
none of like one nice thing aboutthis. And it's way compared to say
stack cast, like we can argueall day about like expected stats and battle
ball data and you know, pitchpitch, you know data and that how
descriptive or predictive is it? Andand there's plenty of arguments this is all
(30:26):
clearly descriptive, Like like, thisis not really telling you anything. It's
not telling you said Lugo is goingto win another eight or non games.
You know, it's not even tellingyou it's going to like go out and
put up a two two one inthe second half. If I had to
guess, you know, he won't. He'll probably put up like between a
three and a three five the restof the way. I'm just making that
up, but yeah, that that'sthat's kind of the idea. I think
(30:48):
something really that if if you haveaccess to it at the site, is
going back and looking at previous year'snumbers. And that's why something I like
to do in the something I doevery year in the article and this is
not like you know, an accessdeliberate, is to put in last year's
mid season players and then the finallike earnings and with pictures in particular.
I think it's really eye opening,Like how many people remember that Marcus Stroman
(31:14):
was the third best nationally starter lastyear halfway through. I'll bet nobody remembers
that. Like I mean, Ido because I had it. But if
you didn't have on your team,you probably don't remember that. Yeah,
that's like the world's worst spark triviaquestion. I'm just imagining you, you
know, at your local tavern,just buttonholing people. And I have a
story. I have a story aboutthat, not about Marcus Stroman advancing Values.
(31:37):
I have a story about bar Triviansports. I'll tell you when we're
done with the podcast. Well,I'm looking at the NL pictures for example,
and you know this, We've we'vehad this conversation in various forms so
far during the season. But I'mjust looking at the auction values you have
at the far right. Okay,so I've got him ordered buy their earned
(32:00):
value this year. And then youlook at you know, the second NL
picture is Ronaldo Lopez and he's gotand I guess you could do this by
the plus minus, you know,but I visually I just see single digits
one, four, four, andthree. So just to chime in,
John, what you're talking about.These are the three like expert leagues and
(32:23):
their their salaries that they paid forthem so there's CBS, and I'm in
both these leagues actually, and yeah, he that's the first one. And
there's Labor, which I think aradios with that that is, and there's
TOWT wars. Yeah, the average, the final numbers, the average of
those three. Yeah, so rightAaldo Lopez went for an average of three
dollars. Now, once in awhile there's like a change in circumstances and
(32:45):
that's why like a price like likewill go up or go down, like
if there's n injurer there's concern aboutsomebody. But usually these prices stay pretty
like consistent. I mean that that'sinteresting data to look at too, right,
Like like Pulsky, for example,he went for seven and CBS and
labor without knowing the context. Iwould have guessed he would have went for
(33:05):
more in tout, but nope,he just went for three. And some
of that reason is that friend ofthe show Gray all Bright did a no
starting picture strategy, which which skewedthe you know, starting pitcher prices down,
especially I think toward the middle andbottom. Like once people figured out
what he was doing, we werelike, well, why should I pay
up for you know, something Idon't have to pay up for. So
just looking at the top fifteen orso of of these pictures down to Andrew
(33:34):
Abbott, Yeah, down to AndrewAbbit is appropriate there. Yeah, So
you've got a number of pictures whowere like single digits to some not even
I mean Jacob and not wasn't drafted. I sadly, sadly, I took
him on reserve and CBS and threwhim away before the season started. So
I'm not happy. What what areyou gonna do? But if you're staring
(33:58):
there and you're you're like, wow, I've got Renauldo Lopez and Jake Irvin
and Andrew Abbott, man, I'mreally set up for the second half.
What would your response to that personbe, Mike, Well, my response
to be, I hope that you'vegot enough the area and whip already because
all of them are bound to slip. That's just kind of the law of
(34:20):
averages and the way it works typicallythe best pitch. Now, you you
got your profit from those pictures,so I don't oversell it like you You've
done well for yourself. But interms of going forward, unless you have
a pretty commanding lead in the ARAand whip, you probably need to make
sure you have a contingency plan,right, Yeah, and yeah, and
(34:42):
that's to your point about them beingdescriptive, but also as you know,
getting an overall look at you know, how your roster is either underperforming or
overperforming. It's it's kind of anice snapshot of that. Yeah, any
other anything on the hitter side,we mostly talked about about pictures, and
I guess a little bit about theyou know, the the offensive that you
(35:06):
know that the calls for the demiseof offense, reports of that the demise
are maybe not greatly exaggerated, butsomewhat exaggerated. So I think something jumps
that jumped out to me, andthat this is just the nature of monolagues
too, like we we talk aboutlike I've heard a lot of talk about
what a disappointment Julio Rodriguez is,and you know, he certainly has been,
(35:29):
but he's also on pace to earnedtwenty four dollars like that. That's
not nothing. And I think thisis something that gets lost, like with
the hitter versus picture dichotomy, Andthis is really an argument for taking hitters
early as opposed to you know,taking pictures early, which is for as
disappointing as bad as a disappointing hittercan be, you're usually getting something out
(35:52):
of that hitter. Like I'm tellingyou about like Carol thirteen dollars for yeah,
well, well even Manny Machado twentyone. You know, we talk
about how bad he is and it'slike, well, like he's going to
hit over twenty home runs in thisoffensive environment, drive in close to one
hundred. You know. It's soit's contextual too. It's it's the padres.
But he's going to put up somereally solid counting stats with an average
(36:15):
in this environment. That's a positive, you know, are we said sure?
But I don't think he's the zerothat people are are you know thinking
that is where'd you say, cornerKaun was I didn't even like thirteen,
here's a thirteen dollars? Yeah,I mean, which is fine, Like
it's he's still a giant loss,yeah, your giant loss, but it's
(36:37):
it's it's not a zero. Ithink the thing that I the thing I
really noticed that this, You know, this is why I like these valuations
too. You know there's always theoh, the rookies have been so bad
and so awful, and I thinkyou really see it when you go down
to the bottom and you see likeJordan Walker negative one, but he's lost
(36:58):
like twenty two hours average salar oftwenty one. You really see it in
the American League with like Jackson Hollidayand yeah, I had I had him
twice, so I'm not happy aboutthat, you know, and Vaughan Grissom,
and it's just one of those things. Was like, yeah, like
there's really a floor with something experience. But then there's some veterans too,
like Brandon Drury and Jose Bray Let'slet's not speak of him again. John
(37:19):
where I think you wife from mymemory. Yeah, you can have that
with with any any sort of player. And that's kind of what it comes
down to. I'd rather have aI've said this for I'd rather have a
player. I'd rather not these things. But I have a player. I
spend forty on ear and twenty thena players spend twenty oundre and ZERI at
least the player I spent forty on, I'm getting something, Yeah, and
(37:44):
I can like find you know,other stuff elsewhere. It does make it
easier to work around that with therest of your roster. Yeah, where
it's a twenty hour player, itis nothing, especially in an only league
or a deep mixed league. It'slike, oh boy, like now I've
got nothing. I have to dropthe player. And you know we talked
to you know, to go backto main event. Yeah, you could
(38:04):
find somebody like really like who's reallysolid or okay, but like unless somebody
like drops Brandon Nemo, you're you'renot going to find somebody who's more than
kind of like serviceable. And we'vereally seen this this year too, right,
Like you if you've read my fabriahere every week, which if you
haven't been, why aren't you,you've really seen that. Like the quality
(38:27):
of free agents this year have havekind of been lacking. Like there hasn't
been like that big, big freeagent acquisition where it's like wow, like
this this hitter is is really likesuper you know, like amazing and terrific.
And like you mentioned salaries before,like you kind of look at the
the ALE like a like I thinkeven Brent Rooker was drafted a'll be at
(38:51):
the back end. So Miranda's Miranda'sthe big big guy on in the ALE
on the hitting side, and inthe NL. I'm trying to look here.
It's like, you know, BrentonDoyle maybe he had maybe maybe Doyle
or Terrang like if they weren't taken, it would take it overserve maybe maybe
Profar. Actually I Profar wasn't takinga lot of leagues, so so there's
(39:15):
a couple guys like that. Butfor the most part, like it's been
really difficult to find those free agents. Yeah, and that's why we dropped
big coin on on Brandon Nimo whenhe came into the Well, I think
we did it because it was thewhole idea of like, well, you're
expert, Well we were, butthere was also I think it's well,
(39:37):
I think the amount we spent wasa desperation, but I think the idea
was sound me. Well, Ididn't say I didn't say no, or
I didn't say well let's let's stopat like four hundred or whatever you know
would have been appropriate. So itwas it was on both of us.
But but but I think the ideawas like, well, who knows what's
going to come, like like thetwenty twenty three version of Nolan Jones or
(39:58):
Matt mcclaim might never show up,and and really like they for the most
part, they happened. If youyeah, no, it's gonna say even
if you get a win on aon a prospect who's who's been you know,
called up mid season, that isthat win likely to surpass what Brandon
Neimo is going to give you,right or you know what when we look
(40:22):
at you know, on a pergame basis, is James Wood going to
outperform Brandon Neimo or you know justyou I mean probably probably not. No,
well we've we've say that too,Like I think is where people get
like twisted, which is, youknow that the rookie version of Michael Harris
who came up was tremendous. Ithink people or even last year's Ellie Like,
(40:45):
I think people look at that andthey get twisted where it's like,
oh, that's what I should expectfrom a prospect. That's the payoff.
So I can keep plugging, youknow, money into prospect after prospect after
prospect, and it just I onlyneed wanted them to payoff. And it's
like, well, you're what I'mhearing is you're probably just wasting your money.
Like you you might get the lotteryticket or maybe the lottery is where
(41:06):
I put you, but you mightget that one and twenty chance getting the
big prospect, but you probably arenot going to get it. Just to
circle back to Profar for a second, I'm looking at the week in TGFBI
that he like went for. Sohe went for an average like fab bit
of twenty four. The six playersahead of him and these these aren't these
(41:28):
are all bus Actually another productive hitterhere too, Kirby Yates, who you
know is fine as a closer,Jose bhutto your Rodriguez, Josh Smith.
He's the player who was fine andsolid in a quiet way. Edward Oliveris
and Martin Perez. Those those werethe players who went you know, were
more expensive on average that week thanProfar. And who is a player that
(41:51):
was dropped that that was added whenBrandon Nimmo was dropped in our league,
it was added who who was swappedout when the player dropped Nemo. I
hope this guy listened to our podcast. Well, so the history there all.
I'm not gonna I don't want todance in the end zone, but
I well, especially because it's notlike we're running away with it, that
(42:14):
might be a little different. Okay, yeah we can, we can keep
that pride. But I'm sure nobody'swill say this at this point, So
I don't know why. I'm I'mreally like we we you know what,
we we all make mistakes. LikeI'm looking at my like I'm looking at
my home league where I'm in firstplace, and I'm there's a few moves
(42:35):
where I'm I'm like kind of kickingmyself, and it's a combination of the
moves I didn't make and the movesI made. I think we all like
make we all make mistakes, andyou know, for me, it's like
picking up Joey Lo Braffdo for twentyseven in that league was probably like the
whole right process, bad result whereit's like it's just kind of hampered me
to like kind of I've been alittle too cautious of other moves. I'm
(42:59):
better off, mate, But yeah, it kind of is what it is.
On that note of humility, it'sa good time to close it out.
Yeah, sure, let's take abrief break and we'll end the show.
(43:36):
Thank you once again for listening toepisode three thirteen of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspectives Fantasy Baseball podcast.You know, it's the middle of
July and a lot of places arealready going toward football. But you know
what Baseball Perspectus is still covering,John, oh my, it's right there
(43:58):
in the name. It's BASEBALLUS.It's not covering perspectuses, it's baseball.
We've still got all the great fantasycoverage you've come to know and love.
We've still got the we've still gotthe Stash List, We've still got the
Dynasty. Mid season rankings are comingout really soon. You've still got Howard
Bengals what they're saying. So ifyou love baseball, you should love Baseball
(44:22):
Perspectives once again for Mike Chanel,John Hagelin, thank you very much.
We'll be back soon. Thank you. Please rate and review us. We
would appreciate it so much. Welike those five star ratings. Five star the m
Welcome to episode three thirteen, FlagsFly Forever, a baseball perspective Fantasy baseball
podcast. You know the drill.It's me Mike Jianella and it's you John
Haglund. How you doing, John, I'm doing a right. It feels
like it's been a few weeks andcertainly a while since we've done a just
(00:42):
just the two of us podcasts.So yeah, how's your how's your summer
been. It's been okay. Imoved to a new office. As you
know, I feel like most ofmy summer is driving my kids around to
their jobs. My wife is helpingout too, but that you know,
if you want something to make youfeel old, and we're not gonna turn
(01:03):
the bad cast, but driving yourkids around to their jobs, really,
it really is just that thing.Yeah, yeah, not quite definitely in
the driving around, driving my kidaround, but not so far. It's
it's not not to any place ofemployment, but yeah, yeah, it's
it's it feels like finally, youknow, in the Northwest here, it
(01:26):
takes a while for summer to gethere. But we've got the upper nineties
heat this week. Just had alittle vacation last week, We've got we've
got a small kitten that hanging outwith me right now that we've we're fostering
(01:47):
for a week, and yeah,it's it's a it's a busy time but
also a fun time. So Ithink we're going to talk about some baseball
since we are our This is ourfirst podcast after the the official middle of
the season, and we're coming upon the All Star break after that,
(02:08):
after that, after that five starpodcast that we we did the last time.
It's five stars. If you ifyou listen, if you listen to
it, you know what we're talkingabout. If you don't, you know,
don't, don't go back and listento it. Well, no,
always go back and listen. Thatis the official party line of Flag Forever.
(02:30):
Sure. Yeah, So we arecoming up on the All Star break
and we want to have just acouple of topics for conversation. In a
little bit, we'll talk about Mike'smid season valuations that went up on the
site. When last week earlier,this was it was as well it was
(02:51):
today, so today when you hearthis, it will probably be yesterday.
So so there's still pretty current,Like I don't go in and update them
daily, and it's still a prettymanual process. But I like to give
folks stuff to look at. Butyeah, I think we'll get into that.
We'll leave that a little bit forlater. This this is what they
call a teaser in the in thepodcast game. So I I at the
(03:15):
risk of being and this is notgoing to be just about our main event
team, which we we did talkabout quite a bit in in April and
May, and if you if youremember back to those those episodes, we
were doing very very poorly. Yeah, like we really bad about that because
(03:40):
yeah, I mean we were wewere at times we were I think fourth
from the bottom in the overall.Yeah, like for a day or two.
But but but for the first bot, like you know, like,
well I just pulled up, Likeso on April twenty first, we were
like in last in our league.We were fourteen out in our league.
(04:00):
This was an overall and we wereeight hundred and forty third, you know,
overall out of what is it likeeight hundred and you know, fifty
some teams. I don't know whatthe exact number is, but yeah,
yeah it was bad. It's afifty five. So you know, I've
heard like you know, Jeff Ericsonof Rode wire when it was guest recently
(04:21):
he talks about the seven hundred club. We were in the eight hundred club,
and yeah, it was. Itwas after like almost a month of
games, like not quite but itYeah, it felt bad where it's like,
well, not ever. We canwin the main event obviously, and
we frankly in our first year andexpect to. But I think our main
thing was like, well, wedon't want to like embarrass ourselves, like
we don't want to finish the yearwhere people look at us and go,
(04:43):
okay, the two BP experts suck. That That was really and that's that's
what it felt like, what washappening right, And I think what I
also said back then is that asmuch as I'm the person of all people,
it's like, don't get emotional.It's a long season, et cetera,
et cetera. I was getting prettyemotional. I think we both were.
I think we were both in ourfeelings about about this tape. It
(05:03):
was very Yeah, it was veryunpleasant, and I think it was it
was go ahead, No, Ilike, we drafted a team that we
kind of knew would have a slowstart, Like we drafted like some injured
players and you know the Situationally wekind of like, well, we know
(05:25):
we're not going to get after arowing start with this team. I just
think it was the degree of suckatudethat that got to yes, sure,
yes, yes, and and youknow, we pointed out the headline was,
of course our first round draft pickCorby Carroll, who has actually,
while he's improved slightly, he's stillhe's a big. He's a big somewhere.
(05:47):
I mean, yes, yes,I mean, there's no other way
to put it. It's a wet, flaming turn of a pick, like
like really, there's no I meanshort of not that he was available,
but like sure of taking like SpencerStrider, like you know, just got
hurt. I think that's what's frustratingtoo, is if Corbett Carroll like got
hurt on April fifteenth, that wouldhave sucked and was out for the season
(06:08):
and be like, Okay, well, you know, shit happens, people
get hurt. Like it's disappointing,but that's life. It's the fact that
he's playing and playing and playing anddoing what he's doing. It's like,
oh man, this is playing andplaying and playing. Until he wasn't always
playing and playing and playing and he'sjust and he's and he's and to your
point, John, he's just beingproductive enough that it's we can't really cut
(06:30):
him, like like like a ina standalone league, I might consider it
because I might be like, Okay, well let's let's get a power hitter,
let's get something else. But butin this league, it's like,
well, it doesn't really do usany good to like continue, you know.
And Franklin's another thing, like we'rewe're first or near first now and
home runs runs in RBI, solike to cut him to get power it's
like, well that doesn't really help. But see, this is what I
(06:53):
wanted to you know, so ourour listeners are are wondering why I'm bringing
this up now. In the secondweek of July. Yeah, so we
could just rant about, which wecertainly could do, but let's let's let's
let's commit to not doing that.Feed under. Yeah. So we have
improved considerably since then, and youknow, we've gone from last, you
(07:18):
know, sort of balancing around thelast two or three spots in our league
to now bouncing around the fourth andfifth spots our points. I mean,
we're we're in six for a littlebit. But yeah, we're we're kind
yeah right, you know, we'rein the nineties as far as our points
and more, I think more importantly, we're up to the I think we're
(07:43):
as high as like the two forties. And overall currently we're too Yeah,
we're don too, but it fluctuatesa lot. Yeah, so the overall
contest. But the takeaway here orthe thing I want to get to is
what happened, Mike, Like weand and here's the here's the interesting thing.
(08:03):
I know, you know, FranciscoLindora is a lot of it,
but he's certainly not the whole story. But we have, you know,
affected what I think it's a prettydramatic improvement because this really happened over the
course of about three weeks. Ithink we have a kind of meteoric rise.
Carol has been sucking the whole time. Manny Machado has been you know,
(08:26):
bad too, average, Pablo Lopezhas been on the whole quite disappointing.
Blake Snell has been mostly injured andwhen not injured, just a complete,
you know, flaming turd. Asyou was good, but his I
mean, you know, you've reallyreally a bit better off with him not
(08:46):
on our roster. Yeah, yeah, I think yeah, I'm not sure.
I wonder if the Giants feel thatway too, uh, and so
it's it's astonishing to me. Andwhen I think about it, whether or
not we finish, you know,in the money, whether you know it's
top three in our league or topthirty five in the overall, still a
(09:07):
long shot for us. But it'spretty incredible that we have managed to improve
so much with our top line,our top essentially like what five out of
our first six picks being just bad? I guess I guess you'd say,
right, I mean, did wewhen did we say? So? We
did? Carol Lopez Lindor Machado Snell, Right, yeah, the first five?
(09:35):
That sounds that sounds right. Okay, So Mike, what happened?
How did how did things take aturn for the better? Well, I
mean this is a really like longquestion. All you you have been curious
as to like who we took inin round six, because you know,
we went fivey right? That wasthat was Peter. It was Pete Fairbanks,
who honestly hasn't really been He's beenfine, but you know it's not
(10:00):
like it was you know somebody whereit's like wow, that's the guy who
turned it around. So this isthis is what's interesting about this. So
I this team is not going todo as well as do you about to
talk about. But I won toutWars two years ago. It was a
fifteen team mix league, and itwas kind of a similar thing where I
don't think that the first ten thefirst ten rounds weren't any great shakes,
(10:24):
and the hitters in particular were notgreat and I'm not going to relive Oh
jeez, I even forgot about TristanCassas in round eight. Sorry, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So I thinkthere's a couple of things here.
I think the first thing is thatone, your team is not as determined
in the first few rounds as peoplethink, and that this is true particularly,
(10:46):
I think there's a mythology about deepmix leagues. It's like, Okay,
if you don't nail your picks,there's not enough in the free agent
pool. Like there's some truth tothat, right, But but it's also
like, well, you know,what really matters is kind of how you
do like like down in the middleat the bottom. And I don't want
to say we aced like those portionsof the draft, but but I do
(11:09):
think like when you look at ourteam and look at like some of our
key players, there's a lot toothat, like like the guy that leads
our team at home runs and AnthonySantander, and we didn't get him particularly
early. It's you know, BrandonNeimo. You know, I don't want
to get too much as we didn'tdraft him, but he was dropped and
(11:30):
you know, I think we talkedabout this at the time and even then
we were like, oh my gosh, like we you know, we spent
so much fab on him. Itwas it was obviously too much because we
bid way more than the next team. But he has been essential, like
to to our squad, like CarlosKorea, you know, boring pick.
You know, I get hurt atone point it was almost like haha,
very predictable. He's another one,like he's kind of been a glue guy
(11:54):
for us. So like on thehitting side, I think it's just kind
of a lot of that boring consistency, and then the pitching side, it's
really weird. You remember before theseason where I was kind of like the
pitchers after the first eight rounds arerandom. Well, we've benefited from the
randomness, right, Like you know, if you look at some of the
pictures we've taken. Yeah, sure, we dropped Alex Wood and we took
(12:15):
like near the very end. Buta lot of these other guys like Brady
Singer and you know, like afew of the others that we drafted have
been you know, good or atthe very least like fine, Like Neesther
Cortez. Yes, he had abad night tonight, but Nesther Cortez,
like you look at his whip andeverything. It's at his lack of wins
is disappointing, but otherwise like,yeah, he's he's been completely okay.
(12:37):
So are we going to you know, I think you mentioned like finishing,
you know, in the top thirtyin the overall, that is not going
to happen. I think realistically,if we can climb up to say the
top one hundred in the overall andfinish in the top three in our bracket,
that would be a great outcome,like given where we started. No,
it's not the goal, and youknow, I'm not gonna you know,
(13:00):
at the end of the year belike woo, let's you know,
teut this is a great win forus, But it does speak a lot
to the idea of persistence, right, and and just plugging away. I
didn't even mention Jose Miranda, butyou know, just plugging away and be
like, Okay, well this sucks. But the worst thing you can do
in any league is just give upand say, oh, the season's over.
I think more than else is it'sthat whole it's the long season thing,
(13:22):
right, There's so much focus onthe first two weeks or three weeks
and you know what happened and howbad it is. And yes, the
start we had was fatal to us, you know, to your point,
like winning the overall or coming close, But it didn't mean this was a
bad team, Like I think onsome level, I always had faith that
we had a good team on thewhole. Yeah, And and I think
(13:45):
no one typifies that more than FranciscoLindor who I know, you know,
other than Carol's probably the player we'vewe've talked about the most, just you
and I, who, Yeah,had had a terrible April and since then
has been well. I you know, from I think I looked from after
(14:07):
April, he had like a onethirty seven WRC plus he's running, you
know, on a pace for abouttwenty five steals twenty five homers. The
averages is creeping up, and itwas you know, really a matter of
I think Lindor typifies this and Ithink it happened to some degree with Schwarber
(14:30):
as well. That you just haveto you know, and it's not like
we have a choice because these areplayers that you know, to your point
about Carol, that we're obviously notgoing to cut, but you have to
trust that they are going to comecloser to their project projections and that April
is just one month out of outof six. Yeah. Well, well,
(14:52):
the thing the thing with Lindor comparedto Carol is that with Carol,
I think right away, particularly thefirst two weeks, there were huge concerns
with him, Like the bad atbaal data was was horrendous. He just
didn't look quite right. His likeapproach was was terrible. Was Lindora watching
him, It's like, yeah,he had some bad at bats, but
there was nothing I really saw thatI was like, Okay, like this
(15:16):
is a different player. He's worse. You know, he's hiding an injury.
Ages getting him is more like,look, I think he'll be fine
and maybe he'll be like a twentytwenty player instead of a you know,
close to a thirty thirty one.But I don't really see the padic here.
You know, I keep referencing thisto you, and I wish I
could remember who it was, Likethere was a guest I mentioned before on
(15:37):
one of the rona Ware jeff Ericksonpodcasts, who And this is very interesting.
I think maybe it's good that maybeit's good that we don't remember.
Yeah, I don't want to.I don't want to slag this person,
you know specifically, but like whoeverit was, you know, he's like,
you know, I I I didn'tlike Lindor coming to the season,
but he said not me, youknow I, And you know it was
sort of the old confirmation biased thing, like this proves what I thought.
(16:00):
He can't. He can't return morethan like fifth or sixth round value now,
meaning even after even if you recoverfrom the poor start, he won't
do that. And we know it'snot true. Like I think right now
Lindor is on pace to like bringback like late second round value, which
is about what I was expecting,right Like I kind of looked at him,
like, no, he's not goingto break into the first round,
(16:21):
but he's kind of a boring,you know, boring floor player, and
that he runs a lot. He'sa lot of home runs. He's in
a good lineup, like this iswhat he should do and that's that's kind
of where he is now. Andwell he could he slump again, sure,
because he's a two fifty hitter,and that's the nature of like two
fifty hitters, they go through theirslumps. But I'm not gonna lose sleep
about like Francisco Lindor being a fantasydisappointment. He he just kind of is
(16:45):
what he is, right, Likeyou look at him with the Mets,
and he's a good he's not evena great hitter. That's funnying about him
if you look at his you knowDRC plus, like he's a good to
very good hitter, but it's justall the fantasy stuff that comes with it
that makes him makes him worth likethe price of admission. Well, and
you said, you know, Ithink you say a top top twenty hitter.
(17:11):
Well he's he's per your your rankings. He's ninth in the NL among
n L hitters in your midst evaluationsfor twenty nine dollars, which I'm guessing
is pretty close to your preseason valuationfor him. Yeah, it's about that's
about right, So you know,it's it's early July and Francisco Lindor shocker
(17:33):
turns out to be Francisco Lindor,you know. And and yeah, and
I think the other point about howwe're we've managed to improve with some many
of our you know, Carol anda few others not really performing or you
know, going out with injury.It is that those kind of like marginal
(17:56):
gains you get, you know,through weekly fab and this is this is
I think maybe we talked a littlebit about trading because NFBC obviously if you're
at all familiar with the format,you know it's there is no trading,
So your in season acquisitions are goingto be uh via via fab. And
(18:18):
I think we've obviously and I guesswhat I have come to accept, and
I think you have helped me getinto this mindset is that you know,
you just keep churning and week toweek the players you might get are you
know, many of them are justnot going to pan out. But if
(18:38):
you have that volume that turnover,you do get a Jose Miranda, right,
you do get a Carlos Santana whoyou know, has fallen off a
little bit, but for a monthor so he was he was just great.
And when we needed a first baseman, you know, you do get
some pictures that that could actually youknow, that can actually help you.
(18:59):
So yeah, I mean going backto your your first point about the myth
of your draft being determined it byyour first few picks. There's so many
different ways to get to success,and we're not, you know, and
it might be that Corby Krollin meansthat we're not going to get into the
top fifty or the top thirty inthe main event overall, but you know,
(19:22):
we really had no right to expectthat we would get above like three
hundred the way we started. Yeah, I think after the first there was
a point where I was sort oflike, well, like for what we're
you know, for the buy in, I'm not going to ever completely give
up. But if we didn't havethat three week run in June, I
(19:44):
probably like, well like, okay, like we'll keep paying attention to this,
but how much really can I keepinvesting in this team, like emotionally
and mentally. So yeah, ithas changed our mentality, even though again,
you know, I do want toemphasize I'm not touting this is a
great success. Like I think wemade some mistakes for sure that if we
do decide to do this again nextyear, like there's things to learn from
(20:08):
and and grow on. Yeah,and I think that, you know,
really, whether whether or not wewin anything, I think the fact that
I'm imagining you feel, you knowsimilarly, it's that I it's July and
I still am excited to you know, check the scores and you know,
(20:32):
see how the team is doing.And you know, you and I are.
I think if if our team wasyou know, still mired in like
the five hundreds of the six hundreds, we'd probably be paying less attention data
excuse me, day to day andyou know, we wouldn't be texting each
other and you know, are allcaps when one of our players, you
know, it's a run, andthat's you know, that's the that's part
(20:56):
of the reason, you know whyjoy fantasy baseball. It's exactly that fun,
whether or not you win in theend. Well, it was a
great thing about like doing this withsomebody like like Brett. Sarah and I
do a league together too, andwe did labor together for a couple of
years and that is the fun thingabout doing a team with somebody. He's
getting excited with somebody, Like yes, if it's your team and you're by
(21:18):
yourself, you're still excited. Butit's a very solitary experience, whereas yeah,
it's fun when you run a teamwith somebody, it's like yeah,
this guy did great, or eventhe other way like oh, you know,
I can't believe this player, usuallya pitcher, like you know,
like sucks so much tonight. It'sit's a shared experience. I think that
adds to ads to it. Iknow that having a partner's not for everybody,
(21:40):
but I think you and I havedone a pretty good job of like
splitting up the work, I guess, and kind of like I had a
lot of the draft stuff. You'vehad a lot of transactions, but you've
been like, hey, you know, this is what I want to do,
But what do you think as opposedto just take it to dictating and
saying, Okay, this is whatwe're doing on the transaction side. Yeah,
And I think the fact that we'vebeen podcasting for a while and we
(22:03):
talk about this so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you know,
it's not like maybe a lot differentyou know, going into this with
someone you know, I didn't havethat kind of rapport with as far as
baseball. Yeah, I will alsosay, like I think some of it
is that I probably the younger versionof me would have been much more stubborn
(22:25):
and more like no, I wantto do this my way and like having
a partner with have But I waslike I've gotten older. I'm like,
well, I mean this is important, but it certainly isn't like the be
all and end all, like it'sit's fantasy baseball. If I ever feel
that upset or sad about it,you know, it's the whole touch grass
thing, right, Like I needto go outside and get some perspective on
it. It's it's not the endof the world. No, no,
(22:47):
no. But what's funny is that, like I can tell from some text
when I if I float an ideaand I could tell you're you're not into
it, It's pretty it's pretty apparentto me. Well, like like justin
Turner, the just intern of thing. Yeah, So yeah, I don't
know, do you want to pivotto just a few your valuations before we
(23:11):
get out of here? Yeah,let's uh, let let's do that.
So I don't know where you wantto start if you want me to start.
I know we've done this in thepast, and usually it's kind of
a Q and A. But Ithink you've also had me sort of tee
off and explain like what they are, like what they aren't, and you
know, et cetera. Well youcan, you can certainly do that.
And I was just going to beginby asking you a very open ended question.
(23:37):
And you know, some of thisyou might have hinted at in your
article which everyone should go read andsubscribe to Baseball Perspectives if you're not a
subscriber, But just like what stoodout to you as you you know,
as you compiled these these numbers formid season, Well, I think one
of the there are a couple ofthings that stood out, and one of
(23:59):
them was, you know, isthat I think we keep hearing a depressed
offensive environment. I know I do. I think you do too. But
in a depressed offensive environment, Iwould expect the guys at the top to
also be depressed, and they're reallynot like I like, if you look
at the like Bobby Witch, youdon't know how they feel on the inside.
(24:23):
That's true, that's true. Butlike if you look at the top
in the ale, like you know, Bobby Witch Junior, Aaron Judge,
Gunner Henderson, Jose Ramirez. There'sreally a lot of firepower at the top
that I wouldn't expect to see ifit were truly an era of like okay,
like these hitters all are just notdoing very well. I know some
(24:45):
of that is the stolen based environment, but but that's that's not it entirely.
Like you know, some of thesehitters, like Judge Judge in particular,
Yeah, it's a few steals whichhelps them out a little bit,
but it's not really you know thing. And then similarly, you know a
lot of people talk about pitching andhow pitching it is really like, oh,
(25:07):
I can just pick up any oldpicture now I know. So this
is because I'm doing mono league valuesand not mixed league values. But even
so, like I was, Iwas expecting, say, the top pictuer
in the AL to like be maybelike a thirty dollars pitcher, but that's
not the case. It's Sarah Scuball, who's a thirty six dollars pitcher.
And this is something that I thinkit's lost on people. Don't look at
(25:30):
these numbers like I do too,not much in valuation. This is different
from you know what the players do. Not much invaluation really changes from year
to year. Yeah, there's somechanges on the margins. But and I
was said that a couple of yearsago, like when the first round of
expansion back in nineteen ninety three,that was a seismic valuation change. There
(25:51):
was so much more offense that yearthan the year before. We just haven't
seen a change like that. Yeah, feel must have been pretty pretty offensive.
It was, although I think it'sthe year to year change when it
jumps out, like the number ofhome runs like that year that jumped up,
Like we're not nearly as much fromninety two to ninety three, like
(26:15):
in terms of like per per teamor per game. Okay, yeah,
I mean it was. It was. It was like a high number,
and it did depress like home runvalues. But I think twenty eighteen was
already And you should go back andread the arc of a couple of weeks
ago about this if you didn't,you know, the one that starts to
the movie analogy. But yeah,I think that's really what it is,
(26:37):
is that, like the last fewyears, we've really been living in a
big home run environment, and Ithink people forget that, and so when
home runs drops somewhat, it's like, oh, no, home runs are
really down, and it's like,well, there's more home runs now than
there were like during the steroid era, Like it's not you know, it's
just a it's a big time forhome runs. So how do you want
(26:59):
people to use these valuations like youknow, it's mid season, it's it's
on the one hand, it's ait's a kind of you know, it's
it's validation or confirmation of performances thathave been either wildly above or wildly below
average. But how do you thinkthese numbers are useful to you know,
(27:21):
the average fantasy player going forward?So I think some of it Probably the
most important thing to me, andthis is how I've always used them,
is it offers context that you mightnot have otherwise. You know, I
think some people will look at apicture and think, oh, like,
(27:41):
this picture's great, you know thatthat one isn't you know, this picture's
contributed that that much to my team. But when you actually look at the
values and how they break down,it really gives you a better idea or
concept of like, oh, okay, well, as much as I thought
that like Cole Reagan's for example,was really contributing, you know, like
(28:03):
x amount, he's less valuable thanlike say Jack Flaherty. And I think
that's something that might throw people fora loop because they might look at reagan'ss
like strikeouts and some of his othernumbers and think that he's significantly better.
But it's like, well, youknow, actually Flaherty has it's close,
but you know, he actually hasa slight edge. So that's really what
(28:26):
I want. I kind of wantpeople to use it for that purpose.
Probably a big thing with pitching thatI think often gets lost is that saves
tend to be overrated. Now ifyou know, we were talking about a
NFBC before you play it and overallit's different, and that's not what this
is designed for. This is designedfor standalone, but a standalone league,
you know, looking at the NLfor a second. And this happened last
(28:48):
year too. Like Tanner, Scottis the fourth most valuable reliever in the
NL, despite the fact that heonly has thirteen saves. I think that
kind of blows people's minds. Ithink, oh, you know, Scott's
disappointment he's not saving games. It'slike, well, he's he's disappointing that
you need those saves. You hadto get them somewhere else. But he's
contributed so much everywhere else that he'sstill really valuable. Mm hmm. Yeah.
(29:11):
And I mean also just thinking abouthow to use these going forward.
I mean, a good reason whyScooball and Seth Lugo are the top two
starters in the al is you know, schoo Ball has ten wins, Lugo
has eleven wins, and they're greatand in you know, the the r
(29:37):
N whip and schools very very goodin strikeouts too. But you know,
there is a kind of you know, it's very arbitrary going forward, you
know, you don't, I mean, you would not tab the Tigers and
the Royals as teams that are goingto generate a lot of wins for their
their starters. So it's it's away to frame the valuations in terms of
(30:03):
this is just talking about the earnedvalue so far. Oh, it's it's
very descriptive like like that, likethat that that's the thing like that,
none of like one nice thing aboutthis. And it's way compared to say
stack cast, like we can argueall day about like expected stats and battle
ball data and you know, pitchpitch, you know data and that how
descriptive or predictive is it? Andand there's plenty of arguments this is all
(30:26):
clearly descriptive, Like like, thisis not really telling you anything. It's
not telling you said Lugo is goingto win another eight or non games.
You know, it's not even tellingyou it's going to like go out and
put up a two two one inthe second half. If I had to
guess, you know, he won't. He'll probably put up like between a
three and a three five the restof the way. I'm just making that
up, but yeah, that that'sthat's kind of the idea. I think
(30:48):
something really that if if you haveaccess to it at the site, is
going back and looking at previous year'snumbers. And that's why something I like
to do in the something I doevery year in the article and this is
not like you know, an accessdeliberate, is to put in last year's
mid season players and then the finallike earnings and with pictures in particular.
I think it's really eye opening,Like how many people remember that Marcus Stroman
(31:14):
was the third best nationally starter lastyear halfway through. I'll bet nobody remembers
that. Like I mean, Ido because I had it. But if
you didn't have on your team,you probably don't remember that. Yeah,
that's like the world's worst spark triviaquestion. I'm just imagining you, you
know, at your local tavern,just buttonholing people. And I have a
story. I have a story aboutthat, not about Marcus Stroman advancing Values.
(31:37):
I have a story about bar Triviansports. I'll tell you when we're
done with the podcast. Well,I'm looking at the NL pictures for example,
and you know this, We've we'vehad this conversation in various forms so
far during the season. But I'mjust looking at the auction values you have
at the far right. Okay,so I've got him ordered buy their earned
(32:00):
value this year. And then youlook at you know, the second NL
picture is Ronaldo Lopez and he's gotand I guess you could do this by
the plus minus, you know,but I visually I just see single digits
one, four, four, andthree. So just to chime in,
John, what you're talking about.These are the three like expert leagues and
(32:23):
their their salaries that they paid forthem so there's CBS, and I'm in
both these leagues actually, and yeah, he that's the first one. And
there's Labor, which I think aradios with that that is, and there's
TOWT wars. Yeah, the average, the final numbers, the average of
those three. Yeah, so rightAaldo Lopez went for an average of three
dollars. Now, once in awhile there's like a change in circumstances and
(32:45):
that's why like a price like likewill go up or go down, like
if there's n injurer there's concern aboutsomebody. But usually these prices stay pretty
like consistent. I mean that that'sinteresting data to look at too, right,
Like like Pulsky, for example,he went for seven and CBS and
labor without knowing the context. Iwould have guessed he would have went for
(33:05):
more in tout, but nope,he just went for three. And some
of that reason is that friend ofthe show Gray all Bright did a no
starting picture strategy, which which skewedthe you know, starting pitcher prices down,
especially I think toward the middle andbottom. Like once people figured out
what he was doing, we werelike, well, why should I pay
up for you know, something Idon't have to pay up for. So
just looking at the top fifteen orso of of these pictures down to Andrew
(33:34):
Abbott, Yeah, down to AndrewAbbit is appropriate there. Yeah, So
you've got a number of pictures whowere like single digits to some not even
I mean Jacob and not wasn't drafted. I sadly, sadly, I took
him on reserve and CBS and threwhim away before the season started. So
I'm not happy. What what areyou gonna do? But if you're staring
(33:58):
there and you're you're like, wow, I've got Renauldo Lopez and Jake Irvin
and Andrew Abbott, man, I'mreally set up for the second half.
What would your response to that personbe, Mike, Well, my response
to be, I hope that you'vegot enough the area and whip already because
all of them are bound to slip. That's just kind of the law of
(34:20):
averages and the way it works typicallythe best pitch. Now, you you
got your profit from those pictures,so I don't oversell it like you You've
done well for yourself. But interms of going forward, unless you have
a pretty commanding lead in the ARAand whip, you probably need to make
sure you have a contingency plan,right, Yeah, and yeah, and
(34:42):
that's to your point about them beingdescriptive, but also as you know,
getting an overall look at you know, how your roster is either underperforming or
overperforming. It's it's kind of anice snapshot of that. Yeah, any
other anything on the hitter side,we mostly talked about about pictures, and
I guess a little bit about theyou know, the the offensive that you
(35:06):
know that the calls for the demiseof offense, reports of that the demise
are maybe not greatly exaggerated, butsomewhat exaggerated. So I think something jumps
that jumped out to me, andthat this is just the nature of monolagues
too, like we we talk aboutlike I've heard a lot of talk about
what a disappointment Julio Rodriguez is,and you know, he certainly has been,
(35:29):
but he's also on pace to earnedtwenty four dollars like that. That's
not nothing. And I think thisis something that gets lost, like with
the hitter versus picture dichotomy, Andthis is really an argument for taking hitters
early as opposed to you know,taking pictures early, which is for as
disappointing as bad as a disappointing hittercan be, you're usually getting something out
(35:52):
of that hitter. Like I'm tellingyou about like Carol thirteen dollars for yeah,
well, well even Manny Machado twentyone. You know, we talk
about how bad he is and it'slike, well, like he's going to
hit over twenty home runs in thisoffensive environment, drive in close to one
hundred. You know. It's soit's contextual too. It's it's the padres.
But he's going to put up somereally solid counting stats with an average
(36:15):
in this environment. That's a positive, you know, are we said sure?
But I don't think he's the zerothat people are are you know thinking
that is where'd you say, cornerKaun was I didn't even like thirteen,
here's a thirteen dollars? Yeah,I mean, which is fine, Like
it's he's still a giant loss,yeah, your giant loss, but it's
(36:37):
it's it's not a zero. Ithink the thing that I the thing I
really noticed that this, You know, this is why I like these valuations
too. You know there's always theoh, the rookies have been so bad
and so awful, and I thinkyou really see it when you go down
to the bottom and you see likeJordan Walker negative one, but he's lost
(36:58):
like twenty two hours average salar oftwenty one. You really see it in
the American League with like Jackson Hollidayand yeah, I had I had him
twice, so I'm not happy aboutthat, you know, and Vaughan Grissom,
and it's just one of those things. Was like, yeah, like
there's really a floor with something experience. But then there's some veterans too,
like Brandon Drury and Jose Bray Let'slet's not speak of him again. John
(37:19):
where I think you wife from mymemory. Yeah, you can have that
with with any any sort of player. And that's kind of what it comes
down to. I'd rather have aI've said this for I'd rather have a
player. I'd rather not these things. But I have a player. I
spend forty on ear and twenty thena players spend twenty oundre and ZERI at
least the player I spent forty on, I'm getting something, Yeah, and
(37:44):
I can like find you know,other stuff elsewhere. It does make it
easier to work around that with therest of your roster. Yeah, where
it's a twenty hour player, itis nothing, especially in an only league
or a deep mixed league. It'slike, oh boy, like now I've
got nothing. I have to dropthe player. And you know we talked
to you know, to go backto main event. Yeah, you could
(38:04):
find somebody like really like who's reallysolid or okay, but like unless somebody
like drops Brandon Nemo, you're you'renot going to find somebody who's more than
kind of like serviceable. And we'vereally seen this this year too, right,
Like you if you've read my fabriahere every week, which if you
haven't been, why aren't you,you've really seen that. Like the quality
(38:27):
of free agents this year have havekind of been lacking. Like there hasn't
been like that big, big freeagent acquisition where it's like wow, like
this this hitter is is really likesuper you know, like amazing and terrific.
And like you mentioned salaries before,like you kind of look at the
the ALE like a like I thinkeven Brent Rooker was drafted a'll be at
(38:51):
the back end. So Miranda's Miranda'sthe big big guy on in the ALE
on the hitting side, and inthe NL. I'm trying to look here.
It's like, you know, BrentonDoyle maybe he had maybe maybe Doyle
or Terrang like if they weren't taken, it would take it overserve maybe maybe
Profar. Actually I Profar wasn't takinga lot of leagues, so so there's
(39:15):
a couple guys like that. Butfor the most part, like it's been
really difficult to find those free agents. Yeah, and that's why we dropped
big coin on on Brandon Nimo whenhe came into the Well, I think
we did it because it was thewhole idea of like, well, you're
expert, Well we were, butthere was also I think it's well,
(39:37):
I think the amount we spent wasa desperation, but I think the idea
was sound me. Well, Ididn't say I didn't say no, or
I didn't say well let's let's stopat like four hundred or whatever you know
would have been appropriate. So itwas it was on both of us.
But but but I think the ideawas like, well, who knows what's
going to come, like like thetwenty twenty three version of Nolan Jones or
(39:58):
Matt mcclaim might never show up,and and really like they for the most
part, they happened. If youyeah, no, it's gonna say even
if you get a win on aon a prospect who's who's been you know,
called up mid season, that isthat win likely to surpass what Brandon
Neimo is going to give you,right or you know what when we look
(40:22):
at you know, on a pergame basis, is James Wood going to
outperform Brandon Neimo or you know justyou I mean probably probably not. No,
well we've we've say that too,Like I think is where people get
like twisted, which is, youknow that the rookie version of Michael Harris
who came up was tremendous. Ithink people or even last year's Ellie Like,
(40:45):
I think people look at that andthey get twisted where it's like,
oh, that's what I should expectfrom a prospect. That's the payoff.
So I can keep plugging, youknow, money into prospect after prospect after
prospect, and it just I onlyneed wanted them to payoff. And it's
like, well, you're what I'mhearing is you're probably just wasting your money.
Like you you might get the lotteryticket or maybe the lottery is where
(41:06):
I put you, but you mightget that one and twenty chance getting the
big prospect, but you probably arenot going to get it. Just to
circle back to Profar for a second, I'm looking at the week in TGFBI
that he like went for. Sohe went for an average like fab bit
of twenty four. The six playersahead of him and these these aren't these
(41:28):
are all bus Actually another productive hitterhere too, Kirby Yates, who you
know is fine as a closer,Jose bhutto your Rodriguez, Josh Smith.
He's the player who was fine andsolid in a quiet way. Edward Oliveris
and Martin Perez. Those those werethe players who went you know, were
more expensive on average that week thanProfar. And who is a player that
(41:51):
was dropped that that was added whenBrandon Nimmo was dropped in our league,
it was added who who was swappedout when the player dropped Nemo. I
hope this guy listened to our podcast. Well, so the history there all.
I'm not gonna I don't want todance in the end zone, but
I well, especially because it's notlike we're running away with it, that
(42:14):
might be a little different. Okay, yeah we can, we can keep
that pride. But I'm sure nobody'swill say this at this point, So
I don't know why. I'm I'mreally like we we you know what,
we we all make mistakes. LikeI'm looking at my like I'm looking at
my home league where I'm in firstplace, and I'm there's a few moves
(42:35):
where I'm I'm like kind of kickingmyself, and it's a combination of the
moves I didn't make and the movesI made. I think we all like
make we all make mistakes, andyou know, for me, it's like
picking up Joey Lo Braffdo for twentyseven in that league was probably like the
whole right process, bad result whereit's like it's just kind of hampered me
to like kind of I've been alittle too cautious of other moves. I'm
(42:59):
better off, mate, But yeah, it kind of is what it is.
On that note of humility, it'sa good time to close it out.
Yeah, sure, let's take abrief break and we'll end the show.
(43:36):
Thank you once again for listening toepisode three thirteen of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspectives Fantasy Baseball podcast.You know, it's the middle of
July and a lot of places arealready going toward football. But you know
what Baseball Perspectus is still covering,John, oh my, it's right there
(43:58):
in the name. It's BASEBALLUS.It's not covering perspectuses, it's baseball.
We've still got all the great fantasycoverage you've come to know and love.
We've still got the we've still gotthe Stash List, We've still got the
Dynasty. Mid season rankings are comingout really soon. You've still got Howard
Bengals what they're saying. So ifyou love baseball, you should love Baseball
(44:22):
Perspectives once again for Mike Chanel,John Hagelin, thank you very much.
We'll be back soon. Thank you. Please rate and review us. We
would appreciate it so much. Welike those five star ratings. Five star the m
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