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November 19, 2024 55 mins
We're back! Mike and Jon revisit Mike's preseason tiers to see just how the OF position stacked up in 2024. From the first round (what happened to Julio?) to those waiver-wire gems (Brenton, Jurickson, and Lawrence...hello).

Flags Fly Forever is a Baseball Prospectus podcast. For more fantasy baseball information, visit baseballprospectus.com and click on "Fantasy."

You can find Flags Fly Forever on Bluesky...soon (stay tuned!). 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.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to episode three seventeen of Flags Fly Forever, a
Baseball Perspectives Fantasy Baseball podcast on Mike Janella. Over there,
you can't see him, but he is over there is
John Hagland. John, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, Mike, how are you doing? I I it's been
a while since we've actually recorded, and I can't think
of anything that's happened in the world since then. We're basically, yeah,
in the same place we were about a month ago.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Right, the Dodgers won the World Series.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh yeah, that happened.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah for people who you know, hate teams spending money,
I think that was reason to get very mad and
straighted and and upset. Yeah, John's referencing the fact that
it is November fourteenth, by the way, so you know,
John is not referencing the World Series. But yeah, we're
gonna we're gonna stick to baseball tonight, and you know,

(01:13):
we'll leave everything else to Blue Sky, which, by the way,
we probably can actually mention our blue Sky handles. Yeah,
and people will know we're talking about or go, you know,
won't go blue sky, what are you talking about? It
it's cloudy out or you know whatever you might be
inclined to say, because I don't about you, John, I'm
up to almost like three thousand followers now or anythink,

(01:34):
like eight days ago I had about one thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, I went from like two point fifty to like
one point one k in about a week. So yeah,
so it's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yeah, maybe we can drop our Maybe you can drop
our handles you give them, you can just drop our
handles like at the in the show notes on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I will do that, and I will also say that
stay tuned for it feels like that we've reached critical
masks such that we can start a flags Fly Forever
Blue Sky account. So assuming that I start that account
very soon, that will also be in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wow, this is really exciting.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Okay, it's the new frontier.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, so what we're going to do for the next
few podcasts, We're still looking back. I know there's a
lot of folks who are already like doing drafts and
talking about twenty twenty five, and I'm not adamantly against that,
but I do wonder a lot about what the value
is of having some of these drafts in November. And

(02:40):
you know, look, if you like doing it and you're,
you know, doing it for a league, you're going to
play through next year, you do you Like I'm talking
more as an analyst, and like I feel it's kind
of early. So what I do want to do is
I want to look John and I wanted to look
at last year. And what we're going to do is
we are going to I put together a document called
twenty two twenty four podcasts Positional Charts. I don't say

(03:03):
that too fast, but it's a breakdown and tonight we're
gonna look at outfielders. And what I'm going what we're
gonna do is it's broken out the same way the
tier articles, if baseball perspectives are broken out in the spring.
So it's kind of a nice companion. So it's broken
out by NFBC ADP from the last fifty draft Champions Draft.

(03:25):
So it's like mid March right up until opening day,
so you know there's not data from like January or
December or whatever. And you're gonna start with outfielders and
we're gonna look at the look at the tiers. We're
not gonna go over every single outfielder. I think we're
gonna more look at like trends observations. You'll kind of
see where the value was and wasn't in these buckets
and see if there are any takeaways. So, John, I

(03:48):
don't know, you know, I know where we want to start,
but I don't know how we want to start. So
I'm gonna kind of leave that to you.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, we can just run through, for old time sake,
the five start tier, which was pretty thick in the spring,
so I can just read through the names in order
that we had had.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Sorry, God, I was gonna say just as a reminder,
so just to the five star tiers, the first two
rounds and a fifteen team draft. So it's like the
top pick all the way to the thirtieth pick overall
doesn't mean there're you know that that is encapsul in
the outfield, just means that that's the range with an all.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
ADP right right. So we had, in descending order, Ronald Acunya, Junior,
Julio Rodriguez, Kyle Tucker, Corbin Carol, Fernando Tatist, Junior, Juan Soto,
Aaron Judge, Jordan Alvarez, and Michael Harris. Second.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Did you sigh at Corbyn Carroll, by the way, Yeah, yes,
I did so.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I feel like Corbyn Carroll has been, you know, just
very omnipresent in my life over the last several months,
and we've had some time apart since the end of
the baseball season, and now coming back to him, I
have I have very mixed feelings.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Here's a funny thing, though, is that Carol And I
think this is a theme with like with Julia Rodriguez too,
But Carol was good, Like I was surprised to see him.
He was the twenty fourth best hitter. He was the
eighth best outfielder. And I'm trying to I should have
put this into the show document too, and not very prepared,

(05:28):
but that probably would put him. I think if you
include the pitchers kind of like at the two three
turn in terms of like his total like value, so
it's like one of those things and I'm looking it
up now. Yeah, he was thirtieth overall in value if
you throw in the pitchers, so you know, it's kind
of those things. It's like, yeah, that's not what you
want with the first round pick. But Aero Cone kind
of brought this up once as a concept going to

(05:51):
the season, where he's like, if you you know, with
a number one overall pick. If you said, okay, that
pick is going to be worth you know, a two
three turn thirtieth over all, would you take that not
know anything else? The answer is yes. It's surprising some people,
but it's because there's so many different outcomes, so many
ways things can go wrong. And you know, if you
look at the folks Sandwich, you know with with Carol,

(06:13):
you've got Kyle Tucker. You know Frona Fatis who you know,
both due to injury, weren't nearly as good. But that's
part of the proposition, right, which is well, Carol said
on the field he was really bad, and you know,
we have to another corporate Carol podcast, But you know,
scored so many runs, did so much outside of a
bad batting average that it almost didn't matter.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Well. Of the top nine outfielders from the five star tier,
he was fourth in value return, So not a failure.
I think the uh in a way, it was weirdly
fun to own him in the second half of the season.
We just had a really rough go of it in

(06:51):
the first half, but he certainly helped us make that
kind of charge up the the standings in the main
event league.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
So I mean that that was our that was almost
our team though, especially on offense, like the first month
really like it was like Machado, the Nora and Carroll
and it's like my yeah, my god, what is even
happening right now? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
So yeah, I think I think we've we've you know,
wasted enough time speaking about Corbyn, Carroll. Is there anyone
else that you wanted to especially single out in this
five star tire?

Speaker 1 (07:23):
You know, so a couple of things. I mentioned him already.
Julio Rodriguez, like again, very similar profile. He's mentioned as
as such a disappointment and yes, I get it, but
thirty ninth best player not just hit her overall sort
of a similar thing. And I think some of the
like what kind of what winds up happening is people

(07:44):
forget how you know, if you're a five category player,
even if you're not an elite five category player, how
that really drives your value. And I think that's what
happened with Rodriguez and then the other guy here, you know,
second most disappointing hitter after Akunya, who obviously was hurt
and that's why his value tanked. Michael Harris. Michael Harris,

(08:07):
another one I was surprised to see him, and again
not a great bargain, but I was surprised to see
him with as much positive value as he had earned,
like eight dollars and seventy eight cents, and in fifteen
team mixed a forty fifth best outfielder one hundred and
eighteenth on offense. Again not great, not what you want,
but I really thought it'd be much closer to zero.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, Harris, it seemed like I was looking at his
season a little bit, and I think after his hamstring
injury he basically stopped running and I think he ended
up with like ten steals. So you know, a player
like that is always the risks that when your value
is tied up in one category, then injury, even if
you're playing through the injury, it's it's it can really

(08:52):
knock down that value. And you know it's even worse
because you got to if he's playing, you're obviously putting
in your lineup, and you know, then you miss out
on the steels you were hoping for. As an aside,
Like I was looking at Jeff Zimmerman's I don't know
if you've seen this, you probably have, but he put
together a document of it's just a list of players

(09:14):
who played through an injury in twenty twenty four, and
it didn't even have any It just said the name
the injury. I don't even know if it had the
number of you know, if there was any ale time,
but I just thought that was really interesting to kind
of crosscheck that when you see like an anomaly like
Michael Harris with only ten steals. To go back to Julio,

(09:39):
his is weird because he he what he sprained his ankle.
I think in July. He had like a one oh
nine ISO before that in one oh four WRC plus
after his injury, he was like, you know, I would
say vinca Julio, but he's only like, you know, twenty
two or twenty three or whatever. But the Julio we expected,

(09:59):
you know, as you said. So I don't know if
he is if that time on the IL just sort
of allowed him to reset and you know, clear his
mind more than anything else. But the strong finish, Yeah,
I think that's that's really encouraging.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
For Yeah, I don't He's one of those players I
hate the whole first half, second half narrative, but he
does seem to be somebody who I know this ship
was injury, but he does seem like somebody who starts
more slowly, particularly in April. Yeah, so it's just something
to kind of keep in mind, I guess with him,
and probably the conference is if he ever starts off
fast and it was a gambler's fallacy, but I'm going

(10:36):
to be thinking, oh, boy, like maybe this year he
finally like you know, or he does the Bobby with
Junior and it was like a fifty dollars player.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, I guess I don't want to put too much
stock in that, given it he's only had three seasons.
But but yeah, I mean, just based on the the
shape of his season, like I think he's he's you know,
he'll he'll be a easy first round front half of

(11:04):
the first round pick. For me, I think, oh shit,
we weren't going to talk about drafts. Forget I said that, Mike,
Let's you did.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, that's only I mean, it's it's it's okay, Like
it doesn't really matter that much. I will say, I
haven't given a lot of thought. Probably the only person
when we get to my I mentioned it that was
even gonna mention with was was Jackson Curio. Like, yeah,
for the most part though, I'm not really thinking ahead
to drafts very much, so I don't have I don't
have any informed opinions. I just have very you know,

(11:32):
half based, half big opinions right now.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
The only other the only thing I read want to
mention in this tier other than Aaron Judge and one
so to be good like Kyle Tucker actually, you know,
not a total disaster, given that he missed so much
time like he was, you know, especially in his first
half like he was, he was headed toward a really
nice season.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah he did. I mean he did so much like
like so it's interesting and ale leagues he broke even
like that's how good he was, like as much as
he costs in those these leagues, just because he did
so much, you know, in that kind of deep format. Yeah,
he lost in a mixed format. But to your point,
you know, it's not like he was a complete zero,

(12:16):
you know, you just sort of We'll get to this
kind of in the next tier. But there's a lot
of players in that tier who who he outperformed, who
played a whole season.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
All right, four star tier.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, there's a segue.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
I'll keep reading them, and we're starting with the tenth
ranked outfielder as we had them in there.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah. So yeah, so this is arounds three through six,
so they're ADP thirty one through ninety.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
All right, We've got Luis Robert Junior, Randy a Rosa,
Renadlie s Garcia, Nolan Jones, Jazz Chisholm Junior, Mike Trout,
Christian Yelich, Wyatt Langford, Kyle Schwarber, and Brian Reynolds. That's
your Those are your ten through nineteenth rank outfielders and

(13:05):
drafted in the what you say, third through six.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Six six, Yeah, yeah, so you've got Robert here at
thirty fourth, you know, thirty four a DP and Reynolds
at eighty eight, you know, just kind of clinging to
the back of this section. So yeah, since I started
last time, I think I'll let you start time this time.
Anything interesting that jumps out here where you're like, oh,
this is great, this is bad.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
This it's pretty bad tier.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Mike, Yeah, especially especially at the top.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
It with a lot of disappointment in this tier.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
I think, yeah, well, yeah, I would say, like the
you know, the best outfielder here was Jazz. Everybody else.
You're right, you kind of look at this and that
there's not much know whore the you know, Schwerburn Reynolds
at the back are profitable. Jazz is profitable, and that's

(13:57):
that's really it. Right Like everything else, it's like this
is this is not a good group two players here.
You know, we haven't talked much of that about this,
but Kunya was obviously below replacement in the top tier here.
Nolan Jones and Mike Trout were below replacement, so yeah,
you didn't get anything from them, And yeah, I know
some of that was injury. And this is where like

(14:20):
hitters compared to pitchers, it's just kind of hard because
you you sake a pick this early in to some
of was below replacement. Yeah, you can find somebody, but
you're not going to find the value you know you
were fishing for here.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, right on. One player I wanted to mention here
was Wyatt Langford.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah, he was the first player I was going to
talk about too, So that makes.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Sense, Okay, Well, I was just going to say, like,
I think this is a little bit true. This kind
of goes into a discussion of trio as well. You know,
he finished quite well. He just going by like I
think I looked at like offensive war it was he

(15:04):
was like seventeenth overall in the second half, which is
exactly where his outfield rank in the preseason rankings was.
For you in your tiers, uh, it's like, you know,
you weren't wrong, you were just early. And I think
that's always going to be a risk with players who
are either making their you know, starting with the major

(15:26):
league team, or maybe they've had a short debut the
previous season. I think you have to, like, yeah, price
in that it's going to take some time for even
the best prospects.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, ramp up, I do agree. Although the thing that's
a little tricky about, like you know, Langford compared to
Saint Churio is his second half it was very good,
like he had seventy four ops, but it wasn't so
great that I was like, oh my god, like he's
you know, he's completely made it. And then the other
piece too is you know, not to denigrate him. I

(15:59):
think it's a great eventually, it's coming off of two
like excellent months, So I do worry a little bit
about the streakiness and the adjustment. Probably more to the
adjustments and the streakiness and the idea like, well he's
gonna adjust, you pitch adjust and me a lot of
back and forth, and I'm like, sure you. I'm not
as excited about Langford next year, Like, I think he'll
be too rich for my blood. I think people will

(16:21):
see what you saw. I said, ooh, good second half.
He's finally here. And I'm like, I'm gonna bet slightly more,
you know, than what he did, and I'm just not
going to get him next year. That's my guess.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, I probably won't either. I'm not I'm not, you know,
in love with him to the point where i'd i'd
bump him, you know, up to the like the I mean,
I probably wouldn't even think of him in like the top. Oh,
I don't know, fourth, maybe probably closer to fifth.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Otherwise, this this tier is like, I guess my question
for you is, does the relative of underperformance of this
tier make you or prompt you to value this tier
any differently? Because if I remember correctly, we we you know,
we had some you know, players that we quite liked.

(17:15):
I know, I think we were both fans of Rose Raina.
I think you were a little more on Robert than
I was.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I was, although thank that I think I only got
him in one place.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
But I mean as far as the tier as a whole,
do you think this is just a luck of the
draw kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Probably, you know, and you know some of it is
a couple of things. One is injuries, and yes you
can say that Robert and Trout, Trout especially always get hurt.
I did think Trout, like, even without the benefit of hindsight,
was overpriced, Like I think I had him closer to
the back of this tier than in the middle where
he went. Jones, Yeah, I know it's a back injury,

(17:52):
but it's it's a wait and see for me. And
then players like a Rose Rain and Garcia there, they're
one of those situations where I go, it is one
of those things. I could easily see Garcia Roseata hitting
like two forty two fifty next year as opposed to
you know, twenty four for Garcia, and I think it
was like two nineteen for a Rosereinu Yep, it was.

(18:12):
And if they improve even a little bit, it's like,
well they everything else should bounce up, they should be better.
I'm not even saying to draft them here, but I'm
just saying it's it was one of those things with
somebody these players. So yeah, I don't think you can
This is going to be a theme throughout this I
don't think you can look at any one pocket of
value and go, don't draft outfielders here they're bad, or

(18:35):
you know, take take outfielders in the fifteenth round. Is
a magical spot because these three guys did better last year.
I think it's just you know, probably one takeaway when
you look at Schwerber and Reynolds is that, you know,
Reynolds in particular, Reynolds is probably and I didn't have anywhere,
but he's probably my kind of player. You know, twenty
five home runs, ten steals, lots of runs, batted in,

(18:55):
solid batting average, and you know he played too, you know,
just on the field almost every day. Just one of
those boring players that I think you wouldn't look at
as a twenty dollars or twenty one dollars player. Mixed,
but but he was right like he was you know,
somebody all probably should have wanted to have on our teams.
You know, I think everybody looks at Brian Reynolds and goes,
oh ho hum. You know he's he's a boring player, sure,

(19:16):
but someone like Reynolds, you know at the back end
of the sixth round is fine to have.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
I bet you and you I don't know how quickly
you can call these numbers, but I bet you he's
returned twenty dollars in like four consecutive years or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, that's probably I think that's probably about right. I
think there's one year that he might have missed and
I'd have to go back and look just good.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
But that is the player, and he's not He's not
terribly old, right, He's probably about I'm going to look
at his age, but yeah, and I think just playing
on as he's twenty nine, he will be thirty in January,
you know, languishing on a fairly mediocre team.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Which might be which might be putting a kindly.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
I was, yeah, I was, I was trying to be nice. Yeah. No,
Reynolds is I think someone who is probably undervalued in
most in most drafts and probably will be again next year.

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Four star, three stars here, A lot of names, yep.
Start and so this is round seven through.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
What seven through thirteen? So ADP ninety one through one
ninety five. This is where it kind of starts getting thicker. Yes,
I know, there's a difference or differentiation between you know,
one hundred picks. But I just kind of do that
because I think strategically this is where drafts sort of change.
It feels to me like the first six rounds of
a draft is where you get your players regardless or

(20:54):
you get who you like. This is the beginning of like, Okay,
I need to think a little bit about categories, about
position and how I want to fill out.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
So we have we'll go through this quickly, say a
Suzuki Lane, Thomas Nick, Casteanus, Evan Carter, Tae, Oscar Hernandez,
George Springer, Jackson Turio, Estuary Ruiz. There's a name we
haven't heard in a while. Jordan Walker, Josh Lowe, Jaren Duran,
Anthony Santan Dare, Riley Green, Cedric Mullins, Chaz McCormick, Ian Hap,

(21:27):
Jorge so Laire, Christopher Morel, Masataka Yoshida, and James Outman.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Well he lived, Did you say out because he lived
up to that name? Is that what you were going
for there?

Speaker 2 (21:40):
I think I was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
But by the way, you know, we didn't play this
out earlier, but I should point out this. This models
the tier articles at baseball perspectives. So these are players
coming into the season who were outfield only. So if
you're wondering listeners and going, hey, they skip Mookie Betts,
no we didn't. He'll He'll be in the second base
or biddle enfield. Uh podcast next week? Yes, yeah, this

(22:04):
is once again that that David Cross like last week's
you know, call in talk show bit So yeah, anyway,
you wanted to talk.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
About Jackson Turia, so Flora's yours.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, So this is another one. I was really surprised
to see that he earned twenty three dollars and thirty
seven cents and was the tenth best outfielder and you know,
twenty sixth overall on offense. I don't know about you, like,
I just wasn't expecting that. I think what I was expecting,
you know, And some of it his numbers are very

(22:35):
similar to Jay Rods, so I think it kind of
makes sense. But the thing I really liked about Churio,
and again this is really this is not knocking lankor
this is more praising Churio. He just really looks like
somebody as the season went on and you watched him
and you kind of saw him, he just looked like
a player like second half, like twelve home runs, three

(22:55):
ten batting average, twelve steals, you know, in only sixty
three games. Lots of good production across the board. You know,
just looked improved as a hitter. Yes, he could slip,
but I think, unlike Langford, I look at that improvement,
you know, nine to fourteen ohps in the second half
compared to six seventy eight in the first half. I
just see a player who had a terrible first two months,

(23:18):
and then after that he looked like a superstar. So
I think I'm willing to bet on the superstar. I
just I will say, like again, we're talking about next year,
but I think if you want Churio, if you're like
at that one two turn or close to that, you're
gonna have to take him there. Like he's kind of thinking, yeah, yeah,
and I don't want to come. I'm not comparing him

(23:38):
as a player, but more as a decision point. It's
kind of the Li de la Cruz decision last year.
I think people were looking at him in the middle
who liked him. We're looking in the middle of the
second round and it's like, well, if you really want
this player, you're gonna have to plant your flag because
he's not gonna be you know, in a lot of leagues,
he's not gonna be sitting there in the middle or
the back end of the second round. He's gonna be gone.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Yeah, I mean I also have I have slight Corbin
Carrol gun shyness, maybe with with Cheerio, but you know,
that's that's.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Just uh, I get it, you know, sort of second.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Full year, you know, realizing that for young players the
development path isn't always linear. But you know, to your
point that I had that first half second half OPS
split noted as well, like nine to fourteen OPS is
just like you know, you know, and with the speed too,

(24:38):
you just have a complete player. And I have a
sneaking suspicion that he's he's going to be rising. I mean,
it wouldn't surprise me if at the end of draft
season he's, you know, safely a first round pick.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
I think I think you will be too, Like he's
already close to some of the early DC's, so yeah,
I think he'll know.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
I want us to look at early drafts.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Well, I heard I heard it. I heard it in
the podcast. I wasn't looking, but Yeah, if you're listening,
uh bubb in the bloom, you know, hello, You're you're
pretty much the one podcast I listened to just because
you're doing what we do. Looking back, Yeah, so just
looking you know at some other players here, you know,
Jared Durant, not surprisingly, was was the highest in this time.

(25:25):
I actually I.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Actually wanted to ask you something about Jared durand his
his twenty twenty three stat line. I don't think it
was a full season, but it was it was enough
and that way was very close to his twenty twenty
four stat line as far as like his his you know,

(25:50):
his his like ops and and sort of percentage rate stats.
What why why was he ranked so low? Do we
just not BELI even twenty twenty three, did we just
think that based on his like minor league track record,
he was well out over his skis a little bit?

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, he had some injuries. I think there were some
questions kind of about his ability to stay on the field,
about if he would be able to you know, hit
well enough against left handers, if he'd be a full
time player.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
Like.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Some of what happened in twenty twenty three is that
he played one hundred and two games and had three
and sixty two played appearances. It was like, well, is
he gonna sit? Is he not going to play every day?
I'd have to go back and look at his splits
from twenty twenty three, and I'm going to do that now.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
But his handedness splitz.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
His handedness splits. Yeah, not his home in a way,
although I mean there's there's some interesting points there too,
but yeah, like pretty much he almost played played almost
exclusively against right handers and against lefties, he was actually fine,
Like he was kind of like a little bit below
league average but with no power. So I think that
was a concern. I think the concern was he it
would be like, okay, so he's not going to play it.

(26:59):
Weirdly enough, if you know what wound up happening is
he still wasn't particularly he was actually worse against left
He's you know, playing against them more, but didn't matter. Yeah,
And you know, so he wound up playing, you wound
up running, you wound up being this great all round player.
I think some of it was, you know, his defense,
while not amazing, was was good enough that it carried
the day and they were like, yeah, we need him

(27:20):
out there every day or virtual every day, and we'll
just worry a little bit, you know about if he
can't and left the letter. Some of it was just
too weirdly enough. If Boston had been a playoff team
and had a better, you know, option to platoon him with,
they might have done that. So that kind of helped
him out too. And I'm not denigrating to Durant as
a player. I think this is mostly real. I'll probably

(27:41):
fade him a little bit, but yeah, I don't have
any reason to believe that he can't be like a
twenty thirty player again or close to it. That that's
what the very early projections are saying, and that's kind
of it's believable to me.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
I guess the only other observation I'd make about this
tier is, you know this, this is it here where
players absolutely just washed out. I mean, there was quite
a bit of red ink and your values, you know,
earning negative values, whether it was, and a lot of
these players were just not on the major league roster

(28:15):
for the entire season. But you know, Evan Carter and
I feel like I'm not trying to take a victory
lap because I certainly got a lot wrong in this
past year, but that one seemed very very risky.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
As through Ruiz, like he was somebody I remember, so
I remember writing this about Ruiz like in the preseason,
like I was pointing out, like, you know, he was
already platooning with Lawrence Butler at the end of the season,
on the bad side of a platoon. And I know
Oakland sent him down for a stupid reason when they
sent him down, but realistically, the writing was on the

(28:54):
wall before that, and I was like, you know, like
you're placing a bet on somebody that the team is
ready kind of turned their back on. I didn't. I
didn't realize Butler would become what he became. But I
was like, you know what, I don't want to pay
all this, you know, I don't want to pay this
draft capital for one twenty five ADP for like a

(29:15):
one category player. You know, we've seen this before too,
like Malex Smith, Billie Hamilton. You know that could run
off all the names, but it feels like it. And
that was before the stolen base rules, where it's like, okay, well,
getting a seventy steel guy isn't even going to give
you the advantage it would have.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
Like three years ago, well, not only that, Like as
we learned, and I'm not saying you can just kind
of turn it on and off like a switch, but
as we learned, there are a lot more stolen bases
to be had on the waiver wire. It seemed like
maybe then in years past. So it just does not
make sense when you're you know, even if you've you know,

(29:53):
built your team such that you need steals in those
mid rounds, or your you're deficient in steels, it just
makes me think that that is not the place to
reach for an estuary ruiz. You know, you just have
to attack it in in fab and build it that way.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, and a lot of those guys too, like like
even in ALE only, like my my Ale hitter article
came out this week, like Victor Roebliss, you know, David
Hamilton and Dylan Moore. And I'm not saying you want
Dylan Moore in a mixed league, but like even in
ALE leagues, like those guys are practically free in terms
of fab, Like they just didn't cost anything. It's pretty easy,
Like okay, I'm gonna just throw down like one percent

(30:35):
of my fab or a zero dollar bit if you
can do that and just see what happens.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, any anything else on three star tier.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
I mean not not really. Yeah. Six just to mention,
you know, one, two, three, four, yeah, six, six players
you know, below replacement average matters, which is why Christopher
Morel was was below replacement.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
The two stars two starts here, which is rounds eight through.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Well, it's rounds fourteen through nineteen.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Oh sorry, fourteen through picks I'm on Cold Med's Mike.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah, I know, so so picks one ninety six through
through two eighty five, rounds fourteen through nineteen. Yeah, where
you're kind of getting to You're not in the sleeper
portion of the draft yet, but you're you're kind of
getting there. This is definitely where you're looking at categories, positions,
et cetera, et cetera. Probably more more so categories here
than like position positional meets.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
And also players that are easily cut if they're not.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, when you get toward the bottom here, especially, i'd
say when you get after pick two fifty, that's where
you'd be like, oh, okay, this guy's not working out.
I'm not going to spend you know, too much time,
you know, crying over over Chris Bryant, like it's time
to give up the ghosts. Spoiler spoiler alert.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, okay, let me let me go through the list
real quick. Brandon Nimmo, Dalton var Show, Henry Davis, Stephen Kwan,
Tyler Old, Carrie Carpenter, Starling, Marte Taylor, Ward, Loudis Guriol Junior,
Jack Swinsky, Young Jung Hu, Lee, Parcamettos, Gian Carlo, Stanton
sal Friedlich, Will Benson, sid Don Rafaela, T. J. Friedel,

(32:14):
Chris Bryant, Jose Siri, Leoti Tavers, Jared Kelnick, MJ. Melendez,
and Lars neot Bar.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully when Grant Brisbee comes back to Blue
Sky or starts posting there, he can post that newt
Bar video again. You know, probably know which one I'm
talking about.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
I don't know that I do.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
It's I Forgar, the other person he's talking about. But
this is the back of the jerseys, and it's like Nutbar,
I have to find that. Okay.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
I went through this list and the one the one
thing that I noticed was that Stephen Kwan and Ludis
Gurriel Junior had almost equivalent values. And that surprised me
a little. And maybe it's because I don't know, I was.
I guess I thought that Stephen Kwan would be much

(33:09):
higher based on his average and his his runs, and
Ludis Guriell to me, like this is the this is
my nomination for the and this is the tier where
you usually find the bogwag oh yeah, and if if
you know, you read my piece from I don't know,

(33:30):
three or four years ago bogwaj boring old guy with
a job, and it feels like this this tier always
you know, a few a few of those slipped through
and return decent value, even though week to week they
seem like they're not doing a lot well.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
I think the reason they're so close is is Kwan
had forty four runs. Spat at it. Yeah, I saw
that really, like that really dragged him down and actually
in some systems he might actually be behind Garriel for
that reason. You know. The thing is purze abou Kwalm
was the opposite. Like I know, he's not like a
big time stolen base guy, but but I thought he

(34:06):
would have like more like I thought he might have
like fifteen to twenty. He stole nineteen his rookie season
twenty one. You know, in twenty twenty three. I was
like I I without looking on oh, he probably fifteen
steals at twelve, so it's like huh okay, like I
and you know, still a consistent four wind player, Like
it doesn't really matter the Guardians very much. And you know,

(34:29):
I know we blew by him, but like I heard
talk that lane Thomas as part as he stopped running
and he stopped hitting. But it's because the Guardians don't
really outside of Joseer mirrors don't really run a lot.
But yeah, to answer your question, that's kind of why
it's a push. Like if you look at their lines
like they're they're surprisingly close. Yeah. The you know, it's

(34:49):
the funny about this tier too, is that there isn't
a big time like sleeper earner here. I believe that, Yeah,
Kwan Kuan's the highest earner, which which is interesting. You know,
certainly fifty second overall on offense is good and he
was profitable to us have an ADP, but there isn't
that outfielder here. We're like, wow, like I won, Like

(35:10):
you know, I took somebody in this range and it
really paid off. It's more like it's more like a
Qualma solid or Grail was solid but not not a
world beater.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, that feels anomalous to me, Like it does feel
probably like in any normal year you would have a
couple of hitters, you know, sneaking into like you know,
top thirty. Yeah, maybe maybe it's just the uh, we
got those hitters in this reserve level.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well, well a lot of this too, you know, just
to sort of like point point this out. So this
is where, like I think valuations are are kind of tricky, Like, Okay,
Laoti Saver's earned six dollars and fifty six cents. He
was a profitable hitter, but honestly, like profitable if you
drop if you dropped Laote, you know, early in the

(35:59):
season and you missed out in the second half, I
don't think you're really crying about it unless you were
really desperate for steals. That's the one category that that
props him up here.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
And you can test this. We can test this hypothesis, Mike,
who dropped Leoti Tamaras at my first.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
I dropped him. I dropped him everywhere, So we dropped
him made events, Yeah, we did. I I I think
I had him in three leagues and I dropped him
in all three leagues because the thing was like, well,
like he's not doing much and you know when he
reaches his ceiling, so what, And and that that's that's
a common theme with with a lot of these hitters.

(36:37):
To the point you made the beginning of this tier,
which is like, well, you know, if if you drop
somebody here, so what. Like on the other side of that,
in the main event, we picked up Starli Marte and
he really didn't do much for us, like we we
he wasn't terrible, but it was like okay, like whatever,
and you know that the hitters here, It's funny, the
hitters here are really close to replacement, uh TJ Fodell,

(36:59):
Jared and Lars new Bar. I know Newpar's case was injured,
but Kelnic's almost like perfect where it's like okay, I mean,
if you really kept him on your roster all year
in a starting role, you you kind of got what
you deserved.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Well, and this is this is a tier where you're
starting to see like some platoon bats, which you know,
it's a different proposition, you know, if you're setting weekly
lineups and you know, and and yeah, to your point,
you know, the valuations if the player was simply not hitting,

(37:34):
you would cut that player, or if the player was injured,
you would have a replacement in, so you weren't sort
of just you know, adding that value to your your
overall talent.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Yeah, I generally think and you know, I put together
list of free agents here who were above replacement and
we can talk about the best ones at the end.
But I think people are a little bit too impatient
in a lot of instances where they cut somebody too quickly.
But outfield is probably the one place where there's some
wiggle room just because there's so many hitters who come

(38:06):
along like later.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, the one starts here. I feel like there's there's
really there's really one name here. Yeah, you know, is
is Head, Shoulders by the rest. But so this is
after pick, This is getting into the after round.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
This is arounds twenty through twenty three. So it's uh
two eighty six through three forty five. So yeah, you're
you're at the bottom here, all right.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Brent Rooker, Brian De la Cruz, Max Kepler, Jake Frailey,
Nelson Belasquez, Victor Scott Second, Alex Dugo, Austin Hayes, Matt Wallner,
Alec Thomas, Mitch Hanniger, Harrison Vader, and Andrew Ben and Tendy. Yeah,
Brent Rooker h fourth ranked out the eleventh ranked offensive place.

(39:00):
What the hell is going on with Brent Rooker?

Speaker 1 (39:03):
I think he's really good, Like I didn't think he
and I'm gonna say things are real set rittains a
new like the power was was legitimate. I think the
average is the thing that we all should be a
little bit surprised by. Like he's probably realistically, I don't
know if they expected batting average was, but he's Yeah,
expect braverage is two seventy. He's probably more of a

(39:24):
two sixty hitter. So it's kind of those things. It's like, okay,
like that that that was overboard. But everything about him
when you watch him play, he's just one of those
hitters who he's patient. I think a lot of it.
I'd have to look at his swing strike race, but
from watching him, like a lot of his strikes, he's
one of the hitters like, okay, I'd rather not swing
get a pitch. I know I'm never gonna hit, you know,

(39:46):
as opposed to you know, just taking a hack. And
he's not quite a middle middle guy. But like and
I remember this from from Twitter, like Brent Rooker was
on therese are the best people to listen to talk
about hitting, and that's what he was saying to say, like, look,
I hitting major league pitching is really hard, and you know,
I know that, Like if I'm flailing at a bunch
of pitches I can't hit, I'm I'm not gonna make it.

(40:09):
Cut the strikeout right down from thirty three percent to
twenty nine percent, which is still high, but you can survive,
and you know in this game, like with now, with
that kind of strikeout rate, so you know, it's easy
to say he'll regress, like I think he will, but
he's he's probably a thirty home run hitter who's going
to hit two sixty And that doesn't even you know,
put the the park he's gonna be playing in next

(40:30):
year into consideration. So yeah, I think he's legit. He
will be DH only next year. That that's one thing
to kind of keep in mind, at least to start
the season, unless you're in a Yahoo league, because I
think he played fourteen games in outfield. But yeah, do
you have anything to add to that. I feel like
he's just the real.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Life I just I just, you know, I wonder if
he's going to be underpriced or overpriced next year, Like
I really have no idea.

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Well, some of that is probably discussion of you know,
how many and I can tell you have this up somewhere,
like how many dhs there are? Yeah, the thing does matter,
like like show, hey, Otani obviously is duh. It doesn't
matter like you you know, you can make him your
one one and who cares that he's I'm not saying
you should, but if you do, it's like whatever, like

(41:19):
it doesn't matter. But I think for the rest of them,
there's there's going to be a lot of like hmm,
like you know, should I or shouldn't I? You know,
just just based on.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
So as far as is Jean Carlo.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Only I'm pulling it up now, hold on, JD.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Martinez would be my other question.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
J D Martinez, Well, Marzell Soona is the other Like yeah,
so the big ones are Otani, Ozuna, and Schwarber and
then and I'm not gonna say it's the order, but
like Rooker, those are the four. Those are the four
big ones. Like those are the four I look at
it like okay, well, clearly like the these four players
are are going to. I'm not saying you should just

(42:01):
draft them without caution, but I think those are the
four that are going to go pretty high. Yeah, yeah,
you know everybody else like it. I don't think it
really matters. You know that you and Carlos Stanton ran
a mcussion. They'll they'll get discounted appropriately. And then there's
a lot of there's a lot of who cares players
here too, not as many as I would have thought.
Like I'm looking at the list and you know that

(42:24):
there's there's a few players that will certainly get drafted,
but it's there's not teams use their DH much more
to rotate players in that there aren't a lot of
like when we were when we were young, John, you know,
a million years ago and it was a the Ale
only had the DH, like a lot of teams that
seemed had like a true designated hitter.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Excuse me. Yeah, I wouldn't count on double digit steals
from Rooker.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
Again, no probace like five or six if I had.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's probably the last. Yeah, my last observation about Rooker.
You know, there's going to be a year when you
know this this ends, and yeah it could be next year,
but he you know, like to your point, he seems
like a really smart, canny player, and I feel like
the aging curves for those types of players are a
little more have a gentler gradient than than some others.

(43:20):
I don't know this. This this tier is not.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Exciting to It kind of stinks. After Rooker, Yeah, the
second the second best player who was Jake Fraley, who
I know some people were excited about, but you know,
get get real. Okay, I don't know what, but like
if you drafted Jake Frailey, you know, twenty steals, you know,
five home runs, Yeah, he was hurt to seventy seven.

(43:45):
If he had played all season, he would have been fine.
But there's you know, there's the rub.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
But I don't even think he was like an everyday
player when he was, I mean a semi platoon guy.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Well that's only about this tier too. There's a lot
of guys like Harrison Bader was was kind of a
platoon Andrew bed Attendee is somebody who gets over replacement
because of volume. But he's really someone and yes, I
know he hot streaking, got to twenty home runs, but
he's really somebody best left to ail only. I here

(44:16):
a lot of these guys are like, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Think Andrew Bandittenny was the award for player I looked
at on the waiver wire the most times without ever
actually putting a claim on, like you know, just yeah,
the bar is closing and I'm sort of looking longingly
around the room.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
You know. It's funny. He's probably also the guy that
people in really deep leagues like had him and dropped
right before that one hot streak, like I'm sure you know,
and I'm trying to remember exactly when that was. I
think it was in August, but yeah, that's I'm sure that.
Like there are a bunch of people who had him
in like fifteen mix, even just unreserve, and they were

(44:57):
staring at him and staring at him over like what
I like, what are we doing here? Yeah, it was
like August, between August fourth and August ninth, he had
five home runs in five games, And it's one of
those things that you're like, man, but that's that's just
the way it goes with players like like Ben and Tandy.
We don't need to turn this into the intending podcast
I'm putting.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
I'm putting a moratorium on any further Ben and Tendy
talk let's get to the the what you call the
profitable reserve tier. Yeah, and these are how did you
organize this? This tier?

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Oh, this is sorted by earnings, So it's.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Just basically anyone who is an ADP below what three?

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Well, this is every this is every well yeah, oh
the ADP is below is it three? Well, it's three sixty.
So anybody below three sixty is here. And you know,
if you weren't drafted, obviously you're you're included as well.
So Elliott Ramos, who was amazingly not taken in you know,
fifty one of the most recent drafts is he's the

(46:05):
only player who like that is here. But yeah, so
kind of ranging from Brenton Well, actually Brandon Marsh who
was ADP three seventy four and just barely actually Tommy
fam is even higher, Tommy seventy two, just barely scraped
above replacement level, you know, all the way down to Ramos,
and you know Rob Russnider, who you know, ADP of

(46:26):
ten twenty because it's Draft Champions, I mean, somebody drafted
him and earned two twenty six. But the Marchine names
with the top like you know, just let's.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, let's go like the everyone who earned double digits
in order, Brenton Doyle, Jerks and Profar Jake McCarthy, Alec Burlson,
Lawrence Butler, Victor Rols, Jack Peterson, Jacob Young, Elliott Ramos,
Haysu Sanchez, Colton Kowser, Brandon marsh and Tyler Fitzgerald.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
That's quite a list.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah, that's that's uh a grab bag as it were.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
So so that I think that one of the bigger
takeaways here is wet and we often think about pitching
this way. We think, oh, like pitching's fungible and you'll
have to worry too much about like taking a bad
like you take a bunch of pictures late, or you
can take bad pictures. I'm not gonna say this is
true because there's pitching to be had. I think that's
even more true in the outfield though, Like there's so

(47:23):
many players here where it's like, Okay, if this like
player I took you know, to your point earlier, like
ADP two fifty doesn't work out, I'll probably find somebody
you know on the wire eventually to kind of replace him.
And I'm over I'm oversimplifying. It's not that easy. But
the but the players are here, like compared to say infield,
where it can be pretty lean like for a long

(47:45):
long time.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the big I think Bren
Doyle and Jerks and Profar are obviously the I mean,
they're the two on the list that earn more than
twenty and they're really the two that you would and
I guess but once he came up, and you know,
Roblays kind of became that. But as far as from
the beginning of the season, throughout the whole season, like

(48:09):
these were the two everyday players. Even someone like Jake
McCarthy was not uh you know it was was sometimes platooned.
So you know, I don't I don't like a lot
of these players. It really depends on your your lineup format,
if you have daily or twice weekly a'llah NFBC or weekly,

(48:31):
because like Jack Peterson, that's someone you probably got a
lot of use out of if you could do your lineups,
if you had the midweek change, because a lot of
the series where there's you know, two of three pitchers
or Rity's and wunk him in. But again you're you
know a lot of these players you either got lucked

(48:51):
out and got him you know in the mid season
on the on the waiver wire, or maybe they were,
they were just sort of rotated in the pots.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Thetoon thing is a good point, like Hezu Sanchez is
like that too, like one sixty two batting average against
lefties to seventy six against righty's. That's nearly where all
his power came from. I think Brandon marsh fits that
that bill as well. And then yeah, the other thing
here too is like McCarthy, Robless, Jacob Young. It's kind
of the steals thing, right, and it goes full circle.

(49:22):
We talked about this earlier where people get so obsessed
with stolen bases in the draft, and I think, what,
I think it's one thing in the infield to worry
about a little bit, but with the outfield, it's like,
you know what if you if you don't get Ruiz,
you know, if you don't get those steals early, you
can get them later. If you miss in the draft,
you can be like, you know what, I'm just going

(49:42):
to try to pick them up. Like we picked up
Robless in the main event, I picked up Jacob Young
and Labor like after he was like dropped too, which
I kind of scratched my head about a little bit.
This was like early like in the sea, early enough
in the season where he still did quite a bit
for me. So yeah, those those kind of play or
are always there. Yeah, Tyler Fitzgerald, I know you're you're

(50:03):
the Giants fan. What what do you make of him
for next year?

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Yeah? Yeah, I really don't know what to make of him.
I think they'll, you know, the based on the you know,
how how strong of a year he had. I think
they want to give him a chance. But I don't
think he's ever been in you know, in the kind
of the long term plans. It's really hard to know
what the new Posey regime is going to be like though,
so I I would expect that he he gets a

(50:31):
chance at the beginning of the year. But and and
I think his defense did improve at at shortstop. So
you know, it depends on if they if they trade
for someone or sign someone specifically at shortstop. But I
would bet well not, I wouldn't bet heavily, but I
would say that he's odds on the favorite to be

(50:56):
the opening day shortstop and then we'll see where it
goes from there.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
Is there anybody at the bottom of this this list
like below the ten dollars threats.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
Well, James James Would obviously is gonna. Yeah, you know,
he's gonna He's gonna be a hot take. I think.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Yeah, it's one of those like observations like draft James
would next year, he'll be good. It's like, yeah, thank thanks,
Michael John You're you're the sixth sixth podcast has helped
me that it's only November. No, I get it.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yeah, you know, no, nothing nothing really. I mean, there
are a lot of players here that I'm you know,
I I did roster for part of the season. You know,
I recognize old friends like Trevor Larnock and and you know,
Mikey Stremski and a few others.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
If you play a tabletop game, you know, take take
rob refside or late as a guy to hit against lefties,
like you're like strat o matic or something else. You're
you're welcome like that. That's you know that, that's my
tip on him. But for Fantasy, it's like.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
We should restart the Patreon and put stratomatic content behind
the Patreon.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Oh wow, yeah I should. What year should I play
this time?

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Nineteen?

Speaker 1 (52:07):
That's gonna be a giants here now.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
I don't know. Have you played sixty eight?

Speaker 1 (52:12):
No, the earliest back I ever went was nineteen seventy one.
I did have like some individual teams, like twenty seven Yankees,
but I never had like a whole set. Well, those
old teams are kind of BSI anyway, Like they were
just basic, and I think they were just really for
I say basic, I don't mean the slang I mean

(52:33):
for people know Stratoma Act. There's like a basic game
in an advanced game and a super advanced game. So
it was just the basic version of the game where
it's like, yay, I have Babe Ruth. But it wasn't
really instructive should we close there, or like.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
We should close there? We should.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Thanks again for listening to episode three seventeen of Flags
Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectives fantasy baseball podcast. Don't forget
or you can forget, it's up to you. We are
still doing fantasy content. My Valuation series is rolling out.
There's also great content as on the main page right now.
I'm looking at the twenty twenty five free agents fifty

(53:38):
just some great pieces there by Greg Goldseein, Patrick Buke
and some others. Please subscribe if you don't al writing.
If you do, thank you, and don't forget to rate,
review and say all the wonderful things about our podcast
where you can do that for Mike Gianella and John Haglin,
thank you very much. We'll be back with you soon.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Soon, we promise. See the.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
H m HM.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
By jozing everybody,
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