Episode 315: Reviewing 2024 Draft Strategy

Everyone is already drafting (whether mock or real) for 2025, but we at Flags decide to look back at the board from 2024 and ponder some questions about the first round, about what happened to the elite starting pitchers (spoiler: they were pretty good, Spencer Strider aside, womp womp), about whether drafting elite closers was a good choice, and what types of roster construction seemed to work out. 

In spite of ourselves, there is more Corbin Carroll talk, and we introduce a new character to the Flags Fly Forever extended universe: one Gavin Sheets (or Gavin Sheetz, if you're from certain counties of the Keystone State). We had fun, and we hope you will, too.

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

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to episode three fifteen of Flags Fly Forever, a
baseball perspectives fantasy baseball podcast. Mike Gianella and over there
is John Hagland. John, how you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey, I'm doing okay. It's been a while, And I
take most of the responsibility because there were a couple
of times when we almost recorded. Well, I just I
was too tired.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I think I had one night where I had one
night where I bailed. Yeah, I mean the White Sox
have only won six games since the last time we recorded,
so who knows, Maybe it's only been two weeks. No,
it's it's been much longer that there I was gonna
have you get. Actually, the White Sox are six and
twenty nine since we last recorded. The next the next

(01:07):
worst team, and actually is the one thing that might
keep them kind of on the periphery of the record.
It is the Angels, who are thirteen and twenty three
since we last record.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
But is six and twenty nine. You know, I can't
do the percentages in my head, But is that like
roughly they're on track with their seasonal winning percentage.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
No, it's it's worse like they've they've fallen off, like
they so let's see if they won you know, a
this is very scintillating podcasting, but that'd be a twenty
eight win pace. And they're on a you know, they've
already won thirty three, so they're they've gotten way like
they were already bad, but they've gotten way worse. Like

(01:49):
the last couple of months, they've just completely fallen off
the map.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
So yeah, to make a really subtle transition. Every every
week in whether it's in main event or other leagues,
and I'm you know, looking at the the waiver wire,
they're always random white Sox, and I it's it's very
hard to put any of those players in your bid

(02:16):
que because it's just sad. Not only are they generally
not good players, but it's it feels somehow wrong that
you would have to start paying attention to.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Well, well even even in ale only, Like there's a
lot of players that I kind of look at and
I'm like, I don't really know if I want this.
Players not only going to score that many runs, not
going to drive in many runs. And I'm talking about
the free agents where it's like I just don't see
the point of you know, it's better than a zero,
but not by much and if if if his guys
can hit like two ten's, it's worse than a zero.

(02:50):
I don't know if I need it. It's a pretty
like sad state of affairs. Like if you're yeah, if
you're looking at like mixed leagues, how many of these players? Yeah,
Crochet was eight for a while. Yeah, Eric Fetty before
he got traded was was fine.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
And you want you want Robert in there if he's healthy.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, the healthy Robert is worth having. But yeah, like
Andrew Vaughan has been serviceable, kind of an in and
out of your lineup guys. Yeah, but but really it's
a sad It's a sad team where you're like, Hi,
I don't know if I necessarily want. You know, Gavin
Sheets and his eight died, eight runs and four hundred

(03:31):
and seventy played it to forty average. And the thing
is he's been He's played all season. There isn't even
the like, well he's in a platoon, he hasn't played. No,
he's he's been irregular, and this is what he's done.
I don't mean to Ragan Gavin Sheets like, I'm just
kind of making a broader point about the White Sox.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Every every every week when I sort for like played
appearances over the last like thirty days or fourteen days,
Gavin Sheets is always at the top, like.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
You're you're trying, you're about the free but free agent pool.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah yeah, in in uh in main event or other
NFC leagues. And it's it's sad every every time I think, Wow,
Gavin Cheets is playing, but Nope, not going to be
for me.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
They would have to go to Colorado or have some
really weak pitching string. And even then it's like, yeah,
I don't really know if I want to do that. Yeah,
for sure.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
So since we're playing fast and loose and we're actually
talking about real baseball, by contrast, how about and you know,
I don't I don't know what the record has been
over this period, but I I pose a question to
you about that three of the top what six players

(04:42):
by w r C plus over the last month. And
this was I think a couple of days ago. We're
from the same team, and Mike, do you know what
the same that team is?

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well, I might do because we talked about it. Well,
it's it's the Oakland A's. Now, what's interesting about this
is that the A's over that say span have been
just barely Like they're eighteen seventeen, so they've been okay,
the best team in the American League over that same
span as the Tigers. They're twenty three and twelve. Like

(05:12):
the Tigers have been so good. It's kind of you know,
it's kind of and they lost today and I'm not
counting that, but it's kind of surprised that it's like, Wow,
they've really they've really put something together over the last
month and change.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, and they actually are, you know, within a shout
of being back in.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
The Yeah, yeah, you know, a peeve of mine. I
don't know if you saw this that there was an article,
you know, again since we're being fast and loose, that
there was an article earlier this week at the main
site about you know, how the playoffs like system essentially
like stinks. I think it was by Daniel Epstein if

(05:51):
I remember correctly, and we interacted on social media. He
made a lot of great points, but like one point
I hate is that and told you this, there's almost
no intradivisional or there's very few interdivisional games like the
rest of the way, and it just kind of makes
it stink, like like the Royals are finishing up with
a ton of interleague games and putting us out how

(06:12):
you feel about interly play, It's like, well, like that
just stinks that this team is in the race and
they're gonna pract they're gonna play teams for the national League, like,
so they might make it, they might not make it,
but there's not that exciting series at the m We're like, ooh,
this team is like two games out and the team
they're playing is you know, three games ahead. This is
for all the marbles or this means a lot likes
that's gone.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, you know how I've
told you how I'm not I'm not a big fan
of interleague play, and I'm especially not a fan of
this doing multiple interleague series pretty much all all the
year round and now doing you know, every team playing
every other team at some point in the season. You know,

(06:55):
it's my Septembers are I have so many fond memories.
It's Septembers where it's like, you know, Giants Dodgers, and
there's you know, two series a week apart in September. Yeah,
you know, And I was asking you if you know,
if the what the Mets were if the Mets were
playing Atlanta and they happen to have a three game series,

(07:18):
I think what the week it's the second or last?

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, I think it's I think so it's I think
it's the twenty third through the twenty fifth. Memory serves.
Now now the Mets, do you know? Yeah, now the
Mets do get a bunch of Phillies, and you know,
if things had shake shaken out differently, that would be
more interesting. And it's still interesting because you know, the
Mets they're not going to redo O seven in reverse.
But you know, if the if they you know, they

(07:45):
can knock the Phillies out of home field advantage, and
the Phillies can certainly knock the Mets out of playoff contention.
But yeah, it's not nearly it's not nearly the same.
But you know, there's plenty of examples where you know,
the tires in other worlds, Like there's just not enough
of those games with the Division where you're like, huh,
like this is gonna be great, this is gonna be interesting.
And yes, like back when we were kids, sure, sometimes

(08:09):
luck of the draw, you'd get a team in first
or second in the NLES playing you know, a team
in fifth or sixth the analyst, and it wasn't that
kind of thing. But just because there were so many
more games in the division, the odds of that exciting
finish that you're talking about where there's just a bunch
of games at the end the teams are going at
each other were much higher.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Yeah, no question, I'm trying to find the most like irrelevant. Well,
it's a bad, bad day to look because it's a Thursday,
But like, what's what's an irrelevant interleague series coming up?

Speaker 1 (08:42):
I mean, I mean, are you talking about like two
teams that are just completely out.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Of it or yeah, and just have no no juice whatsoever.
I don't know, like like, I don't know. I there's
no real good examples because most of the teams.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
Well, the Rockies, well, the Rockies are well, the Rockies
are finishing finished up with Detroit today, but Detroit is
you know, kind that's not really like.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
A like, I don't know, Rockies Rockies, White Sox will
be the worst example.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Right, it would. I mean, they're they're not playing each other.
But I know what you I know those.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
Types of series. You know what I'm getting at, So
I'll stop yelling at what's.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
What's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to find
a series like that, and I'm sure it's out there,
Like I'm sure there's a series where you know, it's
just like barf, like nobody cares, like why is this?
You know, why is this even all the schedule?

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well even like even like Red's Twins, like that's fine,
I mean they you know, Minnesota is still very much
in it, Cincinnati not so much. But they're not a
terrible team and they've got you know, they got Ellie.
But still it's like that that matchup brings absolutely nothing
to the table.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Well well and even even like you know, so speaking
of the Royals, like they're one of the tea are
playing as the Nationals and it's like, okay, well the
Nationals could play a spoiler, but I'd rather see like
a team from their division or at least their league
play the spoiler. Like I'm just not really I'm not
really interested in that that It's just not the same thing.
And there is something to be said for if you're

(10:17):
that bad team in the division and you you know,
it goes back to some balanced schedule thing and you
see that same team you know, fifteen eighteen times a year,
and you're the ones that knock them off. That bad
blood tends to carry over to the next season, whereas
with this it's like, I just don't think anybody is
going to carry It's that larger problem I feel at
baseball like everything feels very generic now, where it just doesn't.

(10:41):
It doesn't have that feel of I get there's a
balance being tradition and making things like modern, but it
just feels like that piece of the tradition I wish
we could keep.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Did you go to Did you go to any major
league games?

Speaker 1 (10:54):
I actually did not. I've been to a few minor
league games, but I did not. I was invited to
a Phillies game earlier this week. It just didn't the
time of it didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I don't have the opportunity because
I'm five plus hours from the nearest park, But uh,
yeah it does. I mean I think that's probably you know,
translated a bit to the to the ballpark experience. Hey,
let's uh, We've got the the NFBC main Event ADP

(11:29):
in draft board form, which I have introduced to you
and I've changed I've changed your life.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Yeah, I knew you could pull up that board. I
didn't realize you could do the same sorts of the
NFBC like on a list form by by board form.
So this is gored by the way for you sikos
listening to other podcasts, this is still twenty twenty four.
We are not looking ahead yet to like twenty twenty
five drafts or doing twenty twenty five drafts. We'll, you know,

(11:54):
we'll we'll save those for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
I thought it would be fun to, uh, you exactly that,
to when everyone else is looking forward, to actually look
back and see, you know, in broader strokes, what what
the the the wisdom of the crowds expected in the spring,
and and what has has come to pass? And I

(12:18):
don't know if you want to start with any general observations,
we could just start at I mean, here, here's one
thing I'm looking at, which is Round one not great
for for many, for many of your your picks. I'm
I'm staring at the middle tier, in the middle of
the round six, seven, and eight outfielders. Let's include let's

(12:42):
let's go all, but let's go the top five outfielders
in the entire draft. Ronald Una, Julio Rodriguez, Kyle Tucker,
Corbyn Carroll, Fernando Tatist Junior.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
How did that work out? I'm not well, you know,
in a in a shallower league, if if you got
like Tucker or Tatist and you, you know, were able
to get a replacement, good for you. But really, I
guess Appli Zekuna too, But really it didn't work out
that well. I think, oddly enough is has Carol been
the best of those five? I know it's you know,

(13:16):
it's kind of weird because you know, at one point
we're all gnashing our teeth about him. But so my
thing about this is that I've been saying this for
a couple of months. My takeaway here is that at
the beginning of draft season, Aaron Judge and your and
Alvarez were considered the biggest injury risks in the first round,
and it was like, we take them earlier, but they
might get hurt and even show, hey, Otani had a

(13:38):
little bit of that of it. It's like, well, we
probably think he'll be fine, but he's coming off of
this surgery. We saw what Bryce Harper did power wise
after the surgery. His power won't be there in the
first half. I feel like we need to stop being
injury experts and assuming we know what's going to happen next,
because especially for hitters, like we just don't know, like
we just don't know, like what the trache act he's

(14:00):
going to look like in the past or the future.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Well yeah, and you know, there were there were no
injury concerns with Kyle Tucker, and he's missed, you know,
other than a Kunya. I think he's missed the most
time out of any of those.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
I think that's by the way.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I so, just according to the Rota Wire earned earned
auction values among those players we named, yes, Corbin Carroll
twenty six dollars easily the highest of.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
You're looking, so you'rely a fifteen mix right like just
to yees okaye that.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
And I can't even find I mean, there's Mookie Betts,
but you know, also eligible at short and second and
but he's still twenty one, you know, because he missed
so much time. Yeah, I'm going down a good long
ways before I finally get to Julio at thirteen. So

(14:58):
you know, and juli has has only has been injured
a little bit, but not enough to I mean, this
was clearly a production thing. But yeah, so the Corby
and Carroll face turn turns out he was not a
terrible pick, no.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I mean still you know, yeah, I guess probably disappointment
instead of a bust is how I would classify him.
And that that's a you know, good point too. Like,
since we're talking about the first round, I think people
often get wrapped up conceptually and ah, this player stunk,
and it's like, well, yes, but by design, almost everybody

(15:35):
in the first round is or I should say, the
majority of players in the first round are going to disappoint.
So if your disappointment returns I don't know, six round
value versus you know, twelve round value, you can live
with that and you can recover from that where it's like, okay,
like that's not wonderful. But if I some of those
later picks came through, I should be fine, you know.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
And if I told you Carrol's if I went category
by category nineteen home runs in the second week of September,
you'd say, great, right, nineteen home runs. That's you know,
maybe on the higher end of his projection sixty seven RBI. Okay,
you'd be a little disappointed with that. But you know,
you think, well, he's leading off, he's he's not in

(16:18):
a position to drive runners in, you know, as much
as he might otherwise. Be one hundred and eight runs,
you'd say, Okay, there we go, that's what I paid for,
you know, one hundred and eighty. He's on pace for
like one hundred and twenty or take a few twenty
seven steals. You you'd be a little disappointed, right, You
think I was hoping for, you know, something in the
forty ish range.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
But is amazing. He's on pace now for like, you know,
load of mid thirties, which again, like, yeah, i'd be disappointed,
be like, okay, and I think that's that's fine.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
And the one number, you know, i'd say average two thirty, Okay,
then you'd be okay, he really he really came up
short and average. But you know, four out of the
five categories he's he's decent to excellent.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
So I think this is the thing about the first
round too, which is you want to get your categories
in the first round. So it's sort of the idea
of like if you draft a judge, for example, and
judge put up a great year, but he only hit
like say thirty home runs and was or twenty five
hour runs. It was great in every other category. I

(17:22):
think you still feel like, Okay, I get it, Like
Aaron Judge was fine, but then you'd have to make
up those home runs somewhere else. Like so I think
that's what it is with Carol. It's a combination of steals,
especially the average. You feel like, all right, well that's fine,
but I had to make up those two categories somewhere else,
and especially the batting average.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, And the way we built our team, like I
think we built our team looking at Carol, going, okay,
he's he's going to be an average guy, so we
can live with Anthony Santander and Kyle Schwerber and Nolan
Gorman and it'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, yeah, I know, that's exactly what I was thinking.
It's it's it's the fact that the team build was,
you know, centered on Carol giving us at least like
a two eighty average.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
So I but yeah, so I think the lesson there
with the first round is just like kind of get
the player, don't worry too much about the bill that
I'm not saying we wouldn't have drafted Carol anyway. But
it's an idea of like, well, like get the player
and don't think, oh, he's definitely going to put up
these stats, because we know that in most cases they won't.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Well, but when we if I remember correctly, when we
were talking about the first round back in the spring,
you know, and specifically our main event draft, I mean
we really felt like at pick seven that we needed
to come away with some speed, right and yes, and

(18:50):
now you know and has your overall process changed because
you know I know that like obviously twenty twenty hindsight,
but you know Aaron Judge should not go until pick thirteen.
He was, he was there for the taking. But our
the hesitation there I think was really, Okay, he's not

(19:12):
going to be a speed anchor, and that's going to
put us behind the eight ball in that category. So
are you still are you going to change your approach
that much to where you're really not prioritizing speed in
the first round.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
I'm probably going to change its slightly. I don't want
to say I'm not prioritizing it. But Carol is an
example of somebody where I think he had so much
speed wrapped into his game that if I take a
speed player. I'm going to want somebody like I currently
I'm wrong. I think we looked at Carol's twenty five
home runs coming into the year and thought that's kind

(19:48):
of the ceiling for him, Like we don't really think
he's going to hit more. But the proposition is, or
the problems were like, well he slips of fifteen to twenty,
he's still going to steal a ton of bases. And
I mean he stole good amount of basis, but I
don't think he stole so many that were like, okay,
well this is the earlier sorryment. So if Corman Carroll

(20:09):
Stole was on pace to steal fifty five bases, I
think we look at a two thirty average and everything
else and be like, well, who cares, Like he kind
of did the thing that we drafted him to do,
and you know, the average is stinky, but whatever. So
so that that's kind of what it is. It's I
sort of want to make sure when I take a

(20:30):
player in the first round who's tied the speed that
I'm getting a five category player and there aren't any
doubts about those five categories.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah. No, it's just it's just.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
A weird object lesson though because average was not the
category I was really doubting with Carol.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
But that's also an object lesson in you know, a
track the short track record, and the fact that you know,
he did struggle a bit in the second half of
last season, and I know we can replace second half stats,
but I mean, I think even brought it up as
kind of a hesitation that and maybe it was more
about the power.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
You know, the power is what I was worried about.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah, but I you know, again,
this doesn't need to be the core of Carroll.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
You don't need to make this podcast. And again, really
it's not a memorial, and I ought to make this
a broader point, like if we had taken Judge, you know,
I think the guy we might have taken, I might
have taken him St. Francisco Lindora was CJ. Abrams because
we remember we were talking about a Judge Abrams pairing
and Abrams and Art draft slipped like he he he

(21:38):
was gone by the fourth round. We're kind of laughing.
It's like, oh my gosh, imagine if we drowned the
pool with like Lindor at Abrams and we were like, no,
that that's too much speed, like we we can't do that,
and you know it kind of you look at Carroll
compared to Abrams, and Abrams is is much lower, like
earnings wise than Carol and Abrams clearly is a disappointment
where it's like, man, that that just kind of you know,

(22:01):
he's in cough cough. I was right about him, you know,
Matt Olsen's territory puff cough.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
And but you know, again, this is all about the
shape of the season. You know, Abrams started off pretty
hot and Carroll extremely cold. And now you look at
them and you know they're there have some similarities they do.
They're within a run and a steel apart from each other.
You know, Carroll was blowing him away and run.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
The run the runs. Run the runs is the big
difference in their valuation. Yeah, yeah, like that That's why
I think part of the reason Carol is is so high.
And it comes back to the idea like runs is
such an underrated category. You know, it's it's why like,
you know, the fact that we were able to get
Brandon Nemo still kind of surprises me because it's like, well,
for everything else that Nemo like does and doesn't do,

(22:47):
he he historically just scores a ton of runs.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yes, he does. You want to talk a little bit
about pitching and yeahs and how things you know worked out?
He and you know, of course there was only one
uh pitcher who's adp you know, after the Garrett Cole injury,
it was only Spencer Streider in the main event going

(23:13):
at the second overall pick. And then there's the run
of starters in the second round. Actually, you know, I'll
be interested to hear what you think about it, but
I think it it was a pretty solid group as
far as returns. It was Corbyn Burns, Zach Wheeler, Luis Castillo,
George Kirby, Pablo Lopez, and Tyler Glass now with Treek

(23:36):
Scoble going at the two three turn. So you know,
potentially you could lump him in there.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
You could, you could love Gassman in two, but maybe
you don't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
And you get there for yeah, I mean Gassman, because
then there was a pretty big.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
There's quite a few picks, so yeah, let's lump.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Let's let's lump Gousman. What we got.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Yeah, so this is this is kind of what I'm
glad you kind of put it this way. Because there's
often this narrative. We see it every year. People people
cherry picks. So people look at like Seth Lugo and
Jack Clarity and you know others, and they're like, see,
like the picture you can get the cheap pictures, you
can do this, you can do that. It's like, well
they're there like that. You can certainly, you know, pluck

(24:19):
a cheap picture or two out. But a lot of
these you know pictures that you're talking about, like they've
all been like pretty good. Like even Tyler Glassa with
the time he's missed, like he's in the top fifteen,
and you know Burns is is right on the periphery
of that. And you know Wheeler, we know like Wheelers,
you know outside of Scooble and Sale, he's been great.

(24:41):
And you know Logan Gilbert who went a little later,
is is up there. I see a lot of reliability
in these arms. Like I don't see a picture in particular,
I'm like, oh my gosh, like this guy completely shit
the bed and you know you just didn't want any
part of him. They're all they're all kind of fine.
Even Pablo Lopez, who's race. His disappointing category is the

(25:02):
RA and even there, like he's he's recovered, he's he's
been an SP two, which I wish he was an
SP one. Like that's something that our team is lacking.
But I can't really complain about like Lopez and Biby
and you know, in the second half, like Blake Snell,
like I can't really complain about the results.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
No, And I think at the end of the year,
assuming Lopez has I mean, I can't assume, but given
that he's gotten stronger and is in the last you know,
I would say, what months to six.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
Weeks something like that. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Mean you were gonna end up with the e ra
A maybe in the like three six is a good
whip right close to one ten and then you know,
more than a strikeout per inning, and he's an innings total.
That's going to be you know, it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah. I think the thing with Lopez and I felt
I felt for this kind of I think I looked
at his second half last year and thought he was
going to take this big step forward. It's quite but
he could. But I think we it might be better
to accept that this is who he is, like kind
of a three five three step like a pitcher's ra
will be a little bit higher than a traditional ace

(26:14):
because he gives up the occasional home run, but otherwise,
like the rest of the stats or you know, low
walk rate, high strikeout rate, you know, just goes these
dominant periods. He's a sturdy arm. Like he's just one
of those like guys where it's like, okay, like I
can just kind of write in one hundred and eighty hundred
nine innings for him, I hope, you know, barring injury,
and he's just solid.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. Again.
You know, we're not not going to speculate about next year,
but here I am speculating.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
It's hard not to do, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
To Yeah, but to see if he is in the
same tier or you know, close to Like I can't
imagine that he goes past you know, the middle of
the third round and and you know, possibly he people
look at the shape of the season and end up,

(27:05):
you know, treating him as a kind of you know,
quasi quasi as.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
This is I mean, you know, again speaking of next year,
I think this is where I was thinking about this
earlier today. So as you know, my philosophy's kind of
been like the top thirty pitchers and everybody else, and
that you should get three of those pictures, you know,
out of the first like thirty pictures taken. I kind
of wonder like if the pictures like between twenty five

(27:33):
and thirty, maybe that's maybe it's more like twenty five
than thirty, and maybe it's even twenty. Maybe it's like, well,
I should get two pictures in the top twenty and
then kind of just take my chances later, just because
there's there's so much more And it's not even the performance,
it's more that you're just not getting as many innings,
you're not getting as much quality, you know, from those innings.

(27:56):
I look at like this year's like pictures compared to
last year's pictures, and you know, last year there are
just so many more pictures in fifteen team that were
cracking that the like twenty dollars barrier than there are
this year. Like there just aren't as many pictures that
I'm like, Okay, like I know I'm going to get
a pretty solid level of performance and volume from from

(28:16):
this arm.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, I think volume is really the thing there that like,
you know, a picture like Castillo, who's not been great.
I mean he's been solid, but not great. But again,
what you're getting there is is that that volume.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, I mean Nola. Nola's kind of liked that too.
You know, Jose Barrios has kind of been like that.
I think people might look at him and go, eh,
like whatever. At this point, he.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Is what he is. But now he carried me in
my home Lea.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, that's the thing. You look at the overall line,
like the strikeouts are low, but you have the rest
of the line and you're like, well, he's he's fine,
Like he's just kind of this receptible like you know
Pitcher and I think you've just got him somewhat next year.
But he's he's perfectly okay, as like your SP three.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
So if you're talking about reducing that that sort of
tier where you want to to really invest, if you
want to get two in the top twenty, you're basically
looking at two starters in the first four rounds.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Right, Yeah, maybe five, but like in the main event,
it's definitely four and well and that this is where
this gets tricky, right, This is kind of where you
have to thread the needle because on the one hand,
you want those aces. But on the other hand, if
you if you push it down and push it down
and push it down, now you're not really getting aces.
Like now you're you're kind of back in lottery ticket territory.

(29:46):
So it gets tricky, right because like we sort of
something I really liked about about this philosophy and main event,
Like I feel like we, you know, have to keep
turning it back to like what we did, but I
really like the pictures that we got, like behind the three,
and it just tied into the theory of like like
outside of Louis v Arland, who you know, stunk and

(30:07):
we cut pretty early, we did pretty and you know,
ou'side Alex Wood who we took in the twenty ninth round,
so who cares.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
We knew we were going to cut a bunch of
those guys anyway like that.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
But but the funny thing is we really didn't like
we got like Nessa Cortes, like we got Nick the Doolo,
We got Dan Kramer, Clark Schmidt, Kyle Bradish, Brady Singer,
all of them, and Singer was great, but like all
of them were like really solid and contributed for a while.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, And I felt like there have been very few
weeks where we've you know, depended on the wire to
stream a starter, like we've picked up pictures and we've
even started some based on matchups that we picked up
up the wire. But I think generally we are what
we're deciding on is, you know, which one or two

(30:54):
starters who are you know, definitively part of the rotation
of their teams. Which one of which one or two
of those are we going to leave out of the lineup? Right? So, yeah,
we we have had some and you know, I think
the pitch has been really good. Uh he had a
slow starting eer A.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Well we had we had Blake Snell and you know,
probably you know something interesting, I kind of think, you know,
I was thinking about Snell. I've heard people complain about
him this year and how erratic he is, and people
memory hold the past. There's a lot of he's always
so erratic, he's up and down. It's like, well, he
won the Cion last year and he was a top

(31:33):
three Fantasy pitcher. Yes, he he was bad for a
little bit last year. But if you can get that
from a pitcher, like any pitcher regards where you draft him,
that's great, right, like the top three picture, that's what
we we want. Like when'tly think about what the ups
and downs, we're like, oh, I got a top three
pitcher like so Snell this year. I feel like the
play might have been, like I know, we sat him

(31:54):
for a week or two, but oddly enough, the play
might have very well been to like just sit him,
like at the very beginning, like when it was uncertain,
and then like when he had his first good start,
be like, okay, we lost a good start, like let's
put him in now, and even in a shallow league,
like he's a sort of player you use your bench
spot for that, right, Like the idea of like, okay,
instead of an injury, it's it's the two weeks or

(32:17):
three weeks, you know, assueing next year that Blake says
bad grumble grumble, I don't get them or I miss
a start, But otherwise I've got this like elite ace,
and I was able to replace him with someone else.
So yeah, back to this point, I find this fascinating.
I pulled up our team the picture, our top six
pictures and innings we all drafted, which I think is

(32:37):
pretty amazing, right, Like you don't really see that that often.
The guy who got us the most innings that we
got as a free agent was jose Kintana, who we
got the really good innings from two. The next highest
picture in innings who the innings were so good was
Kyle Harrison. And this is starters, but it was Kyle
Harrison at thirty four and a third. We really did that.

(32:57):
We really rolled with the pictures we drafted. Yeah, we
really have very like even now, like even now in
our roster, like what what do we have Brett Herder
And is is that it like we like for starters
like who are.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Who are active?

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yeah, really rolled with who we started with. Yeah, it's
kind of it's kind of amazing, Like when you talked
about and some we avoided, you know, for the most part,
got hurt, but we avoided the injury bug for the
most part. Well Schmidt got hurt too. I shouldn't say
we avoided the injury bug, but we kind of dodge

(33:33):
it for the most part. And with the pictures we
had were able to just have a staff and not
really be too like, oh like we you know, we
weren't able to fill in or we were in trouble
or we had problems yeah, I'm I know some of
it's luck, but I'm pretty I'm pretty impressed with the
way that played out.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Well, I really liked the the strategy that was it
was your strategy, and I you know, co signed half,
which was to basically target rounds where we were just
going to take the highest starting picture on our board,
and you know, with the idea that after those those

(34:13):
top three ideal the top three on our roster that
were ideally top thirty. Uh, you know, we'd take a
little break from starters and then at a certain point
we just start, you know, just taking pictures when yeah,
in a in a really agnostic way, in a way
that we weren't reaching because you know, I like so

(34:34):
and so or I you know, I mean I'm trying
to think. I'm sure I had some some pictures that
I was I was excited about that. If I weren't,
you know, going with that structure, I would have I
would have maybe read much for them. And this was
just like nope, just wait to the round and then
see what's see what's on the back.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
And the funny and the funny thing too about that
strategy is like I'm looking at like pictures and how
how they're ranked. It's not like any of these pictures
our world beaters in terms of their like their fantasy ranking.
Now do you know what I'm saying, Like they're they're
all they're all solid, but there's nobody where it's like, oh,
like we didn't get a set logo in that bunch, right,

(35:11):
Like we didn't get somebody. It's like, okay, we completely
like hit the lottery. And yet like we have a
good it's not a great staff, but we have a
good we have a good staff, like we have a
good pitching staff. Where I look at it, I'm like
I'm not like, oh gosh, like this is a nightmare.
We're at the bottom of the ra like what happened?
Like what went wrong? And you know, just just to
kind of run through, you know, like what you're what

(35:33):
you're talking about, Like a big part of our success
is that, you know, instead of reaching for pictures in
the middle, like we we got Kyle Schwerber and Anthony
Santander like like that we we got all this power
I think where some people are like, oh, I have
to take a picture, you know, I've got to get
that third start, I get that fourth start. The pictures
are going to dry up. It's like, no, they're not,
Like they're really I mean, they could dry up, but

(35:54):
we're flipping coins at this point and recognize that, like
instead of making the coin f up on a picture
being like okay, like Kyle Schwarber has been sitting out
here for a while, Like let's let's take Kyle Schwerber.
Anythink Santandra like I think this is around too late
for him. I'll happily. I mean, it did all work out,
you know, just in Cossas got hurt and that that
kind of sucked. Like we've we've laughed about Costa had
stayed healthy and even hit like thirty home runs, like

(36:15):
what our team would look like power wise. But yeah, yeah,
like it's that that's kind of what the strategy. Like,
if you're listening, you're not clear about the strategy. That's
what the strategy really does, is it allows you to
make up that offensive ground at that portion of the
draft when other people are still going after pictures and
pictures that are more uncertain than the ones that were

(36:37):
take that you take.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Earlier, right right, I mean we could. I won't. I
won't go through go through it right now, but I'm
I'm guessing that. I mean, I don't have our draft board,
but I think we took Bibby and what round seven.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Maybe Bibby went and around Bobby went around seven. You know,
he was a nice overall.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Mm hmm, and then we we to a break for
I don't know when our next starter was, like.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
In round thirteen at one eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
Okay, And so you know, we could go back and
look at all those pictures that were taken between Bibby
and Nestor, and I'm guessing that their their value does
not drastically top the pictures that well.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
And this, yeah, this is the anecdotal thing, right, Like
I'm sure like you could point to showedim Monaga, who
truly went before Nestor, and you know you could and
Bryce Miller I probably did too, and you could say, see,
like you should have taken one of those pictures that's like, well.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
There was a what Tristan McKenzie or.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
And they were probably like the probably six or seven of.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
The Jordan Montgomery, those guys exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
And I think that's the thing people miss, which is like, well,
if you could identify, you know, showed him Naga, you
would have drafted him five rounds earlier. You wouldn't have
taken him at pick one fifty or wherever he went
you would have you would have made him one of
the aces like that. That's sort of the point, right,
like like we don't know what we don't know. Like
I don't think the people taking him a Naga like

(38:11):
before Cortes like, were necessarily metaphysically confident that he was better.
I think they were just looking at him like, well,
he could be a very good picture. Like I'm gonna
kind of roll this and this is true, Like this
is true even later in the draft, like like I
have Jack Flarerity my home league and I'm really happy
about it. But I got him for like two or
three bucks in an ail only. I can't say that
I am this like genius about Jack Flarery. I just

(38:34):
kind of closed my eyes and said, Okay, he's been
good in the past. He's a three dollars flyer in
an only league. If he works out, great, If he doesn't,
I'm going to cut him in two weeks.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah. I mean it's it's uh, it's educated luck basically,
or it's it's you know, we we just you have
reasons to think that a picture might out then their
draft value, and you know.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
You know what's yeah, you know what's really tough about
this is that nobody, especially analysts or experts, nobody wants
to admit they don't know. Nobody wants to say nobody
wants to make a pick and say honestly, I don't know.
They don't want to say in March, I don't know
how Paul Skeens is gonna work out. They want to
brag about drafting Paul Skins, and if Paul Skins is great,
they want to remind you, you know, for the whole

(39:18):
season how smart they were, you know about Paul Skins
and look good for you. I'm not saying you shouldn't
do that, but those same people are not reminding you
about Andrew Abbott or Shamee Baas, like who went you know,
in overall ADP this is the main eventution overall, like
they're not for them. I'm even remind you about Michael Waka,
who who's a good pick by the way, you know,
he was drafted around that range and he was fine,

(39:39):
and I think he's he's been sneaky good. But nobody
really talks about him either. I think people just want
to like kind of keep hammering home the outliers, which
is why for pitching especially, we get in this mindset
of like, oh, you know, I can take pictures late,
they'll be great, Like well maybe, but probably not.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I think maybe that that could be are Lane, that
could be our niche is We're the ones who just
you know, we'll get on a podcast and like when
we do our positional previews next year, we can just
say we don't know, yeah you know, uh so, yeah,
so what do you think? Who do you want? Here's
your first pick? Well, I mean, I don't know if

(40:18):
it could be could pick Bobby Wit, could Big Show. Hey,
you know, I don't know it isn't you who do
you like? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
By the way, where it's Thursday night and there's a
couple of games going. Is it wrong to get annoyed
at Victor Roblez being two for two and and not
having a steal or? Am I just being greedy at
this point?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Being greedy because we because we we did kind of
you know, do what we better I think than we
hoped we would do in steals in our kind of push.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
I think, yeah, So to circle back here, like we
at one point our team was floundering overall but also
in steels and we were now, oh, I'm not I'm
not gonna talk about the standings. They're just talking about
the category. Like like in steals, now we have well
we just lost half a point, but we have nine

(41:10):
and a half points and could finish like with twelve
points in the category. It just it's just one of
those things. If you look back to two or three
months ago, we look dead in the category. And this
is the other piece about steals too, and I think
this is true for saves as well, that there's so
much you're gonna hear this with like twenty twenty five
analysis right now, there's so much focus on the draft
and so much oh, if I don't do this in

(41:31):
the draft, this won't happen later in the season. And
unless you're in a nail only or only I think
that's nonsense. You can, and especially in those two categories.
I don't want to say it's easy to peak pick
people up, but there's opportunities. There's frequently opportunities to pick
stolen bases up via free agency. There aren't as many opportunities,

(41:52):
but there are opportunities to pick saves up, you know,
on the water, you know, one thing in the main
event I'm thinking about. You know, I mentioned this a
few times, like offline, I think one thing I want
to do better next year. We didn't need him at
the time, but I kind of wish we had been
something on Kirby Yates when he was out there. Maybe
we wouldn't have gotten him. It just wouldn't have been
a bad idea to have a like a third closer in,

(42:15):
you know, and then and then be like, Okay, well
he's doing better than you know, Alvarado this week, we'll
put him in instead. And then when Alvarado stopped saving games,
you know, we're just gonna be like, Okay, it's it's
time to I know, I'm sure you picking, but I mean.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
I don't remember. Now your point is well taken. I
don't remember the exact timeline, but I have a feeling
that after uh, you know, we we would have acquired Yates.
I don't know that Alvarado would have been in our
lineup many weeks after that, because if I remember correctly,
he well began to lose opportunities pretty pretty shortly thereafter.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
And yeah, I think this is the other thing too,
Like I think the other thing about this sort of
revision of stuff is like one one reason we weren't
taking shots like that is we we've been a ton
on Nemo and it was the right move, and I
think it's fine, but it just made us be a
little bit conservative for a while because we're like, well,

(43:14):
we can't take another big swing like right away, especially
in a category that we didn't really need. Or it's like, well,
you know, if we're in twelfth place right now, getting
a closer and finishing tenth is not really going to
make a world of difference.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
So yeah, you don't have to say like it was,
it's been. You know, there are a lot of things
that I would do differently were we to do this again, hopefully.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
I think I think we will.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
I think we will, but you know, given that.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
We also Yeah, also I forget yea, I forget Yate's
went as early as he did, Like he went the
same week we got Nemo like that that wasterly Okay,
Well I thought it was a couple I thought it
was a couple of weeks later. Uh.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
You know, but how do how to handle fab and
you know how to well how to recover in season.
I mean, I think in general, given where we started,
I think we did a pretty pretty damn good job
of I do too.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
I think I also think, like even the like even
drafting all the injured players or you know, risky players,
we did. I don't you know this sounds obvious too.
I'd want to mitigate some of that risks, just just
because recovering from the slow start really does change how
you play a little bit.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, yeah, we weren't. We weren't thinking of Snell as
like an injury guy. True, it's kind of what.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Well, well, that's another way my thinking has changed, too,
which is just thinking in general, which is players that
sign super late, I'm going to discount them far more
heavily in the future. There's just too many variables and
like if they work out, like if if Blake's if
the twenty twenty five version of Blake Snell like is
great right away, well bless the person who gets him,

(45:04):
like whatever. It's sort of it's sort of I feel
about Chris Sale, like, I know some people are going
to victory lapless Chris Sale, and I've heard that. I'm like, honestly,
if a picture who threw one hundred and fifty innings
over the last three years or whatever it was for
Chris Sale is the freaking cy young good for you?
Like you you got somebody who worked out for you.

(45:24):
I still don't see that as a good process thing.
I see it as like, okay, you you kind of
hit the jackpot on a good picture, on a very
good picture. Who was finally healthy at age thirty five?
It just doesn't It happened a lot like if I
if I'm gonna put an action royal table together for that,
it's not a good.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Bet, you know, Snell. I'm looking at the values there
in value yen and snell Is has earned one dollar.
But of course you know we we were able to
fill in when he was gone. Jordan My Montgomery the
other late signing picture. Care to guess his.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
Negative is like negative fifteen, negative seventeen. I figured it
was gonna be somewhere in that ballpark. Yeah. So something
about snell and the way these calculators do that, and
this is different from how I do it. They do
bake in the cost of not having that player on
your roster. Yeah, I just bake in what they contributed

(46:28):
to the roster. And I've had some people say it.
I wrote about this laft last offseason. I've had some
people say it should actually be the opposite, where you
kind of bake in the replacement player. Like the example
last year of the twenty twenty three Iron Judge, somebody's like, well, okay,
so Judge returns sixth round or seventh round value or
whatever any cautally it wasn't on your team, but in reality,

(46:50):
you had somebody in there for him, like Blake Snell.
To go back to Snell, if you just had a
picture do what Snell did, you know, putting the innings
aside for a second, Like if you just had a
picture on your roster the whole season where you had
no replacements and you know he put up a three
five ERA and he struck out you know, one hundred

(47:12):
and twenty four batters and you know he had three wins. Yeah,
like that's that's not really great. But to your point,
like you're gonna have half a season of you know,
or at least ten to twelve starts to somebody else,
And I think what's triggering with pictures as opposed to hitters.
Those starts could be really bad depending on what you're
like cycling through and you can't just say, oh yeah,

(47:34):
I would have taken the best picture available. So therefore
Stell's great. Whereas hitters it's a little bit different because
unless you're you know, not again not to pick on him,
unless you're using Gavin Sheets, you're probably getting some kind
of productivity. You're not getting Judge productivity, but you're getting
some kind of productivity like week in week out from

(47:54):
from that position where it's like, okay, if I don't
have Judge and I've got a guy on pace hit
twenty home runs, you know, driving sixty, you know, score sixty,
steal like you know, I don't know, like five bases
or whatever, and you're adding that, you know, a third
of that season to judges, you know, two thirds of
a season that's really good like that, that's kind of

(48:16):
elevating Judge, right.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Right, yeah, yeah, And you know, for hitters, obviously you're
presumably going to be able to pick up someone who's
playing uh, you know, every day, or at worst a
platoon you know, alongside platoon player, whereas pitchers, the you know,

(48:41):
you one start can can blow up your entire step lines.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
So so before we go, I have a I have
a question for you, who who would you rather have
next year? Would you rather have Blake Snell or Tyler
Glass Snell? Oh mmmm, We we don't know where Stell's
gonna land, So that's up.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, you're talking about not relative, You're just like in
a vacuum, who would I rather have? Yeah, Glass or
Blake Snell. I I give a slight lean towards Glass now,
but it's it's pretty close.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
See See. It's interesting because I I think they're close.
I think a lot of people like Glass Now a
lot better and are viewing this this season is this
big win for him, and I'm kind of like, well,
maybe like I I I kind of look at the
two of them, and I'm like, well, Glass now he's
two through on one hundred and.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Thirty two thirty four.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
I was, yeah, I was close. I also looked at
the like the last three years, like Snell has like
way more innings, like the that one hundred and twenty
one hundred and thirty inning season for Snell is kind
of the normal, like Blake Snell misses some time season,
whereas for Glass now that's kind of of a relatively
new thing. And yeah, I don't know. I don't. I

(50:05):
don't know if I really want either of them necessarily,
But if I if I had to roll the dice
on like kind of that stretch like SP two picture
I hope was the upside of an SP one, I
think I want Snell. I think he's of those two pictures,
I think he's the one I want.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Well, if you knew that each picture was going to
I won't even say thirty starts because that seems a
little unrealistic for Glass Now, but let's say twenty five starts.
Glassnow got twenty two this year. If you knew that
both pictures were going to have twenty five starts, would
you still prefer Snell?

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Well, if I knew that, I think i'd want Glass Now.
But that's that's the trick. I have more confidence.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
But this goes back to your beginning, which we shouldn't
try to be injury experts. I know Glass Now is
maybe a different case because the history has been so checkered,
but you know that. I think it's what you were
saying at the show.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
It is, and I think it's a way to use
my words against me. It's it's not just the I
guess it's not just the injuries. It's the way the
Dodgers use pictures like it's not difficult to envision them
kind of pulling the throttle back on him, and we
saw them do that like in at the beginning of
the second half, when he had what seemed like a

(51:29):
pretty minor injury. We're like, okay, like this, this is
a good opportunity to just kind of like you know,
sit down, like take a rest. I I just don't
see it.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
But do you take that maybe as a reason to
gamble that he's going to you know, he's being managed carefully,
that maybe the chances that he gets to one hundred
and fifty innings are better with the Dodgers, you know,
forgetting forgetting about his past. You don't buy that.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
I don't know. I I guess I put to put
this another way. I if I had to bet on
either Snell or Glass now getting to twenty five starts,
I'd put the bet on Snell. Yeah, And some of
that is, you know again, if you go back and
look at Snell for some reason, I'm looking at Luke
lucas Erseig I think because I wrote a little thing

(52:20):
about him today. But if you look at Snell, the
past four years, you know, coming into today or this week,
eighteen thirty two, twenty four, twenty seven, right, so he's
pretty much been a twenty five start guy, and if
he didn't sign late this year, probably would have been
a twenty five stark guy. I yes, I know he

(52:40):
got hurt, and that that again is the whole Would
you've gotten hurt anyway? Like yeah, not like who who knows?
I kind of throw up my hands. You know, Glass Now,
I look at the last four years, and yes, maybe
he's healthy now. But twenty two, twenty one, two and fourteen,
where it's like, could he get I mean, could he
get to thirty next year? Sure he could. If I

(53:01):
had to place the bet on either one of them
getting to like twenty five, I think the bet would
be on Snell for me.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
But here's the point, glassdown is going to go much
higher than Ye.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Well, that's what it is too. I'm not just I'm
not just like you're not just handing me a thing
and saying, oh okay, like you can pick either one.
An ADP doesn't matter. It's a free pick. If it's
a free pick, I might want Glass Now. To your point,
I might be like Okay, I'll take a gamble on
the fun upside of glass Now on a great team
where he could win, you know, fifteen games, even in

(53:32):
you know twenty five starts. Yeah, Snell's Stell's gonna go later,
and that That's what's really funny is I think people
are talking about glass Now as a potential fantasys in
the top fifteen. Snell is like an afterthought at this point.
I think everybody looked at this year and thinks that
he's a big mess. And I'm like, well, he was
mostly bad, and I'm not excuses he was mostly bad

(53:52):
because he's sign late. And then you know, in the
second in the second half, aside that stupid star why
you pitched an inning that you and I were both
like pulling her hair out about, He's been like when
Snell's on, and I'm not comparing the two pictures, but
when Snell's on, he's like Jacob Degram with more walks
is what he is. Like. He's just this picture that
you watch him and you're like, oh my god, Like

(54:13):
he pretty much is just gonna get everybody out. Yeah,
He's gonna walk a few batters, which is stupid and frustrating,
but he's close to unhittle stuff.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Is stuff is insane.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Yeah, yeah, stuff is really good. I just don't put
it in that like that same unhittable or near unhittable level.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah. I kind of think that they will be drafted
next year just about where they were drafted this year.
After all, Glass now be second round, but not you know.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
I think I think Sell go I think Snell could
go a little higher, but I do think you're right.
I think they'll be at least two rounds of separation
between the two of them.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, maybe Snow goes higher because you know, fantasy writers
are smart enough to at his his line post intrigue
smart enough, and so there'll be a narrative building. You know,
Snell will be on a lot of like.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
I well, I do think Snell will be more polarizing.
I think there will be people, and I think I
might wind up being one of these people who look
at his second half and maybe admittedly lean on that
too much, and not to say I think he'll put
up like a one eight or whatever, but look at
him and go, Okay, he's still an ace. Are close
to it, And I think there will be people and
I've heard play people say this, who look at the

(55:30):
last four years ago. No, it's too tumultuous. I get it.
He can pitch, you know, like an ace, but it's
more likely than can get a picture with a three
four era where I just feel miserable about it the
whole time. I'd rather not have any part of that.
I'd rather take you know, boring logan web at the
same ADP and know that I'm getting like a consistent,

(55:50):
boring like picture with a three four era with a
ton of innings who you know in a great park
who I just don't have, like the ulcer with.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Yeah. Yeah, obviously, how the off season goes will be
interesting and important, and you know, not so much the
landing spot. But if you know, assuming that he doesn't
extend with the giants and opts out.

Speaker 1 (56:15):
Which which you seem to think he won't, you seem
to think he's gone, or at least at the very least,
he's not gonna he's not gonna take the he's not
gonna take the option. You think he's gonna walk.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
I definitely think he's not gonna take the option. Okay,
but you know after I mean after the second half,
like he's I don't know, it depends though, Like I
don't know what what what they'll be asking for. It's
he's a Boris client, so they could have unreasonable expectations. Again,
but as far as like length.

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Of you know, we we should point out I know
we're now I it would be short and we've been
going like forever as we usually do, so, you know,
just to give context to this, like in the second half,
Blake Snell is three and oho ten starts fifty six
in the third innings, he has a one seven six ERA,

(57:06):
he has eighty two strikeouts. His whip is you know,
it's funny because he walks a bunch of people. Even
with twenty four walks and fifty six of the third innings,
his whip is below one. And I think it's so funny,
you know. I make this point too, like if if
Blake Snell had done this in the first half of
the season and then his second half was even just mediocre,

(57:29):
I think everybody's brain would just forget that, right. They
would be like, well, who who cares like he? And
it's so funny too. Like Framber Valdez is another pitcher.
He's having this like amazing second half and nobody's really
talking about him. And that's fine because I think Frambra
Valdez kind of is what he is, which is is
a very good pitcher. But it's so weird how like

(57:50):
the narrative typically only goes off the first half, and
I think to your point, it isn't until the off
season when people start diving the second half numbers and
they go, oh, wait a minute, I discovered something like
this picture has been good in the second half, and
it's like, well, okay, but I don't know what that
really necessarily changes, Like pictures tend to go have their

(58:11):
peaks and valleys, right.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
I wonder if it's I mean, maybe we think we're
we're smarter or a little more savvy in recognizing this now.
But I wonder if there's any kind of net gain
from that, the fact that we, you know, maybe are
we just sort of reshaping or rethinking our evaluations of

(58:35):
players early enough that we can make them more refined
and thoughtful, or is it just are we gonna just
be like, yeah, you know, his second half has been amazing,
and then eventually in January, everyone else is going to
catch up and we'll.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Be that It's usually the it chooses the second thing.
But I think the other problem that I see with
these early drafts. And I say this as somebody's so
way back when I started doing this, I I when
I'm back when I was in one or two leagues.
I wouldn't really spend a lot of time looking at
the upcoming season until like February maybe, you know, yeah,

(59:11):
like mid February. Now, because I have to write about it,
I look at it earlier and earlier and earlier, and
an idea I get into my head in November December
I tend to stick with not because I'm stubborn, but
because I've already put my rankings together, Like I've already
developed a cognitive process. I'm already like, well this is
there's that, Yeah, there's that too, but but but beyond that,

(59:35):
like I just get stuck in the mindset of like, okay,
like this is what I think Dylan Cees is going
to do and it's not. It's not like I refuse
to say no, I November me is right, March me.
Can't revisit this. It's more one to your point of time,
or is it? But two, I just think it's how
the brain works, like we get an idea like, well,

(59:56):
this is the way that like think about how many
like ideas or constant you heard about that you're wrong
about when you read about it, even if it's like
well sourced and well thought out. I'm not sally a
Baseball talking about like life in general. You're like, oh, man,
like wait, that can't be right. This is what I
thought for like thirty years or forty years. And then
you do more reading and you're like, oh, well, I
was wrong. I guess it's just something I learned as

(01:00:17):
a kid that's like incorrect. But we we resist it, right,
Like even if we were smart and intelligent, we still
have that initial resistance of like, no, like this this
is what I know, Like this is what I think,
And I did this with fantasy baseball, which isn't really
nearly as important. That's what happens off we get I know,
I do, like I get locked into a mindset of like, well,

(01:00:38):
this is the way I thought of you know, this
player back in November when I put these rankings together.
I don't think much has changed, Like I don't think
this this swing change in spring training means something where
it's like, well, maybe it does, and I'm I'm kind
of criticizing myself. Like usually I look at people the
other way. It's like, oh, you're reacting to spring training,
but maybe I'm being too rigid and not looking at

(01:00:59):
spring training at all. I'm just like going, no, this
can't be right because I came up with this idea
back in November, and I'm you know, I can't be wrong.
I'm oversimplifying, but that's the idea.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
No, No, And I think what happens then is that
it's not that you stay locked into your evaluation in November,
but that is now your baseline for adjustment right at that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Yeah, that's a better way to put it, that I'm
locked into the baseline. That's that's a good turn of
phrase for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
I don't know. Maybe maybe it's not like I have
a ton of time in the world, but maybe I'll
try to do my own ranks completely separate. I won't
even we won't even talk about man oh man, just
just uh just you know, see see where we're see
where we're at. Yeah, okay, So the three players on

(01:01:49):
the a's who if you stuck around this long and
you've been like they didn't mention the three players who
were top six in w r C plus Brenton Rooker,
Seth Brown, and Lawrence Butler. I should have said Brown
for last.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Yeah, I was gonna say you should have said Brown
last because I think up the three, like I mean,
Rookers on a surprise, it has been great all year. Butler,
you know, unless you play fantasy football and are obsessed
and dropped out of baseball in July and you're not less,
you wouldn't be listening to podcast anyway. Butler's not really
a surprise. Seth Brown is the one. Even for me.
I was like, huh, like he's really turned it on

(01:02:25):
and been hot and like playing like like really, well,
so yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Let's get out of here, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
It was It was fun because we haven't talked in
a while, which is which is part of it. So yeah,
I have a Dennis Lamp fact that I'll say for
the the next podcast. Maybe maybe we'll bring Samuel back
just for that One's let's take a break and we'll
we'll be right back. Thank you once again for listening

(01:03:17):
to episode three fifteen of Flags Fly Forever, a Baseball
Perspectives Fantasy baseball podcast. If you've been around this long,
you know that the site is still going strong, even
though it's September. We've still got a bunch of articles.
We have the Fantasy Pitching Planner, we have my fab review,
and we will have coverage in the off season as well,

(01:03:39):
not just fantasy coverage, but playoff coverage. We do some
of the best stuff out there in terms of the
depth of the coverage and analysis, So please keep coming
to site, stick around, subscribe if you don't rate, and
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as well. For Mike Chanella, this is me. That's Sean Haglan.
Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back soon,

(01:04:00):
we hope.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Say Mike, if if you've got a few minutes, I'd
like to ask you some sid start questions for my
fantasy football team.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
So you could ask you yeah, yeah, I won't really
have answers, but you could certainly ask.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Good Night everybody, okay, And

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
He doesn't