March 23, 2025 • 46 mins
Instead of a granular, detailed look at the starting pitching tiers, we take a 50,000-foot view of the landscape, identifying three large "chunks" of the draft: the early rounds (1-6), the middle rounds (7-18), and the late rounds (19-end). We tackle some strategic questions, based on the latest ADP data from NFBC Main Event drafts (though what we discuss applies broadly to most leagues).
We discuss how essential it is, now more than ever, to enter your draft or auction with a plan for starting pitching.
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.
We discuss how essential it is, now more than ever, to enter your draft or auction with a plan for starting pitching.
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.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to Episode three twenty eight of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspective fantasy baseball podcast. It's me and it's
John Haglan. And I was gonna say we're a few
days from opening Day, but we actually passed Opening day.
We had say a couple of games in Japan, not literally,
but we were like watching from afar.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It did not help that those started at three ten
am specific day lifetime.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, it was great for me as like as the
old man early riser because I was like already up
and you know, I had my my coffee, just came
out and you know, came out. I'm like, oh great.
Like baseball, I have to imagine it seems cruol for
Dodgers fans, where it's like, wait, you're putting these games
on at three in the morning, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Why you're not getting any sympathy for Dodgers fans. For me, yeah,
it's funny because for both so I am actually to
an early riser, but not not that early, and both
both days, I you know, got up, made my coffee,
sat down, fired up the laptop, and caught the ninth
(01:27):
inning for both games. So that's that's all I have
to go on is.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So you got to see Alex Bessi a new new
Dodgers clothes, new.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Dodgers closer, annoint him.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, we were, we are. We are not going to
talk about this tonight. I mean, we certainly could have
been a fun podcast, but we're going to talk about
starting pitching and it's been a while, but we're we're
going to talk about my my tears and in particular
my my adp article and my philosophy, and this is
sort of gonna be a Q and A. John had
(01:57):
some some questions for me and some concepts they wanted
to talk through. So John, I'm just going to throw
it to you and kind of let you lead and
I'll i'll follow or answer.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah. So I just want to make clear at the
at the top of this show that unlike our other
positional previews where we go through the tiers and talk
about individual players, of course we're going to bring up
players as we talk through some of this, but I
thought it would be most useful if we did kind
(02:28):
of an overall landscape of the pitching pool, the starting
pitching pool, because if we were doing a rates and
barrels style, I think they did like four parts to
their starting.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, I mean Vangrass does that too, and I mean
they like just to take a step back, like to
give both those podcasts credit, like they go really deep.
They do great analysis. I mean, they know what they're
talking about. And if anything, part of the reason I
started doing things away I do it is frankly, that's
not my strength, Like it's not my strength to look
at the bucket of pitchers between four hundred and five
(03:03):
hundred and ADP and do that sort of deep dive.
But the other part of it is what I think
we'll talk about tonight in terms of you know, how
I look at starting pitching and drafting philosophy, which frankly,
again not to you know, not putting down those podcasts.
They do great work. That's kind of my focus, which
is like not so much you know who you should draft,
(03:23):
but more how you should draft.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I think that's really well put. And I think
you want both approaches, like you want to be able
to evaluate players and know if you're in the twenty
fourth round while you're taking why you're taking picture X
over pitcher why? But I think we both gravitate toward
that more strategic approach. I guess I just want to
(03:48):
ask you before we dive into the different segments of
the pool, do you see any notable changes this year
to the starting pitching pool. I mean, we've had we've
been seeing trends. Obviously, it's been much remarked upon with
starting pitchers obviously throwing fewer innings, both in individual games
(04:10):
and across the aggregate of the season. Managing injuries means
that a lot of starting pitchers, specially younger pitchers, will
have innings limits. Is this do you see this year
as just being a continuation of the trends or do
you see anything that is presenting, as you know, something
maybe new or peculiar to this year.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I mean, it'll probably be similar. So last year saw
a bit of a bounce back, like and we've seen
this every year like since since the pandemic, or the
first year back since the pandemic, where starting pitchers, innings
and starts are gradually picking up, like starters hitting thirty
starts or getting close to it, or starters hitting like
(04:55):
one hundred and six hundred and seven innings is increasing.
But that being said, like the way teams use pitchers
today and the way teams manage their il and all
of that. We're not going to be going back to
like say, twenty fifteen. We're not going to be going
back to an era where there's a bunch of two hundred,
two hundred ten starters and you know, team's philosophies are, well,
we want to get all five starters through the season healthy.
(05:19):
I just don't I don't think that's something you should
expect in the near future, if ever. Again, I mean,
I don't want to predict the far future. There could
be rule changes there, there could be all sorts of
things could happen, but like, this is the now that
we're in, which is you have to look at it like, well,
teams are not managing rotations like they did ten years ago.
It's a different landscape.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think that's that's I agree with that, And
I think that leads nicely into talking about the top
tier of pictures. So, in lieu of going through your
five star, four star, three star and so on tiers,
I wanted to break the pitching pool up into three
segments basically, so the first segment roughly accords with your
(06:06):
five and four star tier, which goes rounds one through six,
and then three and two star what we'd call them
the mid rounds rounds seven through eighteen, and then you know,
one and zero star pictures from rounds nineteen to let's
say the end of a thirty round draft or talking
(06:26):
about you know, mostly one dollar maybe one to three
dollars pitchers in an auction format. So this is a
little okay. So last year when we planned our main
event draft, and I'm not sure how explicitly you put
this in your writing, but we had agreed that we
(06:52):
were really looking at the top thirty as kind of
you know, which roughly accorded with the five and fourth
are tiers as being the place where we wanted to
try to get three starters. Okay, So what I'm seeing
this year is kind of interesting because this okay, so
(07:14):
bear with me for a sec. I just want to
read you and this is these are main event ADP's
of all the main events up to today, which is Thursday,
March twentieth, I think it's fifteen drafts. So I'm just
going to read you the number of starters drafted by
round for the first eight rounds. Okay, So first round
two pitchers, two starters, Second round four starters, Third round
(07:39):
four starters, fourth round three starters, fifth round four starters.
And what I want to really focus on is six
through eight, sixth round eight starters, seventh round six starters, eighth,
eighth round seven starters. Right, so you've got twenty one
starters going in those three rounds six to eight. They
(08:01):
represent starting pictures eighteen through thirty eight. Okay, I'm not
quite sure how to ask this, but what I'm curious
is it's it's really hard by ADP to sort of
separate picture twenty eight from picture thirty four. Say so,
And I also will say that those pictures going in,
(08:23):
like the seventh and eighth round in particular, seem like
a lot of what you would call sort of innings guys. Right, So,
thinking about just you know, looking at the draft board,
thinking about pictures like Logan web, Max Freed, Luis Castillo,
(08:47):
you know that gallon, sunny gray pictures like that. Do
you feel comfortable kind of expanding that that top thirty
to include some of these pictures given that innings are
at a premium, or do you want to be shopping
in the earlier side of that, even if it means
like taking three pictures in the first six rounds.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, it's probably more the first thing, and like so
I kind of do that in my rankings. So to
look at this ADP list we're looking at together, which
is the first you know, fifteen main events, And if
you're listening and you're at the NFBC website and want
to replicate this, you would just pop in March twentieth
as the end date, Like that's that's the evening that
(09:29):
we're talking. So what I tend to do with my
rankings is I have pictures like, for example, Zach Gallon
is the thirty fifth pitcher off the board in the
main event, He's in my top thirty despite his bad outing.
Like Justin Steele thirty eighth, overall, he's in my top thirty.
So there's always like one or two pictures, maybe even
(09:52):
three pictures where that happens, and I'm not necessarily targeting them.
But what I'm doing is I'm not looking at the
ADP in the top thirty. I'm looking at my top
thirty and figuring out where my comfort level is. And
it's kind of the idea of like, okay, well if
I have this comfort level where that's where I can
take my third picture. I'm not like I said, I'm
(10:14):
not targeting steel necessarily, but that's the picture I'm looking at, Like, Okay,
that's as far down as I really want to go
to get that third starter. Does that make sense? And
then the first part of your question really depends And
this is sort of a similar thing too, Right, So
I have Blake Snell in at least two leagues, may
have them three leagues. I have to go back and look,
(10:35):
but I have Snell and this is pre made event,
because pre made event. He was going like in the
fourth I think mid to late fourth round, and I
was saying comfortably in the third round because I'm really
high on him. I think I have him fifth overall.
I know you were not laughing at that, but you
were like, oh wow, that's that's something. But well, I've
since pushed him up, so I'm doing and I think
(10:56):
I think that this is this really even goes beyond
a starting pitching conversation. And I know some people when
they when I hear a lot of people talk about ADP,
what they'll do is they'll talk about ADP and they'll say, Oh,
at this ADP, I like this player. I look at
it the other way. I put my rankings together first,
(11:16):
and then I look at my ranks and look at
ADP and go, well, I think I'm going to get
this player nearly everywhere in a lot of places. Obviously,
all drafts are different. Somebody might jump you, you know,
somebody you might have something happened in a draft where
it's like, well, you know, I really like Josh low
for example, but I needed a picture here or a closer,
and somebody else took Josh Lowe or whatever. But that's
what I'm doing, Like I'm not really looking at it,
(11:39):
like from this doctrinaire standpoint of you know, if you
look at the top ten pictures too, the ten pictures
like Cole Reagan's Who's forty two overall? So I'm not
looking and going, oh, I have to have a picture
in the first three rounds and it has to be
one of these ten pictures. It really has more to
do with how my ranking kind of shake out with
(12:00):
the ADP as opposed the other way around. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, it does. I mean, of course, you know your
your rankings, and we've talked about this that of course,
you know you have your rankings, and then you want
to kind of coordinate it with ADP so that you
don't you know, ridiculously overpay for someone and make sure
that you know, if it is someone that you feel
(12:26):
that you should take based on your rankings, that you
get them, and if we're talking about a draft, that
you get them in a round where you're going to
get them, you know, seven, eight, nine times out of ten.
But you're not jumping them like two rounds.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Right, you don't need to take like somebody you have
ranked in somebody going the seventh round. You don't need
to take them in the second round. That's I mean,
you can, but you don't have to do that. And
really you can probably take him in the fourth or
maybe even the fifth. And to your point, if your
comfort level is the fifth round for the seventh round
ADP player, you might not get him like two out
(13:03):
of ten times. But it's like, well, okay, like that
that happens, Like it's not necessary that that I have
to get this player for sure? So do you?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I mean, I doubt you were consciously doing this, but
it's it sounds like a lot of the pictures in
that kind of that are going just below SP thirty
by ADP, and the pictures among those that might be
sort of more reliable. High floor pictures that give you
(13:33):
innings even if the ratios and the strikeouts, you know,
my lack in some ways. Are you do you see
whether by design or just by happenstance, then do you
see you? Do you see your rankings reflecting you pushing
those pictures up based on their high floor at that
(13:55):
particular point in your rankings sort of?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Do you mean volume?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah? I guess mostly I mean volume volume and a record,
a track record of you know, high volume with with
you know, passable to good, you know other stats.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I think there's something to that idea. I don't
know how much it was planned and how much of
it is just how I put my rankings together. So
when I put my rankings together, one of the first
things I do is I look at prior earnings and
I do it on that weighted sort of like I
do more sell for example, that that system's like just
(14:36):
a linear weight where it's like, Okay, the previous season,
I remember what the percentages are, but the previous season
has the most weight. Two seasons back has some way
but less weight. These seasons back has the lowest, and
I do like like a fifty like thirty three sixteen
more or less, and that's how I weight it. And
that's the first thing I got, Like that's not the
only thing, Like there's other factors, Like you know, somebody
(14:59):
who's like third six years old in the tail of
his career, I'll kind of downgrade, versus someone who's twenty
six and up and coming, I'll upgrade. But you get
the idea, right, So I think, to your point, that's
part of what I'm doing. So I'm I'm looking someone
who has like one reason for example, I was and
this is someone I was wrong about. But I can
(15:19):
talk about wondering. Is I was like way out on
Chrisale last year. Is in that kind of model you're
just never going to value Chris Sale where it's like, sure,
you know, twenty twenty four Chris Sale could emerge it
and be this incredible ace, But it just seemed to
me like a poor bet. And I'd almost rather lose
with somebody else getting Chrissale and winning that that you
(15:41):
know bet, then take him and be like, oh great,
he pitched fifty innings and I got practically nothing. So
that yes, you're you're not wrong like that that is
part of part of the rods. I hope that answers
your question.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, no, And it seems like pitchers like you know,
like Logan Web, like Luis Castillo, maybe even Aaron Nola
would benefit from that. You know, I know it's a
raw sort of valuation that you tweak, but just someone
who is putting in when I needed to two hundred
innings and earning you know, double digits, like in the
(16:14):
ten to twenty dollars range is going to grade out,
you know, better than someone who's more mercurial or injured,
like like Sale.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah. Well, it's like like da Gram this year, Like
I'm just way out on him. And again I feel
somebody might benefit, Like somebody very well could get one
hundred and twenty amazing Jacob de gram innings. I just
don't want to place that that like, given like his
career and really given his age too. If Jacob de
Gram was like thirty one and coming back, it might
(16:45):
be a different conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So last thing, and this is actually kind of going
up towards the beginning of the draft. You know, we've
talked about and you mentioned Snell, and I think Snell's
probably not a bad example and you know, they're they're
obviously players like uh, Garrett Crochet who don't have a
(17:11):
track record, right, they have amazing you know, purenning stats
since they've you know, since well, i'll just say Crochet,
since he's become a starter, But we have not really
seen like a full, truly full season from him as
a starter. And you know Snell had the slow start
last year with injury. We can kind of chalk that
(17:33):
up to maybe him signing so late. But you are
and you know, I'll just use Snell as the example
because I know how enthusiastic you are about him this year.
Do you want to talk a little bit about your
tolerance for for risk? Uh, it's sort of your you know,
s P one, s P two, like your early pictures.
(17:56):
Whereas you know I tend to gravitate towards the Zach Wheeler,
Logan Gilbert types. But I think you, maybe this year,
more than most are, are a little more comfortable with
a level of risk.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Well here's well, that's fair. So this is part of it.
I and this isn't by design either, but well, in
some is where I've been drafting, I've had the fortune
or misfortunate And how you feel to have early picks
in the first round in most of my drafts, which
means I have a late second round pick. And what
that means is I haven't involved in like the Paul Skiins,
(18:34):
Jerk Scouble Zach Wheeler conversation just because they've been gone.
Like if Zach Wheeler fell to me at twenty eight,
obviously I'd be dancing around like, hey, Zach Wheeler, you
know I'm not. I wasn't taking him at three either,
because that that would be you know, I think anybody
would agree that would be silly. So in Labor I
took Logan Gilbert over Blake Stell because as much as
I like Snell, it does tie into what you're saying,
(18:56):
which is sure, I think Blake Stelling or Start per
Start is the better pitcher, has a ceiling at least
to be the better pitcher, There's no doubt about that.
But the stability of Gilbert, combined with everything else he does,
made him the better pick, and he fell. In Labor
there was kind of this like falling off of starting
pitching where it's like, Okay, I'll take him in the
third round to pick thirty, you know three. Overall, I
(19:18):
have no problem with that, I did have the luxury
of doing that, like in tout Wars, where I did
take Snell, Gilbert was gone, and actually there were some
other pictures too, I think Cole Reagan's and somebody else
went before Snell. So it was like, Okay, well I
have to plant my flag here because the next pick
is fifty eight. Like Blake, Snell probably won't last. I mean,
(19:38):
there's a couple of drafts I've seen where he's lasted,
but yeah, he should be gone. So to get back
to your question, I think what some of it is.
I'll look at a pit If you look at kind
of the stable pitchers in this band, You've got Corbin Burns,
very good picture, but his you know, his strikeouts have
kind of fallen off. I think pre injury you had
George Kirby, who similar thing, very good pitcher. I just
(20:00):
don't see him as that potential ace. So I think
what I'm looking at here, I'm trying to balance the
stability with the ceiling. And when I look at Snell,
even when I look at Dylan Cees, what I see
is I see the ceiling to go along with the ability,
if that makes any sense. And some of that with
Snell is that he's somebody who could pitch. I've kind
(20:24):
of identified him. He's probably more Jacob de Gram than
Jacob de Gram at this point, like in that he's
the pitcher who we saw this last year. He could
rattle off like a fifteen start streak where he carries
your team where it's just like, Okay, he's putting up
like a one five era. Yes, the whip isn't great,
but he's striking everybody out. He presumably on the Dodger,
should get more wins than he got on the Giants
(20:46):
last year.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, yeah, I know, that's that's I think it's easy
to forget. Not for me, because you know, I watch
the Giants a lot, and we of course we're following
his his fates on the main event team, but it's
it's easy to forget just how dominant he was for
(21:09):
the second half of last year.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, he's also not in a situation was in last
year where he signed laid he probably he really probably
should have. I know, I understand why he and the
Giants both didn't want to do this, but he probably
should have had like a full blown like rehab assignment
where they didn't bring him up till like May first,
and I get why they didn't do that, but you
could kind of see like he wasn't up to speed,
he wasn't ready. He looked rusty, and finally in July
(21:35):
when he was healthy, he looked like like snow.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Last question, and it's a it's a quick one, but
do you see any scenario where you would take Schemes
or Schooble or Wheeler, Although I assume you know Wheelers
behind those two in the in the first round of a.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Of a draft, probably not I like for Ski, so
it wouldn't be Wheeler like I have him like in
the second round, so I don't as good as he is.
And I know you have Wheeler closer to Skins and Schooble,
but I do too, But it's probably just an overall
ranking when you lump in the hitters. I saw them
as an early second round or a fifteen team league.
(22:18):
So to take Skeens in Schooble, it would have to
be one of those things where I'm on the back
end of the first round in a fifteen team league
and it's a chalky draft. I'm with the hitters right
where all the hitters like at least with my I
should say my chalk. All the hitters are being drafted
in a way where it's like, oh, I like this guy,
he's gone. I like this guy's gone, and then you
(22:39):
look and you're like, okay, well, based on my rankings,
skins are Schooble is as highest, so I'm going to
take them. I don't have a philosophical man, I'm a
problem with that. I know some people do I know
some people And there's the other side of this argument, right,
this is why less so in the main event, But
in other drafts you see a Schemes or Schooble falling
to thirteen or fourteen or maybe in the second round
where somebody takes them because they go so because the
(23:00):
people head of them like, yeah, I can't take a
picture this Yearly I have to take a hitter. I'm
not that doctrinaire. I feel like if the values there,
I'll do it. It just rarely works out that way. There's
usually one or two hitters, Like for me this year,
it's j Rod, Like who I'm jumping over ADP where
I probably would take j Rod at like you know,
ten or eleven or wherever those guys are ranked over
(23:22):
one of them. So that's why that doesn't happen. Last
year was Aaron Judge, for example, what was that hitter?
But yeah, if it's not going my way and and
one of those pictures are the highest on my board,
I'll certainly take them. I don't have an aversion to it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, let's let's move on to the middle of
the draft, or the what we'd call the mid rounds.
So looking at kind of the roughly speaking, the three
star and the two star pictures. Now, Mike Ginella, historically
you your take on this has been and I should
(24:00):
say that this is not a take that comes from nowhere.
This is backed up by data that the pictures in
these tiers, and I think if you're breaking them up
into chunks of fifteen tiers of fifteen by ADP, that
it's that you know, thirty one to sixty, right, that
(24:24):
are historically taken in the aggregate a very bad sort
of place to invest. That said, you wouldn't entirely ignore
this this tier in a draft. You wouldn't just piece out,
you know Sarrus as you know Saraus likes say, you
wouldn't peace out until like round eighteen right, so tell
(24:49):
me what you're tell me what you're thinking in those
middle rounds.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Well, there's two things about this here. So if you
do follow the model of taking three pictures among the
top thirty a d P, then you are piecing out
in the next tier because you don't want to take
your fourth pitcher in that tier because you already have
your sp three. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Need you need offense at that point.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
You need offense and this well that's also that's the
other part of this plan is if you're taking three
starters in the first like in the main event right now,
it's the top one hundred picks. So let's let's just
follow that. Like so if you're taking three starters in
the top one hundred, which is what the first seven rounds,
let's say yeah, yeah, it's seven rounds. Like you definitely
(25:33):
don't want to take another starter because at some point
you the part of this plan that makes it work overall,
as you start filling up on your offense, like while
other people are drafting those riskier starters. And we did
this last year and we got you know, I remember
it wasn't all success. We had cost schwever, we got
Anthony Santander like that that was where we made up
for offense. I remember you at the time, like, wow,
this this really works. But that's the other side of
(25:55):
it is you do want to take one or two
pitchers in those buckets because primarily for the reason that
you don't want to be at the bottom, like you
don't want to like look at like say two like
adp of two fifty or two seventy five, like okay,
I'll take my fourth starter here. Can't it work? Sure?
But the problem that you have is less even with
(26:17):
you know, I kind of wrote this in my article.
It's not you're not taking a picture in the middle rounds.
I hear their analysts do this, and I feel like
it's a mistake where they're like, ooh, I'm gonna take
three or four pictures here. I like this guy's upside.
I like that guy's upside. I like this guy's upside.
It's like, well, sure, so do I. But the data,
as you were pointing out in your question, it's random,
like we don't know. We don't know, Like we like
(26:38):
to think that we have some idea how these pictures
are going to perform. But every year, about half of
them wind up being below replacement level, and so I
use a term you're flipping a coin, So you're flipping
a coin. The one thing about the coin flips in
this this SP four range, though, is that you're getting
volume when you win on the coin flip, whereas like
(26:59):
later on when you went on the coin flip, which
is still less likely, you're getting less volume. You're you're
you're kind of getting like higher ceiling, or you're getting
somebody really like boring and sturdy and dependable, like say,
I'm Michael Walker, who's fine, but not somebody really ooh,
you know this is going to be like my true
like s before. So that's the reasoning for doing that
(27:20):
is that you still want to get some of that
volume in the middle. You still want to it's not
quite theirs in the earlier rounds, like the pictures you
were talking about. You still want to get like those
hopefull one hundred and six hundred and seven innings with
good strikeouts and like, okay, you're in whip.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Okay, so let me throw you a curveball. As I
as I mentioned the so I read the I'm not
going to do it again. But the starting pitchers per
round currently in Main event ADP. So we had that chunk,
that that heavy pitching band of the sixth through eighth
round where there were twenty one pitchers taken. Okay, the
rounds following the eighth round three starters, three starters, five
(27:59):
starters forcedar So is the our drafters wising up to
this and is there anything to be done to you know,
to course correct so that we're not simply you know
that the strategy of largely avoiding that middle tier for starters,
(28:21):
it becomes a lot less effective when everyone is doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, sure, so. Well, so there's a couple of things here,
which is I think main event drafters are wising up,
like what I noticed, Actually it's the fifth it's the
fifth tier, which which is like SB sixty one, where
drafters are starting to wise up and they're taking pictures
about starting pitchers about around later on average because they're
kind of like because that's what they're noticing, and and
(28:46):
what's fascing about that tier. I know, I'm jumping ahead
a little bit. Is by research show that tier does
worse than like the SB six is like and with
the exception one year, in the last five full seasons
it's done worse. That's sort of fascinating, right, like that
that is the tier I think that you really could
just be like, you know what, I'm not going to
take an SP five, I'm just gonna wait too, Like
(29:08):
you might as well take two of the so called
SP six's.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, yeah, right, So that's that's really like the you know,
less than a coin flip tier, and then if you're
going to be less than a coin flip for the
rest of the draft, you might as well just load
up at the end.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I mean, it's not only less of a coin flip,
it's well, I'm trying to look here. Yeah, so the
average here, there were ten out of fifteen pitchers on
average or below replacement level, and then the next one's
nine out of fifteen, so it's close. But then the
above replacement level earnings on average or forty seven in
that SP five tier compared to sixty two in that
(29:45):
SB six tier. So yeah, it's like, well, and then
I'm not saying the sixty two is even good, but
it's like, well, like you might as well just take
two of those because it really doesn't make a difference.
I think that's where to your question if you're yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
No, you're gonna get well pay less for this year.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Here's the thing that's interesting is the other side of this, though,
is that it is the SB threes. I haven't like
looked closely at the main event, but in Draft Champions
and I've heard this on like some other like you know,
expert analysts podcasts too. The SP threes are where people
are really pushing up prices. And I think they're doing
it because last year that tier was relatively successful to
(30:22):
where it's been in the past, so they're thinking, oh,
the same thing will happen this year, and it's like, oh,
I mean it could, but history tells us that it won't.
Like a similar thing happened in twenty twenty one where
that tier was like really successful and then it went
back to being like fine, And that's probably what will
happen this year because that's the way these things go,
(30:42):
which means that people are pushing up prices and just
increasing their odds of failure. And the other thing I
pointed out too, is that like earnings here, people I
think really look and think, oh, the earnings went up,
but well they historically they really didn't. So you're paying
more for the same thing, like, you're not paying more
(31:03):
to get more, You're kind of paying more for what
these pictures have done every year. So to go back
to your question, yes, people are noticing it. I still
think there's an opportunity here, though, to be like, well,
I can still, if any there's more an opportunity to
kind of follow the room and be like, okay, well,
if people are not buying as many pictures in this tier,
I can load up on offense more. Maybe I can
(31:25):
wait for my second closer or push my second closer
up a little bit and just take those pictures later.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
If there are fewer starting pictures drafted in that tier.
The likelihood that when you sort of want to start
drafting again, the picture that you have ranked you know,
at the top of your you know, so we might
be down to like, you know, SP sixty five or something,
(31:52):
but you still might have your SP thirty eight available
right at that point because there's just not as much.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's yeah, I mean it's probably more likely forty five
or fifty. But yes, like that. That's that's the concept,
which is.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
The other numbers out of my ass right, Well.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Well that's the other thing. Well, that's the other thing too,
which is, and this this happens at other positions as well,
which is I think people people get obsessed with ADP
and they think, oh, no, like there's sixty pitchers off
the board, I'm going to get the sixty first best pitcher.
It's like no, Like, at least by your rankings, you're not.
You're probably gonna get like the forty eighth or the
forty seventh best pitcher or whatever, depending on the draft,
(32:27):
just because there's variability or rankings, and the further along
you you get in the draft, the more variability there is.
Like I'm like, I'm willing to bet, Like when in
any draft, when you have the three hundredth pick, you're
probably getting a player if you're if you're still for
some reason going off your row rankings, who you have
about two twenty fifth or whatever, because everybody's like rankings
(32:50):
start to get squishy, like people have needs as opposed
to drafting off their rankings and it just doesn't matter
as much, Like it just it just doesn't matter as
much as you get into the middle and later rounds
your draft, like where you have somebody ranked like that,
it's I keep my rankings are a construct too, like
we think of rankings as he's like fixed things, or
it's like, oh, you know, I've I've got Blake Snell fifth,
(33:11):
so he's the fifth best pitcher. It's like, well, no,
I have a fifth for a variety of reasons, not
because necessarily it's going to be the fifth best pitcher. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And when you get past that point, you know, in
the last two hundred to three hundred or beyond, like
pick two fifty, you're you're drafting players that probably have
a fifty chance at best of actually staying on your
roster for a significant amount of time. I mean, that's
where you're in the fungible zone where you can easily
(33:43):
cut ties with those players.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, I think really, and this is something because I
was an only league player for years. It took me
a while to get into this mindset. The last in
a fifteen team league, like the last ten rounds, like
rounds twenty one through thirty, you really should look at
those players. I'm not saying you should just throw darts
and you know, go wild and take a bunch of
minor leaguers, but you really should look at those last
(34:06):
ten rounds. It's like, you know what, like it doesn't
really matter like how this shakes out, like in terms
of if all ten of these players don't work out,
I'm going to replace them, Like I'm probably gonna be
cycling through these players anyway. And well, frankly, if two,
if two of those ten players hit, you should be
pretty happy like that that means that you you did
something right there at the back end.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Those are the those are the mystery right now is
and not the mister rights right yeah, you know. And
that's also like that's maybe the point in your draft
where you start looking at, you know, the schedules for
the first couple of weeks, especially for for starters. I
mean that was a I took JP Sears in the
last round of TGFBI, and I had a few pictures
(34:48):
I was looking at, and I I noticed that he's
starting in Seattle, and I thought, well, you know, I
don't care beyond week win, but I assure you, like,
h you know that start for jpc es. So let's go. Yeah,
so for the last part of the draft, and and
(35:09):
this is really a barely straightforward question. So we've been
talking about rankings and drafting off of rankings. Now for
starting pictures, do you how much do you sort of
think about the composition of your starting pitching staff versus
(35:31):
like who you might have ranked, you know, and sort
of your strict ordinal ranking. So just for example, you've
got you know, unproven maybe not prospects, but younger pictures
who might not have a you know, nailed on roll
and some injury pictures, but your rankings are dictating that
(35:52):
you draft those pictures. At some point, are you going
to be like, well, I really need you know, I
can I feel okay, diverging from my ranking is just
to get you know, a jpcies, for example, a pretty
unremarkable innings guy, Like, yeah, are you pretty free and
loose with your rankings at that point?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yes, And that's also something I've gotten better about. Like
I used to feel like wet into my rankings, like
I have to do this, I have to do that,
or you know, I'd feel not silly, but like, oh,
I have to draft this picture because I have him
higher than this other picture. Now I look at it like, well,
it really depends on my draft. So so in labor
I took and I feel good about this now. Although
(36:32):
you know, obviously I think a lot of this it
was just chance because this draft was a while back.
I took Brandon Woodroff in let's see the fourteenth round.
I have to go back and look, but it was
I'm sorry, it was the sixteenth round. So I took
Brendon Woodroff and that looks pretty good to me right now.
And also, that's a league with an IL and you know,
all that good stuff. But because I did that, I
(36:53):
did do what you're suggesting, which is, for the most part,
with the exception of Max Meyer, I took a lot
of boring guys starting in round twenty one, and the
thinking there were a couple and there's a couple of
things behind that too. One is like, well, I'm going
to want somebody to plug into that like Woodrof slot.
But then the other piece of it was it's a
(37:13):
league with one hundred dollars fab one dollar minimum. I
don't want to spend. I don't want to be taking
too many stabs on starting pitchers in that league. I
don't the luxury of doing it like in a tout
Wars or a main event where I have one thousand
dollars and toutwark, especially where there's there's no minimum and
you can just bid forever, so that that's part of
the idea too. I A lot of it is team related,
(37:35):
but a lot of it is also like league related,
where if you know your league and you know, like, well,
I'm going to have some flexibility here to like cycle
through and cycle through and cycle through, I don't mind
taking those long shots. The thing about those long shots though, is,
and this is I think another reason why I tend
to be more boring with some of these picks than
(37:56):
you would expect you might expect me to be given
I say this is all random. The boring picks tend
to work out just as well as like the high
flying picks. Like for every Paul schemes, there are a
bunch of guys like Waka where they're fine and they
don't seem very exciting, but they kind of get the
job done, like sort of like what Derrick bear Riper
(38:16):
would call these like oatmeal guys where peace there. They're boring,
but you kind of need those boring pictures to log
the innings. And the other thing too is like guess what,
you can always fab pictures later and you're going to
find like like pop up pictures like in May or June,
who are have just a chance to be good as
the picture you drafted, like in March fifteenth, like frankly,
(38:39):
with less information, who might be who might be good?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned wood Draff. I was looking
at him. He was available in round twenty of TGFBI,
and you know he was. He and Sean and I
were the top pictures on my boat.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
He was, he was god in mind. I don't remember
where he went, but he went well here earlier in.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
My and and so he hadn't made his first start,
but he done like the he done like the minor league,
you know, sort of backfield start, and things were okay,
And I ended up going with Manaya just because I
feel like, you know, probably if I'm putting the over
under on innings, probably Manaiah is higher. Woodruff almost made
(39:24):
it back to me, and it was almost presented with
a dilemma. But he he was picked the pick before
mine and the oh no, he actually did make it
back to me. I'm going around the Yeah, but I
couldn't take him there because I didn't want to start
too injured guys.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well, but I mean that's a separate conversation too, Like
I took Mania and my my TGFI and and like
yeah in leagues, leagues without a nail, it's like like
at FBC, it's a whole different conversation. And I think
we we sort of learned this the hard way last
year in our main event, like we we took I'd
say the one mistake we definitely made. We just took
(40:00):
too many guys who didn't start start the year. Like
on the team, I think you can take one or
one or maybe two shots like that, Like beyond that,
you've got to be careful because you know the Scott
Panasi said, to paraphrase him, like the injuries will find you.
You don't need to like pack your team with them.
Uh So, yeah, that's the other piece of that too.
(40:22):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I feel like one pitcher, one hitter is probably the
most that you want to take on board, and you
don't want guys with with a really long timeline, like
you want players that was that was clos coming back.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, like like you, I like Nico Horner, but like
part of my thinking with Nico Horner is like, well,
it sounds like he's going to be back when he
starts a season on the AIL, Like it sounds like
he's going to be back like really soon. So and yes,
I could go sideways, but I also didn't take him
in the top one hundred, like I took him at
like one eighty one. So it's like that's fine, Like
if he misses a couple of weeks and you know,
(40:58):
I've got to like, you know, cycle through whoever the
heck it is you know I have in middle infield
on I think it's Horie Polanco, Like you'll have to
have to live with Horia Palanka for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Like fine, all right, I think, uh, I think we
can we can wrap it up if unless there's anything
else you want to talk about. It's probably the the
shortest starting pitching preview in history.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
But I'm yeah, I again, like there's so many people
who do this well as far as like talking about
pictures and talking about their velocity and talking about movement
and potential, And it might seem like a cop out,
but I've chosen this approach just because I find it
works better for me from a drafting philosophy to look
(41:46):
at it this way than to obsess over a large
pool of players where frankly, we have no idea what
they're going to do at least at the bottom.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
It's actually, you know, when we did this a similar
approach last year in main event was actually really it
felt really liberating to almost just not care about I mean, well,
of course you you fold in your evaluations into your rankings,
but then when you're in the draft, you really just
(42:15):
take like a you have this distance on the individual
pictures and you're like, I don't care if it's Zach
Efflin or Clark Schmidt.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
You know. Also I also felt like something it did
for us is that it allowed us to focus more
on our offensive decisions, like when we were really when
we were taking hitters, because we weren't thinking do I
have to take a hit or a picture here? We
just built the rounds in where it's like, okay, like
this is where we're going to take our s before
this is to take our SP five or we're just
going to take the picture, you know, at the top
(42:44):
of our rankings. And like you said, like if we
were this year, especially if we load up on if
we have an injured picture, we have to be like, okay,
let's not do that again. But otherwise, like there is
a freedom be like okay, we're really to overthink this
and we can just focus on the hitting side of
our draft. And I think that worked. I think that
worked really well for us.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It did. We have a league victory to prove it,
if not an overall prize. But you know, there's always
this year, and this is the last podcast before we
do participate in the main event draft, which is Wednesday,
March twenty six.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So yeah, we should point out we're not sickos who
are going to like record that live. And frankly, if
we would just be us talking for three hours, which
would be really boring, so we're we wouldn't be putting
on a show, so we're not We're not going to
do that.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
So there areos who like that, but we are not
going to.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Even when you hear about it, you will. You will
hear about it like after the fact.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, well we'll do We'll do a a review. It
might not be the entire podcast, but we will definitely.
You know, then the next time you hear from us,
we will be on the far side of that and
we'll talk a little bit about it, I assume.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I think.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So all right.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Let's take a breath here again and we'll close out.
(44:34):
Thanks once again for listening to episode three twenty eight
of Flags Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectives podcast. It is,
as I said before, it is almost stateside opening day.
It is always a great time and it's a great
time now to subscribe to Baseball Perspectives. If you are
not doing so already. If you are, thank you. If
you're not, please consider it. There's several subscription levels. There's
(44:56):
so much more than just the fantasy coverage. I mean,
the the team by team previews that are up right now.
I'm looking at the Tigers preview are just blowing me away. Uh.
There was a great article. I'm not into all this,
but was a great article from Steven Goldman about Jackie
Robinson that was out today that I just really enjoyed.
Just so much coverage that always seems to outdo the
(45:17):
last piece. So again, please subscribe if you haven't for
a bit challenge. John Haglin, thank you very much. We'll
be back with you soon.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Good night, everybody. Yeah, there's been a lot of really
great most likely.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, and
Welcome to Episode three twenty eight of Flags Fly Forever,
a Baseball Perspective fantasy baseball podcast. It's me and it's
John Haglan. And I was gonna say we're a few
days from opening Day, but we actually passed Opening day.
We had say a couple of games in Japan, not literally,
but we were like watching from afar.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
It did not help that those started at three ten
am specific day lifetime.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, it was great for me as like as the
old man early riser because I was like already up
and you know, I had my my coffee, just came
out and you know, came out. I'm like, oh great.
Like baseball, I have to imagine it seems cruol for
Dodgers fans, where it's like, wait, you're putting these games
on at three in the morning, Like.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Why you're not getting any sympathy for Dodgers fans. For me, yeah,
it's funny because for both so I am actually to
an early riser, but not not that early, and both
both days, I you know, got up, made my coffee,
sat down, fired up the laptop, and caught the ninth
(01:27):
inning for both games. So that's that's all I have
to go on is.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
So you got to see Alex Bessi a new new
Dodgers clothes, new.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Dodgers closer, annoint him.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yes, we were, we are. We are not going to
talk about this tonight. I mean, we certainly could have
been a fun podcast, but we're going to talk about
starting pitching and it's been a while, but we're we're
going to talk about my my tears and in particular
my my adp article and my philosophy, and this is
sort of gonna be a Q and A. John had
(01:57):
some some questions for me and some concepts they wanted
to talk through. So John, I'm just going to throw
it to you and kind of let you lead and
I'll i'll follow or answer.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah. So I just want to make clear at the
at the top of this show that unlike our other
positional previews where we go through the tiers and talk
about individual players, of course we're going to bring up
players as we talk through some of this, but I
thought it would be most useful if we did kind
(02:28):
of an overall landscape of the pitching pool, the starting
pitching pool, because if we were doing a rates and
barrels style, I think they did like four parts to
their starting.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, I mean Vangrass does that too, and I mean
they like just to take a step back, like to
give both those podcasts credit, like they go really deep.
They do great analysis. I mean, they know what they're
talking about. And if anything, part of the reason I
started doing things away I do it is frankly, that's
not my strength, Like it's not my strength to look
at the bucket of pitchers between four hundred and five
(03:03):
hundred and ADP and do that sort of deep dive.
But the other part of it is what I think
we'll talk about tonight in terms of you know, how
I look at starting pitching and drafting philosophy, which frankly,
again not to you know, not putting down those podcasts.
They do great work. That's kind of my focus, which
is like not so much you know who you should draft,
(03:23):
but more how you should draft.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I think that's really well put. And I think
you want both approaches, like you want to be able
to evaluate players and know if you're in the twenty
fourth round while you're taking why you're taking picture X
over pitcher why? But I think we both gravitate toward
that more strategic approach. I guess I just want to
(03:48):
ask you before we dive into the different segments of
the pool, do you see any notable changes this year
to the starting pitching pool. I mean, we've had we've
been seeing trends. Obviously, it's been much remarked upon with
starting pitchers obviously throwing fewer innings, both in individual games
(04:10):
and across the aggregate of the season. Managing injuries means
that a lot of starting pitchers, specially younger pitchers, will
have innings limits. Is this do you see this year
as just being a continuation of the trends or do
you see anything that is presenting, as you know, something
maybe new or peculiar to this year.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I mean, it'll probably be similar. So last year saw
a bit of a bounce back, like and we've seen
this every year like since since the pandemic, or the
first year back since the pandemic, where starting pitchers, innings
and starts are gradually picking up, like starters hitting thirty
starts or getting close to it, or starters hitting like
(04:55):
one hundred and six hundred and seven innings is increasing.
But that being said, like the way teams use pitchers
today and the way teams manage their il and all
of that. We're not going to be going back to
like say, twenty fifteen. We're not going to be going
back to an era where there's a bunch of two hundred,
two hundred ten starters and you know, team's philosophies are, well,
we want to get all five starters through the season healthy.
(05:19):
I just don't I don't think that's something you should
expect in the near future, if ever. Again, I mean,
I don't want to predict the far future. There could
be rule changes there, there could be all sorts of
things could happen, but like, this is the now that
we're in, which is you have to look at it like, well,
teams are not managing rotations like they did ten years ago.
It's a different landscape.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I think that's that's I agree with that, And
I think that leads nicely into talking about the top
tier of pictures. So, in lieu of going through your
five star, four star, three star and so on tiers,
I wanted to break the pitching pool up into three
segments basically, so the first segment roughly accords with your
(06:06):
five and four star tier, which goes rounds one through six,
and then three and two star what we'd call them
the mid rounds rounds seven through eighteen, and then you know,
one and zero star pictures from rounds nineteen to let's
say the end of a thirty round draft or talking
(06:26):
about you know, mostly one dollar maybe one to three
dollars pitchers in an auction format. So this is a
little okay. So last year when we planned our main
event draft, and I'm not sure how explicitly you put
this in your writing, but we had agreed that we
(06:52):
were really looking at the top thirty as kind of
you know, which roughly accorded with the five and fourth
are tiers as being the place where we wanted to
try to get three starters. Okay, So what I'm seeing
this year is kind of interesting because this okay, so
(07:14):
bear with me for a sec. I just want to
read you and this is these are main event ADP's
of all the main events up to today, which is Thursday,
March twentieth, I think it's fifteen drafts. So I'm just
going to read you the number of starters drafted by
round for the first eight rounds. Okay, So first round
two pitchers, two starters, Second round four starters, Third round
(07:39):
four starters, fourth round three starters, fifth round four starters.
And what I want to really focus on is six
through eight, sixth round eight starters, seventh round six starters, eighth,
eighth round seven starters. Right, so you've got twenty one
starters going in those three rounds six to eight. They
(08:01):
represent starting pictures eighteen through thirty eight. Okay, I'm not
quite sure how to ask this, but what I'm curious
is it's it's really hard by ADP to sort of
separate picture twenty eight from picture thirty four. Say so,
And I also will say that those pictures going in,
(08:23):
like the seventh and eighth round in particular, seem like
a lot of what you would call sort of innings guys. Right, So,
thinking about just you know, looking at the draft board,
thinking about pictures like Logan web, Max Freed, Luis Castillo,
(08:47):
you know that gallon, sunny gray pictures like that. Do
you feel comfortable kind of expanding that that top thirty
to include some of these pictures given that innings are
at a premium, or do you want to be shopping
in the earlier side of that, even if it means
like taking three pictures in the first six rounds.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, it's probably more the first thing, and like so
I kind of do that in my rankings. So to
look at this ADP list we're looking at together, which
is the first you know, fifteen main events, And if
you're listening and you're at the NFBC website and want
to replicate this, you would just pop in March twentieth
as the end date, Like that's that's the evening that
(09:29):
we're talking. So what I tend to do with my
rankings is I have pictures like, for example, Zach Gallon
is the thirty fifth pitcher off the board in the
main event, He's in my top thirty despite his bad outing.
Like Justin Steele thirty eighth, overall, he's in my top thirty.
So there's always like one or two pictures, maybe even
(09:52):
three pictures where that happens, and I'm not necessarily targeting them.
But what I'm doing is I'm not looking at the
ADP in the top thirty. I'm looking at my top
thirty and figuring out where my comfort level is. And
it's kind of the idea of like, okay, well if
I have this comfort level where that's where I can
take my third picture. I'm not like I said, I'm
(10:14):
not targeting steel necessarily, but that's the picture I'm looking at, Like, Okay,
that's as far down as I really want to go
to get that third starter. Does that make sense? And
then the first part of your question really depends And
this is sort of a similar thing too, Right, So
I have Blake Snell in at least two leagues, may
have them three leagues. I have to go back and look,
(10:35):
but I have Snell and this is pre made event,
because pre made event. He was going like in the
fourth I think mid to late fourth round, and I
was saying comfortably in the third round because I'm really
high on him. I think I have him fifth overall.
I know you were not laughing at that, but you
were like, oh wow, that's that's something. But well, I've
since pushed him up, so I'm doing and I think
(10:56):
I think that this is this really even goes beyond
a starting pitching conversation. And I know some people when
they when I hear a lot of people talk about ADP,
what they'll do is they'll talk about ADP and they'll say, Oh,
at this ADP, I like this player. I look at
it the other way. I put my rankings together first,
(11:16):
and then I look at my ranks and look at
ADP and go, well, I think I'm going to get
this player nearly everywhere in a lot of places. Obviously,
all drafts are different. Somebody might jump you, you know,
somebody you might have something happened in a draft where
it's like, well, you know, I really like Josh low
for example, but I needed a picture here or a closer,
and somebody else took Josh Lowe or whatever. But that's
what I'm doing, Like I'm not really looking at it,
(11:39):
like from this doctrinaire standpoint of you know, if you
look at the top ten pictures too, the ten pictures
like Cole Reagan's Who's forty two overall? So I'm not
looking and going, oh, I have to have a picture
in the first three rounds and it has to be
one of these ten pictures. It really has more to
do with how my ranking kind of shake out with
(12:00):
the ADP as opposed the other way around. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, it does. I mean, of course, you know your
your rankings, and we've talked about this that of course,
you know you have your rankings, and then you want
to kind of coordinate it with ADP so that you
don't you know, ridiculously overpay for someone and make sure
that you know, if it is someone that you feel
(12:26):
that you should take based on your rankings, that you
get them, and if we're talking about a draft, that
you get them in a round where you're going to
get them, you know, seven, eight, nine times out of ten.
But you're not jumping them like two rounds.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Right, you don't need to take like somebody you have
ranked in somebody going the seventh round. You don't need
to take them in the second round. That's I mean,
you can, but you don't have to do that. And
really you can probably take him in the fourth or
maybe even the fifth. And to your point, if your
comfort level is the fifth round for the seventh round
ADP player, you might not get him like two out
(13:03):
of ten times. But it's like, well, okay, like that
that happens, Like it's not necessary that that I have
to get this player for sure? So do you?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I mean, I doubt you were consciously doing this, but
it's it sounds like a lot of the pictures in
that kind of that are going just below SP thirty
by ADP, and the pictures among those that might be
sort of more reliable. High floor pictures that give you
(13:33):
innings even if the ratios and the strikeouts, you know,
my lack in some ways. Are you do you see
whether by design or just by happenstance, then do you
see you? Do you see your rankings reflecting you pushing
those pictures up based on their high floor at that
(13:55):
particular point in your rankings sort of?
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Do you mean volume?
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yeah? I guess mostly I mean volume volume and a record,
a track record of you know, high volume with with
you know, passable to good, you know other stats.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yeah, I think there's something to that idea. I don't
know how much it was planned and how much of
it is just how I put my rankings together. So
when I put my rankings together, one of the first
things I do is I look at prior earnings and
I do it on that weighted sort of like I
do more sell for example, that that system's like just
(14:36):
a linear weight where it's like, Okay, the previous season,
I remember what the percentages are, but the previous season
has the most weight. Two seasons back has some way
but less weight. These seasons back has the lowest, and
I do like like a fifty like thirty three sixteen
more or less, and that's how I weight it. And
that's the first thing I got, Like that's not the
only thing, Like there's other factors, Like you know, somebody
(14:59):
who's like third six years old in the tail of
his career, I'll kind of downgrade, versus someone who's twenty
six and up and coming, I'll upgrade. But you get
the idea, right, So I think, to your point, that's
part of what I'm doing. So I'm I'm looking someone
who has like one reason for example, I was and
this is someone I was wrong about. But I can
(15:19):
talk about wondering. Is I was like way out on
Chrisale last year. Is in that kind of model you're
just never going to value Chris Sale where it's like, sure,
you know, twenty twenty four Chris Sale could emerge it
and be this incredible ace, But it just seemed to
me like a poor bet. And I'd almost rather lose
with somebody else getting Chrissale and winning that that you
(15:41):
know bet, then take him and be like, oh great,
he pitched fifty innings and I got practically nothing. So
that yes, you're you're not wrong like that that is
part of part of the rods. I hope that answers
your question.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, no, And it seems like pitchers like you know,
like Logan Web, like Luis Castillo, maybe even Aaron Nola
would benefit from that. You know, I know it's a
raw sort of valuation that you tweak, but just someone
who is putting in when I needed to two hundred
innings and earning you know, double digits, like in the
(16:14):
ten to twenty dollars range is going to grade out,
you know, better than someone who's more mercurial or injured,
like like Sale.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah. Well, it's like like da Gram this year, Like
I'm just way out on him. And again I feel
somebody might benefit, Like somebody very well could get one
hundred and twenty amazing Jacob de gram innings. I just
don't want to place that that like, given like his
career and really given his age too. If Jacob de
Gram was like thirty one and coming back, it might
(16:45):
be a different conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So last thing, and this is actually kind of going
up towards the beginning of the draft. You know, we've
talked about and you mentioned Snell, and I think Snell's
probably not a bad example and you know, they're they're
obviously players like uh, Garrett Crochet who don't have a
(17:11):
track record, right, they have amazing you know, purenning stats
since they've you know, since well, i'll just say Crochet,
since he's become a starter, But we have not really
seen like a full, truly full season from him as
a starter. And you know Snell had the slow start
last year with injury. We can kind of chalk that
(17:33):
up to maybe him signing so late. But you are
and you know, I'll just use Snell as the example
because I know how enthusiastic you are about him this year.
Do you want to talk a little bit about your
tolerance for for risk? Uh, it's sort of your you know,
s P one, s P two, like your early pictures.
(17:56):
Whereas you know I tend to gravitate towards the Zach Wheeler,
Logan Gilbert types. But I think you, maybe this year,
more than most are, are a little more comfortable with
a level of risk.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Well here's well, that's fair. So this is part of it.
I and this isn't by design either, but well, in
some is where I've been drafting, I've had the fortune
or misfortunate And how you feel to have early picks
in the first round in most of my drafts, which
means I have a late second round pick. And what
that means is I haven't involved in like the Paul Skiins,
(18:34):
Jerk Scouble Zach Wheeler conversation just because they've been gone.
Like if Zach Wheeler fell to me at twenty eight,
obviously I'd be dancing around like, hey, Zach Wheeler, you
know I'm not. I wasn't taking him at three either,
because that that would be you know, I think anybody
would agree that would be silly. So in Labor I
took Logan Gilbert over Blake Stell because as much as
I like Snell, it does tie into what you're saying,
(18:56):
which is sure, I think Blake Stelling or Start per
Start is the better pitcher, has a ceiling at least
to be the better pitcher, There's no doubt about that.
But the stability of Gilbert, combined with everything else he does,
made him the better pick, and he fell. In Labor
there was kind of this like falling off of starting
pitching where it's like, Okay, I'll take him in the
third round to pick thirty, you know three. Overall, I
(19:18):
have no problem with that, I did have the luxury
of doing that, like in tout Wars, where I did
take Snell, Gilbert was gone, and actually there were some
other pictures too, I think Cole Reagan's and somebody else
went before Snell. So it was like, Okay, well I
have to plant my flag here because the next pick
is fifty eight. Like Blake, Snell probably won't last. I mean,
(19:38):
there's a couple of drafts I've seen where he's lasted,
but yeah, he should be gone. So to get back
to your question, I think what some of it is.
I'll look at a pit If you look at kind
of the stable pitchers in this band, You've got Corbin Burns,
very good picture, but his you know, his strikeouts have
kind of fallen off. I think pre injury you had
George Kirby, who similar thing, very good pitcher. I just
(20:00):
don't see him as that potential ace. So I think
what I'm looking at here, I'm trying to balance the
stability with the ceiling. And when I look at Snell,
even when I look at Dylan Cees, what I see
is I see the ceiling to go along with the ability,
if that makes any sense. And some of that with
Snell is that he's somebody who could pitch. I've kind
(20:24):
of identified him. He's probably more Jacob de Gram than
Jacob de Gram at this point, like in that he's
the pitcher who we saw this last year. He could
rattle off like a fifteen start streak where he carries
your team where it's just like, Okay, he's putting up
like a one five era. Yes, the whip isn't great,
but he's striking everybody out. He presumably on the Dodger,
should get more wins than he got on the Giants
(20:46):
last year.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, yeah, I know, that's that's I think it's easy
to forget. Not for me, because you know, I watch
the Giants a lot, and we of course we're following
his his fates on the main event team, but it's
it's easy to forget just how dominant he was for
(21:09):
the second half of last year.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, he's also not in a situation was in last
year where he signed laid he probably he really probably
should have. I know, I understand why he and the
Giants both didn't want to do this, but he probably
should have had like a full blown like rehab assignment
where they didn't bring him up till like May first,
and I get why they didn't do that, but you
could kind of see like he wasn't up to speed,
he wasn't ready. He looked rusty, and finally in July
(21:35):
when he was healthy, he looked like like snow.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Last question, and it's a it's a quick one, but
do you see any scenario where you would take Schemes
or Schooble or Wheeler, Although I assume you know Wheelers
behind those two in the in the first round of a.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Of a draft, probably not I like for Ski, so
it wouldn't be Wheeler like I have him like in
the second round, so I don't as good as he is.
And I know you have Wheeler closer to Skins and Schooble,
but I do too, But it's probably just an overall
ranking when you lump in the hitters. I saw them
as an early second round or a fifteen team league.
(22:18):
So to take Skeens in Schooble, it would have to
be one of those things where I'm on the back
end of the first round in a fifteen team league
and it's a chalky draft. I'm with the hitters right
where all the hitters like at least with my I
should say my chalk. All the hitters are being drafted
in a way where it's like, oh, I like this guy,
he's gone. I like this guy's gone, and then you
(22:39):
look and you're like, okay, well, based on my rankings,
skins are Schooble is as highest, so I'm going to
take them. I don't have a philosophical man, I'm a
problem with that. I know some people do I know
some people And there's the other side of this argument, right,
this is why less so in the main event, But
in other drafts you see a Schemes or Schooble falling
to thirteen or fourteen or maybe in the second round
where somebody takes them because they go so because the
(23:00):
people head of them like, yeah, I can't take a
picture this Yearly I have to take a hitter. I'm
not that doctrinaire. I feel like if the values there,
I'll do it. It just rarely works out that way. There's
usually one or two hitters, Like for me this year,
it's j Rod, Like who I'm jumping over ADP where
I probably would take j Rod at like you know,
ten or eleven or wherever those guys are ranked over
(23:22):
one of them. So that's why that doesn't happen. Last
year was Aaron Judge, for example, what was that hitter?
But yeah, if it's not going my way and and
one of those pictures are the highest on my board,
I'll certainly take them. I don't have an aversion to it.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
All right, let's let's move on to the middle of
the draft, or the what we'd call the mid rounds.
So looking at kind of the roughly speaking, the three
star and the two star pictures. Now, Mike Ginella, historically
you your take on this has been and I should
(24:00):
say that this is not a take that comes from nowhere.
This is backed up by data that the pictures in
these tiers, and I think if you're breaking them up
into chunks of fifteen tiers of fifteen by ADP, that
it's that you know, thirty one to sixty, right, that
(24:24):
are historically taken in the aggregate a very bad sort
of place to invest. That said, you wouldn't entirely ignore
this this tier in a draft. You wouldn't just piece out,
you know Sarrus as you know Saraus likes say, you
wouldn't peace out until like round eighteen right, so tell
(24:49):
me what you're tell me what you're thinking in those
middle rounds.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Well, there's two things about this here. So if you
do follow the model of taking three pictures among the
top thirty a d P, then you are piecing out
in the next tier because you don't want to take
your fourth pitcher in that tier because you already have
your sp three. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Need you need offense at that point.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
You need offense and this well that's also that's the
other part of this plan is if you're taking three
starters in the first like in the main event right now,
it's the top one hundred picks. So let's let's just
follow that. Like so if you're taking three starters in
the top one hundred, which is what the first seven rounds,
let's say yeah, yeah, it's seven rounds. Like you definitely
(25:33):
don't want to take another starter because at some point
you the part of this plan that makes it work overall,
as you start filling up on your offense, like while
other people are drafting those riskier starters. And we did
this last year and we got you know, I remember
it wasn't all success. We had cost schwever, we got
Anthony Santander like that that was where we made up
for offense. I remember you at the time, like, wow,
this this really works. But that's the other side of
(25:55):
it is you do want to take one or two
pitchers in those buckets because primarily for the reason that
you don't want to be at the bottom, like you
don't want to like look at like say two like
adp of two fifty or two seventy five, like okay,
I'll take my fourth starter here. Can't it work? Sure?
But the problem that you have is less even with
(26:17):
you know, I kind of wrote this in my article.
It's not you're not taking a picture in the middle rounds.
I hear their analysts do this, and I feel like
it's a mistake where they're like, ooh, I'm gonna take
three or four pictures here. I like this guy's upside.
I like that guy's upside. I like this guy's upside.
It's like, well, sure, so do I. But the data,
as you were pointing out in your question, it's random,
like we don't know. We don't know, Like we like
(26:38):
to think that we have some idea how these pictures
are going to perform. But every year, about half of
them wind up being below replacement level, and so I
use a term you're flipping a coin, So you're flipping
a coin. The one thing about the coin flips in
this this SP four range, though, is that you're getting
volume when you win on the coin flip, whereas like
(26:59):
later on when you went on the coin flip, which
is still less likely, you're getting less volume. You're you're
you're kind of getting like higher ceiling, or you're getting
somebody really like boring and sturdy and dependable, like say,
I'm Michael Walker, who's fine, but not somebody really ooh,
you know this is going to be like my true
like s before. So that's the reasoning for doing that
(27:20):
is that you still want to get some of that
volume in the middle. You still want to it's not
quite theirs in the earlier rounds, like the pictures you
were talking about. You still want to get like those
hopefull one hundred and six hundred and seven innings with
good strikeouts and like, okay, you're in whip.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Okay, so let me throw you a curveball. As I
as I mentioned the so I read the I'm not
going to do it again. But the starting pitchers per
round currently in Main event ADP. So we had that chunk,
that that heavy pitching band of the sixth through eighth
round where there were twenty one pitchers taken. Okay, the
rounds following the eighth round three starters, three starters, five
(27:59):
starters forcedar So is the our drafters wising up to
this and is there anything to be done to you know,
to course correct so that we're not simply you know
that the strategy of largely avoiding that middle tier for starters,
(28:21):
it becomes a lot less effective when everyone is doing it.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, sure, so. Well, so there's a couple of things here,
which is I think main event drafters are wising up,
like what I noticed, Actually it's the fifth it's the
fifth tier, which which is like SB sixty one, where
drafters are starting to wise up and they're taking pictures
about starting pitchers about around later on average because they're
kind of like because that's what they're noticing, and and
(28:46):
what's fascing about that tier. I know, I'm jumping ahead
a little bit. Is by research show that tier does
worse than like the SB six is like and with
the exception one year, in the last five full seasons
it's done worse. That's sort of fascinating, right, like that
that is the tier I think that you really could
just be like, you know what, I'm not going to
take an SP five, I'm just gonna wait too, Like
(29:08):
you might as well take two of the so called
SP six's.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, yeah, right, So that's that's really like the you know,
less than a coin flip tier, and then if you're
going to be less than a coin flip for the
rest of the draft, you might as well just load
up at the end.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
I mean, it's not only less of a coin flip,
it's well, I'm trying to look here. Yeah, so the
average here, there were ten out of fifteen pitchers on
average or below replacement level, and then the next one's
nine out of fifteen, so it's close. But then the
above replacement level earnings on average or forty seven in
that SP five tier compared to sixty two in that
(29:45):
SB six tier. So yeah, it's like, well, and then
I'm not saying the sixty two is even good, but
it's like, well, like you might as well just take
two of those because it really doesn't make a difference.
I think that's where to your question if you're yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
No, you're gonna get well pay less for this year.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Here's the thing that's interesting is the other side of this, though,
is that it is the SB threes. I haven't like
looked closely at the main event, but in Draft Champions
and I've heard this on like some other like you know,
expert analysts podcasts too. The SP threes are where people
are really pushing up prices. And I think they're doing
it because last year that tier was relatively successful to
(30:22):
where it's been in the past, so they're thinking, oh,
the same thing will happen this year, and it's like, oh,
I mean it could, but history tells us that it won't.
Like a similar thing happened in twenty twenty one where
that tier was like really successful and then it went
back to being like fine, And that's probably what will
happen this year because that's the way these things go,
(30:42):
which means that people are pushing up prices and just
increasing their odds of failure. And the other thing I
pointed out too, is that like earnings here, people I
think really look and think, oh, the earnings went up,
but well they historically they really didn't. So you're paying
more for the same thing, like, you're not paying more
(31:03):
to get more, You're kind of paying more for what
these pictures have done every year. So to go back
to your question, yes, people are noticing it. I still
think there's an opportunity here, though, to be like, well,
I can still, if any there's more an opportunity to
kind of follow the room and be like, okay, well,
if people are not buying as many pictures in this tier,
I can load up on offense more. Maybe I can
(31:25):
wait for my second closer or push my second closer
up a little bit and just take those pictures later.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
If there are fewer starting pictures drafted in that tier.
The likelihood that when you sort of want to start
drafting again, the picture that you have ranked you know,
at the top of your you know, so we might
be down to like, you know, SP sixty five or something,
(31:52):
but you still might have your SP thirty eight available
right at that point because there's just not as much.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
That's yeah, I mean it's probably more likely forty five
or fifty. But yes, like that. That's that's the concept,
which is.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
The other numbers out of my ass right, Well.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Well that's the other thing. Well, that's the other thing too,
which is, and this this happens at other positions as well,
which is I think people people get obsessed with ADP
and they think, oh, no, like there's sixty pitchers off
the board, I'm going to get the sixty first best pitcher.
It's like no, Like, at least by your rankings, you're not.
You're probably gonna get like the forty eighth or the
forty seventh best pitcher or whatever, depending on the draft,
(32:27):
just because there's variability or rankings, and the further along
you you get in the draft, the more variability there is.
Like I'm like, I'm willing to bet, Like when in
any draft, when you have the three hundredth pick, you're
probably getting a player if you're if you're still for
some reason going off your row rankings, who you have
about two twenty fifth or whatever, because everybody's like rankings
(32:50):
start to get squishy, like people have needs as opposed
to drafting off their rankings and it just doesn't matter
as much, Like it just it just doesn't matter as
much as you get into the middle and later rounds
your draft, like where you have somebody ranked like that,
it's I keep my rankings are a construct too, like
we think of rankings as he's like fixed things, or
it's like, oh, you know, I've I've got Blake Snell fifth,
(33:11):
so he's the fifth best pitcher. It's like, well, no,
I have a fifth for a variety of reasons, not
because necessarily it's going to be the fifth best pitcher. Right.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And when you get past that point, you know, in
the last two hundred to three hundred or beyond, like
pick two fifty, you're you're drafting players that probably have
a fifty chance at best of actually staying on your
roster for a significant amount of time. I mean, that's
where you're in the fungible zone where you can easily
(33:43):
cut ties with those players.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Yeah, I think really, and this is something because I
was an only league player for years. It took me
a while to get into this mindset. The last in
a fifteen team league, like the last ten rounds, like
rounds twenty one through thirty, you really should look at
those players. I'm not saying you should just throw darts
and you know, go wild and take a bunch of
minor leaguers, but you really should look at those last
(34:06):
ten rounds. It's like, you know what, like it doesn't
really matter like how this shakes out, like in terms
of if all ten of these players don't work out,
I'm going to replace them, Like I'm probably gonna be
cycling through these players anyway. And well, frankly, if two,
if two of those ten players hit, you should be
pretty happy like that that means that you you did
something right there at the back end.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Those are the those are the mystery right now is
and not the mister rights right yeah, you know. And
that's also like that's maybe the point in your draft
where you start looking at, you know, the schedules for
the first couple of weeks, especially for for starters. I
mean that was a I took JP Sears in the
last round of TGFBI, and I had a few pictures
(34:48):
I was looking at, and I I noticed that he's
starting in Seattle, and I thought, well, you know, I
don't care beyond week win, but I assure you, like,
h you know that start for jpc es. So let's go. Yeah,
so for the last part of the draft, and and
(35:09):
this is really a barely straightforward question. So we've been
talking about rankings and drafting off of rankings. Now for
starting pictures, do you how much do you sort of
think about the composition of your starting pitching staff versus
(35:31):
like who you might have ranked, you know, and sort
of your strict ordinal ranking. So just for example, you've
got you know, unproven maybe not prospects, but younger pictures
who might not have a you know, nailed on roll
and some injury pictures, but your rankings are dictating that
(35:52):
you draft those pictures. At some point, are you going
to be like, well, I really need you know, I
can I feel okay, diverging from my ranking is just
to get you know, a jpcies, for example, a pretty
unremarkable innings guy, Like, yeah, are you pretty free and
loose with your rankings at that point?
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yes, And that's also something I've gotten better about. Like
I used to feel like wet into my rankings, like
I have to do this, I have to do that,
or you know, I'd feel not silly, but like, oh,
I have to draft this picture because I have him
higher than this other picture. Now I look at it like, well,
it really depends on my draft. So so in labor
I took and I feel good about this now. Although
(36:32):
you know, obviously I think a lot of this it
was just chance because this draft was a while back.
I took Brandon Woodroff in let's see the fourteenth round.
I have to go back and look, but it was
I'm sorry, it was the sixteenth round. So I took
Brendon Woodroff and that looks pretty good to me right now.
And also, that's a league with an IL and you know,
all that good stuff. But because I did that, I
(36:53):
did do what you're suggesting, which is, for the most part,
with the exception of Max Meyer, I took a lot
of boring guys starting in round twenty one, and the
thinking there were a couple and there's a couple of
things behind that too. One is like, well, I'm going
to want somebody to plug into that like Woodrof slot.
But then the other piece of it was it's a
(37:13):
league with one hundred dollars fab one dollar minimum. I
don't want to spend. I don't want to be taking
too many stabs on starting pitchers in that league. I
don't the luxury of doing it like in a tout
Wars or a main event where I have one thousand
dollars and toutwark, especially where there's there's no minimum and
you can just bid forever, so that that's part of
the idea too. I A lot of it is team related,
(37:35):
but a lot of it is also like league related,
where if you know your league and you know, like, well,
I'm going to have some flexibility here to like cycle
through and cycle through and cycle through, I don't mind
taking those long shots. The thing about those long shots though, is,
and this is I think another reason why I tend
to be more boring with some of these picks than
(37:56):
you would expect you might expect me to be given
I say this is all random. The boring picks tend
to work out just as well as like the high
flying picks. Like for every Paul schemes, there are a
bunch of guys like Waka where they're fine and they
don't seem very exciting, but they kind of get the
job done, like sort of like what Derrick bear Riper
(38:16):
would call these like oatmeal guys where peace there. They're boring,
but you kind of need those boring pictures to log
the innings. And the other thing too is like guess what,
you can always fab pictures later and you're going to
find like like pop up pictures like in May or June,
who are have just a chance to be good as
the picture you drafted, like in March fifteenth, like frankly,
(38:39):
with less information, who might be who might be good?
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned wood Draff. I was looking
at him. He was available in round twenty of TGFBI,
and you know he was. He and Sean and I
were the top pictures on my boat.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
He was, he was god in mind. I don't remember
where he went, but he went well here earlier in.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
My and and so he hadn't made his first start,
but he done like the he done like the minor league,
you know, sort of backfield start, and things were okay,
And I ended up going with Manaya just because I
feel like, you know, probably if I'm putting the over
under on innings, probably Manaiah is higher. Woodruff almost made
(39:24):
it back to me, and it was almost presented with
a dilemma. But he he was picked the pick before
mine and the oh no, he actually did make it
back to me. I'm going around the Yeah, but I
couldn't take him there because I didn't want to start
too injured guys.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Well, but I mean that's a separate conversation too, Like
I took Mania and my my TGFI and and like
yeah in leagues, leagues without a nail, it's like like
at FBC, it's a whole different conversation. And I think
we we sort of learned this the hard way last
year in our main event, like we we took I'd
say the one mistake we definitely made. We just took
(40:00):
too many guys who didn't start start the year. Like
on the team, I think you can take one or
one or maybe two shots like that, Like beyond that,
you've got to be careful because you know the Scott
Panasi said, to paraphrase him, like the injuries will find you.
You don't need to like pack your team with them.
Uh So, yeah, that's the other piece of that too.
(40:22):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
I feel like one pitcher, one hitter is probably the
most that you want to take on board, and you
don't want guys with with a really long timeline, like
you want players that was that was clos coming back.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, like like you, I like Nico Horner, but like
part of my thinking with Nico Horner is like, well,
it sounds like he's going to be back when he
starts a season on the AIL, Like it sounds like
he's going to be back like really soon. So and yes,
I could go sideways, but I also didn't take him
in the top one hundred, like I took him at
like one eighty one. So it's like that's fine, Like
if he misses a couple of weeks and you know,
(40:58):
I've got to like, you know, cycle through whoever the
heck it is you know I have in middle infield
on I think it's Horie Polanco, Like you'll have to
have to live with Horia Palanka for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Like fine, all right, I think, uh, I think we
can we can wrap it up if unless there's anything
else you want to talk about. It's probably the the
shortest starting pitching preview in history.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
But I'm yeah, I again, like there's so many people
who do this well as far as like talking about
pictures and talking about their velocity and talking about movement
and potential, And it might seem like a cop out,
but I've chosen this approach just because I find it
works better for me from a drafting philosophy to look
(41:46):
at it this way than to obsess over a large
pool of players where frankly, we have no idea what
they're going to do at least at the bottom.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
It's actually, you know, when we did this a similar
approach last year in main event was actually really it
felt really liberating to almost just not care about I mean, well,
of course you you fold in your evaluations into your rankings,
but then when you're in the draft, you really just
(42:15):
take like a you have this distance on the individual
pictures and you're like, I don't care if it's Zach
Efflin or Clark Schmidt.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
You know. Also I also felt like something it did
for us is that it allowed us to focus more
on our offensive decisions, like when we were really when
we were taking hitters, because we weren't thinking do I
have to take a hit or a picture here? We
just built the rounds in where it's like, okay, like
this is where we're going to take our s before
this is to take our SP five or we're just
going to take the picture, you know, at the top
(42:44):
of our rankings. And like you said, like if we
were this year, especially if we load up on if
we have an injured picture, we have to be like, okay,
let's not do that again. But otherwise, like there is
a freedom be like okay, we're really to overthink this
and we can just focus on the hitting side of
our draft. And I think that worked. I think that
worked really well for us.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It did. We have a league victory to prove it,
if not an overall prize. But you know, there's always
this year, and this is the last podcast before we
do participate in the main event draft, which is Wednesday,
March twenty six.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
So yeah, we should point out we're not sickos who
are going to like record that live. And frankly, if
we would just be us talking for three hours, which
would be really boring, so we're we wouldn't be putting
on a show, so we're not We're not going to
do that.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
So there areos who like that, but we are not
going to.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Even when you hear about it, you will. You will
hear about it like after the fact.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah, well we'll do We'll do a a review. It
might not be the entire podcast, but we will definitely.
You know, then the next time you hear from us,
we will be on the far side of that and
we'll talk a little bit about it, I assume.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I think.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So all right.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Let's take a breath here again and we'll close out.
(44:34):
Thanks once again for listening to episode three twenty eight
of Flags Fly Forever, a Baseball Perspectives podcast. It is,
as I said before, it is almost stateside opening day.
It is always a great time and it's a great
time now to subscribe to Baseball Perspectives. If you are
not doing so already. If you are, thank you. If
you're not, please consider it. There's several subscription levels. There's
(44:56):
so much more than just the fantasy coverage. I mean,
the the team by team previews that are up right now.
I'm looking at the Tigers preview are just blowing me away. Uh.
There was a great article. I'm not into all this,
but was a great article from Steven Goldman about Jackie
Robinson that was out today that I just really enjoyed.
Just so much coverage that always seems to outdo the
(45:17):
last piece. So again, please subscribe if you haven't for
a bit challenge. John Haglin, thank you very much. We'll
be back with you soon.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Good night, everybody. Yeah, there's been a lot of really
great most likely.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yeah, and
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