Episode 319: 2024 Catcher and Corner Infield Review

We continue with our positional group reviews from 2024, this time focusing on catchers and corner infielders. Jon had some occasional mic trouble but Mike mostly says the smart stuff, anyway--so no big loss there!

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 (@flagsflyforever.bsky.social). 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 (00:24):
Welcome to episode three nineteen on flags Fly Forever, a
Baseball Prospective Fantasy baseball podcast. I'm Mike Janella. That's John Haglund.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
This is John Heglund. Yes, Mike, did you have a
nice Thanksgiving Holiday?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I mean it was Thanksgiving was good. We hosted for
the second year in a row, and I think I
mentioned you offline. I did have to attend a memorial
the day after. It was my sister's father in law,
so that was obviously sad, but as often happens, there
were a lot of memory shared of his life, so
it was sad, but also it was kind of good

(01:04):
for them to get together. How about you. Did you
have a good weekend? Did you have that Friday off? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, no, I was gone most of the week visiting
my sister and her family, and we had some family
coming up from California and my sister's in the Portland area,
so yeah, we had a really nice time. I went
on a twenty five mile bike ride with my brother
in law the day after Thanksgiving. Try to try to

(01:32):
burn some of those connies. I retain many of them,
but it was a good It was a good, good
ride and a good time and speaking of good time,
what are we going to talk about this evening, Mike.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Well, we're going to do continue with our positional retrospective,
and we're going to kind of do a bunch of
stuff here. We're gonna do Catchers, which I think we're
going to speed through pretty quickly and corner in older. Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, this is gonna be Yeah, this is gonna be
the happy show. There's so much good to talk about
at these positions from twenty twenty four. I'm being a
slightly sarcastic although Catcher. Let's talk about Catcher. So one,
I wanted to lead our discussion of Catcher before we

(02:24):
get into the tiers with a question for you. So,
if I remember correctly, a lot of the talk about
Catcher going to twenty twenty four was it's really a
deep position there even you know, typically you have elite catchers,
but this year you had plenty of mid round options

(02:47):
that would be tolerable, and in general, it seemed like
there were a lot of young catchers coming up. So
it was supposed to be a pretty good year for Catcher.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
And well, I mean what happened was it fell off
pretty quickly, right Like, there certainly were some great catchers,
but when you got to like around the ten catcher
Logan o'happy, there was a drop off and a lot
of catchers that either didn't completely just didn't work out,
like Bitch Garver or others, you know, like Gabrielle Moreno

(03:19):
who was hurt or kaber Luiz who was not hurt,
but you were like, huh, like whatever, he just didn't
really do much for me outside of playing.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, I think that's my takeaway too, that a lot
of the mid round catchers, many of which fell into
the three star tier, we had high hopes for, and
there were probably more disappointments than you know, values or breakouts.
But let's start with a four star tier. There were

(03:51):
no five star catchers. Are there ever any five star catchers? Mike?

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I think Gary Sanchez coming off his huge year was
the last one, which tells you how long ago that was.
And before that, like Mike Piazza was a perennial five
star catcher like that. That's really it. Like I maybe
Maria Muto did it once, but yeah, it's very rare
to draft a catcher in the first two rounds and
you probably shouldn't either.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
No, and since i've been working at BP, I do
not think we've had a five star catcher. And that's
that's going back. I think six. So our tier was
in order. Adlie Ritschman, JT. Real Muto, William Contreras, and
Will Smidth. What do we have to say about this,

(04:40):
this top tier for catchers.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Well, Contra's was the superstar, like he was the best
at the position and like actually, so I built it
a scarcity rank for catchers addition, like just a regular
flat valuation, even the flat valuation. Controra's is the twenty
second best hitter, So he was a bargain by any lights.
Everybody else was just kind of okay, like all positive earners,

(05:04):
but really nothing special. And I was kind of right
about real Muto. My my concern about him was, you know,
catching age curves a little bit rougher. I thought he
might fall off a little bit. If he lost some steels,
he'd lose a lot. And yes, he was hurt, but
that's that's part of the deal, right, which is, well,
you know, catchers past a certain age, you know, kind
of come with some of that risk and some of

(05:25):
that baggage.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, and Muto looking it up now, he's yeah, thirty three,
will be will be thirty four by the start of
the twenty twenty five seasons. So very rare that we
get a catcher who remains, you know, elite in terms

(05:48):
of offensive production after that age. I feel like the
conundrum for catcher is that you know, you there was
such a drop off after the verse, you know, six
or seven catchers, but you probably had to slightly overpay
to get you know, any of these elite catchers, these

(06:11):
four star catchers, and with the exception of William Contreras,
like you know, they didn't really they didn't really deliver
their their draft cost. So I mean, that's something we
can kind of put a pin in for our discussion
of the position when we when we talk about tiers
in January and February. But it is it is kind

(06:31):
of a problem, I think as far as there's kind
of no easy answer as far as what to do
for catcher in a two catcher league.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
So well, and we can talk about this with the
next like group two and how long it is, but
I think some of the challenges that it is a
good segue. Some of the challenge is just the fact
that in a two catcher league, especially if so many
people are picking catchers off in the tenth or eleventh round,
then you look at the bottom and you're like, WHOA,

(06:59):
I want to have some I think a catcher. That's
the challenge. It's like, well, like I don't want to spend,
but I also don't in a two catcher we you know,
wind to wind up with like two risky catchers, like
at the back end.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
So listen to that three star tier in order, we
have Theiner Diaz, Salvador Perez, Wilson, Contrarast, Sean Murphy, cal Raley,
Francisco Alvarez, Logan O'happy, Gabriel Moreno, bon Naylor, Mitch Garver,
Kyber Ruiz, and Jonah him And this was going I
think I ask you every week, but I know we're

(07:36):
going down to from the adypce here from one oh
nine to one seventy nine. So after pick one hundred
and a lot of these catchers did not really pan out.
I don't you know. There weren't with the exception of Garver,
well in Murphy, but that was largely because of miss
time and the fact that he really wasn't playing as

(08:00):
as much as we would have hoped. When he came back.
But you know, even the catchers who are lower on
this list, it did okay, But you know a lot
of red ink here as far as catchers that you know,
return negative value. So what about South Reperetz, Like, do
are we consistently wrong on Southern Reperez? Like should we

(08:22):
just accept that he is going to be a very
productive offensive player at the position until he demonstrates that
he can't be?

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, well, you know, the Royals used him only ninety
one games a catcher, and the thing about him is
he just played right. So he also played forty nine
games at first and twenty fourty ah, so he almost
logged one hundred and sixty two games. And I think
that's really the key, Like the power is still real,
you know, even if you think the average is going

(08:53):
to fall back to like two fifty or whatever, that's
what it is, which is if you can count on
twenty five home runs in a two sixty average from
a catcher, that's gold. And the other thing two about
him is he was helped a lot by the fact
that the Royals finally you know their offenses. You look
at their offense, it's like, yeah, it's a good offense.
One hundred and four runs batted it. I think that's

(09:13):
the number that really surprised me. I thought he'd drive
it eighty runs and'd be like, oh, okay, that's fine.
He drove it one hundred and four runs like that.
That's you know, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah. I mean a lot of that is just you know,
hitting behind Bobby wit Sure because there was there. You know,
it's not like the had a had a I mean,
the bottom half of the order was still pretty pretty dire.
But yeah, even just one player can can make a
difference like that. One thing I'm noticed, I'm looking at
the plate appearances for catchers, and it seems like we

(09:45):
almost had a renaissance of the full time catcher. And yes,
with your caveat that Pres logged most of his plate
appearances as a as a first baseman or did he
do much dhing? Yeah, but he to your point, yeah,
he wasn't a full time catcher like behind the dish.

(10:08):
But we had William Contrast with six hundred and seventy
nine played appearances, and you know, we had one, two, three,
four other catchers with more than six hundred played appearances
with Perez Retchman, Ralei and Diaz. So yeah, I think
that underscore catcher that's going to be in the lineup

(10:30):
most most days, you know, because there are a lot
of the kind of sixty forty splits, but it's still
you know, finding that seventy thirty or even eighty twenty
is where you going to get those accumulating stats.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, well something interesting is that, you know, So a
couple of years ago I made the point that I
didn't think catchers would would DH all that much, like
when they added the universal DH. That was true initially,
but like the last year and in twenty twenty four,
that turned out not to be. Like, so William Canturras
had thirty five games at the age, cal Rawley had nineteen,

(11:05):
Adley Rushman had forty five. Yard or Diaz, who's in
this tier. This is a big part of his success
at thirty seven. So it really seems like they really
wanted to get you know, these teams, if they're good hitters,
they really want to get these bats into the lineup.
And so this is the dynamic of baseball, right, Like
you've heard me talk about this a lot, and you

(11:25):
know you remember this because like me, you're older. When
teams had like fourteen or fifteen hitters, even an al team.
It's like, yeah, we don't really un it's a superstar.
We don't really need to get this guy in as
a DH. Now it's different, like now the benches are thinner,
So even if it's a good hitting catcher, he's going
to date, they're going to try to get him in
there to keep his bat in the lineup.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, no, that's that's a that's a great point. Someone
like cal really is interesting to me because he and
then a player that will we'll see in the the
Two starsier. It seems like it seems like Raleigh has
demonstrated that he stands out among the catching the catcher

(12:11):
pool because regardless of the batting average, you can project
you know, thirty ish home runs and it's pretty impressive,
also considering the park he plays in. But it does
kind of give you that, you know, we were amazed
to be seen. I mean, we can look at early ADP,
but you and I both try to avoid it. You know,

(12:33):
I imagine it's gone up for him. But like to
have a catcher who gets your regular plate appearances, I
guess I wanted to ask, is there anyone in the
bottom half of this three star tier that you wanted
to bring up.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
I mean not really, you know, I guess like jonah
Heim already, I kind of see him getting downgraded because
the Rangers born in Kyle Goshioka, he won't play as much.
I think that's deserved. I'm still interested in bo Naylor
to see if he can re emerge and maybe be
what people hoped he'd be. And that's kind of the
thing in general about catchers. I think people forget, like

(13:13):
not everybody is, like, you know, comes right out of
the shoot their rookie year. I mean, he's at the
bottom of the group, but even Francisco Albres And I'm
not just saying saying this is a Homer Mets fan.
I think there's something to be said with the idea
that he's still like so young, like he was twenty
two last year, and yes, he had a bad season,
but I just can't write somebody off who's that young.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, I think you see it with a handful of catchers.
It's kind of the flip side of having an infusion
of young time to the catching pool is that you know,
a to your point, it takes some time to kind
of find your level and get comfortable with midjor league
pitching and be a lot of these these players are

(13:57):
doing this while playing catcher nearly full time and learning
their staffs, and you know the exhaustion. I mean we
saw this with you know, as a Giants fan. We'll
get to Patrick Bailey, but you know Bailey, you know,
looking at at o'hapi, Gabby Moreno, Naylor Alvarez, like, these

(14:18):
are all young players that are you know, not just
they're trying to be productive offensively around you know, their
their defensive responsibilities. So it's a good point. It's kind
of a risk factor with with younger catchers, even those
you expect to play full time. Let's get to the
two stars, Luis Compusano, Tyler Stevenson, Alejandro Kirk, Jay Langeleiers,

(14:44):
Ryan Jeffers, Elis Diaz and Austin Wells. Where do you
want to start there?

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Well, you know something funny last year, I don't know
if you remember this, but there was a part of
me that wanted to like just wait and try to
like jump around on Sae Langeliers or Ryan Jeffers and
take the other one like around after that would have
worked out pretty well. Like, you know, obviously they weren't
the two best catchers in baseball, but at the price point,

(15:12):
you know, they both were positive. They both were like
the top fifteen or so, about top fifteen of them
on catchers. Like, that's that's something that could have worked.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, and we did that. I mean the problem is
we didn't get a catcher one really, I mean I
think we had Moreno in did we which one did
we draft first? And main event we took took Okay,
that makes sense, but yeah, Jeffers worked out, Legoliers would
have worked out, especially with the power. Yeah, it's I

(15:44):
guess that is on that pocket a little after the
three star tier. I mean, that's probably the way to go,
because you know, who is actually going to spend that
much draft capital trying to get too elite catchers.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Yeah, I think that the thing catcher to me is
similar to closer, where I generally like to take one,
maybe not all the way at the top, but somebody
in that next group down. So in the case of catchers,
to be the three stars here and then like take
somebody later, just just because I don't like the I

(16:19):
don't like the fact that there's so much like variability
and risk a catcher, and we kind of saw in
the three stars here, you know, two of those picks
for you went wrong, like if you took you know,
Murphy and even Marena, who is okay, Like I feel
like you're spending a lot of draft capital on hitters
who yes, you know, Morena was above average or above
replacement for the position, but still didn't really feel like

(16:41):
a great pick. And then Murphy just would have wiped
it out. Like so the two stars here, I'm almost like, well,
I'd kind of almost rather deal with the bus here, Like, yes,
I would have been happy with Luis Copisano in this bracket,
but just at the price point, I would have felt
a little bit better.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Yeah, I don't know that there's a I think there
there were like three opportunities to get a legit. Well
I guess two, well, you know three plus Wilson a
traiss at the top of the three star tier, so
that wasn't a bad place to go. And then you
know it's kind of hit or miss. But you know,

(17:19):
if you're going down into the two star and the
one star, if a player is obviously not working out,
then they are very easy too. I mean it's not
like you're going to get much on the waiver wire,
but you don't have a lot of you know, draft
capital invested in them.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Well, that was the point I was going to make too,
which is it's unlike some positions, and this is where
the replacement value for catcher and kind of why I
build in the scarcity like value as opposed to other positions.
It's not just the draft, it's that the odds of
getting a replacement you know, in season are poor, like
especially in the deeper league, like I picked up Austin

(17:56):
Wells I think in labor because somebody dropped him, which
worked out well because a lot of his production came
in the second half. But that doesn't happen very often.
You know. I'm just kind of looking like I mean,
Corey Lee was like one of the better pickups you
you could have made this year via free agency, which
kind of tells you all you need to know about
you know, about catching.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
We're gonna move really quickly, Pat, I don't know that
we're gonna want to talk about anyone in the one Star,
but just for the record, Jake Rogers, Connor Wong, Dany Jansen,
Rene Pinto, Gary Sanchez, Jong Goms, Patrick Bailey, Connor Wong
the real surprise of this tier, who was the you know,

(18:42):
the fifth catcher in terms of UH finishing the year
returned almost ten dollars of profit. But aside from Wong,
a lot of pretty man unhappy you know, outcomes here.

(19:02):
So anything you want to say about the one stars.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Not really just just out about Wong. I mean, he's
kind of the ideal here, Like at any other position.
You know, thirteen homers, you know, fifty run fifty ish
runs runs battered in and a good batting average and
eight steals, you'd be like whatever, But he's a catcher.
So if you can get that from your second catcher,
this lake great. You know, the odds of getting it,
as you can tell based on the values, are poor.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
I guess a lot. I would just put in a
word about Patrick Bailey, and this is probably a little
homer ish, But the thing about Bailey is he is,
you know, he has locked in. He's such a good
defensive catcher that he has locked in. He actually has
some offensive skills to build on. I think in two
years he's just kind of been worn out. So if

(19:50):
you're going shopping in this in sort of the lower
on you start here. I don't think it's a bad
play for a second catcher if you've waited, But you know,
there's he's he's got a ways to go. Not a
ton of profitable reserve picks. David Frye, Von Herrera and
Joey Bart were the only ones who returned positive value.

(20:12):
You have other names. I'm a little surprised that he does. Hioka,
was was this this low? I mean, I know that
it probably has a lot to do with his limited
plate appearances, but if you timed his run, you got
some good production out of him.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah. I had a bet only I think for that
one giant week he had and that was Yeah, that
was a lot of fun. But yeah, yeah, a lot
of them. Yeah, a lot of it is that it's
a negative batting average. It's also, yeah, the twenty nine runs,
like he just really you know, I mean, the whole
runs are great, but he's kind of a one category
guy like that. That's why, you know, in a non

(20:51):
scarcity model, he's he's negative. Yeah. Somebody I really liked
for this upcoming year is Joey Bart. He kind of
quietly broke out. He played and I think offensively least
he's gonna I kind of like him this year, And
because we don't look at ADP, I don't know what
his ADP is. I'm guessing he won't be a sleeper
by the time, you know, we're looking at this next year.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
I can't I have very mixed feelings about that, as
I'm sure you can understand. But I agree that that
Bart did show a lot of He finally had like
a glimmer of the breakout that we were hoping for
in San Francisco. But fairly well, Joey Bart, Okay, shall
we move to the corner position positions? I should say so,

(21:39):
I'm gonna give you the big bunch of five star
first basemen. I sort of feel like, you know, even
though you've thrown in the DHS into the well, BP
does throws the DHS into the first base position. I'm
not sure there's really a lot to say about those
players because there's so a few of them, and it's yeah,

(22:00):
we could Yeahani's great.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah we could skip them. Otani was great, Marcelo Zuna
was great. But yeah, I don't really know what, you know,
how much it is to say about these players. So yeah,
we can just skip them.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Okay, So I'll give you the five star actual first
baseman Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson, Bryce Harper, Pete Alonzo, and
Vladimir grew Junior. And at third base we had three
Jose Ramirez, Austin Riley, and Raphael Devers. We were talking
about this before the show, but you know, first base

(22:34):
as a whole was pretty disappointing in twenty twenty four.
And while the the top five still finished well, they
finished one, two, three, five and seven in among the
top five at the position. Uh, you know, there was

(22:55):
only one player in that group, Vladimir ro Junior, who
finished as a top twenty offensive player. So even at
the top, it feels like it was a bit of
a falloff. So, I mean, Matt Olson's the experiment. I
guess you could say Alonso was a sort of mild disappointment.

(23:19):
But any we have any thoughts about anyone here, Like,
are you at all worried about Olsen or Alonso? I
know I was much higher on Olsen going into the year,
and I think maybe I'll still be pretty high on him,
especially since I assume his values dropped a little bit.
But what do you think about this?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Particular by the way his ADPI I did see because
as somebody who's posting ADP comparisons, and I think he's
like right between the second and third round or just
getting the third round of fifteen teen leagues. So yeah,
he has that's fair. You know. My thing about Olsen is,
you know, part of the reason I didn't like him,

(24:00):
it really felt to me like like twenty twenty three
was the outlier. And so it's not that I don't
like him, it's more like, well, I think he's a
thirty home run hitter with you know, a two point
fifty average who could hit thirty five home runs in
that park. There's nothing wrong with that. I just don't
necessarily look at him for that reason and think, wow,

(24:22):
you know I have to take him, you know, at
the front end of the second round, which is where
he was going last year. I think the thing about Olson,
you know, he's still relatively young. He's thirty one. He's
probably a year or two away from me worrying about
the profile. But that's all it is with him. I
don't necessarily dislike Olsen. I just think, well that twenty

(24:42):
twenty three is a This year is not like anything
else and then you know, Alonso a lot is going
to depend on his landing spot. I think he's pretty safe,
although I also suspect that that batting average from twenty
twenty one to twenty twenty two isn't coming back. Probably
the two forty hitter he was last year is kind

(25:03):
of what he's going to be. So, yeah, two really
good power hitters who I just think there's there's kind
of a ceiling there and people are gonna push past
that ceiling for both of them because people like to
get like a big power back early and lock that up.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Yeah, and Laddie had, you know, had another great season.
We have we have, we have spent a lot of
air time talking about him, and you know, I think
we both and I think you sort of turned me
to this, this view that his twenty twenty one was

(25:42):
really buttress by playing so often in Dunedin and and Buffalo.
But last year, I mean he kind of like solidified,
especially with the average. Yeah, the the you know, the
power was thirty or hitter one hundred and three RBI.

(26:03):
I didn't run as much. You're not really you don't
really care about that, but it's nice to have, you know,
it's nice before and he get five days steals. You know,
he's still very young, and I think maybe this he's
found his level to a degree.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
You know what it is I think for years and
I think this is where he kind of got stuck,
is that people were pushing him to be more of
a fly ball hitter and that that's just the nature
of our times, right like it's like it hit you
hit for lunching ankle, try to hit home runs. I
really think this year he finds like, you know what,
it was the coaching, it was him. It's like, I'm

(26:40):
going to get my home runs. You know, hits the
ball hard enough, and he just focused on hitting and
that was the result. The result was like, yes, there
was power. You know, thirty helped runs is nothing to
sneeze at. But that's why the average spiked. And that's
probably why I think this is the hitter you're going
to likely see like going forward. And you know, I'm
like at the early projections, they am like trending up

(27:02):
a little bit like thirty you know, thirty three, thirty
four home runs that I can buy, and I also
see him hitting three hundred, and that that's what I
really like about him, is he's going to be like
a four category player who you know, sprinkles in like
a handful of steals.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Another thing is he's he's pretty close to like Semian
levels of durability. I mean, that's true and and that,
and you don't really you know, there's probably a bias
looking at his sort of body type and six ninety eight,
seven oh six, six eighty two, six ninety seven or
his pas over the last four years, so you really

(27:39):
are getting I think finally we have this this really
high floor with flatty, it seems. So that's that's encouraging
going forward, skipping over to the first base side or
the third base side. I'm sorry, Jose Ramirez, you know,
just a stellar stalwart season and and it's really hard

(28:01):
to find any knicks to pick with him. Austin Riley,
on the other hand, what what the hell happened with him?
I mean, one hundred and forty ninth offensive ranked player,
which was frankly offensive. So do you think this was
I don't. I can't even remember if he was injured

(28:23):
before he before he got because he got an injury
to put him out for the season at one point,
right like late in the year.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, then I didn't, didn't he Yeah, he was hurt
like a couple of times. So so yeah, so I
think I think a lot of it. I think a
lot of its injuries. Like I want to say that,
like he'll like if you look from you know, June
through August, he popped like about five home runs a month,
and if he does that next year, in a healthy year,
he's going to hit thirty home runs. And that seems

(28:55):
like you know before he had thirty thirty seven. He
sort of reminds me of of Olsen with with a
better batting average. And this is why I think I
preferred Ridley last year. I'm writing off a lot of
what he did last year to injury. Like I think
he's gonna be fine. He's gonna be near elite. You're
not good steals, but I'm probably comfortable drafting him, you know,

(29:16):
in the second round again if he if he's there.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
I think some people are going to discout him because
they're gonna look too much at last year's numbers, But
I yeah, he's fine.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
To me, there's no there's no reason, and he's got
enough of a track record that if he's healthy. He
should he should be great.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, I was gonna say Rafael Dever's. On the other hand,
I might discount like given like the nature of some
of the injuries he had, you know the fact that
he was playing with like it's almost weird he was
having shoulder shoes and the solution as well, he just
needs rests, And it's like, well, I almost rather would
have heard he needed surgery, just because I'm like, Okay,

(29:58):
well that's solve it. Like he there was something wrong, Yeah,
the surgery. Hopefully he'll be better. I'm just a little
worried that that this is going to kind of linger
for him and not not ruin him, but just diminish him,
like kind of as a hitter where he's just not
going to quite be the elite, you know hitter he
could be. And you know, interestingly, they're also talking about

(30:18):
moving him off a third base.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Sean McAdam of mass Live reported that, like a week
or week and a half ago, I'm click, where are
they going to put him? Because they've got Castas who
we mentioned before, I d h maybe like I'm not
really sure how other yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll put him
in the outfield.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
No, no, no, uh yeah, that's that's not that's not
super encouraging. Yeah, I think, yeah, you know you have
when he's playing. I mean, of course he's he's so
skilled that you are going to get production. But yeah,
the the worry about either playing through injuries and being

(31:00):
slightly playing slightly under his his skill level or or
missing time is is something definitely to think about. Let's
go to the four Stars. It's a pretty thin tier.
On both sides. We've got on the first base side
Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmitt. On the third base side

(31:23):
we've got Royce Lewis and Manny Machado. I I guess
my question is do you trust either Bellinger or gold Schmidt? Well,
I mean trust is what is trust? Are you? Are

(31:44):
you concerned severely about either of both players going into.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
I mean I'm concerned about more concerned about gold Schmidt,
you know, just just given his age, just given that
there kind of has been some fall off. And you
know what's really funny is that fall I've actually started,
i think the last six weeks of that great year
in twenty twenty two, and it hasn't really like ended,
and it just could be you know, he's going to

(32:12):
be thirty seven years old next year. Don't want to
say it's the end of the line, but there could
be more decline where he's you know, like a fifteen
to twenty homer hunter next year. That's like, okay, what
am I like? What am I drafting?

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Like?

Speaker 1 (32:25):
What? What am I? What am I paying for her?
It strikes me as someone where you're going to wind
up paying for the name as a post player. And Beliger,
there's trade rumors throlling around him, and I suspect that
the Cubs might have to eat some money if they
want to move him. But the thing about him is
that he's It's just one of those things where I

(32:46):
don't like to rely too heavily on you know, stackcast
as you know, but he just profiles so badly, Like
his twenty twenty three really stands out as that people
were saying, like, yeah, it's fluky. You know, he's not
going to keep it up, and sure enough is twenty
twenty four numbers. I know this is the way it works.
His actual twenty twenty four numbers looked a lot like

(33:07):
his expected stats from twenty twenty three, so it's like, well,
he's useful because you know, he'll steal some bases, he'll
pop some home runs, he'll he'll get in a good
amount of games. I just think that he's another one
I'd rather pay less than what I think the going
rate is going to be. Like in the parlance of BP,
he's probably going to be a three star player, like

(33:27):
in kind of solidly in the middle of that, and
I can see people reaching for him hoping for a
bounce back.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Honestly, if he's in the middle of the three stars here,
I think that's still that that overrates him a bit,
like it's possible.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, well, it's so much.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Of that that twenty twenty three value. I mean, yes,
he did. He had a great all around season. If
you look the top top line stats, the steals fell
off quite a bit. Don't know where that's that's headed,
but yeah, I mean to your point, like he just
does not hit the ball hard, and I feel like

(34:06):
a lot of what he what drove his twenty twenty
three season was he really changed his approach, right, he
wasn't totally selling out, and he made you know, strikeout
rate just just plummeted, and he kept that strikeout right.
So he's turned in this kind of like soft contact

(34:26):
hitter that occasionally gets the ball over the fence. But
but I just that's that's not a profile that I
really want to invest in, I think, so, you know,
I mean, yes, everyone is you know, it is valuable
at the right price, but he is definitely someone I'm
pretty pretty cool on going into the coming year. Royce

(34:50):
Lewis and Manny Machado could not have, you know, two
more different sort of arcs. I mean, royce Lewis was
out for much of the year. When he played, he
started once he finally came off the al he was
incredible for a few weeks and then cooled off.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, Machado was.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Sort of the opposite, like started slowly and then just
sort of settled into a really really productive season, finishing
second behind Ramirez at the third base position. I don't
know if there's much to say about Manchado, Like I
think he kind of is who he is at this point.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Yeah, he's a you know, was twenty twenty two is
an outlier in terms of how great like he was, Like,
he's he's a very good offensive third baseman, you know,
three of the last four years, and you could almost
kind of lock in like thirty home runs, you know,
like to seventy two seventy five average, that's for third base.
That's that's great. Yes, in a year or two. I

(35:53):
kind of worry a little bit about him falling off.
I don't think we're quite there yet. Yeah, and Lewis,
uh gee, it's sort of a I'm looking at his
first half second half and you know, ten home runs
and I played appearances in the first half because the injury,
six home runs into and twenty six played appearances. That
hit two oh seven. He just completely cratered it. And

(36:14):
you know, it's one of those funny things where he
was because he was on the field so frequently and
its historically hasn't been you just kind of wonder like
did he wear down, Like did he get tired because
he's just not used to playing every day.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, it's it's very easy to kind of fall into
the trap of saying a players in drink prone, but
there is something going on with Lewis And you know,
even if he's fully healthy, yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I mean he hadn't played a full season since I'm sorry,
he just hadn't played a full season, like since twenty nineteen.
So I'm leasure he didn't even do that, but I
think that's what it is. It's like, Okay, so this
guy's been hurt, He's been heard he's been hurt. I'm
mostly even suggesting he was hurt last year, and I
can't find evidence he was once he came back. I
think it's just the grind of like, Okay, he's out
there every day, he is getting tired. Like if I

(37:10):
hear he's almose players, if I hear something positive this
winter about conditioning, I might be like, Okay, well that
that's That's something I'm going to kind of just keep
in the back of my head, like we we know
he's yeah, right, the talent is there.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Right I I you know, I think it's the player
that you know, if he if he falls, probably won't
because you know, he's still young, and he has these
these stretches where he's putting up you know, highlight real
home runs, you know, multiple home runs, a game type
of thing. But you know, at the right at the
right price, I would I would be happy to jump in,

(37:45):
but uh, it's it's really hard to make him a cornerstone.
All right, let's get to the three star tire these
are these are pretty pretty thick on both sides. Uh
So first base and Constance Christian Walker, Christian and Carnacio
and Strand, Spencer Torkleson, Josh Naylor and Andy Diaz, Vinnie Pascuentino,

(38:11):
Rhys Hoskins. On the third base side, we've got Alex Bragman,
Nolan Aronado, Spencer Steer, Josh Young, Brian Hayes, Jake Berger,
Alec Bow, Max Muntzi and Michael Garcia. It's quite a
quite a range of players there. So on the first

(38:33):
base side, what happened, you were fairly you were fairly
high on on Spencer Torkleson going out?

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Are you can I blame? Can I blame Robert or
like he had a positive peace about him, like towards.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
The end, right he did twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
And that I mean I a ruddy like Torkleson, but
that sort of really uh sucked me in. And what
I thought about Tocos was I was like, well, I
don't think the average is going to be anything special,
but he could pop forty home runs. And what really
concerned me is like the power just completely disappeared, Like
if you told me that Torque was gonna hit two

(39:12):
twenty and hit twenty five to thirty home runs. I'd
probably be like, all right, whatever, like that's frustrating on
the average, but I'll take it. The fact that the
power just completely went away like that, that was the
part that that just alarmed me. You know.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
It's it's strange and the way, like you actually paid
a compliment to Robert or just then, because what you're
saying is that his track record is so good that
you implicitly trust him. So if he gets one call wrong,
it's it's it's only because he gets so many right.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
So I'm quite sure he doesn't listen. But Robert, we
we think the world of you. Yeah, you know, it's
it's this weird thing where there's so much that's gone wrong.
It's really hard hard to feel feel any any kind
of optimism about Turtlesen. Still still pretty young though, you know,
and and you just sort of wonder if he completely

(40:10):
falls off the map. You know, this is someone who,
you know, get if he's if he's fallen onto the
to the end rounds, it's probably not gonna fall that far,
but it's someone that that could easily sort of put
it all together or at least find some things of
work and and have a an upturn. But another player

(40:36):
in this tier that I think we feel more optimistic
about is is trysting causes? Do you? I mean, I
feel like there's really nothing in causes is from last year.
I mean, he missed time because because of the injury,

(40:56):
because he swings too hard, and you know, the umbers
were not amazing when he came back. But I guess
I'm a little worried about to strike doubts, but I
still think that he's he's just got so much power
and you know, good on base skills that he might
be one of those players that can actually be really
productive even if he has like a close to thirty

(41:17):
percent strikeout. Right.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Yeah, it's it's it is the injury and how he
hurt himself, like you know, taking a big swing. I
don't think he's gonna stop taking big swings. But but yeah, otherwise,
like it's not difficult to I feel the same way
did about him last year, which is, I know what
the projection says, they project like twenty eight home runs.
It's not difficult to envision him hitting thirty five to

(41:40):
forty like he just has that much power that Yeah,
like if he if he puts it all together, that's
an if. Like I'm not predicting forty home runs. I
just could see it. Like it it's and he's twenty four,
Like he's still not I'll be twenty five next month,
but like he's just not like he's not old, but
any stretch of the imagination, and you know, he's he's

(42:01):
a great hitter. You know we kind of saw in
that three home run game where he hit too off
of Pablo Lopez, like he's he's got big boy power,
like without a doubt.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
It's and you know, we're talking about how Finn or
how weak the position was and seems to have become
over the last few years. Like I mean, like it's
not fully rational, but part of me just wants that
kind of you know, big boy left handed just crush it.
Wait he's lefty, right?

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Is he righty?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, he's a lefty. You know there's something aesthetically pleasing
about that. Yeah, you know, anyway, anyone else in the
among the first basemen, Josh Naylor was the big, the
big sort of prize.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
In this year.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, I mean Christian Walker just sort of you know
he was hurt, otherwise he'd be ranked higher, like, but
Christian Walker just kind of goes out and like does
the same boring thing that he always does. And then
I was honestly surprised to see beneath Pascuentino, you know,
despite his you know, injuries or coming back from injury,
being ranked as highly as he was. And he's somebody

(43:15):
for me. I think we'll see some improvement from him
next year as he's like another year removed from the injury.
I really dig the really low strikeout rate with him.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
Yeah, he had some, he had some. Really he had
a nice run in the second half of the season.
Definitely started slowly, as you know, a lot of that
returning from the injury. But yeah, I'm I'm interested in
in Vinnie uh coming into the season. Let's see at
third base, I mean, like gold Schmidt, Nolan Arenado seems.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
To be.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
On a precipice here.

Speaker 1 (43:55):
Yeah, I like him less than well, I mean not now,
but like for the comparable ages, I like him less
than Goldschmid, like he so, Arnauto is right next to Bregman,
and it's kind of funny because they both like their
profiles are both that one neat trick, which is you know,
pulling the ball and yeah, pulling the ball and taking
advantage of your park to hit a bunch of home
runs even though you're not hitting a particularly hard and

(44:19):
that trick's not working as well for Arnaudo. And I
think for hit it tends to make you age or
seem to age a little more quickly. And that's the problem.
Like it's like, well, I could see Arnauto's settling in
as like a fifteen to seventeen home run hitter. And
if he does that, like what else does he offer?
Like not not a lot.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Yeah, it feels like the ship is sailing, hey, even
though he's you know, four years younger than than gold Schmid.
For whatever reason.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
Well, well, third base historically doesn't age as well as
or hitters. The age clip quicker, I think someone is
the demands of the position.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
A couple of players maybe before we moved down to
the two stars here, so Josh Josh Young and Cabrian Hayes,
you know, we're drafted close to each other. Finished both
had you know, disappointing seasons most you know, for Young
heams so much time because of injury. Do you have

(45:24):
a I'm guessing that you are a little higher. I'm
young going into Is that correct?

Speaker 1 (45:32):
You guess correctly. I'm kind of going through my bids
for next year young ahead of hate. Well, I mean
some of for Hayes is that it's because he has
more of a track record. I just look at him.
I'm like, well, outside that one year he stole a
lot of basses, what has he done. Yes, he's hit
the ball hard, but he's in the ground. I was young,
and I have moved him down compared to last year,

(45:53):
but I still see a lot of that potential. I
think I probably was over overrating him last year. I'll
admit that, but I still think there's enough there that
he should finish ahead of Hayes.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Uh. I don't know there's anyone else in here you
want to talk about. I think Boem is an interesting
player because you know, he's I think he's kind of
been undervalued throughout his career, you know, because he's not
a power hitter. But he you know, he gives you
a solid average, he's productive, only sixty two runs a

(46:31):
little bit of a disappointment. I'm seeing rumors and maybe
it's not even worthwhile talking about him. About a trade
to Seattle. If that's the case, I get a lot
less excited.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Yeah, you know, if he stays with.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
With the Phillies, like I think, he's just a very
kind of boring but high floor option.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Yeah, I do want I do want to mention Spencer
Steer because this is one of those cases where I
think I was down on him last year, and I
think from a real life perspective, I was completely correct.
But this is not a real life podcast, and he
was a great fantasy player, and it's just one of
those things like as long as he's in Cincinnati, I

(47:15):
think you just kind of look the other way at
the real life profile, go, well, he's going to take
advantage of the park he runs. I don't even necessarily
think the average will be as bad as it was
last year, and you just sort of, you know, you
just sort of benefit from someone who I think should
hit like two forty maybe a little higher, and just
take advantage of that ballpark. Even though the stack cast,
you know, info is kind of like like whatever.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and even the you know, the average fell off
quite a bit. He's he was productive in the other
categories and so he'll be It looks like he'll be
first base and outfield eligible next year, but to have
a corner infielder that steals you Yeah, he's projected for sixteen,

(48:02):
but you know, somewhere between fifteen and twenty bases is
a nice little perk.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yeah, that's a good point. He does lose a lot
of his He does lose a lot of his eligibility.
Like last year he was like a you know, one
of those nice players, like, oh, I can you know,
put him like almost both quarters and outfield, And now
it's like, well, you're losing that that third base eligibility.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Unfortunately, I had him in a Yahoo league where he
was he was eligible at you know, every position, but
also like some you know positions, and he was available
running back, tight end, power forward. He's just the king
of eligibility, you know, enough jokes at Yeah, he's expense

(48:49):
So two stars here in the first base group, we
have skipping over the DHS, Anthony Andrew Vaughn, Ryan Mountincastle,
Justin Turner, Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe. And on the third

(49:10):
base side, of course, we have Isaac pereties, John Mccondelario,
Brenda Druri, Matt Chapman, h Junior Kamenio, Hey you, Haneo
Suarez and Colt Keith a lot of power in the
Two starsier at at especially at third, but first base.

(49:35):
I don't know, man, this this tier kind of depresses me,
does it depressed? Well?

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, well, you know it's so it's funny like Andrew
Vaughn in some ways is it's sort of weird. So
so my my whole thing about Andrew Vaughan Lesher is like, hey,
and I think it's like a value pick for me
in this series. I'm like, hey, look like I don't
love Andrew Vaughan, but he's going to go out and
do what you you know, you kind of expected me
with this price. And that's what he did, right, Like
he was this you know, boring like here, I think

(50:02):
he hit close to twenty home runs. Yeah yeah, if
you grate him on the curve for being a white socket,
you know, actually it's like nineteen home runs and seventy
runs bad in on that team, Like you almost want
to stand up on applaud, but we don't play on
the curve. So it's like, yeah, whatever, Like he was
he was perfectly you know cromulents for you know, to

(50:24):
use news radio, and they're gray, Phil Hartman. You a
lot of adequacity. That's sort of the problem at first base.
Like all of these players, like even the better ones
like Josh Bell and Andrew Vaughn, they were adequate, they
were fine. They kind of did what you need them
to do. I think some of the problem in shallower
leagues is that you're definitely hoping for better, Like you

(50:44):
don't want to just like cling on to Vaughan and think, ooh,
I hope he finishes with twenty home runs. When he
gets off to a slow start, you just want to like, no,
I want somebody who's just consistently producing for me a
month over month.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Yeah, yeah, that is. I mean, you look at these
players differently on draft day than when you suddenly have
a hole to plug. And this is a Carlos Santana tweet,
I'm interested in this. In this tier about Ryan mount Castle.
I wonder if you know, the the moving the wall

(51:18):
back in, you know, not all the way back in,
but partially back in in Baltimore, if if that's gonna
if that's gonna make him a bargain or if people
are gonna over value that, and and you know Pump
up his value, you know, among this tier. I mean
he strikes me as like the player who still has
you know, it's kind of entering it or sort of

(51:39):
you know, has in his is in his early peak.
I mean, I guess you could say that about Vaughn,
but it's such an uninspiring peak. I guess you say
that about.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Low too.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
What about what about Nathaniel Low? Like he's had kind
of a an up and down career so far. He has,
although are you still into him?

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah? Well, you know really outside of twenty twenty two,
like he just kind of if you look at the
other twenty twenty like that the other post pandemic years,
he kind of is what he is right like sixteen
to eight, between sixteen and eighteen home runs like a
two between the two sixty two to two sixty five average,
and the projections are bumping him up a little bit
in home runs. But yeah, like he just kind of

(52:27):
he's good, Like he's actually good, but he's good more
from a real life perspective, like those walks Like in
on base league, I love him, but like in a
non on bas league, it's like he's fine. I think
I might bump a back moment from where he was here,
and I think he was he was here because he
was hurt if you remember.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Right, he was.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah, he's probably more of like a like a bottom
of the three star guy than a bottom of the
two star guy. But that's about it.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
I mean, I definitely want more than a four oh
one slug from my first baseman. And I know you
know that that was his career Low, but he's projected
for fourteen, and that's really pretty uninspiring.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Well again, like you even if you look at the
the X lug outside of twenty twenty two, it's all
like about the same. And and Low was a hitter.
I felt in this trap where he had that big
year and I was like, ooh, age twenty six year,
this is the new hymn. And I really pumped him
up in twenty twenty three and it was kind of
a lesson learned of like well, like no, like sometimes

(53:26):
people just have a big year. There's no real like
rhyme or reason behind it. Except what's really weird is
that that was the year that he walked less and
was you know, I was swinging more. And I don't
know if he'll do that again, Like maybe that would help,
but you know maybe.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah, no that yeah, I mean it's like an Oukhams Razor. Yeah, explanation.
But yeah, the problem is it's very hard to tell
when a twenty six year old who's had a good year,
if he's just had his career, or if it's you know,
a step onto bigger and better things. You know, I

(54:01):
I'm kind of fine with the floor with with low
and yeah, you make a good point about OBP leagues,
let's go to we haven't talked about third base. I
don't know if there's much to say here. I mean,
Chapman's interesting. I started kind of slow and then had

(54:25):
a really nice second half. You know, he is actually
one of the few hitters who has actually managed to
you know, do okay hitting hitting in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
I think he's he's actually just just fine. I think,
you know, what what he did last year is is
probably what you can expect for a couple more years.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
I don't know the rest of this list. You've got
some big power hitters. I I didn't really track what
Pard's did after he was traded, but I don't think
he was very good.

Speaker 1 (55:03):
It wasn't good. Yeah, So I'm I hit the wrong
page heres. So if you look at yeah, if you
look at what he did, he two twenty three, three
home runs boy for both Appretis and Christopher Barrell, that
that was just a terrible trade for both of them.
It was like a change of scenery trade, like in
the negative where it just hurt like both players. And

(55:25):
that that's kind of thing, like, I don't people said
that it would be like a bad move for Pretis,
and I think it was even worse than anyone could
have imagined. And I kind of get it. It might
be different next year, like once he's been in the
park for a full season and all that, but yeah,
it's not encouraging, like I wouldn't expect him like he's
a player like the projections and I'm like, yeah, I don't.

(55:47):
I don't see him doing that well.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
And we talked about the one knee trick players in
Arnatto and Bregma, but he is like the extreme of that,
like hit a lot of his powers, just really yank
and stuff, you know, down the road, down the line,
and yeah, there's I don't know if there's anyone else
you want to flag in this in this you.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Know, just just a hat tip of Jujano Suarez, who
I thought was was toast and he certainly wasn't like
he kind of came back to being a near ely
power hitter. And another another name to mention here, Colt Keith.
A big difference between you. I hear people who like
on the CBS podcast and other like podcasts that mostly
deal with shallower leagues to talk about him as you know,

(56:32):
kind of a replacement level of best player in our
in the deeper leagues we play in, he was a
useful contributor.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yeah. Yeah, one of those really really boring players that actually,
you know, gave you something in every in every category.
Just a note on Keith, he's he's second base only
as far as eligibility going into the next year. All right,
So let us not linger too long on one start

(57:01):
to here. Oh God, first base?

Speaker 1 (57:03):
You don't you don't want to talk about jose bra
I'm guessing.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah, Jose Brew, ty Franz, alex kiroll Off, who actually
is retired from from baseball.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
I did not know that. Wow, Yes, okay, he did.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
I saw that a few weeks ago. Yeah, not not great. A.
Let's third base, Billie Castro and Michael Bush you know,
Castro is kind of interesting to me because he is
that sort of handy player and especially if you if

(57:38):
you need steeles. I feel like he's better as a
waiver wire pickup than someone you want to draft. He is.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
Although the tough thing about Castro, You're right, although it
feels to me like he's a sort of player you
almost have to hang on to, like like you can't
be like I hope I get the big week with him.
He's just more someone where you kind of take take
the drip and hope that you're you know, that pays
off for you.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
It's also kind of a hedge when you when you're
on a team with Royce Lewis and and Carlos Korea,
you know. I mean he had six hundred and thirty
five plant appearances last year, did cast So yeah, my.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Take on Castros, I I thought he would get like
four fifty to five hundred at best and steal a
bunch of bases, and instead the steals dropped, you know,
the home runs jumped a little, but was the runs
like he scored eighty nine runs?

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Michael Bush came out, came out of the
gay strong, and then fell off pretty hard pulling up
his his splits, but thank you and I here. Yeah,
I guess it wasn't disaster but a twenty three oh

(58:51):
ps first half seven o five second half. But he
did you know they off?

Speaker 1 (58:57):
Yeah, he really did fall off after like like mid August,
like I remember, because you know, it's really weird, is
there is another example of like patients, Like so I
picked him up in labor. I think somebody drop him
like in early June or mid June, and he was
he was really solid for a while and then yeah,
like he he just tailed off and I didn't drop him,

(59:18):
but he just wound up like on my bench because
he wasn't like doing much.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
And he's only first base eligible, and you know, it'll
be interesting to see where you have him in your
in your tiers. But like you know, he to me
is kind of in that like you know, probably, oh,
I don't know how he'll probably fall in the two star.
I'm guessing maybe two star. But yeah, I mean he's

(59:43):
he's one of those players like would you rather have
Michael Bush or Andrew Vaughan next year? Like I don't know,
I probably I probably go with Bush.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
There there are a lot of there like, I'd probably
rather go with Bush just because of the lineup and
the potential and you know, just not the general succitude
of of the TV's playing, right. But yeah, yeah, you
know what, there there's there's gonna be a lot of these,
like I guess so called two star first baseman, And
what it's going to come down to is I think

(01:00:14):
someone will just get pushed up because people are going
to express their preferences, people like I I want to
have this guy over that guy. I don't want to
get stuck with, you know, this bad first basement or
this player I don't like, And I think that's that's
where things are going to fall.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
So getting to our reserve free agent earners.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Yeah, so there's there's one DH from last year eligibility
wise that we should probably mentioned. Uh, and that's Mark Bianto's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yes, yes, that's who I was going to obviously based
eligible now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah, just to remind people, I use positional from the
previous year. It usually doesn't matter, but yeah, Biento's was
a d H heading into twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Yeah, yeah, and I would I was definitely not gonna
skip over him. But yeah, I mean so in that
in that category, and I'm pretty sure Winker two got
he got he must have gotten outfield eligibility. Maybe he did,
Yeah he did, but anyway, we won't talk about him.

(01:01:22):
But we have van To's and this is sort of
the first base DH side, but were thinking there's a
third base win going into the year. But van To's,
Luke Rayley, Ryan O'Hearn, Carlos Santana, Nolan Seanyuell, Michael Tolia. Uh,
and that's it for the The first baseman, Spencer Horwitz

(01:01:43):
was DH eligible, but he earned eligibility.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I think it is second's second and he's second and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
First, second and first, and then on the third base side,
this is like a trip down memory lane of our
our main event team, Matt Vierling, Isaiah kind of Filefa
and Jose Miranda. Yeah, you know, uh, there's I think

(01:02:09):
if you knew that some of those players were going
to have full time playing time, they'd be somewhat interesting.
But I think among the names we mentioned, probably, like
you know, Vento's is the obvious standout. I kept wanting
to be or I kept waiting for Viento's to really
hit a wall and fall off, but he was pretty

(01:02:30):
damn consistent throughout. You know, he was a season when
he was up with the Mets. So are you are
you optimistic? He's probably gonna be overdrafted.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
But I my my concern, my concern with Vientos is
I could see the average dropping significantly. Wow. The projections
love him. They have him like between thirty three to
thirty five home runs. Wow, close to a two fifty average.
And I mean I get it, Like if you watched him,

(01:03:00):
I suspect because of the postseason, he's he's gonna cost
too much, which means if that happens, I won't be
in on him. But yeah, I certainly get it. I
see why you know there's excitement around him. I just
think he's prone to slumps, and it wouldn't surprise me
at all if he's that happens. Something interesting about him

(01:03:23):
is that he is third base eligible right now and
roster resource because you know, Peter A. Lonzo was gone.
He's slots it at first base with Brett Baty. You know,
I kind of rolled my eyes at that basement based
on so far as a starting third baseman. I don't
know Baity will be up, but it wouldn't surprise me
if the Mets did go that route and signed a
third basement and move Vento.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
So yeah, first, yeah, was pretty spotty defensive, remember yeah,
yeah at third A lot of these players, you know,
very sort of uh slotted in nicely, like like Luke
Raley is someone who ended.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Up getting more or less every day run the Mariners.

Speaker 1 (01:04:01):
Yeah, so Luke Raley coming into twenty twenty four people
writing him off. People are like, oh, it's the raise,
he won't do the same thing, and he's actually been
at least fantasy good. Like I don't want to overseell
Luke Raley, but I mean he was a real life
player like you, kind of like a numbers I'm like,
well close to an eight hundred ops in Seattle, which
is such a bad place to hint. That's that's solid.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Yeah, you know, yeah, go ahead, No.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
I could go ahead because obviously move on to other player.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
I hear what you have to say, another player. Okay,
well realize that Luke Raley does not merit any more.
Time you've summed it up.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
Yeah, I think you probably agree up anyway. And then
Michael Tugley, I just wanted to mention because I think
some people really love him, like based on what I'm
kind of hearing, which I think will we'll obviously drive
up his price. And I get it. I could see
him hitting a ton of home runs, but you're given
some of the other underlying skills. I'm kind of like, well,

(01:04:57):
it could come with a really ugly average.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
He is a strikeout machine. Like I look, I you
always want to say, Okay, a power hitter in Colorado.
You know who's who sort of demonstrated that, you know,
he can hit the ball of the park. That's that's
all well and good. But I I mean, I not

(01:05:21):
that my scouting means anything, but I did see him
a couple of times when he was in Spokane, and
I've followed him a bit going through the minors, and
I think he's his his strikeouts are going to continue.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Here's here's what's Here's what's interesting about him is that
he had eight home runs at home and seventeen on
the road last year and about the same number of
plate appearances. So what it looks like is it looks
like at home. And this thing about Cores, where I
think people get mixed up, like people think, oh Coors
home runs, It's like, well, actually, Cors is more of
an average less a home run part ark like, it's

(01:05:54):
not even less Horme Park. It's yes, it's a big
home run park, but it's really the average where players benefit.
So it almost looks like totally at home, not that
he's a great average hitter, but he hit two thirty
five and he's like, okay, like I'm you know, gonna
take advantage of the park. And it looks like on
the road he's just completely sold out for power, but
he was. He was a better hitter on the road

(01:06:14):
as a result.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Do you have his strikeout rate on the road his
home road, It.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Was thirty one percent at thirty one percent on the road,
thirty three at home. But he walked. He walked were
at home too, which makes me think that he was,
you know, more selective where whereas you know, the road,
he's like, well, I'm just gonna like mash or try
to mash Carlos Santana.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
I think that we feel quite fondly about Carlos Santana,
even though you know he's a solid seven dollars earner.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
But other, yeah, and another guy where you know, it's
funny because we were rhapsodizing about Salvador Perez you know,
in terms of their like ops and you know, like
numbers Perez and Santana said, or it's just that in fantasy,
you know that on base percentage for Santana doesn't get
rewarded in most states.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if he has you know,
he's he's thirty eight, he'll be thirty nine in April,
still a free agent.

Speaker 1 (01:07:17):
But he wants I wants to play three to four
more seasons, according to his agent, which you know, God bless.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
Yeah, of course I want to play three to four
more seasons of Major League baseball too, But you know,
I think he can play at least one more season.
So on the on the third base side, I'm not
sure if there's there's anyone worth talking about, you know,
not really fear Ling kind of Filepa Moranda is a
pretty boring group of players. Like all, he did pretty well.

(01:07:50):
I I sort of feel like my experience of Virling
or our experience of Earling was, you know, the aggregate
looks okay, but week to week he was he was
not someone that you know, force his way into into
our lineup.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
Yeah, he was. He was a solid, like a solid,
real life player. And yeah, otherwise it's like, yeah, like
he was, he was fine. Like the multi positional like
eligibility certainly is what helped him out like a lot,
although that was pretty much third base and outfield, but yeah,
he was, he was useful and and that that's the

(01:08:26):
thing about I think, you know, kind of FILEFA two,
which is I think people sneer at him and I
kind of get it, like he's a below average real
life hitter, but those steals like really kind of prop
him up to the point where it's like, yeah, if
you have a need and you know, you need a
multipositional player, like he's he's a useful guy to have
Like that that's what these players are, Like they're they're useful,

(01:08:48):
but they're not players you cling to where it's like,
oh I have to have him on my roster every
week or else. Like with Viewerling, that's what happened with us,
Like at the main event, we were like, yeah, we
don't necessarily have to hang on to him. And I
think he had like a decent week Like after we
cut him with the week after, I felt like a
pang of regret and I I was like, yeah, that's enough,
that's enough of that, but.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
I'm sure, I'm sure it was a very brief brief
it was, yeah, yeah, and kind of a leff. I mean,
it's is one of those few players that you can
find on the wire who is you know, maybe a
mild benefit in average two so and not a total
zero everywhere else. So it's one of those, yeah, you know,

(01:09:27):
one of those categorical plays.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Sometimes I will say, like, you know, we don't need
to talk about him forever, and we can probably close
out after this. But he's he's like their shortstop if
if they're serious about the part series about O'Neil cruz
to to center, which it sounds like they are. So
it's good. Looks like he might lead off too, and
he will.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Have corner end middle eligibility.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
So yeah, I didn't think we would end on a
slight you know, pumping up of Isaiah kind of Philippa.
But I think that's the message from the gods. That's
probably time to close.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Out, all right. Thank you once again for listening to

(01:10:31):
episode three nineteen of flags Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectives
Fantasy baseball podcast. I'm going to do the thing that
we're all trying to do a BP, which is promote
our subscription for as low it's that time of year,
it's gift giving time. For as low as forty five
ninety five, you can get a twelve month premium gift

(01:10:52):
subscription to BP that's under four dollars a month to me,
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the fantasy content is great. Please subscribe. We're trying to
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the more likely it is we can do that. For

(01:11:13):
Mike Shanella and John Hagland, thank you very much. We'll
be back with you soon.

Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
Good night, And it doesn't and

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
We